Category Archives: MBA Admissions

Blog posts containing content on MBA admissions, including application and essay strategies, as well as musings on select MBA programs.

“first-round advantage” is a big fat lie… sort of

Posted on September 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

As summer in NYC rumbles toward a close, the emails and phone calls I receive from aspiring MBA applicants start to sound more and more ambitious.  Most students want to cram their GMAT preparations into three or four weeks, even if they need a massive score gain.  I hear the same refrain over and over again:  “I want to apply in the first round, so I have to take the GMAT really really really soon or else I’ll never have enough time to write my essays and then I won’t apply in the first round and then the world will come to an end…!”

OK, so I’m paraphrasing a little bit.  Very few people sound that dramatic.  (Disclaimer: I swear that I’m not writing this to pick on any of my beloved current or former GMAT students. This post is about a general seasonal trend, not about any particular GMAT student.) But I always hear a lot of unnecessary panic in GMAT students’ voices this time of year, and the anxiety seems to increase as soon as I suggest that an MBA applicant might need more weeks of GMAT prep than they had (perhaps optimistically) anticipated.  Many applicants seem absolutely convinced that they’ll have a chance at their favorite MBA program only if they apply before the first-round deadline.

Call me a heretic if you want, but I’m convinced that the vaunted “first-round advantage” is mostly a myth.  Unless you fit into a few special categories, there is virtually no benefit to driving yourself into a GMAT-addled frenzy just for the sake of being one of the earliest applicants.

Sure, some of you have perfectly wonderful reasons to apply early in the admissions season.  If you’re looking for a scholarship (and are among the tiny handful of applicants who actually have a realistic chance at getting one), you’re definitely better off applying early:  scholarship funds are often given out early in the admissions season.  It’s also possible that you’ll get a lift from applying to binding “early action” programs (Tuck, Columbia, Duke, and Vanderbilt leap to mind); technically speaking, you make a binding commitment when you apply through these programs, and the schools have little reason to think that you’d flake on them if you’re admitted… and that will probably help your chances.

But if you’re obsessed with first-round MBA applications and nothing in the previous paragraph applies to you, you probably need to relax a little bit.  Sure, admissions committees are somewhat more likely to have some spare time on their hands in September than in January, and they’re a bit more likely to read first-round essays with fresh eyes and an open mind.  But that’s really the only general advantage to applying in the first round.

Think about it rationally:  the best MBA programs want to attract and select top applicants just as badly as you want to be among the top applicants; why the heck would they ding a strong MBA applicant in January, but admit that same applicant in September?  At most top MBA programs, less than half of the incoming class is admitted during the first round… so don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of opportunities during second round.

Or think of it this way:  if you’re awesome enough to earn a first-round admit from HBS or Stanford, then you’re probably awesome enough to get in during second round.  Then again, if your application is shaky for some reason, a first-round attempt won’t fix any of your problems.  If your essays are shoddy, your work experience is flimsy, or your GMAT score is hopelessly low, you’ll be just as screwed during first round as you would be later in the admissions season.  Sorry, but the “first-round advantage” won’t mask any of your MBA application weaknesses.

Whatever you do, don’t let the stress of looming first-round deadlines hurt the quality of your application.  If you need an extra few weeks or months to raise your GMAT score, take your time:  a strong GMAT score in January will help you far more than a rushed first-round application in October.  If you could use a few extra weeks to perfect your essays, take your time:  a sloppy, typo-ravaged October application will be far less successful than a polished, eloquent second-round application.  If you get hasty with your essays and fail to tell a coherent “story” about your life and goals, you’ll do enormous harm to your candidacy—no matter when you apply.

The bottom line is that it’s always wise to produce the best MBA application that you possibly can.  If it’s mid-September and you’re just starting to rumble into high gear with your GMAT prep or MBA essays, chances are good that your very best MBA application won’t be ready until second round.  And you shouldn’t feel even the slightest bit of remorse if you wait just a few more months to bless the adcom with your irresistibly charming second-round application.

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Are last-minute MBA applications hopeless?

Posted on May 4, 2010 | Leave a comment

It’s spring in New York, which means that the sun is shining, the pigeons are frisky, and New Yorkers are much less cranky than usual. Springtime also means that the GMAT and MBA crowds have thinned out a little bit. Everybody knows that peak MBA application season is in the fall and early winter; if you’re calling a GMAT tutor in April or May, you’re probably a forward-looking planner with an eye on first-round MBA deadlines in October. And your GMAT tutor loves you for that.

But then there are the last-minute scramblers who defy conventional wisdom and take the GMAT in the spring. They then undergo a frenzied, abbreviated process of applying for MBA programs’ final deadlines in April or May. You would think that this approach is completely hopeless, right? An application sent within a few hours of a fourth-round deadline on May 15 couldn’t possibly succeed… right?

