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16 Dec 2013, 10:00
| FROM Domotron's Blog: Pick me! |
 How time flies. Only 1 more sleep till the madness begins. Tomorrow I vouch not to stare at my phone the entire day or refresh Gmatclub obsessively… we will see how long that lasts. Let’s go Wharton do me a huge favour and put me at ease with a call tomorrow!  
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16 Dec 2013, 15:03
| FROM The adventures of a (provisional) MBA student: HBS Decision day |
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Wow, what a rollercoaster. I’m in. As Harvard put it in their first sentence: ‘It’s a YES!’. I genuinely cannot believe it. I’m still stunned the next day! My thoughts go to everyone out there who’s getting a ‘No’ – I’ve got great sympathy for every one of you. When I started my applications (and even my GMAT study) I knew it would take a lot of time, patience, even fees for applications, but I had no idea how much you have to put in emotionally to the whole process. You really have to put yourself into it for any chance of success. A ‘no’ for me here would meant a strike-out in Round 1 with Haas and Wharton, and I dreaded the feeling of hopelessness that would have followed. A christmas of further application writing and misery beckoned. My next response was relief, and then to thank everyone who’d supported me – after my immediate family and friends, my recommenders were soon to know. The few I’ve seen (unlike many I suspect I haven’t actually seen most of the references written for me, only one or two) were sensational and I’m sure they played a big part in getting accepted. I’m now writing this with a terrible hangover, which probably betrays my second response. Vaguely reminds me of my GMAT result celebration. I didn’t dare book a day off work the day after (terrible karma or something, I’m sure), but I really really wish I had right now. So, what next? Well after some sort of fruit and hydration, I have two agenda items. My MIT application is still to go ahead. I said right at the beginning to myself this is one program (as an engineer with huge respect for the place) that I would consider ahead of HBS. Not saying I definitely would, but I’ve basically finished the application for their LGO program – it’s a little different to a straight MBA and don’t want to make a decision right now. The other thing is that I can start merrily researching Boston – because I’m 100% going to be there in September.  Boston on most definitely a summer day  
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09 Jan 2014, 15:00
| FROM Hamm0's Blog: Time to Catch Up |
So, I pretty much disappeared for a few weeks post-decision. For that, I apologize. Turns out, the last thing you want to do after obsessing over MBA things for a year is…well do anything about admissions for a few weeks. As I mentioned in my last post, I paid my Johnson deposit, and will be off to Ithaca this Summer/Fall. I have been spending my free time trying to learn everything I can about the place. I have contacted a number of current students soliciting advice on all fronts – housing, course exemptions, career thoughts, etc., and have been quite pleased. As expected, the Johnson network is very strong, and from what I have seen so far, people are willing to go way out of their way to help you. I will not bore you with the details of everything, because it is likely that very few of you will be attending Johnson in the future. That is not to say you will not have the ability to… but rather given its small class size, there numerical odds of you attending are quite slim. If, however, you are thinking of shooting an application there, let me know if I can help you in any way! I cannot claim to be a master of anything about the school or admissions, but the least I could do is offer.  Aside from Johnson, I have been planning my exit strategy. If you remember from waaaaay back when, I noted that I did not have the luxury of applying to only highly selective programs *cough “I’m only applying to HSW” cough*, with the backup plan of applying the following year if I was dinged. I am on a contract with my employer, which terminates sometime this summer. I have contacted HR, to which I found out that was largely false, and was told to “work it out with my manager” on when I wanted to leave. Oh well – not an issue, I just need to actually sit down and work it out with my manager. I was thinking sometime in June, but it is a difficult balance between funemployment time and saving money. I am looking forward to having a minion under me – they plan to hire someone to replace me, who I will have to train. All I know is I will not be leaving on Friday the 13th (yes, that day happens in June).  Finally, I have been thinking a lot about costs. I have tried to model out just about everything I could for the next 2 years, and came up with a really big number at the bottom of my sheet. Fortunately, the next sheet detailing my assets was substantial as well, but I still have a gap of about 40 or 50 thousand dollars. I cannot think of any legal way to earn that kind of money in the next 6 months, so I have been trying to cut back on many of my expenses. Packing lunches, parking in the farther cheaper lot, going out less – or at least not buying as many drinks when I do go out. I have put myself of a good cash-diet for the next few months. At the same time, I have been trying to get the most out of my time here. I have a really strong group of friends who I am sure I will miss come August, so I want to maximize my time with them in a cost-efficient manner. And that is really hard.  Filed under: Uncategorized        
