HBS MBA Application Interviews

You can find my MBA essay and recommendation analysis for Fall 2012 Admission here. For 2+2 Program essay analysis, see here.
This post has been updated and expanded from my previous post on this topic. 

HBS ADCOM HQ


In my experience, applicants who succeed at HBS MBA interviews go to their interview with a sense of confidence based on having done careful preparation. My clients who have failed the interview stage have often done so because of related reasons: lack of confidence and/or preparation.  Of course, there are times when the post-interview reason for getting dinged is never clear.  The reality of having too many well qualified applicants means that many who would certainly make the post-interview cut don't, simply due to lack of available seats. While these issues could be the same for any interview, the reality is that HBS admissions interviews are simply more thorough than that of most other schools. Failure to take this interview sufficiently seriously is a recipe for disaster.

TAKE PREPARATION FOR HBS VERY SERIOUSLY! Any experienced admissions consultant will tell you that the HBS interview is one that really does require preparation even for those who previously aced alumni interviews.  My colleagues and I have often become depressed about cases where we had great applicants who did not take the HBS really seriously.  By the same token, our clients who really prep for this really do have a much higher rate of admission.  I have had clients who might do 5-20 hours of self-preparation for every hour of time spent with a consultant.  One of my clients admitted to HBS did 2 hours of prep with myself and another counselor and an additional 100 hours on his own. He already had been admitted to Kellogg and Booth, but knew HBS would be different.


You need to know your application very completely as you will be asked by adcom about its content. Review your entire application (not just resume and essays, but everything including the transcript) very carefully and consider what your interviewer might ask you to explain more thoroughly. Remember: Anything is fair game. Assume that the weakest parts of your application will be topics in the interview. Assume the worst-case scenario and be very prepared to address their concerns. Given the annual failure rate at HBS, if you have any academic weaknesses (low GPA, a relatively weak TOEFL, insufficient proof of a quantitative background), be ready to address those issues. Be prepared to tell new stories and alternative versions of the stories you told in your essays.

If you think that either your English ability and/or interview skills are somewhat weak, be prepared to do extensive practice both with other people and alone. The self-study component can be particularly effective if you are trying to cover a huge range of questions and also master telling your best stories.

A point I will be making to own clients who have been invited for the HBS interview is that proper preparation for this interview really requires that you look for all the weak points in your application: Rip yourself apart in order to try and determine what you need to be especially ready to address. Getting a fresh perspective by reviewing your own application is certainly helpful. In addition, you should consider having one or more other people who can help you prepare for this and who will review your entire file. If you use any paid services, make sure that the mock interviewer (admissions consultant, admissions counselor, interview coach) will be reading your application first and developing a list of questions based on that review and with an understanding of what HBS asks, otherwise they are not really helping you prepare for an HBS interview. When I do mock interviews for interview-only clients, I always ask to read their applications if they are not doing a blind interview. For schools like HBS and MIT, which are never blind, reading the whole application (especially the essays) is critical for simulating the real thing.


The questions you get will be specific to you. Most questions will not be odd, but they may be unexpected. On the other hand, a number of reports indicate that the majority of questions are actually common ones. See my previous post on interviewing. Be able to articulate clearly what you want to learn at HBS and what you can contribute. While it is important to be able to discuss leadership, don't assume the interview will be entirely focused on it. The interviewer will come in knowing what they want to ask you. In addition to my own knowledge, I have reviewed reports of Harvard Business School interviews found at accepted.com and clearadmit.com.  My colleague Steve Green has collected and organized some of the commonly asked questions from those sites.
His general conclusions about HBS interviews:

• Expect to be asked for more details about most every topic discussed
• Expect topics to change as the interviewer will pursue detailed answers to topics that interest him/her
• Expect questions to feed off your responses rather than to be scripted
• Don’t be surprised if the interviewer does not allow you to ask questions:  they treat this interview as a chance to learn as much about you as possible in a limited time
• Bottom line: Harvard interviews are quite rigorous compared to other MBA admissions interviews  

Here are the questions he has collected and organized.

RESUME, CURRENT POSITION

• Explain your career path. / Take me through your resume.
• Describe your career progression, and talk about the most important things you learned about yourself along the way.
• Why did you choose to join this company?
• How did you pick your current job?
• What are the best and worst things about your current job?
• How did you end up at your company?
• What do you think about their training program?
• What's the company's position compared to its competitors?
• What was different about your previous job compared to this one?
• What was the most surprising aspect about this company when you first joined?
• What worries you about the company?
• Explain your career path.
• Why did you want to work in _____________?
• How has your leadership evolved with your promotion(s)?
• Who do you admire in your current industry?
• Where is the industry heading?
• Who do you admire in your post-MBA industry?
• Where is the industry heading?
• Tell me about your typical day?
• How do you find the time to do all you do?
• What’s most important to you outside of work?
• Why did you choose to major in X at your undergrad university?
• Why did you enjoy (SOMETHING FROM UNDERGRAD)?

