I am a GRE coach and have command over only one piece of the applications process: GRE prep. However, my students do share with me their concerns or anxieties about other aspects of their applications, and my inability to offer good advice to them myself made me want to reach out to a knowledgeable admissions consultant who could answer all of the common questions and issues that I see my students grapple with. Having talked with Deepak Lotia once before, I knew that he would be a great person for this task, and when I approached him with an interview request, he graciously agreed.

This interview was recorded on September 14, 2023. The article below is a mostly, but not entirely, faithful transcript of the video conversation; what I mean by this is that, when speaking extempore, we sometimes:

trail off mid-sentence,
insert explanatory side-notes mid-sentence, or
start off with one idea but after saying a few words about it, start with a second thought instead and only after completing it do we return to the first idea and complete it.

You will probably not even notice all this in the video conversation; the meaning of what is being said will be fully clear to you regardless of one or more of the above issues, because the tonality of the voice, the gestures and the pauses all aid comprehension. However, in a transcript, the above fragments manifest as grammatically incorrect or even incoherent clusters of words that may soon make the transcript rather tiresome to read.

So, I have cleaned up the transcript according to the guiding objectives of readability and easy comprehension. The video timestamps for each question that I asked are provided along with the questions so that, if you want, you can watch only those bits of the video interview that interest you the most.

A summary list of the 20 questions is shared below. Click on the under-lined part of the question statement to jump straight to a particular question. The interview video is shared right after the summary list.

Question Summary

01:50 How much time should you expect the overall application process to take?
05:55 How can a person form a realistic estimate of their chances at a particular school or program?
10:27 How should a person shortlist the programs to apply to? What are the common shortlisting-related mistakes to be avoided?
12:18 How should a person who is looking to make a career transition through their postgraduate program shortlist the programs to apply to?
15:20 Should one set their heart on getting admitted to a school just because of its prestige and high place in rankings?
17:19 Is it true that the higher ranked a program is, the better its ROI will be?
21:05 How much financial risk is there in taking an education loan to study abroad? What due diligence can one do to lower this risk?
25:32 One consultant tells me that I cannot get into school X while another is optimistic about my chances there. How do I know whom to trust?
27:47 Would the ROI of a foreign degree financed through an education loan be good only if one stays abroad for ‘x’ amount of time? If yes, what is the usual value of this ‘x’?
31:54 How many applications can one realistically make in one round? How much time does one application take on an average?
37:13 Whose feedback should you seek for the essays you’ve written?
38:02 When writing the essays, what is a good process to follow and a good mindset to have?
40:49 What is the role of GRE/GMAT score in deciding the application outcome? Is the effort spent in improving one’s score worth it?
45:12 Does the GRE/GMAT score impact one’s likelihood of getting a scholarship?
47:00 Scenario: While my mock scores were equal to or better than the average GRE/GMAT scores for my shortlisted programs, my actual GRE scores are lower, and now the Round 1 deadlines are looming. Should I still apply in Round 1 or first get a better score and then apply in Round 2?
48:51 Is it true that Round 1 applicants have a higher probability of getting admitted as compared to Round 2 or Round 3 applicants?
50:31 The application process can be an emotional rollercoaster. What can an applicant do to navigate the process with minimal stress or anxiety?
54:31 Do the extroverts have an advantage over the introverts in the application process?
56:11 Is it a common practice among applicants to attend the informational events organized by the schools they are applying to and to reach out to the current students at and the alumni of those programs for advice and mentorship?
1:00:21 Consider a student who is currently in the 1st year of their 4-year undergrad program and plans to go abroad for higher education. What can this person do from hereon to increase their chances of getting into the school of their choice?

The interview transcript begins:

Hello.

This is Japinder from grecoachjk.com and I’m pleased to have with me here today, Mr. Deepak Lotia from KnoWell Consulting, an education consultancy that helps students apply to undergraduate, postgraduate, and MBA programs in the United States, the UK, Canada, Germany, and other countries. Welcome, Deepak. I’m glad that you could make the time for this interview.

Deepak (00:27)

Thank you. Thanks, Japinder, for having me. I’m glad to help the students with whatever queries they have.

Japinder (00:32)

Thank you. Deepak, why don’t we start by you telling us a bit more about yourself and about KnoWell Consulting?

Deepak (00:40)

To give a very quick summary, first about my own personal background, I’ve studied engineering and have done my masters in the US. I worked in California and Singapore for two years, and then came back to India with the intent of joining the family business. However, while helping a couple of friends with their applications, I decided that this is something I’m getting passionate about and am very interested in.

So, Jimmit and I – Jimmit is the other co-founder of KnoWell; we are batchmates from our engineering days – were helping a common friend and our juniors also, and that’s where the idea came up that we should help students. It’s been almost 11 years since we set up KnoWell Consulting. Last year, we have helped around 400 students with their overseas education plan, going to different countries for a very range of degrees, which includes the undergraduate degree, masters ‘ ‘ degree, MBA, and even some PhDs. In terms of countries, our students go to all the popular destinations, with the US being the most dominant one; the others are Canada, UK, France, and Germany.

Question 1

Video timestamp- 01:50

How far ahead of the application deadlines should an applicant who wants to study abroad but is not yet sure about which country or program et cetera start to seriously think about his or her next steps vis-a-vis the applications? What should the timeline be?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 02:20

A healthy timeline by default is two years in advance from the date you intend to fly, and I’ll tell you why.

For almost all the top schools at least, in any field, the first round of deadlines to submit applications for the program will be one year in advance of the intake.

Starting a year in advance of this first round of deadlines will give you time to prepare for your GMAT or GREs or SATs, whichever entrance exam you’re planning to take.

Also, if there are any eligibility requirements that you are not meeting, then to meet those prerequisites also you need some time. For instance, suppose you’re coming from an IT background and want to apply for a computer science program, and there’s a course of operating system missing on your profile, which is a common prerequisite across all computer science master’s programs, then you will need some time to take that course.

Further, each of the following activities takes time:

Strategizing your profile around the application,
Doing the right research in terms of shortlisting the schools,
Interacting with students who are studying in your target programs, universities, and countries,
Understanding the employment data of the different countries that you are considering and the long-term immigration prospects for each of them.

So, if you want to give yourself a proper timeframe, then a one-year window is needed from the application deadline.

This is ideal. That said, we have also seen students who cramped the whole process in 15 or 14 months.

I would say that the lowest time-window that an applicant may leave from the date he intends to fly is eight- months and the maximum is two-years.

Japinder (03:46)

Right. People on the lower side would be perhaps people who are working with admissions consulting firms such as yours, because then they are getting the knowledge boost from someone else. If you have to figure it out all by yourself, then you should keep a . . .

Deepak (04:04)

. . . Bigger time-window, yes.

It also depends on the kind of program you’re applying to.

