Fridays From the Frontline » Clear Admit: MBA Admissions Consultants Blog

APPLICANT RESOURCES

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Admissions Director Q&A
Below are links to Clear Admit's exclusive interviews with MBA admissions directors at leading programs.
Dawna Clarke (Tuck)
Rose Martinelli (Chicago)
Judith Hodara (Wharton)
Sara Neher (Darden)
Soojin Kwon Koh (Michigan)
Randall Sawyer (Cornell)
Beth Flye (Kellogg)
David Simpson (LBS)
Liz Riley Hargrove (Duke)
Linda Meehan (Columbia)
Bruce DelMonico (Yale)
Peter Johnson (Berkeley)
Isser Gallogly (NYU)
Mae Jennifer Shores (UCLA)
J.J. Cutler (Wharton)
Jake Cohen (INSEAD)
Rod Garcia (MIT Sloan)
Mary Miller (Columbia)

Clear Admit School Guides
Become an expert on your target schools overnight! Get the program-specific details you need to craft essays that stand out. See how schools compare head-to-head in key areas like recruiting, curricular structure, elective offerings and more. Available for immediate download. As featured in the Economist.

Clear Admit Career Guides
Understand career-specific offerings at leading MBA programs and identify the schools that will best support your career goals with the Clear Admit Career Guides! Available for Consulting, Investment Banking, Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Healthcare.

Clear Admit Strategy Series
Craft a winning application with the Clear Admit Strategy Series! Step-by-Step guidance through the application process. Titles include a Resume Guide, Recommendations Guide, Waitlist Guide and more!

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.

Application Deadlines
Below are the upcoming deadlines for admission to top-tier schools.
Feb 10: INSEAD R3
Mar 1: Michigan / Ross R3
Mar 3: CBS
Mar 3: LBS R3
Mar 4: Kellogg R3
Mar 8: Cambridge / Judge R4
Mar 8: CMU / Tepper R3
Mar 9: Duke / Fuqua R3
Mar 9: Penn / Wharton R3
Mar 10: Berkeley / Hass R4
Mar 10: Chicago Booth R3
Mar 10: Yale SOM R3
Mar 15: NYU / Stern R3
Mar 17: UCLA / Anderson R3
Mar 19: UNC / Kenan-Flagler R4
Mar 30: Cornell / Johnson R4
Mar 31: UVA / Darden R3
Mar 31: INSEAD R4
Apr 1: UT-Austin / McCombs
Apr 2: Dartmouth / Tuck R3
Apr 2: Oxford / Saїd R3
Apr 7: Stanford GSB R4
Apr 8: Harvard R3
Apr 14: CBS

Essay Topic Analysis
Below are links to our comments on some of the top programs' essay topics.
The Career Goals Essay
Berkeley / Haas*
Chicago Booth*
CMU / Tepper*
Columbia*
Cornell / Johnson*
Dartmouth / Tuck*
Duke / Fuqua*
Harvard*
Indian School of Business*
INSEAD*
London Business School*
MIT / Sloan*
Michigan / Ross*
Northwestern / Kellogg*
NYU / Stern*
Oxford / Said*
Penn / Wharton*
Stanford GSB*
UCLA / Anderson*
UNC / Kenan-Flagler*
USC / Marshall*
UT Austin / McCombs*
UVA / Darden*
Yale SOM*
* denotes '09-'10 commentary

Categories
Use categories to access all that has been written on each of the topics. We have categorized by school and by subject matter.

