The Naked MBA

I don’t want to be friends with my boss. And I’m not talking about Facebook--although there has been plenty of debate about whether you have to accept a friend request from your boss. I’m talking about flesh and blood, barbecue together on the weekends friends.

I know people who are friends with their boss, and I just don’t get it. I understand that these days work is life and vice versa; that it’s now totally normal to date someone from the office and that people who are friends with their coworkers are happier at work. But there are a number of reasons why I don’t want one of those friends to be my boss.

1. I don’t like to disappoint my friends.

The boss-employee relationship operates on the premise of the boss setting unrealistically high expectations, because, as a boss, that’s your job—to make people stretch. Your job is never to be completely satisfied, to always push the envelope and try to make everyone work just a little bit harder and be just a little bit better. In other words, to exist in a constant state of disappointment. This isn’t a negative thing—if my boss something I sent him with no feedback other than a big gold star, I would worry that I wasn’t working on an important project, or that he didn’t care about my development. From my friends, on the other hands, I expect lots of big gold stars.

2. I don’t want a hug.

If I’m having a bad day (or a bad four months) for personal reasons that have nothing do to with my job, I want to forget about it while I’m at work. I want to have something to focus on that takes me away from it and lets my mind rest from whatever turmoil is going on in other areas of my life. But if your boss is a friend then chances are they know that you’re going through a breakup, or that your son is having problems at school, or that your husband lost his job. Chances are they will ask you about it, and ask if you are ok and give you a hug. As a woman I’m already struggling to overcome the stereotype that I’m just a bundle of emotions, and getting a hug at work just undermines me.

3. It eliminates a degree of professionalism.

Say you’re having a disagreement with a friend over email—there is a certain tone and a certain way in which you’re communicating with each other. It’s probably not a very professional tone. Now imagine that friend is your boss, and imagine someone else at the office gets cc’ed on that email. You’re both going to end up looking bad but you’ll look worse because it will look like you’re mouthing off to you boss.

4. It doesn’t serve the organization best.

In the army, officers don’t fraternize with their troops because at some point they are going to have to ask them to do unpleasant things, and it’s harder to ask that of friends. The same goes for business--especially in these times of turmoil. Do you really want to lose a friend because your boss has to make some tough decisions about raises or layoffs?

I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t have any kind of personal relationship with your boss. Let’s face it: you probably spend more time with him/her than you do with most of your friends. And research shows that managers rated as exceptional are those who actually care about their employees on an individual basis. When Gallup asked more than eight million people to respond to the statement "My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person", they found that found that people who agree with this statement are more likely to stay with the organization, have more engaged customers, and are more productive. Fine. Just don’t give me a hug.

Your MBA is only as good as the economy. I know this because a few months ago I didn’t like my job and I thought about looking for a new one. I talked to everyone I knew about what I might be good at. One friend I talked to is a consultant. She loves her job, so she thinks everyone else should be a consultant, too. “You’re good with people,” she told me, “so maybe you should be a human capital consultant.”  She put me in touch with some people in the human capital group at her firm and I scheduled an informational interview with a partner.

‘I’m going to give it to your straight,” the partner said when I called her. “You have no consulting or other relevant experience, but you do have an MBA from a good school. A year ago we would have brought you in for an interview based purely on that, but things have changed now that the economy is in the tank. We can’t afford to just pay for smart people anymore; we need smart people who also have industry expertise. We need people to be specialized.”

When I was doing my MBA my “specialization” was finance, which meant I took an extra finance class and had a more intimidating looking calculator than the marketers. There is nothing “specialized” about an MBA. You’re a generalist—a very expensive generalist.  When the economy is steaming along, companies are willing to pay for expensive generalists; when it’s on a collision course with a recession-bound train, they’re not. This is especially true when it comes to newly-minted MBAs and those of us with 2-5 years of post-MBA work experience. We haven’t worked in our field long enough to garner any significant expertise, and many of us have even changed fields in that time period, making the case for specialization even weaker.

I asked the partner how I could be a more attractive candidate.  “You need to show that you really know something about the field,” she said. “You might want to consider another Master’s degree in something that would give you some expertise in the area. An MBA just doesn’t qualify you anymore.”

Ouch.

