How to Apply for an MBA

A step-by-step guide to earning an acceptance letter from the world’s top business schools

How to Apply for an MBA teaches readers how to tackle the most challenging aspects of applying, including self-assessment, school selection, resume and essay writing, reference letters, and interviewing.

The book’s 200+ pages are filled with secrets for optimizing every element of your MBA application.

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Prepare for the Real Entrance Exam

The “aha” moment that led to this book was that the majority of MBA candidates are investing countless hours preparing for the GMAT, but they are not prepared for the real entrance exam — the MBA application, which includes the essays, resume, recommendation letters, application form, and interviews.

Optimize Your Application

How to Apply for an MBA teaches readers how to tackle the most challenging aspects of applying to graduate business schools, including self-assessment, school selection, resume and essay writing, reference letters, and interviewing. The book’s pages are filled with secrets for optimizing every element of your MBA application.

10 Steps to an Acceptance Letter

Other books have helpful tips and well-meaning pointers about how to get into a good business school. But, until now, no one has provided a start-to-finish guide for generating a breakthrough application.

The MBA Prep Steps™ program contained in this book was developed by a team of experienced MBA admissions consultants from Harvard Business School. Our powerful, easy-to-follow approach for building an outstanding application in ten steps combines all of the activities of applying for an MBA with the insights admissions experts use to help their clients create applications that lead to acceptance letters.

Follow the MBA Prep Steps™ project work plan contained in the book to keep pace with all of your application activities. If you follow this plan and complete the exercises provided in the book, you won’t just have learned how to create an outstanding application, you will have created one!

Why you need to read How to Apply for an MBA

Generate a winning application in 10 powerful steps!
Avoid the pitfalls and missteps that can sink your application.
Learn the principles, practices, and exercises admissions consulting pros use to help their clients earn acceptance letters from the top-ranked business schools.
See case studies and examples of successful candidates and take advantage of their application secrets.
Authored by a Harvard MBA with more than six years of MBA admissions consulting experience and multiple clients at all the top-10 business schools.

How to Apply for an MBA was authored by Tyler Cormney, a Harvard MBA with more than six years of MBA admissions consulting experience and multiple clients with acceptances letters to the top-10 business schools. Co-author Christopher Aitken has also had multiple client acceptances into top 10 US and international business schools. He also brings 20 years of top-tier management consulting experience as a partner at Andersen, KPMG, and BearingPoint.

10 Steps to a Winning Application!

The MBA Prep Steps™ project work plan contained in our book is designed to keep you on pace with your application activities. By the time you have finished the book and the exercises it contains, you will have an outstanding application ready to submit!

The sections of the book are organized into an easy to follow step-by-step program called the MBA Prep Steps™. This is the same methodology used by top admissions consultants to help their clients earn acceptance letters.

Click on each topic heading to see what’s inside:

MBA Prep Step 1: Prepare to Apply

Understanding the MBA Application Process
An MBA application is, in part, a job application and admissions officers are some of the toughest recruiters on the planet. Learn how to create the kind of application that earns you the job.

The MBA Prep Steps Program
The MBA Prep Steps program is a powerful, step-by-step methodology for building an outstanding application developed by MBA Prep School’s faculty of leading admissions consultants. This 12-week program combines all of the action steps of applying for an MBA with the principles and practices our admissions consultants use to help our clients create applications that lead to acceptance letters.

How to Prepare for the MBA Prep Steps™ Program
Prior to beginning our intensive MBA Prep Steps™ program, there are actions you can take to ensure that your strongest application emerges.

How to Strengthen Your Candidacy Before You Apply
Before beginning your application, you have an opportunity to strengthen your candidacy. Learn how to analyze your candidacy from the perspective of an admissions officer and how to create an action plan for making your candidacy more competitive.

MBA Prep Step 2: Discover Your Strengths

Discover Your Points of Difference
Differentiating yourself is key to a successful MBA application. In this chapter, you will discover your Points of Difference – the things about you that set you apart from the thousands of others who are applying.

Discover Your Character Strengths
The combined elements of your character are what make you an individual distinct from others; they are the qualities that society and, it follows, business schools hold in high regard. We’ll introduce you to a profiling tool developed by psychologists that will offer you a number of valuable insights on which of your Character Strengths you might want to emphasize in your application.

Discover Your Career Story
Your career story in an executive summary of your professional achievements. Learn the elements of a complete and compelling career story.

Discover Your Leadership Capabilities
If you have your sights set on a top-tier business school, you must demonstrate your leadership potential. Learn how to build your Leadership Portfolio and identify the stories in your background that prove you are a leader.

MBA Prep Step 3: Define Your Career Goals

Discover Your Career Purpose
Your Career Purpose is what you hope to achieve in the world in a larger sense. Admissions committees are looking for candidates who know what matters to them and who have a sense of where they want to go in their careers. In this chapter, we show you how to develop a Statement of Career Purpose.

Identify Your Dream Job
Your Career Purpose describes what you want to achieve as a future leader. The Dream Job you identify in the exercises in this chapter will prepare you to describe the job, title, and industry that will best position you to achieve that Career Purpose.

