How to Avoid Business School Application Mistakes | Ep 109

In this episode, listeners learn how to optimize the formatting of their resume, strategically handle issues with their transcript, and make their short-answer responses effective.

Host and mbaMission Founder Jeremy Shinewald talks with Executive Director Jessica Shklar and Managing Director Rachel Beck about how admissions committees evaluate applicants’ professionalism. Drawing on decades of evaluation experience, these experts discuss why following instructions, avoiding technical jargon, and setting feasible career goals are so crucial in the application process. Listeners gain deep insights into showcasing collaboration over individual achievement, managing post-submission anxiety, and navigating team-based interview formats.

00:00 Hidden Messages in Your Application and Why They Matter

01:26 Professionalism Basics: Typos, Formatting, and the Wrong School Name

03:51 Word Count Violations and Resume Overstuffing

07:06 Interview Rambling and the Wharton Team Based Discussion

11:30 Red Flags in Extracurricular Activities

15:17 Handling Test Score and GPA Shortcomings

20:49 Identity, Oversharing, and Knowing What Belongs in an Application

29:41 Optimizing Short-Answer Application Questions

31:57 Seeing Every Line as an Opportunity

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Transcript

Hidden Messages in Your Application and Why They Matter

Jessica Shklar 0:00

We have to remember that the admissions committee wants to see that you are a great collaborator. They are looking to see not just can you answer these questions, but how do you behave in a professional setting? I deal with these emails all the time, I'm sure you do too. Now that I've submitted, what do I do?

Jeremy Shinewald 0:14

It's really accentuated with people with schools where there isn't a clear deadline date. They're dripping out invitations. Should I should I reach out to them? You're going to make a bad impression.

Rachel Beck 0:23

I think one of the biggest problems is people don't set realistic goals. You are marketing yourself to the MBA program. So your goals have to be predictable.

Jeremy Shinewald 0:31

Every line of your application is an opportunity.

Rachel Beck 0:34

Those are mini essays, even if there are 150 or 250 characters.

Jeremy Shinewald 0:51

All right, so we're here with Jessica Schlar and Rachel Beck, uh both from the MB Mission team, of course, to talk about hidden messages in people's application. And I think I hope that people listen to the whole thing because I think there's some really, really valuable nuggets throughout this discussion. Know that from talking about it a little bit beforehand with you guys, I think what's also great about this podcast is that we so often talk about kind of like what you should be doing in your application. Here's kind of this is more on like the things you shouldn't be doing or don't realize you're doing that you shouldn't be doing. Let's start there. I mean, there there's some there's some layups. So let's let's just talk about like kind of communication and professionalism to start.

Jessica Shklar 1:25

Well, so

Professionalism Basics: Typos, Formatting, and the Wrong School Name

Jessica Shklar 1:26

the obvious one is typos sloppy formatting, having the wrong school name in your application. And it just shows a lack of attention to detail. Business schools don't care if there's like one small typo here or there. They're not going to ding you for that. But if there's a pattern of typos um bad grammar that's not just not being a native English speaker, just general sloppiness, it just sends a really bad message that you are not someone who is professional. It doesn't pay it, don't pay attention to detail.

Rachel Beck 1:54

It shocks me how many applicants um don't follow formatting. Like the schools are very specific of how they like things formatted, which a lot of times is double space 11 or 12-point font, traditional font. And then I'll do a final read and I'll be like, wait, what is going on here? Like it says it right there, like in the instructions. So just following the instructions, you're almost just respecting the rule that the school has laid out.

Jessica Shklar 2:24

And you're showing that you listened to the instructions. And that's yes, we like leaders and free thinkers and all that. But if the school tells you this is what they want, this is what they want. Exactly.

Jeremy Shinewald 2:34

Exactly so. I think that that one is a is a is a bit of a layup. You gotta be you gotta be careful, be professional. There are definitely like some tributaries of that. Um you know, I think like abuse of abuse of sp or not listening to like limits and space. And like obviously, school gives you a word count for an essay, like, yeah, one or two words isn't the end of the world. But if you're talking to someone who has read thousands of these things, they're gonna innately notice if you're 30, 40, 50 words over a 250-word prompt. It's not gonna, they're gonna be like, it's not that it's not that it they can't admit you at that point, but if it's so consistent, it's like, oh, is this person who's gonna break rules in the wrong way? You know, we're just gonna take up too much time in our class, you know, always be asking for exceptions, those types of things.

