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!
What are the MBA application readers looking for?
What are the MBA application readers looking for? Get into the mind of how MBA application readers think. Avoid too much jargon. Understand how the admissions committee is constructed. Remember that you are APPLYING to attend b-school & not yet graduated. Do NOT submit the same resume you would for a job opportunity.
Brand Name MBA
What is the Ideal Age to Get an MBA?
Some people plan out their lives with robotic precision, including things such as graduate school in a pre-determined place on the schedule. Others adopt a take-life-as-it-comes approach, and place graduate school on the back burner, waiting until it feels right to go back. But is there an ideal age to apply to business school?
Leveraging an MBA to Break Into a New Field
An MBA degree is good for lots of things—for example, it’s fantastic job insurance, as anyone who worked their way through the great recession can attest. It’s also good for getting promoted throughout your career, since there are many corporate ladder-climbers who go back to get their business degree purely to move up in their company. But what about the throngs of MBA candidates who are going back to change careers? One of the best and most common uses of the MBA degree is to break into a new field. Let’s discuss how you can do this in the best possible way.
What is your MBA reapplication strategy?
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.