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

JonFrank

How to apply to 3 schools in 5 weeks

So, you’ve got around five weeks left before a bunch of Round 2 deadlines hit, and you’ve still got some applications you haven’t even started yet. Are you starting to panic?

Well, forget that noise.

There’s plenty of time to do it…if you do it right. What you need is a plan, and by plan I mean timeline. A timeline set out so you can get everything done in enough time to feel good about submitting those apps, instead of worrying that you just sent out a less-than-excellent effort to some of your dream schools.

Our very own MBA guru Yaron Dahan has laid out a map for navigating the application process for three schools in five weeks, broken down on a week-by-week basis. Time to strategize…

FIVE WEEKS LEFT:

1. Contact your recommenders and get the ball rolling with your letters of recommendation, letting them know your deadlines.

2. Reach out to people from each of the three schools you’re applying to so you can get some info for your “Why School X” essays. Think alumni, current students, even faculty – folks who can give you a glimpse of the programs from the inside.

3. Start your application essays to School 1.

FOUR WEEKS LEFT:

1. Log into the websites for all three schools and start filling out the forms they’re all going to request… you know, the perfunctory paperwork.

2. Keep working on your application essays to School 1.

3. Start your application essays to School 2.

THREE WEEKS LEFT:

1. Make sure your recommenders have gotten their LORs in. If not, send them a kindly reminder of your deadline.

2. Finish your application essays to School 1.

3. Continue working on your application essays to School 2.

4. Start your application essays to School 3.

TWO WEEKS LEFT:

1. Be ABSOLUTELY sure that all your recommendations are in. To quote Elvis, “It’s now or never.”

2. Complete your online application forms to all three schools.

3. Finish your application essays to School 2.

4. Continue working on your application essays to School 3.

ONE WEEK LEFT:

1. Finish your application essays to School 3.

2. Check all three applications (forms and essays) for mistakes. Look VERY carefully over everything, as the time away from most of the material will help you to more quickly and easily spot errors that could otherwise trip you up.

3. Click submit and send them on their merry way.

4. Kick off your shoes, pour a glass of your favorite drink, put up your feet, and relax (optional, but highly recommended).

azowu

x..............................

JonFrank

Working on a deadline means having a plan and doign constant revision

It’s 3AM. You’ve been writing for HOURS… but you’re nowhere near done and your deadline is creeping up. You swore you’d finish early but this is your THIRD application and, frankly, you’re exhausted. Writing under pressure is never easy but it happens to the best of us – the key is to do it well.

While your best bet is to avoid these last-minute scenarios, you can still deliver a fantastic essay on deadline if you don’t panic and, instead, focus on the task at hand. The worst mistake last-minute applicants make is to panic and tire themselves out without getting anywhere NEAR the results they want.

So… take a deep breath, follow these five tips and get ready for a long night. If you work hard and focus, you can knock this application out of the park:

Make a plan. Resist the urge to start writing without a plan. Slow down, collect your thoughts, choose a topic and write an outline. Ten minutes of planning will save you an hour of editing down the line.
Stick to your plan. If you have three essays and three hours to write them, that’s an hour per essay – don’t deviate thinking you can make-up time later. Likewise, make sure you triple-check the essay question and STICK TO IT. It’s easy to get derailed when you’re writing on deadline and that means lost time correcting yourself afterward.
Review, review, review. Do it early and often. Writing in stressful situations means you’ll be making more mistakes than usual, which means triple-checking yourself during the process AND afterward. Likewise, if you realize your essay isn’t working midway through and you suddenly have a better idea, you’ll have to judge whether it’s worth taking another crack at it or pressing on with your current attempt.
Take deep breaths. If you’re cracking up under pressure, take a few minutes to breathe deeply and think of something else. Make a cup of tea, go for a walk around the block or just get away from your computer and close your eyes. Then, five minutes later, get back to the task at hand and start fresh.
If you can, sleep on it. When you’re done, if you have the opportunity to get a few hours sleep before handing in your application, do so and give it one last review in the morning – you may very well catch some tricky hidden mistakes after a few hours of rest.
So remember:

Make a plan.
Stick to your plan.
Review, review, review.
Take deep breaths.
If you can, sleep on it.