Jessica Shklar 3:18

Well, I had this experience that I'll just sort of jumping ahead to interviews, but it came up a lot when there used to be some essays that did not have word limits, and clients would go on and on and on. And that I had someone who in an interview didn't get into a school, and the school actually gave him feedback, and they said that up until the interview, he had been one of their top applicants. But during the interview, he rambled in his answer, and it showed that he wouldn't be a fit for classroom discussion. And it was devastating because it's such a clear, like, I could have done better at that, but

Word Count Violations and Resume Overstuffing

Jessica Shklar 3:51

it really was incredibly valuable feedback to show that they're not just operating at the level of should we admit this person, they're also the schools are really looking at how will this person interact with others? If he meets a CEO at a recruiting event, will he be able to give that 30-second elevator pitch or is he going to monopolize time for 22 or three minutes? And that's just judgment call and appropriate behavior.

Jeremy Shinewald 4:13

You know, another sort of abuse of space and time is that I often see. I think a hidden message when you've used like every single space in your resume, you've stretched and stretched and stretched, and you've, you know, the margins and everything's so thin, and you're you're you're you know, you're you're talking about font before your fonts down to seven points. It it it actually to me shows like an insecurity to you. It's like I'm afraid that you're gonna, you're you're not gonna judge me on like you're gonna judge me, you know, with without knowing everything. I I can't let go. I can't, I can't give you 80% and and feel like I'm good enough. You know, I've got to give you 120% because I I have too much anxiety about about uh you know about limiting the the information that you're gonna have and working within your box.

Jessica Shklar 4:58

It shows an inability to make good judgments. And I'll go back to the CEO. When you're when you meet a CEO at an elevator or at a dinner party, you have to get your point across. When you're giving a pitch at a company, you can't share every single detail. You have to give the highlights, and so they are looking for that skill early on.

Rachel Beck 5:13

Well, it's all about self-editing, right? That's what it really is. And it really trickles over to the case discussion in an MBA program because if you're somebody who has a seven-point font on their resume, which by the way, people like me cannot even read. I can't I'm in my 50s. I can't see that screen. And truth be told, so is it in their 50s? Are probably just like me. Yeah.

Jeremy Shinewald 5:37

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Rachel Beck 6:10

They're really looking for people who understand when they're kind of hogging the the airtime, whether it's hogging the airtime because you need to like zoom your resume in and out, or hogging the airtime because it's sloppy and that's really distracting when you're reading an application, or hogging the airtime when you're yammering on and on and on in the case discussion where nobody else can can even figure out where you're going or can't interject their views. So I think that carries over into a lot of different things in the MBA application.

Jeremy Shinewald 6:44

And we're talking about about yammering on and on. Maybe that's something I do on the podcast, but uh but there are some specific places you can't do it. We're talking about like you know, presenting yourself poorly as someone who won't contribute um, you know, in class in a concise way, but there's also there are also like a lot of uh, you know, new interview formats and um that require some self-control. Right.

Interview Rambling and the Wharton Team Based Discussion

Rachel Beck 7:06

And uh so you know, I I heard I was actually uh moderating one of our mock um team-based discussions for Wharton, and one of our clients said, I just don't understand why they they have this. It seems so meaningless, the team-based discussion approach versus the traditional one-on-one interview, which they do at the end for just 10 minutes. And I said, This is actually a perfect thing. They're judging you on how you're interacting with your peers. You can't hog the airtime, you have to cede the floor to other people, you have to build on ideas. So that's actually that is the hidden message in this team-based discussion. And if you're missing it, you're missing exactly why you're doing it. So I think everybody needs to remember that. And trickling over to the one-on-one interviews for any school, if you're somebody who is talking for 15 minutes on tell me about yourself, you're taking up time for all the other good questions in that half hour that you could be getting. Again, self-editing, you don't know.

