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Friday Factoid: Charlottesville Living at UVA Darden [#permalink]

11 Dec 2015, 08:00

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FROM mbaMission Blog: Friday Factoid: Charlottesville Living at UVA Darden

Charlottesville, VA

“Amazingly addictive” is one student’s description of Charlottesville, Virginia, home of the University of Virginia’s Darden School. With a mix of city attractions that include fine arts and celebrity chef–owned restaurants, the feel of suburban living, and easy-to-reach outdoor activities such as hiking, bird watching, and even skiing—not to mention a low cost of living and a dollop of historical appeal—Charlottesville has it all. “Living in Charlottesville is a delight,” remarked another student. “The city is a particularly good place to raise children because of the scenery, the quality of life, and the cost of living.” Darden students tend to feel that while a big city offers many activities that can pull students outward, in a smaller community, students end up spending more time together, thus establishing deeper bonds and creating interactions with special character and depth.

Most of Darden’s students choose to live in two complexes located only minutes (if not seconds) from campus, but even those who elect to live downtown instead are never more than ten minutes away, and that is in the worst of traffic. According to those mbaMission interviewed, many Darden students have cars, but they use them more for going shopping or into downtown Charlottesville than for commuting to class. The University of Virginia has a free, comprehensive bus system that runs in a loop around campus and also makes stops at nearby shopping areas.

For more information on other defining characteristics of the MBA program at Darden or one of 15 other top business schools, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

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Hear How Ben Hindman Went from DC Tour Guide to Splash CEO [#permalink]

11 Dec 2015, 13:00

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FROM mbaMission Blog: Hear How Ben Hindman Went from DC Tour Guide to Splash CEO

Today, many aspiring MBAs and MBA graduates want to join start-ups or launch such companies themselves. Is entrepreneurship as exciting as it seems? Is it really for you? mbaMission Founder Jeremy Shinewald has teamed up with Venture for America and CBS Interactive to launch Smart People Should Build Things: The Venture for America Podcast. Each week, Shinewald interviews another entrepreneur so you can hear the gritty stories of their ups and downs on the road to success.

The podcast series welcomes its twenty-first guest, Ben Hindman, founder and CEO of event marketing software company Splash. Hindman shares how he built the firm, which enables customers to maximize the impact of their events before, during, and after they happen using online tools and social media. He discusses these points and much more:

How he left behind a rather surprising position as a Washington, D.C. tour guide to test entrepreneurial waters
What the rapid changes within the company—Splash started out as a budgeting tool!—taught him about business
How a very surprising visitor recently crashed the company’s Web site—the pope!

Subscribe to the podcast series to hear how Hindman and many other entrepreneurs achieved success!

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MBA Admissions Myths Destroyed: Well, I Had My Chance on the GMAT [#permalink]

12 Dec 2015, 08:01

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FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA Admissions Myths Destroyed: Well, I Had My Chance on the GMAT

You finally took the GMAT, and though your score was not bad, it was not what you had hoped—not your best score, but certainly not so low that you need to take the test again. With a score just below where you think you should be, should you risk it all and take the test again? The truth is that there is actually no risk in taking the GMAT a second—or even a third—time in pursuit of a better outcome.

If you feel like you do your best on the GMAT on your first try, you can rest easy and move on. However, if you do poorly or simply do not live up to your potential, go ahead and take the test again. Simply put, you should not worry that if you do worse on your second try, your target school will average your score down or consider only your lower score. In fact, whether your score improves or gets worse, your target school will consider only your highest score, thereby eliminating any risk to you or your candidacy. So, if you score a 700 on your first test and a 670 on your second, you are better off than if you had scored a 690 on both.

It is worth noting that Dartmouth Tuck tacitly encourages multiple attempts at the GMAT by allowing applicants to report up to two scores on the GMAT. Tuck will consider an applicant’s best performance on each section of the GMAT (verbal or quantitative), even if the individual scores are from different tests.

So, relax and take the test again if you have time and—more importantly—can do better. However, unless you feel that you can improve, taking the test over and over again is pointless. You would be surprised how many people take the GMAT repeatedly without considering improvement at all.

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GMAT Impact: All About Critical Reasoning, Part 3 [#permalink]

13 Dec 2015, 08:01

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FROM mbaMission Blog: GMAT Impact: All About Critical Reasoning, Part 3

With regard to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this blog series, Manhattan Prep’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about the overall process for tackling Critical Reasoning (CR), as well as the four major CR question types. In Part 2, we reviewed the five minor question types. Now, let’s put it all together!

