Your application, read by the person who reads applications

We read every application that arrives. This is what the process actually looks like from this side of the desk, and the three mistakes we see in every cycle.

What we are reading for

Not eloquence. The statement exists to answer three questions: why business education, why now, and why here. An application that answers all three plainly will beat a beautifully written one that answers none of them.

Mistake one — the generic ambition

"I want to be a leader in the corporate world" tells us nothing, and we read it several hundred times a cycle. Replace it with something specific enough to be wrong: a function, a sector, a problem you want to work on, a company you have actually looked at.

Specificity is not a risk. It is the only thing that distinguishes one application from the next.

Mistake two — hiding the interesting part

Applicants routinely bury the most compelling thing about themselves in a subordinate clause. The year spent running a family business, the failed venture, the two years of work in a field unrelated to management — these are the parts of a file that make a committee sit up, and they are consistently understated because applicants assume they look like detours.

Mistake three — no evidence

Claims without instances do not travel. "Strong analytical skills" is a claim. "I rebuilt our inventory tracking in a spreadsheet and cut stockouts over a quarter" is an instance, and it makes the claim unnecessary.

The interview

The counsellor interview is not an interrogation and it is not a formality. It exists to check that the person in the file and the person in the room are the same, and to be honest with you about fit. Candidates sometimes leave that conversation with a recommendation to apply to a different programme — including, occasionally, to come back in two years with work experience. That is a real outcome and not a rejection.

Practical notes

• Apply before the deadline crush; the counsellor conversation is unhurried earlier in the cycle.
• Final-year students may apply and submit results before enrolment.
• International applicants should write to us first — documentation requirements differ.
• If something in your record needs explaining, explain it in the application rather than hoping it goes unnoticed. It does not.