Here’s the odd thing: over the past few years, a certain subset of my last-second applicants have been extremely successful. Last year, I spent the morning of May 15 frantically helping two former GMAT students edit their MBA application essays–just in time for 5:00 pm deadlines on May 15. I thought that neither of them had much of a chance with last-second applications, but both students were admitted to their first-choice programs. This year, one of my favorite students submitted a third-round “express” application to a solid program, and managed to receive a substantial scholarship—after being waitlisted by a number of schools of comparable quality during the first two rounds.

And my all-time favorite procrastinator—Mr. L, a former actor who has been mentioned in this space before—submitted an application last Monday for a one-year accelerated MBA program. Here’s the thing: he submitted the application two weeks AFTER the final deadline… and just one week before the start of classes in early May. And guess what? Of course, he was admitted. He was accepted to the MBA program on Friday, boarded a plane on Sunday, and started classes on Monday.

So how did these applicants do it? First of all, none of the aforementioned applicants were targeting top-10 programs. We’re talking about solid programs at the fringes of the top 30 or 50—think George Washington University or University of Florida or University of Iowa, not HBS or Columbia or MIT. MBA programs that are strong but not super-elite often face a great deal of unpredictability during the spring—they simply don’t know how many admitted students will actually choose to attend their school, which means that these programs may (or may not) have a bunch of empty slots at the end of admissions season.

In some circumstances, MBA programs can get pretty desperate in May. MBA programs often have high fixed costs, and nobody wants to have an empty chair in the classroom. So if a particular program has several unexpected empty chairs, they might be forced into “warm body mode.” Basically, they’ll admit nearly any (reasonably qualified) warm body who can provide a tuition check—even if the very same applicant would have been rejected (or waitlisted) by the very same program during earlier application rounds.

So there’s reason to have some hope if you’re submitting a last-second application to a non-elite program. If the MBA program has already filled (or nearly filled) their class, you’re probably screwed. But if the program is in “warm body mode,” you might be in luck, even if your GMAT score is below the MBA program’s average—as was the case for all four of the MBA applicants mentioned above.

Once you decide to submit a late application, be friendly but persistent with your calls to the admissions office. Try to make a connection with the person who answers the phone, since he or she might able to quickly get your case in front of a key decision-maker, even if the application deadline has already passed.

Whatever you do, don’t let the adcom think that you applied on a whim. In your phone calls, emails, and essays, do everything you can to make it clear that the MBA program is actually a top choice for you; as with any MBA application, be sure to clearly explain why you’ve chosen that particular program, and make sure that your essays are polished and error-free. If you have to, hire an editor or an admissions consultant to ensure that your work looks professional and convincing.

If you get a little bit lucky and you play your cards right, you might be among the blessed few who receives an acceptance in the spring… giving you the right to gloat in the general direction of your friends who are just starting to study for the GMAT.

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tell your partner to take the GMAT

Posted on February 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

During a break in my GMAT tutoring festivities today, I felt like reading some MBA applicant blogs, and I stumbled upon a blog written by the wife of a Booth MBA student. And now I’m incredibly jealous.

Let me explain: I came to NYC last summer because my girlfriend was starting law school in White Plains, about 45 minutes north of NYC. I now consider myself a law school widow. If I’m lucky, Amber will pull her nose out of the law textbooks once or twice a week. The rest of the time, she spends a solid 12-16 hours per day either in class, applying for internships, or studying. Not fun.

One of my good friends even suggested that I adopt a “stunt double” girlfriend for the next three years. There would be no conjugal rights involved, but I at least would have a reliable date on the weekends. My friend even found a suitable, willing, recently-divorced faux girlfriend for me… but she moved out of NYC before we started faux-dating.

Anyway, I got a big kick out of reading Elizabeth Dark’s b-school partner blog–she actually seems to see her husband more than she did before b-school. Quite the opposite of law school partner life. Case in point: Amber allowed me to take her out on Valentine’s Day, but we had to spend the entire afternoon and part of the evening in coffeehouses so that she could study.

I know that plenty of people (my girlfriend included) give some thought to both business school and law school before settling on one or the other. If you’re in doubt, take the GMAT and go to business school. And if your wife/husband/bf/gf is thinking about taking the LSAT, do whatever you have to do to make him/her take the GMAT instead. You’ll spend far fewer lonely nights crying your eyes out because you miss your partner.

OK, I’m completely kidding about that last part. But seriously, b-school doesn’t have to be torturous for your partner. So if you’re on the fence, hire a GMAT tutor and get to work.

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a hearty congratulations

Posted on February 12, 2010 | 1 Comment

It always feels a little bit like Christmas morning when my students start receiving acceptance letters, and MBA “admit season” is my favorite time of year–at least when the news is good. I work with a lot of great people who work like crazy to achieve their goals, and watching them succeed is one of the best parts of my job as a GMAT tutor.

I’ve heard some great news from some very deserving people already this season, but one stands out, even though I did relatively little to help his candidacy. My friend Hari (please visit his blog if you haven’t already) probably put in more hours of research, studying, and writing than anybody I’ve ever seen. He did everything humanly possible to achieve his MBA goals, but still received a disappointing (and incomprehensible) string of rejections a few months ago.

