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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
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CMU / Tepper *
Columbia
Cornell / Johnson
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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

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ARCHIVE FOR SEPTEMBER 2004

Thursday, September 30, 2004

Article: Finding Future Women MBAs

The Graduate Management Admissions Council (makers of the GMAT) has recently published a comprehensive report on the ‘gender gap’ in business school. The study shows that despite longstanding efforts by business schools, many MBA programs barely crack the 30% mark for female enrollment. The study also carefully examines possible reasons for more balanced male/female enrollment in other professional schools, such as JD and MD programs.

Stanford and Harvard, two top b-schools that have managed to hit the 35% mark, appear to be employing an interesting tactic. Here’s an excerpt from the study:

One way HBS and Stanford have been able to increase their numbers of women students is by encouraging students to apply at a younger age. “The conventional thinking among prospective MBA students seems to be that you need to wait to apply,” said Alison McCarty, assistant director of MBA admissions at Harvard. “But we don’t believe there is a right time to apply; it is up to each individual student to decide.”

By considering applicants with fewer years of work experience, HBS and Stanford have been able to attract young women who don’t want to be in or just getting out of graduate school at age 29 or 30 - right about the time they wish to start a family. Sarah Riggs, wanting to get a head start on her business career, applied to and was admitted to HBS at the age of 21, becoming one of the youngest HBS graduates in recent years.

Needless to say, most MBA programs are clearly looking to increase female enrollment, which makes it a good time for women to consider applying…

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Articles: The Role of Rankings

Since this is ‘MBA rankings’ season, I wanted to point our readers to a couple of fascinating articles about the role of rankings in the business school community.

A few years ago, David Downes, the former Director of the MBA program at Haas/Berkeley, ran some basic regression analysis on BusinessWeek rankings and subsequent application volume. The research essentially showed that changes in the rankings have a substantial impact on application volume.

Around the same time, Ivo Welch, a Professor of Economics and Finance at Yale SOM, authored an article that examines the BW rankings criteria and validity, arguing that the size of an MBA program is a key factor in determining ranking (given that the recruiters surveyed are often alumni from programs, etc).

Read David Downes’ article: Does BusinessWeek Ranking Matter?
Read Ivo Welch’s article: The 2000 Business Week Rankings of Business Schools

Despite the fact that this research was done on older rankings data, there are a couple of lessons to be learned from the exercise:

1) MBA applicants are strongly influenced by the BW rankings. This may sound obvious, but it actually works in fairly extreme ways (a school shifts up 10 places in the rankings and sees a 35% increase in applicant volume, etc.).

2) MBA admissions staff and faculty keep a close eye on the rankings - to the extent of conducting studies. Some members of academia are trying to fight the rising tide of ‘catering’ to the rankings.

It would be really interesting to check in with both authors and see if they’ve had a chance to study more recent rankings data and admissions volume, in the event that some new conclusions can be drawn…

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Expanding the Applicant Pool

Current marketing activity on the part of the MBA admissions offices seems to indicate that the schools are working overtime to expand the applicant pool.

Let’s look at some recent trends:

1) MBA marketing efforts have been much stronger this season. Schools are attending more MBA forums and fairs while simultaneously offering their own functions across the globe. In the late 90’s and early 00’s (when application volume was soaring) the schools were actually curtailing their marketing efforts, reducing travel, etc. This trend has clearly been reversed.

2) Many schools have creatively expanded their international marketing team by encouraging current students and alumni to host admissions events in their home countries (during winter break, spring break, etc.). These efforts are designed to increase international applicant volume, which has fallen off over the past two years.

3) Top programs are pushing the use of technology to reach out to applicants via email, discussion forums, student diaries, blogs and online chats.

4) Beyond the traditional channels above (which often target those with substantial work experience), the top schools have looked to expand the applicant pool further. MIT/Sloan was recently spotted at an undergraduate career fair on the campus of Duke University. The Wharton School has announced that it will consider applicants ’straight from college’ for the first time ever*. Stanford GSB has been making the rounds at top colleges and universities for the past couple of years in order to encourage college students to consider an MBA (and to dispel the myth that 5-6 years of experience is required).

It remains to be seen what sort of impact these efforts have on application volume, but given that the decline in GMAT volume has slowed, it’s easy to envision a scenario in which applicant volume begins to stabilize or even bounce back this season.

* Wharton has traditionally taken a handful of Wharton undergraduates into the MBA program, via their ’submatriculation’ program, but this year the admissions office will consider undergraduates from any school.

