HBS Class of 2023 MBA Admissions Application

In this post, I will be analyzing the essay question and key components of the HBS Application for the Class of 2023.  In addition to discussing overall HBS application strategy and the required essay, I will discuss key parts of the application form, resume, and transcript. I also provide some advice for HBS reapplicants and  Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Kennedy School Joint Degree Applicants and the new MS/MBA.  For my posts on recommendations, please see my Key Posts section on recommendations. For my post on HBS interviews, please see here. While the new application is not out until mid-June 2020,  HBS has already indicated that there will no substantial changes to the  application and no change to the essay, so I am posting this on May 16, 2020.  Should any significant changes to the app form occur, I will alter this post when the application opens online.

My comprehensive service clients have been admitted to HBS for the Classes of 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018,  2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, and 2005. My clients' results and testimonials can be found here. In addition to providing comprehensive application consulting on HBS, I regularly help additional candidates with HBS interview preparation.  Since I started my own counseling service in 2007, I have worked with 61 successful applicants from Canada, Europe, India, the Middle East, Japan, South Korea, other parts of Asia, and the United States on HBS application. I think that this range of experience has helped me understand the many possible ways of making an effective application to HBS. l I can tell you is that HBS takes a truly diverse range of people. Some had high GPAs and great GMAT scores, others had GPAs and scores well below the 80% range for HBS, but what they all had in common were strong personal professional backgrounds that came out in their essays.


THE ESSAY
"As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA program?
There is no word limit for this question. We think you know what guidance we're going to give here. Don't overthink, overcraft and overwrite. Just answer the question in clear language that those of us who don't know your world can understand."

Based on the above, you should be asking yourself: Given the question, what do HBS admissions need to know in order to offer me an interview and then admit me?  My answer would be to take a deep dive into HBS' criteria for admission and consider how they can apply to you. You will need to take two deep dives. One into HBS and another into yourself.  HBS introduced this more open style of question for the Class of 2016.

Regarding length, most of my clients admitted to HBS have written between 800 and 1500 words with 1000-1200 being most common.   A couple of years ago, I did interview practice with someone who was admitted with an essay of almost 2000 words (I thought that essay could have used a trim, but hey the applicant was admitted, so who cares what I think!).  The key point about length is that it should be as long as you need it to be in order to convey what you think HBS needs to know to invite you for an interview and ultimately admit you.

If you are trying to understand the diverse range of essays that gets someone admitted to HBS, I do recommend  The Unofficial Harvard Business School Essay Book.  In fact, one of my clients admitted to the Class of 2016 contributed his or her essay to the first edition to it, which made me really happy.  I can't tell you which one. I do highly recommend reading this book because it will give you a really good idea about the range of possible answers and dispel any myths about needing to submit something that is professionally written. I would also recommend the old book that contained HBS admits essays. That collection is still a good read for understanding how to put together an MBA essay though the specific questions are no longer being asked by HBS. Such books are really great guides for someone looking to see successful MBA essays.

THE BOTTOM LINE: WHAT MAKES YOU STAND OUT?
The discussion of the categories below  is all for the purpose of getting to the story or stories that will really showcase what makes you stand out as an applicant. Everyone has their own unique life story and the point is to get your reader interested in your story.  When I am working with an applicant, especially in the initial stages of writing I am actually focused on this question because I know that great applications are based on great self-marketing campaigns and the heart of such campaigns is applicant differentiation. Good differentiation will be based on good stories. Think about about the hard and interesting moments in life.   What has challenged you in your life?  How have you suffered and grown stronger? What has made you rethink your decisions or view or career?  Why do excel at what you do?  Who or what motivates you?  These are just some of the questions you need to consider.

Four Ways HBS Evaluates Applicants
My objective when working with each of my clients is to help them identify the best content in their essays, resume, interview and other application components to show fit for each school they apply to. My approach is to understand the audience that is being communicated to because the only objective of your application is to communicate effectively to your audience, the admissions committee. We can summarize what  HBS is looking for in terms of three stated values-Habit of Leadership, Analytical Aptitude and Appetite, and Engaged Community Citizenship- plus Diversity. These four core ways, which I discuss in detail below,  that HBS evaluates applicants need to be communicated in your application and one or more of them should be used in your essay. The following summarizes what HBS is looking for in terms of three stated values (Habit of Leadership, Analytical Aptitude and Appetite, and Engaged Community Citizenship) plus Diversity and the possible places where you can demonstrate these in your initial application (Interview and post-interview not considered below):


These four core ways that HBS evaluates applicants need to be communicated in your application and one or more of them should be used in your essay.
In addition to those four elements, other possible common topics for inclusion here would be:
-Your wider post-MBA career vision that you could not explain in the 500 character answer on the Employment page. Some applicants will not touch on this topic in their essays, while others will discuss it at length.  One thing I thing I help clients figure out is to what extent they need to elaborate on their post-MBA objectives and longer term vision in this essay.  If you are strongly mission/values focused, most likely you will be discussing this in the essay.
-Why you want an MBA in general? Again, some will address this, others will not. Since there is no place in the application to indicate this otherwise, it would reasonable to explain your rationale for doing an MBA, whether you state this in general and/or terms of HBS in particular is your choice, but my bias is certainly for being HBS specific though typically brief.
-Why HBS?  I don't think one has to necessarily write in detail about why you want to go to HBS, but providing your overall rationale for why you want to go HBS now is certainly reasonable.  If your career vision is something you are writing about and there are particular aspects of HBS that really relate to it, feel free to mention them.
For a discussion of career vision, why an MBA? or how to explain why you want to attend a particular program, see my analysis of Stanford Essay B.

Now I will discuss those four ways in detail in order to elaborate how you might utilize them in your essay:

Habit of Leadership
The mission of HBS is to educate leaders.  All my clients admitted to HBS had a diversity of educational, extracurricular, and professional backgrounds, but were united by one thing: In one or more aspects of their lives, they demonstrated this habit of leadership. HBS takes a very broad view of what they are looking for:

Leadership may be expressed in many forms, from college extracurricular activities to academic or business achievements, from personal accomplishments to community commitments. We appreciate leadership on any scale, from organizing a classroom to directing a combat squad, from running an independent business to spearheading initiatives at work. In essence, we are looking for evidence of your potential.

HBS does not explicitly ask you to show your potential for leadership in your essay,  but it may very well be something you decide to write about, ask one or both of your recommenders to write about, and certainly show in your resume and application form.   Leadership is no easy thing. Nor is it always obvious. If you leadership is fully obvious from your resume and then perhaps your essay need not discuss it, but the worst possible thing is to conceive of leadership as simple formal responsibility or a title because this conveys nothing about the person in that position. While some applicants will have held formal leadership positions, many will not. Formal leadership positions are great to write about if they involve the applicant actually having a significant impact, making a difficult decision, being a visionary, showing creativity, or otherwise going beyond their formal responsibility, but the same is true for those showing leadership without having a formal title. If you are having difficulty really understanding leadership, one great place to read about leadership, and business in general, is Harvard Business School Working Knowledge.

