I just finished Seth Godin’s Poke the Box, an ode to initiative, innovation, and overcoming fear of risk and failure. In this short book, which Godin alternately and accurately refers to as a “manifesto” and a “rant,” he motivates the reader to just do it. Get going. In Godin’s words, “I’m merely encouraging you to start. Often. Forever. Be the one who starts things.”

I have had an idea percolating in my head for several months. But I hadn’t started. The idea has to do with MBA careers and MBA students, but inertia, and fear of rejection and failure were winning. I had more palatable and less honest excuses too: I was moving cautiously. I was busy. I had to check my email, Facebook, Twitter. Go to the gym. … You can probably imagine the list yourself.

As I finished Godin’s book, I decided to just do it. And I have started. I haven’t finished or “shipped” in Godin’s terms, but hopefully you will see the fruits of my start in a few weeks right here.

I poked the box. Now it’s your turn. While I am not sure Godin is a big fan of grad school or graduate business education, despite his MBA from Stanford GSB, Godin’s message is particularly pertinent for 2012 applicants.

Yes. You should start. This week. Today. Now.

Here are a few suggestions for 2012 graduate school applicants:

1. Register for the GMAT, MCAT, LSAT, or whatever test is required of you, as well as the relevant prep course, if you haven’t already done so. You want to get the test out of the way and you want as high a score as possible. (See the video below “3 Action Items for 2012 Graduate School Applicants” from Eye on Admissions for a my mild rant on this topic and other suggestions to start your 2012 application. Now.)
2. If you are an MBA applicant who will need to write a goals essay or someone who will need to write a statement of purpose for grad school, research your goal/purpose. Email 3 people to request an informational interview about your field so that you can clarify your reasons for pursuing graduate study and your intended path for achieving your goals.
3. Assess your qualifications and begin to shortlist schools based on your goals and qualifications.
4. I wouldn’t start writing application essays or personal statements yet, but I would create a file where you can jot down ideas for topics to include, notes from your informational interviews, and thoughts about schools and possible essays topics.

As I read Poke the Box, I also thought of the many programs, especially top MBA programs that ask applicants about times they took a risk or their response to failure. Understandably, applicants squirm when they have to respond to these questions.

Stop squirming. Godin has something empowering to say on this point too. “Change is powerful, but change always comes with failure as its partner. ‘This might not work’ isn’t merely something to be tolerated; it’s something you should seek out.” Failure is a tough partner to embrace, but embrace it nonetheless. It is Initiative’s significant other.

So whether you are facing memories of failure or fear of failure, just start. And consistently plow forward. Poke your box.

By Linda Abraham, Accepted’s founder and president.

Should you kick back on a beach? Or go for a latte with a colleague? Find out why both may be in order in this video from Eye on Admissions where Linda Abraham outlines four action items that should be on the to-do lists of all accepted graduate school applicants matriculating this fall.

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Fuqua’s new program is intended “to give a bit of business know-how to recent graduates in subjects as varied as philosophy, modern languages and maths,” reports a Financial Times article on the subject, “Masters of the universe: the rise of ‘pre-experience’ degrees.”

And the program won’t be limited to Duke’s North Carolina campus, but will become the basis of similar programs at Duke campuses in Brazil, China, India, Singapore, and the Middle East.

Other American business schools offer a MiM degree as well, including Case Western Reserve University, Rochester, and Thunderbird, but the Fuqua School’s adoption of the program “may be the tipping point for MiMs in the U.S.”

A new MiM was also launched at the London Business School last year, and according to its executive director Julia Marsh, the program recruits a clear prospect. “Recruiters are looking more for analytical skills than the big, strategic skills of an MBA,” she says.

Although these programs are pricy — $30,000+ for a one-year degree is high for anyone, but especially for students who have not yet entered the workforce — graduates from both the MiM programs at Duke and at LBS have not found post-degree employment an issue. In fact, at Fuqua, recruitment from the MiM program has been on par with the school’s regular MBA program.

When asked what the value of the masters in management degree is, both to students and to business schools, Ángel Cabrera, president of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, explains, “It is clear that there is great demand from companies for entry- and mid-level managers with solid business skills. The Thunderbird masters in management degree provides aspiring young professionals – who may not have significant work experience – the opportunity to launch their careers and to compete successfully in a rapidly changing and competitive marketplace.”

The FT article provides more views on the pre-experience MiM from administrators at business schools in France, Turkey, Russia, Canada, Sydney, and others.

Are you thinking about going global with your MBA? Download Internationalizing the MBA, a free special report, to explore the increasingly global canvas of leading MBA programs in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

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According to a U.S. News article, professors from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and its Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice will be joining forces to teach in Dartmouth’s new online M.A. program. The 18-month program, which is geared towards mid-career healthcare leaders, will award graduates of the program with a Master of Health Care Delivery Science Degree.

Unlike most other online programs that are designed to help students save money, Dartmouth’s new program will cost a whopping $85,000. Working professionals will be able to keep their jobs, as only six weeks are required on campus; the rest of the classes will be conducted online.

