When prospective students choose an MBA program, what are the factors they take most into consideration?
Here is a list of some of the things that influence their decision:
According to research, both students and alumni concur that a particular school’s prestige is what matters most to them. How is ‘prestige’ measured? Primarily through published business school rankings, word-of-mouth, and the success of the school’s alumni.
Determinant factors in assessing the quality of teaching include a professor’s ability to arouse interest in his or her subject matter, the clarity and conviction of the teaching, and his or her accessibility to the students. Many business schools accord greater priority to scholarly research than to teaching ability, with the result that the teaching in even some of the more elite schools can sometimes be inconsistent.
Connected with this is the question of teaching methodology. Different schools may have predominantly different teaching styles – while some schools adopt a mixture of styles, others focus mainly on one particular style. Which style is in sync with your own personality? The style you can easily relate to will be that from which you will be able to extract the maximum benefit.
That apart, schools that have been ranked, quality-wise, in the top 20 percent percentile are the ones you should be looking out for.
MBA degrees come at a high price. Over and above the tuition fee, a fair amount of money goes into boarding and books, and peripheral expenditures add up to a sizeable sum as well. The total MBA cost, even in an average school, comes to quite a whopping figure, especially when you take into account the lost income.
If you are a professional and want to do your MBA at less cost, what are your options? If you work in a major Fortune 100 corporation, it is possible that your company will be willing to partially or, in entirety, defray the cost of an MBA program. Even in the event that you have a wait a few years, it may just be worth your while to do so. Alternatively, you could consider a well-established one-year MBA. However, while a 12-month degree is fairly common in Europe, there are only nine schools in the Poets & Quants US rankings of premier b-schools that offer one-year options.
You will want to know how much you are likely to draw by way of salary once you graduate from a particular b-school. What is the school’s record in terms of the companies, industries and locations that you are interested in?
Where core classes are concerned, many MBA programs offer a somewhat similar curriculum. However, it would serve your purpose well to take a good look at the electives, concentrations, and specializations available in a school. See which program offers you courses that are closest to your career aspirations. If you can focus on a speciality, it will give you an edge when you re-enter the job market.
Of course, there are various other considerations that might also come into play, depending on the kind of person you are. For example, the school’s proximity to your home, the student life and choice of extracurricular activities it offers, or its class size may be factors that are of greater significance to you than it is to others. Whatever be the case, it would be ideal if you could pay a visit to the schools concerned before you take a final call. Failing that, you need to at least contact current students and read student body newspapers, blogs, and interviews.
There is more to the MBA application process than may at first meet the eye. It is not something that can be done then and there. To negotiate it effectively calls for skill, discipline, forethought, and careful planning. You have to give yourself quite a few months’ time to prepare.
What are some of the measures you need to take?
To perform to your full potential in the GMAT, you need from three to six months of preparation time. A good number of high-scoring students don’t rely solely on self-study – they hire a qualified tutor, or go in for virtual tutoring. You may find it motivational to keep a specific goal in mind – a target score that is 15 to 20 points above the average score in the top b-schools that you intend to apply to.
It would be wise to contact your potential recommenders well before the application deadlines to ensure that they are readily available when the time comes, and that they are willing to put in a good word for you. Arrange matters so that your recommenders get from four to six weeks to complete the recommendation forms of each of the schools you will apply to.
The more the professional and extracurricular experiences you can refer to in your application, the better it is for you. In the time you still have in hand, do what you can to strengthen this important feature of your application. Volunteer proactively. Perhaps you are a software engineer, but you could try convincing your boss to allow you to offer your services to your company’s marketing division for a couple of months. Maybe a friend of yours owns a start-up. Get involved. More than the nature of your voluntary work, it is the attitude you display through the very act of participating that will go in your favour: you are a person who thinks beyond the self – just the kind of person all adcoms seek out.
Your community work can also reflect leadership qualities. How about initiating a campaign in your locality for some worthy cause – imparting literacy to street children, distributing blankets to pavement dwellers in winter, etc.?
Finalizing the list of half-a-dozen or more schools you wish to apply to will necessitate a good deal of homework. Research the relevant schools thoroughly in the context of the convenience of their location, your short-term and long-term goals, etc, and make sure you arrive at a judicious mix of ‘target’ schools (where your qualifications match the admissions standards), ‘reach’ schools (the schools you dream of attending, but where you fall short of the ideal admission criteria in one or more respects) and ‘safety’ schools (where you are almost certain to be accepted). Note down the admission deadlines of the schools you have chosen.
Any adcom will be very interested to know why you need an MBA, and also why you need it at this juncture of your career. Is your aim to rise faster within your present company so that you can make a larger impact? Do you plan to break into a new field on the basis of your past experience? Are you thinking of starting a new business? Providing details will make your case more convincing.
A research conducted by FIGMAT reveals that the average GPA for the twenty top-ranked programs lies between 3.5 and 3.7, and that if you have graduated with a GPA of 2.7 or less, your chances of gaining admission into a select program are significantly reduced.
That said, adcoms don’t look at your GPA in isolation. They take a holistic view of it, in which various other factors come into play. If your GPA is low, for instance, were there mitigating circumstances? Post-undergrad, have you taken additional courses to compensate for your areas of weakness? Does your GPA trend up or down? What is your GMAT score? Do you have a record of professional excellence?
If you cannot address any of these issues in the normal course of your application, you had better do it through your optional essay. Perhaps you were ill at a certain stage, or had a heavy load of extracurricular activities which left you little time for academics. (In the latter instance, your involvement in non-academic pursuits can even go in your favor if it highlights desirable qualities in you like sociability and social awareness). Later, you made up for your poor GPA by taking a course in a local college where you scored an A. Your GMAT may also be above the school average. If you can make a convincing case for your situation, a low GPA need not spoil your MBA prospects.
Your grade trend is something the adcom will want to look into, because it can say a lot about you:
EMBA programs, as you know, are designed for slightly older candidates who have been in the workforce in leadership roles for quite a while. As such, in the EMBA context, your academic record is somewhat old and stale and not anywhere near in relevance to its program as are your work experience and the professional networks you can bring to the table.
In other words, how much your GPA counts will also depend on which program you are applying to.
A crucial factor to consider when preparing a resume is this: can an adcom glancing at your resume get to see your main credentials within, say, 15 seconds? With so many resumes to be considered, this is approximately about the amount of time that will be devoted to the first look at your resume. As such, you have to prepare your resume in such a way that you make an immediate impact.
Many applicants try to pack everything they have ever accomplished in their resumes, but too many details make your resume unnecessarily lengthy and ineffective. The question therefore arises: what do you put into your resume (and how?), and what do you leave out?
Your resume should reflect your compatibility with the vision and strengths of the school you are applying to. You need to familiarize yourself with the schools’ programme, and highlight those aspects of your profile that most tie in with your target school. However, you should be wary of ‘lifting’ phrases and sentences from the school’s website. Express yourself in your own language.
The fact that you participated in a blood donation camp 15 years ago will not increase your chances of getting admission into business school. Unless you did something truly spectacular many years ago, it is best to concentrate only on your more recent history.
While listing your most important achievements, emphasize those aspects that are especially relevant to your goal and, as far as possible, quantify your successes. ‘Successfully implemented the project’ is a weak statement. Saying, instead, that ‘the implementation of the project resulted in my company saving over $ 1m’ gives the adcom a more vivid picture of the extent of your accomplishment.
Your date of birth, your marital status, and such personal information are better excluded from your resume.
Just to impress, don’t say things that are not true. Don’t say that last year you received the ‘Best Achiever’ award in your organization if you haven’t. Truth has a funny habit of catching up with you, and if it is later discovered that you were lying, you may well lose your place in the school.
It is a no-brainer that an aesthetically appealing resume will make a more powerful impact than a run-of-the-mill one. Your resume should not look too congested. At the same time, try to limit the use of bold fonts, as they can be hard on the eye. However, you could do things like creating blocks of text to draw attention to a particular section, add an accent color to improve the appearance of your resume, or use one of the less familiar bullets by way of novelty.
Active verbs are much more dynamic than passive ones, and should therefore be preferred over the latter. Instead of saying, ‘Was in charge of 8-member development team,’ it is more effective to say, ‘Supervised 8-member development team.’ Similarly, ‘Completed the project in four weeks’ is superior to ‘The project was finished in four weeks.’
Multiple line descriptions are boring to read. It would be easier on the eye if you break them up into smaller units, using sub-bullets, if required.
A well-crafted resume can go a long way in enhancing your chances of admission into business school, and it will be well worth your while to spend some time in learning how to polish up your resume-writing skills.
You have decided to apply for B-School. What are the factors you need to take into consideration while deciding how many business schools should you apply to?
Let us try to list some of these:
Applying to a B-School can be time-consuming. Leaving aside taking the GMAT, a well-thought-out MBA application is said to take anywhere between 15 to 30 hours. Naturally, it is far more preferable to send in five good applications than ten, hurried slipshod ones, so the amount of quality time you can devote to your applications is an important consideration. After all, applying to a B- school is expensive as well, and you will not want to waste money. At the same time, it is not that you need to apply to all your targeted schools together. There are different rounds for applications, and it is for you to choose as to which school you want to apply to in which round.
Your choice of the number of schools you will apply to will partly be determined by what kind of program you want to pursue. If you a part-time student who is working on a full-time job, you will have limited geographic options as to where you can attend the program, and it might be a good idea to follow up on all the options you have. On the other hand, as a full-time student, you will probably want to apply to a wide range of MBA programs.
If, for personal reasons, it is absolutely essential for you to enter a business school next year, then you must cut down on the risk factor, and apply to a mix of ‘safety’ and ‘reach’ schools.
A ‘safety’ school is one that admits at least 30 percent of its candidates, one for which both your GPA and GMAT are well above the average, and also one which offers you a few additional advantages. For example, you may be well acquainted with an alumnus who is in close touch with the school, and who will be willing to recommend you without reservations; or it may be that your work industry is an underrepresented one in the school. Though you cannot assume you will be automatically admitted into such as school, the probability that you will be is relatively high.
In contradistinction to this, your ‘reach’ schools are actually your dream schools, the schools you would give anything to be in but, needless to say, the application process there will be a lot more competitive than in your ‘safety’ schools, which is why your chances of admission will be proportionately lower. There is a very grave risk factor here and so, if you are set on getting admission into one of your dream schools, it may not be a bad idea to find out all you can about your them – their ethos, their courses, their faculty, their clubs, etc. – and wait for a full year before you apply – a period of time you can profitably utilize in building up your profile further (e.g. by increasing your GMAT score, engaging in significant volunteer work, gaining more relevant work experience, etc.) in keeping with all that you have learnt about the schools in question.
There are schools that will fall in between your ‘safety’ and ‘reach’ schools in terms of their rates of acceptance and how well they support your goals, and you could send off a couple of applications to such schools as well.