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24 Jan 2014, 09:00
| FROM The MBA Journey of an African Doctor: Dealing with an unexpected promotion |
 Everybody wants to get a promotion. I am not excluded. On the first working day of 2014, I got an unexpected promotion. My first reaction was confusion. I had worked to hard on those applications and I was at the end stages of submitting applications that I had worked on for many many hours. How should I work in this promotion when I would have achieved exactly nothing before the deadlines? To even make matters worse, I had already submitted my Harvard applications, and Harvard expressly forbids sending extra materials once you have clicked on that submit button. It was a big promotion although it came without the extra pay. But it is a sure boost to my profile because of the added responsibilities. This unexpected promotion dragged my application on for a few days as a I settled into my new position and reworked my application to reflect this new role. But my dream school does not know that I have been promoted, and, well, that sucks. Thinking really hard about it now, I doubt that this promotion would have made a lot of difference though. I have received series of promotions and I doubt that receiving five promotions in five years would really be much more impressive than receiving four promotions in five years. So, it all boils down to whether Harvard likes my story or not. I am glad that I have been able to add it to my Wharton and Stanford applications. INSEAD called me for interview, so I guess bringing up this new promotion at the interviews will definitely give us something to say. Another source of confusion about the promotion was that this has actually taken me to a whole new level in my finance career. I almost had doubts with business school applications. But then… …the show must go on.  
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26 Jan 2014, 22:08
| FROM MBA Pensive - Roadmap to MBA Admissions: Insights from interactions with IE Business School community. |
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IE Business School is top notch school and recently ranked 5th in Forbes ranking 2013. I have been researching about the school for some time now and as a part of the process I have been interacting with alumni, current students and IE India office. The experience of these interaction have been phenomenal. Below is summary of some insights during these interactions.
To get most of the inside perspective be ready with relevant questions ( which doesn’t include – Can I get in?). All the best for your research ! Filed under: MBA Application Process Tagged: IE, IE Business School        
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21 Feb 2014, 11:00
| FROM Hamm0's Blog: What Now? |
Domotronand I were the other day, and both came up with the same sentiment; there is not much to write about after being accepted. Back when I was beginning my blog, I had been thinking about MBA applications for about a year. Though I had only recently passed the GMAT stage of the process, I already had a good idea of the schools that I would apply to, what type of jobs I wanted, and most importantly, what was coming next. There is plenty of information about the application process at top MBA programs – hell there is a whole industry devoted to it. Because of that, I knew that while it would be a tough mountain to climb, the path was already well documented and traveled.  Now, my current path is well traveled…but no so well documented. Turns out, MBA students are pretty busy people! Looking at threeof the blogsthat really pushed me to start my own, and two have not been updated since last fall, and another the past summer. I have spoken to all of them during the past few months, and I can confirm they are alive. They just do not have the time so much anymore, which is completely understandable. I, on the other hand, have plenty of time on my hands now that I am not spending 2-3 hours a night reviewing essays or studying for the GMAT. It feels like I have an extra day in the week now! So what gives? Why no posts? Well, as I mentioned above, I do not know what I am doing anymore. Before, it was so easy to learn about what the next steps were, and share my experiences as I hit each step. Now, I am floundering around trying to do several things at once – housing, roommate, studying for core exemption (stats!), researching recruiting opportunities, networking with my class, background checks, etc. The list is massive, and really – hard to convey in a blogging scenario.  