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FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Can I Quit My Job to Get Ready for B-school? |
Lots of folks ask about quitting their jobs when applying to business school, but are there reasons for doing so that will not put off the admissions committees? Perhaps. We understand the desire to do so, since there are many reasons people take off from work, including taking some time for travel, pursuing something new professionally, and preparing for the GMAT or other academic endeavors to get ready for the b-school plunge. Whether or not this will affect how the adcoms look at your application depends on many factors, the most important of which are what specifically you are doing and why you are doing it. The best way to package a move away from the workplace is when it’s fueled by passion. If you take on an adventurous trip that you have always wanted to do while you are young, that can work. If you are tired of work and want to couch surf for a few months to relax before b-school, that might not be as impressive. Remember business schools want to admit driven, engaged students, so anything that connotes laziness or apathy is obviously out of the question. Another admirable pursuit that b-schools will like to see is if you quit your job to pursue something professionally that will be a positive intermediary step between what you are doing now and what you will be doing when you get out of school. Not only will the schools like to see this affirmative, directional choice, but recruiters will also like it. Besides your internship, this is your last chance to do anything in the working world pre-MBA, so if you feel your resume could be bolstered by a year in a new job or role, then go for it. Successful applicants are the kinds of people who make things happen, so being perceived by the adcoms in this way is beneficial. Frankly, business schools do not look as favorably on the decision to quit one’s job to study for the GMAT or to take classes to prepare. These are great things to do, but schools would rather see you do them concurrently with your job. Business school is, in a word, busy and requires at a minimum good time management and juggling of responsibilities, so having to quit your day job in order to do well enough on the GMAT to get into school can sometimes be perceived as not being a good time manager, which is a red flag to the admissions folks. Worse, it could indicate you can't handle a heavy load, which would be a sure-fire reason for rejection, since b-school students must be able to slog through a very demanding schedule. If you are looking help with your applications, please contact us via mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or at www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact. We have seen what the competition is doing and we can say without a doubt that we go deeper, more strategic, and generate better results with our methods. Line up a call and find out for yourself. |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: How Important is the Integrated Reasoning Section of the GMAT |
This is the time of year when many b-school hopefuls are taking the GMAT test in anticipation of nailing down a great score before application season begins in earnest. After all, your score wil help determine where you wil be a competitive applicant and can also help you narrow down your school selections. It is essentially everyone's jumping off point in the application process, and one that gets most people feeling anxious. A common point of stress is often over which sections of the GMAT are most important. With a fairly consistent test format for more than fifty years, the Graduate Management Admissions Council revamped the test with a couple of assessment changes in recent years. Most recently, the Integrated Reasoning Section, a 30-minute portion of the GMAT made up of 12 questions, was designed to measure one’s ability to discern patterns and combine verbal and quantitative reasoning so solve problems. While the admissions committees at top schools seem to continue focusing on the traditional verbal and quantitative score combination (out of a possible 800), we will likely see an emphasis shift towards these new sections in the future (which also include a 30-minute writing analysis of a topic), since the skills they measure are critical to today’s business leaders. Making sound decisions in business is perhaps the most important skill for the global business person in today’s marketplace.Even though they are often confronted with incomplete information, MBA professionals are still required to make choices on a daily basis which can impact organizations around the world. While the quantitative and verbal sections of the GMAT do a good job of measuring and predicting how students are likely to perform in business school, the fact that these sections separately measure these attributes, they are not necessarily a good indicator of how someone will combine these skills to make sound decisions. The Integrated Reasoning section measures these skills in a format which requires test takers to quickly assimilate information from a variety of sources and evaluate that information to discern the correct answers. We can probably all agree that bringing complex ideas together and analyzing data in a variety of formats are necessary to succeed in today’s technology and data-driven global marketplace. It was a massive survey of 740 business school faculty worldwide which resulted in the list of skills this section of the GMAT was designed to test. These faculty identified the most important skills they thought today’s matriculating students needed to possess as they embarked upon the next phase of their business careers. Over time, as the admissions committees and rankings boards come to share the view that these skills are important, the Integrated Reasoning score will provide a new measure for adcoms to find candidates who are the right fit for their programs, and it will also provide another way for you as an applicant to stand out . In the meantime, if you happen to score well on this section of the GMAT, you may need to highlight your results to the adcoms yourself. Until the IntegratedReasoning section of the GMAT catches on in the admissions process, at the very least you can rest assured the time spent preparing for this section and the extent to which you can develop your skillset in this area will only help you navigate a challenging business school curriculum. It may just help you shine on the job in your chosen post MBA career as well. If you are in the midst of this process, congrats and good luck! If you are just starting out on your admissions journey, email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or visit us at or www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact/ for a free consultation. Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Advice On Scheduling an MBA Visiting Tour |
As the 2017 academic year winds to a close, students all over the world are preparing themselves for final exams. With a similar amount of angst and tension, hopeful business school applicants are beginning to prepare as well, but instead of taking tests, they will be writing applications. One of the most important things you can do to prepare for this is to visit each of your target schools in person. The experience of sitting in a real, live MBA class alongside other actual students is something that will strengthen your perspective on a school like nothing else can. No brochure, no website, no 2nd hand tales from friends who went there is a substitute for the in-person visit. In fact, we often find applicants who are struggling with reasons for why they are applying to a particular school will have more than they can even fit into an essay once they complete the visit. Often, however, applicants decide to schedule a visit too late. By the time they reach out to their favorite schools, the semester ends, graduation is over and the first years are off to their internships, leaving the buildings quiet and lifeless, with no classes to sit in, no students to interact with. Of course, you can always schedule a fall visit, which is typically the most common time of the year for schools to host prospective applicants, but why wait until then and risk squandering a whole summer of introspective reflection on your visit? The fall will be busy enough with all you have to do to get applications in before the deadlines, so cramming visits on top of this whirlwind can sometimes be enough to send applicants over the stressful edge. Consider beating the rush and scheduling a visiting tour. Perhaps you can take a week off work and lump visits together based on geographic location, knocking out several observations in one journey. Or maybe you would be more comfortable working in a visit or two during a vacation or long weekend? Just be sure to schedule with schools on a Friday or Monday when classes are still in session. Checking with them before you book plane tickets will save you time, money and disappointment. Most schools don't even have classes after noon on Friday, for example. If you are able to fit in a visit or two before the academic year closes, here are a couple of tips for your visit. Firstly, make sure you take notes throughout your time there. You may be surprised how much you will forget by the time you leave and travel back home. While it's fresh in your mind, jot down anything that gives you some fresh insight into why you think you would fit in at your target school. Secondly, make sure you ask for business cards or contact info from any students you meet, as they can serve as good sources of information for you when you begin writing your essays. Thirdly, don't miss an opportunity to stop by the admissions office to meet some folks, introducing yourself to people who work in the office can be a great way to begin building a memorable impression of yourself. Finally, make sure you are kind to fellow prospects whom you may meet during your visit. Not only will you make a favorable impression on your target school by doing so, you will also potentially make a friend who just might become a classmate. Happy Visitation! For an overview of our MBA admissions consulting services, visit https://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/mba_admissions_consulting_services/ If you are interested in the MBA Admissions Consulting services offered by Amerasia, please contact us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.comor www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact/ to set up a free consultation. Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Are you a dream weaver or a vision caster? |
