By the end of the whole application process I was pretty tired of it all. Did anybody else get tired of second-guessing everything? There are some hypocritical elements of the "ad-com" stance. Montauk's book has quotes from ad-coms where they talk about what they look for, and there are a lot of conflicting things that drove me nuts. For instance things like (making these up) : "A lot of people get caught in the trap of telling us what they think we want to hear, we just want essays that show a person's personality, they shouldn't be concerned about what they think we want to hear," - Jackass Ad-com #1 "When we read essays, we want very specific examples of why you want to do XYZ. We expect applicants to have a crystal clear vision of why they need an MBA, what companies they might work for, what specific classes they're interested in," Jackass Ad-com #2 "Some essays people mention specific companies they want to work for and positions they want. This is silly because we know many people want to change industries, and that level of detail seems silly, so we really just look for people with a good sense of their own strengths and weaknesses," Jackass Ad-com #3 "Don't just give us a bunch of examples of why you're a great leader, tell us why," Jackass Ad-com #4 "Show, don't tell," Jackass Ad-com #5 It all gets aggravating after a while, all the contradictions. There were some discussions here (or was it on BW) where people were arguing over Stern essay #1 that asks "Why an MBA?" Some people said that the question necessarily implies "Why Stern?" while other people said, "Read the question, they don't ask about Stern in that essay so don't address that, ad-coms want to know that you can follow the directions." At the end of the day I kind of have this bad attitude, like F all of that stuff, here's my application, if you don't like the fact that I didn't mention specific classes then F off. Or if you don't like that I DID mention specific classes, F off. And if you think my career vision is too specific, F off. If you think it's too vague then F off. How do you like me now?

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OasisNYK

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31 Jan 2007, 07:53

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lhmcjen

Is this whole thing pretty phony and hooky...absolutely! But it seems to me that it representative of most job interviews.....Bob, tell me about a time when you solved a probelm,, hahaha.. no different, just a big stupid game that must be played to achieve the end goal.. but it becomes really painful to go through it no doubt.

When I started this whole process my father gave me one piece of advice that has rang true throughout it, "Sometimes you have to fake it to make it."

batchgmat

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31 Jan 2007, 07:56

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Tell me about it. I once asked an AdComm member during an information session to give us an example of when an applicant "wasn't himself" (as they always love to say).

Needless to say, she couldn't.

rhyme

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31 Jan 2007, 08:07

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rhyme

Wow what a thread. It's funny in a sense, I had been thinking about this over the last few weeks. Now that I've been through it, I realize just what a pile of bullshit the whole process is - from applicant to adcom. The number of applicants I've seen take on roles solely for the purpose of admission, who really don't care - heck I know one guy who just called up his Fraternity president and got him to say he'd been actively involved for years in their community service activities, even gave him a "title"- all the way to the adcoms that preach GMAT doesn't matter but the numbers speak for themselves. Just find the Kellogg thread, there's absolutely no question that GMAT plays a huge role. Unless you believe that the GMAT is actually a great predictor of ability - and thus those with high GMAT scores will likely have better careers and better essays - there's absolutely no question that the numbers do 100% play into the whole thing. I'm tired of hearing from adcoms that GMAT "is just one piece" - its like my telling you the engine of my car is just "one piece". Sure, thats true, but without it, I'm not going very far am I? Just be honest and say "Yea, its just one piece, but if it's not good, your odds are slim. Not impossible, but substantially harder. We care because it affects our rank, so we need to be careful with GMAT scores." That would seem to be a much more honest answer.

Which Kellogg thread are you referring to? The R2 thread? I just read it and don't see anything referring to the GMAT.

Post a link?

https://www.gmatclub.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... hlight=640

It's a long thread. If you want the gist of it, read my first post, then my second post and then read pelihu's post where he argues yield spreads are likely much larger (which I agree with).

In short what you end up with is statistical evidence, even assuming a flat yield curve (which is totally not reasonable) - the odds of admittance with a <640 score are 10% or worse, and with a 750 or above 42% or better.
If you look at pelihu's post, its more like 7% or worse, and 52% or better.

The concept that GMAT is "just one piece" is clearly debunked - regardless of whether or not you assume flat yields across.

standard

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31 Jan 2007, 08:10

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Best thread ever!

We want to add diversification to the class - We want everyone all around the world to submit their apps, so we can earn more money.

