The 30 Commandments Of The MBA Admissions Game

Thou shall not apply to “safety schools”: While I understand the strategy of doing this, I still think its off base. That’s not to say that you should snub a particular school because they are lower ranked than the school that you dream of. That’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying, however, is that you should not apply to any school that you would not go to just because you feel that you are a “shoe-in”; and that has nothing to do with rank. It has a lot more to do with fit. Here’s your acid test: if you got in with NO money, would you attend and gladly pay your loans back over the 2-10 years after you graduate? If your answer to that question is not “yes”, then do not apply.

Thou shall have well researched, realistic goals: Next to the GMAT, stepping to a top business school with goals that aren’t up to snuff will create the easiest excuse for a given ad com to place your application in the ding pile with a totally clear conscience. Again, if you don’t know what it means to do this, then speak to previous successful admits and online communities or speak with a consultant.

Thou shall know thy demographic and where thou fittest among thy peers: So, life ain’t fair. We all know that; but hey, we could all be war orphans in 3rd world countries. So let’s just all collectively GET OVER the bubbling emotions of how life ain’t fair because we grew up poor/are over represented/under represented/didn’t know X/had to work full time in undergrad/went to public school/have a speech impediment and a lazy eye, etc. and look at the facts; and one fact is that not everyone to your left or to your right is your competition–most aren’t, in fact. Your competition is comprised of those who are most like you: people who come to the table with your undergrad major, your alma mater, your industry, your company pedigree, your geo location, speak the languages you speak, etc. Ad coms are like chefs building 7-course meals. There needs to be an entree’, a vegetable, a starch, a salad, a soup, a bread, etc. You’re a tomato. How do you stack up against all of the other tomatoes? Never mind that loaded mash over there because besides GMAT you aren’t really being compared to her. Your job is to convince ad coms that you are the one (or one of the ones) they should pick to lend a tomato’s perspective in class and in study groups. Be VERY WELL AWARE of how you stack up against others like you. Do everything within your power to paint a picture of yourself that displays you as clearly superlative among that group. For instance, I know very well where I stand among 35 year old b-school applicants; and African American males; and engineering majors; and people who went to black colleges; and people who are in Toastmasters; and people with 10+ years of work experience. I also provided data and numbers to illustrate all of that–especially in areas where the adcom might not know much about (such as my having a pretty high class rank from college despite a sort of wonk wonk GPA, etc).

Thou shall submit a well-balanced, rounded out application: Remember that you are painting a picture of your candidacy. It must display your academic, professional, personal and intellectual (not the same as academic; more about how you think than grades and scores) value to the ad com. Its never a bad idea to make a checklist of which attributes you want to display and check your app as a whole for an example of each. While you may showcase some things in your resume or essays, other things might come up in the detail that you provide on the online application or in a cover letter. If you have the opportunity to submit a video, PowerPoint or essay about you outside of work (e.g. Wharton’s day without work responsibilities or Stanford’s what matters most)–jump all over that. Tweak, edit and tweak again until you’re sick of looking at what you’re about to submit.

Thou shall communicate an upward trajectory in thy career: One of the opportunities that you have to impress ad coms is with the trajectory of your resume. This is also something that I don’t think people put enough energy into focusing on. Simply put, your trajectory needs to generally point upward. You can show this by income, responsibility or title. If possible, use all three to illustrate this. In many cases, however (mine included), an upward path may not be so obvious. This might especially be true if you’ve taken a few lateral rotations (like I have). It might even get more sticky if you actually took a pay cut (like I did). The main thing is that you must use your resume and in some cases, your essays to show how each move was A) strategic, B) a closer step toward your goals and C) a move up. “How were you able to show a job with a pay cut as upward movement?”, you might ask. Simple. More responsibility, managing more people and choosing a job within an industry that was more directly related to my goals. See how this works? Other details like notating the size of your company (in revenue), budgets or capital assets you oversaw, or just explaining WHY you went from one opportunity to the next. Illustrate a clear path to your future goals.

Thou shall add context to thy academic performance: One of the ways that you can show that you are superlative among your peers is to add context to your academic accomplishments. In my case, I had a very challenging undergraduate major (there was only one summa in my class out of nearly 100 EE majors; and it wasn’t me) that no doubt made it a little more difficult to have a pristine GPA (yet I also knew that plenty of people who had my major DID earn pristine GPAs–and at better schools. So I didn’t make any excuses–catch that. Also catch what I did next.). When you look at my actual number, its hardly impressive; however, when I noted on my resume that only about 7% of the people who I graduated with had the same GPA or higher and that I made my honor society for that profession, that redefined the adcom’s perspective on what my GPA number means in context to how I performed versus my peers.

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