Jessica Shklar 8:09

Right. And that's let alone something like interrupting your interviewer or repeating yourself excessively. They are looking to see not just can you answer these questions, but how do you behave in a professional setting? And it needs to dovetail with what your recommenders say and how they're overall you present yourself. Um, I was talking to my son about this. I got a job once, this is after business school, and she said to me at my performance review, which was not very good, she said, you know, when you interviewed, you were so, so, so confident. And when you got here, you weren't. And I realized there was such a big disconnect between who I was and who I portrayed myself as. And I had to work really hard to figure out that balance.

Jeremy Shinewald 8:46

You know, it's funny as you're talking about like not talking over people in in the Wharton TBD. I wanted to jump in and cut you off and talk over you. But I think there's there's a second part of that unintended consequence of the way you're communicating with the Wharton TBD, which is just being too meek and agreeable. It's like, you know, just like, yeah, that's a great idea. You know, like the first, so you know, for those who don't know how the Wharton interview works, usually there's like a little project you have to put you have to put together, you have to pitch. Oh, you know, there are five, five, six people in the room. Everyone has to put together a pitch in the beginning that's one minute, and then you have to discuss and figure out which one's the best. And um, a lot of them don't work when someone's like, wow, great idea, Jessica. Yeah. And Rachel's like, yeah, great idea, Jessica. And then there's no conversation. And it doesn't mean you need to alpha the whole thing or you need to talk over people, but you need to find your balance. And you need to be able to say, you know, hey, here's my opinion, and I support it in a thoughtful way, like you wouldn't know in a work environment.

Jessica Shklar 9:39

I'll give you an anecdote of a Wharton, real Wharton, this that flows really well to another point I wanted to make about this, which is about jargon and using excessive jargon, which sends a message on your resume or your essays that you don't know your audience. I had a client once who showed up for her real mock, her real um Wharton TBD, and she was a marketing consultant type person, and everybody else in the room was a technologist. And they all talked jargon, and she did not understand a single thing they were saying. So she had to play this role of, hi, can you clarify that? Hi, what would be the point of that? Um, can you explain that? And she was feeling horrible about herself. And she went into her 10 minutes after the interview, and the interviewer said, Oh, thank God you were there. I didn't understand a single thing they were talking about. And you so you don't always know what the audience is reading. So remember that if you come from a highly technical background or you come from a highly specialized finance background, that your admissions reader will not understand that jargon. And sending you relying too much on what program did you use to write that with tells them that you can't speak to people outside of your line of work. And that's not that's going to backfire too. In addition to not being too dense and not being too full of jargon, I think there's another issue that comes up where we've really talked about on consultations and so often to our clients that you have to show leadership and results. And while that is absolutely true, what I sometimes see it translate into is a series of bullet points that don't show you interacting with other people. You say things like initiated, developed, created, drove, and those are all great leadership words. But it gives me the impression of someone who's sitting by themselves in their room just typing away at their cubicle. And I want to see at least a couple of bullet points on that resume that show interacted with, collaborated with, built team which managed cross-functionally. So is that something that you guys see?

Red Flags in Extracurricular Activities

Rachel Beck 11:30

Yes, all the time. And um, we have to remember that the admissions committee wants to see that you are a great collaborator, right? Business school, that's what business school is all about, is working on teams. So if you create this like, I'm in this silo in my job and I'm really good at it. I'm really good at what I do, then it doesn't reflect that. And maybe your job does require you to only focus on this thing. So then you have to really use other things that you do to really show that teamwork. But you don't want to send that message, right? This is all about hidden messages. You don't want to send that message that I don't play well with others on the playground, right? Like you don't want that. You want them to see you as somebody who really can interact with other people and help others rise as well.