Some clients I have worked with have never really considered themselves as leaders. I think it is critical that if you are applying to HBS that you have  an idea about what kind of leader you are.  While there are number of ways to describe leadership, I particularly like this formulation of leadership types that INSEAD Professor Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries has used in one of his Harvard Business Review blog posts (Disclosure I am a graduate of the INSEAD Executive Masters program that he established):

• The strategist: leadership as a game of chess. These people are good at dealing with developments in the organization’s environment. They provide vision, strategic direction and outside-the-box thinking to create new organizational forms and generate future growth.
• The change-catalyst: leadership as a turnaround activity. These executives love messy situations. They are masters at re-engineering and creating new organizational ‘‘blueprints.’’
• The transactor: leadership as deal making. These executives are great dealmakers. Skilled at identifying and tackling new opportunities, they thrive on negotiations.
• The builder: leadership as an entrepreneurial activity. These executives dream of creating something and have the talent and determination to make their dream come true.
• The innovator: leadership as creative idea generation. These people are focused on the new. They possess a great capacity to solve extremely difficult problems.
• The processor: leadership as an exercise in efficiency. These executives like organizations to be smoothly running, well-oiled machines. They are very effective at setting up the structures and systems needed to support an organization’s objectives.
• The coach: leadership as a form of people development. These executives know how to get the best out of people, thus creating high performance cultures.
• The communicator: leadership as stage management. These executives are great influencers, and have a considerable impact on their surroundings.

I have previously suggested that applicants who are having difficulty really understanding leadership find out what kind of leader they are by taking this quiz based on Lewin's classic framework.  While leadership  is more complicated than Lewin's framework, the quiz is a great way to get you started thinking about yourself, a key part of answering any leadership essay question effectively. However, I think the 8 archetypes above provide a much better guide for those who both have extensive leadership experience and those who think they lack it.  Think of these 8 archetypes as aspirational images of certain kinds of leader. You may fit into more than one category. You may find you don't feel like you are really good at any of the above in comparison to the descriptions above, but that is OK because you are trying to identify your potential even if it seems based on relatively little "objective evidence." If leadership is not obvious from your resume or likely to be a topic your recommenders will focus on, you should certainly consider how you show your leadership potential. I have never worked with anyone who could not demonstrate potential in at least one of the categories above.
Some types of leadership experiences that make for effective content in essays, recommendations, and interviews:
-A time you convinced someone or some group.
-A time you led others.
-A time you demonstrated courage.
-A time you made a difficult decision.
-A time you were innovative.
-A time you formulated and executed a strategy or tactics.
-A time you turned around a situation, overcame an obstacle.
-A time reformed something.
-A time you changed something.
-A time you effectively negotiated with someone.
-A time created something.
-A time you managed or organized something.
-A time you mentored or coached someone.

-A time you represented an organization in public.

 

-A time you managed up, down, or across an organization.

 

Some of these are simply derived from the archetypes above, but  all reflect what I have seen in my clients' essays over the years.

Engaged Community Citizenship

 

 

While “Engaged Community Citizenship” might take the form of leadership, it is quite distinct:
So much of our MBA experience - including the case method, section life, and student-organized events - requires the active collaboration of the entire HBS community. That's why we look for students who exhibit the highest ethical standards and respect for others, and can make positive contributions to the MBA Program. The right candidates must be eager to share their experiences, support their colleagues, and teach as well as learn from their peers.

 

HBS and other MBA programs are looking for students who will make a contribution. This really makes sense because of the collaborative nature of MBA education. While professors play an important role in the classroom, students learn from each other on a continuous basis both inside and outside of class. An MBA education is very much one based on relationship building. One of the chief functions of an MBA admissions committee is to select people who will be good classmates. The director and the rest of the committee have done their job properly if they have selected students who can work well together, learn from each other, and if these students become alumni who value the relationships they initially formed at business school. Given that two of the major takeaways from an HBS education are the relationships that a student forms during the program and access to the alumni network, HBS is looking for candidates who will fully engage with others.  It is important to show engagement with others in your HBS essay, in your interview, in your post-interview essay, in your application, and/or in your resume.  You should also make it a point to get your recommenders to discuss how you add value to the team, to whatever “community” (A workplace is a community) they worked with you in.

 

 

Engagement in a community may take many different forms.  Over the years, I have found the following types of activities to be very effective for MBA applications:
-Volunteer or social activities at work, whether it is actually organizing them or participating in them.
-Volunteer or social activities at school, whether it is actually organizing them or participating in them.
-Volunteer or social activities outside of work or school, whether it is actually organizing them or participating in them.
-A volunteer activity related to your post-MBA goals
-A volunteer activity that allowed for the development of leadership and/or teamwork experience
-A volunteer activity that put you in contact with people who are quite different from you in terms of nationality, income level, and/or educational background
-An international volunteer or social activity
-Active involvement in an alumni organization
-Active participation in a sports team
-Active political involvement (Not just voting or knowledge of politics, but actual activities)
-Participation in an orchestra, band or other musical groups
-Participation in drama or dance or other types of group performance
-Organizing trips or other activities for a group of friends
-Serving as the leader, organizer, or active member of a team-based educational activity such as a seminar, project, or overseas trip
The above are just some possibilities.

 

 

Some people will no doubt worry that they lack extracurricular activities to demonstrate such community citizenship, but in my experience, there is always some way to demonstrate this. Part of my job is to help my clients identify such activities and communicate about them effectively. If you have demonstrated extensive community citizenship in your resume, you may very well not need to write about in the HBS essay, but you might still find that explaining your motivation for such activities is something you want to convey to HBS.  For those with limited objective resume content in this area, if there is an effective way to get some positive aspect of your community citizenship into the essay, do so.

 

Analytical Aptitude and Appetite
Harvard Business School is a demanding, fast-paced, and highly-verbal environment. We look for individuals who enjoy lively discussion and debate. Our case and field-based methods of learning depend upon the active participation of prepared students who can assess, analyze, and act upon complex information within often-ambiguous contexts. The MBA Admissions Board will review your prior academic performance, the results of the GMAT or GRE, and, if applicable, TOEFL iBT and/or IELTS, and the nature of your work experience. There is no particular previous course of study required to apply; you must, however, demonstrate the ability to master analytical and quantitative concepts.

 

 

HBS is a highly competitive and challenging academic environment. It is not for anyone.  “Analytical Aptitude And Appetite,” what can more generally be thought of as academic potential, will be very easy for some candidates to demonstrate without ever writing an essay on the topic. You must demonstrate your analytical intelligence somewhere in your application. Yes, a solid GPA and GMAT are enough for that purpose, but if you think your academic record and GMAT are weak, I do suggest demonstrating your high analytical aptitude and appetite in your essay. Also, whether you address your analytical abilities in your essay, for most applicants, it would also be very useful to have one or more recommenders discussing this.

