Advice for GSB and HBS Aspirants

Are you brilliant? Do you have the best job at the best company in your industry? Good for you. Harvard and Stanford do not care. Who is the ideal candidate for the elite of the elite?

Angle 1

Stanford and Harvard want an applicant who will contribute to the following, in approximate order of importance:

1. Classmates

Will you be valuable to them in social, academic, and professional terms? Remember, these are some of the best young professionals in the world.

§ “Diverse experiences in the classroom” always gets quoted, but the social and “awe factor" value you bring to your classmates is just as important.

Think about Stanford and Harvard as the world’s most exclusive social business clubs. Will your presence add to this environment? Do not let youthful confidence cloud your answer to this question.

2. Advancing HBS and GSB presence in high-impact and public leadership positions

Do you have the personality to run a multinational company? Study how others react when you tell them you are applying to Stanford. If their reactions surprise you at all, figure out why your self-belief does not match the perception others have of you. Both of you are right in different ways. 

3. The world's perception of GSB and HBS

Stanford and Harvard want someone who can "suspend disbelief" and exude energy and passion for whatever lies ahead.

5. Diversity statistics

6. Graduating income + hiring statistics

7. GMAT statistics

8. Undergraduate GPA statistics

I have ranked GMAT and GPA lowest on this list because I believe that the top schools have a large enough applicant pool to field competitive numbers in these areas while selecting for the top categories. As you go down the business school rankings, the “quantifiables” such as GMAT become relatively more important. Integrity and honesty are floor expectations.

Said differently, GMAT & GPA are a way to get on the dance floor, while lacking clear evidence that you will make more than $140,000 after graduation is a fast way to get kicked out. Showing you have both this earning potential and the qualities represented by the top categories gives you a chance to get into the Stanford and Harvard elite club room. There are exceptions to the income litmus-test: social impact entrepreneurs.

In addition, all of the top schools craft their brand & culture, and your fit within this and how you show this fit through your application is important. We’ll get into this later.

Angle 2

Taking a more conceptual approach, who are the very best candidates?

1. Natural leaders who do not actually need the degree or the brand to be successful and who will impress their classmates and everyone else they meet

2. Business celebrities who have the mind and emotional management to think critically and ingeniously in a pressure scenario and the personality to suspend disbelief when they deliver the pitch

3. People with incredible passion for a specific professional pursuit. A person who founded a company to tackle a problem in neuroscience because their younger sibling suffered from a brain injury

4. Applicants who are perfect. “Worked eighty-hour weeks with JPM while writing what became a NYT best-selling book on the injustices of government resource capture in underdeveloped economies”

5. Candidates with amazing personal stories, heroic acts, or examples of incredible perseverance who will be catapulted onto the big stage by the program and who clearly have the grit and intellect to succeed once there

6. The successful entrepreneur who exited with $$$ (read: Forbes-article-worthy exit prize) and will launch something even bigger when they graduate from Stanford GSB

The top two schools will have a core of each class comprised of these candidates and another “tier 2” core comprised of the archetypes described in the “How to compete” section below. From here, the schools build out their class by straying as few degrees away as possible from these elite qualities. It is impossible to define, but think long and hard about your abstract “proximity” in terms of personality, achievements, and “story” to these elite. LinkedIn profiles of current GSB and HBS students are a good place to start.

MBA Archetypes

As mentioned, the first GSB and HBS nods go to the archetypes listed above, and most applicants fall into the more mundane camp of “achieved a 3.XX at a top XX school and worked for [a top company in a competitive industry]”. Here are a few MBA archetypes that fall into this category. Think through the rest, and after this section, we will discuss the archetype + strategy.

1.       The Consultant (at top firm)

2.       The Finance Whiz Kid (at top firm)

3.       The Product Manager  (at top firm)

Repeat:  Pick the top best job titles for 20-somethings + top company names for every industry that comprises the classic MBA class profile.

§  These are sure “bets” for the school in terms of consistency in job placement and performance post-MBA. Remember, each school has developed an ecosystem for decades around job placement. Thus, these students comprise the second “core” of each class. You better have absolutely sterling stats and rec letters, and your personality better shine in the application. More on the latter later. Even then: good luck.

4.       Flip side: The Non-Traditional Candidate or Somewhat Successful Entrepreneur (Some entrepreneurship but have not had that breakthrough moment, great leadership examples with a non-brand-name company)

From experience, this last archetype is a tough play for HBS and GSB and any top MBA program. If you fit this archetype, your value and potential are unknowns. You do not have the professional validation of the girl who worked for Bain consulting and the school has less reason to think you’ll be making at least $140,000 upon graduation. Note: 1) I may be wrong in my assessment here, so make your own call. 2) If I am right, it is up to you to figure out how to turn this “archetype” into a strength in your application

§ If you are unsure whether you fall in this last category, you probably do, but compare how successful you are relative to your competition. Look up LinkedIn profiles of current GSB and HBS candidates. Take their pre-matriculation achievements at face value and compare them to your achievements at face value, as this is closest to an admissions officer’s perception.

Thinking in terms of “face value” will help you throughout your application. The admissions officers will have nothing more than your application materials. They do not know who you are, they may not know who your employer is, and they certainly have no idea what that jargon-filled nonsense you wrote means. 

