30-year-old Mexican American Woman First-Generation College Student and Reapplicant with Low GMAT (570) and Low GRE Score (308) accepted to UT Austin McCombs and Rice University Jones MBA programs with Full Ride Scholarships
Ellie is a prime example of the application miracles that can happen with our help. Though Ellie had solid post-college work experience, namely seven years in Chevron’s corporate offices after a successful internship there, she had two strikes against her. She had a lowish GPA, and by her admission, she “hit a wall” with her test scores, only reaching 570 on her GMAT and 308 on her GRE despite several attempts to bump them up. When she tried to apply to MBA programs the first time on her own, she was waitlisted by all three schools she chose.
Then she turned to The Art of Applying® for help. Two of the schools that waitlisted her the first time around, UT Austin and Boston University, accepted her after she went through our Application Accelerator® program. A third, Rice University, also accepted her — and all three offered her significant scholarship money! While Boston University offered $50,000, both UT Austin and Rice pledged full scholarships.
Service: Application Accelerator®
Start Date: November 2018 | End Date: May 2019
Demographics
- 30 years old
- Latina (Mexican-American)
- First-generation college student
- Reapplicant
- Working in Chevron’s corporate offices
Application Stats
- School: University of Houston
- Major: Supply Chain Management and Accounting
- GPA: 3.39
- GMAT: 570
- GRE: 308
Acceptances
- McCombs School of Business at University of Texas at Austin
- Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University
- Questrom School of Business at Boston University
Scholarships
- Full scholarship to UT Austin
- Full scholarship to Rice
- $50,000 scholarship to Boston University
Notable Quotes
“I think what got me to say, ‘Yes, let’s do it’ was the fact that I was taken seriously. I was listened to. And there’s a structure to it. It’s not like you’re just saying, ‘Hey, I’m signing up for X thing and now I’m in a pipeline of I don’t know what.’ And so, just knowing that there is structure, that there is a method behind the madness, it just seemed like the right thing to do.”
“Sometimes, you need an external view to get to really see what are your pain points are, what might someone consider as . . . kind of questionable. So, just having an objective view from someone of myself . . . I knew that you could help me with that.”
“With my essays . . . I needed some help in terms of tightening up the language, and digging deeper into my story. What I did not count on [getting help with] was the school selection . . . I came into the game thinking I’m Round Two. I’m right at the cutoff point . . . I was actually going to leave off UT Austin for this application season, but in one of our monthly calls, [Kaneisha said], “I really think you need to add that back in.”
“I’m a big believer in having a strong mental health and around all of that. And so, I realized that there is such a thing as mindset coaches and it was really helpful, especially being away from family and friends who I could really lean on in times of feeling stressed or feeling like I’m insufficient … having that one-on-one coaching session just allowed me to be vulnerable and in the whole process. I felt like, yeah, let’s just bring down these walls and let’s just get real … that was really helpful.
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