The Crucial Role of Recommendations in Business School Applications

mbaMission senior MBA admissions consultant Harold Simansky talks with mbaMission executive director Katy Lewis about the important role recommendations play in business school applications, as they provide evidence of leadership, which is a key trait that top schools look for.  Recommendations are like a transcript of leadership and serve as a marketing document that sells the applicant. They can break ties between equally qualified candidates and can even convince the admissions committee to admit someone with exceptional recommendations. It is important for applicants to approach their recommenders with enthusiasm and support, and to provide them with detailed information about their accomplishments. It is also crucial to choose recommenders who know the applicant's work well and are enthusiastic about their potential.

Takeaways

• Recommendations are extremely important in business school applications and provide evidence of leadership.
• They serve as a marketing document that sells the applicant and can break ties between equally qualified candidates.
• Applicants should approach their recommenders with enthusiasm and support, and provide them with detailed information about their accomplishments.
• It is important to choose recommenders who know the applicant's work well and are enthusiastic about their potential.

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Chapters

• 0:00 The role of recommendations in business school applications
• 0:46 Why letters of recommendation are so important
• 4:29 The stress of getting letters of recommendation
• 5:28 What if your recommender wants YOU to write your own recommendation letter?
• 8:31 Transcript of leadership vs. performance review
• 12:52 Making recommenders feel like part of the team
• 15:20 What if your recommender doesn't want you to go to business school?
• 20:10 Who make the best recommenders?
• 24:23 Final words on MBA recommendations

Transcript

Harold Simansky (00:10)

Hi everyone, this is Harold Simansky with the mbaMission Podcast. I'm here today with Katy Lewis, one of our Executive Directors, one of our most experienced consultants here. Katy, during our last episode, you touched on the fact that recommendations are not only just important, but as you do ding reviews, as you look at why people did not get into the top schools, it's not infrequent that you see recommendations that are simply inadequate. Do you want to just talk a little bit more about how important recommendations are?

what good ones look like and even as a candidate how you approach a recommender recognizing how important it is.

Katy Lewis (00:45)

Let me start with why recommendations have outsized importance in business school applications. I always like to quote what the ex -director of admissions at Stanford, Derrick Bolton, used to say. He was famous for saying that he could read an application.

He could read only the recommendations, nothing else in the application, and he could decide to admit someone, but he could never do the reverse. He could never read the resume, essay and the rest of the transcript and accept someone. So to him, recommendations were the linchpin of getting in. Why is this so? Applying to business school, as I mentioned in our previous...

Harold Simansky (01:17)

interesting.

Katy Lewis (01:33)

podcast, you're really applying for a leadership degree.

You know, schools like Harvard and Stanford see themselves as grooming the next generation of leaders, movers and shakers in the world. And if you're looking for leaders, obviously in the application, you want evidence of leadership. When you apply to a typical academic graduate school program like medicine or law, they're going to look at your grades and scores. And they like to have a little recommendation from a professor that says, you know, you have strong research skills and academic skills.

None of that works in the business school context. In the business school context, the transcript and grades not going to tell an admission person anything about leadership. Where do you find out about leadership? It's frankly in the recommendations. So the recommendations are actually the transcript of leadership. And so you need to, for that reason, recommendations play an extremely important role. That's when I worked in admissions, I mined the recommendation for leadership. That's what I was looking for.

Harold Simansky (02:25)

Okay.

Katy Lewis (02:35)

So for that reason recommendations play an outsized role in the process. There's another way they play an outsized role.

Harold Simansky (02:47)

Katy, I'm going to interrupt you for one second because I just want to highlight the term transcript of leadership. That's something I haven't heard before, but I think you're absolutely right. It's hard for anyone to show leadership. Generally, and the reality is you have somebody who is somewhat objective that recommended to say, hey, I've worked with a lot of people and this particular candidate is really unique. They truly are a leader.

You're right. I would not know how else to get that point across.

Katy Lewis (03:18)

You know, a good example, if you're dealing with an investment banker, you may see that this investment banker played a role on a major merger transaction.

You can see that on the resume and you think, okay, cool. But what did he really do on that transaction? It's the recommendation that actually fleshed this out that he was the one who controlled the client relationship. He's the one who negotiated with all the third parties. He took initiative to do X or Y. The recommendation is what brings color to the accomplishments and shows, fleshes out the leadership.

Harold Simansky (03:35)

Yes.

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Katy Lewis (03:54)

There's another very practical way that recommendations are critical at highly selective schools. When I worked in admissions, we often got a situation where we had three people.