I’m posting this from an airplane. I’m using American Airline’s new Gogo Inflight internet. You pay $12 for a wireless connection at 30,000 feet. $12 for the chance to catch up on YouTube, check on your investments, update your Facebook status and…answer emails from your boss?

I was once in the dressing room at Bloomingdale’s and overheard the woman next to me on her cell phone. “I know you need that report but I’ll have to email it to you later. I’m about to get on a plane and they’re making me turn my phone off…gotta go.”  My friends in investment banking love business trips because the only time no one expects them to return emails or phone calls is while they are on the plane. I’ve got bad news: nowhere is sacred anymore.

I’m not on a business trip right now, I’m on the way home from vacation. During this vacation I put together a spreadsheet for my boss, checked my Blackberry the whole time and took a conference call. And now I’ve made the discovery that I can check my email from the plane. Yes, I have work-life boundary issues, but beyond that I just have boundary issues. During the day I keep three separate messenger windows open. When I’m out to dinner with friends I reach for my Blackberry as soon as they go to the restroom. And sometimes I don’t even wait for that. I remember one particularly shameful instance when a friend was visiting me in New York. I was dating someone new at the time and was exchanging flirtatious emails with him while catching up with her over cocktails. He asked me what I was doing and I said I was out with a friend. His next email was cold: Stop crackberrying me and pay attention to your friend.

For me, being connected to the entire world wherever I go seems to mean I’m less connected to where I am. I’ve grown unaccustomed to having a single conversation with one person. Instead I bounce around among multiple threads, sprinkling emoticons and never devoting my full attention anywhere. It makes me wonder what I would be capable of if I did.

Someone once told me that her Blackberry made her highly productive because she could answer emails wherever she was--including throughout every meeting I ever had with her. Maybe it made her more productive but it definitely wasted my time.

I’m back. I know it’s been a long time. Some of you noticed that I was gone, and at first you seemed to hold on to hope that I might come back. Then weeks went by without a post and even the most loyal readers gave up. I don’t blame you. I completely dropped off the face of the blogosphere with not even so much as a goodbye post.  Most of you have probably unsubscribed from my posts and stopped checking my url altogether, so the least I can do is offer an explanation as to what I’ve been doing for the past four months instead of blogging.

1. Calling off my wedding.

I debated about whether to blog about calling off my wedding, because at first I thought it had nothing at all to do with business school. But then I decided that it actually does. I met my ex-fiancé during my MBA. He is an alum of my school and we met at one of those cocktail networking events. We dated for a year and a half while I finished my MBA and tried my hand at investment banking, which I hated. We had a long distance relationship for half of this time while he was working in Latin America, so we didn’t get to know a lot of things about each other that we should have before we got serious. When he moved back to New York we still never saw each other because he took an investment banking job and spent most of his time at the office or on airplanes. Pretty much the only thing that was different from when he lived in another country was that I now had less closet space. He finally quit his job, found another one where he was home by 7 pm every night, and bought me an engagement ring. But shortly after we started spending more time together and settled into a pattern more representative of how daily life would be together, I knew he wasn’t for me. Figuring out why I didn’t want to marry such a sweet, caring person, on the other hand, is what took another four months. During this time I stopped sleeping, eating, talking to friends and family, and blogging while we tried to make it work. But in the end it just wasn’t going to, so I finally declared emotional bankruptcy and walked away.

2. Realizing that I am not the best person to blog about business school anymore.

I’ve been out of business school for two and half years now, so my perspective on being in business school is becoming dated. (That’s the nice way of saying that I’m getting old.) Business schools are microcosms of the market, and the market changes at lightening speed. You may have noticed that my old tag line ‘Blogging the bare truth about what to expect from business school.” is gone, to be replaced with a new one just as soon as I figure out what this blog is now about. That’s because I honestly have no idea what you can expect from business school these days. I don’t even know if an MBA will be considered a relevant, valuable degree in a few years, so why should I continue to blog about how to get one? The only thing I feel qualified to blog about right now is the path my life has taken since my MBA, and how my education has or hasn’t contributed to that path.

