In today’s episode, Accepted’s founder and director, Linda Abraham, shares the 4 not-so-easy steps of showing fit in your application.

While they are not simple to do, these steps are necessary if you want to get accepted to a program where the acceptance rate is less than 100%. 

STEP 1: Understand the school’s mission and criteria for acceptance. [1:20] 

Almost all schools have a mission stated clearly on their site. For example, Stanford GSB’s is “Change lives. Change organizations. Change the world.” It’s everywhere on their site. Not surprisingly, to me the defining characteristic of accepted Stanford applicants is initiative, the willingness and ability to effect change in the face of need or opportunity.

Similarly, when we spoke to the admissions directors for any number of medical schools they all emphasized the importance of their schools’ missions.  (See links below for examples.)

The other key is to understand the school’s criteria. Some schools clearly state their criteria on their site. [2:50]

An example of a criteria list: Harvard Business School’s has its “Who are We Looking For?” page where it says all its students share the following characteristics: Habit of Leadership, Analytical Aptitude and Appetite, Engaged Community Citizenship.

Another example: UCLA Geffen School has a page devoted to Basis of Selection, which goes beyond course requirements, grades, and MCAT. It explicitly states that qualities like “Life Experiences (Research, volunteerism, etc.) are considered.” Furthermore “Preference is given to students who present high achievement in college and a capacity to develop mature interpersonal relationships.”  [Emphasis added]

Clearly UCLA is looking for academic achievement and this “capacity.” Teamwork is probably one important way to show an ability to develop mature interpersonal relationships.

If you listen to episode 155 with representatives of Temple’s Katz School of Medicine, you will quickly learn that Temple values teamwork.

Know what your target school is looking for: [4:33]

It’s just that simple. So if Stanford is looking for initiative, your essays, descriptions of activities and jobs should highlight those aspects of your experiences that show initiative. For HBS, it’s a habit of leadership and engaged community citizenship that the written parts of your app will most likely reveal.

And the same process holds for law school and other graduate programs.

The foundation of fit: [5:25] 

This basic understanding of what the program values and what it is seeking in applications is the foundation of fit.

STEP 2: Show you can do the work: usually grades and test score. [5:40] 

This is usually a stated requirement and criterion for most schools. However, it is so important that I have to mention it. Some applicants believe that “the stats” are the be all and end all of admissions. Others believe that anything but the stats count.

Both groups are wrong. You need stats and qualitative fit at competitive programs.

Schools want to admit students who can succeed in their programs and who will make the admissions offices proud to have as alumni.