Abhijay Knows Exactly What He Wants.
Abhijay Vuyyuru does not have the usual career or academic profile of MBA aspirants looking to go to Harvard. He has a B.Tech and M.Tech from IIIT-Bangalore, (that’s IIIT with three I’s) and he had worked for German multinational, HILTI for about 4 years when he decided to apply for an MBA.
What differentiated Abhijay was his considerable international experience working with multinational teams across three continents, in both the private and public sector. This started while he was still in college. Abhijay interned in Australia in his sophomore year. He also won more than a dozen national and international team-hackathons; including one for HILTI in Malaysia. This translated into an internship which ended in a job offer.
As the company’s first data scientist, Abhijay helped launch an Amazon Alexa-like AI voice assistant for HILTI and requested a transfer to their corporate headquarters in Switzerland, to drive its adoption. Abhijay worked across Europe, encouraging uptake for the voice assistant and was then transferred to Paris to lead a new team working on e-commerce offerings for 50 countries.
Abhijay returned to India during the devastating second wave of the pandemic and worked as a pro-bono consultant with NITI Aayog; the Govt. of India think-tank. He helped craft India’s AI strategy to improve education outcomes and helped build an app for teachers for the Language Learning Foundation.
While an MBA had always been a goal, Abhijay decided it was the right time to apply. He had just been called back to Switzerland and offered a Product Manager position, which was the management role he had been aiming for, so Abhijay set his sights high. He decided to only apply to Harvard as he didn’t think he would give up his new role for any other business school.
After a colleague recommended Rajdeep Chimni, Abhijay decided to work with Admissions Gateway. He says that Rajdeep encouraged him to apply to other colleges as well, since Harvard is considered a long shot, even with a respectable GMAT score of 760. After much convincing, Abhijay applied to Wharton and MIT as well.
Abhijay says that while Rajdeep was practical about his chances at Harvard, he worked with him wholeheartedly on the application; from helping refine each bullet point on his resume to patiently listening to all his past experiences and curating them into a compelling narrative with very specific, achievable yet ambitious short and long-term goals.
“The essay assistance was the highlight. Rajdeep would encourage me to come up with multiple drafts of different stories and we would brainstorm on what works best. He really knows how to tailor your essay for each school.”
“Rajdeep even guessed who would interview me and what the interviewing style was! The mocks he conducted were in line with the actual interview so I was confident going in.”
While Abhijay received an early rejection from Wharton and got waitlisted by MIT, his single-minded conviction bore fruit in the form of an admit offer from Harvard. The $90K in financial aid was the icing on the cake.
Rajdeep credits Abhijay’s determination and their effort to differentiate his profile for the admit but cautions that applicants should have a holistic application strategy with focus on getting into top MBA programs rather than just aiming for one dream school.