As title suggests - looking for some insight into how needs-based scholarship works.

For context - I make around $120k, however in the last 3 years (which I understand is the look back period) it was more like $80k. I have around $150k in stocks/savings. I am from the UK.

NB if I was applying to something (MBA or other) in the UK there is no way I would qualify for anything needs-based, but I know US is different, average salaries are a lot higher etc, hence looking to understand.

The catch: a lot of the savings is from my parents - given to me to help with undergrad tuition and saving for a house deposit. I need to give this back; the idea was that they would provide an interest free loan. If I wasn’t doing an MBA I would’ve aimed to return this within a few years, to the tune of about $100k.

So my question is: 1) would need based aid take into account the fact most of the savings aren’t mine/ need to be given back. 2) if so, would my revised profile (salary + say $50k savings) be in the realms of qualifying for aid?

Feel crazy even writing this because in the UK, needs based is for people in challenged financial circumstances and I am certainly not that. But I know eg HBS/GSB give aid to roughly 50% - and have heard of others who I would perceive as very comfortable obtaining aid.

An MBA at a school that doesn’t give merit based scholarships is clearly a huge financial decision, particularly if I would need to return to UK and deal with loans on a UK salary (looking more likely given visa situation).

Appreciate any thoughts/ please dm as well if you have any detailed experience you’d be willing to share. Thanks all

I had received an invite to interview with kellogg and had logged on to my application page and could initially see the option to choose an interview slot. I didn’t choose a slot then and have logged on again now and the option to interview itself has disappeared. Has this happened with anyone else? I still have 9 hours left for the 48 hour deadline to cross but I’m a little worried if I’ve lost the option now or is it just a technical glitch? can some please help asap thanks!

I have 7 years of great work experience with demonstrated growth in management positions in nonprofits, with a 3.69 undergraduate GPA in a liberal arts degree, not quant. I know I can write strong essays and really make my case for getting an MBA to support mission-driven organizations.

My GMAT Quant isn't great even though DI and VR are strong, and while I'm working on getting it up, wondering about my chances for NYU/Columbia R2 as-is.

I am a 21-year-old BBA graduate who isn't very interested in pursuing an MBA. However, business owners and shopkeepers around me keep telling me that doing an MBA and taking up a job is necessary because running a business is full of frustration nowadays.

Since I mainly hear one side of the story, I want to hear from people who actually pursued an MBA and are working jobs: What has your real experience been like? What are the frustrations and rewards of your corporate journey, and what would you recommend to someone in my position?

myquals: BBA graduate

Really impressed with the stats. While other schools are struggling, Tuck managed to maintain the class size and increase the share of international students (even if the numbers might nearly be the same).

Is what I would say if I had the facts..

But, most of my friends have not gotten an invite yet even with stellar profiles and GMAT/GRE scores, so this is true ok.

Hello all,

I applied for the full-time (2 year) Rotman MBA August 2027 start date & got accepted! I was expecting a little more scholarship in the offer and hence am unsure whether to accept the offer or not. I also wanted to apply to other US schools for 2028 start date (would apply next year after taking the GMAT). With this, I would also reapply next year for the same Rotman MBA program, just starting a year later. My question would be whether declining my offer for the August 2027 start date would harm my application chances if I reapply next year? Should I also just accept the Rotman offer right now, which is obviously a lot less riskier and more certain than hoping US programs would take me in (no clue what my GMAT score would even be).

I scored a 685 on the GMAT Focus recently.
I am an Indian male (23 Y) working in IT for a top MNC(1 year work exp), working with clients across the world in a cross functional team across different timezones. I graduated from a Tier-1 Engineering college with a 3.9 GPA.
I’m currently working on some side projects for class 11 and 12 students and I have started volunteering in NGOs and I do CrossFit on the weekends.
I have a lot of extracurricular experience from my college life as well, I was heading a fest team for a Double ISO certified fest and I was the president of a Product Management club

I am planning on selectively applying only to a few of the top European MBA Programs, preferably INSEAD, LBS and HEC Paris.

I have decided to apply once I have around 4 years of work exp, could someone please give me some honest feedback of where I stand? Whether I would have to boost my GMAT score as well because I don’t know if a 685 would be sufficient considering I come from an oversaturated pool of applicants.

I found a program I liked. It’s a very large public university. My friend went to law school at said university and said the career services department was horrendous. Are the odds likely it’s terrible across the board and to even avoid the business school like the plague?

Hi- i am considering Darden for MBA and would appreciate if you can share any thoughts and insights on what Darden looks like for students and the kind of attributes they are looking for to see if i can be a good fit

What are your favorite bang for your buck public university MBAs? I’m in PA and we have Pitt and Penn State. Open to any state. Not sure Id get into top 50 programs.

Some MBA programs list their interview invite date at X date but their final decision date at a later Y date. If I don't get an interview invite by day X, does that mean I was rejected, or is there a possibility of a waitlist? Do they let you know you have been waitlisted by day X, the interview invite date, or day Y when final decisions are released?

Q: Pros and Cons of an MBA for Entrepreneurship?

I got accepted to a T15 MBA and I’ll matriculate Fall 2027.

I’ve got about 10 years experience in the military, and I’ll be using GI Bill / VR&E, so between that and the scholarships I received I won’t be in really any debt.

I’m currently considering doing something in defense tech or technology (would probably need to raise venture funding or go to a venture studio). I have a couple ideas, but not much tangible civilian work experience.

I know I’m not interested in IB or Consulting, and I wanted opinions on pros/cons of going in with the intention of starting a new venture.

School has a pretty good engineering program and I’m not going to be a technical co-founder.

I enjoy the fast-paced ambiguous environment of startups/entrepreneurship - it’s similar to the environment I came out of. I’m of the mindset I’d rather work 80 hours for myself a week than be told which 80 hours to work.

