In this episode we sit down with Sonal Chopra (GSB '26). Sonal studied engineering at Delhi College of Engineering, then joined BCG as one of the first and youngest members of its big data engineering team in India. She spent several years at Procter & Gamble, first in a president's office role she worked through COVID and later back in India running analytics and insight alongside the country CEO, before interning at LVMH on the Digital Innovation team in the Fashion Group.
Sonal walks through why she held off on an MBA, what changed four to five years into her career, and how she interviewed seven or eight consultants before carefully picking one on track record and reference checks. She breaks down the GRE attempt that went sideways, the Michigan Ross application she wrote in a single day, and getting waitlisted. Her takeaway is that intentionality is what separates applicants, and it starts with writing your own story down.
I feel there's so many different ways to start. I think first is just getting the clarity. I think you should have a reason for doing your MBA.
Hello and welcome back to How Did You Get In? We are so excited today to get to introduce you to Sonal. Sonal is currently a second year at Stanford GSB, but by way of background, I want to share a little bit about her. She graduated from the Delhi College of Engineering with a bachelor in technology, and her background spans a couple of really interesting, relevant industries for people who are listening.
She spent time at BCG as a big data engineer, spent multiple years at Procter & Gamble, and most recently did a summer internship at LVMH in the Fashion Group Digital Innovation team. We are so excited to hear about your journey and your path. Your background is so impressive. Thank you for being here, Sonal.
Thank you so much, Julia, for having me. Absolutely thrilled to be here and to be speaking to you. About me, I did my engineering from Delhi College of Engineering. While I was doing the engineering, I loved coding, but I was always very interested in business and I wanted to do more with the degree. That is where BCG came in the picture.
At that time they were hiring for this position which is called the Big Data Engineer, and I joined as one of the first seven members in the team back in India. I was also the youngest member. I was very fortunate to be surrounded by such smart people, and I got to work on a lot of different projects. That was my first foray into retail as an industry. The second was a retail airline client, and the third one was a retail chain in the US.
I did a lot of different things with them, these three clients. Then I wanted to go deep into it, and that's where Procter & Gamble came in. I joined the team, joined in the president's office role, and got to work on a lot of high level strategy questions with the president himself. It was a lot of top-down thinking, something that I adapted from that role. An amazing experience again, and I got to learn a lot about the visibility.
But I wanted to go deeper again, because I wanted to focus on one market at that point, and that's when I got promoted and shifted back to India. I got into a very similar role of working with the CEO of India at that time. The position was called analytics and insight, and I joined as a senior manager. I did a lot of technical transformation. I did that before coming to the GSB. I knew I had so much more to learn.
I wanted to get into a business school, but I wanted to get into the best one. I'm very fortunate to say that I got into the best one, but it was a journey, because coming to the GSB, or coming to a school that is outside India, meant uprooting my life that I had built over the past five years back there.
Where were you located during this time?
My first role at PNG was based out of Singapore, but it was COVID, so I used to travel to Singapore but was never fully based there. Once COVID got over around 2022, that is when I also got promoted, and that role was back in India. So for two years, I was in India before the GSB. And BCG was a lot of travel, so it meant different cases, and you're always traveling to different places. But predominantly you can think of it as India.
Did most of the more senior people you worked with have MBAs? Was that part of your inspiration?
Actually not, if I'm being very honest. Because you do a technical degree back in India, there are two or three paths that you can take. A lot of my peers at that time started doing MBAs right out of school, because that's a very common practice. Doing it from the best schools back in India, you can just do it right after you graduate, so you don't need any work experience. At that point, I knew that I was not ready for an MBA.
I really wanted to work and get some experience, and I didn't want to make that choice only because my peers were doing it. Also, the average age at those schools is 24, 25. It's pretty young, because people just do it, and then they are qualified for a way better job than they otherwise would be. But if you want to get into business roles, they need an extra degree for you to get there.
