In this episode, Julia and Alex tackle three critical MBA application topics that prospective students frequently ask about: handling waitlist decisions, choosing between Round 1 and Round 2 applications, and deciding between the GMAT and GRE. Drawing from their own experiences and conversations with classmates, they provide practical advice for navigating these challenging aspects of the MBA admissions process.
The hosts share personal stories about waitlist experiences, including Julia's journey being waitlisted at Harvard Business School and Alex's sister's experience at MIT. They discuss the emotional challenges of waiting and offer concrete strategies for managing the uncertainty. On application timing, they explain the trade-offs between rounds, emphasizing that readiness matters more than acceptance rate statistics. Finally, they cover test preparation strategies, sharing their own GMAT journeys and providing tips for effective studying, including when to consider tutoring and how to source affordable prep materials.
Hello everyone, welcome back to How Did You Get In, a show for people curious about the MBA process, actively applying, or just wanting to learn more about business school. Today we are talking all things waitlist, GMAT versus GRE, and what round to apply in. We hope you enjoy the show.
Just want to put in a little PSA. Today we're going to be giving some concrete advice about what to do if you get on the waitlist, what round to apply in, and taking the GMAT versus GRE. All of this advice is based off of our own experiences and from talking to classmates. This is not from professional consultants who have been inside the admissions office, so do your own research as well. This is what we've heard from crowdsourcing from our friends and people who have gotten in.
Hello everyone, welcome back to How Did You Get In. Just as a reminder, we are a podcast for people who are interested in getting their MBAs, actively applying to get their MBAs, or just curious about what the whole business school deal is and what it entails and want to learn more. Alex and I are your hosts, and we're going to be doing a little solo, or just the two of us, episode with no guests.
I personally was fortunate enough to avoid the waitlist altogether. I actually think it is in some ways crueler than just a straight up rejection, because you're basically like, oh, so you're telling me I'm almost good enough, or right on the edge of being good enough. My sister, she was on the waitlist for MIT. She applied round one, so found out she was on the waitlist in December. She didn't get off the waitlist until July. So it was one of those crazy things where she found out and basically had to really quickly wrap things up at work and give a six week notice, and just try to scramble and get her life together. It sucks because in her case you didn't get to go to the admitted students weekends or anything like that. And the whole thing of what do you do while on the waitlist, do you bother them or do you leave them alone? So I saw secondhand it's a very stressful process.
I empathize with your sister. That week of December you get decisions rolling in, and I had applied to six schools. Right off the bat was rejected from Stanford, their loss, and got into a handful of others that I was very excited about, but HBS was my last response. I ran home from work and I checked my email, and you're hoping for the answer which says the answer is yes, and it was, we don't know yet. The answer is maybe, the answer is hold tight. It's hard, and it's embarrassing, I got really upset even though I had other good options. And it is better than not, it's better than being rejected. If that's your dream school it is an infinitely better thing. When you think about it, Alex's sister ended up getting off the waitlist, I ended up getting off the waitlist. So it certainly feels rough, and so if you end up in that position, allow yourself to feel frustrated. Friends and family who are not going through it might not understand, because they haven't gone through the same amount of work, they don't understand how it feels to have your future tied up for a month waiting, and now it's this indefinite wait. You're allowed to feel frustrated, but I do have a couple of thoughts, and these are just my suggestions on what to do if you get waitlisted based on my experience.
The first thing - you brought up a question, which is do I bother them or do I not, and I would say take a beat and read what the letter actually says. Some of the letters might ask you for information. They might say we need a little bit more information here, or this was a weaker part of your application. They might do that. The Harvard waitlist email that I got just said we don't know yet, we think you're a really compelling applicant, but we're still assessing, and we don't need to hear more from you right now. All we need to know is do you want to stay on the waitlist or not. And so it was pretty clear, and as hard as it is, because you want to say I can go do more, maybe I'll take the GMAT one more time, I'll send in more recommendations, the response was just say yes or no, I want to stay on this waitlist. And so I said yes.