If you are thinking of a very mainstream program, like a master’s in engineering, then it’s okay to have a shorter timeline, because having already known that you are going to do computer science, you have been preparing your profile accordingly over three years or so; you are subconsciously aware that you’re doing the right thing.
But for something like a top-tier MBA program, there are too many profile requirements that go beyond the scope of academics, such as professional achievements, extracurricular activities, community involvement, leadership, etc. So, when you have to attain a tick mark on all those parameters, then a proper timeline planning is very, very essential.

Japinder (04:36)

So, it would be a mistake to start thinking of MBA only six months before the deadline and to then make it a do or die that I must get an admit this year.

Deepak (04:51)

I would not use the critical word ‘mistake’, because every student is different.

I’ll give you an example.

Last year, I had a student who joined us just 15 days in advance of the first round MBA application deadline. That’s, I think, the shortest timeframe for which I have worked with a student. Most of the things were already sorted in his profile; because he worked in an ecosystem and a corporate setup that made him fully aware about the MBA profile requirements, he had been in a way preparing a lot of these things. He already had a high GMAT score. He came with everything ready. We just had to work directly, get into it and work on the content points: the CV, letters of recommendation, and the essays. We had to cramp that in two weeks, and he got admits from almost all top tier schools that he applied to.

Japinder (05:30)

That’s actually a great example, Deepak, because I think it highlights that it’s all very subjective. We cannot make general statements.

Deepak (05:40)

It’s very diﬃcult to make a very general statement, but if you ask me the max timeline, I would say a two-year window is perfect, but every candidate is different, every candidate’s situation is different and so is the ideal timeline for him or her.

(If your intended higher education program is in a different discipline than your undergraduate degree and/or your line of work,

then

Deepak’s comments from 12:45 -13:43 in the video – made in response to Question 4 – will also be relevant to your determination of the timeline.)

Question 2

Video timestamp- 05:55

I’m thinking of this person who came to you 15 days before the MBA application deadline. I’m sure they would have had the self-confidence that they have what it takes for the schools. This makes me curious about how can a person estimate their profile on their own, whether they have it in them for a particular school or program? How can one judge their profile objectively?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 06:24

That’s a very, very critical question, and that’s where a lot of students falter in my experience. I meet so many students who are off point in terms of the target schools or their eligibility for those schools.

The best way to gauge your eligibility for a school or a profile is through profile stalking on LinkedIn.

Let’s say that I want to target a top tier program, such as Harvard MBA, Stanford MBA, or Darden MBA. What I will do is that I’ll spend at least one month stalking people who have done those MBAs on LinkedIn. You just have to Google:

Harvard MBA, LinkedIn, India.

A very important keyword here is ‘India’, because if you start looking at the profiles of those who are US citizens, you’ll see substantially different standards of admission as compared to an Indian applicant. By default, India is one of the most competitive applicant pools. If you are holding an Indian passport, this means you are working in the most competitive applicant pool. And although none of these schools oﬃcially declare a quota or admit that they have nationality quotas, when you speak to the Adcom teams, they’ll clearly tell you that. For example, we know for a fact that in Darden, not more than 33 students from Indian origin get in for their MBA program. And within this quota of 33, there are sub-quotas as per professional experience also, like three from private equity, two from venture capital etc.

Japinder (07:37)

Just to clarify, does the term ‘Indian origin’ also include the Indian Americans?

Deepak (07:44)

Yes, for some schools, who club both Indian passport holders and Indian Americans together because they want to maintain a certain level of ethnic diversity. This policy does change from school to school – whether to use the passport or the ethnicity as their defining criterion – but we do not see more than 40, 50 Indian origin students in any of the top schools.

That’s where LinkedIn profile stalking helps. If I am an Indian applicant with an Indian passport, I would study at least 30 to 40 relevant backgrounds.

Let’s say I’m coming from a financial service sector. I would try to see people with financial service and compare my professional career trajectory with regards to their professional trajectory. Then the other academic elements are also there. You have to see which academic institutions they are favoring for your bachelor’s degree. When you see across these top tier MBA programs, there is a heavy bias for IITs and University of Delhi, for sure. Such one-on-one comparison for all those profile parameters with comparable background MBA graduates, will give you an understanding of what are my prospects of getting into that school and will ensure that you’re not delusional about your prospects.

I’m not saying, “No, you’ll never get it,” but there are some harsh realities that are there across schools.

For instance, we had a student with an extremely strong background. She was working with World Bank, and she was working with a lot of global high impact projects. That gives you a lot of things to talk about in an application. Then you’re a standout candidate because you have a diplomatic passport. She had travelled to 10, 12 countries in a three-years window. Despite that, she didn’t get into Harvard; when asked off the record, they said that they generally prefer World Bank headquarters London professionals to those in the Mumbai oﬃce.

The more aware one is of what a school prefers, the more realistically one can estimate one’s chances there.

Japinder (09:22)

That’s actually a very wise suggestion, I’ll say, because what I think people do is they search on Google, and then you are more likely to find the outliers or the exceptions, which in turn fuels the optimistic thinking that if that person could get in, maybe I also will. Your suggestion helps one grounds one’s expectations.

Deepak (09:45)

Just to add a little on that point, I’ll mention two elements that applicants may be misled by.

The school websites give you some dry statistics like the GMAT average score, GPA average etc. They don’t give you the qualitative parameters behind those statistics. What institutes their students are coming from, they never disclose that; what nationalities are preferred, they don’t disclose that.

Secondly, the Adcoms are paid marketing professionals for the schools. When you talk to the Adcom members, on the face of it, they’ll always encourage you to apply because that’s their job to get as many applicants, as this will lower their acceptance rate and make them stand out in the top B-school competition.

So getting a sense of your realistic chances, by being well versed with the LinkedIn portfolios of MBA graduates whose background was comparable to yours, is very, very important.

Question 3

Video timestamp- 10:27

You have suggested a great way to know my kind of people go in which kind of schools; I can get a sense of that through LinkedIn profile staling.

Once I form this idea, how should I shortlist my programs? My optimistic self may still want to apply to what I call my “stretch schools.” What should be a healthy ratio of safe schools to stretch schools in my application mix? What mistakes do you see people make in shortlisting their programs?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 10:55

My default advisory is to apply between 6-12 programs. That’s a healthy number. Whether to apply to 6 or to 12 or to some number in between depends on:

the candidate’s profile
the timelines that they have
budgetary criteria

Based on all those things, we decide.

If a candidate is right in the middle in terms of his overall profile strength – by that I mean that he has some chance of getting an admit but some criterion in his profile is not exceptional; let’s say, instead of 770, he has a 720 in the GMAT and so you feel that while everything else is sorted in the profile, the score might be a stumbling block with some of the schools – in that case, we recommend that you may want to go up to 10.

But if there’s a clear-cut situation where you have a very strong candidature for some of your target schools, then you may want to go as low as 6 also.

A split between ambitious, moderate, and safe schools in your shortlist is generally subjective.

