EssaySnark

  • about
  • contact
  • help
  • sign up
  • login
CLICK FOR MORE!
  • Essay Questions
    • Harvard
    • Stanford
    • Wharton
    • Chicago Booth
    • Kellogg
    • MIT Sloan
    • Tuck
    • NYU Stern
    • Columbia
    • Yale SOM
    • Berkeley Haas
    • UVA Darden
    • Duke Fuqua
    • Michigan Ross
    • UCLA Anderson
    • Cornell
  • Strategy Guides
    • MBA Career Goals in Entrepreneurship
    • School-Specific MBA Application Guides
      • Harvard 2020 MBA Strategy Guide
      • Stanford 2020 MBA Strategy Guide
      • Wharton 2020 MBA Strategy Guide
      • Kellogg 2020 MBA Strategy Guide
      • MIT Sloan 2020 MBA Strategy Guide
      • Columbia 2020 MBA Strategy Guide
      • Chicago Booth 2020 MBA Strategy Guide
      • *MORE SCHOOL-SPECIFIC GUIDES HERE*
  • MBA Consulting
    • Free essay reviews
    • What stage are you in?
    • Military MBA
    • BIPOC Program
    • Testimonials & Reviews
    • Guest Posts
  • My SnarkCenter
    • My Strategy Guides
    • My Favorite Posts
    • Discounts & Offers

($) Wherein EssaySnark lays it all out for you.

November 14, 2018 by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

Q: What does your college GPA tell the admissions committee?

A: If you’re willing to play the game.

Q: Why does it matter if you’re willing to play the game?

A: Because by applying to bschool, you’re saying that you want to play the game MORE.


“What on earth are you talking about, EssaySnark?”


Here’s the deal.

You all know that GMAT matters — at least to some extent — in whether or not you’re going to get into a top MBA program.

What far fewer people (outside of admissions offices) appreciate is that GPA matters at least as much if not more in predicting your chances to get in.

If that’s the case, then WHY?

The obvious answer is that you’re applying to GRAD SCHOOL and your college GPA tells you how much you actually, you know, CARE about school.

Why should this school let you in if, by evidence of your lackluster performance back in college, you are communicating quite loudly that school is unimportant to you?

So that’s one thing.

But then there’s this:

As you may have already experienced, whether you consciously recognized it or not, the process of looking for a job is largely about someone evaluating you based on the “you” that is represented by a single sheet of paper.

AKA, your resume.

You send in this resume-thing and then hope and pray that some person instead of a computer actually reads it, and something on it matches the stuff that some other person in their organization said is important for the job they’re trying to fill…. And by some odd magic or happenstance or glitch in the system they happen to email you back, and call you up, and actually talk to you…

And then you get passed around for more conversations by phone and eventually in person where you actually MEET PEOPLE and they talk some more, mostly though they’re staring at that piece of paper that you had to submit to start the whole process.

So what does that piece of paper contain?

Welp, it contains a sum-total of what you have DONE and what you have ACCOMPLISHED and the social cues and signals that you’ve put together to play the game.

It says you went to THIS college and studied THAT major and traveled to WHEREVER for your study-abroad experience. It says that between junior and senior year you landed YAY! an internship at some IMPORTANT-SOUNDING COMPANY and then after college you went on to be hired by SOME OTHER IMPORTANT-SOUNDING COMPANY. And you stayed there a few years and then did something else.

And now you’re applying to bschool.

The resume fits a template — not a literal template, like for a document, but a template for how you’re supposed to BE in the world.

When you play the game and you go out and do what you’re supposed to do — by studying econ or finance and interning at Credit Suisse, or by studying engineering and going to work for 3M or Boeing, or the roundabout path, by studying history and doing a stint with TFA as a way to delay the inevitable of having to actually get a real job like your dad has been huffing about for years — or whatever route you’ve taken to try and be what the world expects you to be, so that you can earn some $$ and learn some skills and hopefully earn some respect, all in an effort to get somewhere else, in the hopes that at some point in the future it’ll be better than this gawdawful h3llworld job you’ve found yourself in now…

When your resume is all buffed-up and shiny, with well-recognized names and a credential or two of bachelor’s degree or maybe CFA or even PMP or whatever’s expected, then you’ve got PROOF that you know how to play the game.

