Ms. Analytics

• 780 GMAT
• 8.26 out of 10 GPA (First Class Honors)
• Undergraduate degree in computer science from Anna University in Chennai
• Work experience includes more than a year at a U.K.-based IT consulting firm in Bangalore, and more than two years on a MBB firm’s analytics team (staffed in the role on a consultant in the U.S. for the last year; received a promotion last month)
• Founder of a three-year-old NGO working on youth mental health, impacting 110K people
• Recommendations from an HBS Alum and senior who is an advisor to her non-profit as well as a firm partner who she has worked with directly for the last year
• “I’m extremely disappointed as this was my dream school. I do have an admit from an almost equally good school, but I’m tempted to wait a year and reapply because HBS was (is) the dream”
• 24-year-old female from India

Sandy’s Ding Analysis: Phew, a 780 and first-class college degree!

Your ding could be because of your silver not gold work history for the most part.
*** And when the smoke clears, to adcoms, we got another Desi Quanty, who are all excellent in my book, but adcoms have to make some hard choices, so maybe some bad luck, or micro-execution issues, or both.

Also getting into HBS as a non-IIT Desi is hard, especially as a quant. The stats seem to prove the point. In the Class of 2020, there are a dozen IIT grads, three from Shri Ram College of Commerce, and two each from Birla Institute of Technology and Science and Delhi University. None from Anna University, sadly.

Finally, you note you are “extremely disappointed as this was my dream school” and that you are tempted to reapply next year to HBS even though you have an admit from “almost equally good school” in your pocket. My question to you is, What is going to be different next year? Sometimes HBS reapplicants just get in with basically the same story one year later. But often, admissions will ask you what is new since last time.

***(MBB analytics is not as selective to adcoms as business analyst gig, although I welcome any feedback on that from kids in the field.)