So many applicants these days look alike on paper in terms of experience and education, test scores and outside involvement that even highly qualified candidates get lost in the shuffle. We all think we’re pretty unique until we find out that the next guy also volunteered at a similar NGO, or was promoted to VP before his colleagues. Particularly if you come from a feeder industry such as banking, finance or technology/engineering, it gets harder every year to stand out. Often, the key to distinguishing oneself in the application process is contained within your Post-MBA vision statement. Leveraging the unique components of your profile to create a post MBA vision that is compelling can be the secret to application success. If you can unfold a plan to achieve something interesting which draws on your past experiences, you will have a better shot at getting noticed. Business schools can smell passion a mile away, so try your best to communicate your enthusiasm for the things you hope to accomplish. If these goals tie in nicely to your past achievements, even better. As much as b-schools like to see passion, they also can spot a dreamer, someone who floats big plans but does not have the evidence in their profile to back it up, and potentially may not have the horsepower to see it through. If schools feel your vision is unachievable, they will quickly move on. There is a fine line between vision casting and dream weaving. Vision casting is compelling, exciting and obtainable. Dream Weaving can be naïve, grandiose and unconvincing. Will Stanford invite you to interview based on your grand post MBA plan? You can’t know for sure until that call comes, but the key will be in how you position your past and future, and how everything is workingtogether in a realistic, believable way to reach great heights. Before you dive headlong into application prep this summer, you might consider giving this area some thought. We have plenty of experts on staff to help you do just that. For an overview of our MBA admissions consulting services, visit https://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/mba_admissions_consulting_services/ If you are interested in the MBA Admissions Consulting services offered by Amerasia, please contact us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.comor www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact/ to set up a free consultation. Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Are You an Alumni? Hint: You're Not. |
We see this mistake so often in applicant essays, we thought it warranted explanation. If you get this right, you will appear smart for the rest of your life, so pay attention. Collectively, you and everyone you graduated with from your institution are alumni. Alumni is the Latin plural form of a word that originally meant foster son or pupil. Everyone who graduated from your school is a former pupil or “foster son” (or daughter) of that institution. You might even have a sticker on your car that says “State U Alumni,” which is a nod to everyone who graduated as an entire group, male and female alike. The mistake comes when you try to use that word to refer to yourself as an individual graduate of your school. You are not “an alumni” of State U. You are either an alumnus or an alumna. While alumni has no gender connotation, the word alumnus is most often used as masculine and alumna is feminine. So each of your fraternity brothers is “an alumnus,” or as the case may be, each of your sorority sisters is now “an alumna.” There’s nothing that makes someone appear less like a college graduate than to refer to themselves as “an Alumni”—and we all want to appear like college graduates when we apply to business school, right?A couple of other notes…Long ago, some clever (or lazy) person decided to avoid the risk of looking dumb and chopped off the vowel on the end of the root word, and now refers to himself as “an alum” or collectively as “we alums.” This is technically incorrect, but has been so commonly usedthat you will indeed find it in the dictionary as the second definition of what “alum” actually is, which is a white powder used in medicine (pronounced differently of course). "Alum," is often referred to as an "informal" use of the word alumni, which is a nicer way to say it’s wrong.To further complicate the issue, just in case it ever comes up, if you are trying to refer specifically to a group of women-only graduates, you should use “alumnae,” (pronounced “alum-knee”) which is simply the plural form of “alumna.” Got it? Now you can really consider yourself a college graduate and make us all look good! You’ll also win favor from the admissions committees. To find out more about your options and how we can help you with your business school application, email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or contact us viahttps://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact. Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: To GMAT or GRE? That is the Question. |
Over the past several years, there has been a subtle migration away from GMAT exclusivity among the top b-schools-but why?One reason may be, that there has been overall downward trend in application volume. When the economy is up, people tend to stay employed and make a paycheck. This drop in number of applications has put a dent on revenues for schools as well as in the overall quality of the application pool. It makes sense: fewer applicants generally will mean fewer top applicants (not always true, but in this case, the percentage of good, better and best applicants seems to hold pretty constant no matter how many applicants there are in total). Neither result is attractive to these top schools. One way to combat the drop in application volume is to try and reach outside the normal circles for folks who might think of applying to b-school who perhaps would not have in the past. Accepting the GRE instead of the GMAT is one way top schools have broadened their search. Because the GRE is widely considered a more “accessible” test for the general graduate school population, it has never in the past been given serious consideration by the b-schools, who are in agreement that the GMAT is a better indicator of b-school success. Granted, the GRE does not have a large enough statistical base to test its predictability for b-school success yet, but old traditions die hard. Enter Harvard, Stanford and Wharton, the first and last bastion of high quality business school reputations. What they say goes, and what they said pretty early on was, GRE is OK with them.Certainly if you are Harvard, Stanford or Wharton, your reputation will not be dampened using any test for admission (even “guess how many fingers I am holding up behind my back?”)—point is, no matter what these super elite schools do, their rankings will likely not suffer. So, they started accepting GRE scores in lieu of GMATs. This did indeed give them a broader look at those interested in graduate school and has enticed more students to choose b-school as their graduate education path. As could probably have been predicted, so goes H/S/W, so goes the rest of the b-school world, and sure enough, over the past several years, more and more schools have been quietly accepting GRE scores. So which test should you use as part of your application package? If your target school accepts the GRE, should you use that instead of the (some argue more difficult) GMAT? This is indeed the question.In some respects, the GRE is a tempting alternative. For starters, it’s about $100 cheaper to take the test, which for some post-college, recession damaged applicants, is real money. Additionally, the test is not quite as rigorous on the quantitative side, making it for some, a less punishing preparation process. There is also the argument that it could help you stand out in the crowd, since with fewer applicants submitting GRE scores, you force yourself out of the general application pool and into a category which will require the admissions committee to consider you separately from the crowd. Is this true? The Admissions Director I spoke with said it makes no difference whether someone submits the GMAT or the GRE, but I argued that simply due to the new nature of the discussion, there will naturally be more attention drawn to applicants with GREs. This could be simply a psychological phenomenon, and of course the risk is that the lack of reliable data out there with which to compare scores, could put applicants in a no-man’s land without any real evidence of aptitude. At least with the GMAT, the scores are very well established and everyone knows what a 550 means vs. a 650 or 750. As more GRE scores show up in admissions committee evaluations, we will begin to establish some better standards for exactly what a good score is as compared to the GMAT, but as for now, it’s really anybody’s guess what that score should be. The other challenge for b-schools who are now accepting the GRE is what to do with the scores when the time comes to tally statistics for rankings.The GMAC as well as the BW and US News rankings boards have indicated that schools need only list whether or not they accept the GRE, and are presently not required to report their average scores (which in the case of some schools, could be the average of as few as one or two applicants’ scores). Again, as more data comes online, we may start seeing a dual category, with schools listing both their GMAT average and their GRE average. I wouldn’t bet on this, however. The same b-school traditions and history which established the GMAT in the first place will be hard to sway in another direction. The computer adaptability of the GMAT test and other technological advances it has made vs. the GRE is keeping it in a position of superiority for now. In the final analysis, it is now safe to say that if the GMAT is kicking your tail, you might at least try your hand at the GRE, just to see if perhaps the test better meets with your abilities.If your target schools accepts the GRE for admission, and your score on the GRE is impressive who knows? You might just be able to “slip in through the back door” while other applicants who are relying on mediocre GMAT scores get lost in the proverbial shuffle. No matter the round, we have helped more than 1000 clients successfully apply to top business schools worldwide since 2008. Let us help you figure out your next step. Schedule a complimentary, one-hour consultation with a member of our expert admissions team. Email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or visit us online at www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Taking MBA Admissions Feedback With a Grain of Salt |
