How To Stand Out In The Application Pile

• Be clear in your application about what is unique about your perspective and what you bring to the table that other students won’t bring and that the school community will value.

• Candidates working in intense careers such as consulting or banking can sometimes be weak in their extra curricular profile. Often in such cases they have some outstanding accomplishments from earlier years, but much less since they started work (due to long hours and travel schedules). On the flip side, this is therefore a great opportunity for some candidates to stand out from the crowd, if you can show extra-curricular engagement that goes back at least a year or two (and you have not just signed up to something three months before the application deadline).

• Build your relationships with your recommenders early. You need them to be willing to champion you and rate you extremely highly. A great deal of weight is given to the letters of recommendation. Who has written them? Can you get a recommendation from a very senior person in the office who knows you well? Is the recommendation formulaic, or does the recommender really see you as someone who stands out among peers? The schools will be looking to understand how you rank versus your peers, and even how you rank versus other candidates the recommender has recommended to the school in the past.

Some ideas as you work on your application itself:

• Discuss your recommendation with the person writing on your behalf. Be proactive in brainstorming with them what specific achievements they can highlight, and how these examples illustrate your strengths and builds a story about what makes you special, your attitude and your values. You don’t want them to just adapt a template recommendation that they have used dozens of times before.

• When writing about your job in your application and resume – remember that the file reader will likely be pretty familiar with the type of work you do. So don’t focus on the obvious mechanics of what you do, but use the space to showcase your accomplishments and what is different or unique about your experience.

• Use essays to show how you are different – for example by conveying some unique aspects to your background (eg growing up in another country / coming from an immigrant family / growing up with a family biz, etc) – and how this has impacted you. Also show how this links to what you can contribute to the classroom and the community.

• Think about how you can get the school excited about your career goals. Simply saying that you want to become a partner or MD in your firm will not get their blood pumping. Paint a picture of the impact you want to have – a personal vision that is credible, yet ambitious and exciting.

Harvard, Stanford and the rest of the top schools are looking for innovative thinkers – candidates who are not saying what everyone else is saying. So maybe you should create your own bucket, filled with what you will bring to a business school program lucky enough to have you, and bring some of your own sunshine to the HBS campus on September 9.

Matt Symonds is a co-director at MBA admissions coaching firm Fortuna Admissions, author of “Getting the MBA Admissions Edge”,  founder of Kaplan Test Prep in Europe and QS World MBA Tour.  Fortuna is composed of former Directors and Associate Directors of Admissions at many of the world’s best business schools, including Wharton, INSEAD, Harvard Business School, London Business School, Chicago Booth, NYU Stern, IE Business School, Northwestern Kellogg, and UC Berkeley Haas. This is the second in a series of myth buster articles on admissions.

Related Stories of Admissions Advice By Fortuna Consultants:

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Recommendations: Does Prestige Really Matter?

The Ideal Timetable To Do A Business School Application

Getting Into Business School When You’re 30+

Can A Sub-700 GMAT Take You Out?

Need To Work For A Brand Name Company To Get In?