"Archetype +" Strategy

To nail the “archetype” side of the application, craft both the content and the meta, with the latter consisting of tone, flow, and overall narrative strength. Show your work ethic, energy, communication skills, business sense, and leadership in an organic, honest, and compelling way. I emphasize energy. 

Content is directed by the application prompts and limited by word or character counts. Do not be afraid to use a small amount of redundancy for your most stand-out professional moments. Organically describe your leadership progression. Figure out key learning moments that tie into and support your narrative. 

Make sure your story flows logically and extremely well through the application.  Think equally in terms of the overall strength of your narrative and the individual experiences that comprise it.

Also, think about what you are not discussing, perhaps a low undergraduate GPA, and figure out if you should address this directly in the application. Determine this by speaking directly to a number of people who have experience with the MBA application process.

Proving your fit within the school’s brand & culture is an art, not a science, and showing this fit is an important part of your application. This is a two part challenge. 1) Why does this school help you achieve your next career step better than any other school and 2) Why do you fit in this school’s culture (better than the next incredibly qualified candidate). Speak to current students, alumni, and mentors and find compelling answers to both questions for each school to which you apply.

After you have nailed your archetype, get into “archetype plus” through some self-reflection, personal zest, and a little vulnerability:

Determine what your greatest personality and leadership qualities are and then compare, mentally and as much as is possible given the little information you have, how these qualities measure up to other GSB and HBS applicants. Give your competition an abstract + 15% bonus for good measure. Identify your relative strengths and figure out when these personality traits were first used in compelling fashion during your career. Figure out how those core aspects of you have improved since then, what examples best illustrate this, and add these examples to your story. This will introduce and then emphasize your greatest personality and leadership qualities. Remember, the strength of your “weave” arises from both the “yarn” (content) and “pattern” (overall story). Note, I highly recommend Stanford’s recommender’s matrix for use as a guide to help you remember and select personality and leadership examples.

Once this is finished, choose one or two leadership qualities you want to improve. Discuss why, and perhaps identify the specific part(s) of the school’s MBA program that will give you the opportunity to do so. This is the “show vulnerability” part of the application, and it exists in the grey area of application strategy. Do your own research to vet this advice.

“Visionary” or “creative” thinking and other more abstract qualities can be important, and if you don’t have these abilities, do not fake them. If you do have them, the essay and “post-MBA goals” section of the application are good areas to showcase your imagination. Be careful to not stray too far with your ideas, and this “distance” is unique to each person. Your intuition, in view of the rest of your application and your career, will answer this “proximity question” for you.

You can embellish if you have an amazing story of heroism or an act of perseverance. If you think this applies to you, view your story in terms of its strength relative to your competition. Figure out the latter by reading a host of HBS and GSB essays online. Ask informed people how strong your “story” is, compare their thoughts to the ones you’ve created from reading other essays. Think about the “face value” of your perseverance story. Whatever you went through may have been extremely challenging, but will that challenge come across in 750 words to an impartial spectator? Triangulate all of this and make a decision.

Writing your essays should be an emotional process. Do not let this undercurrent move you to write a dramatic screenplay. Get real, this is Harvard, but do dig deep into the emotional side of writing the essays. This process will double as a form of spiritual reconciliation, and, if given proper study, it will bring clarity to the big career decisions you are making.

Personally, I regret only one aspect of my unsuccessful attempt to attend Stanford GSB. I am perfect for the role of a 30% owner of an ambitious startup, the “glue guy” bringing hustle and creative brilliance to a company headed by a business celebrity type of a singular focus who has incredible emotional management and a crazy grinder mentality. In my application, I thought this self-description would come across as a weakness, and I went all in on being the “founder of a company in X industry” in my post-MBA goals. I can perform in this role, but it is not a perfect fit at this point in my life. I regret taking this approach in my application, as its root was insecurity. Did this hurt my candidacy in terms of "overall strength of story"? I will never know. Ask yourself these hard questions. Conduct more research than you initially thought was needed, make the call, and rest easy on the effort you give.

Again, the sum of the last few paragraphs is the “+” side of the “archetype +” strategy.

A few disjointed but helpful thoughts

Generally, admissions will know whether something is contrived or authentic. That includes calling bull on your “check box” philanthropy involvement. Admissions officers are trained to spot red flags. You will see this if you visit schools and interact with the admissions staff. Study how they respond and react to questions and to MBA candidates in general. (They are all great people, but they were hired for a purpose and trained to vet applicants) I recommend you ask the most cynical people you know to review your applications.

As mentioned earlier, culture fit is important. Stanford looks for some level of self-awareness and community focus, while Harvard wants executives who can lead through a crisis. These are terrible generalizations on each school’s culture-building strategies, and you will reach your own conclusions from talking to a number of current students and academic faculty. This holds true for all of the top MBA programs.

Most importantly, give this entire process and each individual application everything you have. Put hundreds upon hundreds of hours into GMAT prep and the applications. Do this, and you will always be able to rest easy on the effort you gave. Do this, and you belong on the dance floor. Apply knowing the rest is luck, and the results, good or bad, do not determine your potential. What you do in the years following the day you submit your applications will determine that.

Good luck to you all. Let me know how I can help.

Richard

I also wrote a GMAT strategy article with related prep materials. Hit the link below if any of that is useful to you.