116
Finance
Banking-Inv.
Scholarship
UCLA-Anderson
MBA
The key to persevering through a long and grueling journey was the calm and level-headed advice I received.
After approximately two years of preparation, I was able to gain admission to UCLA Anderson with a scholarship as a self-funded applicant. The two-year application journey felt truly long and endless at times, but I strongly feel that it was only thanks to Mr. Round that I was able to see it through.
I began seriously considering MBA study abroad in the fall of 2012, and started preparing in earnest for the TOEFL and GMAT at the beginning of 2013. By around the fall of 2013, my TOEFL score had reached an acceptable level, but my GMAT score stalled at 650. From that point on, I faced the extremely difficult challenge of having to balance essay writing with continued GMAT preparation.
As many others have written, it is in situations like this that Mr. Round’s support becomes truly invaluable. He managed my time carefully, had a clear grasp of which essays should be written in what order, and understood how to complete essays for all target schools while minimizing wasted effort. Thanks to this, I was able to juggle GMAT retakes while writing essays for five schools, and ultimately complete most of the essay work.
However, in the end, I was unable to raise my GMAT score to my target level in 2013. After much agonizing, and based on Mr. Round’s calm advice as well as the disadvantages of becoming a reapplicant, I decided to postpone my MBA application by one year. This decision was extremely painful, but Mr. Round’s words—“Let’s work hard together for another year. Happy to help you again.”—were incredibly reassuring. With that encouragement, I decided to continue studying by enrolling in a different GMAT prep school.
In 2014, I made a major career change, moving from a foreign investment bank to helping launch a biotech startup. Since my motivation for pursuing an MBA was rooted in taking on a startup challenge, I saw this as simply bringing that step forward. I am currently continuing to explore industry–academia collaboration business models together with university researchers. At UCLA, I hope to further accelerate the growth of this initiative, and I feel extremely fortunate to have been admitted to a West Coast school where many biotech venture investors are active. I also believe that having my own startup project will allow me to engage in coursework with a stronger sense of ownership and relevance.
This, I believe, highlights another major strength of Mr. Round: his ability to deeply understand each applicant. My career change was complex and not easy to present compellingly in essays or interviews. However, through repeated rounds of essay revision and interview training, the narrative became increasingly refined, and ultimately evolved into a point that I could proactively highlight as a strength. The value of advice grounded in a genuine understanding of what I was trying to communicate—rather than surface-level feedback—was immense.
With the weak yen and the limited proportion of self-funded students at many schools, the environment surrounding self-funded applicants is undeniably harsh. Score improvement is important, of course, but even more challenging is how to communicate one’s personal story effectively. In such moments, having someone like Mr. Round—whom you can trust wholeheartedly—close at hand becomes an enormous source of emotional support, while also enabling dramatic efficiency gains in practical work. Including the successful acquisition of a scholarship, I truly feel that choosing Round One was the right decision.
