Stanford’s new application tool, “Application Essentials,” is making waves in the MBA admissions world by tackling the notorious challenge of deciphering essay prompts. Hosts Pola Lem, Maria Wich-Vila, and Caroline Diarte Edwards delve into this with their signature blend of insight and humor on the latest Business Casual episode. This innovative resource hub offers applicants a guided journey through every application section, complete with videos, downloadable tools, and admissions notes. Designed in response to feedback from previous applicants, it’s poised to demystify the process, reducing the overthinking that often plagues candidates.

One key discussion point is the overemphasis on essay questions. Maria, drawing on her expertise, notes that anxiety often stems from a fear of misinterpreting what schools are truly asking. The new Stanford tool could alleviate these concerns by providing clarity and structure, allowing applicants to focus more on authentic self-expression rather than second-guessing intentions. This shift can ultimately enhance application quality and reduce stress.

Additionally, Caroline touches on the evolving dynamics in how applicants gather information about programs, as evidenced by a decline in reliance on traditional rankings. Instead, a more holistic research approach is emerging, where nuanced understanding and personal fit take precedence. This trend, coupled with Stanford’s new tool, suggests a future where applicants are more empowered and informed, aligning with a broader shift in business school admissions toward transparency and applicant support. For prospective MBA students, these developments signal a move towards a more applicant-friendly process, potentially easing the daunting application journey.

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcript was generated by AI and may contain minor inaccuracies.

[00:00:03] – Pola

Hello everyone, I’m Pola Lem with Poets and Quants, and welcome to our weekly podcast, Business Casual. I’m joined today by my co-hosts Maria Wakvila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. Maria is the founder of ApplicantLab, and Caroline was head of admissions at INSEAD and is co-founder of Fortuna Admissions. So we are going to try something different today. Not too different. Don’t panic, anyone. Um, we’ve got just a quick mixed bag of news before we go into our main topic. So this is not all good as news goes, but, um, I think both items relevant to sort of the broader world of, of what’s going on in business schools and admissions also. So item one, we’ve got Johns Hopkins is laying off, uh, 110 employees across multiple schools and offices, and its Carey Business School is among those affected. So that comes with the broader context of one of the steepest declines in its federal research funding history. Just a quick take from you, Maria. You know, is this in terms of prospective students? Do you see this being a big game changer?

[00:01:38] – Maria

I mean, as a native of Baltimore, Hopkins is certainly a large contributor to our city. Uh, it is, it’s not great news. I would assume though that since most of those federal cuts were in scientific research and since Hopkins at its core is primarily associated with the sciences, especially the medical sciences, the biological sciences, I would assume that proportionally speaking, those departments might be seeing more of a cut. So I’d be a little bit more concerned if I were, say, like a neuroscience PhD student. As opposed to a business school student. But I mean, anytime any school loses any resources, it’s certainly not great. Um, but maybe, I don’t know, maybe it’ll eventually come with a lowering of the cost. Probably not. But I, yeah, I, I don’t know that I would, if I were a business school applicant, I would let this dissuade me from applying to a program that is otherwise a great fit., but I also don’t think it’s something to celebrate.

[00:02:40] – Pola

Fair enough. I think it does— the, the counterpoint or the silver lining there was that Carrie, uh, actually just received a very large charitable donation. So, um, pluses and minuses there, I guess. Uh, and for news item number 2, Caroline, this is— this will be your turn. Uh, we have a piece this week on, on Poets and Quants about, uh, GMAC, and specifically out of the 2025 prospective student survey. So the share of global candidates who cite rankings, uh, as a top 3 research factor when choosing a school fell from 37% in 2023 to just 29% in 2024. Um, so basically Traditional rankings still matter, but no longer a top concern. What do you make of this, Caroline?

