The MBA Admissions Studio

It’s MBA admissions interview season, and I’m reminded by a story here featuring fellow AICAC-member Bara Sapir, to talk about “intention” in interviewing.

More about that in a minute. Let me back up a step: there are many, many things to get right in an MBA admissions interview — or an interview for any position — and there is no silver bullet technique that guarantees success.

You will read about the STAR method (situation; target; action; result) among various others. There is nothing wrong with these kinds of scaffolding at all, particularly in that they will help you fully address the various dimensions of your story while your mind is whirling under pressure.

I have devoted a whole chapter (Chapter 14) of my book to lessons, observations, and techniques in MBA admissions interviewing.

At the end of the day, success comes down to managing two difficult things simultaneously. First saying important, believable, admissions-valuable things about yourself (and not drifting from your primary message); and second saying them in an engaging and fluent and organized way despite not being in control of the agenda.

Achieving the first requires careful planning — being really clear on the key things you want to communicate about yourself, and the proof-stories you will use corroborate your claims. Achieving the second is practice, practice, practice.

The good news — believe it or not there is good news — is interviews are more forgiving that written text. Text is expected to be perfect. It is written and read asynchronously, under different conditions. There is no way to add in an example or clarify a point when the reader’s brow furrows.

The interview gives you the opportunity for ‘warm-sync’ and mid-course correcting as necessary.

Note this does not imply that you should compromise your individuality or that it’s okay to lose communications focus. Adcoms want strong, purposeful individuals.

So how do you create a professional warm-sync environment while maintaining your individuality and message focus?

Here’s something specific to think about: go out of your way to create “life-intention” in your interview. By that I mean, make a conscious effort to state your life-career-path intention strongly. If you have a compelling passion for and focus on a future goal, not only will it make you stand out but it will be a point of gravity, a thread, that connects all parts of your story — parts which often get lost in the warm-style chat that interview-bonding demands.

Tags: AIGAC, communications, MBA admissions interviews, mba interview

Getting the tone right in MBA Admissions essays — particularly a fine balance between self-confidence and humility — is really tricky.

There are no hard and fast rules for this, and the exact mix depends on the candidate. The swaggering quant at BlackRock, NY, is going to have to adopt an altogether more modulated tone than the doe-eyed violinist from Vietnam, and so on.

As I’m consistently helping candidates get this element of tone right in their essays — not by doing it for them, but by reflecting when I’m feeling the self-tooting trumpet is too loud or not loud enough — I’m always looking for ways to think more intelligently about it.

Recently I found myself nodding at a unique device suggested by Derrick Bolton, Director of Admissions at Stanford GSB, as quoted by Matt Symonds on Forbes. Bolton’s advises candidates to write the application as if they were writing it for themselves and not going to turn it in.

Why might this work?

Says Bolton: “You don’t need to lie to yourself. [Private] self-reflection allows you to think about the things that bring meaning to you, and the knowledge and experience you need to aspire to be the person you want to become.”

There’s a lot in this. If you were to write strictly for yourself, you’d only be BS’ing yourself if you weren’t 100% honest about your motivations and intentions, and reasons for “Why an MBA” or “Why Stanford,” etc. You would hardly set out to “impress” yourself or to write what you think you want to hear.

Were you to be writing in your own private journal, you would sift honestly and reflectively through your experiences, and genuinely try to join the dots between your past accomplishments and future aspirations via an MBA at the particular institution.

The suggestion therefore offers a compelling device to cut through a lot of the preening and bluster that turns good candidates into bad applicants. It is a way to raise transparency and find that “genuine voice” that MBA admisions directors want to hear.

Having said all this… let’s not for a second be fooled that Bolton or any other admissions gatekeeper lives anywhere other than the real world. Neither Bolton, nor anyone else, got to be where they are by turning in their private reflections.

So, stay smart about the process. Once you’ve written your essays absolutely as-if for yourself, go through them again to add back gentle persuasion, artful promotion, and marketing sass before you hit submit.

Tags: Derrick Bolton, MBA essay tone, SGSB, Stanford, why-an-MBA

Following the various HBS applications I’m seeing, it’s clear my post today should be about how to approach the HBS “Wished-We’d-Asked” question.

The first thing, which I hope is obvious, is there are two tests here: (1) can you find a question that is appropriate and important, and ask it in an interesting way – a way that piques your reader’s interest; and (2) can you answer it in a way that advances your admissions prospects?

