What would you do to improve your shot at the MBA program of your dreams? Start a small business? Or a nonprofit, perhaps? Travel the world to bulk up your personal narrative? Maybe even drop $10,000 on a prep course?
If you’re aiming for the Stanford Graduate School of Business, you may well be tempted to do all of the above.
“From the classmate who climbed Mount Everest to the one who started a microfinance organization for individual entrepreneurs, these are the people who are your classmates and will ultimately become your friends — for life,” says a prerecorded message from Stefan, a Stanford MBA student from Belgium who keeps you company while you’re on hold with the admissions office.
If you’re not like Stefan and didn’t grow up in Hong Kong, study in Britain and work on four continents before applying for an MBA, you may feel, well, ordinary. And out of luck.
Which is why a growing number of prospective MBAs map out a win-at-all-costs strategy one, two or three years before applying. They are, after all, trying to stand out among nearly 200,000 MBA applicants across the nation.
“I wanted to show I could bring more to the school,” said Radha Rai, who started a company that develops smartphone apps for the GMAT, a bear of a test that’s the first hurdle for MBA hopefuls. “I show it from my start-up because in my regular job, you don’t get opportunity for taking risk.”
The bet paid off: The 28-year old Indian IT professional was accepted to the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, despite scoring below the school’s average on the GMAT. Of 4,299 applicants to Booth’s full-time MBA program in 2010, 22 percent were accepted, according to the school. The full cost is about $85,000 a year, not including foregone wages. A full-time MBA program typically takes two years.
Experts say the sacrifice is well worth it. Attending a top-ranked MBA program, such as one in the top 15 of Bloomberg Businessweek’s survey, can pay off handsomely over a career.
“It’s the promise of the golden ticket,” says Shawn Berry, president of PerfectGMAT, a test-prep company.
To help candidates get into those top schools, which include Stanford, Booth, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Harvard, Northwestern’s Kellogg School and Duke, Berry promises to maximize their GMAT scores — for a modest fee.
“My GMAT service costs $10,000, and it long has,” he says, “and it’s well worth it.”
‘Opportunity for access’
Indeed, a study commissioned by Bloomberg Businessweek found that graduates from the top MBA programs make about $1 million more over the course of their careers than those from lesser-ranked programs.
Berry’s pitch has a very basic appeal. An MBA, he says, is an “opportunity for access” to top-paying jobs. It’s a degree, he says, that largely caters to “people who want to succeed and go to Wall Street and make a lot of money.”
So why not spend $10,000, or 1 percent of that additional $1 million in expected lifetime earnings, to secure a spot at a school where you’ll maximize that access?
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