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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.

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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.

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

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Rankings are a good way to start your research on various MBA Programs. Keep in mind each uses a different methodology.
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ARCHIVE FOR MARCH 2005

Thursday, March 31, 2005

HBS R2, Tuck/ApplyYourself

What turned out to be a rather unusual admissions round at Harvard Business School finally came to an end yesterday. We’d like to offer our congratulations to everyone who was offered a spot in the HBS class of 2007!

Our email inbox has been working overtime in the last 24 hours. Here’s one of the wonderful notes we received:

—– Original Message —–
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 2:13 PM
Subject: HBS Decision

Graham and Eliot!!

I AM IN AT HBS! Just wanted to THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH for everything–you make it seem too easy…couldn’t have done it without you!

THANKS SO MUCH AGAIN! I can’t believe the MBA journey is finally over — well almost

best, xxx

For those of you who are still curious about the whole Apply Yourself admissions fiasco, there is an interesting article in The Dartmouth explaining that Tuck will consider applications from those applicants who peeked. Another aspect of the article that is of note is the author’s description of the hacking:

“Dartmouth is one of over ten business schools that used an online application system built by ApplyYourself.com. The website was programmed such that an applicant could view his or her decision early simply by manually navigating to a webpage containing a system-supplied identification number.”

For the full text of the article:
http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=2005032901040

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Working in the UK, GMAT volume

For those of you who have an interest in working in the UK after earning your MBA, we now have all the details on the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) and the MBA Provision. As we mentioned in this blog several weeks ago, students of the top 50 business schools now have the right to work in the UK for 12 months on completion of their MBA.

The program is launching in April of 2005, and this site has all of the details:
http://www.workpermit.com/uk/hsmp/mba_provision

What is perhaps most interesting about this program is that it has forced the government of the United Kingdom to generate a global MBA ranking (see the list below). Here is a brief note about how this list was generated:

“The list has been put together through an assessment of economic impacts only, by observing the effects of employment and income factors, and is correct as of December 2004. The list of institutions will contain 10 UK institutions and 40 institutions from the rest of the world. The quota of 10 UK institutions has been included because students already studying in the UK have ‘already shown a commitment to this country and have begun to integrate in the UK, making it easier for them to continue their career here.”

Without further ado, here is the UK’s list of the top 50 global MBA programs:
Harvard Business School (USA)
Columbia Business School (USA)
University of Pennsylvania: Wharton (USA)
IMD (SWI)
University of Chicago (USA)
Dartmouth College: Tuck (USA)
Stanford University (USA)
Insead (FR/Sing)
University of Oxford: Said (UK)
MIT: Sloan (USA)
Ashridge (UK)
Northwestern: Kellogg (USA)
London Business School (UK)
New York University: Stern (USA)
University of Strathclyde (UK)
Iese Business School (SP)
Yale School of Management (USA)
Warwick Business School (UK)
City University: Cass (UK)
Rotterdam School of Management (Neth)
UC Berkeley: Haas (USA)
University of Cambridge: Judge (UK)
Georgetown University: McDonough (USA)
Instituto de Empresa (SP)
Cornell University: Johnson (USA)
University of Michigan (USA)
Duke University: Fuqua (USA)
University of Virginia: Darden (USA)
Carnegie Mellon University (USA)
SDA Bocconi (IT)
Emory University: Goizueta (USA)
UCLA: Anderson (USA)
Manchester Business School (UK)
Cranfield School of Management (UK)
University of Toronto: Rotman (CAN)
University College Dublin: Smurfit (IRE)
University of Southern California: Marshall (USA)
University of Rochester: Simon (USA)
Vanderbilt University: Owen (USA)
Rice University: Jones (USA)
University of North Carolina: Kenan-Flagler (USA)
Babson College: Olin (USA)
Melbourne Business School (AUS)
Ceibs (CHN)
Australian Graduate School of Management (AUS)
Universiteit Nyenrode (NTH)
University of Western Ontario: Ivey (CAN)
Boston University School of Management (USA)
University of Maryland: Smith (USA)
Bradford School of Management/Nimbas (UK/NTH/GER)

Just for those of you keeping score at home, there are 27 US programs on the list, 10 UK programs, 7 programs from the EU (not including the UK), 2 from Canada, 2 from Australia, 1 from Switzerland and 1 from China.

In other news, GMAT test taking volume continues to outpace last year, suggesting that the tide may be shifting in terms of MBA application volume (figures from leading schools like Wharton seem to corroborate this). While many speculated that the January increase in GMAT volume was a fluke, February has shown a similar trend and global test-taking volume is up 1.23% in 2005. Oddly, this increase is all coming from test-takers in the USA, as international volume continues to lag. While a 1.23% increase is nothing to get too excited about, it is important to note that at this time last year we were looking at a decrease of 14% in test taker volume. What a difference a year makes!

