MBA Funding: QS Community Scholarship Winner

Kunal Guha speaks with TopMBA.com about his experiences of doing his MBA at the Cranfield School of Business, and winning the QS Community Scholarship.

The MBA is highly regarded in India, so when Guha first began searching for an international business school in which to study at, he wanted a good one!

With a GMAT score of 730, he was in a strong position to be able to apply for most of the world’s top business schools – so apply he did to Ross Michigan, UCLA Anderson, Cornell Johnson, Columbia Business School, UC Irvine, University of Chicago in the US, XLRI Jamshedpur in India, plus Cambridge Judge and Cranfield in the UK.

Business school criteria

“My main criteria for schools were their reputation in my home country, as I intend to return there someday, and a focus on entrepreneurship within the program. Another criterion was the availability of financial aid and loans to pay for the MBA. I only applied to programs that had an MBA loan program in place that would lend to international students without requiring collateral or a UK/US co-signer.”

Guha was accepted to Cambridge Judge, Cranfield (with a 50% tuition bursary), UC Irvine (with a large scholarship) and XLRI Jamshedpur. He was also waitlisted at UCLA Anderson and Ross Michigan.

“I decided to attend Cambridge as I was impressed with the school and calibre of students when I visited the campus for an interview day. The fact that it was a one-year program with a strong focus on entrepreneurship also helped.”

Guha also felt that the UK was friendlier in terms of immigration, in case he decided to work in the UK after graduating. At the time of his application, the UK had an immigration law that allowed anyone with a top 50 MBA degree to get a Highly Skilled Migrant Permit. However, this has since been repealed.

“The admissions process is highly competitive, but I do believe that I ended up in the best school for me,” Guha says.

Funding an MBA

Cambridge Judge Business School has a loan program with HSBC in the UK. This allowed Guha to fund his MBA with several scholarships from his home country, including The Cambridge Society of Bombay scholarship, the RD Sethna Trust scholarship, Sir Ratan Tata Trust grant and the Tata Chemical Golden Jubilee foundation grant. He was also the recipient of a US$2,000 QS Community Scholarship.

Prior to his MBA, Guha worked for five years in the education industry. He’d progressed rapidly in his career as an educator but felt he lacked the general management orientation necessary for a career as an entrepreneur.

Leadership and management skills

“The MBA program was the ideal training ground for me to gain an in-depth understanding of business fundamentals and confidence in business areas that I had limited exposure to,” he says. “I felt that an MBA would develop my leadership and management skills to effectively lead an organization.”

Guha says a successful MBA student needs to find the best combination of careers, academics and extracurricular activities. “In Cambridge, given the sheer number of things that there is to do, it is easy to get lost. Although the academics can be particularly rigorous, there is enough time to play the odd game of golf or cricket.”

He believes the MBA has helped him to develop a strong general management perspective – just what he needs to achieve his goals of becoming an entrepreneur in the education industry. “My internship in venture capital has also helped me understand start-ups from both the entrepreneur’s, and funder’s perspective. The MBA has been an amazing learning experience that has helped me grow both personally and professionally.”

Guha recommends future MBA candidates read a textbook on finance and accounting before enrolling in the course. “That way you can keep up with the accountants,” he says. “Once you get the hang of accounts it’s not a big deal, and investment bankers are normal people too!”

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