2003 November » Clear Admit: MBA Admissions Consultants Blog

APPLICANT RESOURCES

Clear Admit Interview Guides
Be as prepared as possible for your MBA interviews this season with the Clear Admit Interview Guides! School-specific sample questions and in-depth strategy, campus visit details and places to stay.

Clear Admit School Guides
Seventeen titles available! Understand how the leading programs compare and learn more about the MBA experience in and beyond the classroom through Clear Admit School Guides. As featured in the Economist.

Application Deadlines
Below are the upcoming deadlines for Fall 2008 entry to top-tier schools.
Apr. 1: UT Austin McCombs R3
Apr. 2: Dartmouth / Tuck R4
Apr. 3: INSEAD R4
Apr. 4: Oxford / Said R3
Apr. 23: UCLA / Anderson R4
Apr. 28: CMU / Tepper R4
May 2: LBS R4
Jun. 6: Oxford / Said R4

Essay Topic Analysis
Below are links to our comments on some of the top programs' essay topics for the 2007-2008 admissions season.
The Career Goals Essay
Berkeley / Haas
Chicago GSB
CMU / Tepper *
Columbia
Cornell / Johnson
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Harvard
IESE *
INSEAD
London Business School
MIT / Sloan
Michigan / Ross
Northwestern / Kellogg
NYU / Stern
Oxford / Said *
Penn / Wharton
Stanford GSB
UCLA / Anderson
UNC / Kenan-Flagler
UT Austin / McCombs *
UVA / Darden
Yale SOM
* denotes last year's commentary

Categories
Use categories to access all that has been written on each of the topics. We have categorized by school and by subject matter.

Interview Reports
A selection of interview field reports from fellow applicants posted to the MBA Admissions Wiki. Add your reports when you are finished with your interviews.
Chicago
Columbia
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Harvard
Kellogg
Michigan / Ross
MIT / Sloan
Stanford
UNC / Chapel Hill
Virginia / Darden
Wharton
London Business School

GMAT Resources
GMAC
Manhattan GMAT
GMAT Club
Princeton Review
Test Prep New York
Kaplan
Beat The GMAT

Writing Resources
Guide to Grammar and Writing
The Internet Grammar of English
English Usage, Style and Composition
The Economist Style Guide
Paradigm Online Writing Assistant

School Rankings
Rankings are a good way to start your research on various MBA Programs. Keep in mind each uses a different methodology.
Business Week
Economist
Financial Times
Forbes
USNews
Wall Street Journal

Career Guides
The following resources should be useful to those who want to research the careers open to them after (or before) earning an MBA.
Vault.com
Wetfeet

Business School Resources
The following are business resources offered by a variety of leading Business Schools. It's useful to subscribe to these resources, especially for the schools to which you are applying.

MBA Programs: North America
If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
Berkeley / Haas
Carnegie Mellon / Tepper
Chicago
Columbia
Cornell / Johnson
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Emory / Goizueta
Harvard
HEC Montreal
Indiana / Kelley
Michigan
MIT / Sloan
Northwestern / Kellogg
New York / Stern
North Carolina / Kenan Flagler
Pennsylvania / Wharton
Queens
Stanford
Texas / McCombs
Thunderbird
Toronto
UCLA / Anderson
Virginia / Darden
Western Ontario / Ivey
Yale

MBA Programs: Rest of the World
As there is some variety in the length of international MBA programs, we have denoted the length of the program next to its name (1 = one year; 2 = 2 years). If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
AGSM (Australia) 2
Cambridge / Judge (UK) 1
CIEBS (China) 2
Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (China) 1
ESADE (Spain) 1 or 2
HEC (France) 2
IESE (Spain) 2
IMD (Switzerland) 1
INSEAD (France) 1
IPADE (Mexico)
ISB (India) 1
London Business School (UK) 2
Oxford / Said (UK) 1
Rotterdam (Netherlands) 2
University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) 1

Additional Resources
Here we link a host of additional resources available across the web. E-mail info@clearadmit.com to have resources added to this list.
AACSB International
Association of MBAs
Beyond Grey Pinstripes
EFMD
gradschools.com (worldwide)
Infozee
mba.com (GMAT Scores)
MBAInfo
mbaleague.blogspot.com
MBAzone
MBA Jungle
TOEFL
Top MBA

MBA Tipline
We encourage admissions officers, students and applicants to alert us of interesting news and developments, please send an email to news@clearadmit.com so we can blog it.

Blog Archive

Submit a report to the Clear Admit Wiki, win $10 to iTunes!

ARCHIVE FOR NOVEMBER 2003

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Clear Admit team would like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday weekend! From an admissions standpoint, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of a critical time period for round two applicants. After spending time with friends and family on Thursday, candidates should try to utlize the weekend to get a handle on the tasks going forward and begin outlining/drafting essays. Although the deadlines are in January, candidates should aim for a productive December so as to allow time to put the finishing touches on applications in January.

# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:44 pm in General

Saturday, November 22, 2003

Work with Clear Admit in Round 2

Since people have been asking, I thought I would post a quick note to let readers know that we are still accepting clients for round two of this year’s admissions cycle. Send us your CV and we’ll contact you to share our initial assessment of your chances at no charge.

# posted by Clear Admit @ 10:24 am in General

Thursday, November 20, 2003

Admisssions Tip: Interviewing

Interview season is now fully upon us! This is the time of year that we receive numerous inquiries about ‘thank you’ letter protocol. Here are some quick tips:

1) Although some might argue that a ‘thank you’ isn’t necessary after an MBA interview, this is simply not true. You need to send a note.

2) Despite the fact that tradition might have candidates post a handwritten note or formal business letter to their interviewer, this is not the best approach. In most cases, a letter sent through the mail will arrive AFTER your interviewer has submitted their report for the committee.

3) The best thing to do is send an email ‘thank you’ letter within 24 hours of your interview (ideally the same day). The letter should thank your interviewer for their time, reiterate your interest in the school and highlight a couple of things you discussed (to jog their memory). Keep in mind that just because it is an email does not mean that it should be overly casual. The beauty of the email ‘thank you’ is that it can be done from a terminal on campus, and airport or an internet cafe shortly after the interview. Imagine your interviewer sitting down in the evening to write up their report, and reading your email. This can give you a major edge. [Note: This requires that you get the interviewer’s business card/email address at the interview (usually not a problem).]

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Better Admissions Odds This Season?

As the dust is settling from most of the first round deadlines, it looks as though MBA application volume is down for the second straight year. Some of the top schools are seeing reductions of greater than 15%.

What does this mean for the average applicant? This all depends on the quality of those applicants who are not applying. In other words, has the decline been largely due to the disappearance of marginal applicants who flooded the schools after the bursting of the Internet bubble? Or, have the highly qualified applicants foregone business school in favor of job security and earnings? Has the general fear of going into debt caused an across the board reduction in the entire pool?

The answer is that the verdict is not yet in. We’ll know a lot more after round two (from a volume standpoint) and at the end of the season (when average GMAT scores, GPA’s, etc. are published for the incoming class).

Having said that, if you are an applicant who is wavering on this year vs. next - and who figures that by missing the first round, you have lost all hope for this season - you may want to think again. Applying in round two this year could actually be more lucrative than one might think. I would also expect to see an increased reliance on the waitlist by schools who are looking to hedge their bets on some of the more borderline applicants they see in round 1. Stay tuned for more information on this as the season unfolds.

# posted by Clear Admit @ 11:47 am in General

DISCUSSIONS / BLOGS / WIKI

Clear Admit's Most Recent Entries

Wiki

MBA Admissions Wiki
The Clear Admit Wiki is designed to allow b-school applicants to share their experiences through the application process. You can learn from others' experiences and contribute your own reports to the community. Below are the five most popular pages in the wiki:
Wharton Interview Field Reports
HBS Interview Field Reports
Kellogg Interview Field Reports
Chicago Interview Field Reports
Columbia Interview Field Reports

Discussion Boards

BusinessWeek Forums
The BusinessWeek Discussion Boards are a great way to learn about the issues applicants face. Recently BusinessWeek updated their interface, here is a link to the original interface. Also, Clear Admit hosts the Ask Clear Admit thread, which should help answer your questions. Here are the five most recent discussions.

StudyLink Forums
Clear Admit manages the Applying section of the StudyLink MBA discussion boards.

student 2 student
The student-2-student Discussion Boards are managed by Wharton, but include discussions about all of the top schools. Here are the five most recent discussions.

Chicago Discussion Forums
The Chicago Discussion Boards are managed by the University of Chicago. Here are the five most recent discussions.

School-Hosted Blogs

Straight from the source: aggregated posts from students and administration. Below are the seven most recent posts in school-hosted blogs.

Individuals' Blogs

A selection of the latest updates to MBA blogs compiled by Hella.
MBA Applicants

MBA Students

Bloggers by School

The following are links to bloggers at each of the schools listed.
Chicago
Columbia
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Harvard
Kellogg
Michigan
MIT / Sloan
New York / Stern
North Carolina / Chapel Hill
Stanford
Virginia / Darden
Wharton
Yale
ESADE
IESE
INSEAD
London Business School

Community Blogs

Bshoolers.com
Community blog with MBA student and alum contributors.

Forté Foundation MBA Diaries
Video blog entries posted by women MBA students.

Owen Bloggers
Independent blog with content by Vanderbilt MBA students.

Best of Blogging

2007-2008 Top Ten:

2006-2007 Top Ten:

2005-2006 Top Ten:

2004-2005 Top Ten:

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