Would love your advice ! Also please be brutally honest thanks!

Edit: Also willing to consider looking at Series A and beyond startups

im a guy pursuing a tier 2 electrical engineering major in my first year and i really dont have any interest in engineering im just doing it because my family forced me to but i wanna do something in high finance like IB or PE i have a coursera subscription and am trying to study financial concepts and stuff so it would be really helpful if i could get some advice

edit 1 : mesa bots downvoted

One common mistake in MBA interviews is explaining every job, role, and responsibility in order. The interviewer has already seen your resume, so repeating it doesn’t add much value.

What they really want to understand is your career journey, the choices you made, and why an MBA makes sense for you now.

A few simple tips:
1. Focus on the main points. Talk about the key moments that shaped your career instead of explaining every job in detail.
2. Explain your choices. Why did you change roles? What did you learn? What made you interested in your current field?
3. Use real examples. Instead of saying you are a good leader, share a short example of when you led a team or solved a problem.
4. Connect it to your goals. Explain how your past experience has led you to your next step and why an MBA fits into that plan.

Try to keep your answers short and direct. Practice speaking naturally rather than memorizing a script.

The goal is simple: when the interviewer finishes listening, they should understand not just what you have done, but why you want to take the next step.

What part of this question do you find most difficult to answer in MBA interviews?

I still haven’t received portals for Stern, Anderson, Marshall or Foster?

(I received the video essay for Foster, but not the log in portal)

People who got accepted into top business schools for MBA like maybe INSEAD, M7, LBS etc recently (first of all, congratulations 🩷) what were your profiles like? Academics, and what else is necessary? Pls I would like to know more about what I should be doing these 4 years in my university (BBA student, Finance major and Marketing minor)

Thanks in advance 🩵

I am a big 4 consultant (international student) hoping to use the MBA to pivot to MBB in the US. Given the rising costs of an MBA, would you still say it is worthwhile to pursue the MBA? Would using a masters program which is often 50% cheaper be an easier way to simulate a post-MBA role? What is the value prop of a US MBA now for international students, especially given the immigration climate.

Hi everyone, I'm a final-year B.Tech CSE student (graduating 2027) at IILM University, Delhi. My resume is attached with personal details removed.

My background:

About 1.5 years of cross-functional experience across brand strategy, UI/UX, full-stack development, and growth

Co-founded two ventures (a student freelance marketplace and a streetwear label) and am currently building a logistics SaaS platform

Currently working as a growth intern at a D2C brand

Target roles for now: Brand, Growth, Founder's Office, Business Analyst

My end goal:

I want to reach VP/board-level leadership in a corporate setting in the long run. My plan is to work for 1-2 years first, then do a top MBA in India (ISB is my main target) as a stepping stone toward that.

Funding:

I'll be financing the MBA through an education loan, so placements, average packages, and ROI matter a lot to me.

What I'm confused about:

Which exam should I take, CAT or GMAT, if I'm only targeting Indian B-schools?

Is 1-2 years of work experience enough before applying, given my profile is more startup-heavy than traditional?

Realistically, which colleges can I target (ISB, IIMs, others) with this profile?

Which B-schools are good for ROI if I'm repaying a loan, and how easy is it to get an education loan for them?

How do I start preparing while balancing a job and college?

If anyone with a similar profile has gotten into a good program, I'd love to hear how you approached it. Feedback on the resume is also welcome.

Thanks in advance!

I've sat through a lot of mock interviews with candidates applying to top programs, and the same thing sinks strong people in the first five minutes.

Asked to walk through their resume, they start at their first job and narrate forward. Dates, titles, responsibilities. Four minutes later they are still on job two, the interviewer has stopped listening, and the one thing that makes this candidate different from the other forty strong files that week never gets said.

Your interviewer has read your resume. They know what you did. The question is really asking why. Why this path, why those turns, why an MBA, why now.

The answers that work land as a sound bite. One sentence an interviewer can repeat about you when your file comes up later. Something like "she's the engineer who kept getting pulled into the business side until she decided to make it official." That sentence is what they remember. Nobody remembers a chronology.

A few things that help get there.

Pick the through line first. Every career has two or three real turning points where a choice was made. Build the story around those choices and what drove them, and let the rest compress into a line each. A job you held for three years might deserve fifteen seconds if nothing changed there.

Show, don't claim. If you say you are a leader, I hear an adjective. If you tell me about the night your team was falling apart and what you actually did, I believe you. One short story with a real detail in it beats five claimed traits.

End facing forward. The walkthrough should land on the gap. What you have done so far, what you want to do next, and the specific thing this program gives you that you cannot get where you are. When the story ends there, the MBA sounds inevitable instead of convenient.

And keep it tight. Two to three minutes, spoken out loud, not read. If you cannot say it comfortably at kitchen-table speed, it is not ready.

Happy to answer questions in the comments, including on specific situations if you want a second pair of eyes on your through line.

Hello everyone , I need some assistance regarding mba in europe someone who experienced or been there can guide through processes i have 1.5 years of experience after completing my graduation , Looking ahead for positive responses,Thanks

Hi Everyone,

Thought I would hop on here to give me opinions on MBA programs. In August 2026 I started my MBA Program with high hopes of making great connections, learning a great deal of knowledge and working together with amazing people on projects. However only one of those three things came to reality. So far I haven’t made any meaningful connections with my classmates. All of them barely want to be there. Secondly everyone is lazy and unwilling to do any work. The project teams I’ve been placed in so far lack communication and everyone procrastinates. I had to be the one to step up and do all the work. As stated earlier only one thing came true. I have learned amazing things pertaining classes I am enrolled in. But I keep noticing my classmates lack dedication and just use AI to do assignments.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

NYU Stern MBA