Another difference from mainstream online programs? Dartmouth doesn’t plan to use the program to reach a multitude of students. The first session will be limited to 50 students; the tone of the program—intense and intimate.

“This is our first significant foray into distance education,” says Tuck’s Dean Paul Danos. “This program gets us into a distance mode and we’re creating [online] platforms.” But, adds Danos, this is not the “type of distance learning where they need thousands of people. This is very personal—lots of hand-holding and lots of personal attention.”

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Some people are surprised at the measures Centenary has taken, to close the program despite the significant cash flow that comes in from running such a program “You don’t want to be too persnickety or you lose the revenue that comes from these programs,” explains Kathryn Mohrman, director of the University Design Consortium.

Many believe that China’s reputation for research misconduct and plagiarism will “hamper the rise of Chinese universities.” The Inside Higher Ed piece points to an inordinate number of recent articles that discuss this issue. Both students and their host academic institutions are being blamed for what’s been likened to a plagiarism “epidemic.” How to “treat” this problem is the source of much debate. Building teacher-student trust, highlighting the importance of learning for learning’s sake, and addressing specific cultural attitudes towards citation and towards misconduct are all avenues that need to be examined in tackling the problem of academic misconduct at international branch programs and amongst foreign students studying in the U.S.

To tackle the problem of conforming to a widely-accepted conduct standard, Michael Smithee, and international higher education consultant says:

You’ve got to be willing to repeat how you approach cheating and what cheating is, and be very clear, every time, so that by the time the course is done, the students will be tired of hearing it. And if they’re tired of hearing it, it probably means that they understand it a little more.

To reinforce this issue to students is crucial; but the fact that teachers and institutional culture play a part in fostering a plagiarism-heavy atmosphere also cannot be denied. According to Teddi Fishman, director of the International Center for Academic Integrity, “[I]f you have a problem this large, it’s not just the student and it’s not just the teacher.”

Do you want to go global with your MBA? Download Internationalizing the MBA, a free special report, to explore the increasingly global canvas of leading MBA programs in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

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As I followed this first African World Cup, I marveled at how close many of the games were, and how relatively minor plays decided the outcomes. Spain beating Germany on a header off a corner kick was all that mattered. Then there were the refereeing mistakes and questionable judgment calls that seemed to affect whether a team advanced or was eliminated. Did that obvious goal by England against Germany that was missed affect the player’s spirits, thus contributing to their eventual loss? What really was the impact of that clear offside by Argentina against Mexico, or the phantom American foul on a US goal against Slovenia?

As exciting as the games have been, you might be wondering what they have to do with the admissions process. Several parallels strike me.

First, being heavily favored going into the games doesn’t mean making it to the final one. Germany, Brazil and Spain were favored by many at the beginning of play; Spain is the only one that survived. Essentially they had “good stats.” Similarly, a candidate might have outstanding credentials and qualifications for admissions, but the application process seeks people of achievement, leadership, initiative, and impact. Stats are not enough and may not determine the winners.

Second, the ability to take full advantage of opportunities is crucial. Spain’s goal against Germany showed the importance of being fully prepared to use an opportunity to score, just as making it to an interview round in the application process demands that a candidate be fully prepared to beat out other closely qualified candidates in that crucial step of the process.

Finally, each of the 32 initial World Cup teams was talented and well qualified, but each had to prove it had the ability to make it to the final game. Applicants must similarly understand that admission decisions are made by people doing their best to put together a class that is balanced among many different metrics. Using your application, especially your essays, to showcase why you are qualified to “win” can make all the difference.

P.S. Having lived in the U.S., Japan and Mexico – none of whom made it to the final – and having good friends and relatives in both Spain and The Netherlands, I claim neutrality regarding Sunday’s game.

Robbie Walker is a writer, columnist and editor who received her MBA from Chicago Booth. She is happy to assist you in targeting the right schools and identifying the details that best highlight your candidacy.

• Advanced Placement examinations are becoming more and more popular among high school students. According to a recent Inside Higher Ed article, 25% of high school grads take at least one AP test. Top private universities now expect their applicants to have a few APs on their transcripts. A new study soon to be released by Harvard Education Press, however, reveals that the AP examinations may not be as valuable as most students and adcoms believe. A major criticism is that low-income high schools are scraping the bottom of the barrel in order to offer AP programs, rather than spending that money on improving already existing (and more important) programs. On the other hand, the tests do offer students with a chance to get ahead on their college courses, ultimately saving money.

• A BusinessWeek article, “Three Top B-Schools Look for New Deans,” provides an overview of the great search for new deans at Chicago Booth, Northwestern Kellogg, and Harvard Business School. Kellogg has already filled the position of dean by hiring Sally Blount from NYU Stern. HBS has not yet chosen a new dean, but most believe that the position will not be filled by an outsider.

