Some Dos and Don'ts in application process

My friend from Russia, who was admitted to several schools and now is struggling with the choice came to visit me for this week-end, which reminded me that not a long time ago I was in the same situation. So I decided to tell you about the things I have done wrong.
Do not overemphasize the GMAT score. I remember myself dreading the day, I needed to take GMAT. I read tons of posts in different forums, discussed GMAT with my friends, with agency helping to prepare for the exam, I knew average GMAT score for different schools by heart. Then I passed the exam, received pretty decent score and became even more unsure about it – should I retake it or not? Summing up, I lost a lot of time on improving my GMAT score, when in reality it’s just one part of the application package. Now, I know a lot of people, who got into top 10 schools with the score, which is not very high by any means. So, don’t be obsessed with the GMAT – you just need to have good balance between verbal and quant part and the score, which is around average for the school. 760 or higher score from the other side doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get in. Which of cause doesn't mean you need not to prepare :))

Spend more time on essays. Now I see that essays are really the only thing that differentiates you from the crowd. Admissions committee reads endless number of applications and yours should be special. When I was applying, I had a lot of things to do at my work and quality of my applications was really worsened by that. So, I’m bagging you – find some time, think, structure, write and rewrite- it’s really important. The other thing that is worth to consider (and which came to my mind only when the whole process was over), is that your essays will also be used for granting you scholarships. There are certain scholarships in every school which are given solemnly based on your application package. Do you want somebody to pay for your very expensive education? Think well when you’re writing essays.


Speak early to recommenders. Selection process for recommenders is the whole separate story, but do start to think early. Usually, those are people, who have higher position in the company then you have, so you can’t just send them an e-mail with instructions and set the dead-line. You need to give them some time to read the questions, you need to give them some time to understand that the fact that you are on very friendly terms with their dog, can’t be used as the main topic of the recommendation. You need to be polite but persistent and regularly remind them about “those questions we discussed before”, you need to supply them with new copies of the question list because they will definitely loose several of them, hoping to escape this terrible task. I had quite a tough time with recommenders – one of them lives in the other country, but he was very disciplined and tried to do everything on time (not very successfully though). But the real problem I had with my direct boss, I spent 2 months in inventing different ways to say the same thing and was pretty desperate at the end. So, start early.


Do not apply at the very last moment. That what has happened to me – I’m not very organized person and my application process reflects that to the full extent. Can you imagine, that I applied exactly 1 hour before the deadline to one of the Universities (where somehow I was admitted). I finished my application at 5 a.m., moreover when I was uploading my last essay, I found out that I didn’t understand the question properly and my answer was completely irrelevant. So, I had to re-write the whole thing in 50 minutes …. Electronic systems of application encourage very comfortable illusion, that you have plenty of time and what you need to do is one click. Please, please, don’t think so and don’t leave everything till the very last hour, especially if it’s the school of your dreams.

Do select schools you’re applying to carefully. I didn’t apply to many schools (only 4), but the schools were very different and I really didn’t analyze much what my priorities in terms of this list were. You never think you will be admitted to all of them. And then you suffer from terrible torments of choice. Not only you, but your friends, your relatives, your colleagues and even your cat doesn’t want to listen to you anymore. I have been through this and now I see how my friend is suffering from the same tortures. So, please, spend some time on prioritizing your choices and please don’t be very emotional in your reasons (girls I’m talking to you now). By the way, I just found out, that the most growing category of MBA applicants in Russia, are young girls – so this comment should be especially relevant.



When you’re admitted do not work till the very last day. That’s what I did. I stopped to work one week before the classes started and now I feel like I don’t have any strength left at all. I feel very sleepy half of the day and my mates from the study group fear that I’m starting to hibernate. They seriously think this is connected to the Russian winter and expect to see me in spring.
Of cause I had the reason for working for so long. Unfortunately, I am very good at spending money and very bad at retaining them. So, when I figured out all my potential expenses (which in reality was only 2/3 of them), I understood that it would be nice to work for 24 hours a day for the last months (though I didn’t manage to persuade my boss I can really do this). This leads us straight to the next point.


Save money. Or at least know your expenses in advance. There is no way you’ll be able to spend only 10 quid per day in London, you will spend more, so, please don’t hide from the problem – you need to make realistic evaluation of total costs as early as possible. That’s what I didn’t do, so now, when I want to go to the theater, I need to calculate for how many days I will not be able to eat.

Do apply for scholarships. Even if you work till the very last moment and don’t have much spare time, find some. For 2 reasons: there’s a probably you’ll get the scholarship and even if you don’t have one it’s useful experience.

Don’t think that loan application is easy. I always thought that the main task is to be admitted and then everything would go nice and smoothly. I was wrong… I spent a lot of time preparing documents for the loan, then translating them, then having endless e-mail exchange with the bank, explaining them what are those documents, after which I had to begin all over again. 2 times. So be prepared to spend much time and efforts on loan application (especially if you’re from Eastern Europe).

There are probably some more dos and don’ts but I’m tired and I’m afraid that you’re pretty bored already – so good night.