Monday, September 27, 2004

Admissions Tip: Know Your Target Industry

While crafting ‘career goals’ essays, applicants are typically asked to discuss a short-term plan (post-MBA) and explain how an MBA will help them to reach their goals. As we’ve mentioned in this blog before, it is critical to have well-developed goals - to the point of naming the industry and specific firms you will target upon graduation.

Identifying the right industry can require a fair amount of research. Similarly, finding target firms often requires high level knowledge of the field that you intend to pursue. Along these lines, we wanted to call your attention to a new resource that is available for free via the mba.com web site. The folks at GMAC have assembled content from WetFeet Press and The Vault in order to provide applicants with industry summaries and career reports. These reports will tell you what it is like to work as a management consultant, what it means to be in the real estate industry, etc. Reading up on your planned industry and position will help reinforce your goals, ultimately infusing your essays and interviews with stronger, more informed arguments.

Article about the introduction of new content on mba.com: click here.
Access to the new content on mba.com: click here.

Friday, September 24, 2004

Clear Admit Q&A: Recommenders for Reapplicants

We answer a lot of questions in the various b-school discussion forums. Here’s an interesting one that came in recently:

Dear Clear Admit,

I have another question that I would like to ask your opinion about, regarding recommendation letters for reaplicants.

I am planning to use the same recommenders to the school that I am reapplying, plus a new one (optional). While the old recommenders may add a little bit of update to the letter, basically I am not expecting them to come up with new stories to answer the (typically) same questions the schools ask in the recommendation form. In some cases, since the recommenders are no longer interacting with me on a regular basis (ex-boss, etc), they are basically going to resubmit the same letter. It would be nice if I just simply use all new recommenders. Yet since I just moved to a new group (same company), the people in my current group, who may be in a better position in writing up my accomplishments in the last year may not be the best people to write a personalize letters as good as those people I used before. What’s your take on this?

Your situation is not that uncommon, since reapplicants often grapple with the task of assembling this component of their application. Here are a couple of key points:

1) Reapplicants often use the same recommenders from one year to the next. This is perfectly acceptable. In fact, it typically doesn’t make sense to change recommenders unless the applicant is certain that the recommendations were part of the problem in the first application, or unless the applicant has changed jobs and feels that their current supervisor will have ample material to discuss.

2) Just because reapplicants use the same recommenders does not mean that those recommenders should resubmit the same letters! Ideally, a reapplicant should sit down with his or her recommenders and talk about their results in the admissions process as well as their reapplication strategy. They should then ask the recommender to craft a modified letter that acknowledges the reapplication and reconfirms support for the candidate. While recommenders will inevitably reuse some material (anecdotes, etc.) it is always nice to include new bits of data from the last year so as to demonstrate to the admissions committee that they are still following your career progress and that they are ‘in the loop’ as far as your career plans/MBA plans are concerned.

In your case, you need to ask yourself the following questions:

1) Were last year’s letters part of the reason for your rejection?

2) Will last year’s recommenders be willing to sit down with you and get an ‘update’ on what you have been doing since leaving their group? If so, would they then be willing to put together new versions of their letters that acknowledge your activities over the past year?

Keep in mind that they need not have a first hand view of your new role - it’s merely important for them to be aware of the path you have taken (and the success you’ve found).

Obviously, it is difficult to advise you further without reading last year’s files and getting a sense for the strengths and weaknesses in your candidacy as a whole. Feel free to contact us directly if you are interested in learning more about our services.

Best of luck,

Clear Admit

Thursday, September 23, 2004

BusinessWeek: Chats and Rankings

There’s a fair amount going on over at the BW Online web site. For starters, the transcripts from Stanford’s Q&A have been posted. During the discussion, Derrick Bolton talked about a range of subjects. Here are a few key points:

-Stanford saw an 8% decline in application volume last year (a bit less of a drop than their peers at Wharton and Harvard)
-Stanford interviews everyone that they admit into the program
-The three admissions criteria are: “demonstrated leadership potential, intellectual vitality and diversity in its broadest sense”

You’ll need to be subscribed to the MBA Insider for the full text of the chat.

On the Harvard front, Brit Dewey (Director of Admissions and Financial Aid) will be taking questions as part of a live chat today at 3 PM (EST): click here for details.

