Several impressions and take-aways for applicants from the different events and sessions:

MIT Sloan Panels:

From the MIT panels it is clear that MIT is looking for demonstrated success academically and professionally.  The latter translates into success or professional progression that is better than the norm for your peers. In terms of those fuzzy attributes and personal characteristics that schools talk about, Sloan wants to see drive; an ability to build relationships and influence others;  and the establishment, pursuit and achievement of goals.  A few details about the individual programs:

1. 100% of the MFin grads have jobs this year, this program’s inaugural graduating class.
2. The EMBA is a program for those in mid-management with a demonstrated record of success who either want to advance in their career or make a slight career change without leaving their job.  Neither sponsorship nor the GMAT is required. (the latter may be requested if MIT has questions about the applicant’s quant skills.)
3. The LGO program focuses on managing the global production and distribution of goods and services. It is a joint, quant-heavy 24-month program between MIT Sloan and MIT’s School of Engineering. Participants earn both an MBA and an MS in Engineering.

We also heard two presentations by MIT Sloan professors. If you have any doubt that MIT Sloan is serious about innovation and global reach, abandon them. The creativity and global impact evident in just these two hours would force you to reshape your views.

Impressions from Conference Day 2 (Multiple presentations by various schools reps)

• Schools and admissions committee members look at different elements when they evaluate an application.  Pay attention to the nuances.
• Your informal and personally identifiable interactions with school admissions personnel are highly revealing. They COUNT! Arrogance at any point in time is a death knell for your application (and most relationships too.) Rudeness to a receptionist is a ding. What qualities impress positively? In your essays and interviews, reveal dignity, generosity of spirit, self-awareness, authenticity, and consideration of others. These qualities cannot be faked or “spun.”
• Regarding financial aid, merit aid tends to go to the top X% based on academic stats. Generally, when evaluating fellowship essays, the readers do not refer to your application essays. Poor credit can prevent you from obtaining the loans necessary for you to attend the school of your dreams if merit aid and your resources don’t cover the tab; get your credit in order before you apply.
• Regarding career development, the MBA employment picture improved throughout 2009-10. Read the employment reports for schools before you decide to apply and certainly before you decide to attend; you need to know school strengths as revealed in these reports. Understand the role of the career services staff (educating students about effective career planning and job search) and the limitations of that role. (They don’t create or find jobs for you.) Networking, which is about building relationships not the size of your contact list, is more important than ever. In order to build relationships, you must move beyond email.

Harvard Business School

At Harvard, we enjoyed an interactive two-hour presentation that was stimulating and engaging. To the extent it reflected the dynamism of the Harvard educational experience, I was extremely impressed.

This visit clarified for me that Harvard’s unparalleled brand is not just a matter of US News Rankings or smoke-and-mirrors branding.  At the same time, HBS is not for everyone, but like any top graduate program, it can be a fantastic experience for the right individuals.

Before the conference started my husband and I met with an acquaintance who is a professor at HBS. The professor was curious about my work, and I was curious about his. He asked me what I believe distinguishes Harvard students from the rest of the applicant pool. I thought for a moment and replied, “Leadership and impact.” He smiled, and the conversation moved on. Just before leaving, I asked him, “From your perspective as an HBS professor, what is a common quality shared by HBS students?” He replied, “I smiled when you answered my question because the students come from incredibly diverse backgrounds. However, if I have to identify a common thread, it would be leadership and impact.” If you are serious about attending Harvard Business School, make sure you demonstrate leadership and impact.

Reflections and Thank yous

It is our job as admissions consultants to help you choose the best target programs and show that you  belong at your chosen schools. The candor and graciousness shown by the hosting schools as well as by the presenting admissions directors will help Accepted’s staff do exactly that.

I am proud to report that Accepted’s staff was well represented at  the conference. In addition to myself, Jennifer Bloom, Paul Bodine, Judy Gruen, Tanis Kmetyk, Cindy Tokumitsu, and Robbie Walker attended.

