Recently I’ve been mildly swayed on my opinions about b-school by some of my friends in Boston (guess where). Anyhow, I’ve helped many of them during their essay writing application process and have learned much from how stressed they get in the final month before an application is do. With the year winding down, here’s my 13 month plan to get me through the MBA application cycle.
December 2012
This month will be dedicated to the “Why get an MBA” essay. This is usually the first essay question on most school apps and the hardest one to write. This is a good way to start the MBA process, if you can’t articulate why you want to go to begin with, you probably shouldn’t waste your time and money on the rest of the process.
January - February
These months are dedicated to GMATs and figuring out the top 5 schools you’re looking at. Allow yourself time to take the GMATs twice in case you don’t break 700 on the first go around. Scoring any less really is not going to get you in anywhere no matter how stellar your personality is or if your essays are pulitzer prize winning.
Spend time looking at school rankings, online campus information materials, and application requirements etc. Starting this early will help you identify any holes in your resume. You’ve got a few months to start filling in these gaps. Do you need more extracurriculars? Lacking in experience? Maybe take a business class at a local college.
March - May
You’ve narrowed the few schools you’re considering (and judging by previous posts i’ll take a wild guess and say HBS is in that list). Whatever case, work your network. Start talking to your friend of a friends, third cousin’s uncle’s daughter who got in to one of your schools. Use that network to arrange campus visits, maybe attend a class.
You can also find MBA networking events and info sessions on the school’s website that you can attend over the next few months.
June - July
It’s the summer, take it easy. Attend networking events whenever possible, but theres not too much to do during this time apart from preparation. Work on getting strong recommendations in order, both professional and personal, and make sure your resume is in good shape so you don’t have to worry about these when its crunch time.
August - December
These last few months should be dedicated to filling out applications and writing essays. Aim to apply during the first round of admissions. By the time the deadlines for the later rounds of admission come around many spots at top schools have already filled up.
Hopefully, this guide turns into an admission for those who are looking for it. To the veteran monkeys who have already been down this path, any tips for the rest of us?
This looks like a good plan. I'll probably send in apps during the fall of next year too. I would point out that I know many, many people who went through the whole process very quickly (a month doing essays/apps) and still managed to get into very good schools (Wharton, HBS) so I don't think that you necessarily need to give it this much time in case you decide to apply late in the cycle or something.
Also, I don't know if >700 is really such a make of break aspect of the application. If you're a generic white guy with a finance background, then it probably is pretty important for it to be really high, but I've seen people get into good schools with 700.
Yea I am definitely being generous with the time, mainly because I come for a tech background and would be doing the MBA thing for a career change so I'm gonna need to put more time in to stand out against the other finance backgrounds. And from what I've seen, I think 700 is a big deal. I've had a friend, who was a minority, finance background, 770 rejected from HBS.
Eh, you really should break 700 for top 5 MBA programs unless you are an absolute superstar or very unique in other areas.
Do you have a 45 day plan?
I have a question. I want to apply to HBS and Stanford in their 2nd rounds for the upcoming fall. I basically have a month and a half to take my GMATs, do my essays, recommendations, etc i.e. So I basically haven't done anything yet. How feasible is this? what about 3rd rounds for the top 5 schools?
Probably not impossible, but applying to later rounds makes it much more difficult to get in because fewer spots are gonna be available.
That's a very tight time schedule, especially since you haven't taken the GMAT. If you could rock the GMAT without doing much studying, then start your essays asap and get the recs lined up. But if you don't think you can write compelling essays for round 2, wait for round 1 next year. Pretty much no one gets into round 3 since almost all the slots are filled up by then.
Is that really true about Round 3? Would love other opinions on this also. What about a school like Columbia ?
OP, I'm assuming your friends don't go to the distinguished Hult School of Business?
I made a big mistake when I registered for the GMAT: I checked the "yes" box for Do you want schools to contact you about their MBA programs? Every week I get a call from Hult. I have some intern explain to me what an MBA is and why I should get one at Hult. I keep telling them to take me off their list of potential suckers, but they seem to be unable to do so.
I made the same mistake as well. My gmail is now flooded daily with e-mails from hult and other schools i've never heard of. It's getting quite annoying.
BTW, the OP reeks of Bankerella.
No, Bankerella already went to a top b-school.
I'm pretty confident I can get a good score on the GMAT, but are there are any online test prep companies who's services I should avail of? I've heard of Knewton, are they any good ?
Knewton isn't that great for someone looking to break 700+. Most of their stuff is too basic, and they don't go over hard enough problems.
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