Harold Simansky (03:56)

Yeah, that makes sense.

Katy Lewis (04:06)

competing for the same spot. And they all had equally high grades and work experience and all that. And it was at that point that very often we went with the applicant who had the really spectacular exceptional recommendations. So recommendations can often break the tie. So recommendations are huge and very important in the process.

Harold Simansky (04:11)

right.

Okay.

Katy Lewis (04:29)

They are also one of the most complex and anxiety producing parts of applying to business school. It's very often awkward for the applicant to think about approaching their recommender, to coach their recommender, to, you know, they're just nervous about that process. It's frankly a pretty thankless job for the recommender. They're not always excited about writing recommendations.

Harold Simansky (04:38)

Yes.

Yes. Right.

Katy Lewis (04:55)

Sometimes they may not even want you to go to business school. They're not happy about you applying. So this is a very anxiety -fraught area of the application process. And it's one that the applicant really doesn't totally control. So it takes a lot of strategizing to not only develop a good approach to your recommenders, but also support them and hope to yield those top recommendations.

Harold Simansky (05:03)

Right.

Yes.

Katy Lewis (05:25)

letters that you need.

Harold Simansky (05:27)

That makes sense. And Katy, and you and I have both seen this in the sense of you do have a recommender who first of all wants to say has said to their you know to the person asking for the recommendation for the applicant, hey, just write it for me or have said to that the to the applicant, hey, don't go to business school. I didn't go to business school. You don't need to go to business school. If I'm an applicant, if I'm one of your clients and I say, Katy, this is what my boss said to me. What should I do? How do you think about?

How do you think about that issue? What are some of the strategies you use to get around those issues?

Katy Lewis (06:03)

These are two separate issues. Let's say the recommender is eager to do your recommendation, but he says, look, I don't have time. I want you to write it for me. This is...

a no -no for several different reasons. One, it's flatly against the schools' rules. The schools will ask if, will tell you flatly you can't write your own recommendation. They will also, if you're admitted, ask, the background check firm will ask the recommender directly, did you write the recommendation or did the applicant? So this is a complete no -no. Number two, schools are now using plagiarism software if they suspect a recommendation.

recommendation is written by the applicant. They have some nice software tools that will immediately make that clear. So you do not want to write your own recommendation. A second reason you don't want to write your own recommendation is it's really hard to write a blowout recommendation about yourself. It's honestly embarrassing to write language saying that.

Harold Simansky (06:47)

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yep.

Katy Lewis (07:11)

you excelled at this or that. Honestly, it comes across as a performance review. So you're going to end up writing a letter that looks more like your performance submittal, not a recommendation.

Harold Simansky (07:16)

Yeah.

right.

Katy Lewis (07:27)

The key, there isn't a way you can get around this. What we tell our clients to do is spell out these limitations and instead write a very detailed memo to your recommender where you, the applicant, detail the various accomplishments you want your recommender to talk about. So you're providing them 85 % of the material, or him or her, but you're not writing it yourself. Absolutely fine to do that.

Harold Simansky (07:51)

right.

Yeah.

Katy Lewis (07:55)

and we work with our clients to do that. Another thing you can do if worse comes to worse is you can write that memo and have somebody else write that letter.

Maybe there's someone else in the company, your boss's executive assistant or a colleague who can actually do the writing, because then their style will dominate in the letter and not yours. But you almost always can get around this particular issue of writing your own thing. Your second question, your boss think...

Harold Simansky (08:10)

Right.

Right.

That makes sense. Yeah.

Right. Katy, before we even jumped to that second question, I just want to highlight one thing. You used the term you said before, a recommendation should not be a performance review. A recommendation should be, you called it, a transcript of of again, a term I love. How do you see see difference between those two things?

Katy Lewis (08:55)

Recommendation is a blowout recommendation. It's an out and out.

Marketing document, marketing you as an exceptional candidate. I mean, to me, unlike a performance review, a performance review usually talks about what you're good at, what you're working on, what you've made progress on. To me, a blowout recommendation has highly specific stories that show very exceptional traits. It includes a comparison to your peers.

you know, shows your capacity to grow and history of growth. It's really much more.

of a positive buff piece, to put it mildly, than a performance review. Performance reviews are generally pretty even -handed and they're, you know, they're dull. They're just not that interesting and, you know, they're often very, they get one of the nitty -gritty, you know, they have like a hundred different things they're talking about. You know, a recommendation cuts right to the chase, highlights the high points, makes you jump off the page. It's just very,

Harold Simansky (09:44)

Yeah.

right.

