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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.

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

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 JUNE 2005

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Stanford Deadlines

Stanford’s Graduate School of Business has just announced its deadline and decision schedule for the 2005-06 season:

Round One
Deadline: October 19, 2005
Decision: January 19, 2006

Round Two
Deadline: January 4, 2006
Decision: March 30, 2006

Round Three
Deadline: March 15, 2006
Decision: May 11, 2006

For more information on the interview schedule and dates when the office will be closed for holidays, check out the Admissions website.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Columbia’s Early Decision Round

As a follow up to yesterday’s blog on Columbia’s essay questions for the upcoming admissions season, we thought that we would take some time to comment on the positives and negatives of applying during the school’s Early Decision round. Just to bring anyone who hasn’t fully explored this option up to speed, Columbia offers a round in which applicants who submit their materials by October 12th receive an admissions decision within 10 weeks (with the review period beginning on August 17th). The catch, of course, is that this round is binding, and successful applicants are required to send a $5000 deposit - before they’ve received word from any other schools to which they might have applied.

The Positive:
For those applicants who have conducted extensive research on their target programs and decided that Columbia is their first choice, this option really is ideal. Due to the binding nature of the round and concerns of yield management, Columbia takes a significant portion of each class from the ED pool - as much as 20 or 25%. Given the number of applicants who apply in this round compared to the regular round, this translates to much better chances. Further, one of the keys to a successful application to Columbia in particular is convincing the adcom of your strong interest in the program, and there’s really no better way to do so than applying in the early round.

The Negative:
Because of the increased chances of admission and the availability of an early data point regarding the strength of one’s candidacy at a top school, this round is also attractive to applicants who are also interested in other programs but looking to maximize their chances at Columbia. While the forfiet of $5000 is one obvious concern, the greater issue is the Statement of Committment that ED applicants are required to sign:

“I choose to apply Early Decision to Columbia Business School, and I understand that if I am admitted a $5,000 deposit is required to secure a place in the September 2005 entering class. I am committed to attending Columbia Business School, and I will withdraw all applications and decline all offers from other schools upon admission to Columbia Business School. I will be enclosing my $5,000 non-refundable deposit upon admittance.”

The second sentence of this pledge puts applicants who have no intention of following through on this into an ethically tricky spot.

For an ongoing discussion of Columbia’s 2006 ED round, check out the Business Week Online Forums:
http://forums.businessweek.com/bw-bschools/messages?msg=63918.1

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Admissions Tip: Columbia Essays

With a number of diligent applicants already beginning work on their application essays, we wanted to offer some guidance on how to handle Columbia’s essay questions.

1. What are your short-term and long-term post-MBA goals? How will Columbia Business School help you achieve these goals?

The general advice we offered last week on how to tackle this sort of question applies here. Because Columbia is very sensitive to the fact that it is often treated as a backup for Wharton, it’s especially important to convince the adcom of your interest in the program by packing your essay full of school-specific details about classes and clubs.

2. What has been the greatest challenge to your value system that you’ve faced and how did you handle it?

Questions of this sort are designed to gauge an applicant’s ability to see two sides of a situation and appreciate the merits of both - and ultimately choose the best possible solution. First and foremost, you should make sure that the example you present represents a true dilemma. It’s not enough to simply discuss a situation where you chose to do the right thing; you need to be able to show that there was a compelling reason for you to have acted otherwise. The question lends itself to personal experiences as easily as professional ones, but it’s nice to give an example of how you view and handle ethical complexity in the workplace. For instance, there are often instances of conflicts between people and profit that work well in this context.

After setting the scene in your essay, you should explore the dilemma in depth, analyzing each of your options and explaining the potential positive and negative consequences of each. Once you’ve acknowledged the difficulty of the situation, you should lead the reader through your decision-making process, explaining the reasons behind your ultimate decision. Ideally, your strong grasp of leadership and of problem-solving will be displayed by this analysis. Finally, you should present the results of your decision. Even if there were ultimately some negative consequences, it is important to stand by the decision you made and to be proud that you stood behind your values in this situation.

3. In discussing Columbia Business School, Dean R. Glenn Hubbard remarked, “We have established the mind-set that entrepreneurship is about everything you do.” Please discuss a time in your own life when you have identified and captured an opportunity.

This question is not only looking for resourcefulness in seeing something that others missed, but is also interested in the process by which you garnered support for your idea. See our thoughts from an earlier entry on Columbia’s fascination with entrepreneurship for further advice.

