So for those of you applying to Stanford GSB, listen up as Allison Davis shares the top 8 mistakes applicants make on their essays:

1. Not making Essay B specific to the GSB.
2. Choosing a topic for Essay 3A, B, C, or D that is NOT within 3 years.
3. Combining your 2 essay C’s into 1 essay.
4. Cutting and pasting your essays from essays you’ve written for other schools. You risk not answering the question we’re asking…and big risk of leaving the name of the other school in your Stanford essay!
5. Writing what you think we want to hear, instead of what you genuinely want us to know about you. Be yourself…corny but true!
6. Single-spacing your essays. Please double space–our readers are reading hundreds of applications.
7. Using too small of a font on your essays. Please use 12-point font. Remember, our readers’ eyes!
8. Using an alternate font for essays. Use one of the recommended fonts: Arial, Courier, and Times New Roman to avoid legibility problems when your essays are downloaded on our end.

For more information about the essay questions for the class entering fall 2011 visit our tip-filled blog post.

For one-on-one guidance through the Stanford MBA application process, please check out Accepted.com’s Stanford Application Package or our other MBA essay editing and MBA admissions consulting assistance. Until July 31, 2010 you can save 10% on Accepted’s non-rush MBA services. Use coupon code EB10 at checkout to start early and save.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

This Stanford GSB 2011 MBA Application tip post is one of a series of posts providing MBA application and essay advice for applicants to top MBA programs around the world. You can access the entire series at http://blog.accepted.com/acceptedcom_blog/tag/2011-mba-application-tips. My tips for answering Stanford’s essay questions are in red below.

Essay 1: What matters most to you, and why?

This deceptively simple question has been Stanford’s first for the last several years, and it is actually one of the hardest, if not the hardest, MBA essay question to answer. It demands introspection. Before you put pen to paper or finger to keyboard, take time to reflect on what you value, how you have demonstrated those values, and why you hold them dear.

When I think back on our many successful Stanford clients, they were the ones who showed, especially in Essay A, that they did not turn away or close their eyes when they saw need. They could demonstrate that they seized the initiative when they recognized an opportunity to contribute. They were comfortable expressing emotion, their values, and their ability to act on both. More than anything else, to me initiative and self-awareness characterize the successful Stanford application. Implication: You have to reflect upon your values and those times you have acted upon them. Yes I wrote that a few seconds ago, but it bears repeating. Climbing Mt. Everest or suffering from terrible social ills is not a requirement of admission, but you do have to know the person occupying your skin.

Essay 2: What are your career aspirations? What do you need to learn at Stanford to achieve them?

This question, similar to last year’s, is a variation of a standard MBA goals question and different flavors have occupied this slot on the Stanford application for years. For this forward-looking question, you need to define your career goals and then explain how Stanford’s program will help you achieve your goals. Understand the flexibility inherent in Stanford’s new curriculum, its integrated approach to management, and how both will help you learn what you need to know to achieve your career goals. Realize that the curriculum allows for personalization based on your goal and your distance from that goal. Obviously, a clear goal and knowledge of the Stanford GSB curriculum are imperative to answer this question.

Essay 3: Answer two of the four questions below. Tell us not only what you did but also how you did it. What was the outcome? How did people respond? Only describe experiences that have occurred during the last three years.

The first issue you must address when looking at Essay C is “Which two do you choose?”. Answer: the two that, when combined with your required essays, allow you to present the most impressive, textured, and comprehensive picture of you. Take advantage of Stanford’s flexibility within the limits they specify below. Tell your story to maximum effect by using the limits to your best advantage, just as Stanford suggests. Finally, note that these questions are experiential , not theoretical. They are about the past, not the future. And Stanford wants recent experiences. It wants to know how you achieved, what was the response of those around you, and what was your impact. For further insight, please see “Confessions from the Director of Evaluation” and “Writing Effective Essays.”

Option A: Tell us about a time when you built or developed a team whose performance exceeded expectations.

This is a twist on last year’s question. It requires specifics and works well with anecdotal responses. Stanford does not want to know about all the times that you may have built or developed a team. It wants to know about “a time,” a specific incident, when your performance exceeded expectations. When did you build a team that faced challenges and succeeded? What were the expectations? What impact did your team have and how did it exceed expectations? Make sure you relate your role in its success.

