For MBA Applicants, Final-Round Blues

The MBA application process is down to the wire. How competitive will the final round be? Should you wait until next year? Experts weigh in

By Lindsey Gerdes

For many prospective MBA applicants, February is the cruelest month, and this month may be crueler than most. With final deadlines of early March or April looming for many programs, February finds many applicants in a mad dash to complete their essays, finalize their recommendations, and get their applications in. Perhaps they've delayed their applications to retake the GMAT, or they weren't accepted to their top pick in an earlier round. Or maybe they're among the thousands who lost their jobs and are looking for a safe harbor at which to ride out the recession.

Regardless, the news isn't good. The final round at many schools is often considered ultracompetitive, a chance for schools to fill in any remaining gaps in the incoming class and to get their average GMAT scores up to improve their position in the rankings.

So is it still worth applying—or is it better to wait for next year's early rounds? For those who find themselves in this predicament, admissions directors at top MBA programs say all is not lost. Applicants who decide to forge ahead with a final-round application can still knock the socks off the admissions committee and snag one of the few remaining slots. What follows is a guide to the final round—how it works, what to expect, and how to come out on top.

How does the application process work?

When an applicant is rejected in an early round, in most cases they cannot have their application reconsidered in later rounds—their only option is to reapply the following year. So, applicants who apply in the final round do not compete against rejected applicants from earlier rounds. The one exception is waitlisted applicants, who are reconsidered in later rounds. Because these applicants were real contenders in the earlier rounds, they make the later rounds more competitive.

If you're reapplying after being rejected, be forewarned: The application that landed you in the trash heap doesn't go away. Some schools save applications and will look at both the original and new applications in evaluating them during this reapplication process. You have a whole year to kill. Use it to correct any problems in the old application. The good news: Some schools, including Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, have a streamlined application process for reapplicants and even waive the second application fee.

How many application rounds do schools have?

This question may seem fairly obvious, but you'd be surprised how many students don't do their research, says Sherry Wallace, the director of admissions at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. UNC has four rounds, including an "early action" round, which is intended for students who have put UNC at the top of their list. "Some applicants make the assumption that there are these universal rounds," says Wallace. "It's important for candidates to make sure they understand what the different batches are."

Many schools, however, including the top-ranked full-time program in BusinessWeek's ranking, the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, have three rounds instead. And the number of rounds and deadlines at a school may change from year to year. Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business has added a fourth round this year (deadline: May 11), in part to capture desirable candidates who may have recently lost their jobs and are applying late in the game. These applicants, says the school's Web site, "will be evaluated on a space available basis."

What's more competitive—the early rounds or the later rounds?

Admissions directors almost universally say that later rounds are more competitive than earlier rounds, particularly in highly competitive years like this one, when applications are up across the board.