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12 Dec 2013, 10:30
12 Dec 2013, 11:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Professor Profiles: George Geis, UCLA Anderson School of Management |
Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they choose an MBA program to attend, but the educational experience itself 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 George Geis at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. George T. Geis (“Entrepreneurship and Venture Initiation”) has been voted Outstanding Teacher of the Year four times while at Anderson and currently serves as faculty director of the school’s Executive Mergers and Acquisitions Program. Geis is also the editor of a Web site that provides analysis of mergers and acquisitions deals in technology, media and communications (www.trivergence.com) and writes a mergers and acquisitions blog (https://maprofessor.blogspot.com). One recent alumnus described him to mbaMission as an experienced investor and a funny and credible guy. He added that he had very much enjoyed the guest speakers Geis brought to class, as well as the strategic analysis of the board game industry, covered in a case discussion about the game Trivial Pursuit. In 2012, Geis received a teaching excellence award in the full-time MBA program, as voted on by second years. For more information about the UCLA Anderson School of Management and 15 other top-ranked MBA schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
12 Dec 2013, 11:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: B-School Chart of the Week: November 2013 Social Currency Ranking |
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Rankings come in all shapes and sizes, but can any ranking truly capture social cachet? For a different perspective on the value of an MBA, we turn to the New York Times society pages, where the editors select and profile promising couples. Each month, we dedicate one B-School Chart of the Week to tallying how alumni from top-ranked business schools are advancing their social currency ranking. Colder weather and holiday travel seem to have brought about a lull in New York Times wedding announcements for November. Still, out of the 124 total announcements last month, 19 included a business school mention. Several weddings featured MBA students specifically. For example, Nicholas Tangney, who is a managing director for Lorentzen & Stemoco and is currently studying for his MBA at NYU, was married to Samantha Lee, a vice president and account manager for consumer products clients at DeVries Global. Similarly, Tracy Messel, a student at HBS, married Steven Melzer, the director of finance and operations strategy at Expeditionary Learning. Morgan Fauth, a first year at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business who married research analyst Kevin Coleman, was also featured among the wedding announcements. Notably, Dartmouth Tuck, which has as-yet kept a rather low profile in the society pages, gained two mentions last month, raising its year-to-date total from five to seven: the marriage of alumnus and strategy consultant Andrew Brown to Caroline Hockmeyer, and the marriage of alumna and merchandise planning manager Anne Snodgrass to Wharton MBA Zachary Dennett. Another notable November announcement, though not technically an MBA wedding, was that of Ira Millstein, an adjunct professor and co-chairman of the Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership at Columbia Business School, to former stock trader Susan Frame. Millstein is also a senior partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges and the former chairman of both the Central Park Conservancy and the American Red Cross of Greater New York. With a total of approximately 1,284 wedding announcements since January, our year-to-date total of MBA mentions hits 260 this month. 
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12 Dec 2013, 13:00
| 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 the council’s 2010–2011 director told mbaMission, “The campus has a very vibrant nightlife.” The council’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 night life. 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. |
12 Dec 2013, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Diamonds in the Rough: Rotman School of Management for Finance |
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One of Canada’s top-ranked business schools for finance will soon benefit from the leadership of a foremost figure in the nation’s financial sector. Following Dean Roger Martin’s departure last year, the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management has announced that Tiff Macklem, currently the senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, will take over a five-year term as dean beginning July 2014. Rotman, which places 11th in Bloomberg Businessweek’s latest ranking of full-time MBA programs and first among Canadian programs ranked by the Financial Times, underwent significant growth under Martin’s deanship, both in terms of campus size and endowment. Macklem’s appointment as dean may suggest a continued rise in Rotman’s academic profile and its reputation for financial education. “He has vast experience managing large institutions, translating academic research into public policy, and representing Canada on the world stage,” stated the university’s vice president and provost. In addition to its finance-related strengths, Rotman offers a rather unique approach to core business pedagogy. Relying on what it terms “integrative thinking,” Rotman’s teaching model challenges the compartmentalization of traditional functional areas. Students complete a series of core courses in their first year that emphasize generalized business skills and the ability to think across functional disciplines. In their second year, they are given the option to choose from among ten different major areas, while supplementing their focus with a broader array of elective courses. |
