Sometimes people come to us early in their MBA admissions quest and they just know they want to go to “the best” school.

Which is basically the same as saying “I want to go to Whanvard.”

Because there is no such thing as “the best.”

“The best” is relative.

You want to go to the best school…. for what?

It’s like saying, “I want to buy the best car.”

Okayyyyy…. so we know you want to buy a car.

Or maybe you really want to buy an SUV or a crossover but you lumped those together into “car” and expected us to know they’re included, too.

Do you want a race car?

A family car?

An electric car?

Do you want a car that gets great mileage? That has low maintenance costs?

A used car?

A new car?

Do you want lease?

Will you pay cash?

How much can you put down?

There are so many factors.

Do you care if it’s built in your country or do you like imports?

What exactly does “the best” mean?

When you say you want to go to Whanvard, you’re outsourcing all decision-making to some third party sources who have annointed certain schools as “the best.”

But why do YOU want to go there?

Why do you feel they’re “the best”?

The best for what?

The best because everyone will be impressed when you introduce yourself at a cocktail party as a Harvard grad?

The best because you’ll be going to school with Very Important People who will end up in positions of power themselves one day?

The best because it will give you a rubber-stamp seal of approval so you can finally know that you have arrived?

What do you know about these schools?

What do you know about YOURSELF?

We’re not saying that you should not want to go to Harvard or Stanford or Wharton.

We’re saying that when someone comes with only those schools identified, with maybe MIT and Kellogg added to the mix to, you know, round out the list, and when the BSer’s profile is flat and unremarkable and they have a middling GPA from an OK school and a decent GMAT but nothing to write home about. And they haven’t been busting butt for the past three years to do impressive things in the world. And they say, “Yes please, I’ll be applying to H/S/W, thank you and will I get in?”

We just hafta go, um.

Yeah sure maybe.

If there’s more to the profile than what we’re seeing on the surface.

If you know what you’re about and why bschool is important.

And oh by the way if you’re really committed then you may want to take a look at the GMAT again.

Go for your Whanvard strategy. But expand your sights to also include some reasonable targets. And make sure you know WHY each of these schools is on your list.

We’re not saying you have to compromise your standards, but just recognize that when you’re saying “I deserve to be admitted to THE BEST!” then we come back with, “Okay great! Now please demonstrate for us how YOU are ‘the best’ so that we can see why you deserve to be admitted!”

Know what you’re up against, Brave Supplicant. This process is grueling. It’s important to go into it with eyes open.

Prepare for a chat?!?? Why on earth would you need to prepare for a chat? Can’t you just show up?

Well…. if you really want to make the most of the chat experience (and even better, not embarrass yourself with this important panel of admissions people who are hosting the chat) then you should take some steps to be ready.

Recently we covered some purely logistical tips on getting yourself scheduled for chats. Today we’ll talk about decorum and a little on etiquette, and also some pointers based on issues we’ve seen come up over and over in observing applicants in these forums for years.

Make sure you know which program the chat is for!! If you’re in an EMBA chat and you’re asking questions about applying, the answers you get will be specific to the EMBA admissions which can be QUITE different from the answers you might get at the same school for their F/T program. If you’re in a Careers chat then you’re not going to be able to get answers about application requirements. Many admissions peeps can field answers about other areas too but you should be aware of what the focus is for the actual chat you’re in. Be an informed consumer, and don’t waste your (or their) time.

If you’re not familiar with how Twitter chats work, then figure it out ahead of time. For example, when you go to that #boothmba page , you’ll want to click on Latest to get the whole stream (rather than the default selection of Top). Remember that these are not private; the whole world can see them, and anyone can participate.

Figure out some questions to ask – and please, make them questions that aren’t easily answered by a click or two on the school’s website.

Even better: Read through the school’s website, including their essay questions and go through the full application too. Very important: Read their class profile. Know their standards for things like GMAT score and GPA. Most schools report that stuff publicly. You shouldn’t be asking about those basics in a chat. That would be, like, not very impressive to your adcom person on the other side of the computer.

