Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

Apurv Agrawal - 3rd year B.Tech IT student from india
Want to persure MIM or similar programs from the top B-schools...

Experience:
Founder and CEO | ngoFuel
ngoFuel is a non-profit social enterprise facilitating technology usage to other non-profit organizations either free or at minimal cost. Our business model, designed to provide competitive technological solutions at prices way below the market value, relies on "crowd-sourcing".
I founded the company in September 2010. It was featured in the top 30 student start-ups of India, a showcase organized by the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) in January 2011.

Chief Technical Officer | LetsGraduate
'letsgraduate' is an online funding platform to fund the higher education of deserving students who are financially weak. Inspired by the success of GiveIndia and KIVA, who have similar business model to fund NGOs and individual small entrepreneurs, respectively, our aim is to build a similar website wherein we would profile these students who can be accessed by people visiting the website. Donors can donate online to one or more students as per their choice.

Core-Committe Manager | ACM Students Chapter

Web Developer | MORVO Corp
MORVO Corp is a Microsoft partner company which specializes in software and web solutions.

Internship | NEC-HCL

Campus Ambassador | Opera

Internship |Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL)

Class Representative of my batch


Please evaluate my profile.
Thank you.

Your entrepreneurial and extracurricular efforts are impressive. While your lack of wqork experience makes you a poor candidate for a standard MBA program, you should be well-qualified for programs that are accustomed to taking applicants without full-time work experience.

Your start-ups are inventing and intriguing, but have not been around long enough to show staying power. Nevertheless, your ideas are strong and should be of ointerest to a school that encourages entrepreneurship.

The GMAT, as always, is a key factor, with admissions consultants reporting that it is the most frequent reason for rejecting applicants. You will need to deliver a high score in that test to be a solid candidate.

As you know, there are many high-achieving, technically-trained applicants from India to all the top MBA programs. Schools look hard at their real-world experience in selecting from that pool. You will stand out much more favorably if you are competing for a program that does not require work experience.

Good luck,

Thanks alot ma'am...for such a brilliant analysis.
I do realize that I need atleast 2-3 yrs full time work experience for good MBA programs.
So, I am targetting programs like Masters in Management from B-schools like London Business School, CEMS, etc.
Also, I will be trying for HBS 2+2 and Silver Scholars.

Please let me know if there are other good options for a student with no work-ex but decent profile.

Thanks alot!

THE programs you are applying for are excellent, but have very specific targets and timing. HBS 2+2, for example, is looking for college juniors who would otherwise NOT be considering business careers. BE very sure that you meet the timing and target standards for each program before applying.

Good luck,

Hey Apurv,

As mentioned before, your credentials as an entrepreneur look strong on paper. One thing that would be of added benefit while filling out your application is providing stats if you can, for your venture or internship. For example, your company featuring in the showcase by NEN demonstrates good potential and adds credibility to your entrepreneurship skillset.

But when it comes to your internship, you have provided a general overview of what the company does and not what you did. MIM schools look for your role in the company. Hence, be it for profile evaluation or your actual application, be sure to illustrate your role in the company and talking in numbers will help your case. Say, for example, the number of people who worked under you or any statistical improvement in your department since your joining. All of this is evidence for the work that you did. But in a lot of cases, getting some details can be hard and schools understand that. But be sure to talk about your role specifically at least.

MIM schools look for candidates with little or no work experience. So, they follow a comprehensive evaluation process that differs from school to school. In general, they look for good GMAT scores, strong academic performance, diverse extra-curricular, solid LORs and most importantly, your essays. You have to nail all these different portions in order to stand a good chance of getting in with a scholarship. If you're weak in any particular aspect, then it gets tougher but you still stand a good chance if you compensate with other parts of your application. Be sure to submit a well-rounded application.

I can see that you're targeting the top schools for the MIM programs. You can check out the entire list of top MIM schools in the following link:
https://www.mim-essay.com/mim-rankings-2015-1.html

You can also read the London Business School review and other admission requirements in this link:
https://www.mim-essay.com/lbs-mim-review.html

The website has comprehensive reviews of a lot of the top 20 schools for MIM and a couple of well-renowned schools in the US which take in applicants without work experience.
Hope this information has been helpful. Cheers.