In fact, the BW chat calendar is fairly packed going forward with guests from the following schools lined up: Kellogg, Insead and Chicago. Check out the schedule for details. Also, don’t forget to read over Clear Admit’s chat with BW.

Finally, BW will be unveiling their MBA rankings on October 7th. Given the fact that Chicago and Kellogg have chats clustered around this date, one has to wonder if the windy city has done particularly well this year….

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Article: WSJ Rankings 2005

The Wall Street Journal has just published their MBA rankings for 2005. While this recruiter-focused survey has traditionally been somewhat controversial, there are several changes worth noting for this year:

1) The Journal is now ranking schools in three categories: ‘National‘, ‘Regional‘ and ‘International‘. The first two categories essentially consist of the first and second tier US-based MBA programs. The third category is a bit of a hybrid between the top-tier US programs and the top-tier European schools.

2) The paper has slightly modified the way it ranks the programs. For the ‘National’ and ‘Regional’ rankings, the survey uses three evenly weighted criteria:

a) Perception (What do recruiters think of the students and the MBA program?)
b) Mass Appeal (How many recruiters does a school attract?)
c) Supportive Behavior (How likely are recruiters to hire from the school in the future?)

For the ‘International’ rankings, the ‘mass appeal’ category is slightly different. It is based on the number of countries represented amongst recruiters (rather than just the number of recruiters who show up).

3) The top-tier US-based program ranking looks like this: Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, Yale, Northwestern, Columbia, MIT and Stanford. Click here for the full listing.

4) The ‘International’ ranking looks like this: IMD, London Business School, HEC, ESADE, MIT. Click here for the full listing.

Beyond the rankings, there are several interesting articles on the MBA Center site of the WSJ. Unlike the main WSJ site, this content is free.

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Admissions Tip: Essays

With key ’round 1′ deadlines lurking just around the corner for Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, etc., many of you are scrambling to churn out admissions essays. Here are a few basic tips on approaching the essays:

1) Answer the question. That seems logical, right? What’s amazing is how many people fail to do it! In most cases, applicants who do not answer the question have fallen into the trap of ‘cut and paste’. School X asks for a ‘failure essay’ and school Y asks for a ‘team failure essay’ - but in an effort to save time, both schools just get a ‘general’ failure essay. School Y then wonders why you haven’t mentioned the team aspects of your failure…

2) Watch word limits. After you have poured your heart and soul into your essays it can often be difficult to cut them down to size and meet word limits. After all, most applicants get attached to the sentences they’ve read hundreds of times. Despite this fact, it is important to follow the rules. Stay within 10% of the word limits. Some applicants abuse this rule and make it a habit of going 10% over on each and every essay. This is not a great idea. Use the 10% rule as a safety valve - not as a given.

3) Balance. Many applicants make the mistake of using all their MBA essays to talk about their work experience. Ideally, you’ll want to come across as a bit more well-rounded. Truly exceptional candidates manage to offer stories about work, academic accomplishments, volunteer activities, cultural experiences, outside interests and more. When you’ve assembled your batch of essays for a school, take a step back and assess whether or not you’ve leaned too heavily on one area. A good way to approach this is to develop a list of the key aspects of your candidacy you need to feature in the admissions process (4.0 GPA from a top school, early promotion at work, running a marathon, winning new business for your employer, managing a local soup kitchen team, etc.). Refer back to this list as you brainstorm essay topics and see if you can fit the key aspects in….

4) Get to know the school. If you spend time reading up on the MBA program you are applying to, your essays will come across as more informed. Beyond reading, consider making contact with a current student at each school in order to get a first-hand account of life on campus. Visiting is also a good idea, if possible. At minimum, you should be reading the discussion forums and blogs that are authored/moderated by current MBA students at your target schools. Admissions officers can usually tell which applicants wrote their essays after doing this kind of serious research vs. applicants who simply used the MBA rankings to determine their targets.

Contact Clear Admit for more information about our MBA admissions consulting services.

Monday, September 20, 2004

Article: Advancing By Degrees

In the wake of the MBA World Tour’s visit to San Francisco, the SF Chronicle has published an article on the changing trends amongst MBA applicants. The article stresses rising applicant volume for part-time and executive MBA programs while confirming the belief that the MBA degree is highly valued in the workplace. There is also discussion of the economic trends that have led to the recent declines in full-time application volume.

For the full text of the article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/17/BUG578PT801.DTL

Friday, September 17, 2004

Admissions Tip: What not to do at an MBA Fair..

