Online Chat with Admits/Current Students

Thnks you showed this much courtesy.....thats enough....

THANK YOU!

When will we have a tentative list of the hosts/students to know which schools will be represented?

Thanks!!!!. This is great initiative. Help from Gmat Club team and Almuni will be great.

bump:
I don't see any questions yet...

I'm glad you added the reminder, mohater; I had meant to post some questions. I'm very excited for this event; hoping that it can shed some light on the myriad of questions running through my brain! So here goes:

1. At some point I would like to visit all the schools that I might attend. I live in the US and all the schools to which I'm applying are in Europe. Would you recommend visiting all the schools before filling out all the applications, thus potentially ruling out some options and providing a better understanding of the schools? Or is it better to wait until the interview process and only visit the schools to which I'm invited for an interview, especially since some schools require an on campus presence? I'm trying to be as efficient as possible with money and vacation time during this whole process.

2. I have pretty much narrowed down my list to the schools to which I plan to apply. But you can only glean so much information from a school's website. What other resources do you recommend to get a better understanding of a school's academic focus, life on campus, surrounding area, other students that attend, etc? I can, of course, do an online search myself, but trying to get suggestions on those top 5 resources that you all used.

3. We've all heard that business school is rigorous. As it should be. What is the best way to prepare to get back into study mode, especially for some of us who graduated from their undergraduate institution 8+ years ago?

4. My current plan would be to live on campus wherever I eventually attend. Can you provide some pros and cons for living on campus and off campus? What would you all recommend?

5. I'm a bit concerned about asking my current employer for a recommendation letter. Since I am planning on going to business school in Europe, there's no guarantee that I would be coming back to their company. I have been working here for 10 months now; it will be just over a year when I start submitting my applications. How important is it to have a recommendation from a current employer? Did any of your have this issue and, if so, how did you get around it?


OK, I think that's all for now. I'll add more if I think of any between now and next Wednesday. Thanks in advance for considering the above questions!!

We have three confirmed hosts representing:
Booth
Tuck
Duke

May potentially change before the chat.

Consider a situation: A person has good gmat score (700+) & w.e of 6 years, but he is not involved in any extra curricular activity. Neither he has developed any program nor ant software, no social activity. Only work & family.

My question is "What should above person do while filling the application for Booth & Duke, if a question is asked on social activities?"

I have a question for the Tuck representative:
Tuck is my top choice and I plan to apply EA. I have a background in telecom, media and technology consulting and have been involved in social entrepreneurship. My career goals are to get into strategy consulting in Telecom practice and long term goals are to start my own consulting firm. I plan to visit Tuck and have my interview in September. However, I wanted to gain some more insight that I cannot get from the website.

1) What have been few of the biggest differentiators in helping the students get to their career goals apart from a close-knit community, general management curriculum. Is it true that students are involved with professors and do research on specific areas? I am interested in doing research on expansion of wireless services in under penetrated markets in developing countries of Africa and Asia.

2) What would be one common theme across all the tuck students?
3) What are the resources available for strategy career track that are unique to Tuck?
4) What are the various ways Tuck has enabled its student to get hands on experience through experiential learning? For example, Ross has MAP program and then an internship.
5) Any clubs or courses starting next fall for strategy or entrepreneurship? Also, is there a Telecom or Media club on campus?

I know these are quite a few questions but answers to any of these, from a perspective of a current student or alum, would be great.

Thanks in advance,

Overall questions:
1) getting recommenders: as I work at a consulting company, everything is project based and my current manager has only been so for 2 months now. Do you think I need to explain why I chose not to use him? In general, are they understanding of project-based companies where managers frequently change, and the current manager is (often times?) not known/worked with you long enough to write the rec?

Tuck:
1) Did you take the Tuck Global Consultancy course? any thoughts on that?
2) The heavy focus on leadership development - how does Tuck emphasize leadership differently (uniquely?) than other b-schools?

Duke:
1) "Leaders of consequence" - any inside tips on integrating this into essays? Does the adcom have a specific interpretation of this that they're looking for?

Thanks!

Hi, I am seeing this only now. Its a shame I missed this chat. Is there a way, I can get a transcript of the chat? Thanks!

You still have 10 hours until the chat!

aah...cool. For some reason, I thought its at 8 AM . Thanks!

Too bad it's in the middle of the night for me, otherwise I'd be more than happy to share my experience with applying for HBS. Only matriculating this fall, so I can't comment on life at HBS though.

Will there be a chat at a more convenient time for the rest of the world as well ?

I have the following, rather complicated, questions:

1. I have 5.5 yrs of work experience in market/ business research. I am now thinking of doing something that is closer to my heart i.e. entrepreneurship - either startup on my own or join a start-up that operates in my field of interest - education and social work. I have no education/ social work background whatsoever. My plan is to join B-school in case my start-up plans fail. So I am basically giving myself one year to try something different. My long term goal, needless to say, is to become an entrepreneur. Now, when I interview, I would have just started out or would have just joined my new company. How do I convince my interviewer that he/ she should select me knowing fully well that I might not join them eventually (since my start-up worked)? Does my story sound convincing? How do I package this correctly?

2. How important is GMAT while interviewing for jobs?

3. In comparison to financial services and consulting jobs, are marketing jobs difficult to get for international students? i.e. do recruiters prefer local students to international students for marketing jobs?

I will be unable to attend the chat because of internet issues here. This is my first time on the GMAT forum so maybe this is a silly question but... Will a transcript of the chat be available online (for a while)? That I can access and read later?

My questions:

a) I'm a "non-traditional" candidate with no quant/ business background. Would you recommend that candidates like myself take classes (not the summer classes that most MBA programs offer - I'm talking about taking classes independently) such as accounting, stat and finance before applying? Would it help?

b) If I went to Booth, Tuck or Duke and didn't want to do consulting/ banking/ finance after I graduated, what advice would you have for me? Do you know others in your graduating class that are not going into traditional fields?

c) International opportunities? Any? How do you find out about them? Are any of you going/ heading abroad for work?

d) Student life... Could you share a story/ incident that illustrates what your schools are like socially? Do you have opportunities to socialize with professors outside of class?

Thank you for your time. Wish you all the best.

Oh wow, that's today!

I'll definitely try to pop in as a kind of unofficial rep / student for my school, if that's okay. I'm not on the adcom or anything, but I enjoy talking to folks about the MBA life in general and would love the potential opportunity to help get the word out about our new program.

Cheers, hope to see you guys there!

This is an awesome initiative by GMAT club. I would like to submit below queries to our panel:

1) I would be interested in knowing which schools would be good fit for a techie who wants to get in to a product management role after MBA.

2) I have taken GMAT multiple times and would like to know if schools really mean it when they say they consider highest GMAT score. It has been discussed in some of the threads on GMAT Club but would like to know directly from the people who are actually attending the Top schools.

3) How important are campus visits? How to best utilize the campus visits, and what to wear (business formal or business casual) when visiting a school?

4) How to start interacting with current students and alumni? I mean just drop an email showing intentions of applying to school or is there any better way of initiating the conversation.

Thanks.