I will say, though, that I have found a roommate, and we are wading through some of our housing options. All the housing at Johnson is off campus, and is pretty well confined between a few apartment buildings, with the occasional house as well. A guide is here, if you are so interested. On one hand, I do not want to repeat my episodes of undergrad living in a large, dilapidated house for the bare minimum each month. On the other, money is a precious resource when considering the cost of attending a top program. On the third (??) hand, if you are already spending over $150,000, what are a few extra c-notes? Some tough decisions lay ahead for me. I also submitted my payment for ReVera to conduct a background check on the facts presented in my application. Should be interesting to hear if anything comes up – not that I am expecting it, but considering how unstructured my previous job was, I can see some confusion. Oh well – we will cross that bridge when we get there. In addition, I set my final day at work! I have only a few more months left, and I will be off enjoying myself before gearing up for school. I am planning to see family, traveling, relaxing, and sleeping. I know this is a point of concern for many accepted students, as it is never a fun conversation to tell your boss that you are leaving (unless you are in a bridge-burning mood…), but luckily I dodged that issue. Now all I have to do is survive the final few months of work, while pretending to be active and enjoying what I am doing! Finally, I want to congratulate all the Round 2 applicantsthat found out their destiny over the past few weeks. You people worked very hard, and have the results to show for it! Congrats! Filed under: About Me, Admissions, Financials, Ramblings Tagged: Johnson        
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22 Feb 2014, 23:00
| FROM MBA Data Guru: Acceptance Rate by GMAT for Wharton |
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When applying to business school, GMAT is one of the few metrics that the applicant has any control over. Undergraduate GPA is already set in stone, work experience can’t be changed and recommendations are written by someone else. The only control a student has is their GMAT and essays, so it isn’t surprising that applicants stress over their score. Today I am going to quantify exactly how much the GMAT impacts you chance of admission into Wharton. The first piece of information to look at is the distribution of GMAT scores for Wharton applicants. The graph below shows how many students who applied had each score. For the GMAT overall, students who receive a 760 or higher are in the 99th percentile, yet 20% of Wharton applicants have a 760 or higher. I think this data is somewhat skewed by the fact that it comes from the GMAT Club website, where I imagine applicants score higher on average. Surprisingly, the distribution is actually relatively flat between 710 and 760.  Next I created a scatter plot of acceptance rate verses GMAT score. You can see that there is definitely a strong correlation between GMAT and chance of admission, with an R squared of 75%. Unexpectedly, the acceptance rate for applicants with scores below 700 was actually higher than the acceptance rate for applicants with a 710 or 720. Actually 720 had the lowest acceptance rate even though it is approximately the average score for the Wharton class of 2015.  I used a polynomial trend line for the scatter-plot because it had the highest R-squared. The polynomial actually creates a slight curve up at the low end for people with GMAT scores below 700. I don’t think this actually means that your chance of getting into Wharton is higher with a 690 vs. 720. I expect that this phenomenon is due to reporting bias for the GMAT Club data. Someone who gets into Wharton with a low GMAT score is more likely to report it than a person with a high score. I also think that someone with a low GMAT is less likely to even put their GMAT score in their profile because it is highly visible on the website.  In the graph above, I smoothed out the acceptance rate by GMAT score and adjusted it up. In the GMAT Club data, not everyone updates their profile with the ultimate decision, so the acceptance rate needs to be adjusted up slightly. In the end GMAT score did not affect acceptance as much as I expected. However, probability of admissions is roughly twice as high for applicants with a 770 or higher compared to an applicant with a score of 700. On a personal note, today I was invited by Wharton to interview for a spot in the class of 2016. I am extremely excited to be interviewed and will be concentrating on preparing for my interview over the next few weeks. |
23 Feb 2014, 23:00
| FROM MBA Data Guru: The Most Common Wharton Interview Questions |
 Now that I have been invited to interview at Wharton, I am spending as much time as I can prepping for the interview. In the spirit of teamwork and cooperation, I’ll share with you the most common interview questions I found on Clear Admit. I only included questions from interviews that happened in the past two years, since the interview format changed. I don’t think that the older interviews are relevant anymore. If questions were asked to more than one person on a Clear Admit interview report then I put the number of times in parentheses. 1) Describe your views of the Team Based Discussion. (7) 2) Do you have any questions for me? (6) 3) Do you have any updated to your application? (4) 4) What extracurricular at Wharton? (4) 5) Was your behavior in the Team Based Discussion representative of the way you typically act in a group setting? (4) 6) Walk me through your resume. (4) 7) Why MBA? (2) 8) What could you have done differently as a team? (2) 9) Why Wharton? (2) 10) Tell me about a time you had to persuade others. (2) 11) What are your post MBA goals? (2) 12) What specific quality or qualities do you hope to hone at Wharton? 