The mbaMission Podcast: Why MBA Applicants Get Rejected and How to Strengthen Your Application | Ep. 96

MBA applicants invest significant time and effort into crafting strong applications, yet many still find themselves rejected from their target programs. The admissions process can be unpredictable, but business schools often have clear reasons for dinging otherwise qualified candidates does, and understanding those reasons is key to improving one’s chances the next time around.

In this episode of The mbaMission Podcast, host Harold Simansky is joined by Senior MBA Admissions Consultant Nisha Trivedi and mbaMission Managing Director Harshad Mali to break down the most common explanations for why applicants get rejected and how reapplicants can strengthen their next submission for future success.

Their conversation explores critical factors such as defining clear career goals, demonstrating school fit, writing compelling essays, securing effective recommendations, understanding the importance of test scores, and determining the right time to apply. Nisha, Harshad, and Harold also discuss when reapplying makes sense, how to show growth, and why setbacks can often lead to better outcomes.

If you have recently been rejected from business school or want to avoid common pitfalls when applying, this episode offers practical, actionable guidance to help you refine your approach and move forward with confidence.

New episodes of The mbaMission Podcast are released every Tuesday on all major streaming platforms, with full video episodes available on its YouTube channel. Sign up for a free 30-minute consultation with Harold, Nisha, Harshad, or another member of mbaMission’s admissions team.

Why MBA Applicants Get Rejected

Harold Simansky: I’m not sure when you’re going to be watching this video, and it almost doesn’t matter, because the issues around rejection, the feelings about rejection are somewhat evergreen. I don’t care who you are, you’ve gone through it in one way or another. And for many of you watching this, you likely have gotten rejected recently from a business school you were dying to go to. One thing that Harshad, Nisha, and I do very frequently is ding reviews, where people will call us up, they’ll sign up for a free 30-minute consult, and then they will start talking about why they were rejected. We’ll frequently go through their material, and I think there are a few things that we regularly see that may explain some piece of why you’re rejected—rarely is it all, but at least have a general sense of what may have gone wrong for you. So, Nisha, what comes to mind as far as why does somebody get rejected?

Nisha Trivedi: The overall thing I’ll say is that, ultimately for these top business schools, there are many more applicants than there are spots. Sometimes it can be a numbers game. But I would say, in terms of some of the concrete reasons somebody might not make it through the next stage of an application process or might not ultimately get accepted, one example is, not having clear enough career goals. Schools are particularly interested in the applicant’s short-term goal. What industry do they want to enter? What kind of role do they want to play? I even encourage candidates to identify companies they’re interested in, because business schools want to know that you have a path in mind that you’ll pursue and that that path makes sense, given your past experience, and that you need an MBA for that. So I think that’s one thing that I’ve seen, if candidates don’t present a clear enough career path, even knowing that that path might change.

Harold Simansky: Definitely. Harshad, what are some things that you regularly see?

Harshad Mali: I’ll add to what Nisha just said about goals. For schools in the top league—let’s say Harvard, Stanford [GSB], and Wharton—they want to see long-term goals that are ambitious, because they don’t want ordinary leaders in their classes. They want leaders who are going to do really good things. So goals are very important. And oftentimes when I do ding reviews, I look at goals right at the get-go, to see if they at least pass the muster for these schools. And even for other schools, the short-term goals are important as well. 

The other thing that I have seen often is not necessarily the test score. I’ve seen people with really good test scores get the ding. It’s just the lack of connection with the reader. It’s plain and simple. You come up with something dull, dry, boring, not intriguing or interesting enough. 

Harold Simansky: You’re talking about the essays. 

Harshad Mali: I’m talking about the essays mostly that fail to pass the muster. I mean, you have an adcom reader who’s busy reading so many things, and you put that person to sleep with such awful content that it then becomes a talking point in the ding review. Okay, what can you do that is better? Now, better can be on many fronts, conveying your story, merging your personal and professional life in a way that business schools can understand what your persona is, because they don’t know you, they haven’t talked to you. So what you write is going to be very important. 

The other thing I have seen is sometimes the recommendations—not sometimes, more often than not these days, because recommendations are written by people who are using a lot of AI in them. And what those recommendations are lacking now is that deep insight, specific insight on the applicants who are applying. Your recommendations should complement what you’re saying in the applications. They should not contradict what you are saying, and they should not repeat those things either.

