{"id":9187,"date":"2011-11-03T16:38:20","date_gmt":"2011-11-03T23:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=9187"},"modified":"2011-11-03T16:38:20","modified_gmt":"2011-11-03T23:38:20","slug":"dont-let-the-numbers-fool-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/dont-let-the-numbers-fool-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Let the Numbers Fool You"},"content":{"rendered":"

With some outlets recently reporting that your chances of getting into a top-ranked MBA program have improved since last year<\/a>, we want to revisit an idea that we wrote about more than a year ago<\/a>. In a nutshell, whether application numbers are up or down barely affects your<\/em> chances of admission.<\/p>\n

Yes, most top-ranked business schools reported that their application numbers were down in the 2010-2011 admissions season when compared to the previous year. This certainly isn\u2019t bad news if you hope to get into one of these MBA programs this year (assuming that the trend continues; this is a reasonable assumption, but not a trivial one), but the problem with all of this is that statistics are very useful in the aggregate<\/em>, but using them to judge an individual case can lead to some off-base conclusions.<\/p>\n

We will repeat some of what we wrote last year since it\u2019s crucial that you understand where we come from. Here\u2019s the crux of today\u2019s article:<\/p>\n

You should stop worrying about how many applicants are trying to get into each of your your target schools, and start worrying about how many GREAT <\/strong>applicants are applying.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you apply to Fancy Business School (FBS), which takes 500 new students each year. Last year FBS received 6,000 applications and admitted 600 of them, for an acceptance rate of 10%. (100 of the lucky admits decided to instead matriculate at the Luxurious Graduate School of Business instead.) This year, the school will receive 7,500 applications and will still admit 600 of them (they expect yield will be the same), for an acceptance rate of 8%.<\/p>\n

YIKES! FBS\u2019s acceptance rate just went down by two percentage points (from 10% to 8%), and you therefore must be 20% less likely to get in! Well, what if we told you that those additional 1,500 applicants all had unremarkable work experience, GPAs under 3.0, and GMAT scores lower than 600? You are\u00a0 a lot less worried about those additional competitors now, aren\u2019t you? Now what if we told you that they all were rock stars in their jobs, they all earned 3.8+ GPAs at Ivy League schools, and not one of them has a GMAT score below 740? Now you're really worried, right?<\/p>\n

Of course, there's no way to know who those additional people are, just as, when application numbers decline, you do not\u00a0 know who\u2019s not<\/em> applying but did apply a year ago. In this hypothetical case, your true competition comes from the portion of applicants who realistically have a fighting chance of getting into (and doing well at) Fancy Business School. In the case of FBS, we\u2019ll estimate that it\u2019s about a quarter to a third of the applicants (this is very consistent with what we hear from admissions officers)\u2026 Their job is hard not because they need to choose among the 7,500 people who apply to FBS, but rather because they must decide which of the approximately 2,000 great<\/em> applicants they will admit.<\/p>\n

If those 1,500 \u201cnew\u201d applicants all have less than stellar profiles, then the admissions committee\u2019s job isn\u2019t really that much harder. And if you are\u00a0 strong enough to be one of the approximately 2,000 great applicants that the admissions committee is really considering, then you should not be too scared by those additional 1,500 applicants. Again, the total number of applicants, by itself, is almost meaningless if you don\u2019t know anything about who those people are. Hearing that FBS\u2019s acceptance rate dropped from 10% to 8% should not have any effect on the rational part of your mind.<\/p>\n

The argument works the same way when the number of applicants drops: If FBS gets 500 fewer applicants this year, you are\u00a0 happy to hear that. But if all 500 of those people wouldn\u2019t have gotten in anyway \u2014 perhaps they were the classic \u201cbad economy fence sitters\u201d who applied on a lark, with miserable GMAT scores and laughable recommendations \u2014 then this isn\u2019t exactly super news for you. It isn't bad news, but it\u2019s not much more exiting than hearing that your second-favorite hockey team just moved from fifth to fourth in the standings.<\/p>\n

We will conclude this article with a\u00a0 final piece of advice, which is always true : You can always help your chances the best by focusing on what you can do to make YOUR application terrific. Let let the rest just happen, because that is all you can do.<\/p>\n

For more news and analysis on the MBA admissions space, be sure to check our blog <\/a>daily.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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