MBAPodcaster on Stanford GSB

As you may recall, a few weeks ago I accompanied my girlfriend to Palo Alto for her interview at the Stanford GSB. It was a great experience and I loved the school. However, the “save the world” hippiness and naive positivity sometimes got to me. No one can be that nice, can they? But they were.

And that’s the Stanford GSB for you. A b-school for the smart softies who want to change the world. I respect and admire them immensely. However, a school that has a tad bit more personality and panache is better suited for me. That wont keep me from applying to Stanford GSB though, which is my girlfriend’s top pick. To tell you the truth, one of the reasons I am applying there is because my girlfriend is making me. (And you are not allowed to chuckle. We all know that women rule men, and by extension rule the world. The sooner you accept it, the smarter man you are.)

So I was delighted when I came across this video from MBAPodcaster, which not only summarized my own take on Stanford GSB quite well but has a lot of great tips. Watching it will give you great insight into what the GSB wants from a candidate and how you can tee everything up in your application to impress them.

Tips for Round 2 Applicants

Admits 0, Dings 1. That’s the score so far. I’ve spent the last few days revisiting my essays, thinking about my application and trying to figure out what more I can do to ace my Round 2 applications.

Linda Abraham, the founder of Accepted.com wrote an article for BeatTheGMAT which may be of particular interest to folks in a similar spot as me.  I have exchanged a few tweets with Linda and hope to touch base with her in the next couple of days to get her thoughts on what I can do to kick some adcom butt.

I’ve also reached out to my friends, some of whom used MBA coaches, for feedback about their experience to understand the value that an MBA coach can add to your application. The epithet I have heard being used again and again is that MBA coaches act as your “mock adcom” who can really help you polish your application. But they don’t come cheap. I’ll be sharing a detailed note about what I’ve learned in a few days. Stay tuned!

Au Revoir! Chicago-Booth

It was very disappointing. This morning Chicago-Booth sent out an email, informing me that my status had changed. I knew that it meant I had been denied.

The many hours spent studying for the GMAT, writing essays, preparing materials for recommenders, putting together a presentation had yielded no result. Why didn’t they pick me, choose me, invite me to interview?

I’ve been asking myself this question all day. Here are some of my thoughts on it.

Application Essays

For most of us who apply to b-school, we know that writing good essays is important. But something is definitely to be said of the kind of essays schools ask you to write. Personally, I LOVED writing Kellogg and MIT-Sloan essays because they gave me an opportunity to paint a full picture of who I am. Yes, the approaches might differ, where Kellogg wanted to hear more about leadership and teamwork while MIT-Sloan was more behavioral, but I feel someone who reads my application at these schools will get a fairly deep understanding of who I am.

Chicago-Booth’s essays on the other hand purely focused on career goals and a mistake. The PowerPoint is one place where you can differentiate yourself by demonstrating other aspects of your personality, however I wonder if this is the optimal way of getting this information. Those four pages could be better used if Chicago asked specific essays about accomplishments, leadership, volunteer work and community involvement. Just my two cents.

The Numbers

Chicago-Booth has approximately 595 spots, about 40-50% of which will get filled up in R1. If you do the numbers, you realize that they probably sent out 475-600 invites. Given the small number of invites, not everyone can expect to receive an invite.

The Economy

The Midwest, especially states around IL have seen many layoffs due to the recession. Chicago-Booth apparently received 20% more applications than last R1 of 2008 and I’m betting this is one factor that explains this trend at Chicago-Booth when overall applications have remained flat or declined. A lack of geographic and cultural ties to Chicago-Booth and the Midwest may have worked to the disadvantage of those candidates who are applying to many schools and live on the coasts or abroad.

Chicago-Booth may have also been somewhat hesitant to take folks who work in finance or financial services (aka me) for fear of impacting their hiring numbers as finance jobs are few and far between.

Qualitative Factors

On some level, applying to b-school is a gamble. As Derrick Bolton, the Director of Admissions at Stanford’s GSB said, an application requires a candidate to establish that he/she is not only qualified but also unique.

The GPA, GMAT, recommendations can establish that you are indeed qualified, but demonstrating that you are unique is fuzzy science.

It depends on you and your ability to write good essays but it also depends a lot on who is reading your application, their bias and preferences, their mood that day, and the set of applications they get to read on a particular day. If they’ve read about someone who rescued chimps, built a windmill in an African country or acted in an Oscar winning movie at 19, the profile of an ordinary guy trying to do extraordinary things might be refreshing and could get two thumbs up. Switch things around a bit, and you begin to get the picture.