Here are a few quick tips on what NOT to do at an MBA Forum/Fair:

1) Do not monopolize a school representative’s time. If a crowd of prospects is forming behind you, it’s best to be polite, ask one or two intelligent questions and then move on. This isn’t your MBA interview.

2) Do not ask admissions officers questions that are readily available on the school’s web site or in the brochure you are holding. Applicants often do this sort of thing simply to get more ‘face time’ with an admissions representative. While admissions officers will certainly remember you for asking ‘obvious’ questions, this probably isn’t the kind of memory you want to leave them with.

3) Do not ignore alumni representatives from the school in hopes of getting your few minutes with the admissions officer who is present. The alumni are often great sources of information on the program. At the end of the day, your real mission at an MBA fair is to gather information about the schools you are considering - not talk your way into an offer of admission!

Thursday, September 16, 2004

GMAT Volume Update

GMAC has just released their latest GMAT volume figures (through August 31st of this year). While numbers are still lagging behind last year, the gap appears to be narrowing. This may be a sign that the ‘free-fall’ in application volume is beginning to stabilize.

From the GMAC site:

The GMAT volume through August 31, 2004–130,929 worldwide–shows a 6.19% decrease when compared with the number of tests taken during the same time period in 2003.

The number of tests taken so far in 2004 in the United States shows a decline of 3.81% from testing volume during the first eight months of 2003. Outside the United States, the decline in testing volume is more pronounced–11.26%.

On the surface, this data looks like further evidence of a continued slide, however, these same figures looked a bit different a few months ago, when worldwide volume was off nearly 9% - with US volume down 4% and international volume down nearly 18%. In other words, it seems the declines are becoming less steep as 2004 proceeds.

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Admissions Tip: Online Application Forms

We have recently received a number of questions from our clients about the online application forms and the protocol for completing application forms in general. Although many of you are working on your essays at present, please keep the following words of advice in mind as you approach this element of the process.

Application Forms
Many MBA applicants spend long hours polishing their essays in order to increase their chances of admission. One often overlooked aspect in the process, however, is the application form itself. Most candidates leave the forms for the last minute or rush to fill out online applications from work on the due date, but the truth is that a weak effort on these forms can do all kinds of harm to your candidacy. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

1) Follow instructions. If the schools asks you to list activities in chronological order, then do not list them in order of importance to you (as you may have done for another school). If the school asks for a contact person, title or the number of hours/week, do not leave these fields blank.

2) Make things clear. The last thing you want is for your admissions reader to have to play detective in determining your career progression (gaps in employment) or undergraduate career. Admissions officers are busy people and they don’t have time to connect the dots on your background. If your listings are not clear, the reader may assume you are hiding something. Once they make this assumption, your chances will evaporate. Given the level of competition in the applicant pool, the admissions office can afford to avoid files that seem a bit confusing.

3) Don’t be lazy. Since it’s likely that you’ll be ‘burned out’ from your essays, the temptation will be to zip through the application forms. In many cases, the forms are a great opportunity for you to list outside activities in depth, offer a quick explanation for a bad grade, etc. In fact, your application forms will often be the starting point for the admissions officer’s review of your file. Put your best foot forward.

4) Avoid going overboard. Admissions officers typically review several files in a sitting - devoting much less time than you might imagine to each file. As such, try to avoid listing 18 activities, 22 awards and 17 publications - especially if some of those items date back to high school (or are more than 10 years old). Stay focused on the elements of your background that are most relevant. Also, when asked for a short-answer, do not draft an essay. If your admissions file is twice as thick as the rest of the files, it will not necessarily be twice as good. How do you think the admissions officer will feel when they go to pick up a thick file for a ‘quick’ review?

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Article: The Wharton Way

The transcripts from Rosemaria Martinelli’s ‘live chat’ with BusinessWeek have now been posted on the BW Online site. Rose is the Director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at the Wharton School.

Part of the article is available for free on the BusinessWeek site:
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/sep2004/bs20040913_8554_bs037.htm
In order to read the full text, you will need to have an ‘MBA Insider’ subscription.

A few interesting notes from the chat:

1) Wharton will, for the first time ever, consider applicants applying directly from undergraduate school this year. This demonstrates the emphasis the top schools have placed on ‘expanding’ the applicant pool in the wake of increased competition and fading applicant volume.

2) Wharton’s GMAT average for the last admissions cycle was 716. This is up slightly from the previous year (714) despite a 21% decrease in application volume.