REASONS FOR MBA, HBS

• What is your career vision?
• What are the steps you plan on taking to get there?
• What are the challenges you will face?
• How will an HBS MBA help you?
• Why do you want an MBA?
• When did you decide to get an MBA?
• Why HBS?
• In class, what type of profiles are you looking to meet? From who would you like to learn something?
• What can you contribute to HBS case method discussion?
• What experience outside the classroom are you looking for at HBS?
• What will you do if you don't get into business school?
• If we called you and said there is only 1 seat left in the class and 10 candidates remaining, what would you say differentiates you from them?
• How do you want to impact HBS?

LEADERSHIP & TEAMWORK

• Tell me about a project that you’ve worked recently where you exhibited leadership.
• What kind of leader are you?
• Who is a leader that you admire and why?
• Name a business leader you admire (non-government).
• Tell me about a time you had to work with someone you did not get along with.
• Give me an example of a project you’ve had a difficult time with.
• Tell me about a time when you raised an unpopular idea?

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES

• What do you feel you need to improve most at your current job?
• What would your supervisor say is a weakness?
• How would your colleagues describe you?
• Your recommender mentioned that you excellent at what you do: Why do you think that is?
• Give me an example of a project you’ve had a difficult time with.

VALUES & PERSONALITY

• How did you find the application process? Did any of it surprise you?
• Is there something about you that has not been addressed in your application?
• What is a recent non-fiction book you’ve read? (FOLLOW UP)
• What is the most recent fiction book you’ve read?
• What do you think the author was trying to say about society?
• What is the most interesting article you’ve read lately?
• Did you agree with it?
• What is a common misperception people have about you?
• Can you tell me about a time when people’s perceptions about you turned out to be wrong?
• What words would people use to describe you?  
• What would your 5 closest friends say about you? Why?
• What would a peer that knows you well say you should keep doing, start doing, or stop doing?
• Is there anything that would surprise me?
• What do you do when you have a really bad day?
• What TV shows do you watch?
• What sources do you use for news?
• Given what you know now, if you could go back to university and pick your subjects, which ones would you?
• What motivates you to get out of bed every morning?
• What drives/motivates you?
• If you could have lunch with anyone in the world who would it be?
• Who would you want to sit next to in your first year at HBS?
• What would be your dream job?
• How would the people who know you best describe you?
• What are people surprised to learn about you?
• How do you fit with different cultures?

CONCLUSION

• What’s a question that you thought I was going to ask you but didn’t?
• Is there anything else that you haven't mentioned in your application that you would like to share at this time?

Assume there will be at least one question for which you might not be ready for. Don't panic. Take a deep breath. Answer the question and do not become flustered. Be ready to answer questions about a hypothetical case study, conflict with colleagues, and the latest book you read as these have all been reported frequently.  For example,  If you are asked what is your favorite flavor of ice cream is (I have had clients asked questions almost like this) and you hate ice cream say that.  If you like ice cream just briefly state why for whatever flavor you like and assume that the recommender is just seeing how you react to a question you were not ready for.

Adcom interviewers are usually friendly, but to the point. They don't do stress interviewing exactly, but they will question you intensely. They will be taking notes. Anything you say can be subject to inquiry, so speak concisely, answer questions precisely, and try to avoid voluntarily bringing up any topics that you really don't want to talk about. Assume the you will be asking follow-up questions, expect to be able to analyze/explain in a great deal of depth. Your interviewer will know exactly what he/she wants to ask you because the purpose of the interview is (1) to see if you look as good in reality as you did in paper and (2) to address any concerns that they have about your suitability for HBS.

DON'T PSYCH YOURSELF OUT! It is particularly important that you don't worry too much about your perception of the interviewer's attitude as this can be a particularly good way to become nervous.  I have had too many reports of clients doing this with HBS.  Your interviewer maybe less friendly or more friendly, maybe more aggressive or less agressive, but whatever their attitude focus on your answers.  Feel free to panic and cry after you have exited the interview, but avoid doing so during it.

Reported interview length for ALL interviews is 30 minutes.  HBS is totally consistent about this.  So part of effective preparation on your part, means really considering time management and not wasting time in the interview by providing answers that are too long.

