Second Time Successful: Ayushi Gurha’s Application Story.
In 2021, Ayushi Gurha applied to Wharton, Haas, Booth and MIT-Sloan, working with a US based admissions consultant but she was not offered any admits.
In 2022, working with Admissions Gateway, Ayushi applied to Wharton, Kellogg, Haas and Ross and was offered admits at Kellogg, Wharton with a $55k scholarship and Ross, with an $80k scholarship.
A childhood love for maths, imbibed from her grandfather; a math teacher, influenced Ayushi’s decision to get a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Allahabad. Upon graduating, she joined D.E.Shaw, a US-based, multinational hedge fund, growing from an intern to project leader.
To accelerate her transition into a product management role, about three years into her career at D.E.Shaw, Ayushi decided to apply for an MBA.
With a GMAT score of 750, she started her first application attempt in October 2021, in Round 2. After getting offered no admits, Ayushi says she was unfazed by the setback and knew immediately that she would reapply.
For her second application attempt, Ayushi contacted Admissions Gateway after seeing they were the highest rated consultants on Poets & Quants. She says that instead of talking her into hiring them, Rajdeep Chimni gave her feedback of why her previous applications had been unsuccessful, telling her she needed to do a lot more research and networking to build more compelling essays. He also pointed out that her resumé was more like a job description; not conveying the impact of any her roles.
Ayushi says Admissions Gateway guided her on how to speak with B-school students and alumni and what information she should get from them to help her build more school-specific essays.
She also says Rajdeep’s webinars gave her valuable inputs on drafting her resume, along with school-specific guidance on essays; showing her how to think about and customise them.
“Those insights into what would work and why, were very helpful!”
For Ayushi, the biggest difference however was that her previous consultant had spent just a couple of hours total, face-to-face with her, during the entire application process. At Admissions Gateway, she received constant personal attention, with unlimited direct access to her consultant.
“That gave me very quick access to bounce ideas off, answer questions and judge my progress. There was a huge difference in the time commitment to me.”
Though she was portraying the same career, Ayushi says there was also a huge difference in the resume and essays she prepared, the second time around, leading to admit offers from Kellogg and Ross.
Her biggest piece of advice for potential applicants is that being an introvert like her shouldn’t hold you back from applying for an MBA.
Ayushi says the intensive networking she did as part of the applications process helped her build the people skills that will stand her in good stead when she heads to Wharton, later this year.