Why to Start B-school Apps in order of MBA Application Deadline Date
Once you’ve created and read all online applications, have dialed in your realistic and specific goals using LinkedIn, and have narrowed your school selection list, now is where the fun begins! Putting your target business schools in order of MBA application deadline date.
You have that list of five business schools you really want to apply to. Now is the time to start working on these MBA applications. It is the middle/end of May, so you can probably bang out a good competitive five MBA application packages for Round 1.
Now is the time to start working with an excellent admissions consultant and to take the GMAT within this next month. By the Round 1 MBA admissions deadline, you will be able to submit a competitive four or five MBA application packages without sacrificing quality. So, how do you start?
List your five target MBA business schools in order by the application deadline date
A very helpful tip for all MBA applicants applying this year, is to put your list of five target business schools in order of the application deadline date. You will be surprised at how helpful this is. A week or even two days apart can make a huge difference.
For example, in Round 2 most of the business school deadlines fall within the first seven or eight days of January. Then you have a couple other MBA schools that are outliers such as MIT, which is usually in the middle of January. Nevertheless, you may not think a week makes a lot of difference, but in desperate times it does! Sleep, managing what you have to do at work, managing personal relationships, even time for personal care… all require time and are vital in crunch time. Therefore, always go in order of deadline date — even if it’s just a day difference.
The earliest date should be the first MBA application to be worked on.
However, there are caveats of course. Stanford and Harvard’s essays are very similar to one another and close in admissions deadline dates. Stanford’s question is What matters most to you, and why? And Harvard’s question is As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA program?
Both of these questions are very personal essays questioning your values and perspectives. So, for example, if you are applying to three schools. Harvard is due January 1st, Stanford is due January 2nd and Wharton is January 5th. According to this model you will work on Harvard, then Stanford then Wharton.
You may be tempted to work on similar school essays (Harvard and Stanford) in parallel, but this is not advised.
If you absolutely have to work in parallel, work on dis-similar essays together (Harvard and Wharton).
Wharton’s question is What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA? And the second one is, Taking into consideration your background – personal, professional, and/or academic – how do you plan to make specific, meaningful contributions to the Wharton community? The Harvard and Wharton essays are different enough that you can work on them in parallel. By doing this, you won’t come into the problem of re-work.
Here is an example of a re-work situation:
If you had to work on Harvard and Stanford together, the problem is that the questions tend to be very similar. 50% of the content will be duplicative content. You may run into a content problem when writing these similar essays at the same time. You may feel like you’re chasing some sort of ghost and never landing on something solid. For example, if you write something that you like in the Harvard essay and then you cut and paste that into the Stanford essay with the hopes of making it better. But you keep going back and forth between the two, you are actually making the essay worse. Try not to do that.
Get Harvard in a good place, finish it off. Then if you have the luxury of time start on Stanford, knowing you already have something set (almost) in stone for Harvard. Then only, approach the Stanford essay. Now you may realize during the Stanford essay, “Oh I wrote something better and more concisely here.” Then you can go back and put that more concisely written piece into the Harvard essay. The trick is to get your Harvard essay to 95% first, until you really like it. Maybe you’re ready to shop it around to your friends and family, and then move on to Stanford.