Jeremy Shinewald 12:17

And there's nothing wrong with being someone who can be independent. Uh, like you said, you just have to compensate in other in other ways. So I recall a client of mine who was an equity research who just worked with, you know, he was the associate and worked with one leading analyst and didn't have a broader team, couldn't tell stories about a broader team, but talked about some collaboration with the person, individual the individual who was senior to him, and uh and also kind of you know focused on extracurriculars in other areas and talked about like, I don't know, you know, being the member of a community board or something like that. It was it was long enough, long ago enough that I can't remember, but um, you know, like there are lots of opportunities. You can so you know, you can be an individualist in an area, that's fine, as long as you can kind of round it out in in other ways.

Jessica Shklar 13:01

So speaking of extracurriculars, I think there are two big red flags with extracurriculars that can show up. Um one is not having any, um, because it doesn't show you being a citizen of your community, contributing to your community. And I think it is important when you don't have them in your job necessarily that you find other opportunities to collaborate. And the other big risk I see with extracurriculars is you know, most of us were much more involved with in college because we had more time. And if you're especially the more years out of college you are, the more it's harder to rely on those college experiences because it sends the message that your de best days are behind you, that you used to be really active, but now you just are not that involved in your community, in any of the communities you're a part of.

Jeremy Shinewald 13:45

I think what you're saying there is you've got to basically pair back the tree every once in a while, trim the dead wood from your resume, from your from the types of things you're talking about to show that you know the the individual you are now is the you know the best individual you are. I mentioned earlier, I was kind of talking about like pushing anxiety into the into the you know, your own anxiety by like over overdoing your resume, like over-explaining a problem is another one. Like really lamenting a bad GMAT score, you know, can I can I can I call the admissions committee and talk to them about it? Can I tell them that I, you know, that this is an aberration? I I wrote about it in my optional essay. Should I write about it in my essays as well? Like maybe there's like a leadership essay, and I'm talking about my personal leadership and getting over my GMAT. It's like just calm it down. They're gonna see your GMAT or your GPA for what it is. You you've got to live with it at some level if it can't be improved. And you've got to just kind of put on that confident face. It's it's almost like um when you have that bad moment in an interview, you're not gonna spend the whole time, your best not to spend the whole time dwelling on it and saying, like, oh God, I can't think of a story. Can um give me a second here, you know, okay, I gotta think about it. Okay, um, well, let me, and you get halfway down the wrong story, and okay, I gotta back. You just gotta say, you know, I I I can't think of that uh an anecdote right now to satisfy that question. I'm I'm really can we come back to it at the end? And you meet it with confidence and you do so much better. So it's it's it's the the equivalent of that with your your rough GPA, your rough GMAT, your, you know, I don't know, the college DUI, whatever you had, that's this blemish. Don't overexplain.

Handling Test Score and GPA Shortcomings

Rachel Beck 15:17

Exactly. I I tell clients a lot, like, let's have the discussion of the things that we think should be in the optional essay, and then we're not gonna overwrite this. This is bullet points or very short paragraphs. And we don't need every last detail of like whatever was going on in your life at that moment. You also, if you have one C on your transcript, you're okay. You still have a 3.49 GPA. You're not, I know it's beneath the average at the school, but that's just an average of the school. And everybody has different majors and they know the rigor of the school, and like you need just need to calm down a little bit. So I think that there's a tendency among applicants that they want to explain everything away. And they have to know, again, this is where like you have to self-edit, you have to know when to pull it back and just try to explain something, show a learning or not explain it at all. It it's just fact.

Jessica Shklar 16:14

Right. A one C with an overall great transcript, I probably wouldn't even bother writing an optional essay about that. I certainly wouldn't have them like go on and on and on about it. Uh, but it also comes down to after submitting the application, do you reach back out to the admissions office? I remember this is going back almost 20 years, but uh, I think you told me about a client who called the admissions office so often that the admissions office eventually said to him, please stop calling us, you're making a bad impression. And you know, there is this anxiety. I deal with these emails all the time. I'm sure you do too. Now that I've submitted, what do I do? I'm like, go on vacation, go to the gym, right?

Jeremy Shinewald 16:50

Do not reread your application, do not contact, but can I send another it it's really accentuated with people with with schools where there isn't a clear deadline date. So people assume I haven't heard from them yet. People are hearing they're they're dripping out invitations. Should I should I reach out to them? Should I have another record? Should I send another recommendation? Should I update them on, you know? It's like, no, no, you're gonna you you're going to make a bad impression. You have that you have to calm down on that one.