For details on the GMAT statistics:
http://www.gmac.org/gmac/ResearchandTrends/GMATStatistics/CurrentGMATVolume.htm

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

US News Rankings

US News has issued their annual ranking of MBA programs. The special edition magazine is available in bookstores and on newsstands now. The rankings will also be available online as of this Friday, but you’ll need to subscribe in order to get anything beyond the basic listings.

The top 15 for 2006 are as follows:
1. Harvard
2. Stanford
2. Wharton
4. MIT Sloan
4. Kellogg
6. Tuck
6. Haas
8. Chicago
9. Columbia
10. Michigan
11. Fuqua
11. UCLA
13. NYU Stern
14. Darden
15. Cornell
15. Yale SOM

Key items of note:
1) More ties in the top 10
Wharton moves up into a tie with Stanford for second place, Kellogg ties MIT for 4th place, Tuck (Dartmouth) and Haas (Berkeley) tie for 6th place. This creates a tiering within the top 10 schools, with HBS at the top, Stanford/Wharton at the next level, Kellogg and MIT below that, etc.

2) Columbia and Chicago slip
Last year, US News had Columbia and Chicago tied for 6th place behind the likes of Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg and MIT. This year, Columbia moves down to 9th place, with Chicago dropping to 8th. Perhaps more importantly, these schools now sit behind Tuck and Haas.

3) Limited movement among schools 10-15
Things have pretty much stayed the same for the schools in the 10-15 range, with the same programs occupying these slots despite a bit of juggling with NYU and Darden

For those of you who enjoy debating the rankings, there are some great discussion threads in the Business Week forums. Many of the forum participants have posted specialty rankings as well (top schools in finance, marketing, management, etc).
http://forums.businessweek.com/bw-bschools/messages?msg=62615.1
http://forums.businessweek.com/bw-bschools/messages?msg=62635.1

As usual, we’d like to encourage our readers to be sure to use these rankings alongside other publications and resources. In addition to the popular rankings offered by Business Week, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, etc, check out this ranking of top ‘feeder’ schools that we’ve found quite interesting.

Monday, March 28, 2005

Hackers Access Kellogg Systems

The business school world continues to be plagued by information systems security issues. Just as the HBS/ApplyYourself admissions fiasco has died down, the Kellogg School of Management has reported troubles of their own. This incident has affected students, faculty, staff, alumni and applicants and has led to an extension of the EMBA admissions deadline.

Here is the latest statement from the school’s web site:

EVANSTON, Ill. March 25, 2005 — A security breach has been detected in the computer server system at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Officials from the Northwestern University’s Information Technology Office, Kellogg Information Systems and Kellogg administration have acted to contain any risk to the Kellogg faculty, staff, students and alumni. The broader Northwestern community was not affected.

When the server problem was discovered on Sunday (March 20), the affected systems were immediately taken off-line and rebuilt. On Wednesday (March 23), Kellogg Information Systems determined that Kellogg user IDs and passwords, which provide access to various information sources on the Northwestern system, were potentially obtained by the hackers. While the University has no evidence that personal identification was accessed, Northwestern has taken the precautionary measure of disabling all passwords and user IDs for Kellogg School faculty and staff (approximately 500) and students (approximately 3,000) affected. Kellogg Information Systems is also working to create new passwords for approximately 18,000 of the school’s alumni whose passwords were also potentially obtained.

An investigation is ongoing and it appears that the servers were not targeted to obtain personal information. (This is similar to incidents in the last week at Boston College and California State University, Chico.) Thus far, no one at Kellogg has reported any unauthorized use of their information.

The Kellogg School has also established a web page for the Kellogg community containing frequently asked questions regarding the breach.

The school has also sent the following email to applicants for their EMBA program:

—-Original Message Follows—-
From: emba@kellogg.northwestern.edu
To: emba@kellogg.northwestern.edu
Subject: ALERT: Your Kellogg admissions password disabled
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 17:53:54 -0600

To all applicants to the Kellogg School Executive MBA program:

A security breach of the Kellogg School server system has been detected. Kellogg Information Systems, Northwestern Information Technology (NU IT) and the Kellogg administration have acted quickly to contain any risk to theKellogg community.

Thus far, no one at Kellogg has reported any unauthorized use of their information, and there is no evidence that your Kellogg Admissions application information was accessed. This intrusion is not related to other business school admissions site break-ins that have recently been publicized.

When the server problem was discovered on Sunday (March 20), the affected systems were immediately taken off-line and rebuilt. On Wednesday (March23), Kellogg Information Systems determined that applicant user IDs and passwords, which provide access to the online application system, were potentially obtained by the hackers. While the University has no evidence that personal identification was accessed, or that information was lost, Northwestern has taken the precautionary measure of disabling all passwords and user IDs for the Kellogg School community, including applicants, beginning immediately, because password information was compromised.

