If you had to apply again next year, how would you prepare?

True, I can't complain about the cheapness of it all, but unless you take the Purple express line during rush hour, the transfer between the purple local line and the red line sometimes takes 10-20 minutes. The red line goes at 5 mph (or feels like it) all the way to downtown Chicago, and then the blue line to the airport also goes at 10-15 mph since they're renovating the lines to make them faster (55 mph in 2009). It took 1.5 hours to get to the airport taking the purple line express (which is sweet!) and the blue line. If it were the red, it would have taken another 2.5 hours.

The Express from downtown to GSB is nice though, 30 minutes each way.

togafoot, I agree, it's ALWAYS better to do at least two sets of essays and review the one you did first again before you submit.

thanks todoor. Yeah, will start compiling stuff into wikis soon... hopefully after my Haas decision.

OK, Here is my advice.

1. If you are studying for the GMAT right now, stop. This will make sense a little later.
2. Start researching schools you want to go to. Start with a list of about 10-15, then narrow it down to your top 6-8 choices.
3. Check each school's website for info sessions in your area. I have been getting some emails about info sessions in January and February.
4. Schedule school visits for February. If you can't make it by then, check what time frame early to mid spring term is for your schools and schedule visits then
5. Look up and contact students from clubs you are interested in
6. In march or early April start studying for the GMAT.

I started studying for the GMAT last year in either late January or early february. That was a mistake. By may I was done with a killer score (retook it once), and ready to research schools. However, I then discovered that most schools were closing for the summer (duh). I researched schools as best I could, but then I had quite a while to wait before the essays officially came out and I could schedule class visits. Do the class visiting and research now. Spend the late spring/early summer nailing the GMAT. Then you can visit schools again if you want. Start writing drafts of the generic "Why MBA, why now, why our school" stuff in late July/August. You should be in good shape by the time the real essays come out.

Also, start looking at weaknesses in your profile and how to resolve them.

1. Mitigate bad grades with an alternative transcript and/or very high GMAT.
2. Get more involved in stuff. This was another mistake I made. Many of my extracirricular activities I enjoy are somewhat solo. I like to work out, read, spend time with my wife and friends. But I could have taken these activities and made them more b-school appealing. I could have joined a running club and trained for a 10k. I could have joined or (better yet) created a weekly book club.

I might repeat points of previous commenters - but then repetition is key to understanding, right?

Okay, your question sort of implies what would you do differently, and what did you do right.

1) Get the GMAT out of the way early. There is nothing like the real test, never mind those test exams. You might have to take it again, leave SUFFICIENT time in between those tests to think about a new study strategy (I changed mine completely after a mediocre first try)

1a) This applies to the TOEFL as well. I got my TOEFL too late because they didn't have available testing slots until late October. That screwed up my R1 Kellogg app.

2) Think about schools. river outlined that well.

3) I bought Montauk's book when my application process started. That one gave me quite a few hints as to what to do when. (buy that thing EARLY! )

4) Try to get applications done in the first Round. Start with the one that matters least. (some people will recommend starting with Kellogg if you apply there)

5) Leave enough time for writing essays. Find people that will help you and give you feedback.

These threads might of be some interest to you:

103-p310572?t=44024

103-t42452?

Pretty neat ratio of kudos/posts you got there. I can see the 09 gang forming already.

Personally, the whole process for me was rushed!!!
Initial research, study for GMAT, sitting exams through to completion of all applications came hand in hand with the global release of the product i was working on and the whole process took 2 months for me. Not enough time. (At my age, applying soon was important, so it had to be done quickly)

So I would say, preperation is key! Most people here probably had around 6 months or more to get things done.

