Category Archives: MBA Admissions Book

MBA Adcom, MBA Admissions, MBA Admissions Book

Find your USP for Top School MBA Admissions

There is always a debate in the MBA admissions community as regards the benefits of applicants “selling themselves.” On the one hand, some say the applicant is like one among dozens of cereals in the supermarket aisle, and so has to work to actively pitch him or herself to the Admissions Committee to stand out.

Others say the applicant should not do a sales job. Any form of selling takes away from the “authenticity” of their voice, which is what Adcom really wants to hear.

As in many things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. You can’t afford to be naive. Companies spend millions on marketing and sales because it works. Admissions to elite schools is very competitive, and if you pitch an admissions message that is tightly designed and produced to meet and beat Committee expectations, that will advance your admission chances.

On the other hand, if you come across like a used-car salesman with a cheesy grin, that’s obviously not going to help you at all. If you’re going to sell yourself in any way, you must sell yourself as an authentic, reflective voice imbued with “humble confidence” in your leadership skills; as a manifestation of ambition-with-integrity; as a persistent force for innovation; and so on.

If you can package yourself this way, then selling yourself will work for you. And when selling yourself, don’t forget what is perhaps the very essence of a market proposition that works in the world — a unique selling point (USP.)

In other words, just as a venture capitalist will ask the entrepreneur of a new product: “what’s its unique selling point?” which is to say, what’s so different about this vs. all the other competing offerings in the market, such that the consumer is going to buy this one? So you should ask yourself: “what’s my unique selling point for elite MBA admissions?” What is going to make Adcom pick me?

Two things come together in a USP — uniqueness and value. Uniqueness is what’s different about you compared with the general applicant: the things in your personal and professional experience that are not common. Value is what the Committee sees as valuable in an applicant: what they think you will contribute to the program and the b-school, both while at school and in the future.

I’ve written in other posts about what makes up applicant admissions value, and this topics is also handled in depth in my book. My point here is to say: look for attributes that combine uniqueness and value, and if you find that, you’ve found your USP.

 

MBA Adcom, MBA Admissions, MBA Admissions Book, MBA Essays

Digging Deeper For MBA Admissions Value: An Example

I’m always pushing MBA applicants I work with to extract the full MBA admissions value from what they have participated in and achieved in life. Squeezing full value is the only way to present yourself as more valuable than the next applicant; that is, the only way to get admitted in a competitive system.

Easier said than done of course. So the question comes back: How do I do that?

There’s much more on this in my book, but in short the ‘how’ involves (a) understanding the full dimensions of MBA admissions value that can be credibly associated with what you have done or achieved; (b) understanding what is valuable to MBA adcoms, which is to say, what is valued in the b-school environment and in management careers; and (c) being able to connect “a” to “b” in a clear and compelling way.

That’s the theory. Here’s an example. (Note, like in MBA admissions essays, nothing works as well as a well-chosen example.)

Let’s say you have been involved in karate for much of your early life, achieved your “black belt” at the age of 18, were reasonably successful in competitions during high school and college, but now just keep your hand in at the dojo as a part-time instructor. Is it valuable or not?

Of course it is valuable. Karate is a recognized development activity. It takes youth through a structured and disciplined and group-oriented series of challenges. Also, having spent a significant part of your life on the activity, it should get some airtime in your application.

More pertinently, which parts are valuable? What do you say? Is it valuable to say you can fight people and easily knock them down? Of course not. That’s a red flag.

Is it valuable to say you can defend yourself in any situation? That’s not going to hurt your application, but it won’t help. Adcom doesn’t rate people on whether they can physically defend themselves — it’s not something that counts much at business school or with the Careers Office or recruiters or in the world MBA graduates.

The value is in elements such as: the discipline you learned; managing adversity and developing perseverance; in participating well with competitors and competition; in being part of a group framework; in learning to structure and manage your time (for example, going to the dojo 5x a week on top of everything else.)

There may also be value to be had in the psychic development martial arts offers: exposure to alternative (oriental) philosophy perhaps, or some development of mindfulness, self-reliance, and so on.

If you are now a coach or mentor of the next generation, there is obvious admissions value in that too.

There may be more. The point is, if you know what’s really valuable for MBA admissions in what you have done, you can use the fact that you have done it to advance your MBA admissions value in your application essays and interviews.