-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.

MIT Sloan LGO Essay Questions for Fall 2012 Admission

While most of the essay questions for Fall 2012 admission to the Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program are the same as those for the regular MBA program at MIT Sloan, there are two additional questions that I wanted to comment on.  You can find my analysis of the cover letter, the three other essays, and the supplemental information here. Unlike the cover letter or three other essays, the two LGO specific essays are rather straightforward. Clarity of purpose and analytical rigor rather than an overly creative response would be best here.  Save your creativity for the rest of the essay set!  


Essay 4: Why do you wish to pursue the LGO Program? What are the goals that you hope to accomplish both as a student and as a graduate of the program? Be sure to include a description of your post-LGO career plans. (250 words or fewer, limited to one page) You may copy and paste text directly from your cover letter.
Unlike the MIT Sloan MBA program, the LGO program actually requires having a clearly elaborated professional post-degree plan. In your cover letter, you need not fully elaborate on those plans because you will have Essay 4 for that purpose. Of course, you do have the option of doing so, but if you want to maximize your presentation of yourself as a whole, you might not find that to be terribly useful. Still, your cover letter should clearly be consistent with what you write in Essay 4 and feel free to have some overlap. 
In the event that you actually don't have clear professional plans, please see my analysis of Stanford Essay 2, which provides a method for formulating your goals based on SWOT and gap analysis.  I hope this would be unlikely because anyone who applies to LGO had better have clear ideas about what they intend to get out of the program and what they will do subsequently.
A good answer to this question would do the following:
1. Clearly state your post-LGO career plans. I would suggest that you emphasize both the specific kind of role you want to have after you graduate and your longer-term career goals. The longer-term part can be stated very conceptually.
2. Explain why the LGO program will support your post-LGO professional goals and why, otherwise, you are attracted to the program.
3. Discuss what you intend to learn through LGO. That is to say, explain your learning needs. Don't just mention a bunch of courses, but actually briefly explain what you hope to learn.

Essay 5: Why do you wish to pursue the engineering field and specialty area you have selected? (250 words or fewer, limited to one page) You may copy and paste text directly from your cover letter.

Just as with Essay 4, you might find some overlap between Essay 3 and the cover letter. I seriously doubt you have huge blocks of text to paste, but you might have a sentence of two. 

A good answer to this question would do the following:

1. Will demonstrate that you have fully considered the criteria for Choosing an Engineering Discipline. 
2. Connects your interest in the engineering field and specialty area to your post-LGO career plan.

3. Connects your interest in the engineering field and speciality area to your past academic and/or professional experience. The objective is demonstrate that you have the necessary competence to pursue this course of study. In addition, you should be able to express your interest in particular problems or aspects of your field that relate to your professional goals and/or academic interests.

4. If it is not clearly obvious why you would have the necessary competence to pursue the engineering field and speciality area you are interested in, you should fully explain why you think you would be able to do so.

-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.

To MBA Applicants in the Financial Sector

As anyone whose head is not buried in the sand is aware, protests about Wall Street, bankers, and the finance sector are rather heated as of late.  Especially for any applicants who might be working on "Wall Street,"  I wanted to gave some advice for keeping you focused on winning the MBA admissions game: Don't apologize for what you do, where you work, or what you want to do in the future.  Don't let mass media, people you know, protestors, or any feelings of doubt creep into your thinking.  Stay focused and know that whatever noise surrounds you, it is best ignored. Of course, if you have managed some way to use the protests to your rhetorical advantage, please do so. Almost anything is potentially valuable under the right circumstances.
Cheers,
Adam
アダム



 

Why Choose Columbia Business School #WhyCBS

Michael Melmed, a current Columbia Business School  student, has put together a really great Youtube video on Why CBS.

Michael writes:
" I made a youtube video in my Social Media Marketing class inspired by this year's 200-character "Twitter" question on Columbia Business School's application.

The video includes current student tweets exclaiming why they love Columbia.  Also I want to help potential applicants in any way possible, so I have a group of students actively monitoring the Comments section on Youtube to answer any questions of prospective students."

I think the video is great and I certainly do recommend making use of the Comments section if you have any questions.

-Adam

My Visit to the INSEAD Singapore Campus

I had the pleasure of visiting the INSEAD Singapore campus last week.  INSEAD's Deborah Riger,  who I have previously interviewed, was kind enough to give me a tour of the campus and arrange a visit to a class.