 

Some effective ways to demonstrate analytical intelligence include the following:
-Solving a complex problem at work, school, or elsewhere
-Discussing the successful completion of complex analytical tasks
-Breaking down a complex problem that you solved and communicating it a very brief and clear way
- Demonstrating great personal insight into one's weaknesses, failures, and/or mistakes
-Showing the ability to learn from weaknesses, failures, and/or mistakes
-Showing the ability to learn and master something highly complex
-Demonstrating a high level of creativity
Those with truly outstanding academic background and test scores need to likely focus less attention on this area. If you think you have weaknesses in this area, consider how to use the essay and Additional Information section to mitigate them. The above list provides some effective ways to do that.

 

Diversity
A truly diverse student body — in background, nationality, interests and ambitions — is the foundation of the HBS experience. Indeed, these differences are critical to the HBS learning model, which thrives on the many perspectives and life experiences our students from all over the world bring to their classes. From academic assignments to casual conversations, the unique qualities of individual lives enrich the education of the entire community.

 

This overall intention to create a highly diverse class significantly impacts HBS admissions' decisions. The critical thing is that you demonstrate why you are unique and how you will add to the diversity of the class.  In your essay, you need to show what makes you stand out. Especially if you think your academic, personal, professional, and/or extracurricular experiences are not inherently unique, it is very important that your essay demonstrates what makes you stand out.
Some ways of demonstrating diversity that my clients have used successfully include the following:
-Being the first person or kind of person to do something
-Being the youngest person to do do something
-Making an original contribution to something
-Having an unusual family, academic, personal, or professional background
-Unusual skills or talents
-Extensive international experience
-Receiving prestigious awards or scholarships

-Even post-MBA goals might be used for this purpose if your goals help to make you stand out.
Keep in mind that diversity is a matter of interpretation and presentation and it is each applicant's responsibility to best demonstrate how they will add value to their classmates. One of my jobs as a consultant is to always help my clients identify ways that make them distinct even if they think they are not special. I operate on the assumption that everyone is unique.

WRITING
So far I have discussed on topic selection.  I think it is useful to think about what makes for a good essay and in particular, I think about stories. When it comes to telling stories, I think it is most important to think about your audience.  You are not writing these essays for yourself, you are writing them to convince your audience. How to convince them?

The following grid connects the parts of an essay (the first column) to three core aspects of writing an effective essay. The table should help you see the relationship between the components of a story and what I would consider to be three major questions to ask about any story.

Essay Outline	What was your role?	What does it mean?	Why will this essay sell them on you?
Situation: When? Where? Who? What? How?	Effective answers to when, where, who, what, and how should all relate directly to your role in the situation. You are the hero or heroine of your story.	Your reader should have a clear understanding of the situation. They are not reading a mystery story, a poem, or some other form of writing where withholding information will be valued.	The situation needs to be one that the reader will believe, consider to be important, and hopefully be impressed by.
Action Steps: What actions did you take?Action Step 1: Action Step 2: Action Step 3:	Stories break down into steps. For each step, make sure you are clear about what you did.	Each action step should be meaningful and demonstrate your potential. This is the core of the story and it is important the rationale for your actions be stated as clearly as possible. Effective essays involve both description and interpretation.	If you are actions are clear and their value is clear in terms of your leadership, analytical, engaged community citizenship, or unique background, you will be on a firm basis for selling your story to admissions.
Result	Results should be stated as clearly as possible. Your relationship to the results should be clear.	Explain the significance of results clearly.	Make your results meaningful so that they will be impressive.

The grid above is based on the following assumptions, which I consider to be basic for writing effective essays:

Your reader must understand you.   Provide a clear interpretation of what you have done. Write in simple language, even about complex things. Assume your reader has a basic business background, but don't assume any expertise. Cause-effect relationships should not be merely implied where possible. Showing your actual action steps is critical. A full explanation might be impossible because of word count, but if you tell things in sequence, it usually provides that explanation.

Your reader must believe you.  If your reader is not convinced by your story, you are dead.  I am all in favor of telling the best version of a story that you can, provided it is also believable. Bad self-marketing is frequently based on lies that can be seen through. I have met many admissions officers and while not all of them were brilliant, all the good ones had finely tuned "bullshit detectors." If your essays have a seemingly tenuous relationship with reality, you are likely to be setting yourself up for a ding.

Your reader must be engaged.  If a reader does not become interested in what they reading, there is a problem.  The problem may be that the essay is simply generic or it might be the way a story is being told is boring or it maybe a lack of passion in the writing.  Whatever the case, it needs fixing.  One of my roles as a consultant is to coach my clients on writing essays that will be engaging.


You must sell your reader on your high potential for admission. Great essays don’t just need to be believable and interesting, they have to be convincing. You are trying to get admissions to take a specific action after they read your file: admit you or invite you for an interview. Thus, essays must convince them to take action, they have to see why you should be admitted.  I help my understand how to do this and give very specific advice on how to do so.
Your reader should be interpreting your essay the way you intend.  In writing, there is always room for misinterpretation.  If you have not effectively interpreted yourself, there is always the possibility that your reader will draw opposite conclusions from what you intended.  I help my clients make sure that they understand and correct for all such negative interpretations.


And finally...
My final point is that HBS is looking for people who want to be leaders, not mere managers. They are looking for people who will use their "one precious and wild life" to achieve great things, not those who will be satisfied at being mediocrities.  If you can't show the potential for that now, when will you?

 

HBS REAPPLICANTS: Reapplication as a topic in the Essay

If you are a reapplying to HBS, I do recommend addressing that issue either in the essay or, if you only need a brief amount of  words, in the Additional Information section (see below). If you are reapplicant, please see here.  It is usually the case that one tries to show growth since the last application. Whatever form(s) this growth takes, you might need a brief amount of word count or significant word count.  Common topics:

1. Changes in career goals since the previous application. Feel free to alter your goals, just explain why.

2. Why you are a better candidate now. This could be everything from a career change to increased GMAT scores to improved English ability to taking courses to overcome an academic weakness to a valuable extracurricular activity.

3. Why you have a better understanding of how you will use an MBA education from HBS.  This could be based on learning more about the school and talking with current students and alumni and then show how the program will really help you.

 

 

If you only use the Additional Information section (See below) to discuss reapplication  I know 500 characters (not words!) is not much, so use the 500 characters here to highlight positive changes that you especially want HBS to take into consideration when evaluating you. On the other hand, I think it is perfectly fine to address reapplication in the main essay, which is a change from last year (Class of 2018) when the question made the topic of reapplication hard to fit into the essay.

 

 

For more about reapplication, please see the Reapplication section of my Key Posts page.