13) Tell me about one time you had to overcome an obstacle working in a group and what you would do differently if you had to do it again? 14) Tell me about a time you failed and what you learned. 15) What are the 3 top qualities you think a leader should have? 16) What are 3 qualities you look for in a business school, especially our school 17) Why now? 18) What do you do in free time? 19) Tell me about a time you faced a leadership challenge. 20) Tell me about a time when you worked in a group in which everyone did not agree and how did your team resolve the situation? 21) What do you think worked well in the Team Based Discussion? It seems that pretty much everyone is asked how they thought the team based discussion went and everyone is given the chance to ask questions at the end. Beyond that there are four other questions that are asked frequently, which you should prepare for. Good luck in your interviews! |
24 Feb 2014, 16:00
| FROM MBA Data Guru: Few MIT Interview Invites for Round 2 |
Similar to many of the applicants on the GMAT Club forum I have been impatiently waiting to hear from Sloan about an interview invite. It seemed to me that the number of invites have been very low so I decided to take a quick look at how low. I put together two charts, one based on the front page statistics and one based off of the table you can download with detailed stats.  For some reason the two sets of numbers do not tie together but they tell the same story. Even though the Sloan interview invite period is more than half over, only 14% to 25% of the estimated interview invites have been sent out. My best guess is that the weather has been even worse than normal in Boston this year and has significantly delayed MIT. It is really hard for me to stay positive as the invite deadline quickly approaches, but given the numbers, I think we should all stay positive. It will be interesting to see if Sloan misses the invite deadline for R2 in addition to missing it for R1. |
25 Feb 2014, 15:00
| FROM The MBA Journey of an African Doctor: Second ding from Wharton |
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It is getting kinda gruesome here. It is either Admission Committees across the world don’t like doctors who are in the odd side of 30 or something is really off about my profile. I wish I could put a finger on it. Is this the end of the MBA dreams of the African doctor? Let’s see what the heavens have in store?  
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27 Feb 2014, 17:00
| FROM Domotron's Blog: Part 1 GMAT – Elements of an MBA application series |
 I will hold my hands up, I don’t think I am at all qualified to give advice about MBA applications since I hardly aced the application season. However, I am keen to pass on what I did learn along the way and debunk a few myths that seem to perpetuate regarding the application process. I will also talk about what I think worked (or didn’t work) for me on each element of my application and how it came together in an admit for Tuck! Feel free to throw in your comments, refute some of my points because I certaintly don’t claim to be an expert. The elements I will look at are:
Without further ado, here is Part 1. The GMAT. There is a whole raft of information out there on this pesky test. Some love it, some loathe it but you definitely need to take it to apply to MBA programs. From my previous post, you will know I took it twice. I had gotten a perfectly satisfactory score of 710. Initially, filled with relief, I decided that was it I got a 700+ score enough was enough. However, I just nagging feeling that I underperformed on the day. Throw in the fact a 710 was in fact below the median of my target schools, I decided to take it again. The funny thing was I actually enjoyed the prep for the retake far more. Maybe it was because the pressure was off. Thankfully I got a 740, a better score than my 1st attempt and above the media for my schools. What I’m not going to talk about is what materials I used to prepare or how I got there but rather how the score fitted into my MBA application profile. So my 2nd attempt meant that I was above the median score for all of my target schools. I think this meant the following for my application:
 
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05 Mar 2014, 11:00
| FROM Defying Gravity - The MBA Journey: And the winner is Kellogg...No, wait, it's Tuck! |
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The past 5 days have been pretty intense. I'm totally not complaining about having options, but I have been insanely stressed. In the battle between Tuck and Kellogg, I finally made the decision late Sunday evening to enroll at Kellogg. I appreciate Kellogg's strengths in marketing and social enterprise, and I loved the school when I visited. It's a solid, top 5 program that will help me reach my goals. I clicked the "enroll" button on the online portal, and felt relatively confident with my decision. "I am going to Kellogg," I thought. But then, I woke up Monday morning with doubts. The costs of earning a MBA are astronomical. Am I really going to turn down a full scholarship?! I spent Monday and Tuesday chatting with some current Tuckies who I met when applying. They alleviated a couple of small, personal concerns that I had, and reignited my initial excitement and passion for that program. I interviewed with Tuck all the way back in September, and I think that I somehow just started to forget the little things that made me love it. So, today is the deadline to enroll and submit my deposit at Kellogg. I have a few hours left to change my mind (again), but I'm pretty sure that I'll be choosing Tuck. And surprisingly, my decision is actually not based on the money (although it's obviously a great thing to have). It's been a week of soul searching, and I'm feeling good about my decision. I'm excited to be a Tuckie! |