Option B: Tell us about a time when you made a lasting impact on your organization.

Use a different experience than you use in Option 1 to answer Option 2. Exploit the opportunity to show Stanford a different facet of your experience and personality. In discussing your impact, refrain from writing about leadership in general terms. Focus on the specific aspects of your contribution and its impact. Discuss what you used to garner trust, organize your group, empower them, and achieve your goal.

Option C: Tell us about a time when you generated support from others for an idea or initiative.

Use this question to present a challenge you successfully handled. A PAR approach would work well here, as well as with the other 3 questions.

Option D: Tell us about a time when you went beyond what was defined, established, or expected.

This is a very broad question. It reveals Stanford’s values and allows you to discuss any event when you went beyond the norm. The suggestions for the other 3 questions hold here too. Choose to respond to this question if it allows you to demonstrate the individuality and initiative that Stanford values in a setting other than those you have used earlier.

Essay Length

You have your own story to tell, so please allocate the 1,800 words among all of the essays in the way that is most effective for you. We provide some guidelines below as a starting point, but you should feel comfortable to write as much or as little as you like on any essay question, as long as you do not exceed 1,800 words total.

• Essay 1: 750 words
• Essay 2: 450 words
• Essay 3: 300 words each

Stanford GSB 2011 Application Deadlines

* Applications are due by 5:00 PM, Pacific Time

For one-on-one guidance through the Stanford MBA application, process please check out Accepted.com’s Stanford Application Package or our other MBA essay editing and admissions consulting assistance.

Additional Resources:

• Essays That Stick, a webinar recording.
  
• Best MBA Programs: A Guide to Choosing the One for You, an ecourse.
• MBA BlastOff: 45 Terrific Tips to Launch Your MBA Application, an ebook with tips on applying to Harvard, Stanford, & Wharton.

By Linda Abraham, President and Founder of Accepted.com.

Robert Dammon, CMU Tepper associate dean and professor, explains the price-wage connection: “The kinds of students that the best schools attract are going to get the highest-paying jobs.”

Paul R. Dorf, managing director of the consulting firm, Compensation Resources, adds, “The cream-of-the-crop companies hire the cream-of-the-crop grads.”

Top-ranked b-schools generally offer the most expensive programs and generally churn out the highest paid graduates. Harvard Business School, for example, has the most expensive MBA program, and the best paid alumni.

PayScale, a salary-comparison company, recently evaluated salary data of 23,000 MBA graduates from Bloomberg Businessweek’s top 45 American business schools.

Their data shows that on average, MBAs from top programs make $2.5 million (base-pay plus bonuses) over the course of 20 years in a single industry. HBS alumni make closer to $4 million, while alumni from lower ranked programs (but still in the top 45) like Iowa Tippie, make less than half of that.

Another interesting comparison between the higher ranked and lower ranked programs was the growth of salary over the two-decade period. Graduates from Yale SOM, for example, were awarded with extremely high starting salaries, but then experienced only small increases over the following 20 years. Grads from University of Connecticut’s business school, on the other hand, received lower starting salaries that more than doubled over that same 20-year period.

Below are the top median salaries earned after less than 2 years out of b-school and then the estimated career total for a 20-year long career:

Related Accepted.com Resources:

• B-School Zones
• The Rankings: An Accepted.com Special Report
• Forbes ROI MBA Rankings for 2010
• BusinessWeek’s Top 10 Undergraduate Business Schools with the Best Returns on Investment

Want our news sent directly to your inbox? Subscribe to the Accepted Admissions Almanac by clicking here!

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

The First Prize ($200 Amazon gift certificate) goes to BizWiz for his shot of Stanford GSB’s Oval Park:

Second Prize ($100 gift certificate) goes to Matt Thieleman for his picture of Tappan Street and Michigan Ross amidst some stunning fall foliage.

