#find-mba

After graduation we went to Orlando to see Disney/Universal. That trip burned a hole in my pocket. Washington DC was the last leg and luckily the museums in DC are free to public unlike New York. We survived on McDonald's for couple of days as I simply ran out of money.

Signing bonus was a new concept. I had assumed that I would get that money the moment I accept the offer letter. Only to realize that I would actually get it 45 days after joining. I was running dangerously low on cash so I requested Cartesian to give me 50% of my signing bonus upfront which they trustingly did.

Location: Cartesian also gave me options for my location. Boston was too far up north and cold. Philadelphia was tough. New York was costly. Washington DC has nice summer and I was familiar with Northern Virginia due to its proximity to Williamsburg. So I selected DC.

My friend Vipul helped me get a lease at his apartment complex in Herndon, VA. My wife joined me in US to join me while rest of my family left for India. Doing grocery was a problem. Walking to the store and carrying big bags was too laborious. Ever since I drove Chris’s car I wanted to buy a Subaru Forester but as I had no credit history and my income hasn’t come yet no one was ready to give me auto loan. I approached Bank of America but they declined – even though I showed my offer letter with salary information they wouldn’t lend me a single cent unless I agree for 20% APR.

Once again, Vipul introduced me to Digital Federal Credit Union (DCU). DCU gave me the full $20,000 at competitive 2.29% APR. I searched online to shortlist few cars. Hilariously changed 3 buses and a Metro with my wife and traveled to Manassas, VA to buy my Forester. Now I could reach places within minutes – such a big relief!

2015: Luckily my first project was with Time Warner Cable and their office was a mile away from my apartment. I would come back home to have lunch or walk to office. 

Life was good. 

It became better as I got news from Larry that USCIS cleared my RFE and my H1-B was approved. Huge sigh of relief! The H1-B came into effect in October. I noticed that my take home pay decreased as now I had to pay into Social Security and Medicare.

I felt that this system was unfair. As foreign national working in US I was a non-resident alien but for tax purposes I was a resident alien. I could not benefit from SSN or Medicare but I had to contribute into those programs. Additionally, every time I exit US, I had to get my passport stamped and answer lot of questions at port of entry. Cartesian also had to file paperwork to USCIS whenever I changed apartments as my address of residence was listed in my petition.

2016: Having money felt great but my wife couldn’t work in US. We thought of starting a family but I wanted her to earn and be financially independent. I thought “If I can come to US and get work after US education, my wife and sister can do that as well”. We put our family plans on hold. Raising kids would mean a gap of 5+ years for my wife which could prove insurmountable in rejoining workforce.

She liked William & Mary’s Masters of Accounting. She enrolled in Northern Virginia Community College to get prerequisite credits. My wife and sister took the GMAT/TOEFL and applied to schools.

My wife got admits from George Mason, American University and W&M. My sister got admits from CUNY Baruch, Fordham, Johns Hopkins, American and Bentley for Masters in Marketing Analytics. Even though CUNY was 1/3rd the cost of Fordham and Johns Hopkins is a huge brand name, I advised my sister to enroll in Fordham as it is STEM certified. STEM allows international students to be eligible for 2 years of extended OPT in addition to the initial 1. This provides 3 years to find an employer who would file for H-1B.

For obvious reasons, my wife selected W&M. Since I could work from home, I decided to move back to Williamsburg to lower our living cost and be together. I did not have sufficient money for my wife’s education. Luckily I learned about Mpower Finance. They provided $25,000 without collateral at 11.99% APR both to my wife and my sister. This was a game changer. I took a personal loan from DCU for the remainder amount. I paid my sister’s monthly rent in NYC. By fall both enrolled in their respective schools. I asked Cartesian to apply for my Green Card (GC) but they asked to revisit in 2017

2017: I visited India in Oct and that’s when my mother fell and broke her shoulder. It became clear to me that I need to live together with my parents. I asked Cartesian again for GC but they refused to apply. To be fair I still had another year on my H-1B and could renew it for 3 more years. Usually companies exhaust 6 years of H-1B before sponsoring for GC. The problem is that USCIS puts a cap on number of GC applications per country. Which means that India with a population of 1.3 Billion gets the same number of GC slots as Lithuania – a country of 3 million. This cap puts a wait time of 10 to 15 years for Indians and Chinese to get GC in best case estimate. Worst case puts the waiting period at 45 years!

Even if I received GC, I still couldn’t stay with my parents. I started exploring other options and learned about Canadian Permanent Residency. My wife and I applied to Canada’s point based PR. During application I got to know another Indian applicant. He was 38 years old, had two kids. Worked in US on H-1B for 7 years. (2 renewals + 1 extended year) His company exploited him and gave him $138,000 while his American coworkers made $200,000+ He couldn’t leave his job as his company was filing for his GC, because of his age he scored less points in the Canadian PR process. He was in a pickle.

