Written by Sameer Kamat

Tarun’s forum pseudonym (MoneyMoney) highlights what he focussed on during the MBA admissions process. His objective was pretty clear. He wanted to minimize not only his admissions costs, but also the cost of attending the MBA program. His strategy paid off.

The Carlson MBA offered by the Carlson School of Management offered him a 100% scholarship (full tuition waiver). The Simon MBA program at the University of Rochester gave him a 45 percent MBA scholarship.
Out of the 14 bschools he applied to (yup, a lot and he admits it), he paid the application fee only for three. We had no clue how he did it. So we asked him to write a post and share his strategies.

Written by Sameer Kamat

‘Score high on the GMAT, scholarships will follow’ seems to be the general assumption when it comes to business schools that accept GMAT for their MBA programs. This is why there’s such a desperate rush to get obscenely high GMAT scores in the hope that they would not only get an admit from the best bschools in USA, UK, Australia, Europe and India, but also an icing on the cake i.e. GMAT scholarships.

Written by Sameer Kamat

Education loan forgiveness programs aim at reducing or cancelling the financial burden for MBA students. Sounds too good to be true, right? For Indian MBA applicants, the cost of attending the best MBA programs (MBA fees, cost of living) can be crippling. But there are business schools that offer such incentives (beyond the regular MBA scholarships) to some of their MBA students.

There are however several pre-conditions that you need to keep in mind in terms of whether you are eligible in the first place, when will these decisions be taken, how much of your education loan can be forgiven and what career goals make you prime candidates for such programs. Read on to find out more.

Written by Sameer Kamat

The Georgetown MBA in Washington D.C. is a top ranking program with a diverse class profile. With an average GMAT score of 683, the student age range falls between 22 and 45. Over 30% of the students come from outside the U.S. For the current class the business school admissions team received over 1500 applications and enrolled only 250, making it one of the toughest and most selective programs in the world.
Sameer Kamat, founder of MBA Crystal Ball, caught up with Interim Assistant Dean and Director, Katelyn Rosa Stephenson to find out more about the program.
Katelyn has been associated with Georgetown since March 2008. Before that she was responsible for undergraduate admissions at The George Washington University.

Written by Sameer Kamat

The Carey MBA (ASU) offered by the W.P. Carey Schools of Business (Arizona State University) has strong ties with the industry, specially when it comes to Supply Chain Management (SCM). The W.P. Carey Company Networking Night (CNN) is a great way for students to rub shoulders with their prospective employers. On the official website, you’ll find stories of how students have got used the CNN opportunity to land interships and post MBA jobs.

Written by Sameer Kamat

The NUS Singapore 1 year MBA program gets a lot of applications from Indian IT Male Engineers, just like all the other top bschools. Being closer to India and being more affordable than the US programs means that it gets more than its fair share of such profiles.
Rohit Jaggi was one of the hopeful applicants to NUS Singapore and several other top bschools. He got admits from 5 of the 8 schools he applied to – one offered a mouth-watering MBA scholarship. Quite an accomplishment!
In this guest post, he displays his flair for story telling, probably one of the reasons he stood out among the competition.

Written by Sameer Kamat

Mays Business School is the Best value for money school in the US (and 4th in the world) according to Financial Times 2012 MBA rankings. FT also gives it a thumbs up for other aspects such as ‘Salary Percentage Increase’ (2nd in US), ‘Employment at Three Months’ (7th in US) and ‘Aims Achieved’ (6th in US).
The Mays MBA program has a strong technology management concentration and ties with the industry which translates to the strong placement statistics.
These were a few reasons why Samim Riaz chose the Mays MBA program at Texas A&M University (TAMU).

Written by Sameer Kamat

Notre Dame University (Mendoza), Olin (St Louis) and Simon (Rochester) were three MBA programs (apart from the regular suspects Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg, Chicago Booth) where Sourya Biswas applied with a GMAT score of 750.
A high GMAT score doesn’t guarantee anything. Neither do strong MBA essays or a good MBA resume, if you consider them in isolation. Sourya Biswas got the ingredients right and two bschools offered him a full-ride (100% scholarship).
But along the way, he had his share of highs and lows. Sourya persisted and did not give up on his ambition. He shares his MBA application strategy and success story.

Written by Sameer Kamat

When MBA education costs are spiralling out of control, a full-tuition scholarship can mean a lot to Indian candidates with pockets that aren’t as deep as their other MBA classmates.
Smeal MBA granted a full-ride (100% tuition waiver) and more, in terms of a steady income (stipend) to Pushkal Kumar.
He stands tall and confident today, as the entrepreneur in him knows very well that he’s already got his RoI even before he starts his MBA program at a top school which enjoys a respectable MBA ranking for its Supply Chain specialization.
In this guest post, he describes how and what he did to get not only an admit but also a whole lot of free money from one of his top choice business schools.

Written by Sameer Kamat

MBA scholarships are tough to come by at the good business schools. Convert $20,000 into Indian Rupees (what would you do with the extra 10 lakhs that you save?) and the MBA success story sounds so much better.
For Ankit Chopra, all this came after he had put in more than the usual share of MBA application effort. Starting from his GMAT preparation to the time it took to write the best possible MBA essays.
The end result was that the helpful Associate Dean from the Simon MBA program was advising Ankit on the electives he should be taking in the course that would be aligned with his career interests.