The Importance of Test Scores and Strong Recommendations

Harold Simansky: We should have maybe in some way started here. At certain schools, we have to face reality. If your GPA is, I’ll say, one standard deviation away from average, if your GMAT, GRE, or even Executive Assessment is one standard deviation from average, you simply haven’t met some basic criteria. Are there ways to overcome it? Sometimes people look at that spread. I think the spread in GMAT scores for Stanford [GSB] is the broadest one. MIT [Sloan] is also very broad, 590 to whatever, 800. And I tell folks, yes, there is a spread there. But imagine who that person is who is on that far end of the curve.

Nisha Trivedi: One thing that we’ve said in the past is that a high test score can’t necessarily get you into business school, but it can keep you out if it’s too low. And certainly we’ve all seen every year, candidates with test scores that are below the average of the target school get in. But when you do have a test score that’s not quite at the average, it does put pressure on the other elements of your application. And that can be hard to overcome in some cases.

Harold Simansky: I think, Harshad, what you also spoke to is that recommendations are important. And what I tell folks, particularly if they bring me a ding review and they don’t have the recommendations there, I say to them, “Listen, you have to be very honest. Did this person say that you were a one and only? Did they say you were a superhero?” And if the answer is hopefully, yeah, that’s reasonable. If they haven’t seen it, if at that point they’re like, “Well, I’m not sure,” that’s obviously a little bit more problematic. And then also say, quite honestly, even if you’ve given them a memo, even if you yourself have said some great things about yourself, when that recommender gets in front of that computer page, anything can happen. So that’s again something you can’t control. But what are some of the things, Nisha, that you really can control that you maybe haven’t controlled appropriately? And that maybe explains why you got the ding review.

Nisha Trivedi: I would say just kind of coming off of your last point, Harold and Harshad, choosing recommenders who can really attest to your performance and your potential and your growth, and not only give you a strong endorsement, which is required, but also give detailed examples as to how you’ve stood out as a candidate. I think when you’re applying to a particular school, and of course the particular opportunities and the essays vary, but when you’re called upon to make a case for why that program, be specific. And this is something I tell candidates over and over. If you mention a class, why do you want to take it? What do you expect to learn? And how is it going to prepare you for your short-term or long-term goals? That’s the level of detail schools are looking for, so they can see you’ve done your homework and that you’re really able to make a case for why that program makes sense for you and you’re not just applying because, let’s say, it has a good ranking.

Understanding Each Business School and Signaling Interest

Harold Simansky: Absolutely. And I want to pick up this word that you use, which is particular. Schools are different. So if you start writing essays or other pieces of your application and you can change out that school’s name and any other school you can put their name in and it all [still] makes sense, then you haven’t done your homework.

Harshad Mali: I often use the Office Space example. You know, “Joanna, people come to Chotchkie’s for the atmosphere, because they can get a cheeseburger anywhere.” Same thing with the MBA, really. I think you can get an MBA anywhere. Why do you want to attend that school? A lot of that has to do with the school’s culture, the community, what is appealing to you. And oftentimes what I’ve seen in ding reviews, the people who are dinged have decent applications, but they have not really spent the time and effort to understand what the school [they are targeting] is. And a lot of that can be mitigated by just simply attending school events. Online, in person, show your face. Let the adcoms connect the dots. They may or may not remember you, but many schools have lists of people who have attended their events. And if they take the time and effort to connect the dots, you have a fair shot, even with some mishaps in your application. So that’s something that a lot of applicants should be doing.

Harold Simansky: I think it even gets down to almost what we’ll call the creepy level, where business schools will sometimes make note of when you open the application. Clearly, if you’re the person who opened the application the day that it went online, that’s one thing. If you’re the person who opened the application the day after you were rejected from Harvard Business School—and again, business schools always know what is happening with other business schools—then that means something else. But Harshad, I really want to emphasize that point. It is not that hard to get to know a school, and it’s not that hard to get to know the specifics of the school. If you don’t even do the basics, then that simply will not cut it. It simply will not cut it at this point. If someone has gotten rejected, they do a ding review with you, at that point, maybe you see any number of things: poor essays, questionable recommendations, GMAT or GRE score just not there, GPA, whatever it is. What are some of the things you tell them to do? First of all, should they even consider reapplying?

