MBA Candidate Differentiation: Do NOT Try This at Home
Time to go full 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.
Rule #1 - Do not "differentiate yourself" with a panicked career change.
Rule #2 - Listing a hard job to get as your short-term goal is not "differentiating."
Rule #3 - The "quick and easy" place to differentiate is in the WHY of your long-term career goal.
Rule #4 - The real, pure way to differentiate yourself is to do the app right.
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.
5 Tips for Applying to MIT Sloan in 2016/2017
MIT Sloan is one of "those" schools - the ones that seem to slip into the nooks and crannies of the admissions process. People don't talk about Sloan as much as its elite counterparts. Nobody immediately thinks about it in terms of being a top 5 program until you start digging and realize, whoa, this program is insanely good.
In the past, we have chalked this up to its unique end-of-October deadline and equally unique two-round admissions process. We even went as far as to say that we would bet on the application quality at Sloan is far lower than on other top business school programs. Candidates would not even even start on their Sloan apps until after the October 3-16 gauntlet of deadlines and then they race to finish because they fear waiting until the "last" round. Simply put, a lot of applicants have viewed Sloan as an after thought, and we've done our share of walking clients back from making mistakes associated with that mindset. Well, all of that has changed.
3 Key Thoughts on the HBS Essay
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Despite HBS featuring the most publicized changing of the guard in admissions that I can remember, they are basically keeping their "open-ended" question style intact. In fact, more than keeping it intact, they have reverted to the more straight forward version they used in 2013 and 2014, rather than the more clever (but probably ultimately less effective) "introduction" prompt from last year.
And because they are staying in this lane, it means that my three thoughts need to stay in the same lane they have been in for years - because understanding the psychology behind this essay goes a long way to explaining how you might solve it.
3 Key Thoughts About Columbia Business School's 2016 Essays
Like last year, we are going to use a little running device of "three key thoughts" for each essay release. If you want to get a deep dive into these essay sets, of course, the answer is probably obvious: sign up for our services and become a client, at which point we can guide you every step of the way.
Now, on to some thoughts from the new Columbia essays!
One Easy Way to Personalize your MBA Essay Content
This is a post I write basically every year because it comes from what I'm seeing each round, every day, on basically every application. That drum beat is really rigid, hard-to-read Why School X sections on essays.
I give the same note to every single client so now I'm giving it to everybody: the simplest and most important thing you can do to improve your Why School X portion of career goals essay is to personalize any and all content. This is a great way to avoid writing something off-putting, as well as a quick and easy method for making your essays warmer, more personal, and easier to connect with.
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.
A Decision Tree for Michigan Ross Essay 1
We did this last year when breaking down the new Ross essays, so let's run it back. We thought it would be helpful 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 "what are you proud of" essay. 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.
Why Elite MBA Candidates Fail the "Failure Essay"
Today, we are going to be breaking down the failure essay and the biggest reasons why everyone blows it. This is particularly relevant to the season, as we begin to take on our usual batch of INSEAD clients (for both January and September intakes) and that schools asks a very tricky little failure question. We have a very specific approach to the accomplishment part of that essay that transforms run-of-the-mill answers into INSEAD-worthy submissions, but we're going to keep that locked in the vault. The failure essay though ... we owe some thoughts to the masses, just as a public service.
Would Saint Thomas Aquinas Have Hired an MBA Admissions Consultant?
Warning: this blog post will be more esoteric than most. If you don't like deep thinking, you might want to wait for the next one. Because what I am going to do is use some of Thomas Aquinas' teachings to explain that there are different ways to going about the MBA application process. Namely, that one can "seek learning," "be taught," or "rush out and share what he has learned," which loosely translates to doing the applications on your own, hiring a consultant, or engaging in forum culture. I am a consultant, so you will never guess which one I am saying he would have endorsed! In all seriousness though, this is some interesting stuff so I encourage you to dive in, be willing to self-assess, and possibly achieve a new perspective.
3 Key Thoughts about Columbia Business School's 2015 Essays
As with last year, CBS is using three essays and for the most part, they follow the same general format: 500 words, 250 words, 250 words; goals, Center of Business, Cluster. But I only have to look at the massive changes I made to our Columbia Strategy Memo to know that these things changed a ton at the center.
Let's dive into our 3 Key Thoughts:
Personalizing Your Interest in an MBA Program
Time for a quick blog post that comes from what I'm seeing each day, which is really rigid, hard-to-read Why School X sections. I give the same note to every single client so now I'm giving it to everybody: the simplest and most important thing you can do to improve your Why School X portion of career goals essay is to personalize any and all content.
What do I mean by "personalize?" Simple: make anything you write about the school specific to you, your experience, your desires, or what you require from a program. Never just state absolutes, generalities, or even known truths and facts - always make them personally-held viewpoints. Examples are the best way to understand this (after the jump):
Yale SOM's 2015 Essays - Read the Fine Print
Today we are analyzing Yale's 2015 Essays ... sort of. What we are really doing is taking a look at them and using this essay set as a way to remind everyone to read the fine print when it comes to dealing with applications and even schools in general. I'm not blowing the whistle on some grand conspiracy or anything like that, but just illustrating that you can't take everything at face value. This is especially relevant at a time when applicants are killing themselves to try to hit Round 1 deadlines because an admissions officer "told them to," or when candidates make horrible errors in judgement based on the same logic. The truth of the matter is you have to keep your eyes open and use your own common sense when navigating this process.
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.
Quick Thoughts on the HBS Essay
Unlike Columbia and Stanford, HBS did not make any changes to its essay from last year. As explained by Dee Leopold in her blog, they were quite simply happy with the content that this prompted generated. Those handful of people who have spoken to me on consult calls this year know that I predicted HBS would keep this essay and that it would be for this reason - I had a feeling this experiment worked well. This is because I watched the MASSIVE (all caps are necessary here) gulf between good and bad use of this space, among candidates.
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.
Breaking Down Changes to Columbia's Essays for 2014-15
As always, Columbia is the first top MBA program out of the gate with its new essay questions (for 2014-15). This is no surprise, as CBS has both a January intake and an Early Decision deadline, so they quite simply need to get their essays out earlier than other schools. This year, the new essays bring about very little by way of change, which suggests Columbia was pretty happy with the length and overall coverage of what they asked last year. That said, there are a few subtle changes that actually speak volumes and we are going to break those down below, as well as add some larger thoughts about the essay set. Let's get into it.
Round 3 Strategies: UCLA Anderson Beckons
We've been running a lot of Round 3 strategies on this space the last few weeks. Why? It is timely, obviously. But also, Round three is just so misunderstood that we find every conversation leads to new epiphanies for our clients. In turn, we pass along the broadest and most helpful of those pieces of information to the general public. Today, we're talking about a specific school that you might want to consider if you are firing off Round 3 bullets.
A Decision Tree for Your Chicago Booth Presentation Essay
It's very rare that we blog at the height of the deadline season, but something is coming up a lot that a quick post might help people with - and that is what to do with Booth Essay 3 when your presentation isn't coming together like you want.
With the deadline bearing down, not everyone is able to make things happen exactly the way they want and the compulsion to use a "great essay" (from another school) rather than create a Powerpoint presentation is quite strong. However, there are many experts on record - including us, in our Booth Strategy Memo that all clients receive - saying that you basically must use a presentation format. So, what should you do?