Sneha's experience: Getting an INSEAD admit (and a Berkeley call) with GMAT 720

Sneha Gupta

GMAT: 720

Education:

-          BE (Manufacturing), COE Chennai, GPA 9.2/10,

-          Master's in Manufacturing Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (4.7/5)

Work Experience: 6 years (3 years with KPMG, 3 years with Fincare Small Finance Bank, a start-up)

Post MBA Industry of Interest: Impact space, especially products to spur growth of women micro entrepreneurs

Interview Calls: Berkeley Haas, INSEAD

Admit: INSEAD

When and why did you first consider getting a global MBA? 

I first felt I need an MBA while at my first job at KPMG Advisory and a global one from a top school since I had experienced pedagogy in the US and loved the exposure/challenges. 

However, when I initially thought of doing an MBA, I saw it more as a "necessary" tool to maximize growth since I had taken up a career in consulting/business and that's the "path" most engineers in consulting followed. 

Most of my leadership discovery actually happened at the start-up. Here's where leadership, management and implementation challenges got real for me. Despite the pressures, I thoroughly enjoyed the sense of ownership in setting up business/functions from scratch and making them successful.  It was helpful that I had a really close friend (who herself had been at a start-up before going to HBS for her MBA) who I discussed my experiences/challenges with. She in turn helped me understand how her MBA helped her gain perspective on some of these challenges. This helped me understand the MBA and reflect on my purpose for an MBA a lot better.

GMAT Prep, Reaction/thoughts after score

I was right in the middle of our bank's launch when I was preparing for the GMAT. I decided to get some weekend classes in Bangalore but really it all boils down to the amount of practice you can do. I did the official guides and official prep mocks (it's difficult to put a time frame since it was on and off prep over 2-3 months). I was not initially happy with the score since I was scoring higher in the mocks. But I decided to go with it since I was hard pressed for time, especially with the intensity of work at our start-up bank. 

PS: I found Sentence Correction really tricky during the actual exam 

Your experience of the MBA application process. -   Did anything surprise you?

Broadly, two things surprised me during the application process-

1.       I definitely underestimated the time. The MBA process is a lot about self awareness and reflection. MBA questions not only challenge you on your motivation but also challenge you to explain yourself within really stringent word limits. I believe it takes a lot of clarity on your internal motivation and goals to express yourself within the space allowed. This process of gaining clarity was gradual and I felt I was getting sharper on my story after every application I submitted (4 in total).  

2.       Another thing that surprised me was how difficult it was to answer the "Why MBA?" question. I found this especially challenging since my post MBA goal is to continue to build and run products (as I do at my company currently) except at a larger scale/greater impact where I'm leading a company's growth journey.

Tell us about how you went about choosing Schools 

Since I enjoyed setting up our bank's first digital product business, I realized I wanted to explore entrepreneurship. I'm excited about creating access to opportunity- I joined the start-up bank because of its vision to improve financial inclusion using technology and I was lucky to work on a digital product that made opening a bank account completely online, independent of geography or time.  

I used the dual lens of impact (social impact) and entrepreneurship and applied to schools that scored high on both. I also decided that I would apply to the top most programmes only otherwise it did not make much sense.

Interview experience and thoughts 

I made the cut for 2 interviews, Berkeley/Haas and Insead

1.       Haas interview experience: This was my first interview and I had just under a week to prepare. I remember feeling stressed since I realized how having a discussion would be so different from writing thoughts down. I did one mock which helped a lot. The interview was on skype and though it was formal, the interviewer (a recent Haas graduate) made me feel comfortable. I was conscious that I had to be crisp on my answers (not go more than 2 mins on any question). While many questions were standard, why Haas, why MBA, Challenging situation etc. a few were unique and I’d advice you to study what makes you unique and how you’ve dealt with challenging situations.

2.       Insead interview experience: This was really different from Haas in that you do not really know what to expect. All I gathered was that it's very important to know the answer to "Why INSEAD?" very well. INSEAD (just like Haas) cares a lot about cultural fit and diversity.

You have to schedule interviews with 2 alums. 

The interviews are fairly conversational. The alums also share what courses they liked and how they managed during their time at INSEAD during the chat.

My first interviewer dug quite deep on my product and bank's business model (I answered but I did not expect a deep dive into the business :)) and what I do to reach out to customers, how do I reach different segments, etc. Other questions she asked- Why INSEAD? Why MBA and not just start-up (since I said want to set myself up for an entrepreneurial journey ultimately)?  

My second interviewer was passionate about responsible business and he straight-away jumped into Why INSEAD? Why MBA? If not MBA, then what? - All my answers were aligned with my purpose and he liked the "purpose based approach". After this, we had a fairly relaxed conversation on his journey. 

Summary for preparation- 

1. Be clear on your story- I took a milestone based approach- key career shifts/moments and prepared myself on explaining the shifts well

2. Think of some key examples - tough person/leader to work with and how did you cope? Challenge and how did you cope? - Think of just few examples to use in a variety of contexts and focus on presenting in a structured way- "The problem, what you did?, result". 

Insead experience and what all you did

While INSEAD was an intense application process, I really enjoyed the process since a lot of questions focus on "who you are as a person- strengths and weaknesses", "biggest failure and proudest achievement and how these impacted my relationships with people around me"- I felt these questions were very direct. Since I was 3 applications old by then, I had good clarity which held me in good stead in writing the essays.

Some of the additional things I did for this application-

1. Recommendations are important to INSEAD and just like the essay the questions are direct - Do you see her as a future leader? Why?; Describe your relationship with the candidate and how she added value to you?, etc.- this is the general drift. I reconnected with my recommenders and worked with them on some of these questions to ensure the reco is crisp and sharp.

2. What will be your next steps if you continue to work at your current company- This is a question INSEAD asks to perhaps gauge your vision as a leader. Tied all activities I plan to a vision I hold for digital banking. 

3. Wrote an extra essay explaining my motivation for starting up. Tied this to the research of a professor at INSEAD whose work I really found interesting (she actually works on addressing root causes that hold vulnerable groups back and I found a research paper where she did such a study on women micro/rural entrepreneurs in India- the segment I'm passionate to create opportunities for)  

Any advice for future applicants regarding the application process?

I guess I have given most of the insights above :)

But broadly-

1. Enjoy the process. The journey is challenging but also therapeutic- process leads to a lot of self awareness which is really good to have, irrespective of the result of applying. Focus on asking yourself "Why?" for every line/motivation you jot down.

2. Personalize but customize to schools as much as possible - research/network (whatever works for you to get a flavour)

3. Why MBA and Why the school are important questions- harder than they seem at the outset. So be hard on these questions to make sure there is utmost clarity. 

4. Get help of a mentor/guide who truly believes in you. Sumeet’s mentorship in my process was a key reason for my success.

For more tips on this or other topics or to get regular updates on new articles, write to me:

sumeet [underscore] verlekar [at the rate] berkeley [dot] edu

Did you find this article helpful? Get access to new articles and help others benefit as well by spreading the word:

- Subscribe or follow this blog (enter your email and just click submit in the box at top of page or side bar)  

- Share link of this article/blog via email or social media. Click on the relevant social media buttons below.

- Please comment so that I can understand what you liked and how I can improve this/such posts even further