{"id":35504,"date":"2017-01-11T06:00:16","date_gmt":"2017-01-11T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/applying-to-b-school-went-to-start\/"},"modified":"2017-01-11T06:00:16","modified_gmt":"2017-01-11T13:00:16","slug":"applying-to-b-school-went-to-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/applying-to-b-school-went-to-start\/","title":{"rendered":"Applying To B-School: Went To Start"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/admissionado.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/applying_mba_early_blog_post.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-21340\" src=\"https:\/\/admissionado.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/applying_mba_early_blog_post.jpg\" alt=\"Wondering when to start applying for business school?\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>As 2016 drew to (what many folks would deem as) a much anticipated close, we saw a fair amount of messages from prospective B-School applicants that sounded a lot like this one:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hi. I&#8217;m interested in applying to MBA programs that start in 2018. I know it&#8217;s early and essay questions aren&#8217;t out yet, but I&#8217;m wondering if there&#8217;s anything I can start working on now?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a great question and one that, quite frankly, we wish we got more often around here. Loads of people come to us for help in the 11<sup>th<\/sup> hour, when their apps are due in less than a week! It&#8217;s ALWAYS better to give yourself more time. Needless to say, we&#8217;re big fans of the proactive mindset and getting an early start.<\/p>\n<p>And sure, essay questions for next 2018 won&#8217;t be posted for a few months, but that doesn&#8217;t mean you can&#8217;t get started on the application process now. After all, there&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/admissionado.com\/mba\/5-things-to-do-before-you-start-your-mba-applications\/\" target=\"_blank\">a LOT to do<\/a> <em>before<\/em> you can actually start filling out those apps.<\/p>\n<h3>Take the GMAT (and do well on it)<\/h3>\n<p>Yes, this one&#8217;s a given, but there&#8217;s more to it than simply sitting for the test. Think about the schools you want to go to (more on that later) and <a href=\"https:\/\/admissionado.com\/mba\/importance-of-the-gmat\/\">make sure your GMAT is competitive<\/a>. If it&#8217;s not, sign up for a GMAT prep class and prepare to re-take the exam. If you start now, you could have it all done by April or May\u2026 which is perfect timing for those round 1 apps.<\/p>\n<h3>Staring doing some research<\/h3>\n<p>You want to go to Harvard\/Stanford\/Wharton? Great! So does the rest of the world. Do yourself and favor and look into some other programs too. There are tons of awesome B-Schools out there beyond H\/S\/W, and you&#8217;d be doing yourself a great disservice if you didn&#8217;t consider them. [<a href=\"https:\/\/admissionado.com\/mba\/intro-to-canadian-mba-programs\/\"><em>And don&#8217;t forget about Canada!<\/em><\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>What should you be looking for? That depends on what&#8217;s important to you, but research where the school is located, what sort of student groups there are, key faculty members and classes, the post-grad employment stats, and all the other aspects of a school that make it a <a href=\"https:\/\/admissionado.com\/mba\/choosing-the-best-b-school-for-you-a-guide\/\">good fit<\/a> for you.<\/p>\n<p><em>[We recommend applying to at least 7 schools (2 reach, 2 &#8220;safe&#8221; and 3 right in the middle), so spend some time and find the 7 schools that work for you.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Fill in the holes<\/strong>. Do you know what&#8217;s required for B-School apps? First, find that out and then make sure you&#8217;ve got your ducks in a row. Line up some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.admissionado.com\/mba\/choosing-your-recommenders\/\" target=\"_blank\">potential recommenders<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.admissionado.com\/mba\/the-dos-and-donts-of-an-mba-resume\/\" target=\"_blank\">get your resume in order<\/a>, step up to the plate at work and take on a leadership role. Do whatever you have to do NOW so you&#8217;re a strong applicant come September.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Visit<\/strong>! We say this all the time\u2026 and that&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/admissionado.com\/mba\/how-important-are-campus-visits-for-mba-applicants\/\">because it&#8217;s important<\/a>. You&#8217;re going to be spending up to two years (and a lot of money!) in business school, so you want to be 100% certain that you&#8217;re happy with your choice. How can you be sure if you&#8217;ve never stepped foot on campus? So get there. Walk around, sit in on a class, chat with students and just soak up the campus culture (here&#8217;s some <a href=\"https:\/\/admissionado.com\/mba\/7-mba-admissions-consultants-advice-on-campus-visits\/\">additional advice<\/a> from a few of our wizard MBA consultants).<\/p>\n<p>Yyyyep\u2026 it&#8217;s a lot. And we haven&#8217;t even covered\u00a0the actual applications yet. \u00a0Aren&#8217;t you glad you&#8217;re getting started early? There&#8217;s a lot of work to do, friend\u2026 The good news is you&#8217;ve got <em>plenty<\/em> of time to do it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As 2016 drew to (what many folks would deem as) a much anticipated close, we saw a fair amount of messages from prospective B-School applicants that sounded a lot like&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,817,775],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mba","category-admissionado","category-admission-consultants","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}