The Recommendations

This is definitely the most complicated part of the application logistically. You need to find two or three persons with good English that are willing to write 3-4 pages about you. They need to know you really well. They have to write a recommendation for each school you apply to - and it's a different recommendation for each one.

You need to find people who actually care enough for you to write a long essay about you. They are probably very busy people. So it is twice as hard for them to write a decent recommendation. The recommendations are a very important component of the application - so your recommendations should be good.

Choosing the Recommenders
One of your recommenders should be your current direct supervisor. Of course he should know you really well. The highest ranked he is in your organization the better, but definitely favour someone who knows you well.

Your second/third recommender should be someone from your previous jobs. If you don't have one, you can pick a professor from your previous studies. You might choose a colleague, or someone who knows you proffesionally well. If you can get a famous person to give you a recommendation it will be great - but he should know you. There are no discounts for this recommender - his/her recommendation should be as long and well-written as the other recommendations.

How to start
No one expects your previous boss to remember every little thing you contributed to your team. You will have to sit and debrief your recommenders. In Israel, for example, it is not common to write a recommendation in the style that the MBA schools require. That is why it is very important to explain in details what this recommendation is all about.

Explain what the business schools require from candidate, what type of characteristics they need, what background they expect, and what experience the recommendation should show. The recommendation should be very enthusiastic about you and your future plans to become a manager. The recommender should use superlatives as much as possible. Your recommender should wholeheartedly recommend you to the school. Explain the structure of the recommendation: several questions that should be answered. Each school has different questions, so it will be a lot of work. Some schools give categories that based on them the recommender should rank you, and might need to explain. When giving the rankings the recommenders should not rank you highest in all categories, but mark several categories in the second highest level (so he will be taken seriousely).

Once the recommendation is completed the recommender should submit it online. You should not see the recommendation at all, nor should you participate in the process of writing the recommendation. The school might contact the recommender at later stages to verify the validity of the recommendation. The deadlines are important - the recommendations should be submitted before the deadlines, so you might want to create a schedule. Word limit is important too - the recommender should not exceed it - although some schools will be linient about this.

Meet your recommenders and share old stories. Make a list of all your contributions, times that you made an impact, examples for leadership and teamwork, and times you had to do better. Remember that the recommendation should not contradict your essays, and should support your strategy, so it is important that you come prepared.

Once you make the list together give the recommenders a list of common questions from previous years. The recommenders will be able to write a generic recommendation, and once the real questions are published they will have short work of adjusting the recommendations to the schools. It is important not to send a too general recommendation because the admissions comittees don't like it.

Common Recommendation Questions

The following 5 areas keep coming up again and again for each school: Applicant's role, strengthes, weaknesses, potential, and interpersonal characteristics. Some schools might have different wordings, word-limits, or more specific questions (for example, Wharton asks the recommender to describe the applicant's sense of humor; HBS asks about the applicant's English abilities). But if the recommender prepares good stories and examples for these questions, he will later be able to assemble the appropriate official recommendations once the questions are published.

1. How long have you known the applicant and in what connection? If applicable, briefly describe the applicant's role in your organization. Please comment on the frequency and context of your interaction. (HBS)

2. Strengthes - In what ways has the candidate distinguished himself or herself among peers? (HBS) What are the applicant’s most salient strengths? (Wharton)

3. Weaknesses - Comment on the candidate’s professional weaknesses and opportunities for growth. (HBS) What efforts has the applicant made to address these areas? (Wharton)

4. Charactristics - What observations do you have concerning the applicant’s leadership abilities, team and/or group skills? (Wharton) Describe the candidate as a person. Comment on his/her ability to establish and maintain relationships, sensitivity to others, self-confidence, attitude etc. (INSEAD) Please provide an example of the applicant's impact on a person, group, or organization. (MIT) Please provide a representative example of how the applicant interacts with other people. (MIT)

5. Potential- How will the MBA degree contribute to the candidate’s career development? (Wharton) Comment on the candidate's potential for senior management? Do you see him/her as a future leader? (INSEAD)

At the first stage the recommenders should not worry about word limit, or English styling. When they write your final recommendations they can use all the material and adjust it to fit. It is ok for the English level to be standard and not perfect - but the recommenders should be familiar with English - you cannot translate it for them.