05 Mar 2014, 20:00
| FROM MBA Data Guru: How Important is GMAT vs. GPA for Harvard Business School |
Word is that Harvard will take a chance on applicants who have low scores, but impressive accomplishments. Lets see if Harvard lives up to its reputation. As you can see the slope for Harvard is much steeper than for the other schools. The slope of -.0093 means that Harvard would look at an application with a 750 GMAT and 3.0 GPA similarly to a 650 and 3.93. This result is interesting, it shows that on the margin Harvard is weighs GMAT very strongly, however, they are willing to go much lower on the GMAT than other schools. Harvard is willing to take a chance on a low GMAT, but you better have a damn high GPA to make up for it. It is interesting to look at the total accepts instead of just the accepts on the margin. As you can see below, Harvard seem to be completely missing the population of students with low GPA and really high GMAT. I guess the admissions committee isn’t interested in students who slacked in undergrad and tried to make up for it with GMAT. I find that odd given Harvard’s reputation for grade inflation. They say that the hardest part of Harvard is getting in.  Harvard has an impressive 730 median GMAT. It is interesting that Harvard posts the median GMAT score instead of mean score like other schools. You can hide some very low GMAT scores by only posting a median. I would venture a guess that Wharton’s mean GMAT score, at 725, is higher than Harvard’s mean. After all, Harvard did accept a person with a 550 GMAT score last year. That has to be bringing down the average. Check out how some of the other schools weigh GMAT vs. GPA: Wharton / Upenn GMAT vs. GPA Sloan / MIT GMAT vs. GPA Tuck / Dartmouth GMAT vs. GPA Stern / NYU GMAT vs. GPA Methodology: The scatterplot represents the 50% of applicants who are accepted with the lowest GMAT and GPA. It isn’t helpful to look at the top 50% of applicants because those are not the marginal candidates who barely got in. I occasionally will remove very low outliers because those candidates may have been admitted due to very strong connections that most applicants don’t have. I never remove more than 5% of the total accepted students as outliers. The slope of the scatterplot demonstrates the point at which the school is indifferent to GMAT vs. GPA. |
06 Mar 2014, 20:00
| FROM MBA Data Guru: Tuck Interview Preparation |
Tuck Interview Preparation Tuck interviews are typically 30 to 45 minutes. Typically, the interviewer is a second year student, but on occasion you will be interviewed by an admissions staff member. Unlike most schools, Tuck allows anyone who visits campus to interview. Since Tuck is in a very remote location in New Hampshire, Tuck wants to see that you are committed to the school and are willing to travel to campus. Tuck does extend interview invites to a few select candidates who did not self-initiate an interview, but it is very rare. A member of the admission committee told me that slightly over half the candidates self-initiate an interview. I highly recommend you self-initiate an Tuck interview on campus, because if you don’t then you put yourself at a huge disadvantage. While visiting campus, visit a class and go on a tour. It is a great way for you to gather material for your essays. Here is a list of the most common questions asked during a Tuck interview. I also included the probability that each question is asked based on Clear Admit interview reports. Tuck Interview Questions
Check out my new MBA Interview Guide. MBA Data Guru - Data and analytics that will help you in the MBA admissions process |
06 Mar 2014, 22:00
| FROM MBA Data Guru: Harvard GMAT vs. GPA Comparison |
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Harvard GMAT vs. GPA Comparison Word is that Harvard will take a chance on applicants who have low scores, but impressive accomplishments. Lets see if Harvard lives up to its reputation. As you can see the slope for Harvard is much steeper than for the other schools. The slope of -.0093 means that Harvard would look at an application with a 750 GMAT and 3.0 GPA similarly to a 650 and 3.93. This result is interesting, it shows that on the margin Harvard is weighs GMAT very strongly, however, the marginal Harvard GMAT scores are lower than other schools. Harvard is willing to take a chance on a low GMAT, but you better have a damn high GPA to make up for it. Harvard GMAT vs. GPA All Accepts It is interesting to look at the total accepts instead of just the accepts on the margin. As you can see below, Harvard seems to be completely missing the population of students with low GPA and really high GMAT. I guess the admissions committee isn’t interested in students who slacked in undergrad and tried to make up for it with GMAT. I find that odd given Harvard’s reputation for grade inflation. They say that the hardest part of Harvard is getting in. The median Harvard GMAT score is 730. It is