UMN and Emory MSBA: How Tom Applied on His Own and Won $30,000

Updated 2026/10/16

Early in college, Tom felt lost because his courses and internships pointed in different directions. He worked hard in his later years and found a clear focus. With a 3.89/4.3 GPA across a double major (Economics plus Risk Management and Insurance), several data analytics projects and internship experience, he completed his applications on his own. He was admitted to top US and UK programs, including UMN’s MSBA with a $30,000 scholarship and Emory’s MSBA with a $20,000 scholarship.

In this interview, I walk through how Tom went from a scattered course and internship history to committing fully to business analytics and filling his gaps. Why did he apply on his own instead of hiring an admissions consultant? What exactly did he do for his SOP, his interview prep and his mindset? He also explains how he chose between UMN and Emory.

If you are considering a master’s in Business Analytics or another business master’s in the US or UK, or you are still planning your studies and career, Tom’s story is a practical reference. That holds whether you are unsure about your direction, debating whether to hire a consultant, or wondering how to make your business background stand out.

Tom’s background: (Tom’s LinkedIn)

National Chengchi University, Economics & Risk Management and Insurance (double major), GPA: 3.89/4.3

IELTS 7.5, GMAT 635 (Focus Edition)

Work Experience:

• CBES Group, E-Commerce Sales & Marketing Executive (cross-border e-commerce, managed accounts with US$5 million in annual revenue)
• Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute, Research Assistant (ICT industry research, wrote reports on Samsung and Transsion)

Academic / Project Experience:

• R for Data Science: crime prediction models on 3,000+ records (Logistic Regression, Decision Trees)
• Econometrics: empirical analysis of the drivers of Instagram follower growth
• Financial Data Analysis: portfolio backtesting on 47,000 stock price records
• Python for Business Analytics: a Taipei park & café recommendation system (web scraping, interactive map)

Other Experience:

• NCCU Data Analytics Club: analyzed 100,000 Kaggle hotel reviews, visualized them in Tableau, and placed second in a team competition
• NCCU Career Month: organized 30+ career events with 10,000+ student participants

Admissions:

• Enrolled: University of Minnesota, MSBA ($30,000 scholarship)
• Emory University, MSBA ($20,000 scholarship)

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The University of Minnesota MSBA program

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (UMN) is one of the oldest and largest public research universities in the American Midwest and a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance. Its MSBA (Master of Science in Business Analytics, official site) is offered by the Carlson School of Management. The school has long ranked near the top in US News business school rankings, and in the QS 2024 ranking the program placed 5th among business analytics master’s programs at US public universities.

The UMN MSBA is a 12-month, STEM-designated program with a tight schedule and 45 required credits. It covers Python, R, SQL, machine learning, statistical modeling and data visualization, applied to business decisions in marketing, supply chain and risk management. Every student takes part in the Enterprise Analytics Project, working directly with a company on real data. Because the program sits in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, students can work with Fortune 500 companies such as 3M, Target, UnitedHealth Group and Best Buy and build up hands-on experience.

Employment outcomes have been strong in recent years. 89% of graduates received a full-time offer within six months of graduation, and 87% accepted one. The average salary was $112,447, the median $115,000 and the highest $190,000, with a median signing bonus of $10,000. Graduates went mainly into finance (28%), technology (21%), retail (12%) and consulting (15%). Major employers include Amazon, Capital One, Target, Meta, McKinsey, Microsoft, JP Morgan Chase and Walmart, and common roles are Data Scientist, Business Analyst and Business Intelligence Engineer. With an intensive curriculum, close ties to Fortune 500 companies, a strong alumni network and good job results, the UMN MSBA is seen as one of the top business analytics master’s programs in the US. It suits students who want to build data skills quickly and move straight into industry.

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Motivation and direction: why an MSBA?

Your early coursework was scattered and you had little internship experience. When did you realize business analytics was your path?

Around the second half of my junior year and the start of my senior year. I was starting to feel anxious about my career, but between the double major and not planning much in my first couple of years (I slacked off), I didn’t have many internships.

Looking back over what I had done, I realized I had enjoyed my time in the data analytics club. So in senior year I tried taking more data science courses, such as econometrics and Data Analysis with R. After one semester I knew I was really interested in the field, and I decided to apply to related graduate programs.

Once the MSBA was your goal, what did you do to become more competitive (programming skills, projects, internships)?