Summary
Pick recommenders who know you very well proffesionally, and that care enough for you to get into this adventure. Sit and explain to them exactly what you need, and make sure that they understand what the recommendation should look like in the end. Remind them of your heroic stories. Make sure that they are on deadline, and that the styling, word limit and other requirements are fulfilled. Make sure NOT to participate in the process of writing the recommendation. They should submit it online and on schedule (or send it directly to the university - contact the specific school for details).

Writing the Essays

After you have created your strategy, and created a list of all your history achievments, you are ready for the hard work: Writing the essays. You should have an idea of the schools you want to apply to.

Business schools require 5 essays in average. The essay questions are published one month or 2 months before the deadline. However, you can start writing the essays much earlier. If you want to apply to one or two schools, check the essay topics of last year (you should easily find them on the schools' websites, or google them up). You can start working on those. Once the official topics are published you will have less work. Most of the times the changes from year to year are minor.

If you want to apply to more schools you can start by creating a General Application. There are topics that keep coming up every year. Once you write essays for the general application, you will be able to use these for each school. Write long essays, with many examples, so later on you can shorten them to fit to the school's actual essay.

The General Application Essays

I have applied to 8 schools, so I know what most business schools ask. I took the most frequent questions, and put them here on a list. I also wrote the name of the school from which I took the exact wording for the question. Don't be mistaken - those questions came up again and again in various wordings.

1. Discuss your career goals. How will your past and present experiences help you achieve this? (LBS) What skills do you expect to gain from studying at SCHOOL and how will they contribute to your professional career. (INSEAD)



2. Please give a detailed description of your job, including nature of work, major responsibilities and where relevant, employees under your supervision, size of budget, number of clients/products and results achieved. (INSEAD)
   


3. Please give us a full description of your career since graduating from university. If you were to remain with your present employer, what would be your next step in terms of position? (INSEAD)
   


4. Give a candid description of yourself, stressing the personal characteristics you feel to be your strengths and weaknesses and the main factors which have influenced your personal development, giving examples when necessary. (INSEAD)


5. What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (HBS)
   


6. Please describe your experience of working in and leading teams, either in your professional or personal life. (LBS)
   


7. Please tell us about a time when you had an impact on a person, group, or organization. (MIT)
   


8. Describe a failure or setback that you have experienced. How did you respond, and what did you learn about yourself? (Wharton)


9. When have your values, ethics, or morals been challenged? How has this shaped who you are today? (Wharton)

Those essay topics are typical, and are often asked in variations. They might be asked in the interview as well. So answering those will give you a lot of material that you can use in your applications.

How to go about writing an essay

For each question you need to brain storm first. Write down every option, every example, every thing that might be related. You have to realize that the essays are the only part of the application that the committee will learn about you. They need to know who you are, and why they should pick you for their school. Some tips:

1. Don't be modest - This is your only chance to show that the committee should choose you! If you don't feel that an activity, action, idea, contribution is an achievement - think again. Everything can be phrased as an achievement. You just need to write it in the proper way.

2. Be honest - you can't fool them. They can smell lies from miles. It can come up in the interview. It is easier to write an essay about the truth. You should have plenty of stuff to write about. But it is ok to exaggerate and embellish the truth in good taste.

3. Each essay should show different aspects of you. Try to make your application cover as much as possible - this way the admissions committee will see that you are a diverse and strong candidate that can contribute in various ways. Everything that is not covered in the essays, should be addressed in the recommendations (and the recommendations should support your essays). Note that sometimes there are short essays in the application form itself, which gives you a chance to cover more.

4. If you have more than one topic to write about, definitly write the essay more than once. This way you will have more material when you work on the real application. Also some examples and stories can be used in several questions, so you will have more flexibility when you assemble the pieces for the real applications.

