Have you ever heard someone say that they “would like to start exercising more”? Words spoken in this passive manner indicate a lack of commitment toward the goal, so it is often no surprise when that person later admits that they did nothing and lament that their health is not improving. Consider if the same person says: “I am going to start exercising more; I talked several times with a friend that works as a personal trainer and recently ordered exercise bands.” This more assertive statement shows a level of commitment will more likely lead to a positive outcome.
Schools Want to Believe in Your Commitment
Admissions teams at top college and grad school programs also seek to assess an applicant’s level of commitment. For instance, Yale School of Management’s most recent MBA essay question is simply put: “Describe the biggest commitment you have ever made.” The term is somewhat ambiguous, but the essence of making a commitment to something requires the dedication of time and effort, to varying degrees. Commitments can come in many forms – to an organization, an activity, a movement, a person, a career, or a philosophy. Upon hearing this, applicants will invariably seek recommendations on the correct activity that would make the admissions committee smile upon them. This type of thinking is flawed because the adcom does not want you to commit to a certain thing; rather, it is the act of committing itself that is attractive and shows a lot about one’s character.
We can glean this insight from Yale SOM Assistant Dean of Admissions Bruce DelMonico’s recent blog post, which explains that they do not make value judgments on the commitments an applicant chooses. They are more interested in the actions taken over time that demonstrate commitment. By dedicating yourself to certain things, you are not only revealing your interests but also how you follow through on what matters to you. Consider this: in your essay you mention that you care deeply about stopping environmental degradation. The key, then, is to demonstrate your commitment to this throughout the rest of the application. Are you the person whose commitment is limited to one beach cleanup last summer, or are you the person that writes and curates a blog about environmental issues, and became a Greenpeace Ocean Ambassador who collected 5,000 signatures for a petition supporting the Global Ocean Treaty over the past two years? Thus, when people tell us that they read online that schools “like people that engage in social impact”, and inquire whether they should quickly volunteer a couple of times the summer before they submit their applications, our response is that something is always better than nothing, but that it is unlikely to make much of an impact since minimal commitment has been displayed.
What You’ve Done is Predictive of What You’ll Do
Similarly, graduate schools are keen to learn about the applicant’s career goals, as it will help to clarify their need for graduate education. First of all, for every type of graduate program, the admissions committee understands that your career plans may evolve in the future. More important than the goal itself is where it came from, and the applicant’s commitment to it. The burden is on the applicant to show that it makes sense for them. More importantly, they should show that they are committed to the goal. If you were the admissions officer, which of the following candidates would you be more interested in? Candidate A: reveals that her career ambition is to start a FinTech company with the lofty goal of leveling the playing field in banking to give more people across society access to financial services. Candidate A has little or no previous startup/entrepreneurship experience. Now let’s consider Candidate B: they harbor the exact same career goal as A, and also have no entrepreneurship experience. However, they joined a networking group to connect with other entrepreneurs, participated in a fintech/microfinance conference, joined a FinTech competition, and took an Overview of the Fintech Sector course offered by the University of Texas on edX. If you were the admission offer, who would you favor?
This thinking can also be applied to high school students preparing for their undergraduate applications. On one hand, it is good to be well-rounded and experience many things, but there will be a preference for people that go deep into their core passions, rather than spreading their time and energy around to ten different things. For example, admissions teams would prefer someone with an interest in biotech that entered a science competition, did a biotech research project in the summer, and shadowed a manager for a week, with similar deep involvement in a second interest in some sort of art, compared to someone with eight different short-term experiences in the arts, sports, dance, math, etc.
Conclusion
Applicants who do a great job of demonstrating why they need the degree they are applying for in a convincing way will give themselves the best chance to persuade admissions officers to admit them to their target programs. The best way to achieve this is to have clear goals, a track record of taking actions that align with and support those goals, and a vision of what lies ahead in your career. In other words, you are committed to them.