CA: Walk us through the life of an application in your office from an operational standpoint. What happens between the time an applicant clicks “submit” and the time the committee offers a final decision (e.g. how many “reads” does it get, how long is each “read,” who reads it, does the committee convene to discuss it as a group, etc.).
JB: I am pretty open about sharing about our process and wonder when there are other schools that don’t share as much. I think there is this feeling that admissions is this black box or that it is complicated in a different way than it actually is. It is complex, but it’s not complicated. What we do involves thinking about a lot of different factors. And it is an art and not a science. But it’s not brain surgery, and I think it’s not as tricky as some people think it is.
What I always tell people is you want to present your best self, but you should present yourself. You should think that through. When you submit your resume you want it to be one page, ideally chronological, so that it offers a snapshot of your history. As I am reading, I want to get—in a few seconds or certainly in less than a minute—a picture of you. Of course, I am going to probe deeper in the interview, but your resume needs to be clear.
There are some things that shouldn’t be on your resume. For example don’t put that your objective is to get into the Goizueta Business School. And don’t put your coursework on there—I’ll see that on your transcript. Instead, put what drives you, how have you spent your time, what kind of leadership activities have you done outside of college? That’s where some people miss the boat and I find myself asking, “Why did you do this?”
In terms of the life of an application, when students hit submit theoretically their application should be complete—the application should be filled out, they should attach their essays, they should have copies of their transcripts (not actual transcripts, which we get later to make it easier for people). We do give people a little bit of a grace period if not everything is in, but it should be complete when you hit submit if at all possible. They should also have already requested letters of recommendation, although sometimes those pieces are going to come later.
A wonderful woman named Pam is going to retrieve all of their information. From the moment they hit submit, Pam’s role as our applications manager is to get the file compete. There’s a checklist on the application system that lets applicants know what we’ve received and what’s still outstanding.
In terms of the letters of recommendation, we want those to come from individuals who know you well and can talk about your ability to contribute to the classroom. We are particularly interested in work-related recommendations—so we generally do not want recommendations from a faculty member, with very rare exceptions. Some candidates may not want to tell their boss they are applying to business school, and we understand that. In that case, they should try to get as close a proxy as they can—a former supervisor, a client, or perhaps one of our alums or an alum of another top-tier program. We want someone who can give a recommendation about the quality of this person’s work and work product, their ability to contribute in a team environment, things in their work life that will be meaningful to share in a class at Goizueta or that will be helpful with their career goals down the road.
Through October 9th we have an open interview period, including a Super Saturday on October 3rd when we have admissions officers and alumni that interview for us. Once the interview takes place, an interview write-up is completed. This write-up is pretty detailed and we are looking for very specific qualities. Each quality is rated on a 1 to 5 scale, and an overall score is given to the interview and attached to the file.
If it is after the open interview period, the file is then considered complete. Those files are then divided up among our team of readers. There is a little bit of specialization by region, but not too much—which is to say one or two people on the team might read a few more Chinese or Indian applications. But everyone is going to read a variety of files. I think it is important that all members of my team are aware of what the pool is like, and it’s also just more fun and interesting to read a variety of files instead of one group.
In terms of the readers, there are between six and eight. During the busiest time of the year there will be up to eight people reading. The readers go into the system and capture the files that have been assigned to them. Each reader has a “read day,” which is a day during the week when they don’t come into the office. They stay at home and read files.
Depending on the file, it can take between 30 to 40 minutes to read a file and do a write up on it, although some files can take longer. Everyone on my team is an experienced reader—the least experienced reader has been reading for three years and some have been reading for 19. On read days they don’t have to come into the office. They read the files in their queue online and then complete a write up. We do have a template they follow as they do their write ups, which makes it easier when the file is reviewed in committee or by other people.
We put a lot of thought into the review process. My view is that anyone who applies to Goizueta has spent time and money completing that application, and that is to be respected. Every file is going to be fully read and fully reviewed. I feel very strongly about that, and think everyone deserves to be given a thoughtful read.
At the same time, I want us to operate as efficiently as we can, while being mindful of the fact that the decisions we make change people’s lives. The review starts out with the biographical info—and that often leads to the transcript, although people don’t have to read in this particular order. But more often than not we begin with the bio, go on to the transcript, then the letters of recommendation, the essays, the interview report.
Oh—there is a very important part that I forgot to tell you. An application can be complete in one of two ways. During our open interview period, there will be candidates who may not have had an interview yet. In that case, the reader will read the whole file and make a recommendation that an interview invitation be extended. Then, once the applicant has interviewed, the file will be read again.
