Sleep Deprivation is an increasingly common phenomenon for a professional in 21st Century. With a 24x7 connected world, the constant communication and pressure of work creates a situation where an average sleep is limited to 6 hours, 2 hours short of an ideal sleep cycle. Short-term sleep deprivation will impair your decision-making, especially selecting top MBA programs that require shortlisting a large list of schools, revising the list, and finally picking the top five.
High Optimism
A feeling of Optimism is essential for putting the hard work necessary to pursue a goal. But a recent study by two neuroscientists at Duke University Medical Schools have shown that Sleep Deprivation can lead to the activation of brain regions that analyze positive outcomes, and suppresses the part that process negative outcomes. This leads to a situation where the individual is more likely to make choices that maximize financial gain, in our case, picking MBA programs offering higher ROI without analyzing multiple factors that influence the return. Effective decision-making involves utilizing attention, memory, and responding to an integrative feedback mechanism; all of which get impaired in a sleep-deprived environment.
Rigid Thinking
Apart from making optimistic choices, MBA applicants will be making them from a limited set of factors as sleep deprivation lead to rigid thinking. What influence the change in thought process is the inability of the applicant to process additional information, and changes in external factors. In a booming economy, applicants hardly evaluate the viability of an industry for post-MBA opportunities but with data on this front changing every quarter, applicants should play close attention to factors that influence job opening in each industry. They are not stagnant. With Sleep Deprivation, the curiosity to analyze job data, and make sense of them will be inhibited. By looking at MBA Employment Report without comparing the trends for the past two years, applicants are selecting schools with incomplete information.
Less Trusting
Another impact of sleep deprivation is the lack of trust. We had advised applicants to analyze multiple Business School Ranking Publications, Employment Reports & School Profiles before selecting an MBA program. But this does not mean questioning the veracity of all the data sources. That would be time consuming, and often extend the MBA research to 5-6 months, which would be a stretch if you have 1-year for the entire MBA Admission process. An overtly critical applicant might question everything leading to delay in picking the right MBA program. In the end, there are no perfect decisions. Tweaking your choices as you go along is one way to handle vast information.
Emotional Decisions
The best decisions are made with less emotion and more rational choices. Sleep Deprivation will lead to a situation where the applicant’s ability to regulate emotion is weakened. In such a state, the applicant will be reactive to external circumstances. In MBA Admission process, the external factors are meeting Deadlines, and getting a competitive GMAT score. We have often seen applicants with GMAT score, 10 point below the school median, getting ready to pursue a 2-month GMAT retake schedule. This is often reactive, and although we can’t blame sleep deprivation entirely on this irrational choice, the applicant in most case is juggling a 10 hour work schedule along with 3-4 hours of daily GMAT preparation. Sleep deprivation during GMAT preparation is a reality for working professional but make all key decisions early in the year. If your GMAT score is below the median, take a 2-3 day break, sleep well, and then analyze the result with a fresh perspective.
The 12-Month Plan
We have created the 12-Month plan with 3-Months allocated for MBA research, in order to handle sleep deprivation during GMAT Preparation. Even if you get a below average GMAT Score, postpone your decision whether to retake the GMAT, pick other schools, or continue with MBA Application after a well rested 3 to 4 days. Sleep on it.
About the Author
I am Atul Jose, Founding Consultant of F1GMAT, an MBA admissions consultancy that has worked with applicants since 2009.
For the past 15 years I have edited the application files of admits to the M7 programs: Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School, together with admits to Berkeley Haas, Yale School of Management, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, SDA Bocconi, IESE Business School, HEC Paris, McCombs, and Tepper, plus other programs inside the global top 30.
My work covers the full MBA application deliverable: career planning and profile evaluation, application essay editing, recommendation letter editing, mock interviews and interview preparation, scholarship and fellowship essay editing, and cover letter editing for funding applications. Full bio with credentials and admit history is here.
I am the author of the Winning MBA Essay Guide, the best-selling essay guide covering M7 MBA programs. I have written and updated the guide annually since 2013, which makes the 2026 edition the thirteenth.
The reason I still write and edit essays every cycle: a good MBA essay carries a real applicant's voice. Writing essays for F1GMAT's Books and Editing essays weekly is how I stay calibrated to what current admissions committees respond to.
Contact me for school selection, career planning, essay strategy, narrative development, essay editing, interview preparation, scholarship essay editing, or guidance documents for recommendation letters.