What makes you a good candidate for MBA admissions and degree success? Who do you need to be, in order to gain access to the many benefits of a top-tier MBA? There’s no single answer to this complex question each MBA candidate brings unique strengths and weaknesses to the table.
It’s not that hard to understand that the reasons you might have for pursuing an MBA (Master in Business Administration) degree are numerous. Increased earning potential, great networking opportunities, and the chance to prove yourself in the eyes of the business world. These metrics are a proven benefit to MBA graduates the world around.
When it comes to assessing business school applicants, there are a number of factors that influence admissions decisions. The list starts with the quantitative and verbal skills necessary to complete a rigorous curriculum. However, that’s just “table stakes.” When evaluating MBA applications, reading third-party recommendations, and interviewing candidates, admissions officers drill much deeper in search of other traits that make a particular applicant more promising than others who share the same basic qualifications.
At The MBA Exchange, we’ve got extensive experience helping an MBA candidate find their strategy for MBA admissions victory. Tell us a little more about your candidacy, and we can identify the strengths that show off your full potential to MBA adcoms. The journey starts here! Where it ends that’s up to you.
What is an MBA Candidate?
An MBA candidate can be anyone, really, who can get the necessary materials together to complete an MBA application. Anyone can become an MBA candidate but that’s not the same as getting through the doors. In order to successfully claim your seat in an upcoming b-school class, you’re going to need to find ways to stand out from the mass of MBA candidates and bring yourself to the positive attention of admissions committee members. And that takes more doing than just pressing “submit” after filling out an application.
9 Strengths That Make an MBA Candidacy Special
The MBA Exchange team has identified some common characteristics of truly special MBA candidacies, drawing from our wealth of prior experience and industry expertise. Here’s what you need to know in order to be the best possible MBA candidate.
The descriptive jargon differs by school, but when building a new MBA class, most adcoms look for these strengths for MBA students:
- Intellectual curiosity that is, the quality of often asking yourself “why,” and then finding out the answer
- Diverse sense of perspective that is always seeking, respecting, and considering other viewpoints
- Unwavering self-awareness that causes you to observe and remember why you act as you do
- Resilience after failure, turning each defeat into an opportunity for success
- Decisiveness under pressure, making tough calls despite risk and uncertainty
- Continuous learning, always absorbing and organizing key lessons for future use
- A managed sense of humor, as well as the skill of knowing the right time and place for a shared laugh
- Empathy for others and consideration of how your actions impact various stakeholders
- Anticipatory radar that allows you to sense and quickly validate threats and opportunities before others are able to do so
MBA candidates need to be more than just test scores or numbers on a resume in order to make it through the initial screening stages. Your story, character, personality, and experiences need to shine through your application packages, as well.
Before you submit your MBA application, make sure you’ve fully identified how to be a good MBA candidate, as well as your unique MBA strengths and weaknesses.
Do You Make a Good MBA Candidate?
So, how do you think you stack up? If you think you’ve got the star qualities above that it takes to make it through to the MBA admissions interview, you’ll also need to show these strengths for your MBA application:
Strong academic record
A key strength of MBA students is academic excellence, with a solid or stellar GPA, challenging past coursework under your belt, and a track record of being able to bring the smarts to bear when it counts.
Actual work experience
Your MBA strengths may include your actual work experience, especially if you’ve held supervisory roles. Or can document significant financial contributions to your employer’s bottom line. Your MBA resume tells what makes you a suitable candidate for an MBA in-depth, with facts and figures to prove the point.
Real career goals
Knowing what you want to do after your MBA is another part of how to be a good MBA candidate. How will the skills and experience you gain during your studies change your future and that of the world? Don’t understate your potential impact! What makes you a good candidate for MBA success is your ability to make bold claims, and then back them up.
Good test scores
MBA application requirements typically include a Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT™) or Graduate Record Examination (GRE ®) test score. Your GMAT or GRE score documents your skills and shows how you stack up against the competition with your percentile scores.
The team at The MBA Exchange has effective strategies to advise test prep clients, as well as strategies to support clients with a less-than-stellar GMAT score. Even if this is one of the strengths for MBA success that you lack. It’s still worth looking into how you can strengthen your candidacy.
What Makes a Perfect MBA Candidate?
Perfect MBA candidates are made, not born. It’s not your innate brilliance or effortless victory that’s going to get you through the MBA degree door. It’s your willingness to work on your application that makes you a good candidate for MBA rounds in 2022.
If you lack any of the above strengths for MBA students, you should know that it’s not too late to start working on your strategy to compensate. You may also be able to build up aspects of your profile that currently seem weak.
What Are Your Strengths for an MBA Application?
To learn more about your unique MBA strengths, as well as your weaknesses as an MBA candidate, get in touch with the experts at The MBA Exchange today. Our team of former adcoms and MBA admissions professionals can help you assess the strength of your MBA student positioning, and maximize your strengths for MBA applications to top programs of your choice.
Having worked with more than 5,000 MBA applicants over the past three decades. The MBA Exchange has helped a wide range of candidates strengthen and present these traits when pursuing admission to highly selective business schools. In fact, our service model begins with a guided process of discovery that typically surprises and energizes the client. Yes, some cases require more digging and polishing than others. But as proven by our CPA-reported success rate serious MBA applicants can dramatically improve their competitiveness and thus their chances for admission.
It all starts by requesting a free, expert evaluation of your professional, academic and personal profiles. We encourage you to find out how special your MBA candidate can become.