13 Dec 2013, 13:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Friday Factoid: See the World on an M-Trek at Michigan Ross |
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For incoming first-year students at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business who are looking to get a head start on building friendships within their class or wanting to make use of some time off before school starts, the M-Trek program may be just the answer. M-Treks, which were first offered in 1999, are small-group, multiday, outdoor adventure trips that take place before the academic year begins. Organized in locations around the world, the trips are entirely student led (by second-year MBA students) and are designed to provide a team-based environment similar to that found at Ross and to promote leadership in a team setting. M-Treks look to be as inclusive as possible—trips are available to suit a wide variety of interests and thus range from hard-core adventure to relaxing sightseeing excursions. Trips in 2012 included “Hold Me Closer Thai-ny Dancer,” for which students visited Bangkok’s Floating Market, the rainforest in Krabi, and the beaches in Phuket; “It’s Not the Greeks’ Default: We Are Here to Party,” which included visits to Athens and to the islands of Ios and Santorini; and a trip to Indonesia called “Balinesia: Eat, Play, Ross.” M-Treks in 2011 included “Diamonds Are Forever,” a trek through eight cities in North America to visit the oldest, most legendary ballparks as well as the new classic ones; “It takes YOU to Tango,” which took participants throughout Argentina, from a bike tour of Buenos Aires to a cattle ranch to Iguassu Falls National Park; and “License to Kill” to Tanzania, where participants spent seven days scaling the fourth highest mountain in the world, and then enjoyed a two-day safari to Ngorongoro Crater, a UNESCO World Heritage site that has often been called “Africa Eden” because of the area’s incredible biodiversity. So, whether you are interested in hiking and rafting in Iceland or beaching and snorkeling in Mexico, M-Treks provide a chance to build friendships and develop leadership skills while having a great time. For more information on other defining characteristics of the MBA program at Michigan Ross or one of 15 other top business schools, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
14 Dec 2013, 15:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: GMAT Impact: “Complete the Passage” Critical Reasoning Arguments |
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When it comes 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 that you have been studying all along; the format is just presented in this “fill in the blank” manner. Most of the time, these are actually Strengthen questions. Every now and then, you will see 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 this 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, then this 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, above? I’m so glad you asked! Take a look at this full article that explains how to do the question and also takes you through the standard 4-step process for all CR questions. The article on the Manhattan GMAT blog is the first in a 3-part series on CR; click the link at the end to read the second part, and so on. * GMATPrep questions courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Usage of this question does not imply endorsement by GMAC. |
16 Dec 2013, 10:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Monday Morning Essay Tip: Start with Your Strongest Accomplishments |
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When preparing personal statements that require significant information about career progress (for Chicago Booth, Kellogg or Wharton, for example), many applicants choose to discuss their accomplishments in chronological order. Although the simplicity of this approach makes it attractive, we encourage you to consider an alternative—showcasing more recent and thus potentially stronger accomplishments first. By choosing this latter approach, you may capture your reader’s imagination more quickly and reduce the risk of being lost amid similar candidates. Consider the examples of a software analyst who is now a project manager, managing a budget and leading a team of 20 programmers, and of an investment banking analyst who is now in his/her third year with a company and has been sent abroad to work directly with a CFO: The Project Manager: Chronological: “Joining ABC Technology as a software programmer, I…” Reverse: “Scrutinizing my plan one last time, I waited to present my team’s $3.7M proposal to our client…” The Investment Banker: Chronological: “As an investment banking analyst at Deutsche Bank, I started…” Reverse: “Arriving in Taipei, I was admittedly nervous to finally meet the CFO of XYZ Co. and lead my firm’s due diligence process…” In these examples, the candidates immediately present their standout accomplishments and thrust the reader into the excitement of their stories. Although this kind of reverse introduction is not “all purpose,” it can be a feasible option in many circumstances. Still, in choosing this approach, the candidate must also be able to fluidly return to earlier moments in his/her career later in the essay—a task that requires creativity and skill. |
17 Dec 2013, 14:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Mission Admission: Choosing “Safe” Recommenders |