All said and done, once you have thoroughly researched the available business programs, you will probably find only handfuls that are in line with your goals and interests. Stick to these, because it is important for you to feel enthusiastic about the programs you are applying to – it inevitably shows in your essays and interview, and it greatly helps your cause. Typically, your aim should be to apply to about 6 schools, and meticulously craft your application to each of them in the light of their requirements and preferences.
Undoubtedly, the b-school application process is demanding and, given that you have professional and family commitments, there might be a tendency to take it as it comes, so to speak, rather than formulate a specific plan and adhere to it. However, if you can put a few well-thought-out strategies in place, you can greatly smoothen the going, as well as enhance your chances of success.
Let us look at some of the strategies you can adopt:
Possibly you are a young and busy professional up to the neck in client projects, product campaigns, and what have you. Applying to b-schools will take up much of your time and energy, but that is not something you can compensate for by easing off at work. On the contrary, it would be much more profitable to let your superiors know that you are applying, and that you would welcome an assignment with a higher level of responsibility than you have been given so far.
Remember, you want to build up your profile over the next few months, and anything you can present to adcoms by way of additional accomplishment will go in your favour.
The same applies with regard to your community work. Are there ways in which you can deepen your involvement in it so that you can bring to the fore skills that any b-school will prize – skills like leadership, and capacity for teamwork and collaboration?
All this, of course, might entail your sacrificing your weekends and vacations for a short spell of time.
Adcoms want to get to know you beyond your resume, and in most cases you can best do that by focusing on your human side. This is where you can make yourself stand out. Do you have special interests and hobbies? Perhaps you are good at chess, and have participated in local and national championships. Talk about this, and about what chess means to you.
It would be ideal if you could link your special interest with your professional aspirations as well. Maybe you are heading for a career in finance. You could point out how both chess and finance involve predicting and anticipating the future. The billionaire Peter Thiel used chess concepts (like knowing the relative value of your pieces, and knowing how your pieces work best together) to work his way to fortune.
It is important, however, not to feign a passion that does not exist. It is quite likely that you will be found out at the interview. Authenticity matters.
This is going to take some time. You need to thoroughly research the schools in order to get an idea of where you fit in. Familiarize yourself with the school communities through online research, campus visits, and networking with alumni. Which areas of study and which clubs are you particularly drawn to? Why not get in touch with specific professors who belong to the fields you want to gain expertise in?
Once you have completed your research, your next job will be to make a realistic list of your target schools, which should be a judicious mix of reach, match, and safety schools. Quality should take precedence over quantity, meaning that you should refrain from applying to too many schools at one and the same time – a practice that inevitably results in your recycling material, and one that adcoms can often see through to your detriment.
The two keys to your admissions success are your ability to differentiate yourself from other applicants, and to show the adcom in question how well you fit into their programme.
Well, you’ll be applying to top notch business school this fall, possibly aiming for the Round 1 deadlines. Like most applicants, you have to manage a full-time job and perhaps try to improve the GMAT score.
You really don’t have much time to spare.
The first thing you need to do is to start defining your MBA goal. A strong, clear MBA goal should guide your school research. The more introspection you do before you write your career goals essay, the faster the actual writing of the essay will be later on. Narrating your goals clearly in the essay will demonstrate your fit to the school.
What do you love to do? If you had infinite amount of money and all other resources, then what do you wish to accomplish in your professional career? Do you aspire to become a globe trotter and understand the cultural nuances of every country? Or, do you wish to launch a wind energy firm to fight against global warming? Or, do you wish to establish a non-profit to eradicate poverty from Africa? Or, will you launch a political party in your country to trigger a socio-economic revolution in order to root out corruption?
Think about what you are really passionate about. Be prepared to discuss why you’re attracted to your target positions/industry. What inspires you toward these goals? Why not pursue some other goals post MBA? Most schools won’t specifically ask about your motivations for pursuing your particular goals. But keep your reasons for pursuing these goals in front and center. That will help you to narrate a more engaging story with a stronger message.
Reflect on your entire career trajectory. Think about the moments when you really excelled. Look at the contributions you’ve made to various organizations. What strengths have you demonstrated? Have you streamlined quality process? Or, have you spearheaded an excellent marketing initiative to penetrate new markets? Are you a people person or would you prefer to work alone in your laptop? Do you wish to lead from the front or do you delegate the tasks among your team mates and expect them to deliver with minimal supervision?
If you can appropriately identify the strengths that you have exhibited, then that will give you some hint about your post MBA goals.
You will excel in job roles that fulfill you professionally as well as personally. You don’t need to work just for a paycheck post MBA. So, crystalize your career goals and look forward toward a satisfying future.
Comprehend the challenges of securing a job in those industries/companies. Are there any current events that have affected your industry? Try to understand the overall macro economic scenario in your target sectors. It will give you a fair idea about the feasibility of your goals and make it more realistic.
At each of the stages of your career, what would your ideal job role/designation/position be? And in what industry? Try to be specific in terms of job titles and companies you would like to work for. Don’t just talk about what you want to get out of an experience, but about the impact you want to have on the organization and people during that time. These goals are not etched in stone, and can change as you transition from one stage to the next.
You will be shelling out a ton of money and also spend 2 years of your life for getting the MBA degree. Hence, you need to select a program that will support your career goals. If you’re a “city” person, a more rural environment isn’t the place for you. Do you do better in a group setting, or are you an independent learner? Do you prefer a structured curriculum or a flexible one? Do you prefer a more relaxed academic environment or a more professional one? Do you want peers who will be more competitive or more collaborative? Do you prefer a school that will give lots of access to the faculty members out side the classroom?
These are the few crucial questions that you should answer when looking at MBA programs. The academic environment is paramount, but you will learn much more in an environment where you feel comfortable. Moreover, you should focus on the student body, alumni network and industry access that the school will provide you.
All these above mentioned factors will assist you to formulate rock solid MBA goals. Brainstorming on these points before putting the pen to paper will help you formulate a compelling career goal. It will help you to narrate all aspects of your goals. In case you need further assistance, please contact us.
Most business schools have more or less identical courses in the core areas (marketing, finance, HR etc.). However, the electives courses vary quite a bit. Talk to current students and admission office to understand the elective offerings. You will see the difference between the programs.
Moreover, some schools such as Harvard and Darden exclusively use case study method, whereas others such as Chicago Booth and Columbia use a mix of pedagogical methods. Do you want a structured program or do you want a highly flexible one (such as Chicago Booth) that you will be able to mold to your specific needs? Which approach do you prefer and why?
Do you need a two years or just a one year program? Whereas most US schools offer two years program, other programs such as INSEAD, ISB, Columbia J-term, etc. offer one year MBA programs. Such programs usually don’t offer the internship opportunity that might be essential for career changers or candidates with just few years of experience.
Most top notch schools offer excellent networking opportunity, access to global alumni network, global practicum, business plan competitions, case competitions, and so on. On the surface, they all look the same. But if you dig a little deeper, you will observe the differences. They don’t all offer the same things and in the same ways.
For instance, Columbia offers an exclusive program on Value Investment whereas Chicago Booth offers an unparallel access to faculty members who are Noble laureates. Stanford and Berkeley Haas offer access to the Silicon Valley whereas Columbia and NYU Stern offer outstanding access to Manhattan and Wall Street. MIT has a great program in Entrepreneurship and Innovation whereas Harvard and INSEAD are “Mecca” for consulting folks. Explore these options in order to finalize your dream school.
Which faculty would you like to study with? Would you like to interact with world famous economists such as Nouriel Roubini, who accurately predicted the 2008 sub prime mortgage crises? If yes, then NYU Stern is your best choice. Do you want to rub shoulders with Clayton Christensen to learn the nuances of disruptive innovations? If yes, then select HBS. If you wish to attend the workshops of Donald Kuratko, who is one of the most celebrated professors of entrepreneurship, then IU Kelley must be in your list of schools. Or do you wish to study innovation & strategy from one of the best thought leaders in this field? Then you must choose Tuck and opt for all the electives of Vijay Govindarajan.
Please do a detail study of the faculty members as it might be a game changer. Getting a recommendation from such world renowned professors will open many avenues for you in the job market. This is one of the least explored areas during application. Doing a proper research into the areas of expertise of the faculty members and mapping that with your post MBA goals will differentiate you from hundreds of other MBA applicants.
Most business schools have plenty of students driven clubs. There is definitely overlap between the schools in this area. But few schools offer specific clubs for niche industries and interests. For instance, Columbia offers a Luxury Goods Clubs. This information will be of great help if you are targeting luxury goods product management in your post MBA career.
If you look into the extra curricular activities in various school campuses, you will observe quite a significant difference. Schools such as Duke Fuqua or UCLA Anderson have numerous extracurricular activities. Their campuses are more vibrant with plethora of engagement compared to many others B-schools.
Each business school has its own unique culture. For instance, students in Duke Fuqua are extremely helpful to each other whereas peers in Booth or Columbia are quite competitive. That is why visiting school campus, class visits, info sessions, admissions events and reading student blogs are so important. Each of these will give you insight into the schools’ cultures and personalities.
In conclusion, research the school’s pedagogy, curriculum structure, flexibility to choose courses, specialty programs, faculty members, clubs, student life, recruitment trends, location, and financial aid at your target schools. Write elaborately about how all these resources are going to help you to accomplish your career goals. Tie every resource with a specific aspect of your goal and show the school how they will help you to paint your dreams into the canvas of reality. You will hit the bull’s eye!
You might think that the highest-ranked b-schools are necessarily the best for everybody, but if you don’t fit in, they can’t be good for you, however good they may be otherwise. Besides, schools that admit fewer than 15 percent of their applicants are, in practical terms, reach schools, no matter how great your credentials are, and admission into them is not something you can count on.
So how do you decide which schools to apply to? Here are a few suggestions:
Get hold of all the hard data from their websites, as well as their printed literature. Certain newspapers and magazines like Business Week, US News and World Report, and The Wall Street Journal will also be helpful in this regard.
Find out the median and range of GPA and GMAT of the students accepted by these schools. Are you at least within the range? If your GPA is slightly on the lower side, can you compensate with a GMAT that is on the higher side, and vice versa?
On average, how many years of work experience do accepted students have? What percentage of accepted students belongs to your work industry? How do you measure up in these respects? If, for instance, it turns out that you come from an industry that is underrepresented in the school, your chances of admission are good. Conversely, if you hail from an overrepresented industry, your chances diminish correspondingly. This is a factor you need to keep in mind.
Similarly, gather data pertaining to nationality, gender, race, etc. See whether you fall in the underrepresented or the overrepresented category in these areas – you will get a good idea of which schools will be more welcoming to you.
After the hard data comes the soft data. What are the school’s strengths and weaknesses? What are its specialities? What teaching methodology does it follow? How do all these aspects tie up with your interests, your goals, and your personality? Of course, to gain an insight into these factors, you will need to visit the school, interact with its students and faculty, if possible sit in on a class and, definitely, attend one of its information sessions.