The two are of course related – you want to choose the single question that most allows you to advance your admissions value. As this essay comes at the end of the set, you will be looking to address a topic or factor that you have not spoken of yet (or not enough.)

The steps to a good question are as follows:

• What is there left, that is really important to say, that hasn’t been said in my other essays?
• What question will best let me address that?
• How can I formulate the question in a really interesting way?

An appropriate question, in Adcom’s eyes, is one that opens a channel of insight into who you are, what you stand for, what formative experiences in your past matter and why, how you have derived your values or motivations or ambitions, or other similar important stuff about you.

In other words, the right kind of question is one where the answer will leave the reader significantly more knowledgeable about you.

The right kind of question will be hard to answer. If you ask a question you feel you can knock off “no sweat,” then the question is probably betraying your admissions prospects.

Finally, it’s important (if you want to stand out, and you most surely do) that you ask the question in an interesting way. You could say, “I wish you had asked me what my favorite TV show is,” but that’s a yawn. It would be more flavorful to say, “I wish you’d asked me why I own the full 7 season DVD box set of ‘The West Wing.’”

You could say, “I wish you’d asked me about my community service,” but that’s like a road sign “beware, extreme dullness ahead,” when you could say everything you need to say about your volunteering in a soup kitchen and beyond under a question like: “I wished you’d asked me how cook soup for 400, in the dark, with one onion.”

Tags: essay writing, Harvard, HBS, MBA applicant, MBA community service, writing style

Over many years I’ve written extensively — both here and in my book — about the weakness-failure MBA admissions essay and how to approach it. In fact, it has to be about 8 years since I pioneered the notion of using the failure essay to position the applicant as a leader, because all successful leaders have failed or will fail at some time or another. Moreover, a real leader will acknowledge not deny a failure, and embrace its implied learning path — demonstrating capacity for personal growth which is the real test in answering this type of question.

Anyway, as you know, this year HBS grew the category from ‘failure’ to ‘setback’ and extended their request from one failure in 400 words to 3 setbacks in 600.

In a sense, not too much new here, but seeing as I’m experiencing a few clients struggling to hit the nail on the head, let me add a few thoughts and go over one or two principles.

First, a setback is broader than a failure. A failure comes from something you did or didn’t do. It implies personal causality and responsibility. A setback can be a failure in these terms, but it can equally be due to no fault of yours — just the big wide world doing what it sometimes does in a way that helped you not.

But, recognize too that the setback category does not cover all negative events. The outcome must be a setback. If you swam too far from the beach but were rescued, you might feel like an idiot and you might have had a wake-up call. But it’s not a setback because you were not held back or slowed down in any meaningful sense.

Choosing setbacks

Assuming you’ve identified various items that count as setbacks, which do you choose?

First the basics: as with the 3 x Accomplishments, you should create a spread from professional to personal to community topics. All work and no play makes Jack a dull admissions boy.

After that, you choose between setbacks the way you choose every topic: by asking yourself “which allows me to deliver the most admissions value?”

These are the kinds of admissions value a setback can communicate:

1. You show you are a leader. All leadership implies exploration of uncertainty and action without full knowledge of the consequences. Therefore all leaders mess up now and then. If you’ve had no setbacks, you have not led enough.

2. You show you are an innovator, and can balance risk and caution. Sometimes innovators go down blind alleys or take risks that don’t pan out. It comes with the territory. If you’ve got nothing here, you are either over-conventional or over-cautious, or both.

3. You show you are determined and can persevere. The “comeback from a setback” allows you to show tenacity and how you don’t give up.

4. You show you are resourceful. Likewise, overcoming a setback may allow you to demonstrate resourcefulness and creativity.

5. You show self-knowledge and self-insight. You are able to do honest introspection, which is the litmus test of maturity. You demonstrate humility.

6. You show growth. You are willing to learn, adapt yourself and your actions, and grow through experiences such as this.

Tags: accomplishments essay, essay writing, Harvard, HBS, Leadership, profile development, setback essay

I have various clients who are in the “uphill” phase of their MBA applications; having done one or two for Round 1, now pushing for a few more by early January. The gloss of self-discovery and self-expression is gone. It’s now just about getting it all done and done well, in what seems like an endless, thankless grind.