And adcom reviewers tend to like that.

Because what else are they doing besides accepting raw material into their sausage factory, where they’re spitting out commodities on the other end?

The primary function of business schools is to provide employees to fill middle management layers of large corporations.

When you boil it down, isn’t that exactly what bschool is doing?

That’s its role in society, is it not?

And what would be the #1 attribute that would be valued by those sourcing the raw material for the sausage factory? When the factory’s job is to produce spit-shined and polished recruits to be hoovered up into the recruiting machines of these corporations, then what would be the most important trait that they would want to see in those that they are seeking to admit?

Why, wouldn’t it be an ability to play the game?

So you see, from an admittedly SkewedSnark perspective today, if you are volunteering to be one of the cogs in this vast noisy miraculous assembly-line process of hope and opportunity, then it would behoove* you to demonstrate as part of your unspoken assertions about your abilities and skills that you do in fact know how to play the game, and not only that, but you are interested in learning how to play the game at an entirely new level, and you are willing to put in the effort to learn more about how the game works, and to mold yourself even more directly into the image of the perfect piece of raw material that is willing to throw itself into the yawning maw of the front end of the funnel that leads to the dark hidden bowels of the two-year process of MBA-making.

Yeah.

That.

This is why GPA matters.

And no, EssaySnark wasn’t smoking anything when we wrote this. It was just one of those days when things went a little meta, randomly inspired by this
.

 
 
 
*One of our favorite words of all time

Filed Under: general snark, GPA and grades

« Previous: ($) “no other school has…”
Next: What you’re paying us for. »

So who the heck is EssaySnark, anyway?!

We're the snarky experts in MBA admissions!

Sometimes amused and often appalled by what candidates write in their MBA applications to top bschools, EssaySnark created this little blahg to share common mistakes. Learn from them and avoid making admissions directors laugh (or want to hurl) when they read your essays. If you are hoping to have your essay reviewed anonymously on the blahg for free, submit it for consideration.

Want EssaySnark's personal assistance with your MBA applications? Start with our menu of consulting services and please read the Help FAQ to learn how we operate. Still have questions after doing all that? Email Team EssaySnark at gethelpnow at essaysnark dot com.

Good luck on your apps, Brave Supplicant!

Tell us what you think. Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sign up for the 'Snark via email

Enter your address to get weekday blahg posts by email.

UPCOMING MBA APP DEADLINES

  • INSEAD Round 4
    in 1 month, 0 weeks, 2 days, 0 hours
  • INSEAD Jan '22 intake Rd 1
    in 1 month, 1 week, 5 days, 0 hours
  • INSEAD Jan '22 Intake Rd 2
    in 2 months, 4 weeks, 2 days, 0 hours
  • (expected) HBS Class of 2024 app requirements released
    in 3 months, 1 week, 6 days, 1 hour
  • (expected) Columbia J-Term/ED app to open
    in 4 months, 1 week, 4 days, 1 hour
   
From a BSer January 2020:
"love the guide books!"


CLASS OF 2023 MBA APPLICATION STRATEGY GUIDES

     
    The 2020 Berkeley-Haas MBA Application Guide - updated for the Class of 2023 application!
SnarkStrategies Guide for Berkeley Haas - refreshed and updated, with brainstorming exercises and structured maps to help you focus your stories!
   
    The 2020-2021 NYU Stern MBA Application Guide that covers the main essay, the EQ Endorsement and Pick Six!
SnarkStrategies Guide for NYU - discusses your requirements for the Class of 2023 essays!
   
