Poll: Official School Student Ambassador Question

Question

HI All,

As you may have seen in the other thread, I'm trying to figure out how to start some official student ambassador representation here, similar to the "Ask a Haas Ambassador" on Business Week that's been pretty popular for the last few years (with Kathy@Haas and Morgan@Haas answering questions).

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The difference is that official student ambassadors generally have more insight into the admissions process, though they're also a little more "intimidating" because applicants generally do not want to ask sensitive questions. That's why the current "Ask a School Ambassador" section works so well with current students like me, river, rhyme, etc... answering questions. But our knowledge has limits because we're not fully involved in the process, so that's where the official ones come in.

Anyway, there are three options that I've heard, and Praetorian is ok with the will of the people here, so please vote and comment on this issue. Hopefully we can start another trend to get more recognition for GMATClub in the general B-school admissions committee (so they can host official chats here in the future?)

The three options are:

1. Have the official ambassador post in the current "Ask Ambassador" area - this makes it easier, but can cause applicants who are worried about asking sensitive questions to post.

2. Have a separate thread in the B-school application area like "Ask Official [school name] Ambassador". The problem with that is it may get lost in the shuffle if no new posts are placed there after a while.

3. Have a new section like the "Ask Accepted.com" set up. Though right now I haven't heard any other schools other than Haas having an interest (river? kwam? rhyme? aaudetat? pelihu?) getting one of their school's student ambassadors to pop up here...

garun77 · Answer

I prefer Option 3 but I don't know how feasible it is. Having said that, my next preference is Option 1.

riverripper · Answer

While I like the idea remember admissions offices typically have limited resources and during this time of the year, when the majority of questions would be asked. Many schools aren't going to let students give "official" answers so I tend to think our current ask student ambassador thread is the best solution we are going to get.

Having official representatives on here might not exactly be the best thing either since personally I think questions are going to be more honestly answered by students not marketing the school...we arent as worried about being super PC. If people have serious questions only answerable by admission officers then contacting the adcoms directly is definitely the correct path and no one should rely on any messageboard as a source of reliable information. Yes we are a million times better than BW but still...

Sorry to be the buzzkill here.

kryzak · Answer

no worries river, we always have pretty opposite views on things anyways :wink:

I don't know about other schools, but one of the things that Haas does is to create the official "student ambassadors" who are a step more official than current students (they get a lot of training on knowledge about the admissions process and the school, more than any one student may know, even including myself) but one step less official than adcoms, who often give such "textbook" answers that they don't give much insight at all. I do love the candidness of having student ambassadors here, but there are some questions that I just don't know how to answer without lots of research. Of course, I could also go and ask some of the student ambassadors and get back to people, but it's an indirect step that I may not be able to take when things get super busy. I'm ok with just having it in the current ambassador area, but I do want people to know that the Haas ambassadors are pretty laid back and knowledgeable, so hopefully people won't be too afraid to ask honest questions.

kryzak · Answer

alright, thanks for voting folks! I'll take the feedback and work it out with the future ambassador. Most likely it'll be a thread in the main B-School App area so we can keep the unofficial area "free form". Stay tuned!

Poll: Official School Student Ambassador Question

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