The Kellogg School would like to assist you in taking every safeguard necessary to ensure your privacy. If you suspect that your personal information has been misused, please visit www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/news/whatsnew/breachInfo.htm for further information about measures that you may wish to take.

In the next week, you will receive a letter via express mail with your new password. Unfortunately, you will not be able to access the application site until you receive your new password in the mail. As a result of this event,the admissions site will be unavailable until Thursday March 31, and the EMBA program has extended the application deadline from April 1 to April 7.

If you have questions about this process, please contact the Executive MBA Office at 1.847.467.7020. We appreciate your patience as we address this issue.

Sincerely,
Julie Cisek Jones
Assistant Dean and Director, Executive MBA Programs
Kellogg School of Management

Friday, March 25, 2005

Wharton Results

Our congratulations to everyone who received positive news from Wharton yesterday! Here are a few of the emails we’ve received from our clients in the last 24 hours:

—– Original Message —–
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 12:01 AM
Subject: Update

Dear Clear Admit -

Just wanted to let everyone in the office know that I got into Wharton! I am extremely delighted! Thanks again for helping me prepare for the interview!

Regards, xxx

—– Original Message —–
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 7:59 PM
Subject: Re: Clear Admit: checking in

Hello Alex,

I was about to email you to share the good news, just found out about it very late last night. =) I got accepted to Wharton as well! Thank you sooooooooooooooooooo much for your help. Couldn’t have made it w/o all your support. =)

Thanks again, xxx

—– Original Message —–
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 11:16 AM
Subject: RE: update

Fantastic news Graham! I got into Wharton today!!!!!!

I have to THANK YOU so much Graham, your help with the application process and interview was great - I had a fantastic interview with the Wharton alum.

I am your #1 supporter.

Sincerely, xxx

—– Original Message —–
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 9:26 AM
Subject: Thank you!

Dear Graham,

I just wanted to let you know that I got in to Wharton!!! I’m really thrilled. Thanks so much for your help. I definitely would not have submitted nearly as good of an application without your advice and I appreciated Clear Admit’s support throughout the process. Perhaps even more importantly, I think that if I had not been accepted, I would at least have been satisfied that I had put my best foot forward.

Best, xxx

—– Original Message —–
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 9:18 AM
Subject: Wharton

Eliot,

I checked my Wharton status this morning, and much to my surprise, I got in!!! I am so happy words can’t describe how I feel. I want to thank you for the help again and you can count me as one of your successful clients. I am in so far at 2 of the 3 schools I used your recommended strategies for. Thanks! — xxxx

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

New Director of Admissions at Wharton

This just in…

Wharton has announced a replacement for Rose Martinelli:

—– Original Message —–
From:
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 6:17 PM
Subject: Announcing the Appointment of Thomas Caleel, Director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid
To All Wharton MBA Alumni

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Thomas Caleel (WG’03) as our next Director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid.

A search committee headed by Peter Degnan evaluated and interviewed a large number of candidates and presented to Dean Harker and me a short list of very strong front-runners. The invited candidates also met with a group of 15 students and the entire staff of the MBA Admissions office. After extensive consultations with the Committee and other stakeholders, we are delighted to appoint Thomas to this position.

Thomas’s professional career so far has been characterized by his uncommon entrepreneurial energy and dynamism. As a successful entrepreneur, venture financier, and chief executive, Thomas’s professional experience has been wide ranging and internationally diverse. As a student at Wharton he demonstrated exemplary leadership and won the 2003 Wharton Way Leadership Award. As an alum he now returns to his alma mater with great enthusiasm and a sense of privilege at the opportunity to help shape Wharton’s future.

Thomas began his career at Heritage Finance & Trust, a private financial group based in Geneva, Switzerland. As Director of the Moscow Representative Office during 1995-1998, Thomas established and built the company’s presence in this rapidly growing market. He also participated in a variety of private equity transactions across several former Soviet Republics.

Between 1998 and 2001, Thomas was a co-Founder of BCI Private Capital, a holding company in Denver, Colorado. Through BCI, he served as Managing Director of International Development for Caleel+Hayden, a start-up manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of premium skincare products. During his time at Caleel+Hayden, sales grew from zero to over $20 million annually, and the firm grew to 180 employees across 20 countries. While at BCI, Thomas participated in the acquisition or founding of several new product lines and new businesses and served as the interim CEO of a Russian-Swiss technology venture that delivers medical information to remote disaster areas as well as mobile phones.

After his graduation from Wharton, Thomas worked at Cagan McAfee Capital Partners, a private equity firm in California’s Silicon Valley, where he performed financial analysis for portfolio companies and raised public and private funds across the energy, recycling, and life sciences sectors. He also served on the Board of Directors of several CMCP portfolio companies.