Well, Hari finally got the admit that he so richly deserved, and he’s headed to IESE in Spain this fall–one of his top choices.

Congratulations, my friend. You absolutely earned this.

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how much do MBA recommendations matter?

Posted on October 24, 2009 | 1 Comment

Anybody who knows me well (or knows my blog well) has heard me say that work experience is the most important part of your MBA admissions profile. By far. Honestly, nothing else is even close, and that includes the GMAT.

The GMAT, for what it’s worth, is a relatively small part of MBA admissions. Most schools just use the GMAT to make sure that the tougher academic classes (particularly the quantitative stuff–statistics, microeconomics, macroeconomics) won’t make you go running home to your mommy. Other than that, the schools are concerned with the GMAT only insofar as it impacts their rankings. Unfortunately, GMAT scores are part of some rankings formulas, and, since the rankings are part of a program’s prestige, b-schools are forced to pay attention to their averages.

Other than that, nobody really cares about the GMAT. A 780 or an 800 gets you nowhere by itself. Haas, for example, rejects 86% of all students with a 750 or above. At most schools, a 780 doesn’t really get you much further than a 680 or a 700.

So one of the other questions I frequently field is this: how important are MBA recommendations, and what constitutes a great recommendation?

In a way, I think that recommendations are a little bit like the GMAT in terms of the role that they play in the admissions process. The GMAT isn’t really an issue at all, unless your score is relatively weak. As long as your GMAT score is close to the interquartile range for your chosen MBA program, you’ll be fine. Recommendations, similarly, aren’t much of an issue, unless they’re flawed in some way.

I’m pretty convinced that the vast majority of MBA recommendations are solid-but-boring, and that’s probably good enough. Your boss will probably say “yup, this employee of mine is great,” without really putting too much emotion into the writing. This type of recommendation does almost nothing for you–good or bad. It won’t help you, but at least it won’t hurt. I suspect that somewhere between 60% and 80% of recommendations fall into this category, but that’s just a guess.

How might you get hurt by a rec? Well, your boss might secretly hate you. You might also make the mistake of choosing an irrelevant recommender. If, for example, your recommender is your supervisor from a job you had eight years ago, he or she might be completely unable to speak competently about your current skills and situation. Worse yet, the recommendation will make the adcom wonder why you can’t get a more recent colleague or supervisor to write a recommendation for you.

Oddly enough, I occasionally get requests to write recommendations for my clients. That’s a terrible, terrible idea. I’m just an admissions consultant and GMAT tutor who gets paid by the hour. I could write a great recommendation for you, but it would be blisteringly obvious to the adcom that I have an economic stake in your success, and that I am a long ways from being an unbiased colleague or supervisor with legitimate knowledge of your talents. Similarly, I think it’s a mistake to ask career coaches, mentors, or friends to do the recommendations. Stick very strictly to people who met you in a professional context, and you’ll be okay.

That said, what can you do to make a recommendation great? If a good recommendation doesn’t really help or hurt… well, is there a way to engineer a recommendation that stands out in some way, and really helps your candidacy?

First of all, you want to be 100% sure that your recommenders know exactly what your plans are for business school and beyond. Give them your CV or resume, and a full rundown of your plans. Give them your essays, if you can. If your recommender can specifically address your goals and strengths, it makes the recommendation much more credible and powerful.

The very best recommendations are the ones that grab the adcom by the collar, stare the adcom in the eyes, and force them to listen. For example, an outstanding recommendation for somebody named Sarah might feel a little bit like this: “Listen, butthole. I know everything there is to know about Sarah. She’s applying to your school, and she’s a f**king amazing human being, and she’s an unbelievable employee with senior management written all over her, and you’re a damned fool if you don’t get down on your knees and beg her to attend your school. She’s the best. You hear me, a**hole! She’s the best. Now, get down on your knees, and BEG her to come to your school. You’ll be glad you did… on your knees, NOW!… ” The swearing is unnecessary, but if your recommender can write with that sort of spirit, you’ll catch the adcom’s attention.

(A little side story: back when I was a teaching assistant in the economics department at Stanford, one of my macroeconomics students asked me if I would be willing to serve as a reference for a VC job he’d applied for. I didn’t really know him all that well, and I don’t think that he was a particularly great student. On the other hand, I knew that he probably had almost no access to his professors in giant Stanford economics lectures, and I understood that I was his best option. All I knew about him was that he probably asked more questions than any of my other students, and I respected him for it. And he was very polite and well-spoken, if not brilliant.

When the VC firm called me, I had nothing else to say, but I kept going on and on about how unusual it was to meet an undergraduate who was so unashamed to ask questions, and who was so persistent and likable all at the same time. I rambled on about how great he was, without offering any real detail–I didn’t even remember what his grades were, so I couldn’t talk about those–until the VC lady made me shut the hell up. My student got the job. I’m sure that he earned it in other ways, but I’m also pretty sure that my effusiveness and wordiness helped at least a little bit.)

