PythaGurus Logo

Cracking an M7 Business School, Kellogg SOM

With three years of work experience in the IT sector, Suraj’s biggest struggle was to separate himself from the large and ever-growing applicant pool of Indian male applicants from the IT sector.

However, some training and feedback later, he got an MBA Admit to Kellogg School of Management’s MBA Program.

With persistence and the right approach, he managed to get into one of the most elite and selective business school in the world, Kellogg SOM!

With persistence and the right approach, he managed to get into one of the most elite and selective business school in the world, Kellogg SOM!

Here’s his story.

Suraj’s Goals story

Suraj’s first draft of the goals story was very basic and generic. One can get away with saying, “I want to work for a consulting firm” to an undergraduate school, however, chances are even they would reject such an applicant. But admissions committee members at business schools simply do not accept such generic and vague post-MBA goals.

They (admissions committee) understand that not every student would follow through on these goals post-MBA, in fact, most would chuck this goal story soon after being exposed to the various possibilities after entering an MBA program. However, having a though-out goals story means that the applicant has an authentic motivation behind pursuing an MBA.

Thus, having a goals story that simply said I want to work in a leading role for a global organization wasn’t good enough.

The solution to this problem was research.

Suraj needed to find out the companies that his target business schools got visited by the most during recruitments. He also needed to have an exhaustive list of the organizations that hired for his desired function at his target business schools. He found people that had been working in his desired function at these organizations and dedicated his networking calls to find out about their career trajectory at the organization.

Before pushing him into the world of pre-MBA networking, we provided him with another resource, Interviewninjas.

It is a video library that contains detailed videos on how to make the most of every networking opportunity. With the Interviewninjas resource under his belt, Suraj had a much easier time networking, to create a sturdy goals story.

Suraj’s essay analysis

One issue that we faced working on Suraj’s essays was the lack of compatibility between his stories, or instances, and the business school. As you must already be aware, Kellogg SOM is in the USA. However, when writing an essay detailing some facts about him, he would use examples that won’t truly resonate with the Kellogg spirit.

Not that they weren’t good instances, but, he had so much more to offer and we wanted to tell the admissions committee at Kellogg about that. Once we explained the same to Suraj, he was quick to understand the feedback and adjust his strategy accordingly.

Another feedback we gave him was to use instances from his personal life. Instances that showed his commitment and passion for something. It could be an activity, a cause, or a group. It was mainly to convey to the schools that Suraj was a highly driven and motivated applicant.

He needed a few reference points but as soon as he had them, he became clear on what he needed to do write brilliant essays.

Undeniably, Suraj was going to crack a top school, the question remained which one.

We were so proud to receive his mail with the news that he had cracked Kellogg SOM, a top tier US MBA program.

Here’s a glimpse of what Suraj thought about his journey with PythaGURUS.

Read Also:

Looking to grow in life by exploring a top tier MBA?