5. Answer the question. Read it carefully, and if there is more than one part don't forget to address everything.

6. Don't waste words. Try to write in short and decisive manner. This way you can tell more things about yourself.

7. Don't use offensive, cynical, definitive words. Always leave room for someone with opinions that are different than yours (you should be decisive, but show that there is a 0.001% that you might be wrong). Don't use rethorical questions.

Writing the real essays

Start from the earliest application deadline. The school will publish the essay questions about 1-2 months before the deadline. First, plan! Read all the questions and decide what you want to write about in each question. Than pick stuff from the general application and make the needed adaptation so that your application will fit the school.

1. Make sure that the application is in coordination with your strategy, and that you covered as much a spossible.

2. You should use stuff from your general application. Remember that each school looks for different things, so you might want to change some paragraphs. Also - schools don't like getting generic application - they want to make sure that the application was written especially for them. So make the essays fit the school.

3. Don't go over the word limit. But use every word you can. In each sentence rephrase it so it will be as short as possible. Than if you have more words think about adding new things. If you don't have anything to add, you can add words to the essays in order to make it longer.

4. The schools care about YOU - NOT your story. They don't care about the details, and they don't care about your company or your team. It is very tempting to write half of the essays about the story - because you don't have to dig deep. But you have to remember that they care about what you did, felt, said, and thought. So write the story background in short (if you do it correctly you will be able to tell only the important part and make it interesting), and then focus on your actions. Tell them what you have learnt. Tell them how did you make an impact. Tell them how you can improve and grow. Show that you are a leader.

5. There is always an optional essay to include. USE THIS ESSAY. You can include an essay that covers a topic that you were not able to address in your application.

6. Read the entire application and see that you addressed everything. See that your application is suitable for this specific school. See that you did not contradict yourself. If there is a strength that you want to show, add it to one of the essays.

7. Make sure that you covered: Your leadership skills. Your teamwork ability. Your knowledge of English. Brand names. Your business skills (if there are any). Your intellectual abilities. Your international experience. Your extra-curricular activities (voulenteer and community contributions).

The Career Goals Essays

One of the essays is always: "What are your career goals? Why MBA? Why Now? Why our school?".

This essay is the most important, and it should be different for each school. In this essay you should include a short passage about your short and long term career goals. You might want to include a short description of your career progress.

Tell them why their school is best for your needs. Show that you need to aquire some skills (2 or 3), that those skills are best taught in their school, and show examples and facts based on your research (from the school website, and students/alumni). Give specific courses, clubs, faculty, facilitis, activities, etc. Show that you know their school and that you fit. Tell them how you can contribute to their student body.

Summary

The essays should show the committee who you are, what drives you, and why they should pick you for their schools. Make sure that the application fit the school and your strategy. Write short and to the point. Tell an interesting story - be unique.

I believe that this part is the most important, so you should work hard on it.

Building Your Strategy

Business schools don't admit everybody. They are flooded with thousands of applications, and the numbers keep going up each year. If you want to be even considered you must think how you are going to market yourself in front of the admissions committee. Your application should shine in the crowd.

What is a strategy?
You need to come up with very clear short-term, medium-term and long-term career goals. The short term is the period of time that starts with your MBA graduation and last for 2-3 years. The medium term is 5 years from your MBA graduation. The long term is 10-20 years after your MBA graduation. Once you come up with your goals, you will be able to start planning your essays and recommendations. You should come up with the strategy about 5-6 month before the first deadline (together with your history list).

What Do Business Schools Look for?
First of all they look for specific characteristics. It's true that business schools vary in this category, but most of them want candidate with leadership potential, rich background, good references, and something interesting to tell. They want the candidate to be able to contribute to the atmosphere and the academic environment of the school. They want people with initiative and drive. But most important - they look for students with good chances to become very SUCCESSFUL.

The business schools want to climb the ranking ladder. The higher the school is ranked, the more prestige it becomes. With prestige comes large grants to build better facilities, better academic faculty, more companies will come to recruit. All of these will lead to higher ranking in the coming years.