Let’s be honest: not everybody can (or will) write an enthusiastic, engaging, energetic recommendation. But if you have any colleagues, clients, or supervisors who can go to bat for you like that, beg them to write your MBA recs.

But if you don’t know anybody who is that persuasive, no worries. Just don’t screw it up, and you’ll be fine.

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how high can you go?

Posted on October 3, 2009 | 1 Comment

I received an interesting email a week or two ago, and thought that I should share it with everybody, since I regularly receive similar questions:

I took the GMAT this week and scored 640 (Q44, V33).

I did about 3 or 4 practice tests, one from the downloadable MBA.com, and others from old editions of Kaplan and Princeton. I spent about $0 on prep (they were old CD’s and books from my friend) and about 1 week’s worth of time studying.

After reading your blog, somehow I’m dying to know…IF I were to work hard at it, do you think it be possible for me to reach, say 750 within a year?

This email came from a (very polite!) complete stranger who is nowhere near NYC. So without knowing anything else about her, I gave her a nice, honest answer. In her case, I think it’s fair to say that she has some quantitative talent, since she got a 44 on quant without much effort. I’m pretty convinced that she’d be able to raise her GMAT quantitative score at least into the high 40s, and nearly anybody who works hard enough can pull his or her verbal score up by at least a few points. A 700 would be a reasonable goal for her, and it might not be crazy to think that she could achieve that without the help of a GMAT tutor.

Beyond that? A 750? I have absolutely no idea. I would have to spend at least a few hours tutoring her before figuring out how high she could go.

Here’s the way I see it: almost any fluent speaker of English is capable of getting a 650, unless they have some extenuating circumstances such as learning disabilities or debilitating test anxiety (both of which are far more common than most people think–I have all sorts of thoughts about both, and will share them on this blog at some point). I’m not saying that it’s easy to get a 650 on the GMAT. I’m just saying that a truly, deeply dedicated student could work like a lunatic and–on her best day–get a 650. I’ve seen plenty of people start at a very low level (say, 380-420) and ultimately crack 600. For them, 650 is doable.

After that? No guarantees, at all. It isn’t fair, but I would argue that you need to have some sort of particular talent for “the GMAT way of thinking” if you want to crack 650. This “talent” might not be correlated to other forms of intelligence. You could be absolutely brilliant, and never have any shot at beating a 650 on the GMAT. Sorry, but that’s just reality. Once you get beyond 650-level questions, you have to have a knack for “seeing” something in the question, or “making a connection” in ways that can’t always be taught easily. We can increase the odds that you’ll get the tough questions right, but some people really, really struggle to make much headway on those.

(Random example of a GMAT “hard gainer”: one of my all-time favorite students started with a 420. She worked hard, but was bizarrely erratic in her practice tests, scoring everywhere from 380 to 540. On the real test, she stunned us both by scoring a 570, and got into her first-choice MBA program with a fourth-round application. She has zero GMAT talent, but she has been wildly successful in business school, and I swear that she will be CEO of something huge someday. She’s intelligent, motivated, and awesome, and will be an outstanding business leader. Screw the GMAT, right?)

So whenever somebody contacts me–from NYC or from afar–and says that their goal is a 700 or a 750, and that they’ll do anything to achieve that goal… I always try to tell them to chill the f*** out, as politely as I can. For some people, a 750 or a 780 is doable with a year’s worth of studying. For others, a 700 is possible with a herculean effort. And for some, 650 would take a crapload of studying. It isn’t fair, but it’s reality. After a few hours of tutoring, I usually have a good idea of which category a GMAT student falls into, but it’s awfully tough to tell from an email or a phone call.

One more thing I can tell you without knowing much about you: your work (and other) experience is far more important than the GMAT in the admissions process. If you’re an amazing candidate with an amazing work ethic, the GMAT will be an irritation, but never an obstacle.

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my shortcomings, in plain view

Posted on August 10, 2009 | Leave a comment

I pride myself on being a brutal realist when it comes to GMAT tutoring. If I think that I can’t help somebody improve his GMAT score, I immediately tell him. If a student isn’t doing her homework, I’ll tell her to stop wasting her money on a tutor. If I think that a student can’t possibly achieve his GMAT goal, I’ll find a polite way to say so.

And if I make a mistake, I’ll admit it immediately. I’m not really into hiding.

I’ve had a surprising number of hits on my original post about Mr. V, one of my students here in NYC who has worked like crazy to raise his score. Basically, he’s seen every single useful GMAT question at least twice. He took the exam twice, and couldn’t crack 640. I’ve tutored him for the past six weeks, and I was absolutely convinced that he’d made some great progress. He was nailing some of my toughest math and sentence correction questions, he was holding his own on the LSAT material, and his final GMATPrep test was well into the 700s.

It took some creativity to put together a good program for him, and I thought that I’d be able to write a gloating post about how well my odd schemes worked. Unfortunately, nothing worked as well as we’d planned. Mr. V took the GMAT last weekend, and his verbal score actually went down. I was pretty shocked and humbled by that. I thought that we had really made him better, and it just didn’t happen. His math score improved, but his composite score went sideways.

