How many business schools should you apply to in Round 2?

UPDATE: This post was originally published on December 17, 2018. It has been updated with new tips and information below.

With incredibly low acceptance rates being the norm for Round 3 at most prestigious business schools, Round 2 applications have become even more important if you’re planning to get into your top-choice MBA.

Though many applicants strive to send the majority of their applications in Round 1, perhaps life (or GMAT!) has gotten in the way, pushing back your timeline. Or, perhaps you were unsuccessful in your Round 1 applications and are taking a shot at a new list of schools. 

Regardless of the reasons you’re applying in Round 2, choosing the correct strategy to navigate this round is of paramount importance to ensure you end up with a result you’re happy with and proud of. 

Creating this strategy, however, can often be challenging, with friends giving conflicting advice and with your blood pressure rising the closer you get to the final deadlines. 

Here at Ellin Lolis Consulting, we’ve helped numerous clients navigate this tricky time of year and develop application strategies that lead to successful Round 2 applications. To help you make smart choices, we’ve compiled our top tips on applying in Round 2. 

So, in this post, we’re deep-diving into all things Round 2. Specifically, we’re breaking down how to excel at your Round 2 applications to ensure you get all the possible benefits out of this round. 

 

1. Define your application strategy

Before you start googling essay questions and deadlines to see how many schools you can cram in before the Round 2 deadlines close, take a step back. 

Just as you wouldn’t recommend investing in a company without doing your due diligence, you need to be equally rigorous with yourself and start the Round 2 admissions process by defining your application strategy, namely, how many MBAs (and which ones!) you should apply to. 

Though no one set of factors would work for everyone, the following seven factors will help you narrow down your list and arrive at your perfect application strategy. 

Age

One of the most important benefits of an MBA is your ability to use your business school degree as leverage to earn a higher salary and land a more senior position. 

However, as you get older and advance in your career, promotions are less frequent. This is due to the simple fact that most organizations have few people at the top calling the shots, meaning it may take years for you to nab an open C-Level position. 

As such, the older you are relative to the applicant pool (usually 30 is a good cut off), the tougher it will be to be admitted into a top US MBA program. 

After all, Stanford’s Class of 2024 had an average of 4.9 years of work experience, and Harvard’s move to eliminate Round 3 to focus on 2+2 candidates may indicate a growing preference for younger applicants. 

(Source: Stanford Graduate School of Business)

Though there is no definitive age at which it’s “too late” for an MBA (we’ve successfully helped clients in their 40s secure places at top MBAs), if you have more than 6 years of work experience, you may want to consider applying to a higher number of programs in Round 2, as each year that passes makes it more difficult to find a place at a top-ranked program. 

Possible Promotions

One of the main factors that helps distinguish a candidate from others is a proven track record. This includes not only showing a “habit of leadership” (as HBS says) but also shows that your performance was recognized and rewarded by the organizations at which you worked. 

 

For this reason, if you are expecting a big promotion after the Round 2 deadlines pass (and think your application just might be stronger next year), you may want to consider how this affects your application strategy. 

There is no right answer, however, as some candidates choose to forgo applying the year before the promotion altogether, while others focus solely on top choice schools to “see what happens,” while others apply to lower preference schools as a test run, while others apply normally without taking this factor into consideration. 

No matter which option is right for you, remember: send your application when it is at its strongest. There is no “perfect” moment to apply, but there is definitely a point at which your application will never be stronger, and this is the moment to take action!

 

Cost/Benefit

We’ve all procrastinated, leaving ourselves a pile of tasks to complete just in the nick of time. Though, more often than not, it’s possible to get everything done, there’s no denying the quality of our deliverables suffers when we try to do too much under pressure. 

Applying for an elite business school is no different. 

A successful application is, more often than not, a careful, considerate, and well-planned process that lasts from several months to more than a year. 

Giving yourself time to think, reflect, and revise allows you the chance to truly put your best foot forward, whereas rushing will tempt you to send generic and “copy/paste” sections from other applications, hoping the admissions committee doesn’t notice. 

Chances are, however, that your lack of dedication to the process will be instantly spotted.  Remember, your application will be read by a highly trained professional who has read thousands (if not tens of thousands) of applications in his or her career. 

As an admissions consultant, I can tell you it’s obvious to me when a client hasn’t put in the work. 

For example, last year, Marina decided to apply to 8 schools in Round 2 to maximize her chances of being admitted to the same school as her boyfriend (more on couple applications can be found below). 

Her first 7 essays were outstanding. She crafted well-connected, thoughtful portraits of her best achievements and created compelling arguments for why she needed an MBA at each of the programs she applied to. On her final application to Kellogg, however, she’d started to burn out and sent a draft of an essay that was poorly argued, lacking passion, and was quite confusing in many places. While discussing her essay, I pointed out exactly where I had been able to spot her less-than-committed attitude. 

Luckily, we had plenty of time to improve the essay and impressed Kellogg’s admissions committee enough for them to offer her admission. If she had sent her original essay, however, I doubt she would have received the same response. 

