How to Stand Out in Your MBA Application: What Really Matters
If you’re wondering how to stand out in your MBA application, you’re not alone. Before meeting with my MBA applicant clients, I review a background write-up that they put together. Inevitably, when they are asked about their strengths as an applicant, I see the same answers come up—quantitative and analytical thinking, effective communication and teamwork, trustworthiness, and a strong track record of job performance.
All of these are valuable qualities. But if your application includes the same answers as everyone else, you won’t stand apart. And with the high level of competition to get into elite business schools, you need to develop your own unique personal brand and story.
The good news is that these applicants have a lot more going for them. During our work together, we always uncover unique and distinct strengths—sometimes what I call superpowers. I am certain you have these too.
While some of their strengths seem obvious to them, others are surprises—at least at first. Here are a few steps you can follow to uncover your strengths and learn how to stand out in your MBA application.
Curious what strengths might set you apart? Let’s talk about how to bring them forward in your MBA application.
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Certain Abilities Are Prerequisites to MBA Admissions
You have strengths that overlap with many MBA candidates. Does that mean you should omit them from your application? No.
MBA admissions committees want their incoming students to bring analytical ability, leadership, and goal-oriented drive. These are prerequisites for admission.
You could say that these are necessary but not sufficient. To use a metaphor, every burger needs meat and a bun. So yes, you need to communicate these qualities in your application.
But what makes people raving fans of certain burger places, while ignoring others, is how they make it. Do they use Kobe beef, a buttery brioche bun, all-vegan ingredients, special sauce, ultrafast service?
The “special sauce” is what we work hard with clients to uncover.
How to Combine Strengths to Stand Out in Your MBA Application
To lean into my superhero analogy again, both Superman and the Incredible Hulk have super strength. But it’s the combination of strength with other traits that makes each unique.
One of my clients, who will be going to Wharton, had great attention to detail and a knack for high-level strategic thinking. Neither is distinctive on its own. But we identified that she has a unique ability to zoom in and zoom out. She could look at the big picture and know where to dig into small details—and connect small details together to see the big picture. Layered on top of a capacity to ask probing questions, she brings a powerful combination for working in consulting after graduation.
So consider how your strengths layer together to help you achieve goals. Identifying this combination is central to understanding how to stand out in your MBA application.
Pro Tip: Think about what you can accomplish because of your combination of strengths where others might struggle.
Turn Weaknesses into Strengths
One of my clients will be attending Dartmouth’s Tuck program, with a scholarship, after attending an open-enrollment college—essentially everyone who applies to this college with a high school diploma gets a spot.
How did he turn around this weakness? Working together, he developed the story of how he attended this school while supporting himself (and partially supporting his family) as his parents were going through bankruptcy. He took extreme ownership of himself, and that level of ownership showed up in how he presented work at his company.
Another client, who will be attending Harvard Business School, talked about how his mental health challenges led him to deep-dive into the healthcare system.
The key is to recognize the growth and value of these experiences.
Your path may seem “more middle of the road” than theirs, but chances are you have faced setbacks or have limitations that have caused you to evolve as a person. Don’t overlook these experiences when building your narrative. They can play a critical role in how to stand out in your MBA application.
Translate Unique Experiences into Business Impact
You likely have unique experiences that will be valuable to your career. These could include your undergraduate degree, volunteer work, among others.
These experiences unto themselves have limited value. But once you have translated them into a business context, they can make you a rockstar.
For example, one past client who attends Stanford Graduate School of Business has a master’s degree in neuroscience. Unto itself, that degree might indicate strengths like being intellectually gifted and curious. After working together, she showed how she started applying these neuroscience principles to her work and was planning to build a career blending these together. She earned admission to every school to which she applied.
Another client who will be attending INSEAD translated his background as a transportation engineer from an indicator of analytical thinking to a unique capacity to transform business systems.
For each unique experience, ask yourself: How can this shape how I approach business challenges? Your ability to connect these experiences to future goals is a key part of how to stand out in your MBA application.
Use Extracurriculars to Demonstrate Leadership
After hours or before your full-time job, you may have immersed yourself in leadership roles or passions that don’t get fully expressed in your 9–5. These experiences can help you identify your unique approach to leadership and other attributes valuable to business leaders.
For example, one client who will be attending Wharton has a unique capacity to create a positive, energetic community when he is part of a team. While he could talk about this to a limited extent at work, it showed up more strongly as far back as a $200k fundraiser he ran in high school as well as in a social events community he organized outside of work. Working together, we identified this unique talent, and he connected these experiences together in his application.
Even if your schedule is packed, it’s still possible to build meaningful extracurriculars. This article offers strategies for demonstrating leadership outside of work—even when you’re short on time.
Pro Tip: If you’re struggling to identify your leadership style from work examples alone, look at what roles you naturally gravitate toward in volunteer activities, hobbies, or community involvement.
Uncover Hidden Strengths That Help You Stand Out
Strengths are often areas that come easily to you—in other words, what you can often do without seeming to think or try. You may think, “Well, everyone can do that.”
Don’t take yourself for granted.
For example, one client who attended Yale School of Management had a unique capacity to step into leadership gaps. This was epitomized by his taking ownership and practically running his varsity tennis team in college when the coach quit.
He thought that anyone would have done this in his situation—until I helped him recognize that his teammates were in the same spot as him and didn’t. We also identified a work project where this talent showed up.
Sometimes asking trusted colleagues or friends what they see as your unique approaches can reveal strengths you’ve been blind to. These may be exactly what show adcoms how to stand out in your MBA application.
Bringing it Together
While much of your application development may focus on showcasing past accomplishments, don’t lose sight of how these strengths will serve your future career goals. The primary purpose of identifying your unique strengths is to demonstrate how they’ll help you maximize your post-MBA opportunities.
Consider how your distinctive combination of abilities positions you for success in your target industry or role five to ten years from now. This is essential to understanding how to stand out in your MBA application.
As you develop your application and narrative, you need a unique brand that will help you stand apart from the crowd. Your experiences and abilities will overlap with others. That is expected and good. But you also need to present unique strengths and passions.
These may emerge for you as you iterate through the application process, or they may be shown to you as you collaborate with others—be it a trusted friend, mentor, or admissions consultant.
Remember, admissions committees aren’t just evaluating your past performance. They’re investing in your future potential. Your job is to help them see the distinctive value you’ll bring to their program and beyond.
Need help identifying your superpowers? We can work with you to uncover what makes you uniquely valuable and ensure your application tells a compelling, differentiated story.