What HBS, Wharton, and Stanford Are Selecting For in a Deferred MBA Candidate

You’ve seen it happen in your finance club, investment club, or wherever deferred MBA applications came up among the seniors ahead of you. Someone applied to HBS 2+2, Wharton Moelis, or Stanford GSB this cycle, and maybe they got in, or maybe they didn’t. Either way, you’ve been paying attention.

You’ve done the work academically. Your GPA is where it needs to be, you’ve secured an internship at a firm with name recognition behind it, and you know the program pages well enough to understand you’re in the range these programs pull from.

What most rising seniors don’t know until they’re already mid-application is that being in range and being a competitive candidate are not the same thing. The average admitted GPA across these programs sits around 3.8 to 3.9. Near-perfect test scores are the norm. Every applicant in that pool has the internship. Every applicant has the academic record.

The admissions committee is making a different kind of evaluation entirely, one that has almost nothing to do with the metrics that got you here, and everything to do with something most seniors have never been asked to demonstrate before.

That is what this session is about.

On Thursday, June 26 at 10am ET, Sia Admissions Founder Susan Berishaj will get into what HBS, Wharton, and Stanford are actually evaluating when they read a college senior’s file, and why candidates who understand that distinction build fundamentally different applications.

Register to get the link and the replay.

If you’re ready to talk through your specific profile before the application opens, book a strategy consultation here and learn more about the Sia Method here.

If you want written feedback on where your profile stands right now, start with a written profile evaluation here.