What’s good, folk. I hope you’re all doing well and enjoying your summers as the days tick by in August. The email below is from a prospective re-applicant to Stanford GSB who really seems to be buggin’ out as she approaches the new application season. In situations like this, I wish I had the perfect solution to get someone an admit letter, but we all know that I can’t make that happen…Honestly, I still don’t know how I made it happen for myself. In this response, i’ve tried to give her some good advice, but I fear that it didn’t do much to address her concerns…I hope she makes it through the process alright.

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IJ wrote:
“Hi Marquis,

Needless to say that I have followed your blog since a while now; however I always avoided writing to you for advice as I understand how terribly busy you would be, with handling your job and blog both. But today I am standing at a crossroad wondering where to go. I am in a desperate need of some advice and I do not know any other Stanford alumni, to whom I can turn to, and so here I am, wanting some of your precious time.

I am an Indian female, 31, applying to some B-schools. But I have a story – I did my undergrad in Civil engineering and then decided to switch career because of my passion to understand textiles. I did my postgrad in Apparel and Textile design from NID, India, which is one of the best design schools in the world. After my graduation, I joined a company that works in textile craft sector; I joined as a designer and became head designer for Apparel division in a short span of time – 2 yrs. I left that company to work even more closely with artisans at grassroot level, and so eventually I worked with some non-profits in textile sector later. In late 2007, I founded a small company, which would work on social entrepreneurship model.

Now not so good part of the story – I got married in May’07 and moved to Boston eventually, as my husband is working here. I applied to top four B-schools last year with a severe time constraint. Unfortunately, everything was going wrong for me last year. In spite of constantly scoring in 720-730 range in GMAT practice tests, I scored 610 first time and even lower second time in my real GMATs ( the second test was a day before my application deadlines ). Although I do not question the GMAT, but I am in a numb state to understand what did I do so wrong! I plan to take it again in coming August.

Anyway, so coming to the real point – I am planning to apply again! And the one school that has actually inspired me to do MBA is Stanford. I am keen to work as a social entrepreneur and therefore Stanford is my top choice. Unfortunately it is a tough school to get in. I am trying to be realistic about my candidacy. I do not know alumni from such schools and thus I thought of writing to you. I took an initial service from an admission consultants’ service today, and I was told that there were two big concerns in my application for Stanford. First, I am older than what Stanford would prefer. Second, obviously GMAT. I know you too would not have definite answers to whether I stand a chance for Stanford, but still, I would be glad if you you could give me any kind of insight. As you can tell, I have been really passionate about Stanford, but I do not want to be completely unrealistic and build dreams that hold no future. Till now I was hopeful of my candidacy; I am feeling quite low right now, because there are things that I won’t be able to change in my application. Last year has been the biggest mistake of my life – I just shouldn’t have worked for my application in that kind of time constraint – but I can’t change it now. I don’t know really what to ask you at this point but I seriously need some insights, any kind that you might think of.

I hope you would find time to reply to me. I would really appreciate your valuable time and insights.

I am realizing importance of your blog more at this moment of crisis and could not have appreciated more earlier-

IJ”

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My response:

IJ,

Thanks for checking out my blog and bringing your issue to me for advice. I felt incredibly sad when i read your email because I can tell that the worry behind this is tearing you apart. I wish there was something I could say to make you feel better, but I don’t know if I can. I will give you my honest read on your situation and try to give some good advice, but a lot of the resolution of this will come from getting your own mind right. Until you get settled with what happened during last year’s application cycle, I doubt you’ll be able to get back on track and produce a successful application. I’ve seen it happen to several others before and it’s definitely a bad cycle that you don’t want to fall into. So, the theme of my response will be ideas that might help you come to terms with the situation and move forward in a productive manner…I hope you find it helpful.

As you approach the current B-school application, I suggest you think about doing the following:

- Remember that the past is the past –> When I read your email, I could immediately detect your sadness over your situation and figured that you’ve been beating yourself up about last year’s admissions cycle for months. My advice to you is to stop doing that right now. I know it hurts to not have reached your goal of being admitted last year, but you can’t do anything about it now. Dwelling on it will do nothing but make you feel worse and make it even harder to have a clear head for this year’s process. Instead of beating yourself up, just let the past be the past and focus on what you can do differently this time around. You’re already off to a good start by getting into the process much earlier to avoid the time crunch that hurt you last time. Also, focus on your qualifications and know that you’re a strong candidate…if you don’t see yourself as a strong applicant, why would anyone else? Finally, think about the future and what you’ll be able to do once you’ve earned your MBA…hopefuly, those thoughts will make you smile enough to stop frowning about what happened last year. This is all easier said than done, but, if you can do it, you’ll be able to sleep much easier and will have a renewed focus on making sure you don’t repeat last year’s application performance. Take it from me…I had to do the same thing when I was in the full-time recruiting cycle during my second year and I wouldn’t have been successful if I’d dwelled on all those companies that dissed me for the summer internships.

