Getting in to Business School
I have been asked a few times over email if I have any advice for getting into bschool. I am certainly no authority, and I can't really offer a complete guide, but I figured perhaps my two cents might be a small piece of the puzzle and help people in their research. Below is an exerpt of an email I wrote as an answer to someone who emailed me; if it helps anyone else, that would be great.
"... As far as my application, I think the essays were the most important part. My GPA is quite low for the top schools (bottom 20% of admits), and my GMAT was higher than average (top 20% of admits), so I think they balanced each other out. I would say that if you have been out of school for sometime, the GMAT is slightly more important.
My work experience was good, but not anything extremely unique; I had experience running my own small company as well as evidence of advancement in a large corporation.
Plenty of people will give you advice about the essays: 'Be true to yourself' and rather unhelpful things like that. I would simply say that you have to write the essays keeping in mind the fact that the admissions committees have to read thousands and thousands of them. Being unique and interesting is key. My goal was for them to be able to think of me as "the guy who did such-and-such" and all know who they were talking about.
Basically, you want them to be able to describe you uniquely in a sentence after they are done with your essays. So each essay needs to add something, even a single word, to that sentence. Think about it. It is much better to be 'the techie guy who likes to go running in the middle of the night and struggled to help a loved one after an illness' than to just be 'another software developer who wants to go into consulting'. Now I know neither of these sentences describes me or you, so the question is: What will your sentence be? Everyone is interesting and unique in some way. How do you want them to think of you? Your essays should form a coherent story that builds that sentence in their minds..."
"... As far as my application, I think the essays were the most important part. My GPA is quite low for the top schools (bottom 20% of admits), and my GMAT was higher than average (top 20% of admits), so I think they balanced each other out. I would say that if you have been out of school for sometime, the GMAT is slightly more important.
My work experience was good, but not anything extremely unique; I had experience running my own small company as well as evidence of advancement in a large corporation.
Plenty of people will give you advice about the essays: 'Be true to yourself' and rather unhelpful things like that. I would simply say that you have to write the essays keeping in mind the fact that the admissions committees have to read thousands and thousands of them. Being unique and interesting is key. My goal was for them to be able to think of me as "the guy who did such-and-such" and all know who they were talking about.
Basically, you want them to be able to describe you uniquely in a sentence after they are done with your essays. So each essay needs to add something, even a single word, to that sentence. Think about it. It is much better to be 'the techie guy who likes to go running in the middle of the night and struggled to help a loved one after an illness' than to just be 'another software developer who wants to go into consulting'. Now I know neither of these sentences describes me or you, so the question is: What will your sentence be? Everyone is interesting and unique in some way. How do you want them to think of you? Your essays should form a coherent story that builds that sentence in their minds..."
posted by hamtastic at 2:44 PM
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