I’m sure there are many others out there in the same position.

So, as a pick-me-up, I’m sharing an old post: a heartwarming report from a 2009 MBA Studio client, who detailed his extended MBA admissions journey, see original report.

Not only is it a worthy success story which I’m most gratified to have played a part in — helping this very deserving applicant with a 640 GMAT into a top European business school — but it is also instructive as to the ups and downs of elite MBA applications, and the virtues of “keeping on keeping on.”

Here is what he wrote in the original:

“Hard work certainly goes a long way. These days a lot of people work hard, so you have to make sure you work even harder and really dedicate yourself to what you are doing and setting out to achieve.” — Lakshmi Mittal

“The above quote by the great Mittal is really my matra and this is what i believed in when i started on this journey. There were a great deal of challenges and difficulties that i faced but what kept me going was the ultimate goal! MBA is what i wanted to do, this would take me to my destination and i wanted to give in my 100 percent to get there!

“I started this blog back in February, 2009 and at that time I had no idea what was ahead of me. I still remember my first post on 9th February 2009. That was the day when I first laid my hands on the “Official Guide for GMAT Review”. That was the day I promised myself that I’ll put in my sole(sic) into the GMAT preparation and give-in my best shot towards my business school application.

“So without further ado here is a timeline representation of some of the important events that followed that day:

August 15, 2009 – Prepared an outline for essays. First stop – INSEAD! Quite a bold move eh! 

Sep 29, 2009 – Submitted my application to University of Hong Kong (I still haven’t heard back from them  )

Jan 1 to 15, 2010 – Applied to Tsinghua University in China, Interviewed and Waitlisted 

“Like World cup is to soccer, Wimbledon is to Tennis, an acceptance is to an applicant blog. I waited 12 months for such a post and I can’t be happier. I couldn’t have done any of this without the love, support, and encouragement of my parents and my girl friend. I would like to dedicate this admission to them. Amma, Appa and Vrush – this one is for you!

“I also want to thank many people who have played an important part in my journey:

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“My apologies for making this post so long. If there is one take-away from my MBA application journey (apart from persistence) that I’d cherish life long is this acquired addiction of Blogging. So I’ll be back here soon with another post. Till then, hang in there and have fun! Muchas Gracias!”

Tags: application timeline, ESADE, GMAT, HKUST, IESE, INSEAD, MBA applicant, NUS, Tsinghua

In differential calculus an inflection (or inflexion) point is the point on a curve where the curvature changes sign and therefore shape.

Lives and careers have inflection points too: those moments where, due to events or new insight, suddenly everything is turned around or looks different.

Inflection points can be “achievements” but they don’t need to be. Often they are mixed, bitter-sweet moments of self-understanding and emotional arrival. Communicating these moments is key to convincing Adcom of your unique, personal, individual motivation for MBA study and beyond.

Sometimes when I talk to clients at the profiling stage of their application — when we sift through their past and present scouring for admissions value — they will blow right past an inflection point such as a change of college major, or death of a parent, or visit to the national gallery in Berlin (or whatever it may be) and I have to slow them down to fully explore and capture the value therein.

Due to confidentiality, I can’t tell their stories, but I did notice an example used recently on the Businessweek MBA Journal site where a now-current INSEAD student shares his “road-to-Damascus” moment:

“A favorable USD/GBP exchange rate and good salaries enabled us to enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle in New York, which included fancy dining, live music and sporting events, and parties on most nights. Yet, during all of this, I witnessed an act of kindness that changed the way I view the world and my aspirations. This moment of humanity would ultimately drive me to pursue an MBA at INSEAD.

“Midway through my training in New York, my friends and I went to see a Yankees baseball game. We caught the subway to return home and sat down next to a homeless man named Sam. Two stops later, another homeless man, J, boarded and sat next to Sam. They proceeded to talk and we overheard parts of the conversation. It became apparent that Sam and J had never met before. Then, Sam asked J if he would like to share some dinner, and J gladly accepted. Sam pulled out a tin of Vienna sausages and some dry crackers, which they shared. We watched all this and lumps gathered in our throats. Sam had no wealth and bleak prospects, yet was willing to share his food with a complete stranger. Would we have shared something worth as much to us with another stranger?

“This act of generosity humbled my friends and me…. I was inspired to seek more in life than those parties and materialistic pursuits. I didn’t want to waste my precious time, and I wanted a challenge. I wanted to make my mark on the world.”