I have been getting a lot of emails lately that center on the same basic idea: "I got feedback directly from the admissions office and they told me X." Sometimes the feedback is ultra specific ("you should seriously consider retaking your GMAT") and other times it is extremely vague ("there were elements of your application that just weren't quite where they needed to be"), usually somewhere in between. The question is: should you put stock in what they are saying? Let's just say that - spoiler alert - my post title may indicate where I land on this. First, Some Context When you have worked in an admissions office at a competitive school and fielded calls and emails from denied candidates, you know how brutal it often is to try to come up with reasons that person was denied. If you have not worked in such a capacity, let me tell you - it is brutal. Let me break down some key info here. First, the reality is that at very competitive schools, it can be extremely difficult to know why you denied someone. These programs are having to take a list of initial "admits" (people that have been flagged as admitted by their individual file reader) and shave it way down. Like WAY down. And if you are in a very popular demographic (White Male, Indian Male, etc.), it is often just a bloodbath. A lot of times it is completely unfair, or maybe it is subjective, or perhaps you the reader just didn't really remember the app and so when it came time to lop off people and hit the numbers, they shrugged and said "sure, cut him." I don't mean to sound heartless, but that's how it can go down. So What Does This Mean? Well, if you are that admissions officer and someone gets in touch with you (either because your school offers feedback, ala Tuck, or because you worked some back channels or connections to get in touch with an admissions officer), what are you supposed to say? Either you mumble through something about it being a competitive year, or you grab onto some BS reason like a quant split or a junior year grade or something even more vague like the recommendation letters. The #1 goal of an admissions officer talking to a denied student is to GET OFF THE PHONE CALL. I promise you this. What Should You Do? The title of the post: take it with a grain of salt. Go talk to a pro and find out what you can actually do to improve your file. Do not get hung up on the random crap they tell you because honestly, they are just trying to get you to disappear from their lives. They will say anything that sounds good and ends the call. You might have perfectly good recommendation letters - hell, they might not even have read them the first time around - and they could say "well, maybe stronger recommendation letters." Your 68% quant split was almost surely not an issue because you had a 730 GMAT score, but suddenly, "ah, the quant split was a little low" (as the guy wipes his brow, relieved he found something he could point to). I sound cynical and judgmental, but I'm neither; I'm pragmatic and I've done it myself! I speak the truth that I don't just know, but that I lived. I'm neither proud nor ashamed - it's just life in the fast lane. It's a thankless task denying qualified students, so cut the admissions officers some slack. Just don't get hung up on the feedback. Last note: it probably goes without saying, but it is equally important to avoid assuming that whatever they say is nonsense. Just because it's possibly they could point to something random, it doesn't mean it is. This is why you need someone who has worked with tons of applicants and really has a feel for things to weigh in. If you would like the kind of assistance and evaluation that helps you understand where you might have actually gone wrong - or might be going wrong this time around - hit us up at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com. |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Advice on Selecting Recommenders for B-school Applications |
One of the most important components of your application is the recommendation section, where you are allowed to recruit someone to vouch for your candidacy. Most schools require at least one recommender, with the majority of schools now asking for two and some even requiring three separate recommendations. Because the recommendations are the only part of the application that is outside your direct control, we always advise clients to engage with recommenders early in the application process. You want your recommenders to spend the appropriate amount of time on them, so putting it off until the last minute is a potentially devastating strategy. You can also burn a bridge or two if you find yourself having to put pressure on people to finish them, and heaven forbid you actually have a recommender fail to submit one, essentially rendering your application incomplete. But let’s say you are organized, thoughtful, and prepared to approach people early…whom do you choose? The most important thing to realize with recommenders is that they must be able to comment directly and anecdotally on your work performance. No matter how tempting it might be to get the CEO of your company to write your recommendations, you should ask yourself a very important question first: how well does this person know me, and how intimately can he or she respond to questions about my specific job performance? If the answer is “not well” to either question, then it’s best to find someone else. The best business schools are looking for recommendations to provide insight and detail about your professional interactions and results versus trite, complementary adjectives that could apply to anyone in the company. This is why most b-schools want to see at least one recommendation come from an immediate supervisor—they are generally in the best position to not only comment directly on your work but also to compare you with your peers. Comparing you with your peers brings up another important point: you want to be a stand-out. Even if you feel you are a stand-out amongst your peers, however, you need to make sure your boss thinks so too. We generally advise folks to take time with their recommenders to figure this out. Take them to lunch, tell them about your goals and why you want the MBA. Ask them if they feel you would make a strong candidate at your target schools and why. Sometimes they need help or encouragement in this area to see things from your perspective. Talk about your plans and how your role at the company has prepared you (in your view) and then see if they agree. Many schools have specific questions they ask the recommenders—not just relying on a self-drafted letter or note of approval. Often these questionnaires include a ranking system so they can evaluate you against your peers and also against other employees the recommender may have seen in their time at the company. During your conversation with your potential recommending supervisor, you should be able to ascertain fairly quickly if they are “on-board” with your going to school or not, and whether or not they view you as a top 10% employee. If you can’t get your current boss on board, or if there are extenuating circumstances around why you can’t ask your boss to recommend you, you will need to make sure to communicate this to your target schools and give them a reason why (by the way, “my boss doesn’t like me” is generally not a good reason). This is sometimes where things get tough. If your boss is not in your corner, the timing may simply not be ideal for a run at b-school right now. Better to get in a job where you are making an impact and being recognized first, then perhaps apply down the road once you have a better support system. Business schools can see right through applicants who are using b-school to run away from a bad situation at work. This is rarely a good starting point from which to build a winning application. Still, if you are in the unfortunate position of having your most recent stop on the career train at a bad work environment, you can alternatively tell the adcoms that using your current boss would be detrimental to your employment, and then go fishing for a former boss who might be more enthused by your pursuit of an MBA. If you have a strong recommender from a prior position, this can be an acceptable option. Of course, most MBA applicants find this advice unnecessary, since most MBA applicants are in a job where their boss thinks they are the bees-knees. If this is you, then great—one down, one to go. So who should be recommender #2? If you find yourself with a solid recommender in your boss but struggling to find that second person, rest assured that with one very solid recommender, you can afford to be a bit more creative for the second. This is where you can feel more free to journey further back in your past for someone who may have a unique or highly favorable insight into some time in your life where you were most impressive. Still others try to diversify their recommenders by going to a non-professional person. For example, using someone at a volunteer organization where you are involved, or selecting a customer with whom you have worked closely or a professor who thought highly of your potential can sometimes be a good fit. There are really no hard and fast rules beyond rule #1: make sure they know you well and want to see you succeed. Two final rules: 1) no family, and no peers. Admissions committees will discount the heck out of such subjective sources. 2) Never, ever, write your own recommendation and have your boss sign it. Firstly, b-schools are really good at sniffing this out and secondly, if your boss is suggesting this, then they don’t care enough about your MBA plans to participate at the required level to get you into your target schools. For an overview of our MBA admissions consulting services, visit https://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/mba_admissions_consulting_services/ If you are interested in the MBA Admissions Consulting services offered by Amerasia, please contact us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.comor www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact/ to set up a free consultation. Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: 5 Tips for MBA Initial Consultation Calls |
