Dear Turnpike,
Thanks for providing further detail and shedding additional light on your situation. I've offered my additional thoughts/response below:
First of all, the 70% 80% that you hear of students getting in India are mostly NOT from Delhi University. A lot of other universities give out that kind of percentages (None of them top-rung). Many universities in the US are aware of this. So a 70% from, say, Indraprastha (IP) University in Delhi would be treated as a 55% from Delhi University. I don't know how much information HBS maintains on this discrepancy.
>>The truth of the matter is that you can't rely on the fact that your HBS admissions reader will be 100% up to speed on the nuances of every Indian university. As I stated before, they will all have a rough sense of the fact that high grades (e.g. 80%+) are hard to come by at leading Indian schools, but the differences between grading policies at Delhi University and the IITs, for example, may be lost on your admissions reader.
>>As a former admissions officer from Wharton, I can honestly say that it's hard for the readers to keep up with every school across dozens of countries - and you need to remember that there is high turnover in the admissions office too, which means that new team members are frequently added to the mix and still getting up to speed.
>>In short, from an admissions strategy standpoint, I would NOT assume that the adcom knows that Delhi is especially difficult. They may know that it's a great program, etc, but they likely won't differentiate between the IITs' grading policy and Delhi's.
Secondly, grading in India is done in what is called 'divisions' - 60% and above is first division, 50% and above is second division, the rest is third division and below 35% is fail. So I come in the second division, which is basically the average category. (Though for students in universities like the IP University, most students would come under the first division category because of their relatively high score dispersal. Institutions like Harvard Law School and Universities like Oxbridge know of this)
>>Yes, this system should be familiar to your admissions readers (as it somewhat parallels the system in use in the UK with first class honors, second class honors, etc). Having said that, I don't think that your readers in the MBA admissions world will necessarily know what percentage of students in your class made 'first division' nor how difficult that might be. As such, the onus will be on you to offer some sort of indication. The key question I have for you is how many people were in your class and how many of them made first division? This is likely something we'd need to discuss at length in order to identify the best strategy for you.
Thirdly, since I fall into the average category I was thinking of pointing to the work experience and involvement I've had during BA and LLB to point out that my undergrad experience is not all about scores.
>>Yes, this could make sense. Of course, you have to be a bit careful about "having it both ways" - meaning, your strategy could backfire if on the one hand you say that the program was very harsh in terms of grading (e.g that your marks may be low, but they are actually very high for the program) and then on the other hand you point to the fact that your grades were impacted by your work and XC involvement. I think you can effectively make these points, but you will need to tread carefully.
Finally, in India you will get far greater scores if you are in a science background than if you are in an arts background. Actually you'll get even more if you are in a commerce background. (And I'm talking of the system right from school onwards. The cut off scores of colleges are displayed under 3 heads - one for students of science stream, the other for commerce and the final for arts. And they vary wildly.) The best student in science during graduation and the best student in arts/ social sciences will have a 20 percentage point difference. So my scores cannot be compared to that of an engineer because we are from two entirely different streams. It's very wacky and weird and I wonder if HBS knows of it or just looks at the marks and takes people in. (Which may explain the number of Indian engineers in the fray for HBS.)
>>While I've come to see a bit of this discrepancy after working for 7+ years with Indian clients via Clear Admit, I must say that it was never apparent to me as an admissions officer at Wharton and I don't suspect it's common knowledge among otehr US adcoms either. The truth is that the Indian MBA applicant pool for US schools is so heavily dominated by engineers (75%) and commerce ugrads (15%), that the b-schools simply don't see that many candidates from non-business, non-engineering backgrounds (less than 10%).
At the end of the day, I don't know how much HBS is aware of the Indian system.
>>I wouldn't count on their knowing it to the depth that you've explained it in your two posts here. Also, remember that they are going to spend about 20 mins reading your entire application. As such, you will need to quickly, and clearly convey this matter without giving the appearance of making excuses, etc. This is why, at the end of the day, your best remedy to the situation is to secure a VERY high GMAT result. If you score 730+, I suspect that the adcom will be much more inclined to hear you out when it comes to your grades. If you check in with a 680, they will be more likely to assume that your ugrad performance was actually a fairly accurate measure of your ability, etc.
I hope I've made the situation a little clearer. I'm sure a lot of people would love to have your comment on this; and that includes me.[/quote]
>>Yes, thanks for adding more detail - I'm sure this was very helpful to all the readers of the forum. Please let me know if you have any further questions or would like to set up an initial session with Clear Admit. While we've focused almost ecxclusively on your grades in this discussion, there are some aspects of your legal background that could really work to your favor in the applicant pool. Feel free to send along your resume/CV (
[email protected]) if you'd like to speak with one of our counselors.
Best of luck,
Graham
