Q&A Highlights from the Ross admit chat!
Souvik would you mind telling us a little bit about your professional background, post MBA goals, and reasons for choosing Ross? Souvik: Yeah sure. I graduated in 2011 - did engineering and after graduation joined a big energy firm to work in their automation department. Did that for about 21 months and got pretty bored. Shifted to nonprofits as a full-time teacher in an org called Teach For India. After teaching full time for two years, I moved onto another education-focused startup to do their strategy for three years. Now I am a bit bored with education and nonprofits too and looking at Ross to get direction to figure out where I want to get bored next. Also, I have been with GMAT Club part time for the last 5 years and was involved in many projects, which means I get to have a red username
Go Blue! What parts of your experience did you emphasize in your application? Souvik: Thanks for the question. It was harder because I was a re-applicant but thankfully the essays were totally different. For the goals essay, I emphasized how my goals have changed since I last applied. I also talked about my preparedness of the goal (I was applying with an Ed-Tech goal so I focused a lot on tech projects that I started in my org), and how Ross resources could help me make the shift from strategy to a more product-oriented role in education. For the other 3 short answer questions, I tried to use more personal examples.
What specifically about Ross appealed to you? Souvik: Yeah so Ross is now #7 on USN but it always used to hover around the 11-14 range in the last few years. So I see that Ross is not the first school everybody is excited about but once you get to know the school a little bit it always get more interesting and precious. The thing I liked the most was how warm the students were. I started talking to about 2-3 students and they proactively connected me to about 10 more based on my background and goals.
Another thing I loved about the students was that they did not hesitate to talk about the parts of their experience that they were not a 100% fond of. I did not see many other school students doing that.
Apart from that - the MAP program which was spearheaded by Ross in the early 2000s and now a more standard thing that schools do still remains as their flagship student experience and I had direct conversations with some clients from industries I want to recruit in. They seemed very happy with their experience with Rossers.
What does the ROSS admission team look in a applicant? Souvik: From my (limited) experience, a lot of that is about fit. Ross is one of the few schools who definitely look at essays and the overall feel of the applicant. if you are a hyper-competitive person who doesn’t play well with others, Ross may not like you. Ross also loves people who are proactive (slogan is all about putting action to words) so if you have examples of that, it will work in your favor.
Apart from Ross, you also got in to MIT Sloan, McCombs, and few more schools. So what made you choose Ross over other schools. Turning down MIT’s offer must be a difficult decision.Souvik: I got into ASU, Foster, McCombs, Stern, Tuck, Ross and Sloan. I turned down MIT because my WL admit came in very late and my heart was already set for Ross. I had made friends and Ross seemed to be a much more warm and welcoming community. It was not a very hard pick. Plus my visa apps were also in process. If I wanted to get into pure tech, MIT would have been a better choice. I didn’t, so it wasn’t.
Is it wise to indicate a change in specialization, like from marketing to finance as a goal during application ? Or do we build on the strengths of our earlier job and align the goal with the earlier specialization? Which would be preferred by Adcoms in your experience?Souvik: Yeah, i think it would be OK. as long as you have a reason and some preparedness to achieve that goal it is fine. For example, I have no experience in consulting, so writing a consulting goal would be pretty weird.
You seem like you had a really cool/unique story and a clear mission for attending Ross. If someone is applying to land a certain kind of job (MBB Consulting, Investment Banking, etc) is that too bland a reason to apply? Or do I need to put a unique spin on it for "why Ross?”Souvik: You need to have a good Why Ross. But at the same time, there is nothing wrong with wanting to get into MBB. Everybody recruits for MBB anyway. In fact, I will be on my way to the DC Pre MBA BCG event tomorrow. But the thing is, can you articulate your preparedness for MBB? That’s the hard bit. MBB themselves do not care as long as you ace the cases but the admission team does. You do need a great "Why Ross" but to be honest that’s not the hard part as Ross has many unique things that set them apart. Also, if you are keen on applying to Ross, make sure to attend their events and introduce yourself, maybe email the adcoms later. that will DEFINITELY help you.
Also another aside is to form a network of Pre-MBA folks. I did that through the GMAT Club application threads and they were really helpful through the entire process - from peer-reviewing essays to supporting through the terribly anxious waiting process.
Really keen to know, your reasoning for why Ross over Tuck?Souvik: Friendlier community, 10X people in the city, better location, more areas of specialization, MAP, better admission processes, incredible onboarding process (just ask anyone who has both admits). Did I mention better location?
Does working as a pro-bono consultant for a small company and 2 NGOs qualify as enough consulting experience to make consulting a post MBA goal?Souvik: It could. depends on what kind of consulting you want to do post MBA. pro bono consulting is not viewed that seriously because there’s not enough stakes.
Any specific tips about essays and interview you want to give to current applicants?Souvik: The interview is pretty straight forward and no hard questions. Just some basic resume and behavioural questions and then Why Ross stuff. Mine was about 30 mins long and it was very relaxed. The essays are more interesting with the short answer questions and I would encourage everyone to research on the type of values that Ross admires before selecting the questions (hint: choose the ones that will make you look proactive and a team player)
Say hypothetically I wanted to do IBanking - would I want to show evidence I’ve worked towards that on my own? Networking, taking modeling classes, etcSouvik: Yes that will be helpful. Generally speaking, a goals essay need to have 3 main parts - A. what is the goal (long and short term) the long term goal is best articulated through something that you are passionate about B. What is your current preparedness for the goal --- start with something like "I have already started a foundation towards my goal by doing XXX" and then C. End with How the school will help you make the transition - through clubs, experiences, treks and what not. Helps?
Talking about consultant profiles which specialization helps to get one into consultant profile?Souvik: You seem like an Indian dude. From what I know, the experience that MBB loves the most among Indian guys are FMCG ops types - if you have ITC, Marico, P&G or Amazon ops experience, MBB can happen very easily.
Thanks for your time man. Last question, you must’ve networked with a lot of alums. Any quick tips on networking?Souvik: Send thoughtful emails with interesting subject lines - once you get one student/alum to respond get him/her to make more connections. Most schools will have graduate ambassadors that you can leverage. it is a lot better than cold calls on linkedIn.
This has been great - was it intimidating going as a re-applicant? I’d dread having to do the whole process over.Souvik: Oh YEAH! It was tough. sadly, a lot of folks told me that reapplicants are looked positively. I learned the hard way that they are not.
Alright. I am about to wrap up. Make sure to get engaged in the Ross thread. Tag me in questions there and I will be happy to answer. I respond a lot better to forums that I follow (Ross for example) than PMs.
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