Powerful stuff. Note that you don’t need a bleeding heart story to have an inflection point, or to get into business school. But you do need to be sensitive to the real inflection points in your life, which by definition will be highly individual to you, and how they have shaped your aspirations. This is the key to being real and therefore being believed when you share your goals with the MBA Admissions Committee in your application essays or interview.

Tags: Businessweek, INSEAD, MBA admissions committee, MBA goals essay

A client recently sent me this handy new utility from GMAC, purveyors of the GMAT, which allows test-takers to rate their score with reference to their cohort filtered by intended degree, age, gender, country, and so on.

If you try it you will be able to see how you stack up against the sub-group you are really competing against.

You may also take heart that the median is much lower than you think. True, this doesn’t help “GMAT paranoia” when you look at your elite school and find it has an average accepted GMAT of 720 and your score is 680…

For that you need to absorb what the schools keep telling us — once again here in a recent WSJ interview with Derrick Bolton Director of MBA Admissions at Stanford GSB — which is that the GMAT is only one among many factors that determine admission.

WSJ: “Do you check out the GMAT score and if it’s below a certain number, put that application aside?”

Bolton: “That would rob us of a lot of talent. The GMAT is helpful in terms of understanding how someone can perform in the first year, but that’s one small piece of the overall M.B.A.”

What would be nice, for the next iteration of this GMAC utility, would be the ability to check a box that shows the GMAT arc of accepted students at Stanford, or Harvard, or Tuck, etc. That arc would by definition show the 50% below the incoming median score, and how low incoming scores can be, and that would be reassuring to the many hundreds of applicants who will get into elite schools despite not being “GMAT geniuses.”

See also I Scored 700, Should I Retake? and The Myth of the 800 GMAT.

Tags: GMAC, GMAT, HBS, Stanford GSB, Tuck, WSJ

The military style and ethos of management is usually best avoided in MBA admissions, because it is not subtle or complex enough for the real world of business. If Adcom is interested in your leadership style (and they are) they are interested in how you are able to motivate people without threats or force or heirarchy. To go up to someone’s desk and scream in their ear is hardly going to work in your office. In business, pulling rank usually does more harm than good.

However, occasionally there is something to be gleaned from the military, and here is a video worth two minutes of your time. It features Eric Greitens, a former Navy SEAL, now CEO of ‘The Mission Continues.’

He describes his epiphany during ‘Hell Week’ when it dawned on him: “This isn’t about me. This test is about my ability to lead and be of service to the people who are in that tent right now.” The irony is he then falls asleep…

Jokes aside, here’s the point from an MBA admissions perspective:

A lot of applicants describe corporate hazing of one type or another. That is, the long hours worked, vertical learning curves ascended, all-nighters pulled, jetlag endured, and so on — in terms of personal gain. “I suffered, I showed perseverance and came though it, and learned a lot, and now I’m a better person.” That’s okay as far as it goes.

But the real admissions jackpot comes from being able to see it and frame it in group terms. How the ‘pain’ was all about bearing the load with the rest of the group, and achieving goals for the group. That is, how your effort was about more than just you, therefore implying what you will do with your MBA will also be more than just about you.

In this regard, note items 2 and 3 on the MIT Sloan guidance (which enumerates principles equally true of all top tier MBA admissions.)

“We seek to enroll well-rounded individuals with the following characteristics:

• Success in your professional endeavors (whether you are well into your career or a college senior)
• Ability to collaborate to accomplish a common goal
• Drive to inspire others to achieve success
• Vision to seek alternative solutions to existing challenges
• Pursuit of meaningful goals”

Tags: b-school, management, MBA applicant, MIT Sloan, team player, Teamwork

The sad news today is Steve Jobs is dead, and America and the world has lost one of the most capable and innovative leaders ever born.

Steve Jobs’ Commencement address to graduating Stanford students in 2005 is the kind of orienting motivational document that is worth reading from time to time no matter who you are and what you do. But, in the spirit of better MBA applications, which is what this blog is 100 percent about, it’s worth going there today specifically to draw some lessons.

Lesson 1: Structure

In his opening few words, Jobs tells his audience: “Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.” What is he doing? He’s saying, here is the structure of what’s to come. Three stories. He’s signposted it in just one sentence, with no artifice and no fuss, and via these few words everyone knows what is coming and where they are all the way through the program. That’s being kind to your listener (or reader.) Kindness is often rewarded.

