Education
Is there a secret recipe for MBA application success? Linda Abraham lays out seven steps that MBA applicants can take now to enhance their chance of success when the MBA applications come out over the summer. Listen to the show! What steps can you take NOW to improve your chances of acceptance to top MBA programs? The content I’m about to explore mirrors the training I offered in 7 Steps to a Successful MBA Application in 2021, a recent webinar. I feel that this material is so valuable that I don’t want my podcast listeners to miss it. What motivates me to provide this training? A frustration with applicants who start the process too late and shortchange their chances at their dream schools. We love to start working with applicants now because our clients can improve their profile, qualifications, and chances of acceptance when they start early!The amount of limiting and misleading imagery in MBA advising from adcom directors, consultants, and sometimes MBA applicants and students themselves.The paradox of MBA admissions. After 25 years in this business, I’ve seen a lot of metaphors used in describing the MBA admissions process. “It’s an accounting exercise, not a marketing exercise,” or, “It’s all about personal branding,” or, “It’s all about marketing.” While I believe metaphors and similes can be useful, I think they have been abused in MBA admissions, obscuring the process. I do not promise an image-free training! I do promise that this training will provide you with a purpose-driven, goal-centered approach to the MBA application, including what you should be doing now (six to nine months before you submit your application) to maximize your chances of acceptance at top MBA programs when you apply in Round 1 or Round 2 of the 2020–21 application season. Let’s cultivate those three seeds into a flourishing, healthy MBA application. (Not bad for someone who just complained about abuse of metaphors in MBA admissions!) When applicants come to us at the last minute Yes, we can polish your essays during the week before the essays are due, but we can do so much more if you start early. Use the next few months before the applications come out to improve your profile and maximize your chances of acceptance. Step 1: Define your goals, the foundation of your application Begin with the end in mind: Clarify your post-MBA goal, the foundation for your entire MBA application strategy, even if it changes while in B-school. In Admissions Straight Talk Episode 185, I asked Ross Admissions Director Soojin Kwon, “What makes an application really stand out for you?” She responded, “People who seem to really know what they want and know themselves, and who can articulate it well. They can connect the dots.” Define your post-MBA goals, both short-term and long-term. Short-term goals include your industry and functional focus (something you do, not something you study). Long-term goals, those five to ten years down the road, are your aspirations or dreams --perhaps a way of contributing to the betterment of society on a larger scale. These are less critical from an admission perspective, but if you have something like this, don’t hide it. Prepare to discuss. If your goals are fuzzy, look at what you like and are good at. Talk to people in positions that you find attractive. What do they actually do? What education do they believe was useful to them? Do they wish they would have had before they started? From what programs do they want to hire people for the positions you find appealing? Then take time to think about what you want to do. Reflect. Once you have a clearly defined goal, it will be a substantive and meaningful guide in the process of choosing schools—your North Star. Realize that at many schools, a clearly defined, realistic post-MBA goal is as much a requirement of admission as a competitive GMAT or quality work experience. Chicago Booth explicitly says that it seeks a “sense of person...