Third Prize ($50 gift certificate) goes to Jennifer Lu for her picture of UVA Darden’s central grounds and amphitheater:

This contest wouldn’t have been possible without our hard-working judges:

• Xlick, author of A New Yorker’s MBA Journey blog.
• Ameya, author of Unraveling Mystery blog.
• Rocky, author of Rocky’s Journey to an MBA blog.
• Mad Bubbles, author of Madalogue – A Young Gal’s Dreamroll blog.
• 2012 MBA Applicant, author of 2012 MBA Applicant blog.
• Hari, author of Memoirs of a MBA Aspirant blog.
• MBAJourney, author of My Journey to an MBA Class of 2012 blog.
• TheDreamChaser, author of The DreamChaser’s Journey blog.
• Braveheart, author of Illuminati’s MBA Quest blog.
• Djveeder, Djveeder from Twitter.
• ErinBerin, ErinBerin from Twitter.

To view more 2010 Beautiful B-School photos, visit our photo album on Facebook or the Accepted.com B-School Zones pages.

Thanks again to all participants, winners, and judges—we hope you had as much as we had!

2011 applicants: You could be on one of these lists next year, so get those cameras out and start snapping away for next year’s Beautiful B-School Photo Contest!

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

The option to take the GRE instead of the GMAT exam is a somewhat recent development. What began as a trend (started by Stanford GSB) among a few schools has exploded into an almost-standard option available at 27% of the U.S. News‘ 433 b-schools on the Best Business School rankings report. More than 300 b-schools total accept the GRE as a GMAT alternative (including those not included in the U.S. News rankings).

This expanded option allows b-schools to widen their applicant pool, attracting potential MBAs from other GRE-required graduate paths.

US News ranked b-schools that now accept the GRE include:

1. (tie) Harvard Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
7. Dartmouth College (Tuck)
9. New York University (Stern)
11. Yale University
13. University of Virginia (Darden)
14. Duke University (Fuqua)
16. University of Texas—Austin (McCombs)
19. Washington University in St. Louis (Olin)

According to David Payne, VP and COO at ETS, accepting the GRE is a smart move, specifically from a business perspective. “At no cost to the schools,” he says, “it allows them to increase the size and diversity of their applicant pool.” More than 600,000 people take the GRE every year, while only 270,000 take the GMAT.

Both tests have experienced an increase in the number of test takers every year for the last six years.

Advantages to test-takers of the move of b-schools to accept the GRE include:

• The GRE costs about $110 less than the GMAT.
• Students who wish to apply to both b-school and another graduate or PhD program can do so easily (and affordably) by taking only one test.
• Those with weaker quant skills will have an easier time navigating the GRE’s math section than that of the GMAT.

Related Accepted.com Blog Posts:

• More B-Schools Accepting GRE in Lieu of GMAT
• GMAT or GRE: Which is Best for You?
• Record GMAT Registration Volume in 2009
• GMAT Advice

Want our news sent directly to your inbox? Subscribe to the Accepted Admissions Almanac by clicking here!

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

• As social media penetrates the business world, business schools have no choice but to jump on the bandwagon and make sure that their students are well equipped with social media knowledge, reports the New York Times article, “Business Schools Respond to Demand for Use of Social Media.” Top b-schools, including Harvard Business School, INSEAD, and London Business School, are now incorporating social media material into their MBA curriculums. Anthony Salcito, VP of worldwide education at Microsoft, explains that as businesses adopt and adapt to the commercial value of social media networks, universities need to keep their students up to speed on the profitable potential of internet marketing.

Related Accepted.com MBA Resources:

• B-School Zones
• Navigating the MBA Maze, an ecourse.
• Submit a Stellar Application: 42 Terrific Tips, an instantly downloadable ebook.
• MBA BlastOff: 45 Terrific Tips to Launch Your MBA Application, an instantly downloadable ebook.

Want our news sent directly to your inbox? Subscribe to the Accepted Admissions Almanac by clicking here!

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

• A Stanford GSB blog post last week announced a call for all Grameen Fellowship and Reliance Dhirubhai Fellowship applications. The fellowships support Bangladeshi and Indian students with financial need (respectively) in obtaining an MBA from Stanford GSB. Visit the Stanford financial aid website for more information.

