Admissions Director Q&A Below are links to Clear Admit's exclusive interviews with MBA admissions directors at leading programs.
Application Deadlines Below are the upcoming deadlines for admission to the leading MBA programs.
Essay Topic Analysis Below are links to our comments on some of the leading programs' essay topics.
MBA Tipline We encourage admissions officers, students and applicants to alert us of interesting news and developments, please send an email to news@clearadmit.com so we can blog it. MBA Programs: North America If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
MBA Programs: The Rest of the World As there is some variety in the length of international MBA programs, we have denoted the length of the program next to its name (1 = one year; 2 = 2 years). If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
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Posted by Clear Admit on October 31, 2005, at 10:51 am
There are still a handful of round one deadlines on the horizon for this week, most notably the University of Michigan/Ross on November 1st, MIT/Sloan on November 2nd and Berkeley/Haas on November 4th. We’d like to point out that MIT’s deadline is at 12:00 PM (Pacific) on Wednesday. This is unusual, since many programs have 12:00 AM or 5 PM deadlines in their resident time zone, so please take note!
In addition to MIT’s somewhat quirky deadline timing, several of our readers have pointed out a discrepancy in the school’s essay instructions. On the Sloan web site, the questions are listed with the following basic guidelines:
“We are interested in learning more about you and how you work, think and behave. Please answer . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 28, 2005, at 1:01 pm
Welcome to this week’s edition of FFF! As one might expect, things continued to heat up in the world of MBA admissions this week. Applicant-bloggers submitted files, interviewed at schools and did a lot of nervous blogging about ‘post-application blues’. On the other side of the admissions process, current MBA student-bloggers continued to face new challenges from mid-terms and the recruiting process.
Kicking things off with some wonderful news this week, we’d like to offer our congratulations to Axechick, who learned yesterday that she had made the cut for Columbia ED. This is fantastic – and also incredibly prompt on Columbia’s part (since the file was submitted on October 7th and the result was given on the 27th). In other good . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 27, 2005, at 11:03 am
As many applicants prepare for their Kellogg admissions interviews, we thought we’d provide a few sample questions to help you get ready. The questions below have been excerpted from the Clear Admit Guide to Kellogg Interviews (available to Clear Admit clients).
Most Kellogg interviews will have the usual why MBA/why now/why Kellogg, career goals and resume review component. In addition to these basic topics, the list below covers some of the more popular questions. Keep in mind that Kellogg conducts blind, resume-based interviews.
Education/Planning
-Describe your undergraduate experience.
-How did you choose your first job after college/university?
Work Experience
-How do you manage your superiors and subordinates?
-What would be the one thing you would change about your work? How have you done something about it?
Team Work Skills
-How . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 26, 2005, at 12:10 pm
Yesterday’s edition of The Dartmouth, featured an interesting piece on Tuck‘s new Director of Admissions, Dawna Clarke. Ms. Clarke comes to Tuck after having served as the Director of Admissions at Darden/UVA and as an admissions officer for Kenan-Flagler/UNC. She brings over 18 years of experience in MBA admissions.
The most interesting bits of information from the article relate to Clarke’s discussion of a new approach to admissions at Tuck. Clarke has opted to have admissions team members divide up the applicant pool by geographic region, assigning various admissions officers to cover specific regions. This marks a departure from the school’s prior system where all officers read files from all regions. Beyond discussing changes to the internal admissions process, Clarke . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 25, 2005, at 10:44 am
Following up yesterday’s posting on application volume, we’d like to call our readers’ attention to the latest edition of Graduate Management News. Graduate Management News is published by GMAC and aimed at the MBA admissions/administrative community (admissions officers, deans, career services officers). The newsletter often has interesting articles and statistics relating to application volume, GMAT changes and more. Here are a few items from the September/October issue:
1) Application Volume Trends Still Send Mixed Signals. This article discusses application trends at both domestic and international MBA programs, looking at the gains made by non-US programs and the differences between part-time, full-time and executive MBA applicant volume. [Note: this report does not include data from the current admissions cycle.]
2) . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 24, 2005, at 3:52 pm
There is a great deal of Wharton-related debate taking place in various blogs and discussion forums. Candidates are speculating on admissions volume, interview invites, how applications are reviewed and more. In an effort to help you stay on top of life in the Wharton admissions process, we wanted to offer the following facts:
1) R1 application volume at Wharton was up slightly from last year. We checked in with the school late last week and were told that they haven’t done the exact head count yet, but that volume is increased compared to last year’s first round.
2) Wharton R1 interview invites started going out late last week. The school will continue offering invites until November 17th at which point all candidates who . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 21, 2005, at 11:00 am
The MBA blogosphere is alive and well! Despite the onslaught of first round application deadlines, b-school applicants continue to trade stories in the blog medium. Similarly, as MBA students are juggling mid-terms, recruiting needs and relationships, they still continue to share their anecdotes with the MBA community.