interesting that Harvard posts the median GMAT score instead of mean score like other schools. You can hide some very low GMAT scores by only posting a median. I would venture a guess that Wharton’s mean GMAT score, at 725, is higher than Harvard’s GMAT mean. After all, Harvard did accept a person with a 550 GMAT score last year. That has to be bringing down the average. Check out how some of the other schools weigh GMAT vs. GPA: Upenn / Wharton GMAT vs. GPA MIT / Sloan GMAT vs. GPA Dartmouth / Tuck GMAT vs. GPA NYU / Stern GMAT vs. GPA Methodology: The scatterplot represents the 50% of applicants who are accepted with the lowest GMAT and GPA. It isn’t helpful to look at the top 50% of applicants because those are not the marginal candidates who barely got in. I occasionally will remove very low outliers because those candidates may have been admitted due to very strong connections that most applicants don’t have. I never remove more than 5% of the total accepted students as outliers. The slope of the scatterplot demonstrates the point at which the school is indifferent to GMAT vs. GPA. The data for this analysis comes from GMAT Club. MBA Data Guru - Data and analytics that will help you in the MBA admissions process |
06 Mar 2014, 22:00
| FROM MBA Data Guru: Tuck Interview Preparation Guide |
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Tuck Interview Preparation Guide Tuck interviews are typically 30 to 45 minutes. Typically, the interviewer is a second year student, but on occasion you will be interviewed by an admissions staff member. Unlike most schools, Tuck allows anyone who visits campus to interview. Since Tuck is in a very remote location in New Hampshire, Tuck wants to see that you are committed to the school and are willing to travel to campus. Tuck does extend interview invites to a few select candidates who did not self-initiate an interview, but it is very rare. A member of the admission committee told me that slightly over half the candidates self-initiate an interview. I highly recommend you self-initiate an Tuck interview on campus, because if you don’t then you put yourself at a huge disadvantage. While visiting campus, visit a class and go on a tour. It is a great way for you to gather material for your essays. Here is a list of the most common questions asked during a Tuck interview. I also included the probability that each question is asked based on Clear Admit interview reports. Tuck Interview Questions
Check out my new MBA Interview Guide. MBA Data Guru - Data and analytics that will help you in the MBA admissions process |
11 Mar 2014, 08:00
| FROM The adventures of a (provisional) MBA student: Admitted Students Weekend – Part 2 |
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As mentioned in my earlier entry, ASW was a action packed couple of days. I covered my first impressions of HBS in Part 1. In Part 2 I’ll take you through what my I got up to on my visit. Wednesday I arrived in Boston early, mainly to see an old school friend who was a tutor at Harvard, but also to visit and observe a case discussion. I was lucky enough to get a really easy to follow subject (Entrepreneurship) that focused on a business started by some HBS alums a few years earlier. It was fascinating and well worth visiting, and prepared me well for my own case later in the week. After that I trudged off again through the snowstorm to visit my friend and do a tourist trip around Harvard Yard, before capitulating to jet-lag. Thursday Mostly optional events on the first day, I attended (for me at least) an essential Financial Aid and International Office joint presentation, and sat in on an entrepreneurship panel discussion, before the full cohort joined for an evening reception. Financial Aid was full of details that aren’t particularly relevant if you aren’t attending HBS. However, it is pretty note-worthy that HBS only give out need-based aid and fellowships – the alternative of merit awards have always seemed a little like thinly-veiled bribes to me. What this means as an attendee is that;
I had the choice of an ‘Entrepreneurship’ panel discussion hosted by the Rock Centre for Entrepreneurship, or a similar ‘Established Companies Careers Service’ event. Being still very undecided about my future career path, I decided to check out the Entrepreneurship panel – after all, it was an area of HBS I was less familiar with and thought I’d learn a little more there.  HBS Panel Discussions – Careers Service and Centre for Entrepreneurship, & Financial Aid (Picture: HBS Admissions Blog) One of the most exciting parts of the discussion was the fact that 3 out of the 4 panel members, when they attended ASW, went to a similar ‘established companies’ panel. They ‘fell into’ entrepreneurship at HBS. To me, this is far more exciting than hearing from a group who were always destined to be entrepreneurs. I want to believe this option is a possibility even if I don’t pursue it from Day 1. Of particular note was the way FIELD3 (the final part of the new experiential learning course in Year 1 where students begin a new microbusiness) had led to several new viable businesses being started, and these were continued during Year 2. There was also a walking tour to have a good look at some of the housing options offered by Harvard University as a whole or HBS, most generously current students opening up their own apartments for viewing!  