Profound thanks to the hosts and presenters as well as to AIGAC, led by Graham Richmond of Clear Admit, and specifically to Maxx Duffy of Maxx Associates and Anna Ivey of Ivey Consulting who co-chaired the event. Thanks also to the sponsors: Veritas Prep, Clear Admit, Hult International Business School, Manhattan GMAT, MBA Podcaster, and Zoom Interviews

Learn More: Best MBA Programs: A Guide to Choosing the One for You.

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

My comments are in red:

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS: Please be introspective and authentic in your responses. Content is more important than style of delivery. We value the opportunity to learn about your life experiences, aspirations, and goals

First-time applicants — 2 required essays:

1. What event or life experience has had the greatest influence in shaping your character and why? (750 words)

Although this is  new question and new approach, it continues the Anderson tradition of starting with a non-professional question. This lead-off reveals the importance Anderson places on learning about you as a person. What motivates you? What has touched you?

Choose your greatest “Ah-ha!” moment. What happened? How has it shaped you? Why was it so influential?  FYI, the answers to these least three questions in this order could be a great structure for your essay.

Please note that this question is not asking about your professional goals or your educational aspirations. It is asking about you and your character.

2. Describe your short-term and long-term career goals. What is your motivation for pursuing an MBA now and how will UCLA Anderson help you to achieve your goals? (750 words)

UCLA’s is a pretty straightforward MBA goals question. What are you professional goals? Why do you want an MBA now? How will UCLA Anderson’s program and strengths help you realize your goals? As always be specific and make sure you answer all elements of the question.

3. OPTIONAL: You may respond to the following question via written essay, audio or video clip: What is something people will find surprising about you?

Anderson is one of the first top MBA programs to encourage audio/video responses in an MBA application. If you are comfortable with these media, take advantage of your creative talents. If not, use the good ol’ written word.

Although this question is optional, responding to it means you have one more chance to present a different facet of your qualifications and experience to the Anderson’s admissions committee. I strongly encourage you to write it, speak it, or film it. Whatever you prefer.

You may want to listen to a few audio clips that caught the adcom’s fancy in the past. Click on “Audio Animations” at http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x24219.xml . For these clips, the video was produced by UCLA film students, but the audio was the work of Anderson applicants.

4. OPTIONAL: Are there any extenuating circumstances in your profile about which the Admissions Committee should be aware? (250 words)

If there are extenuating circumstances that would add perspective or “explain” a weakness, you can discuss them here.

Three years ago, UCLA added the following: “Please do not submit redundant information in the Optional Essay.” Good advice for all optional questions. For more suggestions, please see The Optional Question: To Be or not To Be.

If you would like help with UCLA’s essays, please consider Accepted.com’s UCLA Anderson Comprehensive Packages or our other MBA admissions consulting and editing services.

Additional Resources:

• Essays that Stick, a webinar recording.
• Video in Applications, a series of blog posts.
• MBA 5 Fatal Flaws, an email course.

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

• 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

As your story is the most compelling part of your audio clip, there’s no need to sweat the technical stuff.  Several inexpensive, user-friendly recording options are probably sitting right in front of you, on your computer.

Here are the Top Five Tips for your audio recording:

1) Write as you speak: As you’re writing, speak aloud so that you use language you would normally use for speaking, rather than for writing.

2) Use headphones: When you do record your audio, make sure to use headphones so that you know what you sound like.  But don’t just trust what you hear. Sometimes there are different controls for how loud the microphone is picking up your voice, and for your headphone volume. Recording programs and devices should have a visual indicator for your voice level.

In Garageband, it looks like this in the editing window when you play back what you’ve recorded:

GOOD

See how the bars are green, a little more than midway into the window? This is a good level.

BAD

In this example, my voice is too loud.  This is called peaking and your voice will sound tinny. This means you are too close to your microphone. Move back, or speak more softly so that your voice is in the “GOOD” range.