4. Please select and answer one of the following essay questions.

a. Please tell us what you feel most passionate about in life.

b. If you were given a free day and could spend it anywhere, in any way you choose, what would you do?

While it’s important to write about something that you truly enjoy, it’s also important to approach this essay from a strategic standpoint and write about something that is relevant to your business school candidacy. While your hobbies and interests are certainly of interest to the adcom, it’s important to avoid getting too personal. For instance, writing about one’s family can make an applicant sound immature, and it’s difficult to predict how a reader will react to comments on potenially sensitive topics like politics or religion.

The best topics for this essay are activities and interests that you can connect to some contribution you would make to the school community, ideally those in which you are currently active and to which you have a long-standing commitment. Although it is good to keep in mind that more unusual activities are advantageous, you don’t need to have something that is really rare for this essay to succeed. It is more important to discuss what you do in a compelling and personal manner that conveys the depth of your enthusiasm for your topic by exploring your individual experiences. Finally, remember that specific anecdotes will make a greater impression on your reader than a broad discussion.

Monday, June 27, 2005

Kellogg Deadlines

The Kellogg School of Management has just released its application deadlines for the 2005-2006 season:

Apply By: October 21, 2005
Conduct on-campus interview by: December 19, 2005
or
Request off-campus interview by: October 7, 2005
Decision Mailed by: January 16, 2006

Apply By: January 6, 2006
Conduct on-campus interview by: February 27, 2006
or
Request off-campus interview by: December 23, 2005
Decision Mailed by: March 20, 2006

Apply By: March 10, 2006
Conduct on-campus interview by: April 10, 2006
or
Request off-campus interview by: February 24, 2006
Decision Mailed by: May 1, 2006

Unlike many of the top programs that interview by invitation only, Kellogg requires that all applicants schedule an interview before their application will be considered complete. The admissions office conducts interviews year round to offer applicants a fair amount of flexibility. In deciding when to have your interview, keep in mind the importance of having specific career goals and presenting a message that is consistent across all of your application materials. This being the case, you should not interview at a school until your story is fairly refined and you have a good idea what you will be saying in your essays - otherwise you risk locking yourself into a positioning that you might later decide is less than optimal.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Admissions Tip: Practice Makes Perfect

While we’ve been writing lately about the importance of getting an early start to the application process and announcing the release of essay questions for several programs, we wanted to add one more piece of information to temper this advice: the first application you complete is likely to be the worst. The reasons for this are fairly obvious: the more time you spend working on your essays and thinking about your background, the more comfortable and effective you will be come about describing your experiences in a compelling way and marketing yourself to the schools. You’ll also learn a fair amount about the admissions process and use this knowledge to your advantage moving forward.

It might seem to make the most sense to complete the application to your first choice program first, but it’s important to keep this simple rule in mind. A way around this issue is to build ample space into your timeline to revisit your materials and revise them before you submit your applications. This is also a great incentive for you to think carefully about the schools you are targeting and identify the ones that really are the best fit for you. Prioritizing your applications will not only enable you to devise a schedule that allows you to complete the essays for your first choice when you are in the best position to do so (i.e. once you have one or two other schools under your belt), but will also help you down the road when deciding which school to attend in the case of multiple admits.

In addition to timing, another quality control strategy is to seek feedback, ideally from an objective and informed source. Contact Clear Admit at info@clearadmit.com for more information on our admissions strategy and essay editing services.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

News from GMAC

A new edition of the Graduate Management Admissions Council newsletter has recently come out and contains a few interesting pieces discussing the optimistic attitude of recent MBA graduates toward the job market and a rise in GMAT registration levels. As we’ve noted, volume of tests taken in 2005 is down from the same time last year, but GMAC reports an increase in registration and suggests that this will be correlated with application volume. The report reads, “Year-to-date non-U.S. GMAT registration as of April 30, 2005, was 24,756, 6.4% higher than at the same point in 2004. India - one of the world’s largest sources of b-school students - Korea, and Taiwan led the way.”

This looks promising at first glance, but the paragraph goes on to report that US GMAT registration volume has actually fallen by 2.7% this year, and that worldwide registration is up a mere 0.1%. While the picture is not as bright as business schools might like, this does seem to indicate that application volume is indeed stabilizing. It also suggests that those considering business school in the near future might want to consider applying sooner rather than later in order to take advantage of the relatively low application volume (i.e. decreased competition) while it lasts.

