During the last six weeks I had the opportunity to attend and present at World MBA Tour events in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.  For those not familiar, these are large grad school fairs, co-sponsored by Kaplan, featuring dozens of the world’s top business schools.  They also include admission seminars and panel discussions with admissions officers.

Although attendance seemed to be down from last year, all the events were very well attended.  In fact, the seminars and panel discussions had even larger crowds than last year.  Which suggests to me that even if application numbers are down a bit from last year (and I think they will be), the level of competition at the top schools will remain as high as ever.

We had a great group of panelists this year, including admissions officers from Cornell, London Business School, UCLA, USC, and Baruch just to name a few.  What were their key pieces of advice?  All stressed the importance of being “genuine” in your essays.  Beyond learning about your accomplishments, schools really do want to know you and understand what’s important to you.  Keep in mind that some admissions officers read more than a thousand applications every year.  They can sniff out  insincerity from a mile away.

As a group, they also stressed your need to be able to communicate the “three why’s.”  Why Business School?  Why their particular school? and Why now?  Even though schools ask different questions to get at this information, they all expect you to be able to articulate your rationale in a clear, concise manner.

Further, the panelists talked about your need to “tell your story”  so that you come across as thoughtful, mature, and self-aware.  They acknowledged that your ability to be introspective throughout the process presents one of the big challenges in putting together a compelling set of essays.

Finally, there was consensus about your need to have someone you trust review your essays before you submit them.  That way you might catch some typos, but more importantly it’s extremely important to confirm that you’re presenting yourself in as compelling a manner as you hope.  A couple of panelists suggested that you show your confidante your essays without giving them the question, and asking them to tell you what the question is.  If they’re not able to tell you accurately, then it’s likely you haven’t answered the question well enough.

Oh, and one more thing.  They strongly suggest that you properly identify which school you’re applying to.  As a group, they’re amazed how often candidates will mention the wrong school in their application. Talk about an application killer!

Using my finely honed investigative skills, I’ve been able to obtain the results from Kaplan’s most recent survey of 260 business school admissions officers, including many from the most selective schools.  Of course by “investigative skills” I mean I simply asked for them.

Here’s some of the juicier tidbits:

51% of admissions officers stated that the number of applicants reporting they are unemployed has increased. In the past, being unemployed was commonly considered a blot on an application, but today’s economic reality seems to be changing that.

Among the 76% of schools that currently don’t accept the GRE as a substitute for the GMAT, almost 9 out of 10 reported that they most likely will not consider changing their policy.  So much for the GRE’s plans for world domination.

Slightly more than one quarter of officers surveyed reported an increase in applicants directly from college. That suggests that the outreach efforts of some schools to expand the number of direct from college students is having some impact, but at this point it’s not particularly widespread.

And finally, when asked what one factor would most be considered an application killer, 44% of the officers said a low GMAT score, by far the most common response. By contrast 27% said a low GPA,  and 10% said a lack of work experience.  For all the discussion from admissions officers that they take a holistic approach to every application and that no single factor is more important than any other, it remains wise to approach the GMAT very seriously.  Because evidently, that’s what admissions officers do.

Keep in mind that when reviewing an application, admissions officers first assess whether they believe a candidate can succeed academically.  And while the overall quality of the application can help bolster the board’s confidence in a candidate’s capabilities, the GMAT sticks out like no other data point.  Even your grades can be considered somewhat subjective because admissions officers factor in the reputations of schools, the rigor of coursework, and the possibility of grade inflation.  The GMAT, whatever your feeling about it, remains the purest objective measure in the application.

So there you have the survey feedback from admissions officers.  In my next post, I’ll share what I heard directly from them at the World MBA events I participated in recently around the country.