Stanford Graduate School of Business leads the M7 pack in a number of areas: lowest acceptance rate (5.1), highest average GMAT scores (737) and GPAs (3.73), and highest median base salary for grads: $140,000
You Don’t Need a High GPA to Get Into a Top MBA
Getting into a high-ranking MBA program doesn’t necessarily require a high college GPA.
Ilana Kowarski, a reporter at US News, recently spoke to MBA experts who say college GPAs are often less relevant than the other portions of the MBA application.
“Unlike law school and med school admissions which are really, really based very much on numbers — your scores, your grades — the business school admissions process is really much more comprehensive,” Deena Maerowitz, a partner and principal at The Bertram Group, an educational consulting firm, and a former associate director of admissions at Columbia Business School, told US News.
LEADERSHIP AND CHARACTER ARE CRUCIAL
Experts say having a history of leadership in both your careers and extracurricular activities is often more impressive than a high college GPA.
Since leaderships skills are valuable to business, admissions officers often will overlook a lower college GPA if an applicant has impressive leadership history.
J.P. Maychak, dean of student experience at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, told Fortune that other aspects, such as character, are also crucial when selecting MBA applicants for acceptance.
“Unlike in life, we get to pick our family,” Maychak, who sits in on admission committee meetings, told Fortune. “We are looking for non-arrogant, genuine, gritty people, ready and willing to take on the world.”
While a high college GPA can help in an application, admissions officers say MBA programs tend to receive applications from all around the world, often from countries with varying grading systems. This makes it difficult to fairly compare GPAs from globally different applications, where a grade from one college isn’t necessarily equivalent to the same grade from another college.
“We have set expectations, gained from our many staff years of international MBA Admissions experience, for each country and type of university attended,” David Simpson, admissions director of the London Business School in the United Kingdom, told US News.
ADDRESSING A LOW GPA
This isn’t to say that GPA doesn’t matter whatsoever in an MBA application. Rather, that other aspects of an application carry equal or in some cases more weight.
There are several ways of addressing a lower than average GPA in an MBA application. Some are better than others.
Stacy Blackman, CEO of Stacy Blackman Consulting, warns applicants against highlighting that they struggled in a course because they disliked the topics.
“We discourage ‘I under-performed because the subject didn’t interest me’ explanations, because the admissions reader might assume that she or he will have the same problem with less interesting classes in MBA studies,” Blackman told US News.
Rather, Blackman suggests applicants, who have lower-than-average GPAs, focus on highlighting positive characteristics or traits that compensate for lackluster GPAs.
In the situation of a low GPA, it’s best for an MBA applicant to illustrate that “he or she has become a productive, self-starter with high standards of performance,” she told US News.
So, what constitutes a “low” GPA?
Esther Magna, a principal at Stacy Blackman Consulting, told US News that an undergraduate GPA below a 3.2 will need explaining in an MBA application.
“A muted GPA can be an opportunity to show self-awareness and introspection about personal experiences and past setbacks,” Magna told US News. “It can be a window into a candidate’s character and values and can be invoked to tug at the heartstrings of the MBA Admissions Office readers. Addressing the reasons for the lower GPA across relevant applicant materials is critical.”
Interview Tips You Haven’t Heard Before
You’ve graduated with an MBA. You’ve put in the work. Now, you’re ready to take on the next step of your career. But first, you need to ace that job interview.
Carmine Gallo, a contributor at Forbes who writes about leadership communication to grow sales and build brands, recently discussed a few interview tips for MBA grads.
DON’T FALL BACK ON YOUR RESUME
Almost every interview experience will start out with “tell us a bit about yourself.”
Gallo says this isn’t an invitation to walk through your resume.
While your resume acts as a source of credibility, it’s best to focus on conveying emotion when telling your story. So, how do you do that?
“Have one or two stories in your pocket that highlight the value you can add,” Gallo writes. “They can be stories of how you overcame an especially vexing problem or how you motivated a team to do more than they thought possible.”
In a blog post for Vault, a career advice blog, Kenton Kivestu says distilling your experiences is crucial when telling your story.
“The goal is to highlight experiences with a high signal to noise ratio,” Kivestu writes. “This means that you want to cut out the fluff and filler and make sure you hit the key points you want the interviewer to remember about you.”
Each experience you describe, should answer three main questions, according to Kivestu.
1) Why did you pursue it?
2) What key skills and lessons came out of it?
3) How did it influence your next steps?
KNOW THE CEO
Gallo suggests every applicant to extensively research the CEO of the company they’re applying to. And not just a basic overview, know everything — from the CEO’s most recent blog post to their views on certain topics.
“If you’re a job candidate and you don’t know what the CEO says about taxes and trade, you’re losing an opportunity to stand out from the others — many of whom may not have read the CEO’s recent reports,” Gallo writes.
STICK TO THREES
When it comes to answering questions, Gallo suggests applicants to stick to the rule of three.
Rather than dragging a story on and on, sticking to the rule of three can make for a more effective and lasting impression.
“Simply put, the human mind is only capable of recalling three to five main points in short term (working) memory,” Gallo writes. “Don’t overwhelm your listener with a list of twenty-eight messages. Keep it to three. Give a recruiter three reasons to hire you, three ways your skill will help the company make money, three highlights from your resume.”
Candidates waiting for job interviews
Lessons You Don’t Learn In Business School
Not all lessons you learn in business school are taught in class.
Carolyn Disbrow, senior director of brand marketing for CNN Worldwide and a member of Columbia Business School’s Executive MBA Class of 2018, recently broke down a few business lessons she didn’t learn from the classroom.
YOU CAN NEVER MAKE ‘MORE TIME’
Time, Disbrow argues, is more valuable than money. The only constantly appreciating asset, time is a valuable asset that Disbrow argues should not go to waste. It’s also what differentiates successful business people from unsuccessful ones.
“We studied some of the world’s greatest business leaders and they all managed their time like a priceless commodity,” Disbrow writes. “That single skill meant the key difference between success and failure on many occasions for them. This skill does not require anything other than simple discipline. Spend your time on the things that truly matter and you will never waste this precious asset.”
BE YOUR OWN CEO
While leading a company is hard enough, leading from within is often the more difficult task. A successful CEO of a company can be a failure as a “personal CEO.” Being your own “personal CEO,” Disbrow says, is crucial to success.
Learning how to handle the negatives and channeling productivity into solving issues is the key to being a successful “personal CEO.”
“That’s a tall order given the bottom-line focused, Type-A personalities in business school,” Disbrow writes. “But by listening to and learning from the intimate stories of challenges and adversity of fellow classmates, we discovered ways to better manage our own human natures and become our own personal bosses.”
HAVING INTEGRITY — IN EVERYTHING YOU DO
Having integrity is what differentiates successful business leaders from unsuccessful ones, Disbrow says.
“Your strength of character will set you apart as a leader, not only personally but professionally,” she writes. “Have a set of beliefs, values and standards and uphold them. And put a system in place to hold yourself personally accountable for your actions.”
Brian Tracy, contributor at Entrepreneur and chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, mirrors the same sentiment when it comes to being accountable for your actions.
“Leaders keep their promises,” Tracy writes. “They give promises carefully, even reluctantly, but once they have given that promise, they follow through on that promise without fail. And they always tell the truth.”
Additionally, Tracy argues that leaders should have integrity — because it’s the right thing to do.
“Leaders with integrity may not be the most famous or flashy of leaders, and they don’t care,” Tracy writes. “Integrity means doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. And that’s what makes success.”
Sources: CNN, Entrepreneur
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