The danger of shooting your shot (2024)

The longer I work in MBA admissions, the more frequently I hear from candidates who “want to shoot their shot”. That typically means they want to apply to ONLY the very top schools despite the odds being against them.

Let’s level set here for a moment. According to the Urban Dictionary, shooting your shot means “to take a chance no matter if you fail or not”.

In theory, this is a brave aspiration, founded on audacity and optimism. In reality, it may end up being akin to relying on the lottery as your path to getting wealthy. Or worse. Because unlike the lottery, there are no random winners in MBA admissions.

Admissions is an art and a science and yes, there is some luck in the process. But it’s not the blind and random luck of a lottery.

There are two aspects of the admissions process - evaluation and selection. The evaluation determines who is admissible. The selection determines who is desirable.

Someapplications will simply never pass the evaluation and selection of an M7 school and no amount of luck will ever change that.

MBA admission is not a drawing. It’s a deliberate, careful examination of everyone who has bought a lottery ticket beforeselectingthe winners.

But before you decide this email is all doom, gloom, and fear mongering, consider this.

Defining yourWHYmeans taking stock of where you are now in your career and life, where you want to be, and what is the gap between the two. The MBA – the right type of MBA program - should be what bridges the gap.

And there never has been and never will be just one tiny set of MBA programs that can fulfill yourWHY.

If you are letting yourself believe that only the ultra-elite few of MBA programs are worth pursuing, then you have to consider that you may be driven by your “I” (i.e. ego) rather than yourWHY.

Onwards and upwards,

Petia