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!
Stanford Essay Breakdown and Tips 2022/2023
This essay topic analysis looks at MBA admissions essays for Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB) for the 2022-2023 admissions season. Stanford is asking applicants to answer the same two questions it has been asking for a few years. The word limit of 1,050 words from last year was kept, and applicants were told to use 650 words for Essay A and 400 words for Essay B. There are also two essays about the candidate's impact and background that are optional. Let's take a deeper dive.
The Best MBA Schools in the West
East Coast vs. West Coast MBA Campuses
UPDATES: The Most Important Thing To Do After You Hit Submit
After submitting your MBA application, the most important thing you can do is to keep engaging your target business schools. After you’ve completed all your submissions, you should still keep reaching out to your target MBA schools with substantial updates. This will make you stand out and look more competitive.
Start B-school Apps in Order of MBA Application Deadline Date
You have that list of five business schools you really want to apply to. Now, list your five target MBA business schools in order by the application deadline date. The earliest date should be the first MBA application to be worked on. You may be tempted to work on similar essays in parallel, but this is not advised.
MBA Snapshot: Stanford GSB
The MBA Round 2 Advantage
It's the time of year where I start having the "Round 2 conversation" a lot with individual clients. Basically, the idea is that Round 2 might be offering a slight advantage, based on theories of market inefficiencies and so forth. For years, the prevailing belief is that Round 1 is the best round to apply to business school. While there is no hard-core evidence to suggest otherwise, some common sense may point to a different result.
Will a 650 GMAT get me Admitted to Stanford GSB?
Stanford Graduate School of Business is considered by many to be the best business school in the world, and swaps the ranking of #1 with HBS or Wharton on any given day. With over 8,000 applicants per year and only about 1/10th of that number in the student body, it’s daunting to imagine them saying yes. If you happen to have a good-but-not-great GMAT score, you may struggle with your odds of admission at all. But is it even worth applying if you have a 650 or lower?
A Tip for Writing Harvard Business School Essays - "don't overthink, overcraft and overwrite"
Applying Round 1? This Year's MBA Deadlines Are Earlier Than You Think.
Normally, once the fireworks go off on the 4th of July, that's our signal to start digging into the apps in earnest, as "October" Round 1 deadlines are a few months away. However, in recent years, the deadlines keep getting earlier and earlier. I know I had to really reset my own calendar given these changes, so I figured I'd do a public service and list them out here, calling special attention to the front-loaded nature of the deadlines.
What the Stanford GSB Wants - a True Moral Compass
If you read our editions of our “How to Apply to Harvard Business School” and "How to Apply to Stanford GSB" guides, you already know that cultivating a real reason for applying to an elite MBA goes week beyond the school's name, rank, and prestige. But more than any other MBA program in the world (yes, even HBS), GSB looks beyond having a great GMAT score, a summa cum laude GPA and a blue chip name as your employer. While these are respectable measures of a person’s perceived worth, they are not good enough reasons to apply to GSB.
Why is this?
Simply put, you could someone with a mis-calibrated moral compass or worse, what your colleagues might call an "asshole" (more on the asshole test here and the true cost of being an asshole here). That's right - more than any other school in the world, Stanford has a visceral aversion to those who define themselves by their accomplishments, as opposed to the innate values and beliefs that drive those accolades. Apparently, Stanford has their pick of the litter and they can afford to stand absolutely resolute in their aversion to those whose moral compass points true south.
Ranking the Best MBA Programs for Real Estate
Michigan Ross (really?) comes out on top when it comes to sending graduates (as a percentage of all graduates in 2015) back into the real estate industry with a job.
Stanford GSB is close second, with Yale SOM in third and UCLA Anderson in fourth. According to the employment data Ross reported, Michigan is the place to be if you're into real estate and want to work for a related firm in the industry.
Reacting to the Stanford GSB Dean Saloner Controversy
It's never easy to wade into troubled waters such as those present at Stanford GSB right now. And truly, we're not here to report any detail on the unfortunate scandal involving the faculty and administration of the world's most selective business school. If you want the down and dirty on exiting Dean Garth Saloner and professors Deborah Gruenfeld and Jim Phills, be sure to read the initial reporting by Poets and Quants and then the deep dive by David Margolick of Vanity Fair. Needless to say, it's a sad story that doesn't appear to be getting happier anytime soon. And it certainly leaves a bad taste in your mouth and invites all sorts of questions about GSB. But what should you actually worry about here? That's what we want to tackle.
Applying to Stanford GSB? Get to know Garth Saloner, Derrick Bolton and the "Moral Advantage"
If you are going to apply to the most selective MBA program in the world, you should recognize the impact that Professor-turned-Dean Garth Saloner has had at GSB. Stanford’s gatekeeper is long-time Dean of Admissions and GSB graduate Derek Bolton. In our opinion, his intimate knowledge of the Stanford Dynamic, along with his high-level of emotional intelligence has granted Bolton a better bullshit detector than any other admissions director in the business.
Forget Star Wars. The MBA talent wars are coming to a b-school near you.
Forget Star Wars. The MBA talent wars are coming to a b-school near you, according to a recent survey by Poets & Quants.
With admissions officers more active than ever in recruiting today’s best and brightest, P&Q asked a group of leading MBA consultants where their top clients are heading for their graduate educations. And their answers may surprise you.
Breaking Down Changes to Stanford GSB's New Essays for 2014/2015
The essays are releasing in a fast and furious fashion this year, as GSB comes hot on the heels of Columbia releasing its own essays. With Stanford this year, we see further evidence of a school and admissions office that is completely dialed in to what it wants: the core essays remain, the fat has been trimmed, and the only tiny bit of confusion has been clarified. This may sound a bit odd, but if Stanford had asked for my opinion after last year's process, I would have told them "clarify what you want on Essay 2 and do away with the tack-on shorter Essay 3." Well, that's basically what they did. Let's dive in with a bit more detail.
Download our Stanford GSB School Guide
In the hierarchy of business school rankings, no program is as selective as the Stanford Graduate School of Business. With an MBA acceptance rate that is traditionally in the single digits, GSB is the program that knows exactly the type of MBA candidate they are looking for and they know how to filter out the rest. The school expects applicants to truly know who they are as not only a business professional, but more importantly, as a person. They will accept nothing less from those who eventually gain entrance to GSB - MBA students who truly know themselves and how they plan to change their communities and leave the world a better place than they found it. If you doubt your candidacy to the world’s most selective MBA program, relax for a moment and read this guide.
Don't Apply Round 3 ... Until You Read This Post!
The common myth surrounding Round 3 of the MBA application process is that you can't, or shouldn't, apply late in the admission cycle. "The class is pretty much full" is one refrain. "You have to be a truly unique applicant" is another. "Only European programs admit people that late" is yet another. As with anything, there are bits of truth in these sound bites ... but only bits.
Do you pass Stanford GSB's smell test?
