MBA Applicant Case Studies:
Analyzing Various Types of Applicants to Help Each Build Their Best Application

Joanne Griffith: Welcome to MBA Podcaster, the only broadcast source for cutting edge information and advice on the MBA application process. I’m Joanne Griffith.

Now no two people who apply for an MBA are alike so everyone who is going through the process has questions like, “When is the best time to apply? Who should write my letter of recommendation? Can I get away with having a low GPA if my GMAT score was good and vice versa?”

Well this week we’re in Manhattan GMAT headquarters with admissions consultant Jeremy Shinewald from mbaMission. They hosted an admissions panel to address many of these questions and others. The discussion also focused on the concerns of international applicants, perspective candidates with GMAT, global, and quant issues and the thoughts of applicants from, “typical backgrounds in investment banking.”

Joanne Griffith: But before the panel got underway Jeremy Shinewald will draw attention to a situation that’s affecting almost everyone in some way, shape or form, the economy.

Now of course business schools aren’t immune from the economic downturn and many schools are announcing a drop in applications from the boom time numbers that they’ve experienced for many years. One reason for the decrease revolves around international students. Loans to overseas applicants are traditionally made through Citigroup and now it’s much harder to secure as a result of the mortgage crisis.

Well after speaking with admissions officers across the country Jeremy says that most are expecting to see even further drops in applications, so now, he says, may be a good time to apply while the pool is a little smaller than usual and the competition not quite so tough.

Jeremy Shinewald: I think that this year we’ll see moderate decreases in the number of applicants that are out there and in my opinion it means it’s a good time to apply. I’m not an economist, I can’t tell you what the job market will be like in three years when you’re graduating from school but to me if you’re applying when the quality of the pool is diminishing that’s a great time to be applying.

Joanne Griffith: So some good news for perspective candidates who are concerned over the impact of the economy is why the admissions panel opened with the first case study, Antonio.
Now he moved from Italy as a youngster, started at MY Houston graduated with a 3.7 GPA and scored a 700 in his GMAT, so far so good. He was in the analyst program at a leading bank for two years before like so many in banking being laid off.

Antonio asks Jeremy Shinewald about the impact of what he called the employment gap on his business school application.

Jeremy Shinewald: From personal conversations that I’ve had with admissions officers they certainly understand that the global financial crisis does not lay at the feet – the responsibility for it and your lay-off does not lay at your own feet right now. And if they weren’t to take on any clients, any students right now who have been laid off their classes would be quite small.

So I guess the question really becomes more of, “What have you done with your time?” Or why don’t you give us a little bit of background there?

Antonio: Well I had some friends who were starting a start-up, and so, I did some work with them. They had no background in finance at all. So I worked with them on how to put together pro-formas, income projections, and balance sheet projections and so forth. And so, I did some work that way. I also studied for the GMAT. I took a lot of time of those four months, and so, that came out from that. And I also got involved in MOMA, in the Museum of Modern Art in the Young Friends at that. So I have been doing what I can to – and actually they asked me to join the Board. I’m the treasurer, along with a number of other people who have been laid off.

And so, we sort of commiserate but, yes, and so, I’ve been doing that. But I wonder like that’s what admissions committees are going to see and say to themselves, “You know you just did that because you’re just trying to pack your resume. You were just – you had a bunch a time, so, you were bored. You just…” Or any of those cases.
Jeremy Shinewald: Oh, I think what do you – I have to play a little of devil’s advocate here. What are you going to do? You’re not going to take on – are you not going to take this community activity just because you’re concerned that someone else might be cynical about it. I mean, were you interested? Were you doing it at that time – I mean, you said you were involved as an undergrad?

Antonio: Not a major but I did like minor in it and of course I did some things that…

Jeremy Shinewald: Right. So anything maybe the investment extent is the anomaly and you’ve been quite involved on opposite ends of your professional experience and you’re picking up maybe where you left off.

Antonio: Yeah. I guess that’s true.

Jeremy Shinewald: Yeah, yeah, and so, I think – you don’t have to really – you don’t really need to make any apologies for doing community service. And it sounds like you’ve some leadership there. It’s not like you were just a passenger. You were out there, you took a – and so, you became the treasurer.

Antonio: Yeah, yeah, it’s again the finance background or whatever. I figured that would be the right thing.

