You’re sitting morosely on your couch staring at a letter. It’s actually an acceptance letter from an MBA program, your very last hope after receiving rejections from all the other schools you had applied to. But why aren’t you happy? Actually, you were quite delighted with the news until about five minutes ago. That was when you happened to wander into your school’s WhatsApp group and saw a message posted by your class mate.
You run your fingers through your hair and check the message again. Unfortunately, nothing has changed. Your school mate has still been accepted into one of the world’s top business schools, which as it so happens was on your list as well. And this is the same person who had flunked science in the eighth grade. How very unfair? So instead of being happy about your own success, you now begin to look upon it as a failure.
But why does this happen? The answer is comparison. Your relief at finally getting an admit quickly changed to jealously after finding out about your school mate’s achievement. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t lost a year any more. The focus now shifts to the fact that you only made it to your safety school while your school mate, who by the way, isn’t even doing as well as you professionally, has been admitted to a better MBA program.
We live in a world where comparison runs rampant. People lose sight about their own successes because they shift the reference point. But coming back to our example, it’s important to note that comparing profiles, whether prior to applying to MBA programs or after receiving responses from business school does not make sense. You glare back and point out that you scored 20 more points on the GMAT than your school mate did.
So here’s the thing. While comparison usually happens on a limited number of factors, it’s important to note that admissions (and life) are subjective. You may have done fantastically in school. Your GMAT score may be higher. And your career may be thriving. But there’s a lot more to life than these data points. You don’t know your school mate’s story. Perhaps it was their essays that really impressed the admissions committee.
Then there’s the little matter of luck as well. And that’s something that cannot be discounted. Perhaps your application was evaluated by an admissions committee member just after she received bad news. So what does it all mean? It means that life simply happens (and goes on). Your job is to focus on excelling at what comes your way without getting distracted and operating in a zone of acceptance. And to celebrate your successes.
LemonEd can help you with all elements of your MBA application.
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