JonFrank

Are You Ready To Click Submit?
R1 deadlines are coming. Fast. You’ve spent months doing research, writing and re-writing your essays, and formatting your resume. Now your essays are compelling, your resume is perfect, you’ve secured your recommendations… you’re home free!

Hold on. Not quite yet. You’ve trained hard, you’ve run a steady race, and now the finish line is in sight. But before you do a victory dance, take the time to give your application one final review with your MBA application checklist. After all, you’ve been staring at the thing for weeks, so it’s totally natural that you’ve entered a zombie-like state, eyes glossing over a small mistake. And after all the hard work and late nights spent perfecting your application, it’d be pretty devastating if you get flagged by the adcom for minor mistakes.

Of course, if reading this is making you sweat (“wait, people are already at the polishing stage?!”), and you need some help…erm…starting the process, now’s the time to get it. We’re closing our doors for Deluxe packages on September 10th, so sign up and crush those R1 deadlines.

JonFrank

THE INSIDER’S GUIDE TO IESE
Oh, hello there.

Good to have you back, joining us on our journey across the pond to look at the best of the best European MBA programs. We already took a gander at the ins and outs of INSEAD, and today we’re gonna turn our sites to Spain. So let’s dig into IESE, one of the top three Spanish business schools, and, according to the Financial Times, one of the top 10 schools in Europe.

The What

IESE offers a world-class program on two Campuses in Spain’s two largest and most business-friendly cities – Madrid (for the EMBA programs) and Barcelona.

Although IESE had a very diverse and mobile student body – much like most programs in Europe – in many ways the program is quite different from most European MBAs, and actually more closely resembles the typical US MBA programs.

First of all, the average age for IESE students is 28, which is considerably younger than most other European MBA programs that have an average age of 30+.
Secondly, unlike most other top European schools that offer 1-year programs, IESE’s MBA programs is 19 months.
IESE is also less industry oriented than many Euro MBAs, and far stronger in the two traditional industries of recruitment for MBA grads – Finance and Consulting, with about half the graduating class going into these two business mainstays. IESE is also the only place you can get a Harvard education outside of Harvard, as they use the Harvard case-study method as their study method of choice.

Notable for its Spanish location, IESE is one of the few schools in Europe that has excellent connections with Latin America, and in the last graduating class 12% of the class went on to find jobs in Latin America.

The Who

IESE’s grads are a mighty diverse bunch. They come, like in many European programs, from….well… EVERYWHERE. Case in point: more than 80% of the class of 280 students came from places OUTSIDE of Spain. And given its connection with Latin America, a far larger portion (between 10-15% in recent years) of the student body come from that part of the world.

That’s some serious diversity, folks.  

The How – Tips for Getting In

Besides the good old recipe for success of great GMAT + fantastic GPA at a great school + strong work experience, IESE is building a name for itself in the area of Entrepreneurship. So it is a particularly good destination for candidates who either come from or intend to go into entrepreneurship (family business counts too!).

Also, given that the school is an initiative of the Catholic Church’s Opus Dei, it should come as no surprise that IESE considers ethics to be a fundamental part of the business school studies and experience. So if you can work that into your overall profile in some way, that’s gonna help you show your fit with IESE in a very strong (and organic!) way.

IESE also likes students who are well-rounded, who have lives and interests that extend beyond their work experience. What instruments can you play? Were you ever a pro sports player? Are you impassioned for the art of Goya? Show a bit of general culture and diversity and it can go a long way.

Leadership, and especially international leadership is also highly regarded, although not a necessary prerequisite like it might be at schools like INSEAD, LBS, etc.

Bottom Line

Although it doesn’t yet have the same prestige, make no mistake: IESE is one of the best schools in Europe, playing in the same field as INSEAD and LBS. IESE grads are talking to the same recruiters, and making the same salaries as grads from those more well-known programs! And besides its general strength as an international MBA program, it is especially good for those who intend to work in Europe or South America after their studies, and who want to have that extra time to really make the most of business school.

