When a school has more good candidates than places, the admissions commit- tee will not just be choosing the best candidates and the best class balance.
They will also have the luxury of selecting those whose profile, contribution and aspirations match – in the short term and in the long term – the educational offerings and culture of their business school. The questions the committee will be asking are not just whether this candidate is impressive and interesting. They will include: Does he fit with us? How does she add value to our community? Will her style of work mesh with our school and its way of doing things? Will he interact well with the kinds of people we have here and the kind of programs we offer? Will he be recruitable by the kinds of firms that come to this campus? In short, how well do we fit?
This means that you have to provide a specific argument not just as to why you are a good candidate for any program, but why you are the right candidate for the particular program. They want you to show the overlap between your goals and the school’s distinguishing attributes, and explain why they, rather than anywhere else, are exactly the institution to help you meet your MBA and post-MBA aspirations.
Understand the school’s market positioning
To show this fit you have to understand the school’s market positioning. The major business schools each occupy a position in the competitive business education market, with associated brand identity, and they are scrupulous about maintaining it. You will really begin to understand a school when you get underneath all the surface chatter and general promotional claptrap about it and find what really underpins its brand strategy.
For example, Stanford keeps its class tiny and so positions itself as the elite of the elite. To this end they appear to be clinical about picking applicants with the highest Gmats, which, when published, shows them to be the most exclusive. Chicago, with heavy emphasis on classroom tutorial and less time for the case method, positions itself among other things as the most rigorous on taught skills (therefore, allegedly, providing the most ‘ready’ graduates to ATTRIBUTES THAT COUNT 19
certain kinds of recruiting companies). Insead positions itself as the inter- national Mecca by requiring three languages of every graduate, thereby attract- ing the most international student set and benefiting from a reinforcing cycle that keeps it the number one international brand. Wharton and Columbia both have direct feeder relationships with Wall Street, which is a strong part of their identity. NYU Stern does too, and it also has a special media-business angle to its brand.
Inevitably, the school’s positioning and brand strategy will be reflected in its culture – the intangible mix of place, values, reputation, attitudes and faculty strengths that it projects. In each case, the brand characteristics and reputation serve to distinguish the school and keep its attractiveness to top students, top faculty, Fortune 100 recruiters and major donors focused and sharp.
How to do it
You will not be able to gain insight at this level by reading the glossy brochures, because schools obviously all claim to be strong all-round. You will be better able to glean it in such things as the press releases quoting the dean on new initiatives for the program, or by seeing what type and level of faculty are being hired (and which types are moving on), or what conferences are being held on campus, or co-sponsored by the university and certain (which?) types of business, and so on. Understanding what a school is really about requires a bit of scepticism and some hard-nosed investigation to get behind the institutional spin to what is really going on.
As you begin to understand what exactly the school stands for and what it is aspiring to stand for, and therefore what drives Adcom’s choices at this deeper level, it will be clearer to you how choosing you or not fits with the school’s broader aspirations, and you will be in a better position to under- stand what about you might be a more or less valuable contribution. This understanding can then find its way into your essays as you position yourself as a reliable vehicle for the continuance of their brand and their culture and the expansion of their ‘mission’. Not all accepted students will be perfect prototypes of the school’s brand, but most will clearly be a fit with one or other part of it.
Start with your needs
Obviously, you greatly increase your chances if you apply to programs to which your profile and interests are already aligned, and your aspirations fit naturally. It’s almost impossible to falsify a fit, so don’t bother trying. Not only will the ‘false you’ be a pale shadow of the real you, and therefore much less likely to get in, but even if you do get in you will only succeed in putting yourself at an institution where you are unhappy for two years.
20 STRATEGY FOR THE ADMISSIONS PROCESS
Instead, start with yourself. Carefully analyse your own motivations, needs, desires and preferences for getting an MBA, and work out clearly what you want from the school you go to. Then search for the right place. You are paying the fees: it is your graduate education and your life. If you don’t define your needs and preferences at the start, you will soon be blown off course by what the schools want you to look like and what they want you to aspire to.
Section Two of this book delves further into profile analysis and develop- ing your competitive positioning in order to prepare your essays. What you do here will be a preliminary to that.
Take a sheet of paper and write short answers to the following questions:
• Why do you want to go to business school? Why do you need an MBA?
• What are you hoping to learn? What general things and what specialized things?
• What sort of learning environment and culture are you looking for?
• What are your career goals?
• What are your personal goals?
• What skill or background do you have that is unique, that will make you attractive?
These are just starter questions to get you thinking. Add your own. You may also consider duration, location, cost and any other factors that shape your preferences. When you have finished brainstorming, spend some time getting your answers to the questions into a few key points. You should be able to write a mission-statement sentence that goes something along the lines of:
• I’m applying to do an MBA because . . .
• The kind of program I want to go to is . . .
• Given my particular goals, I need an MBA program that does . . . This sheet of paper is your anchor in the application storm. Paste it above your desk. Refer to it when you feel you are being run ragged by the demands and preferences of the schools.
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