The Early Bird’s Guide to Applying to MBA Programs

Be Informed

If you aren’t already keeping up with current events, this would be a good habit to acquire. Follow the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, CNN, NPR, etc.—take your pick. I also recommend reading general business-related publications such as Business Week or the Economist, or trade publications from whatever industry you enter after college. When the time comes to write your essays or get interviewed, you’ll be on top of the latest developments and underlying trends.

Start Building Your Resume

When preparing your resume, think about the skills you have to offer and the impact you’ve made in the positions you’ve held. Wherever possible, find ways to quantify your impact, e.g., saving $5 million, cutting down processing time by 10%, or increasing sales by 12%.

Hone Your Interview Skills

If you make it through the first cut of getting into business school, the application review, you’ll be invited to interview. As such, you’ll want to continue to develop and maintain your interviewing skills. Take advantage of any mock-interview assistance you can get for free while you are in school (and beyond), and sign up to interview with companies coming to campus to get practice.

Make Sure to Have Fun

They want you to be a superstar AND they still want to know you have balance in your life. What do you do for fun? What do you do that’s creative? Play an instrument? Tango? Paint? Take photos? Make a mean chili? Run marathons? Keep doing whatever brings you juice and take the risk to try new things.

Consider Using an Admissions Consultant

There are professionals who can guide you through the application process. I’m one of them! If you’re applying to top-15 programs—which have acceptance rates ranging from approximately 7 percent to 25 percent—consider using a consultant. Most of them can assist you in selecting your target schools; identifying your core message, accomplishments, gifts/skills, and stories; supporting you in writing your essays and preparing for interviews; helping you select and prepare your recommenders; and providing honest feedback, sanity checks, and encouragement. Because the majority of them have applied to business school themselves, they really understand how demanding and stressful the application process can be.

No doubt, you’re already very busy and this list may seem daunting. If you can focus on only a few areas while you’re still in college, I suggest getting good grades, taking the GMAT (and getting a great score), assuming a leadership role in your extracurricular activities, and engaging in personal introspection. After you’ve graduated, you might focus on landing good jobs and excelling at them, contributing to your community, networking, and—yes—enjoying life.

Most of my clients report that applying to business school was way more work than they ever could have possibly imagined. (This is even after I’d warned them!) And at the point they contacted me, it was impossible to go back and change parts of their past in ways that might have made them stronger candidates. If you get started early, you won’t need time-traveling powers to fix your past, and you’ll be laying a strong groundwork that will make you a highly attractive candidate and make the application process significantly easier. Do yourself a favor and get started today!

Deborah Knox is founder and CEO of Insight Admissions. A Princeton graduate and Stanford MBA, Deborah has been helping promising MBA candidates get into top programs since 2004. Devoted to the study of leadership excellence, she has also served as a researcher and editor on numerous book projects for best-selling management author Jim Collins.