Rachel Beck 17:14

I just had a client actually a few weeks ago say, I haven't heard from this school. I haven't got he had gotten interviews at a lot of other places, but he hadn't heard from one school yet that tends to lag along. So he said, I'm going to reach, I'm letting you know I'm going to reach out and ask them when I might hear. And I said, on what basis are you going to reach out? Like, you haven't gotten back to me yet. I know you've had interviews at other places, but you haven't gotten in anywhere else. Like you can you can force the hand a little bit in early April saying, I've gotten into these schools and I'd like to know something by you sending this email is going to reflect very, very poorly on you and you're not going to get an interview. So just sit on your hands. That's what you have to do. But there's there's a tendency to want to be overly aggressive in this because you think that, like I had a client who told who sent me an email in early February after everything was submitted. I just want you to know that I've signed up for info sessions at all the schools. And I said, Signed up for what info sessions? You've actually already applied to the school. And he said, Oh, because I want to continue to demonstrate interest. And I said, They don't care now. You've they're reviewing your application. They're not looking at you demonstrating interest. That was a last year problem, not a right now problem.

Jessica Shklar 18:32

So or the ones who say, Can I send uh 10 informal interviews to students who have met me and I know I only met this person once, but can they recommend me? Business schools have thought a lot about what so they want in their application. They do not, if they wanted 10 recommendation letters, they would ask for 10 recommendation letters.

Rachel Beck 18:49

And the hidden message message in all of this is you're insufferable when you do this. Like the business schools don't want people who are like this, who are aggressively papering them or contacting them. Who can't give up that dog with them? Yeah. You have to learn patience. And by the way, patience goes back to the the case discussion also, where you have to let the other person speak and not just interject. And you have to be patient.

Jeremy Shinewald 19:18

There's another another angle to this, like the opposite, maybe the foil of insecurity and anxiety is arrogance. And and that is probably more lethal than anything else to your application. I go to private equity firms, and and one of the things I talk about that as um as being lethal uh to those crew to that crowd because it's a high-powered crew with a lot of confidence in general. This generation is actually a little bit more aware of others' feelings and and it is a is a little more touchy-feely than past generations. You know, I remember an applicant of Jessica's actually who kept kept saying, like, I've I started, I kept I started a book circle, and I'm the I'm the youngest person in my book circle by like, you know, by 20 years, and um, you know, I was promoted fastest. And it was like we we kept having to say to him, like, you have to kind of calm down. Like they are, if you did these amazing things, they're gonna get it. You know, you don't have to keep throwing it in their face.

Jessica Shklar 20:13

And you can rely on recommenders also to not to interrupt, sorry. But recommenders are a good way to pass the buck on some of those potentially arrogant messages. So that they because they have the validity and the seniority and the weight behind them to say that for you.

Jeremy Shinewald 20:28

Aaron Powell That like that need to say to to to accentuate the things that that that stand out about you. There are ways to communicate things that stand out about you without without constantly saying, like, by the way, I'm really great at this. I I really I'm doing this at a level, others don't do it. You can get that, you can get the same message across without without so much bombast.

Jessica Shklar 20:48

But I

Identity, Oversharing, and Knowing What Belongs in an Application

Jessica Shklar 20:49

think speaking of something like that and the whole idea of this generation is one thing I am seeing more of is people who make whatever is different about them their whole identity. And they write their application about being LGBTQ or about having anxiety or something. And that's not necessarily something to avoid. It's not necessarily something you have to talk about. It's how you do it. Is it done in an appropriate way that shows growth, shows your values, shows who you are? Simply being, I remember saying to some LGBT applicant once, like, you know, I don't want to hear about your first sexual experience, but I don't want to hear about yours or yours or anyone who isn't. Like, I don't want to, if it, if it was you had to learn how to navigate your family dynamics coming from this kind of country and this is how you learned it, then that's about you. But keep it appropriate. Don't say something to the admissions office that I wouldn't want to hear.

