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FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: Applying for an internship? Here’s a handy action plan |
Taking the presentation slides from various career management sessions I developed a dashboard, or visual plan, to map the basic aspects of the process Read more |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: HBR case study: Reflections on Michaelmas Term at Said, Oxford |
Exam time leads to thoughts about the first term in the city - the surprises and discoveries Read more |
FROM Ambitiousbusinessguy: So you just got an invite to interview at HBS, Now What? |
Harvard Business School (HBS) invites about 2,000 of its nearly 10,000 applicants to an MBA interview each year. So congrats if you made it this far. About 50% of these 2000 will receive an offer to join the MBA program. Of which, about 90% will accept the MBA admissions invite. What does that really mean? Well, at HBS, the MBA interview is more of a weed-out rather than a get-you-in component. If you have been invited, you are qualified to attend HBS. You have the minimum combination of GMAT, GPA, réesumée, and personal statements to get in. However, the school is testing for a few things:
Will your English hold up in the MBA interview and HBS case-method? Put yourself into the classroom, you are there with some of your generation’s brightest minds, more than two thirdsof whom learned English as their native language. The topic bounces back and forth across the room as nearly half of your 90+ classmates weigh into an 80-minute case discussion. Before arriving to the class you read the case (one of at least two), which might add up to a few dozen pages in total the night before. This is why just speaking and reading English isn’t good enough at HBS. You have to be able to understand what the 90+ other people in the room (many with unique accents themselves) are saying. The discussion moves fast and requires you to digest the previous comment and formulate your response in less than a second, before the professor calls on someone else. You will be judged on the frequency and quality of these comments by both your peers and professors. This description is not meant to intimidate you, but rather to illustrate that the HBS learning model is challenging for many and nearly impossible for someone who struggles in English. Like everything in admissions (GMAT, GPA, etc.) English ability is judged relative to your peer demographic. This means that if you are applying from a country with high-levels of English-fluency (like European countries, India, etc.) you will be expected to be on top of your game. Conversely, countries that typically have lower levels of comfort and utilization of English (like Japan) you might be able to get away with a few mishaps, like asking the interviewer to repeat the question or providing an answer that doesn’t imply that you understood the real intent of the question. HBS also uses their unique post-interview reflection to judge your command of written English. Since the essay is due only 24 hours after the interview and should be about the interview itself, it becomes apparent which applicants would not be able to keep up with HBS’s pace. HBS does not expect grammar perfection on the PIR, but if you are unable to create a comprehensible story, this could be a sign to the MBA admissions committee that you will struggle in the program. Don’t let the MBA admissions committee think you are an a-hole If you believed you ‘nailed’ every question they threw at you and are obviously thinking, “There is no way those other brainless dimwits could get in before me,” then the chances are you might be hearing bad news in a few weeks. HBS is looking for people that are self-aware, and know their strengths as well as their weaknesses. Sure the people that get into HBS are impressive, but they still are people and people make mistakes and are flawed. So if you are asked about your weaknesses, don’t say “I work too hard.” If you are asked about your mistakes and failures, don’t conclude by stating how the others on your team “couldn’t understand what you were trying to do” or “lacked your ambition”. Instead focus on what you learned from your failures and what your plan is to continue to develop. There is a fine line between arrogance and confidence, don’t cross it. The MBA interview is bomb-able Speaking of confidence, remember I said that the interview is more of a weed-out process? Well, that means you cannot bomb it and if you do, you probably are not getting in. You are going to be asked a lot of questions in your 30-minute interview as it is meant to simulate the fast pace of the HBS classroom. Many of these questions will be pretty standard, like, “Walk me through your résumé.” But they will get you, I promise you. They are very good at asking you the one question you were not expecting. Like asking an MD/MPH what they would do if they couldn’t work in healthcare; a real question to one of my clients in round one (luckily, I had prepped him for this one). It is not that important what your answer is, but rather that you can formulate a sensible response in a few seconds. I tell my clients that ask if they skip a question, that skipping should only be used as a last resort at HBS. If you literally cannot think of anything other than “uhhhh, I dunno,” then ask if you can come back to that question at the end, but this is a risk and should be avoided if possible. Think again to the HBS classroom, where cold-calls are the norm and “I don’t know” is not an acceptable answer. The MBA admissions committee is trying to see if you can stand up under this type of pressure. In conclusion, there is great news. If you manage to demonstrate competence in English, don’t act like an a-hole, and don’t completely fall flat, you now have a much greater than 50% chance of getting in. When you consider that you started with only 11% chance you should feel pretty great about those odds. So be yourself and relax (unless you are an a-hole…in which case pretend that you are someone else). |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: HBS case study: Reflections on Michaelmas Term at Said, Oxford |
Exam time leads to thoughts about the first term in the city - the surprises and discoveries Read more |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: The commencement speeches that inspire |
As I count the days to graduation, some of the best advice given by the best people on graduation comes to mind Read more |