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31 Jan 2007, 08:15

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I get the whole thing that it's just a song-and-dance like a job interview, but the truly annoying part is the holier-than-thou attitude from ad-coms where you get stupid contradictions like "well obviously we want the candidates to just be themselves, we want essays that show who they are, what do they enjoy doing, how they have dealt with setbacks or weaknesses, and maybe a general idea of what they want to do with their career, we know people change careers 7 times,"

while out of the other side of their mouth they're saying,

"We look for people who can show they are natural-born leaders, superhuman creatures that can see through walls and build orphanages with one hand tied behind their back, we don't want people that don't know exactly what they want to do, we want people who can tell us where they will be living when they're 50, and what the third line of their W2 will look like on July 1st 2015."

rhyme

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31 Jan 2007, 08:18

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standard

Best thread ever!

We want to add diversification to the class - We want everyone all around the world to submit their apps, so we can earn more money.

Its not about the money. This is peanuts in the end guys. It's about acceptance rate and percieved eliteness. They encourage as many applicants as possible to apply because it makes the school appear more competitive. This isn't just for grad programs, they do it undergrad too. In fact, I was just having a conversation yesterday with an admissions director who was telling me about how they moved to a common app "in order to bring in more applications and bring our admit % down a bit". She then smiled and said "And get our rank up!".

gauravgoyal_g

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31 Jan 2007, 08:25

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Obviously everyone who appears for the GMAT and applies to B schools is a masochist. More so for international applicants. Why would they do it otherwise :-)

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31 Jan 2007, 08:26

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standard

Best thread ever!

We want to add diversification to the class - We want everyone all around the world to submit their apps, so we can earn more money.

My next best guess. However, there is a dilemma. Most people do not submit to the hardest-to-get-in schools. Why? Because they think that the application will be dinged, probably.

That's my view, it might be wrong.

aaudetat

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31 Jan 2007, 08:41

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I don't know what you mean by "most people," but certainly enough apply to Harvard and company so that HBS can maintain its 13% acceptance rate (or whatever it is). Any way you slice it, there are PLENTY of people applying.

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31 Jan 2007, 08:43

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aaudetat

OK I meant "many" there.

batwings

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31 Jan 2007, 09:55

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rhyme

One of the top business schools hired its own student to get the %employed after graduation move up :twisted:

I so want to sit in an ethics class at that school.

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14 Feb 2007, 01:45

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Awesome thread!
I was ROFLing my way through. Each post here deserves a Booker! :D

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14 Feb 2007, 11:51

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I am sure there must be some collges to give interview invite to people who are otherwise deadmeat and then ding them so they will reapply again and many with siilar profiles would apply thereby generating hype and good figures(selectivity etc)

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14 Feb 2007, 15:10

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I agree that a lot of it is b.s. If you work in certain industries or in certain types of high stress jobs you just don't have the time to devote to meaningful extracurricular activities. I think it is really crappy to hold something like that against someone, especially if they were involved in activities in college/grad school.

Assuming I do get in to Chicago and/or Kellogg off of their respective Wait Lists, I will post a rant highlighting the things about the process that are nonsensical (from my point of view).

braindancer

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15 Feb 2007, 10:56

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Funny thing. I totally hear you, however this didn't make me mad

I may be a moron (and I'm quite sure I screwed a hell lot of opportunities because of that), but I NEVER fake things. I believe you can't be happy on a job, or college, or whatever that accepted your "beautified copy". Either they take me the way I am - with all my cr@p, - or we just say goodbye, why waste each other's time.

So no, I didn't "tell what they wanted to hear" anywhere. I did structure it in a way they request, but nothing more. My integrity costs more than the gawddamn school can offer.

...we'll see if this approach wins me anything...

ncp

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04 Dec 2007, 15:09

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BUMP!

Browsing through some old posts to let off some steam and found this gem. Look for batchgmat's question to an ad-com. That was frigging awesome.

Ozmba

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04 Dec 2007, 15:10

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batchgmat

Tell me about it. I once asked an AdComm member during an information session to give us an example of when an applicant "wasn't himself" (as they always love to say).

Needless to say, she couldn't.

Fricking crazy!

bherronp

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04 Dec 2007, 15:15

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I certainly can relate to this thread. I am getting burned out. Only my stubborn determination keeps driving me along.

gmat_march

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04 Dec 2007, 15:48

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Wow ...excellent thread to bring up now.
There ain't a better way to vent this out ... I just hope the results are sweet enough to neutralise this bitterness ...
Until then, I'll fool myself that I'm not bitter to keep myself going !