Rachel Beck 21:39

I see a lot of people wanting in optional essays too to kind of detail a lot about mental health crises, etc. And I often say, like, if this is so central to who you are, then we probably should write about it in other places. Like it can't just be this kind of I don't want to call it an excuse because it's Not an excuse per se, but I think applicants have to be very careful of where they deploy that kind of information and how they use it. And not, again, it's not their whole identity, it's how it fits into their identity.

Jeremy Shinewald 22:15

The application is personal and they do want to get to know you personally. Um, but there are there are ways of talking about things that make them more universal instead of making it like, oh, this is an awkward overshare. And so I often say, like, you know, imagine you've just met someone at a dinner party. Like, would you share this with them in this way at that moment? So if it's the first line of your first essay with someone, would you say, you know, I um I had an early divorce? You know, like, like you might not quite it it doesn't mean there's no world in which you could discuss that. It it it it it it would be challenging as I see it to discuss it. Um, but there there might be a way to to to to discuss it thoughtfully.

Rachel Beck 23:01

And kind of going back to our theme of hidden messages, this is exactly the point, right? Like if you're this oversharer, what what does the admissions committee take away from that? Which is this person doesn't really understand how to like work that social dynamic, which could create some awkwardness in the classroom, in group projects, in extracurriculars on campus, and they want to avoid that.

Jessica Shklar 23:25

I think about it with clients who are very religious and who want to write about their religion. And what I tell them is if I read your essay and I feel like you're trying to convert me, that's not a good dynamic to show because other classmates might feel that way. If I read your essay about religion and I understand what's important to you, what values you have, how that shapes your decision making, then I'm reading an essay about you. I'm not reading you talking to me. And that is fine. I mean, people like those conversations. And I remember a client who did a very, very personal talk at Stanford where they have these um talks. So talk is like we you can volunteer at Stanford to do like a 45-minute pitch about who you are, and people listen to it, and it's really just an open, emotional, self-reflective conversation. And he wrote about coming to Stanford as an extremely religious person and worrying that he would be judged, and how um his classmates actually really embraced it. And because they didn't feel like he was trying to push his values on them, they just saw the way that it influenced his actions and decisions, and they were curious to learn about that. So there are ways to talk about sensitive subjects. It just has to be about you and not making the reader or their listener uncomfortable.

Jeremy Shinewald 24:34

So super practically, let's also talk about a place where people send unintentional messages, their personal statements, meaning their goals, why they want to be at a certain school. Rachel, what do you see in goals?

Rachel Beck 24:47

Well, I think one of the biggest problems is people don't set realistic goals and they they forget something really important. This is a marketing document to the school. You are marketing yourself to the MBA program. So your goals have to be predictable. They have to, they have to be believable, reasonable, and feasible. The admissions committee is serving as a proxy for the recruiters. So when you have this goal that doesn't fit with you at all, it just immediately works against you. Like it's literally pushing against you. And we didn't, I didn't do it. You did an interview with the former head of admissions at Columbia years ago. And she said, Great, you want to go into real estate, but you have no line to real estate. How do we know that that career is going to work for you? And I use that all the time when I'm talking about goals with my clients because I want them to understand you need to drop the crumbs from what you've done in the past, even if it hasn't been your career, but the kind of work you've done, or maybe there was some passion project you did in college or whatever it might be, and how that leads to your future goal. Otherwise, you you're basically signaling to the admissions committee, I'm gonna show up there and I might not be your the right person because I might not be employed at the end, which is the end gate.

Jeremy Shinewald 26:05

Like exactly. Like the MBA is all about your professional advancement, and you're basically sending a message saying, I don't have a clue what this job is.

Jessica Shklar 26:12

And I don't even know if this is the right school for me because I don't know what I want to do, and therefore I don't know if the resources are there to do it. I mean, it I remember working with a reapplicant who had applied to a school that had no real estate program, but he wrote about wanting to go into real estate. Right. I'm like, did you think maybe looking at the resources? And he's like, Yeah, it doesn't occur to me they didn't have real estate.

