It was the profile, or the pitch.

The HBS 2012-’13 application is out (wow that was fast – vacation over! thanks oh-so-patient and forgiving BSer who tipped us off that Dee’s post was up already). We’re celebrating — if you can call it that — with the release of a new SnarkStrategies Guide. 

No, we didn’t turn around a new Harvard essay guide overnight (updated: though we did turn one around plenty fast!). This one’s been in the works for awhile. This one is for all of you who’ve been coming around to Snarkville for much longer than you planned.

This is the Reapplicant’s Guide.

(Yes that’s a bulldog on the cover — there’s an even cuter one on the back — in honor of all you bulldogs out there who aren’t about to let a silly lil rejection get the best of you.)

Hopefully by the time you read this, it’ll be live in The EssaySnark Bookstore and on Amazon for the Kindle but if not yet, then soon.

If you’re a reapplicant, this new guide should help you out. However, it’s not the ‘Snark’s way to force you to buy something. If you’re facing the prospect of trying again in the application season that’s just been thrust upon us, here’s some thoughts to get you thinking about this here situation you have found yourself in.

We’ve said before that if you didn’t make it in, it was either because your profile wasn’t strong enough, or your pitch wasn’t compelling.

Now that you know that, what do you do?

• If your GMAT is < 680 or if your quant score is < 46, you should retest if you’re aiming for a Top 20 school.
• If your GMAT is between 680-700, you should retest if you want to reapply at the same school. If notching down your expectations to a lower-ranked school, maybe you’re fine.
• If your GMAT is 700-720 and especially if you’re Indian, you might consider retesting if you think you can get to the 750 level. If not, it’s probably not worth it.
• If you’ve already tested three times, be conservative in the decision to try again. As a reapplicant and only a reapplicant, you can go for it one more time; if you’re trying at additional schools (which you probably should be) then just be careful about how frequently you tested in how short a timespan.
• If your score is < 700 and you absolutely without a doubt will not can not shall not test again, then you may have trouble if reapplying to the same school again

If the problem was with your essays, then it’s one of two things:

1. Poor writing
2. Poor content

In all cases, if you were rejected this season, you should be actively seeking out ways to improve your profile through contributions at work and/or in the community, creating success stories in your life for where you’ve had an impact and brought good things to other people.

Actually, if you’re just now considering your very first applications to bschool, then that should be your focus as well.

If you had good examples of achievement in your essays this past season, then the adcom might have been able to overlook some shoddy writing. (Unless you reused an essay and didn’t change the name of the school — if you exhibited that type of sloppiness, some schools will reject out of hand. Ditto if you had more than a handful of typos.) You don’t have to be a Hemingway to get into bschool; this is an MBA you’re going for, right?, not an MFA*. So that sort of distills it down to poor content.

Which means, you failed to impress the adcom.

Which takes us back up to the advice above: You should be spending time now in creating a plan for how you will improve yourself in the next few months. You need to have tangible evidence that you’re a stronger candidate today.

Where can you make an impact in your job, in the world around you?

Go do that.

Basically we just summarized the entirety of that 50-page book we wrote, here in one 650-word post.

Apparently we’re wordy. It’s a good thing we don’t have to write two 400-word essays anytime soon…

*Master of Fine Arts, e.g., for creative writing