If the candidate is coming with a weak background – let’s say a relatively weak academic performance – for any degree, then, if he is applying to 6 universities, we recommend a split of 2 ambitious, 2 moderate, 2 safe.
If a candidate is coming with an exceptionally strong profile, then the strategy I recommend to them is that they may apply to one safe school early on, get that admit in the kitty, and then they can go very aggressive with the ambitious list. So, their split of 6 may be 5 ambitious to 1 safe, if they remove all moderate schools from their shortlist. Or, they may apply to one moderate, get that admit, and then apply only to ambitious schools.

Thus, there is subjectivity in how one decides the split, but, by default, a three-way split between ambitious, moderate, and safe is ideal.

Question 4

Video timestamp- 12:18

Let’s consider people who are looking to make a career transition. Suppose a person with a pharma background, who has been employed in a technical role in a pharmaceutical company, wants to switch to data science through their postgraduate program. How can such a person determine what his safe schools and stretch schools are, and what should his safe-moderate-ambitious split of shortlisted schools be?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 12:45

We get quite a few students with such requirements. I’ll give you a couple of examples.

We had a student who was a mechanical engineer. Over the four years of mechanical engineering, he was very sure that he wants to get into computer science because he coded a lot. This transition from mechanical engineering to computer science may on paper seem very normal. But when you go into the application process, all schools have some strict prerequisites, such as algorithms, data structures, operating systems, and a couple of programming courses; these are the base requirements for even application. When such requirements are there and you’re not meeting them as part of your university degree, you have to do some credit- based course from certain universities online, and that research and then completing the course will require time; hence the two-year window I advised in the first place.

In that case, the first thing to do is to shortlist your schools. Whenever you’re aiming for career transition, the first step is to shortlist your schools. Read the fine print of eligibility requirements, figure out a way to meet those requirements, and then apply.

For instance, we get a lot of doctors who for some reason or the other want to get out of the clinical field after completing their MBBS. There are different degrees that are designed for them. I have worked with a doctor who did not want to do one-on-one clinical service but rather wanted to create more impact, like say, do some innovation that let him treat a thousand patients at a time. When he came to me with this expectation, I suggested that we look into a biomedical innovation program; this is a specialty offered in some universities. These programs take students only from multidisciplinary backgrounds. They take engineers and doctors collectively in the same batch. For engineering graduates, they’ll expect them to have done some prerequisite courses in biology. Similarly, for doctors, they’ll expect them to have had prior exposure to some quantitative and engineering- related disciplines. For this guy, we figured out an internship opportunity in an IIT; he worked with a biomedical professor there for six months and also took a couple of online technical courses to get some engineering competency.

We applied to the target course. He got in and did exceptionally well in the course. Then he designed a product – a simple respiratory device for emergency situations – which won him an award in the European design awards. Now he has a startup in Silicon Valley, and he has huge orders from the US Air Force, the US military, for his product.

Thus, there are different ways in which you can transition. Just know that a transition requires proper planning, for which a good timeline is very important.

Question 5

Video timestamp- 15:20

I also see many people who declare that such and such school is their dream school just because it is one of the higher ranked schools in some ranking. Do you get many such clients? What is your advice to them?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 15:34

Almost all clients are like that. At least, because I work with a lot of Indian clients, I see that the fascination with rankings is very high, and there is nothing wrong with that fascination.

However, since I have studied abroad myself, I realized that instead of getting into absolute ranking – whether this school is rank two or rank four etc. – try to divide universities into bands:

This is Band One – club multiple universities in Band One,
There is Band Two,
There’s Band Three, etc.

When you go into those countries, you realize that they are not differentiating between rank two and rank six; it’s in our mind that we are playing too much on it. Clubbing the universities into bands is generally what I advise the students to do.

The best way to band them together is based on their employment prospects, the career trajectories that you’re going to get from these schools.

Let’s say in my mind, the top 10 ranked schools form the same band; the schools ranked 10-30 might be the second band, then those ranked 30-50 might be the third band, etc.

The band size is bigger for the US, which is a huge academic setup with at least 4,200 universities, as compared to most other countries.

Within the top 100 schools, you can easily band them into three bands or four bands max.

This way, there is no need for heartburn at the thought that one got into “only” a 20^th ranked or 40^th ranked program.

My own personal example is that when I was applying for my masters in engineering, I got into the 5th rank university as well as the 25th rank university. I chose to go to the 25th rank university, because it was half the cost. If you see my career outcome, it was exceptional in the sense before even I could complete the degree, I recovered my entire cost. Because of internships and on-campus opportunities like TA, RA etc. my net cost was zero; I had some surplus actually by the time I concluded my degree.

So being strategic in that context really helps.

Question 6

Video timestamp- 17:19

I wonder why more people don’t think that way. I see students feeling very bad if they got a reject from a very high-ranked university and therefore they discount the achievement of getting into the university they got in, maybe with a scholarship as well.

I think that’s how the rankings get such a foothold in a person’s mind: you think that the ranking is equal to prestige, and prestige in turn is equal to ROI (return on investment), roughly speaking. That’s not true, is it? As your example itself illustrated, the 25th ranked university was the wiser move because it allowed you to do your education practically loan-free.

Do you see students thinking that no matter the scholarship from a lower ranked university, I’d still go with the more branded one and I’ll take a big loan for that and that’s okay with me? How do you talk to them if they do?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 18:28

So when it comes to working with us, students start with the mindset that we were talking about. They are very influenced by the perceived prestige value of the university. But by the time they spend 6-8-months with us through the application process, during those interactions, we cover all these points in detail.

We get into the ROI window and when they get the admissions outcome in hand, my simple advisory is to them: don’t take my decision that I’m telling you go to this one or this one. You speak to students from both the schools. Through the internet, it’s easy nowadays to do that. When they do that, most of them are on the right track.

Some clients come from a strong financial background; they don’t care whether the ROI window extends by six months. Their thought is, “Okay, I’m willing to pay that because I want that prestige value to stay with me.”

So, the situation, again, is different from person to person.

But most of the time, the best way to check or offset this bias for the supposedly more prestigious program is to speak to students graduating from all those programs that you are admitted to. That’s how you may come to know, “Okay, I had a lot of misconceptions about employment at this program. These graduates are giving me different feedback from what I perceived the program to be.”

I’ll give you an example that is opposite to my personal example also.

I had a student who got into a Darden MBA. Her net cost for the MBA was coming around almost 1.5 crore. She herself got into Rotman MBA, which is Canada’s number one MBA, with a 60-80% scholarship. So, the cost of the Rotman MBA was like barely 30 lakhs, max.

Now, on one hand is Canada’s number one MBA and on the other is US number eight MBA.

She said, “It’s a no brainer. I’ll go to Canada’s Rotman MBA.”

I said, “Let’s hold on. We don’t have to decide right now. We have a one-month window to commit to either of the two schools. My suggestion is that when you speak to students from both the schools, you’ll ultimately land with that Darden MBA, even if it’s costing you.”

