P&Q: The 2016 Ding Report: Why Great Applicants Are Often Rejected

Source: Poets & Quants

by John A. Byrne
Apr 20, 2016

8,653. 7,414. 5,288. 3,631.

Random numbers? Not really. Those figures reflect the number of MBA applicants that were rejected last year by Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, and MIT Sloan, respectively.

In fact, 22 out of the Top 25 highest ranked U.S. MBA programs each turned down for admission more than 1,000 candidates last year, 14 of them dinged more than 2,000 applicants each. Those Top 25 MBA programs sent out 67,628 ding letters in 2015.

More astounding than the number of rejected candidates is the remarkable quality of those applicants. Many have GMATs above 700, putting them in the top 11% of all test takers. Many have GPAs of 3.5 plus, often from some of the world’s best universities. And many boast already lucrative jobs, leadership experience in nonprofits and clubs, and track records of success.

APPLICANTS OFTEN FAIL DUE TO SUBTLE & RANDOM REASONS

Why the turndown? The easy answer is that applicant pools at top business schools are so rich and deep that candidates are often rejected for subtle and random reasons. Sometimes the reason for a rejection is obvious, especially to an admissions expert. Sometimes it’s virtually impossible to say with any confidence why one person got in and another was turned away.

Before you allow an MBA rejection to harm your self-esteem, you need to understand that many truly amazing candidates to highly selective MBA programs are almost always turned down. Admission officials generally believe that as much as 80% of their applicant pools are fully qualified to attend their schools and do well, yet they can accept only a small fraction of the pool.

IVY LEAGUERS, GOOGLE, M/B/B, FORTUNE 500 & 780 GMATS–ALL REJECTED

Consider the 28-year-old American male who scored a 730 GMAT on his first try and has an Ivy League degree plus Google on his resume, along with a VC-funded startup. He was turned down by Harvard, Stanford, UC-Berkeley and MIT Sloan. Or how about the recently promoted senior associate consultant who boasts a 770 GMAT and a 3.65 undergraduate GPA in electrical engineering. The 25-year-old was rejected without interviews by both Harvard and Stanford.

Worse, there’s the applicant with five years in management consulting in the pharma industry for Fortune 500 companies who took the GRE and has the equivalent of a 780 GMAT score. The 29-year-old Indian male was rejected from seven different schools, including Virginia, Dartmouth, MIT Sloan, Duke, UCLA, and Northwestern Kellogg.

And then there’s the guy who just keeps trying. He has applied to Harvard Business School for the past three years. Twice rejected without an interview, he finally got one, only to be put on the waitlist for a month before getting his third ding in a row. He’s now 31-year-old, with a master’s degree from H/Y/P (Harvard/Yale/Princeton) in public health and a year and one half at one of the top three global consulting firms M/B/B (McKinsey, Bain, BCG).

Mr. Ivy League

• 730 GMAT on first try
• 3.4 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in environmental studies/science from an Ivy League school
• Work experience includes two and one-half years at Google; two and one-half years at a 50-person venture capital-funded startup in a partnership role; no “promotion” but strong performance reflected by salary and equity bumps as well as recs from VP and CEO (both of whom I worked closely with); also work as an independent marketing consultant following my experience at Google, self employed.
• Extracurricular involvement as a varity sport captain and NCAA qualified; involved in multiple other activities on campus while working multiple part-time jobs
• Goal: To move into clean tech
• “MIT interview I thought went relatively well. Maybe not home run but was conversational, asked a lot of the behavioral questions you would expect. Example of a time a project didn’t go your way, how did you navigate an ambiguous situation, why mba/why MIT, no real curve balls”
• 28-year-old white American male

Dings:

• ULCA (Anderson) Waitlisted after interview
• UC-Berkeley (Haas)-Denied without interivew
• Harvard-Denied without interview
• Stanford-Denied without interview
• MIT (Sloan)-Denied after interview

Sandy’s Analysis:

You could be a poster boy for what schools really care about vs. what they say they care about.

What they really care about and was so-so
1. GPA!!!!!
2. Blue Chip employment vs start-up and self-employment

What they don’t care about and was strong
1. Captain of varsity team and NCAA qualifier
2. Involved in multiple other extra curricular activities on campus, worked multiple part time jobs
3. Outside of work as a volunteer undergrad alumni interviewer, captain of a soccer team, triathlon, mountaineering

Applying to business school from a start-up is harder than it might sound. You would have had better outcomes applying from Google after two years or sticking it out there until you got in.