Jeremy Shinewald: Right, okay. Well I think that’s great. I think you’ve done quite a lot with your time off and I think it helps build your profile. You’re not – it’s unfortunate that you lost your job but there’s no question that you can recover from that and you’re not “just a banker” in quotes for those who are listening on the radio, “just a banker” in quotes. But I think a lot of people have that concern and it seems like you’ve got some other dimensions there.

Joanne Griffith: Now away from the economy one of the concerns that came up again and again with the case studies on the admissions panel is the GMAT. Later we’ll hear from international student Mikhail who struggled with the verbal components of the GMAT. But first let’s get some background on the next case study.

Jennifer: I’m Jennifer. I graduated from Smith College about four years ago. I got a 3.75 while I was there; I have currently for the past four years have been working for a major consumer products company and I’ve actually received one promotion while I’ve been there. I got a 740 on the GMAT. You can see the background. I did a bit better on the verbal than then I did on the quant. I’m looking at Kellogg, Wharton and Texas. And I’m from Texas and I’m actually maybe interested in going back there.

I’m interested in Hi-Tech marketing as opposed to traditional consumer packaged goods marketing.

Joanne Griffith: Jennifer went on to share her concern about not doing as well on the quantitative portion of the GMAT and wanted to find out how best to demonstrate her quant skills on her application.

Jeremy Shinewald: The schools they will want to know that you have certain quantitative competencies. I guess, I mean, marketing is becoming a more and more quantitatively oriented field if this is what I understand from my own candidates, what they – the internet giving you so much data. Did you – is your work quantitative?

Jennifer: Well I guess it’s interesting that you say that because actually a lot of what we do is looking at numbers, running our line now, seeing it’s on our ads, trying to figure out what the best media is for us in terms of where we’re getting the best bank for our dollar in terms of where we’re spending. So a lot of it even just looking at weekly sales statistics.

So there’s – I’m not – it’s not complicated spreadsheets like an investment banker but certainly you need to be proficient in quantitative abilities to really succeed at my company.

Jeremy Shinewald: And you have been succeeding because you got a promotion.

Jennifer: Yeah, I mean actually I guess now that you say it one of their – one of the credentials for me to be given that promotion certainly was to be able to share proficiency with respect to understanding our business trends and analyzing the numbers, so.

Jeremy Shinewald: Right, so. I mean that would play into proving your quantitative side if you’re – getting to the fact that you’re not working on spreadsheets all day doesn’t matter. Are there any specifics maybe that any anecdotes that you can offer in terms of your quantitative skills at all?

Jennifer: Well it’s such a big company. So I guess this didn’t seem like maybe that big of a deal at that time but actually we were kind of looking at the effectiveness of some of our ads and the timing of them and I kind of noticed certain trends within the numbers and we altered the timing of when we delivered some ads. I mean, I actually I guess in Q2 saved about $255,000.

Jeremy Shinewald: Right.

Jennifer: Which is really kind of a rounding error but…

Jeremy Shinewald: Right. Well the dollar value doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that I know it’s a multi-billion dollar firm and $250,000 seems insignificant but it’s the spirit of what you did. And again we talked before about the optional essay. This might be the beginning – you know, you’ve had a promotion because of your analytical skills. You’ve got this win here in this $250,000 savings. This might be a story that you can tell to the admissions committee about having quantitative competencies.

The other thing of course is it’s still early in the year. It might be time. I don’t know what your schedule is like and it might be time to take a summer class or two in accounting, finance, economics, maybe it just takes for a calculus so that you can prove your quantitative abilities. Is that something you think you might have time for because if it is I would certainly recommend – I mean, don’t take that class if you don’t time and you’re going to end up with B minus or C but if it is something that you feel like you can commit yourself to over the summer or maybe hours are slow you can – and you earn an A on that, that will really help bolster your argument as well.

Joanne Griffith: Now, Jennifer isn’t the only one with GMAT worries. Mikhail, an economics major from Russia who we mentioned earlier has taken the GMAT three times and achieved a 680. He scored 4.5 on the essay putting him in the 55th percentile.

But Mikhail says his downfall is the language component. He was in the 64th percentile for the verbal even though his spoken English is excellent.

Should Mikhail take the test again? And what can you do to illustrate his language skills on his application?

Here’s Jeremy Shinewald again.

Jeremy Shinewald: GMAT is not everything. It’s one of many components. If you can’t approve let it go. There’s no point in taking that test over and over again, and over again. One thing I will say is that if you do or if you don’t do well in the test the admissions committee is going to want to see you take the test twice. It’s a myth that they only want you taking it at once. They’re going to want to see you try again. They want to know that you at least put some effort into it.