She already had a home loan of around one crore in her name. Darden MBA would mean taking another 1.5 crore loan. Despite knowing that situation, I said, “Wait. Most likely when you speak to students from both the schools, you’ll end with the Darden MBA.”

She did that and she ultimately went to the Darden MBA. And now, she had eight offers within six months of landing into the program – eight internship offers, including those from the top three consulting firms, MBB; she converted a couple of them into full-time job offers also, even before completing the program. So, that can be the value. It is not always the case that cheaper is better. One has to get into the context of the situation and only then decide. There’s no single way to think about it.

Only when you understand the employment prospects and what you want to attain from the program, only then can you decide what is best for you.

Question 7

Video timestamp- 21:05

This person who already had a 1 crore loan and now she was taking another 1.5 crore loan . . . at that moment when she was signing on that education loan form, she was exposing herself to financial risk. It played out beautifully, and usually I think it does: for education, the ROI is good; it’s a great investment that one can make in their career.

But, have you seen that financial risk actually materialize – some horror stories, or some scenarios in which things can go wrong with people, and, which, therefore, are scenarios that people should consider when making their decision?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 21:57

It may sound too good to be true, but honestly, over the years that I’ve worked with students, touch wood, I’m having a healthy night’s sleep every night; nobody has had a very critical situation like that.

There are multiple layers and checks and balances in this entire journey for a student. The financial system is also designed in a way that they will not give you a loan only if the degree’s ROI is low. She got a home loan on herself and then she got an education loan without any collateral because the person granting the loan knows the value of the degree. There are enough checks and balances that stop you from making such critical mistakes.

However, there are people who put collateral for degrees like MA International Relations etc., whose employment prospects may not be as strong as those of a STEM degree. If you want to invest one crore in that degree by taking a mortgage against your own home, then, we actively discourage such decision making.

You need to know what the probability of you getting a good return on your investment is, and it should be a very high probability by default.

Japinder (23:10)

The sense I’m getting is that it’s again the people who have a clear reason why they’re doing this who will get the most out of their education abroad, whether in terms of ROI or in terms of learning. The people who are applying just because maybe they think this as the natural next thing to do and haven’t really thought it through, they would be the ones who would be at the more risky side of things, it seems.

Deepak (23:47)

I would put it like this:

Counselling is a very subjective thing. When Jimmit and I started, the first thing we decided was that we’re going to be very ethical about it, and though it’s our bread and butter, we do not want to make money at the expense of a student’s career, a student’s life savings, family savings; we have to safeguard that first and then whatever we can make around it, it’s okay. That way, at least for the students we work with, we are able to limit their exposure to financial risk properly.

However, because counselling is a way where people can get murky with their advisory, I have heard of stories – very, very diﬃcult stories to digest they were – where people have just… There are a lot of universities who give commission to counsellors, and that kind of counsellors will oversell something. They’ll tell you, “Go to this school, you get jobs and you get recovery and all.”

Despite this being the age of Google, many people are not well-informed. They take the wrong decision and then they have to work all those odd jobs and take the financial stress.

Although our exposure to such students is very limited, I have heard stories like that. That’s why doing your own due diligence is very critical. Having a counsellor doesn’t mean that you stop using Google and LinkedIn. Do not take anybody – including my word – at the face value. You should always validate as much as you can. Do not follow anybody blindly in this business, because I have seen a lot of people easily getting into the admissions consulting field without even the right context. Then, there are people who are doing it with the right ethics but not the right information; they misguide, and I’m not saying it’s their fault or something, but it is the student’s responsibility or the student’s family’s responsibility to make sure they have done their background work.

(For further discussion on ROI, see also Question 9 below. Video timestamp- 27:47)

Question 8

Video timestamp- 25:32

So, if one gets a good consultant, that’s a great help in their journey. But how does one know that the consultant is good? Doesn’t the very subjectivity of admissions consulting make it hard to know who to trust? Let’s think from a student’s perspective. Say, I want to go to HBS. You are telling me that my chances are slim, but someone else is saying, “I will make it happen.” I will be predisposed to go to that consultant and like that consultant, because he is showing faith in me, and you are not showing faith in me. How can one judge better the consultant they work with?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 26:17

I think you hit the right note with this question because I’ve lost a lot of students like that. I have a little bit of a bad name in the sector that I’m very cutthroat and very brutal in my advisory. When I say the prospects are very low, I don’t sugarcoat it. There are a lot of counsellors, due to business compulsions perhaps, who outrightly lie on your face that you have a healthy chance.

I would rather be very circumspect about the probability of admission that I convey; if there is a 10% chance, I try to say 10% chance, but every year the competition is increasing, and I’ll say to myself that what I will convey to the student is 8%.

To people who are actually on a 10% chance, it’s just easy to make it 90% and say, “Okay, there’s a high possibility; we should try.”

Many succumb to this false advisory.

I’ll revert to my original advisory of LinkedIn profile stalking. If you do it, you’ll understand who is being genuine with you.

That’s why the choosing of counsellors is also a critical decision, where the student needs to empower himself. One way to go about it is when you hear from word of mouth about somebody who has done it well.

Our entire model works around that only. When I started, for the first two, three years, we had three students, five students, ten students. Now, we are working with four hundred students without spending a single dime on marketing ever; we have not done any ads ever. Our growth has been only through word of mouth.

When the clients of a counsellor say, “Go blindly trust this guy. He is genuine and will not bullshit you.,” that’s an organic way to find a good counsellor.

Question 9

Video timestamp- 27:47

This is a follow-up question to our discussion earlier about the ROI.

In the calculation of ROI, do we naturally assume that the person is going to stay on for ‘x’ number of years in that geography, and, if yes, then what is that ‘x’? Or could the ROI also work out for someone who knows that they will have to return to India after a few years – maybe because of family obligations or maybe because of personal preference? I have in my mind someone who has gone abroad by taking an education loan, and so, the ROI is important to them as they need to pay back the loan.

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 28:38

ROI is very critical, and particularly so when it comes to students taking loans. My entire advisory with students always starts with, “Why this university? What is the ROI?”

In our experience, the most common ROI number is between six months to two years.

There are some outliers whose ROI is less than six months, and there are some outliers whose ROI is like up to two and a half years.

This range holds for most degrees, irrespective of the country.

I’ll put it like this:

Let’s say you’re going to UK. You invest less as compared to US, because the cost of degrees is less over there, but you make also relatively less. The window remains the same across countries, across degrees, more or less.

What I’m talking about here applies to most employable degrees: almost all STEM degrees, management degrees fall into that category.

There are certain outlying degrees which may not have that industry pull. Then there are certain degrees – for example, those in the nonprofit sector, education sector or educational leadership – where there is no ROI concept necessarily because the expectation is not to get an employment but to revert to your job or whatever you’re doing. A part-time executive MBA is also the example of a degree where the ROI window is not calculated.

