Ask BizSchoolPrep

How to handle a low GPA in MBA Applications ?

A lot of times applicants are concerned that completing an undergrad degree from a second tier school or a low GPA or a non-quant major (non - finance, economics, engineering, etc) or all of them, will be seen by the admissions committees as a major red flag in their application. It is indeed true that in when the applicant has a very weak academic grades from a lower grade schools, the top business schools may feel that the candidate’s application does not demonstrate his/her ability to stand out in a competitive, rigorous academic environment.

Looking back at our clients who had profiles similar to these, we recommend that following steps can help ... read more

How should you prepare for your admissions interview?

Although the meat of your preparation will be the same no matter who interviews you, be aware that there will be some subtle differences in your experience depending on who conducts the interview. Again, your preparation will barely be affected, but it helps to know what to expect going in. Go into an HBS interview with an admissions officer expecting a fairly formal and efficient experience, for example, and you won’t be unnerved when that’s what you encounter.

With that in mind, here are a few thoughts on what to expect, based on who conducts your MBA admissions interview..... *Click here* to read more

This is the first in series of upcoming posts trying to decipher the processes that happens behind the close doors of admissions committee's office when you click that "submit" button. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of top business schools. Next is *Chicago Booth.*

Inside Wharton's Admissions Office - What happens once you click that "submit" button?



Ankur Kumar, deputy director of MBA admissions at Wharton - To start with, I'd like to say that our evaluation process is very holistic. We ask a lot of information about candidates – we want to know about their academic achievements, the way they think about the world, how they present themselves, their professional development, etc.

In terms of the life cycle of an application, it is a very iterative process. Our aim is to get multiple points of view on every applicant. We have six full time admission officers who focus on the full time MBA program. We also have some contract readers, ranging from half a dozen to a dozen people, who help us as well in the admissions process and many of them are Wharton alums. We do not specialize or focus. What I value is a generalist mentality. Our population is global. They come from all different industries, many of which weren’t even around ten years ago. We all need to understand all of those things. We don’t have a sorting system that puts all the apps from one part of the world to one person.... read more

Inside Chicago Booth's Admissions Office - What happens once you click that submit buttton?



Kurt Ahlm, Associate Dean of Student Recruitment and Admissions - Chicago Booth - When applicants hit the submit button on our online application system, essentially what happens is that from the backend we have a team that compiles the applications and verifies that these applications are complete. Once that is been verified, the applications are put into the reads cycle, which starts with a second-year students team that goes through a pretty extensive training on reading and evaluating applications. These students, or the Admissions Fellows, conduct an initial evaluation of the applications and come out with a recommendation of whether to interview a candidate or not.

Each of these Admissions Fellows reports up to an admissions director who does his or her own read of the application, independently, after which he or she also votes whether or not to interview. If there is a a match, the candidate is invited to interview, otherwise the application will then come to me for a third review..... read more

Ace that MBA Interview!



The personal interview is a very important step in your efforts to get admission to your dream business school and should not be taken any lighter than the rest of your application; almost every top MBA programs will not accept an applicant without having an interview. The motivation is :

a) to analyse and assess your overall "marketability"
b) to aggressively find the best applicants and sometimes, to keep them away from other competitive schools
c) to pitch their own MBA programs

... listen to the podcast [~17 mins]

Inside Columbia Business School's Admissions Office - What happens when you click that "submit" button?

Mary Miller, Assistant dean of admissions CBS - Once an applicant hits “submit,” his or her application goes to a first reader. Because we feel strongly that each application be reviewed by a qualified reviewer, we have very few outside readers in this role, and those who are are usually former employees of the admissions department.

Applicants can be invited to interview at any point in the process and being invited for an interview is a very positive signal to the applicant; the invitation is really, really important. A first reader can nominate an applicant for an interview, at which point candidates are sent a list of alumni in their local area who have volunteered and been trained to interview applicants. The applicants may choose whom they interview with and they arrange the interview. There is an interview format that we send to our alumni interviewers. They conduct the interview blind – which means that all they get is a resume of the applicant – following our format and return their answers to us.

... read more

Inside Texas-Austin McComb's Admissions Office - What happens when you click that submit button?



Rodrigo Malta, Director of admissions at McCombs - The first thing that I like to tell applicants is that no matter what their GMAT score is, how many years of work experience they have – their application will be touched by someone and read by someone here. That’s the advantage of being a small program. Each and every application gets reviewed by a person. The application itself will be reviewed probably by more than one person. Those individuals may be members of our admissions team or a trained first- or second-year student. They help us read applications as well ... read more

How much do MBA Interns of top business schools earn?