The real spoiler here was going self-employed from Google then joining a start-up and then somehow needing to apply to B-school, when, in fact, working at a VC-funded start-up is the DREAM of many post MBAs.

Your post-MBA goal to move into clean tech could also have been a problem. Unless prior jobs were in clean tech, this is sort of a generic wet-dream stuff for a solid, white boy, with low grades, who is a real nice, athletic guy like you.

Ms. CPG

• 710 GMAT
• 7.29/10 GPA
• Undergraduate degree from NIFT, India’s No. 1 fashion institute
• Work experience includes more than two years as a jewelry designer who helped to launch India’s largest jewelry brand in the U.S.; co-founder of a design consulting firm, and 3.5 years with a boutique consulting firm serviing the retail and CPG sectors
• Extracurricular involvement as a volunteer for the Ministry of Rural Development, helping to train 200+ rural women artisans in India to create self-employment opportunities for them; also saved a 700 years old craft from extinction by earning it patent protection through the World Trade Organization
• Short-term goal: To transition to product management for a CPG company
• Long-term goal: To start a health foods brand & launch internationally. Applied with changed goals and changed recommenders in second round to UCLA, Texas-Austin, and London Business School
• “My Kellogg interviewer said ‘admissions is a black-box’ and couldn’t comment on what was lacking in my application.”
• 30-year-old Indian female

Dings:

• Kellogg—Denied after interview
• Duke—Denied without itnerview
• Michigan—Denied without interview
• Wharton—Denied without interview
• UCLA—Denied without interview
• Texas-Austin—Admitted without scholarship
• London Business School—Denied without interview

Sandy’s Analysis:

My first advice is to drop this: “Long term goal – start own health foods brand and launch internationally.” HUH, you got enough odd, off-track, save the world, restless-soul, struggling-to-be-free jive in this story already. Just say you want to do product management at a CPG company and sound like you are comfy working for blue chip CPG companies for the rest of your life and want to be a leader/CEO of one, etc.

Stop being feisty and start being boring! I think your chances at Duke and Ross will be lots better with an improved and normalized application. By that, I mean to make very normal goals about working in consumer product goods and allow them to emerge from your experience. Make that your only goal and create a short-term and long-term statement consistent with that.

Mr. Third Time HBS

• 1500 GRE (770Q/730V)
• Undergraduate degree in medicine from a Nigerian University
• Master’s degree in public health from H/Y/P
• work experience includes a one year medical internship, one year in national service, 1.5 years at a healthcare non-profit, and 1.5 years in consulting at M/B/B; currently at a healthcare startup
• Goal: To start a health insurance company in Nigeria for the mass market
• “Interview: I think it was only borderline. I was startled by the indirect questioning way, The first questions was whether I was still at MBB, and I replied honestly that I was in transition to a startup and working to transfer my work visa. There were questions about why one of my interviewer had said he was not exposed to my quant skills (the project had no quant at all), questions about what I read in the NY Times if healthcare did not exist. etc.”
• 31-year-old Nigerian male

Dings:

• Harvard-Place on waitlist for one month after interview, then denied for the third year in a row

Sandy’s Analysis:

Ouch! I’d say your interview is what did it, even though you were placed on the waitlist.

But I have to tell you that this sounds like this was a downward spiral from the start. I don’t think a 4th application usually works at HBS, and you are not getting younger, although the HBS eco-system could help you make contacts, etc.

Ahem, moving out of M/B/B for Healthcare start-up might have struck them as odd, given that you would be leaving that in a year or two for business school.

Mr. Consultant With Red Flags

• 770 GMAT (Q51/V43)
• 3.65 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from a Top 3 engineering school
• Work experience includes nine months as a social investment intermediary as a consultant to SMEs; five months building a digital social enterprise that would teach entrepreneurship in post-conflict regions; one year at a Financial Times 250 company in a strategy role; one year in strategy consulting (Booz/LEK/Strategy&/Oliver Wyman) and recently promoted to senior associate
• Extracurricular involvement as a board trustee leading an impact assessment group in Uganda for a U.K.-based nonprofit; growth mentor for a female victim of trafficking; started a web design and graphic business at age 14 and ran it for five years; president of a university cultural society
• “Red flags: Was technically unemployed during five months and did take out unemployment benefits to survive having lost funding; Inverse bell-curve trend in transcript (GPA progression through years: 4.0, 3.5, 3.0, 3.9; second year family issues, third year – intensified family issues + too many extra curricular commitments)”
• Short-term goal: To transition in to product management, tech strategy or impact investment
• Long-term goal: To own a venture capital firm focused on social tech and clean tech in Asia, Africa or Latin America
• 25-year-old British male