But for any employable degree, when the employment is the primary goal, that’s where an ROI is anywhere between, in our experience, six months to two and a half years, if you stay in the country that you’re studying.

Coming back to the point that you asked, does it make sense to come back immediately? If you want to come back immediately, then you make sure that your investment is as less as possible by going to a higher scholarship-sponsoring school, a lower tuition-fee school, where the probability of getting an on-campus job is high, so that your recovery is very fast.

In case there’s a compulsion to come back, if the investment is low, you can… Obviously when you come into the Indian market with the right degree and the right skill set, you’ll get a premium as compared to the domestic applicant pool.

Japinder (30:36)

Two years is not that big a time-period, to be honest. When I asked the question, the assumption that the question was born out of was that it may take 8-10 years, and therefore if someone’s family wants them back in India, an 8-10 years’ timeframe might not work.

Deepak (31:00)

Yes, that duration of two years is very important.

When a student comes to me with the question, “Which country should I target?” I say, “If your intent is to get the recovery of investment (some students are very clear that they just want to go for the experience, and upon coming back, they will join their family business etc.; for them recovery is not that important), then first, short-list countries where there is a predefined two-year post-study work permit on the basis of the degree without any employer-sponsored visa. That’s the critical advisory.

The US, for STEM degrees, which have a three-year post- study work permit,
The UK right now is offering two-year post-study work permit.
Canada is offering a good enough window as are France, Germany, Ireland.

These are the countries that are offering a good work permit.

Some countries that we discourage because they don’t have a good enough post-study work permit are some of the Scandinavian countries, Italy, Spain, where there is only six months to one-year window, which is not suﬃcient to recover your investment.

Question 10

Video timestamp- 31:54

So, now we have a fair idea of how one should shortlist, and we have shortlisted maybe 6, maybe 12 programs. How does one go about preparing their application and working on their essays? In a particular round, how many of these short lists can one plausibly target? How much time will one particular set of essays take?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 32:32

Okay, so now the student is starting to work on the actual application components.

In my opinion, writing the essays is a much easier job to do if your CV is in the right shape.

When a student works with us, we spend maximum time on the CV first, and that’s the first stage in the entire process, because that creates an entire snapshot of your profile and whatever life journey or skill set you want to articulate to the admissions oﬃcer. So, the CV is most critical, and one should spend as much time as possible on the CV. A common mistake that a lot of students make is to write a CV that is more than one page. Almost all top schools clearly mandate a one-page CV; in fact, Stanford clearly says that unless you have more than 10 years’ experience or that many publications, you should not go above a one-page CV. But students of first year or second year bachelor’s degree come to me with a three-page CV. They want to write every small thing that they’ve done in every class. That is not acceptable.

CV is, I repeat, very critical. Make sure that you’re showcasing the right projects that are relevant to the degree. Don’t clutter it with information that the admissions oﬃcer doesn’t want or is not interested in getting into. If you’ve done mechanical engineering but want to apply for a computer science master’s program, don’t put four projects of mechanical engineering in your CV; rather, showcase the two or three projects of computer science that you’ve done. So, shaping the CV in context of the degree you’re applying is very important.

Once you do that, it will create a solid base for you to work with the essays. Otherwise, you keep feeling lost that this element is not there in my CV or is not clearly showcased in my CV.

Then we get to the stage of essays. Now, each school will have a different essay requirement. Some schools are easy on that front while some others are not. In the application process, the first school takes the longest window, because we have to work on:

a CV,
the letters of recommendation, which are now common across all schools that you’re going to apply to, and
a statement of purpose articulating:
- your short-term goals and long-term goals after the degree
- how this degree is relevant to attain those goals
- how your background will ensure that you do well in the degree.

These are the critical points to be covered in the statement of purpose.

In my experience of working with the students, the most disagreement we get is that everybody wants to articulate their life story in the statement of purpose. It is not a personal statement; it is a statement of purpose. One needs to understand the difference. SOP is a very dry statement focusing on the technical things related to the degree. That is very important.

Once you have these elements in place, I think you can target one school every week, or even more, actually.

Japinder (35:05)

The essay topics may be superficially different, but at their core, they all speak to these common elements. Is that what you’re saying?

Deepak (35:14)

No, the topics will be very different across schools. However, there will be a common essay centered around the goal statement. That will be used across schools.

Apart from this, the number of additional essays that you have to tackle varies from school to school. There might be only one essay question or there might be four essay questions.

Japinder (35:32)

Yes, but you think that once the SOP is taken care of, those other essay questions for a particular school can plausibly be done within a week or so?

Deepak (35:43)

With an exception of very few schools, yes, they can be.

Japinder (35:47)

Okay, and how many man-hours do you have in mind when you say one week? How much effort is the person putting in daily?

Deepak (35:56)

It’s again a very subjective thing, because everybody’s writing comfort and thinking process are very different.

Consider the student I told you about earlier with whom I worked over a 15-day window. It was a very straightforward process with him:

we get on a call and tell him in 10 minutes what all is to be covered in that essay,
he writes it and sends it to us,
we improve the language, flow, structure etc.
he makes a few minor edits, if there are some factual errors, and then
he submits the application.

On the other hand, some students overthink it; then, they show it to five people, and then they show it to some aunt in some country; the more cooks you’ve involved, the more opinions you’ll get, and the more opinions you try to reconcile, the messier it becomes.

If you’ve taken a consultant, my advisory is to try to trust that consultant because he has reconciled over the years 20,000 opinions while working in this process.

Every student is different, but an eﬃcient student who is to the point can do it easily within a week’s window, and there are also people who will ponder on the same essay for a month.

Everybody is a different student. My advice is that if you like to stay a little bit longer with the process to make sure that everything is done very thoroughly, then you take a longer time-window; that’s completely fine.

Question 11

Video timestamp- 37:13

Great, one should trust their admissions consultant, but suppose one wants to take a second opinion, whose should it be? Who would be a good person to share your essays with?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 37:29

Your ideal person would be a career mentor or a student from the Target University or program.

You can either reach out to a person on LinkedIn, try to build a rapport and then show your essays saying, “Hey, this is what I’ve written; do you have any critical advisory?” Or, if you have a career mentor – say, I’m a design professional and I have a design mentor in my particular setup – then, you can ask him, “Hey, this is what I’ve written. Any technicalities you recommend that I should improve? Or is there any oversight?”

Those guys give the most valuable feedback for us admission consultants to learn also.

Question 12

Video timestamp- 38:02

Through the example you shared of the 15-day student, I got an idea of the process that you follow for writing an essay. You got on a call, you gave him pointers, and then he came back with the finished essay.

For someone who is writing their essays on their own, what might be a process that they could follow too, so that the end result is a good essay? Assume that I am a student who, right now has only read the question but has done nothing further. I’m starting from scratch. What should be my process and what should be my mindset about what I am doing?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 38:41

Here are a few things that one who is doing this by himself should keep in mind.