Remember that in many cases, the schools will know that it’s you. Some chats let you participate fully anonymously, but others require you to at least select a username, if not use your real name and/or it’s tied to your email address that you registered with. They’ll either know who you are or they could figure it out based on systems. Please don’t forget that! Be on your best behavior. Don’t try to answer questions on behalf of the adcom (yes we’ve seen people do that). Don’t post lame questions like “Why are you better than Wharton?” (yes we’ve seen that). For a Boston school that travels to do interviews, don’t ask if they’re coming to Washington, DC (ditto). Don’t ask them if your GMAT is good enough (they won’t be able to tell you). Don’t ask them why they think you should apply (they don’t really care if you do, if they’re being honest). Don’t ask them when their next deadline is (c’mon really??). Write in full sentences, with no text-talk or shortcuts, and proper spelling please. A typo won’t matter but don’t be lazy or sloppy.

You can of course simply sign on and learn from what others are asking; this is a fine strategy too. If you don’t have something that you really want to know, then don’t just ask in order to ask. It’s not necessary to interact with the adcom just for the sake of an interaction. Some schools like Berkeley Haas publish a transcript of their chats later on, so going back over those resources is almost as good as being in the chat in real-time.

To some of you BSers, who are more on-top-of-it, these tips may seem very basic – but you’d be surprised. We find ourselves rolling our eyes too often on those online chats and you just KNOW that the adcom peeps are doing the same on their end.

Don’t be that guy. Don’t say something stoopid* in front of the people who are going to be evaluating your app in a few months’ time.

Of course, the VERY BEST WAY to research a school is BY VISITING. Read up on all of our posts about school visits here.

 
 
 
*Don’t let the fear of being stupid paralyze you, either. If English is not your first language, it’s totally OK if your sentence is not written perfectly or if you misspell something. If your question is sincere then please ask it! We’re not saying to be a lump on a log, either. Step up! Be brave! Take the bull by the horns and dive in! These chats are a low-risk environment. Just take them seriously, too. Lots to learn, so get learning, BSer! And you can always ask us if you have questions we can help you with, too. 😀

We’re slowly moving into the part of the season where the schools are focused on outreach to potential applicants, and where BSers planning to apply this year should be making school research a priority. While we still say your very best effort is to actually GO VISIT the schools – and, HEY! April is a great time for that!!! – there is also tremendous value to participating in the online events that will start popping up with greater frequency.

Today we’ll offer some tips for how to make the most of an MBA chat (and some warnings of how not to mess things up).

1. How do you find out about the chats? Register on the website for the schools you’re interested in. (How do you manage the flood of emails you’ll be receiving as a result? Do so with a dedicated MBA email account.) If your target school does not have such a “register” function (which most do these days, but you may have to search for it) then they probably publish a list of events, so find that page on their site and bookmark it, and put a reminder in your calendar to go back and check it every few weeks.

2. When a notice about a chat comes in, open it up and read it right away – and register for the chat immediately if it requires advance registration, and if you know you’ll attend. It’s not the end of the world if you sign up for a chat and then don’t show up for it, but you shouldn’t make a habit of it (and this is not the same as registering for an in-person session or coffee chat; if you register for those, you must go, or un-RSVP yourself).

Why should you register right when you receive the email? For two reasons: a) because sometimes they have capacity limits and they fill up, or they close registration the day before and so if you wait till the last minute, you won’t be able to join, and b) so that you don’t forget about it. It sucks going back to an email for a chat you really wanted to attend, to discover that it happened yesterday.

3. Enter the chat into your calendar – converting to your local timezone – and include the URL for the chat in your calendar entry too. You don’t want to be scrambling to figure out how to get into the chat if you’re running late that day.

If it’s a Twitter or Facebook chat, then include the direct URL to the school’s feed in your calendar item, and include any hashtag they’re using. So, for Booth MBA on Twitter, it would probably be https://twitter.com/BoothFullTime (NOT @ChicagoBooth which is the feed for the whole school and NOT @BoothEveWknd which is their part-time program, even though they have their own chats which are also often usefull). When the chat is live, Booth usually uses the hashtag #BoothMBA which is another way to easily track the action.

