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What have you been told about applying to business school? With the advent of chat rooms, blogs and forums, armchair \u201cexperts\u201d often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and undermine an applicant\u2019s confidence. Some applicants are led to believe that schools want a specific \u201ctype\u201d of candidate and expect certain GMAT scores and GPAs, for example. Others are led to believe that they need to know alumni from their target schools and\/or get a letter of reference from the CEO of their firm in order to get in. In this series,<\/i><\/b> mbaMission<\/i><\/b><\/a> debunks these and other myths and strives to take the anxiety out of the admissions process.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n <\/i><\/b>Many business school applicants believe that the MBA admissions committees have distilled their criteria for selecting candidates over the years and have in mind a specific \u201ctype\u201d of individual they want. For example, within this world of business school stereotypes, applicants believe that Harvard Business School (HBS) is looking only for leaders, Kellogg is looking only for marketing students, Chicago Booth is looking only for finance students, and even that MIT Sloan is looking only for \u201ceggheads.\u201d Of course, these business school stereotypes\u2014like most stereotypes\u2014are inaccurate. Chicago Booth wants far more than one-dimensional finance students in its classes, and it provides far more than just finance to its MBA students (including, to the surprise of many, an excellent marketing program). HBS is not a school just for \u201cgenerals\u201d; among the approximately 950 students in each of its classes, HBS has a wide variety of personalities, including some excellent foot soldiers. So, at mbaMission, we constantly strive to educate MBA candidates about these misconceptions, which can sink applications if applicants pander to them.<\/span><\/p>\n By way of example, imagine that you have worked in operations at a widget manufacturer. You have profound experience managing and motivating dozens of different types of people, at different levels, throughout your career, in both good economic times and bad. Even though your exposure to finance has been minimal, you erroneously determine that you need to be a \u201cfinance guy\u201d to get into NYU Stern. So you tell your best, but nonetheless weak, finance stories, and now you are competing against elite finance candidates who have far more impressive stories in comparison. What if you had told your unique operations\/management stories instead and stood out from the other applicants, rather than trying to compete in the school\u2019s most overrepresented pool?<\/span><\/p>\n We think that attempting to defy business school stereotypes and truly being yourself\u2014trying to stand out from all others and not be easily categorized\u2014is only natural. Of course, for those of you who are still not convinced, allow us to share a quote from Stanford\u2019s former director and assistant dean of MBA admissions, Derrick Bolton, who wrote on his admissions website, <\/span>\u201cBecause we want to discover who you are, resist the urge to \u2018package\u2019 yourself in order to come across in a way you think Stanford wants. Such attempts simply blur our understanding of who you are and what you can accomplish. We want to hear your genuine voice throughout the essays that you write, and this is the time to think carefully about your values, your passions, your hopes and dreams.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Makes sense, right? ?<\/span><\/p>\n What have you been told about applying to business school? With the advent of chat rooms, blogs and forums, armchair \u201cexperts\u201d often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and undermine an applicant\u2019s confidence. Some applicants are led to believe that schools want a specific \u201ctype\u201d of candidate and expect certain GMAT scores and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,928,52900,4,52899,52894],"tags":[53021],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-admissions-tips","category-business-mindset","category-business-school","category-mba-b-school","category-mbamission-partners","category-partners","tag-business-school-stereotypes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13579"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13667,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13579\/revisions\/13667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13579"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/span>mbaMission<\/i><\/b><\/a> is the leader in MBA admissions consulting with a full-time and comprehensively trained staff of consultants<\/i><\/b>, all with profound communications and MBA experience. mbaMission has helped thousands of candidates fulfill their dream of attending prominent MBA programs around the world. Take your first step toward a more successful MBA application experience with a free 30-minute consultation with one of mbaMission\u2019s senior consultants. Sign up today at<\/span><\/i> www.mbamission.com\/manhattangmat<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"