Firstly, always answer the question; do not try to write something that you want to say. This is a basic mistake most students make. They want to mention all their achievements in that essay, even those that are not relevant to the question.

Keep reading the question – say, 20 times – and when you read your answer, make sure that you are answering the question to the point. That is very important.

Secondly, attend the school events that are online. Let’s say, a Masters in Business Administration program at Duke University is conducting an online event for applicants. Attend that event. In fact, they generally cover what all they expect in their essays. Take notes on that. So, those notes then become your guiding instructions while drafting the essay.

Thirdly, try to look up online samples. The first source of samples should be the university website itself. If there’s a unique essay – for example, Duke asked applicants to list 25 random facts about themselves, and they gave 5-6 sample responses – then, instead of going to some random, untrustworthy source, you can always go on the school website and see what samples are there. If not, then try to Google some good counsellor’s website and there may be some samples and take some notes from them, but always keep using your judgment.

Another critical mistake most students who have applied by themselves make is with respect to the goal statement. Let’s say that I’m a finance professional and I’m working in a normal bank in a corporate finance role, but I say in my goal statement that I want to do a master’s in finance degree from your university and I’m aiming for a private equity role at KKR, for instance, but I say this without having done the due diligence as to how many private equity professionals have been employed from that program. The goal and the program outcome are not in line. Then the university themselves are discouraged, “Okay, this guy has not even done the basic research on whether we can help him get employment in the scenario that he is aiming at.” Therefore, a reality check of the goal statement is very important.

Question 13

Video timestamp- 40:49

Given that the Adcoms evaluate all these myriad parameters – such as whether the person’s goal statements are in line with what the school can offer, how well answered to the point their essays are, and whether the essays make this person seem like a good candidate – what is the role of the GRE/GMAT scores?

Let’s say someone is at a 325 and thinks that getting a plus 5, getting a 330 in the GRE will significantly improve their chances; is this person correct in thinking this? Are there bands – say, going from this much to this much score does lead to an improvement in chances, but beyond that, it doesn’t?

Overall, what is the role of the GRE/GMAT scores in the whole process?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 41:51

They play a very critical role, no matter if the school is keeping it optional, for most schools.

Since COVID, one tragedy that has happened is that a lot of these schools have made a GRE/GMAT score optional, on paper. But, it is not optional in reality for an Indian applicant at majority of the schools; the schools are not honoring that waiver.

A lot of students say to me, “Michigan Ross has made a GMAT waiver, Darden has made a GMAT waiver, why are we not applying there?” I say, “We can apply if you want to, but my advisory is that they will not easily take in,” because off the record, our conversations with Adcoms are always like, “I get 3,000 applications from India, I have to filter 30 to 40. How will I do that? I have to use the GMAT and the GRE as the one filtering criteria to shortlist them to at least 1000 and then I can get into the fine-print of those.”

I’m not saying they’re not honoring the waivers at all: if you have an exceptional profile where you are a Forbes 30 under 30 startup founder, they may honor. So, get the context right.

Unless they’re saying, “We are GRE blind,” if the phrase they are using is just “GRE optional”, I would encourage you to take the test.

Now, ‘what score’ depends on the program.

For a computer science program, the quant score is more important, and it’s a band system there. It may not make a big difference whether a student is at 325 or 330 as long as the quant is 170.

But when I use the GRE to apply for an MBA school, to go from a 325 to 331 may actually make a difference for some of the schools, because some unspoken filters are there, which are not reflected anywhere in the system, but are used on the backend as a filter criterion.

For instance, I had a student with an exceptional financial services background – he had worked in investment banking and on the largest IPOs in India. He was stuck with a GMAT of 680 for five attempts. Any school would have taken him with a 720, 730 GMAT. A couple of schools clearly told him, “You are on the waitlist. The moment you get that 720, 730, I will admit you.” In the same school, you’ll see an American citizen, who has not had half the professional accomplishments, getting in with a 680 or 650 GMAT.

As an Indian applicant, I would say your GRE/GMAT score plays a critical role in getting you to the next stage of consideration; it won’t guarantee an admission, but it gets you to the next stage of consideration in the application process when you cross whatever predefined threshold that the university has defined for that applicant pool.

Japinder (44:23)

So, it’s more like a gatekeeper, gets you into the long list and then it’s up to the rest of your profile.

Deepak (44:33)

Yes, and there’s no absolute yes or no in this, I hope you understand that. There can be a Forbes 30 under 30 scenario who might get into a top-tier program without the GRE/GMAT scores. But the norm-case scenario – when you are in that middle 90% of the applicant pool in terms of professional trajectory, academic trajectory – in that context, you should always consider that the GMAT, GRE plays a critical role in getting you to the next stage. You may have all the strong academics, but if you don’t have the right GMAT, you may not even get to the next stage.

Question 14

Video timestamp- 45:12

Does the GRE, GMAT score also impact scholarship decisions?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 45:21

It does. It heavily does in a lot of programs, but there is no way for me to generalize for all programs or some programs. For instance, in UT Dallas – a university in Texas that is a big hub for Indian students to apply to for a lot of management specializations, particularly business, analytics, supply chain, finance – until now, the trend has been that if you have a 320-plus GRE, you get a flat 50% scholarship. Their entire scholarship decision is defined just on the GRE once you’re admitted.

A lot of schools are clearly saying that we may consider you for admission but not for scholarship if the GMAT or GRE is missing.

Japinder (45:56)

So, it does make sense to spend in the time to improve one’s GRE/GMAT scores if they are subpar at present.

Deepak (46:08)

For sure. There are two ways to answer this question.

By default, if you feel that you can handle the test, you should.

But if the school you are applying to is indeed honoring the GRE/GMAT waiver, then you need not retake the test. For instance, over the last two, three years, when it comes to the MBA space, Boston, University, Rice University, and Indiana University are three universities that have honored the GMAT, GRE waiver very heavily for Indian applicants. I have students who are in Indiana Kelly MBA, which is the 18th ranked MBA, one with 100% scholarship and one with 90% scholarship, without the GMAT or GRE score. They took the test but didn’t get the required score. That’s a situation in which I think a student working with a consultant has a little bit of an edge as compared to just a plain vanilla candidate applying by themselves: because I’ve been doing this for 10 years, I know how it works with each school, who is honoring the waiver and who is actually not honoring it.

Question 15

Video timestamp- 47:00

Let’s consider this situation: I took my GRE and got a score of 315 in it, but I was getting 320, 322 in my mocks. Something happened on the test day and my score is below normal. But my R1 deadlines are also coming near. Now should I go ahead, because R1 is said to be the “higher chance of getting in” round? Should I now go ahead in R1 with my subpar score, or should I rather defer my application to R2 and apply with a better score?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 47:42

That’s a very high frequency situation that we face with our students. There is a natural tendency to push the GRE as close as you can to the deadlines, and so we find ourselves in this situation. A student is not able to get in the test whatever mock test scores they were hitting, and that creates an issue of whether to do round one or round two.

