It’s June, and your plan is to apply for Round 1 deadlines. That’s three months away. What should you be doing now?
- Decide how you feel about your GMAT/GRE score.
Hopefully, you have taken the GMAT or GRE already and are happy with your score. One less thing to worry about. If you haven’t, now it’s the time to take it.
- Whittle down your list of schools to apply to.
You have done your research and have a pretty good idea of what schools you will be applying to. Get the final list of schools ready, with their deadlines arranged in chronological order. In that list, you should include your dream school for sure, a couple where your profile fits right in, and at least one ‘safety,’ where you are almost sure you can get admitted. This is the time to narrow down your choices. Having this list will help you narrow your research and concentrate on those schools only.
- Finalize your resume.
There’s no need to wait around any longer. Your resume should be good to go now so that you have one less piece of the puzzle to worry about.
- Fine tune your goals.
If your goals are still not quite clear in your mind, this is the time to give them some deep thought and write them down. This is particularly true if you are planning on changing fields. Do your homework now so that you start your applications with a clear idea of what you want to do short and long term.
- Start choosing your recommenders and track them down.
Maybe you haven’t seen one of them in a while, so it’s probably a good idea to contact him/her and re-connect. Taking care of this now will allow you to find alternates if for some reason one of the people you had in mind is unwilling or unable to write a recommendation for you.
- Figure out if you have enough extracurriculars.
If you feel you lack community service or extracurricular activities, get on it right away. See my blog post about this here.
- Start working on your essays.
If you have completed steps #1-6 and your target schools have released their application questions, you can start drafting essay responses. If your schools’ questions aren’t out, then just start a file, mind map, or folder where you jot down examples of leadership, top achievements, successes, failures, teamwork, initiative, etc. When the questions are available this file will put good stories and examples at your fingertips to anchor your essays. It will also be useful when you want to prepare for interviews.
The importance of staying organized
The coming months will be very stressful for you, no doubt. So start working on these things now to allow time to dig deeper on the essays and the rest of your application materials later. You will find that ninety days go by very quickly, so make sure every day counts.
Now is also a great time to start working one-on-one with your personal Accepted advisor. Check out our MBA Admissions Consulting & Editing Services – we look forward to helping you GET ACCEPTED.
Esmeralda Cardenal is a Former Associate Director of Admissions at Yale SOM, Director of MBA Admissions at MSU Broad, and consultant at Cardiff Business School in the UK. Since 2014, she has guided Accepted clients to acceptance in various graduate programs including MBA and master's in finance, business analytics, data science, sustainability, and public policy. Want Esmeralda to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!
Related Resources:
• School-Specific MBA Application Essay Tips
• 4 Essentials for Your MBA Application
• Why Extracurricular Activities Make a Difference in Your MBA Application