WHEN PEER SCHOOLS COMPETE FOR AN APPLICANT, A $50K DIFFERENCE IN A GRANT USUALLY WINS

Chimni sees the same pattern from his perspective of the Indian applicant market. He estimates that nine out of ten candidates will pass on a full scholarship at a top-10 school to go to a top-5 school. “Candidates are willing to give up full scholarship anywhere to attend Harvard or Stanford,” he adds. “Within peer schools, candidates mostly take the school that offers more scholarship money with a $50,000 difference seeming to make it a determinant in nine out of ten cases. The toughest choice is whether you would give up a full scholarship at Kellogg or Booth to go to Wharton? This is a split decision, with half going for Wharton’s brand and the other half choosing a debt-free education as they are not able to explain why they should spend $150k extra.”

By and large, adds David White of Menlo Coaching, applicants choose the offer that they feel is most valuable which in most cases is driven by school rankings. Among Menlo’s cross-admit battles in the last round, he has seen a U.S. finance professional pass on a $120,000 grant from Kellogg in favor of Wharton with no money and another applicant in finance choose Kellogg with no grant over NYU Stern which had dangled a full-ride with an annual $10,000 stipend in front of the candidate. He has also witnessed a U.S. accountant accept an admit from Tuck with no money over a full-tuition scholarship at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management as well as a U.S. consultant going with Kellogg’s $80,000 award over Duke’s $140,000 scholarship.

Predicting who will get a big scholarship grant is difficult because schools view candidates very differently based on their own admissions criteria along with their efforts to craft a diverse class. One of Menlo’s round one candidates, for example,  was offered $100,000 to say ‘yes’ to Chicago Booth, while the person was merely waitlisted at Tuck and Yale. Another applicant got a full ride from Kellogg but no money at all from Columbia and Wharton. Yet another client received an $80,000 scholarship from Wharton but an admit with no money at all from Columbia.

‘APPLICANTS NEED TO PRESENT A STRONG PITCH FOR A SCHOLARSHIP’

White says the top schools are not using scholarship money to fight application declines but instead are bidding to enroll their favored candidates. As evidence, he notes that three Menlo clients admitted to HBS were declined admission to Wharton in round one. “The HBS offers prove the quality of the students, but if business schools were desperate to admit enough candidates, you’d expect any HBS admit to be accepted almost everywhere they applied.”

While schools are putting more money than ever behind financial aid awards, there is still fierce competition for scholarship dollars. “Applicants need to present a strong pitch for why he or she deserves a coveted spot in the program because the application itself is essential both the admit and the scholarship trigger,” says Blackman. “That pitch needs to be clear and compelling enough that is met with an admit outcome and scholarship generosity, which is the gold standard that we seek for many of our clients.”

The willingness of a school to engage in a negotiation over a scholarship grant varies widely. While most schools claim they will not negotiate scholarship offers with applicants, the truth is that many will–but it’s really dependent on how badly they want an applicant. “Most clients actually don’t have luck negotiating for significantly more money or a scholarship match,” believes Blackman. “When they try to negotiate, the applicants are almost always told by the MBA program something like, ‘It is what it is.'”

Case Studies Of MBA Scholarship Superstars