Dings:

• Harvard—Denied without interview
• Wharton—Denied without interview

Sandy’s Analysis:

Given your odd facts, whatever they are, and your allusive and DEEPLY annoying bragging, misleading and round-about resume, I would try to simplify your work history until your current job at (Booz/LEK/Strategy&/OW) and just present your good grades, great GMAT and some neutral account of your pre-Booz past with very conservative goals.

For instance, saying you’d like to be a leader at one of those consulting firms, doing something you have already done. Ahem, instead of the MEGA, high minded, confused BS you posted:
“Would use MBA to transition into product management, tech strategy, strategy consulting or impact investment. Long term dream, own venture capital firm focused on social tech and clean tech in Asia, Africa, LatAm – realised I like seeding and helping entrepreneurs more than being an entrepreneur myself.”

You do not get extra points for being daring, large, aspiring, and greedy in your goal statement. All most schools want to see is some clear-eyed sense of how the world works and confirmation, in your case, that you are NOT one of those brash, smart, wanna-be-rich Desis, yearning to be free, but rather a brash, smart wanna-be-rich Desi who knows how to present himself as a humble, boring consultant.

Ms. Oil & Gas

• 730 GMAT
• 3.8 GPA
• Undergraduate degree from a Top 20 college in India
• Work experience includes three years i operation and maintenance for an oil and gas company that is among the Top 5 in India and two years in strategic planning
• Short-term goal: To transition into management consulting
• Long-term goal: To lead a petrochemicals/chemical practice of an M/B/B firm worldwide
• “Essay revolved around being first female shop floor engineer”
• “My Booth interviewer was late for the interview and I found him pretty biased against my company. Interview lasted around 20 mins.
• My Yale interview was pretty good and the interviewer went to the extent of saying that they were looking for people like me.”
• 28-year-old female from India

Dings:

• Yale—Denied after interview
• Chicago—Denied after interview

Sandy’s Analysis:

Phew, you got me. That is a strong profile and one you executed perfectly in terms of goals.

My guess is, and it pains me to say this, they just used your “non-Gold” schooling and company (both were silver in their minds, or bronze) to make an easy call against you versus similar people with better schooling (e.g. IIT and etc) as well as more well known global companies.

Mr. College Senior

• 740 GMAT
• 3.6 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in engineering from a top public (UVA/Berkeley/Michigan)
• College senior who interned at a major consulting firm M/B/B who will return full-time
• Extracurricular invovement shows solid leadership experience
• “Recently interviewed with HBS 2+2 in Round 2, but was ultimately denied. Their feedback was mostly positive, the only mention was a) I seemed a little nervous and b) the pool I was coming from was pretty competitive for 2+2”

Dings:

• Harvard 2+2-Denied after interview
• Stanford GSB Deferred-Denied without interview

Sandy’s Analysis:

“Seemed a bit nervous” is code for screwing the interview, something that is easy to do at HBS, and a couple of hiccups can make a lifetime of accomplishments go out the window. They have this Platonic Ideal: Would this kid be able to feel comfy in a case method environment.

Two types of people fail the test:

Actual nervous people like you, who probably would do just fine after five minutes. But hey, they gotta ding x number of people, so nervousness is as good a reason as any other;

2. Quite well-spoken people who appear “scripted,” another one of their favorite words, which can mean, 1. scripted (for real, e.g. a bit robotic and cliched), 2. annoying as judged by their inner tastes and culture, but they don’t want to (or cannot because they are not articulate enough, but they know what they don’t like!) say why.

The rest of your story was in the pack, with engineering background a small plus, but nothing super duper to get you into Stanford. This is a classic case of solid (so HBS is OK) but no X factor (so Stanford would be real hard).

What kind of X factors is Stanford looking for?

Leadership roles in helping lepers, other disadvantaged groups, etc. Impact beyond yourself, winning Nobel Junior Prize, being FOD (Friend of Derrick, or working for any company or organization on Stanford’s super secret insider list, viz. Apple). Change genders (well, depends a bit on birth gender, but mostly a positive.)

