A Refreshingly Candid Conversation About The Current MBA Applicant Market

An advocate for Wharton as a top choice

 

Poets&Quants: In a previous interview with us, you seemed rather down on Wharton, particularly after The Wall Street Journal’s critical story which was, after all, quite unfair and unjustified by the facts. Have you had a change of heart?

Hoff: I guess I am becoming known apparently as the guy who bashes Wharton so I’m hesitant to go here, but my clients are getting worried about whether it’s still “number 3” out there. They see the odd choice for dean, they know about the bizarre stuff from Round 1 last year, there are whispers out there that the school is fading.

Yet, when they go visit or they enroll, they love it. It’s a strange dichotomy and it reminds me of Columbia Business School three to four years ago, where some strange stories relating to the admissions office started to create some perception problems, all while the program itself was still awesome and in fact getting even better (Master Classes, strengthening alumni network).

I really feel that I’m having to advocate for Wharton as a top choice in a way that I never did before. I’m also having to explain to my clients that Wharton is no longer a “if you dream it you can achieve it” school like HBS, Stanford, MIT, and Chicago – with a career services person running admissions, they appear to have moved into the more paternalistic camp regarding goals. The way a Wharton app must be approached has changed almost literally overnight, which as you can imagine means I’m spending a lot of time talking about that with clients and prospective clients.

Recommendation letters have at best a 10% weight

 

Poets&Quants: So with all the changes in essay questions, do you think the actual process of assessing candidates has changed in any meaningful way?

Hoff: I think everyone involved in this process knows there is a pie chart of sorts, where you can slice up all the factors that go into a decision and take your best guess at assigning a weight to that piece. Even taking into account that it’s guesswork and opinion, what I am seeing is a clearly improper weight put on things. One is Letters of Recommendation; I give them max 10% weight. I see others assuming a lot more, which I think is incorrect.

Another one is that I feel applicants – and even many consultants – don’t seem to understand how much is “yet to be determined” from the moment you see a profile. When someone asks me to evaluate their profile and handicap their odds, I tell them it’s impossible; I can only assess whether their profile puts them in a favorable position or not, as it pertains to the person reading their file. It’s going to come down to what clients share about themselves as to whether or not they win the hearts and minds of the people reading those files. If someone asks me to predict their chances based on their profile plus an application that is properly introspective and connected to that school, then I can feel comfortable handicapping their odds.

Too many applicants are writing essays aimed at the wrong audience

 

Poets&Quants: So you had been on the inside of the admissions decisions at Pepperdine, albeit at the undergraduate level, what really goes on behind the curtain?

Hoff: Setting aside that most people don’t even understand that it’s typically one reader (not a roomful of readers) that tackles the file and largely determines your fate, I also am finding that clients are picturing the wrong person on the other side of the desk. They are picturing a “business person,” like an investor or a partner at their firm or something along those lines.

This leads to essays (especially as it pertains to long-term goals) that are obsessed with nuts and bolts and firm/industry/economic details, which hold little-to-no interest to anyone outside that industry. They also use a lot of jargon, spend a lot of time trying to provide the bona fides that matter within their current orbit (even going so far as to borrow their company’s ethos and values to serve as their baseline for measurement), and do other things that are well-intentioned but aimed at entirely the wrong audience. I have some tricks and techniques that help my clients reclassify and re-imagine their reader, such that they can tell a human story that finds its mark.

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