For those who are planning to apply for this admission season, GMAT might be the foremost priority. Don’t take your eyes from the practice tests and the iterative tackling of the GMAT sections. However, allocate at least two days to develop a strategy for the next admission season.
Strategy vs Plan
I might be preaching to the choir. A strategy captures the ideal outcome that would help you achieve the post-MBA goals. Whereas planning is the nitty gritty of how you will fulfil the strategy.
For instance, in order to transition into a Marketing job function from your current position as a Consultant, getting admissions to Kellogg should be a strategy.
Post-MBA Goal: Switching career from Consulting to Marketing
Strategy: Get accepted to Kellogg’s 2-year Full-time MBA
First Step: Understand the MBA Landscape
The first step in the strategy is understanding the MBA admission landscape and the historical acceptance trends. Some schools don’t strictly hang-on to GPA if your GMAT score is above 750 while many M7 schools don’t compromise on both the metrics. If you are approaching your target schools without understanding such nuanced preferences, the time, money and effort you put into tuning the essays by yourself or through professional help, would go wasted. That is why we have incorporated brainstorming sessions and resume editing along with the Essay Review service. It is impossible to isolate the motivations, strengths and weaknesses of applicants and set expectations without sharing admission trends.
Second Step: Establish school-specific strategies based on your weakness and strengths
For the consultant planning to switch career into Marketing, breaking down the entry criteria for Kellogg would help him address the weaknesses and accentuate the strengths.
MBA Applicant: Consultant; Male; 27 years; 4 years of experience; GMAT 750; GPA 3.2;STEM background; U.S Minority
Now let us look at the numbers for the latest Kellogg Full-time MBA class
• Average GMAT: 732
• Average GPA: 3.6
• GMAT Range: 590-790
• Average Age: 28
• U.S Minority: 27%
• International: 34%
• Women: 46%
• Work Experience (Middle 80%): 3.5 to 7 years
• Top 3 Pre-MBA Industry: Consulting (24%), Financial Services (19%) and Technology (13%)
• Top 3 Undergraduate majors: STEM (29%), Business/Economics (50%) and Humanities (26%)
Strategy for mitigating weakness in MBA Application
Applicants spend most of their time and effort in creating narratives without any strategy. Instead, create a list of action items that you must complete to bring authenticity to the narrative.
If the narrative is all about how the applicant has a bias for action and in the months leading up to R1 or R2 deadlines if he has not taken any effort to improve his profile, the narrative means nothing.
For the example above, the applicant’s weaknesses are
1) Below average GPA
2) Experience on the lower side
By joining reputed online MBA core courses or courses in Statistics and Calculus, if the subjects were a weakness, the applicant is showing an eagerness to address them. Most applicants don’t pursue the corrective measure, not from lack of effort, but because they are too late into the admission season (mostly a month before R1 or R2 deadlines). By that time, the enrollment for the online courses would have been closed, or the duration of the course would make it impossible to create a narrative on it.
Strategy for accentuating strengths in MBA Application
Before filming Godfather, to streamline his thoughts, Coppola annotated the novel with extensive notes on approaching each scene. It was a visual translation of a classic novel. The scribble marks and the instructions on which part to accentuate, play it normal or bring down the tempo were planned with one goal in mind – the visual result should not be something that anyone has ever seen. Coppola painstakingly warned against clichés in several scenes. This is a technique that we found inspiration while editing essays.
Some clichés and stereotypes persist because they are true. The probability that an Indian applicant plays cricket, or a Chinese applicant has mastered Piano, remain because they are true in many instances.
Ask yourself:
1) How should I present myself that is atypical of someone from my background?
2) How should I present myself that reinforces the positive stereotype of my country, race, gender or professional background?
Godfather had several instances of stereotypical Italian mannerism that brought authenticity to the story. Similarly, find what makes your story authentic. That will translate well in the essays.
Third Step: Develop a Winning Strategy for your Demographic
Strategy for Underrepresented and Women Applicants – No room for Complacency
In recent years, the percentage of underrepresented U.S Minority and Women applicants have increased remarkably. With the percentage of women applicant inching closer to 50%, the narratives that we used a few years ago for women applicant has no value this year. So if you are a women applicant, know that gender-specific positive stereotypes would improve your story if it aligns with the school’s values. For underrepresented U.S Minority – find experiences in extra-curricular that is atypical of an applicant from a similar background. That would substantially improve your admission chances.
Strategy for International Applicants – The bets are against you
It might be the turmoil of Brexit and the declining prominence of European economies; International applicants are showing interest in US schools at a rate that we haven’t seen before. The competition is intense. That means the if you have no connection with the US (no siblings as resident or relatives in the school – legacy admissions) be prepared to face an uphill task to clear all the admission rounds. Unlike other application pools, your application is approached as an elimination exercise. The mindset brings little relief to International applicants with below-par GMAT (less than 700) or forgetful experience (the typical roles – Technologists, Investment Banker or Management Consultant) with nothing interesting to add in terms of life experiences or unique professional achievements. On top of that in a booming economy, the popular industries face fewer attrition, discouraging the admission team from accepting applicants from a similar background.
Fourth Step: Develop application strategy for your Dream Schools
First vs. Second vs Third Round (Dream Schools): Most schools follow a 40-40-20 rule where 40% of the class is selected in Round 1 and 2 each whereas Round 3 is reserved for the last 20%, including the waitlisted from R2.
A popular strategy to reduce the risk of putting all the eggs in one basket is to divide your dream schools into two rounds (R1 and R2). By doing so, the strategies that you adopted to position yourself in Round 1, even if it fails, would not jeopardize the admission chances in all your dream schools.
Round 3 should be reserved for schools where your promotion in March (most multinationals delay the announcement of promotion until Q4) would bring a substantial improvement to your profile. There is no better compliment to storytelling than a measurable metric like ‘increase in salary’ or ‘$ in bonus’ or ‘the exclusivity of the promotion – 2 from a 10-member team received promotion.’
So how to start a strategy session?
Ask - What are the values your dream school appreciates the most?