The Singapore Campus is a pleasant urban campus located within a research park.  While I have not been to the Fontainebleau campus, clearly there is a marked contrast between the two campuses. As one of my former clients explained to me over lunch in Singapore, the campuses each have their own distinct culture. Singy is the classic urban campus effect with students being able to access a great international city, whereas Fonty offers the classic college town effect. My former client had actually started at Fonty, is now at Singy, and will be going to Wharton.  She is taking full advantage of a total set of very distinct experiences, which is certainly one of the great advantages of the program.  Now adding Kellogg into the mix and the possibilities for experiences extremely different campus cultures is really quite amazing.  In the case of this one former client, she appreciated the opportunity to do more intensive bonding in Fonty, which, given its location has significantly less distractions than Singy. She said that in either case, students find themselves traveling extensively with friends on the weekends.  With Singy you have access to Asia via cheap flights and an amazing international airport located very close to campus. 

Compared to US business schools that I have visited (Booth, Haas, HBS, Kellogg, MIT, Stanford, and UCLA), the extreme internationality of INSEAD's students is an obvious and yet completely worthwhile point to mention.  Singapore itself is so international, but by contrast INSEAD is even more so.   The number of foreign languages spoken in the hallways and the accents I heard in the classroom were simply amazing. 

I attended an introductory class, Uncertainty, Data, and Judgment, and was impressed by the amount of material covered in the course.  I could see immediately why INSEAD's TOEFL and GMAT minimums would be effective ways to guarantee that potential students could keep in class.  Talking with a second former client who has just begun the program, I gather that the workload, while intense, was manageable.

The second client I talked to, by the way, was one of, what she told me, a number of moms with babies.  She told me that she thought the access to relatively daycare (she has a nanny for her baby) made Singy a better choice than Fonty, especially if one has a working spouse. Unlike my other client, she planned to do the straight ten months at Singy. 

I want to thank everyone at INSEAD for really helping gain a deeper understanding of the program.   For those of you considering INSEAD, if you do have the possibility of visiting prior to application, I do recommend it.

-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.

Decrease in total applications, but increase in applicant quality

The new GMAC 2011 application trends survey is now being reported on (See Inside Higher Ed and Wall Street Journal) because there was decrease in the total number of applications to MBA programs.  While Melissa Korn at the Wall Street Journal concludes correctly at the macro-level that "Thinking of applying to business school? Now may be a good time," the picture is a bit more complicated.  I think it worth pointing two key findings in the GMAC report:


"46% of all graduate business programs saw growth in international applications, with China and India topping the list of foreign applicants, especially for full-time MBA programs."

This means that while there has been an overall decrease in applications to US programs, the number of foreign applicants has increased.   If you are an international applicant, things have not gotten any easier.


"Among MBA programs, the majority reported decreased volume in 2011, but candidate quality and academic credentials are higher than last year."

In other words, there are fewer, but better candidates competing for admission. So while in the aggregate it has gotten easier to get in, that does not necessarily result in a less competitive climate.  And it is true that the acceptance rate for the HBS Class of 2012 was 11%, but actually, the "normal rate" appears to be 12% because the acceptance rates for HBS Classes of 2013, 2011, and 2005 was 12%.  We are back to the norm.


It is always worth keeping in mind that ultimately the success of any particular applicant is a result of their efforts and their realism in the school selection process.

-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.

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.

MBA & OTHER GRADUATE PROGRAM RECOMMENDATION ADVICE

I wanted to provide a brief guide to my primary posts on recommendations.


For overall advice, I would suggest beginning with 10 KEY POINTS FOR WRITING AN EFFECTIVE RECOMMENDATION: WHAT EVERY RECOMMENDER SHOULD KNOW, which provides core advice for what recommenders need to know.  Applicants can use this post to help educate recommenders.  While it is primarily focused on MBA recommendations, the overall advice provided is applicable to all sorts of graduate school recommendations.


In Further Comments on Selecting the Right Recommenders, I provide applicants with some very detailed advice on how to select the right recommenders. This post addresses the most common kinds of questions that my clients and blog readers have asked me about selecting recommenders. 


In HBS MBA Program Class of 2015 MBA Essays and Recommendations, I provide my analysis of the four questions that HBS requires recommenders to answer.  I do intend, at some point, to analyze other schools' recommendation questions. 


My guest blogger, Steve Green, prepared a post specifically focused non-MBA graduate school school recommendations, Letters of Recommendation for Academic Graduate Degree Applicants.   He also did a post on recommendations letters for MPA and MPP programs, Letters of Recommendation for Public Policy Programs.


