Interview Invites in October should be the first feedback about your Round 1 efforts. If you have followed our Strategy of targeting at least 3, 5 to 10 ranked schools, and then use the feedback to target Harvard or Stanford, prepare with these 3 action items:

For a $200,000 MBA program, statements like ‘find your true passion’ has no particular meaning. Life experience has shown that chasing happiness has a financial cost. Less stressful and happy jobs have a low pay. So we take the pressures of the ‘popular’ job on the chin and assume that it is normal to feel down in our daily routine. This is a myth that has been propagated by previous generations, masking it in the form of ‘paying one’s dues’ and ‘you have to put in the work’ and ’10,000 hours of BS’.

Writing about long-term career goals is an essential part of any MBA application goals essay. Having read hundreds of essays, I have seen a few common mistakes.

Here are 3 strategies to improve long-term career goals narrative:

When MBA re-applicants reach out to me, they talk about the missed opportunity in writing authentically. Before you assume that lack of great stories was the issue, address these stereotypes and weaknesses:

1) Government Affiliation

I have read essays of applicants who were on the periphery of a startup’s growth, but the goals that they cite are ambitious and often mismatched with their skills and exposure. Here are 2 tips to improve the feasibility of your post-MBA goals.

1) Humbleness Myth