PROS

1 Name Value. There’s no denying that larger schools tend to have more name recognition. This doesn’t guarantee job security, but if you’re planning to work in New York or Washington DC, a world-famous program such as Oxford, Stanford, Wharton, etc. can be a big plus.

2. Traditional MBA Industries. If you’re looking to study traditional business sectors (i.e. finance/consulting) then a bigger school with more prestige could help you stand out in your field.

3. More alumni. Bigger schools mean more alumni working around the world, which could potentially lead to job opportunities later on. Want to meet other MBA applicants? Grockit’s GMAT group games allow students to study together – connect with MBA applicants from all over the world!

CONS

1. Less individual attention. If you’re the type of person who thrives with a bit more attention, the cutthroat world of a larger business program may not be beneficial for you. Smaller schools typically have greater access to the faculty and you’ll likely develop a closer relationship with your advisors.

2. The Cost. The “bigger” schools (both in size and prestige) tend to be more expensive. Many students opt for a “B+” level school and get a great education for a reduced fee. Remember that expensive is not always better.

3. Tough Entry Requirements. Schools that appear regularly on the “ten best” or “world’s best” lists published annually by magazines such as BusinessWeek or U.S. News and World Report are incredibly competitive to get into. If you have a limited amount of time to devote to application and GMAT study, you may want to look at a few less-competitive options. Is spending another six months getting your GMAT score 80 points higher worth it for you?

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9. Don’t talk to anyone else.  To maximize your chance of failure, don’t talk to any of the following:

* Colleagues who have MBAs  – what could they possibly know?
* Admissions counselors at schools — they probably don’t want to talk to anyone about their program anyway
* Current students in MBA programs — those current students can’t have anything in common with you, so why bother?
* Faculty and staff, when you visit the schools (you are visiting the schools, aren’t you?) — they’re almost certainly too busy
* GMAT tutors — the real mark of excellence is grinding away at a topic alone until you get it right, no matter how long it takes
* Professional editors for your resume and essays — when you are at the top of your own company, “they” will make sure everything you say has clarity and professionalism, so why bother learning that stuff now?

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Working with people like these will only bring the heartache of MBA interviews and acceptance letters.  Far too many people get into MBA programs by taking advantage of the expertise of others — don’t let this happen to you.

10. Fail to diversify. Know yourself and your limits.  Applying only to Harvard and Columbia may well satisfy your ego, but doing so may leave you without admission to a program the following fall.  Get a sense of where your GPA and GMAT score will take you, knowing that your background and work experience can only open doors, not shut them!  The further (chronologically) that you are from school, the less your college GPA matters, but your GMAT score will always matter as it is a quantitative factor under your control.  Keep in mind that the minimum GPAs and GMATs that a school advertises on its site is the absolute minimum below which they won’t be happy dipping; many applicants will have higher scores.  If you founded Google or Amazon.com, you can naturally count on getting in with the minimum, but generally should apply to schools whose requirements you exceed, not merely meet.  The problem is not sending off applications to Harvard and Columbia, but rather the failure to send applications anywhere else.

That’s it!  I’m sure there are more ways to mess things up, so let me know if you have one!

See other articles in this series:

10 Best Ways to Ruin Your MBA Applications, pt 1

10 Best Ways to Ruin Your MBA Applications, pt 2

10 Best Ways to Ruin Your MBA Applications, pt 3

10 Best Ways to Ruin Your MBA Applications, pt 4

Need expert advice on a 30, 60, or 90 day study plan? Ask one of Grockit’s expert tutors!

How to apply? To qualify, you must apply for a GMAT voucher BEFORE you register for the exam. Upon registering, you will be prompted to enter your GMAT Voucher Code. The code is to be obtained from business schools directly. Each school is entitled to a minimum of 10 vouchers a year, and each voucher is worth $50. Schools can distribute them as they see fit to offset a student’s cost, so it’s possible to be awarded anywhere from $50 – $250 in vouchers.

Grockit is also committed to helping disadvantaged students succeed academically. Find out how you can help under-served students achieve their dreams of higher education with Grockit for Good.

You should first contact the financial aid office of the school to which you are applying to learn about their specific requirements. It is at their discretion to offer the voucher code, and each school may have slightly different requirements.  The voucher code is valid for one GMAT exam only, so if you know you cannot pay for the exam a second time, it’s best to wait until you feel you are adequately prepared to take the exam.

Some scholarships and fellowship organizations are also eligible to give out GMAT vouchers, but it is up to students to research and find these institutions. Unfortunately, GMAC does not provide a list. For more information about the GMAT Voucher Program, you can contact GMAC directly at: gmatvouchers@gmac.com.