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Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. Given that you have significant time still before next year’s first-round application deadlines, you have the opportunity now to take some extra steps to ensure you submit your strongest applications possible. One such step is doing some background work on your recommenders to make sure your choices are indeed “safe.” After all, if you are playing by the strictest interpretation of the rules of recommendations, you will not know what your recommenders ultimately write about you. So, by doing a little intelligence work in advance, you can better understand whether you are making the right choice, before you commit to a certain individual. By doing some “intelligence,” we mean, where possible, contacting past colleagues in a discreet and diplomatic way to find out what their experiences were like with your potential recommender. For example, was your potential recommender a generous advocate or was he/she a disinterested third party who had a tendency to be harsh? Clearly, learning more about your target recommender’s approach in advance can help you understand whether or not you should offer him/her this important responsibility. Past colleagues can also guide you in how best to manage your recommenders, which can be just as important as choosing them. Knowing up front that your recommender is a procrastinator or performed better after being given a list of accomplishments from which to work can help ensure the best letter possible and can prevent you from inadvertently antagonizing your recommender or delaying the process. |
18 Dec 2013, 12:30
| 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, currently 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 recent 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, unlike at many other business schools, Tuck’s inclusion of an ethical component was not in reaction to the 2008 financial crisis and was in fact under way a year prior. Further, Danos argues that a lack of ethical education was not a driving factor behind the crisis but rather that financial leaders had too limited a scope of ethical responsibility and lacked the critical and analytical tools to confront the problem, stating, “The lesson you learn is that it takes more than what I would call conventional ethics to be a responsible leader.” In a February 2012 U.S. News & World Report article, Danos explains 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.” |
18 Dec 2013, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: B-School Chart of the Week: What Are You Most Looking Forward to About Business School? |
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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 asked aspiring MBAs to answer a variety of survey questions about their business school prospects and perspectives. 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. We heard from 94 MBA applicants—68 U.S. candidates and 26 international—on the topic of “What are you most looking forward to about business school?” The most common responses we received could be organized into three general categories: “networking/making new friends and connections,” which accounted for the majority of responses both overall and among international candidates specifically; “learning and improving skills,” which was the most common among U.S. applicants; and—not surprisingly, perhaps—“career change or progression.” Despite the rather commonsense perception that business school is mainly about getting a new job or advancing your status in the career you already have, this latter category ranked third among the three, both overall and in each candidate group individually (discounting the “other” responses). In fact, only one international applicant (compared with ten U.S. ones) gave a response that fell into the “career change” category. Approximately 18% of the responses did not fit into any of the three top categories (“other”) and included comments such as “time off,” “global exposure,” “being able to participate in start-up competitions” and even “more free food at events.” 
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19 Dec 2013, 12:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Beyond the MBA Classroom: The HBS Show |
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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. First presented in 1974, the HBS Show is a popular student-run comedy production that follows in the tradition of Harvard College’s Hasty Pudding Show and Harvard Law School’s Parody. This extremely well-attended show is a major production that pokes fun at life at HBS, incorporating joking—but good-natured—references to case protagonists, professors, administrators, and the recruiting process. A spouse of one HBS student who helped organize the 2012 production wrote in her blog, “It was a great outlet for business school students to roast their own school—the whole performance was based on The Godfather but with a zillion HBS inside jokes thrown in.” Featured among the HBS Show film productions in 2013 was a parody of Mean Girls titled “Mean Boys & Girls,” which depicted humorous “cliques” of business school students. For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at HBS and 15 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
