Akshay Cyril is Headed to Wharton.

Akshay applied to Wharton, Kellogg, Booth and Harvard, last year and received admit offers from Kellogg and Wharton, where he is headed later this year.

Akshay grew up in Kerala, where his fascination with puzzles and problem solving was encouraged by his mother, a primary school teacher. This pushed him towards competitions and later developed into an interest in math and physics. While he was torn between both subjects, Akshay made the pragmatic decision to get a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics at St. Stephen’s College in Delhi University because it would afford him a lot more flexibility in career choices later in life. He says this pragmatism was inspired by his father’s philosophy of “Mind Engineering”, that promotes a rational approach to problem-solving.

While in college, Akshay started looking for a practical application for his degree. In his first year, he was part of the college placement committee and helped with older students with recruiting. This gave him exposure to consulting and he realised it would give him the opportunity to perform problem solving at scale for companies and turn his passion into a livelihood. Meanwhile, seeing that there was no central repository of resources or guidance for students applying to consulting firms, Akshay started Consulting Club to help them. He applied to BCG himself, in campus placements and and got hired as an Associate.

Akshay spilts his four years at BCG into two phases; the first in which he was a junior contributor, solving individual problems but with oversight. In the second phase he had much more control and owned client relationships independently. This second phase made him realise there was more to business than analytics and problem solving. Looking to strengthen his managerial skillset, Akshay decided he needed to level-up his education and get an MBA. He also wanted to strengthen his resumé as he felt like being just a graduate was not helping how he was perceived by senior external partners.

Akshay was looking for a consultant and many of his former colleagues, currently at Harvard and Wharton, recommended Admissions Gateway. Though Akshay spoke with consultants in the US, he decided to work with Rajdeep Chimni due to the strength of the recommendations he received and because he felt an Indian consultant would understand his profile better.

Akshay says that while he knew he wanted an MBA from a top university, he did not know how to go about it and Rajdeep gave him complete clarity of the process and showed him how to execute to every step properly.

He also says Rajdeep helped him articulate his goals clearly, made sure his resumé reflected who he was, helped him craft essays that showcased both his journey and his reasons for applying to each school and present the best version of himself in his applications.

Akshay says the most difficult part of MBA applications was changing his own mindset about how he prioritised different parts of his profile. He had to rethink what was important and have a more impact-oriented approach.

“The what and the how of the admissions process is the easy part.”

His advice is that to present the truest and best version of themselves to B-Schools and put together compelling applications, applicants need to have clarity themselves.

“Know what you want to present. Know what your goals are clearly and know how you plan to achieve them”