Signatory MBA Recommendation Letter Made Easy

Signatory mba recommendation letter

live from New York it's poets in quads with envy A to Z everything you need to know about the NBA admissions process with Stratos prep hi I'm John Byrne with poets and quants we're back in New York for another in our series mb8 2z with Stratos prep the leading test prep and MBA admissions consulting firm and I have Harold again in the studio Harold Szymanski from Stratos prep welcome thank you very much John I'm very happy to be here so today we're gonna talk about getting a great recommendation letter Harold what are the basic building blocks to getting a letter that's gonna help you get into a great school sure I think of three of them the first is are they authentic are they specific and candidly are they good and by authentic I mean does this person really know you have you worked directly with them have they managed you now a lot of people think they should have an alum or some highfalutin executive that everyone knows write the recommendation you would say better to get someone who really knows who you are and what you've contributed you know that's exactly right it no frequently people when they think about recommenders they think title oh I can get a recommender who's the CEO of the company who's the vice president and the reality is those recommendations really don't add a lot to your story and what we try to do sit down with our clients is say what story you're trying to tell as well as what points do you really want the recommender to hit and that really leads to the next point of what makes a good recommendation specific does the recommender talk about actual projects you've been on what your role has been maybe how you've managed to other people what leadership you've shown there for admissions officers the most important thing is that they get this sense of not only who you are as a person but how are your work style is how do you work with other people and finally is it good you'd be surprised the admissions representatives will frequently tell us about recommendations that are bad you know that they're good candidates bad recommendations how do you know you're gonna get a good recommendation from someone you know that can be tough at times you know hopefully they really understand why you're going to business school you know what you want to accomplish there and and they're invested in helping you with that process it's often said that the key to a great recommendation letter is not asking for a recommendation in other words it's building the relationship before you ask you know I think there's an argument to be made that the best recommendations come from those people who've acted as mentors to you people have known you for a while who've really seen you perform as well as you possibly can how many recommendation letters should you get you know for most schools the numbers - you know some schools they actually the number goes to three generally speaking there aren't a lot of opportunities to get more than that but should you get more see them and then have them submitted you should be so lucky you know which brings us to the point of you know what does a good recommender look like on one end you're gonna have the people who'll say just write it for me on the other end you're gonna have the people who say okay and you never hear from them again so the reality is you want to probably be somewhere in the middle where the recommender understands your strategy understands the points that you're really looking to be made and then it's willing to go through the process with you because again the admissions committee wants to see you are as a whole person they'll certainly get one perspective from what you've written but they need that other perspective who's somebody else sort of outside of your store who can say listen this person is the greatest in the world and at the end of a that's where you were looking for it a recommender I recommender who tells you you know this person is just excellent and he'll be great at business school would be a wonderful addition to your community Harold thank you that's great advice and if you would like help crafting a recommendation strategy or simply applying to a highly selective MBA program check out Stratos prep at Stratos prep comm meantime join us for another in our series MBA to Z everything you need to know about MBA admissions we'll have more coming soon thanks for watching