Avoiding Application Pitfalls: Accepted.com

What should an MBA applicant NOT do when preparing his or her application? That's the topic of my upcoming podcast. To get some answers, I've been talking with admissions consultants and admissions staff at some of the top business schools.

Linda Abraham, Founder and President of admissions consulting firm Accepted.com, helped get me started with her article on the top MBA application essay mistakes, "Recipe for Disaster: Application Mistakes You Want to Avoid."

Abraham said the biggest mistake applicants typically make is writing what they think the admissions committee wants to hear, instead of writing about what they want the admissions committee to know.

Read that again. Rinse. Repeat.

Ready for more? Like Graham Richmond of Clearadmit, Abraham described the application as the sum of many parts.

"It's like a jigsaw puzzle," she said. "All the pieces are going to come together to form a picture of the applicant. They shouldn't duplicate; they should complement."

That means getting those analytical gears spinning and applying them to yourself: your test scores. The essays. The boxes on the application form. The interviews. What points should go where? How can you put your best foot forward?

For more Application Pitfalls questions, and answers, tune into MBA Podcaster for the full story in the next month or so.

(Updated! Listen to the completed show here: http://www.mbapodcaster.com/MBA_MoreInfo/MBA-Application-Pitfalls.asp?iEpisode=83)