What is my strategy?

As we discussed in Part 1, the four major CR types are Find the Assumption, Strengthen, Weaken, and Inference. The majority of your CR questions will be in one of those four categories. If you are going for up to about 75th percentile on verbal, concentrate on those.

Of the minor types, discussed in Part 2, the most common are Discrepancy, Describe the Role, and Evaluate. If you want to break the 75th percentile on verbal, then also take a look at those three minor types, but still spend more time on the four major types. If CR is your weakest verbal area, you can also skip whichever of those three minor types is hardest for you—some people really hate boldface questions, and others think Evaluate questions are the worst.

If you are looking to break the 90th percentile on verbal, then you have to study everything. You can still pick one minor type as your “I’ll guess/bail quickly if I have to” question type, but you still have to try to learn how to do it and, during the test, take a crack at the question unless you are already behind on time and must bail on a question.

Great, I have mastered CR!

Let’s test that theory, shall we? After you have studied all of the above and you feel pretty comfortable with CR, try this problem. I am not even going to tell you which type it is (in fact, that is one of the things that makes this problem so hard—what is it, in the first place?).

If you struggle with it, do not get discouraged. It is a very challenging problem. Instead, use it as an opportunity to get even better! By the way, the best outcome is not necessarily to get it right. Depending on your score goals and your other strengths and weaknesses, the best outcome may very well be to recognize that the question is too hard and to make a guess before the two-minute mark.

Happy studying!

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In Other News… A Sizable Donation, Students’ Take on Climate Change, a [#permalink]

13 Dec 2015, 12:00

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FROM mbaMission Blog: In Other News… A Sizable Donation, Students’ Take on Climate Change, and Deciding Where to Enroll

The business school world is constantly buzzing with change and innovation. Each week, in addition to our regular news posts, we briefly touch on a few notable stories from this dynamic field in one roundup. Here is what caught our eye this week:

A $7.2M donation to the University of Kansas (KU) School of Business from alumnus Roger Davis and his wife Julie Davis will create a new center to help students make better business decisions through the use of complex data. The Center for Figure Sense will launch next spring and, instead of introducing new classes, will concentrate on its mission “to infuse the figure sense critical-thinking methodologies” in all of the school’s students. The couple has been generous to KU in the past—an earlier $1.5M gift assisted in the construction of new business school facilities.

Business school students are taking a stand on climate change. A recent study, conducted by Yale University with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the Global Network for Advanced Management, surveyed nearly 4,000 students at 29 top-ranked business schools to determine their stance on the issue. The results revealed that 44% of respondents would be willing to work for a lower salary if the company in question implemented good environmental practices. Among other findings, the survey revealed that 64% wished for more sustainability-related career services at business schools.

Gaining acceptance to a top-ranked business school is an accomplishment—but if you are accepted into more than one, which do you choose? As part of its annual MBA rankings, Bloomberg Business examined students who were accepted into multiple top programs and where they ultimately decided to enroll. Of the 260 respondents who were accepted into Harvard Business School (HBS), for example, 63.8% decided to enroll in the program. Comparatively, 47.1% of the 382 respondents accepted to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania chose to enroll there, while 17.8% decided on HBS instead. The results were more divided at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where 29.4% of the 436 accepted candidates chose Kellogg, 10.6% chose Wharton, and another 10.6% enrolled at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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Monday Morning Essay Tip: Do You Write with Connectivity? [#permalink]

14 Dec 2015, 10:00

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FROM mbaMission Blog: Monday Morning Essay Tip: Do You Write with Connectivity?

If you were to read a skilled professional writer’s work, you would find articles that are characterized by “connectivity.” Simply put, an adept writer ensures that each sentence is part of a chain—each sentence depends on the previous one and necessitates the next. With this linkage in place, the central idea is constantly moving forward, giving the story a natural flow and making it easy to follow. Although you do not need to write at the same level as a professional journalist, you should still embrace this concept, because it is central to excellent essay writing. With a “connected” MBA application essay, you will grab and hold your reader’s attention.

You can test your essay’s connectivity by removing a sentence from one of your paragraphs. If the central idea in the paragraph still makes complete sense after this removal, odds are you have superfluous language, are not advancing the story effectively, and should revise your draft.

