Author Archive - mbaMission
Essay Tip: Beginning with a Famous Quote
Beginning an essay with a famous or eloquent quotation is a common practice and one that business school candidates can use to capture a reader’s attention. For example, an applicant might use a quotation as the very first line of his or her essay: “The best...
A Second or Third Look, but Not a Fourth, Fifth and Sixth
With application deadlines looming for many MBA candidates, we thought we would share a piece of advice that might help alleviate some deadline-related stress. After you have completed (but not yet submitted!) your application(s), find one individual you trust—whether a professional consultant or someone with...
Selecting Your Target MBA Program: Take Rankings With a Grain of Salt
How many readers moved to Norway, Australia or New Zealand last year? (Stick with us—we swear we are going somewhere with this line of thought.) Maybe a handful, but how many of this handful moved because the United Nations (UN) determined that people who live...
Selecting Your Target MBA Program: Business School Facilities
Deciding to attend business school for two years is no small thing. For most people, it involves a complete change in lifestyle—moving to a new town, living in a different kind of housing, interacting with unfamiliar people, following a new daily schedule and even, in...
Selecting Your Target MBA Program: Alumni Network and Resources
Phil Knight and Steve Ballmer attended the Stanford GSB. Stephen Schwarzman and Michael Bloomberg went to Harvard Business School. Laurence Tisch and Ron Lauder earned their MBA from the Wharton School. These are pretty impressive names, and each of these top schools could fill this...
Selecting Your Target MBA Program: Do Your Homework on Stereotypes
Everyone knows the Kellogg School of Management is a marketing school, right? After all, Kellogg is home to Philip Kotler, author of some of the world’s most widely used graduate-level textbooks on marketing. And no one can deny Kellogg’s prowess in this field (and it...
Selecting Your Target MBA Program: How Do You Want to Learn?
The case method, which was pioneered at Harvard Business School and is used predominantly at Darden, IESE and the University of Western Ontario (and to a lesser extent at Tuck), requires a specific way of learning. You are given a business case—which can often be...
Selecting Your Target MBA Program: Core Curricula Can Define Your Academic Experience
Imagine having to choose all of your MBA classes so that you have a full and effective schedule on day one of your academic experience. Now, imagine the opposite—not having any choice at all throughout your entire first year. One must appeal to you more...
Selecting Your Target MBA Program: A Look At Class Size
When I conduct our school selection presentations, I frequently start by asking, “Who is interested in Harvard Business School (HBS)?” Inevitably, most of the hands in the room rise. I then ask, “Can anyone tell me how many students HBS has in each student class?”...
Selecting Your Target MBA Program: Consider School’s Location
Hanover, NH, home of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, is a quiet, idyllic college town nestled in the mountains of the Connecticut River Valley. Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, home of New York University’s Stern School, is in a busy part of a sprawling metropolis, without a...