Thomas received his MBA from Wharton in 2003 with a major in finance. While at Wharton, he was a Leadership Fellow, Co-Chair of the Ethics Committee, a Graduate Assistant in the Admissions Office (reading applications and conducting interviews), and a member of the Dean’s Graduate Student Advisory Committee. Thomas received a BA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994.

Thomas is an accomplished horseman and has played polo in professional level tournaments in the U.S. and abroad. He is fluent in Russian, proficient in Italian and French, and is working on his Spanish. His return to Philadelphia does deprive the Wharton Club of Northern California of a Vice President, but the Club leaders agree the move is in Wharton’s larger interest!

It is a matter of considerable pride for us to have attracted alums to a number of senior administrative positions at the school (Evan Wittenberg, WG’02; Jennifer McElrath, WG’85, and Kristi Aiello, WG’01 being the most recent in the Grad Division). My thanks to Peter Degnan and the entire committee for devoting countless hours to conduct a careful and thorough search.

Thomas has already begun his engagement with the Admissions Office and is involved in important discussions. We expect him to be in Philadelphia full time in early April.

I also wish to take a moment to acknowledge with gratitude the wonderful leadership, commitment, and integrity that Rose Martinelli has brought to her years of service at Wharton. She remains on board till the end of April and will help guide Thomas’s transition into the position. She leaves behind a shining legacy of inspirational leadership and carries the fond gratitude of the entire Wharton community.

With best regards,

Anjani Jain
Vice Dean and Director, Wharton Graduate Division

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Wharton R2 Decisions, News

As many of you know, Wharton R2 decisions will be available as of 9 AM this Thursday. At that time, all applicants who made it to the interview phase of the admissions process can login to their accounts and see their final decision. We’d like to wish everyone the best of luck with the decision!

Wharton’s admissions blog explains all of the details surrounding the forthcoming decisions:
http://adcomblog.wharton.upenn.edu/admissions/2005/03/round_2_decisio.html

There is also the beginnings of some discussion in the student-2-student forums:
http://s2s.wharton.upenn.edu/wh-wharton/messages?msg=9453.1

In other Wharton-related news, the school has just announced that its Knowledge @ Wharton publication will now be available in Chinese. Here are all the details:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050322005023&newsLang=en

And of course, still more news on the Harvard/ApplyYourself admissions glitch…
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/11197045.htm (a letter to the editor)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/22/business_school_hack/ (yes, this story has made it across the Atlantic)

Finally, Entrepreneur Magazine has published a ranking of the most entrepreneurial colleges and universities in the United States. As one might expect, names like Babson, UNC and MIT are featured in the top 10.

Here’s the link to the article: http://www.entrepreneur.com/topcolleges

And here’s a quick list of the top 10 entrepreneurial colleges and universities:
1. Babson College
2. The University of Arizona
3. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
4. Indiana University, Bloomington
5. Southern Methodist University
6. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
8. California State University, Fresno
9. University of Colorado at Boulder
10. Wake Forest University

Monday, March 21, 2005

Article: Chinese MBAs Returning to China?

Saturday’s San Francisco Chronicle included an interesting piece on employment and visa prospects for Chinese students at Berkeley/Haas. The article traces the paths of several Chinese students in Berkeley’s MBA program including details about their employment search and the choices they face in determining where to live and work. There is also some discussion of US visa policy that may be of interest to international candidates.

For the full text of the article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/19/BUGS1BRRFQ1.DTL

The Ebay auction for a slot at Nyenrode Business School in the Netherlands has come to an end. The winner bid $36,015 for a slot in the class, but must now go through the admissions process in order to attend. Sound confusing? Review the links below:

Link to the auction item on Ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5960740539&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:1

Link to the article about this marketing stunt in the International Herald Tribune:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/03/18/business/ptauction19.html

Finally, it looks like the HBS/ApplyYourself story has truly spread into every corner of the US. Here is a local editorial piece from a St. Louis newspaper. It offers a harsh indictment of the HBS 119: link.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

111107395450935259

Stirring the “Melting Pot”?
Along the lines of yesterday’s post on diversity at business schools, there is an interesting article in BusinessWeek today. It highlights the challenges that business schools face in attracting and competing for diverse applicants. The article makes the argument that schools already make an effort to attract applicants of many backgrounds, but that many schools are, in fact, competing for the attention of a relatively small group of individuals:

“Deciding between enrolling in the full-time MBA program at Stanford Graduate School of Business or Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business is hardly the worst predicament you could face — especially if you thought you would never fit the business school mold at all. Just ask Shaquita Murphy, an African-American woman, who’s choosing which of these prestigious programs to attend this fall. ‘I wouldn’t have applied to any B-school if I hadn’t found other people like me who were applying,’ says Murphy, who regularly consulted MBA Diversity, a grassroots effort by minority applicants who support each other through online forums, blogs, and meetings.