Honestly, the next recommendation I have, if it's possible and if you've applied to more schools and/or maybe have another school that you've gotten into Round 1, is to send in that yes that you want to stay on the waitlist and almost forget that you're on it. I got advice from someone which was to fall in love with another school, and that's what I did. I fell in love with MIT, and that was amazing. And it's a tough thing to do, because you know that there's that maybe out there, but you mentally will feel so much better if you convince yourself to love another school while you're waiting.
My understanding - and correct me if you disagree - HBS, for example, and I'm assuming every other business school, they have, with no names and faces, their ideal class makeup. X percent is going to come from a finance background, X percent is probably going to be consulting, X percent military, engineers, on and on, and they have rough percentages assigned to these, including also demographics and socioeconomic background. And so basically what they're telling you with that waitlist is you are a really great candidate to fill one of these spots, we just want to see the full pool of people we can fill those spots with, and you're definitely in the running. But maybe you were filling an especially competitive spot, for example. Is it a competitive one, or is it one with just fewer spots? It's impossible to say exactly which boxes you're ticking and which ones maybe they needed to wait on, but my guess is it was a very competitive spot.
It's hard not to get down on yourself, in particular, because it is this feeling of like you're just not quite good enough yet, and they're basically holding a spot to compare you to round two to see what the round two applicant pool looks like. What was interesting in my experience was I got waitlisted in December. I cried a little, I got over it. I basically gave myself one day to be sad about it, and then you forget that it exists. I went and visited all of the other schools that I got into. I visited Wharton and HBS and MIT, and it also hit me, I have some really great other options here. I went to the MIT accepted students weekend and fell in love with it, was so excited about it. I think I've shared this on another episode, but I bought my mom an MIT mom hat. I committed and saw myself in this other place and was able to let go of some of the angst about HBS.
That was all in February, and I had to make my deposit to MIT in February, and I did it without any hesitation, thinking HBS, who knows what your chances are, and I know that I could have a really good experience at this other place. So I put my deposit down, and I think two weeks later heard from HBS that I'd got off the waitlist, which came out of nowhere. You never know when you're going to hear. I almost threw my laptop across the room, because I was like, oh my God, it's a weird feeling.
Was it an email that said there's an update to your application?
There's an update to your application, and then it said the answer is yes. It's like, we knew it took a little longer, but we want you here. And so then the flood of emotions that comes after, if this happens to you, is, well, they didn't want me the first time around and now I found this other school. And there's this funny dichotomy because you've tricked yourself into falling in love with another school or a different path, maybe it's to not go to school at all, and now you have to sort of take a step back from the mental game that you played to feel okay about it and say, what is really the best decision for me?
Once that happened and I got in, there was an event for round two admitted students the next weekend in San Francisco, and I went and I felt like I had a giant letter W and R written on my chest. I felt like people could see it, that I didn't really belong. Everyone talks about when you go to one of these schools the impostor syndrome is really real. Well, the impostor syndrome when you've been told, maybe, oh yes, actually we can fit you in, is really hard to get over.
Once you get there you realize it's a crapshoot. A piece of advice I got when I was applying to undergrad, and where I went to Chicago, we sat in a meeting. This was before we were admitted or anything, it was a prospective students weekend, and the dean of the school looked at this room of probably four or 500 students and their parents and said, "We could accept this entire room of students into our class, we could kill them all literally, and we could take the next 1,000 students and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference." Insane. And so to me, I had to swallow some of the hubris and the pride and really say, okay, this path is really not marked. It's not different. It's only different if I allow it to look and feel different. So those are just some pitfalls. If you get that waitlist decision, it's not easy, but it becomes irrelevant so fast. And also the reality is, given when you got off the waitlist, if you had applied round two you never would have even had to, you never would have experienced that waitlist panic, which leads into the next question of which round is actually better.
Before we hop to that, I just want to sum up a couple key points. If you open your email on December 5th or whatever day it is and it says you're waitlisted somewhere, a couple of steps. First, deep breath. It is not an answer yet, and that is frustrating, but it's not an answer yet. You're allowed to be frustrated and stressed. Give yourself a day, two days, whatever you need to process that feeling of all the hard work and still waiting. And then come up with your second best option and really imagine your life that way and fall in love with a different path. And if it happens to change, then you just have two amazing options in front of you to choose from. That's the worst case scenario. If it doesn't, if you don't get off the waitlist, you found a path that works and that was the right path for you.
