Note by Apurv Pandit: Last month, I met Dr Ariff Kachra, a Strategy professor of Indian origin at Canada’s Richard Ivey School of Business who also runs the school’s executive training center in Mumbai. As we chatted about various things MBA, I asked him how he found the quality of applicants from India to Richard Ivey. He retorted in one sentence, “Canadian and American b-schools struggle with Indian applicants because 95% of them are practically the same person.” His subsequent passionate and prolific elaboration of that thought made me ask him to put it all down in an opinion article for PaGaLGuY readers. Now that you know the background, read his column which also offers advice to applicants about differentiating themselves.

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In todays robust global economy the fundamental basis for business success is differentiation. This very insight is what so many MBA aspirants overlook as they prepare to apply to the worlds top business schools. Imagine the following scenario,

You have completed your undergraduate engineering degree and worked for the last three years in one of Indias most fast moving industries, IT. You understand global outsourcing first hand. Your three years at the company have been studded with many small successes and your career is going well. You have a very busy job, but make some time to play sports and even volunteer your time to different causes. Although you like your job, you are not sure it will evolve into a career. You are quite certain that you dont want to spend the rest of your life in the outsourcing industry or working as an engineer. You want to be in management. But more than this you want the opportunity to go to a world class school, preferably outside India. You want to get some foreign work and life experience. You have done your research and even completed your GMAT; 630 was your score. Your research shows that you meet the minimum requirements of some great schools in countries such as Canada and the US.

Before you fill in your applications and pay the application fee, ask yourself one crucial question: How different am I from every other applicant in the pool applying to the school? Differentiation is the most important quality in an MBA aspirant applying to a top global school. If your story is similar to the one above and countless MBA aspirants have this very story lets be clear your application is going to look like countless others top schools are likely to reject.

Although every school has slightly different parameters along which they evaluate and admit participants, how they think about quality applicants is surprisingly similar. MBA programs assess the quality of an applicant along two important measures, one is qualitative; the other is quantitative. The quantitative evaluation is usually some index of GPA (factoring in the reputation of your undergraduate institution) and GMAT score. The qualitative evaluation is typically comprised of indicators such as the reputation of previous employers, depth and breadth of your actual work experience, total years of experience, demonstration of leadership potential, commitment to personal growth, and novelty.

The Applicant Assessment Grid: the Likelihood of Admission to top MBA programs in Canada and the US looks like this,

^ Qualitative evaluation	High	Second Tier School	Top Tier School with a Global Reputation
	Average	Third Tier School	Top Tier School with a more quantitative bent
		Average	High
	Quantitative evaluation >

For those aspiring to get admission at top tier schools with global reputations in Canada or the US the only mantra they need to invoke is ‘DIFFERENTIATION’. Encarta defines differentiation as the ‘complex of visible differences exhibited among two or more things’. In the MBA world, differentiation from a quantitative perspective is easy to define: the higher your GMAT, the better your GPA and the stronger your undergraduate colleges reputation, the higher your overall quantitative evaluation. The challenge is to define qualitative differentiation. In the world of MBA aspirants, you have achieved differentiation when you can answer Yes to the following questions by providing tangible examples from your wealth of educational, work and extracurricular experiences.

Do you represent an applicant whose contribution to in-class discussion will be distinctive?

Does your resume help you stand out?

Do you have a multifaceted set of skills and capabilities?

Are you interesting? Are you unique?

Do you have stories related to your work life or extracurricular life that are remarkably uncommon?

Is the mix of qualitative dimensions of your application difficult to copy?

The reality is that many MBA aspirants struggle with being truly differentiated the proof is how many get rejected from top-tier institutions. How can you avoid this unfortunate reality? How can you improve your chances of getting into a top tier business school in Canada or the US that has a global reputation? Certainly, you need to have the GMAT score, GPA and undergraduate education that will help place you in the top-tier of the Aspirant Assessment Grid. However, how do you ensure that the qualitative elements of your application will be evaluated in a way that also places you in the grids top right hand corner?

I recommend,

1. Make sure you have more than one kind of work experience. Applicants that have worked at more than one company show that they understand business from more than one perspective. This does not mean you should jump from one job to the other you have to spend enough time at a company to demonstrate that you have created value and made a difference. Stay until you have stories to tell that allow you to quantify your impact on the employers success.
2. Demonstrate that the companies you have worked for found you valuable. There is no better way to demonstrate this than by showing career evolution in a particular workplace. When you get promoted you have tangible proof of the value you created in the company. When salary increases are correlated with contributions make sure you share this important impact measure.
3. How deep is your work experience? Ensure you take opportunities to improve your status on the Cant live without this Person curve. To this you will need to get yourself on more cross-enterprise projects.
4. Dont forget to build breadth in your resume. Whether you are changing employers, business units, working for a new company, or devoting your time to a social cause your perspective will broaden. You can demonstrate that you dont fear change and are not afraid nor are you risk averse.
5. Show that you have an entrepreneurial spirit. For those who truly want to reach for the stars, develop a business plan, get it funded and execute that plan; your application just rose much closer to the top of the file. For the less adventurous, use your passions and compassions to guide the way you invest in yourself for the future.
6. Express your social consciousness, but make sure you take it up a notch by playing the role of facilitator, advisor, leaders, etc.
7. Levy the depth of your extra-curricular expertise. If you have been involved in some activity since you were five years old use this example in your reflection pieces differ enation will emerge because your passion will be visible.

Many of you might now ask, This is all well and good, but it will take me another 2 years to do this and even after that how do I know when to stop and send in my application?

If you are thinking of such a question the truth is that you may not be ready for an MBA at a top school in Canada or the US. The truth is that in business you dont have the luxury to stop differentiating yourself how else will you stay ahead of the pack?

Dr Ariff Kachra is a Strategy Professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business and the Managing Director of Ivey India. The views in this article are those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the institution at which he has worked or is working.