Luckily for me, I got into BCG, and I was the only person from my college to get into that team. So I got a lot of exposure to international clients, because we did not have the practice set up back in India. It was so new that all of the projects were BCG global. They were being passed on by BCG global to the big data engineering team throughout the world, and that's why I got to work a lot with these international clients.
When I joined P&G, P&G generally hires people post MBA. Literally when I opened the job qualification page, the job description page, I was like, I don't have an MBA. But let me just apply. So I just applied, it was COVID, got a call back, and I was like, okay, and then suddenly I was working in a very similar position as all of these MBAs. I got to learn and see a lot from them and with them, is what I'll say.
Just seeing the way that they could think about problems, even though it was academically, they still had that knowledge to think about problems, while I had to sit with them, I had to learn from somebody, which is also good, my own way of doing it. But that was my first thought that, okay, the degree might teach me a lot of other things that I might just not be exposed to.
Was that when you really started to think, hey, it might be time?
I started thinking about it when you are four to five years into a job. I was starting to feel like, okay, what next? Until that point, it was all about getting opportunities and taking it to the next level, because it was still the early career. I remember talking to one of my seniors, and I think that is when we started thinking about what next. I was like, I don't know if I want to grow in that role.
I knew people in my office where that was their path and I could see it. But for myself, I always felt like there's so much more that I wanted to learn at a way faster pace. I wanted more learning, to understand what's out there in the world. If I wanted to shift to roles that are very exciting to me back in India, they needed an MBA.
That's when I started thinking about these M7 MBAs, talking to my seniors from back in college who were in the US doing a degree which is very similar. So having those conversations kept giving me clarity.
Once you knew it was time to start and you'd gotten your direction, how did you start? What were your first steps?
It's such a confusing process. I do understand why people do struggle with it, because I feel there's so many different ways to start. I think first is just getting the clarity. I think you should have a reason for doing your MBA. Why do you want to do an MBA? Because I felt that until I had that, I wouldn't be putting any effort into pursuing it if I don't have a goal. So for me, a lot of it went into just discussing with consultants.
A lot of these consultants that people take help from to get into these schools, who help you with your essays, help you with all of these different things, they'll tell you a lot about what are the schools that you should target, what should be the score that you should be getting, when should you start doing all of this. So I started doing that. I started speaking to them. I was like, okay, this is my experience, what should I be doing? What is the score?
Getting a lot of knowledge from people who've done it. But you have to be very selective with the people, because everybody will have an opinion. Everybody has an opinion. But is that the right advice for you is the most important thing. So I had made a shortlist of the consultants that I might want to work with. I had seven to eight names in it. Then I had the initial calls with all of these consultants trying to understand.
These were the consultants who I knew had sent people to the schools that I wanted to target. Then the second step, generally you start if you're applying thinking of round one, which is back in September. So you need at least two to three months to write the essays. And before that, you need to give your GRE, the basic requirements that these applications need, the most basic being giving your GRE or GMAT.
I'm sure if you've really prepped, for most of the people everything should go the way that they've thought about it. But I had some personal emergency during that time, the first time that I was giving my GRE, so I couldn't get the score that I wanted. And then I did not have the time to write the essays to submit my round one. So I had to make the call whether I give the GRE or whether I write the essays.
This is something that I'd 100% recommend, get the time right. Just make a calendar, get your timeline right, this is when you need to start prepping, this is when you need to start applying. I gave my first attempt around July. I did not get the score that I wanted, and then I had very less time, I just had a month. So I applied to one school which, even if I would have gotten in, I wouldn't have gone there. It was Ross, Michigan Ross. I think I got waitlisted.
I don't even think I would have gotten the acceptance at that time, because the score was not the best score to get into the M7s. I can talk about it, it was a 324 or a 325, I think 325.
Which is a solid score, but I think you're right. If you're gonna spend this much time and you wanna go to a top school, you need a top score.
Yeah, and in all fairness, I did not spend more than a day on that application. So it was also not like I had put in a lot of effort. It was more that I wanted to warm up with the process and understand how this entire application even looks.
