Phantombanker Book Review: WSO Business School Bible

So, I recently got the WSO Business School Bible, and after making it through the 520-page book this week, I am honestly surprised to say how good it was. I have never used any of the WSO guides (mainly because they did not exist when I was doing banking interviews), but I can say that this one is good and definitely got me in the right state of mind to start the next phase of the b-school application process (which, if you read my last post, kicked off late last week: //www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/b-school-application-season-is-officially-…).

So without further ado, here is my review of the WSO Business School Bible:

The guide is written by Alex Chu, a Wharton MBA graduate and founder of MBA Apply – a business school admissions consulting service. I remember when Alex joined the site a few years ago and he has given fellow WSO members some great advice. One of the problems that I have had with some of the information given out or sold by admissions consultants is that they hold back information and basically everything that they do is an attempt to get you to sign up for their comprehensive consulting services which usually cost $2500+ per school – I did not feel like this was the case with this guide.

The guide is about 500 pages of actual content, much of which I found very useful. It is broken up into 5 sections:

The Big Picture – This section provides background information on various programs and the admissions process itself. If you are serious about applying to b-school this year, then most of the information on the types of programs should be information that you already have, but it never hurts to review, and this review is concise and well put together. This section also goes into how the admissions process works and the backgrounds of admissions officers, which I found to be very helpful in helping to frame the context of your application.

Applicant Profiles: A Closer Look – This section analyzes the affinity groups and pre-MBA professions of applicants. It also breaks down potential strategies based on the characteristics of the applicant. Although you can probably skip the sections that do not apply to you, I went ahead and read them all, because I am of the opinion that more information is better, and I am also interested in the potential strategies that applicants dissimilar to myself might be employing in the application process.

The Application Nuts & Bolts – This section is the heart of the guide, and it really makes the whole book worth the purchase. It details every part of the application process: test scores, grades, essays (I kept a notebook handy and found myself jotting down notes for potential essays and I am sure that this exercise will come in handy when I get around to starting on my essays – similar to how writing a study guide helped me on the GMAT: //www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/phantombankers-gmat-study-guide), the application form, resumes, recommendations, and the interview. It even goes as far as providing advice for those who are wait-listed and for those who are re-applicants. One of my favorite parts is that it provides examples for each category of essay and even a sample wait-list letter to improve your chances of being admitted if you are placed on the wait-list. The guide also provides a realistic time-line, which you can follow for your own applications (I found this to be very helpful and will definitely be using it).

The Business School Experience – This section walks you through academics, recruiting, and student clubs. A lot of the information was new to me and I believe it gave me a good feel for what b-school will really be like. It also has a detailed “typical week” in the life of a b-school student, which I found to be quite enjoyable. If you have friends that have MBA’s, you might already know a lot of this information, but I found it helpful.

After Business School – This section covers different career paths, presumably to help you decide which path may be right for you. Although I found this to be the least useful section of the guide, I think it is helpful in describing different careers in layman’s terms – which can be useful given that many of us take for granted how little people outside of the industry know about what we actually do (this is true for a number of different professions).

In conclusion, I think the WSO Business School Bible is, quite frankly, a very helpful tool for those of us who are applying to b-school this year or in the near future. It gives you a lot of information in a relatively digestible package – sure, you could probably find a lot of this stuff sifting through blogs and free guides, but who really wants to, or has the time to do that (maybe if you are coming from the non-profit sector or are a struggling entrepreneur)? Furthermore, I think that a lot of this information (which is written by a b-school admissions consultant) is probably very similar to, but less capital intensive than, the type of information you will get from other admissions consultants if you decide to retain their services.

My biggest problem with the guide was the grammatical errors and misspellings (approximately 10-15 in the entire guide). Although they really do not affect the value of the guide in any meaningful way, they are just a little annoying (Alex, if you happen to read this, I would be happy to go back through the guide and send you a list of the errors in return for a couple of hours of your services, for the price of...on the house [just kidding, but really, I am willing to do this])

For those members who have gone through the MBA application process, can you please comment on resources that were helpful for you? I am sure that we would all appreciate your insights.

*(For those of you who haven’t figured this out already, I am an aspiring business school student and have decided to post about my experiences with the process on WSO. I will probably be posting every week and ask that those of you who are interested in what I have to say, please follow me on WSO. My previous posts are available by clicking the “see my other blog posts” link below.)

 

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