Effective Strategies for Reapplicants 

Nisha Trivedi: Schools are definitely open to reapplicants. They’re not at a disadvantage. If anything, they’re showing interest. But what I tell them is, how can you reapply in a way that ensures that you’re able to show growth since your last application and you’re able to address the areas that they might have been concerned about. Simply just throwing their hat in the ring again won’t be effective. So really thinking about where they reapply, when they reapply to maximize their chances of success and really taking inventory, like you said, of their application to see what they can strengthen the next time around.

Harshad Mali: And to add to what Nisha just said, everyone has an X factor in a way. So what we do in the ding review is we evaluate all the things that went bad. But then the thing is, beyond growth, what is something that you didn’t bring up that also shows an aspect of your persona that business schools like. And that’s what I do. I think Nisha does the same thing, but we try to bring out things that the applicant might not have realized about his or her application that can be brought out in ways schools like. And I’m not saying schools look at applicants the same way. As you’re saying, some applicants simply change the name of the schools [in their essays] and maybe the names of the courses and all that, but we go beyond that. We try to help our clients understand why they are so good for the school and why those schools are going to be so good for them. So it’s a mutual relationship, and we try to bring those things out.

Harold Simansky: By the way, there is a podcast episode focused on reapplicants and reapplications and sort of how one approaches that. There are things that you can control; there are things you cannot control. And now really think about whether you did the best possible job on those things you can control. If you’re sort of stewing in this notion of, okay, my GPA wasn’t where it needs to be, that may be true, but what are you going to do about that? What are you going to do about a poor test score? What are you going to do about creating better essays, whatever it might be? The reality is, every application can be improved. I tell folks there’s a thousand different reasons why Harvard Business School can reject you as it does 90% of the people who apply. So think a little bit more deeply. Instead of what went wrong with my application, what can I do better for my application? And that frequently means really fine-tuning those essays, I think is a frequent reason that people just don’t get as far. Which again, Nisha, then brings up the question, what do you like seeing in an essay? What don’t you like seeing in an essay?

What Makes a Strong MBA Application Essay

Nisha Trivedi: I like seeing authenticity, of course. It really sounds like the applicant. It’s them in paper form. Those are some of the best essays I’ve seen. And specificity is something that I drill down all the time. What class, why, how you will contribute to the community? Why are you interested in that particular involvement? What will you bring to it? Here’s a hint. There’s something similar you did in college. Let’s create a bridge there. That’s really what I like to see. And the other thing I like to see is a complete, well-rounded picture to the extent that it’s possible across the essays for a particular school. Highlight professional and personal aspects of yourself so that you’re portraying yourself as the multidimensional candidate that you are.

Harshad Mali: One thing I will say is this, a lot of people use formulas to write their essays. “Oh, here’s a statement of purpose. I’m going to start with my background and my goals and why that’s cool.” I think that’s a tried and tested method. You need to do more than that. I think you need to bring in insights, bring your persona in. You need to really personalize that experience for the adcom so that the adcom learns more about you as a person as well. So this is just one example. But I think where applicants who get dinged get it wrong is they try to follow a formula by reading a lot of things online. There are a lot of examples. But they try to fit themselves in, and that does not work out. You need to be yourself and then deliver things the way you would say them, because the adcoms are not going to ding you for being who you are. That’s the common misconception a lot of people have. And that’s something that I always make sure that the clients who work with me don’t do.

Harold Simansky: If you start sounding like somebody else, you lose, because they’ll sound like themselves better than certainly you do. Are there other aspects to the application that maybe people just didn’t optimize? What do you see in that regard, Nisha?

Optimizing Your MBA Application Resume

Nisha Trivedi: So one piece of feedback I give very commonly during the free 30-minute consultation that we give to all applicants is that on your resume for the MBA application, unlike a job resume, you want to show not your duties or your responsibilities—there’s actually a place in the application where you can talk about that—but rather your results and your achievements. So for each bullet, you really want to make sure you cover what a particular project or initiative was about, what were your key actions, and what was your impact, quantified or described more qualitatively, whatever’s more appropriate. Some of the applications that aren’t successful, maybe the resume focuses more on those descriptions of job responsibilities and doesn’t take the opportunity to really show what they’ve achieved, not only at work, but also outside of work, which is why I always encourage candidates to highlight their leadership involvement. Another issue I see is that some candidates might use jargon, language that’s so industry specific that an adcom member who might have seen many resumes from that industry but is still not completely fluent in that language might have trouble discerning what is important about what this candidate has worked on. So that’s something that I work with my clients on as well.