There’s no general answer.

We need to gauge, on a student-to-student basis the following points:

What is the difference? If it is a difference of two, three points, maybe I would say let’s go ahead.
With regards to the degree we are applying for, what is the quant score requirement? Some schools have a quant score minimum requirement.
What is the school-wise fine-print on the GRE requirements and the score averages they mention?

Based on these, we take a call on whether to continue with this round or shift it.

There’s no straightforward answer. But if the score is too off – let’s say my target was 320 and I’m getting a 307, and my schools are in the top 20 or the top 30 – then obviously by default it is round two. But if it’s very close to 320, like a 316, then I take a judgment call with the student after reading the fine print of the admission requirements of that school.

Question 16

Video timestamp- 48:51

Is it true that R1 chances are better than R2 chances?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 49:01

In some schools, yes, but not all.

Japinder (49:04)

Okay, and how do the chances of these two rounds compare with those of the later rounds?

Deepak (49:11)

R3 is like a jackpot round: if you get it, it’s considered to be a jackpot.

By default, aim to apply to R1 and R2 for most schools; the deadlines are in September or October for R1 and in January for R2.

I’ve rarely seen students succeed with R3, and I have actively discouraged them from even applying in round three, when it comes to MBA, at least, or some of the critical masters programs, because applying in R3 creates challenges for your applications next year, because now you will be a reapplicant and the burden will be on you to justify in an additional essay what significantly different thing have you done in the past six months that makes you a better candidate now than when they rejected you six months ago.

Japinder (49:45)

Are the chances of getting scholarships better for R1?

Deepak (49:53)

Yes, although I don’t have any statistics to prove it (there’s no way we can have those statistics), but in certain schools there is some higher scholarship prospect in applying earlier on.

But that being said, one should not compromise. See, scholarship is the second stage in the process. The first stage is getting the admission. My advisory to students is, “Don’t think about solving a problem which is not going to be there in the first place. First, solve the immediate problem.” I tell them, “Don’t submit just because round one has certain merit, if your profile is still not there; rather, submit in a round where you have the strongest chance.” This, I try to negotiate with the student on a one-on-one basis.

Question 17

Video timestamp- 50:31

Applying to different schools is an expensive process. Also, one can easily work themselves into believing that the stakes are so high that their future depends on the outcome of these applications, and, therefore, make it a very high anxiety situation for themselves. Does that happen a lot? If yes, then how do you counsel your students about it?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 51:04

Unfortunately, it is a very expensive process; that’s the harsh reality of it.

Just yesterday, I was speaking to a student who was under extreme duress, and he was calling me frantically, unscheduled, 2-3 times, and though I understand, I’m a little cold in the sense that I did not pick up, because I was writing somebody else’s essay right then.

When I called him back afterwards, I asked why he was calling me in such panic mode?

He said, “There’s a video that I need to do.”

I said, “We’ll do it. We have four days. Don’t stress about it.”

He said, “Sir, there is no way for me to not stress. My bank balance is negative. I have invested my entire time; because I don’t have money to do anything, I’m doing everything on these applications only.”

So, there are situations like that which makes one think, “I took a very cold approach with the student initially. I should have been more empathetic.”

But it gets very critical, and this is the MBA deadline week [later note by JK: the interview was conducted on September 14, 2023]. But yes, it is what it is.

The best way you can avoid the last-minute anxiety is to plan everything in advance.

Some schools offer application fee waiver when:

you attend one of their online events, or
you go to certain physical events organized by them, or
you get an endorsement from an alumnus of the school.

Panicking or being sad does not help you. Instead, go to the fine print of the university website, the application requirements page, the application fee page, and see what options are being offered by these universities. Some of them – those beyond the top 10 – do offer such concessions; the likes of Harvard and Wharton do not offer them though. But you need to plan two, three weeks in advance to get that fee waiver and so, save, 200 – 250 USD, which is a significant amount right now.

Japinder (52:52)

Right. Throughout our conversation, Deepak, the sense I’ve got is that luck favors the prepared mind.

Deepak (53:03)

It’s always like that. Yeah, the more prepared you are, no matter how faulty you are in the process, the more time you get to correct those mistakes or for me to help you correct those mistakes.

Japinder (53:17)

Attending the events, then looking at the fine print – all of this requires a lot of intention, effort and planning. If the applicant is working a full-time job, they would need to be very systematic about how they manage their off-time, so that they can utilize it well and, therefore, do well throughout the process and navigate it confidently. Isn’t it?

Deepak (53:47)

Absolutely. This is very critical for somebody who is not surrounded by an ecosystem of applicants. Let’s say that I’m working in an investment banking firm and I have 20 seniors whom I have seen over one year and whose entire application process I have shadowed, because I am a junior to them one year. I’ve seen:

this is where they are applying,
this is the recommenders’ rush they are following,
these are the events they are attending,

and they serve as mentors also to me during the process.

Such guys have a significant advantage over somebody from an engineering setup who is applying for an MBA program; the number of MBA applicants in the latter team would be significantly less as compared to that in an IB team.

That’s how familiarity with the process is very important, not just the timeline. If you’re not familiar with the process, you need to start early.

Question 18

Video timestamp- 54:31

I think here extroverts may have a bit of an advantage, because they would be more likely to reach out to alumni from their target schools on LinkedIn or to look online on some forum for a buddy in the process – “I am applying to these schools. I am looking for a process buddy who is also applying there.” The introverts, on the other hand, tend to prefer being on their own and then they may end up working in a silo, and, therefore, may be at an informational disadvantage.

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 55:04

I would not disagree with it fully, but I have students who are introverts and are extremely sharp. I’m an introvert myself.

Japinder (55:14)

So am I. That’s why I even thought of this.

Deepak (56:15)

When I know that my task is cut out for me, that I have to interact through e-mail with the right people, then I’ll focus all my energies, not just talking but researching a lot more, because that is how I know I will find information that is much more relevant.

Speaking to people is very important in this process. Whether an introvert or an extrovert, you have to reach out. The more you reach out, the more awareness you will have. You have to understand that no consultant is God who will know “What is valued?” in detail about every school.

We ask students to come to us one year in advance. The best way to put forward a good application is that when you’re working on a Wharton MBA essay, I want you to reach out to 10-20 Wharton MBA students on LinkedIn and gather information from them about what is happening in their program, so that we can make sure to include relevant stuff in their essays. I need that support from the student.

So, we don’t take extrovert or introvert into account; you have to reach out. Professional networking and academic networking are very critical in the process.

