The MBA Application Process

In this episode of the mbaMission podcast, Harold Simansky, a Senior MBA Admissions Consultant at mbaMission and Jeremy Shinewald, mbaMission Founder and President, discuss the MBA admissions process. They discuss how to start the application process;  including researching schools, preparing for the GMAT or GRE, and building a strong profile. They also emphasize the importance of community involvement and leadership, both inside and outside of work. Harold and Jeremy provide tips for brainstorming and essay writing, and highlight the need for authenticity and creativity in your MBA application.

Takeaways

• Start the MBA admissions process early by creating a long-term plan and taking the necessary steps to build a strong profile.
• Research schools thoroughly and visit or attend online events to understand their unique offerings and values.
• Prepare for the GMAT or GRE well in advance and consider taking the test during college or early in your career.
• Engage in community involvement and leadership, both inside and outside of work, to demonstrate your ability to make an impact.
• Brainstorm and identify key stories and themes that showcase your values, experiences, and goals.
• Craft essays that are authentic, interesting, and tailored to each school's specific prompts.
• Consider scheduling a free consultation with mbaMission to receive personalized advice and guidance throughout the application process.
• Check out onTrack by mbaMission, a robust on-demand MBA application platform that delivers a personalized curriculum for you and guides you through the process of creating your best possible applications.

Contact Us:
info@mbamission.com

Follow Us:
YouTube
LinkedIn
Instagram

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to the mbaMission podcast
• 0:26 Getting Started in the MBA Admissions Process
• 5:44 Community Involvement and Leadership
• 9:49 Brainstorming and Essay Writing
• 14:12 Creating Themes
• 17:55 Where To Start in the MBA Application Process
• 18:37 Resume and Letters of Recommendation
• 21:21 Essays and Short Answers
• 23:15 Going From Brainstorming to Essay Writing
• 25:06 Putting Yourself In the Mindset of the Admissions Committee
• 28:22 Working with an Admissions Consultant
• 31:38 Thanks For Listening

Transcript

Harold (00:01.592)
Hi, this is Harold Samansky, senior admissions consultant here at MBA mission. And this is very first MBA mission podcast. Over the next 12 weeks, we will be meeting with a number of my new colleagues to talk about the MBA admissions process. Why 12 weeks? Why not just like forever? Yeah. Meeting with my MBA admissions colleagues to talk about the MBA admissions process. Yeah. All right. Let's do it again. Okay.

Hi everyone, this is Harold Samanty with the first MBA mission podcast. We're making history Harold. Yes we are. Yes we are. And we're sitting down today with the founder of the company, Jeremy Scheinwald and soon we'll be sitting down with a lot of other people to talk about the MBA admissions process and how to end up going to the best school you possibly can. So Jeremy, if I come to you and say, hey, I want to go to business school. I don't even think about this process. Where do I get started?

Harold (01:01.88)
I don't get it. Okay. Let's try it. We'll try it again. Okay. Okay. Take three. Okay. Ready? One, two, three. Hi everyone. This is Harold Samansky, senior admissions consultant here at MBA mission. And I'm sitting down today with my boss, founder of the company, Jerry Shatwell. Okay. Take four. Okay. It's done. Yeah. Hi everyone. Harold Samansky here with the first MBA mission podcast.

We're making history here Harold. We sure are. Yeah. And we're here to talk about everything to do with getting into the best possible business school you can. And I'm sitting down today with the founder of the company, Jeremy Scheinwald. Hey Jeremy, how are you? I don't think you introduced yourself. No I did at the very beginning. did you? Yeah. That's my fault. That's my fault. Okay. Yeah. Take five. Take five. Okay. Okay. Here we go. Okay. Hi everyone. This is Harold Szymanski here, senior admissions consultant here at MBA admission.

