Should You Reapply to a B-School That Rejected You?
If round one admissions decisions didn’t yield the results you hoped for, it’s natural to feel devastated if your dream B-school rejected you. After months of working on your application plus months of anxiety-ridden waiting, learning you didn’t get in is tough. But here’s the silver lining: Many business schools look favorably upon reapplicants! It’s worth a second try if you’re willing to thoroughly examine where you may have gone wrong the first time.
Unless the admissions team indicated that the rejection came from having too many qualified applicants with your same profile this season, you’ll need to re-evaluate and focus on improving your candidacy.
MBA admissions committees consider thousands of applicants each year and have a strong sense of who will fit best with their program. Study these questions to see whether applying again to a business school that rejected you makes sense.
Stacy Blackman Consulting offers a Ding Analysis service to evaluate your materials and provide feedback you can use when you reapply. Contact us to talk strategy with a free 15-minute advising session with an SBC Principal Consultant.
Have you addressed any apparent weaknesses?
First and foremost, review your entire application package with a critical eye to determine where any weaknesses lie. You can improve some things in your profile, such as test scores and work experience. But you cannot change a low college GPA or a being significantly older applicant.
The most common reasons for rejection include low test scores, insufficient leadership experience, lukewarm recommendations, and boring essays. If you need more time to flesh out your goals or take on more responsibilities at work to show additional examples of leadership or teamwork, then a second attempt may make sense.
Self-reflection is key. Candidates who review their original application and fine-tune the areas that may have been less competitive tend to do well, says the Michigan Ross School of Business
Focus on elevating your candidacy where you can. Depending on the weakness, you may need to work for another year or more to make a significant improvement that will impress the admissions committee.
For example, one prospective client applied to Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management with less than one year of work experience, and the school denied her admission. But when she tried again four years later, with more work experience under her belt, the school admitted her.
Is the B-school that rejected you really the best fit for your goals?
The MBA is not a one-size-fits-all degree. Thus, not every business school can help every person reach their unique professional goals. If you have highly specific or unusual career goals that a school finds too challenging from a job-placement standpoint—as happened with another prospective MBA client of ours who wanted to work in arts management—it makes no sense to reapply to the same program. Their response is unlikely to change a year from now.
Or the school might not be the right fit for you culturally and personally, and the admissions team may have picked up on that through your letters of recommendation, interviews, or essays. In that case, it’s time to move on and find MBA programs that appreciate what you offer and can help you achieve your unique professional aspirations.
That’s exactly what happened with one of our clients, who applied three times to UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. He also applied to Stanford Graduate School of Business on his third attempt. Haas once again rejected him, but Stanford admitted him. It seems Haas was just not meant to be.
What will you do differently next time?
You’ll need to demonstrate significant improvements to your candidacy when reapplying to any B-school that rejected you. After all, their admissions decision probably won’t change unless you have. From a practical standpoint, you should plan to reapply in round one of the next admissions cycle. If you fail again, you can realign your expectations and apply to other, more appropriate schools in round two.
Also, please don’t recycle last season’s materials and expect a different result. You need to treat the whole application process as a fresh, new experience informed by the challenges you faced and the wisdom acquired since the last admissions cycle.
Finally, do an honest self-assessment to determine what you genuinely seek. Think about your learning style and the culture of the various MBA programs. During that process, it might become evident that some of the schools you had targeted weren’t a good fit. We’ve had many clients who, upon reflection, realized that they wanted to pursue a different type of graduate program.
MBA Reapplicant Success Story: From 24 Apps, 19 Dings to 1st in Class at Emory
It may be hard to hear, but there is a reason why the business schools rejected you the first time. Before reapplying, it’s essential to thoroughly evaluate your candidacy and the specific reasons for the initial rejection. Demonstrating growth, improvement, and a genuine commitment to the program can significantly enhance your chances of success in a reapplication.
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Stacy Blackman Consulting offers multiple services to meet your MBA application needs, from our All-In Partnership to hourly help reviewing your MBA resume. Contact us today for a free 15-minute advising session to talk strategy with a Principal SBC consultant.
Here’s a snapshot of the caliber of expertise on our SBC team.
Ashley
Ashley is a former MBA Admissions Board Member for Harvard Business School (HBS), where she interviewed and evaluated thousands of business school applicants for over a six year tenure. Ashley holds an MBA from HBS. During her HBS years, Ashley was the Sports Editor for the Harbus and a member of the B-School Blades Ice Hockey Team. After HBS, she worked in Marketing at the Gillette Company on Male and Female shaving ...
×Kerry
Kerry is a former member of the Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS). During her 5+ year tenure at HBS, she read and evaluated hundreds of applications and interviewed MBA candidates from a wide range of backgrounds across the globe. She also led marketing and outreach efforts focused on increasing diversity and inclusion, ran the Summer Venture in Management Program (SVMP), and launched the 2+2 Program during her time in Admissions. Kerry holds a B.A. from Bates College and ...