3. Having a career crisis.

Speaking of paths, mine has been rocky over the past four months. You’ll recall that I left banking to pursue my dream job in the public sector—which turned out to be a nightmare. I had a toxic boss who treated me like her personal assistant. On top of that, I accepted too low a salary, so while I watched my MBA classmates reap outsized bonuses and pay off their loans, I could barely pay my rent. I was completely to blame for my situation for not having conducted the proper due diligence on the person I would be working for, and for undervaluing myself, but I had just switched jobs so I didn’t know what to do to make things better. During this time I was not exactly well-positioned to give advice about making the most of an MBA--I was making copies and wondering how I was going to afford my student loan payment that month. Luckily there have been some changes recently and I feel like my mojo is returning.

So there you have it: the top 3 reasons I haven’t been blogging. I missed it. I missed you, and your comments and questions. I missed writing, giving advice, and getting your feedback. So I’m back, and I hope that you all will be soon, too!

One of the things I loved about business school was meeting people from so many different countries. I made some great international friends, all of whom were extremely intelligent and competent. But this didn’t necessarily help all (or even most) of them in their job search. The problem was that on top of cramming for their classes and keeping up with the hectic social schedule, they also had to learn the American way of looking for a job.

Networking doesn’t come naturally to a lot of us. But at least we’re aware that it’s a crucial part of getting a job. I know a lot of international students who felt like attending networking events was akin to landing on Mars. That’s just not how it worked for them at home. So it took them a while to catch on to the recruiting game, and they suffered because of it. (“What to do mean I can’t ever work at Goldman because I missed their presentation?”)  It’s funny, because I felt the same way at first. I didn’t come from a corporate background, so the recruiting events felt pretty alien to me, too. But I took Career Services’ word when they said I had to go, and a lot of my international friends didn’t. It was just too much for them to comprehend that a culture could actually work in such an artificial way—that being smart and hardworking didn’t always mean you got the interview.

International students also suffer from gaps in their knowledge of business jargon. In a lot cases my friends’ grasp of the English language was better than mine, but it took them time to learn all new vocabulary that we don’t think twice about.

Landing a full-time job after business school is hard enough; now imagine having to land that job at a company willing to pay thousands of dollars to sponsor your visa. If you want to work in finance your chances are better, but in marketing, consulting and a lot of other industries, good luck. A lot the marketing companies that came to my campus explicitly requested no international students at their presentations. Then even if you find someone willing sponsor your visa, you’re still not guaranteed the visa. This year the quota of H1B work visas was exhausted on the first day applications were accepted! One classmate I knew was stuck in the position of having stopped recruiting after he accepted an offer with an investment bank, only to find out months later that he was among the unlucky ones whose visa applications arrived too late.

Getting your MBA is stressful, but imagine how much more stressful it would be to do it in an entirely new culture and in another language. I saw tensions run high in study groups at times, and often it was due to cultural misunderstandings. But this is a chance to learn how to exercise patience, which will no doubt also serve you well in an increasingly global workforce.

If you’re just finishing your first year of business school, you’re probably breathing a sigh of relief. Everyone says that compared to first year, second year is a cakewalk. You’ll have to judge that for yourself, but harder or easier, it’s definitely different.

Whereas first year is a major earthquake, second year is a series of tremors. They still need to be taken seriously, and sometimes call for taking shelter in a doorway or under a desk, but they don’t strike fear into you heart the way the Big Quake does. Second year is just as busy (sometimes more) as first year, but it’s a different kind of busy. Your to-do list is just as long, but you have more power over what’s on it. For starters, you have mainly electives, so you can focus on classes that are aligned with your career interests. Most people focus on what they’re good at, so the classes seem easier. And if you still don’t know what you want to focus on, I have a strategy for you, too: pick you classes based on the ratings. All schools have some sort of faculty rating system, whether formal or informal. A fantastic professor can make you fall in love with a subject, while a bad one can make you despise something you previously found interesting. And taking a class on a subject that’s unfamiliar to you but taught by a phenomenal professor is a good way to stretch yourself.

Second year also offers more leadership opportunities. The first-years look to you for guidance on navigating the recruiting process, and for feedback on your internship and academic experiences. Once you start sharing your insight with them, I promise you’ll be surprised at how much you actually did learn your first year! You may also get the chance to be a more active student leader. In my experience, first years do a lot of the grunt work in clubs and organizations, while the second years sit back and delegate. I had to get comfortable with this when I became co-president of a large student club my second year. I was used to making sure things got done by doing them myself. Then someone pointed out to me that my job as a leader was to manage other people doing things—even if it was sometimes more time consuming than doing it myself. This is what leadership and management is all about.

