Advice Column: Should You Be Honest In Your MBA Applications?

Hello P&Q readers, and welcome to my advice column! My name is Karen Marks, and I am the Founder and President of North Star Admissions Consulting. I have been helping people get into their dream schools since 2012, and prior to that I was the Associate Director of Admissions at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Today, my goal is to give applicants the accurate, insider information that they need in order to succeed and make good decisions. Want your question answered in a future column? Ask away, no topic is off limits!

Recently, many of the questions that I have been asked are coming from applicants who are worried about aspects of their candidacy. Essentially, people are wondering if they should be honest in their MBA applications. Here are some of the most common scenarios:

• Should you tell them why you really left your last job?

What if you were fired for cause? Or “let go,” during a downsizing, but after being accused of sexual harassment or embezzlement? What if you just simply hated your boss, or the company, or were yourself being harassed or undervalued? These situations are complicated. If you parted ways with one of your employers under difficult circumstances, consider what the formal record of your time there reflects. (What will HR say about you, when they’re contacted for verification?) 

• How real do you need to get about your goals?

I have written before about the fact that “I have no idea, I just hate what I’m doing now” isn’t a competitive answer. (Although I applaud your honesty!) It’s also not a great plan to tell the committee that you want to stay in accounting if you hate accounting, or that you want to be a consultant or investment banker (if you don’t), just because it seems like that’s what people do out of business school. These artificial goals are hard to sell in an interview, risk skewing too generic, and might land you at a school that can’t help you accomplish whatever it is that you actually want to do.

Furthermore, if you are going back to school because you want better opportunities, and/or to pivot, by all means tell the committee. (As specifically as you can.) Schools love to help people achieve aspirational, transformative goals, and understand that an MBA can launch applicants in completely new directions. So, share what you really want to do! Goals that are too “safe” can underwhelm the reviewers, especially if you don’t really need to go to business school in order to accomplish them.

• Does the committee really want to hear about your failures and mistakes?

Yes, within reason. Business schools look for evidence of emotional maturity, which includes the ability to acknowledge and learn from mistakes. Saying that you don’t believe in coding anything as a failure or error, because they’re all learning experiences, isn’t what they’re looking for here. Neither is the classic “I’m a perfectionist” response. You want to own something tangible, and talk about how you subsequently grew and improved. However, you don’t need to (and shouldn’t) disclose information that would lead the committee to conclude that you are a security or interpersonal risk, or that you wouldn’t be a positive contributor to the community. (So, avoid mentioning that you have a terrible temper, a substance abuse problem, hate all people, etc.)

• Will it hurt your chances to disclose an illness or disability?

This is a tricky one. There are laws that bar discrimination based on illness or other disability, and business schools do value diverse perspectives. Also, for applicants who have overcome health struggles, it’s an understandable impulse to talk about what you have learned in the process. However, speaking as a formal civil rights attorney, a self-described straight arrow, and as someone who really wants to help you get into your dream school, my best advice is to exercise caution here. Consider whether or not the school will be concerned – validly/legally or not – about your ability to excel in their program. If so, it might be best to tell your story in a way that is honest but still reassures them that you will thrive.

Karen has more than 15 years of experience evaluating candidates for admission to Dartmouth College and to the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Since founding North Star Admissions Consulting in 2012, she has helped applicants gain admission to the nation’s top schools, including Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Wharton, MIT, Tuck, Columbia, Kellogg, Booth, Haas, Duke, Johnson, Ross, NYU, UNC, UCLA, Georgetown and more. Clients have been awarded more than $70 million dollars in scholarships, and more than 98% have gotten into one of their top choice schools.