An Eye-opener for serious B-School aspirants

I took the mbaMission's application bootcamp in August and its a short, rigorous program that drivels down every generalist nitty-gritty of the application process into your head in a very short time. The class size was small so there was plenty of room for personal interaction.

Our instructor was Angela Guido whose extraordinary energy and depth of knowledge seemed a little intimidating at first, but she turned out to be extremely friendly and helpful. So in a nutshell, here's what you'll walk out with after taking this course -

1. Learn the factors that would help you pin down a healthy and balanced list of schools that you would want to apply to. Before knowing these factors, my choice of schools seemed pretty 'random'. Not only choosing a school for the right reasons very important in realizing your ambitions, but you're also able to convince the admissions committee a lot more convincingly that you're the right choice for them.

2. Learn how to write effective and powerful essays. Essays, of course, are the most important part of an MBA application and gives you an unlimited opportunity to shine. But its also the most slippery road down the path to a B-school. This course acquaints you with different kinds of essays and shows you how to brainstorm ideas, stories from your life etc. to create a powerful self-character and bring it across in the essays. Then there are numerous do-and-don'ts in the essays which can make or break an app. Angela conducted extensive practice exercises to help put us in ad-com's shoes and understand why what works, works and why what kills an app does so. This was very enlightening!

3. Learn the do' and don'ts of an effective resume, in a way similar to the essays.

4. An personal one-on-one essays analysis and critical feedback.

Ultimately, this course made me realize just how much work goes into preparing an surefire application but also gave me some very effective tools to work with. I've just started applying to schools and I use these tools everyday while preparing my applications.

The program could be a bit of a pinch in the wallet but I do believe that mbaMission are the best in what they do, and with Angela as the instructor I think it was worth the money. I would highly recommend this excellent program to anyone who is serious about getting into a top-10 B-School and wants a cheaper alternative to complete start-to-finish packages.