Updates: The Most Important Thing To Do After You Submit Your MBA Application
After submitting your MBA application, the most important thing you can do is to keep engaging your target business schools. Yes, you have other MBA applications to submit at different schools. Go ahead and do that because that’s a priority. After you’ve completed all your submissions, for example, you just completed all your Round #2 applications, it’s the middle or late January, you should still keep reaching out to your target MBA schools. This will make you stand out and look more competitive.
Keep indexing and taking an inventory of things you’ve been doing after you submitted your MBA application.
Keep track of the people you’ve been having conversations with and who you’ve been reaching out to at your target schools. If you feel your GPA is low, maybe you can take a class to improve yourself. But most importantly, keep going after leadership experiences at work. Bottom line, just keep at it because the journey is not over... yet (anyway)!
Start building bullet points for a potential waitlist letter.
Let’s say, Harvard waitlists you or any other school for that matter, if that school takes updates, in this case Harvard does, you want to have 500 words worth of updates. Meaningful updates, not just any old update. If you can fill up half of a full page of an update letter with:
“This is how I’ve continued to engage your community, this is how I’ve learned more about it, and this is how I feel like I’m an even better candidate for your business school…”
Your MBA application will look more competitive. Keep building that army of bullet points. At some point, you’ll probably need to bring these updates to the table for the more competitive schools. Especially if you’re on the bubble, or if it’s a really competitive MBA application year (like this year is).
Consider the shockwave that Covid has caused within the last year.
We’re probably mostly through it with respect to business school waitlists and unpredictability. However, so many MBA applicants deferred their MBA application - especially at Harvard or at Wharton. For instance, some clients here at Amerasia Consulting that we knew should have gotten into Wharton in Round #1 of last year were getting waitlisted. Instead, they got accepted into round #2.
The lesson learned here is to keep engaging your target MBA schools.
Keep doing all the things that show the admissions committee you want to be a part of their business school community. If they give you a call from their waitlist, without a moments hesitation, you should accept. You even want to state that in your waitlist update letter. If the admissions committee representative calls you, on that same very call you should say, “Yes! I accept my place at Wharton. I’m coming to West-Philly!” So there’s no doubt in their mind that you are committed.
The last thing an admissions committee wants to do is keep extending MBA invitations.
When the admissions committee opens up your folder and they don’t see anything new, no updates, nothing substantially different, they are going to move on to the next MBA applicant. They will move on to the applicant on the waitlist who has substantial updates. The applicant who they know wants to win and wants to accept a space at their business school. The admissions committee wants to be certain that if they call that MBA applicant, they will accept immediately. They don’t want to keep extending invitations to applicants who will not accept because it messes with their rankings. Beyond that, it gives the admissions committee so much uncertainty and rework throughout the amdissions process that just adds more noise and no signal.