3) For students with more qualitative backgrounds, pursuing quantitative courses (like calculus and statistics) prior to application is “very good”. It’s “indicative of the seriousness with which that student is applying”.

The chat touched on several other aspects of admissions at Wharton, including recruiting numbers, loans/financial aid and specializations such as entrepreneurship and health care management. Excellent reading for those of you considering Wharton.

Monday, September 13, 2004

Stanford Live Chat and Other News

Stanford’s Director of Admissions, Derrick Bolton, will be conducting a live chat today at BW Online. For those of you targeting Stanford (or any top program) this should certainly be worth catching. Derrick typically offers very straightforward advice that is applicable to both Stanford and the MBA admissions process in general.
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jul2004/bs2004078_6838.htm

Wharton and Haas
In other news, Wharton’s Rosemaria Martinelli reports that application volume was off 21% during the last admissions cycle and Berkeley’s Peter Johnson cited a drop of 23% at the Haas School of Business. Both sources added that despite the declines in volume, the applicant pool remained highly competitive (see the article). In order to explain this apparent disparity, many admissions professionals have suggested that the application boom years of the late 90’s/early 00’s produced more applications from weaker candidates who were hoping to jump on the MBA bandwagon. Others have argued that applicants are increasingly better prepared for the process (thanks to test-prep courses, admissions consultants, books, forums, etc.).

Tracking Your Favorite Blogs
Finally, I’d like to once again recommend Bloglines as a great tool to track blog content. It’s a free service that will allow you to monitor any number of blogs you might be following. To subscribe to our blog using Bloglines, follow this link. Also, to see a listing of some of the blogs we’re currently reading, click here.

Friday, September 10, 2004

Article: The Ross School of Business?

BusinessWeek has just published a breaking story about a $100 million donation that Stephen Ross made to the University of Michigan Business School. This is the largest single gift ever for a U.S. business school.

According to the article, the school has unveiled plans for a new facility (to be designed by the same firm that built Wharton’s Huntsman Hall). The school has also decided to change its name to the Stephen M. Ross School of Business.

For the full text of the article:
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/sep2004/bs2004099_8431_bs001.htm

Thursday, September 09, 2004

The World MBA Tour

The World MBA Tour is traveling through North America in the coming weeks. The ‘tour’ is a great way for prospective MBA students to gather informational materials from the various MBA programs in attendance.

At the tour, the schools each have tables/stands that are typically staffed by admissions officers and alumni from the region - presenting a nice opportunity for applicants to engage in conversation with those who know the programs from the inside. Of course, applicants should not approach the MBA fairs as their chance to ‘talk their way’ into an acceptance letter from a dream school. Instead, the best approach is to use the events as fact-finding missions - gathering information that might help refine a list of target schools or provide interesting school-specific content for essays.

For information about which schools are attending, click here.

World MBA Tour Dates
September 12th, Los Angeles
September 14th, San Francisco
September 17th, Miami
September 19th, New York City
September 21st, Boston
September 23rd, Chicago
September 26th, Toronto
September 28th, Atlanta
September 30th, Washington DC

For more information about registration, click here.

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

Admissions Tip: Stanford Essays

Derrick Bolton, the Assistant Dean and Director of MBA Admissions at Stanford, has written an excellent piece on the Stanford MBA application essays. It is featured in the Director’s Corner of this month’s Stanford MBA Admissions Newsletter.

Here’s an excerpt:

The most important piece of advice on the essays is extremely simple: answer the questions - each component of each question. An additional suggestion for writing essays is equally straightforward: think - a lot; then write. We ask about your values, passions, ideas, experiences, and aspirations - and what kind of person you wish the Stanford MBA Program to help you become. Reflective, insightful essays help us envision the individual behind all of the experiences and accomplishments that we read about elsewhere in your application. Your essays are not the entirety of your application: we are reading them with all the information contained in your application as part of a holistic process. Please remember that the admission process for the Stanford MBA Program focuses on intangibles: character and competence, with an emphasis on character. Our goal is to understand what motivates you and how you have become the person you are today.

For the full text of the article: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/connect/newsletter/04_09_director.html

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

Article: Admissions Coaching

The Wall Street Journal’s College Journal site has just published an article about admissions consulting. HBS, Wharton and Stanford admissions officers were all interviewed for the piece, along with Clear Admit, Kaplan, etc.