View east from One Western Avenue After registration, an introduction and a group exercise designed just to get some introductions started we heading off to an evening drinks reception. Putting me in a room with 400 excited fellow-admits and a low ceiling led to me developing temporary deafness… Friday The welcome began with introductions from the Co-Presidents of the Student Association and followed by the Dean, both very light-hearted and entertaining. We were then split into mock sections, and participated in our first case. My own was discussing how to grow an expanding Indian textile producer and retailer, with a member of the faculty who had studied the business in question and had regular contact as they made critical business decisions. It was really interesting to work through a real-life problem and then get a “so what did the business do?” discussion afterwards with the thought process of the managers. There was a huge amount of activities during the two days, with sub-groups splitting off and having special-interest discussions with what was relevant to them. It was quite an achievement by the admissions team to provide personal itineraries to over 400+ attendees! Before heading off into Friday evening and an ‘extra-curricular’ event the incoming class had organised ourselves, the event was closed by Director of Admissions Dee Leopold and Associate Dean Youngme Moon – who appeared to be very passionate, warm and also both very funny!  Closing address of ASW: Dee and Youngme with the first half of Class of 2016 (Picture: HBS Admissions Blog) We got a real sense of the scale of HBS here, with all the attendees of ASW together – and this is only half the incoming class!  
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13 Mar 2014, 21:00
| FROM MBA Data Guru: Tuck Admissions Analysis |
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Tuck Admissions Analysis The final decision for the Tuck MBA January round applications is being released tomorrow. Tuck calls the students who have been accepted either the day of or the day before the decision is released. Today, mostly international acceptance calls were made, and I have not been called yet. I am based in the US so I am not super nervous yet, but I am finding it difficult to think of anything other than the Tuck decision. I was incredibly unproductive at work today because I spent the entire time hoping my phone would ring. To help ease my worries I created this elaborate Tuck admissions analysis to try to figure out my chances of getting in. Each of the following graphs are only acceptance rate vs. one variable. In reality there are probably interaction effects between different variables, so this is by no means especially accurate, but my final conclusion is that I have a 53% chance of being admitted. I was hoping the number would come out higher, but it is a lot better than the 20.8% acceptance rate overall at Tuck. Tuck Admissions Analysis  The first variable I looked at was GMAT. I did a scatter-plot by acceptance rate and found the best trendline for fitting the trendline. This line has an R squared of .82, which is a fairly strong correlation. I then created the smoothed out graph below, which probably does a better job of estimating the impact of GMAT on your application odds.  My 770 on the GMAT really helped to boost my Tuck admissions chances since it is significantly higher than the 718 average. However, I know my GPA is below the average Tuck GPA of 3.5. So next I looked at how GPA impacts acceptance rate.  For Dartmouth, GPA is highly correlated with chance of acceptance, as one would expect. The GPA scatter-plot has a .89 R squared, which is very high. However, the line is not nearly as steep as it is for GMAT. Similar to GMAT, I smoothed out the curve to account for noise and came up with the graph below.  After GPA, I looked at how your industry impacts your chances of getting into Tuck. I only included an industry if it either had a high number of applicants or had a very high acceptance rate, like Venture Capital and Commercial Banking. I lumped all other industries into “other”. The trends for Dartmouth are similar to what I saw in my Wharton industry analysis. Manufacturing fared better with Tuck, but it is still significantly below average.  Finally, I looked at Dartmouth acceptance rate by years of work experience. The results of this graph do not seem to be as conclusive as other variables. The acceptance rate kind of jumps around. My interpretation is that in general the more years of work experience, the higher your chance of admissions is, until you reach 9+ years. Then the admissions committee starts to wonder why you are even applying for an MBA.  All in all, my predicted chance of getting into Dartmouth is pretty decent at 53%. My chance is theoretically a little better than a flip of a coin. I know that very few people who don’t do a applicant initiated interview are invited to a Tuck interview. An admissions committee member told me that roughly 55% of applicants self-initiate interviews, and I am going to guess that only 5% of total applicants are invited. If this is correct, then the fact that I already interviewed means that I have a pretty good chance of getting in. On top of that, I had one recommender who wrote an amazing recommendation for me. I sent it to NYU, Wharton and Tuck. I was admitted to NYU and I have been interviewed at Wharton and am waiting for my final decision. I was rejected from every school that he didn’t recommend me at. I am hoping the trend continues that I get into every school that my super recommender submitted to. For those of you who are still waiting for the Tuck admissions decision, I hope that this article is able to distract you for a little while while you wait for the decision tomorrow. I wish everyone the best of luck. The data used to create this Tuck admissions analysis is from GMAT Club. I used the data from the class of 2014, 2015 and the first two rounds of the class of 2016. MBA Data Guru - Data and analytics that will help you in the MBA admissions process |
