Tasha,

Thanks for the reply.  I'll certainly try to incorporate some of your advice about bringing out more of the positives from my WE and where I'm lacking/needing a MBA. 

You didn't confused me.  I think applying to FT and PT schools probably already shows that I'm a bit conflicted in the direction I want to take, which isn't the position I should be in when applying to b-school.  I think it's the age old question of whether to go full-bore at trying to achieve one's dreams or settling for something one can live with.

To answer some of your questions:
I'm 26 now.  And at the time of application, I'll have about 22 months of full time work experience. Okay - that's not bad. Not the BEST, but again, some people have done a lot in a short period of time, and can use that in their essays. So a lot is about the quality of your experience.

I can list a few hobbies/interests that I've kept up with over the years.  But, none of it is terribly formal or different.  For example, I helped my church set up a new website, and redid their server infrastructure; I keep up with the latest trends in computers, build computers for friends/family, and post regularly on some computing message boards online to provide troubleshooting to others building their own computers from scratch.  It's a hobby I could list, but it might just add to the "good quant" category that I'm already in based on my education/gmat/gpa.  Well, except that the emphasis wouldn't be the quant aspect, but the fact that you're taking the time to help others. Working with your church in particular is something you should bring out.

And a few more questions from me:
How much of my work experience should I be focusing in my essays vs. just including them in the application/resume?  I've already got my essays pretty much done, and they hit on a leadership experience in an extracurricular during undergrad and my work during grad school.  With only 22 months of work experience that is split with 2 years of grad. school, I feel that it's hard to pick up more than a mundane (at least IMO) example of leadership. The resume is more of a timeline, a basic impression of some highlights - it should leave the reader curious about the details of some of the things you've done, which you can then bring out in your essays. And the essays should be pretty evenly divided between EC and work stories. It's okay for most schools to use stories that go back to undergrad or grad school - but you really don't want to do that for more than one essay, as that 'll make it more obvious that you don't have that much time in the workplace and that you're too close to your school years.

Even when you talk about leadership in the essays, you still want to bring in evidence of the skills you used or acquired in whatever it was you did. Remember, they're looking for business knowledge and experience that you can impart to your classmates, and that'll make you more marketable to recruiters.

Secondly, will one generically written recommendation kill my application to the top schools, or will they be understanding if one recommendation isn't great?  I made the mistake of asking my current manager (which I've only worked for about 5 months) to write a recommendation.  She submitted it without much guidance from me (not my fault, I asked her at least three times if she wanted or needed help/guidance/my essays/etc).  I doubt she wrote anything bad, but I feel she might've just written something generic.  Well, generic is better than negative. Don't worry about it - yes, it's better to have 2 recs that speak glowingly about you in specific terms. But if one is kind of at a birds-eye level of detail, it won't kill you.

Lastly, how does reapplying hurt/help one's chances at the top schools?  Does it show perseverance/tenacity, or is it harder the second time around?  Do they scrutinize it more, or do they simply take a fresh look at the whole package? Depends on the school, but most are fine with reapps. It CAN show tenacity, and it helps if you have a lot of new information or updates between applications. It's tough only when a candidate has nothing new to add. But I"ve worked with a lot of reapps who've been successful, so it definitely can be done.

best,
Tasha

Hi Tasha,

 

 

I just wanted to thank you for reviewing my essay for free. You were very helpful in polishing some of my sentences, eliminating some redundancies I hadn’t noticed. Although your corrections were minor, I am most satisfied with your honesty in telling me that my essay is excellent and that I don’t need your services as there is not much to correct. I guess not every consultant would do so. So, I am happy that you kept your promise to be “brutally” honest, although you didn’t get the chance to be brutal in my case. J I would encourage everyone who wants an honest assessment of their writing style to get an essay check from you – it’s free anyway.

 

 

I have another small question regarding rounds. I browsed through the admissions411 statistics and found out that acceptance rate for R2 for most schools is lower than for R1. Well, these are self-reported data and not all people report their outcome. There might also be some self-selection bias in play here. But at the same time almost all schools reiterate that there is no substantial difference in chances between R1 and R2. But I don’t know how to explain this discrepancy between school statements and these statistics. So what’s your take on this from your experience?

 

 

Thank you for your help and all the best!

Since I get a lot of the same questions via email from either my clients or just applicants, I thought it would be worthwhile to look at some of those questions here and analyze them as appropriate, so that others could benefit as well.

For example, the other day I was asked about this Booth essay question: "Describe a time when you wish you could have retracted something you said or did. When did you realize your mistake and how did you handle the situation?"