Interview Reports
A selection of interview field reports from fellow applicants posted to the MBA Admissions Wiki. Add your reports when you are finished with your interviews.
Chicago
Columbia
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Harvard
Kellogg
Michigan / Ross
MIT / Sloan
Stanford
UNC / Chapel Hill
Virginia / Darden
Wharton
London Business School

GMAT Resources
MBA.com
Manhattan GMAT
GMAT Club
Princeton Review
Test Prep New York
Kaplan
Beat The GMAT
Knewton

Writing Resources
Guide to Grammar and Writing
The Internet Grammar of English
English Usage, Style and Composition
The Economist Style Guide
Paradigm Online Writing Assistant

School Rankings
Rankings are a good way to start your research on various MBA Programs. Keep in mind each uses a different methodology.
Business Week
Economist
Financial Times
Forbes
USNews
Wall Street Journal

Career Guides
The following resources should be useful to those who want to research the careers open to them after (or before) earning an MBA.
Vault.com
Wetfeet

Business School Resources
The following are business resources offered by a variety of leading Business Schools. It's useful to subscribe to these resources, especially for the schools to which you are applying.

MBA Programs: North America
If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
Berkeley / Haas
Boston College / Carroll
Carnegie Mellon / Tepper
Chicago
Columbia
Concordia
Cornell / Johnson
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Emory / Goizueta
Harvard
HEC Montreal
Indiana / Kelley
Michigan
MIT / Sloan
Northwestern / Kellogg
New York / Stern
North Carolina / Kenan Flagler
Notre Dame / Mendoza
Pennsylvania / Wharton
Queens
Stanford
Syracuse / Whitman
Texas / McCombs
Thunderbird
Toronto
USC / Marshall
UCLA / Anderson
Vanderbilt / Owen
Virginia / Darden
Washington University in St. Louis / Olin
Western Ontario / Ivey
Yale

MBA Programs: 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.
AGSM (Australia) 2
Cambridge / Judge (UK) 1
CIEBS (China) 2
Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (China) 1
Cranfield School of Mgmt (UK) 1
ESADE (Spain) 1 or 2
HEC (France) 2
Hult (UK) 1
IESE (Spain) 2
IMD (Switzerland) 1
INCAE (Costa Rica) 2
INSEAD (France) 1
IPADE (Mexico)
ISB (India) 1
London Business School (UK) 2
Manchester Bus. School (UK) 2
Melbourne (Australia) 2
Oxford / Said (UK) 1
Rotterdam (Netherlands) 1
Tsinghua IMBA (China) 2
University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) 1

Additional Resources
Here we link a host of additional resources available across the web. E-mail info@clearadmit.com to have resources added to this list.
AACSB International
Association of MBAs
Beyond Grey Pinstripes
EFMD
gradschools.com (worldwide)
Infozee
International Student Loans
mba.com (GMAT Scores)
MBAInfo
mbaleague.blogspot.com
MBAzone
MBA Jungle
TOEFL
Top MBA

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.

Blog Archive

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Friday, November 18, 2005

Fridays From the Frontline

Reading through various blogs as we prepared this week’s edition of FFF, it once again became obvious why this ‘blogging’ thing has become so popular. Simply put, the MBA-blogger galaxy is buzzing with excellent and informative posts this week.

We’ll start with applicant-blogger LaserLikeFocus, who documented his recent trip to visit Stanford and Berkeley/Haas and managed to combine incisive commentary on the two programs with a bit of humor. In a similar vein, MBAyisyen reports back from LBS and Oxbridge visits, offering his impression of the three schools, complete with Harry Potter references. Also spending time in England was RusGirl who shares her impressions of LBS and lists all of the friendly student-bloggers she met while visiting, including theDivineMissN, who was gracious enough to be her host (this just goes to show that being a blogger pays)! Closing out our campus-visits portion of FFF, we find Maverick, who spent time on the IMD campus and offers a really extensive post detailing the experience. This is great reading for those of you considering IMD.

Moving along to other applicant-blogger issues, it seem that GMAT logistics have created obstacles for a couple of bloggers. Paa”ji” describes the horrific experience of computer troubles (the test-center machine crashed) while he was taking his GMAT and RusGirl tackles problems with her score reports, which INSEAD claims were never received.

Beyond school visits and GMAT issues, many applicants are facing the MBA interview process. Franky4MBA describes his recent interview with a ‘European school’ and examines his uncertainty about leaving a comfortable work environment. Resolute celebrates a Wharton interview invite and begins thinking about preparation while RedWolf debates whether or not he should have his Wharton interview in NYC with an alum or on the Wharton-campus. In other interview news, Vatsa describes his Tuck interview experience and Resolute offers a few thoughts on his Fuqua interview.