Lesson 2: Stories

Jobs needs to communicate fairly high-level and potentially abstract notions to do with choice, motivation, learning, patience, luck, love – and so on — to students. He could (so many do…) say something like: “It’s really important to be motivated and stay focused, and keep your focus when things go against you because sometimes adversity has good consequences you can’t see at the time …” Yawn.

Instead, he tells stories – relating concrete situations and events about himself. You are pulled into his life, prickled by the detail, listening or reading on willingly to know what happened next and how it turned out.

The stories make the point he wants to make all by themselves. Just one example: He doesn’t say: “I had no money when I dropped out of college, but I didn’t need much at that age.” He says: “I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it.”

Relevant, colorful story detail will make your interesting to your Adcom reader or MBA admissions interviewer; being interesting will get you noticed; getting noticed will go a long way to getting you admitted to the b-school you are applying to.

Lesson 3: Why an MBA?

Job’s again: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

When you answer the ‘Why-an-MBA’ question that all applications ask, this is what is at stake: not how will b-school put you on the next rung of a ladder, but how it will put you on or further along your life path. You don’t need a career blueprint – lot’s will change. But you do need to show the Admissions Committee some sense of what your heart and intuition calls you courageously to become, and how the MBA from their school will help you get there.

* See also How to Dent the Universe (or how to apply for an MBA like Steve Jobs would)

Tags: b-school, career plan, MBA admissions committee, MBA applicant, MBA blogs, MBA Essays, Stanford, Steve Jobs, why-an-MBA

Luckily, back when I applied for b-school there was no such thing as ‘Angry Birds.’ As Oscar Wilde said: I can resist anything except temptation. Even now, my iPhone winks at me…

I resist. But I maintain everything we do and everything we are is potentially of value in competitive MBA admissions. So what can Angry Birds teach us about beating the MBA admit process? Here’s what:

1. Think first and plan your approach. Take time to consider the situation and the various aspects of the challenge facing you. Survey the landscape. Think through and anticipate what the success moves might be.

2. Understand your resources. You have an armory of skills and experiences at your disposal. As yellow birds are good for wood, black birds are good for stone, etc., so you have attributes that are all different, with different capabilities and implications for MBA admissions. You won’t have them all, and it may well seem you don’t have enough. But if you use what is in your arsenal in the most effective way, it will be enough.

3. Aim carefully. Targeting is crucial. There is probably a lever that will turn the situation. You need to apply your smarts in unlocking the door in just the right way. A subtle touch can bring the whole edifice down in your favor.

4. Every move you make is important, and the order is important. Everything hinges on getting all parts of your application to count, and to be working together.

5. Timing matters. Anyone who has worked with the white bird or the boomerang bird knows timing is the difference between score and ppft. Timing your impact is everything. So it is in MBA essays and interviews – when you play an important value card can be as important as the card itself.

6. Perseverance counts too. Sometimes it is not about smarts, it is about patience and a thick-skinned ability to drive through obstacles. In the long road to making applications to a number of schools, at times the difference between a winner and loser is strength of will. Your feathers will feel a bit ruffled, but it’s a small price to pay.

7. Emotion and passion helps. Part of what’s compelling about Angry Birds is they are… angry. Outrage and revenge is part of the narrative and, like it or not, part of what grabs and holds user fascination. You don’t necessarily want to be angry in MBA admissions (you can be) but it is in your interest to create resonance with Adcom at an emotional as well as intellectual level.

8. It’s okay to turn to others for help. Just like you go on Youtube (or pay Rovio) to see how to clear a level or grab a golden egg, you can turn to others who have been-there-done-that. Tap into the broader wisdom in advancing your application and you greatly cut your head-butting time waste and increase your chances of success.

9. If at first you don’t succeed, there’s the “do-over” button. How many essays have I seen that are complete flops to start with? Truly, an uncountable number. “Redo,” I say. “Try this, add that, adjust here, adapt there.” And voila, a few iterations later I’m reading a knock-em-dead essay.

10. Don’t sweat the small stuff. If you try to 3-star every level of Angry Birds you will fail the big stuff, which is your MBA application. So put down your phone and get back to work!

Tags: interviews, mba, MBA Admissions, MBA application timing