19 Dec 2013, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Diamonds in the Rough: Ohio State’s Fisher College 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. Despite the size of its parent institution, the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University boasts a relatively intimate classroom experience—with approximately 150 students in each incoming full-time MBA cohort—and a close-knit community. Fisher students consequently benefit from the school’s wider university network (over 500,000 alumni in more than 150 countries) and its proximity to major companies based both in Columbus and throughout the Midwest. Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Fisher 27th in its list of top MBA programs in 2012, rising from 32nd place in 2011. The Fisher curriculum consists of a core sequence spanning the first year of the program, and offers three distinct categories of business education: Academic Preparation & Fundamentals; Ethics, Leadership & Professional Development; and Career Management Introduction. With eight disciplines in which students can choose to major (including a “Make Your Own Major” option), Fisher also features four career tracks aimed at developing cross-disciplinary expertise. In addition to being able to create their own custom track, students can choose between Enterprise Sustainability, Entrepreneurship and New Business Ventures, Health Care Management and Real Estate Management. Starting in the final term of their first year, students are able to take Flex Core and elective courses that count toward their major. A particularly noteworthy highlight of Fisher’s MBA curriculum is its experiential Leadership & Professional Development program (LPD), which spans the full two years. The first program of its kind to be offered at a business school, LPD begins with a compulsory two-week pre-term immersion course in which students attend workshops, bond with teammates, perform mock-interviews and develop their professional development goals. During the course of the academic year, the LPD program organizes various workshops and assessments—in addition to connecting students with corporate mentors who offer career guidance and networking opportunities. Also among the LPD offerings is a speaker series that in recent years has included such business leaders as the president/CEO of Victoria’s Secret, the president/CEO of the Timken Company, and the founder/CEO of Quantum Health. |
20 Dec 2013, 13:00
| 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 taking part in marketing management labs (semester-long consulting projects) recently 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. |
20 Dec 2013, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: HBS MBAs launch a Platform for Small Businesses to hire MBAs |
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Thanks to a group of four entrepreneurial Harvard Business School students, those with MBAs and a passion for small business may now find it easier to secure freelance alternatives to traditional projects at firms like McKinsey & Company or Bain & Company. These HBS students launched Hourly Nerd, a company which pitches itself as “a marketplace where any business can hire a consultant on a project basis,” thereby providing “a low-priced alternative, especially for small businesses, to high-priced management consultants.” The project based model has reportedly proven popular among consultants seeking part-time or flexible work, such as MBAs who are raising children. With approximately 2,200 listed freelancers, HourlyNerd’s consultants (or “nerds”) consist exclusively of b-school alumni and students (80% and 20% respectively). The company has also received $750K in backing from two angel investors (one of whom is Mark Cuban) and a recent deal with Microsoft to provide services to its resellers—a significant leap in growth, since its modest inception during the first-year HBS course “Field III,” in which student teams are given $5,000 to model their own business. |
21 Dec 2013, 12:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: GMAT Impact: How to Prep for the GMAT in 14 Days (If You Absolutely MUST) |
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When it comes 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. Prepping for the GMAT in 14 days? Is that even possible? Most people study for a minimum of 2 months, and the average is probably closer to 4 months. Obviously, this is not the ideal situation. There are limits to how much you can learn in such a short period of time. Still, sometimes people get stuck. Maybe you have not gotten the GMAT score that you need to be competitive at a particular school and second-round deadlines are fast approaching. Maybe you are on a waitlist and the school has indicated that your chances would be better if you could lift your score. Whatever the circumstance, there are some things that you can do to try to achieve a score boost in a short period of time. If you need to do this (not “want” to, need to—only do this if you have no choice!), then keep these two things in mind: (1) You are going to live, sleep, and breathe the GMAT for the next two weeks. Make sure that your personal and professional life can actually handle this commitment; if not, then you will be adding a whole lot of stress to your life for what will probably not be a very good return on your investment. (2) You will also need to set realistic expectations for yourself. Nobody is going to jump from a 500 to a 720 in two weeks. Unless you are already naturally at a pretty high level, it is unlikely that you will score 700+ at all. Have I scared you off yet? No? Okay, click here for a detailed 14-day prep plan. Note that this plan still leaves a lot for you to figure out for yourself. The plan does not give you long lists of assignments; rather, it helps you to figure out how to prioritize what you are going to do based upon your particular strengths and weaknesses. Nobody can do everything in 14 days, and what you need to do will differ greatly from other students, so your real advantage will be in figuring out how to spend your time wisely. Finally, one last word of advice: if you are thinking about prepping in 14 days because you hate to study, or because you have 2 weeks between jobs and think it would be a great way to spend the time, or… any other reason that does NOT involve an absolute need to prep in such a short period of time, then do yourself a favor. Give yourself more time! |
21 Dec 2013, 17:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: GMAT Integrated Reasoning Score “Not Important” for Majority of Schools |
