Points to Build on - Application
I truly believe it came down to these two things:

1. Your career progression and how well you could portray it in your essays. You need to have articulated clearly your impact to the company.

2. Your goals have to be really clear-I know it is cliched- but the successful guys goals flowed really well from his current role and he maintained a solid theme of his goals throughout the essays. His essays were not as "polished" but had a lot of passion for his goals. In contrast, my essays were pretty well edited and written but lacked the passion I feel. The guy who was WL had an equally impressive WE (he has made presentations to the CEO of the company, a Fortune 200 one. He has increased revenue of almost a $1BB for this company). But his essays were similar to mine- conservative and lacked that personal and passionate feel. Bottomline- dont try to replicate those essays found in books and let your true self come out.

3. Try to do something extra- submit an extra reco if the school allows. Make that extra trip to the school and try to get as much face time with the adcoms as possible. I think they might not be decisive factors but every little bit might help.


Having said that, for an Indian to get into M7 is a pretty tough task. I know there are a lot of desis in all the top schools but I am talking about pure acceptance rates for us is probably less than 10%. Even on this forum- we had a bunch of impressive desi profiles and I think mneo, ujjib and nupur (I am sure I am missing 1 or 2) are the few who have been admitted to an M7. I am not trying to discourage you at all- just trying to put things in perspective.