The Secret to Chicago Booth MBA Admission

Here’s the secret to getting into the MBA program at Chicago Booth in 2022! Yes, we’re just going to tell you, for free!!

Angela Guido is a Booth alum and, in general, huge cheerleader for the nerdiest business school in America. We’ve helped countless students pass the Booth MBA admissions process, and now we can help you, so sit back and take a short break for another MBA Monday on how to get into Chicago Booth!

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Prefer to read? Here’s the transcript:

Welcome back to MBA Monday. I’m Angela Guido, the founder of Career Protocol, and I'm dishing out MBA advice one Monday at a time and leaving out all the nonsense. Today I'm talking about the one thing you need to know to get into Chicago Booth.

Which Applicants Are The Best Fit For Booth?

Okay! My alma mater, Chicago Booth. Such warm feelings, such fond memories of those cold, cold, cold, cold Chicago winters. But here's the one thing you need to know to get into Chicago Booth. It's basically about being a giant nerd. I mean that in the most loving and accepting way. The big thing that differentiates Booth culture from all other MBA programs is that it's more academically rigorous than any other school. The University of Chicago is the birthplace of modern economics. It has more Nobel laureates on the faculty today, past and present, than any other MBA program. The curriculum is rooted in critical thinking skills, not necessarily the hard skills of business, but the program teaches you how to actually think like a CEO, how to weigh different options and make decisions using data. It's one of the most data driven MBA programs out there. And for every course that you take at Booth, you're going to go 10, 15, 20, 25% farther on the same subject matter as you would do at any other program. It's just a place for nerds. It's a place for people who really, genuinely want to learn. Now, if you're watching this, you may think, well, duh, I'm going to business school to learn, why would I want anything else? But if you think about how the MBA works in the structure of many people's career, there are a lot of people who enter their MBA program approaching it almost more like a two-year vacation from their very grueling consulting, banking, or private equity jobs that they've had pre MBA, and that they're going to go back to post MBA. And it doesn't mean that those people aren't smart, and it doesn't mean that they don't want to learn, and it doesn't mean that they're not there to have the full MBA experience, but if you're someone who's really looking to take your learning as far as it can go, then Booth might be the very best school for you.

Show That You Know What Booth Is All About

What this means for your applications is that you really need to show Booth that you understand what they're all about, that you're getting into a very rigorous and challenging academic experience, and you're here for it. So when you write that essay about why you want to go to Booth and how the Booth MBA is going to help you achieve your goals, be sure that you're speaking to the Chicago approach, the depth that the curriculum goes into, the amount of free market economics, free choice that they give you in constructing your own curriculum. They're not trying to cram anything down your throat. They're giving you the chance to really shape the specifics of what you want to learn so that you can be the best business leader you can be post MBA. There's a little bit of a joke among Booth alums which is that Booth prepares you for one of two careers. You can either be a CEO or you can be an entrepreneur because you're learning the thinking skills required to make big business decisions in a rational way based on sound business and economic principles and using data. So if that sounds great to you, you're going to love Booth. Be sure that your desire to learn, your curiosity, your eagerness to stretch your own mind is well represented throughout your application and you'll be showing great fit with the Booth community and the Booth culture.

Booth Also Loves Applicants From Nontraditional Backgrounds

In case you're watching this and thinking I'm not a quant jock, I'm not a finance nerd, I'm not planning to go into finance, Booth isn't the right place for me, they're not going to accept me, my GMAT isn’t a 750, I have no prayer of getting in… Don't worry. That's one of the myths that is propagated as a result of the fact that Booth has the most academically rigorous program. But in fact, the opposite is true. Historically, Booth has one of the most diverse student bodies in terms of academic, professional, and diversity background because — this is my favorite thing about Booth — they know that they can actually teach you those things. If you have enough raw intellectual horsepower and curiosity, you can learn everything you need to know about business to get a leg up in your career during your Booth MBA. They teach that stuff. They teach you how to think in a quantitative, rational, data-driven way. You don't have to come in with that. They're not expecting you to already be a genius mathematically or have a really strong quantitative track record in your career because that's the value they're going to add to your career. We've worked with tons of clients who came from nontraditional backgrounds, who hadn't taken math since high school, who had no quantitative track record in their work experience, and not only got into Booth but got in with scholarships because Booth is great at teaching you the quantitative aspects of business. That’s why most people go there. So, if you're not coming from a strong quantitative background, don't be discouraged. As long as you're curious and as long as you're willing to hang out with a bunch of people who are really serious about learning for two years and are going to take that classroom experience seriously and have a great time doing it, then Booth should definitely be on your list. All you need to know is you got to be a giant nerd to get into Booth. You're going to have a great time. Giant nerd like me. Ha. See you next week. This has been MBA Monday.

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Angela Guido

Student of Human Nature| Founder and
Chief Education Officer of Career Protocol

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