This and other articles are available in the GMAC Newsletter:
GMAC News

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Admissions Tip: Approaching the ‘Career Goals’ Essay

While only a handful of schools have released their essay questions for the coming year, it’s still possible for those applicants who are done with the GMAT and ready to proceed with the next step to get a jump on another element of their applications. Most MBA programs pose an essay question along the following lines:

What are your short-term and long-term post-MBA goals? How will Business School X help you achieve these goals?

This ‘career goals’ essay question can serve as an excellent starting point for those of you who are getting a head start on your Fall 2005 application essays. We’ve included some related excerpts from the Clear Admit Essay Guide below:

Career Goals Essay

Whether 1,000 or 500 words long, the school will be looking for clearly and fully defined long- and short-term career goals; your reasons for pursuing an MBA, and why at this point in time; and your specific interest in School X and your plans to contribute to the School X community, if admitted. This essay can also include a brief but coherent career history that shows progress toward your career goals. A great essay manages to thoroughly and efficiently address each of these elements, with a nice balance between the ‘career progression’ section, the ‘career goals/why MBA’ section and the ‘why School X’ section.

Admissions officers understand that successful students are focused in their ambitions, so they look for applicants with:

-Narrowly defined career goals and
-A coherent career path that shows progress toward those goals.

Beyond presenting coherent and very specific in your career goals essay, it is also important to keep the following concept in mind: any fair trade necessitates mutual benefit. In other words, in addition to showing that School X is the best MBA program for your needs, you should demonstrate to School X that you will enrich its community. Discuss insights and knowledge that you will contribute in class, and skills and interests for getting involved in activities (clubs, organizations, etc.) outside of class.

Contact Clear Admit to learn more about our ‘early bird’ admissions package for the coming season.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Haas Deadlines

The steady stream of fall 2005 application dates and essay questions continues as UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business releases its schedule for the coming season:

Deadline and Decision Schedule
Round 1:
Deadline - Nov 4, 2005
Decision - Jan 30, 2006

Round 2:
Deadline - Dec 12, 2005
Decision - Mar 20, 2006

Round 3:
Deadline - Jan 20, 2006
Decision - April 24, 2006

Round 4:
Deadline - Mar 10, 2006
Decision - May 22, 2006

Monday, June 20, 2005

Admissions Tip: Make the Most of What You Have

With several of the top schools having already released their essay questions for this admissions season, we’re sure that quite a number of early birds are eager to get a jump on the process in order to complete as many applications as possible by round one. At this time of year when applicants find themselves brainstorming for essay topics, we wanted to offer up a few tips on presenting yourself and your experiences as advantageously as possible.

1) Take time to reflect. Before diving in and beginning work on a draft of any one essay, it’s often fruitful for an applicant to think carefully about all of the stories and accomplishments that he or she has at his or her disposal. This can include experiences from the professional realm, formal outside activities, college clubs and even more casual hobbies and interests. This sort of comprehensive reflective approach should enable you to arrive at the potential essay topics that are most impressive and in line with your positioning.

2) Establish balance. It’s crucial that your essays work together to present a consistent and compelling picture of who you are, what you’ve done and what you bring to the table - the adcom is looking for students who are interesting, well-rounded, and likely to make a contribution to the school both in and out of the classroom. In selecting topics for your essays after you’ve identified all of the possibilities, remember that it’s ideal to have a balance of stories that cover the span of your career and introduce your interests and involvements outside of work.

3) Keep it relevant. While it’s important that you have a wide range of stories to tell and positive characteristics to convey, there are a few things that you shouldn’t mention in your essays. In terms of chronology, remember that you are applying to graduate school and that the adcom is primarily interested in your experiences since the time you began college. There are of course some exceptions to this (such as questions that ask you to recap your life story or discuss what matters most to you), but as a general rule it’s best to avoid writing at length about your high school or your upbringing, as this can make an applicant sound immature or stuck in the past. Other topics of which you should steer clear are those that are potentially sensitive or emotionally charged, such as politics and religion.

4) Show, don’t tell. Keep in mind that a given adcom member spends only ten or fifteen minutes on each application. This being the case, it’s imperative that you make an impression and give the reader a clear sense of who you are and what you’ve done. Specific anecdotes and vivid details make a much greater impact on a reader than general claims and broad summaries. Be sure to quantify your impact, fully explain your actions, and provide illustrative examples to produce a set of engaging essays.