Rachel Beck 26:30

Well, I actually tell my clients for every school, you say you want to go to these schools before we pick our schools, you need to show me that there are at least six classes that you feel you have to take at this school because then it's believable. Just basing it off of ranking is not going to get you to where you want to be. And sometimes people are like, oh, they have such a low amount, you know, low percentage in healthcare jobs here, or the curriculum is not good.

Jessica Shklar 26:56

Oh, maybe you shouldn't go further if that's what you want. So it shows that you haven't done research into the school, that you're cutting and pasting your essays, that recruiters aren't going to be excited to see you. And remember, admissions officers have to keep recruiters happy too, because they're giving up resources to come to campus.

Jeremy Shinewald 27:10

It also might just show that you're naive because I remember Dee Leopold, the former admissions director at HBS, uh, who had a very sardonic sense of humor. I really I really liked her. She was great. Uh, and she was talking about this how kind of like entrepreneurship became a big fad as the I mean, it became a big deal, shall I say, in in the MBA classroom, you know, the first tech boom is like people were suddenly getting explosively rich. And uh, and she and I remember her saying to me, people write about entrepreneurship, and it's like them saying, I want to be in a band. It's like, it's like, it's just like they've got stars in their eyes. They're just excited about all the glory and all the, you know, all the trappings that come with being a rock star. You know, uh, wouldn't it be it's like it's it's she was like almost saying like, wouldn't it be great if if I was on stage and and everyone was adoring me? And and um it she was just highlighting the naivete of a lot of people. And there's nothing wrong with a lot right with talking about being an entrepreneurial entrepreneur, but show some propensity for entrepreneurship or some interest in define what that means.

Jessica Shklar 28:12

Entrepreneurship could mean owning a beauty salon or starting the next Google. I mean, it's like there's what what does entrepreneurship actually mean to you? And where do we see evidence in your past that it's a feasible goal? And it doesn't mean you have to have been an entrepreneur, but you have to show that you're comfortable with risk, that you have to show creativity, that you have to show resilience. There are things you can draw on from your past to the breadcrumbs to show that this is a attainable goal.

Rachel Beck 28:39

I had a um a recent client who I just was doing interview prep with, and her essays were about that she wanted to be an entrepreneur, but there was no entrepreneurship in her past and really no path to this goal. She was going to interview at a very prestigious school, and I said, You need your post-MBA goal, and it can't be starting this business. Like that can you can want to be an entrepreneur, but you need to make sure that they understand that you're gonna have a job on the way out the door, or else this is gonna be very scary because it's so loosey-goosey.

Jessica Shklar 29:15

And it was the second question asked. Well, the other risk with entrepreneurship is we are seeing, I'm just hearing this more and more now for the first time, is uh admissions officers that are scared that an entrepreneur won't finish the program because they'll go off and start their job, or if they already have a job, they the admissions office needs to have their own company. Admissions needs to know that you have someone caretaking it for you while you're gone. So that's another thing. What's the message you're sending about your commitment to the program? Exactly.

Optimizing Short-Answer Application Questions

Jeremy Shinewald 29:41

We talked earlier about the, you know, the the what someone plugs in the wrong school in their in their SA to Chicago and they're like type in Kellogg because they didn't they just didn't realize or weren't thinking or whatever. What people don't realize is that some people unwittingly do that in their personal statements without the error. So they're just they're just writing like generic, you know, uh just generic personal statements. You know, Columbia's awesome in entrepreneurship, and I really want to be in an entrepreneurial environment, an entrepreneurial environment. I really want to be part of the Lang Center, such a you know, uh vibrant place to be an entrepreneur. You could take out those details and put in many other schools, you know, the Polski Center, the Rock Center, the whatever it might be, and and you could get there. And and so you don't even realize, like you don't realize that you're sending a message that you have not put in your homework for the school. And it's not like the school is gonna say to themselves, like, oh, this is generic. We can't accept this person. It's more like it's the hidden message, which is we love this person. This person's great. This person just doesn't know why they want to be here. And we have so many people who want to be here. Why would we accept someone who doesn't want to know?