Murphy has a background in information technology but says she was worried that a nontraditional applicant such as herself would be rejected. The reality, however, is that Murphy is an admission director’s dream…”

To read on, see the article here.

In other news…
We want to offer congratulations to those who recently received good news from your target schools, and wish lots of luck to those of you who will be preparing for interviews, or waiting for Round 2 decisions, in the coming weeks.

Here is one recent email from our mailbag:

—– Original Message —–

Clear Admit has been an incredible resource for me from start to finish. The admissions counselors are extremely knowledgeable and helpful and my application was 10x stronger with their help. I got into my first choice school which would not have been possible without the help of Clear Admit. The extensive interview preparation they provided me really helped me feel confident, and the admissions committee said my exceptional interview played a big role in my admittance.

Sincerely, XXX

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Diversity and the MBA

A recent study by GMAC (the Graduate Management Admission Council) indicates that financial aid is one of the tools that business schools have at their disposal to attract minority and international students. The article suggests that “full-time MBA programs can improve their ability to attract students by strengthening and increasing promotion of their financial assistance programs.”

For the full text of the article, please see GMAC’s website.

Along similar lines, the World MBA Tour has found that increasing numbers of women are seeking MBAs. The article notes, “For women in business, the ‘glass ceiling’ remains a major problem, but, according to new figures, the number of women aiming to use an MBA as a way to break through is on the rise. The figures came from the organisers of the world MBA Tour, the largest international programme of business school information fairs. Of more than 44,000 candidates who attended tour events in 2004, nearly 34 per cent were female, in comparison with 28 per cent in 2003.”

To continue reading, go to the full article.

Finally, it looks like the results of several surveys have found that minority business school professors significantly affect the career choices of their students. The article discusses the PhD Project, whose “goal is to diversify the front of the classroom as a means to better prepare students for a diverse work environment,” according to Bernard J. Milano, President of the KPMG Foundation. He adds, “It is reassuring to know students feel minority professors and doctoral students are impacting positively on their career decisions and education.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Application News Update: Darden
In unrelated news, Darden has decided to extend its application deadline until June 1. In their email, the adcom mentioned that, “[d]ue to a few special requests, the admissions committee would like to extend to everyone, the opportunity to apply to Darden until June 1, 2005. Please allow the Admissions Committee to review your application materials and if necessary you will be contacted for an evaluative interview.”

This should give all of you a bit more time to work on your applications, if necessary, but we encourage you to not wait until the last minute to submit your materials!

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Admissions Tip: Correspondence

As many applicants eagerly await admissions decisions, waitlist news and interview invitations, we’ve received a number of questions about what, if anything, they can do at this point in the process. In light of these concerns, we’d like to offer a few guidelines for communication with the admissions committee, students and alums to make your efforts at this point in the process as effective as possible.

1) Be Polite. It’s good form to send an interviewer a “thank you” email after your meeting - this will not only reinforce his or her positive impression, but will also give you an opening to mention something memorable from your conversation or to slip in something that you didn’t have a chance to bring up. Above all, it’s important that you be gracious and pleasant. This rule also applies to other school staff and students with whom you are in touch - if, for instance, you email the head of a club in which you are interested, just a small thank you for his or her time and assistance could go a long way in creating the appropriate tone and faciliating a friendly and informative exchange.

2) Be Positive. Now is not the time to express skepticism about the program or conduct due diligence - it’s far better to wait until you have an acceptance in hand. While on the waitlist or awaiting a decision, expressing interest and enthusiasm is the best policy, and highlighting your strengths will serve you better than dwelling on your weaknesses.

3) Make it Constructive. If there has been some material change in your profile, such as a promotion at work or increased responsibility in an outside activity, it might be appropriate to bring this to the admission committee’s attention before the notification date. If you decide to communicate with the adcom after you have submitted your application and before they have reached a decision, it’s very important that you introduce only new information that is relevant to your candidacy. Simply repeating yourself and covering information that is already available in your application will not work to your advantage (and could have a detrimental effect). This brings us to the next point …

4) Make it Concise. Remember that in sending correspondence to the admissions committee or asking questions of alums or current students, you are essentially creating additional work for them. This being the case, the most effective emails and letters will be brief and to the point (in addition to being pleasant, positive and informative).

While these four guidelines are quite general and cover a range of scenarios, they should prove to be a helpful starting point for productive communication with anyone you might have occasion to contact. For advice and assistance tailored to your situation, feel free to contact Clear Admit directly for information about our interview preparation or waitlist counseling services.