And I'm here today to talk about the MBA admission process as part of our very first podcast on this subject. It's nice to make history with you Harold. And Jeremy, me as well. So why don't we just jump right on in here. I'm today meeting with Jeremy Schambault, founder of the company. Right. Jeremy, I come to you one day and I say, Hey, I'm interested in planning business school. How do I think about this process? What do I do? Okay. So I've been doing this for 20 years and full time for 20 years and

I think that it's such a broad question, but I think that if you're talking about, hey, what do I do to get started in this process? I would even say, I would hope that you would ask that question well before you're getting started. Okay. So I think, I think to me, I think the best applicants are the ones who are creating their own long -term plans and have taken. So let's, let's use right now or may the SAs have just come out in May, right? So, or to take a step back here. Yeah.

let's say I'm graduating college about to start that two -year analyst position, when do I even start thinking about applying to business? Right, okay, that's great. So I'm going to use that benchmark of May as the latest point at which you're getting all of your ducks in a row, but you can do this as soon as you start that analyst program or even when you're in college theoretically, if you really, really know that you want to go to business school. And so the things you need to do before you apply, at this point,

Harold (03:26.84)
At most schools, you still have to get a test out of the way, the GMAT or the GRE. So you want to be considering that at the earliest stage possible to work through whatever test issues you might take. I would say for most people, it's a three, four, five month process. So when you see that great three, four, five, sometimes that's in your senior year of college where you're like, things are winding down. I'm quiet last semester. Sometimes that's not right when you're starting your animal's program. It's right.

It's when you're maybe too busy in your animals program and towards the end of that program, you might have like a tiny, tiny window between jobs or something. So the bottom line is it requires a lot of planning so that you get it done at the latest by the May before your application, as your application season starts. Because you don't want to be like, let's say MBA essays get released in like May before for September deadline. That's not when you want to be starting.

Other things you can get your... Jeremy, just very quickly. So just to recap here, when the essays roll out in May, what should we have already had done? Right. Okay. Got that test out of the way. You definitely want to have done your school research by then. So we want to have hopefully, if we can, visited the school, attended some online events, talked to students and alumni, really got a sense of what the school is about.

read our insider's guides, potentially review our on -track modules. You want to be conversant in the language of the school. You don't want to be saying, you know, what is a map project at Ross? If you're planning on applying to Ross, you know, what is the first year project at Tuck? Or, you know, what is the case method at Harvard? Whatever it might be. Right, of course. Because the reality is, and we see this all the time, which is people consider...

Business school, business school, where it's really, they're agnostic when it comes to applying to schools and there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference in each one of them. And what you're saying right now is you have to find out what those differences are and you have to go visit, you have to figure that out even before you think about applying. And you have to do it for yourself to become a smart consumer. And I think that's something that's completely lost a lot of applicants. They look at rankings, they say, I want to go to the top school and they don't think about themselves like having a...

Harold (05:47.416)
an experience for two years of life and you know a network and community they're going to deal with the rest of their lives. And then it's also really important to the admissions committee if they're asking questions like why our school, you have to be intelligent. If you're not intelligent about what they offer you and how it fits into your goals, then they're probably going to find someone else who can speak intelligently. So okay, so we got your testing, your research with schools.

then I think there are all the aspects of your profile that pertain simply to personal improvement. You want to be crushing on your job to the extent you can. That's the easier said than done, but you want to do that. But the things that are more within your control, building a really robust community profile, right? Not just phoning it in, not just going to that, whatever it might be.

local soccer field and coaching soccer because it's easily available, but actually finding something that is meaningful to you where you can lead. Maybe two activities or three. Same thing with your personal life, right? Try to find areas, maybe you've always wanted to, you're an artist, Harold. You've always wanted to have an art exhibit. Go and get that done before you apply. I'm not saying become an artist to get business. Right, right, right. So I think, again, just to review, I think the big pieces are,

they are, you know, getting your testing done, getting your school research done, and then really moving ahead on your, on your professional personal community development. There are a few other things in there, but that's the big picture there. Okay. I think this is your podcast here and I'm talking. No, no, of course. Listen, one thing I certainly want to talk about is this notion. You mentioned it in terms of community, developing community relationships, really getting very involved in your community. Things that are important to you.

