Posted by Clear Admit on December 30, 2005, at 12:17 pm
Posted in:  Fridays from the Frontline Welcome to the final edition of FFF for 2005! While the holidays have slowed traffic in the blogosphere somewhat, the applicant-blogger community has remained fairly active due to the plethora of R2 application deadlines that are looming on the horizon.
We’ll kick things off with a report from FooBarMe, who submitted his Stanford application despite some technical issues and offers readers a bit of a run-down with regards to his approach for CMU/Tepper’s Flex-Mode application. Also checking in with an application update was Pupstar78 who has 95% of his Wharton application complete and 85% of Kellogg, but seemed to be struggling with a blurry computer screen after having his eyes dilated during an appointment with the opthalmologist. In the same vein, SgHama jumped in with a brief celebratory post about the completion of his Wharton and Chicago applications (just in time to celebrate New Year’s). Finally, Ty Coon outlined his strategy for further applications in R2 based on feedback he’d received in R1.
While some applicants were looking at R2 deadlines, others were reporting on their admissions results in R1. Brownoski describes his mixed sentiments about being waitlisted at Wharton, but feels good to have a Yale admit in his back pocket. In contrast, we turn to Resolute, who found the waitlist decision at Wharton to be somewhat comforting after the earlier results he’d received from Chicago, Tuck and Fuqua. On the positive side, Loki reports good news from Wharton and is clearly excited about the prospect of heading to Philly in the fall.
This week also featured a number of postings about interviews and school policies. One the heels of his rejection from Wharton, RedWolf offered an extensive post on the school’s interview process and wondered whether or not his interview was actually considered in the process. Meanwhile, LaserLikeFocus offered a full account of his rather unusual Tuck interview (the interviewer was wearing slippers) and in a second posting critiques Kellogg’s decision-release policy.
In other applicant-blogging news, Azaka has finished with the GMAT and seemed fairly content with the result. RusGirl continues to plot her strategy after a disappointing admissions season, but managed to take the time to blog about the newest Clear Admit resource. Also, we’d like to formally welcome MonkandMonkey to the applicant-blogger fold. M&M will be targeting the class of 2009 and has kick-started his blog with two informative posts after attending a Wharton info session and a Darden reception.
While most MBA student-bloggers were spending time on vacation (catching up on sleep, no doubt), there were a few who checked in with some new posts. Droodoogie offered a complete rundown of the first semester coursework at Columbia and Tom looked forward to the spring semester at MIT/Sloan (including his spring classes). Cliff_Claven posted some advice about getting into Stanford, TheDivineMissN sent her holiday wishes from LBS and Metal summed up the semester at UT Austin. We also enjoyed reading a posting from Jeff, who ran down his results at Brandeis’ International Business School.
Finally, it . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on December 29, 2005, at 11:21 am
Posted in: General As R1 admissions results trickle in from the leading business schools, we are beginning to hear the familiar sounds of ‘school debate’ in the various forums and blogs that occupy the time of MBA aspirants. Applicants faced with multiple options are weighing their preferences and contemplating a final destination, often sparking discussion threads like: Cornell vs. Columbia, Michigan vs. Chicago, Stanford vs. Harvard, Wharton vs. Columbia, etc. The debates can get downright nasty (and are often ridiculously uninformed), so we thought we would use today’s posting to offer some advice in this area.
Choosing Between Schools If you are fortunate enough to have gained acceptance to more than one school on your list, you may find yourself in a bit of a predicament. Here are our tips on making your admissions decision/assessing MBA programs:
a) If you have not visited, go to the school and see what you think of the environment. Be sure to attend classes, talk with students, tour the facilities, etc. A weekend visit during a school’s winter break is not a great idea (since you should go when classess are in session). Even if you have already visited, be sure to attend the school’s ‘admitted students’ event(s) to get a sense of your potential classmates. After all, these are the folks who will be offering their thoughts in class and making up your future network.
