Clear Admit’s own Graham Richmond contributed to a recent piece in Bloomberg BusinessWeek compiling some of the most curious tactics prospective applicants have found to scuttle their chances of admission to business school. From laughable to lunatic, the tales provide eyebrow-raising examples of what NOT to do unless you are truly trying to blow it.
Did the applicant who proposed marriage to an admissions interviewer at Switzerland’s IMD think it might strengthen his or her candidacy? It didn’t, Bloomberg BW reports. According to Lisa Piguet, IMD associate director of MBA admissions and marketing, another applicant tried instead to buy a spot in the class, offering $100,000. “It was a shock that someone would try to bribe me,” she wrote in an email to Bloomberg BW.
Richmond, who worked in admissions at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School before co-founding Clear Admit, had his own improbable stories to share, like the applicant who wrote in her application essay, which included supporting photos, that her biggest failure was not being the maid of honor at her friend’s wedding.
“For better or worse, these kinds of faux pas are the kind you don’t recover from,” Richmond told Bloomberg BW. “It’s hard to do damage control once you’re in the crazy zone.”
If you need a refresher on what constitutes crazy in an admissions officer’s eyes – or if you just need a laugh, click here to check out the Bloomberg BW piece in its entirety.
Read the full article: How NOT to Get Into Business School