It will be impractical of you to think in terms of finding a school that is a perfect fit for you in every way. You will have to prioritize the elements which are the most significant to you, and if a school possesses most of these, you will know that it one you should apply to. Pursuing an MBA is a very expensive affair, and it would be indeed foolish to get into a school without doing due diligence, only to find out later that you have got into a wrong school and, in the process, wasted a lot of valuable time and money.
Wiser applicants apply to three categories of schools – the safety schools, where you are almost certain to be admitted; the regular schools, where your chances of admission may not be certain but are, nevertheless, high; and the reach schools, where your profile is perhaps in the lower half of admitted students, and where, therefore, you stand an outside chance of getting in.
You will, no doubt, want to do so the same. However, putting in a good application takes a good deal of time and energy, and it doesn’t work when you apply to too many schools at the same time. Here, too, you have to exercise discretion.
Admissions readers will look very closely at your work experience to assess your mind-set, abilities, and maturity. In this article, we will consider two scenarios where you face a potential problem with your work experience record. What effective measures can you take to tackle such situations?
You have taken on too many jobs, and that too very close to one another. On the face of it, adcoms might think that you are not a person who can be depended on, or that you are the sort who finds it difficult to make a firm commitment. How will you explain your position? Will you say, “I found the jobs terribly boring”? or “I just wasn’t getting the right kind of boss”? Well, adcoms won’t really welcome such answers – they might well suspect that there is something lacking in you as a person. Naturally, you don’t want that to happen. Then, how will you present your case?
a. The circumstances of your life made it necessary for you to be constantly on the move. Moving from state to state, or country to country, automatically involved a frequent change of jobs. Who could hold this against you? In fact, you could perhaps even give this a positive spin, spelling out how it enhanced your powers of adaptability, and honed your ability to work harmoniously with different groups of people.
b. There is a saying that “opportunities pursue leaders.” More than once in your short career, you were offered promising positions that, in terms of its challenges, responsibilities and pay package, were superior to the one you were holding. Maybe you could cite an instance in which a colleague went over to another company and recommended you to his/her new boss. In such a context, your change of job will begin to look like a badge of honour!
c. The economy entered a recessive phase and, though you held a nice job, many employees of your company were laid off, including you. To meet your financial responsibilities, you picked up the first available job that came your way, but when, after a while, a better opportunity presented itself, you readily grabbed it. This account provides very sound reasons for why you switched jobs twice within a relatively short span of time.
Most top MBA programs look for applicants who have at least two years’ work experience, and sometimes a few years’ more. In the event that you have worked for less than two years, what are your options?
a. Don’t apply just yet – wait. Gain some more work experience, both in quantitative and qualitative terms.
b. Apply to programs like CMU Tepper and Chicago Booth, which encourage younger applicants
c. If, for unavoidable reasons, it is important for you to apply to other programs as well right now, try to highlight the following in your application:
Adcoms have a strong liking for good communicators and if, through your effective communication, you can convert what at first had seemed like handicaps in your application to virtues that actually support it, your chances of gaining admission will no doubt increase substantially. Really, so much depends on how you put it across..
As you will be aware, most MBA programs require you to have at least two or three years’ work experience in a managerial role. If you are going in for an executive MBA, it is expected that you will have been working for a longer stretch of time.
Why do b-schools insist that you have significant work experience before you even attempt to join an MBA course? There are quite a few reasons:
You may have been a brilliant student, and may be you have had a long-standing interest in business. But unless you have experienced it first-hand, how can you be sure that it is indeed what you want to do? How can you be certain that you will want to take it up as a career? MBA programs are expensive, and if, finally, it transpires that you are not really cut out for business, you will have spent a substantial amount of money for nothing.
Much for the same reason, it is important, in your application, to show your commitment and enthusiasm for the field of work you have chosen.
Unless you have a few years of relevant work experience, you won’t be able the make the most of an MBA program. Not only is your understanding likely to be less sharp, but you will probably also not know what exactly you want and what, specifically, your goals are. On the one hand, you will personally benefit far less than more experienced students will and, on the other, you will lower the school’s standards. As Lee Milligan, Director of MBA admissions at Copenhagen Business School put it, “Our experience is that, without the experience, the program becomes far too academic.”
Keeping this in mind, you would do well to relate your past experiences and your future aspirations to specific components of the program you intend to pursue.
Students who have significant work experience can make much more meaningful contributions to the program. Typically, in a top MBA school, you learn as much from your peers as from your lecturers, who often look upon themselves as guides who facilitate discussion. As such, when you have a background of professional experience, you can participate more constructively in class discussions by drawing from your practical experience and offering your own opinions. You also find it easier to speak up in class.
As an applicant, it would therefore be wise for you to point out the areas where you can contribute most creatively in class discussions.
Business schools have a vested interest in attracting the most appropriate individuals into their student body. For the phrase ‘most appropriate individuals,’ read ‘candidates with a track record of career progression.’ This is how the logic goes: the more graduates they can show as having been recruited by the world’s top companies, the better it is for their own reputation, the greater is their opportunity for creating an environment of excellence, and the stronger the rationale that they can present for hiking the fees for the education they offer!
So, when you apply, do make it a point to meticulously chart the upward curve of your career.
It is important to realize that the length of your work experience may matter less than its quality. If you can show that you have shouldered a variety of responsibilities, then the brevity of your professional life may not be an obstacle at all.
It may also be noted that, in the US, there do exist business schools that enrol students fresh out of universities. These students attend bridge programs where they are taught b-school basics as an introductory step towards a career in business.
There are loads and loads of Indian IT Male MBA applicants applying to the top schools in the USA and Europe who have vastly similar profiles – they work with a leading global IT firm, their grade point averages and GMAT scores are above par, they possess commendable analytical skills, etc. If you happen to belong to this group, the challenge you face is this: as a member of a highly over-represented category, how do you avoid becoming a mere face in the crowd? How do you make your presence felt? Your chances of gaining admission into the program depend largely on the quality of your answers to these questions.
Here are some tips on how you can go about presenting yourself impressively:
Most IT firms recruit graduates of technical universities who reach leadership positions by virtue of their professionalism and skills related to information systems, but who lack a broader understanding of business. In fact, techies are sometimes accused of having narrow world views. It would pay, therefore, if you could show, at various stages of the application process, like the essays and the interview, that you have interests beyond technical issues, and that you recognize the merit of values and skills outside your company or industry. If you could find the time to read at least a few of the latest business books, it is likely to stand you in good stead.
This point is closely connected to the first one. In order to differentiate your profile from that of others with a similar background, it would do you good to perform a more commercial function within the IT role you play. Instead of limiting yourself purely to the technical side of things, if you can voluntarily also involve yourself in business analysis and business development, you will be able to bring out a management perspective in your profile that will go in your favor.
A number of Indian candidates suffer from the delusion that adcoms are primarily interested in their academic results, and the jobs they have done. As a result, they fail to highlight aspects of their personality that might have a profound bearing on their application.
Adcoms are much more interested in hearing about your leadership potential than about your technical skills, which is why any non-work leadership role that you might have taken up can go a long way in setting you apart from the rest. Did you lead a drive in your locality to raise funds for people rendered homeless by an earthquake or floods? Have you coached the children of a local club in football? These are not things to put on the back burner. These are things to place in the spotlight.
Since one good way of differentiating yourself is through the recommendation letters, the pro-forma ‘To Whomsoever It May Concern’ recommendation letter is to be strictly avoided. Indian candidates are said to sometimes produce vague and non-personal recommendations that cut no ice with adcoms. It is important to gear the recommendations to the values a particular school holds dear, and to back up the mention of specific qualities with concrete examples. If your recommender states, for instance, that you are a great motivator, or that you work well in cross-cultural teams, try to ensure that he/she corroborates the statement with a brief description of the activity in which you were involved.
It isn’t easy for an Indian IT applicant to get into a premier MBA program in the West. But rather than let this fact depress you, let it serve as an incentive for you to prepare yourself more thoroughly for the application process. Remember, the more difficult a goal is, the greater is the sense of fulfillment one gets from its attainment.
The number of Indians and Indian-Americans applying to US business schools has registered a sharp increase of late. Indians apply to US business schools in far greater number than they do to similar schools in the UK, or elsewhere in Europe, or Singapore. Interestingly, despite the fact that many of those who apply already possess an MBA or a comparable degree from some Indian institute, they are fully convinced that it is obtaining the US degree that will open up exciting new prospects in their careers.
The irony of the matter is that, the more the Indians that apply, the more difficult it gets for them to gain admission. US business schools give top priority to global diversity in their admissions, and there are schools where Indians constitute an over-represented group, so that the competition within the group itself is exceedingly stiff.
What are some of the strategies that you, as an Indian or Indian-American applicant, can adopt to substantially increase your chances of admission into a good US business school? Here are some pointers to differentiate as an Indian MBA applicants:
As class participation and communication skills play a key role in the MBA experience, you should ensure that you should have a reasonable command of English. Adcoms have often cited insufficient proficiency in the language as a major obstacle to admission.
Since the nature of admissions in India is generally quantitative in nature, many applicants from India harbour the notion that their GMAT scores are of primary importance in the admissions process. Consequently, they expend a lot of time on it. The fact is that, in most US business schools, GMAT/GRE scores, or GPA, are third or fourth in the list of the adcom’s priorities. They set much more store by such factors as the quality of your essays and recommendations, and your work experience. The qualitative aspects of your application are taken into serious consideration while deciding whether you are a proper fit for their school.
When you speak about your professional life, the areas that the adcom will be especially looking out for include:
Adcoms are very keen to get to know you as an individual. There are instances of Indian students writing engaging essays pertaining to their ‘arranged’ or ‘love’ marriages that have gone down very well with admissions officers. Such and similar essays make you stand out from the crowd, and weigh hugely in your favor. By the same token, you are also encouraged to focus on hobbies or extracurricular activities that reflect an unknown aspect of your character. Maybe you are a philatelist with an impressive collection of stamps and FDCs. If so, speak about this and say what it means to you.
While discussing the contributions you have made to your community, it is not an uncommon practice among Indian students to mention one-off volunteer experiences like making a blood donation. These do not really say much about you. What the adcom is looking for is a stronger commitment to community welfare by way of sustained work in a relevant activity (for example, teaching twice a week at a school for poor children.)
Though this trend may be gradually changing, Indians have traditionally stayed away from consultants. A well-chosen MBA consultant, with a track record of having worked successfully with Indian applicants, would certainly be a worthwhile investment. Among other advantages it would provide, such as guiding you through your essays, it could also help you in choosing the schools most suitable for you. For example, if you are banking on student loans and a particular school’s present policy does not accommodate this facility, your consultant could save you a great amount of time and money by advising you against applying there.
For an Indian, the key to applying successfully is: differentiate yourself from your peers.
