Admissions Tips

Browse our weekly admissions tips, or choose the category most relevant to you: researching, planning, applying, deciding.

Published: December 17, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Addressing Unemployment or Gaps in Employment

Given the emphasis that schools place on a candidate’s work experience, it is important to be proactive in addressing unemployment or gaps in employment. When applying to business school, many candidates worry about how the adcom might perceive gaps in employment. Read our ‘MBA Admissions Tip: Addressing Unemployment Gaps in Employment’ to learn strategies for effectively managing unemployment and employment gaps during your MBA application process. Gaps in Employment It’s not unheard of for an MBA candidate to have a gap in employment, and this will not necessarily make a negative impact on someone’s candidacy. Gaps might be due to Read more

Published: December 12, 2024

A Guide to Test Waivers: Should You Request a Waiver for Submitting a GMAT or GRE Score?

It is no secret that standardized tests are not the part of the MBA application process that applicants most cherish. Some applicants simply aren’t good at standardized testing; others feel they do not have the time to invest in studying properly. With competition for applicants continuing to rise among schools, test waivers became a more prevalent option in b-school admissions. Whether you’re hesitant or excited about the GMAT or GRE, what are valid reasons to request a test waiver? Even if you have a valid reason, does it make sense to request a test waiver? In this piece, we take Read more

Published: December 10, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Defining Your Post-MBA Career Goals

Having clear and realistic post-MBA career goals is essential to the business school application process. Though essay prompts tend to vary year to year, the two things that nearly every prospective student can count on being asked are “What are your short-term and long-term post-MBA goals?” and “How will Business School X help you achieve these goals?” Even if this sort of question doesn’t appear in the essay portion of the application, rest assured that you’ll be asked this question in the data forms and/or during your interview. Identifying clear post-MBA career goals will help in everything from Read more

Published: December 10, 2024

Digging Deep with Your MBA Program Research: Anecdotes & Advocates

Communicating with insiders (current students, alumni, and faculty members) can be beneficial to your MBA applications for a number of reasons. In addition to learning about a given school and your potential fit, you’ll also generate material for your essays, demonstrate your interest in the program, and perhaps even make an ally or two. As you aim to go beyond the schools’ websites and promotional materials, we specifically recommend reaching out to individuals in a few key groups: Current Students People who are currently enrolled in a given program can obviously provide the clearest picture of the present state of Read more

Published: December 5, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Can I Negotiate a Scholarship for Business School?

In a follow-up to our Admissions Tip “Should MBA Scholarship Money Impact Your Choice of Business School?” earlier this week, we explore how to negotiate a scholarship for business school. When decisions are released, excitement among the applicant pool can be palpable. After months of hard work and significant introspection, many candidates are rewarded with offers from their dream programs. Some of those offers come with scholarships; money that helps defray the significant financial burden of taking two years away from work, while also paying considerable tuition costs and living expenses. If Only My Top-Choice Had Read more

Published: December 3, 2024

Admissions Tip: Writing Your MBA Application Résumé

Your résumé is a key component of your MBA application – and a great place to start when crafting your overall positioning strategy. The exercise of condensing your entire work and educational history forces you to distill your candidacy into a concise document, focusing on key strengths and themes. This document, combined with a summary of your post-MBA career goals, are cornerstone elements of your application that you’ll want to share with your recommendation writers early in your application process. With that in mind, here are a few simple tips to get you started: MBA Résumé Formatting First Read more

Published: December 3, 2024

Should MBA Scholarship Money Impact Your Choice of Business School?

A brief look at MBA DecisionWire reveals candidates for leading MBA programs are being offered scholarship money, either need-based or merit-based. This scholarship money reduces the price of the MBA, and therefore alters the calculus in terms of the cost-benefit analysis of the program. If you do have admissions offers from multiple programs, some of which include scholarship money, you will need to weigh whether the reduced cost alters your order of preference for schools. Cases where scholarship dollars can alter your order of preferences include: 1. Career Goal Impact: When your career aspirations, both short-term and long-term, are not impacted Read more

Published: November 28, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Video Essays

