For any candidate, the most frustrating and demoralising part of the application process is its rejection. As a candidate, you work extremely hard for years to be able to reach at the stage of application process. And if somehow, it gets rejected, you have to wait one whole year to reapply in the college of your choice.
What are the usual reasons for which an application gets rejected? The answer is important to understand because you must be well prepared beforehand. Afterall, you got limited chance and time to achieve your dream of securing admission in top B-schools.
Reason 1 : Low Scores
The low CGPA/percent in graduation or a lower-than-average GMAT/GRE is one of the reasons for rejection. And it’s a no-brainer. For most Indians, we are marks obsessed people and most candidates understand this need of marks. Interestingly, low marks form only one third part of rejection. And most of the candidates ignore the other two third part of the reason.
Reason 2 : Weak work experience
What exactly is a weak work experience? For every college, there is a limit of the number of people who get admitted in one industry or function. The colleges have to maintain diversity in incoming batch. So, for example, you may be from banking industry but there are five more applications from banking industry who have presented their work in a better way than you. So, in spite of a good application, you may get rejected because in your domain and industry there are only few students who are to be given admission. Hence, its very important to project your work profile in the best possible manner in your application.
Reason 3 : Blunders in application
Students in the hurry to submit applications in the last time make a lot of silly mistakes. Most mistakes relate to copy/paste work from one college application to another. Some people put extra “0” in their last drawn salary, some put wrong college name, some applications have spelling mistakes. These mistakes are not tolerated by admissions committee.
Reason 4 : Answering something else
This is the biggest reason of the rejection. Most candidates prepare a standard SOP and copy/paste its different aspects in different essays/questions asked in the application. THIS WILL NOT WORK! Every college has slightly different way of asking the questions which requires dealing with each question differently. The emphasis needs to shift to what actually is being asked in the question. Candidates tend to write more about their achievements in career in all questions/essays/SOP irrespective of what is being asked. This tendency must be avoided.
Reason 5 : Generic points
Most candidates write the same “stuff” on why MBA, goals in life, why this college. You can not win the competition if you are not different from the competition. Period! Your points in every answer needs to be unique to you. You need to differentiate.
Reason 6 : No extra-curriculars
Colleges put a lot of emphasis on extra-curricular activities. If you are poor in this aspect, then chances of rejection are higher.
Reason 7 : Social Media presence
These days, the background check is generally done through social media account. You need to keep your LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram profiles clean. No extreme political messages. Nothing extreme of any kind. Its better you lock them.
Reason 8 : No story
The most important factor is “the story”. After reading your application, if the admission committee can not form an image of a unique you in their mind, then you have lost the game. You need to express yourself in the application to the extend that you are able to project your persona in the mind of the application reader.