From rejections to acceptances: All about reapplying to business school

Believe it or not, schools welcome reapplicants! However, before you start the application journey again, take a hard look back. Diagnose every aspect of your approach and seek feedback from the schools where you applied. Many schools provide such feedback sessions. Suppose there are apparent concerns like a lower-than-average GMAT/GRE score; correct that first. As you restart your journey, refine your approach on aspects other than explicit data points. Here are some ideas.

Elevate the professional image you have portrayed.

While adding new projects and facts to your resume, take time to revisit past bullet points and convey the impact of the work you have done. Demonstrate progression in your career – not only in terms of designations but also in the nature, scope and scale of your responsibilities. Ensure that your resume is more than just a description of your role.

Strengthen your career narrative.

It would be risky to change your goals statement unless your professional journey has taken a new turn. Instead, give more purpose and clarity to your career vision. Speak to people currently in roles and jobs you want to be in after your MBA. Understand the roles and show the admissions committee that your career plan and your understanding of your gaps has improved since you last applied. For instance, if you merely said I want to be a strategy consultant, go deeper this time around. Speak to college seniors or people you know at top consulting firms and understand their work. Use LinkedIn to understand possible career transitions. Spend time reading consulting firms' websites and how they are helping their clients. Integrate the new information in your reapplicant essay and your career goals essay. Share how you see yourself adding value to the target firm's clients and the firm's specific practices. If you have identified a problem, share what kind of solutions you might create for the industries and business functions with your current skills and professional experiences and the ones you gain at business school.

Get a new letter of Recommendation.

Having someone share new facts and perspectives about your candidacy gives the admissions committee additional data points to evaluate your candidacy. Some schools specifically ask for you to submit another recommendation letter. If you are applying from the same workplace, get a client, a new stakeholder or another manager you have worked with to provide a new recommendation. If you are applying from a new workplace, get a recommendation letter from current stakeholders and supervisors. Ensure that your letters of Recommendation share in-depth insights and anecdotes about your skills and interpersonal capabilities.

Help the admissions committee know you as a person more deeply

While you may have provided all the data points in the past application year, rethink if you were able to help the admissions committee know you as an individual. If you did not, take the time to share anecdotes and instances about who you are, how you came to become the person you are, and what factors and events have shaped your habits and decisions. If you belong to a competitive applicant pool, these aspects are critical and can be genuinely differentiating factors.

School Choices

The number of schools and the range of schools you apply to varies based on where you applied last year and how far you got. A good approach is to add new schools to the list. The second time around, it is also advisable to expand the safety net or add one.

We can help you incorporate these into your application for this year. Get a free consultation to gain honest actionable advice on all aspects of your application.