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6. Be too modest.  Your application to a program is very like your application for a job — you need to make them interested.  You want them to think, “Wow! I can’t wait to actually talk to this person” or “This person will be a tremendous asset to our program, we don’t have anybody like this.”  Unlike a job application, there isn’t even the cover letter as a platform from which you can sing your own praises; you have their essays (which are often aimed at your future plans, weaknesses, and greatest challenges rather than your best points) and your resume instead.  You do need to be truthful — lying on an application for admission is a form of academic misconduct and can result in revocation of admission at any point later if it is discovered — but you need to present the best and most compelling true version of yourself possible.

Find out how Grockit predicts your GMAT score based on your answers and tracks your performance and improvements, projecting accurate score improvements.

7. Be unrealistic.  Everyone likes to think that they will ace the GMAT, be accepted into their top program, connect personally with faculty, form a network of fellow students that will lead to powerful contacts later, impress everyone, and launch a successful multinational corporation within five years of graduation.  Some people will, and confidence breeds success, but ambitious goal setting needs to be tempered with a dose of reality throughout the process.  A solid grasp on the likely outcomes at all stages — neither too idealistic nor too pessimistic — keeps you from devoting too much energy into unnecessary scrambling (you got in when you thought you wouldn’t) or into avoidable therapy (you didn’t get in this round and hadn’t even considered that possibility).

8. Tell them what you think they want to hear.  Your essays and interviews are the only chance they get to know you, so if you really don’t want to get into an MBA program, make sure that all you talk about is how great their program is.  It is true that schools value people with direction, people who know what they want and have researched and identified schools that meet their particular needs, so you do need to show SOME awareness of the school’s program, reputation, affiliations, faculty, and/or alumni … but most of what you say should be about you.  They know what their program’s strengths are, but they don’t know yours.

There are two more ways to ruin your MBA application process next time, excluding the obvious “don’t fill out an application.”

See other articles in this series:

10 Best Ways to Ruin Your MBA Applications, pt 1

10 Best Ways to Ruin Your MBA Applications, pt 2

10 Best Ways to Ruin Your MBA Applications, pt 3 

4. Blow off the essays.  I mean the business school essays, not the ones on the GMAT (though since your scores are reported with the AWA, you shouldn’t blow that off either).  As always, a stellar GPA, work record, and GMAT score may get you admitted to the programs you want even if your essay is not great, but you don’t get to be a high-powered executive in command of your own destiny by leaving easily-fixed things to chance.  Take some time to think about what you write, and look online at what others have written.  The directions for the essays are usually quite specific (though some may just want a “statement of interest” with no further details given), and many have word limits.  Your ability to pad and B.S. your way through papers at the high school and college level (if you had that) will directly and powerfully hurt you here; you need to give them clear, concise reasons to set up an interview.  Use friends and colleagues for input on content (and editing, if they have that skill); write your essays, let them sit at least overnight, then look at them again and see whether they still make sense.

Test your GMAT skills with this GMAT verbal practice question.

5. Wait to “find yourself” in your MBA program. The Masters in Business Administration is for people who have a certain amount of business experience (the actual amount varying according to the type of MBA program), enough experience to know exactly what skills they lack to move on to, well, whatever it is they want to move onto:  a higher position within their firm, a lateral move into another field, or off to start their own company.  The MBA is absolutely, positively NOT for somebody who is still looking for a career that inspires him or her, who is hoping that the core curriculum or cohort of fellow business leaders will be the impetus for a career change.  If you go so far as to say that you’re “still deciding” in your application, that will actually hurt your chances of admission; if you conceal it and are admitted, you are only hurting yourself.  MBA programs are not cheap, use them for their intended purpose.  If you are hoping to find your way via another degree, consider some other master’s degree or even a second undergraduate degree.  Some schools and colleges limit or do not allow second undergraduate degrees — they are interested in serving the students who are still working on their first undergraduate degrees — but others will consider it or allow you without limitation.  The point of diminishing returns with undergraduate degrees is the first one, though in certain fields and positions, the only way in is via an undergraduate degree.

We covered doing nothing in this one; in the next installment, we’ll show you ways to take things too far one way or another, which is a great way to convince MBA admissions counselors that you aren’t right for their program.

See other articles in this series:

10 Best Ways to Ruin Your MBA Applications, pt 1

10 Best Ways to Ruin Your MBA Applications, pt 2

2. Fail to research.  There are a few things to research in a solid application cycle, and they center around schools and their programs.  What are the average GMAT scores and GPAs of the average applicant?  What is their average length of work experience prior to application?  Is the program targeted primarily at people fresh out of college, or with a decade of experience, or with an executive position at a large company?  Nothing will sink your applications faster than applying for specialties that don’t exit, or for programs that are looking entirely for people with qualities you don’t have at all.  Look carefully; one student I know was looking at a college that advertised an MBA with a specialization in agribusiness; business school’s page mentioned it, but there were no agribusiness courses listed in the elective tracks.  Only by digging through the actual agriculture department website did we find a brief notice that there was very little interest in the agribusiness MBA, and therefore no courses in it had even been offered for years.

