What's wrong with the B-school application process

    As I sit here in Melbourne, waiting for my wife to get ready so that we can head out into the city, I'm thinking about the next one year after which I'll emerge heroically as an MBA. I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun, but super rigorous as well. I am happy with my decision to come here (why MBA, why Australia,why Melbourne, why Melbourne Business School) and feeling good right now. But I've been feeling there is something amiss with the thought process of the B-school applicant pool, which in turn leads to discontentment and disillusionment.
Till recently, I was not able to put my fingers on it, but today it hit me. It's just that we consider a business school as a hallowed destination, rather than as a means to reach the real destination. I won't go so far as to aggregate this behavior with everybody, but I can definitely generalize with the Indian applicant pool.

    This explains how we are able to get ourselves to align our post MBA goals, our career trajectories and our strengths and weaknesses to those of the mission statement of the business school we are applying to. I understand the risk involved in being a patron of a single business school and applying there only to get dinged by it, and consequently waste a year moping over it. I get the concept of hedging your risks and applying to 1-2 ambitious, 1-2 moderate and 1-2 safe schools in your application list. But we push the envelope and apply to as many as 12-13 business schools. Do we really believe in the philosophy and methodology of so many schools? Do we even believe in one of those schools? And I feel that the Indian b school ecosystem is getting increasingly saturated with such a mindset. It’s quite natural; when you get admitted into a school thinking so, your opinions only get cemented after seeing and experiencing the weirdness of the B school.

    Somehow, I am unable to reconcile to such a thought process.

    A b school is not doing you a favour by taking you in. Sure, we stand to gain a lot from the business school curriculum, its peer and alumni network, the social and curricular rigor and in the entire experience, but we Indians somehow forget the part where we give so much to our cohort in terms of our experiences, our insight, our intelligence and culture. So I say go ahead and write your case, if you truly believe in it. Now, have you given a serious thought about what you want to do after your MBA, why you need an MBA to do whatever you want to do, what are your expectations from the program and the school and the region, what personality changes do you expect to see at the end of your MBA course, what are the main strengths and offerings you bring to the classroom? Do you really believe in your need for an MBA; do you believe that an XYZ MBA can help you reach your goal? You don’t have to convince anyone but yourself. Then go ahead and write your stories about your past and your future. If you don’t believe yourself, then you probably aren’t ready for your MBA yet. But don’t worry. There are worse things than not doing an MBA; probably doing an MBA under such conditions will figure in this list. Even if you got your degree with this mindset, you probably wouldn’t have been able to squeeze the juice out of everything the school has to offer you. And that’s a damn shame, because you could’ve gotten much better returns if you really wanted, needed an MBA from XYZ university. If you think that an admissions consultant or admissions committee member can tear your post MBA goals essay to shreds with counter points, then know this. You are completely within your power to charter your post MBA goals, it’s your life. An adcom member has no right and is in no position to tell you that your goals are unattainable or don’t make sense. But sure, if he does feel that way, you are always there to ease his dilemma and pessimism with your brilliant points. That’s what your essays and your interviews are for.

    The B school admissions process is not an inexplicable or mysterious chain of events, that may result in call or ding into a b school. The committee is there to assess your candidacy through your essays, resume and interviews and make a sound decision whether you and their school make a good team together. I feel the key to beginning the b school application is to understand this subtle point.

    So don’t tweak your post MBA goals of becoming an entrepreneur simply because it is tough to sell it to the adcom. If it is a tough sell to a b school admissions committee member, then how in god’s name are you going to sell it to a critiquing angel investor five years from now (it was your long term goal, wasn’t it?). But make sure you plug the holes in your story. They have heard all kinds of crap from thousands of people throughout the world. If you believe in your story, it shouldn’t be too hard to convince them. I have a feeling they want to believe you. It’s just that they’ve seen through a lot of b**l s**t in the past 20 years in their line of work from candidates like you and I, and therefore, aren’t eager to believe your stand on how you want to get into IT consulting for now, just to get some industry exposure, but long term that is after the stars align, you’ll be opening your own Bain & Co.

    Now say you give it your best shot. You sincerely wanted to get into that business school, you made your wishes clear to the adcom and you tried your best to sell your past experiences and future stories to the admissions committee. Still, they dinged you. Tough! Not the happiest of times. But what's the the takeaway from this? I’d like to believe that a B school admissions committee member does not hate you and want to screw around with your chances. Most likely, he or she probably felt that the school and you don’t see eye-to-eye on goals, aspirations and ‘culture’, and therefore you both aren’t a good fit for each other. Is it a personal ‘failure’ for you? Most definitely not! In my limited experience, I have seen that these adcom guys know what they are doing, and I’d rather thank him or her from sparing you the misery of spending the next 1-2 years of your life in a place where you clearly didn’t belong.

    Somehow, I don’t think there is any right or wrong here. It’s all just perspective.