How I made it to Wharton for my MBA as a college senior

At 9:48 P.M. on 8th July, while I was watching The Big Short on Netflix, I received a message from a friend, “Wharton decisions are out”. With my hands shaking, I picked up the remote, paused the movie, and logged into my application portal. As I crossed the fingers of my other hand, I clicked on “View your Decision Letter”. I opened the letter and read, “Dear Tanay, on behalf of the faculty, administration, students, and alumni, it gives me great pride to be among the first to welcome you to Wharton.”

An admit from Wharton for the Moelis Advance Access Program was a dream come true. As I look back at the last 4-5 months, ever since I picked up the books to prepare for GMAT, I think of all the people who have helped me get here. My recommenders who went through the painful process of writing multiple Letters of recommendations, people who responded to my cold LinkedIn messages and helped me understand all about the schools and reviewed my poorly written essays, and my family and friends who made sure I stay on track despite the ups and downs.

I also realized that there’s not only a huge lack of awareness about the programs (mostly because the deferred programs are very recent), but there’s also a huge information asymmetry about how do you go about applying to these programs. Through this blog post, I want to take you through the journey of how I decided that I’d want to pursue an MBA abroad, and how Wharton happened. I hope this helps you in deciding whether an MBA makes sense for you, and if yes, how can you go about applying to the deferred enrollment programs. Before I delve into the details, here’s a brief introduction about my background. I graduated from IIT Kharagpur with a B. Tech + M. Tech dual degree in Agricultural and Food Engineering and I will be starting my full-time job at McKinsey & Company as a Business Analyst. I’ve interned at L.E.K. Consulting as a Summer Associate, and at Uber and Khetify, which is an urban farming startup, as an operations intern. At Kharagpur, I had also been heavily involved with extra-curricular activities, including table tennis, debating, case study and business-plan competitions.

What is a deferred MBA program?
A deferred MBA program allows you to apply to the BSchools in your final year of undergrad or postgrad (only if you haven't had any full-time work experience). If you are admitted, you work full-time for 2–4 years (or 2–5 years in some cases), and then join the program. During your deferment period, you get access to all the resources and the network of the school that helps you in your pre-MBA career. If you look at the traditional applicants, almost all the applicants work for a minimum of 4-5 years before applying to BSchool, and so these deferred programs not only give you the flexibility of choosing the year of enrollment but also help you in saving a year or two if you decide to enroll early. Almost all the top US BSchools have started their deferred enrollment programs. This is a great article that goes into the details about what schools offer these programs:
https://www.clearadmit.com/mba-admissions-tips/top-deferred-enrollment-mba-programs/

Why an MBA?
At the end of my second year, I interned with an early-stage urban farming startup. While I was using my engineering knowledge to work on product development, I was also fascinated by the business aspect. Identifying a new market opportunity, finding the product-market fit, and scaling the venture excited me more than the engineering aspect of the business. This experience, along with when I participated in multiple case study competitions made me realize that to further delve into that space, and MBA would be the most logical step.

Why an International MBA?
As I was fortunate enough to land a full-time job at McKinsey, I started researching about what value will an MBA add on top of my experience at McKinsey. I came to know that McKinsey would open up the career options that an MBA from top BSchools in India would, and I realized that an MBA from abroad made more sense because of two important reasons:

1. Diversity of the classroom: After interacting with a few seniors, I realized that the top BSchools in India have over 50–60% freshers with no work experience, and a large majority of which are engineers. This meant that I would have a similar peer group as my undergrad. An MBA from a top US school would offer me a global network of people who come from diverse ethnic, cultural, and professional backgrounds. They would provide me with a diversity of experiences that will help in my personal and professional growth.
2. Career options: An MBA from a top US BSchool would open career opportunities for me that would be difficult to break into through an Indian MBA, which include Venture Capital, Private Equity or Investment Banking, as the majority of the class from the top IIMs are placed either in consulting or corporate strategy.

Sometime in my 4th year while I was researching MBA programs, I came across these deferred enrollment programs and I knew I had to apply.

GMAT:
After I realized that I need to take the GMAT, I spent close to 3–4 months procrastinating. (Please don’t repeat the same mistakes.) The number of months you need to spend to prepare for the GMAT varies considerably, and it all depends on where you stand. I spent close to 3 weeks, but I had the upper hand because I had taken the CAT, and I had a good grasp over Quant. The best way to figure this out is by taking an official mock test. (But, I’d suggest you to familiarise yourself with the format before jumping on the mock test). There are 4 sections of the GMAT, but only the score in the Verbal and Quant section reflects your score out of 800, and you get scores for the Integrated Reasoning (IR) and Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) separately. If you’re applying to the top US programs, 750+ on your GMAT would put you on the sweet spot. (Although people have made it to the programs with 730s and 740s as well). This is how I went about preparing the exam:

1. Quant: The GMAT official guide (GMAT OG) was my most valuable resource for the exam. I ordered the 3 book bundle (GMAT OG, GMAT Verbal Review, GMAT Quant Review). After understanding the format of the exam and the type of questions asked, I started making sets of 30–40 questions using the online question bank. (Along with the hard copies, GMAT gives you access to the online question bank that has all the questions). Through these sets, I timed myself and understood the mistakes I was making. While I only used the GMAT OG, from my research I’ve come to know that Target Test Prep is an amazing resource for Quant.
2. Verbal: The verbal section consists of Reading Comprehension, Sentence Correction, and Critical Reasoning. I used the GMAT OG + GMAT Verbal Review to prepare for all the sections. Although I struggled with sentence correction, I didn't have enough time to focus on any additional material. But, here are a few resources that can be super helpful in preparing for these sections:
   a. GMAT Ninja Video Series for SC:
   https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn5y_RKBkchRTk3SDkoOwAK8IfJaZ8qNG
   b. Target Test Prep Verbal Beta for SC and CR: https://gmat.targettestprep.com/ (TTP has a 1$ trial for 5 days)
   c. VARC1000 for RC: VARC1000 is a course offered by Career Launcher which I used during my preparation for CAT. But, I found the reading comprehension videos to be super helpful for the GMAT.
3. Integrated Reasoning: The IR questions in the GMAT were enough to help me prepare for this section. Understanding the types of questions asked and practicing all the types through the online question bank should do the job.
4. Analytical Writing Assessment: I treated this GMAT Club article as the bible for the AWA section. I followed the instructions in the article and solved 2–3 mock AWAs, which was enough to land a great score.
   https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-get-6-0-awa-my-guide-64327.html

If you’re struggling with the GMAT, here’s another debrief from a friend who scored 770: https://www.reddit.com/r/GMAT/comments/hg0kec/from_710_to_770_50q45v8ir6awa_gmat_study_tips/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

Application Process:
The application deadlines for the programs were in the first week of April but due to Covid-19, they were postponed to the first week of June. If you’re looking at applying to 4–5 schools, you should at least give yourself 2–3 months for the applications, and this excludes the time that you will spend on your GMAT. So what should the ideal timeline look like? With the placements happening from September to December, I’d suggest you to take your GMAT in December-January, or sooner than that if you can, and then spend the remaining 2–3 months on your applications. Your application consists of your Essays, Resume, Letter of Recommendations, and some short questions, and through these sections, all they want to see is demonstrated leadership. If you’re coming from a research background, they expect you to have great critical thinking. If you have a consulting background, they expect you to be analytical and a problem solver, and this isn't what you need to highlight in your application. You don’t have to highlight how you know all about the machine learning models These BSchools are looking to invest in the future world leaders, people who would make a dent in this world, (and also people who’ll make these schools famous and give them tons of money in donations), and the best way to show them that you’re the one - is to show them how you’ve demonstrated these leadership abilities they’re looking for in the past. But what are these “leadership abilities”? While leadership at its core is about persuading and influencing others to drive positive change and change the status quo, there are three important aspects of leadership that you need to highlight:

1. Initiative: When have you stepped up and gone above and beyond of what was expected from you? When have you shown courage and stood up to drive positive change?
2. Innovation: When have you looked around yourself, and felt that things needed to be better, and have changed the way things were traditionally being done?
3. Influencing others/ Persuasion: When have you inspired someone, or persuaded a person, or a team to work together towards a single goal?

In your essays and resume, you will focus on these leadership stories and your recommenders will also talk about these leadership stories in their LoRs. Here are a few tips for each of these sections:

1. Resume: Keep your resume non-technical. Skip details that focus on your analytical skills. Focus on things that you will be doing as a future leader, and show the schools how you’ve demonstrated these abilities already during your internships and extracurriculars.
2. Essays: All BSchools have different essays that keep changing every year. Most of the applicants hire admissions consultants to help them with their essays, but they charge thousands of dollars for these applications. I used ApplicantLab, which is a low-cost alternative to traditional admissions consulting, and I’d HIGHLY recommend using ApplicantLab for your applications. I wouldn't have gotten in without ApplicantLab.
3. LoRs: I asked my internship managers at L.E.K. Consulting and Uber to write my LoRs because I knew they would be the best people to highlight my leadership abilities. I knew they were invested in my success, and I trusted them with everything. Rather than picking someone who has a fancy title, choose someone who can talk about you, and show the admissions committee the type of person you are. It would be preferred if you have both the professional LoRs, but 1 professional and 1 academic LoR works too!

Some final thoughts:

1. If you are thinking of an MBA, but aren’t sure yet, apply to these programs anyway. These programs are non-binding in a way that if at a later stage if you decide that an MBA isn't the best option for you, you can always decide to not enroll. The program also provides you access to current students and the alumni network of the school that you can leverage during your pre-MBA career.
2. Non-traditional applicants have an edge over traditional applicants for deferred enrollment programs. The deferred programs were introduced to capture students who would otherwise not opt for an MBA. These were students going into research or starting their own business, but they’ve opened up enrollments for even students with traditional backgrounds in consulting or finance. But, non-traditional applicants still have an edge over traditional applicants, because they anyway expect traditional applicants to apply in 3–4 years. But this does not mean that traditional applicants don’t get into these programs, they do.
3. Deferred enrollment programs provide you with a safety net. If after a year of working at McKinsey, I decide that I want to start my own company, I can go ahead and do that, and even if I terribly fail, I’ll have a safety net as I can fall back upon my MBA. These programs allow us to take career risks that we would have otherwise not taken.
4. While the deferred enrollment programs offer significant benefits, the only downside to applying to these programs is that you will not be able to enjoy your final semester in college. While I had to sacrifice all the fun happening in the final semester, I feel that this sacrifice was worthwhile, and I hope you will feel the same way too because there will always be light at the end of the tunnel.

All the best, and I hope this was helpful! Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn if you have any specific doubts.