Find out how you can study online anytime of the day, from anywhere you have Internet access on Grockit!

3. Blow off the GMAT.  You convince yourself that when a certain month starts, you will begin studying — or perhaps it’s after the next “crunch time” in your work’s business cycle.  Or after your birthday.  Whatever it is, postponement can lead to a shortened preparation cycle when you do actually decide to take it seriously, and your score can suffer tremendously.  I have worked with many students who literally (and I do mean literally) waited until the week before the exam to take a practice test.  They figured, I think, that since they’d done well on the ACT or SAT, the GMAT would likewise be a breeze (it isn’t).  It’s not that you can’t recover from a poor first score — of course you can! — but the test isn’t free, and preparing for it is not fun for most people, so it’s in your best interest to do it right the first time, if possible.  Ideally, you will want at least three months to prepare for the test, longer if English is not your native language and/or you struggle with reading English quickly and accurately; even the Quantitative section requires the capacity to read carefully, as there are many word problems.

There’s more where this came from — next time, we’ll talk about blowing off the essays and the powerful negative consequences of not knowing what you’re doing with your life.

See other articles in this series:

10 Best Ways to Ruin Your MBA Applications, pt 1

A farmer wrote to the big state university, asking for it to help him devise a way to increase his cows’ milk production. Seizing the opportunity to have an impact on the community, the university gathered faculty from many science departments, headed by a theoretical physicist; they began their very thorough academic investigation with a visit to the farm. The scholars then returned to the university armed with all the data they could possibly need, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. One week later, the physicist returned to the farm, saying to the farmer “I have the solution, but it only works in the case of spherical cows in a vacuum.”

The advice that follows is for the ideal world; adjust or disregard the advice as necessary for your actual world.

1. Decide last-minute.  People arrive at many decisions gradually, even unconsciously — there’s literally nothing you can do about that.  What you can do, however, is make sure that you have enough time to do everything you need to do in order to be successful.  Applying to MBA programs is more than just filling in your name and address on a form and stapling it to a copy of your resume; the less time you allow for the “big ticket items” in terms of time, the less likely they are to turn out as well as you like, and the less well they will represent you and your accomplishments.  Obviously, sometimes real life is what determines your schedule — ideal solutions with spherical cows don’t stand up to sudden changes in your family life or employment — so sometimes now really is the time, but you run serious risks with a very short application arc.  The less time you have before your applications are due, the more you should have a (very) solid plan B in the event you will need to apply again next semester or next year, and the more you should consider whether you are better off containing your enthusiasm for a few months and applying early for the next admissions cycle.

Next time, we’ll get into some more strategic and tactical errors you can make, if you want to fail!

Studying for the GMAT? Try this GMAT quantitative practice question on Grockit.

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Timing: The Verbal section contains 41 questions and you are given 75 minutes to answer these.  Remember that you will be able to answer some questions in a manner of seconds, while others will take significantly longer.  An important piece of your study plan is learning how to pace yourself so you don’t run out of time or move too quickly, especially since on the GMAT you cannot come back to a question once you have answered it or skipped it.

Format: There are three types of questions on the GMAT Verbal.  Here is a breakdown of the format of each type:

Reading Comprehension:  You will be given a passage followed by questions.  The questions are given in typical multiple-choice format, with five answer choices and one correct answer.

Critical Reasoning: You will answer multiple-choice questions designed to test your reasoning skills based on the information given.

Sentence Correction Questions: For these questions you will be given a sentence with a portion or all of it underlined.  The answer choices will give you five options for the best way to complete the underlined part.  The first choice will be identical to the underlined portion in the given sentence, and the other four choices will offer different ways to fill the underlined space.

Content Overview: 

Reading Comprehension: For this question type you will be given reading passages that are up to 350 words long, covering a wide variety of topics.  No outside knowledge is required; only use what is stated or implied by the information in the passage to answer the questions.  The questions will test your abilities to comprehend, apply, and infer from the passage.

Critical Reasoning: These questions ask you to evaluate and analyze given arguments.  Again, the material is from a wide variety of sources and no outside knowledge is needed.

Sentence Correction: Sentence Correction questions require knowledge of grammar and written conventions of English.  The questions will test your ability to express the English language correctly and effectively.