Yeah. Right.

No.

Yep.

Yes.

Katy Lewis (10:09)

different. I mean, recommenders trying to sell you in a recommendation in a performance review, that's not the objective.

Harold Simansky (10:13)

Yeah. Yeah.

 No, that's a great way of putting it. Okay. And just for me to sort of pull it all together. So a recommendation is a transcript of leadership. It really is a marketing document and sells you. A performance review is simply an even -handed objective analysis of what you do well and what you don't do well. And for the top schools, you use that blow up recommendation.

Katy Lewis (10:37)

It's like a report card.

Very often I work with my clients to aggressively use recommendations to tell our story. I'll give you an example. I have a client who's...

working in an investment job wants to move into value investing and she can't really do that in her current job. She has developed a mentorship relationship with a value investor who is one of her clients and he is actively coaching her. We are actually cultivating that mentor to be one of her recommenders.

And so there, you can often, and so when that recommendation comes in, it will help cement her career goal when she has no actual experience pointing towards that. So recommendations are, keep in mind that, you know, when an admission person reads,

Harold Simansky (11:22)

Okay.

Right. Right.

Katy Lewis (11:42)

an application, you know, they've read maybe 1500 words of essays, 1000 to 1500 words of essays. They may be reading three to 4000 words of recommendations. And so there's a lot of room there to get your, your, your plan, get who you are across to the admissions committee in different. So don't see recommendations as simply a report card on your past performance. It's actually a sales document projecting you into the future, in my opinion. And so.

Harold Simansky (11:54)

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Katy Lewis (12:12)

These schools are looking for leaders and it's the recommender who's telling them this guy is going to be a leader. It can be a much bigger part of your application than you think.

Harold Simansky (12:13)

Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay. Okay.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Again, it's a sales document. I love that notion. Sales document, a marketing document. And also the fact that it can be quite broad with this notion here of, OK, they are also the ones convincing the admissions committee that this person can do this in this industry, that they can have this big, you know, particular industry. That's that's really interesting. And Katy.

Katy Lewis (12:45)

back when.

Exactly. And it's very important to prompt throughout. I talk to most of my clients, recommenders to honestly just give them a pep talk, get them on the team. I mean, it's a lonely job writing a recommendation and I find if they feel they're part of a team, I mean, that makes everybody feel better. So, but it's...

Harold Simansky (13:04)

Right. Right.

Yes.

Katy Lewis (13:13)

But they also are playing such an important role in the process. And many of them, even though they've written hundreds of recommendations, they don't really understand how critical it is in admissions. So making them feel good about what they're doing, be excited about what they're doing is very important to do.

Harold Simansky (13:26)

Right.

Yeah, in fact Katy I'm gonna pick up obviously you and I have known each other a little bit what you've mentored me in a number of ways one of which is this notion of me as consultant talking to the recommenders and I did that today twice and for two different recommenders obviously and I think your point is a good one in the sense of they do feel alone. They do feel like someone who they like, you know, not good whom they like has just tossed them the ball and

And what do they do with it? And how important is it? And they feel a little abandoned, I'd almost say, when they're asked to write these recommendations. So.

Katy Lewis (14:09)

The one thing we never do, obviously, as consultants is we never write.

or edit the recommendation, that's unethical. But there's nothing wrong with getting a recommender excited about the process. I like to communicate to my clients recommenders what I think of my client and how I think, hey, they may really have a shot at one of these top schools given that I'm impressed with the things they've done. So it's just a very human part of, it's a human touch. I think it helps a lot. If you're an applicant,

Harold Simansky (14:20)

Yep.

Right. Right. Right. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Katy Lewis (14:45)

When you approach your recommender, tell them you'd be honored if they'd write your letter, you've learned a lot from them, you know it's a difficult task, you'll support them with a detailed memo, give them a gift at the end, keep them in touch with what happens.

Harold Simansky (15:04)

Right, right, right. Right, right, right, right. No, absolutely.

Katy Lewis (15:05)

You know, it's, it just realize someday you will have to write a recommendation and realize how hard it is. So, so it's very part of the process.

Harold Simansky (15:15)

Yes, Absolutely. So, Katy, one thing that we touched on very quickly, but it feels like it's happening more often than not now, which is the recommender may push back and say to the applicant, I never went to business school. I don't think you have to go to business school. I don't want to help you out with this process. What do you recommend to applicants or clients of yours to say at that point?

Katy Lewis (15:47)

a lot. I mean obviously in fields like private equity, tech, there are a lot of supervisors who think you know you don't really need an MBA.