• The GRE seems to be hitting all sorts of records recently. A recent ETS press release reports record-breaking GRE growth rates in Europe. European test volume increased 15% in the last year, marking the highest yearly increase ever for Europe. Another record-breaker: More test scores were sent to European institutions this year than in any other year. One reason for such an increase in GRE tests is the simultaneous increase in the number of business schools accepting the GRE in addition to the traditional GMAT exam. According to David Payne, VP and COO at ETS, “In this economy especially, the flexibility to use one test for admission to both graduate and business programmes is great for students who want to ensure that they have options. It’s a huge benefit to them.”

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This online survey should take just 10 minutes to complete.  We would love to receive as many responses as possible before the closing date of Friday, April 9th – and will be giving away an iPod Touch and two iPod Shuffles as a token of our gratitude!  We’ll also be sharing the results of the survey this spring to help candidates better understand the nature of today’s applicant pool.

Thanks in advance for your participation!

Simply click here to begin. http://surveys.marketpointsinc.com/mba10a.asp

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• The Chronicle‘s recent article, “Shrinking Newsrooms Put Colleges in the Content Business,” discusses a missing element in modern media relations: someone who haunts the halls of universities, “stopping by people’s offices and really getting to know them.” As Geoff S. Larcom, a former reporter, states, “You don’t see that much anymore, because everyone’s stretched so thin.” While original reporting on higher education may be on the decline, blogs and online forums related to higher education issues are on the rise, as can be seen in national newspapers like The New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today. But without true reporting and relying almost entirely on opinion blogs, user comments, and online forums, can we be sure that we’re getting accurate information? Where have all the big stories gone, especially those in the area of the sciences and research? Facebook and Twitter updates are fun to read and can even transmit important information; but is it really news?

• In a related article, “J-Schools to the Rescue?” Inside Higher Ed writer Steve Kolowich asks if journalism schools can help save journalism. He suggests that struggling newspapers hire journalism students (who will work for credit) to “fill the gaps left by the pros whom the news outlets could no longer afford to pay.” Such a partnership has indeed been forged, between New York University and The New York Times. The NYT recently cut about 200 newsroom jobs and NYU journalism students are eager to fill those spots. Other universities in other cities are establishing similar alliances in television news studios in addition to newspaper newsrooms. And why not take advantage of students who are willing to work for cheap hire or even for free? However, the problem still remains: When these j-school students graduate, will they be able to find paying journalism jobs, even with some New York Times experience under their belts? So can j-schools save journalism? As long as there are students writing, there will be news content, but students should think long and hard about whether that experience will be valuable in the long run.

• If you’re creative and just a little tech savvy, then applying for b-school financial aid just got a lot more fun, reports a BusinessWeek article. Scholarship applicants from the Netherlands’ Nyerode Business University can now apply for the YouTube Scholarship. Applicants must create a two-minute YouTube video explaining why they think they should win the $15,000 b-school scholarship.  The school’s program director, Professor Eric Meise, explains that these two-minute videos portray a much clearer picture of the applicants as compared to the previously used five-page application essay forms. You can view one of the recent YouTube scholarship videos here.

Related Accepted.com Resources:

• Financing Your Future: Winning Fellowships, Scholarships and Awards for Grad School, an instantly downloadable ebook.
• Navigating the MBA Maze, an ecourse.

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• The Harbus, the HBS newspaper, reports on Harvard’s Immersion Experience Program (IXP), an initiative that focuses on “participant-centered, field-based experiential learning activities.” About 400 HBS students shipped off to six different international programs in India, China, Vietnam, Rwanda, Peru, and UAE/Bahrain.

• State universities continue to make huge budget cuts and plan to further hike up tuition costs, reports BusinessWeek last week. The article “State Universities Brace for Another Brutal Year” discusses how the economic downturn is far from over for state universities, some of which have cut upwards towards $45 million just in the last year and have hiked up tuition 15%. State support for public universities has dwindled, and doesn’t seem to be improving any time soon. Students all over the country are up in arms about this, especially those in the University of California system who suffered a 32% tuition increase. The fact that professors and other university personnel are getting laid off certainly doesn’t help control the anger factor. Private universities are also in the midst of severe cuts and hikes: Yale just cut $50 million from its yearly budget; Dartmouth plans to lay off non-faculty members to help close its $100 million deficit.

• While UC Berkeley may have its share of budgetary problems, at least in the area of diversity the funds are flowing due to a $16 million donation received to support diversity initiatives. The donation is from one of Berkeley’s largest donors, the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, and is intended “to support both research and teaching on diversity and to cultivate a campus ‘built on fairness and acceptance.’” The goal to include incoming freshmen and community college transfer students who are deemed racially and economically diverse is proving a difficult one since affirmative action in California has been banned. (The Chronicle)

Related Resources:

1. Financing Your Future: Winning Fellowships, Scholarships and Awards for Grad School, an ebook.
2. MBA BlastOff: 45 Terrific Tips to Launch Your MBA Application to Acceptance, an ebook.

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