After another round of unprecedented success for my clients, including an over 80% interview invite rate at HBS, GSB, and Wharton for Round 1 (still waiting on admits), I wanted to share a few details on what we know is working in the application process at these top programs:
1) Show an Understanding of the Schools and MBA Programs You’re Targeting
Due to varying cultures, curriculums, perspectives on leadership, etc., every school and MBA program you plan on targeting values different skills and qualities in their MBA candidates. At Amerasia, we call this the DNA of a school. So, if you make the effort to understand and embrace the unique qualities of each program and allow those qualities to help shape your essays and application, you can begin to elevate your candidacy from being “qualified” to being “ideal.” Contact one of our Admissions Consultants for more detail on how to approach the individual DNAs of each school you’re interested in.
2) Reveal Your Emotional Intelligence by Picking the Right Goals
Admissions officers often want to know about who you are and what you value, not just what you’ve accomplished. Often the best way to do this is through the passion behind your career goals. When you think about a passion, it often stems from a person’s background and values. And a person’s background and values… well, that provides a pretty good window into who you are as a person.
So, you want to pick career goals that reveal who you are, what makes you tick, and shows your values. Here are a few quick tips on picking your MBA career goals:
Avoid something too boring (i.e. I want to get promoted over the years and become an executive – this is a waste of precious essay real estate as it says nothing about you and rather describes a generic path to prosperity).
Avoid something “ripped from the headlines” or otherwise pie-in-the-sky (another way to think about this to borrow from a legal concept that you can only argue “facts found in evidence” – don’t talk about a LT goal in social media or clean tech or something else “buzz worthy” unless you have existing passions and experiences that support those claims).
Instead, land on something interesting that comes from your own life. Nothing is better for an admissions officer than to truly learn about you through your long-term goals. Make sure that whatever you pick connects to who you are as a person.
Make sure that your ST goal will give you skills and/or perspectives necessary to reach this LT goal (otherwise, the bridge starts to break down).
Overall, your LT goals should connect to both your ST goals and your existing life in big, swooping arcs – it doesn’t have to be a tight line from one to the other, but it should make a big circle that reveals who you are through your passion when all is said and done.
3) Show How You Stepped Up as a Leader During the Pandemic
Many current applicants were in college or just starting their career during the COVID pandemic lockdowns. You can show increased leadership, initiative, and passion by sharing how you stepped up during this time. Did you volunteer and raise money to secure PPE for a local hospital? Did you lead an effort through work to impact your community during this crisis? Did you make efforts to increase team moral while working remotely? To differentiate yourself from a competitive field, show that you did SOMETHING, ANYTHING to step up to serve and lead others. While these top programs are not directly asking you “what you did during this crisis,” they want to know that your answer is better than, “I watched a lifetime’s worth of shows on Netflix.”
If you're interesting in discussing your MBA candidacy and working with with an Amerasia Admissions Consultant, Click Here to get started!
Harvard: What's New in 2023?
Currently, the school gives approximately $42,000 in annual support to MBA students, with half of each cohort getting some type of financial assistance. HBS allocates $45 million per year to pay MBA fellowship funding. While financial aid does not cover yearly living costs (approximately $31,000), it does bring in a diverse group of students and enhances the learning process.
The MBA Interview: What Happens if You Aren’t Sure How to Answer a Question?
You got the interview. How do you not mess this up? Prepare, prepare, prepare. But also know - even if you’ve been preparing your heart out – there will always come a moment where you could strike a blank. What happens if you aren’t sure how to answer a question? The number one thing you need to do is be confident.
The Ultimate HBS Interview Prep
Waitlisted for HBS? How to approach the “further consideration” letter:
Did you receive a notification from HBS offering an option to submit additional information to be considered? Read further to find out about how to approach your HBS "further consideration" letter. The criteria? This is an optional step. This additional information is not required when your application is reviewed in Round 3.
HBS REACTIONS PART 3: HOW TO APPROACH THE HBS INTERVIEW?
HBS Reactions Part 1: How to move on from an HBS ding?