[00:03:35] – Caroline

Well, I think that’s potentially a good thing. We are not big fans of rankings on this podcast. So I think that people shouldn’t decide where they’re going to business school based on a ranking. It can be a useful information source, especially if you dig into rankings and look at the data they’ve collected. That can be useful to understand the underlying data. And could inform your research process. But I think that it’s probably a good thing that people aren’t relying on rankings. I do wonder if it also, however, relates to a larger picture of people relying less on traditional information sources and major publishers having less of a share of voice amongst the younger generation. So, um, that is something you could debate whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Um, if people are, um, less influenced by traditional publishers, but are replacing that with, um, good primary research that they’re doing looking into schools, then that could be a good thing. But if they are replacing it with, um, giving more credence to what they read on Reddit or different forums, then that might not be such a good thing. So. I guess it depends where people are getting— I guess it depends where they’re getting their information from.

[00:04:59] – Maria

I don’t know, Reddit.

[00:05:01] – Pola

Reddit’s a reasonable source. Well, for some things anyway, right? Sure. So fair enough. So also could interpret this one of a couple of ways. And then I guess that, that’s it for, for our little news round there. But our main topic today is this, uh, this admissions revamp that Stanford has embarked on. So Stanford Business School is launching something it calls Application Essentials. This is a sort of resource hub that walks applicants through every section of the application with things like short videos, downloadable tools, this sort of expandable guidance that they call Notes from Admissions. And they say that this idea grew out of conversations with admitted students over the past couple of years. And, you know, this, this, the admissions director says many of those applicants really spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the school meant with certain prompts. Um, and I could see this being a pain, uh, and, and, and this, this helping students. But effectively, you know, Stanford hasn’t changed this— the, the qualities it’s looking for. It just sort of— it’s changing how it explains the process. So Do you think— well, first off, Caroline, what do you make of this?

[00:06:43] – Pola

And also, do you think we’ll see this happening with other schools, or are you seeing this happening with other schools where they’re really trying to bring separate resources together a bit more?

[00:06:57] – Caroline

I think it makes a lot of sense. They’re trying to create a sort of one-stop shop for information about the application and what candidates need to know. And I can imagine that as a website evolves, as the school website has evolved over the years, they’ve probably had information in different sections, in program pages, in FAQs and blogs and so on. And that tends to grow organically over time. So it makes sense that periodically you need to sort of do an overhaul. And I’m sure that she’s absolutely right that they were getting feedback from candidates that they were spending a lot of time hunting around for the information that they needed to know. So it looks very nice. I’ve had a little browse through. It’s nicely presented. You know, you can drill down to get additional information on certain questions. You can watch the videos that sort of give a great explainer and overview. So I think it’s a very nice way of presenting the information. I think also they make the point, or you make the point in the article, that there’s just a, there’s information overwhelm for candidates these days, right? And there’s a lot of bad information out there.

[00:08:16] – Caroline

And if people are increasing use AI tools, which is also mentioned in the article, you don’t necessarily know where that information is coming from. So, I think that Stanford is recognizing that it’s important for them to be transparent, to make the information very readily available, because if they don’t, people will just bypass the Stanford website, right? People these days aren’t going to spend hours and hours wading through different pages on Stanford website. If they can’t find it quickly, they will go to ChatGPT or Claude or something, and then who knows what information that is referencing. So, in this age of AI tools and information overload, I think it’s even more important to use really good quality information sources. And there’s no better source for information about Stanford GSB than Stanford GSB themselves. So I think it’s a great thing that they have done this overhaul and made sure that it’s a great one-stop shop for applicants and all the facts and information that you need are right there at your fingertips.

[00:09:24] – Pola

Hmm. Well, that sounds like a 5 out of 5 stars from you, Caroline.

[00:09:30] – Caroline

Sure. Yeah.

[00:09:32] – Pola

Uh, so Maria, the admissions team has said that applicants for Stanford spend too much time worrying about what the questions mean rather than reflecting on their answers. I’m curious whether, you know, beyond Stanford, whether that’s what you’ve seen with applicants.

