Taking the GRE for your business school application? You’re in luck. Each month, we are featuring a series of MBA admission tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.

Applying to business school is a process rife with decisions—which schools to target, which recommenders to choose, which essays to write—and a common one giving candidates some serious pause these days is which exam to take, the GMAT or the GRE? As the number of programs accepting the GRE continues to grow, aspiring MBAs are becoming more and more confused about this element of the application process. Read more

What have you been told about applying to business school? With the advent of chat rooms, blogs, and forums, armchair “experts” often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and undermine an applicant’s confidence. Some applicants are led to believe that schools want a specific “type” of candidate and expect certain GRE 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, mbaMission debunks these and other myths and strives to take the anxiety out of the admissions process.

The perfect MBA applicant does not exist. However, a perception of the perfect applicant does—an individual who is scaling greater and greater personal, community, and professional peaks unabated until he/she finally applies to business school. So, those who take time off at any point perceive themselves as disadvantaged. They worry that the admissions committees will see the gap(s) in their resume and dismiss them outright. After all, they probably have numerous more determined individuals they could admit, right? Read more

Taking the GRE for your business school application? You’re in luck. Each month, we are featuring a series of MBA admission tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.

If you do mostly short-term, project-based work, you might struggle with how to structure your MBA resume so that it does not give the impression that you switch jobs every few months. If you list each job separately, not only will your MBA resume be too long, but you also run the risk that your reader will think you have not had a stable career—when in fact, if you are a successful freelancer or contractor, the opposite is the case. So, how can you organize your MBA resume so that it showcases the strength of your work and avoid having the variety and number of your work experiences come across as a weakness instead? Read more

Taking the GRE for your business school application? You’re in luck. Each month, we are featuring a series of MBA admission tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.

You may have heard the old journalistic maxim “Show, don’t tell,” which demands that writers truly illustrate the actions involved in an event or a story rather than simply stating the results of what happened. Read more

What have you been told about applying to business school? With the advent of chat rooms, blogs and forums, armchair “experts” often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and undermine an applicant’s confidence. Some applicants are led to believe that schools want a specific “type” 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, mbaMission debunks these and other myths and strives to take the anxiety out of the admissions process.

In your pursuit of acceptance to business school, you are competing against thousands of other applicants. Because you do not actually know these individuals, you may naturally assume that you need any and every edge available to stand out. As a result, you may feel compelled to provide every single detail of your life, exploiting your MBA resume in particular to do so. We want you to maximize your opportunities, of course, but we also want to be sure you do not jeopardize your application by offering too much information. Read more

Taking the GRE for your business school application? You’re in luck. Each month, we are featuring a series of MBA admission tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.

These days, the applicant pools for the top MBA programs are overfull with talented and experienced investment bankers, consultants, and software engineers. As a result, these candidates are considered overrepresented MBA candidates and may have a much harder time standing out from the crowd. However, if you fall into one of these groups, do not lose hope. Although you cannot alter your work history, you can change the way you present yourself and your candidacy to the admissions committees. We at mbaMission can offer a few suggestions for ways to ensure your essays grab an admissions reader’s attention. Read more

What have you been told about applying to business school? With the advent of chat rooms, blogs, and forums, armchair “experts” often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and undermine an applicant’s confidence. Some applicants are led to believe that schools want a specific “type” of candidate and expect certain GRE 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, mbaMission debunks these and other myths and strives to take the anxiety out of the admissions process.

Human nature dictates that amid a competitive MBA program application process—exaggerated by the pervasiveness of rankings and the chatter surrounding them—some MBA students will perceive that they are ahead of others because they were accepted at a top school, while others will perceive that they are behind their peers because they gained acceptance from a lower-ranked school. What is often lost amid all of this worrying is that you, not your business school, are the independent variable. You, not your school, will determine your success. Read more

Taking the GRE for your business school application? You’re in luck. Each month, we are featuring a series of MBA admissions tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.

Letters of recommendation are a vital element of every MBA applicant’s profile, because they provide a school’s admissions committee with its only truly objective insight into what the candidate has to offer. For this reason, recommenders can play a significant role in helping an applicant gain admission to his/her target business school, but only if the letters they write are credible and compelling. Fortunately, even though your letters of recommendation are technically in someone else’s hands, you still have some measure of control over them. Here, we explain where some of these opportunities lie—and where they do not—to help you navigate this portion of your application with less anxiety and better results. Read more

What have you been told about applying to business school? With the advent of chat rooms, blogs and forums, armchair “experts” often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and undermine an applicant’s confidence. Some applicants are led to believe that schools want a specific “type” 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, mbaMission debunks these and other myths and strives to take the anxiety out of the admissions process.

We at mbaMission often receive panicked phone calls from applicants in their late 20s, asking if they are too old to get into business school. Why does this happen? Read more

Taking the GRE for your business school application? You’re in luck. Each month, we are featuring a series of MBA admission tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.

Virtually all the top business schools offer applicants the opportunity to address anything unusual or problematic within their profiles, using either the additional information section of the application or the optional MBA essay. This way, MBA candidates can proactively explain any irregularities or inconsistencies so that the admissions committee understands the circumstances behind these issues and is not left to guess or make assumptions. Commonly, applicants will write an optional MBA essay to explain or reveal one of the following kinds of issues: Read more