Here’s the beginning of the article…

Admissions Coaches Become More Popular
By EILEEN GUNN

Candace Davies was working in the wealth-advisory division at Merrill Lynch when she decided she wanted an M.B.A. Not just any M.B.A., but one from a top-ranked school. Ms. Davis had achieved a lot for someone just four years out of college. At 25, she was bringing in and managing her own high-net-worth accounts. Even so, she thought she’d need help since her GMATs weren’t as competitive as she had hoped, her undergrad major was biology and her grades were mediocre.

To gain an extra edge, she sought advice from an admissions consultant, a fast-growing aid for college and graduate-school applicants. The service she hired, Kaplan Inc., a New York-based test-preparation provider, teamed her with a former admissions officer at the University of Rochester’s business school, who helped identify those schools that would be a stretch for her to get into and those that better fit her interests and test scores. The counselor also reviewed her essays to make sure they made the most of her Wall Street experiences and coached her on interviews.

In all, Ms. Davies spent nearly $2,000, was accepted at five of the seven schools she’d chosen and was offered scholarships to four, including the Johnson Graduate School of Management Cornell University, where she started this fall.

–Admission’s Biggest Open Secret–
In the past five years, admissions consulting has taken off and is now possibly the biggest open secret in applying to business school — a service that’s as popular as it is controversial and expensive. About a third of the customers are international applicants looking for help with English and the application process. Others want to overcome hurdles such as low grades or a nontraditional background. Consulting services, which range from national players like Kaplan to smaller boutiques and solo practitioners, charge anywhere from $125 an hour for editing an essay to $5,000 to $8,000 for unlimited help on five to seven applications.

Graham Richmond graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and then co-founded Clear Admit, an admissions counseling firm in Philadelphia. Many clients are what he calls “overly traditionals” — people who got top grades at elite colleges, went directly into jobs at brand-name consulting or financial firms and now want to set themselves apart from the countless applicants who did exactly the same thing. (A female first-year student at Wharton sums up the dilemma: “I graduated summa cum laude and got a 700 on my GMATs, but so did a bunch of my classmates. So how do you differentiate yourself?”)….

For the full text of this article, please visit the WSJ College Journal site:
http://www.collegejournal.com/mbacenter/preparemba/20040902-gunn.html

Friday, September 03, 2004

Admissions Tip: Alex Brown on Round Selection

Alex Brown, an admissions director from Wharton, has posted a thoughtful piece on choosing the number of schools to apply to and the rounds in which to apply. You can find it in the Wharton blog, but here is a small excerpt:

Applicants typically fall in to one of two categories when considering business school:

A. Those that need to go that year
B. Those that wish to go to certain schools

If you fall into category A then it might make sense to select schools that are a decent fit (based on your understanding of your competitiveness and the schools’ selectiveness), a reach school (a school you think may be a bit of a stretch) and a safety school (a school you think you are well qualified to attend). This strategy helps ensure you go to the best business school for you the year you have determined you need to return to business school.

If you fall into category B then it makes sense to only apply to schools you know you would attend if admitted (i.e. a safety school is not necessary). If you are not admitted to one of your schools of choice, see if you can get feedback and then consider reapplying the following year. You might also revisit whether you are still in category B, or whether you now fall into category A.

For the full text of the article, follow the link below:
http://adcomblog.wharton.upenn.edu/admissions/2004/09/how_many_applic.html

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

GMAT Tip: Scoring Quirks

Our guest for today’s blog posting is Grace Wang, a GMAT expert who teaches for Manhattan GMAT. Ms. Wang has written an interesting article about the scoring of the GMAT and how ETS arrives at your overall score.

Scoring Quirks
by Grace Wang

When students are asked what part of the GMAT scares them the most, they typically say the Quantitative section, or even more specifically, the Data Sufficiency questions in the Quantitative section. Thus, most students are surprised to find out that it’s the VERBAL raw score and percentage that drives your TOTAL score and percentage.

Take a look at two hypothetical students. One is a strong Quantitative student and a decent Verbal student. She takes the test and scores the following:

Quant: 50 (96th percentile)
Verbal: 32 (67th percentile)

The other does okay in the Quantitative section, but really shines in the Verbal. His scores break out as follows:

Quant: 42 (66th percentile)
Verbal: 44 (98th percentile)

Who gets the higher total score? Are they the same? It turns out that the one with the higher Verbal percentile gets the higher total score, approximately 690 vs. 670. Why is this? The percentiles for the Quantitative and Verbal sections were almost exactly the same, but switched. Here are two possible reasons:

As American business schools draw a more international student body, more and more students will take the test, not all of whom speak English as a first language. However, as more and more quantitatively focused Indian, Russian and Asian students start taking the test, it becomes much harder to do “well” on the Quantitative section. Just eight fewer raw points drops you a full thirty percentage points. In Verbal, you can drop thirty percentage points, too, but the raw point difference is twelve versus eight.

