An important thing to ask yourself when applying to Business School

“Will I be able to get into this school?” This is a common question that most candidates ask themselves, their friends, their admission counselors, when they’re applying for their MBA. For the most part, they’re mainly trying to maximize their chances of getting in.

This is definitely an important question to ask. After all, if you’re sure you want to do an MBA and are spending so much time making your applications perfect, you may as well ensure that you’ll see the light of success.

However, just as you ask yourself “Will I get into this school?”, have you ever asked yourself, “Does this school deserve me?”

Think about this for a moment. You are going to be spending 2 years of your life at this school. This time is going to come from the prime years of your life. You’ll be spending a great deal of money in getting this education. You’ll be living far far away from your loved ones. You could be doing other things with this time – a great job, starting a company, getting married, traveling, anything. Instead, you’ll be giving 2 years of your time to this school. That’s a lot of stuff.

It only makes sense then that as much as the schools are selective about which students get in, you should be selective about which schools deserve you. Does the school have the right resources? Does it attract the kind of students you’d like to hang out with? What professors does the school have and what research have they done? What teaching model does the school follow? What values does the school and its student body espouse? What’s the culture at the school like?

These are hard questions to answer and it is easy to ignore them. Yet, the answers to these questions can make all the difference between a good and a life transforming experience in these 2 years at Business School. As Indians, it is easy to get sucked in the mentality of “I need to get XYZ education”. You are now old enough. You are making a conscious choice. Make sure it’s a choice you will be proud of for the rest of your life.

A typical day in the life of a business school student

As you all take the GMAT and work on your Round 1 apps, we thought it might be a good idea to give you a glimpse into what a typical day in the life of a typical business school student is like J Team getyourMBA asks a current student at Wharton.

7:00am – Wake up

7:15am – 8:00am – Work out at the gym

8:00am – 8:35 am – Get ready

8:40am – Catch the bus to campus. Get into a cab in case you’re late which is often! J

8:55am – Grab coffee (large atleast!) from the café. You NEED it if you hope to stay alert in class.

9:00am – 10:15am – Global Supply Chain Management. We discuss a case on Mattel, Inc. and how they were forced to recall a big lot of toys due to lead traces that could be poisonous to children. Great discussion in class on how best to control quality in your supply chain, especially when each player is not directly a part of Mattel.  Should you punish wrong behavior or incentivize good behavior?

10:15am – 10:30am – Check your mail folder - An offer from a tailor to get your business suit made at a discount for the upcoming interviews, Pricing Policy assignment graded and returned, an invitation with some goodies to the Winter Ball. Walk over to another building for next class

10:30am – 11:45 pm – Venture Capital and Finance of Innovation. Great class discussion on top 5 things investors should look at when deciding whether to invest in a company or not and why – Team? Market Size? Product? Target customer?

11:50am – 1:30 pm – Lunch meeting with Learning Team to finalize marketing case report. Team has 2 Americans, an Indonesian, a German, a Brazilian and an Indian. We are pretending to be Gillette and we have to figure out how we can increase the sales of our razors in Indonesia. How can we do that when many of the men there use scissors to cut their beard?

1:30 – 3:00pm – Mergers and Acquisitions. Great discussion on when to acquire, when to form an Alliance, when to form a Joint Venture.  We discuss Morgan Stanley – Dean Witter merger. Power politics at play!

3:00pm – 4:00pm – Meeting with photography club leadership team to finalize upcoming events and schedule.

4:00pm – 6:00 pm – Grab something to eat and get some work done in the student lounge.

6:00 pm – 8:00pm – Attend a talk on Leadership by a Mountain Guide who has led many expeditions – when do you lead from the front? When do you lead from the back? And when do you lead from the middle? Brilliant talk.

8:00pm – 8:20pm – Walk back home

8:30pm – 10:00pm – Dinner with the ladies of Women in Business Club. A junior wants to recruit for consulting and gets tips from second years.

10:00 pm – 11:00 pm – Celebrate student’s birthday at local pub.

11:00 pm – 2:00am – Prepare case for next day’s Entrepreneurship class on how Red Bull managed to make a dent in the beverages market despite goliaths like Coke and Pepsi in the market. Finish Corporate Valuation assignment of selecting which firms would form good comparables for a given company and why.

2:00am – Sh*#@* forgot to call home again, 3rd day in a row! Mom will kill me. What time is it in India anyway?  Man, I just don't care. Maybe tomorrow, I'm just too damn sleepy right nowwww...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

A Master's degree in Management from a US Business School - without work-ex?

I am often asked what is the right amount of work-ex one must put in before taking up the MBA. Many, still in undergrad college, feel it is unfair for Busines Schools to give so much weightage to work-ex that they almost deny students who want to get in straight after their Bachelors degree.

