This BITS Pilani graduate got a Ph.D. scholarship worth over $350,000 from INSEAD

"All progress takes place outside the comfort zone." - Michael John Bobak. The academic journey of Pulkit Yadav is a perfect example of success coming with sacrifice. From the small town Alwar in Rajasthan to one of the best business schools in the world, Pulkit has indeed come a long way in achieving his doctoral ambitions.

The Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship

While pursuing computer science engineering from BITS Pilani, Pulkit got exposed to the strong culture of entrepreneurship. He got himself enrolled in an incubator and participated in various hackathons to understand the nuances of ideas and innovation. He was intrigued about a career in the field of research as he was born in a family of academicians. Hence, to meet his entrepreneurship curiosity, he decided to do a Ph.D. in entrepreneurship.

Rise against challenges

Pulkit was unsure about the existence of Ph.D. in the domain of entrepreneurship, so he started looking for Ph.D. in strategy. After skimming through the profiles of different colleges, he realised there is no provision for engineers to get into Ph.D. directly in the field of strategy.

Hence, to get a Ph.D. in the desired domain, he decided to take a graduate course in Management. A Masters in Management degree (MiM) seemed the best option to him. But unfortunately, his target schools INSEAD and Wharton did not offer MiM degrees.

Getting a decent 700 score on GMAT, he started targeting the top 8 colleges from the FT rankings. Out of 8, he shortlisted three 3 Parisian Schools (HEC, ESSEC, ESCP) as they were said to be equivalent to IIM A, B, C in France. He opted for ESSEC over other French schools despite being given no scholarship by ESSEC. And there he started giving wings to his Ph.D. plans.

Giving wings to his dreams

From 2019, he directed his efforts in getting admission to a Ph.D. program. With the help of his professors and rankings published by Naveen Jindal School of Business, Pulkit sorted out the top 20 colleges for Ph.D. in strategy. Seeing the 1% acceptance rate and stringent eligibility requirements for Ph.D. programs, he pulled up his socks to put his best foot forward.

A well-planned preparation strategy was the need of the hour. First, to have more conceptual clarity of his domain, he started reading research papers. Second, he got admitted to Fuqua School of Business to take courses in Private Equity (PE) / Venture Capital (VC) and innovation to develop the necessary skill set required to pursue a Ph.D. in entrepreneurship. Hence, with all this preparation, he scored 740 on GMAT to start his marathon towards admission. He cold emailed many professors and got no positive response. Luckily one professor from INSEAD directed him towards his research in entrepreneurship and played a vital role in his journey.

It was Pulkit’s incredibly hard work that made him get an admission offer from INSEAD, with a token of a fully-funded Ph.D. scholarship worth over $350,000 covering 100% of the tuition fee – 60,000 euros per year (for the first 2 years) and 5,000 Annual Dissertation Fees (from 3rd to 5th year).

Additionally, it also included a net stipend of 32,000 euros per year for 5 years. Getting this admission plus scholarship offer from his first choice business school made all his efforts paid off.

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