How did you pick the consultant that you went with?
For me, as I talked about a little, that professionalism and having some kind of expertise is very important. For me, the two things are, I wanted the person to take their job very seriously, and they should have some track record of sending people like me into these schools. I also got a reference check from two of my friends who had worked with her.
That was a really big tick for me, that one of my really good friends got into Columbia Business School and the other one got into MIT Sloan, and both worked with her. So they gave a really good reference of her to me. I also had this first-hand experience from my friends who had worked with her. So those are the three things that I really focused on in working with the consultant.
When you were working with a consultant, how did they help you shape your narrative, and what did you land on as your MBA why?
I think it's a very interesting question. It's a process. I feel consulting, or writing an MBA application, is a journey, is how I describe it. And you learn so much about yourself, as much as the consultant does and as much as you're prepping for getting into these MBA schools. Because you've not really gotten any time to pause before that and think about your career. I really feel so. For me personally, it was that way.
Coming from India, there's a very highly competitive environment where you always want to keep growing. You always want to see what's next. You've not really seen what you've accomplished, or what are the choices that you made, why did you make those choices. So it was a lot of introspection that went into that. I can just talk about the process. My consultant and I sat down, and she literally gave me an Excel file, and it was as simple as just an Excel.
She was like, just write everything that you've done till date, everything, right from your school to your work experiences. Just write about the biggest stories that you think have impacted you as a person. That was actually the first time in my adult life that I've done anything like that. All of it was just like, okay, what next? And that's when you write this entire story, book, and then you figure out what is the common theme.
You've written out all of these experiences, what is being repeated, what is it? And that's when you pick up the themes. What people get wrong, and I've actually spoken about this with people who are coming from my school, either my juniors or people who are applying to these schools, is people pick up a theme first. Okay, what would Stanford want to read about, or what would HBS want to read about? And then they try to fit in their life story in these themes.
But for me, and I genuinely feel this is what has worked and it is the advice that I give, write your story first, and then you automatically get a theme and it'll beautifully just come together. And for me, it was all about empathy. I do feel that not a lot of people talk about empathy and leadership.
Empathy for me has played a really big role in understanding people and understanding the boardrooms, understanding the leadership, understanding the nuances of why people do the things that they want to do, and what are their motivations, and how can I influence them using that. So for me that was very important to write about, along with other things.
What you've shared is a really interesting approach. You're actually not the first person who we've talked to who has said, I basically wrote a book. I wrote my life story. So you're not crazy. I think that's really good advice. People do self introspection in many different ways. I, similar to you, like to write it all down and then be able to see the patterns. I think that if you're stuck somewhere, this is a great place to start.
And so now I'm curious how you feel. Had you not gotten into any of the top schools, you would have been disappointed. But I bet you would have felt like that experience, or your reflections, still would have had a ton of value.
I agree, yeah, for sure. I think while going through this experience I also started thinking about it, because you're always thinking and you're trying to optimize for the best outcome. If you get in or if you don't get in, you still want the best outcome for you and for your life.
Your second year, what has surprised you about your experience at Stanford so far?
I genuinely feel the magic of Stanford is its people, and I have experienced that. I feel Stanford puts in a lot of effort. Even when I was interviewing, there are some characteristics that they focus on a lot. When I was being interviewed, all of those nuances, I didn't even know the interview was really picking up, but they really focus on humility as one of the key characteristics of anybody who gets into the school.
And just learning from people from such diverse experiences who've done and accomplished so much, talking about all of that so humbly, it humbles you. It fills you with so much gratitude to be part of that class, because then there's just learning, and nobody is trying to bring each other down. And I won't say that people don't compete. Everybody competes. Everybody wants a good job. But I don't know, it's the ethos of the campus that the pie is really big.
And the focus is on you. It's so much on you that you design your own path.
You're coming to, not to the end yet, I don't wanna scare you, but now that you're getting closer, how has that vision of what you wanna do changed?
