Schools want to see that the applicants will actively participate in and contribute to their student bodies and alumni communities, not to mention the greater community and society. Yet grandiose, declarative statements and promises to be a superlative do-gooder are unpersuasive. So how is an applicant...

Here’s a talk with Niladri Sannigrahi, a second-year MBA student at Duke Fuqua. Niladri talks about his experience as an “older” applicant, his decision to pursue an MBA rather than an EMBA, and much more! Thank you Niladri for sharing your thoughts and advice with...

Phase 1 done! You’ve defined your goals, assessed your qualifications. Now, how do you organize your research of MBA programs? There is a sea of information out there: rankings, books, MBA program websites, MBA fairs, poetsandquants.com, newspaper and magazine articles on MBA programs, consultant websites (including ours), student...

Admissions committee members across the board (college, grad school, law school, med school, and b-school) want you to do ONE thing in your applications, and one thing only: Introduce yourself. This does NOT include: • Talking about who you WISH you were. • Exaggerating your volunteer achievements. •...

It’s not even spring yet. So why am I nagging you to get moving on your MBA application prep? Not just because those Round 1 deadlines creep up with wicked stealth and speed (last year, HBS broke the September barrier). But also because there is so...

Here’s a talk with Raghavan Anand, blogger at Anand’s Blog, who is pursuing his executive MBA at Wharton’s San Francisco EMBA program. Anand is a serial startup guy who also loves to volunteer. Read on to learn more about Anand’s EMBA journey… This interview is...

For this week’s episode of Accepted Admissions Straight Talk, Accepted’s biweekly podcast, we interviewed Drew Appleby, Professor Emeritus at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, who identified five types of applicant errors. These mistakes decrease candidates’ chances of acceptance to graduate school – even if the applicants...

NYU Stern currently ranks in 11th place as one of the best business schools, according to US News & World Report (March 2012). It is known for having a particularly strong media and entertainment track. Stern’s Class of 2014 and Media/Entertainment 3907 people applied to NYU Stern...

I was thrilled Thursday to be quoted in The Wall Street Journal’s “Frankly, Wharton Wants Candor,” which focused on Wharton’s Team Based Discussion (TBD) and Harvard’s interview reflections. I disagree, however, with disingenuous arguments in the article that applicants who seek to prepare beyond a...

Years ago, when I first heard b-school representatives talking about wanting to see passion in applications, I thought to myself, “You’re looking for passion from a bunch of investment bankers and engineers???? That’s a pretty calculating bunch.” “Passion” has a sexy ring to it. An emotional,...