Try this exercise with a random selection from the New York Times:

“For many grocery shoppers, the feeling is familiar: that slight swell of virtue that comes from dropping a seemingly healthful product into a shopping cart. But at one New England grocery chain, choosing some of those products may induce guilt instead. The chain, Hannaford Brothers, developed a system called Guiding Stars that rated the nutritional value of nearly all the food and drinks at its stores from zero to three stars. Of the 27,000 products that were plugged into Hannaford’s formula, 77 percent received no stars, including many, if not most, of the processed foods that advertise themselves as good for you. These included V8 vegetable juice (too much sodium), Campbell’s Healthy Request Tomato soup (ditto), most Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice frozen dinners (ditto) and nearly all yogurt with fruit (too much sugar).”

If you were to delete any of these sentences, you would create confusion for the reader, proving that each sentence is connected and vital.

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Mission Admission: When to Schedule Interviews [#permalink]

15 Dec 2015, 09:01

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FROM mbaMission Blog: Mission Admission: When to Schedule Interviews

Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.

With the MBA 2015–2016 application season moving along at full speed, we thought we should explore an issue that brings endless paranoia to business school candidates: when to schedule interviews. Many programs will give applicants a significant window in which to schedule their interview. So, does scheduling an interview early convey that you are being too aggressive and do not have any other irons in the fire, or instead that you are eager to act and impress the admissions committee? Does scheduling an interview later imply that you are less interested in the program, or rather that you are highly sought after and are interviewing at multiple schools?

The reality is that scheduling your interview to occur during the early days of the school’s set time frame is really no different from scheduling it near the end. Neither option, nor any day in between, confers any advantage or disadvantage. The MBA admissions committees recognize that you, like all candidates, are busy and that your schedule is in flux as a result of work, community, and personal commitments. The committees focus on the interviews themselves, not on when they are scheduled. So pick a date that works for you—a time when you know you can be comfortable and relaxed, not distracted—and start preparing!

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MBA Career Advice: You Are Wasting Space (Part 1) [#permalink]

15 Dec 2015, 13:01

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FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA Career Advice: You Are Wasting Space (Part 1)

In this weekly series, our friends at MBA Career Coaches will be dispensing invaluable advice to help you actively manage your career. Topics include building your network, learning from mistakes and setbacks, perfecting your written communication, and mastering even the toughest interviews. For more information or to sign up for a free career consultation, visit www.mbacareercoaches.com.

We try to make our blog posts punchy and fun. However, every once in a while, we stoop to using sarcasm to really get the point across. Yes, that’s right, we are going to be so brash as to use shaming techniques in this post. But we shame because we love. And because it drives the point home: people waste a lot of valuable real estate on their resumes. Therefore, please avoid these very common errors!

“You know how to use Microsoft Word? Really! Wow, you are hired!”: If you have a line on your resume that highlights your ability to use Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, delete it! Everyone knows how to use these programs. You would be surprised by how many people still list this fundamental skill. If you want to stand out and make the best use of limited space, remove any reference to very basic skills or skills that employers will assume you have. If you aim to work in an English speaking country, English language skills fall into this category.

“You know how to use ARGUS! Isn’t that great? You are applying for a brand management position, but that skill puts you over the top!”: You need to know your audience and ensure that your resume is relevant to them. Let’s say that you learned to use ARGUS (software used in the real estate world) when you were considering a position in real estate. Now, you are applying for brand management positions and… hiring managers in this field just don’t care about ARGUS! In fact, no one in the consumer products field will even know what ARGUS is. Including it actually makes you seem out of touch. So, save a line on your resume and delete this (or any other) information that is irrelevant to the person who will be reading it.

“You spent a summer working in a family restaurant in 2005!?? Wow, you are hired!”: Unless your internship is actually relevant to the job for which you are applying, once you have been a full-time professional for three or four years, it is usually best to delete references to distant past temporary positions. Do not dedicate precious space on your resume to a job that you held for a few months many years ago and that is (or should be) dwarfed by your current accomplishments! The one exception to this guideline is if you aim to change careers and that internship provides meaningful evidence of relevant experience that is otherwise lacking in your professional career since.

Take a look at your resume and correct these errors to eliminate wasted space and maximize your impact on prospective employers.

