Ms. Education Equality Enthusiast

Hi there Ms. Education Equality Enthusiast! You show some interesting entrepreneurial drive in your profile via the social media network you started during the pandemic and given your involvement in TFI, you are someone who looks to have impact wherever you go. Improving education access in India via new technologies is a relatively common driver for many b-school aspirants at present (for good reason) but you’ve started out on the right foot. That said, aside from the excellent GRE score and the role with McKinsey, I’m not sure I see that much which genuinely differentiates you in terms of crafting an application to the very top schools like HBS and Stanford. The really strong evidence of leadership isn’t present (at least in your details here, although of course you may have it elsewhere on your CV). Mentoring is also quite a common add these days, so the intrinsically great value-add it has for the mentee doesn’t always translate to admissions points. However, I see you as someone who makes things happen for yourself – the evidence of a McKinsey role from a non-pedigree college and the Big 4 internships are proof enough of that. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket – I’d recommend some back-up schools too – but put that enthusiasm to work and there’s no telling where you might end up.

Okay, so here’s the deal. As a McKinsey analyst, you are applying from a marquis employer, one which M7 schools trust to do their vetting for them. HOWEVER, AdComs know the pecking order of entry level positions at McKinsey. Applying from an analytics role from McKinsey is sort of like applying from an operations role at Goldman Sachs – both candidates will get “points” from being selected by prestigious, multinational firms and succeeding in that environment, but they’ll get less points than applicants from the same firms in front-office, client-facing roles.
As a female in analytics with a comp sci education background from India, you come from an INSANELY competitive background. M7 schools set aside 30-40% of spots for non-US international students, and Indians are a minority of that number. Being female is better than being male from a numbers standpoint, but unfortunately, Indian women are applying from the same professional backgrounds as Indian men (tech, comp sci, IT), so it doesn’t help immensely. IIT education, believe it or not, is increasingly becoming table-stakes for admission to M7, especially Harvard, Wharton, Stanford. If you were a US applicant, you’d get “points” for landing a McKinsey job in any department from a non-target school (e.g., McKinsey entry level management consultant position directly out of Louisiana State University) because the AdComs realize how difficult it is to recruit for marquee employers from a non-target university. Unfortunately and unfairly, we don’t see international students get plaudits for equivalent overseas situations. I’m not making this point to bum you out, I’m just trying to address what I see as a potential red flag in your highlighting that you “graduated from a nonpedigree institute to McK.” Be careful about how you sell that in your essays – it may not do the work that you think it will for an Indian applicant.
Have you attempted the GMAT? In general, for overrepresented demos like Indian applicants and Chinese applicants, we see accepted applicants with higher scores than the school average (often significantly higher). If you haven’t already, it may be worth attempting the GMAT to see if you favor that format. If you don’t and you still have time (you appear on the younger side based on your years of work experience), it is worth getting some 1:1 tutoring on the areas that you are weakest, and those categories may be identified by purchasing an extensive question bank from Kaplan. Given your STEM-y background, a high verbal score will be an important signal for you to send – communication ability is vital for the type of leadership that top MBAs want to churn out. I’m not saying that you are the type of person who isn’t capable of leading or managing large client relationships in an MBB strategy role post-MBA, BUT if you apply with a low-ish (for your demo) verbal score from an analytics role, you may look that way on paper to the admissions committee.
Your (potential) secret sauce is the “education equity enthusiast” aspect of your candidacy, but it will be differentiating if you have the right impact-related content. All things equal, M7s (and ESPECIALLY HBS), want students who dream of changing the world for the better, rather than simply creating lots of value for shareholders. Your extracurricular leadership would have to show IMPACT beyond just people you help 1:1. Individual mentorship, as wonderful as it is for the kids who directly benefit, isn’t differentiating in the candidate pool and isn’t the kind of scaled impactful effort that will impress M7 AdComs. You need to think of your educational equity passion as MANAGERIAL rather than INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTING WORK. The right kind of EC leadership than could make up for the demographic, professional, education and GRE score headwinds you are experiencing now could like building an EdTech English learning app WHILE WORKING AT MCKINSEY with some buddies from your CS UG days that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of downloads by rural Indian children who now speak the language of commerce better than they would have without your leadership OR founding and leading an NGO that focuses on used book distribution to rural Indian children OR writing public access code that can turn video game controllers into smart boards so that any rural teacher with a white bed sheet can have access to interactive smartboards in classrooms. THAT is the kind of EC leadership that you need. A unique, impactful story that demonstrates your passion for educational equity where your IMPACT is large and QUANTIFIABLE (e.g., # of downloads, # of students helped, # of hours of language education, $ profitability, etc.).
You should absolutely apply to all the M7s – you miss all the shots you don’t take! If you don’t make it, you can try to demonstrate more leadership in ECs, raise your GRE score and apply next year. It’s important that you SHOW RATHER THAN TELL the right stories in your essays to prove up your strategic positioning. If you do that, I think you have a decent shot this year or next. The more schools to which you apply, the higher the odds of success for entry into one of them. Keep in mind that MBB strategy consulting recruiting happens outside of the M7 – you can get a great strategy MBB role out of Rice Jones or Texas McCombs. There will be fewer MBB spots to fill at schools like that, but you may also be relatively more competitive at those schools. Best of luck to you – you have a compelling profile and I enjoyed reading about your story!