Now Jeremy, I know people are just very busy in their lives, particularly these first or second year analysts, and I'm frequently telling them community has to be more than just what's happening outside the office. It can also be what's happening inside the office. I think that's great advice, right? Yeah. Because a community, I think where applicants go wrong is they perceive that the schools want to know...

Harold (08:10.552)
Let's go to pause here. I think we're just making too much noise in the back.

Harold (09:16.472)
So Jeremy, you mentioned the fact that you want people to really get involved in their community. And I recognize that that's hard for a lot of people just because they're working so much. So I will frequently tell folks, why don't you get involved in your community at work in terms of what you can do there? Yeah, I think that's a great point. I think people have this tendency to think about community service as being... It distracted me. Let's do it one more time.

I just asked her. Yeah. Okay. Let's try again. Yeah. Yep. So Jeremy, we just touched on this notion of you should get involved in your community. For some of these working many, many hours a week, for me, that frequently will require them to really get involved in your work community. What's happening in the office? Can you just speak to that for me? It's a really important question that you're raising. Like I think that a lot of applicants assume that the admissions committee,

wants to see them out there doing public good. And there's of course nothing wrong with that. It's wonderful to go out there and support your community. It can reveal your values. But the admissions committee isn't looking for like a particular thing. They want to understand if you're looking at a whole bunch of like applicants, they want to understand that some applicants are pushing themselves harder, are differentiating themselves. So like they're not saying themselves like, okay, Jeremy,

was really active in a diversity group at his bulge bracket bank, that doesn't count as much as if he was out there volunteering at a shelter for animals. They just want to know that you have the propensity to lead, that it's within you to go out there and do it. So for some people, it's just they're so busy. It's more convenient to take on a leadership role at the office.

You need to lead that training module for their whole team or whatever it is to run the offsite. It doesn't have to be a conventional, I joined an organization that had a defined name.

Harold (11:19.448)
Jesus Christ. Samantha, we're recording. Okay, sorry, this is Harold. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. That's it, we'll keep on going. We'll just do it again. Great editors. Okay, talk about community a little bit more. Go back to your previous questions. Okay. Jeremy just mentioned some of those. Let's try again, because I was oi -godding. Yeah, okay.

Jeremy, you just mentioned that before that May 1st death long, you want to be involved in your community. The reality is, people are going to say, listen, I'm working 80 hours a week. What does it mean to be involved in your community when I simply can't do a lot of things outside the office? Right. I think you're raising, you know, you're raising an important point, which is that applicants tend to think about community service as like a, as just something that it must be done. The admissions committee wants to see.

values transmuted through some civic and there's nothing wrong with that. There's a lot right with that. But I think that you don't want to lose the forest with the trees, which is the app that the schools want to see leadership and that they're not counting like 10 points for volunteering at a no -kill shelter and three points for working in a diversity group at your office. It's that they want to know that you have a propensity to lead and when they're looking at a bunch of different applicants who

you know, maybe you and I are similar. We have the same GPA, the same GMAT score. We're both at the same desk at Deloitte. But you've gone out and you, you know, you led that enormous training module for our team. And you, in your spare time, got involved in the diversity group. And I went home and I napped. And there's a difference between those two things. And so it doesn't matter that you did two things at the office relative to someone else who again, might have, might have worked at a...

a homeless shelter, whatever it might be. What matters is that you're showing that propensity to lead and that can happen at your office. That's totally fine. It can happen in your office. It can happen in your community. And even if it doesn't happen, you might be able to show that leadership in your personal life. Maybe you were particularly active with supporting, you know, unfortunately, a sick relative or tutoring a cousin to make sure he gets through school. They want to know that you've got the...

Harold (13:38.776)
that internal motor that I was talking about that's running at all times, that's pushing you forward. Sorry, Harold. You asked the questions, I talk, you're here. It also makes me think about I had a client who was really pushing to see how could he get a motorist community. And the reality is there wasn't much, but then we stumbled upon this notion that he had a brother with allergies, food allergies, and he actually did dinners for his brother and his brother's friends and he cooked in an allergy -free way.

