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30 Nov 2014, 14:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA Admissions Myths Destroyed: The Admissions Committee’s Glass Is 99% Empty! |
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“I was the first in my class to be promoted at McKinsey. I have a 710 GMAT score and completed Level 1 of the CFA exam, but I had a B- in calculus during my freshman year. Will that grade ruin my chances for admission?” “My company has been under a hiring and promotion freeze for the past three years, but during that time, I have earned pay increases and survived successive rounds of layoffs. Will the admissions committee accept someone who has not been promoted?” “I have been promoted, but my company changed names. Will the admissions committee think I am going somewhere at a sketchy company?” Although these questions may seem somewhat silly—the individuals’ strengths are obvious and their “weaknesses” comparatively innocuous—we get asked about scenarios like these every day. In short, we can assure you that your candidacy, even at vaunted schools like Harvard Business School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, is not rendered tenuous by such trivial “shortcomings.” Admissions officers do not consider you guilty until proven innocent, and they are not looking for trivial reasons to exclude you from contention. Many candidates have mythologized the “perfect” applicant and fear that any small area of concern means that they do not measure up to this myth—and thus that their candidacy is insufficient. Rather than fixating on small details that in truth are inconsequential, you should think about the big picture with respect to your overall competitiveness. |
01 Dec 2014, 09:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Monday Morning Essay Tip: Why You Should Show, Rather Than Tell |
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You may have heard the old journalistic maxim “Show, don’t tell,” which demands that writers truly illustrate the actions involved in an event or story rather than simply stating the results of what happened. Tell (results oriented): “I arrived at ABC Bank and took on a great deal of responsibility in corporate lending. I managed diverse clients in my first year and earned the recognition of my manager. Because of my hard work, initiative, and leadership, he placed me on the management track, and I knew that I would be a success in this challenging position.” In these three sentences, the reader is told that the applicant “took on a great deal of responsibility,” “managed diverse clients,” and “earned recognition,” though none of these claims are substantiated via the story. Further, we are given no real evidence of the writer’s “hard work, initiative, and leadership.” Show (action oriented): “Almost immediately after joining ABC bank, I took a risk in asking management for the accounts left behind by a recently transferred manager. I soon expanded our lending relationships with a children’s clothing retailer, a metal recycler, and a food distributor, making decisions on loans of up to $1M. Although I had a commercial banking background, I sought the mentorship of our district manager and studied aggressively for the CFA exam (before and after 14-hour days at the office); I was encouraged when the lending officer cited my initiative and desire to learn, placing me on our management track.” In this second example, we see evidence of the writer’s “great deal of responsibility” (client coverage, $1M lending decisions) and “diverse clients” (a children’s clothing retailer, a metal recycler, and a food distributor). Further, the candidate’s “hard work, initiative, and leadership” are clearly illustrated throughout. The second example paragraph is more interesting, rich, and humble—and more likely to captivate the reader. By showing your actions in detail, you ensure that your reader draws the desired conclusions about your skills and accomplishments, because the necessary facts are included to facilitate this. Essentially, facts become your evidence! |
02 Dec 2014, 09:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Mission Admission: Waitlist Strategies, Part 1 |
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Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. In recent weeks, many candidates have received a response from MBA admissions committees that can sometimes be far more frustrating than a rejection: “You have been placed on our waitlist.” So what should you do when your status is uncertain? The first and most important thing is to listen to the admissions committee. If the committee tells you not to send follow-up material of any sort, then do not yield to temptation and send material that you think will bolster your case. If you (misguidedly) choose to do so after being specifically instructed not to, you will most definitely identify yourself in a negative way—not the type of message you want to send to the group that will decide your fate. Does this rule have any exceptions? Yes, actually. If you know a current student or an alumnus/alumna who can tactfully, diplomatically, and independently work on your behalf, you can have this third party write a letter to or otherwise contact the admissions committee in support of your candidacy. But again, this is acceptable only if this individual truly understands the delicate nature of the interaction. If you have no such person on your side, you will have to wait patiently, as difficult as that may be. Next Week: Responding to admissions committees that do accept additional information. |