FROM gmat4IMD: Shashank’s experience!!! |
As promised in the previous blog, one of my very good friends, Shashank agreed to enlighten us with his experience. ————————————————————————————– Momentum !!! I’ll continue the chain of thought from where Captain left off… the snow is all gone and things are starting to warm up both in Lausanne and at IMD. The start-up projects have been assigned and while all of them are intriguing and exciting, there is a lot that has to be done by each team in the next 10 weeks before we present our case before the venture capitalists. And in order to learn about what it would take to improve the team’s efficiency and deal productively with conflicts, our groups went through some tough leadership experiential. A fun-filled day in France ended in some very open and direct feedback session among the teammates. Most teams have benefitted from the exercise and feel more close-knit now. The pressure is starting to build up. Next week introduces 3 new subjects: operation, finance and marketing. The IMD MBA program is quite demanding but at the same time, it is a lot of fun as well. What makes it fun is to have a bunch of very smart and “well-balanced” classmates. Keep reading this blog, Captain is quite good at his job and will help you guys navigate your way to IMD !!! ——————————————————————————————————— Will be back with more experiences soon! |
FROM Timbob: So to conclude my point… |
As I’m halfway through my second year now, graduation is now rapidly approaching. I’ve neglected this blog in the last year, mainly because I felt I didn’t have a large amount to say. However, with many still reading this blog after over a year since I really wound up posting, I realize I’m in a fortunate position to be able to provide the ‘inside story’ on HBS. So as part of my New Year resolutions, I’m announcing I’d like to spend a final few posts over the next 4-5 months before graduation describing how various things work from a student perspective, before I lose the ability to do so. But about what, I am not so sure. I’m accepting suggestions for this, and I’ll try to tackle a few of the more popular ones. If there’s something you’re particularly interested in, leave a comment below! |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: 2016 … new year, new opportunities |
I have new leadership opportunities in front of me and opportunities to make new connections between ideas, people and business models... It’s one of the most valuable things I think any MBA student can take away from the degree. Read more |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: Plan your career and stay one step ahead |
Finding the right job is not a fast process and you need to dedicate the time to actually have a strategy around your job search. Here are some tips... Read more |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: High food safety standards help us and the planet |
This issue is a hot topic that has a significant impact on the quality of our lives Read more |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: MBA Olympics in Singapore – let the games begin! |
MBA Student in Singapore, the author reports on the MBA Olympics, an interscholastic sport event hosted by her business school. After many months of mental effort, physical exercise was a much welcomed change. Read more |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): Quick 2016 Update |
Hey everyone! Hope that you had a great start to 2016. To kick things off for the year, I thought I'd share this quick update. The end of 2015 was a big transitional time for me as I started full time at Bristol-Myers Squibb and switching gears from being a student. Adjusting my lifestyle and mindset took up a lot more time than I had liked though I'm happy to announce that I'm now ready to get back into blogging. My blogging goal for 2016 and beyond is to write more about my professional developmental journey in Corporate America. There will be more book reviews as I now need to rely on books (rather than professors) to continue learning. The heavy focus will be on my experiences transitioning from my MBA to my first few roles after school. Again, traffic to this blog has continued its steady increase over the past few months. Thank you - my readers - for your support over the years with comments, emails, and shares over social media. |
FROM Ambitiousbusinessguy: Master of Finance Interviews and Updates |
The Admissions team is all moved in to our beautiful new office, and we hope you can come visit us in person! The Ambassadors campus visit program begins on February 16th, and registration is now open. Interviews for the MFin program started last week, and will continue for the next few weeks. All candidates will […] https://mitsloanadmissions.com/2016/02/03/master-of-finance-interviews-and-updates/ |
FROM Ambitiousbusinessguy: From acceptance to matriculation |
By Dean Nordhielm So you just got into business school. Congrats! At this point you still have months before you actually begin classes. That seems like a lot of time, but it’s really not as long as you think, and you’ll have a lot more to do than you think. Here are the things I did […] https://kelloggmbastudents.wordpress.com/2016/01/26/from-acceptance-to-matriculation-2/ |
FROM Ambitiousbusinessguy: Offers, acceptances and salaries rise for Full-Time students |
Ninety-five percent of the Full-Time Class of 2015 received an offer by three months post-graduation, as reported today by Kellogg’s Career Management Center(CMC). Kellogg also saw an increase in acceptances this year — 92 percent of students accepted a full-time offer by three months post-graduation. |
FROM mybjourney: HT: Week 1 and 2 |
