Each prestigious business school claims to look for its own specific type of candidate. Yet, ironically enough each year there seem to be some applicants who manage to get into all of the top programs. Does that mean they have all the required traits of all those schools? Probably not. They simply understand the emphasis that each school places on specific traits and then highlight the desired criteria in their application. After all, success means a proper fit with the desired school. But how do individual applicants prove their fit convincingly to their school of choice?
Scott Shrum and Omari Bouknight’s book Your MBA Game Plan promises “proven strategies for getting into the top business schools”. Bouknight is a graduate of Harvard, Shrum an alumni of Kellogg. They ran essay and resume evaluation service that later merged with one of the world’s largest GMAT preparation firms, Veritas Prep’s admission consulting service (www.veritasprep.com), where both are now directors. They claim to have assisted thousands of applicants to get into prestigious business schools.
In 2003 the authors published Your MBA Game Plan for the first time and because a lot has changed in the decade since, there is now an updated edition. Thanks to modern technology and the plethora of information on all aspects of management education that is available online, applicants are more sophisticated than ever. Also their nature has changed. The classic turf for white male bankers from New York City has now turned into a playground for IT experts and engineers from all over the world. That makes it even harder for applicants to stand out. And that is what success is about: the authors claim that the interview process is more important than ever, since schools today no longer wish to admit candidates whose concern is the value of the share price rather than the value of personal ethics.
In spite of all these changes, some things stay the same and many hopefuls still run into trouble with their application because they focus solely on the mechanics: GMAT scores and GPA - and not enough on who they are. And that is where the book comes in. The core message of the first edition has not changed – “you must always demonstrate a fit with a school and stand out from the pack” – and the new edition aims at showing applicants ways to convince the admission officers.
Shrum and Bouknight’s advice is sound: every applicant has an Achilles’ heel, so make your application as multi-faceted as possible, including personal traits, endeavours and interests – but put it together in a logical and consistent manner. And: avoid all stereotypes! Also make your career goals clear, “since where you are going is as important as where you are coming from”, write the authors.
All that’s easier said than done and therefore the authors provide many MBA admission essays and applicant profiles to demonstrate what works in today’s environment and what does not. The book outlines how admissions officers think and what they tend to value in an applicant; interviews with admission officers like Soojin Kwan Koo from Michigan Ross School of Business (number 24 in the FT’s global ranking) or Dawna Clarke from Dartmouth’s Tuck School (number 18 in the FT’s global ranking) exemplify how these people operate. Another chapter helps with the different stages of any application, giving advice on interview questions and etiquette, analysing other applicants’ profiles to show the reader how to overcome the weaknesses their application may contain.
The book then not only dissects a variety of essays and gives samples of successful ones, but also explains how a recommendation should be written and by whom, explaining why a considerate letter from a direct superior who knows the candidate well is sometimes more helpful than a big letterhead from a CEO who has probably never really met the candidate.
The most valuable part of the book from my perspective is the collection of data on many desirable schools inside and outside the U.S., assisting readers in finding out with which schools their qualities may fit best and then suggesting a strategy how to conquer the fort. The information assembled here will save the readers many hours of online research time.
The authors’ take on the question of whether it is valuable to invest in an admission consultancy (“consultants do tend to help people get in”) seems not entirely credible since they both make a living in doing exactly that: advising applicants. Also the book is distinctively American – whereas more and more interesting schools and applicants are not. Both authors went to U.S. schools, live in California and work for an American organisation. For the editions of the future a more international perspective might be even more interesting.
Overall Your MBA Game Plan is a well organized, knowledgeable and helpful guide to the challenge of convincing the business school of your choice that you are a perfect fit.
Scott Shrum and Omari Bouknight: Your MBA Game Plan, Career Press, Pompton Plains, NJ, 19.99 USD, ISBN 978-1601631824.