Happy writing! Stay tuned to this blog throughout the summer for additional essay-specific tips and guidelines.

Friday, June 17, 2005

Columbia and Entrepreneurship

In the vein of Knowledge@Wharton and Harvard Business School Working Knowledge (both of which have come out with new issues over the past few days, for those interested), Columbia Business School announced earlier this week that it will be launching a similar publication to showcase faculty research and bridge the gap between business theory and practice. The first issue of Columbia Ideas at Work focuses on issues surrounding entrepreneurship - no surprise given the program’s emphasis on this area (for instance, in Dean Glenn Hubbard’s quote in this and last years’ application essay question).

Speaking of which, we’d like to take this opportunity to offer some advice on how to tackle the essay topic in question:

In discussing Columbia Business School, Dean R. Glenn Hubbard remarked, “We have established the mind-set that entrepreneurship is about everything you do.” Please discuss a time in your own life when you have identified and captured an opportunity.

The adcom is obviously looking for a success story here, but this is a bit more nuanced - in responding to this question, it’s important that applicants highlight their initiative and resourcefulness in identifying and capitalizing on an opportunity that others missed. You might also need to explain the process of getting those others behind your plan (a great way to highlight your interpersonal skills). Remember that specific anecdotes will make a stronger impression on the reader than generalizations, and that an account of the steps you took to implement your idea are just as interesting as the results. While it’s a great idea to write about a positive impact you made in the workplace, you need not limit yourself to a discussion of your professional accomplishments. Think broadly about your activities and experiences to date in order to arrive at an example of a time when your entrepreneurial spirit really came through.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Darden’s New EMBA

The University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business announced earlier this week that it will be launching a new Executive MBA program. Having recently finished second in the Financial Times’ ranking of open enrollment executive education programs, Darden’s move to formalize their course offerings into a formal degree-granting program seems a logical next step. The application for the charter class, set to begin the program in June 2006, will be made available later in the summer.

In the meantime, here’s a summary of the plans for the program:

“Darden will build on its success in the full-time MBA program and its experience teaching executives in its highly-ranked executive education programs. The Darden community - its dedicated faculty, student support services staff, alumni, and students - will deliver the MBA for Executives with the same standard of excellence as in all of Darden’s programs.

The 21-month program will occur through a blend of long-weekend classes at Darden, extended residencies on site and at an international location, coupled with distance-learning components. The course program is designed to be as rigorous as the daytime MBA program and will transform experienced managers into leaders of complex business environments. The program will be taught by the same Darden faculty who teach the fulltime and executive education students and will primarily be located on the North Grounds in Charlottesville. Tuition will be competitive with top ranked programs.”

The full text of the press release can be found at:

http://www.darden.virginia.edu/news/2005/061405eMBAOfficial.htm

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

MIT Deadlines; Darden Deadlines and Essays

The top programs have slowly but steadily begun to release their application and decision schedules for the season ahead. One of the most important things that an applicant can do with this information is to construct a realistic timeline and prioritize tasks. For instance, it’s worth noting that the majority of round one deadlines for the top programs tend to fall in mid to late October. Those applicants interested in Sloan should definitely take MIT’s relatively late deadline into account as they pace themselves and prioritize the order in which they work on their applications.

MIT Deadlines
Round 1
Deadline - November 2, 2005
Decision - January 30, 2006

Round 2
Deadline - January 11, 2006
Decision - April 3, 2006

Darden Deadlines and Essay Questions
Round 1
Deadline - October 19, 2005
Decision - December 5-9, 2005

Round 2
Deadline - December 1, 2005
Decision - February 6-10, 2006

Round 3
Deadline - January 12, 2006
Decision - March 20-24, 2006

Round 4
Deadline - March 1, 2006
Decision - April 17-21, 2006

Essays:
1. What led you to pursue an MBA? How do you plan to leverage your MBA in meeting your short- and long-term goals?

2. How does Darden fit with your background, personality, and learning style?

3. Describe how your experiences have shaped your leadership philosophy and style.

4. (Optional) Please use this opportunity to present any pertinent information not previously addressed.

