As one group of nervous applicants transitions to being enrolled students, another group gets ready to apply. Why not learn from the successes, failures and decisions of the group before you? For the next several weeks we will be publishing interviews that we conducted with some of last year’s clients. We gave them a list of questions and asked that they be brutally honest and try to provide any insights that could help future applicants.

Biggest mistake you made or almost made in this process?
Not retaking the GMAT when I believe that my score does not accurately reflect my ability.

Some keys to your success?
Endlessly working and reworking my essays with the help of my consultant.

What did you find most challenging?
The GMAT.

What was an exercise you went through that was helpful?
A mock interview session with my consultant. This was a great preparatory aid for the real thing. When it came down to it, I already had all of my answers rehearsed, since they asked the same questions that you had.

How did you put together the following important aspects of your story?
– why MBA?
My consultant was great with this one. My past experiences, current situation, and future goals, perfectly justified the decision to pursue an MBA. I tried to do this on my own before, and though the reason was my own, my consultant helped me to look inside myself and find the answer to convey to others (the admissions committees). Making a career transition and wanting to advance my own personal skill set came at the perfect time.

What was most helpful in your interview prep?
That the questions my consultant asked me were near mirrors of those asked during my real interviews. This allowed me to perfect my answers before delivering them officially.

How did you select your recommenders?
Based on who I thought would write the best recommendation – and accept guidance from me – and share insights that no one else could provide through their personal and professional experience with me.

How did you prep your recommenders?
Via the guides that my consultant gave me, which were great guidance for me. What I mean by this is that my recommenders are too busy to read through these documents, so rather than prepare them, the guides prepared me. I now knew exactly what to tell the recommenders to write for me. Having my consultant go over their recommendations was, of course, very helpful.

What were you most nervous about in your profile?
The quantitative score on my GMAT. Second would be not visiting some of the schools that I applied to, wondering if I should have (not knowing is what almost makes people nervous). Third would be selecting recommenders since I am an entrepreneur.

How did you overcome this potential stumbling block?
I guess I never did. I just went with it by making all other parts of my application as strong as they could be.

How did you select your list of schools?
I opened up US News and chose the top 20 that were still realistic possibilities, with a couple of lower ranked schools as safeties. I did this because I believe that business school only makes sense if one of the top ranked schools.

What was helpful when you hit writer’s block?
Suggestions from my consultant. It always helps to get an outside perspective. Other perspectives came from my friends and family. I purposely never once looked through bookstores or on the Internet for past essay winners and losers because I felt that my own, unbiased view, would wind up the most creative and thus impressive.

How did you stay motivated?
That was not a problem. Once I dedicate myself to something, nothing gets in the way of my drive and focus.

What was the best GMAT resource?
Practice books. I was scoring in the mid 700s after going through Kaplan (the Kaplan 800 was a good one) and Princeton books. Then, I made the mistake of enrolling the Kaplan course, which slowly lowered my performance by teaching me theories that I was to use almost mechanically, forgetting my strengths in logic and common sense, which I believe the GMAT most requires in the end.

END RESULT: ATTENDING UCLA ANDERSON
For other Anderson insights, visit: Days of Whine and Neurosis

By Jeremy Dann

Many candidates see business school as a great opportunity to figure out what sort of career path they want to pursue in the future. MBA programs tout their career services departments as excellent places to find information about a variety of industries and jobs. They hype their alumni networks as great resources for getting the inside scoop on certain careers and companies. And they promote the b-school summer internship as an opportunity to “test drive” any new sort of occupation you are considering.
So, since business school is a place of reflection on careers, can applicants just put a big fat “TBD” in the essay where they discuss their career goals?

Not a chance.

Even if you view b-school as your figurative mountain-top retreat for career path contemplation, your business school application needs set forth a fairly definite plan of what you would want to do with your degree. Don’t worry—they won’t limit your course offerings based on your stated career goals or withhold your diploma if you deviate from your essay when actually choosing your career.
MBA programs basically want to know that you’ll make good use of the one of the limited spots in their classes. From personal experience, I can tell you that people who have a “learning agenda” related to their chosen career path are more impressive academically and generally have achieved more in their first few years out of school.
You don’t need to get incredibly specific—and as a matter of fact it might sound contrived if you focus in on a certain company (e.g., “I want to be a consultant in McKinsey’s San Francisco office”). However, you should have an “opportunity set” that appeals to you (e.g., “I want to be in a consulting role where I can work on critical technology issues. I love the variety and learning opportunity consulting offers.”).
If you plan on making a fairly significant transition from your current career path, mention the specific things that spurred the change. A banker who wishes to get into marketing post b-school may mention that his favorite project dealt with consumer products. A consultant who wishes to follow an entrepreneurial path may mention the fun she had running a business while in college. Etcetera, etcetera.
The essay writing process is a great opportunity in itself to reflect on your goals. After all, you may have to pick a school in part based on specialties they might possess in certain disciplines. Plus, you’ll be all the more convincing in your essays and interviews if you’ve thought through at least one possible career path in great detail.

As one group of nervous applicants transitions to being enrolled students, another group gets ready to apply. Why not learn from the successes, failures and decisions of the group before you? For the next several weeks we will be publishing interviews that we conducted with some of last year’s clients. We provided a list of questions and asked that they be brutally honest and try to provide any insights that could help future applicants.

Biggest mistake you made or almost made in this process?
Selling myself short by thinking that I could not overcome seemingly minor weaknesses in my application. There is clearly more to the admission process than GMATs and GPAs and my success throughout the process clearly proves it.