Inventory Your Career Capabilities
With your Dream Job in mind, you want to identify the skills, knowledge, and capabilities required to be successful in achieving your long-term career goals. In this chapter, we will show you how to inventory the Career Capabilities you already possess and those that you will need to acquire.

Develop Your Career Action Plan
The final step in the career goals setting process is to outline a credible Career Action Plan that summarizes the steps that will take you from where you are today to your ultimate Dream job.

MBA Prep Step 4: Select Your Schools

Select a Program Type
A range of program options exists for earning an MBA. We will help you to select a program-format that best fits your needs.

Select Schools That Fit Your Career Goals
Identify the MBA programs that will best prepare you for the career you have set your sights on.

Identify the Best Academic Environment for You
Identify the schools that are the best match for what you need to learn and the way you learn best.

Identify the Best Culture for You
A school’s culture shapes everything from the way a single classroom is run to what kinds of professors are hired and – more to the point – what kinds of students are accepted. Decide which schools have a culture where you will thrive.

Select Schools That Match Your Qualifications
Be realistic when it comes time to apply. Consider the acceptance rates of the schools on your short list, and compare your profile to accepted applicants so that you can target schools where your profile will be competitive.

MBA Prep Step 5: Identify Each School’s Fit Qualities

Valued Qualities vs. Fit Qualities
Being accepted is all about the right “fit”. The general qualities that MBA programs value are generally well understood and intuitive. To prove you fit, you need to know what qualities each specific school values most, so that you can use that knowledge to shape and customize every element of your application – especially your essays.

Research the Fit Qualities
The admissions office won’t broadcast the school’s Fit Qualities on their website or in information sessions; so we will show you how to do your own detective work and identify the Fit Qualities for each of the schools you are applying to.

Define Each Fit Quality
Compiling a list of possible Fit Qualities is a big step forward, but we will guide you through some additional detective work to define each quality.

Rank the Importance of Each Fit Quality
Take a step back from your Fit Quality research and weigh the evidence to ensure that each quality on your list is important. In this chapter, we will provide the criteria to rank the school’s Fit Qualities, from highest importance to least importance, based on the quantity and quality of your evidence.

MBA Prep Step 6: Create Your Application Resume

Gather Your Resume Building Blocks
In the Discover Your Strengths section of the book, generated the inputs for your resume. In this chapter, you will learn how to choose the resume building blocks that provide the kind of evidence admission committees are looking for.

Create Your Resume
In this chapter, you will learn how to assemble your resume building blocks into a highly professional, strategically sound MBA application resume. We will take you through a resume, section by section, and provide best practice advice on content and style.

MBA Prep Step 7: Write Your Essays

The Eight Most Frequently Asked MBA Essay Questions
Although each school asks a unique set of questions, there are eight question types that appear most frequently. We’ll reveal these eight essay archetypes and offer tips on scoring top marks with your answers.

Nine Qualities You Should Feature in Your Essays
The primary objective of your MBA application is to provide evidence that you possess the qualities that admissions committees value most. Learn about the nine qualities that you should feature in your essays.

How to Choose Your Topics and Stories
When you are just starting work on your essays, it can be difficult to decide what to write about. In this chapter, we provide you with a step-by-step process for discovering your best topics and stories.

How to Outline Your Stories
Once you’ve narrowed your topics and stories to your best options, you should outline your essays before attempting a rough draft. We will show you a powerful outlining framework that will ready you to write an outstanding first draft.

Follow a Writing Calendar
We have broken the writing process into seven steps and mapped out a six-week schedule that you can follow to stay organized and on track with your essay writing efforts.

MBA Prep Step 8: Select and Support Your References

What Are Admissions Officers Looking for in a Reference Letter?
In this chapter, you will learn what admissions officers are looking for in your recommendation letters so that you can ensure your letters exceed their expectations.

The Reference Letter Process
We provide an overview of a proven reference letter preparation process and the proper timing of each step in the process.

How to Select Your References
Much of the reference letter process is outside of your control; therefore, making excellent choices about who will write your letters is the most important step you can take to increase the likelihood that great reference letters will result.

How to Support Your References
Learn a step-by-step approach for collaborating with your references in order to increase the probability of outstanding reference letters.

Reference Letter FAQs
We answer the most frequently asked questions about reference letters and provide a series of reference letter best practices.

MBA Prep Step 9: Complete the Application Forms

Strengthen Your Candidacy With the Application Forms
Don’t wait until the last minute to fill in the application data form. If you do, you won’t be able to take advantage of the advice in this chapter on using the forms to improve your candidacy.

Application Form Best Practices
We offer you some application form best practices to ensure that your application forms support the key elements and messaging from the rest of your application.

MBA Prep Step 10: Prepare for Admission Interviews

Understanding the Admissions Interview
The admissions interview is the final exam in the application process. We share a series of question you need to answer at the outset of your interview preparation.

What Will They Ask?
An interviewer is trying to decide if you have the right qualifications for an MBA from his or her program and if you’ll be a good fit. Learn about the types of questions you will be asked and how you can score top marks with your answers.

Interview Best Practices
We offer a series of admissions interview best practices that can make a real difference in your performance on interview day.