Like they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. If you happen to represent an overrepresented group – for instance, if you are an Indian or Chinese male applicant from the IT industry – the going for you, where admission into a top MBA program is concerned, is certainly going to be tough. In the circumstances, how do you ‘get going’?
Though, generally speaking, the best time to apply is when you are in a position to put up your best application, you should, as an over-represented candidate, seriously consider applying in Round 1. By the time the next rounds arrive, the adcom will be swamped by a horde of other applicants from your constituency, so it would be better to place yourself one step ahead in the admission stakes by preempting the crowd. You must have heard the proverb, ‘The early bird gets the worm.’
It is highly probable that you will find other members of your large group possessing professional credentials that are as strong as yours. Though your professional qualifications and experience undoubtedly count, they may not be able to make you stand out from the rest. Therefore, you need to put the spotlight on your activities outside your sphere of work. Maybe you have represented your college in football, and have coached children from your locality in the game. (If you haven’t, you could still volunteer for such a stint.) You could speak about this and about how, as a team game, football has taught you many virtues that you have been able to transfer to the workplace.
It is not that you have to be a champion in any particular pursuit. Perhaps you have a unique hobby you would like to talk about. To take an example, you like to make your own furniture rather than buy it. It relaxes you and gives you a sense of fulfillment when you make things with your own hands. It also enables you to create an environment at home that truly suits your needs. You can go on to describe an item you have made – a bookcase? – and why, for you, it was better than buying it from the market. Such an account will help you stamp yourself on the adcom’s mind, and project you as a creative person with a mind of his or her own.
If you are a candidate with a technical background, you may not be very skillful at writing an essay. Your essay matters a great deal. It is not something you can do in a hurry. You have to give it time. Try to get help from reliable sources. If you are showing your essay to a friend, any friend will not do – you will want a friend with a business school background.
While writing about their careers, many candidates follow a strictly chronological order. This is so common that it is also generally very uninteresting, and does not really help your cause. Sometimes you can grab the reader’s attention much more effectively by disrupting chronology, and starting with a statement that distinguishes you straightaway. Consider the following hypothetical sentences:
a. I started as a voluntary project manager in AIESEC, Zimbabwe, at the age of 19. Subsequently, I held several positions in the organization at the national, regional, and international levels.
b. As a 21-year-old Country Manager of AIESEC, Zimbabwe, I had the privilege of heading a 10-member multinational team, as well as of managing a budget of UDS 75,000.
While (a) follows a run-of-the-mill pattern, (b) impresses you instantly by its focus on a notable achievement.
It is not sufficient to merely provide information. If you say you started an NGO, you will need to back up the statement with a description of your leadership, and the results you helped bring about.
In conclusion, as an over-represented applicant, you need to put in that much more planning and hard work to be lucky enough to gain admission into your dream school. Thomas Jefferson surely had a point when he said, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
So, you have a low GMAT? How badly does it affect your chances of getting into a top b-school?
It depends.
Schools have different GMAT numbers. Whether your GMAT score is low or not would depend, to some extent, on which school you are applying to.
It would also depend on your demographic profile. If, for instance, you are an Indian male IT applicant and thus belong to an over-represented category, you may have the same GMAT score as a Sinhalese female executive from the finance industry, but your score might be considered not good enough, but hers quite satisfactory.
The good news is that there are cases when applicants with GMAT scores that are below the median of a particular school have succeeded in making it into that very school. To take a rather dramatic example, in a year when Harvard Business School’s median GMAT was 730, an applicant made the grade with a score as low as 490!
Such cases may not be the norm, but they happen. Especially if you are just marginally below the median, your chances may not be much affected and, sometimes, not affected at all.
It’s this: applicants like the one above convince the adcom that, barring their GMAT score, their credentials are impeccable. ‘How?’ you may ask Here are three other factors that adcoms give a lot of weight to:
If the above three are of high calibre, the adcom, more likely than not, will give you the benefit of the doubt by refusing to consider your GMAT score as a true reflection of your abilities and potential.
Below are some of the concrete measures you can take to compensate for a low GMAT:
To summarize: Demonstrate that you are an excellent MBA prospect whose GMAT score is a one-off occurrence.
Many consider a low quant score at the GMAT as a nail in the coffin of one’s MBA dream. As an applicant, you need to overcome the fear that this will be the sole reason of your rejection. The Admissions committee com does not merely take your low quant score into consideration while considering your candidature but focuses on the overall profile to check the suitability of admittance to the school.
To analyze your score from the Adcom’s perspective, ask yourself the below mentioned questions:
If you answered “yes” to any of the above, then you have a chance! The following three smart tips will prove beneficial, despite your low quant statistics:
Being smart with numbers is essential to scale up the corporate ladder in today’s business world. Walk that extra mile to get admitted to calculus, statistics, or accounting classes at a local university to improve your overall quants knowledge. This will undoubtedly bolster your quantitative proficiency and paint you in a brighter light before the Adcom.
It is important that your essays and resumes strategically use vivid details, examples and anecdotes that concentrate on portraying the quantitative aspects of your profession better. Whatever new knowledge has been acquired in this space, you need to specially mention them to light up your MBA admission case. It needs to be clearly brought out that a low quant score was only a coincidence! As a person, you are not only clear about your own quantitative ability but your colleagues too are confident of your quants knowhow.
The recommendation should effectually incorporate your quantitative achievements too. Needless to say, a third party vouch for your skills, not only reassures about your quantitative knowledge but also holds a high value for the Adcom. Do not let your low scores engulf you in nightmares. Face them! Take the right steps and conquer this weakness. You can still put forward a well-built MBA application.
Are you thinking too much about your low score in verbal section of GMAT? It is important that you know how to effortlessly handle a not so perfect verbal GMAT score (in the bottom of the 80% range or lower for your target programs).
The key essentially lies in skillfully exhibiting your effective communication skills. Remember, your entire B-school journey has its focus on both teamwork and communication, skills necessary to emanate as a successful professional in the future. This explains why exquisite written and verbal communication usually proves critical for MBA students.
I would like to suggest a three-pointer thumb rule to alleviate your fears circumventing around your low GMAT verbal score as the main culprit for an outright rejection from your dream school:
Learn to construct expressively in your essays. You might have failed to demonstrate your written competency during the test, but there lies a second chance in the application to craft flawless essays utilizing your written skills to the best possible extent. You should definitely use examples and anecdotes from your experiences to paint your communication skills in a brighter light before the admissions committee. This will surely highlight not only the strength of your communication skills but the content also will speak volumes about your verbal horsepower.
Step ahead to improve your situation! Get admitted to a written and verbal communication class or course at the local institute or college. Obtaining ‘A’ grades in such a course will prove to be a blessing in disguise. This is important especially if you have scored low in English at your college in line with the low score at GMAT. Actively participate in debate, group discussion, Public speaking clubs, and such other activities or events to prove further that you have stepped up the ‘low-score plate’ and proven your communication skills.
Connect up with the recommenders to request them to comment on both your written and verbal communications skills in a positive light.
Don’t run for the sea yet! A low verbal GMAT score will not send your MBA dream to exile provided you strategically chalk out and develop a promising application, despite those dim scores. Remember! The ship of your application is yet to sail and face stiff competition before it wins over the set target.
Are your worried that you don’t have enough EC activities to talk about, and that it will weaken your MBA application?
Think again. Maybe you are involved in some significant non-work activity even without realizing it! Like you love reading books and, when you like them very much, you have the habit of reviewing them for the magazine section of a local newspaper. If you are doing this, aren’t you spreading the habit of good reading at a time when fewer and fewer people take to the pleasures of reading?
Or perhaps, over the weekends, you have been helping your gardener’s son and daughter with their Math. Aren’t you helping the children out with their education?
Many applicants suffer from a misconception. They think EC activities should be all about helping the poor and the downtrodden, or the aged, or the differently abled, or people like that. Of course, if you do any of these things, it is great, and it will certainly boost your chances of admission into an MBA program, but this does not mean that other kinds of activities don’t count. They very much do. They prove that you don’t just have a one-dimensional personality, and that your life is not simply all work. You have hobbies and interests that enrich your life.
Adcoms think well of you when you can demonstrate a work-life balance. They know that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy (and Jill a dull girl!) and they welcome students who can add value to the school’s community life.
Let’s suppose you have been leading a very one-track life, and hardly have any EC activity to highlight. Will it be a problem if you take up a new activity now, just a few months before you apply? Will the adcom think that your motives are not genuine?
People in the know are unanimous that, notwithstanding the duration of your involvement, or the fact that it is the MBA application that inspired you to get involved in the first place, showing even a little bit of engagement in EC activities is better than showing none at all. Who knows, the activity you have got into today may become a long-term interest and a passion tomorrow? It is something that you might well bring into the school’s community life.
So straightaway start looking for where you fit in. Choose something that appeals to you, rather than something that might seem impressive to others. How about doing something for the school or college you studied in? As an alumnus, could you organize an alumni reunion? Could you all get together to make a positive contribution to the school or college concerned? Why don’t you join Toastmaster’s, which offers plenty of scope for leadership within a short span of time? Or you could start visiting senior citizens in hospitals and nursing homes in your vicinity.
If nothing suitable meets your eye, go to the internet. The chances are that you will find something to your taste.
If it so happens that you don’t get admission into MBA this time, by the time your next opportunity comes around, who is to say that won’t pick up a substantial amount of EC experience by then?
You may wonder that, given that extracurricular activities neither reflect your academic abilities nor your professional expertise, how important are they, really? They are more important than you think. Here are the reasons why:
As adcoms go through a pile of MBA admissions, they often encounter a sense of déjà vu, a feeling that they have seen all this umpteen times before. Too much of a sameness creeps in. But when you start talking of your fascination for horse riding and what it means to you, or how you have been collecting stamps for fifteen years, and the new world it has opened up for you, they sit up and take notice.
Yes, your extracurricular activities add a splash of colour to your profile which otherwise, despite all your qualifications and experience, may not be able to stand out from a hundred other profiles. Remember, it is likely that there are dozens of other applicants who have academic and professional credentials as good as yours.
The fact that you have been collecting stamps for fifteen years and still feel excited about it says a lot about the kind of person you are. It shows dedication. It shows application. It shows commitment. Add up the three, and what you get is passion – something that is in high demand by b-schools.
As for creativity: maybe in your free time you make your own furniture to suit your tastes and needs. That way you get exactly what you want – something purchased furniture can’t give you.
Creativity and innovation are closely linked, and if you can show the adcom how you pursue your hobby creatively, it will certainly enable you to score a few points.
Especially if you have been working as a young professional in a large company, you may not yet have had the opportunity to demonstrate a great deal of leadership. It does not matter. Maybe you have been engaged in organizing a cultural function at a local club. You can use this kind of experience to showcase your leadership and organizational skills.
A question arises in the minds of many applicants: if they have, to date, not taken significant part in any extracurricular activities, would it be too late to begin just a few months before admissions time? The answer is, a little is better than nothing.