Note that this is one less question than Darden asked this past season - item three on this list poses an interesting combination of last year’s topics “Write your life story in one page or less” and “Describe your most rewarding leadership experience…” In tackling this question, it would be wise to reflect on and think broadly about your experiences to date, and to draw from both professional and extracurricular involvements for examples.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Alex Brown to join Clear Admit!

Philadelphia, PA, June 14, 2005 - After resigning from his position at the Wharton School in April 2005, Alex Brown, former Senior Associate Director of Admissions of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, joins Clear Admit as a Senior Admissions Counselor effective today.

Brown will team up with Clear Admit, founded and headed by Wharton Business School graduates Eliot Ingram (MBA, 1999) and Graham Richmond (MBA, 2001). In his new position, Brown will help MBA hopefuls to maximize their chances of acceptance at top MBA programs. Brown’s experience at Wharton, where he devoted much of his effort to establish transparency in the admissions process, will enhance Clear Admit’s current position as the leading educational counseling firm for candidates applying to top MBA programs.

“Alex Brown has been an instrumental and active person at the Wharton School and in the broader MBA admissions community,” said Graham Richmond, co founder of Clear Admit. “We are excited that he has decided to bring his talents, energies and leadership experience to Clear Admit,” Richmond added.

During his seven-year tenure at Wharton’s MBA admissions office, Brown played a decisive role in selecting candidates for the MBA program. In addition, he led Wharton’s online marketing campaigns by using technology to enhance the admissions process which included hosting a popular online applicant discussion board and admissions blog. His efforts were significant in improving customer service and building a community among past, present and prospective students.

“Working with Wharton and its forward thinking leadership provided me with a terrific opportunity to explore ideas surrounding the notion of transparency and the use of technology to facilitate a connection between applicants and the school,” relates Brown. “I am very pleased to join Clear Admit. I view this exciting opportunity as a chance to further my interest in assisting prospective MBA students in the application process so that they can reach their career goals.”

In addition to his work in admissions, Brown recently presented at meetings of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals, delivering papers on the use of such online channels in recruiting and admissions.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Wharton Deadlines

The Wharton blog has just released the school’s deadlines and anticipated decision dates for the coming admissions season:

Round 1:
Deadline - October 13, 2005 (we’re assuming that the site’s report of “Dec 13″ is a typo)
Decision - December 22, 2005

Round 2:
Deadline - January 5, 2006
Decision - March 16, 2006

Round 3:
Deadline - March 2, 2006
Decision - May 18, 2006

The blog also reports that the school’s essay questions will be made available in mid-July, and that the online application will go live in August. While Wharton has, for the past several years, been one of the first schools to release its essay questions, this season’s delay is quite understandable given all the changes that are occurring in the admissions office. In the meantime, there are a number of other steps that applicants aiming for round one submission can take to ensure that they are on track - see our entry on summer timeline advice for more information.

Friday, June 10, 2005

Columbia Deadlines and Essay Questions

Great news for early birds who are interested in Columbia and are looking to get a jump on their applications - the school has just released its deadlines and essays for the 2005-2006 admissions season!

Deadlines:
January 2006 Accelerated Program
Application Review Began: April 21, 2005
Application Deadline: October 12, 2005

September 2006 Early Decision
Application Review Begins: August 17, 2005
Application Deadline: October 12, 2005

September 2006 Regular Decision
Application Review Begins: January 11, 2006
Application Deadline: March 1 (international applicants) or April 20 (US-based applicants)

As you can see, the structure of these deadlines gives applicants a fair amount of flexibility as to the timing of their application. One thing to keep in mind is that due to the rolling nature of Columbia’s admissions process, it’s ideal to apply as early as possible in order to maximize your chances and telegraph your interest in the school.

Essays:
1. What are your short-term and long-term post-MBA goals? How will Columbia Business School help you achieve these goals? (Recommended 1000 word limit)

2. What has been the greatest challenge to your value system that you’ve faced and how did you handle it? (Recommended 500 word limit)

3. In discussing Columbia Business School, Dean R. Glenn Hubbard remarked, “We have established the mind-set that entrepreneurship is about everything you do.” Please discuss a time in your own life when you have identified and captured an opportunity. (Recommended 500 word limit)

4. Please select and answer one of the following essay questions. (Recommended 250 word limit)
a. Please tell us what you feel most passionate about in life.
b. If you were given a free day and could spend it anywhere, in any way you choose, what would you do?