[00:09:53] – Maria

I mean, it’s bound to happen for any application process, but I do think that Stanford’s What Matters Most to You and Why question is definitely the most esoteric or the least concrete of the, of the business school questions. So of all of the essay questions, it’s probably the one that does create the most level of anxiety and angst and hand-wringing. So yeah, so I think it’s, it’s great for, for folks to reflect. And that’s something that I think Caroline and I and our colleagues, we, we work with clients specifically to help guide them through that process, to help them identify like what actually does matter most to you and how do you portray that in the application. So this, this is a great— this site, it’s great that they have put together, you know, they’ve joined a number of other business schools that also offer similar, uh,, you know, sort of resources like this. Uh, and as I said in the article, you know, this is a lot of these pages, it’s linking out to pages that were already existing. Uh, but I do think it’s nice that Stanford is putting it all in one friendly, you know, easy to find location.

[00:11:01] – Maria

Um, you know, I do think that, that their new head of admissions, well, she’s not so new anymore, but she has been trying to make, uh, the admissions team there seem a little bit more approachable. I’m so sorry. Did you just hear there was a motorcycle that just revved very loudly outside? Okay. Sorry about that. Sorry, Tori. We’ll have to start that one over. I do think that the new head of admissions, and she’s not so new anymore, but I do think that she has been trying to make Stanford’s admissions office seem a little bit more approachable than perhaps it had, uh, in the past. So this is one step towards, I think, taking what is probably the most anxiety-producing, uh, admissions process and trying to, to break it down into to its core components.

[00:11:46] – Caroline

Something I would add is also that when I was at INSEAD, sometimes we would end up rejecting candidates not because there was anything fundamentally an issue with their profile or their preparedness for the program, but they just hadn’t understood the application process and had made some bad choices in how they had presented themselves, whether it was in the essays or a bad choice of recommender, or perhaps they hadn’t understood the importance of the GMAT or the GRE and hadn’t really tried with that, even though it looked like they probably had the academic potential to do much better than they actually did. So that sort of lack of understanding of what the schools are looking for and how to best present yourself in the application process can be a real hurdle for some candidates. Um, and so I’m sure that Stanford has also seen applications where they wish that the candidate had, um, had better understood what was expected of them in the process, because, um, they could see that the raw material was there. It just— in a very competitive process, it’s not just about having the raw material, it’s also about communicating your candidacy effectively.

[00:13:00] – Caroline

Um, and so I’m sure this is part of an effort to make sure that everyone who applies is able to sort of understand what is expected of them and can convey that effectively.

[00:13:14] – Pola

To follow up on that, I mean, that’s quite interesting. Like, are there trends you’re seeing when candidates make a misstep in that way? I mean, you mentioned like choice of a bad reviewer. Is that— what’s a poor choice of reviewer? And then going back to our original essay question, Are there any— I’m curious if you’ve got an example or two of, you know, where you see the raw talent, but the essay just isn’t working.

[00:13:48] – Caroline

Yeah, so with recommenders, I mean, there’s lots of options for bad recommendations. So it could be maybe it’s someone who you haven’t worked with for several years. So the schools really want to see see recommendations from people ideally who’ve worked with you over the past few years. So if someone’s been working for 6 or 7 years and their recommendation is someone who worked with them in the first year or two of their career, then that is perhaps not as useful, or perhaps it’s not a professional recommendation, right? Schools prefer to have professional recommendations. Sometimes you’ll see people who will have mobilized a professor or somebody from an extracurricular capacity when it would have been better to have somebody who is actually someone who supervised them. Or they might get a recommendation from someone who’s really a peer at work rather than someone who is more senior than them. Or they might get someone who’s much more senior than them, right? The CEO of their company, and then that person doesn’t know them very well and can’t actually give much detail about what they’ve done and the impact that they’ve had. So there’s lots of mistakes you can make when it comes to figuring out who to ask for your recommendation.

[00:15:04] – Caroline

Yeah.

[00:15:05] – Pola

And Maria, I mean, we started talking about— well, we’ve talked about recommenders, we’re kind of tangential to our main topic, but within essays, what are the top missteps there, uh, that candidates tend to make? I mean, I think we’ve talked about, you know, not getting your story across very well, but are there kind of, you know, pitfalls that, that you would warn against?

