Posted by Clear Admit on December 31, 2004, at 9:41 am
Posted in:  MBA News Business Week has published a very interesting article about recruiting conflicts between part-time and full-time MBA students at the top programs. The article covers the variety of systems that are in place at some of the top schools offering both full and part-time options (Kellogg, NYU/Stern, Chicago and Babson).
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/dec2004/bs20041230_3924_PG2_bs001.htm
There are several things to consider here:
1) What percentage of part-time MBA students are actively looking for a new employer post-MBA? This is a key point, since many part-timers are employer-sponsored and intend to stay with their companies post-MBA.
2) Are admissions standards the same for part-time students vs. their full-time counterparts at schools like NYU, Chicago, etc?
3) Which schools are having greater success with their efforts? For example, it might be interesting to compare Stern’s policy of “separate but equal” placement services and Chicago’s policy of unified recruiting.
See the article for details (and a reference to Clear Admit!). Overall, a great read for part and full-time MBA applicants alike.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 30, 2004, at 10:55 am
Posted in: MBA News There is an interesting article in today’s New York Times about the use of technology in the admissions recruiting process.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/technology/circuits/30coll.html
While the article focuses on the undergraduate market, there are clearly parallels in the MBA admissions world. In fact, some would argue that MBA programs like MIT/Sloan (the first to introduce a paper-less application) and Wharton (the first to feature a blog, discussion forum and live chats) have actually paved the way for many of the schools mentioned in the article.
Overall, an interesting read for those who are taking a quick break from their R2 application preparations!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 29, 2004, at 11:12 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips , Deadlines As we approach the numerous admissions deadlines in the coming weeks, we thought we might offer a handful of tips to help you manage your time:
1) Do not overlook the application forms. This aspect of the process takes much longer than most applicants expect and is not simply a matter of pasting your mailing address and resume into an online form. Keep in mind that beyond your GMAT scores, GPAs and essays, admissions officers are also evaluating your ability to coherently and concisely present information while following directions.
2) Check on the progress of your recommendation letters. It would be a shame to submit your application in the nick of time only to learn that one of your recommenders failed to do their part. A gentle reminder this week (perhaps hidden within a holiday greeting) can go a long way…
3) Know your deadlines and develop a plan. This may sound a bit absurd, but it pays to double-check the published deadlines and rules. Are applications due by 5 PM on the date published? 12 AM? Use this information to ensure that you are working on applications in the proper order, etc.
4) Consider submitting your files slightly in advance of the deadline. While you may not have the luxury of being early, getting your file in before the last minute rush can make for a much smoother experience. For example, it is worth noting that working with the online applications during the final hours can be painfully slow if the servers are overloaded. Another side benefit of submitting a bit early is that your file may be processed in advance of the bottleneck.
As a reminder, here are the deadlines that are on deck:
1/3/05: Duke 1/5/05: Harvard, UCLA 1/6/05: Stanford, Wharton 1/7/05: Chicago, Michigan, Kellogg, LBS, Oxford 1/10/05: CMU 1/12/05: Yale, UVA 1/13/05: UNC 1/15/05: NYU, Cornell, USC 1/17/05: Dartmouth 1/19/05: MIT, Insead (R3) 1/21/05: Berkeley (R3)
Best of luck!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 28, 2004, at 10:53 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips , Interview Tips , School: Harvard Since many of you will be having your R1 HBS interviews during the first week of January, we thought we’d offer you some excerpts from a ‘field report’ we recently received. These notes came to us from a client who had their HBS interview earlier this season.
- HBS INTERVIEW NOTES – Duration of Interview: Precisely 30 minutes. Interview started perfectly on time.
Questions: 1. Intro, “How was your trip here?”, etc… 2. Have you visited HBS before? Have you visited a class?
Moving into the interview, my interviewer said, “Since we only have 30 minutes, please don’t be offended if I stop your line of conversation. I will take notes occasionally during our conversation. These notes will go in your file and your complete application will be reviewed again by the committee.”
3. What groups do you want to join at HBS?
I was a little surprised because she had only a blank legal pad of paper in the room and a pen. My application, essays, etc. were nowhere in sight! However, she did greet me by name and seemed to know my candidacy at the outset.