And this person was wondering what they were looking for, as he had read somewhere that you should somehow turn this into something where you came out a leader, turned it around successfully, etc.

My response:

It gets a bit silly or ridiculous when people take a question where you ARE supposed to talk about a failure or something negative – in order to show what the lessons learned from that were – and turn it into a positive. Or even worse, a “leadership” situation. Really, that’s silly. If I were an AdComm person reading that, I’d laugh. Because you’re right – if there’s something you said or did that you want to retract, then you regret saying or doing it because it wasn’t the right thing to do. Period. And if it’s that bad that you want to take it back, there’s usually no way of fixing it so that you come out a hero. At least not in the vast majority of cases.

Now, you CAN write about trying to make the best of a bad situation if you know you blundered. Generally that doesn’t work too well, but you can show the effort, if it was even possible to make that effort. Really, the point of this question is to show that you’re a thoughtful, introspective person, someone who recognizes when you make a mistake and takes steps to correct that in the future. They don’t want people who blunder along and never look back and analyze, or who think that they NEVER make a mistake. And a lot of people do think that way. Here, the lesson learned will be the key thing, and to show that you learned from your mistake.


best,
Tasha

This is Noman Shaheer from Pakistan. I have 710 in GMAT (40V, 46Q), BBA and MBA from Pakistan with 3.44 CGPA and I have work experience of three years. I worked in a software house for six months, in Philips for 1.5 years as product manager. Responding to recession, Philips shifted to distributor model in Pakistan in Dec 2008. For about 9 months, I pursued various jobs including in an NGO for 3 months and as freelance consultant for 6 months. Finally, I have settled as assistant Sales Manager in Pakistan office of Dinnaipon Japan. I have attended training sessions in Singapore and Thailand (about 1 week long) while working at Philips. I do not have any community service exposure However, I teach poor students for free and provide free consultancy to small start-ups who have immense growth potential but they are unable to hire MBAs due to lack of resources.

My objectives are a bit different. I m highly dissatisfied with current economic, political and social status of Pakistan in particular and Muslim world in large and I want to dedicate my talent for improvement in Pakistan in other Muslim countries. However, I don’t know how to do it. I had an idea that after gaining sufficient exposure of international business, I shall open a consulting business in Pakistan which will upgrade Pakistani companies on international standards. However, one other consultant suggested me that for HBS, management consulting is not very impressive career vision. My questions are below

1) How can I translate my objectives in my career essay

2) Is it right that management consulting is OK but not fantastic career choice for HBS Adcom? Can you suggest some career choices for HBS?

3) If I want to have your services exclusive for HBS, what will be charges and how much time will it take to submit my application?

4) What other US or international schools do you recommend for me?

5) What are some key differentiating features in my application?

6) Pakistan is victim of theocratic terrorism caused by religious extremists. Just before 2-3 years, I had tried to reform theocratic schools producing religious scholars. I contacted numerous religious scholars and chancellors of these religious schools and tried to convince them that they should modernize their curriculum. However, no religious scholar agreed to do so. Is it OK to quote such eperience in admission essays?

7) I born in a village with no basic civic facilities. On my own will, I left my famiuly, migrated to metropolitan Karachi and completed my MBA. Should I mentioin this in essays?

 

Best Regards

 

Noman Shaheer

This is Noman Shaheer from Pakistan. I have 710 in GMAT (40V, 46Q), BBA and MBA from Pakistan with 3.44 CGPA and I have work experience of three years. I worked in a software house for six months, in Philips for 1.5 years as product manager. Responding to recession, Philips shifted to distributor model in Pakistan in Dec 2008. For about 9 months, I pursued various jobs including in an NGO for 3 months and as freelance consultant for 6 months. Finally, I have settled as assistant Sales Manager in Pakistan office of Dinnaipon Japan. I have attended training sessions in Singapore and Thailand (about 1 week long) while working at Philips. I do not have any community service exposure However, I teach poor students for free and provide free consultancy to small start-ups who have immense growth potential but they are unable to hire MBAs due to lack of resources. Okay, the extra-curriculars sound good. Do you have any other hobbies or interests? Also, as far as your work experience is concerned, what was your tenure at Philips like, i.e. did you get promoted or additional responsibilities, did you manage people or projects?

