The MBA Admissions Studio

I’m often, … no correction, always telling MBA applicants to extract the full MBA admissions value from what they have in their bio, and what they have done. Doing this is the only way to present as more valuable than the next applicant to the business school in question; 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? And this is a fair-enough question.

How to do it, as I’ve written at greater length in my book, has to do with (a) understand the full dimensions of MBA admissions value associated with what you have done and/or achieved; (b) understanding what is valuable to Adcoms, which is to say what is valuable in the b-school environment and in MBA 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: nothing works in MBA admissions communications as well as an example.)

Let’s say you have been involved in JKA 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’s valuable. Karate is a recognized development activity. It takes youth through a structured and disciplined and group-oriented series of challenges. Also, no question that having spent this much of your life on the activity, it has to 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 at business school or with the careers office or recruiters or in the business world for MBA graduates.

The value is in the discipline you learned, in the experience of setbacks and perseverance; in participating well with competitors and competition; in learning to manage adversity; in being part of a structured environment, and in learning to structure and manage your time (e.g. going to the dojo 5x a week on top of everything else.)

There may also be value to be had in the psychic development karate offers: exposure to alternative (oriental) philosophy, mindfulness, inner peace and self-reliance, and so on. If you are now a coach or trainer or mentor of the next generation, there is obvious admissions value in that.

There may be more. The point is, there is lots to say that points to a valid admissions “value claim” for you as a person and professional going forward. Once unearthed, you choose which parts to emphasize, and you move onto the next value activity, approaching it in the same way.

Tags: admissions red flags, b-school, b-school recruiting, Leadership, MBA Adcom, MBA career, success record, time management

Every year is similar in MBA Admissions, but slightly different given what is going on in the economy and the world. This year a key framing condition is the recession. Applicants who get into top schools will have a excellent spread of academic, professional, and extramural attributes. But the economic downturn will make itself felt, and one of the aspects of this was well picked up by Business Week this week in an article which says MBA Career Services departments are getting a stronger voice in who gets admitted.

Says BW: “With company recruiters becoming ever more selective, B-school admissions departments are taking a closer look at how easily candidates will be able to parlay their education into a job come graduation… While admissions officers have always favored these qualities, increasingly—as the job market tightens—they’re demanding them. Admitting employable students on the front end in some cases means shying away from some traditional admissions metrics such as test scores and grades and embracing professional qualifications such as interpersonal skills, proven job performance, and promotions.”

None of this is new. Future employability, quality career continuation, and likely starting salary have always been a consideration in MBA admissions. It’s just a shift to greater emphasis.

Recruiting well out of an MBA is one of the key function a business school offers. They do this for the candidate (it’s part of what you pay your tuition fees for) but it’s hardly altruism. This is because, among the matrices along which MBA schools are typically ranked is “percentage of students recruited on graduation,” and “average starting salary.” In other words the pressure is on Career Services to get these numbers up.

In good times they are willing to take a punt on students who have potential but not much or a record because it’s likely they will get a good offer (in boom times practically everyone at a top-20 school gets multiple offers). But in a bust Career Services knows it will be left with jobless graduates. Not only is it a headache to have them emailing you and endlessly bugging alumni, but it drives down rankings, to say nothing of word-of-mouth reputation.

So while b-school Admissions Services (Adcom) and Career Services are traditionally separate “empires,” in recessionary times Careers want to make sure they get the most recruitable candidates possible. So many schools’ Careers departments are demanding and getting a seat on Admissions Committees, where they can sit in on interviews and evaluate applications.

What does this mean for applicants this year?
Says BW: “The increased attention to job placement could spell trouble for candidates whose essays fail to outline clear career plans. Career switchers, with no work history in what they hope will be their new profession, might be similarly disadvantaged. The same goes for younger students as some schools up the criterion for average years of work experience.”

The way through this is, first, to play up your career progress and future employability (via all inputs: essays, résumé, interview, recommendations, etc.) The second is to have a really convincing, plausible, short-term career plan. Given your work history plus an MBA (from the particular school) can you make Adcom and Career Services believe you will be gainfully employed in a MBA-worthy position on graduation day? If you can do this, you’re one step closer to getting in.

Tags: Business Week, career plan, Career Services, GMAT, GPA, MBA Recruitment, post-MBA job, recession, recruiters, short-term goal, starting salary, success record

Stanford’s essays are notoriously “introspective” and give many applicants trouble. Stanford Adcom do really want to get to know the real you through your writing. This year the flavor is the same, but (and possibly to avoid waffle) some important tweaks have been made in the optional essays to shift the focus squarely towards communicating successful results.

Why results? Because successful outcomes are hard to achieve. Anyone can tell a good story, particularly about what great things they may do in the future. That’s important. But if you can twin it with proof of past success, then it sounds like you are likely to hit your targets in life.

Stanford GSB Application Essays

1. What matters most to you, and why? (750 words recommended)
   
2. What are your career aspirations? How will your education at Stanford help you achieve them? (450 words recommended)
   
3. Answer two of the four questions below. Tell us not only what you did but also how you did it. What was the outcome? How did people respond? Only describe experiences that have occurred during the last three years. (300 words recommended).
   Option A: Tell us about a time when you built or developed a team whose performance exceeded expectations.
   Option B: Tell us about a time when you made a lasting impact on your organization.
   Option C: Tell us about a time when you motivated others to support your vision or initiative.
   Option D: Tell us about a time when you went beyond what was defined, established, or expected

Here is where successful outcomes results-orientation has been upgraded. In Option A they have added “whose performance exceeded expectations.” Option B used to be “Tell us about a time when you felt most effective as a leader.” Now “the lasting impact” demands a results-oriented perspective. Option D remains from last year: this is a directly results-oriented question.