1) Make sure you know why you want or need an MBA and give a quick research into schools
2) Study and practise more for GMAT.. (This was my main time compressed area, therefore i did not do as well as i could have)
3) Create your list of schools .. Fit Fit Fit... No point applying to a Elite school if the curriculum, students and teaching style means you won't get the most out of it. After the MBA is over, the skills you have acquired coupled with your previous experience is what will push you on, so regardless of the institution, if you haven't maximised your potential due to bad fit, you won't get where you want to.
4) It's good to have some people who are good at English and NOT involved in your industry or profession to review your essays after you have written them, They can tell you which areas make no sense, where grammar has gone badly wrong and spelling mistakes. If it's understandable to them, then you know you haven't thrown in some technical jargon which an adcom may not understand.
In my case, my wife is a teacher, so has no technical background whatsover, so any 'tech' talk in my essays had to be written in a way that she could understand.
5) Thesaurus... try not to overuse the same words.
6) Take your time over the essays. Mine were all rushed. I banged out the first 12 essays within 1 week to meet my first deadline!!! I only had time to make 1 draft for all the schools I applied to. Definitely give yourself time to plan the essay, but don't agonise over it. I certainly believe that some essays, if re-written too many times, can appear over-engineered. A few style 'flaws' are not a bad thing imo, it may even reveal more about your personality. That's why there are writing analysts in certain institutions.
7) After you submit, don't worry. There not much else you can do. Panicking won't help you any.


For me, I just wished i realised i needed an MBA earlier than mid-October

Belonging to an common demographic, I think it is important to demonstrate your diversity and interest with the school. There are number of things I would want to do.

1. Learn a language. Although I know basic Mandarin, it is not proficient enough to say I can do business in China.
2. Get an unusual international experience. Places like USA, Singapore etc are too common. I know a guy in my company,who although is from a common demographic, got into 3 top schools because he was posted to Saudi Arabia for a project.
3. Community Service is important but I think its much more important to have leadership experience. Its just not enough to say you did story reading to kids in the local school or carried bricks for a Habitat project. You need to show that you made a demonstrable difference in the community you were involved in.
4. Write essays and get it reviewed by folks who are actually in business school. Even though you might write great essays and have it reviewed by someone with a strong command of English, the content may not be what the admissions committee is looking for( I know there might be some debate on this fact that do not try to write what the adcom wants to hear. But I still believe it is important to put your essay forward in a format that ticks the important check boxes in the adcom's mind without trying to appear as if you are).

Whilst i do not completley disagree, the main issue is people trying to find a 'formula'. This can be easily smelled by adcoms, as they are reading 1000's of essays.

Not only that but just cause someone got in doesnt mean their essays are any good and someone who got dinged may actually have had amazing essays. There are people who get admitted despite their crappy essays. If you have the most amazing profile but write garbage every school except maybe Stanford and HBS will admit you.

I agree with everything above!

To touch on a point I don't think anyone has mentioned, I wish I had done more research into some of the finer points of application do's and don'ts. Things like:

- You shouldn't get a recommendation from an old professor
- A GMAT score, as long as it's above XXX, won't really make a difference. So, work on strengthening your profile in other aspects.
- Work on your least favorite school's application first. Don't make the mistake of getting excited, working on your favorite school's application, and then figuring out all the things you should've done better on the first one that now looks like a crapfest.
- Coach your recommenders early, and often. From what I've heard, these can sometimes be more important than the essays.
- Weave differentiating factors into your life, not necessarily just community service. I'm lucky (?) enough that I had a bunch of unusual hobbies and interests which were fun to write about and (I think) set me apart from the thousands of other consultants applying.

That's all I can think of for now. Hope that helps!

That part was very hard for one of my Recommenders, he's a very busy man, and I suffered big time for some applications, MIT he sent 1 hour before deadline. Columbia I needed to change my "personal deadline" 2 weeks because of his reco. For Stanford it also was a nightmare, but I could handle.

If you are international, start with TOEFL, the iBT version is problematic for some test takers, especially the speaking part. Then do the GMAT, I'd take at least 4 months to study, I know there are many histories of guys who took some weeks or 1 month and aced it, but I'd say that unless you're one of these guys, really put some effort here. Then, around August, early September, work hard on your essays.

Try to visit schools, or at least go at their Info Sessions, get in touch with alumni, research the schools you want, etc.