4. Tell me more about what you do at [current employer]. 5. Tell me about [current extracurricular activity]. 6. So I see that you are interested in a career in [candidate's target industry]? 7. What is that you like so much about the [blank] industry? 8. Tell me about a time when you were entrepreneurial? What were your challenges in this project? How did you overcome these challenges? 9. What would others say about your leadership style? 10. Tell me about a time when you faced an obstacle/challenge at work? What did you do? 11. Explain a time when you have enabled someone to do their job. 12. Is there a question that I haven’t asked? 13. “Well, that concludes our time…you could ask me a question if you have one…”
Posted by Clear Admit on December 27, 2004, at 1:26 pm
Posted in: MBA News Two prominent publishers of MBA rankings (Business Week and the Wall Street Journal), have undergone some changes at the top:
The Associated Press has reported that Stephen J. Adler, deputy managing director of the Wall Street Journal has taken the editor’s job at Business Week magazine. He’ll be moving over to Business Week in January for a transitional phase before taking the helm on April 1st.
Adler said the following when the announcement was made: “I’m enormously honored and hugely excited to have [the] opportunity. I’ve always admired BusinessWeek’s clarity, reliability and insight, and I look forward to helping to build on those traditions while working creatively to meet the opportunities of the digital age.” Article: click here
Over at the Wall Street Journal, where Adler oversaw the MBA rankings (amongst other things), a memo was issued last Monday outlining new plans: “Jim Pensiero will take on responsibility for Journal books, the business-school rankings, and related activities that were part of Adler’s work. Pensiero will continue to oversee the global copy desk, the pagination and prepress operation, and the market-data team.” Article: click here
Although this movement will likely result in changes for both publications, we expect the rankings to proceed as usual.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 24, 2004, at 10:27 am
Posted in: General The entire Clear Admit team wishes everyone a safe and happy holiday!
(Clear Admit blog-addicts, fear not – we’ll be back on Monday with more MBA gossip, tips and information. Just like Santa, we tend to work overtime at this point of year!)
Posted by Clear Admit on December 23, 2004, at 10:27 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips , Essay Topic Analysis , School: Northwestern / Kellogg Here’s a bit of advice on a rather non-traditional essay question that Kellogg poses in their MBA application. (Consider it an early holiday gift to our readers who will be spending their vacation days writing Kellogg essays for R2…)
3. You have been selected as a member of the Kellogg Admissions Committee. Please provide a brief evaluative assessment of your file. (one to two pages double-spaced)
Although this seems like a very broad question, your response can actually be pretty straightforward. We find that the essay works best when applicants pick a few very concrete categories and evaluate themselves in these areas. If you are struggling as far as which categories to select, it can be helpful to have a careful look at Kellogg’s explanation of their admissions criteria: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/admissions/apply/criteria.htm.
How you handle this essay will reveal how aware you are of your qualifications and areas of weakness, but it also gives you the opportunity to highlight explicitly the elements of your candidacy that you think will help your case. Ideally, this essay should not be a simple restating of the facts behind your application, but rather should carefully analyze how those facts make you appealing to Kellogg. Don’t waste too much time on weaknesses – address them candidly and then point to possible mitigating factors or strengths that compensate for them.
Again, we want to emphasize that you should not just recycle what you have said in your other essays in the third person, but remember that you are a committee member assessing your existing file. As such, you should focus mostly on things that he/she would read in your other essays, or see in your transcript, application forms, etc. You should not focus on items that are not mentioned anywhere else or on personal traits only you (as an applicant) really know about. Point to your most significant accomplishments and personal strengths, and make sure to be specific when you talk about contributions to Kellogg.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 22, 2004, at 10:55 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips , School: Penn / Wharton First off, we’d like to offer our congratulations to everyone who gained admission to Wharton yesterday! We really enjoyed receiving all the emails and phone calls from our clients as well as reading the latest blog and discussion forum postings from everyone in the MBA applicant community.
Since we’re aware that not every applicant received an admit, we thought we would offer some tips with regards to handling rejection or waitlist situations. In both cases, it’s important to remember that there are several silver linings here:
1) Timing is everything. The fact that Wharton releases R1 decisions well before most of the R2 deadlines provides applicants with an early signal of where they might fall in the applicant pool. This feedback can be tremendously important when crafting a backup plan. If you didn’t get the news you were hoping for, it may make sense to consider adding a few schools in R2 (there are dozens of deadlines in January).
2) R1 waitlisters often get admitted in R2. If you were waitlisted, fear not! Historically, we’ve seen a very high percentage of R1 waitlisters gain acceptance to Wharton before the season is over. As such, it is critical to maintain a positive attitude. Of course, it also may make sense to explore other options (see #1 above), but there is no reason not to remain hopeful about your chances at Wharton.