And actually, if we created in the right way, it was pretty effective. It was pretty effective. Right, because it's giving this individual license to make broader friendships, to socialize in a way he couldn't before. It's a story about values and contributing to someone else. And that's what the application is about. People, I think, assume that the application is about your greatest hits in the most like... Yes, right. It is what your greatest hits, but in the most like...

in the most stereotypical, like I led the way from start to finish with a product and we all crossed the goal line and we can say here's a tangible result. Whereas maybe it's intangible, maybe through your values you helped your brother, I think it was, you helped your brother broaden his social net that he couldn't broaden before and that made a lifetime of impact on this individual. Right, no, that makes sense. That makes sense. And I want to pick up the notion again a little later, I think in…

Future podcasts we're going to talk about community particularly for those folks who becomes May 1st and they truly have nothing right? But but rather than that so by the time May 1st hits you should have your test behind you You certainly should have that some experience with community service You certainly should have gone out and gotten to know the schools may be visited. Certainly webinars are easy talking to other students are easy Okay, so May 1st hits I've done all of those things and

Jeremy, questions are slowly coming out. What do I do now? Okay, I think, again, great question. I think that even one more step I would say before that is you should have been anticipating they're going to come out and you should have been working on some brainstorming and idea generation. If you're a very, very prepared athlete, you should be thinking, what are my key stories here? And not just thinking about them from a single angle. We look at that.

Harold (16:03.352)
individual who has the allergy, helped his brother with his allergies. Maybe that's part of a theme of him going out there and helping make individual impacts on people's lives. Or maybe that's a story of dedication because he himself had to learn to cook and he went through and took lessons. Whatever it might be, I don't know this individual story, but I think we have a tendency to think about stories in one way. I led this project. It's like,

That project got obstacles. Maybe you had to persuade other people. So I think really, really digging deep into your own story and thinking about your story from different angles professionally, personally, academically, in your community, I think that's the first step you take. Okay. And how do we do this in a formal way? Because obviously everything you just said makes perfect, perfect sense. That noted, none of us think about our lives that way. How does one actually do that?

I don't know what the story of Harold's semantic is. I simply don't. My children know better than I do. But how would you approach that? Okay. So I think I would approach it like you tell a client. So in our case, we do have a brainstorming questionnaire and it's online now through on -track by admission. And so applicants can go through that process with us. But I think it's a process of kind of what I always say is, you know, it's almost like if you're not...

using our paid services, that's okay. The free advice I'd give is I would say, you know, think about your identities. So I'll use myself because that's easiest. We're live. I am, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. I am a, I'm a father of three. I am, I am on the board of my children's school. I, you know, I am somewhat of a...

I call myself an athlete at this point. I'm a hobbled athlete at this point, a bad hip. But there have been two periods of time where I've gone through intense periods of competition. So then I'm going to say, okay, these are my identities. I'm going to break them down. I'm going to say, okay, on the school board, what is on the board of the school, what have my key accomplishments been? So I'm not going to go into it in detail, but let's say I can find three accomplishments. Then I'm going to try and break them down and do exactly what I said I did. So theoretically, let's say I was on

Harold (18:20.728)
board and I was helping to revise our budget. I would say, did I have to persuade other people to revise our budget? Did I have to learn to exercise different skills? I'm used to being a bull in a china shop and now I have to be a diplomat. I think if you can start with those identities and break it down into individual projects and then look at those projects from different angles, you're going to get…

You're going to make a lot of progress. Then, I think what you have to do is you have to look at all those outputs. This is where it gets hard. You have to look at all those outputs and say, okay, I've got four good board stories and nine great stories from my job and three great stories from my personal life. You'd say, okay, these are the questions they're asking. Where do these stories fit in? I can't force them in here. I've got to say to myself, what are the themes running through my life? If someone asked me, I'm

big broad thematic question like what matters to you most and why, I can draw from a couple different areas and support that theme. And then if it's like something discreet like, you know, tell me about a time when you were proud of this. Right, just grab it. I can grab my best one. And then you still even have to do that. You have to kind of take a step back and say, okay, I've thought about these ideas independently, but how do they work as a group? Because I don't want to tell them, even if they're