The only real change from last year is that the values-related question has been bumped up from 250 to 500 words, and is now being framed as an ethical dilemma inquiry (previously “What personal value means most to you and why?”). In light of the Apply Yourself fiasco earlier this year and more recent suggestions that business schools and MBA students ought to place more of an emphasis on ethics, this adjustment is hardly a surprise.

Stay tuned to this blog in coming days for some tips on tackling each of these questions.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Admissions Tip: Pace Yourself

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been posting a number of tips about how to approach specific aspects of your application. Today, we thought we’d take a step back and present our readers with an overall timeline in order to give you a sense of how to pace yourselves if you are aiming to submit in Round one this fall.

By this point in the year, you would ideally have done the following:
1) Assess your candidacy - identify the strengths that you will want to highlight, as well as any weaknesses that will need to be addressed.
2) Take the GMAT
3) Visit schools that interest you to begin to develop your preferences and content for your essays.

It’s certainly not too late to take these steps, but it’s important that you get moving in order to effectively tackle the rest of the process as you move forward:

June and July:
1) Address your weaknesses - retake the GMAT, take outside classes, take up additional activities or increase your involvement in existing ones, etc.
2) Identify and research your target schools, arriving at specific courses and clubs that would be of interest to you.
3) Approach potential recommenders to present your plans for business school and determine whether they will support you.
4) Request college transcripts.

August:
1) Develop a one-page resume appropriate for the MBA admissions process.
2) Create a general career goals essay (that also covers your work experience and your reasons for wanting an MBA).
3) Sign up for interviews at schools that allow you to do so.
4) Meet with your recommenders again - provide them with your resume, career goals essay, and other materials, and discuss the letter they will draft on your behalf.
5) Begin to write other essays.

September:
1) Write and carefully revise your essays in order to produce the most polished responses possible.
2) Visit your target schools and interview, making sure that you present a message that is consistent with that in your essays.
3) Complete application forms with attention to detail and accuracy (don’t leave these until the last minute!).
4) Maintain contact with recommenders to ensure that they will finish their letters on time.

October:
1) Make your final revisions and put the finishing touches on your application materials.
2) Submit applications.

Good luck to everyone taking these first steps in the application process! Stay tuned to this blog throughout the summer for information on deadlines and essay advice as the questions are made available.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

The Wharton Debate

Many of our readers have seen the article about Wharton in this month’s Philadelphia Magazine: Is Wharton Ruining American Business?

For those of you who haven’t read the piece, the premise is that the author, Maureen Tkacik, somehow infiltrated the Wharton campus and spent a year attending classes and social events. Over the course of some 3,500 words, Tkacik makes a series of bold claims about Wharton and the value of the MBA degree in general. The author also concludes that MBAs are ammoral, lazy and largely responsible for all that is wrong in the business world.

Although the conclusions drawn in the article are varied - some may have merit and some are debatable [see the Economist’s take on this subject from their February 17th, 2005 issue] - we’d like to call your attention to an interesting side-plot that seems to be developing here. The side-plot surrounds the motives of the article’s author and the methods she has employed to hype her story. Here are a few items of note:

1) On May 31st, at the time of article’s release, Tkacik used her newly created Business Week Discussion Forums account to create a new thread entitled “A story about the Wharton School” and post a link to the article. Her brief posting said the following: “From the learning team retreat to the Pub Controversy, it’s all here.” She did not sign her name or clearly indicate that she was the author of the article she was hyping. Needless to say, this effort quickly sent eyeballs to her article online and generated a lot of discussion (more on that later).

2) Tkacik continued her efforts to generate a buzz about her article, by emailing it to David Farber, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and gatekeeper of the popular Interesting People mailing list. Her email to Farber read as follows:

From: Maureen Tkacik
Date: May 31, 2005 2:28:54 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Reply-To: mo@phillymag.com

The headline is a bit much — I didn’t write it — but I thought you might enjoy a bit of an anti-MBA rant: http://www.phillymag.com/ArticleDisplay.php?id=569

Farber promptly posted the article to his discussion group. Of course, what’s most interesting here is that Tkacik herself characterizes the piece as an “anti-MBA rant”.