3) Wharton is reapplicant friendly. If your heart is still set on Wharton despite a denial of admission, it may make sense to consider reapplication next year. If this is your plan, you should get started immediately on your strategy by thinking about the areas you could improve. Also, keep in mind that Wharton is one of the few MBA programs that offers applicants a feedback session to explain where the application fell short. These sessions typically take place in the summer months. Check the Wharton web site to learn more about signing up for a feedback session (sign-ups usually take place in April or May).
4) One result does not determine your MBA fate. Although getting a decision from Wharton can serve as a great measure of your chances with other top schools, it is also important to remember that one data point does not define your fate. This is why it is so critical to target several top schools. Even the most impressive candidates rarely get into every school they consider.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 21, 2004, at 2:11 pm
Posted in: MBA News The New York Times has published an interesting article about the declining number of international applicants to universities in the United States. While it’s clearly difficult to draw long-range conclusions at this point in time, the Times suggests that European and Asian universities are catching up to the US – offering more options for today’s students seeking undergraduate and graduate degrees. There are also suggestions that post-9/11 visa difficulties have discouraged some applicants from looking at US options.
This concept is certainly reflected in the declining GMAT volume for countries like China and India. Of course, before jumping to conclusions, it is worth noting that the article indicates that 17 of the worlds top 20 universities are located in the United States, and that 170 of the top 500 universities in the world are located in the US.
For the full text: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/national/21global.html
Congratulations to all of our clients who have been hearing positive news from Yale SOM! Best of luck to everyone waiting on Wharton!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 20, 2004, at 10:03 am
Posted in: School: Penn / Wharton Our best wishes to those of you who are anxiously awaiting R1 results from Wharton. Decisions will be released tomorrow morning at 9 AM (EST). If you are feeling especially impatient for the news, you can log into the Wharton online application tomorrow morning at 8:59 AM and begin clicking ‘refresh’ until the news goes live. If you have taken more of a zen approach, you might opt to wait for the automated email which will alert you to a change in status at around the same time.
For the record, here is how Wharton goes about posting their decisions: By this point, your file has been reviewed at least three times (two pre-interview reads and one post-interview read). In some cases, you file has gone to committee, where the admissions staff and a handful of second-year students have further debated your case and called a vote (thumbs up for admit, thumbs down for deny, thumbs sideways for waitlist). Of course, all admits are given a final stamp of approval by Rose Martinelli, the director of admissions. Once a decision has been reached, the operations staff begins entering results into the admissions system. In other words, most of the decisions are currently sitting in the Wharton online application system, it’s just that you cannot yet see them. The decisions are inputted up with a time-stamp, which will allow the news to go live at 9 AM tomorrow.
On other fronts, the Wall Street Journal published some very good news for MBA students on Friday. It looks like starting salaries are on the rise again, matching the levels that have not been seen since 2001. Both starting salaries and bonuses have seen significant increases, particularly in the banking and consulting fields. For more information, read the full text of the article: http://www.collegejournal.com/mbacenter/newstrends/20041216-kim.html
Finally, there have been some wonderful changes made to the MBA League of Bloggers site, thanks to the hard work of Hella and Alex Brown at Wharton! This site not only contains a master list of all MBA-related blogs, but it now includes aggregated content and recent postings from key message boards.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 17, 2004, at 11:57 am
Posted in: MBA News There is a fascinating article on university rankings in the latest edition of Knowledge @ Wharton. The article discusses a research study led by Wharton finance professor Andrew Metrick. Using a model similar to those used to rank professional chess players, Metrick and several colleagues from Harvard and Boston University have developed a new ranking for undergraduate programs.
