HOW I SHORTLIST SCHOOLS

R1 & R2 - If you are still shortlisting schools – here is my rubric, which goes way beyond comparing your stats against those published in a school’s class profile.

It’s my belief you should treat this as a campaign – getting the most exposure you can within the round, allocating your effort strategically but always, of course, answering each question squarely.

- Deadlines – how many days do you have in between deadlines? You don’t want more than 2 deadlines on the same day or optimally the same week. Unless you have a lot of slack in your schedule and a track record of parallel processing multiple complex projects at once. Even in this case, you need time on the calendar and can’t cram research)

- Essay/short answer effort – how much school-specific effort is there over the schools you are already set on applying to? Can you add schools where you can repurpose content easily respun? Can you put schools high in school-specific effort to R2 if it jeopardizes other school application quality?

- LOR effort: same as above, how much school-specific effort is there over the schools you are already set on applying to? Do they use the Common Letter of Recommendation? Or do you need to answer new questions and/or cram down the word count like for LBS, Wharton & Kellogg?

- Personality and culture fit – this is something you need to gather through student and alumni research, and student-led school webinars. There is a genuine difference with this from school to school, which is why it’s ideal to do classroom visits.

- Goal fit – is the school positioned to help you achieve your goal? For example, Darden is strong in consulting and IB but quite nascent in tech. How solid are you on your goal? If not it’s better to go for schools that are strong across all functions and in a wide array of industries.

Having worked for many large MBA prep firms earlier in my career, I am proud to be a boutique provider who only handles 4-5 clients per round. I get to know my clients inside and out, which allows admissions to as well.

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