And you never know. What starts off casually may lead to a long-term involvement. That would, of course, have its own benefits, but it could also bring you rich dividends in the event that you have to re-apply a year later.
Are you a young MBA applicant with just a year and a half of work experience, and are you wondering how good your chances are of making it to a top b-school’s graduate programme?
The good news is that the top b-schools are becoming increasingly more receptive to younger applicants. Why not find out which schools will be more welcoming towards you?
The bad news is that the median work experience at the top b-schools is over four years. However, this may not be as bad a piece of news as it first sounds, because every class has students who fall both above and below this figure.
As a younger applicant who has all the credentials for getting into a top programme except the standard length of his/her work experience, what measures can you adopt to boost your chances?
Here are some factors you could work upon:
You are younger than the normal applicant. Why don’t you wait a year or two?
It is best to relate your reasons for applying to your professional goals. Remarking that the economy is headed for a bad phase and that it will hamper your growth prospects is a much less persuasive approach than saying that you are shortly due for a promotion and that, once that happens, the far greater responsibilities that will come your way necessitates that you undertake formal business training.
Or perhaps the industry you are in is on the verge of reaching its peak growth, and you want to be there, ready to take advantage, when the moment comes.
Given your lack of work experience, it becomes important for you to show that, in the short span of your working life, you have achieved as much, if not more, than your more experienced peers. In your organization, have been you been entrusted with greater responsibilities than others in your age group? If you can demonstrate this, you will make a good case for yourself.
Your potential for leadership is gauged by your capacity to make an impact. Speak about how your leadership made a difference. Quantify your role and your accomplishments, wherever you can. For example, here is an applicant, the Chief Operations Officer of a neuroscience institute, describing her job:
Currently, I am managing a team of 400 hospital staff to handle an inflow of 64,000 annual patient visits and optimize an annual budget spend of $100m.
Later, speaking of the impact she made, she notes:
On analyzing a series of surveys and spending time with patients, I realized that our facility’s current architecture and design were inappropriate to the requirements of our patients, who were mostly 65+. The clinic was very long and wide, with 15 consultation rooms lining either side of the wall, and no demarcation or zoning. The signage was small and inconveniently high. Patients had difficulty navigating their way around the clinic. I decided on a series of measures: to color-code and design-code the clinics, to enable staff to guide patients by telling them to walk to the colored zone; to introduce distinctly colored large-font signage and a patient journey wall mural; and to provide consultation rooms with brighter white lights and demarcated wheelchair parking areas. Additionally, not only would a new patient suite be added to enhance clinical services for patients, but the 10-year old staff pantry would also be given a makeover.
To my delight, I was able to convince the management to approve a $230,000 budget for the project. It is now under way, and scheduled to be completed by Q3 2016.
There is nothing fudgy here. The impact the applicant made is crystal-clear because of the specific details she provides.
Your maturity is usually measured on the basis of these three criteria: your soundness of judgment, your self-awareness, and your ability to get along and work with others. Can you, through illustrative examples, throw light on these qualities of yours?
By the time you have covered the four points mentioned above, the adcom will have a fair sense of where you may be able to contribute to their programme. Yet, you need to specifically spell this out. What expertise or experience can you bring to the classroom? It is even possible that much of your contribution will be in a non-professional area. Maybe you have special artistic or musical skills which you would like to share with the community by starting a new club. Spell out your plans to the adcom.
The long and the short of it is that, if you are convinced that this is the proper time for you to apply, and that you can make a convincing case for your application, go right ahead!
In the top 20 US business schools, entrants into the MBA program have an average age of 28, and have worked professionally for 5 years or more. In Europe, incoming students have an average age of 29, and have worked for over seven years.
Generally speaking, if you are in your 20s, your chances of admission into a business school are that much brighter, but that does not mean that you will be necessarily left out in the cold if you are a 30+ or a 40+ applicant. The trick is to know how to handle your application deftly. It is not without reason that many companies look to recruit younger graduates. This enables them to trim salary costs, get more work out of young, enthusiastic people who are not burdened by family constraints, and maintain an age hierarchy that they secretly adhere to.
Additionally, schools are also highly sensitive to media rankings, where one important criterion is the salary increase graduates enjoy after joining work. As an older, more experienced candidate, your salary is probably already significantly higher than those of younger candidates, and it is estimated that the salary increase that will come your way post graduation will be markedly less than theirs (in the US, pay tops out at the age of 45 for men, and 38 for women) – a phenomenon that will adversely affect the school’s average salary increase percentage, and hence, its overall ranking.
So, as an older applicant, how do you put yourself across to the adcom in such a way that they are convinced that you are worth investing in? Here are some tips:
Having worked for a longer time than the usual applicant, you will probably have a much more impressive track record of positive achievements at work and extra-curricular activities. Your name is better known within the industry, and you have a wider network as well. Your stance should be that, thanks to all this, you not only have a good job waiting for you at the end of your graduation, but you are also well qualified to contribute significantly to the program, both through classroom discussions and through community engagements.
Adcoms sometimes assume that, as an older applicant, you are likely to be set in you ways and, therefore, less open to new ideas about business and management. As such, whether it is in your essays or during your interview, try to portray yourself, preferably through examples, as a person for whom learning is an unending and life-long process, and as one who is motivated by a deep sense of curiosity.
As an older candidate, you are expected to have a clearer career vision than younger applicants. In the context of your qualifications and experience, your goals should be realistic and achievable, and you should be able to lay out your plan in some detail. The adcom should be left in no doubt that you will succeed in finding a satisfactory job once you leave the school.
Since team-work and collaboration are an important part of any MBA program, one of the problems adcoms have about letting in older applicants is that they wonder whether such people will be able to get along easily and naturally with their younger peers. If, therefore, you can show them that, either in your personal or your professional life, you have bonded well with those younger than you, then you will be able to remove a serious doubt about your suitability from the minds of the admissions officers.
If you are an older applicant, and have chosen the full-time MBA over the EMBA, there must be a special reason why you have done so. Whatever the reason, make certain that you negotiate the application process with a confident and optimistic mind-set – at the end of the day, your attitude has much to do with how well you perform.
It is not without good reason that MBA programmes, even the more prestigious ones, haven’t found favour with a lot of women. What exactly is that?
1. To begin with, the typical entry age for such programmes, which normally ranges from the late 20s to the early 30s, is just the time when many women look forward to starting a family. The prospect, therefore, of subjecting themselves to a rigorous programme at this stage of their lives, and then immediately afterwards stepping into a fiercely competitive and highly demanding professional environment, is not one that finds too many takers.
2. Combine the above with other discouraging factors like the male orientation of the majority of business schools, and the inevitable gender discrimination that women face first in b-school and later at the workplace, and you have a state of affairs that does not inspire much confidence among women. Especially in the US, this is a major cause of worry, particularly given the fact that, at the undergraduate level, women have achieved parity with men. With women applicants for most full-time MBA courses varying from 34 percent to 39 percent over the last seven years – a figure that is even lower than in law and medical schools – b-schools clearly have a great deal of catching up to do, a process they have already begun in dead earnest. As a result, it is easier now than ever before for a woman to get into a top b-school. This, however, is a relative statement – for while it might be easier than earlier for a woman to get into a good b-school, it is still not all plain sailing. All the customary hard work still has to be done.
Here are some of the measures b-schools are adopting to woo women:
A typical example of this would be the famous case studies at Harvard, where students are presented a person’s business problem, and asked to solve it. Traditionally, the cases have predominantly involved male protagonists, and even when, exceptionally, females have been brought into the picture, often the problem has only related to achieving a work-life balance.
Now, Harvard has modified its stance and introduced a greater number of women-centric cases. At the same time, other b-schools are seriously considering inviting more women speakers to their campuses.
If you are a female undergraduate with an impressive academic record, there are better opportunities now for scholarships and grants. For instance, the George Washington School of Business, in collaboration with the non-profit Forte Foundation, has spent over $ 1 million by way of scholarships to women candidates.
Similarly, in the UK, the Henley Business School, in partnership with the 30% Club, which is fighting for 30% female board representation, has been funding eligible women enrolled in its MBA programmes.
Of late, there has been a concerted effort to get young girls to think in terms of a career in business. Some time ago, Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business got together high school girls and their parents to showcase the school’s programmes and discuss career prospects in business. Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business held a women-only business training programme for liberal arts majors, and Harvard Business School conducted a weekend programme to give more than 70 young women a taste of MBA life at their campus. The central idea behind these and other initiatives of their kind is to increase the number of women applying to b-schools.
All said and done, it must be remembered that the male-to-female ratio is only one of the multiple factors that b-schools have to keep in mind while selecting candidates. There are a whole lot of other issues like diversity, industry, managerial potential, GMAT scores, etc, that have to be taken into account before the adcom makes its final decision. If you are a woman, though, with dreams of making it big in the business world, there has been no time better than this to apply.
You have a family business where you have worked for a few years, and now you are applying for MBA. Is your background an advantage or a disadvantage? Will the adcom consider the work you did a real job?
The truth is that, irrespective of the size of the family business, if your family job is in line with your future career, it is something that you can draw a lot of strength from.
What are some of these strengths?
If you have been working in your family business, the chances are that your knowledge of it is not limited to a particular function, but spans various aspects of it, like production, marketing, sales, customer service, product innovation, etc. This is more so the case when your family business happens to be a small one. Being involved with a multiplicity of functions allows you to appreciate how they all converge to accomplish a common task. It is much like working in a start-up.
The built-in trust you have enjoyed in your family business has made it habitual for you to work with the commitment and sense of responsibility of an owner, as a result of which you have had greater opportunities to innovate and exercise initiative. This in turn has enabled you to learn many fruitful lessons at a faster pace.
In all probability, you are much younger than the family members who own the business. As such, it is entirely possible that you are far more tech-savvy than they are. You have given the company a social media presence, and you have thought in terms of technological innovations that would not have occurred to your older family members. In fact, they may even have initially opposed your ideas. To get their green signal, you had to employ all the persuasive powers in your command. Such exercises have helped you become an effective communicator.
One criterion b-schools use to assess their applicants is their employability after graduation. This is one of the factors that impinges on their ranking. In your case, the school can rest assured that, should you want to, you can just walk into your family business.
However, as an applicant with a family business, there are a few special things that you need to bear in mind:
All in all, applicants with a family business background have plenty of scope to impress adcoms.
Most b-schools attach a great deal of importance to community service. Why?
First, let’s take a good look at what community service is all about. It is about doing work that benefits others. It is generally carried out in or near the area you live in, although this is not a mandatory requirement. It is work done on a voluntary basis, which means you don’t get paid for it. There might be occasions when you are provided food or little gifts of appreciation, but that is a different matter.
Community service is performed to help people in need, like senior citizens, children, people suffering from displacement or poverty or a lack of educational facilities, etc. It can also extend to helping animals, such as building them shelters, or to improving public places, such as keeping a children’s park free of litter and garbage.