02 Dec 2014, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA Career Advice: Interviews are Not a Test |
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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. One of the most powerful things we learn as we go through interviews in our professional life is that perspective matters. The perspective you have will influence your attitude, your behavior, and your performance in an interview. Most people have the perspective that an interview is a test. They think of the interviewer as a judge or evaluator, scrutinizing their skills, strengths, weaknesses, character, and experiences and deciding whether they are worthy or good enough to proceed further. It is natural to think of an interview this way because, indeed, the outcome of an interview is either a pass to the next round or a rejection. But if you think about your own experience as a person in conversation with others, you will know that this perspective is not the whole story. Certainly, you will remember times that you judged others and evaluated them in a conversation. But, you will likely also remember times that you were disarmed by a story someone told and felt a strong connection to them as a person. For reasons you couldn’t quite explain, you thought: “I just like this guy (or girl)!!” That is because we are all human, and history and science have proven that human decision making is governed more by emotions than by rational or analytical thought processes. What this means is that an interview is not really a test. The interviewer will be influenced more by how he or she feels about you than by the content of what you say. So what if you adopted the perspective that the interview is just the first step in a new relationship? What if you thought of your interviewer as a future friend and colleague and the interview as the first conversation of many you will have with him or her throughout your career? Wouldn’t that make an interview a more interesting exchange? Wouldn’t it be more fun? Wouldn’t that make it easier for you to just relax and share yourself openly? And, wouldn’t that in turn engender more trust and affinity on the part of your interviewer? The thing about perspective is that it can never be right or wrong. It is a choice. If you choose to think of the interview as a test, you will have to deal with the consequences of that choice, including increased discomfort, performance anxiety and stress. But, if you choose to see it as the first step in a relationship with a friend, then you will likely treat it as the open dialogue and exchange of ideas it is truly meant to be. And – perhaps it goes without saying – make the important emotional connection more readily, leading to better results in the process. |
03 Dec 2014, 11:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Professor Profiles: Robert Pindyck, MIT Sloan School of Management |
Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand, but the educational experience itself 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 profile Robert Pindyck from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Robert Pindyck (“Industrial Economics for Strategic Decisions”) has won multiple teaching awards going back at least a dozen years, including an MIT Sloan Outstanding Teaching Award in both 1995 and 2005, the MIT Sloan Excellence in Teaching Award in 2002, and the school’s Teacher of the Year Award in 2007. Students and alumni with whom we spoke made note of his intense passion, which inspires his students to involve themselves ever more deeply into the material they are studying. An alumnus described Pindyck’s “tremendous authority,” which the professor balanced with “immense accessibility,” and a second-year teaching assistant in Pindyck’s “Industrial Economics” course noted in a January 2012 MIT Sloan Students Speak blog post that working with him was “a great learning experience.” For more information about the MIT Sloan School of Management and 15 other top-ranked MBA schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
03 Dec 2014, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: B-School Chart of the Week: Will You Visit Your Target School Before Applying? |
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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. We recently surveyed a number of visitors to our site to get a feel for the concerns, plans, and mind-sets of this season’s MBA applicants. Now the results are in, and for those who are curious about their fellow applicants’ views on business school, we will be sharing some of the collected data in our B-School Chart of the Week blog series. When we asked participants in our informal survey whether they planned to visit their target business school(s) before submitting an application this season, we were pleased to see that 64.1% of our survey takers responded “yes.” As we have regularly advised MBA hopefuls, visiting your selected programs can be an incredibly important and informative step in your application process. We even suggest that candidates visit more than once, if possible (and of course, be on their best behavior). Not only does making the trip show the admissions committee that you are serious about your candidacy and actively interested in the school, but it also allows you to better determine firsthand if the campus environment is right for you. 