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If the GMAT’s new Integrated Reasoning section has been keeping you up at night, you may find a bit of solace in Kaplan Test Prep’s recently completed survey of 152 admissions officers from U.S. business schools. According to Kaplan, 57% of the MBA programs said the Integrated Reasoning score “is not currently an important part of their evaluation of a prospective student’s overall GMAT score.” This data suggests a more decisive view over last year’s survey (2012), in which 54% of admissions officers said they were unsure about the IR score’s importance. Nevertheless, the results do not suggest the GMAT will be any less daunting an application component for this year’s candidates. The Kaplan survey also found that 51% of its respondents indicated a low GMAT score was “the biggest application killer.” Moreover, it should be noted that many of this year’s applicants submitted GMAT scores that may be up to five years old—potentially predating the addition of the Integrated Reasoning section to the test. “Moving forward, business schools may decide that Integrated Reasoning should play a more critical role,” explains the executive director of pre-business programs for Kaplan, adding, “In the meantime, prospective MBA students should not take Integrated Reasoning any less seriously than the Quantitative or Verbal sections. It still matters.” |
22 Dec 2013, 10:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: GMAC’s New Tool: School Finder |
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The following is a guest post from our partners at Kaplan GMAT, written by Lucas Weingarten. In the Information Age, having access to all that data can almost be worse than not having any at all. Information aggregators can be enormously valuable in terms of time and headaches saved. Tools that take loads of data and allow is to filter that information in various ways are always nice to find so let us be the first to point you to GMAC’s School Finder. There are SO MANY business schools. On December 5, GMAC announced launch of a free tool to help all prospective b-schoolers make more informed decisions about where to apply and why. The tool is prominently featured and super easy to find on MBA.com. And, what’s more, it is free. School Finder is a database of information on 5,674 schools as of press time. Search parameters include school name, location, program degree, program type, delivery format (classroom or online), program length, areas of study, and even start date. Search results will offer unique hits for individual programs at particular institutions. For example, UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School returns six different programs including its traditional full-time MBA, the Executive MBA, and PhD programs. One really cool feature is that inquisitors can compare up to four schools simultaneously (see here for a screen shot of such a comparison). Side-by-side comps can really help narrow down viable contenders as well as plan your timeline. On a personal note, just thinking about keeping that database up-to-date, accurate, and fleshed out is overwhelming. PR managers and admissions people at listed b-schools now have a new job, that’s for sure. For more information on the new tool from GMAC, read this news release. Or, better yet, go use it! |
23 Dec 2013, 09:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Monday Morning Essay Tip: Enliven Your Writing by Using Active Voice |
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Many writers choose to use the passive voice in their essays, yet the best writers use it only rarely, if ever. The passive voice puts the verb in the “wrong” place in the sentence, thereby removing the “action.” Subjects become acted upon rather than performing actions. Sentences with the passive voice typically include verb phrases like “was” or “has been” (e.g., “it was determined,” “the project has been completed”). Consider this example of the passive voice: “The marathon was run despite my injury.” In this sentence, the verb (or action) is diminished because the writer says the marathon “was run.” A better way of describing the same activity is to use the active voice, as illustrated in this example: “I ran the marathon despite my injury.” Here are two more examples: Passive: “The contract was awarded to us.” Active: “We won the contract.” Passive: “It was decided that I would be in charge of the project.” Active: “My boss selected me to be in charge of the project.” Remember—you are at the center of your essays! The best way to tell your stories and explain your accomplishments is by making sure that you are the catalyst of the stories you tell. Using the active voice ensures that the admissions committees see you as an active person who makes things happen. |
26 Dec 2013, 11:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Beyond the MBA Classroom: Tuck ‘Tails |
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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. Tuck ‘Tails are “happy hours” that occur almost every Thursday at Dartmouth Tuck for the entire campus and are typically sponsored by a different student group each week. Faculty and students gather over beer, wine, and other refreshments. A recent graduate we interviewed noted, “The Tuck ’Tails are fun, and usually linked to different events and clubs. They are chill, but sometimes lead to bigger parties!” The events are generally held on campus in Stell Hall, but when the weather is nice, the festivities are sometimes moved to a tent outside or onto the new deck in the LLC. For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at Tuck and 15 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
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Hi Generic [Bot],
Here are updates for you:
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Tuck at Dartmouth
AGSM at UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
 GMAT Club REWARDS
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