The research about schools is obvious in the essay narrative. The Current Student with the Year will be mentioned in the essay, and a couple of ‘features’ of the school – experiential learning, student engagement, or collaboration with a potential employer to show why an MBA from ‘THE’ school is essential are also added. Schools have seen this in plenty, but then you mentioned something ‘extremely’ specific that a one-time event attendee or LinkedIn networker would find hard to decipher.
This is a passionate 3-5 event attendee, campus visitor, and regular alumni networker who truly believes that ‘The School’ is the one for them. They are perhaps attempting the application for the 2nd or 3rd time. The passion was visible in the essay. The admissions team finally cracked and observed the tenacity.
Now you have an interview. How will you show passion for school initiatives?
1) Find what is important – For the School!
There are hundreds of student-led and school-led initiatives that don’t gain momentum. Some of these initiatives were strategic for the school, but they didn’t have the right mix of people to lead them closer to the milestone. You can find evidence on their group’s page where the events have dried out, and the blog entries are from 2-3 years before. I remember an interview where we mapped the client’s unique experience of summiting K2 to demonstrate how she would revive a dormant student club around mountaineering. In the interview, we strategically placed an experience and shared a plan to apply her experiences for the school as a concluding line. The interviewer would have to be a robot not to see the value of the client’s experience, and she did.
2) Cutting Edge Experience to Teaching/Consulting
For many schools, a transition to a new curriculum incorporating the latest buzzword is needed to remain competitive. Helping the school with curriculum redesign, hosting experiential learning, leveraging your network, or leading talks on cutting-edge topics in Technology or Finance (if you have the experience) are value statements with high recall in interviews. Using the experience as a consulting solution for local non-profits has even higher relevance. I have seen this during the peak of crypto, where innovative tokens were pitched as the solution to all funding ills, and schools bought them. A few years back, experience in Pharma felt like the most relevant knowledge. Recently, it has been around AI. The cycle of ‘it’ knowledge will change. Leverage the school’s tendency to value short-term buzz-worthy technology or trends to your advantage.
3) Undergraduate/ Graduate Experience and Identity
Many applicants try to plan a unique learning experience from their MBA and they share that in the essays in the first draft. When I point out that certain experiences from undergraduate, graduate, or entrepreneurial experiences would be more relevant, they understand the importance of experience mapping.
If you are passionate about the LGBTQ+ community and have been a passionate voice in the community, it would be strange not to reiterate this passion for the student clubs in the business school. In cases where your identity is closely tied to a student club or school initiative, mention it before sharing your plan to explore other new experiences.
4) New Experiences and Matching with Strengths
A new functional experience in Consulting or Finance could be strategically mapped with the client’s strengths. One client with experience organizing a premier international conference did just that by sharing how he plans to organize the world’s largest PE event. He was a career switcher, but the strength was obvious, and the school had prioritized PE with specialized recruitment events around the industry.
Such matching with strengths and previous experience can look muddy if you don’t rank your achievements from the most impactful to the least. For help, Subscribe to F1GMAT’s Mock Interview Service, where I will help you highlight strengths that could fill the school’s gaps.
