Ms Journalist

As a lifelong journalist myself, I want you to know I am definitely rooting for you. It’s hard to make a real assessment here without a standardized test score. Even though a GRE or GMAT exam is just one piece of the admissions puzzle, it looms larger in applications than it really should. So lacking a score–which you can always add later–makes it doubly difficult to give you a real assessment. So let’s make an assumption: your ultimate GRE score is equal to the current class average of the 691 GMAT at HEC Paris, your first choice school. That would be about 326. If you can score in and around that number, I would say your chances at HEC Paris are pretty good. Your experience as a writer at both Quartz and the Business Standard would help round out the diversity of the class, and it certainly takes you out of the software engineering pileup of Indian applicants. That said, HEC Paris is one of the most selective of the European MBA programs, even more so than INSEAD or LBS, with an acceptance rate of 16%. Given the school’s ten-point jump in the most recent Financial Times ranking, it’s likely that HEC’s admit rate will go even lower. So do try to get that 326 GRE or better. If you do, I think your odds are at least double the overall acceptance rate.

Hi Quartz writer, this is Deepak Punwani from MBA Exchange. I must first admit that I like the feature articles on Quartz and especially its take on culture and society in India. Its surveys on what young urban Indians want is always an eye opener. With that out of the way, I think you have a strong profile for all schools on your list. Your body of work as a journalist will clearly signal to the adcom that you have a “Voice” which will add to the depth of discussions in class and outside it. LSR – Eco Honors is also a respected undergrad course and LSR is now well known at all schools. The excellence in journalism award is also a “real” work related achievement. Yours is one of the few professions where there is no hiding and your work and its impact can be seen by most. All that said, I think you can become an even stronger applicant by ensuring you have a more nuanced and granular view of your goals. Journalists have pivoted to become management consultants, CXO’s, Partners at VC funds (lots of top VC’s were journalists or writers in their earlier avatar) and entrepreneurs. So think long and hard of where you would want to pivot to and why. The other area of diligence for you should be the choice of schools. Am not sure what is common between HEC, Columbia, Haas and NUS aside from fact that they are all located in or next to big metropolis kind of global cities. Lastly, lets talk about the elephant in the room. The GRE OR GMAT score. I don’t think you need a 740 to be a strong applicant. As long as you can hit a 80 percentile or close on GMAT (and 85 on GRE) and therefore provide evidence of your quantitative skills, you should be in play at all schools on your list. Good luck !

Hello Ms Journalist! Krista Nannery from mbaMission here. I’ve successfully worked with female journalists before and while it’s a small sample size, my recommendation would be to ace the GMAT to get their attention. I’d love to see 740+ to make this an easier process for you, both because of your demographic and also because as a journo, b-schools will want to know that you have the quantitative chops to succeed in your MBA coursework. You’ll also want to make your business acumen clear and really build a strong case for why consulting makes sense for you. It sounds like you’ve written about some interesting business-related topics so leverage what you’ve seen as a journalist to make your MBA case.

One question I have for you is whether you were out of the workforce for a few years or did something else before you became a journalist? (Or maybe graduated from university a bit late?) If you do indeed have more like 9+ years of work experience, bear in mind that you’ll be applying to many schools with roughly 2x the average level of work experience. (This might be okay fro HEC where the average age is 30.)

I recommend following up when you have either a real test score or once you’ve taken 3 or 4 practice exams and have a general sense of where you are scoring.

I hope that helps!