And so, our friend Mikhail, taking it three times, having the same score twice, he sent the message that he’s done everything he can and it’s time to move on.

And again, he was explaining his weaknesses via the optional essay. He isn’t struggling to read the questions. He is entirely conversant. It’s nothing that he – his English language skills are not an issue and he can explain that.

Joanne Griffith: Talking of quotations how many is too many? Mikhail says he can still apply to 10 schools.

Jeremy Shinewald: The fewer applications done very, very well will benefit you, not more applications done poorly. And you don’t have to determine the number you’re going through today although I would say applying to seven to ten schools, having the first round and overall would be the most that I’ve ever seen, if you can hypothetically get it done incredibly well then more power to you if you actually do want to attend one of these 10 institutions.

But I think what’s more likely is that you would start applying and do it well and then determine at some point whether you want to keep adding schools if you feel that you have the time to do a high-quality job and we tend to advise candidates to apply between four and six schools if they are conservative applicants.

Anything beyond that – if you’re not going to get into your sixth school you’re probably not getting into your seventh school, you’re probably doing something wrong.

Joanne Griffith: And so less is more when it comes to applications. As an international student in this case from Russia, Mikhail also discussed his worry that admissions committees may not be too familiar with his undergraduate institution even though it’s well known and respected back in his homeland.

Mikhail also highlighted that as a foreign candidate he had no alumni connections with some of the business schools he planned to apply to, putting him in his view at a disadvantage.

Jeremy addressed both of these concerns.

Jeremy Shinewald: Undergraduate performance is more important than an undergraduate institution, absolutely. They want a – that the trajectory of your grades, the kind of classes you’ve taken, the stresses of those classes, how difficult they are; the schools read your transcripts, and most of them will say they read your transcripts course by course. And so worry more about your grades instead of the institution if anything; if they don’t someone from your institution or your country that’s generally a positive.

You do not need alumni connections to success. And in fact this year Harvard Business School actually asked their alumni to stop sending in supplementary letters of recommendation because they were just getting so many and so many alumni wanted to have influence and they couldn’t – all they were doing was alienating their own alumni by not responding to them and letting it – not responding via admissions.

So you don’t need to have alumni connections to get into every – into these schools. And again, the schools want to have some diversity and they don’t want to have 800 identical people in their classroom.

Joanne Griffith: Whether you’re an international or a domestic student embarking on an MBA you will have to decide where you’d study. Would you like to stay close to home? Do you prefer a small or a  large school? Here are some of the thoughts on this raised by marketing professional, Jennifer.

Jennifer: I want to go to a school that’s really ranked. I also have a marketing background, and so, schools like Kellogg and Wharton just come to mind. I mentioned I’m from Texas and Hi-Tech marketing, Dell really stands out to me as a potential place that may be ideal for me to work one day. Going back home would be really interesting but I really want to go to a high-ranked school and Kellogg and Wharton have such marketing background.

Just based on my background it seems like I could be a fit there. I don’t know what you think about that. I mean I’ve also – I realized that General Management might be something, an area where I could probably get a broader set of skills as opposed to just marketing.

Jeremy Shinewald: Right, right. I guess there are few things that – with respect to rankings, rankings come and go and right now Yale I believe is ranked, I could be wrong here but I think it’s ranked number six on US News and isn’t ranked in the top 20 in Business Week. It kind of shows you how absurd rankings are and if you look at – Chicago was ranked number 10 one year and then it was ranked number two the next year and then number one the year after that, a couple of years ago, and an idea that not have changed at the school during those two years to suddenly jump eight spots to take so long to change an institution.

So much of the institution isn’t moving. The alumni network is the same. The professors are broadly the same, and so, I think basing things on rankings is a recipe for disappointments. In many ways if you really base thing, or to base your decisions on rankings you should be guessing as where the rankings are going, not where they are.

And the other thing is you’re talking about Hi-Tech marketing in Texas and if you want to do that then it’s – I’m not saying you should complete the issue of Kellogg and Wharton which are excellent schools but here a school that has 240 people where Dell, Microsoft and Apple all recruit. And they recruit, I think if my memory serves me correctly about 15% of the class, I think. I mean a good year is when Dell is really chugging a lot more.

And so, if you have a demographic interest like that you may want to give it some thought. Texas should certainly stay on your list if your GMAT score is way above their average you’ve got a promotion that a major marketing firm, if your grades are great, this is a beginning of a good story there.