Rachel Beck 30:51

And by the way, a very easy thing to do to make the admissions committee fall in love with this part of your application is just think about what are the resources and how do they connect with me versus just using this boilerplate, which you think you can plug and play.

Jessica Shklar 31:05

Right. I tell my clients, don't tell the school what they already know. Tell the school how those facts that they know are relevant to you. So I want to be in New York because it's located in the in Manhattan, which is the financial capital of the world. All the people who work at Columbia, they know that already. Instead, I love that because I'll be at Columbia, which encourages in-semester internships, I'll be able to go to XYZ company and leverage the entrepreneurs in residence program too. Now you're showing how being in Manhattan, being in a finance school is relevant to your goals. And that just shows commitment. And also remember, admissions officers are trying to figure out what their yield is going to be. If they accept you, they want to be pretty sure you're going to go there. So the more enthusiastic you are with grounding in the essay, the more likely they are to think, yeah, he's this person's gonna come here if we accept them.

Jeremy Shinewald 31:56

One

Seeing Every Line as an Opportunity

Jeremy Shinewald 31:57

other small thing that I think people miss, I, you know, I guess we talked earlier early about being fastidious with all details in your application, but people still just look at the short answers and copy and paste things in or ignore them as if they're just like, as if they're just forms, you know, like, okay, I'll just I'll just type in the most basic information. And every line of your application is an opportunity. So if the school's asking you for 200 characters on what you achieved in this job, or a hundred characters on why you engage with this hobby, or why you engage with this community um organization, whatever it might be, take it, you can tell a story in a few words. You can you can express a lot more than I enjoy hockey coaching, so I coached hockey. You know, like that's not helping anyone. You're not, they're not learning anything about you. You know, you can say a lifelong hockey player, and uh, you know, I I merged my passion for for mentorship as a hockey coach for three seasons. It was rewarding to, you know, to coach nine-year-olds and see them grow. Whatever, something so simple.

Rachel Beck 33:04

I think that a lot of applicants don't understand that if those are mini essays, even if there are 150 or 250 characters, there's there's words that you get to use. I'm actually shocked by how many um applicants in the Harvard application or the Stanford application don't use the optional, like in the Harvard application, there's things about your background or where you grew up. Like there you can really say something there, even though it's 250 characters, there's a lot to tell there. Or the Stanford has the three positive impact. They're short, but those are nice bites. You can really tell good stories there that you professional and personal, but professional stories that there really hasn't been room anywhere else in the Stanford application. So if you leave things blank, the hidden message is you don't have anything. You're not you're you have nothing interesting to share with us. Uh it just baffling to me.

Jessica Shklar 34:05

I think the bottom line really is that um understanding that there's explicit and implicit messages and really try to give yourself enough time because the mistakes we see are the people who rush, who apply to too many places, too last minute, don't really have the time to pause and think it through.

Jeremy Shinewald 34:23

And I think one other type is is the type of the type of person, the person who who believes that all outcomes in their life depend on this application. So it's like it's again, it's like sort of the two poles. It's like the people who are rushed and kind of sloppy send messages, and the people who kind of believe that everything going forward hinges on this acceptance are the most prone to send these messages, as most that comfortable middle, which is probably 80% of the application, applicant pool, just kind of like working hard and thinking about what they're saying and you know, putting it out there in a thoughtful way. Like, and look, everyone, we can't be totally aware of everything we're saying. You know, I'm sure there are people who don't want to listen to this podcast because I'm missing something that's ticking them off. It's gonna happen. Um, but you know, kind of just trying to be in that middle spot where you're just taking the process seriously and with a little bit of humility, and you probably are gonna be communicating quite well. Exciting news! You can now access OnTrack by MBA Mission for free. Take our two-minute onboarding questionnaire to personalize your learning path. Choose the free plan, and you'll have unlimited access to our complete modules on MBA application timelines, standardized testing, your professional background, community leadership, school selection, and more. You'll also get access to select lessons from our brainstorming, personal statement, essay, resume, and recommendation modules. It's a great introduction to the OnTrack platform and will help you jumpstart the MBA application process. Get started today at ontrack.mba mission.com.