And as hard as it is, do not take the waitlist personally. There were so many students in our section, I know of at least five, maybe six out of a hundred, that were on the waitlist. There was one person who was waitlisted and got an offer, a spot, for the year later. It happens to more people than you think. It happens to some of the smartest people in the room, not that that was me, but try not to let it define your experience.
The reality is you really shouldn't apply until you feel ready. In general, they accept, or they select, about a third of the class from Round 1, and they create the other two-thirds remaining of the class from Round 2. Part of that is Round 2 is a bigger applicant pool, but when you boil it down to the acceptance rates, you have Round 1 at a 13% acceptance rate and Round 2 around an 8% acceptance rate. Sure, you can look at that and say, oh, I absolutely have to apply Round 1, but the reality is you really shouldn't apply until you feel ready.
For example, if applying Round 2 is the difference that allows you to go one more time at the GMAT and go from a 690 to a 730, that's absolutely worth the wait, because you're that much stronger of a candidate. What if you were staffed on a horrible project and you just didn't have the mental bandwidth to give your essay everything you got, and take in all the feedback from multiple different people and go at it again? Then yes. Just think: if you did Round 1 and you got rejected, would you feel, well, I could have done more if I had just given myself more time? If that's what you think as you're ready to submit it, you're not ready.
It's a really good question to ask yourself, and the thing to remember is, a matter of a couple months doesn't seem like much, but if you're not completely ready, this could be a decision that is life-changing. It directs the path for at least your following two years, and then maybe more. You don't want to live in a world where you felt rushed and you're like, okay, well, I just want to get this out of the way, and then that decides your path for two, four, and really the rest of your life. You want to give it your all so you can, in the end of it, walk away with the feeling of, okay, I've done absolutely everything I can.
Alex and I both applied Round 1, and I don't regret it. The benefit is, if you are ready and you feel like you have your application on lock, it's the best it's going to be, there's not a point more you can get on that GMAT within reason, then you get the answer sooner, unless you get waitlisted as we just talked about. But you get the answer sooner, and it allows you a little bit more time to plan, figure out your financial aid, your housing, if you want to go on a trip, and going to all the admitted students weekends. So that's the real benefit of Round 1.
The benefit is really buying yourself that little bit of extra time to plan your life and to have this done, but only if you're fully ready. The other thing that I thought of personally was if I only had the mental bandwidth, mind chair, however you want to say it, and resources, because I wasn't working with a professional consultant, to do a really good job with applying to two schools. So I was like, okay, now's my time to just figure out what my top two are and just focus on those.
So the other way to think about it is round one, go for the top two or three that you really want, and you can always do round two for backups, safety. The reality is if you're going to the top 10, you're going to have an amazing experience and it's going to do amazing things for your career long term. So do a really good job on the ones that you'd be so excited to get into, and give each of those the amount of time that it deserves. And then if you don't get into any of those, then round two, you've already done a lot of the prep work. You should absolutely tailor the applications to those schools, but you're not starting from scratch.
The only other two considerations: there are some schools, HBS no longer does it, but there are some schools that do round three. Strong recommendation to not do round three unless you have just cured cancer or have had some accomplishment that means that late in the game they're going to give one of those very few last spots to you. It's not a recommended path. If you decide you want to go to business school in February and the only round left is in March, unless you have the most compelling application, something that is so standout, it is better off to wait until that next application cycle.
The only other thing is there are some schools, I believe Columbia Business School included, that do rolling applications, and so that is an example where the earlier you submit the better, because you still want to be ready for that application, but because it's on a rolling basis there are fewer spots as you go, and so you want to be on that earlier end. So those would be my other two caveats. Between round one and round two it's a matter of preparation, round three really not recommended, and if it's rolling, earlier is better.