It’s no secret that the use of video in the MBA application is becoming increasingly popular among top business schools. Typically you will be provided with a question, then a short amount of time to think about the question (30 seconds for example) and then a limited amount of time to provide your recorded answer, typically 60-90 seconds. In the tips that follow, we’ll explain the origins of video essays and provide a series of practical and strategic pointers to ensure that you ace this aspect of the admissions process. Why B-Schools Use Video Essays So why did some schools Read more

Published: November 28, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Round 1 B-School Rejection Reflections

While we always hope reports of success will dominate MBA LiveWire, the reality is there are only so many seats in a class and leading business schools need to dole out more rejection notices than admits. This MBA Admissions Tip is here to help you move forward in the admissions process if you did not receive good news in Round 1. Reconfiguring Following Rejection If there is any good news when it comes to being rejected in the first round, it’s that it’s still early in the application season, and not too late to readjust your Read more

Published: November 26, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Choosing Between Business Schools

Many successful MBA applicants face the enviable – but often agonizing — decision of choosing between programs. Though we know that those of you in this position will already be juggling an overwhelming amount of information about the schools on your short lists, we wanted to offer a few pointers to consider as you identify and evaluate the most important facts and factors in choosing between business schools. Immerse yourself. If you have not yet visited campus, go to the school and see what you think of the environment. Be sure to attend classes, talk with students, tour the facilities, Read more

Published: November 21, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Five Tips for Making the Best of the MBA Waitlist

Being placed on an MBA waitlist puts applicants in a challenging limbo state. While it’s disappointing not to get a “yes,” many applicants are glad that they’re still in the game. To make the best of the situation, you’ll need to know how to play it. In this admissions tip, we offer guidance for waitlisted candidates – and some context on why schools use a waitlist in the first place. Why Schools Use the Waitlist First and foremost, while schools now know the quality of their Round 1 pool, they don’t yet know how strong the remainder of their applicants Read more

Published: November 19, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Making Your List of Business Schools

You’ve decided the MBA is the next stop on your career path. What now? The smartest applicants are those who take the time to create an informed MBA application strategy—a well thought-out game plan that can help you obtain your goals as effectively as possible. This includes making a list of your target business schools. One of the first tasks you’ll need to tackle is school selection: strategically choosing which schools to apply to, while considering how your experience and stats compare to those of current students (or, how “competitive” your application will be at each program). How many MBA Read more

Published: November 19, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Business School Recommendation Letters & Writers

Your letters of recommendation are a critical variable in the business school admissions equation. They allow the MBA admissions committee to get an outside perspective on your skills and strength, and to learn about your work experience beyond that’s covered in your essays and resume. Who Should Write my Business School Letters of Recommendation? First, your recommenders should hold a position that is senior to yours – unless the school specifically asks for a peer recommendation. The adcom gives greater weight to statements made by your superiors rather than by a peer because a peer is assumed to be essentially Read more

Published: November 12, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Background Checks

Following decision notifications from MBA programs, we know that many of our readers will be asking about the background checks conducted by leading business schools. Here are some quick facts to help explain this part of the MBA admissions process: 1. What are background checks? Background checks involve the verification of information that a candidate has provided in his or her MBA applications. Although the process varies from school to school, it usually includes checking that an applicant attended the undergraduate (or graduate) school(s) that he or she claims to have attended, received the grades indicated and earned the GMAT/GRE Read more

Published: October 30, 2024

Spooky Admissions Mistakes: Nightmares for AdCom Members

Let’s pumpkin spice things up! On this Halloween, we wanted to take a look at some of the most chilling nightmares that adcom members can face when evaluating MBA applicants. So, what are the scariest mistakes an MBA applicant can make? Clear Admit co-founder Graham Richmond shares his insights below so you can avoid admissions missteps like the houses that hand out raisins for Halloween treats. 1. Don’t Wear an Icarus Costume One of the scariest things for an admissions office is to encounter an applicant with a Read more

Published: October 29, 2024

MBA Admissions Interview Tip: Questions for the Interviewer

In this MBA Admissions Tip, we highlight the importance of thinking about what questions you might ask your interviewer when you’re interviewing. Virtually all business school interviewers conclude their discussion by offering the applicant a chance to ask some questions about the program. While it might be tempting to claim that you’ve already learned all you need to know about the school, this is actually a great opportunity to gain additional insight, show your enthusiasm about a specific element of the curriculum or community, and demonstrate that you appreciate the opportunity to learn from your interviewer’s Read more