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04 Dec 2014, 11:01
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: Financial Times Releases 2014 European Business School Rankings |
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Moving up two spots, the London School of Business now tops the Financial Times’ 2014 list of the best MBA programs in Europe—released November 30—unseating both HEC Paris and Spain’s IE Business School (which tied at number one in 2013). Esade Business School in Spain and France’s INSEAD placed fourth and fifth, respectively. The Financial Times 2014 European Business School Rankings compile results from the publication’s previous lists released throughout the year—including MBA, executive MBA (EMBA), masters in management, and executive education rankings. If you are interested in studying abroad, or simply want to learn more about MBA programs in Europe, view the full list on the Financial Times Web site. The publication’s top ten are as follows:
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04 Dec 2014, 15:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Beyond the MBA Classroom: The Indian School of Business Student Life Council |
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When you select an MBA program, you are not just choosing your learning environment, but are also making a commitment to a community. Each Thursday, we offer a window into life “beyond the MBA classroom” at a top business school. The Student Life Council is the catalyst for all social activity planning at the Indian School of Business (ISB), and as a former council director told mbaMission, “The campus has a very vibrant nightlife.” The group’s job is to ensure that ample social opportunities are available for students and their significant others, and one student with whom we spoke claimed that at least one major party is held each week in the “08 Lounge,” allowing students to get together, relax, and socialize. The Student Life Council also publishes the school’s annual yearbook and manages student participation in competitions between business schools, including those of the Toastmasters Club—many of which, claimed one student we interviewed, ISB students have won. The Student Life Council also organizes opportunities for students to explore the city of Hyderabad. Guided heritage walks to the old city and the markets of Charminar allow ISB-ers to learn more about the history of the area. Trips to Banjara and Jubilee Hills on weekends give students the chance to mix it up with Hyderabadis and sample the local nightlife. For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at the ISB and 15 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
04 Dec 2014, 18:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Diamonds in the Rough: Simon Graduate School of Business |
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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. The full-time MBA program at the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester offers a broadly finance-oriented general management curriculum featuring particular strengths in analytics and accounting. With the option of choosing either a traditional two-year MBA or an accelerated 18-month program, all Simon students begin with a management core rooted in three foundational skill sets: Frame, Analyze, and Communicate (known collectively as FACt). The core curriculum encompasses two different required course sequences—“Framing and Analyzing Business Problems” and “Communicating Business Decisions”—in addition to such courses as “Managerial Economics,” “Capital Budgeting and Corporate Objectives,” and “Economic Theory of Organizations.” Students complete their core with an assigned study team before exploring more specialized professional interests. The school’s elective courses represent a variety of industries and functions, such as entrepreneurship, consulting, and real estate. Students may choose among 15 optional career concentrations, ranging from Competitive and Organizational Strategy (which includes a more specialized Pricing track) and Marketing (which includes both a Brand Management and a Pricing track), to such analysis-heavy fields as Business Systems Consulting and Computers and Information Systems. Simon’s Center for Entrepreneurship, Center for Information Intensive Services, and Center for Pricing offer curricular and research support to supplement the specific career concentrations. Simon is also home to more than 20 professional and social student-run organizations aimed at coordinating networking events and professional development resources to assist students in advancing their careers. |
05 Dec 2014, 11:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: Stanford GSB Tops Poets & Quants 2014 Best B-Schools List |
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Last week, Poets & Quants released its 2014 composite list of the top 100 MBA programs in the United States. In a big change this year, the Stanford Graduate School of Business replaced Harvard Business School in the top spot for the first time since the list’s 2010 debut. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Chicago Booth, and Columbia Business School also appear in the top five, with Wharton surpassing Chicago Booth for the first time in several years. Making the most significant positive shift of any program ranked, the Yale School of Management jumped five places to land at number 12—its best placement yet. The Poets & Quants list synthesizes results from the latest rankings released by U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, the Financial Times, and The Economist. Click here to access the full list. Poets & Quants 2014 Top 20 U.S. MBA Programs