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Professor Profiles: Saras D. Sarasvathy, the University of Virginia Da [#permalink]

16 Dec 2015, 08:01

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FROM mbaMission Blog: Professor Profiles: Saras D. Sarasvathy, the University of Virginia Darden School of Business

Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they choose a business school, but the educational experience you will have is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Each Wednesday, we profile a standout professor as identified by students. Today, we focus on Saras D. Sarasvathy from the University of Virginia (UVA) Darden School of Business.

Saras D. Sarasvathy is the Isidore Horween Research Associate Professor of Business Administration at UVA Darden, and she also teaches doctoral-level courses in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Sarasvathy wrote her dissertation at Carnegie Mellon on entrepreneurial expertise and has parlayed that into a specialization in the area of “effectuation,” which examines the creation and growth of new organizations and markets. Her book Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009) examines the way entrepreneurs think. In addition to serving on the editorial board of the Journal of Business Venturing, she acts as an advisor to education programs on entrepreneurship in Asia and Europe. In 2015, UVA awarded Sarasvathy the Mead-Colley Honored Faculty Award for her active engagement with students. In 2007, Fortune Small Business magazine named Sarasvathy one of 18 top professors in the field of entrepreneurship.

Students we interviewed feel that Sarasvathy, who has been an associate professor at Darden since 2004, is one of the up-and-coming scholars of entrepreneurship in the world. One alumnus described her to mbaMission as “very encouraging, supportive. She allows people to share ideas rather than looking for the right answer.” Another told us that he found himself in her “Starting New Ventures” class by mistake; he had lingered too long in the classroom after his previous class had ended and was still there when Sarasvathy’s class began. He was so impressed by her teaching that he added her course to his schedule, even though he was already overloaded. He found even at that first lesson that she “challenged conventional beliefs,” and he was “impressed at her insights and the way that she articulated basic assumptions to bring out the less obvious, deeper levels.”

For some interesting perspectives on entrepreneurship and business, see Sarasvathy’s presentations on BigThink at https://bigthink.com/sarassarasvathy.

For more information about UVA Darden and 15 other top-ranked business schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

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B-School Chart of the Week: The Role of Women Within the Class of 2017 [#permalink]

16 Dec 2015, 12:01

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FROM mbaMission Blog: B-School Chart of the Week: The Role of Women Within the Class of 2017

Although quantifying a school’s profile certainly does not tell you everything, it can sometimes be helpful in simplifying the many differences between the various MBA programs. Each week, we bring you a chart to help you decide which of the schools’ strengths speak to you.

Gender equality has been a popular discussion topic in the business school world recently. Harvard Business School (HBS) announced a program to recruit women in April, while such publications as the Financial Times have examined the topic by offering comparisons and scorecards of various schools. What is the situation at the moment? We took a closer look at the recently matriculated Class of 2017.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, none of the top-ranked schools that we examined yet have a 50/50 gender divide in their Class of 2017. The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management came closest, with women representing 43% of each school’s class. At 42%, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, HBS, and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College were not far behind. The school with the lowest percentage was the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where only 30% of the incoming class are women.

Source: Business school class profiles, Class of 2017

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Beyond the MBA Classroom: Show Off Your Talent at the NYU Stern Follie [#permalink]

17 Dec 2015, 08:01

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FROM mbaMission Blog: Beyond the MBA Classroom: Show Off Your Talent at the NYU Stern Follies

When you select an MBA program, you are not just choosing your learning environment but are also committing to becoming part of a community. Each Thursday, we offer a window into life “beyond the MBA classroom” at a top business school.

With skits such as “Sterndog Millionaire” and songs such as “We Didn’t Start the Crisis” (set to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”), the annual NYU Stern Follies talent show entertains students and faculty alike. Anyone at Stern can put together a team and apply to participate in the show. The Follies’ creative committee, which is made up of students, decides which skits and performers will ultimately be part of the show. “Follies is a huge deal,” remarked a first year with whom we spoke. “It was a lot of fun. It’s just nice to see your classmates kind of poke fun at being business school students.”

Modeled after the classic TV show Saturday Night Live, the 2015 Follies was themed “Sternie Night Live” and featured skits inspired by Taylor Swift, the Serial podcast series, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (“The Fresh Prince of Washington Square”).

