What Takes Place in the Admissions Process

Business School admission committee review applicants and either give them the opportunity to join the school of their dreams or reject them. They basically have your fate in their hands and the odds of joining an elite Business School are quite daunting. Stanford University's Graduate School of Business which is the most selective Business School in the United States only admits 6 out of every 100 applicants. Harvard Business School will accept 1 out of 10 applicants. So what do MBA admissions committees actually look into? Once your application gets to the admissions office, it is checked by someone in operations department in the Business School. They ensure nothing is missing (a transcript, GMAT score, essay, etc.), then the application is put on hold. Ensure you triple check your application before submitting it.
During the first review, the application is independently reviewed by two members of the admissions committee in order to get two separate, objective opinions on the strength of the application. Each reviewer fills out a one-page summary form with 5 parts: Grades, Essays, GMAT, Work Experience, and References.
The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) scores are then checked. The top ranked Business Schools such as Harvard Business School and Stanford Business School consider GMAT scores of at least 700 as they have over 100,000 applicants. If you have not attained a score of 700 and you have retaken the GMAT more than once, the school may reconsider your application as you show determination. The admissions committee takes multiple factors into consideration when looking at your undergraduate grades such as your G.P.A
The most important part of the review is your essays which are graded on how clear you are about your goals, ambitions, and dreams. The committee wants to know about you the person and how the MBA will shape you. Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at Yale University School of Management, urged applicants in a blogpost to be up front about their weaknesses. He added that everyone has weaknesses and that the committee will definitely see them, so you're better off acknowledging them and incorporating them into your application. Work experience is a must for admission to a top MBA program, having the average length of work experience being 4-5 years.
After the reviews, the school can choose whether or not to invite you for an interview. Aninvitation from the school to interview increase your chances of admission. Admission rate in general is 10% to 15% at a top ranked school and once you get to the interview stage, you have a 50/50 chance of admission. Wayne Atwell, a second year MBA student at New York University's Stern School of Business established his site where he analyses data from business schools. In his research he discovered that top tier schools that are most likely to send an admission letter after an interview are; Cornell University's Johnson School of Business (67%) and UCLA'S Anderson School of Management (68%)
In the interview stage, you need to things you need to convince the committee that you are familiar with the school and its mission, that you are unique from all other applicants and that you have a clear sense of goals.