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7/31/2019 10 Tips for Nontraditional Applicants Applying to Business School

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10 Tips for Nontraditional Applicants

Applying to Business School

Not all b-school applicants are quant superstars with a few years of Wall

Street experience under their belt. If you’re a nontraditional applicant, here

are a few pieces of advice.

1. Make sure to demonstrate your quantitative ability in some way.Lack of quantitative preparation is one of the biggest reasons applicants are denied from MBA

programs. So, how can you show you won’t balk at spreadsheets and graphs? Get some proof you’ve

handled similar material before. If you left college without a course in finance, accounting, statistics,

or economics under your belt, see tip #4. Next, do everything you can to get a high GMAT math

score. While any scaled score in the 40s is superb, 90th percentile is around 49 to 50. This

accomplishment speaks volumes and is bound to impress admissions officers, especially if you were

an English major. And finally, simply excel at the quantitative parts of your job and try to have

something to show for it, whether a promotion or a recommendation letter. If your job involves

minimal quantitative work, you might want to build it into your responsibilities (if possible) or look

for ways you can showcase your skill in extracurricular activities.

2. Demonstrate leadership.

Be creative if necessary. Influenced management at your company to undertake a successful

venture? Led a dangerous mountain expedition? Oversaw a construction site with 300 workers?

Started a non-profit that helps businesses become more sustainable?

Odds are that if you’re a non-traditional applicant, you have a knack for leadership; otherwise you

wouldn’t be interested in management in the first place. Don’t panic, however, if you feel there are

no opportunities to display leadership in your current situation. Leadership is about action, not titles.

Here are five lesser known, but real and substantial ways to demonstrate the quality:

Mitigate or minimize risk for a group

Influence others

Achieve consensus across groups

Recognize opportunity



Challenge the status quo

3. Press harder on what you’ve got .

Whether you’re a star athlete, a musician, a poet, or an engineer, you likely have special talents and

interests that lie outside the business realm. Remember that top business schools are looking for

world-class talent regardless of field and that they value diversity. To the extent that you can ramp

up your business knowledge and continue to excel in other areas, you should. Remember: you want

to build, amplify, and extend what you already have, not replace it altogether.

4. Consider boosting your business coursework .

If you’re an economics major who ended up teaching math in an inner city high school, you’re

probably good as far as coursework is concerned. If you’re a poet, you’d be well advised to brush up

on the core business subjects including accounting, finance, statistics, and economics. Don’t be

daunted by the amount of work you’re facing! You may be surprised at how quickly perceptions of

you change once you’ve taken the steps to change them.

5. Know exactly what you want to do post-MBA.

Expect that others will be skeptical of your MBA ambitions. Counter their skepticism by knowingexactly (and I mean, exactly) what you intend to do afterward and why you are suited for it. Practice

answering questions like the following: “Yes, but how do you know you will like it? How do you think

your current work is going to prepare you for that?” Understand the language, jargon, and mindset

of those in your intended field, and be familiar with industry developments. This will ensure that

your expectations are realistic.

6. Get familiar with the business world.

This is related to point #5. You can’t fake formal business training, but you should certainly display a

keen interest in business. Start reading business publications like The Economist, Businessweek, or

the Wall Street Journal. This kind of knowledge can take awhile to develop, so start familiarizing

yourself immediately. Don’t try to “cram” or you will be overly influenced by a single book or article

and your displays of knowledge will come across as forced.

7. Find role models.

If you’re a nontraditional applicant, chances are you’re not like everyone else from your original fieldof expertise. It can be confusing, not to mention disheartening and downright lonely if you’re the



only one in your circle with business inclinations. Make an effort to find some role models — figures

from the business world who started off as artists, journalists, and scientists and whose business

careers were enhanced by their knowledge of something other than business. Notable examples

include the poet Dana Gioia, former chair of the National Endowment of the Arts who received an

MBA from Stanford. For a funny, candid account of business school from a former speech writer and

self-named “poet,” check out the book Snapshots from Hell — it doesn’t try to sell the b-school

experience, but if you read it and are still determined to go, you can be sure that business school is

truly for you.

8. Find mentors with MBAs.

Now that you’ve begun to familiarize yourself with the business world, you need someone to talk

about it with. Someone who holds an MBA will be able to offer perspective and contextualize the

information you have absorbed recently. Remember: don’t be rigid or defensive when acceptingfeedback about your essays and your post-MBA plans! Others may not be well-versed in your field of

expertise but they may have other domains of knowledge that are valuable to you.

9. Know that b-schools want you as much as you want them.

MBA programs are trying to reach out to people from non-traditional backgrounds. Why? A class full

of bankers and consultants is boring. And b-schools want to build connections between the less-

typical employers and their own programs, so that students who want jobs in those areas will be

able to get them later on. This improves their placement rate and their employer network.

10. Get experiences that showcase other sides of your work

personality.

Here’s a question you should bank on getting from admissions officers: “How will you go from being

a leader in a creative environment to being a student in a quantitative, metrics-driven

environment?” Think about how you will answer that question and if you need to build any

experiences that demonstrate your comfort with different professional situations before you start

the application process. Remember: admissions officers will connect the dots in your application

even if you don’t. Don’t write that you are a great team player if you’ve never worked on a team

before. Especially as a nontraditional applicant, your story has to make sense.

~Article provided by Knewton, a GMAT Test prep company.