I also made most of my friends second year. I met a lot of people my first year (365, to be exact!), but the friendships really happened second year. People stop going out en masse and you have more opportunities deepen relationships and hang out one-on-one and in small groups. For me this was a big relief, because I spent most of my first year feeling like there was more quantity than quality to my friendships.

While second year sometimes feels like one long party as everyone starts going out more and studying less, it also takes on a serious undertone as your mind turns to life after your MBA. You start to reflect on what you’ve learned, and what you still want to get out of the experience. You come to terms with the fact that you’ll soon have to leave the warm coccoon that is business school and re-enter the real world. But this isn’t all bad. When it happens, you’ll be ready.

With such a large range of choices, deciding where to go to business school is a tough decision. On top of that, many people wrestle with the decision of whether to go full or part-time. Some employers will pay your tuition if you keep working for them while in school; though they often then require you to stay with the company for a certain amount of time after you finish business school. If you’re really lucky, like a friend of mine who works for McKinsey, your employer will ship you off to a full-time program for two years, but that doesn’t happen often!

If your company is not paying, then you need hard to look at what your goal is in getting an MBA: do you want to change tracks completely, or are you focused on advancing in the industry you're already in? If you want to stay in your current industry, then you are better off going part-time and chalking up more work experience as well as the MBA. This way you don’t miss out on promotions and will move up the ladder even faster. As a part-time student you also get to apply your classroom learning directly to your job, which helps seal in the benefit of the MBA. Imagine going over a case study in class one night and then applying what you learned at work the very next day--education doesn’t get much more practical than that! Part-time programs also tend to be more focused on the actual learning you’re doing, instead of the grades. Because let’s face it—if you’re going to school and also have a full-time job, you’re more focused on finishing the program then on getting A’s in all your classes.

There are also clear disadvantages to part-time MBA programs. The biggest drawback is that if you’re looking to switch jobs then you don’t have the same recruiting resources available to you as full-time students do. For example, Chicago GSB allows all MBA students (full and part-time) to use the career center's resources in looking for a job, but they don’t let part-time students participate in on-campus interviews. They see it as a conflict of interest; they don’t want to take tuition money from a company and then turn around and help that company’s employees find another job. Fordham, on the other hand, allows part-time student to go through on-campus recruitment as long as they sign a waiver stating that they have notified their employers that they are interviewing for jobs.

Another disadvantage is that the demands of interviewing and intense competition for the best jobs often require a full time investment, and the reputation of a full-time program at a top school. Part-time programs are often not as well-regarded.

Getting an MBA is an investment in yourself, so you should calculate about what the return on that investment will be. Will an MBA increase your salary and career prospects so much so that it merits a full-time investment, or will you be better off doing it part-time? Can you afford to take two years out of the job market? Can you afford financially to go full-time? Thinking about these questions will not only help you decide whether to go full or part-time, but it will help you define what your ultimate goal is in getting an MBA and how it fits into your long-term plan.

For many, the goal of getting an MBA is to make more money. Personally, I was able to triple my salary with my first job out of business school (full disclosure: I did work for a non-profit before business school).  But in business school you often spend so much time trying to land your dream job, and thinking about how you’re going to spend the money you’ll soon be earning, that you forget all about negotiating you salary. You could make even more money if you just ask for it.

It’s in your best interest to negotiate as part of your job search. In fact, if you don’t negotiate, that could reflect badly on you—you could be seen as someone who isn’t assertive or educated on business practices.  It’s not only acceptable to negotiate, it’s expected. But first you need to know how to handle yourself.

Get the details
Get all the terms and conditions of your offer straight before the meeting in which you plan to negotiate. It’s best to talk to HR for this, as they can walk you through everything, from base salary to vacation days to 401k package. You also want to know how often you’ll have a performance review and how raises are determined, so you might need to speak with someone in the department where you’ll be working for this information. The point is that you want to have all the facts when you start negotiating. This way you can keep the conversation focused on negotiations instead of delving into the finer points of how the company’s 401k matching works.