Spot on stories, three different essays about my board activity. It's too much more. I got to give them different windows to myself. So I have to keep critically assessing that process. I'm going to put in a slight commercial. I'm going to say slight because you'll understand. Because we do a lot of brainstorming. As consultants, we do a lot of brainstorming. I have to say our probably biggest value add, and we're not the only ones who do it. You could certainly have a friend do it, but it's very hard for you.

you to do it, which is find those overarching themes. This notion here of if you do this process right, you will have very disparate pieces. None of us live particular linear lives. Yeah, no one lives a theme. There might be a theme in there, but you're not living a theme each day. Yeah, and I think in some ways that's the point. You need somebody to take a look at all these different pieces and then say, Jeremy, you know what? The fact you started lemonade sin when you were 10.

Harold (20:41.784)
you were then the kid who pulled together the soccer team at recess. Then at 16, you had the little shoveling group. Hey, guess what? You may actually be an entrepreneur. Yeah. And when all of a sudden, you're done. I hate that example. You got to use a different example. I don't like the birth example because I think it becomes cliched. I'm sorry. Okay, let's do it again. Yeah. I think one of the hardest things for anyone to do is to

take all of these different pieces and then figure out a theme. And the reality is, is I could be somebody who loves skydiving. I could be somebody who actually tutors kids and I could be somebody who also has climbed mountains, had a terrible first semester at school, but then started doing great. And again, most people are sort of these disparate pieces. Right. Yeah. How do you think about a single theme? Cause I feel frequently like people try and create a theme that may or may not actually be. Exactly. Yeah. And so you're not.

You're not a theme, you're a complex human being. You might have a couple of different themes running through your life that you can accentuate, but you're not inherently a theme. It should be hard for you. You should be thinking about this thought. You can say, like, hey, I'm an entrepreneur. Independence is a theme throughout my life. The struggle to really, really define my future is something that is…

really a theme in my life. But I can also talk about like, you know, change and my life and the ability to like to incorporate different ideas and to be flexible and adjust course, you know, like that's part of that is entrepreneurial part of that might be, you know, personality. So it's like, you have to be willing to be thoughtful and creative. And then, you know, that's a lot of what we do with our, with our clients, right? We, we, we help hold that mirror up. And I would say,

You could work with someone like Harold to hold that mirror up and he can help you see that. But even if it's not within your plan for applications to work with a consultant, that's fine. I still think it's valuable to find someone who knows you well, whether it's a parent or a cousin or someone who's going to say, these are the things I admire about you. When I think about you, I think about someone who is extremely thoughtful about others. Maybe you don't think about that yourself. Right.

Harold (23:03.096)
No, there isn't. Hang on a second. Sorry. Yeah, it's... Yeah, it's... Yeah, don't bother.

Harold (23:16.024)
I feel like there's something material here. Yeah, yeah. Constant. Now I can see why Jeremy Zacto didn't want to shoot here. God, hang on. Yeah, yeah, take your time.

Harold (23:56.536)
I'm just gonna see how much editing we can do.

Harold (24:01.112)
I think we can edit it quite heavily. Yeah. Okay. and I think Michaela is going to be, okay. So let's try it again. Yeah. You know what? I had a good thought here. Okay. Okay. One second. I just didn't need to finish my thoughts. I was so annoyed. Right. Right. Right. So Jeremy, we're just talking about brainstorming and obviously can be hard to do though. I have to say I've had clients after the fact who say to me, the most valuable piece of our process was brainstorming.

