Speculation vs Evaluation

After happy news of an admit from another BSer last season, we hit him up to see if he wanted to share his story with all of you next-season grunts Brave Supplicants. We asked if he wanted to write about his experiences in applying, to share with other BSers who are going through this process. What we got was a “How to apply to business school” which is kinda what we do here on the blahg day in and day out already 😉 – and while we appreciate that he followed through and wrote something (which unfortunately many who promise never do), we have been unable to post it because we don’t quite agree with what was said. Which is a bummer, since it’s well written and he clearly took time with it. This post is not meant to rip into the contribution from said BSer but we thought we’d take the opportunity for some comments.

Here’s the first chunk of this still-appreciated submission:

First things first: the black box of business school admissions can be harrowing and bewildering. You will not know specifically what the admissions committee wants, nor will you understand the underlying politics / class composition requirements that admissions officials are pursuing for a particular year. Online discussion boards are usually the blind leading the blind. The best you can do is be yourself and give it your all.

Well OK. If you’re talking to someone who’s just starting out, and you’re coming from the perspective of having gone through the process once yourself, we can see why you might think this. But where we take issue is the categorical statements. This was submitted for consideration to be posted here. At the EssaySnark blahg. Maybe YOU don’t know specifically what the adcoms want, but hey! What are we, chopped liver?? We had done a pro bono Comprehensive Profile Review for this BSer as a military candidate and while we never saw the actual essays, our assessment in that report lined up quite well with exactly how things ended up for him. So these statements were head-scratchers. Yes of course you need to “be yourself” and “give it your all” – but those are cliched terms. And yes the discussion boards are not where we suggest you spend your time. But…

Okay, anyway. Moving on.

Take the case of two people I know very well. Both are military fighter pilots in the same service with the same race and gender and similar college majors. One had a 750 GMAT with a 3.76 GPA from a top-10 undergrad school and a number of successful side ventures. The other had a 710 GMAT with a 3.2 GPA with a traditional background, but with a Master’s Degree. They applied in different rounds to the same schools. Interestingly, the latter guy received an interview invite at a top-5 school that the former did not. Preemptive ding for the first guy to preserve yield rate presuming he would go somewhere else? Better essays and recommendations from the second guy? Who knows, but it can seem like the Wild West.

Here’s where we had the biggest problems. We see such examples all the time, and it’s totally useless to even guess at what went wrong with one, that went right with the other. You cannot predict chances for an individual based on the class profile, and there is not enough information here to comment on anything past that. Instead, what EssaySnark does is we EVALUATE the details based on what matters in the app process: The presentation on the page. No, we cannot say with certainty why #1 was rejected and #2 moved ahead in their process based on that info alone, but we can tell you definitively it was NOT a “preemptive ding” — and because we happen to be privy to more details than this, we do actually have a strong sense for what went sideways for BSer #1. These comparisons are USELESS — or wait, not useless. What this can offer is perhaps some sense of humility to the 750 GMAT scorers out there who think that their score, plus a good GPA, will be enough to get in. So there’s value in that. A dose of reality from past people’s experience can add useful perspective to your process.

And to wrap this:

The point is, no matter what your credentials, you must simply be yourself, and tell your story as best you can. Whether you end up at your dream school or not is out of your control once you hit submit. And if you have a decent school strategy, you will end up in a place that ends up shaping you for the rest of your life.

Absolutely. Agree 100%.

We don’t want to come across as being Super Ungrateful ‘Snark for ripping into this kind former BSer who was so gracious to send this along. And we recognize that from the BSers’ perspective, when you’re rejected, it can seem like this process is mysterious and unfathomable. But we take issue with the claim that outcomes cannot be anticipated – no, not outright predicted, but certainly someone with proper experience should be able to accurately evaluate situations and come up with assessments that turn out to hold true. We copped publicly to getting two cases wrong last Fall, but those were the exceptions to an otherwise-strong record.

We fully agree with the advice from this person that online discussion boards are the “blind leading the blind” – yet this person found EssaySnark, as have you, so it’s not like there’s nobody out there that can give true guidance. Maybe we got our panties in a bunch that we weren’t tossed even a small bone. This former BSer did not get any further help from us and as far as we know, executed on apps on his own (?) and ended up with admits to some Really Good Schools – and certainly it’s not like we are taking credit for those outcomes that he earned. But to say that such outcomes cannot be assessed in advance and to imply that you have no control over how it turns out in the end is categorically false.

It’s not the Wild West – at least not when you’ve got Sheriff ‘Snark on your side!