Why mba candidates should ditch the phrase safety school

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Why MBA Candidates Should Ditch the Phrase
"Safety School"

By the Amerasia Consulting Group,
Boutique MBA Admissions Consulting
Why MBA Candidates Should Ditch the Phrase
"Safety School"
MBA Admissions Consultant | http://www.amerasiaconsulting.com

Today we are going to take the term "Safety School" and
put it through the shredder. Reasonable minds can
probably disagree on what the term should mean, but
what I want to do is explain why I personally do not
believe that "Safety School" should be part of an MBA
applicant's lexicon.
First, the term is used incorrectly about 90% of the
time. When applicants say "safety school," what they
often mean is "a school that is really good but that
hopefully I have a better chance to get into." If you are
using the term this way, just as a shorthand, that is fine
but make sure that it's clarified with anyone you are
working with, such as your consultant.

The real use for "safety school" should probably translate
more or less to "a sure bet." With college applicants -
due to the pressure to be enrolled on an exact timeline
(following high school graduation, of course) - a "safety
school" is a very real thing; you simply have to pick some
programs that you are sure to get into. Often this means
a program from that student's home state, sometimes
with sheer numerical thresholds (lacking holistic
admissions processes). If you go to school in California
and have a certain matrix of GPA and test scores, you
can feel "safe" about getting into certain Cal-State
programs. That's a safety school. Ross and Duke Fuqua
are not safety schools. Now, what if you are using the
term in the right way?

Second, if the term *is* being used correctly, it means
you should not apply to that school. Look, getting an
MBA is not going to college. The ROI is only really there
if going to this school elevates your path and builds your
credentials. If you attend a school that you were sure to
get into all along, there's no way that program is taking
you to new heights.
It's paradoxical to approach it that way. Now, there might
be the minute possibility that an elite applicant would
uniquely benefit from a low-ranked regional school, thus
creating the rare situation where a school is both
completely safe and also appropriate to attend, but we're
talking once in a blue moon here.

The reality is that the schools you want to attend are not
going to be sure bets and, alternatively the sure bets are
not going to be schools you want to attend.
Third, the use of the term creates an attitude that
permeates the application and impacts results.
Guess who is always the very first to figure out when you
view a school as a "safety school"?
The person reading your file! If you view UCLA or
Darden as a safety school, they are going to figure that
out in about five seconds. And if you are a great
applicant - an amazing applicant, even - and they feel like
they are your fifth choice, you probably won't get in there.

It is absolutely not uncommon for people to get "weird"
admissions decisions or results that "don't make sense."
They feel this way because they get into Wharton and
dinged at Yale.
Or they get into MIT and denied at Haas. Or in at
Columbia and waitlisted at Duke. How can this happen?
That's a refrain we hear all the time.
Well, it can happen because all of these schools are elite,
they are all looking for different things, and - most of all -
they are going to engage in a certain amount of yield
protection.

Ever wonder how some of these programs have yield
rates (the number of admits who ultimately enroll) up
around 60 or 70 percent? It's not because the campus is
so breathtaking that nobody can ever say no - it's
because admissions officers are good at sussing out who
is more likely to actually attend. "Will this person actually
enroll?" is often a tiebreaking question in admissions
committee and its an omnipresent consideration for
readers as they go through files. The point of all this is
that if you treat a school like it's a "safety," your essays
will almost certainly reflect that attitude, and that might
ultimately lead to you squandering the very strong
mathematical odds you were banking on in the first place.

What we encourage instead of putting "safety schools" on
your list is to instead use a two-step approach for creating
a strategic list of schools:
1.Seek safety in numbers, not schools. Rather than
trying to find sure bets, simply make sure you have plenty
of bets on the board. You have multiple rounds to work
with and many schools are shrinking their essays, so
applying to five schools should be well within reach for
each candidate. Make sure to have a list 5-6 schools
deep, so that you can diversify your bets and give
yourself more chances.

If you are qualified, you structure your essays
correctly, and you hit the DNA of all five schools (this
is of paramount importance), the chances that you will
go 0-for-5 are low, even if you pick five schools that
you actually want to attend (imagine that!). Those
odds will be better still if you...
2. Run a selectivity filter over your entire list. There are
a lot of fantastic business schools, both in the U.S.
and abroad. Our advice to clients is to use the whole
of that list to balance out your own mix of schools in a
way that features some varying levels of selectivity.

How hard a school is to get into should not govern
your choices completely, of course, but it's a good
thing to lay over the top. We say: pick 10 you would
love to attend, then pull your 5-6 based on tiers of
difficulty. You will be surprised when you sort things
by selectivity that you get surprising results.
NYU is much harder to get into than Booth, for
instance (they have the same number of apps each
year, but Booth has almost 200 more students in the
class), so while Booth makes a great 4th or 5th choice
on an elite candidate's list, NYU does not (even
though Booth is "better" by almost every measure).

Haas is very small and in a very popular location, so is
therefore very, *very* selective - it is not an ideal
program to "toss onto the list" at #5 or #6 just because
it is ranked below the first four schools on your wish
list. And it goes without saying that a list with only
HBS, Stanford, Wharton, and MIT is basically setting
the highest degree of difficulty possible. It might still
be someone's list, but it's sure not very "safe."
In the end, you want to approach all of this with a word
we keep using in so many posts - respect.

Be respectful of all these schools and know they have
pride and passion for their programs, such that they won't
respond to you if you believe you are too good for them or
somehow a slam dunk for their school.
It's going to bleed through your essays and they will ding
you just as readily as Stanford or HBS. So take the time
to find five or six schools you really want to attend and
that offer varying chances of success and then throw
yourself into pursing each one of them with gusto. You
will appreciate each one more, they will certainly
appreciate you far more, and, in the end, you will
ultimately have only choices you actually want. And that's
the entire goal in the first place.

If you are prepared to not say the words "safety school"
on a free initial consult, we want to chat with you! Email
us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com and we can get you
started with a comprehensive package that puts the right
list of schools together and then attacks that list in a way
that gives you the best chance at results - so that you
don't have to resort to applying to sure bets.

If you are interested in a free initial consultation, please email
mba@amerasiaconsulting.com.
Our boutique approach pairs you with a consultant capable of walking you
through the above steps and perfecting your application.
http://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/

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