Yeah, Clyde said things like, I really get to know myself in a way that I didn't anticipate. And how many of us actually pause, do some introspection about our lives, really think about what our goals are, and it's a very rare thing that we do. And we certainly don't do it with somebody else helping us when all is said and done. So yeah, I think it's a really valuable part of what we offer, for sure. I think so. And again, not to dwell on this too much, but the reality is this is hard to do. At NBA Mission, we do it very well. We've now on the

we now have on track if you want to really start our process virtually, again, has some great advantages to it, particularly when we're talking about brainstorming. Yeah, you can go through a guided process. I think it's wonderful because I take people through myself. If you're enjoying hearing me talk now, that's great. If you're not, then go on track. I'm guiding you through the whole thing. But yeah, there's a guided questionnaire and videos that help to help video lessons to help you to help you think about it.

and help walk you through that process of developing those key stories. But let me throw this back to you. We talked about you're moving back, you're moving ahead after May 1st, some brainstorming, and then you kind of settle on those ideas. And then it's mostly the hard work of putting together your pieces. Where do you tell applicants to start? A resume? Right.

You know, their essays all at once. Well, the way I like to look at it is after we're done with the brainstorming, really towards the end of the process, we have to start thinking about, okay, what is your story? And I'm not saying about writing essays. It's more a question about, okay, what is your story? What is going to be the main point? What's going to be the value add that you add to each school? So once we have that, once in many ways we have our North Star, then everything starts supporting that. Right. And what I mean by that, the essays are hurting us, it is certainly hitting us.

Harold (26:26.008)
specific theme but also your resume is another piece of puzzle that also has to reinforce that. Your recommenders and one thing you really need to talk about is your recommenders which come by May 1st you should at least know who they're going to be. Right. Yeah. When all is said and done. Yeah. Hopefully. Indeed. But I think like your resume a lot of people just have been cobbling together their resume from the time they were 16 or something like that. You need to really think about the weight of your resume. Like just that.

if you're six years into your career, do you need that internship? Right. If you are applying to business school, do you need a whole bunch of lines of computer languages that you speak that the admissions officer probably can't even relate to? You have to think really critically about what you're submitting. Resumes take time. Getting an action results oriented resume takes time. We're going to do a whole podcast on resumes, though I will say one thing.

And that is most people's work resumes, I like to say it's very top focused. What have I done in my job? And the reality is business schools are looking to build a community. And I say focus on the bottom half. How have you been as a citizen when you were a student? How are you as a citizen now? Are you going to be supporting other people? Because again, they don't want people going to the library on Saturday night. They want people who are going to meet each their community. Show it using your resume.

Can I offer a peave of mine on the resume, even though we're doing a specific… Yes, of course. The last line of your resume, personal, for a lot of people, personal interests, cooking… Travel. Travel, sports, or like hockey, whatever it would be. Right, right, right. It's like it doesn't say anything about you at all. You can say, travel colon 35 countries, favorites include Iceland, Bhutan, and Namibia. That says at least…

I once had a client who traveled to 108 countries.

Harold (28:43.32)
I didn't even know there were 108 countries in the world. So at this point, if anyone comes to me with less than 108 countries on that travel line, I'm like, hang on here. You got to do something other than list the number of countries. I agree. There's got to be an exotic favorite or something. So yes, I think resumes, you know, I mean, you got to, it depends how many schools you're applying to. You might have folks, you know, you're trying to get seven applications in for the first round. It's May 1st, which some people do. I wouldn't, I wouldn't.

say it's a must, but I would say simple do that. You know, you have to start probably parallel processing, your resume while you're working on your essays. There are all these short answers that people don't realize pop up. You should at least be as applications themselves, the schools release essays before they release their applications. As applications start to open up, usually in late June, early July, start looking towards the short answers and seeing like all the specific.