BAD

In this example, my voice is too low.  I either need to speak up, or move closer to the mic.

3. Practice, and do a test export. Before you record, practice saying your script aloud at least 5 times.  Print it out so that you can underline words you want to emphasize.  You should also time yourself, to make sure that you are staying within the allotted limit. Also, record a short 10 second snippet and practice exporting it into the school’s acceptable format.

4.  Think like your audience. The admissions committee is going to be listening to hundreds, maybe thousands of these clips.  Most people will probably use Garageband–so if you choose to jazz up your piece with one of the audio jingles they provide–most likely someone else will too, and you will sound less unique!  What is going to make you stand out the most is your story.  So again, and I can’t emphasize this enough–unless adding extra music or sound is part of YOUR story–DON’T add it in!

5. Record in front of another person, and smile. This will help you to visualize your audience, and help you sound more like you are telling a story, rather than just reading off a page. By smiling, you will automatically boost your energy, and sound more interesting as you speak.

Stay tuned for the final Part V of the series: Let’s Get Technical . . . with Video.

By Michelle Stockman, who worked in the Columbia Business School admissions office, has a Masters in Journalism from Columbia, and has assisted Accepted.com clients applying to top business schools since 2007. When not advising Accepted’s clients, she is a multimedia producer with works published by Agence France Presse, Economist.com, WSJ.com, the Times of India, and Hindustan Times. She is happy to help you with your application.

“My life has a superb cast but I can’t figure out the plot.” — Ashleigh Brilliant, English cartoonist.

For your clip, you’ve already got the superb cast (you!). Now you need to concentrate on telling a compelling story.

Let’s analyze some of the UCLA clips.

Anthony Pu: desk worker by day and hip hop dancer by night–ended up performing in a professional dance group and teaching classes to inner city kids.

Lianna Kong: restyled her blog “I am Neurotic” into a book deal.

These stories are good because they highlight an aspect of the person’s life NOT related to their regular jobs. Anthony made an impact by nurturing his talent and sharing it with others.  Lianna creatively turned a writing hobby into an entrepreneurial venture.

To prepare your story:

1. Listen.

• To clips of prior candidates
• To “This I Believe” or “This American Life” to hear how people tell their stories, so it doesn’t sound like they are reading it off a page.
• Don’t take notes while listening.  Rather, wait until the clip is complete and write down the details that really struck you, that you remember.

According to a recent article in Businessweek, UCLA Anderson School of Management (Anderson Full-Time MBA Profile) already gives candidates the option to submit an audio or video clip. And next year (HOORAY!) The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business might be ditching the PowerPoint question.  They haven’t yet disclosed what their “get-to-know-you” replacement may be, but–you better start thinking digital.

Here are some of UCLA’s top audio entries that were animated  . . . after admittance.

For undergrads, Tufts has introduced a 1 minute video essay option, and Yale accepts links to videos, but warns that if the content is not stellar, it can work against you.

Check out Ameila Down’s interpretive math dance for Tufts, with over 100,000 views.

Over the next few days, Accepted.com will release a five-part blog series about how to successfully create a 1 to 2 minute audio or video clip.

We’ll talk about how to plan your content around your technical know-how, so that no matter your skill set, you’ll make the ad comm hit rewind again and again.

But first, the TOP 10 Do’s and Don’ts of Video Applications

The Dos

1. Do make it about YOU. Don’t waste time by interviewing your friends and family about why they think you’re awesome.  They can be included peripherally, but you should choose an activity or story where you are the featured star.

2. Do tell the story in logical sequences. People like to see processes. Think about how you can show a behind-the-scenes “how-to” of something cool that you do or have done.

3. Do make a story board. Once you’ve decided on the content, plan the story out shot by shot. It’s like making an outline for an essay. This will help you present a logical sequence, and reduce shooting time.

4. Do start filming at least 2 weeks before the deadline. And test all your technical equipment beforehand, end-to-end!  Something will inevitably go wrong, and you’ll need the time to troubleshoot.

