Making the most of references

[Guest]

Hi,

First, I'd like to thank you for helping us all out on this forum - it makes such a huge difference that we have somewhere like this to turn to!!

My question is to do with references. I will be applying to a number of schools (+5), and am aware that each school asks slightly different questions and that some schools have specific questions that do not pop up at other schools. I'm concerned about the workload that this will place on my referees, and do not really have alternative people to use. What is the best way to utilise my referees to maxmise the references and make sure schools' questions are answered?

Thank you.

[MBAApply]

The only way (short of writing it for them - which I don't recommend simply because it's hard to betray your own writing style) is to basically tell them how to group the questions according to theme.

For example:

"School A's Q2 is the same as School B's Q3; For School C's Q4, combine School A's Q3 and Q4." or something like that.

Whatever you do, do not let them write form letters. Yes, it takes a little extra time to customize the letters of each school, but that extra effort makes a big difference. As you said yourself, the overall themes and questions are very similar across most schools, so it's not as daunting a task as it may seem.

Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com