Top 10 Tips for Elite MBA Admissions

An MBA program is itself a big challenge and getting through the application process is definitely a worrying obstacle for every aspiring applicant. Getting into a top MBA program also implies greater job opportunities, a much higher package, and wider name recognition. That is why it is tough to get into. As the number of applicants is escalating day by day, the competition is also growing stiffer. The admission tests, the application essays and the interviews are all distressing hurdles for the applicants. Sky-scraping GMAT scores and an ideal GPA are admittedly the important elements to strengthen your position but they do not guarantee that you will definitely get through. Top layer business schools reject about 8 out of 9 applicants for their full-time MBA programs. Now, you can very well estimate the level of competition. 
You can follow these tips while writing your application essays to secure your candidature.
1.    Show self-knowledge: To represent yourself in your application you need to know who you are, where you’re going, and why it requires an MBA now. Show that you are very well familiar with your strengths, failures, principles, goals, and motivations. You know from where you have landed up and where you are heading to.
2.    Show past success: Your past achievements are an indicator of your future success. Your academic excellence and your personal/professional accomplishments adds flavor to your essays. The admissions people want to see what kind of contributions you have made to the organizations that you had been a part of, what advantages you had taken of your opportunities, and your growth graph.
3.    Prove your points with evidence: You know what you have achieved. But what counts is what other people think. Provide evidences of academic performances, promotions, awards, and other concrete recognitions of the real world. The admission people are mainly concerned with the quality of your work experiences and not quantity.
4.    Fit in, but stand out: Justify, why you think that you can easily fit in and get along. Look for ways to emphasize what’s unique about you. You need to prove that you fit the culture of the b-school where you are seeking admission to, and at the same time explain how you stand different from the other applicants. Give the admissions people a robust reason to select you amongst the crowd of applicants.
5.    Show leadership experience and aptitude: The admissions people are not really interested to know how many people you had managed, but how effectively you had managed them is what matters them. Think about you as a leader and your leadership styles and some of the things that you feel really proud of and represent that in the application. Your readers are going to look for evidence of your leadership potential. Wherever you have done this successfully so far in your life, the admissions committee should know about it.
6.    Discuss clear, interesting and ambitious future goals: You don’t need to graph a career curve, but you definitely need to show what uniqueness you have planned in your career goals. Clearly discuss the plans you have decided for your future and the ways you are going to implement them.
7.    Don’t give them “what they want to hear”: It is mostly seen that candidates mention absurd things in their essays thinking that they are writing exactly what the admissions people want to hear. This is what actually turns off the admission committee. Discuss what you really are, what you have done so far and what you are planning to do next. You know in what you are good at and what you need to develop. It is you who knows what is in your mind, so explain the things which have happened in real instead of trying to read out your reader’s mind.
8.    Don’t praise the school: Every school is fully aware of their values and their charms, so you don’t have to explain them what they are. And if you do so, you may sound overly dramatic. What they want to know is why you are valuable and how you will add value to them. You only need to justify of why you have decided to choose the b-school, their program and why particularly at this point of time.
9.    Don’t try to be too competent: Make apparent how the MBA program and the school add elements that you don’t already have. Do not grandiose yourself. Display your unique traits and show how you think you are different from other applicants, but don’t compare yourself with them. Remember you are one amongst them; you just need to prove your fit.
10.  Be likeable: Do not sound snobbish. A pleasant attitude and open, fair-minded, well-re?ected values will take you much further. Maintain your decency. Arrogance in you will take you nowhere. You need to portray your unique qualities but at the same time you should be essentially polite.