Devon Sanford is a Refreshing Break from the Norm.
Devon Sanford was not your usual MBA applicant. With a Bachelor’s in English and experience solely in non-profit startups and social-impact investing, Devon’s profile is about as non-standard as it gets. Yet she was offered admits from every single one of the top eight business schools she applied to. The icing on the cake? Across business schools, Devon was offered close to a million dollars in scholarships.
Devon got her ambition, discipline and empathy from her family of doctors and nurses but a phobia of blood and needles meant she would have to find her calling not in medicine but in the non-profit sector.
An all-round student with interests and talents as varied as drama, tennis, swimming and post-modern literature, Devon got a B.A. in English with a Management Minor from Boston College, graduating summa cum laude. As an Orientation Leader at BC, Devon guided and supported freshmen; creating a sense of belonging for students from disparate upbringings, making friends for life and discovering her own love for community work.
Devon was interested in working in the non-profit sector and before she even graduated, had been accepted at Venture for America; a fellowship program that placed college graduates at startups in economically developing US cities.
As a Venture for America Fellow, Devon worked at GoodCompany Ventures, an impact-investing fund focused on catalysing early-stage, socially impactful startups with business analysis and capital resources. Devon ran an accelerator for sustainable enterprises, enabling social innovators to become entrepreneurs.
After her two-year fellowship, Devon joined the Global Good Fund, another non-profit aimed at identifying and supporting entrepreneurs. After three years of co-leading the Fund’s business development strategy, during which she helped raise $1.8M and fund more than 60 entrepreneurs, Devon wanted to augment her learnings at work with an MBA.
Devon contacted the top rated consultants on Poets & Quants but many dismissed her as a non-viable candidate because of her unusual background. She says, chose to work with Admissions Gateway because of Rajdeep Chimni’s optimism and candour on their first call.
“I truly cannot say enough wonderful words about Rajdeep.”
Devon says he was both creative and structured, helping her build narratives for each essay that was highly specific to the school – pulling from different components of her background and skill set and pairing them with unique components of the school’s program.
Devon says they debated how to present her career goals. While she was leaning heavily towards a broader CSR narrative, Rajdeep convinced her to consider choosing impact investing as it was better aligned with her experience. Devon concedes that it was one of her best decisions as not only did it strengthen her resume and essays, their conversations helped her better understand the merits of impact investing and it will be the sector she plans to pursue post-MBA.
Devon’s confidence grew after a thoroughly successful R1 of applications to Yale, Berkeley, Kellogg, Ross, Duke and Georgetown, which netted Devon admits from every school. She then applied to Wharton and Harvard in Round 2.
Devon’s mother XXX was on a Zoom call when her sister XXXX found out she was accepted to Harvard and her reaction to the hand-written note, is priceless.
However, without a company sponsoring her or a lucrative career in investment banking or consulting ahead of her, Devon’s choice of school would be decided by the financial support offered.
Luckily, not only did Harvard offer Devon a full scholarship, she was also accepted into the Goldsmith Fellowship; offered to students with a background in the social sector.
From being turned down by admissions to consultants to being accepted to Harvard with a full scholarship, Devon’s admissions journey has been a wild ride.
“It still feels absurd” she says.