Stanford GSB Application Deadlines are:
Round 1: October 7, 2009
Round 2: January 6, 2010
Round 3: April 7, 2010

Tags: b-school, communications, essay writing, MBA Adcom, profile development, Stanford GSB, success record, top-10 MBA, writing style

Continuing the process of moving stuff off the static site to this new blog format, this in an interview I did with About.com . The questions allowed me to say some perhaps slightly less-than-usual things. The original is here.
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How soon should potential MBA students start preparing for the admissions process?
About 9 months to a year prior to submission deadline - giving time to research the process, research schools, line up recommenders, do the GMAT etc. Earlier start good, but it’s not a simple case of the earlier the better…
the candidate needs to get immersed in the application process. Certainly s/he doesn’t want to dilute the process over years and years. That’s a recipe for a lukewarm application. Generally applicants should be wary of spending too much time on their application research and production - some do - at the risk of having their career stall and missing the key workplace award or promotion that would help them shine in front of Adcom.

Should prospective MBA students submit applications to several schools or are they better of concentrating their efforts on one or two favorites?
Both really. Favorites should be carefully targeted, no holds-barred. But the applicant should also be street-smart in recognizing that competition for top schools is intense, and any one favorite school acceptance may not emerge. In my experience the ideal number of applications is 4-5. Less means the randomness of random dings is not taken out the equation. More starts to dilute the energy of the applicant and recommender, and take too much time (ref answer above).

In your book, MBA Admissions Strategy, you mention that nearly everyone under 35 with respectable undergraduate transcripts and a good professional record has a realistic chance of getting into the finest business schools. Some prospective students don’t share this optimistic view. I get a large number of emails from individuals who feel that poor GMAT scores or attendance at a less prestigious undergraduate school can hurt their chances during the admissions process. What advice can you offer these students?
In my experience a less prestigious U/G school is a very minor factor, and is entirely a non-factor if there is some concrete reason (normally funding) why the applicant went to “Buckwheat State” and not Harvard College. What counts more is how the applicant performed academically at whatever institution they were at. But even more than that, business schools heavily weigh what a candidate has done between college graduation and MBA application. A good professional record trumps college level branding. (This is different to Grad & Law & Med schools, where applicants apply younger and with less or zero work experience, so college brand is all adcoms have to go on.)

As to GMAT, yes, it is true a minimum threshold GMAT is necessary. If one is not in the high 600s, an application to a top-10 school will stall. But the GMAT works on a threshold principle - the applicant needs a high enough score to relax Adcom about his or her academic ability. After that they start asking other questions - about leadership, team skills, career arc, etc.

Footnote to this is that, believe it or not, a GMAT score can be “too good” - anything above about 760 is problematic. This is because the applicant starts to look like a genius and questions will be asked about whether that person will make a good manager and leader. B-school is a professional place with the aim of turning out people who will survive and thrive in the cut & thrust of real world business. That’s what recruiters want. So Adcom looks carefully at apparent geniuses and dings them if it appears they may be better suited to PhD program and research career.

What are four attributes every admissions committee wants to see in an MBA student?
See my book, chapter 2 “Attributes that Count” for a list of 22 such attributes. It’s hard to say which 4 count the most. I think a clear success record is definitely up there; along with personal integrity; being a team player that mixes well; and leadership experience and potential. But there’s no privileged four. I strongly believe in all 22.

How important is it for applicants to show that they possess these attributes?
The key here is “show”. So many applicants claim they possess attributes. That’s worth nothing. The attributes have to be shown by telling proof stories - that is, anecdotes of the candidate in action, acquiring or living the attribute.

What are the three most common mistakes that an MBA applicant can make, and how can these mistakes be avoided?
1. Trying to be a typical MBA applicant - leading to a generic and therefore low-value application.
2. Inability to see what is precious and valuable in their past activities, from Adcom’s point of view.
3. Wasting precious essay space with sentences and paragraphs that do not deliver or prove profile value.

Is there any additional advice that you can offer students who are trying to develop an MBA admissions strategy?
Candidates should balance their energy between the major blocks of an application, which are: (a)GMAT (b)File essay questions & long essays (c) Recommendations (d) Interview. (I assume their college record is set). In having helped hundreds of applicants get into top schools, the application strategy weakness I see most is candidates who are willing to spend an unbelievable amount of time and energy, not to mention money, trying to get their GMAT score up one notch, while neglecting the rest.

As mentioned, the GMAT operates on a threshold principle - more is better up to a certain point - then more is irrelevant. And the balanced good application beats the unbalanced excellent/patchy application (and remember, they don’t want brainiacs). They are looking for people who appear good on all fronts. Someone who looks like they will continue to be good on all fronts. This is what I call the “CEO-in-Waiting” image.

Tags: admissions red flags, application timeline, ethics, GMAT, Leadership, success record, team player, undergraduate record