My objectives are a bit different. I m highly dissatisfied with current economic, political and social status of Pakistan in particular and Muslim world in large and I want to dedicate my talent for improvement in Pakistan in other Muslim countries. However, I don’t know how to do it. I had an idea that after gaining sufficient exposure of international business, I shall open a consulting business in Pakistan which will upgrade Pakistani companies on international standards. However, one other consultant suggested me that for HBS, management consulting is not very impressive career vision. My questions are below

1) How can I translate my objectives in my career essay Well, you need to be specific, first of all. When you talk about international standards, do you mean in a business sense, i.e. helping Pakistani companies compete in the global arena? That would be fine, but make sure that your career goals intertwine with any discussion you have of dissatisfaction with the current economic/political/social status of Pakistan.

2) Is it right that management consulting is OK but not fantastic career choice for HBS Adcom? Can you suggest some career choices for HBS? That's not necessarily the case - it's just that for HBS, as with other top schools, most people use consulting as an interim step to their long-term goals. So you could say that you want to get some consulting experience first, in the short-term, before you open your own consulting firm.

3) If I want to have your services exclusive for HBS, what will be charges and how much time will it take to submit my application? You can find more details on my services on my website: http://bschoolessays.com/page4.html. But to sum, the cost for a comprehensive package for one schools is $795, $595 for essay editing alone. I do all of the one-on-one work with clients. As for the time it would take, that's largely dependent on you and your schedule, i.e. how quickly you can turn around the material we'd need to pull together. I always work with my clients and their schedules to maximize their available time.

4) What other US or international schools do you recommend for me? It depends on the quality of your work experience, but some other schools that come to mind are Yale, INSEAD, Chicago, Berkeley.

5) What are some key differentiating features in my application? The Pakistani background, for one, and then the kinds of experiences you mention below - all this will help you stand out.

6) Pakistan is victim of theocratic terrorism caused by religious extremists. Just before 2-3 years, I had tried to reform theocratic schools producing religious scholars. I contacted numerous religious scholars and chancellors of these religious schools and tried to convince them that they should modernize their curriculum. However, no religious scholar agreed to do so. Is it OK to quote such eperience in admission essays? Absolutely.

7) I born in a village with no basic civic facilities. On my own will, I left my famiuly, migrated to metropolitan Karachi and completed my MBA. Should I mentioin this in essays?Again, absolutely. These are the kinds of things that will help you stand out. You will need to explain why you need another MBA. Was it a true MBA or some other kind of Masters degree?

best,

Tasha

Tasha,
Can you please evaluate my profile? I've applied to Wharton, Stanford, Tuck, Sloan and Haas in the 1st round. However, I'm pretty sure these are all reaches and am considering some safer schools, possibly UCLA, USC, and Fuqua. Thoughts?

M / 26 years / Texan

GMAT:
740 / Verbal - 40 / Quant - 50 / AWA - 5.5

Undergrad:
3.49 GPA / UTexas / BS - Mathematics (Actuarial Science) & BA - Economics

Work exp:
- Senior Consultant 4+ Years WE at Deloitte Consulting in Human Capital - Employee benefits consulting
- Leader of organization that serves as a conduit between staff and Office Managing Director
- Impact Day project leader in 2008 and 2009

Extra curricluar:
- Big Brother
- Teacher in Junior Achievement
- Level 2 of AFF Skydiving training
- Backpacked through Europe, SE Asia and volunteered in Cambodia

Reasons for MBA / Career Goals:
Although I've been heavily focused on employee benefits, my main industry focus has been in the telecom industry. I've helped companies structure their employee benefit plans around their business strategy but now I want to become more involved in the business strategy itself. After gaining an MBA, I want to move into a management position in the telecom industry and hope to eventually help develop the telecom market in emerging markets through NGOs. Don't want to go too much into some of my ideas for the telecom market.

Tasha,
Can you please evaluate my profile? I've applied to Wharton, Stanford, Tuck, Sloan and Haas in the 1st round. However, I'm pretty sure these are all reaches and am considering some safer schools, possibly UCLA, USC, and Fuqua. Thoughts? Certainly, some of the schools you've already applied to are reaches for anyone, and it's always good to diversify in school selection so as to increase your chances. The schools you've chosen for this next round are good choices.

M / 26 years / Texan

GMAT:
740 / Verbal - 40 / Quant - 50 / AWA - 5.5

Undergrad:
3.49 GPA / UTexas / BS - Mathematics (Actuarial Science) & BA - Economics

Academics look fine.