You can do community service through an organization, or you can initiate your own community service projects.
Now, for why adcoms are keen on knowing how strong your community service involvement has been:
In the face of stiff competition for entry into b-schools, a healthy community service record is just what can tilt the balance in your favor. Therefore, if community service happens to be a weak point in your profile, its time you swung into action. Choose an activity you have a natural feeling for. For example, if you are fond of children, see if you can find something that centers round them, and so on.
You need to realize that no one in this world is perfect. It’s okay if you have flaws. No one is asking for a candidate who is perfect. For the admission committee, what matters is how you have dealt with your flaws? What you have learned from your past mistakes? How failure at some point in your life has made you an achiever? How you take criticisms?
Applicants often try to over exaggerate their personality and try to portray perfection in all areas of work and life. Applicants who have always achieved, always knew exactly what road to take, always figured out the perfect solution, always had their ideas adopted without challenge; appear abundant in the application process. Such perfect applicants don’t have anything to learn or gain. They are already perfect. What else they need to know and learn?
The flaws don’t make you inappropriate for the MBA program of the top-ranked business schools. In fact, you can use your flaws as an opportunity to showcase your growth or highlight a circumstance that made you better through the trial and error. You are not required to demonstrate a well-crafted memoir but rather illustrate a work in progress. An MBA application that reflects success, as well as areas under development and aspirations for the future, have more chances to get a chance in a top-ranked business school.
Passion offers the enthusiasm for deeper pursuits. A passionate and highly motivated applicant tend to show more willingness to discover and demonstrate the fervor needed to overcome obstacles. Such candidates leverage their passion and motivation, and use it as fuel to stick with it. These kinds of candidates generally attend information sessions, do their research about the business school they desire, engage with alumni, attend faculty presentations, interact with admissions staff. Each of these actions furthers their passion and motivation for their goal. Applicants who demonstrate the qualities to be epic have undertaken many experiences and have used those experiences to deepen their understanding of themselves and their intentions. Passion offers the fuel to maintain focus and enthusiasm toward the goal of attending business actions. Passion supports your purpose. So, always try to properly showcase your passion and motivation in the MBA admission essays. It helps the admission committee know about you better and gain deeper insights into your personality.
There are plenty of MBA applications received by the top business schools. What makes you stand out among all of them? Yes, this is a vital question. You need to understand that the MBA admissions committee are searching for candidates who can gain knowledge as well as contribute something unique to their learning team. So, it’s not sufficient to have a dream or willingness to pursue MBA from a globally ranked business school. You need to have a purpose and a unique objective to be a part of their learning team. There must be something in you that stands out from the rest. Here is why, it is always recommended by most of the MBA application consultants to properly elaborate the purpose of applying for the MBA program. Going to business school is not simply the next step in your career. You need to specify your goal of applying into the business school, properly. Elaborating on your goal for pursuing the MBA program from that particular business school in a clear and straightforward manner can boost your chances to get admissions a lot. Applicants with clear and unique goals are more than appreciated by the global business schools.
Hopefully, if you consider the above while drafting your MBA admissions application to a top-ranked business school, then you can create a compelling essay and nail your business school application.
Only a small percentage of applicants are called for an interview, and so, if it happens that you have been called for one, you have good reason to feel elated. It is like you are climbing a mountain, you have done all the hard work, the peak is close, and all you have to do is negotiate the last lap.
But you cannot take the last lap for granted. It has proved to be the stumbling block of many a mountaineer.
Yes, though an interview call suggests that the business school in question has been impressed by your application, and is now looking for reasons to accept you rather than reject you, remember there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip, and you should assume nothing. What are some of the steps you ought to keep in mind to ace the interview?
You can more or less predict quite a few of the questions you will be asked, so there is no reason why you should not be well prepared for them. Some of the common questions asked include:
You should be able to deliver your answers informally and confidently, without parroting what you wrote in your essays. Giving mock interviews to friends or members of your family is a nice and entertaining way to prepare.
It is important for you to keep your focus during the interview and not go off at a tangent. For example, if you are asked, “What do you do when you’re not working?” you should not begin, “I love my work, and my life centres round it.” Instead, you could say something like, “I enjoy listening to music in my free time.” When you are asked a question, it is helpful to think up an outline of what you will say. This will ensure that you reply methodically.
Your interviewers might be interested in knowing whether you can think on your feet, so gear yourself for the unexpected question. Which aspects of your profile lend themselves to such questions? Ideally, you could work this out with friends/family members in mock interviews, but, if this is not possible, you could carry out a mock interview with yourself.
There are obvious things you need to do, but sometimes the obvious is overlooked when you are preoccupied or rushed. Where you interview is concerned, it is a good idea to arrive a little ahead of the appointed time to mentally gear yourself for the occasion. If there are butterflies in your stomach, take a few deep breaths, and think only of positive things – for instance, of times when you succeeded.
It would also make good sense to be dressed in suitable business attire. Begin and end the interview with a pleasant smile and a warm handshake.
What kind of tone should you adopt at the B-School Admission Interview? Should your speech be slow and measured, or should you express yourself freely, as with a friend? Should you be serious or cheerful?
One suggestion that has been made is that you should take your cue from the interviewer, and try to match your tone with his – that is, if he talks in a slow and measured way, you should do the same, etc. However, this is not something we would recommend. We think it is important for you to be natural, and to allow your true personality to reveal itself.
You should guard against trying to impress by being too friendly, or talking too much, or coming up with ‘smart’ answers.
The interview is not only about you answering questions. Use appropriate openings to ask your own questions – questions about the school’s facilities, the scope for you to pursue your special interests, faculty research, etc. However, you should strictly avoid asking for information that is readily available on the school website.
Tennis star Arthur Ashe once remarked, “One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” Yes, it is important for you to be self-confident in order to shine in an interview, but to gain that self-confidence, you have got to put in some solid preparation.
You have doubtless heard the expression ‘too much of a good thing.’ Well, if you happen to get multiple B-school offer letters, that is just the kind of baffling situation you may find yourself in – that is, till you sort things out.
The question is, how do you sort things out? Here are some suggestions:
Are you a big-city person who would feel so cramped in a small town that life would become suffocating? If so, then no matter how excellent the small-town school is that has accepted you, you will not enjoy studying there. And vice versa. Maybe you are more in your element in the relative quiet of a small town rather than the hustle-bustle and endless distractions of a large city. It is not only a question of urban versus semi-urban or rural. The environment within the school itself could be a vital factor. What kind of atmosphere suits you best – Liberal? Conservative? Secular? Religious?
Even if you have visited the campuses before, visit them again. Hang around, take in the vibes, observe classes, chat with students and faculty. Get the feel of the school, and see if it agrees with you. If you can get in touch with alumni, all the better. After all, it is possible that you will be spending the next two years of your life there.
It also depends on whether you are seeking something that is fully within your comfort zone, or whether you are willing to venture out of it to some extent. It is like you have never jogged beyond a mile, but now you want to increase your stamina, so you start doing a little more. Perhaps you belong to a very conservative background, and you feel the need now to be able to adapt to a more liberal environment. You see it as a challenge and a potential learning experience. Therefore, you deliberately opt for a school whose environment will test you a bit – but the test is what you are looking forward to!
Different b-schools employ different teaching methods. These include the lecture method, the case study method, the experiential learning method, and the simulation method. Though no school adopts a wholly homogeneous approach, so that there is a mix of all these methods, particular schools have particular preferences. For example, at Harvard Business School and UVA’s Darden school, the case method predominates. As such, while deciding on your school, one important criterion will be the school’s educational slant, and how you relate to it.
If you are seeking a career in finance, and you have been accepted by two equally reputable b-schools, one of which offers you a single concentration in finance while the other offers you five, you will naturally want to opt for the latter. Hence, one obvious point of reference for you will be which school best meets your professional needs.
Consider this scenario: two schools have accepted you. One is of mediocre standing, but is offering you a handsome scholarship; the other is a top-tier business school, but pursuing its program will entail a great deal of expense. You are in a dilemma.
What you will need to work out is this: professionally, what kind of future awaits you once you graduate from each of the two schools? Will studying in the top-tier school enable you, in the foreseeable future, to attain a professional level that will more than compensate for the scholarship you set aside, as well as the expenses you incurred doing your MBA? Your choice of school may largely depend on how you answer this question.
Multiple B-school offer letters call for celebration. After the initial happiness that they give, they might stir up a little perplexity in you, but it should be just a matter of time before you begin to smile again.
Those with finance backgrounds constitute the largest percentage of students in the majority of top business schools. With a rush of such applicants vying for a place in the programs, acceptance rates are often as low as 8 percent. What are some of the measures you can take to improve your chances of inclusion in that select 8 percent?
Here are some suggestions:
It is a given that everyone of your pedigree from a financial background possesses a high degree of quantitative skills, so that, however much you dwell on these, the chances are that a fair number of other candidates will have no difficulty in matching you skill-wise. In other words, you may find it difficult, if not impossible, to catch the adcom’s eye by harping on your quantitative skills. What you can distinguish yourself by, however, is a description of your other skills. Prove your verbal ability by presenting a scintillating essay. Show how you were enlisted to compere cultural functions in college and in your local community because of your acknowledged communications skills.
As an MBA applicant with a finance background, your career typically spans just a few years and, therefore, the official authority you wield at work will be quite limited. However, what is important is to show that you have the capacity to lead. This can be done by showcasing your small-scale accomplishments, especially those that are outside the norm and go beyond the ken of your investment or deal-focused work. You may have trained interns, or perhaps you played a leading role in organizing a program for the employees of your firm. Accounts of such accomplishments help to give you a distinct identity and make your application different from those of others.
This is somewhat linked with the previous point. You want to give the adcom something to remember you by. You play the guiter, when you were in school you were trained for three years by a distinguished tutor, and both in school and in college, you performed on the stage. You can be sure that not many other applicants will have a similar story to tell. By offering the adcom this piece of your background, you will be making yourself more interesting as a person.
It is not without reason that the question that most schools give you the most space to answer is the goals question. How you answer it is crucial to your chances of admission. General statements like ‘The program will go a long way in helping me acquire the necessary skills to be successful in my career’ won’t wash. It is important for the adcom to know that you are not pursuing an MBA just because you want to get out of a job you hate, or that your aim is merely to earn a promotion and a bigger salary. Do you have well-defined goals that logically link up your past, your present, and your aspirations for the future? Do you have dreams you want to fulfill? Are they realistic dreams? Are you aware of how you can utilize the school’s resources to chase them? How passionate are you about them? After all, it is your passion that defines you like few other things do. Enthusiasm is contagious. If you can convey your enthusiasm to the adcom, half your job is done.
If you an MBA applicant with a finance background, you better do your homework well before you negotiate the application process
There are few things that are more exasperating than waiting. First, you wait anxiously for the results, and then, when the results are declared, you find that you are in limbo – neither have you been admitted, nor have you been turned down: you have been wait-listed! Now you have to put up with even more waiting!