JonFrank

Can a good GMAT score cover up my weaknesses?

Question:

Will a high GMAT score be a good cover-up for some weaknesses in my profile?

Answer:

NOPE.

You know how a cat will hide under a chair, and it thinks it’s hidden from the humans in the room…but its tail is still sticking out and you’re like… “I can still see you, kitty”?

Mmmm yeah. That lack of work experience, those murky career goals, that lack of an undergraduate degree, etc…. that’s the cat. And no matter how good your GMAT is… well, “I can still see you, Kitty.”

And more importantly, so can the adcom.

The “cover-up” is not a good strategy. Adcoms are way too smart for that. [Come on - give 'em some credit, folks!] They read hundreds, if not THOUSANDS, of apps every year; they can see a good candidate from a mile away. And they can see someone who’s trying to hide something from even further. You’re not gonna be able to hide your weak spots from them.

A GMAT score doesn’t cover up anything. But if it’s good, it helps everything. Take a low college GPA, for example. A high GMAT score isn’t going to undo that GPA, but it WILL show the adcom that you’re smart and that what happened in college was a minor blip, and not indicative of what you’re capable of. After all, that was so long ago. But look at that GMAT score! That’s a much better sign of what’s to come from you.

So, yeah, the GMAT can definitely help. But all too often people make the mistake of thinking a GMAT score can carry them into a top program. That all they need is a 750 and it’s smooooth sailing into HBS.  But let me tell you, folks, there are plenty of people who score a 750+ on their GMAT…and get rejected from top programs.

While the GMAT is a good equalizer of applicants, it’s not the only thing that adcoms look at. And it’s the REST of your materials that are important: the essays (where you lay out your plans/goals/personal brand), your resume (where they see your experience), and your LORs (where your superiors highlight your achievements and why you’re going to go on and do AWESOME things).

So while the GMAT is indeed important, and it can absolutely HELP your applications, it’s not going to hide a lack of work experience, or weak career goals or irrelevant and poorly articulated LORs. And that’s the case even for the guy who manages to score an 800.

What can you do about those weaknesses, then? Well, instead of wasting your time trying to cover ‘em up, instead focus on highlighting your strengths, showcasing your awesome work experience, and all that leadership potential you’ve got.  And, if you have space in your app and it makes sense to do this, you can even ADDRESS your weaknesses. Show ‘em that you KNOW what’s up, you know what you need to improve, and tell ‘em how getting an MBA is gonna help you do that.

Hope that helps,

Jon Frank, Admissionado Founder

luciahuang

Hi John,

I have to say I got really impressed on how you insist on coming this forum since 2010,
And I am planning applying a US MBA program concentrating on supply chain, I would like to work for Apple, or Walmart..after my graduation. and my background is GPA around 2.9, which is quite low,
and I am trying to get a nice score in GMAT now.
And have working in procurement, sales and international trading for around 6years. in European companies mostly.

Do you have any nice suggestions about this type of schools, I am quite concern about the location for finding a job.
Appreciate your kind help.

Thanks in advance!
Lucia

JonFrank

How long should our answers be for normal interview questions?

ANSWER:

When it comes to everyone’s favorite, “Walk me through your interview,” you shouldn’t spend more than 4 minutes total. So practice that. You don’t want to spend the entire interview rehashing a resume he has probably already seen.

And for all the others… 2-3 minutes. MAX.

You don’t want to bore the guy. A good interview is a conversation. It’s relaxed. Informal. Feels less like a back and forth Q&A, and more like two people hanging out, talking. (Kind of like this!)

Much like your essays, the best stories/answers are concise. Use your words wisely and say the most stuff in the least amount of words. Make your interviewer laugh. That’s always a good sign. And ask questions. Get them talking about themselves. MBAs LOVE talking about themselves. Why just the other day I was talking to this MBA and the funniest thing happened to me…

luciahuang

So now stops answering questions?