×Pauline
A former associate director of admissions at Harvard Business School, Pauline served on the HBS MBA Admissions Board full-time for four years. She evaluated and interviewed HBS applicants, both on-campus and globally. Pauline's career has included sales and marketing management roles with Coca-Cola, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, and IBM. For over 10 years, Pauline has expertly guided MBA applicants, and her clients h ...
×Geri
Geri is a former member of the Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS). In her 7 year tenure in HBS Admissions, she read and evaluated hundreds of applications and interviewed MBA candidates from a diverse set of academic, geographic, and employment backgrounds. Geri also traveled globally representing the school at outreach events in order to raise awareness for women and international students. In additio ...
×Laura
Laura comes from the MBA Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS) and is an HBS MBA alumnus. In her HBS Admissions role, she evaluated and interviewed hundreds of business school candidates, including internationals, women, military and other applicant pools, for five years. Prior to her time as a student at HBS, Laura began her career in advertising and marketing in Chicago at Leo Burnett where she worked on th ...
×Andrea
Andrea served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at Harvard Business School (HBS) for over five years. In this role, she provided strategic direction for student yield-management activities and also served as a full member of the admissions committee. In 2007, Andrea launched the new 2+2 Program at Harvard Business School – a program targeted at college junior applicants to Harvard Business School. Andrea has also served as a Career Coach for Harvard Business School for both cu ...
×Jennifer
Jennifer served as Admissions Officer at the Stanford (GSB) for five years. She holds an MBA from Stanford (GSB) and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Jennifer has over 15 years experience in guiding applicants through the increasingly competitive admissions process into top MBA programs. Having read thousands and thousands of essays and applications while at Stanford (GSB) Admiss ...
×Erin K.
Erin served in key roles in MBA Admissions--as Director at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and Assistant Director at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB). Erin served on the admissions committee at each school and has read thousands of applications in her career. At Haas, she served for seven years in roles that encompassed evaluation, outreach, and diversity and inclusion. During her tenure in Admissions at GSB, she was responsible for candidate evaluation, applicant outreach, ...
×Susie
Susie comes from the Admissions Office of the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she reviewed and evaluated hundreds of prospective students’ applications. She holds an MBA from Stanford’s GSB and a BA from Stanford in Economics. Prior to advising MBA applicants, Susie held a variety of roles over a 15-year period in capital markets, finance, and real estate, including as partner in one of the nation’s most innovative finance and real estate investment organizations. In that r ...
×Dione
Dione holds an MBA degree from Stanford Business School (GSB) and a BA degree from Stanford University, where she double majored in Economics and Communication with concentrations in journalism and sociology. Dione has served as an Admissions reader and member of the Minority Admissions Advisory Committee at Stanford. Dione is an accomplished and respected advocate and thought leader on education and diversity. She is ...
×Anthony
Anthony served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he dedicated over 10 years of expertise. During his time as a Wharton Admissions Officer, he read and reviewed thousands of applications and helped bring in a class of 800+ students a year. Anthony has traveled both domestically and internationally to recruit a ...
×Meghan
Meghan served as the Associate Director of Admissions and Marketing at the Wharton MBA’s Lauder Institute, a joint degree program combining the Wharton MBA with an MA in International Studies. In her role on the Wharton MBA admissions committee, Meghan advised domestic and international applicants; conducted interviews and information sessions domestically and overseas in Asia, Central and South America, and Europe; and evaluated applicants for admission to the program. Meghan also managed ...
×Amy
Amy comes from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where she was Associate Director. Amy devoted 12 years at the Wharton School, working closely with MBA students and supporting the admissions team. During her tenure at Wharton, Amy served as a trusted adviser to prospective applicants as well as admitted and matriculated students. She conducted admissions chats with applicants early in the admissions ...
×Ally
Ally brings six years of admissions experience to the SBC team, most recently as an Assistant Director of Admission for the full-time MBA program at Columbia Business School (CBS). During her time at Columbia, Ally was responsible for reviewing applications, planning recruitment events, and interviewing candidates for both the full-time MBA program and the Executive MBA program. She traveled both internationally and dome ...
×Erin B.
Erin has over seven years of experience working across major institutions, including University of Pennsylvania, Columbia Business School, and NYU's Stern School of Business. At Columbia Business School, Erin was an Assistant Director of Admissions where she evaluated applications for both the full time and executive MBA programs, sat on the admissions and merit scholarship committees and advised applicants on which program might be the best fit for them based on their work experience and pro ...
×Emma
Emma comes from the MBA Admissions Office at Columbia Business School (CBS), where she was Associate Director. Emma conducted dozens of interviews each cycle for the MBA and EMBA programs, as well as coordinating the alumni ambassador interview program. She read and evaluated hundreds of applications each cycle, delivered information sessions to audiences across the globe, and advised countless waitlisted applicants. ×