Tiny questions that pop up that just take so much time. That's actually a really good point in terms of what do you do starting May 1st? As soon as the application opens, I tell people start filling it out because the reality is first of all, it's incredibly tedious. And second of all, usually those questions are answered 36 hours before the deadline and some of the answers can be 25, 50 words long. And now is really the time. Get those out of the way. Or they can be questions that like...

maybe if you're six years into your career and they're asking you just like simple questions to get data from you. What was your salary and bonus in your first job? Maybe you don't even remember anymore. It's like it's tough to track that down on deadline day. Of course. They're not looking for you to like pull your W -2 and say like, I made $79 ,231. But like you can say if you made $79 ,231, you can say I made $80 ,000 and you could be, if you're wrong and you said 85, no one's going to…

pull your acceptance because they do background checks. But you can't be like, I don't know. I think I made like $160 ,000. You've got to be pretty close. Yeah, yeah. I agree. And listen, we can go down the rabbit hole practically every piece of the application. And maybe we will. And maybe we will. We'll have a whole podcast in short answers, which is in the works. But Jeremy, I think you come to an important point here, which is, OK, we are brainstorming. We have essays coming. We obviously, essays overlap from each school. So.

Harold (31:03.768)
At this point, how does one even think about going from brainstorming to essay writing? Are you a guy who does outlines? Are you a guy who really just jumps in there? Is it very much a personal choice? I would love it if all my applicants did some outlining. I think the truth is that a lot of them don't. To me, definitely while we're brainstorming, we definitely sketch out a verbal outline. Then, here are your key points. I think we try to talk about interesting openers. I think a

our brainstorm session becomes something where you're almost organically seeing an essay take shape before your eyes. It's like, okay, we're not just saying like, hey, let's talk about your involvement in the No Kill Shelter. Okay, you launched a new program to recruit five more volunteers. That's your story. It's like you've got to get the moment. It's like a living where it's like, we really understand, like, okay, what was hard about this experience? Why weren't people volunteering? How did you get, what was the impact of those volunteers?

A moment tells about something that was really, really impactful for you by the way. Exactly. And then it's like, okay, so we've talked about problem with space. This is 500 words. This could work for another school, but it's going 250 words. This is what we probably take out. This isn't going to work for this other school. Generally speaking, I'd brainstorm one school at a time and try and focus on them and get people ahead. But still, you might be aware of the effectiveness of the schools.

And then it's like, you know, then yeah, I want the athlete to go and create a draft that's, that's to the extent they can. A lot of people struggle with writing and that's a large portion of why people will hire us. I want them to get that like sort of advanced to first draft as they can. Yeah. I mean, listen, the reality is what are we looking for here? What is any admissions committee looking for? It is for something that's authentic, something that's genuine and candidly something that's not boring. Right. I think you and I both do a huge amount of.

ding reviews, why do people don't get in? And the reality is because I look at essays frequently and I'm like, my God, I can't make it through the second sentence. You have to think like the admissions officer, you have to think to yourself like, what if I'm reading 400 files this year, something like that? And what if I'm reading a lot of files this year, 250, whatever it could be. It doesn't mean you have to be totally out of the box and something you've never read before.

Harold (33:28.056)
Like just put them in and you put yourself in their shoes and say, if I'm reading this and it's like, you know, there's nothing wrong with simple language. Yes. I think it's straightforward leading someone through a story. But like if you're introducing something, if you're introducing them to something they've heard a million times over in a very straightforward way, you know, that is, that is not, it's a problem. Yeah. You've got to think creatively. Yeah. It's absolutely a problem, particularly for many of you.

whether you're a kids' e -bank BCG, or investment bank analyst, you have to remember that there's going to be potentially hundreds of people who are three cubicles over, two blocks over. Yeah, you can't start with like, you know, it's even hard for me not to think in a narrative form, but like you can't start with, you know, I had many late nights as an investment banker. So what? So does everything else. It's like, you know, you've got to have an expense. I can't imagine, you know.

the entire narrative, but it depends on your experience. You've got to find something that anchors yourself. Absolutely. As well as I believe, and I know you believe it as well, is people are interesting. You are interesting. At the end of the day, you have to find those interesting pieces that only you can see. 100%. I don't know how we're doing in time here, but I mean, that's a good place to start thinking about graphic with this. This isn't like Sesame Street where everyone is interesting. It's like,

