Ivy App Success

A great blog post on how to get into Harvard from one of the best blogs I’ve read in awhile called Study Hacks. This is a nice summary on how to get accepted into a top program and how we help clients:

“the greatest asset of these relaxed superstars is not the quality of their activities, but the fact that they’re genuinely interesting people. This trait, which I call interestingness, permeates their application – from their essay to recommendations – and has a profoundly positive impact on their admissions chance”

There are two effective ways to address weaknesses in the MBA application.

1. Don’t include the weakness

An often overlooked option for weaknesses is to not include them at all. This is highly recommended if the weakness was not addressed with positive actions.

For example, one of my clients had a lackluster academic performance throughout college. Although this was a weakness, she had taken little steps to improve her GPA. She had, however, excellent examples of leadership at work. Instead of explaining her poor GPA, we wrote the optional essay about additional leadership examples at work. By focusing on her strengths, she got accepted into her top choice.

1. State the weakness and bridge to strengths

If you overcame a weakness, fixed a wrong, or proved that it won’t happen again, weaknesses can actually becomes strengths. To do this effectively, you must make the reader focus on the positives. This is done by stating the weakness as an unapologetic fact then moving on to the positives.

For example, one of my clients had plagiarized a paragraph in his last college paper. He had, however, admitted to his error and learned from his mistake. Instead of writing the essay about why he plagiarized, we addressed the issue in a way that stressed his strengths. Here is an example of what he wrote:

“In the last semester of college, I plagiarized a paragraph in a paper that resulted in a one semester off punish before graduating [unapologetic statement of the weakness]. The school’s response was forgiving because I admitted to the mistake and had such a strong academic record to this point [bridged to positive]. From this experience, I have learned that the best way to overcome a problem is to be honest and forthright [transition to positives]”. (The rest of the essay included the stories of how he addressed the issue properly.)

With this bridging technique, the essay, which was supposed to be about plagiarizing, was filled with stories of honesty, integrity and growth.

Remember that the application process is about selling and marketing. It is not a confession, diary, or journal. Weaknesses should be address with the end goal in mind: to win the application game.

Tim Ferriss, the author of Four Hour Work Week, wrote a blog post about the importance of the Superstar Effect. I recommend reading his entire post, but I will summarize its relevance to the application process in this newsletter.

The Superstar Effect is a mathematical explanation for why the best receive disproportional rewards to all others. For example, a website that is ranked 1^st on Google search is clicked on almost 4 times (42.13%) more than the 2^nd link (11.90%). For the applicant, these results are no different:

A Sociologist, Paul Atwell, studied the Superstar Effect on applicants to Dartmouth College. He found that valedictorians had a 75% acceptance as opposed to the fifth-ranked student that had only 25%.To gain admission in such a competitive time, you must create the Superstar Effect in whatever field you do best. You can achieve this by not only establishing your skills but also eliminating your completion.

This application method is what helped me gain acceptance into Tuck School of Business with a modest GPA and GMAT and Harvard University with similarly credentials.  In my application, I managed to establish myself as the best in a field. For my clients, I work with them to do the same.

Contact me for more questions as I would love to help you gain admission to your top choice school.

It is important in your application process to remember to have fun. Think about an admissions officer reading thousands of applications on the same essay question; it must get incredibly boring (yes, even during your essays). One way to stand out in the crowd of essays, interviewers and applicants is to have some fun.

For example, in one of my essays I actually used a swear word (a–hole). In another, I talked about a company I started called Wingmancard, which helps people meet other people to date. In that essay, which answered why I wanted to get an MBA, I included a jpg of the cards to liven up my essay.

Here’s a pretty hilarious flier I saw yesterday to help make today more fun for you:

Have you seen this flier...yes

Always Frame Things in the Positive

Because most of us MBA applicants are very critical of own work, we often include stories and language in our essays that are negative. In writing, however, a negative story will be much more powerful and memorable than a positive one so make sure to not let this overly critical self out. This is a particularly common mistake in the optional essay.

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