Should I re-think my application choices?

[jk11]

I applied to HBS and Stanford in round 1, and was planning on applying to Wharton, Sloan, Berkeley, and INSEAD in round 2. However, as neither HBS nor Stanford has granted me an interview, I'm wondering if I should perhaps re-think my choices.

My profile:

GPA: 3.8 at top liberal arts school, summa cum laude, phi beta kappa

GMAT: 760, 48Q 47V, 6.0 writing score

Experience: 2 years as consultant at McKinsey & Co., 1.5 years with a small, socially-focused, pan-African private equity fund based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

I'm had thought I had a pretty good application, but I have not heard back from either school. Am I overestimating my credentials? Should I begin to consider schools that are a bit easier to get into in the later rounds?

Thanks!

J

[Paxton Helms - Kaplan]

Hi and thanks for your note. I would say that you have sterling credentials so I don't think that is your issue w/ not getting interviews.

A more plausible explanation is that there was something structural in your application that resulted in your not getting an interview.

A few possibilities come to mind:

- Internal consistency. Were you saying one thing in Essay One but another in Essay Two? This can often be subtle: talking about why you want to do one thing in on essay and then shifting that focus slightly in another. Often it takes an external view point to point this out.

- Focusing on the wrong things: I recently had a client who was rightly proud of a very significant accomplishment and he kept insisting that it belonged in his MBA application. The problem was that it just didn't belong and he couldn't see it. So...he kept talking about it, kept referring back to it, and it great damage to what was otherwise a very strong application. It is so easy to be blind to flaws and in things that we have worked very hard on like application essays.

- It is possible (though unlikely) that you had a bad recommender.

- It is possible that you just had some bad luck or that the interview invite was delayed.