A thorough explanation of your accomplishments is attractive to MBA programs, experts say.
Key Takeaways:
- Make the most of interviews and essays to give a fuller picture.
- Add context to awards and accomplishments.
- Draw connections between non-business courses and B-school.
In the competitive world of MBA admissions, candidates must find ways to stand out. The application and interview process is where B-school hopefuls can highlight their academic strengths and why they’re a good fit for a specific program. Business school experts say admissions offices look for:
- A high GPA
- Strong test scores on the Graduate Management Admission Test and the Graduate Record Exam
- Academic awards and accomplishments
- Academic scholarships
- Strong performance in business-related courses
- Examples of hard work or overcoming adversity
There’s an art to highlighting academic strengths in the application and interview process. Here are some tips on how do that effectively.
Give Context
Hard data points such as GPA GMAT and GRE scores will be obvious on your transcript and resume, and high marks will speak for themselves, experts say. But extra context always helps, and it’s best given through the admissions essay and interview, says Kevin Bender, executive director for MBA enrollment management and recruiting at Wake Forest University School of Business in North Carolina.
“I tell people to use that space to highlight any deficiencies or any strengths that separate them from the rest of the pack,” Bender says.
Schools look at an applicant’s cumulative GPA, but admissions offices are aware that some students start college slow and finish strong.
“If you have a not-so-stellar start but a strong finish, that’s important,” Bender says. “So to highlight that in an essay or a conversation, I think is important.”
That was the case for Ervin Mercado, who struggled his first two years as a college student at the United States Naval Academy in Maryland. He recovered with a strong junior and senior year and graduated with a 2.7 GPA – still far from the 3.7 GPA he accumulated in high school.
Still, he was accepted into the mechanical engineering program at the Naval Postgraduate School in California and graduated with a 3.2 GPA. He parlayed that and his military service into an acceptance to the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School in California and is now an assistant vice president at Bank of America.
Mercado believed his 3.2 graduate school GPA trumped his undergraduate GPA and showed a trend of progress, which he emphasized in his MBA application. He also highlighted his maturity, work ethic, discipline, and success in a challenging graduate program to showcase his academic strengths.
“In every application, there is an optional essay where you have the opportunity to write about things that the admissions board doesn’t even know,” he says. “That was my opportunity to write about how my GPA at the Naval Academy is not a reflection of who I am now. The whole key is, ‘What did you do after undergrad to show progress and to show that you can handle the academic curriculum of an MBA program?’”
Highlight Awards, Accomplishments and Extracurriculars
There’s a storytelling element to the essay and interview, says Joe Farr, MBA admissions counselor for Stratus Admissions Counseling, and MBA programs are looking for applicants to “quantify their involvement” during undergrad.
“You want to have the extracurricular activities because these school officials want to see someone who was engaged in the community and not just someone who lived in the library,” he says. It also demonstrates good time management, Farr says, making it “that much more impressive that you had such high grades when you were doing these other activities.”
Applications typically offer enough space in the awards section for applicants to explain what an award or scholarship is, Farr says. Particularly noteworthy accomplishments might be worth mentioning in an essay. For example, the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in North Carolina asks applicants to explain 25 random things about themselves. An impressive award could be one of those, he says.
“Other schools might give you the room to tell your story or what matters most to you,” Farr says. Applicants can use that space to explain what an award means to them.
“Just telling that whole story and the arc of that is also where you can tell about an achievement without boasting because you’re not saying ‘I did this great thing’ – you’re talking about how meaningful it was and how it’s lifted you.”
Explain Courses Taken
Like Mercado, some business school applicants may have struggled their first couple of years in college, when they were taking mostly general education courses, but thrived once their course load was more heavily focused on their major. Applicants should draw attention to that fact.
Business and economics majors fill a fair share of seats in MBA classes, but programs continue to emphasize diversity of thought and are working hard to attract applicants from a variety of academic backgrounds, experts say. Candidates coming from the humanities – sociology, psychology, or political science, for example – may be particularly attractive to business schools.
A good application strategy is to show the connections between seemingly unrelated college courses and explain how those classes shaped career goals, experts say. For example, non-business majors who perform well in business courses should highlight that on their application, Bender says.
An essay related to career goals could be a good place to explain it. If a specific class or project sparked a particular interest, it’s important to highlight that, Farr says. He calls this a student’s “aha moment.”
“That’s where even though it’s not the economics class, it’s still the thing that made them say they want to do this for their career,” he says. “Some schools ask about values and what values have shaped who you are and how you’ve approached things. It could be in that context that you tell that moment and tie it back into your overall story.”
Be Humble
There’s an art to outlining academic strengths without coming across as boastful or arrogant, experts say.
“The tone in which someone speaks or writes is incredibly powerful positively or negatively,” Bender says. “I think we can all sense when someone is bragging or arrogant as compared to humble and hungry. If you come across humble and hungry, that works for me all day, every day.”
For example, an applicant with a 3.0 GPA who can communicate how hard they’ve worked is more attractive than one with a 4.0 who appears boastful or seems to expect admission, he says.
MBA essays vary significantly in length, and short essays require direct responses, Farr says. But “that directness will generally not come across as arrogant because you’re just telling facts. … It’s not bragging if it’s true.”
Be Genuine
In most cases, admissions officers are “trying to get to know the applicant and just want to know the genuine truth about the person,” Farr says. He encourages applicants to be themselves throughout the application process.
“From that standpoint, I get the desire to dress things up as bigger than they are,” he says. “But just sticking to your truth and anchoring it in both the storytelling and the emotional resonance is what’s going to sell you more than trying to make an achievement sound bigger than it was.”
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