Monday, March 14, 2005

More on the ApplyYourself Controversy, Upcoming Deadlines

Joining the ranks of HBS and MIT, Duke announced on Friday that the single hacker who attempted to gain access to his admission decision through the ApplyYourself system has been rejected.

As debate on the issue continues, the New York Times has published an interesting article on the matter that considers what people perceive to be a difference between online and offline ethics. This commentary might help explain the difficulty that administrators at the schools and the online community at large is having arriving at a truly apt real-world analogy for the situation. The article also features quotation from the member of the HBS 119 responsible for the humorous t-shirts mentioned in this blog last week, who went on the record under his real name, shedding the anonymity to which others in his situation have understandably been preserving. He’s also written an informative blog posting containing his thoughts on the matter beyond those that were printed.

The full text of the Times article can be found at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/technology/14harvard.html

In more general news, the coming days are heavy with final/round three deadlines for a number of programs:

Cornell/Johnson (March 14th)
Duke/Fuqua (March 15th)
Emory/Goizueta (March 15th)
NYU/Stern (March 15th)
Yale SOM (March 16th)
Stanford (March 17th)
Chicago (March 18th)
Carnegie Mellon (March 21st)

Good luck to those of you who are working to submit materials by these deadlines, as well as to round two applicants who are eagerly awaiting decisions by the end of the month.

Friday, March 11, 2005

Article: UK Offers Visas to MBAs

The India Times has an interesting article on the United Kingdom’s new policy towards MBA graduates. As of April 1st, MBA graduates from the top 50 global business schools will automatically be awarded the minimum number of points to qualify for the UK’s Highly Skilled Migrants Program. In this case, the top 50 is an internal ranking that the UK government has developed, including many of the usual suspects in the United States, UK, Canada and Europe.

For the full text of the article:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1048055,curpg-1.cms

Finally, today’s blog entry from Power Yogi offers a number of interesting links and angles to follow on the HBS 119 story.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

ApplyYourself to Sue Hackers?

A few more takes on the HBS story…

1) Business Week has weighed in, further explaining Harvard’s approach and offering comments from peer schools - including Kellogg.
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/mar2005/bs2005039_7827_bs001.htm

2) CNN has a similar article - and while we’re talking about URLs and their various forms, we’d like to point out that CNN’s post is in a directory called “funny”. See below:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/09/news/funny/hackers.reut/

3) The Stanford Daily has an article with more details on the impact the loophole had on their system. In the story, Len Metheny, the CEO of Apply Yourself, indicates that the organization has “not ruled out the possibility of pressing criminal charges” against the applicants who peeked.
http://www.stanforddaily.com/tempo?page=content&id=16478&repository=0001_article

4) The discussion and polling continues in the forums and blogging world….
http://forums.businessweek.com/bw-bschools/messages?msg=62027.1
http://forums.businessweek.com/bw-bschools/messages?msg=62027.1
http://www.mbaleague.blogspot.com/
http://s2s.wharton.upenn.edu/wh-wharton/messages?msg=8642.145

In other news, HBS’s third round deadline has now passed (perhaps overshadowed a bit by all the news), but Kellogg’s R3 deadline is this Saturday, with Stanford and Chicago to follow. Best of luck to all the late-rounders who are racing to bring their applications together!

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

The Numbers Game

Wharton received roughly 600 applications in R3, bringing their season’s total to 5,670 applications - just 1% below last year’s total. This is the first time in nearly three years that application volume has held relatively constant at Wharton (it had been slipping for the last two seasons at most top schools). Combining this bit of information with current GMAT volume (up 4.8% in January), it seems like the lean years of 2002-2004 are potentially a thing of the past. Of course, we’ll have to see what sort of volume the other schools report for this season before we can draw any broad conclusions.

Discussion rages on about the Harvard “119“. In addition to an AP article that offers a slightly different take (from the applicants’ perspective), it seems as though there are actually HBS 119 t-shirts now available to commemorate this story. Our favorite reads/discussions for today are as follows:

The Saga Continues
by Wharton-bound blogger Brit-Chick

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/
by an MIT professor (interesting take on software/hacking)

http://fluxt.org/wordpress/index.php?p=74
(critique of ApplyYourself software)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-03-09-rejected-applicants_x.htm
(applicants speak out in USA Today)

http://forums.businessweek.com/bw-bschools/messages?msg=61983.167
(current HBS students weigh in on the BW forums…)

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Harvard to Reject Applicants that Peeked

In the latest chapter of the HBS admissions glitch, Harvard’s Dean, Kim B. Clark, issued a statement to indicate that the school would be rejecting those candidates who took an early peek at their admissions results by altering the URLs in the ApplyYourself admissions system.

Although many of the leading MBA programs use the same admissions software package (and were vulnerable due to the loophole), reaction seems to have varied somewhat from school to school. Derrick Bolton, Stanford’s director of MBA admissions indicated that they would listen to what applicants had to say about accessing their files.