Mr. V has been more than gracious, and doesn’t blame me at all for his lack of improvement. (Actually, he posted a glowing endorsement of me on his blog. Thank you for that, good sir.) But I can’t help but feel a little bit responsible. Sometimes, even a dedicated tutor’s best efforts just don’t quite cut it, and I don’t want to run from that fact.

For what it’s worth, Mr. V didn’t see anything surprising on the exam. He said that it was pretty much exactly what he expected: the critical reasoning and reading comprehension were hard but reasonable, the math was predictably tough, and the sentence correction didn’t contain any grammatical surprises. If anything, we suspected that the sentence correction idioms got the best of him–he said that he was unsure whether he chose the right phrases on a number of questions. That, coupled with a little bit of bad luck, probably did the damage on the verbal section. And unfortunately, I didn’t advise him to memorize hundreds of idioms before taking the GMAT. (Nor would I ever recommend memorizing more than a few dozen of the most frequently used idioms.)

Unless Mr. V suddenly gets shy and asks me to stop, I’ll continue posting occasionally about his progress with his MBA quest. He has chosen not to re-take the test, but we’ll keep working together in an effort to make his MBA applications sing. The point of all of his GMAT labors was to get into a great MBA program. And if he can pull that off, the disappointment of the score won’t really matter at all.

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snarky Yale college advice, 1975 edition

Posted on August 9, 2009 | Leave a comment

This has absolutely nothing to do with the GMAT, MBA admissions, or GMAT tutoring. Just warning you.

I was wandering around NYC with some visiting friends this weekend, and we decided that it would be fun to take them to Strand Bookstore, which is one of my favorite places in New York. Eighteen miles of books (supposedly), many of which are piled on sidewalk carts for $1 each. If you’re from somewhere else and you come to NYC, the store is worth a visit.

My bizarre little $1 treasure for today was tattered paperback copy of The Insiders’ Guide to the Colleges, written by The Yale Daily News in 1975, long before college rankings became such a huge national obsession. I was curious to see how top schools were perceived more than three decades ago.

I’m not sure that I learned all that much, but I had a good laugh. The writers are snobby and snarky, and definitely have some Ivy League bias.

I reflexively opened to their commentary on Stanford, my alma mater: “There is a certain trendiness in the air which often stifles any serious attempt to approach an academic problem. The school’s California provincialism can be extremely irritating.

“One manifestation of the student body’s provincialism is their penchant for calling the school ‘the Harvard and Yale of the West,’ or even for terming Harvard and Yale ‘the Stanfords of the East.’ The analogies simply aren’t true.

“…There are also a huge number of students who only care about getting good grades… and another, almost equally large percentage who aren’t really interested in doing anything…. If you want the best education (and the most heterogeneous student body) available anywhere in the country, look to the Ivies.”

Lest they be accused of east-coast bias, the goofballs who wrote this book crapped all over plenty of other schools. In their commentary on Tufts, they said this: “Everybody knows, of course, that it is the goal of most high school students in the Northeast to go to college in Boston. That way you can get a lot of hippie, loose-moraled girls if you are a guy, or a lot of radical committed free guys if you are a girl… and you can get a good deal of dope to tide you over the bad times.”

Fordham: “Fordham University is a Roman Catholic institution, and therein lies its problem.” (!!)
Davidson: “The fact is, many of the students have never been north of the Mason-Dixon line, and occasionally those in the administration and faculty act as if they haven’t either–and what’s more, they don’t care.”
Harvard: “The college atmosphere sometimes seems to ruin those personalities that weren’t warped to begin with.”
Columbia: “…Columbia is unbeatable. But the decision whether to take that beating should be made very carefully.”

Hilarious, right? Of course, the Yalie dorks who wrote the book included a glowing four-page review of Yale itself. Not exactly an unbiased piece of writing, but highly entertaining. I’d love to see somebody write a similar book about MBA programs now–can you imagine the lawsuits?

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five-minute rule

Posted on July 12, 2009 | Leave a comment

When I was a teenager, I worked in a crappy chain diner in the Midwest, where I received my first introduction to the “30-second rule.” Over the following decade or so, I heard varying versions of the 30-second rule in bars and restaurants: there was the 5-second rule, the 10-second rule, and–for the slowest and most unethical restaurant staff–the five-minute rule.

If you have to ask: whenever somebody drops something in a restaurant, somebody is likely to shout “30-second rule,” meaning that whatever fell on the floor is still “good” if you pick it up within 30 seconds. (Assuming, of course, that no customers or managers are watching.) Silverware? No problem, it can go out to the customer’s table if it’s picked up within 30 seconds. A hamburger fell on the ground? No worries, we have 30 seconds to pick it up and put it back together. A slice of pie? Trickier, but definitely doable if you scoop it up, put it in the microwave, and top it with some ice cream.