In 2014, the Follies’ Academy Awards–inspired theme was “The Torchy Awards,” and students were invited to vote on the best performances. Parodies of House of Cards, the game Candy Crush, and the band Daft Punk were among the show’s highlights. The theme of the 2013 Follies was “The Real World: Stern,” and the show included “Meet the Cast” promo videos of various MTV-inspired Stern characters.

For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at NYU Stern and 15 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. If you are applying to Stern, our NYU Stern Interview Primer can help you put your best foot forward.

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Diamonds in the Rough: Improved Facilities at Washington University’s [#permalink]

17 Dec 2015, 12:01

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FROM mbaMission Blog: Diamonds in the Rough: Improved Facilities at Washington University’s Olin Business School

MBA applicants can get carried away with rankings. In this series, we profile amazing programs at business schools that are typically ranked outside the top 15.

Washington University’s Olin Business School announced in 2011 that lead gifts totaling $25M from two of its benefactors would support a plan to construct two new facilities for its graduate program—Knight Hall and Bauer Hall. The $90M expansion was completed in the spring of 2014—several months earlier than expected—and added seven new classrooms, 75 faculty offices, a 100-seat café, graduate student services, lounges, an Active Learning Lab, and a new event space called The Forum. A three-dimensional rendering of the buildings, which received LEED Gold certification in December 2014, can be seen here.

Boasting strong MBA and BSBA (Bachelor of Science in Business Administration) programs, the school states on its Web site that its operating principle is “research-driven thinking, applied.” Although Olin is a smaller sized program (141 full-time MBA students in the Class of 2017) and is noted for its highly collaborative culture, the expansion allows the school to grow its class size while providing more space and resources.

Olin may also be well positioned to tap into St. Louis’s burgeoning start-up sector. According to a March 2013 report by career hub Dice, “The number of St. Louis–based technology jobs posted on Dice jumped 25 percent year/year. And those new tech jobs are coming at a higher price tag too: average tech salaries are up 13 percent year/year to $81,245. … St. Louis is becoming a start-up town.”

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Friday Factoid: Studying Health Enterprise Management at Kellogg [#permalink]

18 Dec 2015, 08:00

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FROM mbaMission Blog: Friday Factoid: Studying Health Enterprise Management at Kellogg

An often unsung program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management is the school’s Health Enterprise Management program, and a “star” within this program is the Global Health Initiative (GHI)—co-founded by Kellogg professor Daniel Diermeier, with several students in leadership and advisory roles—in which academics, students, corporations, and nonprofits create products that solve medical problems around the world. As evidence of the program’s profile, in 2006, the GHI received a $4.9M grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop diagnostic devices capable of identifying the HIV virus.

Another impressive experiential offering is the multidisciplinary “Medical Innovation” lab class, which brings together industry leaders, top faculty members, and students from several of Northwestern’s graduate schools (Law, Engineering, Medicine, and Business). In this two-term course, students experience the “entire innovation life cycle” from a variety of perspectives: scientific, legal, and entrepreneurial/managerial. Students even shadow surgeons and observe clinicians to facilitate their own brainstorming sessions for an innovative product—an actual product is created and presented to potential investors. Clearly, Kellogg provides students interested in health care with an opportunity to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty (and then sanitize them after, of course).

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MBA News: Darden School of Business Ranks First in Graduate Satisfacti [#permalink]

18 Dec 2015, 12:01

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FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: Darden School of Business Ranks First in Graduate Satisfaction Survey

Business school rankings often provide more insight on MBA programs than just a simple top-ten list. For example, Forbes, which released its biennial MBA rankings in September, recently revisited its data to determine which business schools generate the most satisfied graduates. After reviewing the responses of more than 4,000 alumni from the Class of 2010 at 50 schools, the publication identified the top ten with the highest levels of graduate satisfaction based on three factors:

How satisfied respondents are with their education five years after graduation
How satisfied they are with their current job positions
How well their business degrees prepared them for post-graduation life

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business came out on top overall, ranking first in both education satisfaction and preparedness. The Broad College of Business at Michigan State University ranked first in job satisfaction but fourth overall. Interestingly, Forbes points out that such typically top-ranked schools as Harvard Business School, Columbia Business School, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ranked notably low in job satisfaction—in the bottom half of the 50 schools—despite their graduates earning average annual salaries of more than $200K.

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MBA Admissions Myths Destroyed: I Must Have Botched the Interview! [#permalink]

19 Dec 2015, 09:00

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FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA Admissions Myths Destroyed: I Must Have Botched the Interview!