It’s how you see it. Being wait-listed means you have impressed the adcom enough to make it think that you might find a place in the school. However, they are not absolutely certain, and the good news is that, generally, you yourself have a hand in how things pan out in future.
The first thing you should do when you find yourself on the wait-list is to ask yourself why you are there. What is it about your qualifications or the way you applied that fell short of the requirements? Analyze the situation closely. Is your GMAT score below par? Do you have insufficient years of work experience?
If your problem is your GMAT score, you could retake the exam. If you think it’s your insufficient years of work experience that is going against you, you could target other schools that are more welcoming to your kind. Of course, to be able to do this effectively, you need to acquaint yourself well with the admissions policies of the various schools.
It can pay you good dividends if you keep your communication channels with the adcom open. If you have improved your GMAT score, for instance, you can send the adcom an update letter. If you are spearheading a fund-raising drive for flood victims in Thailand, you can let them know about it. If you happen to be friendly with an alumnus who is willing to speak up for you, you can request him to the send the adcom an additional recommendation letter. However, experts advise that you should time your communications judiciously: there should be a gap of a few weeks between the sending of your updates and your endorsements, and under no circumstances should you pester the adcom with repeated phone calls or emails.
Where your update letters are concerned, they should not be rambling and long-winded, but crisp and concise.
Some schools do not encourage wait-listed candidates to communicate with them. In such cases, it is in your own best interest to respect their policy.
If you have already visited the campus, it doesn’t matter – re-visit it, have your visit recorded at admissions, interact with an admissions officer, and try to find out whatever more you can about the academic and community life of the school. There is no school which does not appreciate an enthusiastic applicant, so do your but to be counted as one.
All said and done, view the fact of your being wait-listed as a wonderful opportunity, rather than a demoralizing setback.
Not all schools that waitlist you provide feedback. In the circumstances, what can you do to make your application stronger?
Here are a few tips:
Reviewing your own application after a time gap often throws up new insights. Do you spot anything that you missed out on the last time, and that could have possibly led the adcom to place you on the waitlist? An impartial reappraisal may provide you some clues.
If you leadership profile is wanting, and you are working on this shortcoming by taking on a challenging new responsibility in a volunteer organization, this is something you should let the school in question know about. Or it could well be something else: your GMAT score is below the school average – you have decided to take a re-test, and are now taking tutorial classes by way of preparation. Keep the school informed.
Perhaps you have received an employee award at your organization, or have had an article published in a prominent trade magazine. Communicate the development to the school; let them be aware that you are progressing in your life.
Cover all the points you want to convey to the adcom in a brief, polite, and well-organized letter. Remember that lengthy letters are almost certain to put them off – in fact, they may not even be read.
B-schools don’t share the same policy regards waitlisted applicants. Some want you to update them, others don’t. It is only in the case of the former, that Tips 2, 3, and 4 (given above) apply. In the case of the latter, they don’t. So if your target school happens to be among them, avoid sending them unsolicited material. Doing so will go against you.
Your enthusiasm to follow up on your application is understandable, but there are times you just have to control yourself. Whether or not the relevant school asks for updates, you should have the courtesy not to annoy them with repeated emails or phone calls. These will only cause annoyance.
What are the things that adcoms dislike? And what do they like? Here are some do’s and don’ts you should keep in mind while applying to a business school:
Naturally, as an applicant, you are enthusiastic about your admission, and you would give anything to know how good your chances are. But should you ask the adcom this question? Would it be fair? Can they possibly straightaway give you an accurate answer? And even if they could, would it be proper for them to do so? You would put them in a very delicate position, which they won’t at all enjoy. You must therefore restrain yourself and bide your time.
It is also important that you don’t keep contacting the adcom again and again for information that it is entirely possible for you to gain from other sources – the school’s website, for instance. The adcom has a great deal of work to do, and your persistent queries will serve as an irritant. They may even hamper your chances of admission.
Schools take a lot of pains to formulate their essay questions in such a way as to elicit very specific answers. Therefore, when you fail to do this and instead come up with general, superficial responses that don’t contain the finer details they are looking for, you automatically get on the wrong side of the adcom.
Many schools make it clear that they are not in a position to provide individual feedback, so it would be wrong of you to demand it when you find that you have not been admitted. Rather, you should get in touch with a qualified admissions consultant to identify the cause of your rejection. At the same time, it would be futile for you to reapply to a school without knowing why they did not accept you the last time around.
Are you anxious about falling short of the required expectations, and do you try to compensate by resorting to gross exaggerations and, sometimes, even lies? When you present yourself as much bigger than you are, you can be sure that it is just a matter of time before you are cut down to size. The members of the adcom are individuals who are highly experienced in assessing candidates, and assertions that don’t ring true will show up sooner or later and put you at a great disadvantage. You should not feel called upon to portray yourself as more than what you are. The adcom understands that we all have shortcomings and, especially, when an essay question demands that you focus on a weakness in you, it is best to be frank and forthcoming. This will project you as a mature and self-aware person, rather than a pretender. Only make certain that you clarify that you are aware of your failing, and that you have already taken steps to overcome it. Of course, you must reveal what these steps are.
Some applicants have the habit of making claims without backing them up. Saying, for instance, that you have always been a great team player without providing concrete examples to corroborate your contention will cut no ice with the adcom. For every quality you say that you possess, you must give illustrative examples to support your statement.
Though the adcom is keen to know you as a person, it definitely has no intention to peek into the intimate details of your personal life. Bringing these up will, in fact, reveal your lack of taste and discretion, and thereby go against you. An exception could be made in the case of, say, a habit that you might have had that prevented you from performing to your potential. Did this affect your undergraduate grades? If so, remember to explain how you have conquered the habit, and how, in consequence, your efficiency has significantly increased.
What the adcom will be especially interested in is what you can bring to the program, and the realistic ways in which you can contribute. Slurring over this point will cost you dear. It would be wonderful if you could come up with very specific plans in this regard. Perhaps you have expertise in an area that is not covered by the school’s clubs. Would you, then, like to open a new club? Once you become an alumnus, how do you propose to retain your connection with the school? Will you mentor students?
It is wise for any candidate to put himself/herself in the adcom’s shoes while negotiating the application process.
On the face of it, it can be embarrassing: you were laid off from work. What will the adcom think of you? Won’t it devalue you in their eyes? Won’t the chances of your admission into your target MBA program take a severe hit?
When you are explaining a lay-off – whether in your optional essay or elsewhere – one thing you must not do is to get on the defensive, as if you have committed a crime or something. Being laid off is much more common than you might have imagined. A US Department of Labour JOLTS report says that, in 2014, the total number of people laid off was 20, 191, 070. That is quite a staggering figure.
So, in a way, you are in good company!
Of course, an important consideration will be why you were laid off. Being laid off is different from being fired. When you are laid off, it is because there is a shortage of work. In most cases, it is because of a recession in the economy, or because your Company’s financial condition is in a poor state. As such, it is highly improbable that you were the only person being laid off, and you could easily say, with full justification, “Our Company was facing a financial crisis, and so it decided to lay off 10 employees (or whatever the case may be).”
If others from your department were not laid off, but you were, the question might arise, “Why you?” Perhaps you were near the top of your salary scale and were due for promotion in the near future. If this is the case, it provides you a sound additional reason to account for your lay-off. In such a situation it does help if, within a fairly short span of time, you can pick up another job of equal standing or, better still, a job that would be equivalent to the one you would have held had you been promoted.
If you couldn’t get another job straightaway, what do you say? There is nothing to despair. The important thing is to be able to show that you utilized the lay-off period positively. What are the measures you took to grow personally and/or professionally? Did you take an additional course to boost your professional skills? Did you travel to a few foreign countries to get to know more about the world? Did you put the time to good use by making rapid progress in a skill you might possess, like playing the mandolin? Did you do a stint of voluntary service?
If the adcom sees that you are the kind of person who can convert a bad phase in your life into an opportunity for learning and growing, then they will feel confident that this is an attitude that you will be able to carry over to your professional life once you graduate from the school.
When and why should you consider pursuing an EMBA? What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of the program?
Since the EMBA is a part-time or a weekend program, it allows you to study even while you are working. This invests it with a special relevance in economically trying times. At the same time, it broadens your business perspective, equips you with additional skills, and gives you the opportunity to climb up the career ladder.
An EMBA allows you to apply, without a time lag, what you learn in the classroom to real-life situations at your workplace. This not only augments your learning, but also brings in immediate benefits both to you and your employer. For instance, the MIT EMBA offers a course on Organizational Processes in which students work on a process in their companies they would like to improve.
You are much more likely to get admission into an EMBA program than into a full-time MBA program. While the acceptance rate in many of the major full-time MBA programs ranges from 14 to 22 percent, that in EMBA programs is generally much higher, sometimes even exceeding 50 percent. Additionally, many EMBA programs don’t require you to submit your GMAT score, and even those that do, are ready to settle for lower scores than those at the top full-time MBA programs.
Typically, EMBA students are older and have more work experience than their full-time MBA counterparts. As such, you are likely to benefit more in their company than in that of a younger set of people with fewer years of work experience. For the same reason, many professors are said to prefer teaching EMBA students – they ask better questions, and respond more intelligently.
Many companies don’t have a focused program for recruiting EMBAs, and would rather go in for those who immerse themselves in their studies by completing a full-time MBA. As such, EMBAs may be said to be more appropriate for who want to improve their prospects in their existing organizations, though here too EMBA graduates have sometimes faced problems because of their employer’s disinclination to acknowledge their new degree. As the graduate of a leading business school’s EMBA program observed, “I am back to work full-time in largely the same role as pre-EMBA.”
If you are looking to pursue an EMBA, therefore, it would be worth it to get your company to sponsor you.
Working full-time, commuting to business school and, possibly, managing a family, is certainly no child’s play. Unless you are highly disciplined, and are willing to sacrifice much of your free time for the duration of the program, an EMBA may not be ideal for you.
Though the number of EMBA programs is rapidly rising, it is still nowhere near that of full-time MBAs and, therefore, depending on where you live and work, it may or may not be easy for you to commute to the nearest recognized business school that offers an EMBA.
EMBA classes have a male majority, and the average age is 37. One of the reasons for this is that women in their 30s are often busy raising children. Therefore, if you are a woman interested in doing an EMBA, it would make sense if you get through with it before you have children.
What kind of profile does an ideal EMBA applicant have? Well, these would be some of the defining characteristics:
The Pros and Con of EMBA Admissions First of all, the pros:
Now, for the flip side: there is only one disadvantage, really, which is why the heading says con and not cons, as is customary:
While many EMBA applicants are fully or partially sponsored by their employers, there are others who, while not being sponsored, are granted the liberty to take time off from their work to attend the programme. Though the percentage of fully sponsored applicants varies markedly from school to school, the sponsored applicant does start off with an advantage. After all, sponsorship practically serves as a guarantee not only of your employment after graduation, but also of revenue for the programme. However, there is a way out for those without sponsorship: if they can ace their essays, resumes and recommendations, particularly their essays, this can more than make up for the handicap they began with.