In terms of the other schools I guess maybe we can dig in a little bit here. So you’re really passionate about the marketing but you also said something about General Marketing and…

Jennifer: Yeah, I mean, I guess in some ways I can of want to round out my skill set a bit but I guess the schools just came to mind because I have been in marketing and they’re known for their marketing programs.

Jeremy Shinewald: Are you going to – are you going to study marketing at those schools? Is that…?

Jennifer: Well I definitely would look to get a broader base, you know, general management and education as well. And I guess the other thing I didn’t thing I didn’t mention is I went to Smith. It’s pretty small. I really enjoyed the small atmosphere. So I don’t know, maybe Wharton is actually too big for me.

Jeremy Shinewald: Right. I mean if you enjoyed small schools Wharton is the second biggest school and over 800 students. So it might not be the most intimate environment for you. And if you’re looking for a general management program, I mean, both Kellogg and Wharton can provide you with a strong general management program.

But there are a variety of small general management that dot the East Coast. Darton if you’re interested in the case method, Tuck, Duke, those are all on a smaller side of the schools. Cornell, those are all small schools that might be a better emotional fit for you. If you can say with some determination that you’re not interested in big schools Kellogg is definitely, at 480 students or so, is definitely – and it’s in Evanston which maybe isn’t – which gives you a little bit more of an intimate setting then other big city school like an NYU.

So that might be a decent choice for you but I would fully question that choice of Wharton to be honest.

Joanne Griffith: So you sort out the GMAT, make the most of losing your job before applying to business school and choose where to apply. But what if you decide to take your career in a whole new direction?

Here is case study, Antonio.

Antonio: Well I wonder about the banker thing right because I actually don’t want to go back and be a banker but I wonder if that’s – that’s my background. Is it better to just say like I want to go be a banker again and just tell the committee that or I mean, what I want to do is something different. So I don’t know which way I should play it.

Should I just say yes I want to be a banker and…

Jeremy Shinewald: Well I think that there’s certainly an appeal to a conservative job path. It’s definitely tough to switch careers in this kind of economy. And I think that the admissions office is more and more often consulting the career services office when they’re looking at candidates these days.

The question really is how plausible is your shift? Is it something that’s wild and fanciful or is it something that is – that you have transferable skills for and that you can actually – you can find your niche in that area.

Antonio: Well I just want to be a dancer. No, I want to – actually I want to like this restructuring stuff that we did I want to be in, it sounds weird but I want to be involved in companies that are undergoing restructuring, that are undergoing bankruptcy but more from like the corporate strategy on the inside.

Like I’d love to work for it; it sounds weird but I’d love to work for GM right now because they’re going through such massive shifts. So I was sort of involved from the outside, just the finance side before but I’d like to be on the inside like making the operational decisions that I would see happening from the outside.

Jeremy Shinewald: And to that I would say to you that you need to show; it sounds like you’ve got transferable skills there so that’s great. You need to show that it’s a reasonable choice for you, that this isn’t just something that you’re whimsically approaching, that it’s something that you’ve really done your homework and that you understand that this is possible.

Is this a naïve daydream? I don’t mean to put you down.

Antonio: No, no, no.

Jeremy Shinewald: So have you done some…?

Antonio: Yeah, no, I mean, it started when maybe my first project or first deal I was looking and saying, okay, this is cool around these numbers but, wow, to be my client, to be the person on the inside who has to then try to make this work.

So, yeah, I’ve been thinking about it for two years prior to my lay-off and during that time, I mean, I have friends at other places who are involved more operationally then a couple of friends in the government who are on the bail-out side of things.

So, yeah, I’ve talked to people who work at various kinds of funds and so forth. And also within companies that are undergoing these kinds of restructurings.

Jeremy Shinewald: Right. Well so this is a story that you need to tell. You need to tell your story in a complete way if you’re looking at going to a higher risk job and I think that’s the other thing you can do and this something that several I mentioned before at the AI conference there are several officers who said they’d be very much open to – it’s not necessarily wishy-washy that people are having primary and secondary goals this year and saying that you have this ambitious goal and it relates to your field that you’ve been in the past but that you also recognize even with your connections in that field, that it’s still – you don’t know what’s going to happen in two or three years.