I knew my weak spot was the lack of relevant internships, and my strengths were a decent GPA and projects from my data analytics courses. So during the extra semester I stayed in school, besides preparing for the GMAT, I took data structures and algorithms. That put the programming skills MSBA programs care about on my transcript, and I used the semester to push my overall GPA up a little more.

My thinking was that if I couldn’t build internship or work experience before applying, I should at least be more competitive academically.

Most business master’s programs care a lot about their graduates’ employment rate. If your academics don’t stand out but you have good work experience or side projects, you can use those to convince the admissions committee you’ll be competitive in the job market. I’d even say work experience is more persuasive than academics. Basically, if they think you’re very likely to land a good job, your chances of admission go up a lot.

Of all your internships, academic projects and club activities in college, which had the biggest effect on your application or your career direction?

Club activities. To be honest, I didn’t join clubs with my career or grad school in mind. I just wanted to explore. Looking back, those experiences all became good material for my application, and I’m glad I tried those things in college.

If I could do it again, though, I’d want to be more goal-driven, or at least plan how to build the experience I needed. Whether or not you apply abroad, that would save you a lot of unnecessary confusion about your career.

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Applying on your own: handling every step yourself

Did you consider an admissions consultant? Why did you end up applying on your own?

Early on, when I was only applying to UK schools, I did use a traditional agency. I was preparing for a language test while working full time, and I figured having someone gather information, handle the application systems and polish my documents would save a lot of time. I wasn’t very satisfied on any of those points, and I decided it wasn’t worth paying a lot for an agency. When I later added US schools, I did those applications myself and only had Jason help edit my documents.

Agencies do have more application experience than most people, and when you know nothing at the start they can give you a lot of information. But they usually don’t specialize in any one type of program. They understand the general picture, and different programs can’t be treated the same way. After going through it myself, I found that even for the same type of program, each school has different GPA requirements, language score requirements and even preferences for the kind of applicant they admit. Once you reach that stage, the agency doesn’t know much more than you do, and most of the work is researching schools yourself.

So later on, most of my information came from my own reading and from asking current students, and the agency didn’t add much. The application systems are also easy to use. They’re basically websites where you upload your materials. An agency can upload files for you, but since it’s your own application, it feels safer to do it yourself, so that didn’t help much either.

Then there’s document quality. My agency only had a native-speaking teacher translate and polish my writing, and with the agency in the middle, communication wasn’t smooth, so you can imagine the documents weren’t going to be great. For all these reasons I switched to applying on my own: I got information by reading online and talking with current students, and had Jason help with the documents.

What was the hardest part of applying on your own? What were the benefits? Any resources or tools you’d recommend?

I don’t think applying on your own is that scary. After you go through a few school websites, you quickly learn where to find each piece of information and how the systems work.

The hardest part is probably time management. The agency used to give me a deadline for each document, which kept my progress on track. On your own, you have to plan that yourself, and it gets demanding if you apply to several schools at once. Still, I think that’s something every applicant should manage anyway.

Doing it yourself is reassuring. You upload everything yourself and can double-check as many times as you want.

As for resources, I split the documents into two parts: content and editing. If you do everything yourself, then for what to write, besides experience posts online (Medium, Dcard, Xiaohongshu and so on) and school websites, I’d strongly recommend contacting current students on LinkedIn and asking them about the school. They can even suggest angles for your essays. For example, ask about activities only that school has, or what kind of applicants it prefers. If you mention those in your essays or later in an interview, it’s a plus, because it shows you did more homework than others and found information that isn’t online.

If you don’t hire anyone for editing, I’ve tried polishing my writing with GPT and checking grammar with Grammarly. With enough rounds you can probably produce decent essays. Personally, I’d still suggest getting a professional editor. You’ll spend less time on phrasing you’re unsure about, and an editor who can discuss your structure and content, and even help you connect your experiences into a storyline, will make the whole application much stronger.

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SOP and essay strategy: making a business background stand out

How did you show your interest in data analytics in your SOP and essays, and demonstrate your skills?

Like Jason says in another article, I think self-reflection is essential when writing an SOP. How you tell your experiences sometimes matters more than what experiences you have. Throughout the process you need to keep asking what your competitive advantage is, and then show it.

As I mentioned, none of my internships were in data analytics, so in my essays I used academics to show my passion for the field. For example, after I set the MSBA as my goal, I picked data analytics courses with projects whenever I could and worked to score above 90. Combined with my data analytics club experience, that gave me a logical, convincing story: the club got me interested in data analytics, so I took related courses and did well, and the high grades and project experience show my commitment to the field.