One of the things that I weighed was how critical is it going to be to my application, because one thing the GMAT can signal is if you don't have a quant-heavy background, it's a way to say, look, I can do math, I'm going to be able to keep up in these finance and accounting and operations classes. I came from an economics undergrad that is fairly math heavy, and a program that's especially known for it. Chicago has an especially great reputation for its quantitative economics. So I knew that I needed to do well. I set my goal as I need to do somewhere close to the average of what students who get in is, which is somewhere between 710 and 720. I took it the first time, 690, and thought, okay, 710 is totally achievable. Took it the second time, 690, thought, this might not be achievable, and then got a 730. So for me, clearing that 710 to 720 hurdle was enough for me to say, okay, had I gotten less than that I might have given it one more shot on goal.
I actually am pretty sure I still would have gone through with the application. The first time I took it I got a 630, whereas on practice exams I'd been scoring 690 to 720, so it's like I know I can do it. And also it was one of those things where I could tell I was fully aware of the fact that I was panicking mid-test, and then the answers were getting easier. If you've taken the GMAT, you know if the questions are getting easier it's a really bad sign. The questions should in theory be getting incrementally harder. You're not getting smarter during the test, in all likelihood. So I basically knew, oh crap, I did not do this quant part nearly as well as I could. I knew I needed to take it again, got a 690 the second time, and I was like, okay, I can't apply with that.
I had a good undergrad GPA in applied economics, not quite economics, and then my role - I was in marketing prior to applying to business school. Marketing in recent years, in this age of digital marketing and direct response marketing, has grown very quantitative, but there still is a lot of brand marketing that is not as much building models in Excel. I just made sure to ask my recommenders to illustrate the quantitative nature of the job and using data to drive decisions. I knew the combination of getting A's in quantitative classes in undergrad with asking my recommenders to focus on my quant skills. I also fortunately have a friend who's in recruiting at Bain, and she told me that as long as it's 690 above, there's no red flag. So I was like, that's a good signal, that if Bain, McKinsey, and BCG don't even think twice about interviewing someone with a 690, then that's a positive sign that it's close enough to a 700. So I took it for the third time two days before my application was due, and luckily that was a 710, and I was like, great, that is good enough.
I think it's not a make or break, and as you guys might know if you're doing research, some schools are not even requiring it anymore. Harvard certainly is, and a number of the top 10 business schools are, and even if they don't require it, it serves as a signal. The main thing is twofold: one, that you can do math and that you're going to be okay in these quantitative-heavy classes, because they can be rigorous, and two, if you're a non-native English speaker, it speaks to your ability to have the reading comprehension and verbal skills that will mean that you can read the cases and participate effectively. So if it can be additive at all, it is worth including even if it's not required.
I lean towards GMAT as being the optimal, but we had Matowski on the podcast earlier and he knew himself, he took the GRE and he went to Booth, which is arguably one of the more quantitative focused schools. So GMAT is more standard, but you need to do what works for you.
I didn't spend too much time thinking GMAT versus GRE. Part of it was because my sister had GMAT books that I didn't have to pay for, that I could just use, so frankly that's good enough reason in my book. But when in high school it was more common to apply with SATs, and I happened to just be better at the ACT. I happened to test better on the ACT, so I went with that. It fit me better. So if the GRE does fit you better, then great, stick with that. Take some practice tests, find out how you do. The first practice test you take might be alarming, so don't panic, you've got plenty of room from there. But take the test that you know, try out both and see what feels more natural, and where you have some aptitude, where you have less panic.
I do think that GMAT carries more weight if you're an English major who's worked with nothing, never touched Excel at your job, and it's very clear. I think the GMAT might be the option for you. I'm not going to say it has to be, just because it does have a little bit more Quant weight as its reputation than the GRE, and so that's going to be a gap that people are looking for. So it's background dependent. If you need to show that you're going to be able to survive in a finance class, the GMAT is a good way to go.
And the other question, what you might have picked up on from Alex and I, between the two of us we've taken the GMAT six times.
Did you submit all those scores?
