We all know what the ‘adcom’ is: the Admissions Committee who will be deciding your fate when you submit your application to business school.
But do you know who the ‘adcon’ is?
‘Adcon’ would be admissions consultants – not all of them perhaps – but what this jaded Snark feels is a good majority of them. Especially when such adcon are trying to take the place of the adcom.
Admissions consultants.
They surely have good intentions. We like to see the best in people and we doubt that they are meaning to be evil. Some of them, though, deserve the ‘adcon’ label with their extreme misguidedness.
And some of them seem even more arrogant than the earnest BSers we come across.
Case in point: Admissions consultants who tell you what your chances are for getting into School X. When you post your GMAT and GPA and years of work experience. On an Internet forum.
Exsqueeze me???
OK yes, we can see soliciting feedback on your profile, and having admissions consultants tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly. We try to offer some advice here and there that does exactly that. We throw out plenty of opinions. No problem there (usually. when your opinions are based on reality. which not everyone’s are.)
But waitaminit. Who in h3ll can handicap people’s chances of getting into bschool — with nearly zero information??? It’s ridiculous.
WHO IN HELL CAN TELL YOU IF YOU’LL GET IN OR NOT — EXCEPT FOR THE ADCOM?
That’s adcom who get to make the decision. Not adcon.
Yes it’s possible to evaluate a candidate’s chances of success at a given school — that’s what a good admissions consultant does all the time. But there is NO WAY that anyone can say what your chances are without knowing the stories that you would be presenting in your essays.
Boy this one pisses the ‘Snark off. Because it’s misinformation at its finest — and it’s taking control of the admissions process away from the ones who actually have the control.
The Admissions Committees are the ones who get to call these shots. Nobody else. To ascribe a percentage chance of success to you based on scant information is doing NOBODY any favors — and it’s skewing the system inappropriately. If someone decides not to apply to Stanford or Harvard or whatever because some bozo said they have a 0% chance… or 20% chance… or whatever chance… now THAT is royally unfair.
Sure it’s just an opinion, and we’ve told plenty of BSers our opinions before, that we think theirs would be a long shot at School X, etc. But when it’s posted on the Internet from some “expert” — WITH NUMBERS ASSOCIATED TO IT — this ranking which makes it sound so official and final and decided — well, then we call that “expert” an adcon.
Here’s the deal.
NOBODY can say “yes” or “no” to an applicant on the basis of a brief profile sketch.
If bschool decisions could be made that way – wouldn’t the schools just ask for this tad bit of info on you candidates and decide your fate and be done with it???
No. They ask for more. Maybe not much more, as in the case of HBS these days — but more. They don’t give you a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ based solely on a few empty stats.
It seems a little UNFAIR for someone to be calling the shots on how the bschools will respond to your application, when the bschools have not SEEN your application — and neither has the someone.
Sheesh.
All we can say about this practice is CAVEAT EMPTOR
Anonymous says
I LOVE this post!! It might be my favorite! I’m glad someone has come out and said it! I’ve read a bunch of installments in the “handicapping” series and find them quite appalling. I’m almost tempted to put my name in the hat to be evaluated with the schools I applied for the class of 2014 (attending Booth in the fall and got into 4 others) to see the odds assigned to my profile for a good laugh. I’m pretty sure my sub-700 GMAT and seemingly disjointed profile would not sky-rocket me to “superstar” status, but would rather lead to a snobby comment suggesting I lower my targets to something more attainable for someone like me.
cheetarah1980 says
Mmm, I think I might could know what “admissions handicapping” column the Snark is talking about. I definitely get your point, but I’d like to play devil’s advocate for a second. If year in and year out the typical student profile at top schools doesn’t change don’t you think it becomes a bit easier to predict someone’s odds of getting (within reason). Even from an applicant’s standpoint, after attending enough MBA fairs, school info sessions, and admit weekends after a while you start to notice a pattern in terms of who’s getting in (and on the flip side who is not). While I think that it’s quite ballsy to assign a percentage to someone’s chances I also don’t think it’s a 100% shot in the dark (especially for someone who’s been around this process for years). Maybe there’s some balance between using years of experience to give applicants a thorough assessment of their chances and trying to play gatekeeper.
essaysnark says
cheetarah, the issue is, there is no such thing as a “typical student profile.” There’s averages, and ranges — and then there’s real people. So no, after seeing how this works for many years, we disagree with your devil’s advocate premise completely.
