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Shortlist 2 Types of Supervisors

In today’s MBA admissions advice blog, I will share 2 types of supervisors that can improve your admission chances to top MBA programs by 60 to 70%.

1) Alumni with Excellent Writing Skills

These are the supervisors with whom you have excellent rapport. You don’t feel intimidated sharing your plan for an MBA. The person is older than you – around  10 to 20 years. And they are alumni of one of the top 20 business schools in the world. The advantage of shortlisting and persuading the person to write is that they themselves have gone through the application process. They understand the competition, how to phrase your unique selling points and will spend time writing the recommendation letter. This is not the case if you are asking a supervisor who doesn’t have an MBA to write a recommendation letter. Their first response is “ write the letter and give me a version, then I will edit and make it my own.” This could be a problem if you borrow phrases from essays into your recommendation letter.

If you want to stay out of the editing process and let us manage the communication and the guideline document for the Recommendation Letters, Subscribe to F1GMAT’s Recommendation letter Editing service

2) Tough but Collaborative Supervisors

There are certain supervisors who sound tough. They are not agreeable on first communication. You must convince them with the right pitch and the right timing. Timing here is very important. Make sure that you approach the person after a visible contribution for the projects if it is a current supervisor or at least they should be aware of your IMPACT if it is a previous supervisor. One way we help you do that is by brainstorming and shortlisting the most relevant achievements with the IMPACT table.

Even if the supervisor has forgotten your contributions, a line mentioning the specifics of the project - the budget, deal size, revenue, or the market reach, and the value you added would be sufficient for the person to write an authentic narrative.

I hope you got value from my tips. For help with Recommendation letters, MBA Applications, Interview Prep, Scholarship Application and finding fund for your MBA, Contact me Atul Jose 

About the Author 

Atul Jose

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.