Round 3 « Master Admissions

February 20, 2011

Do I apply to Business School in Round 3?

Filed under: Application ideas,Inspiration,Interviews,Round 3 — Tags: Admissions, business school, MBA, MBA interviews, MBA Round 3, third round — admin @ 10:27 am

It’s the end the second-round cycle. Some of you got some great news about interview invitations and are busily practicing in front of the mirror. Or at a very least, you reviewing their essays and old blog posts that I and others have written about telling stories in the interview . I’ve always maintained that the students and admissions directors who may be doing the interview look to see what kind of study group member you will make—will you pull your weight, will you add to the mix so that your team can nail not only the finance problems but the operations and/or marketing or behavioral or globally social ones?

But others of you have had some disappointments. Other than blasphemy, I’ve heard words like, “bummed,” “frustrated,” “confused” and “worried.” If you are still in the game and have interviews coming up, FIRST THINGS FIRST: keep your eyes on the prize. Even if a school is your fourth choice, you did decide to pay your $250, go through the exercise of writing the essays, run after recommenders, attend open houses, and even spring for a nasty airplane ride. You also chose this runner-up school out of the 20 or so other choices that you considered, so you must consider it worth your time. So if you didn’t get into Harvard, or Wharton, or wherever, the world will not end and you have to focus on being really excellent at the interview.

And then, what if you got shut out? Maybe you aimed a little too high or too narrow. You are probably asking yourself : “what about third round?” And to that I say

It depends.

You should go ahead and apply third round if:

You ran out of time second round and still thought about some schools you liked that you would actually go to, and fell within the profile of the student population
You improvedyour GMAT score by enough to put you in the profile
You overlooked a school and, after taking a closer look, you think you might be a good fit
After going through the whole application process, you really realize you want to go to a school, and you are less hung up on a top 5 name.
You are considering part-time programs when you only applied to full-time programs

You should NOT go ahead and apply third round if:

You only want to go to a top 5 school and you didn’t get into the top 4
You are (well) outside of the class profile of the school in choice
You aren’t sure what you want to do
The thought of filling out another application gives you a rash
You hate your job and it just occurred to you to apply to business school last week

Reviewing the handy list, you can see that there some good reasons to apply rather than wait until next year. But, you will notice that being outside the class profile is the stumbling block. If your scores/grades are lower than average/mean/standard distribution for your target school, take the time to retake your tests (a new blog post on that coming), or take a few courses in finance/accounting/business statistics and ace them. If your work experience isn’t strong enough, take on more projects, or start your own business on the side – entrepreneurship is the new rage these days.

Let me know if you have any more ideas, or want to hash it out. I’m around and available for a chat.

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January 29, 2011

A Treasury of Waiting-For-the-MBA-Decision Strategies: What to expect when you are expecting

Filed under: Application ideas,Inspiration,Round 3 — Tags: Admissions, business school, MBA, Tuck MBA, waiting — admin @ 11:51 am

I am like all of you. I get nervous, distracted to the point of craziness while waiting for things. So my heart goes out to everyone who is waiting to hear from schools. And the waiting comes in stages: first, you think you can ignore it. Then it becomes the elephant in the room. And then it becomes the object of prayer/shamanic dances/worry and endlessly clicking the refresh button on your email and the chat boards. You also have a hard time making plans – “If I only knew where (or if!) I was going to business school, I would be able to figure out my vacation plans, business travel, whether to adopt a cat, what car to buy, what to have for lunch tomorrow”… you get the idea.

Been there, done that, and I guarantee I am no wiser. But, with an attempt to help inspire some ideas to get through the next few months/weeks/minutes, I have searched around for suggestions to keep you from going down the rabbit hole of the chat boards. Disclosure: even I go to the boards for information – sometimes even offering to jump in for my MBA applicant clients. There is great stuff there, especially verifying interview invitation dates, but it is a minefield, and I usually feel like I need a stiff drink after the experience.

