by Kelly Wilson
Why MBA Applicants Get Rejected: 15 Common Mistakes to Avoid
If you are reading this, you are most likely considering applying to business school or are in the process of applying. Your goal is to be admitted, of course, which requires eliminating any obvious reasons the adcom might reject your application. In this post, we highlight many of the common reasons MBA applicants might not be offered admission.
Table of Contents
- 1. Low Undergrad GPA
- 2. Low Test Score
- 3. Weak or Insufficient Work Experience
- 4. Poor Writing
- 5. Failure to Demonstrate Fit
- 6. Vague or Unrealistic Goals
- 7. Shallow, Generic Responses
- 8. Failure to Answer the School’s Question
- 9. Unhelpful Letters of Recommendation or Poor Selection of Recommenders
- 10. Bad Interview
- 11. Subpar Video Essay
- 12. Troublesome Social Media Profile(s)
- 13. Lack of Differentiation
- 14. Discrepancies in Writing Quality
- 15. No Extracurricular or Community Involvement
1. Low Undergrad GPA
Unfortunately, you cannot hide a low undergraduate GPA from the adcom. You are required to submit your transcript, and the adcom will scrutinize it. If your GPA is below the average for your target school and you haven’t taken the time to write an optional essay to explain why – and/or you have no other way to show that your academic ability is sufficient to handle the rigor of the MBA curriculum (e.g., a high GMAT score, strong grades in additional quantitative courses, such as business calculus or statistics) – then you can pretty much guarantee you won’t even get an interview, much less be offered admission.
2. Low Test Score
Every school has a range for the GMAT or GRE. At a minimum, the school’s class profile will present the middle 80% range of its students’ test scores, and although test scores are evaluated in combination with the other elements of one’s application, you need to strive to be within the range for your demographic. If you are in a very deep pool of applicants, your score needs to be at or above the average. If you have a relatively low score and have made no obvious attempts to retake the exam, that signals a lack of commitment to the adcom. If you have retaken the test several times, but your score has remained low, you should manage your expectations around being admitted. Take advantage of the optional essay to address your score and offer other evidence that shows why you are still an excellent candidate and can handle the work.
3. Weak or Insufficient Work Experience
The average amount of work experience for MBA applicants is only four to six years at the time of matriculation. As a result, adcoms are not able to judge candidates’ future potential – or lack thereof – with absolute certainty. Although adcoms do not expect every candidate to have held a formal leadership role, applicants should at least be able to present some signs of leadership potential, such as having been promoted or having shown initiative when working in teams, initiating new projects, or taking responsibility for events and results.
Some applicants have a professional history that includes obvious signs that they are struggling in their career. For example, if you have bounced around from one job to the next in a short period of time, the adcom could perceive this as instability or incompetence, especially if no context for the frequent job changes is offered. (Tip: Use the optional essay to explain your situation.) If you have not had any promotions or been given a significant uptick in responsibilities over time at a company, the adcom could also see that as a potential red flag.
At the end of the day, business schools want their students to get hired into good jobs, and you will directly reflect on your school with your performance. So if you haven’t had enough career experience for the adcom to be able to judge your potential in this regard, or your experience doesn’t reflect that you are “going places,” that’s an easy reason to get dinged.
4. Poor Writing
Application essays can be considered bad for many reasons. The most obvious is the applicant’s poor grammar and spelling ability. You should always have someone review your essays prior to submission, preferably, someone you trust to be thorough with macro feedback and micro editing. And poor writing is not just a concern for your essays – if your resume and/or short-answer responses are badly written, the sloppiness in those areas will hurt you as well.
5. Failure to Demonstrate Fit
Essays are critical for demonstrating your strong fit with a program. If your essays don’t convey your genuine interest in the school you are applying to and instead offer generic platitudes like “I want to attend [this MBA program] because of its award-winning faculty and huge network,” you can count on being rejected. Schools want to admit candidates who are likely to accept their offer, and if you haven’t fully researched the program to identify which specific resources attract you beyond the school’s overall reputation, your superficial thinking will be very obvious, off-putting, and possibly perceived as arrogance.
6. Vague or Unrealistic Goals
If you can’t express your goals in such a way that conveys how an MBA will help you achieve them – and an MBA from the school you are applying to in particular – this omission is another surefire way to get dinged. If you appear to want an MBA just for the prestige, or you come across as a serial degree seeker, you will have difficulty getting accepted.
7. Shallow, Generic Responses
If your application essays read as though you are simply telling the adcom what they want to hear, this could lead to a rejection. Many schools have open-ended questions, such as “How will you make an impact in our community?” I have worked with many clients who, in their first drafts, technically answer the question but only in a business context. These types of questions are intentionally broad to give you the opportunity to really show your uniqueness, which almost universally goes beyond who you are as an employee.
Recently, one of my clients came to me with a draft of an essay in response to the prompt “Describe a time when you faced a challenge and how you responded.” The draft discussed my client’s role in developing the first-ever app at her company. Although this was a completely reasonable topic, the resulting essay was a total snoozefest. I brainstormed with her on other challenging situations in her life, and she ended up writing about breaking her ankle while on a remote hiking trip, with no support for miles around. The story was gripping; it conveyed so much more about her and who she was, and she was admitted!
Think about this kind of question from the perspective of the adcom. They read hundreds, if not thousands, of essays each year. Do you want your essay to put them to sleep or make them leap out of their chair, saying, “I want to interview this candidate”?