How are the schools ranked? There are many criterions, but the most important (at least in my opinion) are the percentage of employment after graduation, the promotion of the alumni over the years, the brand name of the school, how desirable are the alumni of the schools, the diversity and number of nationalities, the facilities and faculty, the opinions of the students and alumni themselves, the salaries after graduation, and how many admitted candidates refused the offer and chose to go some place else.

The school wants to be sure that:
A. You will be successful - it will bring prestige to the school.
B. You will find a good job (that pays well) immediately after graduation.
C. You fit into the school, and you won't refuse their offer.

Your strategy must see that you are what the business schools look for. By admitting you, the business schools will not only gain an excellent students in their standards, but also you will help the school climb the rankings by being successful, and bringing good reputation to the school.

Creating Your Strategy
Your goals should be connected to your past, present, and future. If you are not into banking, why do you want to be an investment banker? If you have never seen a high-tech company from the inside how do you expect to fit into technology management? You should show that you know where you are headed and that it makes sense. For example: becoming an entrepreneur (with no experience) is very risky - you might fail. It is more safe to stay in your industry. If you want to change careers you need to realize that it is more difficult, so you better have good way of doing it and proving that you can. Some schools would prefer career changers while other won't.

Choose the industry - if it is an industry that you are familiar with it is more safe. Be very specific. Show why this industry is good - how much market does your industry have? What is the potential growth? Is your industry interesting? Do some research on the industry if you have to.

Choose your specialization - Do you want to be a project manager? A business strategist? A consultant? An investor? An entrepreneur? You need to know that this specialization fits your profile. The furthest you change your career the riskier it gets. And again - be specific. What exacly do you want to do, and how does that fit with your profile and industry?

Select your short-term goals - Where do you see yourself after graduating from business school? Do you want to create a start-up? (it might be risky). Do you want to return to your old employer? (if your boss can confirm this in the recommendation - it is safe. The school will like the idea that it does not need to find a work place for you). Do you want to switch countries or careers? Again, be specific - what kind of companies do you see yourself work for? Remember that your goals should match your background.

Select your long-term goals - you can dream here. Where do you see yourself when you are all grown up? How is that connected to your short term goals? Do you want to be VP or CEO of a large corporation? Do you want to be a mayor? Do you want to own start ups?

If you want to, you can come up with medium term goals that will connect your short and long term goals.

Guidelines
Your strategy should be solid and very specific. It should make sense. It should be interesting. It should be realistic. Your past, present, and future should be linked together. And most importantly - the MBA must be the natural connection between you past and present, and your goals. You will later have to prove in the essays and interview that without an MBA, you simply can't reach your goals. Don't forget - be honest. Don't invent something just so that the admissions committee will like you, because it won't work. Pick goals that come naturally to you.
Write everything down on 1 page and save it as a reference. You will need it when you write your essays, and when you plan the recommendations. You will be asked about your goals on the interview. Remember that your application must support your strategy 100%. In your application you will show your strengthes that will help you achieve your goals, and the weaknesses that you have to work on during your MBA.

Planning the application

By now you should have:
- Taken the GMAT and scored about 700
- Taken the TOEFL and scored more than 265 (CBT)
- Done your research regarding the MBA programs and the MBA experience
- Picked some schools you want to try an apply to.

Schedule

For each school you have chosen you need to know the deadlines for first, second and third rounds. Most schools don't care if you apply on the second round. Third round might be problematic. Note that some schools (such as Columbia) have rolling admissions process, meaning that "Applications are reviewed in the order in which they are received and decisions can be rendered at any point during the review period. It is always to your benefit to apply before the posted deadline" (From the Columbia website). You should take into consideration deadlines for scholarships.

Prepare a schedule for all the schools you want to apply to, and optimally give yourself at least 4 days between each school - you will need it! Don't apply to more than 4 schools in each round. Apply for the schools you want best at the first round (but don't apply only to Top-10 schools - give yourself the option to choose a Top-20 or Top-30 school as well).

