Ask Jon Frank- P69-Q&A:WHY MBA? 7 OVERLOOKED REASONS TO GET AN MBA

deardee

Hi Jon Frank, thank you so much for your valuable advice here! I have a issue regarding my recommendation letter and would like to ask your opinion.

I was admitted last year by an Mba program however due to medical reason I have to give it up and reapply the same school since the school does not allow me to defer the enrollment. Last year My supervisor already submittedbmy recommendation letter.this year I am worried to let me employer knowing I am reapplying because applying b-school two years in a row would show my low commitment to the employer and if they know i am reapplying this year,they probably would not give me  promotion any more. Also my supervisor is kind of disappointed with me since last year I gave up the enrollment opportunity so it would be awkward to let him write a letter again this year. I plan to let my former coworker who currently working in the Us to write me a letter. How should I address this issue in the optional essay to the school? Really appreciate your help!

JonFrank

You got it dude,
For a question like that, basically it's an opportunity to tell them about wither something really important or something that went a bit wrong. Either one would be good. So if you have something like that, go for it!

Best,

@JonFrank
HBS 2005

JonFrank

Well the best is to look for SOME sort of leadership experience,
It could be leading people out of work (in a non-professional situation) or training and mentoring people. Hiring is leadership too. Or if you did any motivating. Basically my advice would be for you to DIG DEEPER! You probably have SOME leadership in your profile, even if now it doesn't seem like it.

@JonFrank
HBS 2005

striddick

Hi Jon,

Gentle Greetings. I am an undergraduate student who will graduate at June 2014 and I am now trying to select some appropriate programs. I found on the website that you have helped a lot of students in China,and I wish you can help me too. The following is my background.

Undegraduate Collge:985 211
College Rank : 17th general an 5th in engineering area.(Both in China)
Major: Electrical Engineering Top2 in China

GPA:   About 83.5/100
GMAT:  750+5
TOEFL: 109

Internship: one month in Bank of China

Full-time Work Experience: No

Special work experience: I have been working in a local nonprofit drama troupe sponsored by our college, and have been the chairman of this troupe for about 2 years. This troupe was established in 1998 and is quite famous in our city and province, and we even have fans around the whole country. The member mainly comprise current students and alumni of our college, and quite a few local volunteers. When I was the chairman I there were about 80 people working in this troupe. I did a lot to this troupe and the committee highly appreciated my contribution. The members usually consider me one of the greatest leader of this organization for the whole 15 years.

Others:
1.worked in student government
2.sold bicycles and clothes
3.gave lessons about drama in college or publicly
4.been selected as the college official magazine cover twice
5.the“Male student representatives” at in 110th anniversary of our college.

I am very sorry that I write so much. Thank you for your patience to read it. But I am really confused about selecting programs. Actually I am interested in management, but other master programs, even MBA will also be OK. I really wonder your suggestion about programs.

Thank you again for reading my message, and I will appreciate if I can receive your response soon.

Your Sincerely
Xiaochen Wu
Nanjing, China

上北下南

JonFrank 发表于 2013-9-25 16:04
Well the best is to look for SOME sort of leadership experience,
It could be leading people out of w ...

Thanks Jon. I have two further questions to bother you though.

First, does teaching language count as leadership experience?
Second, if I did a job alone, but the job involves considerable communication with different parities. Can this be leadership experience as well?

JonFrank

上北下南 发表于 2013-9-26 23:41
Thanks Jon. I have two further questions to bother you though.

First, does teaching language coun ...

You're welcome!
Teaching IS a kind of leadership experience. After all you are standing up in front of a group of people and leading them, educating them, and so on. Your second experience seems to be a good one, but is really more teamwork than leadership. so you can for sure use it in your essays, but probably it fits more in a teamwork essay than in a leadership one.

Best,

@JonFrank
HBS 2005

JonFrank

striddick 发表于 2013-9-26 09:45
Hi Jon,

Gentle Greetings. I am an undergraduate student who will graduate at June 2014 and I am now ...

Hi there, and thank you so much for your question! I am more than happy to help you, my friend. First let me say that your academic background is quite impressive, and you’ve got solid test scores and a good undergrad ranking. However, the challenge for you is that you want to switch your focus of study to management or something else entirely. Therefore, it is extremely important in your applications to write convincing essays that elaborate on this decision. You must fully explain why you want to change your major and what your plans will bein the future. Since you don’t have any full-time work experience, you’ll be unable to apply to good MBA programs, since they like to see that you’ve had at least two years in the working world. Most of the graduate business programs like to see some work experience, as well. Therefore, I think you’ve got two options. First, you can consider applying to MFE programs now. Or you can get some work experienceafter you graduate, and then apply for an MBA later on. The path that you choose really depends on what you want to do in your future career, since the post-graduate jobs for MFE and MBA students are quite different. Let me know if you have any further questions!