Another example: I transferred into economics in my first year from a department that had nothing to do with business. I could frame that as my passion for business driving the switch. My real reasons at the time didn’t match the story exactly. I went back over my experiences, reflected on them and made them as consistent as I could. That’s how you convince the admissions committee you really love the field.

Which course projects (Python, R, financial data analysis) do you think impressed schools most? Did you put them all in your CV and essays?

Among course projects, probably a class called Data Analysis with R. Besides R, it covered a lot of statistics and machine learning. The whole semester was packed: almost every class had group exercises, and the final project had us analyze a dataset with machine learning models. It was my first exposure to machine learning in college, so I wrote about that project several times in my essays.

I put the projects from all four data analytics courses I took later into my CV. They made up for my limited work experience and showed the admissions committee I had actually used these programming languages and statistical models.

Did you tailor your SOP for different schools (UMN, Emory, LBS)? How?

I tailored it a little, because each school has its own strengths and preferred applicants. Based on what I found and what current students told me, I adjusted the “why this school” part of each essay. For example, UMN is known for a rigorous curriculum, so I studied the course schedule and stressed the logic of how it’s structured. Emory has small classes and a close community, so I emphasized my teamwork. LBS puts a lot of weight on networking and alumni giving back, so I emphasized the value I could offer as a future alum.

If you dig deeper, you can also find which industries each school’s graduates go into and align your career plan with that. But tailoring is a small part. My core storyline and how I framed my experiences were about the same for every school.

What element can a good SOP not do without?

Turning your experiences into a unique story. The same numbers (GPA, TOEFL/IELTS, GMAT/GRE) can come with completely different stories, drawn from your coursework, extracurriculars, internships, full-time jobs and more. To write a good SOP you need to spend time reviewing your past, ideally discussing with a professional consultant or someone experienced how to connect it into a storyline. You can’t include everything, and the unique story that comes out of that thinking is what makes an SOP work.

How did you prepare all your application documents, including the CV, SOP and recommendation letters? Any tips?

I always start with a draft and then cut it down to the final version.

The CV came first. I listed all my experiences, figured out which of them used business, math or programming skills, and wrote those up as bullet points. Then I put my strengths (GPA, course grades) at the top. If your GPA in your last two semesters is especially high, point that out so the committee sees your progress. Don’t treat the CV and SOP as separate documents; it’s best if they reinforce each other. For example, if a school’s SOP word limit doesn’t let me cover my full leadership experience, the committee can still get the details from my CV.

For the SOP, as I said, I first worked out a story outline and then wrote the content following it. US schools usually ask for essays with specific prompts, but each prompt is really one section of an SOP (your career plan, why this school and so on). So I wrote one full SOP first, then pulled out and adapted the relevant parts for each essay question.

Ask your recommenders early! If you’re applying in Round 2, confirm over the summer whether your recommenders are willing and whether they need you to draft something for them. Recommenders are the biggest uncertainty among the three documents. If you don’t confirm early and find out too late that someone can’t write for you, it’s a real mess: at best you miss that round’s deadline, at worst you can’t find anyone and have to wait a year. Recommenders are busy, so make it as easy as possible for them. Keep the information you give them short and clear, and always be polite.

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Planning and choosing schools

What mattered most to you when choosing schools (curriculum, scholarships, career resources…)?

Two factors mattered most to me. The first was simply the total cost of tuition and living expenses. The second was the chance of getting a job locally after graduating. The first is straightforward. The second depends on many things: school ranking, program length, location, career services, alumni network, curriculum and more. Weighted together, those make up your chances of working locally, so I evaluated all of them when making my final list.

What was your MSBA school list, by tier (reach, match, safety)? Without an agency, how did you assess where you stood and estimate your chances?

My first list actually came from a free consultation at the GMAT cram school I attended. Based on my background, they gave me seven or eight schools. Later I consulted several agencies, and each of them gave me some suggestions too. With those in hand, I went online and looked at other applicants’ backgrounds and results to build a rough sense of each program’s admission bar. Then I narrowed the list based on what I found and my own preferences.

In the end I didn’t apply to any of my safety schools. I believed then, and still do, that if you’re going abroad for grad school, you should go somewhere you actually want to attend and can afford. So all six schools I applied to were dream schools (three) or reaches (three). The downside of that strategy showed in my results: I got into only two, and at the others I interviewed and was waitlisted.