5. Do use a tripod if possible. This will help you have a steady, watchable video.  After watching hundreds of shaky shots (which the ad comm will have to do) your story will be a pleasant change.

The Don’ts

1.  Don’t try something new for the first time. Keep it simple. Concentrate on telling a really compelling story, rather than stretching your technical abilities.

2.  Don’t use slick production techniques to cover up the fact that you don’t have a compelling story.

3.  Don’t use music that is distracting. You can use snippets to punch up certain parts of the video, but if it doesn’t have a reason to be there, take it out.  Again, a driving techno beat may sound like a good way to make your video exciting, but it can be really annoying if you have to watch 100 of these clips a week.

4. Don’t introduce the school campus as a character in the video.  The ad comm sees enough of their office everyday and will get sick of people using it as a backdrop.  They want a window into YOUR life.

5.  Don’t ask someone to interview you on camera like you’re on Meet the Press. It looks pretentious and sounds odd. You should put yourself at the scene of the action, and speak directly to the camera like you’re talking to a friend.

Bonus Don’ts: Please retire these cliches.  Just drop kick them out of town.

#1 person waking up in the morning and turning into a superhero

#2 school mascots as characters

#3 enthusiastic candidate jumping off campus landmarks

Stay tuned for Part II in the series: Content is King (or Queen)!

By Michelle Stockman, who worked in the Columbia Business School admissions office, has a Masters in Journalism from Columbia, and has assisted Accepted.com clients applying to top business schools since 2007. When not advising Accepted’s clients, she a multimedia producer with works published by Agence France Presse, Economist.com, WSJ.com, the Times of India, and Hindustan Times. She is happy to help you with your application.

• A recent survey conducted by Public Agenda shows that high school guidance counselors are not quite as effective at helping students get into college as they once were. The reason, according to Inside Higher Ed: First budget cuts have increased the student-to-counselor ratio, so counselors spend less quality time with each student; and second, the counselors are just not as good as they used to be. College advisors, on the other hand, received much more positive reviews. (Click here for a critical response from a veteran high school counselor.)

• Even the most prestigious of MBA programs (like HBS) have been called under scrutiny since the recent financial crisis, reports the Financial Post last week. And yet even with such criticism, top MBA programs (like Harvard) are receiving more and more applications. One reason for such an increase in popularity, explains the article, is Harvard’s position in the published rankings. But how reliable are these rankings? With so many ranking reports out there, so many ranking methodologies floating around, and so many surveys and questionnaires that tackle different sorts of questions, how can anyone attribute any justifiable weight to rankings? Surveys show that university adcoms, professors, and students all agree that the rankings are subjective and should not be relied upon, and yet the media seems to continue going rankings-crazy.

For more information about the value (and lack thereof) of rankings, check out MBA Rankings: An Accepted.com Special Report now.

• The Chronicle offers highlights from the career of USC’s now retired president Steven B. Sample, particularly his campaign to find a successful leader to replace his iconic role. Sample, who was president of University of Southern California, is praised for his enthusiasm and success at marketing and has “engineered one of the great recent transformations in American higher education” with his rebuilding and rebranding work at USC which in turn affected the economy and culture of Los Angeles. The new president, who will be named sometime next month, has large shoes to fill, especially since USC’s endowment took a hard hit by the recession. .

• More than one-third of university faculty members saw a dip in their 2009-2010 salaries, reports a recent Chronicle article. Faculty salaries at private doctoral institutions, on the other hand, actually saw a salary increase of about 1.7%.

• CNN Money’s Fortune Magazine ran an article recently on the strengths that military veterans bring to the business world. Wal-Mart U.S. is making particular strides to recruit junior military officers. Jennifer Seidner, senior recruiting manager at Wal-Mart, explains: “The thinking was that we could bring in world-class leadership talent that was already trained and ready to go. And then we could teach them retail, because we know that pretty well.” The result of such an endeavor: Wal-Mart has “tapped into a good mine of talent.” Other companies, as well as business schools, are also beginning to place a higher premium on military veterans in the workforce.

