Amritha E. — Tepper School of Business, US: case study

Amritha came to UnivAdmitHelp with a background in chemical engineering and experience at Shell PLC. She held a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Chemical Engineering.

At Shell, she worked across several countries. She led a team for the decarbonisation roadmap. She also evaluated technologies, worked on investment decisions and managed projects involving teams across countries.

Outside work, she supported environmental initiatives and mentoring programmes. She wanted to pursue an MBA to move from engineering and technology evaluation into business strategy and climate-focused investment.

Amritha had worked on projects involving engineering, cost reduction, decarbonisation and investment evaluation. She had also led teams and worked with people across functions and countries.

However, her MBA application needed to explain why she wanted to move beyond engineering into consulting and investment.

The challenge was to connect her work at Shell with her interest in climate change and her career goals. Her application could not become a list of projects, savings and technical achievements.

She also had experiences outside work involving waste management which needed to fit into her story without making the application lose focus.

We needed to show how her experiences had shaped her understanding of leadership, business decisions and the role of investment in addressing climate change.

We began by examining Amritha's projects, career decisions and experiences outside work. Through storyboarding discussions, she and her UAH mentor explored what had shaped her interest in climate action.

One story came from her decarbonisation work at Shell. We used this experience to show how she brought people together and connected engineering decisions with business goals.

Another story came from her work on project costing. This became an example of how she responded to feedback and changed her approach to teamwork.

Amritha and her mentor worked through multiple essay drafts. Multiple story lines based on each school's questions were developed. Her essays connected her engineering experience, interest in climate change and goal of working in sustainability consulting before moving into impact investment.

For her recommendation letters, we helped identify examples her managers could discuss. The focus was on evidence from their experience of working with her.

Our support also covered MBA shortlisting, application planning and interview preparation. Post-admission guidance focused on comparing university offers against her career goals, programme strengths and opportunities in sustainability.

Amritha secured admission to the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University for the MBA Class of 2026.

Her application connected her engineering experience at Shell with her interest in climate change and business strategy. Her essays showed how she had progressed from solving engineering problems to evaluating technologies, investment decisions and decarbonisation plans.

Her recommendation letters supported this narrative through examples of leadership, teamwork and growth through feedback.