The Unofficial Pocket Guide for a successful B-school admission- Part 2/4
Biggest Lessons on how to develop the foundation of your B-School Application!
Like all stories, this one too has a starting point- 16th July 2016. On this sunny afternoon, I, notably confused, walked out of the center with an unofficial score copy in my hand that read a 700.
I was not sure if I should be satisfied for entering the 7XX club or disappointed at trailing far behind astronomical scores, usually 750+, that seems to have been preordained as the “norm” for human beings lying at the triumvirate intersectionality of “Male”, “Indian”, and “Engineer” aka the most overrepresented group.
Nevertheless, as I was focusing only on Top European schools for which the average hovers around 700, I believed that I had a reasonable chance if I excelled in other parts of the application. Given the limited time and enormity of the application process, I decided not to reapply for GMAT score and focus on chalking out my key strengths, which brings me to Lesson-1
"It is important to choose wisely the battles worth fighting for in a limited time & money scenario. I actively made the decision that my battle would not be about gaining a few extra GMAT points"
Hmm! This sounds like a Sun Tzu-ish kind of philosophy of winning battles & I get it somewhat. Wait! But how do I know what battles to leave and what to fight? I don’t even know “Where to start”? Can I just get the hot tips please on how to write those killer essays that ensure I am off to the promised MBA la-la land?
Sure! However, just hear me out on this crucial piece before you listen to any “hot-tips” out there :)
“Developing your B-School application game plan”
I am going to break down your overall game plan into 5 Ds
a) Draw out the Monopoly of Brand “Me”
b) Determine a Brand “Me”- School fit through Informational interviews!
c) Develop a support ecosystem- Recommenders & Friends
d) Decide among the MBA “Experts” & other sources of help
e) Design the strategy of your MBA application – Bringing it together!
For the purpose of this article, I will be focusing on: How to Draw out the Monopolistic Brand “Me”
Peter Thiel in his insightful book “Zero to One” argues the case for developing a business that strives to develop a dynamic monopoly over the market rather than developing the one that operates with little or no differentiation in a deeply competitive market.
The simple takeaway: Avoid competition or be 10X better than the competition in business!
Similar logic holds true in the landscape of “MBA applications” with numerous competitors vying for limited spots. Therefore, a highly differentiated Brand “Me” that perfectly blends the key values, experiences, strengths, and accomplishments could potentially become a monopoly & standout in the application pool while an undifferentiated “Me-too” brand would be subject to intense competition.
Great! This brings us to Lesson-2
“Strive to build a highly differentiated Brand “Me” - A brand that is able to develop a monopoly in the application pool in a unique way faces a lower probability of intense competition”
I use probability because success in applications is not an exact science. However, it helps you evaluate the various decisions when you map them to their odds of being successful in an uncertain environment. Hear more on this from Poker player Liv Boeree
Cutting to the chase! To develop the make-up of Brand “Me”, try using the “Union Approach” of key & unique strengths, values, experiences, and accomplishments.
Values: Most important personal guiding principles that influence you
Experiences: Interesting personal & professional stories that shaped your thinking & values
Strengths: Strengths that you uniquely possess or strengths in which you are 10X better than most
Accomplishments: Achievements you have made on the back of your values, experiences & strengths
Brand “Me” = Values U Experiences U Strengths U Accomplishments
In simple terms, your brand should tell the reader about who you are & what value you bring to the table. Therefore, no matter what stage of the application you are at, I definitely motivate you to think BIG-PICTURE on how you want to best reflect who you are and what you bring. Make sure you run the following tests when drawing out the Brand “Me”.
Believable – Your content should be genuine & not falsify claims. Run it through the “Best-Friend test”. Ask your best friend or family on whether what you have written is actually reflecting who you are.
Provable – You need to prove that you are either significantly better than most of your chosen strengths or that you uniquely possess these strengths. Avoid choosing strengths whether it is difficult to do so. For example- You are a hard worker. You work 15 hours straight every day developing complex forecast analysis of your superstar brand. However, if you are claiming your strengths to be “I’m a hard worker” or “I’m an analytical ninja” you may need to show very specifically what have you achieved by employing these strengths. Everyone applying to B-school works hard & is good in analytics (or at least claims to) and therefore these skills do not help you differentiate or be monopolistic on their own.
Impactful – Are you a positive change agent who has a history of bringing a positive impact to the team and organization? This is also going to be important from a validation point-of-view when your recommenders speak about you.
Interesting – This is the X-factor of Brand “Me”. Are you able to hold the attention of the reader by weaving in the different aspects of your life into a compelling & personal narrative? Ask your best friend if they could find anything interesting about you through the essays. Check if that something interesting matches up with what you wanted to highlight as interesting!
The key takeaway here is that that you have to keep the whole narrative extremely personal in a way that reflects who you are. Therefore I motivate you to do so since you, by default, have a monopoly over your life experiences, and therefore trying to be someone else just won't work!
If you’re starting out on applications or are going to apply at a later stage, I motivate you to, as a next step, spend some time thinking about how you would like to shape Brand “Me”.
PS- If you’re looking to have a brainstorming session or review on your brand story, please get in touch using the contact me button below. :)