As I am sure they told you, and is true, lots of 2+2 dings get admitted three to five years later as regular applicants and you seem Teed up for that.

As for advice on the best route for the next three to five years to get admitted down the road? Stay healthy, do not get arrested, stay employed, cultivate recs, get promoted, work for McKinsey for two years and then get your next job at a feeder PE firm or Apple. Do not leave any blue chip job to become an entrepreneur of any kind. That is actual risk taking and shows leadership, innovation, impact and guts—all of which adcoms do not value, and in fact, are suspicious of and will punish you for.

Mr. MD

• 720 GMAT
• 86/100 GPA
• Undergraduate degree from an Israeli University
• Graduating with an medical degree from an Israeli University in four months
• Work experience includes four years in an elite intelligence unit in the Israeli Defense Forces, managing teams of 30 analysts; promoted to HQ to establish new desk from scratch. Won several awards; also worked one year during medical school as a researcher for a digital health startup
• Extracurricular involvement creating a cancer therapeutics venture during med school; solid volunteering background, establishing a project to promote healthcare in rural areas in Israel
• Goal: To pursue a career in biotech entrepreneurship
• “Essays were focused on my mission to save lives, shaped in part by my father’s death and the strong experience of saving lives during military service and medical school”
• 30-year-old male from Israel

Dings:

• Harvard-Denied without interview
• Stanford-Denied without interview
• MIT Sloan-Denied without interview

Sandy’s Analysis:

Well, I like you, but as noted time and time again, business schools DO NOT LIKE ENTREPRENEURS, despite what the schools say! It’s just too real, too important, and too hard to judge. More work for mother, and there is not all that much they can teach you, although sure, schmoozing is a plus.

In your case, for a guy coming out of an MD program, you did not fit another pattern. HBS and Stanford (not sure about MIT) see the MBA-MD program as training basically future medical administrators, guys who run hospitals, goverment agencies, blah. blah.

I am also not clear about the timing–Most MBA-MD types in USA are part of a joint program, where they start business school before earning MD. I’m not sure if after year two of med school (I think), so you were not in that cohort, and technically you were not “joint degree” but a guy with MD now wanting to go to B school. That is a real unusual timetable for them (H and S admit, in rare cases, practicing docs especially ones interested in transitioning to e.g. hospital administration but that wasn’t you, either.)

Mr. Consultant

• GRE 335 (Q170 – 98%) (V165 – 95%) (Essay 4.5 – 80%). GMAT equivalent: 780
• 7.1/10 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in electrical engineerings from the National Institute of Technology in Kurukshera
• Work experience includes five years in management consulting in the pharma industry for Fortune 500 companies; two years in the oil industry setting up fuel stations in remote Indian geographies
• Extracurricular involvement leading many student clubs in college; an avid quizzer and flutist; volunteers at an NGO for underprivileged children.
• Short-term goal: Healthcare consulting in the US.
• Long-term goal: To lead a technology based healthcare startup in India
• 29-year-old Indian male

Dings:

• Virginia (Darden)- Denied without interview
• Dartmouth (Tuck)-Denied without interview
• MIT (Sloan)-Denied without interview
• Duke (Fuqua)-Denied without interview
• UCLA (Anderson)-Denied without interview
• Northwestern (Kellogg)-Denied after interview
• Michigan (Ross)-Waitlisted without interview, then denied
• Texas (McCombs)-Waitlisted after interview

Sandy’s Analysis:

I don’t think your age per se is the problem, as much as your five years of consulting experience.
1. That is long time to be a consultant
2. A lot of business school outcomes depend on what they think of the company you work for.

I’m not sure if the GMAT vs. GRE issue was super important, but as noted, if you had an actual 780 GMAT, schools really go for that as a plus.

My only macro comment is that you may have come off as a Consulting Burn Out, looking for something to save your life, not a story B-schools are partial to. Somone who has seven years of work experience and five years in consulting at one firm is a very atypical B-school applicant.

