Indian Consultant and Finance Professional accepted to Columbia University and Johns Hopkins Executive Policy Programs
Our client, Himanshu, who we affectionately call HB, had one Masters program under his belt, and an impressive resume filled with professional jobs from all over the world: investment banking in Hong Kong, consulting in Singapore, Shanghai, and the Middle East, and eventually coming back to Singapore to launch a financial services startup. He also discovered along the way that he was passionate about making small businesses more effective, and he wanted to attend a graduate policy program for experienced professionals to help him make that dream come true.
HB also knew what he needed to help him apply: As he put it, “I wanted advice—on how to make it not just an application, but a winning application, on how I could best position it whether it could be just a couple of sentences, whether it could be the whole repositioning of the essay, or positioning my resume or CV. Those were the things I was most keen to learn.”
When HB signed up to work with us at The Art of Applying®, he found a community of fellow applicants and consultants that helped him through, and even after an initial rejection to one school he had his eye on, was accepted to two of his top three choices within five hours.
“It was a moment for champagne and a lot of tears,” he told us. We’re all about those kinds of moments!
Start Date: August 2018 | End Date: May 2019
Applicant Information
- Reapplicant
- International applicant
- Private sector professional applying to policy school
- Profession: Management Consultant
- School: M.A., Singapore National University
- Major: Applied Finance
Acceptances
- Columbia SIPA MPA-EPM
- Johns Hopkins SAIS – 25% scholarship
Attending
- Columbia SIPA MPA-EPM
Notable Quotes
“As a consultant myself, I wanted advice—on how to make it not just an application, but a winning application, on how I could best position it whether it could be just a couple of sentences, whether it could be the whole repositioning of the essay, or positioning my resume or CV. Those were the things I was most keen to learn … It’s a process of self discovery, because it involves a lot of reflection.”
“I expected … a lot of guidance, a lot of strategic advice which could help shape any application … Seven months into the process and reflecting back, I think, that it was a game, set, match, as they say in tennis. That’s exactly what I expected, and that’s what I was able to take from The Art of Applying®, and it showed in my results.”
Reflections on initially being rejected from a school:
“Exactly in 30 days [from my first school rejection], I received my first acceptance, and within five hours from then, I received the second acceptance. So it was a moment for champagne and a lot of tears.”
Reflections on the sense of community we have among our clients at The Art of Applying®:
“It was always helpful because you indirectly get a lot of your questions answered. It’s a great platform…and an opportunity for you to get the answers to the questions which you feel are important. So that was great … the ecosystem was very helpful.”
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