How Payal Cracked a US Top 10 with 80 Lakhs scholarship?

With a 710 on the GMAT, Payal had a profile that could be considered average for a TOP 10 MBA Program. Her work experience of 3 years was in the average range of work experience that most MBA programs have. Her educational background was B. Tech which is an over-represented undergraduate degree.

Payal also had a couple of very effective qualities, the zeal to get into a top MBA program and immense ambition. Before she approached us, she already had an admit from Rotman, and with us, she wanted to crack a US Top 10 Program. While Rotman is a top business school as well, Payal wasn’t satisfied with it.

Instead of playing it safe, which most applicants would do, Payal decided to forego Rotman’s acceptance and work another year on her profile. In her second attempt, Payal came to us with little time left on the MBA admissions clock.

Everyone’s efforts paid off when Payal cracked Darden, a Top 10 US Business School, in her second attempt with us, and that too with a 50% scholarship.

Payal’s Goals story

Payal wanted to switch into a risk management role post her MBA. However, on reading the first draft, her convictions seemed sub-par at best.

Like I have mentioned before, Payal was one of our more passionate and ambitious applicants. We figured out that her problem was that she couldn’t connect the dots in the written assignment properly. In our feedback, we told her to highlight her handicaps. Things that she would struggle with if someone asked her to be a risk manager right now.

Then we asked her to think of incidents from the past few months, that had made her feel the need for an MBA.

We also suggested her to watch the videos on the Interviewninjas website to help her during the process.

Payal came back with a strong goals story after heeding to all of our feedback.

Payal’s business school essays

The first problem we faced with Payal’s essay was the direction she had taken. She had written an essay that was in sync with the business school’s values, but her resume had nothing to back up her claims.

While I do suggest showing that you’re a cultural fit to the school, you need to be smart about it and make sure that your claims don’t clash with the rest of your profile.

During one essay that required a Plan A and Plan B for her short-term goals, Payal reached out to us after the essay had been completed. She wanted a few changes to be made to her Plan B and together we came up with a cohesive way to add her suggestions to the essay.

The reason I’m telling you about this is that it is ‘YOUR STORY’ at the end of the day. Thus, your input is very important. If you’re not happy with any part of your story, don’t hesitate about changing it just because your ideas are unconventional.

Payal made unconventional choices throughout her MBA application journey and managed to impress Darden through them.

She scored an 80 Lakh scholarship from Darden, a Top 10 US MBA program!

Now here’s her side of the story to wrap this up.

“This has truly been long overdue from my side.

I started looking for MBA programs in 2017 when I took my first GMAT exam and secured a 710.

That was the first time I interacted with Jatin. Having contacted several other consultants at that point, I felt Jatin was the most honest about my level of competitiveness and was a consultant who did not believe in giving false hopes to a candidate. Even though I secured admission with Rotman that year, I decided to wait a year and improve my profile.

Next year, I reached out to Jatin after reading all the inspiring stories of the admits. Again, Jatin was blatantly truthful about my standing in the colleges I wanted to apply and the crunch of time in which I wished to do so. This always helped me stay grounded and put my best foot forward and displaying my best in the applications.

The beauty of the process at PythaGURUS is that the process is very structured and has been broken down into several steps important to the application process. Jatin even provides detailed instructions, formats, and examples for each step, which I found very helpful. The way he pushes you to rewrite essays until they do not bring out your uniqueness truly allowed me to introspect. The entire process helped humanize my story and made my application unique. Receiving an interview call from Darden was truly unexpected. Post that getting the admit along with a scholarship was just surreal.

Thanks, Jatin for the constant efforts and guidance!”

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