[00:15:37] – Maria

Yeah, I mean, for, for Stanford in particular, I mean, I have like a couple of hours worth of guidance on just what matters, when, what matters most to you and why alone. Um, but so if I had to pick the number one mistake that I think people make with this I say is they are too focused on the audience and they’re too focused on what do I think they want to hear. And they also view it as, well, this is a competitive process, so I need to show them that I’m very competitive. So what matters most to me is excellence. That’s a big mistake I see a lot of people make. What matters most to me is being the best. And then they proceed to list off every spelling bee they’ve ever won. Every election, I was the 4th grade classroom. In the 10th grade, I was named top hall monitor. Because what matters most to me is excelling at all times. And that really, really misses the mark because first of all, if that actually is true for someone, then that’s a great recipe for at a minimum burnout and at its worst case, not having any friends.

[00:16:39] – Maria

But it’s also, it’s a missed opportunity to really show them who you are. So that is one where I think a lot of people, that’s their initial instinct is I need to tell them that what matters most to me is being a successful business person or winning at all costs. And that really misses the mark.

[00:16:58] – Pola

Caroline, any, any other examples of these or, or other kind of Stanford application essay pitfalls that you’ve seen?

[00:17:08] – Caroline

Yeah, well, a mistake I’ve seen candidates make a lot is diving into writing something before they’ve really done that reflection that we talked about. And without reflection is absolutely critical for the Stanford application, but it’s It’s, it’s important for all of your MBA applications, even if the questions seem superficially a little bit easier to tackle than the Stanford GSB questions. It’s, it’s absolutely critical to do that deep thinking about, um, taking stock, to think about, okay, what is it that has shaped the person that I’ve become today? Um, what are my key strengths? Um, and what are the— what are my weaknesses? And what are my areas for development? And how is the business How is the business school experience and the MBA program going to help me address those? And think deeply about what it is, what, what you really want to do when you graduate, right? Often people are applying to business school because they know they want to make some sort of change in their career, but they haven’t perhaps really crystallized what that looks like. So before you start working on your application, you should definitely take some time to think through, okay, looking at the opportunities that I might have when I graduate from business school.

[00:18:22] – Caroline

What is it that I really want to do? And what is it about that that appeals to me? And then ideally speak to people who are doing that job to better understand what it means, right? Because when you’re on the outside, something may sound fantastic and very glamorous, very exciting, but actually the day-to-day reality of that job might be quite different. And so, Actually try to have conversations with people who are doing the jobs that you think that you would like to do in the future. And then take the time to figure out, okay, well, how could my career evolve from there? And what is the longer-term impact that I want to have? And what could that look like? And what type of organization do I want to be in? What culture works for me? Where do I want to be geographically? What are the important things that I want to achieve in, in my future career. So all of that sort of foundational thinking, um, it really helps to sort of build a foundation that underpins a strong application. Um, and then that then feeds through into the messages that you want to get across, whether it’s in your Stanford application or in your London Business School application, or whichever, whichever school you’re applying to.

[00:19:38] – Caroline

And something else is that even if in the written application, in some cases, you might be able to sort of pull the wool over the eyes of the admissions file reader that you’ve got it all figured out, and perhaps you haven’t because perhaps you haven’t really taken that time to reflect. And some applications are shorter than others, so it can be easier to sort of put them together more quickly without having done that deep foundational work first. The problem with that is that you are going to then fall down at the interview stage because at the interview stage they are going to grill you about why do you want to come to this business school and what are you going to get out of it and what is it that particularly interests you? What are you going to get involved in? Why do you want that particular job post-MBA? How have you learned about that career? And then, you know, really drilling down on your future career goals. And why you’ve made that decision. And so if you haven’t done that foundational work, and if you manage to sort of get away with it in the written application phase, you definitely won’t get away with it at the interview stage.

[00:20:45] – Caroline

And then of course, you need to have some alignment between what you’re saying in your written application and what you present at the interview stage. So, the best thing is to have done all of that upfront work before you even start writing your application.

