Dang. You didn’t make it in. 🙁 BUT WHY??? Most schools are explicit with a no-feedback policy. All decisions are final, and they’re unable to talk to you about it because they don’t have the bandwidth to field all of those calls. But some schools are much more generous with their time and attention and […]
Continue reading...($) Can you get blacklisted by a bschool?
We’re dusting this post off from the ‘snarchives — this was originally written way back in 2016 (!!) and someone recently asked us about why they’re not making progress on their apps after trying so many times. And, wellllll…. urgh. We’re not saying that this is what may be happening for this particular BSer, but...
($) More thoughts on the possibilities and problems with a Round 3 application.
To continue the “Should I Round 3?” conversation we began this week: If you’re thinking about “When is it time for Round 3” then that’s a complicated question, based on many factors like how flexible are you in which schools you’re interested in, and also especially important is how flexible are you on timing. There’s […]
Continue reading...($) Reapp advice Part 2
OK, picking up the discussion of reapplicant strategy from yesterday (which was mostly focused on HBS/Stanford reapplicants): For a school like Yale, they typically review the prior-year app in tandem with this year. Same with MIT, and Columbia, and many others. In that case, then an obvious improvement in a metric like GMAT score is […]
Continue reading...($) Reapplicant advice: What to change? What to stay the same?
There are so many complexities involved with applying to bschool — and applying as a reapplicant is especially complicated. To a large degree, your reapplicant strategy needs to be built around what the specific school you’re trying for values. The strategy you develop to reapply to Harvard is going to be less similar than what […]
Continue reading...($) If you get feedback from the adcoms…
We spoke about the opportunity to get feedback from the admissions team at certain applicant-friendly business schools and we wanted to follow this up with a seemingly obvious bit of advice that must not be obvious since we see BSers flub this up every year. If the adcom tells you specifically what was wrong with...
($) “If I’m really really really really really excited about a school do you think they will let me in???”
This question coming of course from a Brave Supplicant with a really low GMAT. And the answer is…. actually, yes! Or at least, maybe! Depending on the school, and particularly if you’re trying in Round 1. In Round 2, it’s much less common for even the friendliest most culture-driven schools to be quite so accommodating. […]
Continue reading...($) Reapplicant advice: “What can I do to increase my chances?”
Last season we had a slew of Round 2 BSers who were reapplying to bschool. No problem with that, plenty of schools are very open to reapplicants. The problem occurred with the essays. In multiple cases, these applicants hit us up for help really really late – like, less than a week before their deadline. […]
Continue reading...Lay of the Land: Leveraging the app dataset
Hopefully by now you’ve at least created an account in one or more of your target schools’ applications and taken a look through. If you have not done so yet, STOP. Click off this site. Go to Harvard or Wharton or Columbia or wherever it is you’re dreaming of attending and create an app in […]
Continue reading...($) International Re-applicants to U.S. schools who still haven’t made it in
We had this in our recent Lay of the Land post about the fate of international applicants to U.S. MBA programs this season: You didn’t have to be an incredible candidate to make it in this year. You could present a profile with some glitches and, as long as your essays and recs came in […]
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