Obviously we take a ton of "free consults" or Initial Consultation calls as part of our business model, so it seemed like a good idea to pass along some thoughts on how applicants can best utilize these. It depends on the people involved (both the consultant and the applicant) obviously, but as general rules, these might help you go in better prepared - not only to respond to questions, but to have a clear agenda for what you can achieve and take away from the experience. 1. Expect to go deep on your goals.This is a two-sided statement. First, "expect it" meaning do some prep work before you talk to consultants along the lines of knowing what your goals are, why you hold them, what motivates you, and so forth. Second, "expect it," meaning have the expectation of discussing this. If your consultant has no interest in asking you about your goals or understanding them, it means they are either A) not very invested in the call, or B) not very good at admissions consulting. Career goals are essential in an MBA application and while they may not be locked in just yet, any consultant needs to know that there is some gold to mine there before committing to work with someone. Put another way: when someone asks me to predict their chances of admissions and they share their stats and resume, my next questions are: what are your goals and what motivates them? That is one of the primary battlegrounds where a decision is made, so it's completely essential that I know some information about this area if I am going to properly advise a candidate ... or even take them on as a client. So to recap: [*]If you don't have any thoughts on your goals or why you hold them, you aren't ready to talk to a serious admissions consultant yet. [/*][*]If your consultant doesn't ask about them, run the other way. [/*][/list]2. Avoid canned questions.I've seen sites or experts give out a list of questions you should ask, but I strongly recommend avoiding a canned list of questions. For starters, it's a lame way to go about your business. But beyond that, it just burns up valuable time talking about things that might not be all that important to you. Stick to the stuff you really care about so that you can get the most out of the experience. 3. Don't be afraid to really talk schools.A good consultant should be able to help you stress test and shape your list of schools, even with only basic information about you. MBA programs can be considered based on selectivity (how hard they are to get into), general ROI (perception and opportunity), custom ROI (some schools offer a better return for specific people, ala the Columbia Value Investing Program or the Wharton Health Care Management Program), or fit. You should be able to take 5-7 schools and kick them around under all these lenses to try to get a set list in place. Everyone on staff here can analyze these schools from all these angles, so I feel its fair to say that its a baseline performance level that you should expect on these calls. It's also far more helpful information to take away from your call than the answer to "what do think my biggest weakness is?" or any of the other canned questions. 4. Be considerate.News flash: these calls are a two-way street. I can't tell you how many applicants have been late for calls, interrupted constantly, been pushy, blown way over my end time (I try to be available for as long as these need to go, but sometimes I just have another commitment after the our or 90-minute mark has expired), or been flat out rude. I can also tell you that some of those sample people are floored when they say they want to sign up and tell them, basically, "no thanks." Folks, top consultants always fill up their rosters and are under no obligation to take on every single person they talk to. You probably get the sense that it's a buyer's market out there and for the most part it is, but you still have to engage with consultants like human beings. Treat people how you would want to be treated, that's all. (If nothing else, do it for your own sake. As the saying goes, you get more flies with honey.) 5. Understand the nature of the call.This seems obvious, but an initial consultation is a sales call. I don't mean that it's a sales person just pitching you products and services, but it's important to understand that these are offered by consulting companies like ours so that you can get a feel for things before making a decision on who you might want to use as an MBA admissions consultant. We structure ours in a way that ensure you get a ton out of it regardless of the outcome of that decision (we talk schools and goals, we share resources, etc.), but make no mistake: this is meant to tease out whether there is a good fit between the client and the consultant. Put another way: this is not designed to be a non-profit resource, where you call up a hotline and just have a professional answer all your questions. If you are looking for that, there are a ton of free resources out there (we do free profile evaluations all the time on the Ask Amerasia thread of GMAT Club, for instance). So just know going in that we're trying to spend this hour seeing if working together on an ongoing basis is a good idea. If you are ready to engage with a top consultant in a serious and professional way, follow the above tips and jump on a call with us so we can take your MBA insights to another level. Email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com to set up a free consult. If you do, mention this blog (including the specific post) in your email and we will make sure you get access to our best available discount if and when you sign up. 5 Tips for MBA Initial Consultation Calls Amerasia Consulting Group | Boutique MBA Admissions Consultants Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Columbia Business School Strategy Memo Excerpt: Question 2 |
Every so often, we like to put an excerpt out there from one of our school-specific Strategy Memos. Full disclosure, the main reason to do this is to show off how we approach the process and to give potential clients a sense of what they might get (across the board, with all their schools and all the questions) if they become clients. But we also try to coordinate these with moments where we can get some really helpful strategy out there - basic, core ideas that will help people avoid pitfalls, even if they don't have help in executing perfectly. In this instance, Columbia Question 2 is a nice overlap that allows us to do both. So let's dive in. First, as common sense, would dictate, let us start with the question. This year, as part of a three-question set (not including Columbia's little 51-word career goal statement or the optional essay), they ask the following: Essay #2: The full-time MBA experience includes academics, recruiting and networking. What are your personal priorities and how do you anticipate allocating your time at Columbia Business School? (250 words) To try to frame a proper response to this, let’s first look to the old question #2, from last year: Old Question: Columbia Business School’s students participate in industry focused New York Immersion Seminars; in project based Master Classes; and in school year internships. Most importantly, our students are taught by a combination of distinguished research faculty and accomplished practitioners. How will you take advantage of being “at the very center of business.” (100-500 words) The above question was their third or fourth attempt at this "center of business" thing that always seemed to be half marketing and half seeking information. They often had you watch a video, sometimes this question came on the heels of a "Why Columbia" element in Essay 1 (which made it feel repetitive), and there was always some sense that they wanted something specific out of you, but weren't coming right out and saying it. To our way of thinking, there were two big things they were always trying to pull out of you: 1. How to find out why you want to go to Columbia. (A question that every school used to ask and that many still do, quite explicitly) 2. How to find out if you plan to use their program like a glorified commuter school. That second part has always felt like one of Columbia's great vulnerabilities and for years I feel they have been trying to bait people into admitting that they just want to live (or keeping living) in New York. Therefore, I strongly believe that no matter how they set the question up, no matter what the word count, no matter what the trap door they put in place, here is the rule: Write about the idea of New York in the way that it impacts Columbia, bolsters