 

 

 

JOINT DEGREE APPLICANTS

Joint program applicants for the Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Kennedy School must provide an additional essay: How do you expect the joint degree experience to benefit you on both a professional and a personal level? (400 words)

OR
Essay Question: The MS/MBA program is focused on design, innovation, and entrepreneurship within a technical/engineering context. Describe your past experiences in these areas and your reasons for pursuing a program with this focus.
(Recommended: 500 words)

 

While I am providing advice on this topic, I should say from the outset that my experience is limited to Harvard Kennedy School as I don't handle Medical School, Dental School, or JD admissions.

 

HKS Joint Degree: How do you expect the joint degree experience to benefit you on both a professional and a personal level? (400 words)

My clients admitted to HKS have include both those admitted to the Joint HBS/HKS program and  Wharton/HKS Dual Degree program. I have also worked with applicants who were applying only to HKS and for MBA.  In 2016, I had the pleasure of attending a half-day workshop for my fellow consultants and myself that was hosted by HKS.  Frankly, HKS offers a level of advice and insight into their application process beyond that of any other graduate program that I am aware of. HKS' Matt Clemons (Director, Admissions
Enrollment Services, Degree Programs) is a really open and genuinely nice guy who provides great advice to applicants, which can be found at http://hksadmissionblog.tumblr.com/ and is required reading for anyone applying to HKS.

 

The key challenge of writing this essay is to not duplicate what you write in the HBS essay.  You might refer to doing the Joint Degree in the main HBS essay, but really don't do more than that. Use this essay to explain the synergy that will be gained from doing both degrees. The professional part seems obvious enough (What skills will you gain? What network will you gain? How will it help you with your career objectives?) but the personal part sometimes confounds my clients. I tell them to think about it terms of the perspectives they will gain and from the opportunity to be enriched by a much range of ideas but also by the fact that those who do the HKS Joint Degree are their own tribe and establish close relationships in a very different classroom atmosphere than is offered by HBS. I encourage my clients who apply for this degree to talk with alumni and current students from the program in order to gain these kind of personal insights.

 

 

It is important that you well align the content of your Joint Degree Essay, HBS essay, and HKS essays for your own sanity but do keep in mind that your admission to these programs is separate and each program has own its admissions. At least for HKS, I don't believe that applying for the Joint Degree has any significant impact on whether one is admitted to HBS, at least I have never seen anything indicating this.  Which is to say that I don't think applying for the Joint Degree improves or decreases ones chance of admission.

 

SEAS Joint Degree: The MS/MBA program is focused on design, innovation, and entrepreneurship within a technical/engineering context. Describe your past experiences in these areas and your reasons for pursuing a program with this focus.

Keep in mind that your overall personal background should be in the main HBS MBA essay and not here. Make sure you effectively align the MBA essay, the SEAS essay, and the 500 character goals statement so that they support and don't overly duplicate each other, though some overlap (see below) is inevitable. The SEAS essay consists of two parts:

1. Discuss past experiences with design innovation, and/or entrepreneurship within a technical engineering content. If you don't have any past professional, academic, or other experience in any of these areas, the program is not for you.  Assume that you should be spending at least half if not more of the essay providing an analysis of those experiences. Your resume and application form should back-up what you write about in the essay. My suggestion would be to highlight 2-4 specific ways your past experience demonstrates your fit for the program.
2. Discuss reasons for pursing the program. The reasons would relate directly to your post-MBA objectives, so there should be some inherent overlap between this essay and what you write in the 500 character goals statement (see below regarding that). You should certainly justify why the program is right for you based on what you can read about on the program website.   I would also suggest reading a Q&A with the program's co-chair. When explaining why you want to attend a program, do not just make a series of dumb lists of classes or tell the program about itself, but explains what you want form the program.   You need not mention the names of particular courses as long as it would be clear to your reader that your learning needs align well with curriculum.  If you have a particular interest in a more specialized course or studying with a particular professor, it might be worth mentioning it as long as it is an explanation of why you want to study the subject and not based on circular reasoning;
    An example of circular (tautological) reasoning:  "I want to take Integrated Design  because I am interested in learning about integrated design."This kind of circular reasoning is so common. Usually, it takes place within a paragraph consisting of many such sentences. They actually convey nothing about the applicant.  They are just abstract needs and will have limited impact on your reader.  The admissions reader wants to learn about you, not about their own program.

    An example of an explanation for why:  "While I have been exposed to some user design issues,  I presently lack the kind of comprehensive understanding of design issues that are critical to my future goals...."  A complete explanation would include additional details about the kind of issues that the applicant is interested in learning about and/or specific ways the applicant intended to apply what he or she would learn at Harvard to those goals.  By focusing on very specific learning needs and explaining those needs in relationship to one's goals and/or past experience, the admissions reader will be learning about you.

RESUME
"Instructions: Please provide a current resume or CV.  Ideally, this would be about 1-2 pages in length and include dates and locations of your employment."
The resume has always been an important part of any HBS application.  You can find a resume template I have linked to on my blog here.  That resume template can also simply serve as a checklist for what to include.  While many schools prefer a one-page resume, HBS really does not care.  Depending on a client's background, I will recommend 1 or 2 pages.  I think it best to think of a resume as a record of accomplishment. If you have sufficient accomplishments, 2 pages is fine.  Some applicants try to a use an MBA student's recruitment resume format as the basis for their own resume, but I generally don't consider this a good idea as such resumes serve a very different purpose.  An MBA resume should really designed to focus on you overall, that is your academic, professional, and personal accomplishments and key facts. A recruiting resume is meant for a different kind of audience, recruiters, and typically focuses on a much more narrow range of information.

When I first start working comprehensively with any client, whether they are applying to HBS or not, I always start with the resume for a couple of reasons:
1.  It is a great way for any applicant to summarize the most important information about them and  their accomplishments. It sometimes helps applicants actually remind themselves of what they have done.
2.  For me, it is a way I learn about a client so that I can better understand their background.
One key thing to remember about what you include on your resume:  Anything that is there, just like any component of the application, may become the basis for a HBS interview question. Therefore if you don't want to talk about it and don't need to write about it, leave it off the resume.

EMPLOYMENT
 There is also an Employment Section of the application that provides space for you to discuss three positions in detail including providing  brief descriptions of your professional accomplishments and challenges.  To some extent this information will overlap with the resume. This is nothing to worry about. That said the challenge question ("Most Significant Challenge" 250 characters) in particular is very possibly something you would not be covering in your resume. Stanford has a similar detailed employment section in their application, which they seriously.  I assume  HBS does as well, so  just as with the resume, make sure your answers in the application are as effective as possible. Don't treat it like some form you do at the last minute.