I think it has changed a lot. Coming in, I came in with a very open, okay, I'm going to an MBA, there's so many things and I want to explore. But maybe that is not the right way, and I think in the first quarter I did sit back with myself, okay, what am I really trying to do? Because you have to be intentional.
How we define it at Stanford is, there's a buffet of things that you could do, and you could fill your plate only with max five things you can put on your plate. So you have to be very intentional, and whatever you want, Stanford will give you, but you need to know what you want. Otherwise you will be lost, because there's so much that the campus and the university has to offer.
The second year is a lot of filtration of people getting into their own streams, a lot of intentionality, because now people understand that these are the final nine months for them to actually figure out what they have, build some kind of expertise or some kind of depth in the industry or in the function that they really want to go into.
Do you want to stay in retail?
For me the big decision was, do I want to completely pivot into something that I've not done, or do I want to play on my experience and my strengths and then build something on top of that? For me the second part gives me a lot more confidence, where I know that I come in with a set of skills, I come in with a set of experience, and I want to build on top of that.
Even though I have worked in the retail industry, I've worked mostly in the functions like the strategy function or tech functions, skills that are very transferable. I still want to stay closer to consumer. So I am between B2B and B2C, and I am tilting more towards finding a B2C kind of a role. So that was my first level of filtering. The second would be that I started thinking about what size of company do I want to work in now.
Is it a big company or an MNC, which I've always worked in, or do I want to work in a startup which is very young, where I want to build with the founders, or do I want to work in a very growth stage company, series B, series C onwards, where we know that the product market fit is achieved and now you're just getting in to really grow or scale the startup? But then you are in the middle of Silicon Valley. You are at Stanford, and AI is changing literally every day.
There's so many startups that come to campus to talk to MBAs, to do all of these fireside chats, to do all of these presentations. So we are exposed to that ecosystem where everybody and all of your peers are building something new every day. So I do feel that I want to be surrounded by that.
I want to be surrounded by that kind of innovation, because I do feel personally there's so much change that is happening and I want to be part of it and not an observer, especially if I've had the privilege to be on this campus. Also, something that has deep tech integrated into that, some kind of company. So I've given you a lot of these different levers. Now I'm trying to find companies that sit at all of these filters, and apply for those.
Is there something that we either didn't talk about, or a parting piece of advice that you'd give to people who are thinking about applying for their MBAs?
I think intentionality would just be my one word advice to anybody who's thinking of applying for your MBA. Clarity doesn't have to come on day one. It can come through conversations, it can come with sitting by yourselves, talking to people who are already doing their MBA. To just think about why you'd want to do it. Some people do it for the job, some people want to build a life outside the place that they're residing in. Some people want to do it to learn.
It's as simple as just learning and growing. I think just understanding what is the reason that you want to do an MBA, even before starting the application, will take you way farther than anything else, because that is where your conviction will start coming in, and that will help you keep being consistent with the process even when you don't feel motivated. And that helped me a lot.
The second thing is, just try showing that intentionality in your application as well. Stanford loves that, especially the GSB, and I know that's true for HBS or any of these bigger schools. They want to see the reason why you're applying and if you've thought about the reason.
And what I can say about this school is that because there are so many different essays and people write about stories, they just want to understand, what was your thinking behind the next process in your career? If I've done PNG after BCG, what was I thinking? Why did I do it? If I'm thinking of Stanford after PNG, why am I thinking of Stanford? If I did an NGO, there needs to be a solid why behind that.
So just being intentional of why did you take every next step in your career, and forming it like a theme and joining it through a thread, was very important. That's all.
Well, on that wonderful note on intentionality, we are so appreciative of your time. We are so grateful that you got to share your story, and I'm sure lots of people will find it very valuable. So thank you so much, Sonal.
Absolutely, Julia, thank you so much for having me. This is amazing. Hopefully, even if one person actually finds it helpful, that would be a big win for me.