Mr. Digital Health Start-Up

Hi, this is Deepak Punwani from MBA Exchange. As has been mentioned earlier by fellow experts, your work experience sounds really impressive. Healthcare industry is in focus for all the right reasons and one can predict adcoms will love applicants who have solid healthcare backgrounds and want to make a career in healthcare. And the functional roles within healthcare – strategy, M&A, health-tech spin off all sound good. If you can execute a coherent narrative and show Wharton you possess the strengths it seeks in applicants, you are in play. Also if you decide to go with same GMAT score, make sure to explain it in optional essay. Don’t be defensive but do explain why your GPA and GMAT is below mean. Lastly, do showcase your extra curricular activities too. Community building will be on the agenda of every school in post COVID19 world, so prove to schools that you will be an interesting member of this community. Wish you the best

Hi Mr. Digital Health Start-Up! This is Kate Richardson, Senior Admissions Consultant, weighing in on your profile. That shouldn’t be a concern that you don’t have a traditional 4 year B.S. degree, as I’m sure you took plenty of advanced courses and did well and your scientific background should actually be a positive differentiator. Your GPA is just a bit below Wharton’s 3.6 average though, so I’d love to see if you can get your GMAT up closer to Wharton’s 732 average. (I know many testing centers are closed now, but GRE just announced an at-home version in certain countries and hopefully GMAT will soon follow suit). I think your work background sounds super strong, with experience at a global biopharma, a promotion, and lots of international exposure. I think healthcare consulting would be a logical post-MBA path for you, and then a start-up could be a longer term goal (that’s a more common sequencing). In terms of your odds, I’m putting them pretty close to Wharton’s 22% acceptance rate, though I think your chances will be a bit better at many of the other programs on your list. Good luck!

Hi Mr. Digital Health Startup, this is Donna Bauman, Senior MBA admissions counselor for Stratus Admissions weighing in on your profile. You remind me of one of my former clients who was accepted to Wharton with a terminal degree—she had a Ph.D. – And strong science/biotech background. She had an excellent experience at Wharton and is now investing in growth stage biotech companies after her MBA. What you don’t quite have is the killer GMAT so I encourage you to keep working on this or consider that you can now test for the GRE from home during covid19. Also what worked for other clients with stats similar to yours in getting into Wharton was to have a compelling narrative that was bigger than just what you wanted. How are you motivated with your healthcare knowledge to work in healthcare consulting? What area do you have special expertise and strong reason for doing this? Even though you cannot visit Wharton, you can still reach out on their student ambassador page to learn more about how you can both learn from and contribute to Wharton clubs and classes. This will be very important in writing the essays to have done this thinking so use the time you have now to get a head start. I can also see Fuqua being a great choice for you with their HSM certificate and I think all the programs on your list can offer some great options for healthcare or working for a digital health start up. Happy to talk more if you want to reach out for a consult.