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05 Dec 2014, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Friday Factoid: Chicago Booth for Marketing |
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You may be surprised to know that Chicago Booth is making inroads into an area that its crosstown rival (Kellogg) is known to dominate: marketing. Through the James M. Kilts Center—named for the Chicago Booth alumnus who was formerly CEO of Gillette and Nabisco (and is now chair of A.C. Nielsen)—Chicago Booth offers students roughly a dozen marketing electives. In particular, the school is growing its experiential opportunities in the marketing field, with students recently taking part in marketing management labs (semester-long consulting projects) at Abbott, Barclays, and Honeywell. Further, professors in the department saw opportunities for increased practical involvement and created “hybrid” classes in “Marketing Research” and “Consumer Behavior” that involve a lecture component but also allow students to work on shorter-term consulting projects. Students can also sign up to be paired with an alumni marketing mentor or participate in “day-at” visits to major marketing firms and companies such as PepsiCo, Wrigley, and Kraft. Although Kellogg’s reputation for excellence in marketing is firmly intact, we have to assume that the folks in Evanston are occasionally glancing over their shoulders to see if Chicago Booth is gaining any more ground. For a thorough exploration of what Chicago Booth and 15 other top business schools have to offer, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides series. |
06 Dec 2014, 13:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: GMAT Impact: “Complete the Passage” Critical Reasoning Arguments |
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With regard to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this weekly blog series, Manhattan GMAT’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense. Have you run across any “fill in the blank” Critical Reasoning (CR) questions yet? These arguments end with a long, straight line, and we are supposed to pick an answer choice that fills in that blank. Try this example from the free question set that comes with GMATPrep: Which of the following best completes the passage below? People buy prestige when they buy a premium product. They want to be associated with something special. Mass-marketing techniques and price reduction strategies should not be used because ________________. (A) affluent purchasers currently represent a shrinking portion of the population of all purchasers (B) continued sales depend directly on the maintenance of an aura of exclusivity (C) purchasers of premium products are concerned with the quality as well as with the price of the products (D) expansion of the market niche to include a broader spectrum of consumers will increase profits (E) manufacturing a premium brand is not necessarily more costly than manufacturing a standard brand of the same product Officially, these are called “Complete the Passage” arguments. The interesting tidbit: they are not a separate question type! These questions fall into one of the same categories you have been studying all along; the format is just presented in this “fill in the blank” format. Most of the time, these are actually Strengthen questions. Every now and then, you will encounter a Find the Assumption question in this format. The real trick here is to determine the question type. If the word right before the underline is because or since (or something equivalent), then the question you are dealing with is a Strengthen question. If the argument is set up to ask you to insert a piece of information that would support the conclusion of the argument, that is a Strengthen question. The only real variation I have seen is when the sentence leading up to the blank asks what must be true or what must be shown. In those cases, you probably have a Find the Assumption question. Want to know how to do the GMATPrep question presented earlier in this post? I am so glad you asked! Take a look at this full article that explains how to do the question and takes you through the standard four-step process for all CR questions. The article on the Manhattan GMAT blog is the first in a three-part series on CR; click the link at the end to read the second part, and so on. * GMATPrep questions are used courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Use of this question does not imply endorsement by GMAC. |
07 Dec 2014, 15:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA Admissions Myths Destroyed: They Just Do Not Take the GRE Seriously! |
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A recurring theme in our admissions myths series is that applicants should never think that admissions officers are trying to trick them. Many candidates worry that admissions officers say one thing but really mean another. As a result, they assume that their interviews are worthless—that they essentially “don’t count”—unless they are conducted by someone from the admissions office, or that they need to know a highly placed alumnus/alumna from their target school to be admitted, or that they need to pander to a school’s stereotypes to get in. These days, another common myth is that schools take the GMAT far more seriously than the GRE, so the GRE is therefore of dubious value. We think we can destroy this myth with a few simple rhetorical/logical questions: Why would an admissions committee encourage you to take a test that it would not then consider seriously? Why would a committee disenfranchise applicants who take the GRE, when one of the primary purposes of accepting the GRE is to expand the applicant pool? Why would admissions officers waste precious time devising and propagating such a devious scheme? They no doubt have more important things to do. “The exam itself is less important than your performance on that exam relative to your peers,” explained Dan Gonzalez, the president of Manhattan Prep. “Think less about which exam schools want you to take and more about which exam will give you the best shot at showing off your skills. The GMAT and the GRE are quite different—take some time to learn about these differences before making your decision.” So if you are considering taking the GRE—because you want to keep your options open for grad school or just because you think the test plays to your strengths—you should first check to see whether your target schools accept the test. Next, if they do, you should study hard and… take the GRE! |