First, the surprise - Stanford at 17th? Well, a high percentage (~18%)of its class goes to internet/dot coms/e commerce companies (compared to just ~ 4% in Columbia's case) that pays lot less to interns than traditional industries such as finance and consulting. The interns pay is more the function of the industry they choose to work in than a reflection of school's attractiveness in pulling high paying recruiters. In reality, the internship wages is nothing but just a small change in the grand scheme of things. ... read more

Inside Kellogg's Admissions Office - What happens when you click that "submit" button?



Beth Flye, assistant dean and director of admissions at Kellogg
After an applicant submits the application, our processing team downloads that information and collects all of the other necessary information to make the file “complete.” After that, the application file goes into the evaluation pool. ... read more

Location of top US business schools on US Map

A lot of times many applicants, especially international applicants applying to the top US Business Schools, have questions about the exact location of these schools on a US map. So we thought why not to lay 'em all on one map? Check out the map below to understand which part of the US the top business schools belong to. ... read more

Inside UNC Kenan Flagler's Admissions Office - What happens when you click that "submit" button?



UNC Kenan-Flagler's Director of MBA Admissions Sherry Wallace - I am someone who strongly believes in demystifying the application process for prospective candidates. There is no advantage in our selection process if applicants feel like they are in the dark. We want you to know how that work is put to use. We even did a video tour of the admissions office on YouTube. Applicants also seem to respect the admissions process more when they know how diverse the admissions committee is. We have representation from administration, finance, consulting, retail and more who are part of the review team.

Back to how the application process works. Once applicants submit their applications through our online system, we have a team of people whose job it is to let applicants know what we’ve received and what’s missing. At any point after the evaluation process begins applicants might get an invitation to interview. In general, we have a policy so not everyone is invited to interview. Also, some applicants might get invited very early, while other applicants will get invited very late and some won’t receive an invitation at all.... read more

Inside NYU Stern's Admissions Office - What happens when you click that "submit" button?

Isser Gallogly, Executive director of MBA admissions at NYU Stern - At NYU Stern, we have three admissions deadlines, however, we use a rolling notification process, which makes us unlike some other schools that have round systems. We do provide any initial notification deadlines as to when can applicants expect us to get back to them, but usually that’s the latest possible date and we try to get out our initial notifications as soon as we have them ready. We recognize the fact that this is an anxious process for all the applicants, and we do not make people wait unnecessarily.


Our admissions process is holistic as well as individualist. Every application gets reviewed by the Admissions Committee and is reviewed more than once, so it’s not just a single individual’s decision. In some cases, the admisisons committee will debate considerably. In every case we try to make sure that every application gets a full
... read more »

Inside LBS Admissions Office - What happens when you click that "submit" button?

David Simpson, LBS associate director of marketing and admissions - Similar to many other business schools, we also follows a staged admissions application process, however, our process runs over a fairly long season. Our Round One deadline is in the month of October, and we made offers in December. Our final round deadline is towards the end of April, and these offers are made in July. Although we do expect applicants to do a lot of research about the school, which takes time as well as effort (and often included a campus visit at some stage of this process), we also recognize that candidates' professional and personal circumstances can change quickly, thus affecting their application submission time.

Once the applications are submitted through our online platform, they are downloaded after the admission deadline, printed out and additional documentations are added. They will go to admissions team members who will
.... read more

Inside University of California - Berkeley Haas Admissions Office - What happens when you click that "submit" button?

Stephanie Fujii, Director of Admissions at Berkeley Haas, Excerpts - Once the applicants submit their applications on the online platform,they immediately get a confirmation and response from the school saying “Thank you for submitting your application.” Next, we put together the application to make sure that all the required pieces of the application are in order, including the application form itself, the essays, the letters of recommendations, resume and now the applicants can also submit the official transcripts while submitting the rest of the application.

After putting together all the components of an application together and verifying that the application is complete in all aspects, we send it for its first read. All of our applications from specific regions or country are assigned to readers based on the country of applicant. Moreover, every application is given atleast two reads by our admissions team, by different readers. Once the second reader completes the evaluation, the reader decides whether to send an interview invite to the applicant, deny or waitlist. In case of any disagreement between the two readers, the application will go for a third review. Also, some applications may go to a third reader's inputs even when there is an agreement, just to get an additional perspective. ... read more

Waitlisted at your target business school? Know what to do next



You are wailisted... damn ..Now what?

Getting waitlisted is not the end of the road for you. While it is not an admit for sure, it's also not an outright deny. Waitlisting process can definitely be pretty frustrating but this is not the time to give up. You still have a chance to get that coveted admission offer; you just need to make sure that when the admissions committee turn to the waitlisted candidates, it finds you in front of the line. So follow these tips to make the best of this long process -

1. Reply back and request a feedback - Unless you have an admission offer from another, and better, business school, you may want to keep your options open by staying on the waitlist. Reply promptly to the school mentioning your interest in staying on the waitlist. Also, this would be a great time to request for a feedback on your application. Most of the schools are too busy to provide individual feedback, however, there is hardly any downside for a polite request ... read more