Current b-school students are really digging into the various on-campus offerings at this point. Death Spiral reports on a guest speaker at INSEAD, while Insead06 describes the all out game theory war between the school’s Singapore and Fonatainbleau locations. Meanwhile on the London Business School campus, KV blogs about student association elections (and his role as the new Incoming Student Rep) while DivineMissN discusses cultural celebration and . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 20, 2005, at 6:30 am
With the first wave of round one deadlines having recently passed, many applicants are turning their attention to schools whose round one deadlines are a bit later in the season. With Michigan’s R1 deadline coming up on the first of November, we wanted to offer our thoughts on the essay questions for that program.
Required Questions
You must answer all parts of the four questions below.
1. We believe one of the keys to effective leadership is the ability to transform ideas into action through people. Please describe a professional leadership accomplishment in which you transformed an idea into action. How did your leadership impact your organization? (500-word maximum)
You’re being asked to discuss a few key things here. The main theme is the transformation . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 19, 2005, at 11:25 am
As many of you know, it is currently the busy season for interviews at Dartmouth/Tuck. Tuck encourages applicants to set up their own interviews on campus – a policy that differs from peer schools like Wharton, Chicago, HBS or Stanford (where interviews are by invitation only). Interviews in Hanover are conducted by second-year MBA students or full-time members of the admissions team. Tuck employs a ‘blind’ interview process, using only the resume as a basis for the interview.
Based on feedback from our clients, here are some of the more popular questions that one might find in a Tuck interview:
General
1) Walk me through your resume.
2) What are your career goals?
3) Why are you interested in pursuing an MBA?
4) Why are you applying . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 18, 2005, at 11:54 am
As most R1 applicants have come to understand, applying to business school is an incredibly demanding process. In addition to taking the GMAT, assembling academic transcripts and providing recommendation letters, candidates are required to present multiple essays, job descriptions, activities lists and more.
Many applicants assemble these materials without ever asking a fundamental question:
Who will read my application?
While the answer to this question may vary from school to school, one thing is for certain: it is unlikely that the person reading your files will have an intimate level of familiarity with your specific industry or job function. As such, if you use industry-specific jargon or assume prior knowledge of your field on the part of the admissions officer, you undoubtedly will lose . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 17, 2005, at 12:45 pm
In case you were hoping for a breather following last week’s deadlines for Harvard, Columbia (ED) and Wharton, we’re afraid things aren’t letting up. Here’s what’s on deck for this week:
Today:
-Tuck (EA)
Wednesday, October 19th:
-Stanford GSB
-Darden/UVA
Friday, October 21st:
-Kellogg/Northwestern
-London Business School
With the arrival of application deadlines comes talk of application volume. Our initial expectations are for stable volume this season, but we’ll be back later in the week with a word on admissions volume in R1. Part of the reason that we’re looking for steady application volume relates to the latest news from GMAC which shows that global GMAT test-taker volume has been up slightly through the first nine months of 2005. International volume is actually up nearly 8% – suggesting that . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 14, 2005, at 12:59 pm
This week’s edition of FFF kicks off with the dozens of applicants who have spent the last few days battling deadlines at Harvard, Columbia (ED) and Wharton. It was clearly not an easy week for this group, but many candidates are relieved to have submitted their first group of applications. We start with Ty Coon, who submitted HBS just in time on Tuesday and describes the merits of last-minute checking your files. Meanwhile, GunnerMBA seemed cool and calm on the eve of Harvard’s deadline, pointing out that his essays were all wrapped up. Turning towards Columbia, Axechick has a celebratory posting about completing her ED application before expressing some post-application blues (“the waiting is the hardest . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 13, 2005, at 6:44 pm
Here are the details on Friday’s Chicago chat:
On Friday, October 14th, 9:30am (central time), Rose Martinelli, the Associate Dean of Student Recruitment and Admissions at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and the Admissions Team will be conducting an online chat with prospective students who are interested in learning more about Chicago GSB’s new admissions process.
Please join us by visiting: . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 13, 2005, at 10:28 am
Clear Admit will be participating in this Saturday’s World MBA Tour event in Paris, France. For those of you who have never attended one of these events, the Tour is a great opportunity for prospective applicants to pick up materials from leading schools and meet with alumni and admissions officers.
Graham Richmond will be at the Clear Admit stand during the event, so please feel free to stop by and say hello or offer your feedback on this blog. He will also be happy to answer your questions about the MBA admissions process.
Here is a partial list of some of the leading schools who will be present: Babson, CEIBS (China), Columbia, Cornell (Johnson), Cranfield, UVA (Darden), Duke (Fuqua), ESADE, ESCP, ESSEC, . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 12, 2005, at 9:57 am
All this talk about submitting applications inevitably gets one thinking about results…
Last week’s edition of the New Yorker had an article by Malcom Gladwell about the history of the admissions process at the leading Ivy League schools in America. The article, which is essentially a book review of “The Chosen” by Jerome Karabel, primarily focuses on the efforts that Harvard, Yale and Princeton have put forth over the years to protect their status as luxury brands in the world of higher education. Classic debates over race, religion, raw intelligence, charisma and athleticism are all brought out into the open in this stunning piece. While the article hones in on the undergraduate admissions process, much of it is relevant . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 11, 2005, at 7:53 pm
Wharton continues to have issues with their online application. In particular, there seems to be trouble with the online recommendation letters. Here is a copy of an email that the Wharton admissions committee has just sent off to recommenders:
Dear [recommender],
Wharton’s online application has experienced technical difficulties and as result the online recommendation module has been taken offline until Thursday, October 13th. Here is the link to the PDF of the recommendation form: http://mba.wharton.upenn.edu/mba/action/pdf/mbarecommend2006.pdf
If you have planned to submit a recommendation for [student name] before the 13th here are alternative ways to submit the recommendation.
