Applicant Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of MBA Applicant Spotlight, in which we catch up with individuals on their admissions experiences.  This week, we hear from Mauricio Coindreau, a native of Mexico who currently works as a vendor manager for Amazon. He was part of the Mexico country launch, taking on multiple vendor manager roles in several categories, including books, music, video games and most recently Amazon fashion. Read more

Welcome to another edition of MBA Applicant Spotlight, in which we share admissions experiences from the latest candidates for business school.  This week, Mukul Aggarwal, a mechanical engineer from India, shares his journey to the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. Read more

In this edition of MBA Applicant Spotlight, we catch up with Michael Sahm, a healthcare professional who submitted half a dozen business school applications and found success at Chicago Booth, Northwestern / Kellogg, Berkeley / Haas, and Arizona / Carey. Sahm has worked in the healthcare industry for seven years, first as a management consultant and now at Tenet Healthcare, one of America’s largest healthcare providers. He really enjoys the healthcare space and hopes to explore career opportunities in healthcare venture finance or healthcare tech after business school. As an undergraduate, he earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Southern California, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. Where did you apply?  What were the results? I applied to six MBA programs—HBS, Stanford GSB, Chicago Booth, Kellogg, Berkeley Haas, and Arizona State. I was rejected at HBS and Stanford (no interviews) and accepted to Booth, Kellogg, Berkeley, and ASU. Read more

Welcome to another edition of MBA Applicant Spotlight, in which we catch up with individuals on their admissions experiences. In contrast to the 10 applications of our last profiled candidate, this week’s applicant, Shelby Colby, shares her story about just two applications—one to Harvard Business School and the other to MIT / Sloan. Colby is currently the strategy analyst and special assistant to the CEO at the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). She started her career as an associate consultant at Bain & Company in its Washington, D.C., office. While at Bain, she served several private equity and retail clients on strategic due diligence projects, and during her final assignment at Bain, she worked for a university. There, her passion for working on strategic issues in the higher education sector developed, leading to her current role at GMAC. She graduated with degrees in economics and religious studies from the University of Virginia, where she was a Jefferson Scholar. Read on for her creative approaches to her MBA applications. Where did you apply?  What were the results? I applied to the full-time MBA programs at Harvard Business School and MIT / Sloan during Round 1, and I was admitted to both schools. Read more

In our new series, "MBA Applicant Spotlight," we're bringing you the personal experiences and lessons of MBA applicants. The MBA application process may have the common thread of being challenging, but each person's journey is different.  To kick off the series, we start with Yansong Pang, who applied to 10 MBA programs. He is currently the global president at Global China Connection, one of the largest NGOs connecting Chinese students with young professionals around the world. He graduated from Carleton College and has worked both in buy-side equity research and strategy consulting. Read on for his experience with MBA admissions: Where did you apply? What were the results?  I applied to HBS, Stanford GSB, Wharton, LBS, Berkeley / Haas, Cornell / Johnson, MIT / Sloan, Yale SOM and Duke / Fuqua and the Jefferson scholarship at UVA / Darden. Read more