One thing worth noting is that a school’s ranking and the quality of a program are two different things. Among MSBA programs, quite a few are highly ranked but criticized as easy and poor at placing graduates. If you care about what you’ll learn and the career support, do plenty of research on each school. Also, judging difficulty only by a school’s QS ranking can mislead you. Plenty of MSBA programs at lower-ranked universities are no easier to get into than those at famous ones.

Think carefully when choosing schools. The fastest way, I think, is to ask people who have applied in the same field.

How did you choose between UMN and Emory? Why UMN?

Both MSBA programs have pros and cons, and I liked both from the start, so I spent a lot of time reading up and doing coffee chats with current students. The deciding factor for UMN was cost: after scholarships it was about NT$600,000 cheaper.

Here’s a quick comparison based on what I found. UMN has a strong curriculum and is one of the oldest MSBA programs, so its alumni do well and its network reaches across many industries. Its downsides are location and length (only 12 months). Emory lets you study longer (you can choose 16 months), and Atlanta may have more job opportunities, but it costs more.

Both schools have had good placement in past years, close to 100%. But with the US job market so unstable over the last year or two, ROI is a sensible factor to consider. Since I had no strong preference and neither school had a decisive edge, I went with UMN.

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Interviews: where you show what you can do

Which schools interviewed you? What were the process and common questions like?

I applied to six MSBA programs (UMN, UT Austin, Emory, ICL, LBS (MAM), UCL). All except UT Austin gave me an interview.

In my case there were three formats: live interviews, Kira interviews and recorded videos.

• Live interview (LBS, Emory): a video call with an alum or an admissions officer, 30 minutes to an hour.
• Kira interview (ICL, UCL): the Kira system gives you questions, usually with limits on prep time and answer time, and you answer to the screen.
• Recorded video (UMN): the school sends questions and you record and upload your answers.

For me, difficulty went Kira ≥ live interview > recorded video. There are interview reports online for all of them, but Kira usually limits your prep and answer time. Sometimes you get only one minute to answer a full behavioral question or explain a technique, which really tests your speaking and how you structure answers. If you get stuck at some point, you may not finish, or you talk too fast and have lots of time left over. The time limit made me more nervous, so practicing beforehand was essential.

Interviews with alumni or admissions officers feel more like conversations. They still test how you structure your answers, but without a timer there’s less pressure.

With recorded videos, you can write a script first and record as many times as you like until you’re happy, so I found them the easiest of the three.

The questions fall into a few areas: why school, why you, why MSBA, behavioral questions (teamwork, failure/success experiences…), technical project experience, career plan

You’ll probably have rough answers already from writing your essays. In the interview you need to be specific and convince the committee you’ve really thought it through (questions like your career plan often get follow-ups). In my experience, after preparing for two schools’ interviews it gets much easier, because most questions are similar and you only need to adjust for each school.

One more thing: after every live interview I sent a thank-you note to the interviewer. I briefly mentioned what I’d found valuable in the conversation and wrapped it up, keeping it sincere, short and to the point. It won’t necessarily raise your chances, but it probably leaves a slightly better impression.

Did you get any especially tough questions? How did you handle them?

Most were covered in my practice, so apart from some follow-up questions, the live interviews held few surprises. Sometimes an interviewer follows up just to check that you’ve really thought about your answer, or to confirm your experience is real. If you thought things through while preparing, an unexpected follow-up isn’t a big deal. Just answer calmly.

ICL’s Kira always includes one off-the-wall question that has nothing to do with your application, like what tool you’d most need on a desert island, or what else a rope can be used for besides tying things. There are so many of these that interview reports can’t cover them all, so they really test how well you think on your feet. Before the interview I found this very hard and worried I’d get a question I couldn’t answer even in Chinese. ICL’s Kira also gives you only 5 seconds to prepare for each question, which makes it even more stressful.

My strategy was to write down my gut answer for whatever came up, then come up with two or three points to support it as I talked. That way my answer at least had a structure, and I could fill in the content as I went. I practiced with the same strategy. Luckily my question wasn’t too hard: it was my favorite dish, and I answered it smoothly this way.

How would you advise future applicants to prepare for behavioral questions and “Why this program”?

If you’ve interviewed for internships or have full-time work experience, behavioral questions won’t feel new. It’s the same stories in English. But English interviews (and probably Chinese ones too) care a lot about whether your answers follow the STAR method: the story has to be clear, and the interviewer has to be able to pick out the key points easily.

