Background

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When Peeyush first reached out, he was a Senior Product Manager at MoEngage leading major product lines and managing teams as one of the youngest people managers in the organization. His background included product and analytics experience across companies like Walmart Global Tech, Condé Nast, and MoEngage.

On paper, the profile was already strong. However, like many technically accomplished applicants, his story was becoming buried beneath metrics, product launches, and operational detail. At the same time, he wanted to apply to top MBA programs without a GMAT or GRE score, which made the application strategy significantly more nuanced.

The Core Challenge

The primary challenge was not lack of achievement. It was positioning.

A large part of Peeyush’s profile initially read like a highly competent technical resume rather than the story of a future leader. There was strong execution, but insufficient insight into his motivations, leadership philosophy, and long-term direction.

The second challenge was the standardized testing gap. Applying to highly competitive MBA programs without a GMAT or GRE score meant the rest of the application needed to demonstrate exceptional academic and analytical credibility.

The Strategic Positioning

One of our earliest priorities was to identify the deeper theme connecting his experiences. Through multiple conversations, a consistent philosophy began emerging around what Peeyush described as Techno-Humanism: the belief that as AI and automation increasingly shape industries, effective leadership will depend just as much on empathy, trust, and human judgment.

From there, we focused on grounding this idea in lived experience rather than abstract positioning.

A particularly important part of the narrative came from his time during the pandemic in his hometown near the Indo-Nepal border. Seeing the limitations in access, infrastructure, and opportunity shifted the way he thought about impact and long-term contribution. His involvement in teaching Yoga and supporting the education of local children added an important personal dimension to the application and helped present him not simply as a strong product manager, but as someone with a broader leadership perspective and sense of ownership.

The Test Waiver Strategy

Instead of treating the absence of a GMAT score as a weakness to defend, we focused on demonstrating evidence of sustained analytical rigor through his career and academic choices.

His Post Graduate Certification in Data Science from UT Austin, where he maintained a 3.6 GPA, became an important part of that argument. Combined with the complexity and scale of his work across companies like Condé Nast and MoEngage, the application was positioned in a way that showed he could comfortably handle the academic demands of a top MBA program without standardized testing.

The Outcome

Peeyush secured admits to both the Cornell Tech MBA and Carnegie Mellon Tepper. Cornell also awarded him a USD $35,000 scholarship in recognition of the strength and potential of his profile.

Key Takeaway

Strong applicants are often far more compelling than the bullet points on their resumes suggest. The challenge is building an application that reflects not only competence, but also clarity, depth, and direction.

In highly competitive MBA admissions, thoughtful positioning and honest storytelling can sometimes matter just as much as conventional profile metrics.