MBA Handicapping: How Does An Indian Applicant Stand Out At The Top 7?

After earning his mechanical engineering degree at Anna University in India, where he finished third in his class with an 8.1 out of ten average, Aravindh came to the U.S. in 2016 for his master’s degree at the University of Illinois. He worked on a Department of Energy-funded project during school and started as a summer intern with an engineering consulting firm in the construction industry, eventually landing a full-time opportunity.

The 26-year-old now has three plus years of experience as a project engineer, a role that has allowed Aravindh to spearhead and support fellow engineers in the successful completion of more than 20 construction projects all across the U.S. Now he wants to pursue an MBA degree to gain the general business skills to either launch his own startup or enhance his upward mobility and has target both the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

The issue? As a male Indian engineer, of course, he would be in the most over-represented part of the MBA applicant pool. Plus, he’s working for a company that is not known for sending its employees to elite MBA programs and is therefore not a feeder to schools like Kellogg or Booth. He has scored a 680 on the practice GMAT and is hoping to get an eventual 680 to 700 score when he sits for the exam. But his GMAT score is likely to be well below the class averages for the full-time programs at Kellogg and Booth where the GMAT averages are 730 and 731, respectively.

Due to visa issues and those circumstances, he is wisely choosing to go part-time so that he can keep his job and a steady income. Those are two solid choices, given that Booth’s part-time MBA is ranked first by U.S. News and Kellogg is ranked third. Plus, part-time programs are much easier to get into than their full-time equivalents. The GMAT class average for Kellogg’s part-timers, for example, is just 672, 58 points below the full-time GMAT. The class average for Booth’s part-time program is 685, 46 points below its full-time option.

In this episode of Friday’s With Sandy, HBSGuru.com founder Sandy Kreisberg and Poets&Quants Editor John A. Byrne assess the ups and downs of full-time vs. part-time programs and provide valuable advice to increase the odds of getting into both part-time programs.

If you would like to participate in a future Fridays With Sandy webinar, you can contact Sandy and P&Q Founder John A Byrne here.

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