• The Consortium announced last week that UCLA’s Anderson School of Management had joined its network of top MBA programs with the unified goal of promoting inclusion and diversity in American business enterprises. UCLA dean Judy D. Olian says, “We’ll be enriching the learning experiences of our students through a student body that reflects a diverse set of perspectives, backgrounds, and life experiences, and that’s a strategic priority for our students.” (The Consortium Press Release)

• In the BusinessWeek article, “Building a Wharton for Emerging Economies,” Bruce Einhorn discusses the leaps and bounds the Indian School of Business (ISB) is taking to become a big league business school in an emerging economy. The b-school, which opened only nine years ago, has already moved up to the number one slot in Indian b-school rankings. ISB has become so popular in fact, that it will be expanding to a second $50 million new campus which will focus on manufacturing, infrastructure management, and other subjects pertinent to emerging economies. ISB has teamed up with MIT Sloan, UPenn Wharton, and Northwestern Kellogg to further their academic reputation—MIT Sloan and ISB, for example, have agreed on a faculty rotation plan between the two top MBA programs.

• Who knew that frats would become an essential ingredient to job networking in the business world? At Wharton, as the economy started shifting downward, the popularity of fraternities among business students moved upward. Business fraternities like Phi Gamma Nu, Alpha Kappa Psi, and Delta Sigma Pi offer Wharton students with mentors, career support, and a large, strong, family-like alumni network. “Getting to know more of the business world helps you decide what you want to do,” says Nancy Zhang, president of Phi Gamma Nu and Wharton sophomore. (The Daily Pennsylvanian)

Related Accepted.com MBA Resources:

• Submit a Stellar Application: 42 Terrific Tips
• Submit a Stellar Application II: 56 Additional Tips
• Financing Your Future: Winning Fellowships, Scholarships and Awards for Grad School, an ebook.
• Navigating the MBA Maze, an ecourse.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

In ten-plus years of MBA admissions consulting I have found that a large percentage of otherwise highly capable and focused people basically wing it when it comes to this list.  “I’m just applying to all the top ten.”  Top ten according to what source?  “I realize now [after R2 deadlines have passed] I was overreaching.  Are there any good schools I can still apply to?”  Probably.  “I’m applying to H/S/W, with Duke as my safety.”  Duke as your safety?   By starting to plan your list of prospective schools now, you can avoid these and similar problems (yes, these responses are all problems).

By taking a thoughtful, systematic approach to school selection, you will save time, money, and effort (even if you expend more of all initially).  You will save precious energy for the applications.  You will be able to start planning school visits and recommendations, two things that often get tangled up when approached in the heat of the application season.

Over the next month I will present a series of blog posts providing tips and approaches to developing a solid list of schools.  Each person’s needs are unique, and there is no one formula that works for everyone, so it will be less a step-by-step process than a guide showing what questions to ask yourself, how to answer them, and make decisions accordingly.  We’ll cover assessing your profile; determining your needs, wants, and dislikes; the role of rankings; how many schools to apply to; and other topics.  We’ll also provide examples.

Ready?  Here are a couple of things you can and should do right now to get started on the school selection process for next season:

• Capture on paper or whatever electronic medium you prefer those random thoughts that have been floating around in your head, e.g., “top 10”; “friendly to older applicants”; “strong quant focus”; “need to be able to fly home to my ailing mother in an hour.”
• Read blogs of MBA students not just at schools you’re already interested in but from a wider array, to get a subjective feel for different programs and your responses to them (pay attention to your responses!).
• If possible talk to MBA students and ask them about their school selection process; what went well and what proved difficult or problematic; what they would do differently.
• Visit schools now!  Visit schools you know you are interested in (you can always re-visit later), schools you might be interested in, even schools on the margins.  It’s the perfect time: schools are in session, you’re not pressed by the application process yet, and it’s close enough to application time for your insights to be relevant if you discuss them in essays.  Take advantage of any travel you may do for business or pleasure to schedule a visit, rather than trying to cram everything in the fall – a time when you’ll be even busier than usual with applications plus work.  Moreover, visiting now gives you time to digest and reflect on the experience.

By Cindy Tokumitsu, co-author of The Finance Professional’s Guide to MBA Success, The Consultants’ Guide to MBA Admission, The EMBA Edge, and author of numerous MBA articles and the free, email mini-course, “Ace the EMBA.”