Ms. Engineer

• 740 GMAT (Q48/V42/IR8)
• 3.4 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in engineering from a Top 20 university in Asia
• Work experience includes four years at a Fortune 500 nano tech firm,
• including spending most of 2014 training in the US, before returning home.
• Extracurricular involvement includes fairly significant leadership experience, founding and leading a project in an energy non-profit for three years until 2014
• Short-term goal: To move to product management in cleantech
• Long-term goal: To lead strategy and new product development/ innovation in cleantech
• “Needless to say, I was disappointed in not even getting an interview.”
• 27-year-old female product engineer from India

Dings:

• Harvard-Denied without interview
• Stanford-Denied without interview
• UC-Berkeley (Haas)-Denied without interview
• Yale SOM-Denied without interview
• Cornell (Johnson)-Denied without interview

Sandy’s Analysis:

Hmmmm, I don’t think it was your goals. They seem fine and plausible given your background. Also, your goals per se don’t count “that much” unless they are just nutty given your resume which is not the case here.

The sad truth, in most cases, is that a goal statement can harm you, if screwy given resume or predatory (want to transition out of product development into PE, and make $$$$, so your school is No. 1).

As to H and S, no interview does not surprise me. Those decisions could be based on how familiar they were with your firm (even though it was a Fortune 500, not all of those are equal, and, ahem, there are 500 of them) or your recs, or how you presented yourself. Or just having people like you with similar backgrounds from brand name companies and better execution.

Berk and Yale have become VERY focused on juicing their U.S. News rankings and may have had odd or “internal algo” reasons for dinging you, including the lack of vibe that you would attend, although in that case, they usually interview and give you the 3rd degree about coming in their own stealthy and creepy way.

Cornell must have thought you were not serious, based on recs or application execution. You probably had a better chance at Sloan because they take ‘holistic’ vs. U.S. News admissions more seriously than Berk and Yale. I’m not sure what recs were like or what ‘touch and feel’ of application were, but that can always make a difference.

Mr. Three Times

• 720 GMAT (47Q, 42V) after taking three times
• 3.5 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in communications from a Top 25 private university on the west coast
• Work experience includes three years at Disney in brand management with three promotions; then one and one-half years at (Google/Amazon/Facebook) in marketing; now with a startup in the media division in L.A.
• Goal: To transition out of marketing into finance/strategy in media/entertainment
• 26-year-old white male

Dings:

• Stanford—Denied without an interview on third try, even though he had earlier been interviewed twice (“Very odd, as this year i had raised my gmat and taken an awesome new job that is much more ‘stanford’)”
• Harvard—Denied after interview and being placed on waitlist, after having been denied twice before without an interview

Admits:

• Chicago (Booth)
• UC-Berkeley (Haas)
• Columbia Business School

Sandy’s Analysis:

It shows many things:

At Stanford:
1. They love, love Disney, and love Goog, FB, AMZN too;
2. All that being said, they love high stats just as much. Haha, Next time take the GRE, as you know, Bolton thinks it is just as good. It does not have to be reported to USNEWS as a boo boo.

I am also not clear that career goal out of marketing into finance was a wise choice. It just seems like show me the money, and it nudges you into the super competitive PE bucket, although just saying this for others. In your case, I am not sure that that goal made a difference in your outcomes. Still, this was lining up as a super marketing story instead of what you turned it into, another “I want to be rich” story.

Mr. Private Equity

• 750 GMAT (75Q)
• 3.2 GPA
• Undergraduate degree from a lower Ivy (Brown/Cornell)
• Work experince includes four years as an associate at a tier 1 private equity firm with a track record of sending students to Wharton; also one year as a junior analyst at a hedge fund
  Wrote essay on being a first generation student, non-traditional track to PE, and desire to pursue social impact investing
• “W group interview – I really thought I did well, but maybe I had a moment or I rehearsed too much”
• “Wondering about your thoughts on this and reapplication to Wharton and Columbia Business School”
• 27-year-old Asian-American male

Dings:

• Harvard-Denied without interview
• Stanford-Denied without interview
• Wharton—Denied after interview
• Columbia-Denied without interview

Sandy’s Analysis:

You are in a competitive bucket of PE types, sooooo, your lower GPA and mildly odd career could be an issue. Your first job at a hedge fund is somewhat surprising because that usually does not happen with guys who have a 3.2 and low quant scores, and then FOUR years at a Tier 1 PE shop? Also odd sounding. Do you have friends in high places?

It’s also possible that you had some bad moments at the Wharton group-grope interview and that did you in.

You have lots to like in your profile but it is not solid gold and you are competing with other PE guys and that is super hard.

As to your work history, the issue for B-schools is do they think that firms you worked for are selective, e.g. have those firms done the B-schools the trouble of already interviewing 15 kids and choosing one, or did you get in to those jobs somehow through some side door?