It's kind of the truth though, if you do enough digging, I've been working at this for 20 years. I've worked with thousands and thousands of individuals both on a pro bono and paid basis and just through free consultations and events. I've interacted with a lot of people and when people come up and they say, but there's nothing interesting, I mean, there's always something interesting about them. It's just that they might not understand that it doesn't come through spectacularly.

that it can come through teaching through your allergy example, right? Exactly. Cooking good meal for somebody else. Yeah. Absolutely. That's a huge difference. I've never heard that story before. I've been in this business for 20 years. I've never heard the story of someone helping their sibling reestablish their friend groups by cooking for them. That's amazing. Yeah. And also in some ways it's very, very small, but it's also very telling. It's very telling about who that person is, what he does, the important pieces of his life.

Harold (35:52.312)
And I think that's what makes it interesting. And what I also tell my clients frequently is if you do your brainstorming right, if you do your introspection right, you will find those interesting pieces. You really will. And if you can't then it probably is worth it, very much worth the investments in working with a professional to get you there. If you're really uncertain of what you want to say as an applicant, it's probably time. And again, we'll be wrapping up here in a minute, but you can imagine we work with a lot of people.

And the reality is, is when they come to us, 80 % thinks that they're boring, that they have nothing to say. And I guarantee you, if we do our job right, and we do almost all the time, we will find your interesting story. And you can find it too. But Jeremy, last word here, May 1st, I'm panicking a little bit. What should I do? I think that, you know, in giving me that, you know, that's there immediately, I think to myself, you're a lot like a lot of other apps.

A lot of applicants are nervous to take those first steps because it's committing to a process. It's accepting that there potentially could be some disappointment at certain schools, although most people who are realistic with their chances do find their way into business school. It's also just kind of like the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first few steps, right? You've just got to engage. I think there are some applicants out there who it's made first.

and they're just like, this is a bear. I just, I, I'm what do I do? And then, and then that leads to panic later on. Cause those, those applicants, it's very reasonable. This is a bear. I'm not going to do it altogether. This is a bear. I don't want to think about it. I'm afraid of it. And then it's like, okay, I'm kind of, I've waited until some panic sense it. So just start taking those steps and work methodically and you'll be engaged in it. It's like a tractor beam. It'll pull you towards the deadline. Absolutely. And what I'm going to say a little bit of commercial here.

Maybe a great place to get started is with a free 30 -minute consult here at Envy Admission. Yeah, it's free. It's not like they're going to tell you anything. It's there to give you free advice. We look at your resume, we start talking to you, we answer your questions, and we really feel like we can get you started. Frequently, that means working with us, whether directly with one of the consultants who are like me or like Jeremy, or maybe through the new on -track, or just really start off, look at some of our free resources at Envy Admission.

Harold (38:17.752)
Yeah, I would say, you know, if you've enjoyed this podcast, Harold, he does pre -concertations. I do pre -concertations. You know, just you can go online, you can go and sign up for a pre -concertation with us. And you can, we have it set up so you can pick the individual you want to chat with on our team. Absolutely. We have 25 of us, all of us have our expertise. All of us have worked with hundreds of clients. The reality is, give us a call, let's start chatting. And I think it's going to be really beneficial. Yeah, it's riskless.

Yeah, with that in mind, thank you all today for listening to the MBA Mission podcast. Thanks for doing this, Harold. I really appreciate that you're committed to educating the public at this level. I hope to come back. I know I'm coming back. I know I'm slurring more, but I hope it'll be a mainstay. Absolutely. And 20 of my colleagues will be joining me soon to talk about all sorts of things, recommendations, resumes, community service, school selection, hey, even how about getting a scholarship? We have a lot of things to cover.

And with that in mind, everyone just have a great day and check us out at MBAadmission .com. Everyone have a great day and by all means check us out at MBAadmission .com. Thanks so much for doing this. Good luck guys.