The tried and true multiple choice format of all Verbal questions is familiar to most all test takers, so the good news is that now you can focus on improving your strategies for approaching the three question types!

Check out this GMAT Reading Comprehension passage question for practice before test day.

The GMAT Quantitative section, like the Verbal, is computer-adapted, meaning that the difficulty level of each question you receive will be based on your performance on previous questions.  Generally, if you answer a question correctly, the next question will be more difficult; if you answer a question incorrectly, the next question will be easier.  Because of this format, you cannot go back to questions that you skipped or want to double-check.

Find out how you can customize your study plan with a Grockit tutor and rock the GMAT!

Timing: You will have 75 minutes to answer 37 multiple-choice questions on the Quantitative section.  Make sure to take timed practice sections as you study to get an idea of how tight the time constraint might be for you.  Keep in mind that if you keep answering correctly, the questions will get harder and therefore will probably take longer.

Format: The two types of multiple-choice questions on the Quantitative section are Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency.

Problem Solving questions have a familiar format–you just have to solve the problem and pick the correct answer out of five choices.

The format of Data Sufficiency questions is a little more tricky.  You will be given some information, followed by two statements.  Your job is to determine whether the two statements give you enough data to answer the question.  Your answer choices are:

-Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (2) is not sufficient.

-Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (1) is not sufficient.

-BOTH statements TOGETHER are sufficient, but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient.

-EACH statement ALONE is sufficient.

-Statements (1) and (2) TOGETHER are NOT sufficient.

Become familiar with each format and its directions before test day so that you can go into the GMAT with confidence.

Content Overview: Both question types on the Quantitative section test your knowledge of arithmetic, basic algebra, and basic geometry.  You will have to use both computation and reasoning skills, and interpret data from a graph.  Although the mathematical content itself might not be higher level, the reasoning that you have to apply to it is.  Many people find the biggest challenge on this section to be determining at which point the amount of data is sufficient to solve a problem.

Now that you know the basics of the GMAT Quantitative, make yourself a study plan and practice, practice, practice!

Question 1

Cignature Cigars has two seasonal sales, Spring and Fall.  The Spring sale last year sold an average of 200 cigars per week during its four-week push.  The current Fall sale is expected to exceed last Spring’s sale by at least 250 cigars during its four-week push, despite only selling 100 cigars its first week.

Identify a number of cumulative sales for the third week of Fall’s sales drive, and a number of cumulative sales for the third week of the next Spring sales drive, if next Spring’s sale is expected to have a weekly average equal to half of the average of Fall’s last three weeks.

          Fall Sale            Spring Sale

100

159

317

477

636

734

Answer:  734, 477.

 Try Grockit’s free GMAT mobile app for practice on the go! 

STEP 1 – Pull out the given info. You’ll need to read these questions carefully, as you would any word problem, and extract the necessary values and relationships before proceeding. Last Spring sold 200/week for 4 weeks, totaling 800.  Fall is expected to exceed this by 250 (1,050), but has only sold 100 and will therefore need to average (950/3 =) 317 per week.  Next Spring will be half that, or 159.

STEP 2 – Make a chart, if needed Much of the relationships in Two Part Analysis are changes in values over time. You may find it helpful to make a chart:

Week                        Spring            1            Fall 1                        Spring 2

1                        200                        100                        159

2                        200                        317                        159

3                        200                        317                        159

4                        200                        317                        159

Total                        800                        1051                        636

Question 2

Cignature Cigars has two seasonal sales, Spring and Fall.  The Spring sale last year sold an average of 200 cigars per week during its four-week push.  The current Fall sale is expected to exceed last Spring’s sale by at least 250 cigars during its four-week push, despite only selling 100 cigars its first week.

Identify a total number of sales for Fall’s sales drive, and a total number of sales the next Spring sales drive if next Spring’s sale is expected to have a weekly average equal to half of the average of Fall’s last three weeks.

          Fall Sale            Spring Sale

317

636

800

1051

1800

2102

Answer:  1051, 636.

Step 1 – Pull out the given info. Last Spring sold 200/week for 4 weeks, totaling 800.  Fall is expected to exceed this by 250 (1,050), but has only sold 100 and will therefore need to average (950/3 =) 317 per week.  Next Spring will be half that, or 159.

Step 2 – Make a chart, if needed.

Week                        Spring            1            Fall 1                        Spring 2

1                        200                        100                        159

2                        200                        317                        159

3                        200                        317                        159

4                        200                        317                        159

Total                        800                        1051                        636

Want to know where to focus your GMAT studies next? Challenge yourself with adaptive solo practice sessions on Grockit today, then review your skill data on your profile to see your strengths/weaknesses! Solo practice and adaptable skill data are free with Grockit’s premium membership!