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An applicant cracks a top 10 US business school with a low GRE

Chahat had a low work experience of 2.5 years. Besides, her GRE score of 319 was also on the lower end of the spectrum for a top business school.

Her target school, Chaifetz School of Business, was a top 10 school in the International Business specialization and ranked favorably in many more like #13 in entrepreneurship, and #13 in Supply Chain Management.

Overcoming her hurdles through a great application, Chahat managed to crack Chaifetz School of Business with just a GRE score of 319. See how we together did this by following our robust MBA Admission Consultancy Process

Here’s her story.

Chahat’s recommenders

We barely ever talk about recommendation letters in success stories. That’s because it is a much simpler process than compiling the essays or refining the goals story. However, this “simpler process” can turn nightmarish for some applicants.

This happened to Chahat as well. She started confidently about her recommenders since she had worked with them for quite some time. Her recommenders even seemed eager to help and enthusiastic to review her professional performance to help her get admitted to her dream school.

However, everything went down the drain when the time for writing recommendations came around.

Chahat had already started panicking about her application process, wondering if she was getting too late to apply. We told her to use this nervous energy to write a rocking application since that was the only productive use of her time.

Just like Murphy’s Law, everything that could go wrong went wrong.

One of Chahat’s recommenders decided to resign and wasn’t planning to work for an uncertain period. Another recommender took three minutes to fill out a recommendation form that had small answer questions and then three questions with a 500-word limit. One can only imagine how useful that recommendation would have been.

The only recommender Chahat was left with was a new supervisor who was eager to help but did not have great insight into her professional life. However, he did know her. In such a scenario, an applicant should always go for a recommender who is willing to put in the effort. Thus, we did the same for Chahat.

However, we made it a point to have her list a few more recommenders to make the final selection from.

Chahat’s essay analysis

Chahat’s GRE score was low for the school she was aiming at. The essays provided us with the opportunity we were looking for to explain this issue.

The school was not concerned with Chahat’s low GRE. Their concern would be if she, as a student, would be able to handle the rigor of a structured program. Which is a very valid, and important question that an admissions committee comes across for each applicant.

There is a very simple and straightforward way for an applicant to clear the admissions committee’s doubt. Listing out all the subjects or courses that an applicant has excelled in overtime, emphasizing the most recent ones.

However, we decided to go above and beyond. Chahat came from an engineering background, she had little to no knowledge of the intricate concepts of accounting or such other commerce subjects, crucial for an MBA. She had the opportunity to update herself on the same and prove to the school that she was committed to face the rigor of an MBA program.

The idea got conveyed to the school clearly through the essays and Chahat ended up cracking the Chaifetz School of Business.

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