Mr. Non-Traditional Indian

You certainly have a non-traditional background given your degrees in law and business plus the CA designation. Your GMAT and GPA are stellar and it is apparent that you are a valuable asset to start-ups after raising $200K in seed funding. It is admirable that this has been accomplished after dealing with a debilitating set of diseases at a very young age. Your application can be strengthened with additional information about the 2 technology start-ups with which you have been involved. What are your plans with the company which you are currently heading while you tackle an intense MBA program in another country? What other extracurriculars have you been involved in since you earned your bachelors’ degrees (although it looks like you spent time in the vineyard)! That aspect of your experience will be interesting to share. Given my extensive time at Chicago Booth and then at Stanford GSB, I can say that your non-traditional profile for an Indian male is quite attractive and your stats (GMAT, GPA) are definitely above average for your chosen schools. Let us know if you want to learn more by asking for a free consultation below.

You do indeed have a very compelling and unique profile for the Indian male demo: law (rather than STEM) educational background combined with relevant and imminently applicable CPA charter & experience, stellar GMAT score, good GPA.

You hint that you already know this in your write-up, so I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but it helps to understand your odds as an Indian male. Only 30-35% of MBAs at Wharton (or M7 schools in general) are non-US. M7 AdComs aim to fill 30-35% of full-time 2-year MBA classes with international students, and the AdCom is looking to maximize geographic diversity. They could easily fill all of those seats with highly qualified men from India, but they also want women from Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, and Kenya (who, due to representation, will have a better chance of acceptance, all things equal). So only a small minority of these 30-35% of spots will go to Indian men. The good news is that you are
already differentiated from the demographic that you are competing with (Indian men).

Here is my advice on how to make your profile strongest given the realities of demographic headwinds:

Show rather than tell your entrepreneurial successes, This will be important 1) to differentiate yourself from your demo, most of whom will be employees working in tech and naturally less entreprenuerially-focused/qualified and 2) to bolster your strategic positioning of “building a successful interactive media company in India in the future.” In order to make your goal seem reasonable, you must show that you have the entrepreneurial chops to achieve it, and the best way to do this is to show historical wins in this area. Showing rather than telling means putting hard numbers to your work (%/$ revenue increase due to your strategic intiatives, %/$ savings due to your work, etc.)

Your overarching goal is ambitious and unique, but in our experience, it isn’t specific enough to be rewarded by the AdCom. Wharton has 2 very clear, straightforward essay questions. One of which is, paraphrased: “What do you want to do after Wharton and how will Wharton get you there?” The best responses to this question are clear, step-by-step plans for how you will accomplish your goals post-Wharton. For you, an example might be to work in content strategy as a Product Manager for Netflix or Disney or Comcast (a Philly-based company with global reach run by Wharton alums and which actively recruits many Wharton students every year) post-MBA and then come up with a mid-term goal that will serve as a grooming ground for your ultimate ambition of building a successful interactive media company in India.

The ECs that you list are relatively light and look like they may be old (college timeframe). You’d be well-served to get involved with some civic leadership that is current for your resume. Your competition will have it. If you haven’t been active in any ECs since college, it will look as if you are one-dimensionally focused on work and won’t be the type of “lift while you climb” MBA student and alum that M7s want (one who will change the world for the better and make them look good).

This is cursory advice based on an abbreviated bio. We’d love to talk more to discuss a customized strategic positioning that would maximize your candidacy.