This post has been marked as OLD. EssaySnark's advice and strategies for winning MBA applications don't change from year to year, but some of the school-specific admissions policies, essay questions, or other information covered in this article may be outdated.
Well, there’s always next year!
Meaning: Round 3 is really not a good idea. If you want to do the MBA thing this year, then hopefully you saw that post from a week-ish ago in time to get your bootie in motion. We talk about this “Round 3 is a bad idea” idea on the blahg every year.
Of course, now there’s MIT! They’ve extended their deadline till Tuesday… we’re guessing it’s because they had lower volumes than they expected? They claimed it was because of a lot of inquiries about the deadline that were coming in at the last minute. We have no clue. Regardless, that’s like a full 24+ hours from now! (Yes we’re kidding. If you didn’t get your act together previously then we do not recommend cramming through an MIT app at this point.) There’s always NYU Stern, too, whose Round 3 deadline is on Thursday… (Yes, in this case, Round 3 is perfectly acceptable, since they have four rounds total.)
But let’s get real. If you didn’t manage to get any apps to the Submit stage at this point, then we need to offer the probably-unwelcome pronouncement that you’re pretty much too late to the party. You should be seriously looking at your strategy for next season instead. Starting early is massively correlated with a successful outcome. Now is totally a good time to be doing just that. Yes, ditch your plans for this season and instead, turn your attention to how you can build the best application possible for next season.
You should note with some joy that we did not say “next year”. “Next season” is not that far from now. We’re talking a mere single-digit number of months.
Don’t believe us?
Columbia is expected to open up its application for Class of 2018 in May. That’s only four months from now – plenty of time to re-take the GMAT, if that’s what kept you from applying in the current season. Since many schools now have Round 1 deadlines in September, that means you’ll need to be in heavyduty essay-writing mode in July… again, sitting here in the middle of January, that may feel like a forever away, but honestly, it’s not. It will be here before you know it. And this time, you’ll be prepared!!!
The best way to be prepared? Start working on your strategy. There is PLENTY of work you can be doing to examine your raw material and see what you will have to work with when it comes to essays and the pitch. Our Foundations package is designed for exactly that purpose – to help people dive in and get to work, even before knowing which schools they want to apply to, and even without knowing what essays those schools will have.
The first step of the Foundations package is also available as a standalone purchase: It’s an awesome head start on understanding your chances at the top schools and getting an honest assessment of how you may stack up. It’s called Comprehensive Profile Review, which many people claim was the best thing they did in their entire MBA app process.
If you couldn’t manage your applications this year then you could totally get started on setting your strategy on next season’s apps – yes, now.
ETA: Or, if you’re really truly chomping at the bit to apply SOMEWHERE this season… we offer some options.
Tell us what you think.