Plenty of people have shared how to prepare online. The usual advice is to prepare two or three stories that work for many questions. For example, I could use a project from my club to answer questions about technical project experience, conflict management and failure. You don’t need many stories, but try to include teamwork, leadership and cross-team communication. Then for each question you only need to adjust the details you highlight.

For “why this program,” besides reading every post I could find online (Medium has a lot of good ones) and the basics on school websites, I found many helpful current students and graduates on LinkedIn for coffee chats about their experience and interview tips. This was extremely useful. A lot of school information isn’t clear online, and what is there may be years old. Current students can give you inside information. If you casually mention in an interview that you’ve talked with alumni or current students, or bring up something insiders know (like activities unique to the school), it shows the committee you’ve done your homework and are really interested in the school. That definitely helps.

Focus your coffee chats on the schools you most want to get into. Two or three alumni per school is plenty. Afterward, pick out what genuinely attracts you and talk about it more in your interview answers. It’s best if you can tie it to your career goals, because that sounds more specific and goal-oriented.

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Advice for future applicants

What specific advice would you give to students who are unsure of their direction, or who want to apply on their own?

Studying abroad is an investment you need to plan ahead for. If you’re in your first or second year, keeping your GPA up and enjoying college matter more. (Of course, it’s never too early to start, and gathering information early makes things easier.)

I’d suggest starting to think about your direction in the summer after your second year. If you’re not sure yet, try internships, take courses that interest you and join different clubs to broaden your view. If you want to go abroad, you should know your direction at least a year and a half before you leave (about six months before application season), or at least know what kind of master’s you want (for example a broad Master in Management, MIM). I wouldn’t recommend still deciding what kind of degree to apply for once application season starts.

If you’re already in your third or fourth year and have decided to go abroad right after graduating, your time and room to change things are more limited. At that stage, the most effective things are getting internship experience, taking targeted courses, maintaining or strategically raising your GPA, and starting standardized test prep. If you have time to spare, take on leadership roles in organizations so the leadership section of your resume has something in it.

If you could leave applicants with just one reminder, what would it be?

Prepare early, then trust yourself and trust the process.

Applying takes more time than you’d expect. You can’t predict exactly how long it will take to hit your target GMAT/GRE or IELTS/TOEFL score, and writing and editing your documents takes even longer than you think. Starting early only helps. If I could, I’d have prepared for studying abroad even earlier and submitted in Round 1. Round 2 isn’t too late, but competition is likely tougher (by the end of the year almost everyone has their test scores), and if you’re lucky enough to get an offer in Round 1, you can prepare for Round 2 with less pressure and more freedom to plan and choose.

Once you’ve prepared, trust the process! It’s a cliché, but your mindset matters during applications. Instead of fixating on an admission result that’s highly uncertain, focus on whether you’ve done what you need to do, trust what you’ve built along the way, and don’t let the outcome define your effort.

There are so many variables in admissions, and schools’ bars aren’t absolute. (I met someone who applied to UMN and ICL like me. He got into ICL while I was waitlisted, but I got a scholarship from UMN and he was rejected outright.) Learning to focus on the process was one of the most valuable lessons of my application. I’m also confident the process will help you grow a lot. So if you’re applying now or waiting for results, try not to be too anxious. If you prepared well, your growth is real.

Now that you’ve started studying in the US, has anything surprised you? Is there anything you’d prepare, learn or avoid in advance?

You can definitely work on your speaking ahead of time. Practicing only for IELTS or TOEFL isn’t nearly enough.

I still feel my speaking and listening fall short. I can communicate fine, but when I express academic ideas I need time to put sentences together. I can’t go back and forth with professors as quickly as a native speaker, and in meetings I still can’t express my ideas as precisely as I’d like.

If you want to work in the US afterward, speaking is very important, and it takes time to build. It’s much easier if you prepare while you’re still in Taiwan.

There’s also a lot of pre-class reading and homework. That’s a bit different from Taiwan. In my experience, very few professors in college asked us to prepare before class. Here, before every class we have to watch the professor’s pre-recorded videos, read slides and code documentation, or even practice running the code. There’s a strong emphasis on active learning, and there’s no shortage of resources. Professors are also happy to discuss questions outside class. So far I’ve found the learning environment really good!

To compare the backgrounds and application approaches of more MSBA students, see What Is an MSBA? A Guide to Applying for a Master’s in Business Analytics, which collects the experiences of nine students.