And they're actually probably right. There's no question you can keep succeeding in those careers without an MBA. The problem is you want an MBA. And so what one thing to say to them, there are a few different approaches you can take. One you can take is you can say, you're obviously right. I know I don't need this. And you can say, I just really feel that I want to know more about marketing, finance, whatever it is that you want to know more about. You can also say,

Harold Simansky (16:06)

Ha ha.

Katy Lewis (16:24)

You're getting a lot of pressure from your family. That works too, to at least toss your hat in the ring. You know, if you want to go to a top two year MBA program, you got to do it before you're 30. You know, roughly 30. So one approach you can take, and this surprisingly works, is you can say to your boss, I totally agree with you. I don't need this. I'm not even sure I want it. I'm getting a lot of pressure that I need this, but...

Harold Simansky (16:30)

Right. Yep. Yes.

Yep.

Katy Lewis (16:53)

I just want to throw my hat in the ring and see what happens. I may not go. Even when I get in, I may not go. I may defer, even though schools rarely defer. Your boss doesn't know that. You just try to get them to write the letter. And very often that works. And curiously, what I find out is that after the supervisor writes the letter, then he or she's kind of interested, knowing whether you get in. And...

Harold Simansky (16:54)

right.

Right.

Right, right. Yeah.

Yeah, right. Right.

Katy Lewis (17:23)

But by the time you actually get in, you have actually occult gotten them used to the fact that maybe you will. Then they're going to go, you're crazy not to go to Harvard. You should go. So keep in mind, you're not trying to get a debate to change your supervisor's mind on whether an MBA is worthwhile. You're simply trying to get a letter. So that's one thing that works pretty well. Now, if your boss...

Harold Simansky (17:28)

Yep.

Right. Right. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Right.

Yes, that makes sense.

Yeah.

Katy Lewis (17:51)

is totally against MBA or if even mentioning that you're applying will ruin your bonus, ruin your next promotion. That's when you say, I'm not asking that person.

Harold Simansky (18:00)

Right. Right.

Katy Lewis (18:04)

And what you do is you ask your immediate past supervisor, you ask a supervisor from another job, you ask a lateral person in the team. Maybe there's someone in your company who's just left who could safely write that letter that you could talk to, but you know.

Harold Simansky (18:06)

Okay.

Katy Lewis (18:22)

And then what you do when you apply to business school is you say, I have chosen these two people to write my letter. I elected not to ask my current supervisor because, you know, it would jeopardize my bonus or promotion. You know, my supervisor is dead against MBAs, whatever. And then business schools are fine with that.

Harold Simansky (18:34)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah. Right.

Okay, I was gonna ask you and business schools are fine with that. They understand.

Katy Lewis (18:49)

Yeah, as long as you explain it. If some schools specifically say we want to hear from your current supervisor. And in that case, you say, I didn't ask my current supervisor for these reasons. But I asked someone very recent who actually supervised me. And that's fine. You know, the business schools know you may not get the school. And if asking them jeopardizes your job and your promotion, that's crazy. So, you know, they get it.

Harold Simansky (18:52)

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yep. No, that makes sense. Just.

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. Katy, one thing I just wanted to pick up on was this notion of, I'll frequently say to my clients, applying to business school and going to business school are two separate things. And if you approach your recommender saying, I'm applying to business school, and then maybe three months from now, you and I will have a different discussion, that also seems to be a compelling argument to them.

Katy Lewis (19:42)

It is and who knows you may change your mind. They may throw an opportunity your way that honestly makes you not go to business school. I mean, I've had many people get into a top business school and decide not to go because an incredible growth opportunity came up. You've got to keep, remain adaptable and practical.

Harold Simansky (19:43)

Katy, we.

right.

Yep. Yep. Yep. No, that makes sense. Yep. No, that makes sense. Katy, maybe I'm going to end where we maybe should have started, but that is, okay, so who writes the best recommendations? Who should my recommenders even be?

Katy Lewis (20:22)

To me, there are two key traits that any recommender has to have. They need to know your work really well. You've actually directly worked with them and they have to be really enthusiastic about you. They've got to want to sell you. Here's what's not, it's not important what their rank or title is. You don't need to have your, you know, if you have an engagement manager right above you and they think you're...

Harold Simansky (20:45)

Okay.