Some companies sponsor EMBA applicants on a regular basis. If yours is one of them, this is nothing to worry about, but if it isn’t, you need to think up a persuasion strategy. What will convince your superiors that your EMBA will indeed benefit the company?
Take nothing for granted. It is not uncommon for potential candidates to complete their application and discover, at the end, that their company is not on the same page with them.
Even if you are attending only a weekend programme, you will have to re-juggle your routine in order to be able to cope and maintain a level of excellence. This can be a delicate matter, especially in the light of the fact that, almost invariably, other people will also be involved. However, if you have qualified people working under you at the workplace, this can turn out to be quite a boon for them – as you delegate to them some of your responsibilities, they get more opportunities for growth.
It is important for your recommenders and you to speak the same language on certain matters. For example, if, in the application process, you make some observations about your future career, and your recommender comes up with statements that are contradictory to these, it will result in quite an embarrassing situation. To avoid such eventualities, it would be a good idea to have a little chat with your recommender prior to his responding to the school’s questions.
Needless to say, if you plan to stick to your present company and rise to positions of greater responsibility within it, this should be made explicit in any discussion on your goals.
The thrust of your EMBA application will be the current responsibilities you hold professionally, and how your work scenario will evolve over the next year or two. What elements from this background can you use to differentiate yourself? What special something can you bring to classroom discussions?
Don’t neglect to take up this point in your application, particularly in your essays and resume.
It should be clear that the steps outlined above should be taken over and above the usual preparation that any EMBA applicant undertakes.
Your essays need to stand out both in style and content. ‘Style’ does not necessarily refer to literary flourish, but to your ability to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell,’ by demonstrating what you have to say through stories and anecdotes that lend dynamism to your points and leave a distinctly individual stamp on your composition.
Content-wise, there are two things to especially look out for
1. Giving a personal touch to, and substantiating your goals: Instead of listing your goals in a cut-and-dried manner, break them up into three categories – short-term, mid-term, and long-term. For each category, discuss your vision for it, the challenges you anticipate, the role you expect your EMBA lessons to play, and how you see each stage as a progression of the previous one. Always try to bring your account to life by providing illustrative real-life or hypothetical examples.
2. Differentiating yourself from the rest: If you are a female, or an international student, or an applicant from an underrepresented industry, then you are lucky; and if you are two or more of these, then you are very, very lucky indeed: by automatically differentiating you from the majority of applicants, these factors will give you a decided edge.
However, to interest the ADCOM in your professional achievements, choose the ones that:
You can follow the same criteria while describing your personal accomplishments and activities outside the workplace.
EMBA reapplicants often wonder what their status is. How do adcoms see them? Are they viewed as rejects? If they are, is there any point in trying again? Or does the very fact that they are reapplying make their case stronger? Is it taken as a proof of their commitment to the programme?
Not all adcoms share the same attitude towards re-applicants. What is known, however, is that the majority of schools consider re-applicants without bias. The rest, of course, depends on how you, as a reapplicant, go about the business of reapplying.
What steps should you take to improve your chances of acceptance? Here are some tips for EMBA reapplicants:
Did you have only seven years’ work experience when the program required you to have at least ten? Was your GPA below the average for that particular school? Did you fail to come up with convincing reasons for why you wanted to pursue the programme? (For instance, did you have nothing more to say than that the school’s location was convenient for you?). Was it a combination of factors?
It is only when you can identify where the problem lies that you can proceed logically to the next step. Some schools may be helpful in this respect, and tell you exactly where you went wrong. Others will leave it for you to find out by yourself. Fortunately, the applicant pools for EMBA programmes are smaller than those for full-time MBAs, so that EMBA admissions officers are more prone to providing feedback. Therefore, you can try your luck and see if you can elicit some information from them on the matter.
How you go about enhancing your candidacy would largely depend on the reasons for your rejection.
If you are wanting in your GMAT score (an unlikely possibility, though, considering that EMBAs lay less emphasis on GMAT than do their full-time counterparts), prepare well for it and take it again. If you lack the number of years of work experience the school is looking for, be on the hunt for more impressive leadership roles. If you feel that, in your last application, you did not explain well enough why you wanted to pursue the programme, affirm your interest by visiting the campus, attending information sessions, interacting with students and alumni, and meeting with members of faculty. If your Achilles heel is your quantitative weakness, seriously think in terms of doing a relevant course (like Statistics) at a local college to offset this.
Updating the essays you wrote last year, or re-working them by making changes here and there, will not do. Try a fresh approach to the essays, bring in new ideas, and present a different you to the adcom. Speak about how your non-acceptance acted as a stimulus to your personal and professional growth, the measures you have taken since then to improve your prospects, and even how, thanks to your greater engagement with students, alumni and faculty, your perspective of the programme itself has both broadened and deepened.
How soon you should reapply after a rejection is an individual matter. If your application has been turned down on a single ground that you can work on and fix within a few months’ time, then you can apply as early as the first round of the coming year. If, however, you haven’t made the grade on multiple counts, you should give yourself a longer stretch of time to come up to scratch.
If you have applied for an EMBA programme and haven’t made it, it is likelier than not because of one of the following reasons:
By itself, a low GPA mark may not go so much against you as will having consistently unsatisfactory grades in subjects that have a bearing on the EMBA curriculum. In most cases, these turn out to be quantitative subjects. Some applicants are under the erroneous impression that they can use the optional essay to explain their non-traditional undergraduate degree or poor academic performance, and that this will settle the matter. But what you really need to do in the Optional essay is to show ADCOM what all steps you have taken to sharpen your analytical skills.
If your grades are low here, you have to find alternative ways to demonstrate that you have been taking measures to build up your quantitative competence. After all, the adcom would want to ascertain that you will be able to cope with the quantitative rigours of the programme. The best solution for you could be to take a college-level calculus or algebra course and achieve a high grade. You could then submit the transcript of your score along with your new application. There are also plenty of online self-study options which you could explore.
A typical EMBA programme in the USA would require you to have from ten to fifteen years’ work experience. Not having this would suggest that you are not sufficiently equipped to add value to the programme. How can you get around this?
You will need to exercise initiative. Be prepared to move out of your comfort zone, and request your supervisor to get you involved in challenging and high-profile projects, even those that others may have avoided because they considered them risky.
You could also try to broaden your professional horizons. For example, if you are working in accounting, you could make yourself available for projects in communications or marketing or back-office operations.
While looking out for outstanding leadership opportunities, don’t limit yourself to the workplace. Community activities also provide a fertile ground for you to grow your leadership potential. Explore these to find out where you can make a meaningful contribution.
Adcoms are well aware that candidates apply to multiple schools and that, while they prioritize a few, they are less keen on others. If they suspect that their school is just a ‘fallback’ choice for you, then your chances of admission may well go down the drain.
There are many tell-tale signs that reveal your genuine lack of interest: in your essays, you may not have given a convincing reason for why you want to join the school; you may have never visited the campus, and perhaps you even gave the school’s information sessions a go-by.
The solution, then, is simple: do the things you ought to have done, but didn’t do – get more familiar with the programme, and discover more compelling reasons for why you are a good fit for it; and drop in at the campus, meet the adcom members, and reach out to students and alumni. You interest will advertise itself.
Above all, it is important to approach your reapplication process in a positive frame of mind. It will show in the way you interact with people in the school, write your essays, and generally conduct yourself through the application process.
More Chinese and Indians apply to the premier MBA programs in the USA and Europe than do any other category. As such, as a Chinese applicant, you have to be prepared to face not only the usual challenges that all MBA applicants face, but also the stiff competition from other applicants from your own country. After all, you belong to what is referred to as an ‘over-represented’ group.
What are some of the steps you need to take to increase your chances of admission into a top MBA school?
If you are a typical applicant from China, communication and spoken English are areas of weakness that you will need to seriously address. It is not that you need to be an expert in English, but you must at least be able to express yourself clearly in the language – otherwise, the chances are that the interview stage will be your undoing. Therefore, do what you can to polish up your English. Take an English language course or, if you can, place yourself in an environment where, for some time, you are in a position to communicate with native speakers of the language.
Although most Chinese applicants are said to have competitive GMAT scores of over 650 or 700, their verbal scores may fall far below their Quant scores. This can raise doubts in the minds of the adcom. Therefore, if this is valid in your case, you would do well to fix this potential problem by taking your GMAT again.
As an applicant from China, you will be familiar with the situation in your own country, but the important question in connection with your MBA application is this: how good is your understanding of the international environment? Will you be able to differentiate between Eastern and Western business values and practices? Can you show the adcom that, if the need arises, you can shift from one environment to the other with relative ease?
If you have worked for a global MNC in your country, highlight this experience, and say what you learnt from it. For however short a period of time, have you ever worked for a foreign employer anywhere? – In Singapore or Hong Kong? You need to draw the adcom’s attention to this phase of your career.
There are plenty of excellent business schools in China. The fact that you have not opted for any of them reveals that you are not thinking in terms of a China-centric career. Practice explaining to the adcom why exactly you have chosen o pursue an international MBA. How does it link up with your goals? In what way will interacting with international students and faculty be beneficial for you? Why have you targeted a particular business school? How does its program align with your vision of your future? Of course, to answer the latter questions, you must be thoroughly familiar with the business school’s program and what if offers by way of courses and clubs. You should be able to specifically say, as well, how you wish to contribute to the program.
Have you ever engaged in youth work, or in teaching the differently abled, or in any other kind of volunteering activity? Volunteering is closely associated with both skill development and the desire to work for the welfare of others, and adcoms would be very interested in knowing how much time you have devoted to serving your community. While describing the activities you were involved in, you should also mention the impact you made. For instance, if you taught children football, how many of them did you coach, and for what period of time? What did your coaching achieve?
All said and done, it is of paramount importance that you find ways of differentiating yourself from your peers, and this can best be done through your essays. Have someone knowledgeable guide you on the matter.
Diversity is the state of being varied or different, and one of the salient characteristics of an MBA class of any premier business school is its diversity – diversity in a variety of spheres: industry, profession, nationality, achievements, interests, motivation, and what have you. Therefore, as is only to be expected, almost all b-schools devote an application essay question to diversity in some form. The questions themselves are diverse in nature, but they all have a common thrust, which is: how are you unique, and what special element will you bring to the program?
Here is a random sampling of diversity essays set by leading b-schools in the recent past:
Here are some examples of how your ‘diversity’ – the fact that you are unique in some way – can come into play in your MBA application:
Diversity encourages the consideration of alternatives before a course of action is decided upon, and it also promotes creativity and hard work. In a diverse world, the ability to get along with one another and work together towards a common goal is a virtue whose significance can hardly be overestimated.