Whether you planned it this way or you simply missed the deadline for Round One MBA applications, you may be relieved that you now have months before Round Two applications are due for most of the M7 business schools. You may be thinking that you’ll go through the same steps in pretty much the same way, only giving yourself a little more time.
Most of the debate about Round One versus Round Two revolves around a candidate’s chances of admission. Acceptance rates tend to be slightly higher in Round One, but it’s hard to say whether that’s because Round One applicants are better qualified or just better organized. Their GMAT scores, if applicable, are lined up well in advance of the September and early October deadlines, and they may have been working on their applications months in advance.
For other candidates, the Round One deadline is not as pressing. The website of the respected resource Clear Admit assures candidates: “As many an admissions officer will tell you, there is really no material difference in terms of admissions whether a candidate applies in Round 1 or Round 2, unless the candidate is from an over-represented group,” such as Indian males in technical fields.
But there is one critical difference between Round One and Round Two: Round One comes with an automatic default option.
Petia Whitmore, founder of My MBA Path, puts it this way in a recent newsletter: “Unlike Round 1, where pushing your application to the next round is a safe bet, there’s no good backup option for Round 2.”
So if you are looking at Round Two, it’s time for some serious project management. The deadline date may be in 2024, but for most schools, you are looking at the first week of January. For Harvard Business School, the due date is January 3, which is just 48 hours beyond New Year’s Day. Wharton, Stanford GSB, Yale SOM, Chicago Booth and Tuck pile on their deadlines the very next day.
You may be willing to burn the midnight oil during the end-of-year holidays, but what about the parts of your application that are not under your control? If your target programs require documentation of your bachelor’s degree, or a transcript of your grades in college, you may find that the office that issues such documents is closed as of mid-December. It takes time to send your GMAT, GRE or TOEFL scores, if official score reports are required.
Krithika Srnivasan, a past president of the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants, remembers an applicant whose passport expired, which prevented them from taking the GMAT on time.
The supervisor of another candidate had promised to get the material in on time, “but couldn’t complete. They went on vacation on a 10-day meditation retreat with no devices allowed. Client was totally worried. Thankfully, the school did allow for late submissions of recommendation. So while it was rejuvenating for the recommender, it wasn’t for the client!”
“The holidays do get in the way for those who save it for later in Round Two,” she cautioned in correspondence on LinkedIn. “I would advise clients to give recommenders at least 1-2 months’ time, along with all the details they would need. This is where the AIGAC guidelines for recommenders can come in handy.”
“Also, for the ones scrambling to put together the application,” Srinivasan concludes, “get it done before Christmas break.”
You definitely do not want to be the desperate candidate who resorts to accosting a supervisor at a New Year’s Eve party to plead for that overdue letter of recommendation.
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