Recommendations can be a particularly difficult part of the application process for many candidates, so I hope the above posts are helpful.


-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.

Know Your Audience: Three Things You Should Know About Admissions Committee Members

I am pleased to introduce a new guest blogger to my site, Jessica King. Jessica and I have been working together since 2002. She brings a unique perspective to her work as an admissions consultant because she holds a degree in higher education administration from Harvard, is a professional interviewer, and has previously been a professional voice actress. Over the past year, she has assisted my clients with interview practice who were admitted to HBS, Kellogg, Stanford, Tuck, and Wharton for fall 2011. Her comprehensive service clients will be attending Columbia, Kellogg and Wharton, among others. Below, she provides a great perspective on a subject that she has true expertise in. For more about Jessica’s services, please visit http://www.king-consulting.org.

-Adam Markus

Know Your Audience: Three Things You Should Know About Admissions Committee Members

by Jessica King

Over the past nine years, I’ve had the opportunity to consider the application process from a variety of perspectives through my experience as an application consultant and work as a recruiter in the higher education sector. Additionally, during my graduate work at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I spent an intensive year studying the field of higher education with professionals from top institutions around the country and I was delighted that a large number of my classmates had come to the program with backgrounds in admissions. During this time, I had the opportunity to participate in a seminar class that was focused on admissions policies and principles at selective colleges and universities. The discussions and debates that were such a vital part of this seminar, as well as those in my other classes, offered me invaluable insights into the world of admissions.  

In any form of persuasive communication, the most important factor in successfully communicating your ideas and eventually winning over your audience is presenting content in a way that is both compelling and easy to understand. In order to do this, there is one piece of advice that is likely familiar to you: know your audience. In the MBA application process, your audience is, naturally, the admissions committee (adcom).

Obviously, every member of the adcom is different, but in this post I’d like to introduce three things I’ve come to learn about adcoms in general that every MBA applicant should keep in mind when preparing his or her application.

1. It is highly unlikely they are experts in your field or specialization.

While there are a number of adcom members around the world that entered the field of admissions after having spent time in business and/or receiving an MBA, the likelihood of their having the detailed knowledge that you do in finance/supply chain management/software engineering/pharmaceutical sales is slim-to-none. This is extremely important to take into consideration when writing your essays. It is your job to present your experiences and goals in a way that is detailed and compelling, yet easily understandable for someone who does not know your field well.

2. It is entirely possible they have no business experience whatsoever.

Many adcom members are career academic administrators, some of whom are so committed to the field that they have received advanced degrees in higher education administration (like many of my classmates!). I can think of a number of adcom members at top programs who have spent their entire careers in academic administration and for whom their only knowledge of business comes from personal study or auditing MBA courses at their institution. This is important to take into consideration because their perspective of business and even the function of an MBA may be markedly different from yours (more on this in a future post). You cannot assume that the adcom shares the same assumptions and attitudes about business that you do.

You not should try to second-guess them – instead, just be sure that you explain yourself as thoroughly as possible in your essays. It’s possible that the first reader of your application will be a first-year adcom member who’s never worked outside his/her institution. A great question to keep in the back of your mind when drafting your essays is, “Would someone with no business experience be able to easily understand the point I am trying to make?”  

2. They are trained to consider your application in a holistic manner.

Something that is often difficult for many applicants to understand – particularly those accustomed to a quantitative, test-based approach to admissions – is that the adcom’s most important concern is generally not your academic ability. Of course, the adcom wants to know whether or not you will be able to successfully complete the academic component of the MBA program; however, they have been trained to evaluate this aspect of your application very quickly and this becomes a kind of “gateway” criteria.

Once they are satisfied with your academic ability, they move on to other considerations and these are often evaluated in a very qualitative, often imprecise manner. They will evaluate qualities such as leadership, teamwork, motivation, tenacity, and potential for future success … all of which are impossible to quantify in any sort of accurate way. The different pieces of your application – the application form, resume, essay questions, recommendations and interview – offer them “pieces of the puzzle,” so to speak. As an applicant, you must first know what holistic image you want to convey to the admissions committee, then provide them with the pieces necessary for them to see that image.

This is why it is so incredibly important for you to take the time at the beginning of the applications process (now!) to determine exactly what kind of picture you want the adcom to form of you while reading your application. By first determining your selling points, you can then maximize your usage of the different parts of the application to present yourself to the adcom in the best possible way.

I welcome questions/comments about this post. Please feel free to email me at jessica AT king-consulting DOT org. To learn more about my application consulting services, please visit http://www.king-consulting.org.