Ms. Impact Entrepreneur

A lot will turn on which bank you had worked for before doing founding your social enterprise. If it is a major global bank that will make a very big difference to your odds because you have to overcome a few significant hurdles. Let’s go through them: 1) Your 650 GMAT is 59 points below the 709 class average at INSEAD. 2) Your GPA of 3.2 is also on the low side. Sure, based on INSEAD’s latest incoming class of MBAs, the range of GMAT scores is 660 to 750 but you have to know the 660 is an anomaly and probably belongs to a former professional soccer player or someone like that. I will also assume you were born in India, given your undergraduate education. There are a lot of Indians in the MBA applicant pool at INSEAD so that also won’t help you. Congrats on your invite to interview at Ross. That is a good sign. But my tough love advice to you is to either take the GRE or retake the GMAT and keep retaking it until you score closer to 700.

Hi, it’s Nisha, Sr. Consultant with mbaMission. Your banking experience at KPMG + founding a startup certainly is intriguing. At KPMG, I see that you won client awards – did you also receive promotions and/or increases in responsibility and compensation? Bschools will want to see these markers of progress. Also, at your current firm, what have been some early wins – for example, have you been able to secure funding? The answers to these questions, as well as the quality of your recommendations, will speak to the strength of your professional experience.

Regarding your academics – this will be a tough hill to climb. For the schools you’re considering, the average GPA is about a 3.5-3.7, and standards are even higher for Indian applicants. I recommend retaking GRE so that you’re scoring in the mid 160s on each section (in line with the average for these schools).

Finally, it sounds like you’ve been consistently involved in community service – is there an opportunity to elevate this to a leadership capacity? If so, that would help distinguish your application as well.

Hi Ms. Impact Engineer, this is Melisa from Stratus Admissions. Congrats on your interview with Ross! Having KPMG and start up social enterprise experience puts you in a more unique pool than other Indian candidates. It is not clear where you are currently based, but I think it is going to be important for you to explain why an MBA is important for you and why now. With close to 7 years of experience (almost 8 if you are applying this next year), you will be higher than the average. Based on your goals, it sounds like you want to expand and grow your advisory firm. You want to be able to explain how an MBA is going to help you do that – and how you will balance your involvement in your advisory firm with an MBA. This tied with your GRE and GPA is going to be more challenging. I would also want to know more about your quant score – as with an BA, you will need to show that you can handle the quant rigor. Your time as an analyst will help this – and hopefully your recommenders can back this up as well. I would suggest adding Duke, UNC, Darden and Georgetown to your list.