Do your research
Research the average salary for your industry, position, level of experience, and the business school you attend. You want to show that you are well-versed in the market value for MBA salaries and sign-on bonuses. Two good resources for this information are the Business Week and the Financial Times MBA Salary Surveys. But the best and most accurate source of information for salaries from your specific school is recent alumni and your classmates. A recent New York Times article reveals that among younger generations, discussing how much money you make is no longer taboo. So ask around, and offer up what you know.

Everything is up for negotiation
Base salary isn’t everything. There are many other terms of employment you may want to negotiate, such as a larger signing bonus, relocation bonus or extra vacation days. And while base salary is often fixed, companies generally have more room to move on some of these other points.

Practice
Any good negotiator knows that you have to practice. Plan what you want to say and how you want to say it. Have mock negotiations with your friends or your career advisor. Practice negotiating at the drycleaner, with your cable company and with any other service you purchase. Eventually negotiating will feel natural, and you’ll appear more comfortable while you’re doing it. This is important, because you don’t want to come off as nervous or aggressive.

Game on
When it finally comes time to have the conversation, be sure to listen to your company’s points and reiterate that you understand where they are coming from. Make sure to emphasize that you want to work for them and that you’re confidant you can come to a salary agreement. Avoid commitment words (e.g., always, must have, deal breaker, never, won’t consider), and stick to the items that matter most. Try to concretely link your compensation requirements to job responsibilities and your potential or actual performance.

You’ll probably be asked what your salary requirements are. Do everything you can to avoid giving a number. You lose a lot of leverage if you lead with a number or range.

The end result
If you are not able to negotiate an offer that exceeds your minimum requirement, leave the door open for them to come back with something better.  Avoid refusing the offer altogether; instead say something like “I just can’t accept an offer at that level.”.  And even if you like the offer, don’t respond too quickly. Take time to carefully consider it. And above all, be gracious and polite.

Your negotiation process is your first chance to start building your reputation at your new company, and it’s a delicate process. You don’t want to be seen as overly-aggressive, but you also don’t want people to think they can walk all over you. The bottom line is that the negotiation process is just as important as the interview process, and it deserves some time and attention.

For those of you applying to business school in 2008, be warned that it’s shaping up to be one of the most competitive years ever. GMAT registration, a leading indicator of application volume, is way up. Worldwide, the number of people who registered to take the GMAT between the first of the year and February 29, 2008, was 47,592--nearly a 12% increase over the number of registrations recorded during the same period in 2007.So what can you do to stand out and land one of those prized spots at a top business school? In such a competitive time, you may want to consider an admissions consultant.

To that end, I recently got to have a conversation with Lou Chios, who has been an admissions consultant since the 1990s. I didn’t use a consultant when I applied, but Lou really opened my eyes do what these consultants do and how they can help you gain an edge. I’ve shared our conversation below.

CW: How did you get started as an admissions consultant?

I sort of stumbled into this in the 90’s in South America. I helped several candidates who were desperate and who entered HBS with my help, despite low GMATs. They recommended me to their friends, and then the business grew by word of mouth.

CW: Can you describe the services you offer?

First, I only work with around 40 people per year, to be sure that I can really focus 100% on them.

I help clients bring out their best in the admissions process from “theming” the essays, like you would do in an expository writing class, to making grammar suggestions to being able to present themselves clearly during the interview process. I also connect clients with previous ones--I have been doing this seriously since 1997 and I have nearly a hundred alumni from HBS alone--so that they know what each school is about beyond the brochure. For some universities, this personal contact with current students and alumni is critical in understanding one’s fit with the business school, and in conveying that message to key people. Every business school admissions office certainly has its own “culture.” Let me give two examples: In HBS, the wall between students and admissions officers is very high. The contact is minimal and the admissions office does not really care if you visit or lobby unless your mother is friends with the President of the university. In other universities such as NYU and Columbia, the admissions officers have regular contact with current students and alumni, and even seek their recommendations on candidates. If you call Kellogg or Chicago, you get a person on the other line. If you try to call HBS you will usually get a recording.