You’ll never eat out again, right?

And does this have anything to do with MBA admissions?

Yeah, sort of. It’s midsummer, which means that the most ambitious MBA applicants are beginning to throw all of their spare time into the GMAT. The earliest first-round deadlines are less than three months away, and this is the time of year when you might be thinking, “okay, I’ll spend two months studying for the GMAT, and once that’s done, I’ll focus on my essays.”

I tell everybody the same thing: don’t wait to start your essays. Many of you probably know this, but writing these essays is exponentially more time-consuming than you might think. A set of four, 400-word essays might not sound like much, but it can be unbelievably tough to put your entire life in a flattering, readable, 1600-word package, especially if you’re trying to avoid sounding like an egomaniac. Almost every applicant (and this goes for non-MBA applicants, too) underestimates the amount of time needed for the applications, especially if your energy is simultaneously sapped by the GMAT.

If you’re still doing battle with the GMAT, I strongly recommend employing the five-minute rule. (Every time you drop food on the floor, wait five minutes before picking it up. It’ll taste great, and build your immune system! Oops, sorry, wrong industry…) Every day, spend about five minutes on your essays, even if it just means brainstorming a little bit, writing a phrase here or there, taking a couple of notes, or crossing something out. Sometimes, you’ll be inspired to do some serious writing, and that’s great. At the very least, you’ll keep yourself engaged in your MBA essays, and they’ll always be somewhere in the back of your head.

This might sound silly, but many professional writers will tell you that they come up with their most brilliant ideas and phrases at the most random times–in the shower, at the gym, walking the dog, or whatever. Their “ghost writer” (i.e. their own subconscious) is doing most of their work, but they have to make sure that they “tell” the ghost writer what to work on.

I’m not going to tell you that you’ll be able to completely finish your essays in five minutes a day, but I guarantee that you’ll make some great conceptual progress if you’re 100% disciplined about looking at your MBA applications every day. By the time you’re finished with the GMAT after (hopefully) a month or two of studying, you’ll at least have a great set of notes and outlines, studded with brilliant phrases. At that point, the task of turning your MBA essays into something truly spectacular will be much, much easier.

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why rankings are (partially) BS

Posted on July 9, 2009 | 1 Comment

I used to hate talking about college admissions with my father. He was absolutely convinced that there was, somehow, a big difference between the #12-ranked university and the #14-ranked school, based solely on US News & World Report’s annual list. On multiple occasions, I’ve told him that he’s completely full of crap. Now, I’m going to tell you why he’s full of crap.

First of all, keep in mind that MBA and undergraduate rankings are based on completely arbitrary formulas concocted by some random journalists. (Click here for some commentary on the formulas themselves.) I’m not saying that the basic components are necessarily flawed (who would disagree with the notion that salary increases, reputation, and student selectivity are good indicators of the quality of an MBA program?), but there’s some randomness in the way that any particular list might choose to quantify and weight these measures. They should always be taken with a grain of salt.

And then there’s my favorite indicator of the stupidity of rankings: the contradictions among the various lists. Here are a few of my favorites:

Dartmouth (Tuck): #1 MBA program according to Forbes, #3 in The Economist, but #12 in Business Week

Southern Methodist: #18 in Business Week (WTF??), #47 in US News and World Reports, and not even ranked in The Economist or Financial Times

Carnegie Mellon (Tepper): #15 in US News & World Reports and #24 in the Financial Times, but #5 according to a Wall Street Journal survey of recruiters

Berkeley (Haas): #4 in The Economist, #7 in US News, #10 in Business Week, #16 in the Financial Times

Yale: #9 in Financial Times, #10 in US News, #15 in The Economist, #24 in Business Week

Northwestern (Kellogg): #3 in US News and Business Week, but #10 among US schools in the Financial Times… and only #21 globally

Would anybody out there really believe that Kellogg isn’t even among the top 20 business schools globally? Would any of you put Tepper above Harvard on any list? Would any of you dream of putting Southern Methodist above Yale, as Business Week did?

All I’m saying is that these rankings should be taken with a big, fat grain of salt. If you’re thinking that you want to go to a “top 10 b-school” or a “top 20 MBA program,” make sure that you don’t rely on just one of these silly, arbitrary lists.

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nobody reads your essays, part II

Posted on July 2, 2009 | 1 Comment

Most GMAT students I’ve run across really don’t worry all that much about the analytical writing portion of the test, but I occasionally meet somebody who is absolutely neurotic about this part of the GMAT. In my opinion, there’s rarely any need to spend more than a token amount of time on AWA.

First of all, one of the main reasons why MBA programs care about the GMAT is because of rankings. Unfortunately, US News & World Reports will look less favorably on a b-school if the program has low composite scores, so admissions committees are forced to focus on your GMAT score. (The test is somewhat valuable in other ways, but that’s a story for another day.)