Published: October 22, 2024

MBA Admissions Interview Primer: Unusual Interview Practices

In this piece of our MBA admissions interview series, we’re taking a closer look at some unusual practices. We’ve tackled open versus invitation-only, resume- versus application-based and the team-based discussion interview. Let’s review which schools go beyond the typical admissions interview, whether by format or additional requests. Advice on how to tackle these unusual MBA interview practices is integrated into these summaries. HBS and the Post-Interview Reflection Though it’s been over a decade now since Harvard Business School (HBS) introduced its post-interview Read more

Published: October 8, 2024

5 MBA Interview Questions You Need to Ace (And How to Do So)

We take a closer look at five frequently asked MBA interview questions and how to answer them in this MBA Admissions Tip. Interviews, interviews, interviews…they are the post-essay hurdle to gaining admission. Instead of driving yourself crazy with worry, why not buckle down and perfect your answers to the questions you are most likely to be asked? To help you prepare, we’ve scoured our Interview Guides and Interview Archive to compile our very own list of 5 MBA interview questions you need to ace. These questions are among those that most often make their way Read more

Published: October 1, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Interview Etiquette 101

Whether your admissions interview will be online or in-person, resume- or application-based, or one-on-one or with a group, we want to share tips that comprise MBA Interview Etiquette 101. Though the content of your application materials and comments during the interview are of paramount importance, it’s also crucial to put your best foot forward and make a positive initial impression. Here are a few guidelines for interviewing applicants to keep in mind: Be early. Plan to arrive at least 15 minutes ahead of your interview. This will help remove the stress you Read more

Published: September 24, 2024

Resume- vs. Application-Based MBA Admissions Interviews

Some schools believe strongly in the notion of résumé-based interviews, which means that your interviewer will know nothing about you in advance of the interview other than what appears on the résumé you give them. Others favor application-based interviews, meaning your interviewer will be very familiar with your candidacy from reviewing your application materials. Schools that fall into the résumé-only camp include Yale School of Management (SOM), Columbia Business School, Michigan Ross, UCLA Anderson and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. We should note that at Read more

Published: September 19, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Letters of Support

While business schools require candidates to submit anywhere from one to three recommendations as part of the regular admissions process, we’re devoting this admissions tip to a lesser known relative of the formal MBA recommendation: the letter of support. The letter of support is very different from a typical letter of recommendation, in ways that we will detail below. In fact, we’ll use this admissions tip to share the following information: What is a letter of support? Who can author and submit such letters? When should a letter of support be submitted? What should a letter of support cover in Read more

Published: September 12, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Five Questions to Ask Yourself Before Submitting an Optional Essay

We realize that the questions of whether or not to answer an optional essay—and, if so, what to say—are ones that loom large for many MBA applicants. In addition to our school-specific Essay Topic Analysis, we wanted to suggest a few questions that applicants might want to consider when making this call. Is my MBA optional essay relevant? Perhaps this goes without saying, but the only information worth sharing in an optional essay is that which will make a material difference in your candidacy. Whether you wish to comment on an exciting leadership role you’ve just Read more

Published: September 5, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Word Limits and Character Counts

MBA candidates naturally have a good deal of information they want – and need – to convey in their materials, and getting the important ideas down under restrictive essay word counts is a difficult task. While it might be tempting to run a bit beyond the guidelines to slip in that one extra thought, it’s important to keep the reasons for these limits in mind. In addition to being a forum for explaining your goals and sharing your story, the essays and short answers also serve as a test of the applicant’s ability to communicate clearly and concisely, not to Read more

Published: September 3, 2024

MBA Admissions Tip: Essay Polishing

The deadline is looming and you’re making one final pass through your application before hitting submit–that’s why we’re sharing these MBA essay tips. This isn’t the time for drastic changes – but there might still be an opportunity for small improvements. Read on for three big picture, “crunch time” tips! Keep It Professional It’s true that many schools ask “fun” questions and most urge applicants to be themselves rather than submitting “overly polished” material. But it’s important to remember that this is a graduate school application, and you should approach your essays with a degree of formality. You do want Read more

Published: August 29, 2024

A Guide to Test Waivers: Should You Request a Waiver for Submitting a GMAT or GRE Score?

