When you want to get into a particular educational institution, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. The following will explore some essential steps involved in successfully applying to one type of school: business center. In this post, Jobandedu will reveal a guide on how to get into business school. Off we go!
Table of Contents
How To Get Into Business School: A Step-by-step Instruction
Start With Your Why
You can bet that a ton of the applications business schools get are fantastic. Lots of people have good grades and interesting work histories. Lots of people know how to appear put together for an interview and have connections that would happily talk them up in reference letters. One of the easiest ways to stand apart in your application is passion; a big part of passion is figuring out why.
You need to be able to answer in both your interview and in an essay why you want to get into a particular school. If your honest answer is: well, this was on the list of good schools, and I want to impress my parents and, hopefully, get a good job, so it seemed like a good fit—you need to work on your why.
Figure out what you want to devote your life to. Why do you want to do that? Get really specific. What does your ideal ‘normal day’ look like? Not the day where you win an award or get married or publish a book, but a normal day that is the best future version of your life. Who are you helping? What are you helping them with? How does this school specifically help you reach that goal?
Given that the focus of the degree you’re applying for is business and a degree is not explicitly required to work in business, you should also be prepared to explain why you want to take on more school instead of simply starting a business now. If you can’t answer this question, Jobandedu suggests you to think about it more.
Meditate Between Steps
While this might not seem like it will help you get into the school of your choice, it might turn out to be more beneficial than you realize. Humans are social animals; we’re highly intuitive and can sense things happening beneath the surface, whether that’s in the midst of a conversation or while reading someone’s writing.
Desperation is an emotion that scares people away, and it’s something that an interviewer or admissions officer might be able to pick up on. Meditating can help pull you into the present moment and focus on what you can do to best represent yourself, your vision for the future, and your interest in education. Beyond that, you can let your hair down and keep balance better with tons of fun things with friends.
Don’t Skip Over Softskills
While hard skills, technical ability, and knowledge are all vital components of doing a great job with the opportunities you’re given, soft skills are a huge component of today’s working standards. For instance, studying is not all about unweighted or weighted GPA or SAT scores. To thrive in school and the workplace afterward, you need to have solid communication skills; you need to be flexible and able to manage your own time; you need digital literacy skills and understand how to take care of yourself.
Interviews today are packed with questions like how do you keep your energy levels up? How do you prevent burnout? How do you take care of your emotional needs? Schools and businesses are quickly learning that people who know how to answer those questions tend to do better with tasks given than those who don’t.
Study Successful Applications
Take the time to get your hands on successful applications for the specific school you’re applying to. This information is much easier to get ahold of than you’d think; if Harvard MBA essay examples can be found online, most schools’ successful essays can be found too. Read through them and take note of anything that stands out as impressive to you. Compare what you’re reading to your own drafts. It’s utterly essential that you don’t try to mimic the applications but rather learn from them and then apply your own unique twist. Personality is important in business, and this means it’s important in MBA admissions too.
Conduct Informational Interviews
Another incredibly helpful thing you can do is reach out to people who have been or are currently students in the program of your choice. Ask for a quick informational interview where you can bring up questions or concerns you have. Hearing from someone who has successfully done the thing you’re trying to do can work wonders for your confidence and help you notice any blind spots you might have had regarding the process.
Always be polite and respectful of people’s time, and don’t ever ask for follow-up favors. If someone offers kindness, like looking over your essay before you submit it, that’s wonderful. What’s not wonderful is you suggesting they do more work for you when they’ve already given you their time and knowledge.
Have Multiple People Read Your Application Over
It’s easy to miss simple mistakes when reading your own writing. It’s easy to make simple mistakes when you’re emotionally invested in what you’re working on. Make sure to have several people read over your essay and short answers, looking for spelling and grammar mistakes as well as faint lines. If anything leaves them asking questions about what you meant, it needs to be rewritten. You can also run your work through the Hemingway Editor online; this free editor looks at complicated sentence structure and helps you get rid of those pesky adverbs and passive voice, which make writing less impactful.
The above information should help you polish up your MBA application and prepare for the interview component of the process. It’s important to ensure you’re getting enough rest and participating in stress-relieving activities throughout the application period.
For more related good reads, check our College Application section.
