After another round of unprecedented success for my clients, including an over 80% interview invite rate at HBS, GSB, and Wharton for Round 1 (still waiting on admits), I wanted to share a few details on what we know is working in the application process at these top programs:
1) Show an Understanding of the Schools and MBA Programs You’re Targeting
Due to varying cultures, curriculums, perspectives on leadership, etc., every school and MBA program you plan on targeting values different skills and qualities in their MBA candidates. At Amerasia, we call this the DNA of a school. So, if you make the effort to understand and embrace the unique qualities of each program and allow those qualities to help shape your essays and application, you can begin to elevate your candidacy from being “qualified” to being “ideal.” Contact one of our Admissions Consultants for more detail on how to approach the individual DNAs of each school you’re interested in.
2) Reveal Your Emotional Intelligence by Picking the Right Goals
Admissions officers often want to know about who you are and what you value, not just what you’ve accomplished. Often the best way to do this is through the passion behind your career goals. When you think about a passion, it often stems from a person’s background and values. And a person’s background and values… well, that provides a pretty good window into who you are as a person.
So, you want to pick career goals that reveal who you are, what makes you tick, and shows your values. Here are a few quick tips on picking your MBA career goals:
Avoid something too boring (i.e. I want to get promoted over the years and become an executive – this is a waste of precious essay real estate as it says nothing about you and rather describes a generic path to prosperity).
Avoid something “ripped from the headlines” or otherwise pie-in-the-sky (another way to think about this to borrow from a legal concept that you can only argue “facts found in evidence” – don’t talk about a LT goal in social media or clean tech or something else “buzz worthy” unless you have existing passions and experiences that support those claims).
Instead, land on something interesting that comes from your own life. Nothing is better for an admissions officer than to truly learn about you through your long-term goals. Make sure that whatever you pick connects to who you are as a person.
Make sure that your ST goal will give you skills and/or perspectives necessary to reach this LT goal (otherwise, the bridge starts to break down).
Overall, your LT goals should connect to both your ST goals and your existing life in big, swooping arcs – it doesn’t have to be a tight line from one to the other, but it should make a big circle that reveals who you are through your passion when all is said and done.
3) Show How You Stepped Up as a Leader During the Pandemic
Many current applicants were in college or just starting their career during the COVID pandemic lockdowns. You can show increased leadership, initiative, and passion by sharing how you stepped up during this time. Did you volunteer and raise money to secure PPE for a local hospital? Did you lead an effort through work to impact your community during this crisis? Did you make efforts to increase team moral while working remotely? To differentiate yourself from a competitive field, show that you did SOMETHING, ANYTHING to step up to serve and lead others. While these top programs are not directly asking you “what you did during this crisis,” they want to know that your answer is better than, “I watched a lifetime’s worth of shows on Netflix.”
If you're interesting in discussing your MBA candidacy and working with with an Amerasia Admissions Consultant, Click Here to get started!
2022–2023 Dartmouth Tuck MBA Essay Questions & Analysis
The first MBA essay question asks you to write about your career goals. Tuck wants you to tell them a) what your career goals are, b) why you want to get an MBA, and c) why you want to go to Tuck in particular. You only have 300 words for this essay question, so talk about each of these three things directly and succinctly.
Kellogg MBA Essays and Breakdown for 2022/2023
Are you planning on applying to Kellogg? Firstly, are you portraying Kellogg is the right fit for you in your MBA application? Kellogg’s values lie in a diverse and philanthropic community. What’s the right combination of the “Kellogg DNA”? High-impact leadership and humility. Let’s have a look at the essay questions and help you breakdown some potential answers.
Thoughts on the incoming 2021 HBS application
Thoughts regarding the HBS application: THE POST-INTERVIEW RESPONSE ASSIGNMENT (when they see something free, cool and confident, they are impressed), THE UNUSUAL WAITLIST SCENARIO (Only respond if you don’t want to stay on the waitlist), THE OPEN-ENDED ESSAY (can you confidently share something they don't know).
Dual Identity
MBA Application Advice: How to Build a Compelling Work History
One of the most important profile characteristics for any b-school applicant is their work history.