8. Failure to Answer the School’s Question
I can’t tell you how many essays I have read over the years that fail to answer the question(s) the school has asked. Clients often see “What are your goals?” in the prompt and don’t read any further, thinking they understand what the adcom is looking for. Every school’s goals essay question is worded a little differently, so you need to pay close attention – and you can’t just recycle an essay you wrote for one school and use it for another. Many schools also pose multipart essay questions. A common mistake I see with these types of questions is failure to distribute the content evenly. For example, when a school asks a three-part question, the applicant’s response to each question should account for roughly one-third of the essay, but I’ll often see two-thirds of the essay devoted to one of the questions and just one-third for the other two combined.
If you are in the midst of writing your essays and don’t have the essay question you’re responding to at the top of your draft, put it there immediately, highlight key phrases, and refer back to it often. You’d be surprised how easy it is to get off topic.
[Click Here for Sample Business School Essays]
9. Unhelpful Letters of Recommendation or Poor Selection of Recommenders
In my time serving on the adcom at three different universities, I never saw a letter of recommendation that completely badmouthed a candidate, but I certainly read several tepid letters. If you can’t find someone to recommend you who will sing your praises, or you expect them to sing your praises but in fact they don’t, your candidacy is in trouble.
A closely related mistake, and one that perhaps results in lackluster recommendations, is poor judgment when choosing one’s recommenders. Here are some examples of misguided recommender choices:
- Your recommendation comes from someone high up in your organization, but the person barely knows you.
- You get a recommendation from a college professor who hasn’t seen you in four years and can’t speak to your ability as a working professional.
Neither of these recommenders would have much of substance to say. In this case, what puts you in a bad light in the adcom’s eyes is not so much the person’s opinion of you but your lack of judgment in selecting the recommender. There is a wealth of information on Accepted about choosing strong recommenders. Ignoring this important decision imperils your admission.
10. Bad Interview
Nothing can sink your chances for admission faster than a poor interview. If you have been invited to interview, it means the adcom is interested in your candidacy, and you will have 30-45 minutes to prove you are worthy of being admitted. If you can’t answer the most basic questions effectively, you fail to convince the interviewer that the school is your top choice, or you come across as too nervous (or possibly even worse, too cocky), you’re not going to get in. Don’t let a weak interview undo all your hard work. Schedule a free consultation with an Accepted MBA admissions expert to assess your readiness, refine your answers, and build the confidence you need to stand out on interview day.
11. Subpar Video Essay
Many schools have begun asking applicants to submit some form of video essay. Candidates can either prepare a video and upload it or complete it via a popular platform, such as Kira Talent. The purpose of this application component can be multifold. For one, a video allows every member of the adcom to see and hear from you directly, thereby giving them an understanding of your command of the English language and the strength of your professional presence. It is therefore important to not come across as having memorized a script or as trying to present yourself as what you believe is the “ideal” candidate. Take advantage of this opportunity to showcase who you genuinely are, and don’t be afraid to show some personality. After all, the school is deciding whether to invite you to join its community, and this will be a lifelong partnership.
12. Troublesome Social Media Profile(s)
If you haven’t yet had the presence of mind to review your social media accounts (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, in particular), now is the time to do so. Problematic content can be an issue that could derail your candidacy. In addition to performing traditional background checks, schools are increasingly reviewing applicants’ social media accounts to ensure that the candidates they are considering are not posting, supporting, or otherwise engaging with defamatory content.
13. Lack of Differentiation
Some applicants face stiffer competition for admission than others, making differentiation especially important. If you haven’t taken the time to consider your uniqueness and how it will truly benefit your classmates and your target school, you’ll have little chance of being offered admission. While you might be tempted to focus solely on your uniqueness from a professional perspective, the more meaningful way to differentiate yourself is on a personal level. Failing to share anything about yourself beyond your work experience will reflect poorly on you as an MBA applicant.
14. Discrepancies in Writing Quality
If a candidate’s essays are well written but elements of their online application are barely readable, that raises questions among the adcom about how much of the essays the applicant actually wrote and/or about the candidate’s attention to detail. It is understandable to want to breeze through the online portions of the application without giving them much thought. However, if you don’t take sufficient care with that aspect of the application, you could create a real obstacle to acceptance.
Additionally, many schools have policies regarding the use of AI in essay writing. Make sure that you adhere to these policies, and do not rely on AI to write your essays. At most, use it as a tool to identify areas of your essay that might need to be strengthened based on the information you are providing. Believe me, it is easy to identify an essay that was written using AI. Such submissions are often polished but lack the substance and depth the adcom needs to truly understand your candidacy.
15. No Extracurricular or Community Involvement
If a candidate does not participate in any activities outside of their work, the person reading their application will wonder whether the candidate will be an active participant in the school’s community – and how that potential lack of participation might reflect on the school in the future. Understandably, schools want students who are connected to one another and to the greater community. At the same time, if an applicant stacks their resume with activities just before they apply, it looks disingenuous and comes across as attempting to create a false impression.
Although in most cases, it is a combination of elements that sinks a person’s MBA application, any one of the reasons discussed in this post could be the deciding factor that prevents you from gaining admission to your target school. The good news is that you can control most of these potential reasons for rejection, so make sure to avoid these common mistakes!
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