In short, effort matters. You need to give yourself enough time to do your best on each application. This doesn’t mean you need to (or even should) write 32 versions of your essay before sending it but means that you need to give yourself time to put your best foot forward. 

As such, for Round 2, consider the cost/benefit of adding additional schools to your list. If you can send 5 outstanding applications, I’d bet you’d have better results than if you sent 9 mediocre applications. 

Remember, you don’t get into a top MBA by being average. You get into a top MBA by standing out, and successfully standing out requires time and dedication. 

 

Risk Appetite

In advising numerous clients around the world in their MBA applications over the years, one thing is universal: each client has a very different appetite for risk. 

For example, some applicants express that it’s “now or never” for their application and assume a low-risk approach to their applications to maximize their chances of being admitted during that admissions cycle. 

Other applicants, however, prefer to take a higher-risk approach, focusing on a few target schools and potentially reapplying or applying to new schools in a later round or application season if necessary. 

As with all of these factors, there is no one “magic formula” that applies to everyone, but you should consider how willing you are to risk applying in multiple rounds or multiple years when determining the optimal number of Round 2 applications. 

 

Potential for Profile Development 

If you do decide that you’re ok with the idea of reapplying if necessary, you should first consider how much your profile has the potential to change between receiving your Round 2 answers in March and the Round 1 applications in September. 

When reapplying, one of the most important factors is to demonstrate growth between application cycles. Good ways to do this include a higher GMAT score, a promotion, additional leadership responsibilities at work, new awards or recognitions, and more profound community service. 

However, that’s quite a tall order considering the fact that you’ll only have around 6 months to develop a “new and improved you” to show off to the business schools. 

As such, if you think you won’t be able to improve your profile or worry your profile might actually be weaker the year after (if your company has widespread layoffs planned and you have yet to secure a new job, for instance), you may want to increase the number of schools you target in Round 2. 

 

Couple Applicants

If you’re applying with a partner, this can also drastically affect your Round 2 application strategy. 

For example, though you may both be fully qualified applicants, getting into the world’s most elite programs is a tough feat for one applicant to pull off. As a pair, you may want to widen your net if attending the same school or schools in the same city is important to you. 

Though you shouldn’t get carried away and apply to 20 schools, adding a few more programs to the list could help ensure you’re able to share the MBA experience. 

 

Avoid FOMO

We’ve all been there. Our favorite brands are having amazing after-Christmas sales and, in a frenzy, we load up our carts with items we just can’t live without, only to realize a few days (or weeks) later that half the things we bought were completely useless. 

Whether you call this FOMO or just plain bad decision-making, the push to add more to your “cart” than you should be is a mistake you must avoid when developing your MBA strategy. 

As the Round 2 deadlines approach, you’ll likely feel pressure to add more and more schools in a last-ditch attempt to make sure you’re accepted into at least one program. 

However, considering how huge of an investment an MBA is, we suggest a small test when deciding whether to add just one more school. 

It helps to picture the end of the process, when all the essay writing, interviewing, and fretting about answers is done. Imagine that now you have only been accepted at this new school you are considering adding. Are you happy and excited? More importantly, is it worth leaving your job to attend this MBA? If the answer is no, leave the program on the shelf and head to check out! 

 

2. Look critically at your profile’s weaknesses

Perhaps the hardest step in determining your Round 2 application strategy is to be ruthlessly honest with yourself.  

Considering how hard you’ve worked to build an outstanding career and to prepare yourself to apply for an elite MBA, it can be difficult to admit that perhaps all your hard work didn’t quite give you enough of an edge. 

One of the most important places to shine this light is on your GMAT or GRE score. 

Though Stanford’s range does start at 630 (which often leads applicants to mistakenly think that Stanford doesn’t care too much about GMAT or GRE scores), their average score is the highest in the world, meaning that if your score is several points below average (and you don’t have a unique diversity trait to help compensate for the lower score), you’re probably not in an advantageous position to apply. 

If you find that you’re not sure you quite stack up, you don’t have to let this stop you, as many of our clients have successfully overcome the odds to earn places at top business schools.

However, just as a football team doesn’t rely on a hail mary pass to get results, you should recognize that “giving it a shot” when your profile doesn’t quite measure up means you may not obtain the results you hoped for this application cycle. As a result, you may want to change your application strategy to give yourself more time to improve or target less competitive schools in Round 2. 

 

3. Send your strongest applications 

During the MBA application process, you will need to make thousands of decisions that will impact your life for decades to come. 

One of the most important decisions is when and where you choose to apply. 

Though you may be tempted just to work your way down the rankings or apply to 20 different business schools, having a trusted ally who can use their deep knowledge of your profile, the different factors that should influence your school selection, and what different business schools offer can be the difference between loving your MBA program and wishing you’d done everything differently. 

Many of our clients come to us with a general idea of where they want to apply but lack specifics. Our application coaches step in at this point to help you define what you want out of your MBA, identify which business schools can best help you turn these dreams into reality, and help you build a strong application strategy. 

If you’d like to start putting the Ellin Lolis Advantage to work for you right from the very start, apply to work with us today!