Unlike Law School, Medical School and just about every other terminal degree or master’s level program, business school requires students to come with some kind of work experience under their belts in order to “qualify.”
MBA Application Advice: Innovation is more than launching products
In addition to being a strong leader, a team player and an all-around impressive contributor to the workplace, business schools are looking for innovative thinkers. Of course, entrepreneurs have a fairly easy time convincing the adcoms they are innovative, after all, starting up a company, especially one which has shown some success, takes a lot of ingenuity.
But what about intra-preneurship?
MBA Application Advice: Demonstrating Leadership
Business School Culture, School Fit, and Your MBA Experience
When applying to business school, one of the most reliable questions you will get from just about any institution deals with how you feel you will fit within that school’s culture. While it’s fairly easy to see if you have an academic fit or a professional fit at a school (by researching their curriculum and statistics for admitted students), it’s far more difficult sometimes to ascertain the “culture” of a school.
What should I do during the “in between?”
The Optional Essay — When to use it, and when to lose it.
Many schools have become extremely restrictive on how many essays they allow you to submit.
The crushing numbers of applicants has forced schools to streamline the evaluation process and they simply do not have the staff or time to read 1000 word essays from everyone. Of course, whether you're applying there or not, you likely know that Harvard, as an extreme example, actually has no required essays as part of their application! They allow you to submit one essay if you like, but it's not technically a requirement for consideration as an MBA applicant. While we don't recommend you submit to HBS without leveraging the essay, this approach from schools highlights the fact that every word does indeed count.
How to (Actually) Differentiate Yourself on your MBA Applications
Time to break out an annual PSA here. I'm talking all alarms ringing, sirens, whatever it takes to get your attention. By "you" I mean: anyone applying to business school. You need to stop doing something immediately.
Here it is: STOP TRYING TO "DIFFERENTIATE" YOURSELF.
Or at least, stop doing it without a professional by your side. Let's dive into the 4 Rules of Differentiation before someone gets hurt.
Linking Your Chicago Booth Presentation Essay to the School's Introduction Content
I have received the following question a lot lately: "Should my presentation reflect the ideas that Booth espouses when introducing the presentation question?" The short answer is "yes," but the long answer is more complicated than that and is worthy of discussion here in this space. Not just for the way it will help Booth applicants, but because of the way it speaks to the whole idea of "School DNA" and how to assess fit with a program.
Looking for an MBA Advantage? Consider Round 2
I've been having this conversation a lot lately with individual clients, so I thought I'd take it out wide.
Basically, the idea is that Round 2 might be offering a slight advantage, based on theories of market inefficiencies and so forth. For years, I would say the prevailing belief is that Round 1 is the best round in which to apply to business and while there is no hard-core evidence to suggest otherwise, some common sense and deduction may point to a different result. So let's quickly run this down.
A Decision Tree for the Ross 2014-15 Essays
I wanted to try something a bit different today when breaking down the new Ross essays, which is to post the decision tree I am going to be asking my clients to use this year.
Why would I just share this with the public, you might ask? In part because the real value of our services with Ross (unlike with some other schools) is going to be in implementation rather than in the setting of strategy - so I don't feel I am cheating my clients at all. Further, we just don't have that many clients select Ross, to be honest. This is confusing to me, as Ross is an amazing school and a true value pick ... but that's a column for a different time. Today, I want to present a really simple way to work through Ross' seemingly wide open essays. I'll be using one part common sense and one part program knowledge, but both are born out of lots of experience just being someone in this world (by "in this world" I mean working in "higher education" and with "people trying to maximize their lives and abilities"). Let's get into it.
Must Read for Reapplicants - A Word of Advice
This time of year, we get a huge number of inquiries from students gearing up for the reapplication process. This makes sense, as this subset of students is often driven to succeed, still hurting from the sting of getting rejection letters, and aware that going at it alone all over again might not make much sense. Here are a few techniques and things we have discovered that can help all reapplicants, not just those who become our clients:
The Art of Transferability: brainstorming pre-MBA experiences and skills you *already possess*
In working with clients of all age, gender, nationality, and industry, one thing we're always trying to do is identify things that connect everyone - common elements that become and remain true, regardless of differences. To be honest, there aren't many such elements. Almost everything about the MBA admissions process is a contextual exercise. You can almost never divorce a unique applicant or a specific school from your analysis. It's part of the reason this is such a difficult endeavor for people, part of the reason why so many admissions consultants do a horribly incomplete job of advising candidates, and a huge part of the reason why admissions consulting even exists. You have to do a lot of things right and you have to do them with great contextual specificity. If you confront "one size fits all" advice, typically you can sprint away from that as fast as possible.
