Hi Reader,

This week on Gentle Power (GentlePowerPodcast.com), we had Surina Diddi on the podcast. Surina and Gerta are Wellesley classmates, and it turns out they also took a graduate class on negotiations together at MIT, which we learned a few minutes into recording.

Surina spent nearly a decade in finance: equity research, investment banking, then private equity in the renewable energy space. She understands long sales cycles, institutional bureaucracy, and the art of building relationships with the right people over time.

She brought all of that knowledge into one very specific negotiation: her MBA scholarship at University of Chicago Booth. She started with nothing, got a no, and ended up with $50,000.

Listen to the full episode here on YouTube | Spotify | Apple, and below are the ideas that stuck with us.
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1. Most people don't realize MBA scholarships are negotiable.

When Surina got her acceptance letters from Booth and Columbia business schools, there was no scholarship attached to either.

She started asking around. She did research on online communities. She even reached out to two MBA admissions consultants, whose advice was essentially: don't bother, you're coming from a finance background, you're older than the average applicant, your chances are low.

She's glad she ignored them.

The thing most people don't know is that schools like Booth have access to scholarship funds from a variety of donors (foundations, alumni, and institutional sources) each with their own criteria. The admissions office decides who gets allocated what. Which means there's a real person on the other side, with discretion, who you can have a conversation with.

2. Make the admissions officer's job as easy as possible.

Before her first call with the admissions officer, Surina researched the specific scholarship pools available at Booth. She didn't walk in and say, "I deserve more money." She came in knowing which scholarships she might qualify for and why.

Her goal was to make it easy for the admissions officer to go to her boss and say: here's who she is, here's the scholarship she fits, here's why we should fund her.

The Forte Foundation, for example, supports women in business who've demonstrated leadership and community involvement. Surina fit the criteria. She pitched herself for that pool specifically, plus one or two others. The 15-minute call went well. A few days later, she got an email that she was offered a $20K scholarship.

Surina was happy, but she wanted more.

3. She got a flat no. She refined her pitch and kept going.

After getting the $20K, she sent an email asking for more. No response for a while. Then a flat no.

Most people would stop there. Surina's reaction was: maybe I need to refine my pitch.

So she flew to Chicago for the admitted students weekend. While others were at the social events, she was on campus meeting faculty, students, and anyone connected to admissions. She worked every room she was in. Not in a pushy way, just showing up with genuine interest and intent.

She also talked to a few dozen admitted students about their scholarship situations. How much did they get? Did they negotiate? What worked, what didn't? In the MBA world, those conversations happen more openly than almost anywhere else. She collected a lot of data.

That's the part most people miss. She treated it like a research project before going back to the table.

4. Don't just pitch yourself. Bring leverage.

In her first email asking for more, Surina had made the case for why she was impressive. The problem, she realized in hindsight, is that everyone who gets into Booth is impressive. Being exceptional isn't a differentiator when everyone in the pool is exceptional.

What moved the needle wasn't her resume. It was her alternatives.

The job market in 2022 was strong, and she was getting several inbound recruiter messages. She took a few of those calls and went through a couple interview processes. Not necessarily because she planned to take those jobs, but because having real options changed the conversation.

On the day of the acceptance deadline, she went back to admissions and said: "I'm very torn. The job market is phenomenal right now. I'm close to getting an offer in exactly the space I want to work in post-MBA. I genuinely want Booth, but I'm conflicted."

The admissions officer extended the deadline by a week. Then she came back with an additional $30K.

Now the total was $50K. And she had started from zero.

5. Don't name a number.

Surina deliberately never asked for a specific dollar amount. She thought about it (should she say $100K, $150K?), but decided against it.

Her reasoning was that she didn't know what the school's scholarship budget was. She didn't know who else she was competing with. Naming a number when you don't have that information means you might anchor too low, or you might ask for something that shuts the conversation down entirely.

One classmate took the opposite approach: they played hardball, came across as arrogant, and got nothing.

We see this all the time with job seekers too. People anchor themselves with a number while operating in the blind. And you can’t truly know the other side’s cards anyway.

6. Vulnerability isn't a weakness in a negotiation.

Booth primarily offers merit-based scholarships; no financial need component. But Surina shared something real with the admissions officer anyway. She mentioned that she comes from an immigrant family, that this degree means a lot, and that the cost is genuinely a significant factor for her.

Was that relevant by the school's criteria? Technically, no. Did it matter? She thinks it did.

Surina's hot take: admissions officers are human. Making them want to advocate for you is ultimately more powerful than impressing them with a resume.

We'd extend that to job negotiations too. Saying something like "I'd love more cash over equity because I need liquidity for my family right now" lands differently than a generic ask. The human context, when offered genuinely and in the right setting, tends to move people. (This is one of those things, though, where the implementation is an art more than a science.)

7. Asking for it is half the battle, and most people skip that part.

Toward the end of the episode, Alex shared a friend’s story. The friend who really wanted a prestigious internal company award kept quietly asking her manager and skip-level about it. Not demanding, just expressing genuine interest and asking what it would take. She ended up getting the award. When she asked what tipped things in her favor, the VP told her, "You were the only one who asked for it."

Surina's story is similar. The money didn't come because she was the most qualified person in the pool. It came because she kept asking respectfully, persistently, and without the entitlement that kills these conversations.

Catch the full conversation with Surina and all our past episodes here: GentlePowerPodcast.com​

Best,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $250 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.