Of course, AWA has absolutely nothing to do with your composite score, and it therefore has no impact on MBA rankings. You don’t want to completely screw it up, but there’s no reason to believe that your AWA score of 5.0 would keep you out of Stanford. The adcom might start to wonder if your AWA score is, say, 2.5, but I see no reason to worry if your score is reasonably high. They’re looking for business leaders with decent communication skills, not novelists.

So what does it take to earn a “reasonably high” score? Not much, really. I’ve seen some really, really bad writers earn scores of 5.0 or 5.5. They took advantage of the fact that nobody really reads your AWA essay.

As you probably know, GMAT essays are graded by a computer and by a human; if there’s a discrepancy between the two scores, then an additional human reads the essay. Obviously, nobody really knows exactly how the computer’s scoring system works, but I’m absolutely convinced that the program primarily looks for structure using basic keyword algorithms. From there, it probably counts things like the average number of words per sentence, the average number of letters per work, and then it checks for grammar, usage, variety of words used, and perhaps spelling. I suspect very strongly that the structure is the most important part of the scoring system; spelling might not even count at all. (Again, I’ve seen some horrid spellers get really good scores.)

The “human,” for his part, is ultimately looking for the same things as the computer: structure, clarity, correctness, richness of language, etc. But this human probably doesn’t actually read your GMAT essays any more closely than the computer. Again, imagine that you’re the poor slob who gets paid $20/hour (as of a year or two ago, GRE and TOEFL graders earned $20/hour; I don’t know whether the rate is similar for GMAT) to read bazillions of these essays, most of which are tragically bereft of interesting content. Are you going to read every single word? Hell, no. You’ll skim the introduction, maybe read the first sentence of each paragraph, and then maybe skim the conclusion. (And if anybody asks, you’ll tell her that you read every single word with great care.)

When I wrote about the people who read (or skim) your MBA essays, I claimed that you should strive to make your essay interesting–you want them to read it carefully, right? For the AWA, you don’t necessarily care if the human grader (or the computer) actually reads your essay. You just want a good score.

So focus on structure, even if that means that you produce an essay that would, under normal circumstances, seem like a crappy, contrived piece of writing. Don’t beat around the bush: every paragraph should start by clearly stating the main point of the paragraph. The entire essay should start with a crystal-clear thesis statement. Somebody should be able to read the first sentences of each paragraph, and still basically understand the entire essay. Just make sure that you leave a few minutes to proofread the essay, just to make sure that you haven’t committed egregious grammar, usage, and spelling errors. (If this means that you don’t write a terribly long essay, that’s fine–quality matters more than quantity.)

Honestly, it’s almost that simple. If you lay out your argument in a completely clear, 5-paragraph format, you’ll be in good shape, especially if your writing mechanics (grammar, usage, etc.) are basically solid. You might ultimately write an essay that is about as much fun to read as a phone book… but fun isn’t really the point, is it?

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scary story about letters of recommendation

Posted on June 29, 2009 | Leave a comment

This isn’t the sort of post that will really help you get into an MBA program, but I thought this was an interesting story, and wanted to share.

Once upon a time, one of my all-time favorite GMAT students applied to about five schools during the first round.  She had a solid profile, with great work experience and interesting essays.  Her GMAT score was unspectacular, but should have been enough to get an interview or two.  Plus, she’s female, and that never hurts.

And guess what? She didn’t even get an interview from any of her first five target MBA programs.  Ouch.  (Both of us were wondering whether she’d hired the wrong GMAT tutor and admissions consultant.)

She tried again:  four schools this time, with three applications heading out in time for the second round deadline.  The fourth application, if I remember correctly, arrived for the third round.  This time, she scored interviews from three of the four schools, and was admitted to two.  One of them even offered a partial scholarship.  And I wouldn’t say that this second fleet of schools was much less prestigious than the first.

What happened?  We’ll never know for sure, but the only thing that changed was her recommenders.  Most notably, her boss (at the time) wrote recommendations for the first five schools, but not for the last four.  As luck would have it, my student was up for a performance review at work, sometime between her first five rejections and her subsequent acceptance to a top-tier MBA program.

And guess what?  It turned out that her boss absolutely hated her.  Again, we’ll never know for sure, but we strongly suspect that the boss wrote scathing (or at least indifferent) recommendations to the first five schools, effectively sabotaging her candidacy.

There’s no moral to this story, really.  You already knew that you should only ask trusted colleagues to write your recommendations, right?

Um, right?

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why you shouldn’t worry (too much) about percentile rankings

Posted on June 28, 2009 | 1 Comment

I’ve already met some brilliant MBA candidates in my first few weeks here in New York, but the most gifted GMAT student I ever tutored was probably a young woman I met in DC, before my Manhattan days.  She was a cum laude graduate of Duke University’s economics program, and she had already earned a ridiculously high score on the GRE.  She was solidly scoring in the 700s on her GMAT practice tests, and just wanted help getting her math score “as close to perfect as possible.”