Columbia, and basically makes Columbia Business School the only place you will need to be. What I mean by this is that you need to focus on Columbia and if you discuss its location, be sure it is only in the context of how that further bolsters the school. CBS is very proud of its location because this massive city (the “center of business” as, again, they were calling it for the past 4-5 years in the essays) is just outside its doors, offering incredible practical learning opportunities … but they are also extremely skittish that people just want to have their lives in NYC and then show up for classes. Understand that above all, Columbia is a place that craves community in an environment that could potentially lend itself to a commuter culture. Many New Yorkers who are already entrenched (Manhattan jobs, apartments, friends, and lifestyles) wind up going to Columbia and they simply do not engage. There is also a large international population – many of whom have never lived in the U.S., so there can be a lot of students who are a bit slower to dive in as they acclimate to living in an entirely new country (especially now that said country's president appears to be openly hostile to them) . The result is a student body that can feel more transient than most. Columbia is highly aware of this and actively works to avoid that, offering a resource-rich environment and dynamic slate of programs and opportunities. But they want to know that you will be partaking in that buffet, not getting your meals elsewhere. If you need help with Columbia or any other program for Round 1 of this year, contact us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com today. |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Columbia Business School Strategy Memo Excerpt: How to Write Essay Question 2 |
Every so often, we like to put an excerpt out there from one of our school-specific Strategy Memos. Full disclosure, the main reason to do this is to show off how we approach the process and to give potential clients a sense of what they might get (across the board, with all their schools and all the questions) if they become clients. But we also try to coordinate these with moments where we can get some really helpful strategy out there - basic, core ideas that will help people avoid pitfalls, even if they don't have help in executing perfectly. In this instance, Columbia Essay Question 2 is a nice overlap that allows us to do both. So let's dive in. First, as common sense, would dictate, let us start with the question. This year, as part of a three-question set (not including Columbia's little 51-word career goal statement or the optional essay), they ask the following: Essay #2: The full-time MBA experience includes academics, recruiting and networking. What are your personal priorities and how do you anticipate allocating your time at Columbia Business School? (250 words)To try to frame a proper response to this, let’s first look to the old question #2, from last year: Old Question: Columbia Business School’s students participate in industry focused New York Immersion Seminars; in project based Master Classes; and in school year internships. Most importantly, our students are taught by a combination of distinguished research faculty and accomplished practitioners. How will you take advantage of being “at the very center of business.” (100-500 words)The above question was their third or fourth attempt at this "center of business" thing that always seemed to be half marketing and half seeking information. They often had you watch a video, sometimes this question came on the heels of a "Why Columbia" element in Essay 1 (which made it feel repetitive), and there was always some sense that they wanted something specific out of you, but weren't coming right out and saying it. To our way of thinking, there were two big things they were always trying to pull out of you:
Therefore, I strongly believe that no matter how they set the question up, no matter what the word count, no matter what the trap door they put in place, here is the rule: Write about the idea of New York in the way that it impacts Columbia, bolsters Columbia, and basically makes Columbia Business School the only place you will need to be. What I mean by this is that you need to focus on Columbia and if you discuss its location, be sure it is only in the context of how that further bolsters the school. CBS is very proud of its location because this massive city (the “center of business” as, again, they were calling it for the past 4-5 years in the essays) is just outside its doors, offering incredible practical learning opportunities … but they are also extremely skittish that people just want to have their lives in NYC and then show up for classes. Understand that above all, Columbia Business School is a place that craves community in an environment that could potentially lend itself to a commuter culture. Many New Yorkers who are already entrenched (Manhattan jobs, apartments, friends, and lifestyles) wind up going to Columbia and they simply do not engage. There is also a large international population – many of whom have never lived in the U.S., so there can be a lot of students who are a bit slower to dive in as they acclimate to living in an entirely new country (especially now that said country's president appears to be openly hostile to them) . The result is a student body that can feel more transient than most. Columbia is highly aware of this and actively works to avoid that, offering a resource-rich environment and dynamic slate of programs and opportunities. But they want to know that you will be partaking in that buffet, not getting your meals elsewhere. If you need help with Columbia Business School or any other MBA program for Round 1 of this year, contact us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com today. How to Write Columbia Business School's Essay Question 2 Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Advice on Early Career MBA Programs |
Do you have what it takes to jump into a top MBA program without any work experience?While most MBA applicants approach the admissions process after several years of post-undergrad work experience, there has been a rise in “early career admissions” programs at top schools to capitalize on those who are targeting MBA programs not only before they log work experience, but also on those who have no work experience at all. These early career MBA programs in some cases admit applicants on a deferred basis, and in other cases, simply go ahead and let MBA hopefuls go ahead and start the program. In the case of the former, schools like HBS and Yale have the 2+2 program and the Silver Scholars Program, respectively. These programs actually solicit applications not from young professionals, but from students who are still completing their undergrad programs. In fact, you are no longer eligible to apply once you graduate college. If you are interested in these programs and have not applied, you should jump on it right away, particularly if you are a senior in college. If this is the boat you are in, you should contact quickly so we can help. Again, you won’t be eligible to apply for these highly selective programs once you walk across that graduation stage. If you pass muster with the HBS 2+2 Program, they essentially pre-accept you for regular admission to their flagship, full-time program, then let you go off and work for two years before you matriculate. There are no requirements on where you work or what you do, which gives candidates the freedom to enrich their preparation for HBS in the way they feel is best. The Yale School of Management’s Silver Scholars Program runs things a little differently, because you go ahead and begin your first year of b-school in the fall after you graduate from undergrad, then you take on a fulltime, one-year internship before completing your final year of MBA studies. It takes three years from start to finish, but it’s still a year faster than HBS’s 2+2, which takes four years. With both programs, however, you are hitting the real world with a top MBA under your belt before most people even consider applying in the first place. Not a bad deal for the right person, but what makes you the right person?For starters, successful early career MBA hopefuls demonstrate a ton of something that is highly desirable in any good MBA program: maturity. We’re not talking about the kind of maturity everyone gains from college, but rather an extra measure of vision and sense of self—who you are and where you are headed, which would be unusually advanced for someone just finishing college. If you have a clear idea of the impact you want to make and how to get there, it’s a good start. Beyond maturity, you will need a killer GMAT score (think 750+ and that’s not even a guarantee). Good grades are a must too, as well as having had a deep impact on your community and school in some impressive ways. Remember, the best and brightest from top schools around the country are applying to these programs, so be prepared to speak to what you will bring to the table despite your lack of post undergrad work experience. The early career MBA trend is catching on with top programs (lesser ranked programs have been recruiting younger candidates for some time now, but many of those programs may not pay off like you hope). For example, Wharton’s EMBA program has an early career MBA option through its Fellows program, but full corporate sponsorship is required, so you will need to be working full time in a post-UG role to apply. Chicago also has several early career MBA options, including some just for Booth undergrads. They also have the Chicago Business Fellows Program, however, for applicants with zero to three years’ work experience. Bucking to go back early, but not sure you have the chops for Harvard or Wharton? Check out Duke’s Masters in Management Studies program. It’s not an MBA, but it’s a great primer for one down the road and can be great resume fodder for either a good job or a good MBA program later. We can help you weigh your background against program qualifications for these or any other options for younger candidates---just reach out and ask. To find out more about your options and how we can help you with your business school application, email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or contact us viahttps://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact. Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Ranking the Best US MBA Programs According to Jobs Data | Updated for 2017 |