Remember that each application will cost you 200-300$, and you will have to be prepared with everything on time. That means that you should start no later than 3 month from the first application. 6 month would be great.

I heard about MBA students that only applied to only one school and got in. I heard about successful candidates that prepared their entire application in 2 weeks. If you think you can pull it off - go ahead. But most people (like me) simply need more time and more schools.

What do you need in the end?

This is a short checklist for the stuff you must send on-line or by mail prior to the deadline (if you don't send something important you might be postponed for the next round - contact the specific admissions office).

- On-line application form (Personal details, employment history, academic background, self reported GMAT and TOEFL scores, self reported undergraduate grades, additional essays)
- Essays
- 2 or 3 Recommendations - should be sent on-line or by mail from the recommenders (or from you in a sealed envelope).
- Pay on-line
- Send official GMAT and TOEFL score reports to the school directly from the companies.
- Send official undergraduate grades, class-rank, and diploma in a sealed envelope (in English).

The last two can be arranged ahead of time - I suggest you take care of it as soon as possible.

Is it worth to use a consulting company?

There are consulting companies that help MBA candidates to prepare the application. They will not write anything for you, just help you decide what to write, come up with a promising strategy, fix your English, and give you comments on the essays. Those services are very expensive - starting from 60$ per hour (can reach 10-20K$). But, you might want to look at the overall cost (100K$ per year) and decide if additional 10K$ to spend in order to get in is not worth it. Those consulting companies can be helpful if you utilize them correctly. DON'T DO ANYTHING UNETHICALLY. You should write the essays. You should tell the truth. You should write about true events. Believe me - you have plenty. Those companies should only guide you based on their knowledge of the schools and the process - not do all the work for you (they won't).

Research your own background

Before you do anything, sit down and write everything you have done in your life after high school - at work, in school, in public service, military, and hobbies. Take a week to do it. Write all your accomplishments - anything that made you look good. Did you initiate? Did you help someone? Did you lead a team or a project? Did you try something innovative and it worked or did not work? Did you make the difference? Did you stand out in the crowd? Do you have something unique? Did you have a good idea or invent anything? Can you show good team work? Were you successful? Did you win any awards? Was your group better because of you? Are you a part of a winning team? Did you improve anything? Can you show progress in your work, and links between the things that you do? And so on.

This should be long!!! I had 9 pages, and I had to dig deep. It's not that I have such a unique background. On my day to day work it seems that I show some enthusiasm, initiative, drive, and maybe some of it can be connected to leadership later (this is from a retrospective point of view - I could not see all of it at first). I showed progress in my work and status throughout the years.


I wrote down everything. Some of it was not useful in the essays, but the things that I wanted to write about became more clear to me. For the first time in my life I could actually list my accomplishments (and my failures). I knew what I would want to avoid mentioning. I could perhaps see my weaknesses so I could address them later on. And most important I had examples for my strengthes and weaknesses - this would be extremely useful both in the essays, recommendations, and interviews.

You might want to discuss this with your close friends and family. They might be able to say things about you that you did not realize.

For each of the companies and organizations you worked for or took part of, do some research and find some impressive way to describe them - was your company #3 in manufacturing something in the world? Was your company a leader in your industry? Did your company earn 40% of the revenue of the entire industry? Things like that. Show that you were part of successful interesting organizations and projects.

Create your resume

Write a 1 page resume. It should be a brief summary of your background list. For each employment, degree or activity in your background pick out the 5 most important things you've done, and write them in 1 short sentence starting with an active verb. Pick the things that shows your leadership, teamwork, initiative and so on. It should look like a business CV, so format it in a similar way.

Some school require your resume, and some don't - but will not object if you ask to send one. This document is good to have, because it will help your focus on the essays.

Recommendations and Essays


I will write different posts about those. You should start them no later than 3 month before the first application. Because each school asks different questions you will have to work on each application seperately (but can re-use some of the work from previous applications).

Summary

You now know when to start preparing the application, how to create a schedule, and how to get yourself starting by creating a list of your background and your resume.

In the next posts I will describe in detail how to write the essays and how to get good recommendations.