I submitted my first and my last. So I submitted that 630, part of it was because I did better on reading, IR, and the writing on that one. And then it also just showed that I could improve. I was like, well, maybe it shows that I have grit and can go back and improve and show that I can make a lot of progress in a short amount of time. But yeah, I kept it so that in case they super score. Pretty sure they don't super score, but I was like, I don't think this hurts.
I sent all three, because my 690s, the scores reversed, and so I had that feeling of like, well, maybe if they look they know that I'm just a crappy test taker. And 690, just to be clear, is solid. But I got B pluses in some of my economics math classes, so I knew that I needed to show some element of excellence in Quant ability. So I took it the third time and submitted all three. Again to the point of showing grit, I think when you get over three attempts, or you submit 700, 700, 700, that might not have the same impact. I think submitting multiple times, if it's showing true progress, shows grit and shows your ability to learn and stick with something, and then can be worthwhile.
When did you start studying for it, and when was the last time you took it?
If any of you have taken it yet, there's the time when you start studying - and I'm using air quotes, because that's when you buy the book and you do a couple practice questions, you look at the answers and you're like, I'm studying. That started a good two years before going to school. Probably six months before the first time I took the test, I took my first practice test two months before the test.
It's not about how far in advance, it's about really dedicating your brain space to it. I truly started really studying for the GMAT when I got the 690s, probably a month before in real earnest, and then when I went back the 730 route I studied in earnest for three months before and had a calendar. I was studying four days a week for two or three hours a night, with intention rather than just looking at a book. So you have to be honest with yourself about that.
Practice tests should have happened for me week one, just to get used to it and to assess where my skills were. The problem is it's time-consuming, it takes four hours of your weekend or whenever you're doing it, but you really should be taking one every couple of weeks as you're working up to it if you're seriously studying. Don't waste them, because you can't find that many.
What about you?
I started loosely studying it, just like you said. I felt real, pat myself on the back for going to Starbucks for an hour and a half on a Saturday. That was in January, and this was the year I applied, so this was 2018. Then I finally booked a test date in May, and so that's when I really actually kicked it in. In May I booked the test date for July 1, and then after July 1 booked the second one for like August 1, and then the last one for September 1st, because you have to space them out.
After the first one, the 630, I spent most of my time just focusing on the Quant sections. Probably 80% of my time I did Quant and 20% was just refreshing the reading and the IR parts. Similar to you, Julia, I remember I'd stay late at the office just because I felt I was in a productive mindset when I was at the office, so I'd go into a conference room at like 6:00 pm and then I would usually stay until like 8, maybe 8:30, sometimes 9. That two to three hours, and I'd try to do that multiple times a week. You just have to be really regimented.
I used a combination of Manhattan Prep books that my sister gave me, and then I did Veritas Prep as well. One interesting note: there's one free test that you can take on basically gmat.com or something very generic that is going to be your most accurate for what you will actually get. Veritas Prep really knows how to mess with your confidence, and it seems like they lower your score, or they have especially tough questions. On average I know multiple people who were getting 690s on Veritas Prep and then went in and got 750s. Mine wasn't quite that extreme, but for sure the one that you take on the GMAT, or whatever the generic one is, is absolutely the most accurate, so save that one for closer to when you're going to take the test.
A good exercise is take some of those Veritas Preps, take some of the hard ones, let your confidence take the bruising, and then you'll take the real practice test and go, I'm a genius.
The other thing is, if you're taking practice tests and you're realizing, man, I am just bombing these kinds of questions, because they'll do some analysis on the types of questions that you're struggling with, it is worth it. Business school in general is a huge investment, it costs a ton of money to go, and if you're trying to give yourself the best chance, considering a GMAT tutor is not necessarily a bad idea, in particular if it is targeted areas that you really think if you can ace those you can boost your chances, and some of that one-on-one attention. Manhattan Prep and some of these other courses are great for just generally getting ready for the test, but they're not going to give you that. There's some coaching, but the big classes aren't going to help you solve all your problems with probabilities or whatever it might be. If you're seeing yourself continue to struggle on one subject area, go on Yelp and look up GMAT tutor in my area, or now with Zoom you can do it anywhere.
You found yours through Yelp, right?