Well, it is true that most Business Schools attach serious weightage to work-ex when evaluating candidates. And so, even though the stated position is that work-ex is only desirable, not compulsary, and even though a few candidates do make it to these schools without work-ex, the truth is that those who do are really a very small minority and most schools prefer candidates with varying lengths of work-ex.

But there is another interesting development lately. An increasing number of Business Schools are offering a Masters degree of Management , admission to which is open to candidates without work-ex. And I'm not talking about the "Deferred Admission" options like the 2+2 program at HBS, or the YLP or Early Entry options at ISB. Those are only different routes to their regular MBA program, wherein these schools pick out exceptional candidates while still at undergrad college and promise them deferred admission after they complete a prescribed duration of work-ex.

Rather I'm talking about the MIM (Masters in Management) program being offered by many universities in the US and which is available with little or no work-ex.

So does this represent a change in thinking on part of the B-schools? Are they now accepting that work-ex is not really important for graduate education in Management?

Actually, NO. These schools differentiate clearly between the MIM and MBA program. You can get a clue from the name of the program itself. While the MIM is a Masters in Management, the MBA is a Masters in Business Administration.

Very simply put, the MBA equips students to manage and run Business enterprises. The curriculum is much more practical. The cases discussed in the classrooms are all real life problems. The data students analyze while learning various techniques of analysis is real life data and so on. And admissions to these programs are still weighted heavily towards candidates with work-ex.

By contrast, the MIM student studies the science of Management. These programs may also use some real life data but the focus here is much more theoretical. Graduates from these programs often pursue further study of Management to a PhD level or go into academia. Those that do join the industry after the MIM program, do so at a level junior to their counterparts from MBA programs, who might join the same businesses.

So those of you wanting to pursue Management education but not keen to work before heading to a university in the US, have the option of the MIM program. But unless you are keen on studying Management as a science and continuing in research and academia, my personal advice would be to choose the regular MBA programs, though it means you will have to wait a few years while getting some good work-ex under your belt.

So let us examine why B-schools give importance to work-ex while admitting students to the MBA program. The obvious answer of course is that the various theories, analytical and decision making techniques that are learnt at a business school are more easily learned and absorbed by candidates who have faced typical work environments and who have had exposure to the workings of a Business Enterprise before coming to schools.

But there is another, and a more important reason. Students in a typical B-school classroom learn as much from their fellow students as they do from the teachers. Each class has students from different industries, geographical regions of the world, different cultures where business practices differ from eachother as does their language. And when the diverse group of students get together to discuss a Business case or a theoretical management idea, the wealth of real life experience that they bring to bear on the subject adds immensely to the quality of the discourse. Every student thus gets the benefit of the experience of every other student in the class.

So be clear what your objectives are from your Management education and choose the program that works best for you. The important thing is to know that both options are available.

Components of your Application - IV - Career Goals

All Business Schools want to know about your career goals in some part of their application. Some might ask you to write an essay about it, others might pose this as a short answer question, some might ask for your long term and short term career goals and even how an MBA from that particular school will help you achieve them.

But before you answer this question to a Business School, or in fact to anybody else, it is important to be sure yourself what your career goals are. Remember, Business Schools expect you to be very clear about why you want to get an MBA degree, why from that particular school and how the decision, at this stage of your career, will help you achieve the immediate post-MBA goals you have set for yourelf, and even how achieveing your immediate post-MBA goal is part of a larger plan to achieve your long term career goals.

Sounds daunting? Not sure of what kind of career you want to pursue?And how an MBA (from any particular school) will get you there? Then why the decision to do an MBA? Just because your friends are doing it? Well that will just not do.

So even before you contemplate applying to B schools, you need to get your career goals exercise done. Ideally you should be able to clearly describe to the Ad Comm:

• What is your current state - this is done through your resume, essays, recos, etc.
• What are your immediate post-MBA goals - what kind of career do you wish to pursue right after you complete the MBA course.
• Medium and long term goals - what do you plan to be doing in say 5 years/10 years down the line.

And finally - you should have a ready GAP ANALYSIS between your current state and your long term goals. Which means, you should know what you currently lack in terms of knowledge and skills to get to your post-MBA objectives.

This GAP in skills and knowledge is what you should aspire to fill from the MBA program.

Further - if you can also show how a particular school's individual strengths by way of their curriculum, faculty, known areas of excellence, etc, will help you fill these gaps, then you have absolutely hit the nail on the head.

But, as I have heard from many a candidate, life is so uncertain. "How can I be totally sure of what I want to do?" "What if I change my mind while I am studying for my MBA over next 2 years?" Well friends, the answer is simple.