    The 2020-2021 Columbia MBA Application Guide
SnarkStrategies Guide for Columbia Business School for 2020-2021 applications
   
    The 2020 Harvard MBA Application Guide - completely overhauled and updated for the coronavirus era!
SnarkStrategies Guide for Harvard Business School!
   
    The 2020-2021 Duke Essay Guide - covers the 25 Random Things essay and all the rest too!
SnarkStrategies Guide for Duke Fuqua - up to date for the current season!
   
    The 2020-2021 MIT Essay Guide covers the org chart, the contacts for two references, and additional tips for the cover letter and 'introduce yourself' video -- and everything else you need to know!
SnarkStrategies Guide for MIT Sloan MBA - totally revised for the Class of 2023!
   
    The 2020-2021 Tuck Essay Guide has been refreshed with latest insights and advice for your essays about "investing generously" and "why Tuck"!
SnarkStrategies Guide for the Dartmouth Tuck MBA - completely overhauled for 2020, to help you demonstrate how you are nice, aware, etc stuff!
   
    The Yale SOM MBA Application Guide for Class of 2023 candidates!
SnarkStrategies Guide for Yale SOM - updated for 2020-2021
   
    The 2020-2021 Chicago Booth MBA Application Guide - ready to go to support your Class of 2023 essay strategy!
SnarkStrategies Guide for Chicago Booth for this year's MBA app!
   
    The 2020 Wharton MBA Application Guide - even more advice on how to get to a win with those essays!
SnarkStrategies Guide for The Wharton School - with new tips for 2020!
   
    The 2020 Kellogg Essay Guide - with a full methodology to identify your 'lasting impact' and your 'values' -- plus tips on 2020 world events and applicability to your essays!
SnarkStrategies Guide for Kellogg MBA - updated and revised for the new realities of 2020!    
      The 2020 Stanford MBA Application Guide - for "what matters most" in your MBA application!
SnarkStrategies Guide for Stanford GSB for the Class of 2023
   
    The 2020-2021 UCLA Anderson MBA Application Guide - updated for Class of 2023 on "impact"!
SnarkStrategies Guide for 
UCLA
   
   

Brave Supplicants' latest reviews on The 'Snark


Apr 10, 2020
by George on EssaySnark
Great Starting Point

I thought getting over the GRE/GMAT hurdle was fairly straightforward--disciplined study then test execution... Read more

Apr 10, 2020
by George on Single Shot Express MBA Essay Review
Worth Every Penny

I used the Single Shot Express to decimate essay #1 at my first-choice school. Paired with the school... Read more

Feb 9, 2020
by KA on Waitlist Assist
Committed

You continue to blow me away with your commitment to us BSers! Thanks again for everything. It's been... Read more






Not sure where to begin with EssaySnark?
Our Snark Selector
will tell you!



What were we snarking about at this time in past years?

  • 2020: Becoming your future self
  • 2019: What's going on with Fuqua?
  • 2019: ($) What we've seen with a few "bad MBA interview" situations
  • 2018: Good luck today if you're hoping for Harvard!
  • 2018: Just a reminder...
  • 2017: Just in case you are growing impatient....
  • 2017: What matters most is integrity.
  • 2016: Preparing for bschool (and interviews, and sorta life in general)
  • 2014: Now that your apps are in: Who had the best essay questions?
  • 2013: And the award for Worst MBA Essays goes to...
My Tweets

See the Top U.S. Business Schools on a Map!


EssaySnark is currently available! We're accepting new clients! Standard turnarounds apply. If you're in a hurry, Speedy Review is available!

EssaySnark® is a registered trademark. All content copyright © 2010–2021 Snarkolicious Press · Privacy Policy

Where should you start with EssaySnark?

Which EssaySnark service is right for you? Answer a few questions to find out!

This field must be set to Everyone - then in the Settings -> HTML -> After Fields screen there's JavaScript to hide it.
Sending