University Applications - Part2

The admissions committee looks for high levels of self-motivation, commitment and expects your essays to reflect the same. However, that does not mean that you need to have something extra-ordinary or fake to boost your profile. If an essay wants you to talk about some major achievement in life, then the achievement need not necessarily be from your work experience. Even personal life achievements can be described. The evaluator is interested to understand your personality. During the application process for INSEAD, one of my students felt that his purchase of a flat in Mumbai was an achievement. He felt that this was a significant achievement based on his family background. He asked me whether he could take this case. Of course it is an achievement. He mentioned that along with another achievement at work. If you think his chances were slim, think again. He has secured admission into INSEAD and one of his interviewers told him that the achievements were definitely noteworthy.

As I menioned in the earlier post, your passion and drive to achieve results brings in a sparkle to your essays. These are stories of your life. One lady applying to Oxford (Said Business School) felt that doing a post graduation from a metro city like Bangalore and moving on to become a teacher was an achievement. She grew up in a rural area in Karnataka and the conditions there were such that hardly any girl was sent to college or for that matter even high school. This no doubt is an achievement. The story must be showcased well and if al the other parts of the application are well placed, an evaluator will certainly like to see such an achievement. At the end of it all, there is no right story or wrong story for achievements, failures etc. Its all about the ones that matter to you the most (for achievements) and what you learnt from experience (failures / setbacks).

Talking about a failure, setback, try not to shift the blame to some other party. This is one of the gravest mistakes one can make in an essay. I fully agree that there are external forces that come into play during our setback periods. Just make a one line reference and focus more on what happened, how you rectified things from your end and what have you learnt from mistakes. Mistakes are bound to happen and we all learn from our mistakes. As long as you emerged stronger from that event, you fall into the professional achievers category by default.

Most universities these days ask for the starting and ending salaries during your tenure at work. Unfortunately, a vast majority of business schools ask for salaries in USD, Euros, GBP etc and the amount seems extremely low when rupees are converted into these currencies. Don't worry about that. Check whether the form has a field that allows you to show the conversion factors. In case you don't have provision for that field, then do make it a point to explain the ROE conversion in the Additional Admissions part. The evaluator is more keen on analysing your career progress as higher remuneration implies that you have grown well at your workplace. Also the growth levels are measured by the ratio of later incomes with previous ones. Ultimately, this ratio will remain the same regardless of currencies used in the calculations. So if you were earning 3.5 Lakhs PA in 2006 and now earn 5 Lakhs PA, your growth has been almost 100% This will work in your favor even though the dollar amount may seem low. If all other aspects in your profile are good, the university will certainly help you with the scholarships and financial aid.