That's a good one! I recall someone posting advice a few days ago that included something to the effect of, "don't visit schools, you can find everything about them online." While the conclusion of the statement is arguably true, I STRONGLY DISAGREE with this statement. You should absolutely visit schools to show your interest. Almost all of these places (save 2-3) are very concerned with their yield, and I get the impression they'd be much more willing to admit someone who's visited and made a personal impression on faculty/staff (apart from the interview) than someone who 1. Doesn't visit, period, or 2. Visits and makes a bad/no impression on anyone during said visit.

As a caveat, I don't think this process has the same amount of usefulness for every school; for example, I visited Kellogg, and the admissions people really didn't seem to give a crap that people had made the effort either way.

Oh yeah, and visiting these places gives you the chance to meet interesting people, like Rhyme. Ironically, I met him long before I became aware of this or any other online forum.

I've now heard multiple people say this about Kellogg. Why did you get this feeling that the adcom couldn't care less about your making the effort to visit the school?

I don't think that for M7 schools visits really matter for their yield, I think they matter more for fit. During my MIT interview I was aked: "Why do you think MIT is a fit for you and you are a fit for MIT?". You just can answer that if you know the school philosophy, and to know it either you know from Alumni you talked to or you saw yourself. For internationa students visit every schools is impossible. I was admitted at GSB and I've never been there or at info sessions - because the dates in Europe last year didn't fit for me; nevertheless, I can say I knew the school reasonably well from what I talked to MANY, and I repeat MANY, alumni.

This is healthy not only for the application process itself, but also for you to end up at a place you will "fell like home".

"1) This is everything from teaching style (case or everything else), location, specialties, companies that recruit, community feel, size, etc. Also dont forget to make yourself well rounded, I applied to MIT because as an engineer it is very well known and is something engineers aspire to. However, the more I thought about it and talked to people going to another top b-school actually has one huge advantage I didnt think about...it would round out my profile. As great a school as MIT is, as an engineer it will built up my image as an engineer."

river makes a great point here. unless you go into a really focused, niche sort of career, you will need a broad skillset that emcompasses qualitative and quantitative skills. it makes a lot of sense to me for a heavily quantitative person to go to harvard / stanford / darden -- "softer" schools that have less quant focus -- than it does for them to go to wharton / chicago / MIT. how much would an engineer really learn at the latter? they would still learn about business, but they would largely be able to rely on the skillset they already possess in spades, and, to some extent, continue to neglet the softer skills they would learn at a soft program. (these are generalities of course, but contain some truth.)

i have a "soft" background and personally think that reading, writing about and discussing cases in class would be vastly easier for me than would sitting in a room alone battling it out with my calculator trying to punch out numbers in a quant program (i know that's hyperbole but you get the point). i applied to a diverse set of schools, but really hope that i get into wharton / chicago / columbia so that i can improve my weakest skill - quant. ironically, i am probably less likely to get into the programs that would benefit me most because i don't currently have a strong quant background. i wrote about this pretty extensively in my essays, so hopefully a stated desire to focus on quant + some relevant, provable quant experience + otherwise interesting and unique background will = win come admissions time. surely even chicago and wharton will take one or two english majors

Specifically, they didn't have a sign-in sheet, the admissions person didn't have a specific contact number/email address that she gave out, her Q&A session was very dry and unpersonal, and the whole campus tour seemed very disjointed and informal.

Really, at the end of the whole visit, I left with a bad taste in my mouth. This isn't to say that Kellogg isn't anything but a great school, but the visit did absolutely nothing in terms of my gaining a feel for the culture and personal "fit" with the place. It was more of an "outside looking in" perspective than a "here's what our school is like" presentation.

Also, this experience may have been soured by the proportionally large ratio of d-bag to non-d-bag people in the tour group. My favorite question by some person: "I've already been accepted to Loyola's (Chicago) business school. Will this get me admitted to Kellogg, or do I still have to submit an application?"

1. Sleep more