Jon Frank
HBS 2005

JonFrank

Share your thought process as you encountered a challenging work situation or complex problem. What did you learn about yourself? (500 words maximum)

Pick a great story, first of all. As with any b-school application essay prompt, don’t get stuck on finding the coolest “situation”—you’ve got one bullet here.

But okay, you’ve got your story. Let’s talk about what they wanna know from that sucker. They wanna learn something about how you operate. How you think. Here’s a good test: If you set up the challenge, and we can predict exactly what you did to handle that situation, something isn’t quite right. In order for this essay to pack punch, there needs to be SOME element of surprise in the way that you (not the guy sitting NEXT to you) dealt with the variables at hand. Without that, it’s just a bland ol’ resume bullet point.

Set up the problem. Establish what made SOLVING that problem hard. What were the obstacles? Time? Language barriers? What made it hard… lay it all out. Now—and here’s the crux of it—consider what OTHERS might have done in your shoes. Ideally, there may have been OTHER ways to skin this cat. Perhaps more obvious or more predictable courses of action. Depending on your particular story, you may even wanna quickly give us a sense for what those might be—what was the status quo, what was the precedent, etc.

But take us through what you did that was different, and why. Take us through the thought process. Be careful not to get ahead of yourself—this is a common tendency, applicants are so eager to spill the success story, they write with the knowledge of how the story ends. Try to write the story as though it were happening in real-time, where the outcome is still uncertain. This will engage your reader to feel the tension YOU felt, to play along and wonder how it all turns out. These are all very good things… that guy pays close attention to your essay because humans respond to drama, pure and simple.

This idea of “surprise” is also relevant in setting up the second half of this essay: “what did you learn about yourself?” If you acted in the exact way you’d have predicted prior to the situation… something’s not quite right. There needs to be something that EMERGED in your actions. Something revelatory.

“Wow, I’m good at confrontation when I have all the facts in front of me.”

“Wow, I don’t mind bucking a trend if XYZ.”

“Wow, I never realized how much I valued X until after this experience.”

That kind of thing. But a sentence won’t do. You need to dig. Here’s another good test… imagine revealing your big lesson, in a wonderful heartfelt way, and having the person reading this essay look up and say to you, “Who cares? Why are you telling me this?”

“I learned that I blah.”
“So what.”

Well, defend it. Convince us that what you’re telling us is important. Why should we care? Why should we bother about a lesson you learned about yourself? This is hard, folks. Harder than you may realize. But if you crack THIS, then you’re gonna end up with something air-tight.

So, how do you pull this off? There must be some significance to this story as it relates to something BIGGER in your overall trajectory. There’s something you aspire to in life. You have goals, dreams, momentum toward something awesome. There’s gotta be a way that a takeaway lesson from this experience—something you discovered about yourself—either reaffirmed your belief that your goal is something you can indeed pull off, or gave clarity TO an existing goal, and helped refine it, based on the self-discovery. It has to connect somehow. Otherwise… indeed, who cares. “Thank you for telling me that you discovered your hatred for blue cheese. I know… not to buy you blue cheese…. for your birthday?”

There’s gotta be a connection between this story, and what you wanna do. Balance-wise, you’ll wanna devote 350 words or so to the experience itself, and 150 or so to the discovery and CONNECTION bit. It’s one of one essay, folks. You don’t wanna leave them with “hm, that was a nice story.” But rather, “hm, this kid’s gonna DO something.”

@JonFrank
HBS 2005

striddick

JonFrank 发表于 2013-10-12 16:35
Hi there, and thank you so much for your question! I am more than happy to help you, my friend. Fi ...

Hi Jon,

Thank you so much for spending time answering me! Just one more question. Given my background, I cannot figure out which level of schools am I able to reach. Top 30? Top 50? Or Top 100? Could you please give me any advice? I will really appreciate.

Thank you again.

Xiaochen Wu
Nanjing, China

上北下南

JonFrank 发表于 2013-10-12 14:54
You're welcome!
Teaching IS a kind of leadership experience. After all you are standing up in fron ...

Thank you very much Jon. It helps a lot!