Application best practices for each B-school

I could write five hundred pages on this... but here's the quick version (Ill draft something proper later)

School Name: Honestly, I think its a pretty standard issue across the board - each school may have a slight focus (eg team work for kellogg) but the core isnt going to change.

What do you think worked for you in the application?

Like I said, I dont think there is really anything especially unique about any particular school. It's not like Kellogg wants only teamwork and Chicago wants math while Harvard wants only people from PE or whatever. The basic core elements are the same -

Leadership - demonstrable (dont confuse leadership with manager) in some capacity, professional or not.
Teamwork - critical, think well about how you view it
Extracurriculars - meaningful. Donating money to the red cross is not an extracurricular. Dont' confuse the term extracurricular with the term charity work. They are not the same thing and they dont have to be. Its ok if you aren't mother teresa as long as your extracurriculars are not "Reaching level 60 in WOW".

Words that should come to mind when you read / write your applications are things like:

Introspective
Clear Goals
Well balanced
Diverse interests

We can talk much more at length on this subject, and I'll probably draft something up later. In short, what I'm trying to convey to you here is that if you are hoping for that "X factor" at each school that is somehow a magic bullet, you won't find it. Each school is unique - yes - but in the end, its a blended crapshoot. How does the school pick from the Deloitte consultant with a 3.9 GPA nad 720 GMAT who also sings in a quartet and the Goldman banker with a 3.2 GPA and 750 GMAT who spent his summer in Nepal building beds for nuns? There's no magic cutoff, magic number, magic formula.

Since I brought up GMAT, I'll just say this about it. My personal take on the subject is this: A strong GMAT cant get you in, but a low GMAT can keep you out. Nuff bout that.

What was the X-factor in this application which wasn't present in your unsuccessful ones?

If I knew, they wouldn't have been unsuccessful.... and honestly, like I said, there is always some amount of randomness in the decision.

How did you show that you fit with your admit school?

Research and tons of it. Know the school. Know the culture. Visit if you can. Talk to students. Reach out to anyone and everyone. BE SPECIFIC IN YOUR ESSAYS.

Here is a good example of what not write

"I want to attend the Chicago GSB because of world renonwed faculty and a global and diverse student body. I am excited at the 21st century facilities and diverse options avaliable to the students, both in the classroom and in outside activities."

Here's one that seems better, but is just as bad:

"I want to come to the Chicago GSB because of its world renowned faculty such as Steven Levitt and because of its diverse and global student body. I am excited by the new Parker Center and diverse options avaliable to students, both in the classroom and in extracurriculars."

This is still horrible for two reasons. First is it still isnt specific enough.... but there's a second point --- Don't cut and paste too much, because if you arent careful, you'll do something stupid, like for instance, mention a Parker Center that exists at Cornell (I think) while talking about Chicago. You may have noticed that above, you may not have, but an adcom would. This leads me to a key rule: DO NOT CUT AND PASTE YOUR "WHY" ABOUT THE SCHOOL. I didn't cut and paste ONE SENTENCE here.

So what is a SPECIFIC EXAMPLE that CLEARLY and DEMONSTRABLY illustrates your INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCHOOL?

How about:

"I am especially excited at the prospect of attending the Chicago GSB because of the diverse and exciting student body I met during my visit in April. Mary Mcboobies ('08) kindly invited me to her class by Steven Levitt "How to write a book for 12th graders and make millions" which I found both engaging and enthralling. I was asstounded not only by the level of class participation but also (idiom!) by how the students were so involved in extracurriculars. In particular, given my background in Financial Engineering, I was very pleased to see that Chicago offers a "Integral Calculus is Fun(tm)" student group."

So, ok, I'm being a little silly here... but this is my point - specific specific specific. If you took that and made it a bit more serious it would sound a helluva lot better than "I want to come here because the faculty is excellent."

Did you visit the school?

When possible yes. There are many reasons to in my mind. First, its hard to say you really want to go to Cornell if you've never been to Cornell. Hard sell. Second, if you are waitlisted, you already have all the material in the world to write a nice love letter about how you loved your visit, really wanna come, bla bla. Much harder to do than if you didn't. Third, if you visit, you'll get all the material in the world for your essays... 2 days on a campus will give you more than enough to pump an essay full of solid and specific examples. Finally, theres at least a remote chance you'll hear about something that is NOT on the webpage, which means your essays are, at least in a small way, a little less repetitive to read than the last guys.

Was your GMAT ever mentioned as a specific plus point during the admissions process,by ad-com or interviewer?

No, it was not. That said, I do know of one person who was flat out told he was waitlisted because of his GMAT.

If you got a positive note from your interviewer or ad-com, what was it?

Nope, never got one.

Did you take care to emphasize certain aspects of your profile?

No, I just randomally wrote things down and then ran a spellcheck accepting the first word it suggested in each case. Just kidding.

If yes, what were they?

Leadership, Teamwork, Potential, Extracurriculars all rounded off with an overreaching plan of representing a balanced individual with clear and attainable goals. Then I sprinkled a little dreamery and the occasional humour for good measure. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes and serve warm. Really though, the key elements of any application don't change.... its the same basic elements that schools look for.

Why did you choose to emphasize them?

It seemed better than emphasizing my crooked teeth and unmanagable hairstyle. Jokes aside, I could be a lot more specific abotu what I emphasized, but basically the criteria was this - is what I'm talking about MEANINGFUL? Does it matter? Is it in some way relevant or interesting? Does it portray the image I'm trying to convey? Is it clear? Is it diverse in some way?

You'll get to a point where you have to pick between writing about X or Y in an essay, and both stories will seem good to you.... one is usually better ... finding the "right" story to emphasize takes some time. You really have to disect your experiences and see which ones truly demonstrate something of note.

Focus not on the experience that necessarily sounds the most "senior" but the experiences that say the most about you as a person. A word of caution here - I've seen a lot of people go off on major tangents about their childhoods - trying to portray an image that they were somehow shaped by the time "Dad came home with no food" or something. Often, the stories end up being more about their dad than they do about them, and 98% of the time, they end up being completely disjointed from anything at all related to the essay. Its an attempt at introspection and showing how you got to where you are today (often its a lead in to why you want to do what you want to do) but again, 90% of the time, they fall flat. In fact, out of all of the variations of these I read, there are probably only one or two that I can honestly say I remember. Keep in mind that this isn't a sit down session with Dr. Phil, you want to be introspective and talk about yourself, but you aren't trying to figure out if Uncle Johnny ClosetMaster did something innapropriate with you at age 6.

Did you deliberately choose to omit certain aspects of your profile, specific to your admit school?

Not really, I just didnt focus on things that didnt make sense to focus on. I mean you cant really "omit" your GPA, as much as I would have liked to. I just didn't talk about it.

more later.

I know what I wrote is pretty poorly written (in my defense I'm jetlagged and operating on like 2 hours sleep)... I'll be bak with something more logical later.