I believe that not having richer essay prompts in the Chicago-Booth application increase the randomness that qualitative factors can add to the entire process.

The Weakest Link

After all the applications are read, at some point a pool of qualified, impressive candidates is created. The problem that faces adcoms at that point is that they cant invite all these wonderful people for an interview and so they start playing “the weakest link.” (Quirky show that used to be on British TV, which I saw with my English homies.)

At this stage the adcom is probably looking for a reason, a good enough reason to send your application to the “Deny” pile. It could be anything really, but you can be pretty sure you get ranked or rated based on these reasons before being eliminated.

Final Thoughts

Why am I spending the time to share this? It is because I know there are many like me who are a little down today because they’ve not made the cut. Hopefully, after reading this post, they will be able to understand that it’s not worth beating yourself about it and constantly asking yourself whether you’re “good enough.”

We’ve all got to continue persevering and trying and hopefully we will all be admitted to a b-school where we will be happy and able to thrive. I truly believe that everyone’s worth it.

Good luck fellow b-schoolers!

Technorati Tags: Chicago-Booth,MBA

Advice from a MIT Sloan Veteran: Cover letter, essays and beyond!

I wanted to share my take on MIT Sloan essays for 2009-2010. So, if you’re applying later in the year, read away!

Career Vision

Unlike most traditional MBA applications, MIT Sloan does not ask you to discuss your career vision. This makes the task of the applicant that much more difficult. If you don't get a chance to tell the adcom what you want to do with your life, how will your essays and cover letter add up to support your reasons for wanting an MBA.

There are two strategies to attack this problem: if you have little time, slice and dice your career vision essay and add it in the supplemental essay section. Many people who I have spoken consider this sneaky and renegade, but worth considering. The recommended strategy, is to use a narrative of an accomplishment has some logical connection to your long term and short term goals. Use this narrative as the main fabric of the cover letter and include information about your goals, motivations, timing and contributions as a seeker of an MBA from MIT-Sloan to add color.

Attending an information session or visiting Cambridge really helps distill this information. Even attending an online chat from the MBA adcom (which they cap at 100 attendees, so don't be tardy) is a good way of getting a sense for the program. (Just a quick aside, attending a chat will make you feel way more prepared than most people – there are a bunch of nutty people there who ask bizarre and outright stupid questions. Needless to say if you do get into MIT Sloan, your peer group will be way smarter.)

Cover Letter

The cover letter should follow the rules of standard business correspondence. What does this mean? It means that just like a cover letter for a job, you need to ask Rod Garcia to admit you. Your story and reasons for going to an MBA should make a compelling case, but you need to ask him in one way or another to “Pick you, Choose You, Admit You.” (Blame my girlfriend for the reference, that’s what happens when your SO is catching up on Grey’s Anatomy while you’re trying to convey your life story in 4 pages or less.)

Essays

Lets also chat a little bit about the essays. I really enjoyed doing MIT Sloan essays. The recommended formula for most b-school essays, especially for behavioral essay prompts is to pick one example each that demonstrates personal, professional and extracurricular success. I am not going to discuss what you should write for each prompt, there are a  ton of resources such as the ClearAdmit blog which can be a good start. But I will tell you what are some themes to touch upon in your essays.

The reason why MBA schools ask you to write essays is to understand  how good you are at self evaluation. Next, they match up what you say with your recommenders. So it’s very very (I repeat very very) important that you present yourself as a human being. What do I mean by that? Help the reader (a tired, caffeinated, irritable adcom member who has probably ready 20 essays from applicants, all of whom claim to be the next best thing since Jesus) connect with you.

Help him go “Hmm… This guy/gal sounds like a genuine person. And their work experience, goals, accomplishments and recommender evaluations all add up.” Get him to become your supporter  and fight for you when you application goes to committee.This is difficult but not impossible.

Second, be authentic aka you better make sure that you don’t sound like a car salesman. Don't manufacture a personality on paper that is completely different from who you are in real life. Adcoms are very good at spotting this and if you do get an interview (very unlikely), you would have lost your chance at getting in (ever) once they figure out that you’ve been deceptive.

Third, demonstrate humility. Yes, you broke the bank with your billion dollar bonus, or saved the dodo from extinction, but instead of focusing on numbers, awards and what others thought of you, focus on yourself. Why you did what you did, what you got out of it and why you will continue (or not) doing it in the future. We are good at the things we love to do, tell them why you love doing what you’re good at.

If you forget everything else I’ve said, just remember that being yourself will pay off.

Good luck!