Nikhil Bhonsle's story is nothing short of phenomenal success! He started working on his applications with Faith Career's Co-Founder & study abroad expert, Tanmay Singh, in February 2022. In a matter of few months, he received multiple offer letters and 25% scholarship from two schools without a GMAT score (even after applying in the last round of admissions).
Hi Nikhil! Many congratulations for getting selected for Lancaster University's MBA program! Thanks for joining us today to share your experience! We would love to learn more about your journey.
#1. To begin with, let’s talk about why you selected Lancaster’s MBA program. What motivated you to choose that program over other programs available in the UK?
Lancaster University Management School (LUMS) ranks 76th in FT MBA Ranking and it ranks 1st in the world for its Corporate Strategy course. LUMS MBA program comprises courses like ‘Digital Innovation in Business’ and ‘Managing Strategic Change’ which were of my primary interests because my career goals are aligned with these courses. With such intensive research in strategy, this school seemed to be the perfect choice to pursue an MBA degree in order to transform my career from being a Construction Manager to becoming a Business Development Manager. Frankly, all the programs that I had applied to have courses related to digital innovation, business intelligence, and strategy but this program is unique in its structure because it employs a strong research-based approach to teach Strategic Management.
Further, I have selected UK over the other countries because of the following reasons:
Many good universities in the UK accept MBA applications without a GMAT score.
UK B-Schools have global recognition and their alumni are present all across the globe.
2-years work permit after the program completion.
No language barrier for finding a job post-MBA.
UK has 1-year MBA programs unlike the USA (I have work experience of more than 9 years and wanted to quickly obtain my degree).
Opportunities for skilled workers in the UK are increasing due to Brexit.
#2. How was your application journey with your MBA coach, Tanmay Singh? How did he help you?
I can confidently say that Tanmay is the reason why I could receive offer letters in a short span of time from 5 out of 7 schools that I applied to. I approached him in the last week of January 2022 and since the very beginning, Tanmay encouraged me to apply to universities as soon as possible. I signed up to work with him in the first week of February. Once I did, we started working on my applications in the same week. Being an international student, I was aware that I would be applying in the last round of applications but I took the leap of faith.
With such paucity of time, Tanmay immediately started my IELTS (Academic) coaching. We simultaneously worked on my admission essays and all this while, I was working full-time as a construction manager. Tanmay’s training got me 7.5/9 in IELTS test with an impressive 8 in the Speaking Section. His constant follow-ups for submitting the initial drafts of my essays, his brainstorming sessions for writing the relevant content, his resourcefulness to support me with any kind of details required, his efficiency in managing his time with me and getting the work done by me proved to be fruitful when I started getting calls for interviews from the various schools that I applied to.
He ensured that my mock interviews were as close to the real interviews as possible by doing his own research about each school and its program. Finally, I would like to emphasize the fact that I could get offers from 5 schools within 4 months of starting to work on my applications only by working with Tanmay.
#3. What interview questions did the admissions committee ask you and what were your responses to them? Please highlight a few important ones for our readers & talk to us about them in brief.
Each school had its own way of interviewing an MBA candidate. Few of the most commonly asked questions were :
What made you select this school over others?
Why do you want to pursue an MBA at this point in your career?
What are your long term goals ? Where do you see yourself after a decade?
What sort of immediate opportunities are you looking for after completing your MBA?
How will this program help you achieve your short-term goals?
Other than this school, which other schools did you apply to? Why?
Why do you want to study in the UK?
What will you bring to the class? Why should we offer you a place? Why should we select you? What qualities make you different from the others?
Tell me something about yourself, other than what you do at work. Who is Nikhil as a person? What does Nikhil do for leisure?
What do you expect from the program?
Describe yourself in three words.
A few questions that were different from the above questions and were based either on my application, the program, or my personal/professional experience are written below:
Why do you want to pursue an MBA after 9 years of experience in the construction industry?
What challenges have you faced in your career with respect to team management?
As people report to you, did you face any conflicts while evaluating their work or assessing their performance?
What are some examples of good team management?
What is the biggest challenge that you have faced at work till date? How did you overcome it? Elaborate in detail with the complete context of the challenge.
Which of the courses in our program piqued your interest? Why?
Was there a situation where you had to resolve a critical conflict between you and your colleagues or your stakeholders? How did you approach and what did you do to resolve that conflict?
What are some things that you would change in your current company? Both in managerial and technical aspects.
What’s your image in the subordinate’s mind? What do your colleagues think about you?
What according to you are important skills to become a good leader? What skills do you have as a leader?
Did you ever work with a senior who was an incompetent manager? How did you work with him/her? Did you have to change your style or approach towards work?
What sort of action would you take if there is something unethical happening under your nose? How would you deal with the situation?
Describe a situation at work where you had to do something even though you did not want to. How did you manage that?
In your experience, what was a situation that you could not handle well or realized at a later stage that you could have handled it in a better way?
Give me three examples of poor management. Explain with examples from your experience.
What are the three things that come to your mind which have changed the way businesses work?
#4. If a Lancaster MBA aspirant walked up to ask for your advice and you only had a few minutes to give them your best tip, what would it be? Why would you specifically give this tip?
A distinct feature that is included in the application process of Lancaster MBA is that the candidate is asked to send video recorded answers for a few questions. This doesn’t happen during the submission of the application but at a later stage after the candidate’s profile is evaluated based on the application submitted. So, it is technically a part of their interview process.
The admissions committee analyses these video responses carefully and decides if the candidate is worth conducting a main interview. As this entire process is lengthy and time-consuming, and taking into account the ranking of the school due to which the number of applicants keeps increasing year after year, I would suggest aspirants to start their application process as early as they can so as to have ample amount of time to obtain their UK study visa after the offer is made.
Thank you for your valuable inputs, Nikhil! I'm sure our readers would greatly benefit
from them. All the best for your MBA program!
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