Picchi says
essaysnark, I am a long time follower of your blog and love most of your posts. This blog was very helpful to me during my application process. I think I know which handicapping column you are referring to 🙂
For once I think you are being a bit unfair. As you mentioned, you also give opinions to candidates by saying they would be “long shots” at a certain school, or “stretch” or “competitive”. How is that any different from putting a percentage number. The certain “adcon” you are referring to, has a 10 or 20 point scale (0% to 100%) while you have a 3 or 4 point scale (long shot, stretch, competitive, safety etc). But it is still a scale by which you are predicting the chances of an applicant. Whether you are saying HBS is a “long shot” for me or Mr. Handicapper is saying that my chances at HBS are “20%”, I know you are both saying the same thing.
There are much worse ways in which “adcon” can mislead applicants in my opinion.
essaysnark says
Thanks for your comments, Picchi, but we don’t feel it’s at all the same.
1) We don’t have any absolute scale of 3 or 4 points, no idea what you’re referring to there.
2) The percentages used in that other forum are absolute. It gives a much different impression to ascribe a percentage like that; it makes it sound like this is a formula and your inputs are not going to ever meet the desired output.
3) We never give such hard-and-fast declarations based *just* on GMAT and GPA and work experience. If we have done so in the past on some public forum please remind us of such and we’ll retract.
The most common request we ever get is the “What are my chances?” question, so it’s unavoidable for us to offer some type of opinion based on preliminary info. It’s what the market wants from us admissions consultants. But we feel that there’s a very big difference in how some are passing down judgment, versus offering feedback and suggestions as we try to do.
Anyway, you’re entitled to think we’re off on this, we don’t mind at all!
Picchi says
Essaysnark,
It seems that I made certain wrong assumptions. I actually went through some of your posts on BTG after reading your reply (yes I am THAT guy), and it appears that I was wrong. I thought that I remembered you qualifying candidates’ chances on specific schools (as competitive, stretch etc) based on the info they provided on these forums. But after looking back at your posts, it seems you do not. In fact you begin most of these posts by making it clear that you can not predict their chances, only adcoms can. And as you mentioned, you spend most of your posts providing advice rather than handicapping odds.
So, please do accept my apologies for making assumptions without checking the facts.
essaysnark says
Thanks for being “that guy” Picchi! Love it that you went and researched us – and hopefully there was something educational in those posts you reviewed too. 🙂
ChilliBox says
Pretty candid discussion here. I really enjoyed it. I do agree with Essaysnark here. Giving absolute numbers to someone’s chances at a particular school affects someone’s confidence, in both ways. It can make someone overconfident or under confident. I don’t know about others but I wouldn’t want that bias when I am starting to write my essays. In fact what Essaysnark does is absolutely one needs. A very honest advice so rather than flying or crying in your dreams you address yours essays with realistic goals and expectations.
essaysnark says
@ChilliBox, we like your approach re: not wanting any bias – and yes it’s true that some BSers may be overconfident after seeing an absolute number like that. Our concern is more for those who get slammed in the “20%” category — we would HATE for someone to not pursue their dream school based on that type of off-the-cuff comment from a so-called “expert” who is making snap judgments on such limited info. You’re right though: Being overconfident could cause someone to not prepare the way they need to. So that’s a risk as well.
TY says
I am going to guess that MBA School Predictor is just about your least favorite tool for BSers on Earth.
essaysnark says
The adcoms hate it too – Derrick Bolton has made some snide remarks about that sort of thing in the past.