Harold Simansky: I have to agree with you. For me, one of the biggest places where a lot of value can be added is in the resume. I think too many people take their resume, their last resume, maybe update it, and here you go. I sometimes tell my clients it’ll take me two to three hours to do a good review of a resume and really push it forward, because a business school resume is a lot different from a professional resume. No question about it.

Harshad Mali: The other thing I’ve seen is traditional applicants are so many, and many of them are applying from the same company and maybe the same office. And the business schools can only pick a few. So in those cases, what I often tell applicants is first of all, understand why you’re different from everyone else. Because the recommenders cannot recommend everyone highly. If everyone is so good, then something is wrong in what they recommend. So clearly, there is a difference in how those people recommend. So look for recommenders who are not the same, who are not recommending the colleagues that you’re applying with. See who’s applying with you. You might not be able to understand what they’re saying, but try to differentiate yourself. Bring out things in ways that the adcoms are not bored with. Things are never similar, so see how different you are. And that’s one of the biggest things I’ve seen in traditional applicants, in that people from the same industry or same employer, same office, some of them get dinged. And a way to prevent that is by coming up with something unique about you that is not a repetition, finding a different recommender and going that way.

Harold Simansky: I want to pick up that in a slightly different way. Also recognize the landscape, which, what was it, two years ago, when something like half a million people were laid off from the world of the Metas, Google, whoever it is, suddenly that is a macro event that you can’t do a lot with. It just is an incredibly difficult year. And what I also sometimes tell folks, particularly younger folks, maybe you’re your own worst enemy. And what I mean by that, and you’ll see this frequently with consulting associates or investment banking analysts, whoever it is, you’ve been at it for two years. Business schools are also thinking about, I can either have Bob two years without a promotion, or I could have Bob next year, two years from now with a promotion, a couple more years. Maybe he’s even spent time inside a company. So I think younger candidates in particular have to start really thinking, “Okay, maybe I’ll give it a shot this year, but maybe it’s going to be a multiyear process for me when all is said and done.”

Nisha Trivedi: Yeah, and that Bob a year later might have more conviction in their career goals. And that’s something that schools want to see as well.

Harold Simansky: To pick up on Harshad’s point, if Bob is competing against Steve, who’s the guy at the same company, two cubicles down, who has that extra year of experience, it’s very hard for Bob at that point.

Harshad Mali: Bob and Steve don’t always go to the same McDonald’s. So that would be a great movie. When you’re reapplying, it’s not like you cannot wait. If you feel there’s a lack of growth in your application, just wait. Just skip a year and then apply the following year. And that’s completely fine. Business schools actually like that as well. You don’t need to think that you’re too old or you have too much experience. I don’t think that is the case right now.

Harold Simansky: I’m not particularly concerned if someone is a little bit older, if they’ve had this much richer experience they can bring to the classroom. It’s very rare when I look at a ding review and say, “Oh, okay, you were rejected because of age.” That’s very rare.

Keeping Business School Rejection in Perspective

Nisha Trivedi: Exactly. But on the flip side, I’ve done ding reviews or I’ve done consultations with candidates who have already applied and haven’t succeeded. And I’ve thought to myself, I wish they’d waited a year. I wish they’d waited two years. Just know that it’s a competitive and unpredictable process. The main things you can control are the quality of your application, the timing. And sometimes, the best success stories come out of some initial setbacks.

Harold Simansky: That makes sense. And we recently did a podcast episode with our colleague Katy Lewis, who was an admissions reader over at Stanford [GSB]. And she said, quite honestly, she’d get a stack of applications. She got eight, I think it was. She narrowed it down to three, all of whom could be great members of the community, all of whom can be accepted. And then she had to choose one. And there’s an element of randomness there. And as consultants, we hate to admit it, but the reality is these are incredibly hard schools to get into. And sometimes, things just don’t break your way. 

I will finish with one thought that everyone has probably heard before, but it’s always worth talking about, which is getting rejected from business school does not mean getting rejected from life. Getting rejected from a business school is not a life sentence. You can certainly go back at it next year or the year after. And at the end of the day, business school is a wonderful experience, but it’s an experience you can have in many different places. So remember, being rejected is not the end of the world by any means, but it may be an opportunity to think a little bit more deeply about what you want to do, where you want to be, and what your future looks like.