Another reason to register and schedule it right away is that oftentimes, schools end up scheduling chats for the same time. They don’t coordinate calendars amongst themselves. It’s up to you to make sure there are no conflicts.

4. At the same time you’re scheduling yourself for the chat, go to that URL on the device you intend to participate from (latop, phone, iPad, whatever) and check out the system requirements. Many schools use plugins for their chats and sometimes they require Flash or Java, and you need to make sure your device can handle it. Go through whatever test sequence they might have. Download/update/pray to the proper gods with a sacrifice under moonlight in advance to make sure that you’ll be able to join the chat easily at the time it goes live. Most schools these days have decent tech running their chats but there are still some exceptions, and it’s beyond frustrating to try to join a chat that’s already started when your system is chugging through some type of software configuration step.

5. Set a reminder on your calendar entry just like you would for any other important meeting.

Just like we blahgged about back in February: Making a priority of your personal-improvement projects, and not blowing things off that your FUTURE SELF will benefit from, in favor of your NOW SELF’s laziness or poor planning, is the best way to advance your life and progress towards your goals, and to change.

You may also be interested in:

• So how do you research a bschool?
• School visits in the summertime
• Etiquette for attending a school function
• How to contact the MBA admissions office

Or maybe we should append to that title: “…if you’re Harvard.”

Yeah, sure, a larger cohort does of course provide some value. You may have interpreted our recent post about class size vs class size as saying that the size of your bschool is immaterial. No, of course not.

A larger program means more incredible people. Everyone getting into a top business school (well, except that one guy) is amazing. It’s the adcom’s job to make sure of that. Admission to a top MBA program is a screening process whereby only the accomplished and impressive (are supposed to) make it through.

You go to a bigger bschool, you are surrounded by greater quantities of them.

As you’re likely well aware, the whole “diversity” thing is a big deal with all the bschools these days – and man, if you visit any of the European programs, you’ll get hit over the head with it especially hard. “Diversity diversity diversity”, that is the buzzword that admissions people repeat early and often.

Diversity is in fact an advantage for the student – and it’s something that most every school actually can offer. In different ways, of course. Diversity at LBS really means diversity. Like, of the cultural/geographic/ethnic kind. They’ve got something like 85% international students there. Compare that to most American business schools which hold steady at like 35% international. You go to an American school, you’re mostly going to school with Americans. There’ll definitely be some ethnic and geographic variation in the mix – you saw that Columbia video for their essay 3 with the guy from Tennessee, right? (Or was it Kentucky? We always mix those two up.)

And diversity at Harvard… Yes. You’re going to go to school with some very unique individuals. Lots who are the standard bschool type, but also the “wowzer” ones too. That’s ‘cuz HBS is a big program, and ‘cuz it’s HBS.

We already drug* the “big alumni network” thing through the mud. We’re certainly not going to subject you to all THAT again.

Our point is simply that going to a larger school does afford the opportunity to meet and mingle with more people. “Well duh, EssaySnark.” Fine, you didn’t need us to tell you there’s value to that. It’s particularly true when you’re at a top-ranked school that attracts, and selects for, the most interesting, varied, and, yes, driven personality types.

You’re still unlikely to form deep bonds with more of them than if you were to go to, say, Tuck or Haas. But you’ll have the opportunity to do so. Which is good.

But in a big school, there will ALWAYS be a huge number of your cohort who are virtual strangers to you – who you’d pass on the street and not even know they were also going to your school.

Unless they’re that total hottie who you keep seeing in the cafe…

That actually points to another argument in favor of the large school: Larger dating pool.

Which is apparently one reason why some people go to bschool in the first place.

(Columbia students should be embarrassed about several of those Follies videos. Sheesh.)
 
 
 

* Yes, we know that it should be “dragged” – but doesn’t “drug” sound so much better in that sentence?