Don't Go Crazy
First, make a point of staying sane. I wrote a blog post on staying sane awhile ago, and also this one on not pulling your hair out. Some of the tips are still valid: clear your head, do something non-work related, get back into a decent exercise routine, learn accordion, take apart a motorcycle and put it back together again – anything that you think will keep you from going insane.

One of the admissions officers from Tuck wrote a great three-part series on waiting, with some great words of wisdom on getting outside of yourself. The blog post’s author, Dia (a wise, wise woman) writes, “By putting everything related to B-school applications out of your sight, and reconnecting with your interests and hobbies, you ensure that the entirety of your personal horizon is not Business School.” She also suggests helping others who might be struggling with the b-school process once you are done. An interesting idea. Personally, I would rather just put it all behind and get it off my brain for awhile.

My colleague in the admissions business, Anna Ivey, and co-board member of the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants, wrote a wonderful blog post on waiting for law school admission, but the rules for all professional schools are the same: don’t nag, and “don’t let the discussion boards turn you into a crazy person.” See a theme here?

Network in industries that appeal

I’ve been checking around the web for other links, but too many say you should “keep plugging away,” or get to know your schools better. I think that if you don’t know your schools by now, it is silly to start now. What I will suggest is that you keep networking with people in the industries you think you want to work in, because no matter what school you go to, or even if you go to school, learning about where you want to be down the road will help you. The other advantage of being in limbo is that you can hit up people in industries that might not be so obvious to your current career.

If I could do it all over again, I would call someone in the entertainment industry and say, “hey, I just applied to business school, and I don’t know where I am going, but one of my target industries is entertainment, and I’d like to get to know more about what you do every day.” It isn’t an offensive question, since you are not looking for a job, and if you act like you are a little undecided, that’s ok, you are in limbo.

So, ready to go out and do something different, or should I just post the link to the discussion boards right here?

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March 14, 2010

MBA Admissions: Third-round thoughts and how not to drive yourself crazy while waiting

Filed under: Application ideas,Harvard Business School,Round 3,Stanford GSB — Tags: Admissions, Betsy Massar, business school, GMAT, Harvard MBA, MBA, Round 3, Stanford MBA, Tuck MBA — admin @ 2:45 am

This is the time I don’t wish on anyone. I’m not talking to the MBA candidate who had their act together, applied first round and just came back from admit weekend. I’m talking about the candidate who applied second round, is pulling her hair out waiting for the drip, drip, drip of interview invitations, or already had the interview and probably didn’t blow it. But we have no information. It’s that feeling of, “Should I have applied third round to other schools?” Or, “Should I have re-taken the GMAT for a fifth time?” Here’s the worst: “Should I refresh the Business Week or Beat the GMAT forums one more time just to make sure that I am even more miserable?”

Really, there are no shoulds. If you only applied to one or two schools, or you applied only to stretch schools, you knew the risk you were taking when you did it, and second-guessing isn’t going to help. That internal dialogue is pretty deadly. If you applied third round, as I’ve written in a previous post, the final round is not the death round; students are admitted in later rounds and matriculate. It’s not a myth – I know several people who have done so. As for the GMAT, the magic number is three. Admissions officers have told me that they normally see a flattening out after three, and, given that they are human, they do think it starts to look a bit desperate.

Finally, do not read the Business Week or Beat the GMAT forums. I admit, I have read them in this admissions cycle to verify interview that invitations have gone out. I’ve read the Harvard and Stanford GSB forums and gotten profoundly depressed. Which is pretty silly, since I graduated from HBS and work at the GSB as a writing coach

So here’s my advice: don’t read the forums, don’t worry, and don’t second-guess. It’s easier said than done, and I’m actually a terrible example. So I turn to my students, and salute them:
They are cooking, playing music, training for a road race (on foot or wheels), traveling (!), working (hmm…), or hanging out with family. Dia, an admissions officer at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business wrote a great article with some good thoughts on the subject. She is a wise, wise woman, and I’m going to link to her post and let it speak for itself. I especially like the part about helping others who are applying stay on track. It’s a very generous idea, and I endorse it.

Here’s the link to the Tuck blog. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth blog

In the meantime, if you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to email me: betsy@masteradmissions.com

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