I’ll be honest:  there’s a pretty good chance that this particular student (let’s call her Susan) was smarter than I am, and that’s a beautiful and intimidating situation to be in as a GMAT tutor.  I suspected (correctly) from the start that she didn’t have any fundamental GMAT math weaknesses; all I could offer was some practice questions designed to help her make connections on the hardest GMAT math questions.  (Basically, math formulas are of limited value on hard GMAT questions, and you need to be able to “see” a connection before you’ll have any prayer of getting the right answer.  I’ll expand on this in another post.)

Basically, tutoring Susan meant spending two hours inventing the hardest GMAT-style questions I could possibly come up with.  I loved it, and I probably learned more from the experience than she did.  Occasionally, I’d manage to stump her, and that was great.  After about eight or ten tutoring sessions, we decided that she had probably “worked her GMAT math muscles” as much as was reasonable, and she went to take the test.

And she was bitterly disappointed when she looked at her percentile ranking.  She scored in the 99th percentile on the verbal, and her composite score was also in the 99th percentile.  Her quantitative score, however, was only in the 84th percentile.  How could this be true?  She scored a 760, but somehow wasn’t even in the top 10% in math? WTF?

If you have any experience with the GMAT, you surely realize that a score of 48 on the math is pretty darned impressive.  (Frankly, anything above 40 is probably good enough to allay any fears that an MBA admissions committee might have about your quant skills, but that’s another topic entirely.)  For whatever reason, however, there are lots of impressive math whizzes taking the GMAT.  A full 20% of test-takers earn a score between 47 and 51.  The score distribution, then, is not a bell curve at all for the quantitative section–it basically looks like a slowly increasing function, with an extra little jump at the end.

I admiringly call this the “Asian effect.”  Based on anecdotal evidence, I’m convinced that most of the people who achieve quantitative scores in this range are not products of the United States education system.  (News flash:  by global standards, we Americans are generally pretty lousy at math.)  Basically, there are a ton of people in Asia who demolish the quantitative section of the test, and make a whole lot of GMAT-takers feel inadequate when they see their percentile score.

Interesting, the verbal score distribution is almost a perfect bell curve.  Similarly, the composite score distribution is also a fairly non-skewed bell curve.  This suggests that most of the GMAT “quant ninjas” are not particularly great at verbal.

The bottom line?  If you’re trying to get into top MBA programs, it’s probably OK to have a math score “only” in, say, the 70th or 75th percentile.  Don’t let the percentile score mess with you:  if your raw quant score is comfortably in the 40s, it probably won’t, by itself, sabotage your MBA dreams.

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nobody reads your essay, part I

Posted on June 20, 2009 | 2 Comments

If you’ve ever attempted to write a really good essay for an MBA application (or for any other graduate or undergraduate program), you know how hard it is.  It’s not like crapping out a financial report or a blog post or an essay on the use of soliloquys in Hamlet.  These essays take a whole lot of thought and effort, especially if you’re trying to flatter yourself in 400 words without sounding like a raging egomaniac.

And guess what?  Much of the time, nobody cares.

Imagine that you’re the guy who gets to read every single application that rolls into, say, HBS.  You would read roughly 6700 applications, each of which contains at least four essays.  That’s 26,800 essays, most of which come flooding in within 72 hours of one of the deadline dates.

For a little bit of perspective, here’s a completely random story about essays…  once upon a time, I was part of a small team of “scorers” for an international academic competition.  Along with one other scorer, I was asked to rate 160 essays, giving each one a score from 1-100, and ranking the top three essays in each of two age groups.

And it was absolutely excruciating.  Not because the essays were bad, but because it took forever to read each one.  After about five essays, we figured out that it was best to just skim the introduction and the conclusion; if the essay looked good in the introduction, we would read the first sentence of each paragraph to determine whether the essay merited consideration for an award.  After skimming about 80 introductions and conclusions, we stopped even bothering with the conclusions, and started slapping on scores based on the introduction and (embarrassingly) the handwriting in each essay.

So no, we didn’t really read anything.  And we only had 160 essays.  Imagine if we were asked to read 26,800 essays, as our poor, hypothetical HBS guy does.

My point is that even the most well-intentioned reader of MBA applications will inevitably skim most of your essays.  If you’re unlucky, the reader won’t even bother to read anything beyond your introduction.  No adcom member in their right minds would ever admit to it, but it’s simply human nature to skim essays when you have a massive pile of them in front of you–especially when the essays don’t exactly start with a bang.

So what can you do about this?  Write essays that start with a bang, and write essays that are easy to read.  If you write long, verbose paragraphs, virtually any human being will be inclined to start skimming… or put the essay down entirely.  No matter how wonderful your work experiences or extracurriculars are, there’s always the risk that the reader won’t actually read your carefully crafted comments if you don’t make them seem interesting, gripping, and unique from the start.

We all know that MBA programs are looking for great potential business leaders, not great potential poets or novelists or journalists.  But they still love a good, well-written story, and a little bit of writing flair might be exactly what you need to have them notice your potential as a business leader.  If you keep your paragraphs short and write with at least a modicum of humor, it will help your essays to be worth the effort that you pour into them.

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