Although this article focuses on college rankings, there are some interesting parallels to the MBA rankings world. For example, one of the central critiques that Metrick and company have for current college rankings revolves around the fact that schools can manipulate them. According to Metrick, this is typically done via early decision options (to artificially boost yield) and by encouraging unqualified applicants to apply (to boost selectivity numbers). Some have argued that these practices are taking place in the MBA admissions world…
For the full text of the article and the resulting undergraduate rankings, follow this link: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1104
Also, for those of you who are hungry for stats, a Clear Admit blog reader brought the following site to our attention: http://www.investigatio.com/mba/. Although somewhat out of date, this site includes a wealth of data as well as admissions decision information for hundreds of MBA applicants.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 16, 2004, at 10:24 am
Posted in: General Several items to report today:
1) The Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) will be raising the price of the GMAT exam from $225 to $250 as of January 1st, 2005. The reasons that were cited for the price increase are as follows: a) test security, b) rising demands for offering the test in more locations, c) ongoing improvements to customer service, and d) costs of litigation to protect the GMAT copyrights and trademarks. GMAC has also indicated that they feel that the cost of the exam is negligible in contrast to the cost of an MBA education. Full text of the article: click here
2) Harvard Business School sent out a helpful ‘email reminder’ yesterday alerting all applicants to the upcoming R2 deadline (Jan. 5th). Although logistical in nature, there were a couple of key points stressed in the email that applicants should take note of (our comments are in black): -Please be brief in describing your employment, extracurricular, and community activities and abide by the word limits provided. Going overboard on your descriptions is not a good idea with HBS. They receive thousands of applications and need not make exceptions for those who can’t follow simple instructions. -All recommendation forms MUST be completed using the online recommendation form and electronically submitted to the MBA Admissions Office. In other words, paper recommendations are not allowed. -Please make sure your recommenders have submitted by the deadline as well. It is your responsibility to track the status of each recommendation. This is self-explanatory. Your recs must arrive on time – and HBS will not track down your authors to ensure that this happens. -We encourage you to submit your online application as early as possible to avoid heavy server traffic and potential delays. There have been a few incidents in prior years (limited or slow access to the site during the final hours, crashes, etc.). Don’t wait until the last minute. -Harvard Business School will be closed for Winter Break beginning at noon on Thursday, December 23rd, 2004 through Sunday, January 2nd, 2005. Don’t expect to have your emailed questions or phone calls answered during this time period.
3) UCLA’s Anderson School has just issued a press release with the following news: “The Entertainment and Media Management Institute at UCLA Anderson School of Management has named Walter Zifkin, CEO Emeritus of the William Morris Agency, as the Institute’s first Industry Fellow. Zifkin, a UCLA alumnus who has been very involved with entertainment efforts at UCLA Anderson for much of the past year, will share his expertise with students in UCLA Anderson’s full-time, part-time and executive MBA programs.” This is wonderful news for UCLA’s already strong M&E program… http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=77819
Posted by Clear Admit on December 15, 2004, at 10:37 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips At this point in the MBA admissions season, the majority of applicants fall into one of three categories: 1) elated, 2) nervous or 3) stressed out.
Before we get much further, let’s define these three groups in more detail:
1) Elated. These are the applicants who have applied very early to their dream school, gained admission sometime in the last few weeks and feel as if they might walk on air. They spend their time procrastinating at work, thinking about when they should give their notice and where they would like to travel in the months leading up to their MBA program’s ‘pre-term’. Ample time is also spent reading discussion forums with a pleasantly detached point of view.
2) Nervous. The nervous applicants are the ones who have applied to several schools in the first or ‘early’ rounds and still anxiously awaiting word from top choices. This group is looking forward to hearing from schools like Duke (this week), Wharton (next Tuesday), Kellogg, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, etc. Candidates in the ‘nervous’ category typically spend their time reading discussion forums and blogs, feeling generally unproductive at work and coming up with complex theories about the admissions process. We’ve heard some of the best theories from this group over the years. Our personal favorite is the “All the great applicants apply in round 1, my chances would have been better if I had waited to apply in rounds 2 or 3″ theory. [For the record, this theory is not accurate, since it ignores the 'waitlist factor'. More on that in another blog entry.]
3) Stressed Out. This group has not yet applied to business school. They are looking at the early/mid-January MBA application deadlines and realizing that their work schedule and upcoming holiday commitments are going to make for a very intense four-week period. They spend time reading discussion forums and blogs, but feel guilty for not using that time to work on rough drafts of their application essays instead. They are slowly coming to the realization that the only way to move forward is to eliminate all evening and weekend social activities. Our advice to this group: Make the short-term sacrifices that are needed. Your social life will still be there when you finish. Focus intensely on the task at hand for the next 4 weeks and your efforts will pay dividends.
Best of luck to everyone making their way through the admissions process! Please continue to share your news with the Clear Admit team!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 13, 2004, at 6:40 pm
Posted in: School: Penn / Wharton This just in from the Wharton Admissions Blog:
Wharton R1 Decisions date moved to Tuesday, December 21, 9 AM We have decided to move the decision-release date for Round 1 applicants, who were interviewed, to Tuesday, December 21. Decisions will be released at the usual time, 9 AM. At that time, an applicant will receive an e-mail notifying the status update, but the important thing to note is the online status will be updated at that time. We will be sending out an e-mail today, to all those who interviewed in R1, notifying them of this change. http://adcomblog.wharton.upenn.edu/admissions/2004/12/r1_decesions_da.html
As predicted in this blog last Thursday, Wharton has bumped their date to notify R1 applicants a bit sooner. That should make the wait a bit less painful for everyone…
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