Students who are interested in studying management in college often do it through a major in Business Administration and Management. This entails courses in business, economics, accounting, marketing, and more. Colleges don’t expect you to arrive dialed in on business management. To prepare for it, though, you can’t just do what is available through the course options at your school and call it a day. Admission to a top-tier business management program requires exceptional grades and equally strong scores, of course. It also demands going above and beyond in your activities and extracurricular engagements, with a special attention to linking what you do outside of the classroom to your future management major.
We work with our students to create a compelling activity strategy as early as freshman year that builds to strong leadership experiences and standout achievements. If you are a junior, though, you don’t have much time to underline your interest in business on your applications. In this post, we’ll break down what you need to be doing now to ensure that your application doesn’t fall flat in just a few short months. Remember, the things that we are aiming to emphasize through these activities are:
Leadership
Teamwork
Execution
So, let’s dig into what you need to be doing.
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As we’ve said, you truly need to make the most of what time you do have to emphasize your interests and leadership and teamwork abilities. You also need to show that you can see things through, whether it’s taking a fundraiser you led to the finish line or winning an award.
Below, we’ve broken the activities into four “buckets” that you need to address to have your strongest possible application for a management major at a top college or university.
BUSINESS CLUB and classes
As a junior, you should be in a business-minded club already. Now you need to aim yourself towards a leadership position your senior year. If you haven’t already, have a conversation with your faculty advisor about what you should be focusing on to increase the chances of a leadership role, ideally becoming Club Head, next year.
If you aren’t a member of a business or entrepreneurship club, you need to join today. It’s unlikely you’ll achieve a leadership position by next year, but joining still matters.
But what if your school doesn’t have a business club? Start one.
You also need to enroll in a bunch of online management classes. We like Coursera and EdX for our students. We’ve also had kids take classes at local universities or community colleges.
INTERNSHIP
It is critical that you have an internship with a business that is interesting to you during your junior year, or in the summer after. This internship should be at least four weeks, and should be at least 20 hours per week. It also must include in-person work. A virtual internship may teach you something, but it’s a little bit useless for storytelling purposes in your college applications. We want you to be able to write about an immersive in-the-field learning experience and working with a team or learning from a supervisor. Most importantly, though, the business should resonate with you in some way. You don’t need to love everything about it, and you certainly don’t need to want to do exactly this in the future. However, something about it should click with your passions and interests.
JOB
On top of getting an internship, you need to get a job. Seriously, this can be the make or break in an application. This job should be a part-time job after school a few days each week or be over the summer. This can be tough to coordinate for athletes, but unless you are being recruited to a dream school, that is simply not a good excuse. Being a great softball player will not improve your chances of getting into a dream school unless you are recruited. Getting a part-time job will — if it’s the right kind of job.
First, the company you are working for does not need to be linked to your area of interest. However, your role within the company as an employee should be. You should be working as part of a team, and you should have a manager who you can learn from…even when it’s a ‘what not to do’ kind of situation. We encourage our students interested in management to find a job that is a customer facing retail or sales role. You will be at the bottom of the totem pole, and that is very much the point. This job should also have minimal to no computer work because the point here is working as part of a team to help customers in person, not clicking around on a screen.
SERVICE TO OTHERS and research
Ideally, you are a member of a community-service oriented club at school. If you are a member, you next need to lead a significant fundraiser or event committee. You don’t need to raise a certain amount of money for it to be ‘significant.’ Rather, we measure significance by how many people you bring together to accomplish your goal, how novel your idea was, and how clearly you applied business principals to a fundraiser.
If you are not a member of a community-service oriented club, all the same objectives still apply. However, instead of joining a club as a junior we recommend connecting with a local nonprofit directly to work with them on a project. For example, a member of our team coordinated a leadership event for girls in the foster care system while she was in high school. A recent student coordinated an environmental education fair for earth day with smoothies powered by a bicycle, a local band, and table displays by local environmental nonprofits.
Research can be a differentiating component of your application, too. If you have a hyper niche interest, it is worthwhile to reach out to a PhD student or professor who is doing work in your area of interest. We’ve had students get published on papers and in journals, which makes a huge difference come application season.
Taking all of this on while tackling junior year may feel like a lot, but it must be done. Once you accept that it has to happen to reach your goals, it’s not about whether it is possible but rather a matter of how. Ultimately, it’s all about time management, tackling things in chunks, and celebrating your successes.
And if it still feels daunting, get in touch. We support our students through taking bold moves to achieve outstanding results.
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