3) In the meantime, the article was generating quite a bit of discussion in the BW discussion forums - with Tkacik herself responding to critics and fans alike (not to mention the Wharton students she had befriended who now feel betrayed). While the debate was to be expected, it’s revealing in terms of what it tells us about Tkacik’s views. Here are a few comments she makes in her postings on the board:

-in defending her decision to leave the Wall Street Journal and write for Philadelphia Magazine, Tkacik says the following: “There are things you can’t do at the Journal, and writing ‘reported essays’ about jargon crazed ROI slaves is one of them.” Describing MBA students as jargon-crazed ROI slaves would seem to be a bit harsh - especially for an unbiased reporter.

-in responding to a posting that compliments the article, Tkacik offered: “I met a lot of great people at Wharton. In general I just think the MBA is kind of a scam. When Milken and Huntsman and John Olson (the Merrill analyst who got fired for refusing to put a buy on Enron) were going, only a few thousand got MBAs every year. I think, now, that the value of the degree has been diluted but it’s too big a revenue center for universities to break the cycle.”

-when a reader wondered how Tkacik managed to spend a year on campus (since she also authored other articles during this time), she responds: “That was sort of packaging. Obviously I could not actually spend a year at Wharton. This article would not really make for a sufficient ROI. I did spend a few days every month attending MBA classes and functions.”

-if the comment above strikes you as odd, what’s even stranger is that it has actually been changed by Tkacik since it first appeared. Although we do not have the full text of the original posting, the Business Week forum shows snippets of original postings (pre-edited) when one searches the database (likely due to a bit of a glitch in their search engine). Here’s the original piece associated with this posting: “That was packaging. Initially they wanted to put “spent six …- from TKACIK1, 5/31/2005″. We’re not sure how this sentence originally ended, but it seems odd that it was deleted. Does this mean that the author only spent 6 months on campus? 6 weeks? It would seem unethical to put one’s name on an article that claims 1-year if that isn’t the truth…

One can’t help but wonder if the article’s author hasn’t fallen prey to the same vices she cites as being present in the Wharton community - self interest, using ‘friends’ for personal gain, not revealing conflicts of interest (when passing along her article in BW forum). In the end, this article has indeed exposed something. We’re just not so sure it has much to do with MBA students.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Leadership at HBS

Kim B. Clark, the dean of Harvard Business School has announced that he will be stepping down from his post in order to accept the role of president at BYU (Brigham Young University-Idaho). Clark has been with Harvard University since 1978 and had led the business school since 1995.

As of this morning, there are over 45 articles on Clark’s decision to leave HBS, but here are a few of the more notable pieces:
The Harvard Crimson: HBS Dean Leaves for Idaho School
The Boston Globe: Harvard Business School Dean Chosen…
The Boston Herald: Harvard B-School Dean Calls It Quits
The Salt Lake Tribune: BYU-Idaho Taps Harvard Dean

There is also the beginnings of a discussion in the Business Week forums on what Clark’s departure means for HBS, etc:
http://forums.businessweek.com/bw-bschools/messages?msg=64392.1

Monday, June 06, 2005

The State of GMAT Prep

Jeffrey Gangemi at Business Week Online has just penned an interesting article on a variety of new offerings in the world of GMAT preparation. Clear Admit’s co-founder is quoted in the article. Here is a brief excerpt:

Erika Ware, who works in financial services for Deloitte & Touche LLP in New York, decided to go it alone in preparing for the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), the exam necessary for entrance into most graduate business schools. She passed on taking a pricey preparation course and instead prepped for the exam from two books.

“I just felt I had the time and ability to do it on my own,” Ware says of her decision. But after two test attempts resulted in the same score of 580, out of a possible 800, Ware identified her Achilles’ heel — the data sufficiency questions that form part of the quantitative section. For her, it was time to hit the books again.

Among a shrinking number of test takers, Ware is a prime target for today’s competitive group of test-prep companies. Along with the corresponding decline in B-school applications, the total number of test takers decreased more than 15% , to 206,852, between 2002 and 2004, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the organization that oversees the exam.

Graham Richmond, founder of Clear Admit, a business school admissions consulting service, says GMAT test prep business hasn’t experienced a corresponding downturn, because those who apply are savvier than ever about application techniques. It’s unusual for someone to refrain from investing in test prep materials, particularly if the applicant is interested in top-tier schools, Richmond adds.

For the full text of the article:
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jun2005/bs2005066_1067_bs001.htm

# posted by Clear Admit @ 9:53 pm in General

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 5:27 pm in General

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DISCUSSIONS / BLOGS / WIKI

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Wiki

Discussion Boards

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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