That said, there is one universal truth that we have uncovered that seems largely overlooked by the rest of the MBA admissions landscape and that is how enormously important it is to abide by what we call the Art of Transferability.
5 Tips for Applying to NYU Stern for Round 1
Constructing Your Candidacy - A Visualization
How should you begin to construct your candidacy? That is, how would you begin to think about where you stack up relative to an MBA programs themes -- thus showing fit with the school. As we know, the primary place to demonstrate this fit is through a school's essay questions. I have created a simple visualization that demonstrates how you would approach aligning your background with a school's specific essays. In the following graphic, I use "Wharton" as an example. However, the "career goals", "failure" and "significant accomplishment" essays illustrated below are representative of many top MBA programs (in a not necessarily specific to Wharton.)
MBA Program Essay Map
[caption id="attachment_186" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="MBA Program Essay Map"][/caption]
So what are you looking at above?
The schools essays are represented by the colored circles and the numbers one, two and three. for this representative school, essay number one is a career goals essay. If you move from right to left, you will see that this career goals essay should incorporate the following elements -- short and long-term goals, current and past work experiences, your values/norms/beliefs, why MBA/why this program/why now? if you continue to move from right to left, you will see the elements that make up each item. For example, your values/norms/beliefs will incorporate elements of your family, personal and academic histories. Constructing this type of map visualization for each program or essay type will definitely help you think about all the elements that make up a successful candidacy.
Please keep in mind, that the above visualization is merely an example. For example, if you are constructing a career goals essay, some schools do not want you to delve into any sort of personal leaf system or values. They simply want you to state your short and long-term goals. This is why you have to read each essay prompt very carefully. Reference the following career goals example:
Haas asks this --
What are your post-MBA short-term and long-term career goals? How do your professional experiences relate to these goals? How will an MBA from Berkeley help you achieve these specific career goals? (1000 word maximum)
Meanwhile, Wharton asks this --
What are your professional objectives? (300 words)
So what is the deal? The first thing to notice is the difference in word count, along with the relative complexity of each question. Haas wants you to delve into your background, your values/norms/beliefs and how they have taken shape at your workplace, both past and present. They also want you to sell them on your knowledge of the school in this essay. This is a lot of information from one essay. If you stop and think about it, this is why it is a 1000 word essay. I would personally suggest using 500 words of it to describe your goals, 250 words to describe how your professional experiences provide a meaningful and even personal justification for pursuing these goals, and the remaining 250 words to sell Berkeley on how you fit the program. That is, the last 250 words should be dedicated to demonstrating what you bring to the table, using the school's programs and courses as a conduit.
On the other hand, Wharton just wants you to get to the point. This is a simple exercise in stating your long and then short-term goals (or vice versa.) So it makes sense that this type of very direct question prompt would only require 300 words. You do not need to overtly sell Wharton on what you know about the school or how bad you want to go there. Keep in mind that your choice of relevant career goals covertly sells the Wharton admissions committee on whether or not you are a fit (or even have a clue as to what the school can do for you.)
Overall, this type of brainstorming and mapping should be one of the first steps you engage in as an applicant applying to business school. Your map does not have to be as complicated as the above. Maybe you write it on the back of an envelope or maybe you construct PowerPoint, nonetheless it is a very valuable exercise.
If you need help constructing your candidacy and applying to business school – either comprehensively or just stress testing your essays to make sure they hit the mark – email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com to set up your complimentary consultation. The arms race for consulting help usually starts in April for Round 1 of the next year, but the best value is probably right now. You can get more distance from the field by doing your homework early and the quality of your preliminary work will make a huge difference when it comes time to hit submit.