ACADEMIC TRANSCRIPTS
First, keep in mind that admissions officers read transcripts and are trained to know what they are reading. They don't just look at GPA   (If your school calculates it).  If there is something really bad on your transcript (a fail, a withdrawal, etc) or odd, you really do want to explain it in the 500 character (not word) Additional Section. If is just a C and you have no specific excuse, don't bother trying to explain it.  If your academic performance varied greatly from year to year (or semester to semester), was there a reason for it?  Is it one that you want to provide? I don't recommend discussing how you became depressed after your boy/girlfriend broke up with you, but if, for example, you were taking a major leadership position in a student organization, running a start-up, working a lot to pay for school,  doing major research, experienced a major illness or misfortune,  or playing a varsity sport, you do have a topic worth discussing. Finally, If your transcript,  GMAT/GRE, or resume don't indicate that you have solid quantitative skills, you should explain why you do if you can. The proper place to provide that explanation is in the additional section or the essay.

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

"Instructions: List up to three extracurricular activities in order of importance to you (i.e., list the most important first). Please tell us about the things you do or have done while not at work or in class. Include other activities, like community service, here as well. Please limit this to three activities, but don't worry if you don't have a list of three. 
We use this section mostly to get a sense of the leadership roles and activities that attract you. If there are additional activities you wish to tell us about, please include them on your resume/CV."

Given HBS' instructions on this, I do highly recommend including your best extracurricular activities that showcase your leadership (primary) and community engagement (secondary) and/or unique experiences/interests (tertiary). If you have done nothing impressive extracurricular-wise after graduating and have 3 good activities from university, feel free to just use use this section for those activities. If you did nothing but study during college or university and really have no activities, hopefully you have three post-college things to include.  If you have any activities that are directly relevant to your professional goals or to your personal story and you really want to emphasize them, use this space accordingly. While I would surely emphasize the most impressive activities in terms of leadership or community engagement, if you need to focus on personal interests that were not group focused (running for example) because you simply don't anything better, put it here.  Activities that show you are well-rounded, civically engaged, artistic, athletic are all possibilities here.

Keep in mind that extracurricular activities can (and usually should)  also be fully accounted for on the resume and given the fact that you can submit a two-page resume, there is no reason that can't account for an activity.  Also, if you are not using the space for anything else, the 500 character additional information section could be used for elaborating on anything you consider really important, but could not include in this section or in the resume.


AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
"Instructions: List any distinctions, honors, and awards (academic, military, extracurricular, professional, community) in order of importance to you (i.e., list the most important first). You may list up to three awards."

For some applicants this section is really easy to fill out because they have won a number of awards, distinctions, or honors and just need to prioritize them. Other candidates will freak out about this section because they never won anything that they think fits.  While, it is sometimes really the case that I will have perfectly great applicant who has nothing to report in this section, most applicants are actually likely to have something.  HBS is not asking you a narrow question here, so think broadly.  It is possible that this section will overlap with the resume, employment, essay, or extracurricular section of the application.


THE POST-MBA GOALS PAGE
"INTENDED POST-MBA CAREER GOALS

Industry Group

ConsultingConsumer Products / Retail / E-CommerceFinancial ServicesHealth Care / BiotechManufacturing / Industrial / EnergyMedia / Entertainment / TravelMilitaryNon-Profit / Government / EducationServicesTechnologyVenture Capital / Private Equity

Function

Accounting/ControlConsultingEngineeringFinance: Investment ManagementFinance: Investor RelationsFinance: LendingFinance: Mergers and AcquisitionsFinance: ResearchFinance: Sales and TradingFinance: Treasury/AnalysisFinance: Underwriting/AdvisingFinance: Wealth ManagementFundraising/DevelopmentGeneral ManagementHuman ResourcesInformation Services managementInvestment AdvisingLegal ServicesLogisticsManufacturing/OperationsMarketing: Brand/Product ManagementMarketing: CommunicationsMarketing: GeneralMarketing: ResearchMarketing: SalesMedical ServicesOtherProduct DevelopmentProfessional Advising-ReligionProject ManagementPublic RelationsPurchasingResearch and DevelopmentSoftware EngineeringStrategic PlanningTeaching

 

 

Briefly tell us more about your career aspirations:

(500 characters)

 

 

You don't have to perfect post-MBA plan, but you need to have a plan. You most likely will spend more time thinking about what you are going to write here than writing it. I think it is fine to include the longer term here if it helps to explain the rationale for your short-term objectives. Keep in mind that your wider vision is a perfectly acceptable topic to discuss in the essay (if you think it will really help your section mates understand who you are) and not in this space. Also, since this question does not ask about HBS, you should not necessarily include any why HBS content here. If you are having difficulty with your career goals, see my analysis of Stanford Essay B for a method for thinking about goals.  I frequently work with my clients on their goals.

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
"Please share additional information here if you need to clarify any information provided in the other sections of your application. This is not meant to be used as an additional essay. Please limit your additional information to the space in this section.We know you'll be tempted, but please don't send us any additional materials (e.g., additional recommendations, work portfolios). To be fair to all applicants, extra materials won't be considered."

 

Use this space of 500 CHARACTERS (NOT WORDS!)  to explain anything that can be effectively explained in the space provided. 500 characters is about 100-125 words. This is a great place to explain your choice of recommenders, a problem in your past, or to add in information about something you really think HBS needs to know. It is completely fine to leave this space blank if you have nothing you need to add.  See above in this post for using the additional section if you are a reapplicant to HBS.

 

 

Best of luck to everyone applying to HBS.

The Warren Buffett Club: Thoughts on MBA Rejection

In this post I discuss MBA rejection, but for my less philosophical, but more practical advice on reapplication, please see A guide to my resources for reapplicants.  While focused mostly on MBA rejection, what I write here applies to rejection from any graduate program or perhaps rejection of any kind. 

In a much earlier post, I wrote a review of the Warren Buffet biography, The Snowball, it was titled “A Happy Story of HBS Rejection.”  I will quote part of it at length:

“Once upon a time a slightly odd nineteen year-old with a continuous entrepreneurial track record from early childhood, an odd university history (attended a top East Coast School, but graduated from a public university of little repute outside its home state), and who happened to be the son of a United States Congressman applied to HBS.  He was interviewed by a highly judgmental alumnus who decided on the spot that the young man was not ready for HBS.  He was rejected.

The young man than applied to Columbia Business School because he realized that the author of a book on investing that he considered to be one of the best on the subject taught there.  He applied and was admitted without interview. The author became the young man's mentor.

From one perspective, it could be said that HBS had made perhaps the worst admissions decision ever as it lost the chance to educate the young man.  But for the young man, his HBS rejection worked out just fine.  Maybe he would of benefited from a case study based education, but maybe not.  One thing is sure, the young man greatly benefited from his association with his CBS mentor.  Finally, it is rather clear that CBS made a great admissions decision.

The young man was Warren Buffett and his mentor was Ben Graham.   Buffett's authorized biography, The Snowball,  does not record who the HBS alum was, but clearly the guy did not have an eye for talent. And yet, if one considers the issue of fit, everything about Buffett as a person strikes me as wrong for HBS and right for CBS.”

