Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.
Should I use Calibri or Times New Roman font? Should I list my GPA to the third or fourth decimal place? There are not enough characters for my full title, so should I write “Vice-President” or “VP Sales”?
As candidates near the finish line for the first deadline, small questions will start to appear—small questions that often merely require judgment to answer. No one was ever kept out of HBS for listing his/her GPA to the third decimal point or for abbreviating a title. Remember, the admissions officers are not punitive. They are not mean-spirited people, reading your application and just searching for reasons to reject you. So, if you have a small lingering question about the application itself, you can connect with the Admissions Office and ask them. Most often, they will ask you to… use judgment. As long as your broad story is compelling, the smallest details should take care of themselves.