Today’s Harvard Crimson has the full story: http://www.thecrimson.com/today/article506247.html

Reuters has picked up the story as well:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=7841543

Of course, these developments have sparked a great deal of debate:
http://forums.businessweek.com/bw-bschools/messages?msg=61983.7
http://forums.businessweek.com/bw-bschools/messages?msg=61983.21
http://wakechick.blogspot.com/2005/03/hbs-hackers-blacklisted.html
http://s2s.wharton.upenn.edu/wh-wharton/messages?msg=8642.145

Article: Is There an “I” in Team?

Yesterday’s New York Times featured a fascinating article about teamwork and group performance - using the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox as case studies. The story focuses on whether or not decentralized groups perform better than strongly connected ones.

For anyone with an interest in group dynamics and teamwork (or a love of baseball) this article is a must read. Here are a couple of excerpts:

…social scientists who have studied group performance under pressure say that often it is decentralized groups (like the Yankees) that prove more resilient than strongly connected ones (like the Red Sox); they are better able to weather outside criticism and internal quarrels.

…winning is more likely to create team unity than vice versa, Torre has said repeatedly, and the evidence backs him up, said Dr. Richard Moreland, a professor of psychology and management at the University of Pittsburgh. Team cohesion is a hard thing to measure in the first place, Dr. Moreland said, and dozens of studies of sports teams find that, although having players who feel team unity helps performance, “it is not a strong effect, compared to the effect of performance on cohesion.” (New York Times, Monday, March 7th, 2005)

Full text of the article:
Close Doesn’t Always Count in Winning Games
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/07/sports/baseball/07psych.html

On another note, yesterday’s Times also published the following article that should be of interest to the media and entertainment crowd:
Is a Cinema Studies Degree the New M.B.A.?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/movies/06vann.html

Monday, March 07, 2005

Admissions Tip: School Selection

For those of you who are beginning to think about MBA applications for the class of 2008, we’d like to offer a few critical tips on researching the schools. Although there are many issues to consider when choosing a group of target MBA programs (size, location, teaching method, industry strength, fit), this post focuses on the tools that are available to help applicants evaluate the various programs that may be on an initial list.

Visiting Campus
Perhaps the best way to decide whether you like a school is to visit: take a tour, speak with current students, sit in on a class, etc. This will give you a feel for the school’s atmosphere, attitudes, community, and focus on academics. You will also get to see whether you like the school’s location within the surrounding city or town. Early-bird applicants may consider visiting in the spring semester before applying so as to avoid juggling applications and campus visits in the fall.

Student Writings
Thanks to the combination of schools’ recruiting strategies and the blogging phenomenon, there is now a plethora of ways to read about the experiences of current business school students.

There are a number of benefits to reading what current students are writing. They will write about everything from their classes to their internship/job search to their peers to their thoughts about the Super Bowl. While this is not a systematic way to gain information - you never know what you will be reading about - you will find that some of what you read will be quite useful, and may go a long way to shaping your perception about a school.

There are also many online forums about business schools, which give you the chance to talk (and panic) with other applicants, as well as the occasional admissions officer and current student. While the information on these forums is not always reliable - rumors tend to spread fairly well - chats with current students, in particular, can be useful.

Human Resources Departments
You can learn a fair amount from speaking with the human resources departments of firms who you expect to target post-MBA. You can ask them if they would be interested in someone of your background (with or without an MBA), and what schools they would recommend you consider. You can also ask them what they think of the schools that you have already been considering. This can be a good reality check, as you can get a feel for whether your goals would be feasible within your target companies.

Alumni
While alumni networks are often thought about in terms of securing employment after graduation, speaking with alumni in your area can be another way to learn about a school and whether it is the right place for you. Often, alumni clubs will have annual events to meet the year’s applicants, which can provide you with a great opportunity to meet both alumni and potential classmates. You should feel free, however, to contact the local alumni club outside of these events and see if there is someone who would be willing to talk to you about their experiences at business school. As informative as these discussions can be, however, you should keep in mind that the information you are getting might be out of date - especially if you are talking to someone who graduated more than a decade ago.

Rankings
There are a number of business school rankings available, and more appear every year. As with any rankings, there is a great deal of debate about what criteria should be considered, the extent to which rankings shape, rather than reflect, reality, and who should care about a school’s rank. For better or for worse, however, many people make decisions on the basis of ranks, from applicants deciding which schools interest them to professors deciding where they are willing to teach. The schools themselves also tend to put a great deal of effort into improving or maintaining their ranks.

Whichever rankings you decide to look at, it is important to keep in mind what, precisely, is being measured (and what is not being measured), and to interpret that information in the context of the other factors involved. In the end, we encourage you to come up with your own personal ranking which takes into account all of the factors which you consider important and all of the independent research you have done, and to base your decisions on that customized list of schools.