The total score is based on you as a complete student. It is more common, given the trend in the pool of test-takers, to do well in Quant and okay in Verbal than it is to do well in Verbal and okay in Quant. Thus, the latter score COMBINATION is more rare in the total pool of test-takers and results in a higher total percentile. Your Verbal score and percentile is the driver of your total score and percentile.

How does this scoring quirk affect prepping for the GMAT? For one, it can be used as a tool to alleviate fear of the Quantitative section. Panic is the X-factor on the exam and can easily paralyze a student, especially early on in the test and especially for very high-scoring students who are seeking perfection. If a student understands that he/she can get a competitive score (a.k.a. 700+) without hitting 80% in the Quantitative section, it might help them move on when they inevitably get stuck. Keep in mind though that many business schools adhere to an 80/80 rule or at least benchmark, meaning they’d like to see students hit at least the 80th percentile in each section.

Second, it further reinforces the view that not only is it more probable for a native English-speaking student to achieve mastery in Verbal than in Quantitative but it is also arguably more important. During practice, fully read and re-read the explanations provided in prep material (particularly the ETS Official Guide for GMAT Review to learn the GMAT test writers’ rules, logic and rationale).

The bottom line is that each test taker must discover and make the most of his or her own strengths and weaknesses. For many, the verbal section is easier; and for others, it’s the math section. Still, it’s helpful to know the trends and have as much information as possible when you are just getting started with your preparation for the GMAT and Business School.

Your GMAT Next Steps:

- Don’t delay the GMAT until you are ready to submit b-school applications. Plan. Prepare. Practice. The average GMAT study time is 2-4 months!

- Sign up for the official test by calling 1-800-GMAT-NOW, or by going to the official GMAT website at http://www.mba.com/.

- Learn more about the exam and about ways to prepare at www.manhattangmat.com.
Copyright, Manhattan GMAT Prep, Inc. 2004

DISCUSSIONS / BLOGS / WIKI

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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

Bloggers by School

Community Blogs

Best of Blogging

• Top 10 Applicants:
• July Dream
• Miss Curly Bee
• VidiViciVeni
• B-School Bound
• Tinydancer
• gltnforpnshmnt
• mbabound08
• Achilles
• Eight Schools
• MBA Runner Girl

• Top 10 Students:
• m@ (Ross)
• MaybeMBA (Chicago)
• Hair Twirler (Georgetown)
• Iday (Chicago)
• J-term Johnny (Columbia)
• La Laudiaria (Wharton)
• MBA Gladiator (Yale)
• Angel Angie (LBS)
• Necromonger (INSEAD)
• Chrisof Meyer (Darden)

• Top 10 Applicants:
• Rungee582
• Iday
• Juggler
• Asiangal
• Forrest Gump
• RusGirl
• Hair Twirler
• JatWarrior
• MBA Babe
• Anand

• Top 10 Students:
• Angel Angie (LBS)
• The Divine Miss N (LBS)
• From Cali (Ross)
• Tim K. (McCombs)
• Noelle (IESE)
• Jerry Blank (Yale)
• Benny (Tuck)
• La Laudiaria (Wharton)
• Karlitos (LBS)
• MBA Gladiator (Yale)

• Top 10 Applicants:
• MBA Jackass
• Marina
• Forrest Gump
• Pupstar78
• Axechick
• Sorebrek
• Angel Angie
• I_Will_Make_It
• Redwolf056
• Vatsa

• Top 10 Students:
• Marquis (Stanford)
• Poweryogi (Chicago)
• KV (LBS)
• FutureMBAGirl (Wharton)
• The Divine Miss N (LBS)
• Vijay (ISB)
• Wakechick (Chicago)
• NoelleBellie (IESE)
• Jerry Blank (Yale)
• Olivier (INSEAD)

• PowerYogi
• Brit-Chick
• bskewl
• WakeChick
• Dave
• Iceman07
• iwhoElse
• Atta Girl
• Aregon23
• Classy

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