Bank on Banking

It’s slowly approaching that time of year again – you know the one. When hopeful applicants begin bracing themselves to tear into the applications and pour their heart and soul into a few essays before sending out a steep check that they’d rather not send, in the hopes that, this year, they will make it, they will be a part of the next MBA class in their dream school.

Business school application time is a stressful time for everyone, whether you are the 800 GMAT star, 4.0 quant genius, the founder of a new and robust internet company, or an investment banking analyst/PE associate with a few years of experience under his or her belt. To say that creating a beautifully written set of essays is challenging is more than just a slight understatement. In fact, applications for the top schools are extremely taxing from start to finish, and if you are not careful to avoid some of the more common mistakes associated with the process, you will make the admission committee’s decision a much easier one – Ding! While there are many missteps that applicants make throughout the process, the five below are among the more common and most detrimental.

Narrow Essays

One of the main problems that I have seen (and yes, this trap got the better of me in one of my applications as well) is when applicants, especially bankers and PE guys, answer most, if not all, of their essays through an explanation of a work-related situation. At this point, the question inevitably arises resembling something like, “but don’t business schools want to see how I have grown throughout my career and learned valuable life-changing lessons?” Short answer: yes. Longer answer: yes, but the purpose of the essays is to ensure that the applicant, especially the bankers and PE guys (read: quant guys coming from an overcrowded, fearful profession – at least in this chaotic market), is a well-rounded and multi-dimensional individual, who is not solely defined as a banker, driven by money, and only looking to earn an MBA for the sake of stamping one more accreditation on his or her resume.

The most important thing to show the ad com is that you are a banker by profession, but your life is so much more. As an analyst, I may be a banker, but that is just one part of me (that happens to take up as much as 90-110 hours per week). As a volunteer I am leader and team player; as an athlete I am a weekend football player and powerlifter, etc. It is important to address some of these aspects of your character/life in at least 1 essay, if required to complete 3, and at least 2 essays, if required to complete 4 – remember, a majority of your work experiences can be conveyed through your resume and through your “career goals” essay.

Regarding the “career goals” essay, if you are in investment banking or private equity, especially if you attended a well-known university or have an outstanding GPA, it is crucial to express an interest in the field – some sort of reason why you wanted to enter investment banking, and what is drawing you back to the field post MBA, or why you have decided to change career paths at this time. Without an articulate, expressive explanation, the admissions team will probably assume that you had many other opportunities and chose banking to make the big $, and now that the big $ are shrinking, it is time to run back to school and try something else. While you may very well have gotten into the field for that exact reason, you need to figure out why you enjoyed the field or what happened to cause you to lose interest in the field going forward (read: NOT money-driven). Once you figure that out, you need to deliver that message to the admissions committee in a clear, well-written manner. This will help to ensure that you are not seen as the typical banker who wanted big $, and now that they’re gone you need B school to find another money pit for you – this type of applicant is seen as someone who will never give back to the school, and not offer any benefit to the other students – don’t be that applicant.

Thin Essays

Continuing where the Narrow Essays pitfall ends, thin essays are those which introduce a concept well, but don’t provide enough body in some manner, whether failing to demonstrate personal growth, leadership, or a valuable lesson learned. As such, these essays often fail to, or at best, marginally answer the original question posed by the ad com. As important as it is to show the breadth of your character through your essays, it is as important to use each essay to maximize your impact on the ad com and fully answer the question posed, whether why banking, why school X, or name a lesson learned.

Not addressing any red flags in your candidacy

For early career applicants (read: less than 3 years experience), there should generally be just two instances where the red flag essay (optional essay) will be used: a poor GMAT or a poor GPA (any other topics should be placed strategically throughout the other essays). Regardless of whether you have a 3.9 GPA, or earned a mechanical engineering degree from MIT, a poor GMAT, is a poor GMAT, and the reasons for the low score should be explained in the optional essay (note: this is especially true if your lower overall score is the result of a poor quant score). In fact, someone with a really high GPA or a good GPA from an elite school in a very challenging major may need to explain the low GMAT score more than other candidates as a high GMAT score is practically expected of those types of candidates.

On the opposite side of the same coin, do not assume a high GMAT offsets a weak GPA (read: 3.2ish is marginal, below that is weak for top schools). While a high GMAT tells admissions that you can handle the quant load, a weak GPA without an explanation says that either you cannot handle a structured academic environment, or that you were too immature during undergrad and slacked off. Whether it is either of those reasons or something entirely different, you should share the explanation with the admissions team and explain how you have grown either because of, or since the experience to alleviate any trepidation.

The only other general red flag to ad com is far more likely to be found in seasoned applicants (read: applicants with, chronologically speaking, greater levels of experience) – the employment gap(s). If you happen to have a long period of pure unemployment on your resume (read: post undergrad and a period of more than 3 months – for the record, changing careers and working for a non-profit counts as employed and should be spun quite favorably for the application) you should absolutely write a few paragraphs explaining the situation, what came to pass, and how the experience changed your life and improved your candidacy (a great way to mention a volunteering opportunity pursued).

Misusing the Optional Essay

Just as not addressing a red flag to the ad com negatively impacts your candidacy, so too does inventing red flags to address in order to share more aspects of your candidacy with the admissions team. While I know the optional essay seems like a great way to mention another volunteering activity, a hobby, or a situation illustrating how you were able to overcome some sort of professional adversity, please refrain from doing so (in general), as the ad com will usually frown on such submissions unless they provide an extremely high level of introspective sensitivity and some sort of profound insight into the trials and tribulations leading up to your candidacy. In other words, unless you believe this tidbit of information will monumentally increase your chances of gaining entry to the school, and without it, the admissions team will truly be missing out on a major aspect of your character and candidacy, please omit the essay.

I know that you want to share your life experiences (I did too), but the majority of these essays can be truncated, and blended into other places in your application, or even the interview (if you are invited for one), where you can express just how great of an impact the event had on you. The last thing that you want the admissions team to do when they get to your application, in a towering pile of applications, is wonder why you’re running off at the keyboard for this optional essay – you should have sold them on your candidacy already and ended it. Writing an optional essay on something outside of the general red flag items just gives the admissions team a questionable experience to think about, and why would we want to do that.

Overreaching

Last but not least, be honest with yourself: if you have a 630 GMAT, a 3.2 GPA and not the most impressive list of extracurricular activities (POST undergrad), then you need to acknowledge that you are a stretch and on the lower end, if not outside of the lower end, of the spectrum for the top 10 MBA programs right off the bat. Sure, you could have a great life story and bang out incredible essays, but you need to go into the situation with your perceptions aligned to reality and understand the odds are against you – a bit more so than for others. There is, however, absolutely nothing wrong with applying to a few top schools, but try to get the applications in for Round 1, and really work to nail the essays and show how you can handle the work (from a quant perspective). Also, size up some schools ranked 11-25 and work on their applications throughout round 1, ready to apply early in the 2nd round if you need to. There is nothing more potentially disconcerting than being rejected by every school you apply to, especially if you haven’t looked honestly at your candidacy – this can make you feel far worse about your candidacy as it pertains to other schools than a of ding from Harvard or Stanford.

While these are 5 of the more common application pitfalls, there are definitely many others. If anyone can speak to additional looming pitfalls, feel free to drop a comment, or drop me an email and I’ll be sure to tally them up and put out a follow-up article. Also, keep on the lookout for parts 2 and 3 of this 3-part set, dealing with the top application strategies and how to choose the school for you. Remember, when it comes to B school applications, it’s not how much you write, but how you write it – make less, more.