Thoughts on the incoming 2021 HBS application
Thoughts regarding the HBS application: THE POST-INTERVIEW RESPONSE ASSIGNMENT (when they see something free, cool and confident, they are impressed), THE UNUSUAL WAITLIST SCENARIO (Only respond if you don’t want to stay on the waitlist), THE OPEN-ENDED ESSAY (can you confidently share something they don't know).
Acing the HBS "further consideration" letter
Need help tackling writing up your HBS "further consideration" letter? How to ace your letter. Criteria and deadline this Friday, 18th December 2020. Questions you should ask yourself: What new projects? Did you lead? How were you staffed? Do they represent a pioneer? Who benefits? Other stuff? Interacted with Allumni?
MBA Snapshot: Harvard Business School
What is HBS Looking For?
The MBA Round 2 Advantage
It's the time of year where I start having the "Round 2 conversation" a lot with individual clients. Basically, the idea is that Round 2 might be offering a slight advantage, based on theories of market inefficiencies and so forth. For years, the prevailing belief is that Round 1 is the best round to apply to business school. While there is no hard-core evidence to suggest otherwise, some common sense may point to a different result.
Harvard and Kellogg: a tale of two business schools?
Very rarely do we get caught up in trying to spot trends in terms of which schools are "hot" at any given moment.
This is mainly because narratives tend to overreact in the moment, only to fade over time ("Wharton is going off the rails" - 2013 .. "Stanford is mired in sexual harassment scandal!" - 2015), but also because so much of trying to spot these trends is about reacting to anecdotal evidence from a small sample size. Put another way: you are just hearing your clients buzz about schools and express their opinions. Is that enough to go all-in on? No, definitely not. But can you sometimes spot an interesting new trend or pattern? I think yes, sometimes you can.
A Tip for Writing Harvard Business School Essays - "don't overthink, overcraft and overwrite"
Advice on How to Handle the HBS Waitlist
Going quick and nothing fancy here, just looking to get the word out on "HBS Waitlist Day" as it will likely become known in the future.
I stunning number of candidates appear to have been WL'd today, just based on what I'm seeing stream across my inbox. The biggest group looking for answers are candidates I've never heard of, who are seeking answers and asking what to do. This is when I know I have to go to the blog. Let's work through this.
Responding to your HBS decision (2016)
This Wednesday (October 12) is one of those days on the calendar that tend to stop everyone in their tracks and dominate the headlines. Nevermind that the Duke Fuqua or Dartmouth Tuck deadlines are right around the corner - no, it's all about the final HBS Round 1 notification deadline. Interview or ding? Rather, interview or ding or deferral, as that appears to be a popular option this year as well. Let's make sense of things and offer some advice on how to respond from here. We'll group it result-by-result.
Most Common Mistakes on Round 1 MBA Essays
I just saw a whole lot of MBA essays over the past few months and now that Round 1 is (mostly) finished, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to jot down the most common mistake I saw for each of the most common essays I worked on with clients. Round 2 clients can get a leg up by simply avoiding these traps.
Tackling the “other” questions inside the business school application
With the release of the 2016 HBS application, it is clear that shortening the number of essays is a trend that is here to stay for now. With only one essay on the HBS application again this year, it is becoming more important than ever to not only communicate effectively and concisely, but also to leverage the balance of the application (and of course the interview) to stand out from the crowd.
Applying Round 1? This Year's MBA Deadlines Are Earlier Than You Think.
Normally, once the fireworks go off on the 4th of July, that's our signal to start digging into the apps in earnest, as "October" Round 1 deadlines are a few months away. However, in recent years, the deadlines keep getting earlier and earlier. I know I had to really reset my own calendar given these changes, so I figured I'd do a public service and list them out here, calling special attention to the front-loaded nature of the deadlines.
3 Key Thoughts on the HBS Essay
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Despite HBS featuring the most publicized changing of the guard in admissions that I can remember, they are basically keeping their "open-ended" question style intact. In fact, more than keeping it intact, they have reverted to the more straight forward version they used in 2013 and 2014, rather than the more clever (but probably ultimately less effective) "introduction" prompt from last year.
And because they are staying in this lane, it means that my three thoughts need to stay in the same lane they have been in for years - because understanding the psychology behind this essay goes a long way to explaining how you might solve it.