Last Minute Applicants: Step 1 to a Successful Late Round Three Application

Maybe you’ve been busy at work. Maybe you’ve been busy at home. For whatever reason, you’ve missed the round one and two deadlines at the business schools that you’ve been considering. You’re trying to decide whether you should apply in round three or wait until next year. I’ve been working on an upcoming MBA Podcaster show titled “Last Minute Applicants: How to Submit a Successful Late Round Three Application.” In the podcast, we’ll explore some of the different attitudes schools have toward round three as well as give advice on how to navigate the waters and complete your application on time. I’ll be keeping you posted along the way with blog updates.

You’ve heard time and again that round three applications are problematic. The school might wonder why you are going to business school – maybe you’re unemployed, maybe you don’t like your job and you want out, maybe you want to be a part of the lucrative financial industry. The schools are going to wonder if you’ve got your act together. They’re going to wonder why it took you so long to get your application together. They’re going to wonder if you can multi-task and survive business school with obligations to classes, clubs, recruiting and networking. Or they might wonder if you’re their number one choice. None of these questions are good questions for schools to be asking. So is all hope lost? Nope.

Kofi Kankam is the Co-founder and Director of Admit Advantage, an admissions consulting firm. He says the first thing that you should do is a bit counter-intuitive, “Acknowledge your late application and focus on the positive attributes.”

And he gave some great examples.

“Try to focus on highlighting the parts of the school – courses, students, club, etc…- that might really resonate with you. You really have to emphasize the fit in this instance. You can use reasons such as saying ‘you want to take the time to submit your best application because you know the school is selective and that would have included a re-take of the GMAT.’… You wanted to take time to make sure you were ready to apply. It’s a huge decision and process to go through the applications sequence as it is. Every school is going to ask why you want to get an MBA but also why you want to get it now. A student indicating that her/she took that question seriously… will potentially resonate with admissions officers. Candidates can also indicate that they needed to focus job project which precluded them to do enough heavy research to submit a strong application.”

Kofi said that round three candidates should use the optional essay to explain some of the things that he mentioned.

Learn more of what Kofi and the other guests have to say about round three applications in our upcoming show that will be in a couple of weeks. Other guests on the show include:

Jedd Gold, alumni of UCLA’s Anderson School of Business, applied after April 1 deadline;
Soojin Kwon Koh, Director of Admissions for the Ross School at the University of Michigan;
Graham Richmond, Co-founder and Director, Clear Admit;
Alex Sevilla Assistant Dean & Director, Hough Graduate School of Business, Warrington College of Business Administration, University of Florida; and
Robert Wagner, Interim Director Graduate Admissions Babson College, F.W. Olin School of Business.