I also help people figure out what universities to apply to. I usually tell them to go take GMAT, multiple times if they need to, and then to come back to me when they’ve gotten the best score they can. Although the GMAT isn’t the only piece of the application, it’s an important filter for a lot of schools and gives me a sense of where they can realistically get in.  For example, Stanford has one the highest GMAT averages, around 730, so that tells me that they value a high GMAT. A 650 is not going to do it. I provide a reality check for people, but do encourage them to take some risks. I suggest applying to 3-4 schools in the right range for their GMAT and GPA, and 1-2 that are harder to get into. When picking these schools I also listen to what kind of environment they want, like do they want to be in a big city or at a smaller school. I try to match the experience they want with their GMAT score.

CW: What is the typical process for working with you?

During the initial interview, I try to define the strengths/weaknesses of the candidate and after they have taken the GMAT, I propose a group of universities to apply to. From there, we work on the resume, essay outlines, usually one university at a time. I push my clients to work with outlines that become more and more detailed before the writing begins. There is a lot of back and forth. After the applications are submitted, we work like hell on mock interviews. I do 7-8 mock interviews, based on the universities we’ve chosen. Accepted.com has a database of interview questions from different schools, so we work with a lot of those. The experience is really intense.

CW: What do people expect of you? Do they ever expect too much?

People have asked me for all kinds of help, and quite often in this process I evolve into some sort of psychologist. I draw the line very early in my initial talk and make it very clear that I am a consultant and NOT a ghost writer.

Moreover, as people in the industry know, admissions is a supply/demand situation and so Candidate X might enter the university of their choice in one given year, and Candidate X's friend with higher numbers and a similar background might find the same university more difficult in a different year. Such comparisons sometimes create problems. That is why I urge people to apply to a substantial group of universities because entering a top university means that everything has gone well, and that is tough.

CW: Is it really just about your GMAT and your GPA?

No. They are important, but schools are looking for people who have achieved leadership and growth in their current jobs, and who are well-rounded in their activities. They don’t want people who will just go home and study and will never contribute to the community. It’s important to show that you are this kind of person--in addition to being the next Bill Gates!

I often ask people, if they looked at two candidates side by side with identical work experience, but one of them already has a degree in finance and one has a degree in music, who they think would be better positioned to get into business school. From my experience it’s often the one with the music degree. I try to help people draw out what it is that differentiates them. For example, I had one client who was an opera singer on the side, but she was embarrassed by it. She hid it from me until well into the application process. When I found out, I said “That’s fantastic!” And in then end, it really helped her. When she talked with the Duke Admissions Director, it turned out that he loved classical music and they really connected on this.

CW: How do you think business schools feel about students using admissions consultants?

They don’t like it. But they have learned to live with us. Admissions directors could change the way they do things but they don’t.

CW: How do you think admissions directors could change the way the do things?

If they didn’t want admissions consultants to get involved then they could make you go to a writing center to do the essays, just like the GMAT. Or they could have a very extensive interview process, such as having 2-3 people ask you questions and keeping a transcript of interview to review. But they don’t change the process, which leads me to believe that they’re happy with the students they get, even though they know admissions consultants are often involved.

CW: If I'm a C student from an unknown college, can you get me into HBS?

Do you work at McKinsey, BCG or Goldman? HBS fawns over candidates from those companies even though HBS loves to act like they support “entrepreneurial risk-takers.” I think it has to do with the fact that candidates from companies such as these high-end ones are easy to place, and it also doesn’t hurt that these companies of course recruit tons of HBS people.

Having said that, I know it is tough for a C student to enter HBS given that the school loves high grades. But if you show outstanding leadership development in a certain area it is certainly worth a try! I am very realistic with my clients. If I think a client is completely unrealistic about his/her basket of choices I will not work with them. At the same time, I encourage them to go for those tough universities even if the chances might appear slim.

CW: Do you think it's necessary to use an admissions consultant?

I think so. It is a question of knowing your limits and employing someone who knows how to navigate in areas that you are not familiar with. This process involves many factors and if you are not familiar with ALL of them, then you will most likely suffer. That is not to say you do not have the person who wrote her HBS essays in only two hours the night before and got in….but I am talking in general terms.

One story I really like from a Harvard presentation in Miami. The Director of Admissions was there, as well as three HBS alumni. Someone asked if they recommended using an admissions consultant. The Director of Admissions response was that “you can tell your story the best”, but all three alumni said “Yes, use one!”.