These firms might disappear; they might not, who knows. They are risky jobs to get so that you – but you have another rational back-up. And it’s not that your plan is irrational but maybe one that’s maybe a little more conservative. And as long as you express those in a profound way I think that you would have the opportunity to differentiate yourself from many other bankers who are taking that conservative path or in fact if that’s what they want to do and you would have the opportunity to really shine and wrap yourself in the flag and I think it would be a good story for you.

Joanne Griffith: One thing that appears again and again throughout the 90 minute discussion is international experience and language skills. Now Antonio is fluent in Italian and he also taught himself French which Jeremy Shinewald says is a bonus for companies looking for diversity in their workforce with high risk.

But not everyone is as fortunate says Jennifer.

Jennifer: You know the other thing I have thought about and I wanted to ask you. So I know a lot of people talk now about having international experience or speaking a second language and I don’t really have any of that. I’ve never lived abroad, I’ve never worked abroad, and so, I just wonder how big of an issue that is in my application?

Jeremy Shinewald: Well there are very, very few things where schools have a tick box or a cut-off and people always ask what’s the GMAT cut-off for your school whenever I’m around admissions officers. And the schools say there is no cut-off. And it’s the same thing. I think a lot of people worry that they don’t have international experience and that’s going to immediately prevent them from going to business school.

It’s something that is a great bonus to have especially if you something interesting but just living abroad doesn’t necessarily mean that you have an international experience and there are lots of people of people who go abroad for school and spend their entire time with their American friends and barely experience the other culture.

So the quality of your experience is what’s really important. The other thing I would say is these days you can be embracing the world from your own backyard. Manhattan GMAT, well, having opened offices in Toronto and Montreal, before that it was still an international company because they have clients around the world and even instructors around the world who are working here and they are doing online lessons around the world etcetera.

So at your firm have you engaged any internationals at all on a project? Are you working with the Tokyo office on X or the Sao Paolo office on Y?

Jennifer: Well actually I did work on the launch of a new yogurt drink and it was being launched here in the States as well as in Europe and it was interesting because we worked – the teams worked together but we were, we kind of customized our marketing campaigns based on the target audience.

And so, here in the U.S. it was really flashy. We had celebrities and then actually in Europe that target customer much tended to just be a much more low key campaign that that they used.

But we collaborated a lot and then kind of tailored our program. So I don’t know that might be an interesting…

Jeremy Shinewald: Yeah, I mean, it sounds really that that’s certainly international. You didn’t’ have to be physically in Europe to make that international experience, you clearly had some take-aways like the ones you just offered about the differences in cultures. And you worked with those people to launch a product. There’s a product launch.

So I think that’s great and I don’t think you really have anything to worry about and that might be one of your best stories. It might be a bullet point in your resume but I don’t think anyone is going to say this woman does not have international experience.

Joanne Griffith: A lot of questions and a lot of advice shared over 90 minutes but here are just some of the key points to remember starting with GMAT schools.

Jeremy Shinewald: So low quant GMAT scores aren’t necessarily a killer. I think a lot of people really freak out if they don’t have scores above the 80th percentile. But you have to be prepared to try to reveal the competencies in other areas.

Joanne Griffith: Next stop, international experience.

Jeremy Shinewald: International experience is not based on traveling to foreign countries and it’s not a tick box. You don’t need to have formal experience. It helps but you can find other ways to showcase it. It’s just not a deal breaker.

Joanne Griffith: Changing career.

Jeremy Shinewald: A lot of people are still seeking to change career path and it’s not the kiss of death but the schools are going to be, or really want to believe that you are, that you can achieve what you are setting out to achieve. And so, you can’t just say I’ve been in marketing and now I want to go into consulting. It’s not going to work.

Joanne Griffith: And finally application individuality.

Jeremy Shinewald: Pandering to an admissions committee is always a bad idea. It results in applications that are very, very generic. And so you really, you shouldn’t try to become something. You should be who you are and try and stake out your own real estate instead of trying to get a little piece of that real estate that everyone is going after. It kind of makes sense that way instead of trying to be generic, try to be your own candidate.

Joanne Griffith: That was Jeremy Shinewald, admission consultant with mbaMission speaking at an admission panel held at Manhattan GMAT headquarters.

Joanne Griffith: For more information, a transcript of this show or to register for your bi-weekly MBA Podcast visit mbapodcaster.com. Look for us on Twitter and Facebook to get the latest news and insight in the world of business schools.

This is MBA Podcaster, I’m Joanne Griffith, thanks for listening and stay tuned until next time when we explore another topic of interest in your quest for an MBA.

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