I decided I didn’t want to be in his shoes after 5 years. By mid-2017, my wife faced rejections at interviews due to companies unwilling to sponsor H-1B. Luckily she contacted Tim who owns La Tienda at Toano, VA and is a W&M Alumni. They hired her for a yearlong internship during the course of her OPT. My sister also found a job at NYC but the hours were killing her. Rampant racism existed in her company. English Hons fresh out of school American citizens are fast tracked into Managers while  Indian employees who had considerable experience in SPSS, SAS etc. and had a MS in Marketing / Analytics were made to work at grassroots. I decided to leave US when my wife’s internship and her OPT would conclude in July 2018. By December we had received our Canadian PR.

I owed my parents $80,000 for my MBA. I had little money saved. So I decided to buy a property in India. I would pay the mortgage on it and my parents would rent it out. The rent would provide them additional income to support cost of living.

2018: I was bleeding money from all ends – rent, auto loan, mortgage, education loan and taxes. Additionally, I couldn’t plan for retirement or invest in a property while in US.

Since both of us were earning and our cost of living was low. I decided to use snowball effect. First, paid off my wife’s education loan by making lump sum payments every month. That freed up the money going towards that loan. We used that additional money and attacked the next – auto loan was now repaid. Only mortgage remained as we moved to Canada in July 2018.

In September my H-1B expired. I resigned from Cartesian as a full-time employee and rejoined as independent contractor. This worked in my favour as I was able to get a 20% hike. I was promoted to Manager. I did not miss forgoing benefits like medical etc. as those are provided in Canada under universal healthcare.

We setup base in Toronto and my wife landed a job soon. We used the snowball effect once more to pay off my mortgage in India. After 4 years or so I recouped my Return on Investment on my MBA.

2019/2020: I was debt free and started saving money. Paying rent in the Greater Toronto Area was expensive and paying the same amount in mortgage made more sense. We bought a house and started a family. My sister also applied for her PR and joined us. I applied for my parent’s Super Visa – which allowed them to stay up to 2 years in Canada at each entry. After 6 long years we all were together again.

My timeline so far was that during the admission cycle of 2008-2010 I had applied to the following MBA programs

Applied and rejected without interview in the following

Wake Forest University

Michigan State University

Brigham young University

Southern Methodist University

Indiana University

University of Georgia

University of Illinois at Urbana Campaign

University of Texas at Dallas

York University

Three schools rejected after interview

College of William & Mary

University of Pittsburgh

McGill University

One wait-list

Case Western Reserve University

In 2011, I had applied and got admits from the following schools although I did not enroll.

Schulich India MBA

Copenhagen Business School

SPJain PGPM

In 2012 I shortlisted following schools where I would apply to enroll in 2013. Purdue University

Purdue University

Penn State University

Ohio State University

University of Pittsburg

Southern Methodist University

College of William & Mary

University of California at Irvine

The rationale behind selecting these schools was that, firstly, they had good curriculum focused towards operations. Secondly, they had good tie-ups with companies and had great local reputation and some national recognition. I also saw from their career services report and talking to 2nd year students/recent graduates that companies such as Amazon, Deloitte etc. recruited students. Thirdly, their average GMAT score was in 640 – 670 range. My second GMAT was a mere 610, I thought of retaking the GMAT yet again in order to land in the ballpark.

While I was shortlisting US schools I became increasingly aware of the visa restrictions in the US H1-B program. I started looking at countries that offered good post MBA work permit. UK was an obvious exclusion, and Canada that already on my radar from earlier attempts was an obvious inclusion.

Ivey, Queen’s, Schulich, McGill, UBC – Sauder, Rotman were the top choices. I also started to look at Montreal based schools closely, Quebec at the time offered a faster path to Permanent Residency provided you had French language skills. So in addition to McGill, I added HEC Montreal and Concordia to my list as well. The language based point system was appealing to me. I knew that my GMAT score of 610 was my weak point. To strengthen my overall profile for Quebec based I took French classes, and cleared DELF A1 exam.

At the same time I thought about my work experience and age. I would have 6+ years of work experience by the time classes start in fall of 2013. I had already thought about one year MBA programs Copenhagen Business School, SPJain, Ivey, Queen’s, HEC Montreal etc. Since I was already learning French – I had very good conversation with ESSEC adcom on the QS world / The MBA Tour. They encouraged me to apply so I added ESSEC as well. Their MBA structure was unique in that it exposed the students to Singapore as well in addition to the French market.