• In a BusinessWeek article entitled “Business Schools Revamp the Application,” author Francesca Di Meglio discusses three major changes to the MBA application process: GRE scores are now accepted by many b-schools instead of just the traditional GMAT; for non-native English speakers, the IELTS is accepted in addition to the traditional TOEFL test; application deadlines are earlier; and last but not least, b-schools will now accept video and/or audio components to the application. Chicago Booth is considered a pioneer is the multimedia aspects of admissions. UCLA Anderson picked up on the trend, offering applicants with an option to present an audio submission, and 70% of applicants accepted the challenge. As Mae Jennifer Shores, assistant dean of admissions at Anderson says, “A lot of business schools have concerns about authenticity. This was a way to get a more authentic view of a candidate.”

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

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

Fortunately, assuming the FT is correct in its allegations, top MBA programs are addressing these criticisms and are cleaning up their acts. B-schools are tweaking their curriculums—with some changes as major as adding new classes—to transmit to their students lessons of the financial crisis. Classes on ethics and the history of financial crises are some of the new offerings at now conscientious b-schools.

Jake Cohen, dean of the MBA program at Insead explains how the economic crisis is achieving a goal otherwise overlooked in the past: the bridging of private and public sectors. Teaching MBA students about the impact of the public sector and its relationship with the private sector is now an integral learning point for current MBAs.

Harvard Business School is an example of an institution that is taking specific measures to educate its MBA students about the impact of the financial crisis. HBS has added new courses, including “The Evolution of the US Financial System” and “Managing the Modern Financial Firm.” Risk management, until now, has been a relatively undervalued focus in an MBA course of study.

Anderson School of Management at UCLA is also making significant changes to its syllabi. A first-year finance class that used to focus on stocks and bonds now includes discussions on credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and mortgage-backed securities.

Kenan Flagler’s Dean James Dean is taking a more conservative approach. He explains:

“We don’t want to make knee-jerk changes, we want to be thoughtful about it. It would be a bad mistake to throw out some of the fundamentals for something that looks important now but will not be as important three or four years from now.”

I think we can all agree with Dean in hoping that these crisis-related objectives will be irrelevant in a few years.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

In fact, business schools in America deem students from regions like Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia so important to their student bodies that they’re starting to venture out to these areas to do in-person recruiting.

Boston University School of Management, for example, has already sent staff out to Dubai twice and Cairo once in the last few months, in an effort to boost the Middle Eastern appearance at the BU program. Anderson School of Management (UCLA) is spending their recruiting energy on Latin America, as is Dartmouth University’s Tuck School of Business.

Recently Chicago’s Booth School, UVA’s Darden, Dartmouth’s Tuck, and Northwestern’s Kellogg joined forces and went to Ghana together to recruit students—a truly one-of-a-kind experience for the admissions staff and for the prospective students in Ghana.

Tuck is setting yet another trend that expands their international recruiting footprint even further: by placing full-time admissions officers on-site in these far-out regions.

Similarly, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business has established its global network by establishing global campuses in Dubai, London, Delhi, St. Petersburg, and Shanghai. Their presence in these places allows them to study these emerging markets, speak with prospective applicants in person, and attend local MBA fairs.

Organizations like the QS World MBA Tour are making it their business to scope out these countries personally to find applicants and bring them back to U.S. MBA programs. Last year the Africa Tour (led by the World Tour) only had European business school represented at their traveling school fair, but the U.S. programs have shown interest in joining in the near future.

MBA programs all over the United States are taking innovative and creative measures to reach students that have never been reached before. There are student groups that are doing the outreach, as well as alumni groups that have pooled together for this initiative. New scholarships and funding opportunities also help the emerging international crowd achieve their goals of studying in a U.S. top B-school.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best