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“I was the first in my class to be promoted at McKinsey. I have a 710 GMAT score and completed Level 1 of the CFA exam, but I had a B- in calculus during my freshman year. Will that grade ruin my chances for admission?”

“My company has been under a hiring and promotion freeze for the past three years, but during that time, I have earned pay increases and survived successive rounds of layoffs. Will the admissions committee accept someone who has not been promoted?”

“I have been promoted, but my company changed names. Will the admissions committee think I am going somewhere at a sketchy company?”

Although these questions may seem somewhat silly—the individuals’ strengths are obvious and their “weaknesses” comparatively innocuous—we get asked about scenarios like these every day. In short, we can assure you that your candidacy, even at vaunted schools like HBS and Stanford, is not rendered tenuous by such trivial “shortcomings.” The admissions officers do not consider you guilty until proven innocent, and they are not looking for little reasons to exclude you from contention.

Many candidates have mythologized the “perfect” applicant and fear that any small area of concern means that they do not measure up to this myth—and thus that their candidacy is insufficient. Rather than fixating on small details that in truth are inconsequential, you should think about the big picture with respect to your overall competitiveness.

You can take us at our word on this. Or, if you prefer, heed the words of J.J. Cutler, deputy vice dean of MBA admissions, financial aid, and career management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, who explained to mbaMission that “everyone has something, or more than one thing, in their application that they need to overcome,” but added, “We read with an eye toward wanting to find all the good things about an applicant. We look for their strengths. We look for things that make them stand out, that make them unique. We look for their accomplishments. We look for positive parts of the application.”

How does MIT-Sloan review applications? True to the rigorous analytic nature of its curriculum—in a rigorous analytic fashion! When the admissions office receives an application, the candidate’s information is loaded into a database and the application is printed. Rod Garcia, who has been admissions director for MIT-Sloan for the past decade, first reviews every application online, then distributes applications randomly among readers, all of whom are either internal admissions staff members or contract readers. After picking up a batch of applications, readers review, score and then return them one week later. The scores are entered into the database, where Garcia reviews them to determine which candidates will be interviewed.

After the selected candidates have been interviewed, their applications are scored again, and the committee then decides which ones to admit. Application scoring is based on nine attributes, which Sloan divides into two major groups: demonstrated success (e.g., GPA, GMAT, work accomplishments) and leadership (e.g., high competency in creativity, relationship building, goal setting, influencing). Each attribute group is scored separately, and the two scores are added together. At mbaMission, we always tell candidates that MBA admissions is not a science—yet at MIT Sloan, there is some after all…

For more information on MIT-Sloan or 13 other leading MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

Which MBA program is right for me? How can I find the best fit? Jeremy Shinewald, founder and president of mbaMission, will help prospective MBAs understand the differences between the top MBA programs. Jeremy will elaborate on areas that will profoundly affect your academic and social lives in business school, including the flexibility of a program’s curriculum, the breadth of core courses, different methods of instruction, varying sizes of the cohorts and more. Start preparing now so you can be sure to make an educated decision when you apply!

A Q&A session will follow the presentation, after which, Jeremy will remain online to respond to your additional inquiries.

Date: Thursday, January 6, 2011
Time: 8:30-10:00 p.m. EST
Location: Online
Price: Free!

To register for this event, please click here.

What have you been told about applying to business school? With the advent of chat rooms and blogs, armchair “experts” often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and end up undermining your confidence as an applicant. For example, some MBA candidates are led to believe that schools want a specific “type” of applicant and expect certain minimum GMAT scores and GPAs. Others are led to believe that they need to know alumni from their target schools and/or get a letter of reference from the CEO of their firm to be successful in gaining admission.

Join Jeremy Shinewald, president and founder of mbaMission, as he debunks these and other myths, strives to take the anxiety out of the admissions process and helps you refocus on your applications.

A Q&A session with Jeremy will follow the presentation. Join us for this valuable event that will be essential to your business school planning!

Date: Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Time: 8:30-10:00 p.m. EST
Location: Online
Price: Free!

To register for this event, please click here.

With the release of first-round interview invitations and the subsequent increase in pressure on MBA candidates, we present a five-part series with our friends at Vault to help applicants decompress and thoughtfully manage the MBA interview process. In this second entry in the series, mbaMission founder Jeremy Shinewald describes the two main kinds of business school interviews and explains how you can prepare accordingly and ensure your strongest stories are shared, no matter which approach you encounter at your target school.

Two Interview Types: Blind vs. Comprehensive

Last week, we debunked the myth that your MBA interview will be complicated and cover unfamiliar topics, and established that most business school interviews are in fact casual conversations in which you discuss your life and experiences to date. So, now that we have covered what to expect with regard to the content of your MBA interview, we can address what to expect in terms of the context of the questions you will be asked. MBA interviews fall into two categories, blind and comprehensive. Although their styles vary dramatically, the important thing to keep in mind (as we established in Part I of this series) is that you already have the answers, because the questions will always be about you.

The Blind Interview
In a blind interview, like those conducted at Kellogg, Tuck, Cornell and Duke, your interviewer will not have read your file and will be coming into the meeting with very little information about you beyond, perhaps, what is listed in your résumé. As a result, you can expect to be asked primarily open-ended questions. For example, your interviewer may start with a fairly basic question like “Can you walk me through your resume?” or “Tell me about yourself—who are you?” As you answer this opening question, your interviewer may interject with a few questions along the way in response to certain topics as they arise. Or, he or she may just sit quietly and allow you to finish your response, then follow up with additional questions about why you feel you need to go to business school and why you have chosen this specific school. Later, your interviewer will likely ask you about your leadership and team experiences, both your successes and failures, and may finish with questions about your personal interests and community activities. Blind interviews follow no real standard form. Your interviewer will pose the questions, but you can control a lot of the direction and tone of the interview by selecting the nature and content of your responses, and will thereby be able to reveal your strongest experiences.

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