Question 19

Video timestamp- 56:11

You would, I’m sure, push your students to do professional and academic networking, but in terms of the people who come to you, how many have tend to do it on their own? I’m trying to get a general sense of the applicant pool. What fraction of people actually attend the events or reach out to alums, et cetera?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 56:34

As I mentioned, it’s a very mixed crowd that I have. We worked with around 400 students last year, who went abroad this year in August for their studies, and I met at least 1,000-plus students for their appointments. It’s a very mixed crowd that I get, though a common theme amongst most of the students we have is that they are all academically motivated; they are very sure that they want to do this and most of them are doing it for the right reasons.

However, because everybody comes from a different background and different setups, some of them have an information advantage while others have an information disadvantage. Somebody who has an information advantage, by being surrounded by the right people, always has a leg up in the process, but it’s not something that you can’t cover up with two-months’ time investment.

Japinder (57:25)

I think that knowing this itself is good, because then, if I know that I am not surrounded by such people, that I am in an informational silo, then I can consciously make an effort to cover this information gap.

Deepak (57:39)

Exactly! That’s what I do with students also, whenever I’m working with a student, at the starting.

Day before yesterday (12 September 2023) was INSEAD Round 1deadline. After the application, they have a two-day window to submit a video essay, in which they ask any four different randomized questions. I get a lot of army and navy oﬃcers who have 20+ years of experience who work with us on their MBA applications.

So, this one officer was very senior – he’s in fact a few years older to me – and he said, “Okay, I’ve submitted the application. Now I’m going to record the video and submit it.”

I said, “Hold on.”

These guys approach everything with military precision. They are very disciplined and submit the application also 10 days in advance. This gentleman’s INSEAD application was complete at least 20 days in advance and he was rushing me, “I’m submitting today.” I said, “I have not reviewed it; you will not submit it.” Every day I was delaying it. I said, “Let’s start about the video essay first.”

I know the candidate background: he’s coming from a military background; his corporate exposure is not that wide. I know that he may falter in the interview as compared to a student from a corporate background. For him, the training window is longer for the interview practice.

He wanted to rush it; he wanted to get it done; it was a checkmark. I said, “It doesn’t work like that.” So, I delayed his entire application form review till the deadline date so that he gets the maximum window to prepare, and he did prepare. He wanted to do it by himself. I said, “No, I will take at least two calls with you, and it’s not a choice.”

He said, “I don’t like going to the grind of being evaluated on every small thing I’m talking about.”

I said, “No, sorry, it is not a choice. We have to do this.”

I did those two rounds, and last night only, I got his message:

“I’m very thankful to you. If you had not given that structure to the thought process that I had for majority of the questions, I would have faltered significantly and compromised my entire application.”

Japinder (59:30)

He was fortunate to have you: someone who could see their weakness, because we tend to be oblivious to our own weaknesses.

Deepak (59:40)

Self-evaluation in the process is very critical.

When I applied, there was no Google era and I trusted in my counsellor. But whatever Google I could do, I realized, okay, the counsellor is not feeding me all the right information.

That said, as a student, you are also limited in your potential to know: because now I’m doing this for 12 years, now I know in and out about a lot of things; I can read an essay in a minute and tell you what are the factual errors with the essay; a student will not be able to do that.

But trying to be as aware as you can, to the best of your potential, is very critical.

Question 20

Video timestamp- 01:00:21

We have throughout talked about how planning and giving yourself a lot of time is important.

Let’s consider a student who is in the first year of their engineering right now in India, and they know that they will most likely go abroad for studies, for their masters. They do have a lot of time before the applications, and of course, in college you have a lot of downtime as well.

For a sincere first-year student, what is the best use that they can make of their next three years so that when they start to apply, they have a leg up from someone who just decides then to apply?

Deepak:

Video timestamp- 01:01:19

Two common pieces of advice apply to students across disciplines.

I also have this profile mentorship system in which I work with students who are as early as first year in their degree. I’ll share a couple of cases also here.

To anybody who’s coming me in the initial years of their bachelor’s degrees to plan for their masters, the first thing, I tell them to focus on is the GPA.

The GPA s a non-negotiable element in the entire process. You make sure that the GPA is as high as possible. If it’s on scale of 10, a 9+ is considered to be healthy, a 9.5+ is considered to be excellent. Unless you have that element, no matter what GMAT/GRE score and what profile you have, you’ll be at a disadvantage in the process.

My second piece of advice is to plan your GMAT and GRE well in advance and get it out of the way in an academic schedule that is not demanding, instead of trying to club everything together, in the final phase, as every degree has more advanced coursework and project requirements at that stage, then you have the application pressure, then the TOFEL/IELTS – everything happens all together in that final 1-1.5-year window. So, try to get the GRE/GMAT planned in advance.

The third piece of advice varies from degree to degree.

Let’s say that you’re applying for an engineering degree. Now within that, there are two possibilities: one is a thesis-based degree, and the other is a non-thesis-based degree. Try to answer which element you’re going towards.
- If you’re going for a thesis-based degree, I would say that is very important and critical for us to create a research portfolio, maybe a couple of publications.
- If we are going for an applied nature of the degree which is non-thesis-based, then internship exposure at companies that are recognized globally is very important element.
For an MBA applicant, student leadership might be an important element.

There’s something called a deferred MBA. A deferred MBA is where you get an admission into a top school when you are in the final year of your bachelor’s degree. In India, an unspoken truth is that 90% of successful deferred MBA candidates are always from IIT or University of Delhi; only 10% of them are from other colleges.

I had a student who was very passionate about applying for a deferred MBA it. He said, “I’m here two years in advance. Help me realize it.”

His GPA was healthy: about 8.8, which is okay for an MBA school, it’s not a problem.

I said, “Now, you have two years. I can give you advisory, but if you don’t implement the advisory, we are not going to attain any result.”

We strategically kept on adding internships. We added eight internships in a two-and-a-half-year window. That internship trajectory was from technical to management, and there was an underlying theme to it. They were all at good, coveted institutes.

With that, from a University of Mumbai engineering degree, he got into Colombia Deferred MBA, where there were less than seven students from India.

You can overcome all the hurdles – such as a non-IIT degree – with proper timeline and plan.

He had a GMAT of 730.

Then I had another student, who is IIT Delhi rank two holder. who got into all Deferred MBA programs because his profile was already strong and he had a 770 score in the GMAT.

As I mentioned, everybody’s journey will be different, everybody’s journey will be unique, but we can all have the luxury to have the same goal as long as we’re willing to put the differential effort as needed.

Japinder (01:04:33)

That’s a great phrase. . . ‘as long as you’re willing to put in the differential effort to close the gap between yourself and the people who have an advantage over you right now.’

Deepak (01:04:44)

Yes, everybody will come from a different starting point in the race, and we can cover that difference for the same goal.

Japinder (01:04:51)

Right. Thank you, Deepak. This was a fabulous conversation. Thank you for letting me pick your brains. I’m sure that the applicants who watched this would have got a lot of great takeaways from our conversation. Thank you for sharing your experience so candidly with us.

Deepak (01:05:14)

Thanks, Japinder, for having me. I’m really grateful for sharing this insight with the students.