In my mind it’s like planning a trip France for the first time. You could spend time reading 4 or 5 books and doing all the research on your own, or you could talk to people who have been there and know the country really well. You have to figure out your opportunity cost.

I think the value of admissions consultants is that they know a lot of things that take a lot of time to figure out, like what different schools look for. With editing, they do stuff that your friends don’t have time to do. An experienced consultant can also cut through the jargon of the admissions offices. For example, at Stanford and Columbia they value the GMAT enormously but they don’t emphasize this in their presentations. And Columbia has rolling admissions, but a consultant knows that if you apply in February, March or April, your chance of getting in is almost nothing--but admissions won’t tell you that. Or sometimes your interviewer will ask you where else you’re applying—this is a very strategic question since they are concerned about yield. So if you give a list of universities that people usually go to over that school, you might not get in. An admissions consultant can help you navigate all these pitfalls.

CW: What advice would you give someone in choosing an admissions consultant?

Ask for references!! I can’t stress that enough. Start with 3 or 4 possible consultants and get 3 references from each of them. Then use those to get other references. No one is going to say overtly bad things if they’re being used as a reference, so read the signs. You want someone who is truthful with you, so do a lot of listening to the references. Ask follow up questions—if someone says they were really good, ask why they were really good? Why did they like working with them?

Word of mouth is the best way to find your admissions consultant. There are companies that specialize in this kind of consulting, but the namebrand of the institution doesn’t mean anything—it all depends on the person helping you. An on this note, you also have to cultivate a relationship with your consultant so that they want to give 100% for you. Even though you’re paying them a lot of money, you have to make them want to work for you or you won’t get the best out of them.

The road to success is always smoother when you have someone to champion and advise you. And with all the networking opportunities, business school is the perfect place to find a mentor like this. So why don’t you have one yet?

There are two basic things you should know about looking for a mentor. The first is that you have to be social. You don’t make friends by compulsively texting your friends or hiding in the bathroom at a party. The same goes for finding a mentor. Start talking to people! Do it in situations where it’s appropriate, like at a business cocktail party or lunch, and do it in situations where it might be totally inappropriate—like on the bus or in line at the deli. I have a bad habit of reading over people’s shoulders on the subway, and if they are reading something interesting I’ll comment on it. A lot of the time I get the “you talkin’ to me?” glare, but every now and then I’ll experience a meeting of the minds or an exchange of business cards. I met a former mentor of mine while on vacation in Florida—he overheard me talking to someone else about what I wanted to do after business school and chimed in with his advice.

The second thing you need to do is be successful, or on your way to becoming successful. Mentors want to get something out of the relationship, too, and being associated with a rising star is a lot better than being associated with someone who is average. At the end of the day they want to feel like they’ve contributed to your success, so for that to happen you need to actually have some to build on.

Ok, so you’re social and you’re successful, but you still don’t have a mentor. Where do you start looking?

Start at office hours. Professors are an often-untapped resource for mentorship. We tend to think of academics as out of touch with the real world, but business school professors are different. They are on the cutting edge of their fields, and most of them also do a lot of external consulting. Establishing a personal relationship with them and demonstrating a true interest in their subject will open up a whole new world of contacts to you. And you might even get better grades.

Many business schools have part-time MBA programs with evening classes. Try out some of these classes. Since the average part-time MBA student is older than the full-time student, and has more years of work experience, you’ll meet a whole new group of people from whom to learn. Evening classes are also often taught by adjunct professors, who have day jobs in the industries in which they’re teaching. This means they are ultra-connected.

Make use of your school’s alumni network. Often there are mixer events where alumni and current students can mingle. Attend these, and make sure you don’t spend all your time catching up with your friends at the open bar. School clubs also often have events specifically for past and present club members. One of the clubs I belonged to even had a ten-day international trip every year that was open to students and alumni, so it was a great opportunity to meet people with more experience and career insight.

Finally, if all else fails, be your own mentor. Sheila Wellington has a great book on this topic. Sit down and map out your goals and career path. Discuss them with the career center, with friends, and with anyone else who will listen. Read books on how to succeed in your field. Take assessment tests to determine your strengths and weaknesses and plan how take advantage of them. And keep searching, all the while. You never know where your mentor is going to pop up.