Related Resources:

• Best Practices for MBA Admissions Webinar
• MBA Ranking Report

The best business schools according to FT:

1. London Business School
2. University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
3. Harvard Business School
4. Stanford GSB
5. INSEAD
6. Columbia Business School
7. IE (tied with Columbia)
8. MIT Sloan
9. Chicago Booth
10. Hong Kong UST Business School

I have long argued that far more valuable than the overall rankings are the specialty rankings. Here are FT’s specialty rankings:

Top for international business
1 Thunderbird School of Global Management
2 University of South Carolina: Moore
3 Georgetown University: McDonough
4 Insead
5 George Washington University
6 Hult International Business School
7 IMD
8 Manchester Business School
9 University of Southern California: Marshall
10 London Business School

Top for finance
1 University of Chicago: Booth
2 New York University: Stern
3 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
4 Rice University: Jones
5 University of Rochester: Simon
6 London Business School
7 Columbia Business School
8 Macquarie Graduate School of Management
9 University of Iowa: Tippie
10 University of Toronto: Rotman

Top for accountancy
1 Brigham Young University: Marriott
2 University of Chicago: Booth
3 University of Texas at Austin: McCombs
4 New York University: Stern
5 Macquarie Graduate School of Management
6 University of Rochester: Simon
7 Cornell University: Johnson
8 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
9 Rice University: Jones
10 Texas A & M University: Mays

Top for entrepreneurship
1 Babson College: Olin
2 Stanford University GSB
3 Imperial College Business School
4 UCLA: Anderson
5 University of California at Berkeley: Haas
6 MIT Sloan School of Management
7 University of Cambridge: Judge
8 IMD
9 Wisconsin School of Business
10 Insead

Top for economics
1 University of Chicago: Booth
2 Cranfield School of Management
3 MIT Sloan School of Management
4 Yale School of Management
5 University of Rochester: Simon
6 Imperial College Business School
7 Melbourne Business School
8 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
9 IE Business School
10 New York University: Stern

Top for corporate social responsibility
1 University of Notre Dame: Mendoza
2 University of California at Berkeley: Haas
3 Yale School of Management
4 Ipade
5 University of Virginia: Darden
6 Brigham Young University: Marriott
7 Esade Business School
8 University of Michigan: Ross
9 University of North Carolina: Kenan-Flagler
10 Thunderbird School of Global Management

Top for general management
1 University of Virginia: Darden
2 Harvard Business School
3 Ipade
4 Dartmouth College: Tuck
5 IMD
6 University of Michigan: Ross
7 University of Western Ontario: Ivey
8 Northwestern University: Kellogg
9 Stanford University GSB
10 Duke University: Fuqua

Top for marketing
1 Northwestern University: Kellogg
2 Duke University: Fuqua
3 Indiana University: Kelley
4 Ipade
5 Esade Business School
6 Wisconsin School of Business
7 Imperial College Business School
8 University of Michigan: Ross
9 HEC Paris
10 Cornell University: Johnson

Rather than list all my important caveats for using rankings, I’ll simply refer you to our MBA Rankings Report.

By Linda Abraham, President and Founder of Accepted.com.

Stanford won top slot for both rankings. It is #1 for providing the best return on investment for its graduates, as well as for churning out MBAs who are extremely satisfied with their current jobs and their completed b-school experience.

The survey shows that Stanford alumni are more likely than grads from any other business school to sing praises to their alma mater. School satisfaction and job satisfaction are closely intertwined with financial success, says Pulin Sanghvi, Stanford GSB Director of Career Management and Stanford GSB ’97 alum. “True satisfaction happens from work-life actualization,” he says, referring to the Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness at Work. “We nurture students to pursue career decisions based on their internal drivers. That they then become financial successes is just a bonus.”

The Top Ten US B-Schools with the Most Satisfied Graduates

1.   Stanford GSB

2.   Wharton

3.   Chicago Booth

4.   NYU Stern

5.   Brigham Young University

6.   UC Berkeley Haas

7.   Dartmouth Tuck

8.   UCLA Anderson (tied)

8.   University of Rochester Simon Graduate School of Business (tied)

10. University of Virginia Darden

The Top Ten Non-US B-Schools with the Most Satisfied Graduates

1.   Oxford

2.   IESE

3.   London Business School

4.   IPADE

5.   Insead

6.   HEC-Paris

7.   IMD

8.   ESADE (tied)

8.   IE (tied)

10. Cranfield School of Management

For more information on the value of rankings and how you should (or should not) use them, check out Accepted.com’s new special report on MBA rankings.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best