Young Buffet surely was unhappy with his rejection, but he did just fine.  This might come as small consolation to you if you have been rejected from one or more of your top choice schools.  Still you to get over it and move on. I know when I experienced rejection the first time I applied for graduate school, it was painful, but I learned from the experience. I wrote about this in a real old post from 2007 (updated in 2009), I’lll quote the relavent part at length:

“TWO STORIES
A Sad Story
In Fall 1988, during my senior undergraduate year, I decided to apply to for PhD programs in Political Science. As I was graduating in three instead of the usual four years, I was 20 years old at that time. I sought advice from two of my professors, both were tenured, one had his PhD from Harvard and the other from Princeton. They supported me, wrote recommendations (that I later used successfully in 1990), but provided me with little guidance on the admissions process. I simply followed the application instructions and made a horrible mess of the whole thing. As this was long before online applications, I filled my own out in my handwriting (A kind of childlike scribble best not seen). I was dinged everywhere.

A Happy Story 
As I mentioned in a previous post, when I applied to graduate school in 1990, I was fortunate to have an excellent mentor, a PhD student at the University of Chicago, who remains to this day one of my closest friends. I was lucky because he understood the admissions process and the relative difficulty for obtaining admission at a time when the US Economy was weak and many people were applying to graduate school (Kind of like now, but not as awful.). His advice was timely and practical and helped me succeed at getting admitted to PhD programs in Political Science.”

What Warren Buffett and I have in common: We both got over our rejection and found another way to achieve our graduate school objectives.  This is also what anyone who has made successful application after initial rejection has in common with Warren Buffett. It is not a bad club to be a part of. In fact, on a more general level, beyond graduate school itself, if you have been rejected from anything you really wanted, at least initially,  you probably have not challenged yourself.  Rejection is all part of life.  Only those who takes risks even have the possibility of serious rejection and it is worth taking risks.

As an admissions consultant, I am happy when my clients are admitted and sad when they are rejected. Like any coach, you want to those you coach win. They can’t win all the time. I am very clear with clients about that when they contact me and I am very clear about the role of risk in my own suggested approach to school selection.

Admission to top MBA and other graduate programs is a high stakes competition and you will likely lose some of the time.  Given the nature of this competition, unlike going to a casino or playing the stock market, you only need to win once.  That means for some applicants that they will apply to only one school and gain admission, for others that they will gain multiple admissions,  for others that they will apply to many schools and may only gain one admission, and for others they will be rejected completely. For those in the final category, they have to figure out how to become more attractive candidates or simply withdraw from the competition. Sometimes applicants’ school selection is way off,  but whatever the case, failure is something that can be learned from.

Recently Dee Leopold posted the following on the HBS Admissions Director’s Blog: 
“On February 7, all candidates not being invited to interview will be notified of their release.
That’s it…and I’m thinking about whether the word “release” is a good choice. Suggestions welcome.”

While, it would surely not be in HBS’ interests to point out that they rejected Warren Buffett, I would suggest replacing- “On February 7, all candidates not being invited to interview will be notified of their release.”-  with  “On February 7, all candidates not receiving interview invitations will be notified that they are now part of the Warren Buffett Club.”  It could come with an explanatory message that Warren Buffett is not the only applicant who overcame rejection from HBS.  I know this is an impossible suggestion to implement, but if you are “released” on February 7th or have already been dinged elsewhere, or will be rejected everywhere, know that being amongst those who have been rejected simply means you need to move on.   

I suppose HBS could change their message to “On February 7, all candidates not receiving interview invitations will be invited to consider all options other than admission to the HBS Class of 2015.”  This, no doubt, would be considered in bad taste, especially amongst those without a sense of irony.  Yet, just like calling it the Warren Buffett Club, this perspective on rejection clearly is meant to tell applicants: Move on, your life is not over, you will have other opportunities.  Having worked with successful reapplicants to HBS, including one client who came to me after being rejected twice before, I know that not being part of the HBS Class of 2015, does not even mean that the Class of 2016 is out of reach.

From a practical viewpoint, I would tell Dee Leopold to change it as follows: "On February 7, all candidates not being invited to interview will be notified that they are no longer under consideration for the Class of 2015. Depending on your situation you might want to consider reapplication to HBS, application elsewhere, or other options for your one wild and precious life.”  That message would be one that was simultaneously direct and  positive.  Whether it is HBS or another school, if you are rejected, life goes on and you need to learn from the experience and use it to get what you want.

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

A new .com site, new Key Posts page, and new way to see my blog

After a year of planning and work, my adammarkus.com site has been completely redesigned.  A number of people, both on and off the net, had long pointed out the ugliness of my old .com site and also of the Blogger version of my blog. I have now attempted to provide something a bit more state of the art in both respects.

In addition to a great new design produced by Martin Celis, the .com site now includes my blog. Writing on WordPress is much better than Blogger.  Also since Blogger is blocked in China, I wanted something my clients in China could actually easily see.  The new version of the blog contains an enhanced set of search functions and hopefully a better overall look and feel.  I will continue maintaing the Blogger blog, but I think you will find using the .com version a better reading experience.  Changing my .com  site also made it easier to change the Blogger version, which has been greatly simplified.

One new feature is a Key Posts Page. I hope this will make accessing my important posts easier.

Finally, like with all websites this new probably has something wrong with it that I have not found. If you discover any issues, please let me know.

Happy reading!

Cheers,
Adam

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

GRADUATE ADMISSIONS IS A LONELY ZERO SUM GAME

As part of a series of general posts on MBA admissions strategy, I present the following extreme position.  Those looking for a sweet and friendly view of the business school admissions process that emphasizes collaboration will surely be disappointed. Here, I will offer a view of the MBA admissions process that is cynical, aggressive, and, I think, realistic.

GRADUATE ADMISSIONS IS A LONELY ZERO SUM GAME
Blogs, online communities, MBA admissions sites, MBA Tours, your GMAT class, and even your fellow applicants may create the illusion that you are part of a community when you apply. This is a lie. Ultimately you are either admitted or rejected. Every other applicant to a program you are applying to is in competition with you because they all have the possibility to take your potential seat.  There are only winners or losers in this process. Just as with a lifeboat, you either live because you have a seat or you drown. There is no middle ground. At the end of the day, even a waitlist that does not convert into an admit is a loss.  One can't get half admitted. I think keeping this fundamental fact in mind is important, especially when it comes to such issues as time allocation, information gathering, and information sharing.

Beware of "The Noise"
"The Noise" takes many forms.  Sites like GMAT Club, which often contain good information, are also filled with crap: Rumor, the pathetic wailing of losers who submitted bad applications,  shallow articles in newspapers and magazines, unethical and unprofessional applicant profile analysis by admissions consultants having the most scant information about the applicant, and other garbage found online.  The problem with The Noise is that it can become a time suck. Instead of preparing essays, practicing interviews, and/or networking with alumni and students, some applicants get sucked into The Noise.  Another problem with The Noise is that can actually misinform applicants by providing misleading information.  My suggestion is to certainly look at sites like GMAT Club, but be aware of the limitations of such information.

