Many business school applicants believe that MBA admissions committees have distilled their criteria for selecting candidates over the years and have in mind a specific \u201ctype\u201d of individual they want. For example, within this world of stereotypes, applicants believe that Harvard Business School (HBS) is looking only for leaders, Kellogg is looking only for marketing students, Chicago Booth is looking only for finance students, and even that MIT Sloan is looking only for \u201ceggheads.\u201d Of course, these stereotypes\u2014like most stereotypes\u2014are inaccurate. Chicago Booth wants far more than one-dimensional finance students in its classes, and it provides far more than just finance to its MBA students (including, to the surprise of many, an excellent marketing program).\u00a0HBS is not a school just for \u201cgenerals\u201d; among the approximately 950 students in each of its classes, HBS has a wide variety of personalities, including some excellent foot soldiers. So, at mbaMission, we constantly strive to educate MBA candidates about these misconceptions, which can sink applications if applicants pander to them.<\/p>\n
By way of example, imagine that you have worked in operations at a widget manufacturer. You have profound experience managing and motivating dozens of different types of people, at different levels, throughout your career, in both good economic times and bad. Even though your exposure to finance has been minimal, you erroneously determine that you need to be a \u201cfinance guy\u201d to get into NYU Stern. So, you tell your best, but nonetheless weak, finance stories, and now you are competing against elite finance candidates who have far more impressive stories in comparison. What if you had told your unique operations\/management stories instead and stood out from the other applicants, rather than trying to compete in the school\u2019s most overrepresented pool?<\/p>\n
We think that attempting to defy stereotypes and truly being yourself\u2014trying to stand out from all others and not be easily categorized\u2014is only natural. Of course, for those of you who are still not convinced, allow us to share a quote from Stanford\u2019s former director and assistant dean of MBA admissions, Derrick Bolton, who wrote on the school\u2019s admissions website,\u00a0\u201cBecause we want to discover who you are, resist the urge to \u2018package\u2019 yourself in order to come across in a way you think Stanford wants. Such attempts simply blur our understanding of who you are and what you can accomplish. We want to hear your genuine voice throughout the essays that you write, and this is the time to think carefully about your values, your passions, your hopes and dreams.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Makes sense, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"