Yeah, I did. I used a GMAT tutor briefly for a very specific part of the math section I was struggling on, and I give her full credit as to why I got the 730. It is a bit like having, it's a luxury, it's a nice to have, you do not need to have it to get a good GMAT score, but it is a bit like getting a personal trainer. I could go to the gym and work out by myself, but if once a week I'm paying a decent amount of money for a few weeks to be focused, I'm going to really be.
It was the right decision for me to do it, but it might not be the right decision for everybody - it's worth considering. I ended up doing Veritas Prep. They had some type of package where you just got a lot of practice questions and you got some tutorials. I did not get through all the tutorials in time, but they were helpful, and I believe that was like 250 bucks versus 800 for some of the more extensive tutorials. I feel like it's absolutely worth paying for some type of prep, unless you're an amazing test taker and can crush it from the get-go.
That being said, one nifty hack: the vast majority of you who are applying to business school probably know someone who has recently applied or is thinking about it. Once you're done with those GMAT books, not only are they not useful, they are a painful reminder of the time that you have spent sitting on your kitchen counter, and most people want to burn them. Doing a quick outreach, even having some forethought, saying, "Hey, I hear you just applied to school. Are you done with your GMAT books? Could I pay a small fee for them, or would you be willing to donate them?" They often come with codes for free tests, and maybe they haven't used all of those. You do not need to buy brand new GMAT books. Ask around, because man, people want those off their hands. Facebook Marketplace wasn't a thing when I was doing it, but I bet that's a place where you could find discounted ones.
Don't spend the money up front; spend the money when you can be more targeted about where you need the help. Get a general picture first.
In terms of wrapping up some takeaways: you're not going to really take it seriously until you actually have a test time booked, so book it sooner rather than later. Book it with plenty of time to take it three times at least, ideally with about a month to two months spacing between each test. Frankly, also try to get it out of the way sooner, so that the last couple weeks before applying it's really essay, resume, all those other parts of your application you can focus on. Get a general picture, get some feedback, figure out where you can take the free test. Start by just taking a test to see where you fall right now and where your opportunity areas are, and then if needed and financially doable, get that targeted help if you can. Yelp has GMAT tutors. It doesn't need to be through one of these Manhattan Prep companies - it's probably a much better financial deal to find them through Yelp.
To add to that, in terms of timing, this is just a very highly specific version that worked for me. I started studying roughly around this time, started thinking about it November to December. It's typically a time when you have a little less going on at work, and so I booked my test for late January, early February. You might have time off, you might be home from the holidays, maybe there's a little less going on socially, and so you can dedicate yourself. When it's cold and dark you're going to be a little miserable anyway, might as well buckle down. That way if you take it in February, maybe you need to retake once in March or April, and then you can be done with that and focus from April until Round 1 on your essays and recommendations. That is a schedule that worked really well for me. But finding a time where you can take it, where for that month, maybe two months when you're studying, your social life has to be a priority, unless you're a genius test taker, which neither of us are. We're both decent. Picking a time where you can really say this is my time to buckle down, and the winter, right around now, is not a bad time to think about it.
It was really hard continuing to find that motivation to study in the summer when so much is going on and your weekends fill up, and when it's nice outside after work it would be so much nicer to just go on a nice walk outside. This obviously applies to only certain parts of the country, but double down in times when you're naturally going to have less to do.
We've talked about a fair amount on this episode. We gave you advice: if you get waitlisted, do not despair, come up with your plan B. Go back and listen for how to manage, but don't despair. Round 1 versus Round 2 really depends on your level of preparation. Round 3 only in extreme circumstances, and rolling, apply as early as you feel ready to give your best shot. And GMAT versus GRE, I think you summed up well: GMAT is a signal of your quantitative aptitude. That being said, if you have enough in your background quantitatively that shows that you can handle the math classes, GMAT or GRE, both are great. Give yourself enough time to take it a few times, and try to get free books, because God knows we don't want to give the GMAT commission any more money than they already have.
Good luck to all of you guys applying and studying and/or just starting to think about it. And please send in questions so we can answer more questions targeted to what you guys want to hear about.