I want to talk about applying when you're ready.

At this stage of your life, if you're like most people your age, you probably feel that everything has to be done today. Each day that you wait is another day wasted. Because of this train of thought, a lot of students apply for a school way before they're ready. This can lead to disaster...literally.

Nobody wants to hear this, but most students getting out of college and looking to go to grad school really don't know what they want yet. Heck, some people don't know what they want until they're in their 20's or even 30's. This isn't a crime. In fact, it's perfectly normal.

Okay, so how do you know when you're really ready to get into grad school? Honestly, nobody really knows for sure. However, you will find that as you reach that point, you will be less and less apprehensive about it. Your doubts will be few, if any at all.

That's when you'll know you're ready to apply.

But there is another aspect to applying when you're ready. Aside from emotionally, you want to apply when you're ready on paper. In other words, you want to make sure you're applying when your application is as strong as it can be.

For example, let's say you were going to apply in January of a given year but you had a temp job lined up for February that would run through April that you could put on your resume if you waited. In this case, if would certainly benefit you to wait until you could put that job on your resume before you submitted your application.

In other words, wait until the last possible moment before submitting so that you can get every last bit of mileage out of your application. Maybe a reference can't get back to you for another month. If it's going to be a strong reference, you certainly want to wait for it.

It will prepare you better than anything I know for that big step...getting into the school of your dreams.

To YOUR MBA Success,