- Get ready for the GMAT –> Last year, it seems that you were dogged by the GMAT due to timing issues. Well, now you’ve pretty far ahead of the curve and this is an opportunity for you to knock out the GMAT well before your applications are due. Spend some time studying for the test and take it at least a month and a half before you targeted application deadlines. This way, if you perform worse than you want, you’ll have time to take the test over once or twice before you bump into a deadline. Also, I have a feeling that you’ll score much better on the test if you aren’t facing time pressures like you did last year. If you scored 720-730 on all of your practice tests last year, then you should do very well on the real thing under the right conditions. But, if you don’t get the score you want, please don’t freak out because it is still possible to get into an MBA program with a so-so score. That test is not the end-all and be-all of the application process. During my own GMAT prep, I never scored over 570 on my practice tests and I did much better on the real thing…a lot of that is because I didn’t approach it as if it could signal the end of the world, which helped me to relax during the test.

- Spend some time figuring out your MBA story –> I’ve written a lot about the importance of positioning in one’s business school applications and I thought it was worth mentioning again. Some people dwell on their GMAT, GPA, and undergraduate institution, but I’ve always thought the MBA story was the critical part of an application. I know plenty of alums and current students at top schools who had so-so stats but gained admission based on knockout essays that presented as outstanding applicants. Think about your life background, education, work experience, career goals, and ultimate life visioning when crafting your overall story and frame that to make yourself into a unique candidate who would be a great addition to an MBA program. I’ve never worked in an admissions office, but I bet most admissions people would agree with what i’m saying here.

- Don’t believe the hype –> I always shudder when I hear candidates say that they don’t have a chance at a particular school because of things they’ve heard. Some people hear that they’re too old. Others hear that they’ve got the wrong kind of work experience. And, others hear that their GMAT and/or GPA isn’t high enough. What they’ve heard may end up being true, but they never really know if they don’t follow through with the application. Unfortunately, too many people buy into the hype and end up not applying to schools that they really want to attend. It’s a shame and, to be honest, I almost fell victim to the same hype while I was applying back in 2003. I love providing stories to refute the hype because it can do people a lot of good. For example, one of my GSB classmates turned 40 years old during our first year, which is quite a bit older than you are. One of my peoples from the class below took the GMAT twice and got two 610′s, but he gained admission to the GSB…so your 610 doesn’t necessarily disqualify you from getting in. Don’t get me wrong…admissions consultants and other external “experts” can be very useful, but what they say isn’t always the gospel-truth regarding what the schools are looking for…to get that, you need to talk to the admissions people yourself (more on this below). And, don’t even get me started on these B-school message boards…whew, there is so much hype on those joints that it’s difficult to pick out the facts. Shoot, if I’d believed what I read on those sites back in the day, I might not have even applied to business school at all. In other words, you’re justified in gathering as much information as you can, but take what you hear from non-official sources with a grain of salt.

- Reach out to the admissions offices of Stanford GSB and your other target schools –> I’m happy to hear that the GSB is your first choice, but you might want to consider additional schools when filling out your applications. The last thing I want is for you to only consider one school and then be crushed all over again if you don’t get in. Once you’ve selected your schools, reach out to the admissions offices and ask what they look for in candidates. This is especially important because there’s a lot of bad information available to candidates and the only way to really find out what’s up is to talk to admissions people directly. I bet there are hundreds of applicants out there selling themselves short on their chances to get into a top school due to something they’ve heard from unofficial sources. In fact, I’ve directly helped 10 or 15 people get into top-20 B-schools who almost let this type of bad information keep them from applying at all. So, contact B-school admissions offices and ask questions…I’m sure they’d rather you reach out than to proceed with bad intel.

Take care and good luck on your reapplication to Stanford and any other schools you apply to. I really hope things turn out differently this time around and you can start business school next year. Keep your head up!

-Marquis