Author Archives: Kyle Watkins

HBS Student Stories

By Kyle Watkins (last updated: March 24, 2015)

As Harvard Business School is about to release a new batch of admissions offers, we thought that prospective applicants would enjoy watching this video. It was released by Harvard in Q4 2013 on youtube, but it still provides a pretty accurate of what HBS is about. Kyle and I even recognized some of our classmates… Please do not hesitate to share your thoughts with us after watching it; we would love to hear from you ! Good luck to everyone expecting an email from the school this round.

 

MIT Sloan Round 2 Notifications

By Kyle Watkins (last updated: March 22, 2015)

On Monday, April 6 2015, MIT Sloan will be releasing its round two decisions, putting an end to a pretty busy period, during which Wharton (on March 24), Kellogg, Harvard Business School, Stanford, Darden, Tepper, Cornell (all on March 25), Booth, Haas, McComb and London Business School (March 26), Yale SOM (March 27), and UCLA Anderson (April 2) will release their second round admissions decisions.

Notification time Continue reading

The MBA Admissions Waitlist: Best Practices for Applicants

By Kyle Watkins (last updated: March 22, 2015)

As MBA programs begin sending out second-round decisions, many candidates will find themselves stuck in the nebulous world of the MBA admissions waitlist.  This can be a tricky place. On the one hand, it’s important to let a school know that, if admitted, you would accept in a heartbeat. On the other, it’s important to demonstrate good judgment and humility. That is, you don’t want to pester members of the admission committee, faculty, or students.

To help navigate the MBA admissions waitlist process, we wanted to share some of our best practices, built partly from our own experience during the admissions process. Continue reading

MIT Sloan Fellows Program – Interview Preparation

By Kyle Watkins (last updated: January 19, 2015)

While we regularly write about the MIT Sloan MBA program admissions process, we have also helped a significant number of experienced candidates gain admission to the MIT Sloan Fellows program.

This programs is often described as a 1-year MBA program for leaders who are ready to join the senior leadership ranks at their firm. However, a number of participants (some of which attended classes with me at Harvard – Sloan Fellows can indeed cross-register and take MBA classes there) regularly switch careers after graduation, and several have become successful entrepreneurs over the years.

MIT Sloan just started conducting interviews for the Fellows program, and will continue to do so over the next 10 days. Continue reading

Last-Minute MBA Application Review and Edits

By Kyle Watkins (last updated: October 10, 2019)

The coming week will be the busiest of the year for MBA applications. Almost all of the top business schools have their second-round deadline, which tends to be the most popular among MBA applicants. It also tends to be one of the most stressful weeks of the year, as candidates are always understandably hesitant to finally push the “submit” button.

If you’re looking for one last set of eyes to review your application before you submit, we are happy to help. Many applicants take advantage of our Final Application Review package. For $395, we’ll read your entire application from start to finish, proof read it for any errors, and provide written edits on any last-minute tweaks you can make to improve your odds of getting admitted. We’ll also schedule a 30-minute phone call with you to review any questions you have before submitting. And we’ll do it all before the end of the following day.

If interested, please send us an email, and we’ll get back to you immediately.

Good luck, and don’t forget to check out our must-read advice before hitting submit!

Great MBA Recommendation Letters: Tips and an Example

By Kyle Watkins (last updated: October 10, 2019)

This year’s MBA applicants face fewer required essays and shorter word counts than any recent class of candidates. But applicants haven’t been the only ones facing the squeeze over the past few years. Recommenders, too, have found themselves with less and less space to make an impact: over the past several years, schools not only reduced the number of recommenders a candidate was allowed to have, it also cut the word count allotted to those recommenders. Many of the top programs have also converged around the same two recommendation questions:

  1. How do the candidate’s performance, potential, background, or personal qualities compare to those of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? Please provide specific examples.
  2. Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response. 

What does this mean for this year’s MBA applicants? First and foremost, applicants need to pick the right recommenders to advocate on their behalf. Second, applicants need to make sure they are adequately preparing those recommenders to write great recommendations.

In this blog post, I’ll illustrate the keys to getting great letters of recommendations for MBA applications by revealing a few snippets of a real recommendation from my own business school applications.

The Keys to Getting Great Recommendation Letters for MBA Applications

Each part of your MBA application should demonstrate different qualities to the admissions committee. Your resume is a place to tell your professional story and to illustrate your accomplishments; your essay is a place to show the admissions committee who you are and what you value. Your recommendations, then, must be reserved to demonstrate characteristics that you yourself cannot credibly speak to:

Continue reading