07 Apr 2014, 14:00
| FROM Domotron's Blog: Summing up my application experience: Lucky to be a Tuckie |
 Slight obscure reference in this gif: see Jimmy Fallon’s evolution of hip-hop dancing! This was first posted on GmatClub https://gmatclub.com/forum/lucky-to-be-a-tuckie-169900.html When After a somewhat tumultuous period at work, I wanted to answer the question “What’s next?”. I felt like I needed to take some time out to reset and think about what I really wanted out of my career (and probably in conjunction, my life). Some may call this a quarter life crisis! Having graduated at the start of the financial crisis, I didn’t really have much of a steer on my career initially. It was a case of finding something and sticking with it. Fast forward five years and I am no longer sure my short term future lies in my current industry. That’s when I started looking into an MBA. I quickly realised the application process was anything but straightforward! Being a career changer, I knew I definitely wanted the internship experience. Therefore 1 year courses were out and I focused on 2 year courses. This also shifted my focus to the US because the majority of the UK/European MBAs are 1 year only. My current role paid pretty well and my future prospects actually looked pretty good. In order to justify the cost of these 2 year programs, it was definitely top 15 or bust for me. Using rankings, MBA fairs, info sessions, informational interviews with students and alums, I came up with a list of where and where not for me. Where
It was a looong year+ and I am really glad it worked out. In one sense I didn’t have a decision to make about where I would attend but I think the schools on the shortlist decided for me. It reiterated that Tuck is the right place for me. It was the school that I did the most legwork on. Of all the schools I applied to, I had by far the most contact with Tuck than any other school. I took advantage of any and all opportunities to learn more about Tuck. Throw in my experience of the open interview and staying in Hanover, I was completely sure that Tuck was the right place for me by the time I applied. Something I couldn’t say about the other schools on my shortlist. Before I applied, I actually thought the idea of “fit” may have been overblown but now, looking back, I can really see how important it really is. That “fit” probably got me admitted because my stories resonated more at Tuck than anywhere else and also pushed me to really demonstrate how I would fit into Tuck. Now I can spend the next few months planning my escape to beautiful (and sometimes very cold) Hanover and looking forward to meeting my future classmates.  
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21 Apr 2014, 07:00
| FROM Defying Gravity - The MBA Journey: HBS Admitted Students Welcome |
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On Thursday and Friday of last week, I had the opportunity to meet my potential future classmates at HBS. The event was only about a day and a half, but it was jam-packed with activities -- from housing tours, to financial aid sessions, to mock classes, to evening "networking" events, it was a very busy time. I was incredibly exhausted by Saturday morning, but I was also energized as I contemplated the fact that I could actually be attending this amazing program! I am truly awed and humbled that I have this opportunity. Everyone I met was incredibly down to earth, friendly, diverse, and well accomplished. I, of course, met several consultants and bankers, but I also met a ton of people working in start-ups, entrepreneurs, joint degree candidates, and even people interested in education like me. In our mock class, we discussed a case about the Chilean miners who were stranded in the collapsed mine. The key takeaways from the case were interestingly about leadership and structures within society. When all normal aspects of human life were removed, a group of 33 men, who were isolated 700 meters underground, still managed to create a system of government. This ultimately enabled them to survive against all odds. The case method is a very unique process, but I think it could allow for some pretty interesting class discussions. Anyway, if my two-day visit at HBS is any indication of what the next two years might be like, then things could be pretty amazing! I'll be traveling to the Bay Area next week, and will be making my final decision shortly thereafter. The deposit deadline is May 1st for both schools. Things are getting real. |
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Hi Guest,
Here are updates for you:
ANNOUNCEMENTS
AGSM at UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
Tuck at Dartmouth
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