09 Dec 2014, 10:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA Career Advice: Prepare for the Unexpected |
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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. As we have discussed, surprises in interviews are inevitable. There is the curve ball thought provoker we talked about on the MBA Career Coaches blog, which you truly can’t prepare for. The best you can do is stay focused in the moment and think it through. But what about unexpected questions about you? You know, those tricky ones that somehow didn’t make it onto your list of likely questions to prepare, such as:
So, before you go in for interviews, spend some time reflecting on your experiences. Begin with the resume, but don’t just read it. Stop and remember your actual experiences. So you built a model that saved your client $10,000, what was challenging about that experience? Where did you get the data? How did you reason through your assumptions? Did anyone help you? Did anyone stand in your way? Try to remember the details as though you were a fly on the wall – what did you see and hear? Then go beyond your resume and continue exploring the details of your experiences. Consider your hobbies, your community service, even your friendships and family relationships. You will be surprised how much more confident you will be fielding these off the wall questions when the rich details of your experience are top of mind. |
09 Dec 2014, 17:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Mission Admission: Waitlist Strategies, Part 2 |
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Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. Last week, we focused on how waitlisted MBA candidates should respond when their target school asks them to not send any follow-up information. This week, we examine waitlist situations in which the school encourages applicants to provide updates on their progress. In the first scenario, the frustration candidates experience derives from a sense of helplessness, but in the second, candidates tend to lament the lack of time in which to have accomplished anything significant, often thinking, “What can I offer the MBA admissions committee as an update? I submitted my application only three months ago!” First and foremost, if you have worked to target any weaknesses in your candidacy—for example, by retaking the GMAT and increasing your score, or by taking a supplemental math class and earning an A grade—the MBA admissions committee will certainly want to hear about this. Further, if you have any concrete news regarding promotions or the assumption of additional responsibilities in the community sphere, be sure to update the MBA admissions committee on this news as well. Even if you do not have these sorts of quantifiable accomplishments to report, you should still have some news to share. If you have undertaken any additional networking or have completed a class visit since you submitted your application, you can discuss your continued (or increased) interest. (When you are on a waitlist, the admissions committee wants to know that you are passionately committed to the school.) And if you have not been promoted, you could creatively reflect on a new project that you have started working on and identify the professional skills/exposure that this project is providing or has provided (for example, managing people off-site for the first time or executing with greater independence). Finally, the personal realm is not off limits, so feel free to discuss any personal accomplishments—from advancing in the study of a language to visiting a new country to completing a marathon (just as examples). With some thought and creativity, you should be able to draft a concise but powerful letter that conveys your continued professional and personal growth while expressing your sincere and growing interest in the school—all of which will fulfill your goal of increasing your chances of gaining admission. |
10 Dec 2014, 12:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Dean Profiles: Paul Danos, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth |
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Business school deans are more than administrative figureheads. Their character and leadership is often reflective of an MBA program’s unique culture and sense of community. Each month, we will be profiling the dean of a top-ranking program. Today, we focus on Paul Danos from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Paul Danos has served as Tuck’s dean since 1995, making his tenure one of the longest among the deans at the top-ranked business schools. His previous appointments at Tuck have included associate dean, director of the Paton Accounting Center, and the Arthur Andersen & Company Professor of Accounting. Danos is also considered an authority on business school administration, serving as the chairman of the trustees of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management and having previously served on advisory boards for the University of Notre Dame College of Business Administration, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the Graduate Rassias Foundation Board of Overseers, and the LEAD Council of Deans. Danos has overseen a number of strategic changes to Tuck’s curriculum during his deanship. One development, enacted as part of Tuck 2012—the school’s strategic plan—has been the inclusion of a mandatory mini course in the area of ethics/social responsibility. A September 2010 feature in Tuck Today titled “The Road Ahead” notes that the school’s inclusion of an ethical component was not in reaction to the 2008 financial crisis and was in fact under way a year prior. In a February 2012 U.S. News & World Report article, Danos explained that business education requires a more holistic reevaluation of pedagogy in the wake of the financial crises, stating, “No matter who is ultimately to blame, lessons for anyone who purports to be educating leaders abound, and because so many of the bankers involved had MBA degrees, business schools must analyze the whole series of causes and effects, and try to draw conclusions about appropriate modifications to their own programs.” Consequently, in addition to requiring that students complete a mini course in ethics and social responsibility, Tuck introduced its research-to-practice seminar format, which integrates faculty research, an intimate class size (fewer than 20 students) and an emphasis on critical analysis. This integrated approach embodies what the aforementioned Tuck Today article refers to as “the Danos Doctrine—a recognition that an increasingly complex business world demands more varied and different skills of its leaders.” Earlier this year, Danos announced that he would step down from his role as dean after the completion of his fifth term in June 2015. |
10 Dec 2014, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: B-School Chart of the Week: Which School Do You Think Is Best? |
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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. We recently surveyed a number of visitors to our site to get a feel for the concerns, plans, and mind-sets of this season’s MBA applicants. Now the results are in, and for those who are curious about their fellow applicants’ views on business school, we will be sharing some of the collected data in our B-School Chart of the Week blog series. Like thousands of MBA candidates each year, we at mbaMission keep our eyes on the business school rankings and are always interested to see how different schools shift positions over time. We were curious, though, as to how this season’s applicants would rate the various schools, so we asked visitors to our site, “In your opinion, which MBA program is the best one in the United States?” We were largely unsurprised to see the majority of participants select the Stanford Graduate School of Business (41.0%), with Harvard Business School claiming the second highest percentage of responses—35.9%. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School received the third most votes, though its percentage was markedly lower than that of the top two schools at only 7.7%, and New York University’s Stern—at fourth—garnered just 5.6% of the responses. Kellogg, MIT Sloan, UC-Berkeley Haas, and the Mays Business School at Texas A&M drew a little love from our survey participants, with each accounting for 2.6% of the votes. To learn more about these and other top U.S. business schools, consult the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. 
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12 Dec 2014, 11:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: The Third Round: Not So Foreboding After All? |
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Today’s MBA applicants generally accept that most—if not all—admissions-related “action” tends to occur during the first two rounds of application submissions, with Round 1 ending in September/October and Round 2 in January. However, as we have long told candidates, Round 3 is not some kind of practical joke the admissions committees perpetrate on hapless applicants. The top MBA programs would not have a third round if they were not willing and prepared to accept more applicants during that time frame. Why waste their limited resources reviewing candidates they could not accept? Now the Wall Street Journal has corroborated what we have been saying for years (“B-Schools Embrace Last-Minute Applicants”), with a number of MBA admissions directors substantiating the message. The managing director of MBA admissions and financial aid at Harvard Business School, Dee Leopold, told the Journal, “We actually enjoy round three. … It takes a certain amount of confidence to apply then. Those applicants march to their own drum, and we would never want to miss them.” Meanwhile, Liz Riley Hargrove, the associate dean for admissions at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, declared, “Once upon a time, the later rounds of admissions were viewed as candidates who were denied from other business schools,” adding, “That’s not the case at Fuqua anymore.” Meanwhile, Ann Richards, who is the interim director of admissions and the director of financial aid at the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University, permitted that Round 3 can be an acceptable option but emphasized that she wants applicants to explain why they have chosen that round. “We have really vivid imaginations,” she said. “We don’t want to imagine that you just got out of jail and that’s why you’re applying.” So, which applicants tend to be successful in the third/final round? Typically, schools accept Round 3 candidates who are underrepresented—but what