I rarely do this. I'm actually going to reflect on my own journey as an applicant to tell you what I wish I knew before I was applying. And while much has changed, a lot has stayed the same in MBA admissions. I hope you can learn from my

personal experience and apply some of this to yourself now. I applied in 2000, just as the GMAT was becoming adaptive. Before that, it was all paper and pen, not computer, imagine that! I took the test once, scored at the 91st percentile, absolutely shocking myself, and never

took the test again. I wish I had because I probably could have done even better. What I didn't know then was that the new GMAT adaptive test rewarded multiple takes. You can't accidentally score higher than your abilities on an adaptive test, so the adcoms have no problem with you

taking it more than once. I didn't, but you certainly should. One take is very rare, even for applicants to do extremely well on their first shot. And if you struggle, taking the test three or even four times is just fine. In 2000, the internet was in many

ways in its infancy. There weren't online fairs and chats with admissions officers. Everything in admissions seemed like a black box. I thought that I had to apply in round one and mostly gave up after that round. It was all or nothing in my mind, and as a result, I applied to too

many schools in round one and not enough in round two. We now know definitively that earlier is better, but it's not everything. Had I known that, I would have definitely spread my applications out and applied to more schools in round two. The takeaway here is to understand your

timing and pacing and do your best to get applications in early. That part wasn't a mistake, but also know that quality comes before speed. And if you need to wait until round two to do your best on a few applications, so be it. What else? Well, I was an absolute

perfectionist about my essays, which makes sense based on where I am today, but I must admit that I took it too far. I was so obsessed with essay quality that if I stalled it on one school, I would jump to another and then another. I was trying to get to perfection, which

you just can't achieve in a qualitative process. You can only get to your best with all of that leaping from essay to essay. I learned that I probably should have just committed to one school at a time. In my professional life today, I know that applicants who start and then

get to 80% of the way with one application before picking up their next are less likely to repeat errors and tend to benefit from economies of scale. They really know what they want to say on the next application because their ideas have been thoughtfully constructed

rather than partially considered. You won't be able to simply cut and paste, but you will be able to more easily adapt an idea or theme that's important to you if you get that 80% mark on your first application. Said more pithily, your

process should be easier if you tackle one application at a time, only proceeding to the next when your first is pretty substantially complete. When I went into interview, I just didn't know enough about my target schools and their processes. I didn't know anyone who was applying to business

I didn't go to a top program, nor did I know anyone who had gone to a top program. And I needed someone to explain the process to me. I wish I would have more aggressively networked to find recent students to connect with to better understand what would happen on the big day. Today, there

are many resources on our website alone. I would look to our free interview primers and the chapter in the Complete Start to Finish Guide to MBA Admissions, also free on our site. Just to set the table, even today, I might network with current students to learn about their

experiences. And I would certainly log on to OnTrack by MBA Mission to practice interviews to really simulate the interview itself with OnTrack's video recording capability. The takeaway here is that there are many tools available to help you prepare for and practice

your interviews. These days, you can really get a sense of the experience beforehand and be ready. You can go so far as Googling your interviewer and possibly even learn about their background and how they conduct interviews. You owe it to yourself to do

the extra legwork to really, really dig in. The baseline of understanding the format isn't enough. Those were a few of my takeaways. If you've already begun working on your applications, comment below and tell us what you've learned about the process that surprised you.

In OnTrack by MBA Mission, our on-demand MBA Admissions course, we lay out timelines for long-term planners, typical applicants, and last-minute applicants to show you how to maximize the time you have available. Be sure to check it out. And at the beginning of this video, I

discussed how to accumulate a depth of knowledge on the application process. A great way to do that is by talking to admissions officers. Stay tuned for a video on how to talk to admissions officers, coming up next.

What I Wish I Knew Before Applying to Business School

What I Wish I Knew Before Applying to Business School

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