Today, we are going to rank business schools across several industry categories: finance, consulting, technology, CPG, pharma, biotechnology, health care, media & entertainment, energy, and real estate.Instead of esoteric formulas, we rely on each schools published career center data as the basis for our business school rankings. Why is using career center jobs data a good idea?Quite simply, we believe recruiting - that is, who happens to be hiring – fuels most MBA programs "investment decisions" regarding allocation of capital to student programming, faculty development, curriculum and course development, experiential learning initiatives, alumni outreach, etc. So to know to what a specific MBA program is really all about, you need to see the end result. Let's see what industries are hiring MBA graduates and from what schools. There should be no surprises here. Wharton comes out as number one when it comes to getting a job in the finance industry. Columbia Business School, Chicago Booth and NYU Stern following close behind. Cornell Johnson ranks in a respectable fifth-place. This is noteworthy because the school is relatively easy to get into. For those who may have some things in their application profile, consider Cornell should you need to hedge your bets with respect to applying. Best MBA Programs for Finance Industry Jobs (2017) UVA Darden is the best business school for landing a job in the consulting industry. Dartmouth Tuck, Columbia Business School, Kellogg, Michigan Ross, and Duke Fuqua rounding out the top six in best schools for getting consulting jobs.What I found to be particularly interesting is that most of the schools I list above are widely known for their collegial learning environment, heavy emphasis on teamwork, and perhaps more personable student body. I guess being a team player does bode well for getting a job at McKinsey, BCG or Bain. Who knew? Best MBA Programs for Consulting Industry Jobs (2017) Haas is the best business school if you want a job in technology. There must be something going on up in the Bay Area because Stanford GSB ranks second when it comes to getting a job in technology. Maybe it's a California thing – as UCLA Anderson ranks third when it comes to getting a job in tech.Sarcasm aside, I can't say I'm too surprised about the result here. When we did this ranking a couple of years ago, Haas topped the ranking as well with UCLA Anderson being a close second. Best MBA Program for Technology Jobs (2017) Ranking the Best MBA Programs for Consumer Packaged Goods / Retail Industry Jobs (2017) Best MBA Programs for Pharma/Biotech/Healthcare Industry Jobs (2017) Best MBA Programs for Media & Entertainment Industry Jobs (2017) Best MBA Programs for Energy Industry Jobs (2017) Best MBA Programs for Real Estate Industry Jobs (2017) If you are interested in seeing where we sourced our data, here are links to the same MBA career center employment reports we used to generate all these pretty graphs, and of course our rudimentary business school rankings. Haas https://haas.berkeley.edu/groups/careercenter/hireanmba/employment-reports.html UCLA Anderson https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/degrees/mba-program/career-services Stanford GSB https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/organizations/recruit/employment-reports MIT Sloan https://mitsloan.mit.edu/career-development-office/employment-reports/mba-current-report/ HBS https://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/mba/data-and-statistics/employment-statistics.html Wharton https://www.wharton.upenn.edu/mba/your-career/career-statistics.cfm Kellogg https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/career_employer/employment_statistics.aspx Chicago Booth https://www.chicagobooth.edu/employmentreport/ Columbia https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/recruiters/employmentreport NYU Stern https://www.stern.nyu.edu/programs-admissions/full-time-mba/career/employment-statistics Tuck https://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/careers/employment-statistics Yale SOM https://som.yale.edu/yale-som-connect/recruiting/employment-statistics Michigan Ross https://michiganross.umich.edu/our-community/recruiters Duke Fuqua https://www.fuqua.duke.edu/mba_recruiting/recruiting_duke/employment_statistics/ Cornell Johnson https://www.johnson.cornell.edu/Career-Management/Employment-Report-for-Two-Year-MBAs UVA Darden https://www.darden.virginia.edu/recruiters-companies/hire-an-mba/employment-reports/ Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: How to Identify the Right MBA Program for You |
Finding the best MBA programs in the world is not a difficult task. To be sure, resources abound which slice, dice and rank top programs from just about every angle imaginable. The digital age has made this process even easier. In fact, there is so much data out there, one can quickly get mired down in “analysis paralysis,” in the absence of a perspective. Your main focus, however, should not be to find the best programs, but rather to find the best programs for you. How can you do this? There is much which can be said about assessing your personal fit for a program, yet we find that candidates every year, year after year, still fail to spend enough time on this most important question. After all, you will be wearing the sweatshirt of your chosen institution for the rest of your life, and will in many ways be defined by the program you attend, so instead of worrying about two years of business school, you really should really be thinking about the next 50 years! You could make an argument and perhaps even conclude decisively that some MBA programs aren’t worth the time, money and torture at all. Some would say that an MBA from a low-ranked school is essentially a bucket of gussied-up undergraduate business courses with a high price tag and a desolate recruiting schedule on the back-end. There is a good reason the highly ranked programs are graded thusly: they generate impressive results for their graduates. Access to jobs is a very important area to analyze when choosing an MBA program and our last post provided tremendously helpful data for this purpose. Some call this “professional fit,” with a school---will they set you up for an opportunity to interview in an industry or area where you want to work or not? While rankings and career-center data are good places to start your search, you really must take a deeper dive into a school in order to determine if you should apply there. One criteria that is often overlooked (usually due to ego or pride), is a simple analysis of whether or not you are even qualified to go there. While you can’t always use a school’s GMAT average to determine acceptance odds, generally speaking if your score is 35 or more points below the school’s average, the reality is that you will probably find yourself in the bottom 10% of the applicant pool there, forcing you to generate some very compelling reasons why you otherwise should take a seat from someone who bettered your score. Work experience weighs in as well, with many schools favoring candidates with 4-5 years or more in the professional workplace before admitting folks. Both GMAT and work experience are fluid qualifications, but a good, old-fashioned reality check can sometimes save you headaches and wasted time by failing to present to the admissions committee the best evidence to overcome your shortcomings in core, statistical qualifications. Perhaps the most ethereal aspect of narrowing down your school choices is trying to assess a school’s culture and character. This is tough to grasp, and is best done with an in-person visit, but can also be ascertained in other ways. Do you personally know anyone who graduated from your target schools? If not, can you link up with someone who has graduated from your schools through your social or professional network? Getting a feel for what it is like to attend classes and get involved at a particular school is elusive, but important. And it’s not just about how much you will enjoy the two years you are there. Even after graduation, out in the work-world, you can pick up on subtle characteristics of a school’s culture through colleagues who attended particular schools. While nobody likes to stereotype others, you can ask around about what folks think of University X MBA grads or how University Y grads are perceived in a professional setting. There is much thinking which should take place when choosing which handful of schools you should apply to, and we would love to help you work through that process. To find out more about your options and how we can help you with your business school application, email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or contact us viahttps://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact. Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Discovering a B-school's Personality |
