by Kelly Wilson
Application Advice for Tech MBA Applicants
Often, when we work with clients who have a technical background, they begin the MBA application process already feeling that the odds are stacked against them. Their first question is usually “How can I stand out in such a crowded field to earn a place at a top business school?”
This post is here to help.
The truth is that these candidates’ concern is justified by the numbers. It’s an undeniable reality: tech applicants do, in fact, represent one of the largest categories of applicant “types.” Exacerbating the challenge is that they often have competitive commonalities, such as high grades and test scores. On the other hand, they also comprise a large percentage of the MBA classes. Their expertise, experience, and goals often tightly align with a desirable MBA profile. Students from tech backgrounds make up the second greatest proportion of the Class of 2026 at (18%); the third largest at the Stanford GSB (14%), Chicago Booth (13%), and HBS (12%); and the fourth largest at Wharton (10%).
The competition will be fierce, and you must distinguish yourself from the pack and prove that you are not just a cubicle-bound engineer with great tech skills who lacks the broad experience and leadership exposure to merit a spot in top management.
Here are six tips to help you shine in your applications as a unique individual who is a great fit for top-tier MBA programs.
1. Know your strengths.
Your technology background gives you some advantages: strong analytical and quantitative skills that these now STEM-certified MBA programs require. The application forms’ text boxes and your resume allow you to share those credentials.
Likewise, as an applicant from the technology sector, you have almost certainly worked in teams and have likely been part of cross-functional and multicultural groups. In your essays, you can highlight how you have applied your technology skills to diverse industries and/or business functions, and how you have combined them with teamwork and leadership to achieve positive and measurable results.
2. Combat the stereotypes by showing your diversity of experiences.
You can also fight techie stereotypes by showing the schools the varied, fully engaged life you live through community involvement, hobbies, and personal life. Consider these examples:
- Are you an artist outside of work who has shown your work in galleries or exhibits?
- Did you trek with your church’s youth fellowship group?
- Did you use your knowledge of computer science to design educational computer games for your brother, who has a learning disability?
- Did you establish a national organization for sufferers of your rare hearing disorder when you discovered no such organization existed?
There is much more to you than your technology skills. Show the adcom some of what has motivated and moved you in your life.
3. Emphasize leadership.
The top schools want leaders, and many technology professionals struggle to demonstrate that they fit this expectation when they work in flat organizations and have no direct reports, no budget authority, and no performance-evaluation responsibilities. So, how can you demonstrate managerial potential or leadership?
One way is by sharing the leadership roles you have played, even without an official title. For example, did you coordinate the efforts of 15 people from five departments on a mission-critical project worth hundreds of thousands in revenue? Have you mentored teammates? Have you lobbied successfully for your ideas or solutions when everyone resisted you? These are examples of leadership, too!
You might also have demonstrated your management caliber through your commitments outside of work. Consider these examples:
- Do you serve on the board of directors of a local charity?
- Were you elected to your condo’s homeowners’ association?
- Did you convince a few friends to join you in teaching tae kwon do to inner-city kids every weekend?
- Do you organize a local sports league whose season culminates in an annual fundraising tournament?
All of these are examples of leadership. With a varied and strong record of these kinds of leadership activities, you will show the adcoms that you have the management skills they seek.
4. Differentiate your goals, and include desired impact.
Another way to show the adcoms that you are not a “typical” technology applicant is by asking yourself whether the post-MBA goals you are presenting are described too conventionally or are too limited in scope. For example, rather than saying that you want to make the transition into strategy consulting at Bain or McKinsey (like so many other candidates will!), try to individualize your goal:
- You want to join a top strategy consulting firm’s defense and aerospace practice to marry global security with sustainability.
- You aim to lead innovations in healthcare service delivery that meet the intense cost pressures of the industry.
- Your goal is to lead innovations in e-commerce using AI and augmented reality.
Similarly, make sure to include the longer view of your goals and the social impact you hope to make through them. For example, rather than saying that you need an MBA to gain credibility and funding for your edtech start-up, show the potential impact you hope to bring to the communities you grew up in through this venture.
Finally, you can highlight your individuality by describing unusual career goals – provided, of course, that they are rooted in your past experiences and involvements. As long as your ideas aren’t too farfetched, goals with a creative twist will undoubtedly make you stand out from the crowd. Consider these examples:
- Given your experience playing flute in a local chamber group, you hope to combine music and technology to improve education outcomes.
- Your lifelong interest in space exploration makes you want to be the CTO of the first Latin American satellite launch provider.
- You are inspired by your family’s history of heart disease and diabetes to lead healthtech innovations that prevent lifestyle diseases.
5. Help the adcom see you as a businessperson with tech expertise, rather than as a “techie.”
You perform your role within a context, likely a multifaceted context. That context includes industry/sector and function. Consider the following examples:
- Are you the tech expert on a risk analysis team for real estate investment strategy? You probably have some interesting insights about risk assessment and real estate investment through a practical lens.
- Do you work with a team laying out a process to integrate a new acquisition into a healthcare network? You will likely develop some perspectives on acquisition integration challenges in a highly regulated, rapidly changing, politically charged industry.
Discussing insights and observations you gain from your work in specific functions and industries/sectors in your essays (and interviews) will show the adcom that you have already moved beyond techie status and have formed a business mindset and perspective. You will help them see you in this light.
Moreover, your familiarity with applying cutting-edge technology capabilities and practices within specific industries and/or business disciplines will be a resource for your classmates and enhance the learning environment.
6. Get the help you need to stand out from the crowd.
The bottom line is this: Applying to top MBA programs as a techie means that you need to show the adcom that you are not just a stereotype. Accepted’s expert consultants will help you reflect on your experiences, interests, and skills and guide you in selecting the themes and anecdotes that best portray your singular self. Linking these stories together into compelling essays will grab the adcoms’ attention for all the right reasons.
As the former executive director of admissions at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School and assistant dean of admissions at Georgetown’s McDonough School and the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz School, Kelly Wilson has 23 years’ experience overseeing admissions committees and has reviewed more than 38,000 applications for the MBA and master’s programs in management of information systems, computational finance, business analytics, and product management. Want Kelly to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!
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