Calling All 2010 Applicants / Bschool visits (Merged)

I am applying for the fall 2010 as well. I took a few days off visited couple of schools. I think it really makes a difference. It is very beneficial for you to learn about the school and see which one you will fit in.

I am hoping to visit as many school as my schedule permits, during the school days of course, especially the schools usually were to considered by other applicants to be safety/backup schools.

Fall 2010 applicant here.

One method I am considering is to talk to some of the officers of the clubs that I am interested in. They can provide a point of view on some common interests.

Alternatively, I'd suggest attending the school events hosted in your local city. Sometimes they are students, and other times adcoms.

Like Billyjeans said, visiting as many schools as possible (now) is a good idea. The fact that you visit the campus can be significant for some schools. The question can come up during the bschool interview or even while you are writing your essays. (For example, the "fit" essay will be whole lot easier if you actually visited the school and interacted with faculty, students etc)

Is this becoming the unofficial Fall 2010 Applicants thread??


Fall 2010 Applicants: (3)
Billyjeans
Ancientmtk
unhedged

Make that 4

UPDATED

Fall 2010 Applicants: (4)
Billyjeans
Ancientmtk
unhedged
pbanavara

I am a potential Fall 2010 or 2011.

These are several schools that have Fridays as visit days. For instance, some of the Booth's live days are on Fridays, making it easier to miss only one day of work.

Also, take advantage of the weekend to visit the city and see if you can see yourself being content in that area, not just for the two years during school, but eventually post MBA since you could end up in that general area.

I used this forum and the MBA books to form a list of questions before the visit, and then answered most of them from online information. Then the questions left over were more school visit specific, which is truly the reason why your visiting the schools.

If you can not miss Fridays, I suggest visiting on the weekends, and trying to email certain students working at the admissions office, to see if they can provide feedback, or if they could direct your emails to specific groups. In the end, you want insider information that you can use for your essays. Visiting the campus is good to get a good general feel, but information that distinguishes one school from the other is key when your writing essays on how you see that "X" school fit for your post MBA goals.

Each school is different, and finding out why "X" school fits for you is essential for your essays. Hope I didn't ramble too much.

I think that visiting schools is a huge benefit if at all possible to do. From your perspective you get a lot more first-hand knowledge than any book or website can give you, which you can use to demonstrate 'fit'. From the school's perspective, it's a great way to gauge the seriousness of an applicant's intent to attend, especially at schools which are frequently seen as 'safety schools' for applicants to the ultra-elite programs.

That said, if you're living on the other side of the planet, I'm sure adcoms don't say "well he didn't fly over from Hong Kong to visit, so he must not be interested in the school." While you should make every effort to visit campus, if your circumstances don't allow you to visit, don't sweat it. Talk to current students by contacting club officers in areas you're interested in. If the school is holding an admissions event in your city, attend that. There are plenty of ways to learn about the school and demonstrate interest without a visit, if one is not possible.

Does anybody have concrete knowledge about what value schools place on visits? I say this because I live in Europe and my job is such that I am rarely able to return to the US. How much of a "tick in the box" are these things?

I am thinking of visiting a few elites this summer, but obviously class will be out - will that even be worth it? Is that considered a "lesser visit"? I will be in Afghanistan this September, so any chance of getting a class visit before Round 1 deadlines is out. I've reached out to a few students at all the schools I am looking at (happen to know a few from their former careers).

I'm really just curious if this is some hidden "essential" for an application. The schools all say they really dont matter - any thoughts?

I would say it helps you if you're able to get there. MIT was my favorite on paper, but when I visited I didn't like it and I'm not even going to apply this fall. As far as apps, I think at most places it probably doesn't matter if you visit if you've shown enough interest that you're able to convey that in your essays. Certainly if you have to cross any oceans to get here they won't hold it against you.
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I think visiting is a great idea. The adcom likes to have a face to put with a name. Plus, it shows that you're really interested. Unless you're an absolute cretin you should really visit every school you are seriously interested in.

For example, I applied to law school back in 2004. I was accepted but chose a different school. Several years later I spoke to a friend of mine Krista, a 3L attending the school I turned down, and asked Krista if so an so still worked in admissions. She said yes. Since Krista worked in the admissions office I told her to ask this admissions officer if she remembered me.

My friend told me that she was blown away because the admissions officer immediately remembered me! She commented on my unique background, how nice I was to her and how outgoing I was! Krista said I must have made a great impression on this admissions officer.

As J. Walter Weatherman would always say:

"And that's why you always visit the schools."

Franklin Delano Bluth

highly recommended to take a few days off work and hit up a bunch of schools at the same time. Nothing beats seeing a school in person versus reading about them on paper. You will be surprised by how different the culture and students are at each school, even though on paper they sound the same.

Let me know if you're coming to Berkeley. Our class visits end 5/7, so you will need to hurry if you want to hit us this semester. Classes start up again end of August, and you can visit again in September too.

Good luck!

It all depends on the school. For example, Wharton and Harvard have both come out and said "A school visit has ZERO impact on your application".

Other schools such as Tuck and Duke don't care so much about visiting the school, but they do put a lot of emphasis on coming to campus to interview (both schools interview all applicants). Duke basically says "Unless you live on the west coast, you better come and interview".

That said, if you are an international applicant, the expectation to come and visit or even do an on-site interview is pretty much non-existent. Tuck has a space in their app were you can explain why you didn't come and interview on campus. Living overseas is a more than adequate excuse.

for those schools that do care if you come and visit (Ross comes to mind), I think the closer you are to the school, the worse it looks if you don't come and visit.

RF

Haas' official stance is that your visit will not impact your application. BUT, you do have to demonstrate (in a short essay) what steps you took to learn about our school. Since the Haas culture is so important to all the students here, we want to make sure that you know what the culture is like and whether you will fit in with that culture. Plus, the students here are uber-friendly and you can learn a lot of tips for your applications by talking to many of us.

This may be a little early in the game, but are there any 2010 applicants out there? Doesn't matter what stats or school. I thought it would be nice to start up the 2010 community and get to know some names. Thanks.

Sweet! Nice to meet you all. Hope everyone here will have a successful year : )

Yes, I'm in for 2010 (applying this fall, matriculating 2010)!

Applying this fall as well! Pleasure to meet you all. Perhaps we should start a profile thread for Fall 2010 applicants...

UPDATED

Fall 2010 Applicants: (8)
Billyjeans
Ancientmtk
unhedged
pbanavara
GMATagogo
89nk
ElleBee
Triple5Soul

I couldn't more strongly recommend visiting the schools. I visited every school I applied to, which had a huge impact on my perception of those schools. Gave me a much better sense for which schools I preferred and helped tremendously when writing application essays. Also gives you a great opportunity to meet fellow applicants, which can be helpful as you navigate the application process. I visited during the fall and took time off from work to do so. If I had to do it over again, I'd visit much earlier - ideally during the summer.