So my initial list of schools would be

Purdue University

Penn State University

Ohio State University

University of Pittsburgh

Southern Methodist University

College of William & Mary

University of California at Irvine

Ivey

Queen’s

HEC Montreal

McGill

UBC Sauder

Concordia

ESSEC

Rotman

This was more of a long list than a shortlist. I knew that ultimately securing an admit would heavily depend on my GMAT score. So I retook it the third time. It yielded 630, not a great one but perhaps not an extremely incompetent either. In most schools scholarship or financial aid is merit based. Merit is measured by GMAT score. Given my less than stellar one, even if I were to get admit, I wouldn’t be able to enroll since I did not had that much money to pay for tuition.

ADMISSIBILITY: The whole purpose of applying to a business schools is to be admitted to the business school.

Taking the GMAT, TOEFL. Shortlisting business schools. Sending your score to those business schools. Writing 3 essays on average for every MBA application. Rereading those essays, giving them out to your friends, colleagues and MBA alumni for proof reading. Rewriting your essays making them crisp and air tight. Reaching out to your boss to write letters of recommendation. Reaching out to your undergrad university to send your transcripts to the B schools. Convincing your parents to let go of all their life’s saving by paying the tuition fees. Liquidating all your savings to spend it all on application fees, GMAT/TOFEL tests, and towards tuition fees.

At the end of jumping these many hoops, all the effort goes down the drain if you get rejected. And it feels terrible. I know because I went through that.

Since admissibility was the name of the game, I decided not to apply to highly attractive B schools where Indian application with 700+ GMAT would apply. Purdue, Penn Smeal, Ohio Fisher, Ivey, Queen’s, Rotman all were dropped. I had to decline admit from Copenhagen Business school from earlier because CBS announces scholarship decision after candidate had deposited the deposit fees. I couldn’t take that bet. In the 2012 admission season for classes starting in 2013 my shortlist was below

Reach schools: Schools where I thought I will have very little chance of admit. These schools attracted many applicants because of their location, career outcome, brand recognition etc. Their class profile had higher avg. GMAT score and the number of applicants who target these schools was high.

University of California at Irvine

McGill (reapplicant)

UBC Sauder

Target schools: Schools I considered that I was in the ballpark. I felt confident of atleast getting invited for interview. My GMAT of 630 was bang on with their avg. GMAT or +/- 10 points

Southern Methodist University – Cox School of Business (reapplicant)

College of William & Mary – Raymond A. Mason School of Business (reapplicant)

HEC Montreal

ESSEC

Safe schools: I was highly confident of being invited for an interview and getting admit as I thought that I was competitive than most applicants.

Concordia – John Molson School of Business

I started applying to these schools around the same time QS World and The MBA Tour were visiting New Delhi, India which was Sep – Oct of 2012. I had already submitted my application to SMU Cox and was hoping to be invited for interview. At The MBA Tour, I meet with their admission committee member, where she mentioned during Q&A panel that although Cox’s average GMAT is 640, they evaluate candidates from same country/similar profiles against each other. They mentioned that average GMAT for Indian students was 695. Not sure if this was discrimination or unfair high bar for Indian applicants, but it was clear that I wasn’t “smarter” than most applicants at Cox, my hopes of an admit dwindled to zero as soon as I learned of a different average GMAT for Indians.

Luckily, I had learned to spread my risk. I was scheduled for my interview with W&M’s Randy Tripp. We had good conversation and I submitted a strong application. It was Feb/Mar 2013 and I was also interviewed by ESSEC via Skype.

Meanwhile, as expected I got denied by UBC Sauder and McGill without an interview. However, unexpectedly I was turned down by Concordia since somehow they converted my GPA on 10 scale onto Canadian equivalent and calculated that it did not meet their minimum criteria. This was a shocker since none of the 15+ schools I had applied across US/Canada/France never had that concern. I got admitted into ESSEC and also qualified for their financial loan. I got admit from College of William and Mary with some scholarship and Graduate Assistantship. Unexpectedly, I was interviewed by University of California at Irvine. Since their avg. GMAT was at 680 – highest of the schools I had applied, I never expect an interview. I had great interview which lasted 90 days and received admit from Irvine on my birthday. The tuition fees of $96,000 and cost of living at California was way too much for me. I tried friend-funding on the lines of crowd funding, and reached out to some 30 of my friends asking for $1000 loan for 2 years. In the end the effort failed and the cost proved insurmountable. HEC Montreal was taking longer to reply, and the fee deposit date of W&M was getting closer. My constant pestering perhaps led to my rejection at HEC.