Mission Admission is a series of MBA admissions tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.

Not surprisingly, one of the most common questions we receive from MBA candidates is “Will I get into business school?” Of course, this is an important question to consider before applying, and we suggest that you honestly assess and understand your candidacy and risk profile within the context of your target school’s typical student body before completing or submitting an application to that school. However, once you have determined that you will in fact apply to a particular school, you should not let this question haunt you or halt your progress. Many applicants spend too much time worrying and not enough time working. Your admissions decision is ultimately out of your control, so just focus on submitting the best application you possibly can. Read more

How can you write essays that grab the attention of MBA admissions committees? With this thorough Chicago Booth essay analysis, our friends at mbaMission help you conceptualize your essay ideas and understand how to execute, so that your experiences truly stand out.

For the third year in a row, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business is maintaining its rather unique “essay” question in which it asks applicants to select from a group of images depicting key moments in the Chicago Booth MBA experience and explain why the chosen image “best resonates” with them. When this prompt was first introduced in 2015–2016, the school offered a collection of 16 photos from which candidates could choose; last year, the group was reduced to ten. This season, Chicago Booth is presenting just six image options. We are unaware of the exact reasons behind this continued minimizing, but we theorize that certain types of photos were rarely chosen or did not elicit the kind of response the admissions committee ultimately felt was helpful in evaluating candidates. Another possibility is that multiple photos may have inspired very similar essays, so only one such picture was needed. Or Chicago Booth may have wanted to focus applicants on specific aspects of its program and therefore eliminated any images not related to those elements. This year’s photos again come with captions describing the depicted scene—an important factor in this equation in that an individual might be strongly drawn to a particular image, but the associated caption might influence his or her initial interpretation of it in some way. The bottom line is that with this nontraditional prompt, the school puts a significant amount of power in candidates’ hands in letting them select from a group of options, which thereby lets them better control the impression of themselves they want to present. We hope that you will find the essay question exciting and inspiring, rather than intimidating, and offer the following Chicago Booth essay analysis to help you plan your response. Read more

How can you write essays that grab the attention of MBA admissions committees? With this thorough analysis, our friends at mbaMission help you conceptualize your essay ideas and understand how to execute, so that your experiences truly stand out.

Like several of the other top MBA programs that have released their essay questions for this year, the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) has remained faithful to the prompts it presented last season. But with a total maximum word count allowance of 1,150, the school gives its applicants a little more room in which to express themselves. Although the Stanford GSB is an institution well known for generating and encouraging  innovators, the school uses its application essays not to ask candidates to share their imaginative new ideas but rather to look inward and examine their motivations and values. These are your opportunities to demonstrate the parts of your personality and profile that are not readily conveyed through transcripts, scores, and lists of professional accomplishments. In our Stanford Graduate School of Business essay analysis that follows, we present advice on how you might do so effectively… Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

The problem we’re going to talk about today is a work of art. (Yes, I’m a geek. Did you not know that already? )

But I’m serious: it’s a thing of beauty. It looks super easy. It’s not—there are traps all over the place. The GMAT test writers have a genius for tying us into knots! Read more

Mission Admission is a series of MBA admissions tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.

“Should I use Calibri or Times New Roman font for my essays?”

“Should I list my GPA to the third or fourth decimal place?”

“I don’t have enough space to enter my full title, so should I write ‘Vice President’ or ‘VP Sales’?” Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

Most of the problems in Integrated Reasoning test the same material we already need to study for the Quant and Verbal sections of the GMAT. There are a few differences though—and we’re going to talk about one of those differences today, in the latest installment of our Know the Code series. Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

If you’re a non-native English speaker who wants to excel on GMAT Sentence Correction, there are a lot of resources out there for you. (I’d recommend starting with the excellent Foundations of Verbal.) But what if you are a native English speaker? This article is especially for you. By leveraging the skills you already have, you can take your GMAT Sentence Correction performance to the next level and improve your overall score. Read more

How can you write essays that grab the attention of MBA admissions committees? With this thorough analysis, our friends at mbaMission help you conceptualize your essay ideas and understand how to execute, so that your experiences truly stand out.

After making no changes to its application essay questions last year from the year before, New York University’s (NYU’s) Stern School of Business has this season made a rather drastic overhaul to its prompts. Some candidates may be pleased to see the school’s longstanding “personal expression” creative essay go away, but they will still need to rely on their imaginative side to give the admissions committee what it wants for its new “Pick 6”prompt. One big application change has also precipitated the addition of a totally new—though not overly intimidating, we hope—essay: applicants may use a single application to apply to multiple MBA programs at the school (Full-time, Tech, Fashion and Luxury, Part-time), so NYU Stern asks candidates to specify their top choice(s) and explain the reasoning behind their selection. Read more

Every so often, we ask some of our partners and friends to discuss their programs, goals, missions, and news with us. This week, get familiar with Reaching Out MBA.

Reaching Out MBA is the global association for Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, and Queer (LGBTQ) MBAs with a mission to create the next generation of out business leaders. Focusing on educating, inspiring, and connecting LGBTQ students and alumni in both MBA and graduate communities, Reaching Out MBA serves its audience from the start of their journey well into their professional careers. In addition to the programming below, Reaching Out MBA continues to provide support for its network to keep them prepared for the ever-changing world of business. If you’d like to learn more, please visit us here.

We are: Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

It’s become a bit of a running joke in my classes that I say, “The GMAT is a game of [a thing].” Every time I say it, I make it sound like I’ve revealed the hidden key to GMAT mastery: Read more