Preparing for MBA - Part II - Submitting the Application

1. Secondary Research – For all those school that you are interested in, I suggest you start your secondary research somewhere in May-June (for people applying in Second round add1- 2 months to the whole process everywhere).
a. Website - I think this is the best source to start with for any school. See what their flagship program is; see the curriculum, the teaching practices, the focus areas for the school, the recruiting teams, the student activities, relevant club web-sites, what is school really proud of, diversity, class size, desi population, etc – in nut shell everything etc. It should take you around 4-6 hours roughly to browse through the entire content for the school.
b. Next I recommend you to start looking for information about the school from site like Business Week, MBA blogs etc. Business Week is a good source… should also check out on some message boards there.

2. Primary Research -
a. Contact alumnus and students you know of (try to get hang of some referrals if you don’t know any or some people that are non-evaluative). Ask them questions besides “What are you thinking after MBA” and least of all “Why MBA” (I hate this one question the most… ) Ask questions such as “Why this school”, “How is it different from XYZ”, “How is ABC as a place to stay” … "Tell me something about what you do outside the class"… "I am interested in this, do you think there are enough opportunities" … remember they expect you to know the basics, but surprise them about their school by asking some pointed questions – I enjoy it when I learn something new about Michigan from some of the prospective students – something that even I am not aware of!!!
b. Talking to some of the student ambassadors of the school is also a great idea. They have been trained well by the ad-com so they know a lot to satisfy most of your queries. What more… you can also refer them back in your essays highlighting how their answered helped you pick that school!
c. If you are based in US, you are in an amazing place to just pick up the phone and talk to them so use this to your advantage. This is true for a lot of people in India too, so do not hesitate. I would love to talk to anyone calling from that far :)

3. Contacting Admission Committee – This step should start somewhere in July beginning (they are relatively free by that time to answer to student’s queries). Write a short e-mail to them telling whatever you have done - Start with a brief intro and your interest in the school, your brief background and then move on to tell them that you have been to the school website and also gathered some basic information through other websites and blogs, tell them that you have been interacting with the students.
a. Once you have established that you are really keen about their school, ask for more information – this could be one of the question that other people have not been able to answer, or just contact of one of the school ambassadors, admission committee member or alumni near you for a one-on-one chat about the school (if you have not got a chance to talk to one by now). Again get as much information on why your school OR how do you differentiate yourself?
b. Again if you are in US, You should ask if you can get a "Day in MBA life" sort of help from them in order to understand their admission process, the school culture and teaching method better … This will go a long way to showcase your interest in the school and would also give you very good inputs as to what they want to hear when they ask "Why XYZ B-School" … This will also help you to make your essays very strong and pointed with respect to that particular school.
c. All these schools try to differentiate each-other on the basis of culture (a lot of which is outside the classroom experience) so make sure you understand this aspect well. Even from an experience perspective it will be important for you to understand where will you be able to fit the best (trust me it is different – some schools have very competitive class and some are very laid back… It can be an amazing thing to notice)… also believe it or not, though they all sound like another B-School they think they are very different from one-another and you can not replicate the experience at one place from another.

4. Start working on your essays
a. Once you have done this work, you should be fit to start working on your essays by the end of July – First week of August. Also, you would know what the admission committee wants to hear so you will be able to tweak your story a bit. In addition to that you would also be able to write different things for different schools rather than a generic applications – remember one size doesn’t fit all!
b. Now essays writing is a specialists job and I might not be the right guy to tell you how to sell yourself. However, this is what I can generalize from my discussions with others and therefore I am daring to suggest the same :) –
i. Write all the things/stories you want to highlight in your application (A must step if you don’t want to sound like everyone else)
ii. See what qualities you are able to highlight through those
iii. See the missing link between – desired and provided. You should be having a fair idea by now about the profile these schools are looking for so you can see this easily.
iv. See if you can get some more examples – it can be as simple as helping a junior with her exams to helping your CEO save his chair… However don’t try to make a fool of yourself by trying to cover things. If you don’t have a good GPA/% don’t blabber about how you were so mastering the art of Clay modeling in your engineering school. If its there, its there… I suggest you better not say anything about it until probed.
v. Once you are done doing this – look at the questions and see how you will fit those stories and start writing – This way you will not miss anything.
vi. Start writing the essays and finish writing by Mid-August.
vii. NOW is the time to look at some of the sample essays that you have got from your friends (yeah I know we all do it… why even hide) and to compare them with yours. Don’t try to copy the styles but see if you are too verbose or otherwise. They will also give you some ideas that you would like to incorporate ;) (However I have seen some gross stories about people writing whitepapers in their college mags that impact Irish foreign policies… STAY SANE).
c. Finish by end-August for sure.

5. Adding a few things - A lot of people have also been asking me about the relevancy of NON-PROFIT experience. Does it matter? Well yes and no… it depends finally on the complete story. However, if you have done something for the cause of others do highlight it. I would even suggest you go ahead and start doing it even for the sake of your MBAs… at least this will inspire some 40,000 applicants to do at least 2 months of social work :)

6. QC, QC and more QC
a. Run those essays through as many people as possible. Set-up times in late Aug to Mid-September. Make sure you use some of the people you had talked to in earlier stages. Please stick to the timelines given by these people (they are helping you and I think they deserve this).
b. Run essays through some of the native speakers and existing students too. This will help you find some of the "subjective objectionable items"… I suggest you also use some of the non-MBA resources. I took help from one of my Aunt who was a teacher in high school (trust me that was good!)
c. Once you get the reviews, QC, QC, and more QC… (QC – Quality checks)

7. Follow-up - After you have submitted those essays, follow it up with the admission committee people thanking them for all the information and also letting them know that you have submitted your application and you look forward to hear from them soon. I realized this is one thing we are not too good at… following-up. It is amazing to see motions turning in your favor if you are able to strike a good relation by following up - after all there is always a human-element to every process here.

I think if you would be able to follow this, you should be good to go to places :) Having said that, feel free to take your own course, I am sure you would find something you can better here. Also, do let me know so that I can add it here :)