The Ad Comm does want you to show a certain clarity of vision when it comes to your career goals and reasons for getting an MBA degree. They also like to know that you researched these schools before applying and that you will endeavor to use their individual strengths to further your goals. BUT, and this is important, they don't expect your goals and plans to be cast in stone. It is okay if your change your plans mid-way, take up a different career post-MBA compared to what you planned to pursue when applying. After all, an MBA is also about expanding your horizons.

So get rid off that mental block. Think freely. Work out the best career plan for yourself - one which excites you, one which you would pursue with passion, energy and joy :) Work out how you can get there. Be prepared to state with clarity and conviction, about the skills and experience you already have, which will help you on your way. And clearly show what new skills and experiences you need to add in order to get where you want to. And that will surely bring out clearly what you hope to gain from the MBA program and how you will use it.

And by doing this, you will see that you answer this question extremely well, not only to the Ad Comm, but also, and most importantly, to yourself.
 

Components of your application - III - Essays

Many applicants have complained over the years that they find writing the essays among the most cumbersome part of the MBA app - something they approach with trepidation as an unavoidableburden. But my clear view is that essays should rather be seen as an opportunity to be utilized to its maximum. Let me illustrate with a story.

Early in my career, I worked at a large multi-division, multi-location company. I was in-charge of one of its profit centers. There was a strong internal audit setup wherein auditors periodically reviewed the operations of each profit center, and raised queries about its deficiencies, mistakes and wrong-doings. These had to be replied to by the profit center head. In the end, the auditor's notes, his queries and the division head's responses, altogether made up the audit report.

All of us operations managers abhorred this exercise because it could potentially highlight our mistakes, that too in front of the most senior Directors in the company. The audit report was the one and only report about individual profit centers that it made its way all the way up through the company hierarchy - such was its importance.

But this attitude changed one day, when a senior gave a bunch of us youngsters a completely new perspective. He pointed out that since the audit report was read by all the senior people, who could ultimately make a difference to our careers, we should see them as our direct line of communication to them. He pointed out that no other report we made, including our monthly or annual profit reports, reached them intact. Rather they got aggregated at the location level, or the product division level, and in those aggregate reports, a single individual's performance never stood out. Even our performance appraisals were not always read individually by people at this rarefied level of the company to which the audit reports reached intact.

From then on, we looked forward to the audits and while replying to the audit queries, ensured that all our important achievements, intitiatives and contributions made it into those reports. And as you might rightly anticipate, a few months later a senior director, when he visited our branch, called me separately and I found he actually remembered my key achievements from the last audit report, and in fact appreciated them in front of my local seniors.

The lesson with the MBA application essays is exactly the same.

The application form, resume, etc. force you into a certain format which firstly limits what you can write in them and is also quite similar across candidates. On the other hand are your essays which form the only part of your application which you get to write fully on your own. This is where you can tell your story in your own words, in your own style, and in such a way that you can paint your own picture of yourself for the AdComm. This is where you can truly make a case for why you deserve to be admitted. Your resume gets them interested. Your essays have them convinced.

So go ahead and appraoch your essay writing with the a sense of anticipation, like when creating a work of Art :) Grab the opportunity to speak directly to the AdComm through the essays. A good way to start I found, is to imagine yourself sitting across the table from the AdComm members and get your story down on paper in the same way that you would tell it to them orally. Then of course you condense it because understand that when the AdComm members are taking the trouble to hear you out individually, you too must show respect for their time.

Which is why when writing your essays, always remember - Clear, Concise, Compelling and Authentic.
 

Components of your application - II

Continuing from my post on July 16th, 2013 on Components of your application - Extra Curriculars section.

So what can you do to bring out your positive qualities via the extra-curricular activities section of your resume? Well consider this. Many ECAs are practised as team activities, like games and sports, organization of events, and so on. So did you do something to show leadership qualities during some of these activities? Were you a team player? Did you motivate a team member or a group of them in a difficult situation? Did you achieve something simply by persevering when others had given up hope? All these, and many other experiences you might have had during your ECAs bring out important positive qualities. But is any of them conveyed by a bland "Member - College Music Club"? If you can write some actual achievement , or if the achivement was recognized by any authority or external evaluator, it suddenly begins to look more positive and authentic.

Moreover, we know that some people claim things in the ECA section which might be half truths or even outright fictitious. Which is another reason to write "Won third position in annual Inter-college open debate at St. Stephens college, New Delhi in 2008", rather than just "Member college debating team - won several prizes." And finally, keep it short. Even though you need to bring out your contribution clearly rather than just mentioning the activity you were part of, avoid launching off into lengthy stories. Remember - clear, concise, compelling AND authentic.