Maybe you are among the unlucky applicants who were/are on the outside looking in this year, shaking your head trying to understand why you did not get into an MBA program. As you look back and assess where you went wrong, you may narrow your focus and re-examine your interviews. After all, you were invited to interview but were rejected thereafter, so there must be a cause-and-effect relationship, right? Your rejection must mean that everything was at stake during those 30 minutes and that your interviewer just did not feel that you are of the caliber preferred by your target school, right? Wrong.

Wharton’s former admissions director, J.J. Cutler, previously explained to us that there are no post-interview snap judgments. At Wharton, files are read multiple times before and after the interview, according to Cutler, “…then (after the interview) the interview report is placed into the file, and the file gets recirculated and read a fourth time by a member of the admissions committee…. It may get read a fifth time or even a sixth time. (For) most applications at that point, it gets pretty competitive.” At Wharton, the admissions committee is not waiting for an enthusiastic report to confirm a decision it has already made; rather, the committee is using the interview as a part of the evaluative process as it weighs applicants against their peers.

Yale’s director of admissions, Bruce DelMonico, explained to mbaMission that the School of Management uses a “consensus decision-making model,” where “we all need to agree on an outcome for an applicant (to be accepted).” Like at Wharton, each file is read multiple times. With the need for a consensus, we can safely conclude that the committee is not waiting on the interview as the determinant. Again, there is no post-interview snap judgment but rather serious thought and reflection by the admissions officers.

Although we have discussed this topic before, it is worth repeating that no simple formula exists for MBA admissions and that the evaluation process is thorough and not instinctive/reactive. Yes, a disastrous interview can certainly hurt you—but if you felt positively about your experience, you should not worry that you botched it and that this was the determinant of the admissions committee’s decision.

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GMAT Impact: How to Study [#permalink]

20 Dec 2015, 08:00

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FROM mbaMission Blog: GMAT Impact: How to Study

With regard to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this blog series, Manhattan Prep’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.

This week, I have got a short and sweet post for you.

Take a look at your calendar and find a weekend to take off from your studies (or even an entire week). Yes, I am serious! People tend to get really burned out studying for the GMAT; you will be doing your brain a favor if you give it a bit of a break. (Note in general: when your brain is fatigued, it cannot make solid new memories. Do not keep pushing yourself to study under those circumstances!)

Second, I have a few resources for you. I put together a couple of posts that highlight what I think are the most useful articles from recent years. Take a look at What Would Stacey Do? for resources and advice on areas with which you may be struggling.

I do want to take time to mention explicitly the one post that I think is the most important and the first thing that every GMAT student should read: What the GMAT Really Tests.

Third, recently we discussed how to study for Critical Reasoning (CR). Here are two available resources:

Explaining a Critical Reasoning Discrepancy

Analyzing a Critical Reasoning Boldface Question

Finally, go take a break! Take a look at your calendar and find a good time to rest your brain. I have never met anyone who can study effectively for months straight without at least one solid weekend break (and an entire week is often better!).

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Monday Morning Essay Tip: Convey a Confident Tone [#permalink]

21 Dec 2015, 10:01

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FROM mbaMission Blog: Monday Morning Essay Tip: Convey a Confident Tone

You must ensure that the tone of your essays allows the admissions committee to readily recognize your certainty and self-confidence. Being clear and direct about who you are and how you envision your future is vital. Consider the following example statements:

Weak: “I now have adequate work experience and hope to pursue an MBA.”

Strong: “Through my work experience, I have gained both breadth and depth, providing me with a solid, practical foundation for pursuing my MBA.”

——

Weak: “I now want to pursue an MBA.”

Strong: “I am certain that now is the ideal time for me to pursue my MBA.”

——

Weak: “I have good quantitative skills and will succeed academically.”

Strong: “I have already mastered the quantitative skills necessary to thrive in my MBA studies.”

——

Weak: “With my MBA, I hope to establish myself as a leader.”

Strong: “I am certain that with my MBA, I will propel myself to the next levels of leadership.”

The key in all these examples is the use of language that clearly projects self-confidence; instead of “hope,” use “will”; rather than saying you have “good” skills, show “mastery.” Although you should avoid sounding arrogant, by being assertive and direct, you will inspire confidence in your reader and ensure that you make a positive impression.

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