1) Email a letter of support which encompasses all of the questions on the attached recommendation form to Betty Ann Delaney at delaneyb@wharton.upenn.edu.
2) Fax the recommendation . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 11, 2005, at 10:26 am
As many of you know, Wharton seems to be having troubles with their online application. Given that we are still a couple of days away from their deadline, this is troubling (as site traffic will no doubt increase over the next 48 hours). It is also highly unusual, since Wharton has traditionally led the way when it comes to using technology in the admissions process.
Here is the official word from the Mae Jennifer Shores (Senior Associate Director of Admissions at Wharton):
As many of you are aware, we (admissions) are experiencing some technical problems with our online application. We are working to resolve these issues as quickly as possible.
In the meantime:
1) The print feature of the online application is currently disabled and . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 10, 2005, at 10:34 am
As many of you will be submitting your first round HBS applications in the next 24 hours, we thought we’d offer a few final words of advice.
1) Do not go overboard with your descriptions. This first tip comes directly from a recent email that the HBS admissions board sent out to applicants. The email was filled with information about which browsers to use, exact deadline times, etc. While these tips are important, we’d like to focus on one small bit of instruction they offered towards the end of the email:
“–Please be brief in describing your employment, extracurricular, and community activities and abide by the word limits provided.”
As HBS is the school that receives the most applications every year, the HBS admissions . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 7, 2005, at 12:08 pm
With the fall season upon us, the buzz in the world of MBA admissions has increased to a dull roar. Discussion forums are a flurry of postings, bloggers are blogging and applicants are applying (or at least talking about applying while procrastinating). Meanwhile, the MBA campuses have settled into one of the more intense parts of the semester, sending first year MBA students off to the library and second year’s to EISs (Employer Information Sessions).
Focusing in the applicant pool, we find Ty Coon discussing the forthcoming HBS deadline as well as his Yale and Kellogg applications. Meanwhile Axechick, who describes the feeling of endless essay writing, has shuffled the deck and opted for Columbia‘s . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 6, 2005, at 10:25 am
Yesterday’s Daily Pennsylvanian (the UPENN student daily) featured an article entitled Where’s Wharton?, describing the school’s absence from the Economist’s 2005 rankings and offering quotes from Harvard and Wharton faculty and staff. While this debate seems to be never-ending, we’re certainly curious as to how it might all end. For example, will the release of an official GMAC classification (with extensive data) give the press access to needed facts and figures for their rankings, making it a moot point that Wharton and HBS do not provide the data directly? Stay tuned.
Speaking of rankings, the Princeton Review has just released their annual MBA guide. While they do not provide a strict ‘best overall’ ranking, they do featuring several . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 5, 2005, at 10:30 am
Most MBA applicants know that one of the keys to a solid application is school-specific detail. This means going beyond the slogans, rankings and stereotypes that surround an MBA program and convincing the admissions committee that you’ve really done your homework and are passionate about their school.
While there are many ways to gather detailed information about a given school, an often over-looked practice is to read the student newspapers that are published on campus (and are typically available online). While student newspapers range in their level of seriousness, they can offer an insider perspective on life in the MBA program.
To help get you started, here are links to the student newspapers at a handful of top MBA programs:
The Wharton Journal (The . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on October 4, 2005, at 9:57 am
Over the next week and change, there are deadlines for INSEAD, Harvard Business School, Columbia (Early Decision) and Wharton. The following week features Tuck (Early Action), Stanford, Darden, Kellogg and LBS. Needless to say, successful submission of so many applications requires careful planning on the part of the MBA applicant. Here are our quick tips on how to survive the crunch:
1) Check in with your recommendation writers and make sure that they are on track for submitting their letters. While some schools are rather forgiving if a letter arrives a day late, others will have no qualms about bumping you right into the next round.
2) Do not leave the online application forms for last. Take some time to carefully complete these . . . → Continue Reading
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Clear Admit’s Most Recent Posts
MBA Admissions Wiki In the Clear Admit Wiki, you can share your experiences through the application process and learn from those of others. Below are the five most popular pages in the wiki:
BW Business SchoolsThe BusinessWeek Discussion Boards are another way to learn about the issues applicants face. Clear Admit hosts the Ask Clear Admit thread, which should help answer your questions. Here are the five most recent discussions taking place in the forum:
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Below are the five most recent posts to the GMAT Club message boards.
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The student-2-student Discussion Boards are managed by Wharton. Here are the five most recent discussions.
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School-Hosted BlogsStraight from the source: aggregated posts from students and administration. Below are the seven most recent posts in school-hosted blogs.
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