Umesh’s story of cracking 5 top US business schools with 2 Crores of scholarships!

With over a decade of work experience, Umesh needed to prove to his target schools that he would actually benefit from a traditional two-year MBA. It might have been a laborious task, but he came out victorious in the end as he received admits to multiple top schools and a huge scholarship.

Umesh received acceptance letters from Indiana Kelley, Georgetown, Rice, Vanderbilt Owen Washington University, and Notre Dame Mendoza and received a collective scholarship of 2 crores.

Here’s his story.

Umesh’s goals story

Umesh was an engineer who wanted to move to the consulting function in an organization. You might think that someone with over a decade of work experience might know exactly what they want from an MBA, or else they won’t drop their jobs to pursue it, but you’d be wrong.

Even with a decade of experience, Umesh’s idea of his short-term goals was very vague ad lacked research. This is not a big problem as long as the applicant is willing to take out the time to research during the application process. Most applicants don’t know how to get specific with their goals and Umesh had the same issue.

Thus, we asked him to follow the career trajectory of alumni from his target schools who were working in the same function that he wished to work in.

He also needed to find out more about the types of companies that would be recruiting him potentially.

Umesh came to us and asked us whether an interviewer would question him about his long-term goal, of starting his own venture, due to his age. This can be a common query for applicants that are over the age of 30. Let me be very clear with you, your admissions do not depend on your age, they solely depend on your own convictions. If you can show the business school that you will benefit from an MBA, they won’t reject you simply based on your age.

Generating 2 Crores worth scholarships

Umesh needed a scholarship. No applicant would turn down a scholarship, but most won’t turn down an admit because of a scholarship either. But every MBA applicant has their own set of priorities. For some, the brand name the school carries matter the most. For others, the financial aid the school offers is more important. Umesh was in the latter category.

In fact, he was initially choosing a Short-term goal just to pay off the debt he would have to take after an MBA. Thus, we knew we had to target schools that ranked favorably across the globe but also were generous with their scholarships.

As you already know the result, Umesh cracked 5 US top schools, Indiana Kelley, Georgetown, Rice, Vanderbilt Owen Washington University, and Notre Dame Mendoza, and received a 2-crore collective scholarship.

While Mendoza had offered $40,000 to Umesh in scholarships, he had his heart set on Kelley which was offering him a $20,000 scholarship and a graduate assistantship.

Thus, Umesh decided to leverage his other offers of scholarship, work experience, and academic record to request Kelley to reconsider his scholarship amount.

His request landed well with the school, as it does for most applicants, and he received a much better offer of scholarship from Kelley.

Thus, we encourage applicants to ask the schools for various accommodations if needed. Worst case scenario, they would say no.

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