You Submitted Your MBA Applications. Now Go Love Your People.
Congratulations. You did it.
After months of school research, tests and retests, essay drafts and redrafts, gently nudging recommenders, juggling work, and somehow attempting to maintain a personal life in the middle of all of it, you finally hit Submit.
And now?
Crickets. Ugh!
Submitting your MBA applications can open a weird vacuum. But before you rush to fill that space with interview preparation, Reddit rabbit holes or worrying about outcomes beyond your control, I want to invite you to do something else first.
Go love your people.
Take care of the people who took care of you
Your name may be on the application, but it takes a village to apply to business school.
Your friends listened to essay ideas. Your partner may have become an application widow or widower. Your manager wrote a recommendation. Your colleagues covered for you. Your parents cheered you on. Someone probably listened while you questioned your entire life trajectory at least once.
You have just finished something hard, and chances are somebody else wrapped themselves around you while you did it.
So take a moment for them.
Buy someone dinner. Take your best friend for drinks. Send your recommender a beautiful handwritten thank-you note. Send your mom flowers. Call the person who kept telling you that you could do this when you weren’t entirely convinced yourself.
It doesn’t need to be elaborate, it just needs to be from the heart.
Taking care of people who have taken care of you is one of the simplest and most powerful expressions of leadership.
Love up the new people, too
One of the things I coach my MBA clients to do throughout the application process is to use it as an opportunity to bolster existing relationships and build new ones.
Think about how many people you may have met along the way: current students, alumni, club leaders, professors, colleagues and members of the school community who generously gave you their time.
Nurture these relationships after you press submit.
Send a note. Something as simple as:
I wanted to let you know that I submitted my application to Wharton last week. Our conversation about the healthcare pathway really stayed with me and became an important part of how I thought about the program and my application. Thank you again for being so generous with your time. I really look forward to staying in touch.
Finito. No ask. No call to action. Just a good old fashioned, sincere, from the heart thank you.
And if you connected meaningfully with someone from Admissions, a brief and thoughtful note telling them that something they shared influenced your thinking can also be appropriate.
Someone you’ve reached out to may speak for you if you’re eventually waitlisted. A person you meet now may become part of your professional network years from now.
But that’s not our motivation to forge and foster genuine connections. Build the kind that endure because you were curious about another human being, appreciated their generosity and made the effort to stay in touch.
Hopefully, it’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
And now reconnect with yourself
There is one more person who probably got somewhat neglected during application season.
You.
I watched my clients valiantly triumph over long work days, endless test prep, family obligations and lots of pressure. We have a pretty rigorous planning and project management system at EduVentura, but still, it’s an all-in process.
And there’s also that something so much bigger under the surface: the prospect of changing your career, your geography, your community and maybe even the way you understand yourself.
Hey, it’s huge stuff.
So before you leap straight into the next stage, take a beat and step away from the computer.
Sleep.
Get back into your health routine.
See the friends you’ve been neglecting (point 1).
Do whatever makes you feel nourished.
Interview prep is on its way. When it arrives, we’re going to crush it.
Turn around and look at the view
High achievers (I’m looking at you) have a habit of climbing one mountain and rather than basking in the summit, they immediately start looking for the next one.
Do something different here.
Whatever happens with your applications, getting to this point required discipline, introspection, courage and a ton of hard work.
You did something difficult. Notice it and own it.
And see the people standing around you who helped you get here.
There will be time soon for interview invitations, prep, decisions and everything else that comes next.
For right now?
Love your people. Love yourself up a little, too, why don’t ya?
You’ve earned it.
Next up: what you should actually be doing while you wait for MBA interview invitations — including when invitations arrive, what not to do, how to prepare without losing your mind, and why you need to start checking your spam folder.
See you there.
Interview invites are next. Let’s get you ready.