What are some of the big do’s and don’ts when applying for an MBA program? We asked Sherry Wallace, director of MBA admissions at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

How much do you expect an applicant to know about what they want to do after the MBA?

This is one of the things I believe has changed the most – how much more focused we expect an applicant to be. The candidate’s motivation and vision for his or her career has always been important, but it’s even more important today.

It’s really hard to be career focused if you do not have a context for understanding what you do well, what types of work you enjoy, what skills you can best leverage. That’s why we continue to expect at least two years of full-time work experience before entering the program. It’s so expensive now to do the MBA, and I feel it is irresponsible for us to allow someone to make a $100,000+ investment if they don’t have a really good and feasible plan.

Of course, it scares me when someone comes in so rigid in their plans that they don’t leave room for opportunity. I think it’s good to be a little bit agile. The world is going to change while they are in business school; probably even between when they submit an application and when they start. Applicants need to realize that opportunities, industries, and situations that they had not anticipated may present themselves.

How much enthusiasm for the school do you like to see from applicants?  How do you measure that?

We expect them to be familiar with the school. Sometimes people think we expect some kind of  them to declare allegiance to the school. It’s not that at all. We recognize that our applicant pool is quite diverse and that applicants are going to find attractive features at a number of schools.

No, we cannot accurately measure a candidate’s enthusiasm by whether she attends our admissions events or web activities. We know that not everybody is going to be able to attend an admissions event or ever meet somebody from the admissions team. Some people in a cycle might not have done any of the admissions events, but unbeknownst to us, might have worked side-by-side with a graduate of the program who shared a lot of things about the school.

What we look for is that they have made enough of an effort, and taken enough of an advantage of the resources to have a thoughtful and informed reason for making this one of their schools.

Do a lot of applicants fail to make this effort?

Sometimes in interviews I will ask people if they have any questions for us, and the question they ask suggests that they had done very little homework.  Sometimes applicants mention something they like about our program, but what they mention is not something we even offer. We are not going to get excited about enrolling someone whose interest in our school is that shallow.

Should an applicant with a bad GMAT score even bother applying to a top MBA program?

Absolutely. Even though you will see those profiles with the middle 80% scores listed, there are always going to be the low and high tails. Our admissions process is not an automated calculator where you put in your GMAT and get your admission decision.

Is GMAT is important? Absolutely, because we are evaluating people from tons of different academic backgrounds and experience. GMAT is that thing that we can compare across time and people without regard for individual academic systems.

But we see some people with very impressive scores who are not good applicants. We also see people who are excellent applicants whose GMAT scores are not so excellent.

How do you handle MBA applicants with no or little work experience?

We’ve been enrolling on average 290 students a year, and there probably have not been any more than 3 or 4 students in each of the last five years that didn’t have at least two years. Every now and then, an exceptional person who lacks work experience makes a compelling case for admission.

I don’t like to dangle these few exceptions because then I’m suggesting to all of the college seniors that they have a chance to get in. Certainly they do, and we’re going to review every applicant. But when it only happens four times per class of almost 300, I have to say that inexperienced candidates should not expect to be admitted here.

If you are a person who doesn’t have any experience, ask yourself: “what about me is so compelling that I’m going to add more value to that school than someone who looks like I will look three years from now.”

I guess they think the MBA title will open doors that might have been totally shut before.

You are not going to get a job because you have an MBA. There are doors that will open for you that probably would not have opened without it. But people who are investing in the talented people who have gained the MBA are looking for the sum total of who they are, which includes the MBA, but isn’t only the MBA. What are you leveraging along with the MBA to make yourself a viable candidate for whatever career venture you seek?

How should prospective students start the process of picking and applying to business school? What are the first steps?

I wouldn’t start with picking the school; start with, “why am I doing an MBA?”

The candidates that are most convincing are people who have been working, and find themselves looking for something that will make them more efficient: “I’ve been doing this, but there’s got to be a better way.” They have personally had that feeling that something was missing.

Another very commonly described experience is somebody who has been in a work position, and they have a coworker or supervisor or partner that they have been able to watch. They say, “wow, I really appreciate the way she approaches these things. Some of the questions she thinks to ask, they really end up informing some our best actions, and are things I have never thought about.”

That’s what really good applicants are able to describe. They feel that, “I could have handled a project better if I only had some more tools. I feel really bad that I wasn’t able to save us or turn a situation around more quickly.”

So, perhaps their conclusion won’t be that they need the MBA, but need focus on honing particular skills.

Right, sometimes you just need more quantitative acumen. Sometimes you just need more experience. It’s not an MBA, but more time doing this or a different role.

But once they determine that it is an MBA, then I would ask, “where do you want to go that you aren’t now?” I would start with talking to people who are doing the things you think you want to do, and ask them what are the levers that made it for you. What is some of the best advice that you got?

 

Photo Courtesy: Sherry Wallace, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School