What Are Top Business Schools Looking For

Grades, GMAT, great letters of recommendation, amazing essays, unbelievable work experience, maturity and success at a very young age. All of the top business schools look for similar traits. However, these traits really miss the main point. Most of the business schools have a one sentence statement that summarizes what they are looking for. Harvard is looking for leaders who will have a dramatic positive impact on the world. I believe that Stanford looks for innovators who will have a dramatic positive impact on the world. Wharton tends to emphasize raw intelligence and quantitative horsepower. Northwestern tends to attract the next generation of the world's brightest marketing talents. Tuck tends to focus on creating a small family of leaders who can support each other in their careers. I can't speak to many of the other top tier business schools but you get the idea. In all of these cases, though, you should really talk to a graduate of the school because I think that building on some of these “stereotypes” of the school may actually hurt your candidacy. For example, while Northwestern truly does have a great marketing program—I personally believe that it is the best in the country and probably in the world—the school may really prefer to downplay its marketing strength and to highlight its broader strengths in other areas of the curriculum.

You should start by understanding what each business school is really looking for. You can do this most easily by reaching out to a graduate of the school (or two or three) and asking them what they think that their school looks for. At Harvard, it is all about leadership. Leadership is a bit of a nebulous term but Harvard has some definite opinions about what it means. I would highly recommend picking up the Harvard Business Review book on Leadership. You can find it here. This book will help you to understand specific terms and actions that help identify leaders. You will want to build a set of these experiences and highlight them in your application. Leadership involves identifying a worthy goal or vision and persuading others to help you achieve that goal. At Harvard all of the other selection criteria take a back seat to leadership experience and potential. Harvard will admit individuals with low GMAT scores and relatively poor grades if they have had significant leadership experiences.

A successful applicant will identify what the particular business school is looking for and then highlight 3-4 major themes about themselves consistently through all aspects of their application that demonstrate why they are a good fit for the business school. I personally highlighted 1) entrepreneurial / intrapreneurial passion, 2) innovative approach to problem solving, 3) ability to influence others to achieve worthy goals, 4) desire to make the world a better place.