[00:21:01] – Pola

Yes, uh, this all sounds very sensible. So, so if you— final, final question for me here for both of you, uh, Maria first. If you could redesign one part of an MBA application, uh, for maybe not necessarily the essay itself or the essays themselves, but, but just in the experience of applying, what would you change?

[00:21:35] – Maria

Do you mean from the perspective of what would make it easier for applicants or what would be better for admissions officers? Like, whose, whose perspective am I taking here? Because I have very different answers depending on—

[00:21:48] – Pola

oh, I’d love to. Can we, can we do one of each?

[00:21:50] – Maria

Sure, absolutely. So if I were running admissions, um, I would absolutely put more of these video interviews into place, and I would not give you any thinking time. So sometimes some of the existing video interviews will say you have 30 seconds to think, and that’s ridiculous because how many times in real life do we get 30 seconds to think before we start to speak? So I would do something like that because I think that, and I would do it in a locked-down browser environment, like when you take the SAT, so they can’t try to fake it with an AI video avatar. I would absolutely rely more on that, not only because because it’s in the age of AI and, you know, with the essays, I think are becoming more of a commodity, but you really can learn a lot more about someone when you speak to them. That’s why they have interviews. That’s why the schools have interviews. So I would push some of that a little bit earlier into the process. Of course, that would make candidates stress out more, I think, than they do with an essay where they can have up to months and months and months to polish it.

[00:22:52] – Maria

And from an applicant’s perspective, perspective, I, I mean, I think they would like anything to be as easy as possible. So, um, I think for them, if I were, if I were trying to make a, an application process as easy as possible for the applicant, I would just make like one very generic essay that you could clearly repurpose from another school, uh, so that way you don’t have to put any work into it at all. And then my app, my application numbers would go way up. Uh, but then my yield would probably plummet. But if that’s what I were optimizing for, I would just basically make it one short essay and then you’re done. Love it.

[00:23:30] – Caroline

No essay.

[00:23:31] – Pola

That’s right.

[00:23:33] – Maria

Or, and no recommend, no recommender.

[00:23:37] – Pola

Lots on Maria’s wishlist. Caroline, if you were, if you were master of the MBA admissions world.

[00:23:45] – Caroline

Yeah. So I think the video questions are really useful and We have seen this year, we’re seeing an expansion of the number of schools that are using video questions and schools where they’re using video questions already, like Kellogg, expanding the number of video questions they’re including. So I think that speaks to the value that Maria said, that those are very useful in giving admissions a little glimpse of how the candidate thinks and they communicate. And I think it’s quite efficient from what I’ve heard from admissions officers, because you end up with literally like 3 to 5 minutes of recordings to watch. It’s not very much, doesn’t take a lot of time. But you can glean a lot of information from those video snippets. And I’m kind of surprised that Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton have not yet introduced any video elements. So they are the holdouts, and it’ll be interesting to see if they adopt that at some point. And then for the—

[00:24:43] – Maria

for the—

[00:24:44] – Caroline

from the candidate perspective, I mean, I think in the application forms themselves, they could perhaps have more embedded information. So like in this one-stop shop page that Stanford has set up here, perhaps some more of that could actually be embedded into the information, into the application form, so that you could have some pop-up boxes that give candidates little snippets of advice on how to fill out the form. Like, for example, in where you have to list your previous professional positions, right? Could suggest put it in reverse chronological order like you would in a resume, or give them advice on if you’ve worked in a foreign country, how to present currency. Give them advice. You can have a little point there about just making sure that this aligns with how you’ve presented your positions and your resume, right? Because you want to make sure that the information is consistent across your application. So I think that could be useful if they embedded some more little snippets of information and advice in the application forms themselves.

[00:25:57] – Pola

Well, there you have it, Maria and Caroline, on tweaking the MBA application. So we are out of time, and I’m not going to ask you both what you’re going to make for dinner today. Or have for dinner today because, well, because I’ve got to run. But please come back next week and I will ask Maria and Caroline what they’re having to eat. And if you liked our discussion today, check out poetsandquants.com. And thank you so much to my co-hosts. And thanks everyone for listening.