Taking advice from other applicants?
There are many good reasons to take advice from alumni and current students.  They have gone through the admissions process and succeeded.  Whatever they did worked for them, though of course, whether it will work for you is not so obvious. Still, they are not your competitors and probably are acting in good faith in terms of providing you with their best advice.  On the other hand, taking advice from other applicants, whether in the form of taking seriously what some guy has written in an online forum, having your essays reviewed by another applicant, or basing your application related decisions on second-hand information, is potentially a very high risk. Aside from the fact that what might apply to one applicant might not apply to you, I think it would be a mistake to assume that such advice is without vested interest (whether conscious or not).  In other words, other applicants might not really have your best interests at the top of their own agenda.  Be as cooperative as you like with other applicants, but focus on your own interests because this is a process that rewards individuals, not groups.

Other applicants are competitors but not ones you can directly defeat
Unlike most zero sum games where you are directly competing against others, the admissions process is an indirect zero sum game.  You are competing against other applicants, but you can't directly defeat enough of them to guarantee that you are offered admission.  Therefore there is no reason to think about them very specifically.  You can't impact other applicants essays, GMAT scores, backgrounds, interview performance, so there is no point in dwelling on them.  All you can do is submit the best application you can and prepare for an interview as effectively as possible. Some applicants worry about their competition instead of focusing on themselves.  Some even make extremely foolish direct comparisons between themselves and other applicants from their country or industry: "I'm one of the few Japanese applicants who really understands American culture!"  or  "Unlike most financial professionals, I am highly ethical and cooperative." Since you can't really know who your competition is, such comments make the applicant look rude, ignorant, overly agressive, and/or egotistical.  Every year since 2001, I have stopped applicants from making such comments in their essays and during interview preparation.

Share information only if it can't be used against you
I love the admissions reports I can get from Clear Admit, Accepted, and GMAT Club, but I would never advise anyone to submit such a report until after they have been admitted or rejected because it is not in their interest to do so.  I am happy that there are so many kind and generous people who think there is no consequence to providing such information to their competitors, but at least very indirectly there is. And I am not just discussing online reports, but also providing information to your friends who are applying at the same time as you are. Just get into a waitlist situation and you will quickly see that helping one other applicant with her interview is impacting your chance for admission. She may have been your sorority sister and your study partner in economics classes, but now she is a barrier to your admission. I often get interview reports from my clients, but I don't use them until after my clients' admissions results are in. It would unethical to do otherwise. When I do a mock interview, the questions I ask are based on reports that my own clients sent me from prior admissions cycles and the lovely content that naive applicants put up on the internet.  If you are not already familiar with the concept of being a free rider, I suggest you become one until your admissions results are in.  Once you are admitted, feel free to put up all the anonymous interview reports you want and share your experience with applicants.  Winners have earned bragging rights.

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

The Application You Is Only One Version of You

Now that my attention is beginning to turn to clients at the beginning rather than the end of the admissions process, I have decided to begin a new series of posts covering some core foundational application strategies. I thought I would begin with a seemingly obvious, but often ignored strategic consideration:
YOU ARE NOT SUBMITTING MBA APPLICATIONS FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE THAN TO GET ADMITTED!
I think applicants often forget this point when writing essays, resumes, or even selecting who they will use for a recommendation.  Some applicants become so carried away with an opportunity to tell their story that they forget to consider that not everything they could say about themselves is worth writing in an application and actually only those things that will get them admitted are worth writing.  One's greatest failure might have involved a love affair at age 15, but this would not make for an effective answer to an MBA program's essay topic related to failure.  Affairs of the heart are best left outside of the admissions process. Similarly getting drunk with clients in order to generate great sales results might be very true, but no sane person would write on their resume, "Engage in heavy social drinking 3-6 times a week in order to generate leads and results that contributed to over $20 million in sales for FY2011."  It might very well be the case such social drinking actually fulfills a core business function, but you simply can't it. Instead the resume will read "Engage in extensive daily discussions with clients and leads resulting in over $20 million in sales for FY2011." The drinking example reveals one very important thing: It is all about the interpretation.

And in fact, the importance of differentiating between the real you and the application you is one of interpretation. NO graduate school application can possibly capture the full real you. An application will only present a slice of you.  Some applications give you the chance to present more slices (More essays, longer resumes, more application form content), others less.  Some applications give you extreme freedom in choosing what to present (More open-ended essay questions), other less so. The point is that regardless of what questions you are asked to answer and/or what information you need are asked to provide, you need to control the interpretation.

Some will consider this an invitation to lie, but that is not what I am suggesting.  The story of one's life is not objective, it is subjective and its meaning is either something you provide to it or one what that your reader (essays) or listener (interviews) will naturally provide. Successful communication always involves controlling the interpretation.  The significance of what you do is something you need to explain, not something you can leave to chance. One set of facts can be presented in a number of ways, but my suggestion is that you look for a way that highlights aspects of yourself that align with the program you are applying to.

