Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.
As interview requests increase from a trickle to a flow, a few questions begin to trouble MBA candidates. Should I travel to campus to meet with the Admissions Committee, or should I meet with an alumnus in my area? Further, if I am on campus, am I at a disadvantage if I meet with a current student instead of an Admissions Officer?
Well, the good news is that Admissions Officers constantly emphasize that there is no additional weight given to meeting with a member of the Admissions Committee and state that all interviews are treated equally. (Logically, what incentive do they have to mislead you? Why would they want to disadvantage one group of candidates over the other? ) That written, we do advise candidates who have not yet visited their target campuses to seize the opportunity to do so via their interviews. If time and funds are not at issue, candidates should elect to travel to campus, as they can “kill two birds with one stone” — they can experience and evaluate a target program that is within their reach, all the while revealing their personal interest to the program itself.