It may sound strange to think of a school having a personality, but the culture found within the walls of the most popular business schools can vary just as widely as the personalities of people. Finding the right fit between a school’s culture and your own personality can be tricky and is not something you can ignore if you want to be happy and maximize your potential in an MBA program. Of course “knowing thyself” is the first step in finding a good match with any institutional program. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Do you thrive in a competitive environment or do you prefer to operate with an “everyone wins” approach? Do you have a learning style that is energized in the classroom from lectures and discussions, or do you come alive through hands-on, experiential learning? These considerations can help you tune into the programs which will align with the way you are wired, but they don’t even begin to address all the things you should consider. Simple phase of life situations can also affect how well you will dovetail with an MBA program. For example, some programs have mostly single students, while others have a large population of married students, even many with children. Often, schools with more single students do more social events where you end up hanging out with your classmates after classes or on weekends. Does that sound appealing or like your worst nightmare? Even the average number of years of work experience at an MBA program can radically affect that school’s culture, since age is often correlated to maturity and level of seriousness. Once you do a thorough self-assessment and have a strong feeling for your personal preferences, you can begin to assessment of the schools themselves. Some schools have a similar culture, and are sometimes associated with each other, such as HBS and Darden, or Fuqua and Kellogg, but don’t think that such reputations mean these schools are exactly the same. Subtle differences can sometimes make a big difference. As an example, Chicago Booth is often compared to Wharton, but did you know that at Wharton, students are ranked? This creates a healthy competition amongst students, but could also add stress to your time there. Often, feedback from Wharton students indicates they are fairly miserable during the program, but tend to enjoy their post-MBA careers more than other program’s graduates. As we have mentioned before, the best way to ascertain the personality of each school is to visit in person. Surfing a school’s website or even chatting with current or former students will only get you so far, but visiting a school, sitting in on a class and personally interviewing faculty, staff and students can reveal insights which are otherwise elusive or superficial if only viewed from the outside. You would never marry someone without dating them first, and you should be thinking of b-school in a similar way. Making the wrong decision could derail your career and seriously impact your post MBA happiness. Let us guide your school selection process—you might be surprised how much it can help. To find out more about your options and how we can help you with your business school application, email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or contact us viahttps://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact. Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: What Flavor MBA Suits You? |
The MBA degree has evolved over the years into a multi-faceted graduate degree option that comes in several different flavors. This means that before you apply, you must first decide which flavor suits you best. The flagship programs at top schools are of course the full time, two-year MBA program. These full time programs mostly all run on similar schedules (with a few subtle differences) including a fall start, a full-time summer internship, and a second year ending with graduation in the Spring. This schedule allows recruiters to plan their hiring accordingly, both for summer interns and for full time employees. Of course there are some schools who offer a J-term, or perhaps split the semesters into two mini-mesters, but all-in-all, the full time, two-year programs remain the most popular. But they are not for everyone. For students who majored in business in undergrad, there are other programs which don’t take as long and can help accelerate an MBA’s investment of time and tuition dollars. The one-year MBA is perhaps the best example of this and is increasingly offered by the “good” schools around the world. In particular, one year programs are very common amongst the top European schools. The one year MBA is in fact often referred to as an “accelerated MBA program,” so if this structure appeals to you (think more intense work load, less time between semesters and short if any, summer break), you should be pleased to know that one-year programs are often easier to access from an admissions standpoint. For top programs, however do not be fooled into complacency when it comes time to apply. You should exercise the same caution and care with which you would use to apply to the full time programs. One reason they are easier to get into is that there are fewer applicants applying to these programs, so there is more room in the proverbial inn, so to speak. They still look for high qualification traits, however, so don’t think you can slip in with sub-standard profile characteristics. There are other options for folks who require more flexibility in their educational timeline. For these folks, the online MBA (becoming much more popular these days due to the digital revolution and ubiquitous nature of the internet), and the distance learning MBA are good choices. The key difference between the two is that, unlike the online MBA, the distance learning MBA will require students to come to campus in person for at least some portion of the program. As you can imagine, the big complaint with this type of learning environment is the loss of interaction with your cohort. While telepresence technology and free long distance phone service has helped combat this, it’s still not the same as spending two years day and night with classmates as you would have the opportunity to do in a full time program or even a one year program. For people who need to keep their day jobs while earning an MBA, the most common option is the part-time MBA. This is where you torture yourself for three years or so while you work during the day and then take classes at night. You have a cohort and classmates, and attend in-person, but many of the top schools do not offer a part time MBA because they find it can be dilutive to the experience of their full time students. There is also the problem of sharing the recruiters with both programs (when a school offers both), and as you can imagine, the full time MBA students become disgruntled when they lose a job interview to a part time student who had been earning good money while they ate Ramen noodles for two years. The other main category of MBA programs is the EMBA, which were originally designed for –you guessed it—executives. These programs are similar to part time MBA programs, but the classes are generally held on weekends instead of weeknights, and often require some summer time project work or even international practicums (usually branded as a “Global MBA” at many schools). Interestingly, many top programs who do not offer part time programs will offer an EMBA program. They are very expensive, and are usually a revenue-generating machine for the schools which offer them. While the average experience of EMBA students is usually 10 or more years, this number has fallen recently, so don’t rule yourself out just because you are early in your career especially if you have really interesting work experience or have managed others in the workplace. Like other top programs, a really solid application is the key to admissions. To find out more about your options and how we can help you with your business school application, email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or contact us viahttps://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact. Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Keeping a Journal for MBA Applicants |
We can all likely remember our high school days when our English or Lit teacher required us to keep a journal...Are you cold sweating yet? The painstaking process of writing down what you did every day typically found everyone frantically making up journal entries the night before it was due, since most had bypassed the daily ritual in favor of the other distractions of youth. Your English teacher was on to something, however, and for those who are disciplined enough to keep a daily log of your thoughts and adventures can find it easier to lay the introspective groundwork that is required for a good MBA application. Why? Much of the reason people who make it into top schools are successful can be traced back to clarity of vision. After all, you can’t know where you are going if you don’t understand where you’ve been. Clarity of vision communicates to the admissions committee you are mature, and you have a good grip on reality and where you fit into this world. It’s a risk admitting students who fail to demonstrate this important attribute, since schools often find those who have little vision for their future and seemingly no grasp on their place in the world can blow up during the high stress environment of business school. And blowing up to them means not getting a job at the end, resulting in a potential hit to the school’s ranking. Business school is not a place to “find yourself,” but rather a place for those who are generally already on task to go somewhere that has been pre-determined. This is why business schools are so picky about assessing your post MBA plans. The best way to forge a solid post MBA plan is to take a realistic look at your achievements thus far in life and then mix in your passion going forward. Keeping a journal can help you tap into both. Even if you haven’t kept one in the past, you can start with some reflective entries, where you sit quietly and concentrate on past phases of your life. What excited you? What stands out as significant memories? It’s likely that these moments from your past can shed light on who you truly are and what makes you tick. While the MBA is a great time to shift gears, b-schools are wary of applicants who have no demonstrable proof that they will succeed in a given area of interest. Keeping a journal, even if it’s just during the season leading up to your b-school application, can be a calming and insightful exercise. Give it a try! To find out more about your options and how we can help you with your business school application, email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or contact us viahttps://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact. Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: Don't Wait for B-School to Start Networking |