Getting the Right Slices: What are MBA Programs Looking for in Applicants?
At the strategic level, I identify four core aspects that MBA programs look for in applicants.  You need to understand this categories in general and also in relationship to the programs you are applying to.  You need to consider how you will demonstrate each of these categories in your applications and interviews.
1. Academic Potential is the applicant's perceived ability to perform well in the academic program. This is measured by GPA, GMAT, difficulty of courses indicated on the transcript, school reputation, demonstrated academic/intellectual accomplishments, analytically challenging work, possibly recommendations, and essay content related to academic/intellectual accomplishments/analytical work/problem solving. Beyond an application, it is surely measured by an applicant's performance in an interview. 
2. Leadership Potential is the applicant's perceived capacity to lead people, organizations, projects, and innovation both during and after the MBA program.  It can be a stand in for the perceived overall effectiveness of the applicant as a manager and businessperson. It is a highly contested category with much more flexibility to it than those who simply perceive leadership as telling others what to do within the context of an organization.  It is measured by your past leadership experiences (Professional, but also academic and extracurricular) as detailed in your resume, application form, essays, and recommendations and as discussed in an interview.  
3. Community Engagement is the applicant's perceived capacity to engage in activities of a voluntary, interpersonal, philanthropic, social, cultural, athletic, political, and/or altruistic nature. This community engagement category can be a way to measure the philanthropic potential, networking skills, uniqueness, perceived ethical/social sensitivity of the applicant.  If one were to be cynical, it could be said that this category favors do-gooders over those with a total focus on their professional careers, but it also measures those who have a  real capacity for working with others from those who prefer to spend their time alone. It is a category that makes some suspect that the admissions criteria for business schools is a bit soft headed, but given the rhetorical importance of companies needing to demonstrate their philanthropic, socially conscious, and or community spirit, it would be reasonable to expect that the future potential leaders of such companies have shown an understanding and capacity for community engagement. It is measured by engagement in activities as detailed in your resume, application form, essays, and recommendations and as discussed in an interview. For some applicants, community engagement is something they seem to have endless supplies of, while for other applicants, they will have very little to discuss. If you are six months or more away from an application due date, it is not too late to add something in this area, but sudden new activities don't impress all that much. Ideally, if you are one year or more from making application, now is a good time to engage in such activities if you have not done so. Remember that community activities can happen inside the office. Volunteering to organize an annual party, leading your department's green initiative, participating in a company sports team are all possible ways to show community engagement.  
4. Personality Qualities and Experiences is at times a stated category. For example, Stanford fits personality into the "Personal Qualities and Contributions" category (See here).  Whereas HBS, does not clearly mention it. (Their categories are "A Habit of Leadership, Capacity for Intellectual Growth, and Engaged Community Citizenship.")  Kellogg includes personality in its criteria through personal character, interpersonal skills, and motivation. Unlike the first three categories, which are covered pretty consistently, the personality category is communicated in many possible ways.  In the case of HBS, it does not come out as a category per se, but is certainly a core consideration:
"The true common characteristics of our students are demonstrated leadership potential and a capacity to thrive in a rigorous academic environment.
Indeed, to create the most stimulating environment possible for all students, we consciously select a diverse student body, one that not only reflects a variety of backgrounds, cultures, and nationalities, but also a wide range of personal interests and professional ambitions."
In order to get that diversity, something all top MBA programs want, each applicant's unique qualities and experiences comes into play.  This category can immensely difficult to pin down, but is it includes so many possible things.  Here is a list, by no means comprehensive, of what fits into this category: 
1. Demonstrated creativity in professional, extracurricular, or academic life. Artists, poets, writers, and inventors all fit into this category
2. Extensive international experience. This involves living, working, traveling and/or studying in more than one country.  It might involve spending a year traveling, being raised in three countries, study abroad, mastery of two or more languages, and working as an expat.
3. Mastery of artistic, athletic, scientific, academic disciplines resulting in outstanding personal accomplishments. Those with patents, professional musicians, captains of winning sports teams, Olympic medal holders, and public poets all fit into this category.
4. Unusual professional experiences that would give the applicant the possibility to make unique contributions in class. Concert violinists who also day trade, working a corporate job and running a start-up on the side, film directors, chefs, actors, and professional athletes all fit into this category.
5. Overcoming extreme personal, professional, academic, economic, political, social and/or physical obstacles.  If you have overcome poverty, personal misfortune,  sexism, homophobia, racism, physical disability, and other obstacles that reveal the strength of your character, they will likely be ways to distinguish yourself in the application process.
6. Being first at something. As long as it is not trivial if you are the founder of something, the youngest at something, the first to do something, it is likely to be a great topic for an essay or at least a bullet point on a resume.
7. Risk taking as demonstrated by professional career choices, personal acts of heroism, and/or participation in high risk sporting activities:  Air Force Rangers, extreme sports enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs all fit into this category.
8. Demonstrated passion and commitment to a cause, an intellectual pursuit, athletics, or hobbies.  If you can made a real commitment to something in terms of your time over multiple years, it is likely to be a good topic.
9. Unusual personal background that makes the applicant standout within a pool where white male American finance professionals, Indian IT guys, and management consultants are typically over-represented.
10. An interesting, engaging, and/or original perspective. Easier said than done.  One needs to distinguish between simply writing an effective set of essays and actually being a highly engaging personality.  Not everyone has the capacity to be such a personality and, in fact, it is not necessary to be a highly engaging  personality to gain admission into a top MBA program.  While applicants should certainly aspire to do this in their essays and interviews, some people are great writers, wonderful story tellers, and super communicators and others are not.  
Assume that you need to cover all four categories above in each application you submit, but the mix will be different depending on the application. The art of putting together a great application is knowing how you can distinguish yourself in relationship to each of these categories, how you can compensate for any weaknesses, and how you can create an effective total portrait of yourself based on these categories.  Don't worry if you are not strong in each of these categories as it is quite possible to be admitted to any top program without being perfect. The point is to provide your readers and interviewer with a clear set of selling points about yourself that fit within their own criteria for why an applicant should be admitted. 

You are more than your application and more than any interview, but it is on the basis of those two things that you will be admitted or rejected.  Great applicants with lousy applications get rejected all the time. I know because I help such applicants then submit great applications!  Applicants with significant problems in the four categories I mentioned above can gain admission to great programs by submitting great applications. I know this too because I help applicants with one or more significant problems in their objective background gain admission to programs where they are statistical outriders.

Some might think that I am suggesting that you present yourself falsely, but that is not at all the case. I recommend that applicants honestly discuss the best part of themselves, honestly addressing any objective problems that they can't avoid mentioning (That low grade in your transcript, the 11 months when you were not working, the reason you quit a job after 3 months, etc.), and not make any deceptive claims. You should  never provide deceptive information that will get your application rejected or your admission revoked.  On the other hand, don't volunteer information that is unnecessary to provide and unhelpful to you. Don't dwell on failures when you are not asked to.  Don't worry about trivial facts that can't be easily checked. Do interprete the past in way that is to your advantage and is believable.  Also, always consider that anything you submit in an application needs to be believable and that if asked about it in any interview you have to sound convincing.

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

If you don't believe in your goals and story, no one else will!

When I help a client craft their essays, resume, and other application components and/or prepare for interviews, one thing I am constantly asking myself is whether I believe what they have written or said.  If I don't I let them know. Then we work on making sure that not only I believe, but my client does too. Here is some general advice the importance of belief as it relates to the MBA admissions process.
 

Believe in yourself.  If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will.   "I Believe in You" from the musical "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" gets at the essence of this.  If you have confidence issues, you might want to make this song your own personal mantra:



If you can't say it with confidence when you look into the mirror, what will happen in an MBA admissions interview?  If the content in your resume and essays would not be something you would like to be questioned on by a person looking into your eyeballs, there is a problem with your content.


Assume the admissions committee member reading your file, as well as the alumni interviewer, student interviewer, and/or admissions officer meeting with you is no fool.  Assume, instead, that they have highly developed bullshit detectors.  No one likes to be lied to, especially a gatekeeper at an elite educational institution. So whatever you write and say make sure you believe it. That probably means it is some believable variation of the truth.  

There is the world of facts and there is the world of interpretation.  Successful business school applicants connect those worlds together in a way sufficient to be convincing.

-Adam Markus

アダム　マーカス
I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form, which is publicly available on google docs here, and then send your completed form to adammarkus@gmail.com.  You can also send me your resume if it is convenient for you.  Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. See here for why. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.