It is no secret that standardized tests are not the part of the MBA application process that applicants most cherish. Some applicants simply aren’t good at standardized testing; others feel they do not have the time to invest in studying properly. Due to COVID-19 and the related impact on testing centers and availability, test waivers became a more prevalent option in b-school admissions. Whether you’re hesitant or excited about the GMAT or GRE, what are valid reasons to request a test waiver? Even if you have a valid reason, does it make sense to request a test waiver? In this Read more

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MBA Applywire

December 20, 2024 5:17pm ET

Applying: Columbia, Duke / Fuqua, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Northwestern / Kellogg, Stanford GSB, U. Chicago Booth, UPenn / Wharton

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Healthcare

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting Companies: Bain , BCG

GRE: 332

GPA: 3.5

Years of Work Experience: 3

Location: Florida

Post MBA Location: Consulting

Notes:

25F, lgbtq, 3 years as a registered nurse. also have started working for an early stage VC in the past several months.

December 19, 2024 4:44pm ET

Applying: Berkeley / Haas, Stanford GSB

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Insurance

Post-MBA Target Industry: Entrepreneurship

GRE: 318

GPA: 3.59

Years of Work Experience: 3.5

Location: Georgia

Post MBA Location: Southeast

Notes:

Looking to launch a tech startup post MBA, without any background in tech. Come from a quant heavy background and undergraduate coursework. I regularly attended admissions events, in person and online at my schools. I hope that focusing energy on my few top schools and spending a lot of time on essays will help me overcome the less than average test score (164 quant 154 verbal) and GPA.

Serial entrepreneur with a history of profitable small businesses. Was promoted twice in 3.5 years. Involved in many extracurricular activities in and outside of work. My background is very centered around financial services/insurance, is this a red flag for a pivot to Tech Entrepreneurship?

Transferred between two state schools in the southeast. School I graduated from is a top 25 undergrad business program. Obtained a few professionals designations post grad.

December 18, 2024 11:38am ET

Applying: Michigan / Ross, UNC Kenan-Flagler, Vanderbilt / Owen

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Held various positions in Finance and Accounting in a healthcare institution

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Other Companies: BCG , Deloitte , Other

GPA: 3.0

Years of Work Experience: 11

Location: International

Notes:

I am passionate about healthcare enhancing patient quality care. So exploring in that field is what I would love. Got a 72k scholarship from Vandy and named Forte Fellow. UNC 50k. I'm having a hard time deciding though my heart is leaning towards Owen

December 18, 2024 10:23am ET

Applying: Arizona State / W.P. Carey, Indiana / Kelley, Ohio State / Fisher

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Facility management

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting

GRE: 309

GPA: 2.8

Years of Work Experience: 3

Notes:

Graduate GPA -3.869

December 18, 2024 2:57am ET

Applying: IESE, INSEAD, MIT Sloan, U. Chicago Booth

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Engineering

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Technology, Undecided Companies: Amazon

GMAT: 690

GPA: 3.26

Years of Work Experience: 4

Location: Chile

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MBA LiveWire

December 21, 2024 2:38am ET

Waitlisted at Duke / Fuqua

Round: Round 1

Received via phone on December 10, 2024

GPA: 3.27

GMAT: 760

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Finance

Application Location: CA

December 20, 2024 11:16pm ET

Accepted to Babson / Olin

Round: Round 1

Received via email on December 17, 2024

GPA: 3.9

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Consulting

Application Location: South Asia

December 20, 2024 7:50pm ET

Accepted to Columbia

Round: Round 1

Received via portal on December 10, 2024

GMAT: 750

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Application Location: India

Note:

$100k scholarship

December 20, 2024 3:21pm ET

Accepted to Yale SOM

Round: Round 1

Received via email December 20, 2024

GPA: 4.0

GMAT: 750

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Note:

100% scholarship

December 20, 2024 3:05pm ET

Accepted to Georgetown / McDonough

Round: Round 1

Received via phone on December 09, 2024

GMAT: 710

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Non Profit / Social Impact

Application Location: Argentina

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