MBA Handicapping: Overcoming Two Strikes: A Low GPA & A Low GMAT

It is often said that MBA admission officials will blink once but never twice. Bitul may well be asking for the double blink during one of the most competitive MBA admission cycles ever.

At Birla Institue of Technology and Science in India, he racked up a 6.15 on a ten-point scale, the equivalent of a 2.5 GPA in the U.S. On the second try, he landed a 710 GMAT score, an impressive performance but less so for an Indian male who majored in electrical and electronics engineering.

What lifts Bitul out of the very high pile of other Indian male engineers in elite MBA applicant pools is his career in the utility business as a senior energy engineer. He also picked up a master’s degree in energy systems from San Francisco State University with a strong 3.73 GPA.

Will his track record at work, where he has led teams, convince the adcoms at UVA Darden, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Cornell Johnson and UCLA Anderson to overlook his undergraduate GPA and, for an Indian male engineer, his 710 GMAT? That is the question explored in this episode of Friday’s With Sandy.

Sandy Kreisberg, founder of HBSGuru.com, evaluates Bitul’s profile and assesses his chances at those schools.

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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