Closing out our news from the applicant-blogger community, SgHama offers a useful update on his progress with the Tuck application in order to meet the December 1st deadline and PupStar78 describes the bit of R2 deadline panic that motivated him to get cracking on his essays. His post also raises a very important issue with regards to MBA essays and how much knowledge one should assume on the part of the reader. [Hint: your MBA admissions reader will likely know very little about the nuances or technical jargon associated with your job.]

As we shift gears to the MBA-student blogging community, there are several posts worth highlighting. For starters, we’d like to call your attention to a posting from Hella which describes the Wharton interview training process from the standpoint of the student interviewer. Beyond that, there was an excellent post from MarketWizWannabe on a Wisconsin trip to meet with Warren Buffet and news from BYU-MBA on the decision to increase the MBA class size at BYU. In other on-campus news, Tiy reports briefly on the Net Impact conference at Stanford, Tagad_Tale documents the frenzy of the second year at Tuck and Mark offers a great run down of second-year coursework at HBS.

One topic that on the minds of several MBA students is grading. Jerry Blank expresses his frustration about class participation grading at Yale, while INSEAD06 checks in from the post-grade report battlefield at INSEAD and Death Spiral shares his INSEAD performance. In a somewhat related posting, FutureMBAGirl talks about recruiting biases and grade non-disclosure at Wharton.

Beyond grades, current MBA students spent the past week sharing all sorts of interesting news. Bharanidharan writes about a course in rural marketing at ISB, Gandaki reports on mock-interviews and class presentations at IESE and leMBA touches base with a report from HEC. Closing out this week’s edition of FFF are three posts from Chicago GSB bloggers: Wakechick details her glimpse of the first snow flakes in Chicago, PowerYogi battles sleep deprivation and corporate presentations (a deadly mix) and the Daily Travails offers an incredible story about how not to visit schools…

Have a great weekend everyone! Please feel free to email the Clear Admit team if your MBA-related blog is not on our radar screen and you’d like to be considered for the Best of Blogging Awards 2005-06.

# posted by Clear Admit @ 11:20 am in Fridays from the Frontline

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Wiki

MBA Admissions Wiki
The Clear Admit Wiki is designed to allow b-school applicants to share their experiences through the application process. You can learn from others' experiences and contribute your own reports to the community. Below are the five most popular pages in the wiki:
Wharton Interview Field Reports
HBS Interview Field Reports
Kellogg Interview Field Reports
Chicago Interview Field Reports
Columbia Interview Field Reports

Discussion Boards

BusinessWeek Forums
The 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 is a link to the original interface (for those of you who didn't like the recent upgrade). Also, here are the five most recent discussions taking place in the forum:

Beat The GMAT Forums
Clear Admit is a featured expert in the BeatTheGMAT forums, answering questions from applicants across the globe. Feel free to ask us your questions in this forum! Here are the most recent posts:

StudyLink Forums
Clear Admit manages the Applying section of the StudyLink MBA discussion boards.

GMAT Club Forums
Below are the five most recent posts to the GMAT Club message boards.

student 2 student
The student-2-student Discussion Boards are managed by Wharton. Here are the five most recent discussions.

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

A selection of the latest updates to MBA blogs compiled by Hella.
MBA Applicants

MBA Students

Bloggers by School

The following are links to bloggers at each of the schools listed.
Chicago
Columbia
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Harvard
Kellogg
Michigan
MIT / Sloan
New York / Stern
North Carolina / Chapel Hill
Stanford
Virginia / Darden
Wharton
Yale
ESADE
IESE
INSEAD
London Business School

Community Blogs

Bshoolers.com
Community blog with MBA student and alum contributors.

Forté Foundation MBA Diaries
Video blog entries posted by women MBA students.

Owen Bloggers
Independent blog with content by Vanderbilt MBA students.

Best of Blogging

2008-2009 Top Ten: