Qualities the MBA Admissions Committees Expect from Candidates

At the heart of every bit of advice regarding essays or interviews, there is one question - “What does the Committee want to hear?” You will hear every bit of advice about properly presenting yourself, highlighting what is important, downplaying the limitations; so you can paint an appealing picture of yourself in front of the Admissions Committee. Hence, let us go straight to the source and see what qualities the Admissions Committee is going to want to see in an applicant. This information should inform everything you write in your essays and say in your interviews.

The committee will be judging you on three broad categories. While all three are not equally important, it is important to put your best foot forward in every field for a poor showing in any of them can knock your chances of admission down even if everything else is stellar.

The first field is your academic acumen. The cornerstones of judgment here will be your GMAT score and your undergrad GPA. If either of these is deficient, you should have a good reason explaining this at the ready. That having been said you need to remember that they are not the only things the committee will consider for they will also pay attention to any professional or academic certifications you may have qualified for. It is also important to mention noteworthy awards, honors, or scholarships you may have won but only those that are truly noteworthy for trying to pad out your achievements will certainly backfire.

While academic qualities are important, the MBA is a professional course and as such your professional maturity will be the most important field of consideration. This will be based on the details of your professional career - years of experience, industries you have been employed in, functional area of employment within it, and your performance. Your performance, in turn, will be measured mostly in terms of whatever quantifiable impacts you had, like reducing expenditure or identifying inefficiencies. The committee will also be interested in what type of professional exposure you have had, what roles have you played in your organization(s), what type of cultures have you been exposed to, professional or otherwise. International exposure and job stability are also highly prized. Above all, the committee will look for leadership potential in your career details, as well as proof of professional maturity. It is important to convey here that professional maturity, as a virtue is not indicated by your professional career alone for volunteer work or even work done for hobbyist organizations can be used to illustrate qualities like dependability, leadership acumen, and analytical ability.

The third field is the one that is hardest to pin down and will take the most conscious effort on your part to present yourself well in. This is your overall personality. This can be a particularly challenging one because the committee’s impression of your personality will be based not only on what you directly tell them but also on their reading of every bit of information you provide and how you present it. What they are looking for, and what you will have to master are good communication and interpersonal skills. Above all, you need to showcase yourself as an all-rounder with strong involvement in community service, sports, cultural activities etc.

Now that we have covered the three broad fields, it would be prudent to revisit a topic. By far, the quality most prized by the committee is your potential for leadership. Business schools want alumni who will make an impact and your capacity for doing so is how they judge you as “leadership material”. What they want to see from you is clarity of goals, a plan for leveraging your experiences and a willingness to bring positive change. While you may not have a concrete plan to do realize your goals, they will judge you on the basis of your ideas and intent.