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MBA Admissions Essential #10: Submitting Supplemental Application Materials

You succeeded!   All of your MBA application materials arrived by the deadline and your file has been sent out for review.  Since submitting your application, however, you have been promoted, received a new community or work award, or experienced some other noteworthy event. You are convinced that this one new change in your personal or professional life is significant enough to tip the balance of your candidacy toward a sure admit – or at least make you more attractive to the Admissions Committee. J Should you submit this additional information even though school policy encourages you not to?

   

While MBA programs differ in their policies, many schools, including Wharton, discourage the submissions of supplemental materials once the deadline has passed. For one thing, the timing is poor. There is no guarantee the information arrives in time for the application review.  To ask for an additional review based on new data could delay the evaluation process, particularly if hundreds of applicants make this same request. At some point in time, there has to be a real deadline.

    

In terms of equity, it is unfair to add supplemental application materials for those who request it, knowing that just as many (if not more) individuals who have similar new accomplishments to share do not do so because they honor established guidelines. We prefer to dispel, rather than reinforce, the old adage that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

   

On practical grounds, supplemental information rarely, if ever, alters a candidate evaluation.  Admissions decisions are made across multiple criteria, so that bolstering any one area is unlikely to alter the overall profile. And, in most cases, additional information is work-related.  A promotion or raise, while certainly a nice bonus, is not likely to be a key differentiator.  You are, after all, applying to graduate school and not for a job.  An MBA program considers not only your demonstrated abilities to date, but your potential going forward.  Potential would already be recognized.

   

So, before you send in additional materials, think again. Remember that the timing is poor; respect the need for equity; and be mindful that the practical benefit is negligible.  Do not provide the Admissions Committee with reason to question your judgment.

07 Dec 2006 06:53 AM in Application Strategy | Permalink

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