Some keys to your success?
One key to my success was making the process personal at each school by reaching out to an admissions counselor or staff member regularly. By the time my application went to committee at Columbia, the admission counselor called me the night before to find out if there were any last minute updates to my application. I was able to develop this relationship through campus visits and regular communications. Also, reach out to the clubs and organizations that you are interested in and gain their support.

My advice is also to interview with an admissions counselor rather than an alumni. I found admissions counselors much more prepared for interviews and it made the process more enjoyable.

How did you put together the following important aspects of your story?
– why MBA?
I positioned myself as a career switcher and need the training that is taught so well at top business schools. Beyond the academics, I was looking to build a professional network and take a break from 6 long years of investment banking. The opportunities for personal development and testing my limits were equally as important to me.

– what are your career goals?
My career goals seem to change daily, but I am pretty sure that I want to pursue a consulting internship for the summer. I enjoy working in professional services and the complicated business issues that consultants face interests me. Down the road, I hope to use my management and leadership skills to run a division of a major multinational.

What was most helpful in your interview prep?
Most helpful to the interview prep was the confidence that I gained in working with my consultant. The story she helped me prepare was succinct and communicating it actually became fun. I’d suggest interviewing at your top choice schools after you have had a bit of practice. Again, admissions counselors in my opinion host much smoother and easier interviews and they don’t get interrrupted by business calls. I also found it helpful to speak with current students and get their thoughts on the interview process and figure out what the “hot topics” are.

How did you select your recommenders?
Selecting recommenders was pretty straightforward for me. My boss knew I was applying so it made things easier. I would say that you need to give your interviewers a minimum of 3 months to get the job done and check in with them weekly. Start by giving them concrete examples of your experiences which support the rest of your application. It is helpful to find a recommender who went to business school. The style of writing and knowledge of what the schools are looking for will be helpful.

What were you most nervous about in your profile?
I was most nervous about my GMAT score initially.

How did you overcome this potential stumbling block?
I realized that my strong GPA and global business experiences far outweighed my lower than average score. I focused on other quantitative elements of my background and made sure that my recommenders knew to focus on this area.

How did you select your list of schools?
My list of schools was largely based on the strength of the overall program. Having a finance background, I wasn’t really interested in a program that was well-known for finance. I wanted to learn more marketing and develop my soft skills. I thought Kellogg provided the best opportunities for me. I did apply to a couple of safety schools as well. I received very interesting financial incentives to attend a lower top-tier school, but my decision was ultimately based on career development opportunities and not near term finances!

What was helpful when you hit writer’s block?
My consultant was helpful when I hit writers block.

How did you stay motivated?
I stayed motivated by being organized and balanced. Its easy to get caught up in the process but things just have a way of turning out for the best.

What was the best GMAT resource?
The best (and only) GMAT resource is “The Offical Guide”. Manhattan GMAT is the only test prep company that uses these “real” GMAT questions in their lessons.

End result: Attending Kellogg

For other Kellogg insights, visit: Majalo

By Jeremy Dann

Think for a moment about the audience for your business school application: you will be spending hour upon hour writing a magnum opus may be read by just one person—or a select few at most. These people have dozens of applications they need to get through each day and even the most diligent may at times miss some points in your essays. That’s why you need to make things as easy as possible for the admissions committee members by making sure they can’t miss who you are and what you can add to the class.

The best applications feature three or four aspects of the applicant’s character and experiences that anyone reading the essays can’t help but identify. These three or four traits combine to form “Brand You.”

We all know the power of brands. Companies spend tons of cash to make sure you know how they deliver value and what they stand for. While there are many more subtle facets to their full corporate identities and many nuances to their product/service offerings, firms need to make sure that customers have a complete and unambiguous understanding of a limited list of characteristics. Take, for instance, this list of traits for a few well-know companies:

1. Low prices everyday, huge selection, one-stop shop
2. Great place to hang out, socially responsible, respect for employees
3. Great design, simplifying the complex, cool
4. Irreverent, youth-oriented, influencing lifestyles
5. Fun, family, fantasy

Even from just these short descriptions, you can probably guess which companies we’re referencing (see below). That’s because these messages have been pounded into your head through repetition, multiple interactions with the firm or exposure to marketing messages.

Similarly, candidates need to make sure the people who read their applications make no mistake about the core of their character and experiences. Certainly, all applications end up covering more than three to four points if they capture the wonderful complexities of us as humans. But if we give equal weight to 20 traits, we water down the main things the admissions committee needs to know about us.

If a candidate wants to be known as “a natural leader…intellectual, creative, driven, community-minded, responsible, action-oriented, nurturing, committed, rigorous, internationally-focused, physically fit, welcoming, laid back, institution-building and adventurous,” ultimately, we really don’t know what this person stands for.

People “branding” themselves like this have made choices on what they want to emphasize:

“A behind-the-scenes leader, creative problem-solver, and passionate about international development.”

“A great motivator, cutting-edge thinker on financial markets and committed to education.”

“Dedicated to environmental causes, a skilled negotiator, a committed mentor and family-oriented.”

Reinforce the main three to four traits through repetition; other aspects of your character and experience will come out naturally.

* * *
It’s never too early to start cogitating on the general outlines and topics for your essays.  Paying attention to what makes a “great essay” months before you start writing will help you sort through your best concepts. 
* * *

Just a few words can trigger our thoughts about a brand. Did you get these from the short statements above?
1. Wal-Mart
2. Starbucks
3. Apple
4. MTV
5. Disney

To view some applicants’ essay related ponderings, check out these blogs:
UniQpath – Essay Advice

Dave for MBA – Will I be proud to call you a fellow alum?