This MBA Admissions Consultant Says 50 Of His Clients Landed Interviews With Harvard Business School

Kellogg MBA Rajdeep Chimni, founder of Admissions Gateway in India, is this year's top-ranked MBA admissions consultant for the second consecutive year

Kellogg MBA Rajdeep Chimni, founder of Admissions Gateway in India, says his firm got Harvard Business School interviews for 50 of its clients this admissions cycle

Getting an invite for an admissions interview at Harvard Business School is nearly as hard as getting into its MBA program. But in this admissions cycle, one MBA admissions consultant says that 50 of its clients have landed interviews. Some 27 of his client applicants got the chance to sit down for the half-hour interview with HBS admissions staff in round one, while 23 of his round two clients got invites.

, founder of Admissions Gateway in India, is no stranger to success. In Poets&Quants latest ranking of the world’s best MBA admission consultants, Chimni is on top of the list, with 38 positive reviews and a perfect 10.0 client satisfaction score. And in a business that is not known for the transparency of its results, the Kellogg MBA routinely provides an elaborate accounting of his client outcomes.

In the 2023-2024 admissions cycle, Chimni’s firm compiled a record 185 admissions offers for clients to get into this fall’s M7 business schools, with one in every three clients—51 in total—gaining admission to The Wharton School. More than 275 of his clients received invites into the Top 12 MBA programs. What’s more, the firm’s clients racked up $12.6 million in scholarships and financial aid for its clients last year.

MBAMISSION SAYS 68 OF ITS ROUND TWO MBA CLIENTS GOT INTERVIEWS AT WHARTON

He’s not the only consultant to brag about his results. mbaMission has posted that 68 of its clients have been invited to interview at Wharton for Round 2.

A graphic posted by mbaMission on LinkedIn

Asked what percentage of his clients who applied to HBS got interviews, Chimni says it’s 58.5%, or 50 interviews out of the 87 applicants who used Admissions Gateway to apply to Harvard Business School.

“This is phenomenal as 90% of our pool is of non-U.S. origin,” says Chimni, “which is the most competitive demographic. Harvard has 930 students and only 35% of these, 325 students, are from 149 countries. The rest of the 605 seats are from the U.S. So scaled for the above metric, it’s easily the best interview and admit rate at Harvard. If we had 605 slots available for internationals instead of 305 I guess we would get 75 to 80 or more interviews.”

Regardless, these are impressive numbers because some admission counselors believe that Harvard only interviews about 20% to 25% of its applicant pool. Last year, 12% of 9,856 applicants were accepted by HBS. Because candidates from India are overrepresented in Harvard’s applicant pool, it is even more difficult to get admitted. Some believe that only 5% of Indian applicants made the cut.

HBS INTERVIEWEES HAD GMAT SCORES RANGING FROM 710 TO 780

Chimni, who charges $350 an hour for his advice or $9,500 for help applying to three schools, says the clients who got HBS interviews were from India, the U.S., Canada, Singapore, Kenya, and the Philippines. Some 48% of them were women. Overall their standardized test scores were pretty high, ranging from 685 to 775 for the GMAT Focus exam, 710 to 780 for the standard GMAT, and 324 to 339 for the GRE.

“While the GMAT and GRE are important it is possible to get an interview with 710/ 324 which is below the average test scores if other aspects of one’s profile are strong,” he says.

His clients skew heavily toward engineering types. Some 68% of interviewees boasted engineering backgrounds, while the remaining 32% had CVs with experience in finance, economics, commerce, medicine and surgery.

Admissions Gateway posted this graphic on LinkedIn

HAD MORE MBA CLIENTS INTERVIEWED IN ROUND ONE THAN TWO

Client interviewees earned their undergraduate degrees from a wide variety of universities from several Indian Institutes of Technology to UCLA, Columbia, and Northeastern. “We see more and more colleges beyond the top IIT’s represented in the interview cohort,” says Chimni.

They also hail from some of the most admired and respected firms in MBA admissions, including McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Tata Steel, and Abbott.

Why did more of his clients gain interviews in round one when there are fewer applicants? “There’s often speculation that Round 2 acceptance rates are lower,” he says. “While this is true, the gap is not as significant as expected. If you can submit a strong application in Round 1, go for it. However, if you believe your application can improve in Round 2, optimizing for quality is always the right choice.”

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