Work exp:
- Senior Consultant 4+ Years WE at Deloitte Consulting in Human Capital - Employee benefits consulting Okay ,and what's your progression been like at Deloitte? Better than others, typical, etc. That's one of the things that AdComms look for, that you've been something of a "rising star" in the organization. And in this role, what have your responsibilities been like? You want to make sure that you're framing what you've done relative to the business skills you used or acquired. So, work related to management, analysis and insights, etc.
- Leader of organization that serves as a conduit between staff and Office Managing Director
- Impact Day project leader in 2008 and 2009

Extra curricluar:
- Big Brother
- Teacher in Junior Achievement  For how long have you been involved in this and BB? Longevity, or at least some kind of track record of involvement, is key, as is the depth of your involvement.
- Level 2 of AFF Skydiving training
- Backpacked through Europe, SE Asia and volunteered in Cambodia

Reasons for MBA / Career Goals:
Although I've been heavily focused on employee benefits, my main industry focus has been in the telecom industry. I've helped companies structure their employee benefit plans around their business strategy but now I want to become more involved in the business strategy itself. After gaining an MBA, I want to move into a management position in the telecom industry and hope to eventually help develop the telecom market in emerging markets through NGOs. Don't want to go too much into some of my ideas for the telecom market. Okay, sounds plausible. As for your chances, you have the basic credentials to get into a top school, but of course it all depends on the details within that, as per the questions I asked above. And the schools look for different things. Stanford, for example, lends itself well to people who have some kind of unusual background or intriguing story to tell, something they've overcome, etc. Tuck likes a lot of hands-on effort in the application process, i.e. they look for people who live and breathe Tuck.

Make sure that in your app you emphasize your transferable skills and knowledge - so, the fact that even though you've worked in HR, that's been focused in the telecom industry, which will serve you well as you move towards your goal of working in telecom, having that industry-specific knowledge.

best,
Tasha

Dear Tasha,

Request you to kindly evaluate my profile.

 - 28 Years |Male | Indian

- Graduated from top ten Engineering College | Awarded silver medal - Second highest grades in college

- Working with Infosys, but not related to software field.

   I am working in Engineering Design Division, which assists major automotive and aerospace companies in design and manufacturing.

- 6.5 Years of Experience, including 2.5 Years in UK (Airbus)

- Have been promoted twice and currently leading a team to 10 in capacity of  Engineering Lead.

- GMAT Score (I took in Nov, 2007) - 690|Q 49, V35| AWA 4.0 – (Weakest Link in my profile)

- EC | Decent

- Community Service | Modest

- Post MBA : Management Consulting

 

I wish to pursue one year MBA course from Europe.

 

I have couple of queries.

 

1) Which all European colleges (one year course) are in my reach?

2) Since my AWA score is low, Do I need to take TOEFL to compensate it.

I took GMAT in 2007 and since then associated with Magazine Publishing Group of Company. Currently, I am an Editor of couple of Magazines.

 

How should I convince Adcom that my written communication skills are not bad as reflects from AWA score?

 

Thanks for your kind support.

 

Regards,

G

Dear Tasha,

Request you to kindly evaluate my profile.

 - 28 Years |Male | Indian

- Graduated from top ten Engineering College | Awarded silver medal - Second highest grades in college

- Working with Infosys, but not related to software field.

   I am working in Engineering Design Division, which assists major automotive and aerospace companies in design and manufacturing.

- 6.5 Years of Experience, including 2.5 Years in UK (Airbus) Okay, having some UK work experience will definitely help you...

- Have been promoted twice and currently leading a team to 10 in capacity of  Engineering Lead.Great - the European schools in particular look at WE and leadership/promotions related to that.

- GMAT Score (I took in Nov, 2007) - 690|Q 49, V35| AWA 4.0 – (Weakest Link in my profile)

- EC | Decent

- Community Service | Modest

- Post MBA : Management Consulting

 

I wish to pursue one year MBA course from Europe.

 

I have couple of queries.

 

1) Which all European colleges (one year course) are in my reach? For one year programs, you can look at IMD, ESADE, Oxford, Cambridge, and of course there's always INSEAD. Your general stats are within range for all of those schools, but of course it depends on the details of your app and how well you convey what you have to offer.

2) Since my AWA score is low, Do I need to take TOEFL to compensate it.Schools generally don't put TOO much emphasis on the AWA score, but if you think you'd get a high score on the TOEFL and it wouldn't be a hardship to take it, that's something you might consider.

I took GMAT in 2007 and since then associated with Magazine Publishing Group of Company. Currently, I am an Editor of couple of Magazines. Okay, this will help speak to your communication skills - as of course will writing great essays.

 

How should I convince Adcom that my written communication skills are not bad as reflects from AWA score? See above. Basically, mention anything that you've done that involves writing - though that should come out in your essays, the fact that you're a magazine editor, so you wouldn't even need to make a special point of it.

 

Thanks for your kind