{"id":35665,"date":"2017-01-23T11:51:40","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T18:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/what-you-can-do-now-to-prepare-for-round-1-best-practices-from-last-years-success-stories\/"},"modified":"2017-01-23T11:51:40","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T18:51:40","slug":"what-you-can-do-now-to-prepare-for-round-1-best-practices-from-last-years-success-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/what-you-can-do-now-to-prepare-for-round-1-best-practices-from-last-years-success-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"What You Can Do Now to Prepare for Round 1: Best Practices from Last Year’s Success Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It may be \u201conly January\u201d now, but for most busy MBA applicants, the deadlines sneak-up faster than you think. As such, we compiled a list of best practices from our clients this past year that can help guide you over the next few months.<\/div>\n
Schedule Your Class Visits Now<\/div>\n
\u201cI visited all of my target schools the year before. I\u2019m so glad I did because my list shuffled quite a bit - my \u201cdream school\u201d changed twice.\u201d - Kellogg Admit<\/div>\n
If you plan to apply round 1 (which you should if you\u2019re this early in the process, in most cases), there\u2019s a very small window of opportunity in the fall to squeeze in a class visit before the actual deadlines. So, we recommend that you visit over the next few months. Visiting helps you to assess which schools may be the best fit for you, and it also gives you insight into valuable essay and interview ammunition such as the specifics of clubs, classes and the school\u2019s culture that are challenging to conceptualize from merely reading the website. Those who visit almost always write better essays than those who don\u2019t, from our experience.<\/div>\n
Take the GMAT ASAP<\/div>\n
\u201cI wish I\u2019d taken the GMAT earlier. Originally I was targeting a whole different set of schools, then when I got my score I had to re-evaluate at the last minute.\u201d - HBS admit<\/div>\n
Knowing your GMAT score in advance can help you a) better focus your school research; b) help determine if you need to take extra classes in advance of applying (eg. to offset a weaker score); c) ensure ample time to retake the test if you desire; and d) take that burden off your plate, enabling you to focus on the higher-level, strategic aspects of the application such as defining your story and goals.<\/div>\n
Activate Your Network<\/div>\n
\u201cI arranged to have coffee with several of my MBA co-workers a full year in advance. It was invaluable because they flagged issues for me that I would never have considered on my own. They also helped me start to think about why an MBA might be the right or wrong decision for me.\u201d - Wharton admit<\/div>\n
An MBA is more than an academic degree. It\u2019s a full program with many aspects and attributes that are often hard to understand without having been there yourself. Seek-out those in your network who can talk to you about their MBA experiences. Having these conversations early will help you not only collect information to accelerate your process (eg. information on school cultures, different career paths etc); but it could also lead to stronger advocacy for you by these individuals as they write your recommendations later on. Everyone likes to see someone being proactive!<\/div>\n
Flag Your Weaknesses So You Have Time to Do Something About Them<\/div>\n
\u201cI took two online accounting courses before I applied since my college grades were less than impressive. They took forever. I never could have completed them alongside the essays.\u201d - Haas Admit<\/div>\n
It\u2019s not too hard to find information on what the schools are looking for. In fact, we have two webinars on our website that walk through exactly that. Think through where your areas of weakness are and create an action plan to address those issues over the coming months. Typical areas of weakness include low undergrad grades \/ GPA, low GMAT score, limited extracurricular involvement, limited leadership experience, etc. Though you can\u2019t change the past, you can always mitigate the potential negative impact of anything that\u2019s less than perfect on your profile.<\/div>\n
Start Thinking About Your Goals As Soon As Possible<\/div>\n
"Fortunately I wasn\u2019t going to go to business school unless I knew what my specific goals would be coming out. So I forced myself to do a lot of research and determine a few paths that I\u2019d realistically want to go down. This turned out to be a lot of work and I\u2019m glad I did this well in advance.\u201d - Fuqua admit<\/div>\n
Being able to articulate why the MBA is the right degree for you and what you plan to do with it is extremely important. There are limited spaces available in each top MBA program, so they want people who they know will leverage the MBA to do great things. For 75% of the people we work with, defining their goals is one of the hardest parts. It takes time, conversations, research and a little soul searching. We encourage you to start this process early. As a tip, we have most of our clients start by looking at the job placement reports for their target schools and looking at the LinkedIn profiles of people whose careers may interest them (co-workers, family friends, etc). Then we get much more methodical, but this preliminary research helps you to get a sense for the lay of the land.<\/div>\n
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So how does all of this apply to your specific situation? Great question! We\u2019d love to chat with you about your profile and help answer any questions you have about your MBA application journey. That\u2019s why we offer our free 30-minute consultation.<\/p>\n
Sign up to speak with one of our MBA admissions experts today<\/a>!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It may be \u201conly January\u201d now, but for most busy MBA applicants, the deadlines sneak-up faster than you think. As such, we compiled a list of best practices from our…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1955,775,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mba","category-vantage-point-mba","category-admission-consultants","category-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35665","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\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}