Friday, March 04, 2005

ApplyYourself, the NFL and Duke

The HBS admissions glitch continues to dominate the MBA newswire. In fact, the Associated Press in Boston has syndicated an article, spreading it around the United States and beyond. Here is a list of some of the articles that have come out on the topic in the last 24 hours:

Harvard applicants breached security Boston Globe
Hacker helps business school applicants get early decision Miami Herald
Hacker taps into business school files Boston Herald
Hacker helps business school applicants get early decision Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Hacker helps school applicants Sydney Morning Herald (subscription), Australia
Hacker helps business school applicants get early decision San Diego Union Tribune
Hacker helps school applicants BusinessWeek
Hacker Helps School Applicants ABC News
Hacker helps business school applicants get early decision WCNC (subscription), NC
Hacker helps business school applicants get early decision Lakeland Ledger, FL
Hacker Helps School Applicants Wyoming News
Hacker helps business school applicants get early decision WVEC.com (subscription)
Hacker helps business school applicants get early decision Security Focus

The Boston Globe article is of particular interest since it includes an interesting take on the situation from Derrick Bolton, director of admissions at Stanford. It also notes that, according to HBS, 119 applicants tried to see their Harvard results using the backdoor into the system. We’ll have to wait and see how the school handles those candidates that took a peek at their results, but our prediction is that this will not ultimately change admissions results. For additional reading on this subject, check out PowerYogi’s latest blog posting, which includes more analysis of the situation. In any event, since the traditional news outlets have now caught up with the story, it’s probably time for those of us in blog-land to move on…

Speaking of blogs, there was a thread in the Business Week forums earlier this week devoted to favorite MBA blogs. Several readers logged in and offered their opinions, citing this blog, the Wharton MBA Admissions Blog, Brit-Chick, the MBA League and Bskewl. Beyond these resources, I’d like to point out hella.opencoder.org as another site worth visiting. Feel free to log into the thread and offer your opinion!

An interesting bit of news came out of the National Football League yesterday, indicating that NFL players would have access to courses at both Harvard Business School and the Wharton School. Check out this press release at NFL.com: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/8248895. Of course, before you begin thinking that Terrell Owens will be sitting next to you in your first year marketing class at Wharton or that Tom Brady will be in your section at HBS, keep in mind that this offering is part of the schools’ custom executive education programs.

Finally, hot off the presses from a series of client reports, here is a list of sample MBA interview questions for Duke:

- What have you been doing since college?
- What do you want to do/what are your future plans?
- Why Fuqua?
- Tell me about your worst team experience.
- Tell me about your best team experience.
- How do you operate in a team ?
- How did you handle team conflict?
- You’re on a project with four team members. What four people would you choose for that team, and why?
- What is something that you didnt have in your undergrad experience that you hope to find in your MBA experience?
- What are you biggest concern about Fuqua?
- What activities would you join at Fuqua?
- What is your leadership style?
- What part of your leadership style do you want to develop?
- What is your ideal work environment?
- What are the characteristics of a successful MBA student/graduate?
- What is something you regret?
- What is something that your friends don’t know about you?
- Name someone who inspired you.
- What makes you unique?

# posted by Clear Admit @ 9:07 am in MBA News, School: Duke / Fuqua, School: Harvard

Thursday, March 03, 2005

HSB/ApplyYourself, part III

The Harvard Crimson has published an article on yesterday’s hacking incident. A few interesting details from the report:

1) The site was vulnerable for over nine hours yesterday before the admissions decision letters were taken down…

2) The CEO of ApplyYourself made a statement about how despite the loophole in the system, applicants could only see their own decision letter and not those of other candidates…

3) The article indicates that applicants may have used the same technique to enter other admissions sites at schools using the ApplyYourself software package (MIT/Sloan, Duke/Fuqua, Stanford GSB)…

Full text of the article: http://www.thecrimson.com/today/article506140.html

Beyond the immediate crisis, there are also issues to consider surrounding the various software vendors in the MBA admissions space (ApplyYourself, Embark/Princeton Review, Darden Solutions/Edulink, etc). One has to wonder what this high-profile glitch will do for ApplyYourself’s market share…

Also, for those of you who are interested in the systems decisions made by top schools, check out the following article that was published back in 2002 for the admissions community (written by Alex Brown, Todd Reale and other leading admissions officers): http://www.gmac.com/selections/spring2002/technology_decisions/page2.html

And, here’s a business case study on how Darden rolled out their in-house system to other schools (EDUlink): http://faculty.darden.virginia.edu/smithr/ASPEdulink.doc

# posted by Clear Admit @ 2:22 pm in School: Harvard

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