does that mean, exactly? Essentially, the schools want well-rounded incoming classes that include a variety of backgrounds and experiences. The MBA programs probably have no shortage of white, male management consultants in their applicant pool, so if this describes you, you could have a more difficult time capturing the admissions committee’s attention. However, if you can offer something a little more singular or special—for example, you worked on an oil rig in Siberia, launched a nonprofit in Detroit, completed military duty in Afghanistan, or finalized your research into a new Parkinson’s drug—your chances of standing out to the admissions committee will likely be much higher. In short, if you can contribute something truly unique to the school, then you are admissible, regardless of the round in which you apply; you should therefore proceed with confidence. If you are unsure whether you represent something truly unique, consider taking advantage of ourfree 30-minute consultation to find out. |
12 Dec 2014, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Friday Factoid: The Harper Center at Chicago Booth |
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Designed by world-renowned architect Rafael Vinoly and completed in 2004 at a cost of $125M, the Charles M. Harper Center houses Chicago Booth’s full-time MBA program. The Harper Center’s Winter Garden—a towering atrium with six-story, glass Gothic arches—is at the heart of the building and serves as a central place where students can study, socialize, and hold club meetings. With over 400,000 square feet of space, 12 classrooms (on the downstairs “classroom level”), offices for the entire administration and faculty (on the third, fourth, and fifth floors, known as the “faculty floors”), 31 group study rooms, a 3,500 square foot student lounge, and a 150-person café, the Harper Center helps shape Chicago Booth’s community and is part of the school’s bold new identity. For more information on the defining characteristics of the MBA program at Chicago Booth or one of 15 other top business schools, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
13 Dec 2014, 13:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: GMAT Impact: The Master Resource List for Reading Comprehension (Part 1 of 4) |
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With regard to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this blog series, Manhattan GMAT’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense. The Pep Talk So, let me get this straight. The GMAT test writers are going to give me somewhat obscure, very dense topics with very complicated ideas and sentence structures. I am going to have approximately three minutes to read this passage, and then I have to start answering questions about the material. That is a completely artificial setup; it would never happen in the real world! Actually, yes it will. You are going to do lots of case studies in business school. You often will not be given enough time to read through every last detail carefully; instead, you will have to determine relative levels of importance and concentrate on the most crucial pieces, while putting together a framework for the main ideas and the big changes in direction or opinion. At work, you often have to make decisions based on incomplete information. At times, you actually do have a ton of information—but not enough time to review it all before you have to take action. These situations are far from rare in the real world. So when you find yourself a bit unmotivated because you know you have got to study boring Reading Comprehension (RC) today, remind yourself that RC will actually help you develop much-needed skills for business school and beyond! The Disclaimers First, this list includes only free resources, no paid ones. Second, this list is limited to my own articles simply because I am most familiar with my own material. A lot of good resources are out there that cost some money and/or were not written by me—those resources are just not on this list! How to Read Before you dive into individual question types, you must know some overall processes for RC, starting with how to read! You already know how to read in general, of course, but do you know How to Read RC? You will notice that the article linked to in the previous paragraph discusses not only what to read but also what not to read. When you have only a few minutes, you also need to know what you can skip or skim (and how to make that decision). For more, check out this lesson on What Not to Read. If, after trying the suggestions from this second article, you still find yourself really struggling with either reading speed or comprehension, here are some resources to help you Improve Your Reading Skills. This article is especially important for people who do not read regularly in English, either for work or for fun; this is particularly true if your native language is not English and you did your undergraduate studies in another language. Finally, one of our two main goals when first reading a passage is to Find the Main Point. (The other main goal is to take some light notes on each paragraph to understand the organization of the information.) When you have mastered those skills, you will be ready to learn how to tackle the questions. Check back next week to learn how! |
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Hi Generic [Bot],
Here are updates for you:
ANNOUNCEMENTS
 Wednesday, Apr 24, 2024 11:30am NY / 3:30pm London / 9pm Mumbai Watch earlier episodes of DI series below EP1: 6 Hardest Two-Part Analysis Questions EP2: 5 Hardest Graphical Interpretation Questions
Tuck at Dartmouth
AGSM at UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
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