One of the best payoffs for attending a good MBA program is the instant network you receive around the world through all the living alumni from your school. You not only obtain access to alumni from the b-school, but also to undergraduate alumni as well. This network can benefit you well beyond landing your first job or two, and will pay dividends throughout your entire career. The MBA network, however, is much broader than just the school where you attend. What you should never do, therefore, is to wait until you matriculate to begin building that career-building network. Even during application time, the fact you are an MBA hopeful can begin opening doors that once were closed, or at least difficult, to enter. The mistake most b-school hopefuls make is to assume that you cannot crack the b-school network ahead of time. Some of the most successful networkers out there look at every stage of life as a chance to reach out and connect, and being a student or a prospective student affords one a very unique window of opportunity to do this. How? Sometimes it’s as easy as picking up the phone and calling or sending an email. Most often, you will be first reaching someone’s “person” on the line or in an electronic response, which is where a little charm and honesty can be disarming. Start by simply asking to speak with your target contact---you might be surprised in how many cases you will be put through. If the dreaded “what is this concerning?” question is posed, be honest. Tell them you are a prospective MBA student who is looking to speak for just a few minutes to Mr. or Ms. X about their experience in Y company. Despite all your efforts to finesse your way in, the gatekeepers might still take a message, but be sure to follow up if you don’t hear back, since the squeaky wheel gets the proverbial grease. If you are lucky, you might just be introduced. If you are, make sure you thank them up front for taking your call and that you will be brief. Then be brief. This is where a 15 second elevator pitch is handy. Make sure you tell them where you are applying to b-school and that you are interested in their industry or business. It can be endearing to admit to them you are exploring your options for post-MBA and with only one internship shot, you are doing “informational interviews” to gather intelligence so you can make the best decision. It is recommended you only talk to them for 10 minutes or so if it’s on the phone, and keep emails to just three or four sentences. Asking for help is an easy way to make it difficult for someone to say no to your outreach. Most successful people like to help others, as long as they feel the investment of time is not too great. Always try to end with a solicitation to meet in person for lunch or breakfast if you can---in person meetings are always best for building a solid network. Just a note about breakfast—if you can stomach rising early, you will find many more opportunities to connect, since busy, successful people generally start their days early and often have more flexible time then. As you get to know new people, always ask them “who else should I get to know if I am interested in X industry?” which will generally result in a referral, the golden goose of networking. A warm lead rarely rebuffs and due to the magic of compounding, you could find just one or two good connections can result in an avalanche of meeting opportunities. If you play your cards right and manage your time well, you will embark upon b-school with a great starter kit of contacts in your toolkit, whether or not they graduated from your school of choice. To find out more about your options and how we can help you with your business school application, email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or contact us viahttps://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact. Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: How Good is Your Target School's MBA Network? |
A business school’s network is usually one of the top reasons someone chooses an MBA program. Leveraging both the b-school and also other alumni from a particular school can pay dividends when advancing your post-MBA career, so wisely considering which school will meet your needs in that area is a critical component of the b-school selection process. One thing often overlooked when choosing a school for its network is failing to consider where its alumni end up. MBA degrees are fairly sticky for most schools, meaning graduates usually end up living within an 8-hour drive of the school itself. This rule of thumb does not apply to the M7 schools or even to many in the top 20, since graduates from those schools are highly sought the world over by top, globally-flung corporations. What this means is, you need to have a pretty clear geographic objective in mind for yourself before you even apply to a school, lest you end up in an area where your network is limited or non-existent. If you do have the luxury of going to a school which ranks tops for networking, you should know that networking at that level actually gets even better. Schools in the top tier often hold joint networking events in major cities, where graduates from several top schools attend. Hailing from a top tier MBA institution is sort of it’s own “club” in itself, which gives you access to a much broader network. Definitely something to consider. So which schools score tops for their MBA alumni network? A couple of years ago, graduateprograms.com did the homework for you. Their approach was to survey 13,000 alumni of top programs, asking them how highly they view the connectivity of the alumni, faculty and staff from their school. Student self-ranked on a scale of 1-10 and the results are below. Keep in mind this approach is rather subjective, since it could be the case that students have incentive to rank their own school highly, but typically, MBAs are pragmatic and can often be found with a more objective methodology in general. Anyway, you can take the findings with a grain of salt and simply use the list as a starting point to do your own research. In the end, you should be reaching out to alumni from your target institutions to get some real feedback. Don’t know any alumni? Reach out to the admissions office or the alumni association for your target schools and ask them to connect you to someone. Here is the link to the Graduate Program rankings on the Business Insider site: https://www.businessinsider.com/best-business-schools-for-networking-2015-10 To find out more about your options and how we can help you with your business school application, email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or contact us viahttps://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact. Permalink |
FROM Amerasia MBA Blog: The b-school Before and After Paradigm |
We are often reminded (and rightly so on the one hand) that finding a common thread in our careers is an important step in convincing the admissions committees you have been progressively responsible and focused, and have not just meandered through your professional life. While finding that common thread is indeed a critical exercise to not only ensure you are ready for the b-school application process, but also to judge whether or not you have a solid vision for your future, a trap that often ensnares b-school applicants and alumni alike is worrying too much about the logical progression of your career trajectory from a narrative point of view. Applicants often become distracted or obsessed about finding this “theme” in their careers to the point that they force a round peg into a square hole just to try and make everything connect. Perhaps the most important thing to realize when reflecting on your career progression is that your career before business school and your career after business school are on two entirely different planes.Particularly for those who plan to change careers, it is quite common to find their past and future have very little to do with each other on the surface. As is commonly known, b-school can be a terrific period of career transition, not only from one level of responsibility to the next, but also from one industry or discipline to another. But even after you graduate and work professionally, your employers will look at your pre-and-post-MBA roles in entirely different lights. It is far more important what you do after the MBA than what you did before. Translation: your entire career does not need to be one clean, seamless story. While it’s great if you have been promoted and moved ahead at work prior to applying to b-school, you can usually still demonstrate readiness for an MBA program if you have simply worked hard and made a good impression. In post-MBA world, however, you want your career to “take-off,” as you create an invigorated trajectory going forward, one that builds rapidly on your education and ratchets-up your responsibility with each progressive move up on the proverbial corporate ladder. You will be forgiven in the application process (and frankly, in the professional world as well) for your past side-tracks as you found your way to b-school and your new vocational calling. Go ahead and forgive yourself of zigging when you should have zagged, because the only time it will be held against you is when you come across as unfocused in your future vision. If the zig-zagging communicates that you “still haven’t found what you’re looking for” (to quote the band U2), an admissions committee might encourage you to take another lap or two and re-apply later. We have some good posts and commentary on how to find the thread in your career to create a compelling narrative for the admissions committees, but never forget that your pre-and-post MBA achievements are entirely different paradigms, and that is just fine. Permalink |
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