Katy Lewis (20:50)

the best person they've ever worked with, it's better to have them write the letter than your managing director. So those are the two key traits you need. There are times that you may, many of my clients work for,

firms like consulting firms, investment banks, private equity firms, where they have multiple bosses. You know, they're not reporting to one person, they're working in different projects, they have myriad people who could write their recommendations. In that case, we will actually discuss who are the key people who meet those two key traits of knowing their work well and being enthusiastic. But there's no reason you can't then reach out and incorporate the voices of some of those other people. I call this

Harold Simansky (21:15)

Yes. Right.

Katy Lewis (21:35)

syndicating your recommendation. You could have maybe that managing director who made a comment about one of your projects insert a direct comment in your letter. I mean, my theory is if there's anything good to say about you at that consulting firm, get it into the letter. I mean, there's no reason not to. That makes a big difference. I'm trying to think.

Harold Simansky (21:37)

Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, right. Right, right.

Katy Lewis (22:01)

Other times, there are other sticky recommendation situations. If you're an entrepreneur or work for a family company, I mean, if you're in a family company, you can't ask a family member to write your letter. I've actually done it once and it worked, but that's rare. And if you're an entrepreneur, you don't have a boss. So who do you ask? In those cases, very often you can ask a board member, maybe there's an attorney or accountant who's worked close

Harold Simansky (22:10)

Yeah.

Right. Yep.

Yeah, it's hard. Yeah.

Yes.

Katy Lewis (22:31)

with the company. Maybe there's an outside advisor or customer or mentor, but essentially it's not so much who the recommender is, what can they say? I mean, I have an entrepreneur right now, last year, what I worked with in Vietnam, he had one of his supervisors write a recommendation and then he actually had one of his suppliers write a recommendation. And you have to...

Harold Simansky (22:33)

Yeah.

Okay.

interesting. Yeah.

Katy Lewis (22:59)

You know, you honestly, if you just look around, wherever he's had a meaningful leadership engagement with somebody, you can mine that relationship and see if that person would be a good person to write a letter. So.

Harold Simansky (23:09)

right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Katy Lewis (23:14)

But it's, it start with, I always start with the grassroots. I ask my clients, okay, on an Excel chart, a ray who could write your recommendation. Tell me what they could say. I start with telling me what, look at what they can say first and then choose your recommender. You're, you're, you're basically creating a blueprint of a story that's going into the admissions committee. So start with what's going to be said and then choose the person.

Harold Simansky (23:28)

Okay, yep.

Yeah.

I know that makes sense. And just sort of similarly, last year, I had a young applicant, he was young, from private equity. And he actually had the CEO of a portfolio company write his recommendation. And the reason for that, we really wanted to show the maturity of someone that this, you know, kid was 24, I think, and we really wanted to show his maturity and the CEO who's

Katy Lewis (23:57)

happens a lot.

Harold Simansky (24:08)

was a person who's 50 said, listen, I see this person as a real partner for me. I really rely on him a lot. And I think that's what got him into the top school. Went all of a sudden. But yeah.

Katy Lewis (24:18)

Yeah, no, that's exactly the right thinking. You look at what the person can say.

Harold Simansky (24:23)

Katy, we're running out of time, but just some final words in terms of recommendations. What works, what doesn't.

Katy Lewis (24:30)

One thing I haven't talked about is cultivating your recommender a year in advance. I mean, let's say you're working for a firm and your supervisor maybe has an MBA, maybe doesn't have an MBA.

Start talking about this. Start saying, you know, I'm really thinking of going for an MBA in 12 months. Then be proactive about asking for feedback. How am I doing? Are there some stretch projects I could work on? I really want to be able to show this. I want to be able to show that. So there's nothing wrong with kind of cultivating your recommender to be that advocate.

Harold Simansky (24:58)

Right. Yep.

Katy Lewis (25:08)

You know, by the time they're writing that letter a year later, they may say, my gosh, look at what this guy's done in the past year. I've been so impressed with how proactive he's been. He's done, you know, he's done these stretch projects that I've never seen any one of his tenure do. This is the kind of forward thinking that can put you in a much, much better position

Harold Simansky (25:20)

Yes.

Yes. Right.

Katy Lewis (25:30)

by the time you apply because it's going to accelerate your performance at your company and then you're gonna have that blowout recommendation. And so I haven't talked about that, but that's something you can do well before you apply.

Harold Simansky (25:38)

you.

No, that makes sense. That makes perfect sense. Well, Katy, thank you very much. I know I'm going to have you back on The mbaMission Podcast, but this is Harold Simansky with one of our Executive Directors, a mentor of mine, Katy Lewis. Thank you very much, Katy.

Katy Lewis (25:43)

Alright.

Good to see you Harold, bye.