Hilary Term has only started and we can feel the heat already. The two weeks have been packed with activities and submissions, giving a peek into what will follow for the next 10 weeks. Week 1 kick started with an introductory lecture on Entrepreneurship at Nelson Mandela Lecture Hall. Professor Hellman ‘s lectures and sessions delightful to attend and this one was a good antidote of sort for us still hungover from post exam holiday. We were introduced to frameworks and tools that assist in devising an effective business plan and inculcate an entrepreneurial mindset. As part of Hilary Term course we are required to do an Entrepreneurship Project (EP) in a group where we work on a business idea and prepare a complete business plan and market strategy. The plan will be pitched to a panel of venture capitalists and industry experts invited from outside the school towards the end of the term. My groupmates and I are excited about our idea and on our first round of presentations we received encouraging response from Oxford based startup incubator that offered to support us should we plan to pursue our idea later on! Many groups in the past have gone ahead with their EP and have started their own ventures, and while our primary objective from this project is to learn and assimilate the nuances of entrepreneurship, we are open to the idea of our project materialising to something more concrete in future. On Monday we also had an award ceremony to acknowledge and celebrate top GOTO projects. Global Opportunities and Threats: Oxford (GOTO) is an integrated module in our course where students work on complex global challenges being faced today and how we as business students can help address them. My group focused on the water draught problem in California and the impact it had on the almond farming in the region, which during the course of our project we unearthed was made far more complex due to various politico-economic factors and players in the entire ecosystem. I was delighted to find out that our project was recognised in the Top 10, for which we were awarded certificates of appreciation in the ceremony! Week 1 and 2 also ascertained why I am grateful for being here – for having the opportunity to meet and interact with wonderful people from various backgrounds. Last Wednesday I attended a session on Self-Care and Leadership by Dr. Kurt April, where he talked about managing stress and maintaining a healthy mental and physical lifestyle which one tends to sideline in one’s daily race to always being on the top of things. I find these sessions extremely helpful during the MBA when one is inundated with multiple tasks and it is not unusual to often feel stressed out and overwhelmed. I also went for two formal dinners in each week, one at my own college GTC where I invited a classmate whom I had not spoken with much last term. We both were planning since last term to hang out for and finally took to the formal dinner for spending some good time. The other was with a good friend from the batch at Keble College and a mathematics DPhil scholar, also a third generation Indian. Interesting conversations ensued on politics, religion, Indian diaspora and philosophy. Keble College was established in 1870, originally constituted only for men until 1979 when it opened doors for women. The college’s distinctive red-bricked Neo-Gothic architecture is much talked about still, with the background story that its architect William Butterfield was heavily criticised for the presumably ‘ugly’ campus and non adherence to Oxford traditions. Hard to believe that a campus this magnificent was held controversial! Also a little note for the benefit of those interested- Keble dinner hall holds formal dinners all week long, while at my college GTC it is only twice a week which makes it comparatively harder to secure a reservation. Week 2 came full force with lectures including 2 new electives, assignments, presentations and job interviews packed throughout the schedule. The two electives I chose for this term are Corporate Valuation and Strategy & Innovation. Both the courses, albeit demanding, are challenging and have excellent faculty teaching us. S&I had us reading 100+ pages and submitting our first assignment even before the first class, which was on how technologies emerge and evolve with growing markets. I am excited about this course and hope to keep pace with the extensive reading involved. The reason for taking Corporate Valuation was to get a deeper dive into Finance that I am rather petrified of. I hope that by the end of this term, I will be at a pedestal where I don’t dork around whenever drops the F bombs in conversations. That’s all for now, I hope to write as and when I am able to steal some rare ‘me time’. Also I have been receiving a lot of requests from prospective applicants and new admits to write more on the admissions process, which I will cover in coming week. Off to a conference now at Pembroke College on Women in Boardroom and diversity at workplace! |
FROM Ambitiousbusinessguy: School Profile: Duke MBA |
Perhaps known best for its men’s basketball team – winners of five national championships, including last year’s – Duke University is also home to an elite full-time MBA program. Located in Durham, NC, the Fuqua School of Business’ MBA program graduates about 400 students annually. Over the last fifteen years, US News & World Report and […] https://efessays.com/2015/11/09/school-profile-duke-mba/ |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: How to unlock (cover letter) writer’s block |
Staring at a blank page, not being able to write a simple letter, feels like a novel form of torture Read more |
FROM gmat4IMD: Busy days!!! |
Wow! MBA life is hectic indeed. Time flies by. It is hard to keep track of the time. Last week was high intense training Yeah, Finance, Accounting, Marketing, Economics, Operations and Entrepreneurship. All in one week. Wow… Before we could cure the hangover from the learnings over the past week, we had to go through the CVs of the PDE (Personal development elective) analyst and choose one. The PDE sessions prove that, IMD, is not just another MBA program which just talks about leadership but a program where you are trained to be a leader. The elective (so called because it is optional but a definite try) gives you a chance to get to know both the conscious and sub conscious part of yourself. We just don’t stop there. Do we? There is the interesting start up projects which will make you understand the nitty gritties of the entrepreneurship world and the Industry analysis which tells you about various other industries. We get to relax at the TT room a bit. We have to shed the calories we gain from the delicious and top notch lunch at IMD restaurant. If any of the readers get to come to Lausanne for the assessment day, you know why everyone keeps talking about the IMD restaurant. Anyhow guys! Have a good one! It’s time to get back to the case studies for the operations lecture tomorrow. Tchau!!! |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: The ‘shared value’ of corporate social responsibility |
Examining the business case for corporate social responsibility Read more |
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