How to Stand Out as an Overrepresented MBA Applicant
When I was an admissions director attending MBA fairs and visiting companies to recruit candidates for our program, people often asked me how they could stand out in the business school applicant pool. Whether they were in consulting, banking, the military, or IT engineering, most of the candidates who approached me were worried that their stories would be too similar to those of other applicants in their peer group. I always gave the example of one person I’d met who’d found a memorable way to stand out.
I was in Japan interviewing roughly 30 candidates. The majority of them were in banking, and most had similar stories. Each candidate was charming and likable, but nothing really differentiated one from any of the others. However, one young man managed to stand out, because rather than talking to me about his job, he spoke about a personal interest he was really passionate about. This was more than ten years ago, and I still remember him!
He had wanted to revive interest in the almost lost art of the Japanese tea ceremony. He had observed that the younger generation seemed to have forgotten some of the venerable traditions of Japanese culture, and he feared that this would be a huge loss. So, he studied to become a master of the tea ceremony. Once he had achieved that, his next challenge was figuring out how to spread the word. He approached one of the major department stores in Tokyo and offered to give a demonstration of the tea ceremony on an upcoming Saturday morning. To get buy-in from the store, he suggested that they display their tea services and teas behind him, so that the audience might be enticed to purchase new tea sets. The store hesitantly agreed, and the first demonstration was advertised. It was an overwhelming success, to the point that the store wanted him to offer a demonstration every week. At the time, he was busy working and preparing his MBA applications, so he proposed doing the ceremony once a month until he left for school. Every month, crowds came to observe his demonstration and ask him questions. He was thrilled at the resurgence of interest in this cultural tradition, and the store was happy because of the increased sales and good publicity!
What did this story tell me about the candidate? I didn’t learn about his technical finance skills or any big deals he had brokered. Instead, I learned that he was someone who acted on his passion, who had identified a creative way to promote it to others, and who, at the same time, was clever enough to find a way to generate profits for the store so that it sponsored his hobby. The added benefit to me was that I learned a great deal about the tea ceremony from him. This is what schools want to see in candidates – something beyond whatever professional label might be applied to them.
Some MBA applicants believe that business schools have set quotas for students of certain nationalities or from particular industries. And yes, schools sometimes group large, homogeneous populations together during admissions, but not because of a quota. Instead, they want to assemble a diverse class in which students can learn from one another. Each group can be broken down into subgroups, and each candidate is then evaluated on an individual basis so the adcom can identify the ones who have a special, distinguishing characteristic that supersedes whatever “category” they’re in. And no, it won’t necessarily be their GMAT score or the fact that they worked for a well-known company that sets them apart, but rather the stories they share on a more personal level. You might wonder how to do this with the typical “What are your short-term goals?” and “Why do you need an MBA?” prompts, but I assure you, it can be done.
Okay, so, maybe you are an Indian IT engineer or a white U.S. male in consulting or banking – you can’t change that. But you also possess other qualities that make you who you are. Think about what you do outside of work that might set you apart. Or if you are genuinely passionate about your job, think of a way to explain and convey that passion to the reader of your essays. What excites you? What do you do differently in your job? What has taught you a life lesson?
Consultants make up another large category of MBA applicants. Regardless of which firm you consult for or which section of the practice you work in, you are still very different from the people on your team. If you don’t feel that you’ve done anything significant outside of work, look at some of the projects you’ve contributed to. I remember a young woman who had visited a client’s site. It happened to be a coal mine, and she’d had to wear coveralls, rubber boots, a face mask, and a hard hat. She went down into that dirty mine not only to assess the conditions but also to better understand what the miners did there before she started working on her project. Another consulting candidate who had a background in marketing described to me how he’d learned the real meaning and importance of the “Three Ps” by going to more than 100 grocery stores and examining hundreds of products similar to his client’s, paying special attention to the placement of these products in the store and their pricing. All of that was necessary to work up a solution to the client’s problems. You might not immediately think that such stories would be interesting to the adcom, but they are! Why? Because they allow the adcom to learn something new about the applicant and offer an idea of the candidate’s character, such as their perseverance, how they manage the risk factors at play, and their motivation to be thorough and conscientious for their client.
So, construct your essays to reveal your interests and talents as well as your strengths and experiences. You have to answer the essay prompts, of course, but, to use a very trite expression, think “outside the box” when you’re coming up with examples. If nothing comes to mind, ask your friends or family members how they would characterize you. You might be surprised at what they say. And for more experienced support, come to us at Accepted, and we will be happy to help you!
You are unique, whether you realize it or not, and our expert admissions consultants can assist you in identifying your individuality and highlighting it in your applications.
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