b) Try to get a sense for the school’s track record in your target field. For example, if you want to be a strategy consultant, take a look at the placement statistics with the firms that are of interest to you. Talk to the career management office at the school and find out which firms came to campus, how many offers were made, etc. You might also try to contact alumni who work in your target field and see what they have to say about their program’s strength in that area. Finally, it may be a good idea to approach the HR department of a firm you are likely to target and ask them for their opinion of the programs on your list. This is also an excuse to build rapport with a potential future employer.
c) Think about the location, size, teaching method, etc. Are you a city person? Are you looking for more of a close-knit, “we’re all in this together” sort of experience, or are you looking to attend classes and then disappear into a large city with a few classmates or old friends? Do you need the benefits of a large university for the pursuit of specific coursework? Do you crave lengthy discussions with faculty? Do you have family or a significant other that might need to consider location? Are you strong in qualitative areas but looking to gain expertise in quantitative subjects? Is there a teaching method that might better address your weaknesses?
d) Think about regional and global brand. Will you be targeting a certain location for employment post-MBA? Does the . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on December 28, 2005, at 4:52 pm
Posted in: General In light of the recent discussion about Columbia’s ED policy in the BW Forums (Columbia ED, Honor or Intimidation) we wanted to draw our readers’ attention to an updated version of an earlier posting from this blog:
Early Decision vs. Early Action vs. earlier deadlines…(Jan 2004) Today’s Wall Street Journal Online, has an interesting article about the shift in undergraduate admissions trends. In essence, the article outlines undergraduate policies like ‘early action’, ‘early decision’ and ‘single-choice early action’ while offering information on acceptance rates in these early rounds, etc.
The interesting link between this article and the world of MBA admissions relates to the increasing use of early decision/early action rounds or early R1 deadlines at business schools. MBA programs like Cornell/Johnson and Dartmouth/Tuck are pushing early action deadlines (mid-October) and Columbia continues to find takers for their often controversial early decision deadline (mid-October). Other schools, like Wharton, have simply made their R1 deadline earlier in the last couple of years (mid-October) and are offering decisions prior to Christmas (mid-December).
The nice thing about early action deadlines or even an ‘early’ R1 deadline is that it allows an applicant to hang on to an offer of acceptance without being forced to make a decision. For example, Wharton applicants who received letters of acceptance last week have until April of 2006 to send in their check. ‘Early decision’, on the other hand, is typically a binding policy where the admitted student agrees to commit (often via a large deposit) or lose the offer.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 27, 2005, at 10:45 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips Now that several schools have issued R1 admissions decisions, many of our readers have been asking about the background checks conducted by leading programs. Here are some quick facts to help explain the process:
1) What are background checks? Background checks involve the verification of information that a candidate has provided in his or her MBA applications. Although the process varies from school to school, it usually includes checking that an applicant attended the school that he or she claims to have attended, received the grades indicated and earned the GMAT score reported. It also involves the verification of the candidate’s employment history, job titles, starting and ending dates and salary/bonus information. Finally, some background checks involve contacting recommenders to verify their support and confirming applicant involvement in community activities.
2) Do all schools conduct background checks? When do they do this? How do they have time? Many of leading MBA programs like to verify the information that has been provided by applicants. This is typically done only for those applicants who are admitted since there is no sense in verifying information for applicants who do not make the cut. Most background checking occurs in the spring – after decisions are out and students begin sending in their deposits. In many cases, the schools outsource this function to a professional risk consulting firm like Kroll.
3) Why bother with background checks? Don’t the schools trust me? The purpose of background checking is to protect all stakeholders of the MBA program (students, faculty, staff, alumni) from those who would seek to falsify their background and pervert the admissions process. It goes without saying that background checks are a good idea.
4) What if my ‘start date’ for an old job is one week earlier than the start date that HR reports during the background check? Will my offer of admission be rescinded? The short answer is that most schools report any discrepancies back to the applicant and give them a chance to explain a plausible mistake. Having said that, it makes sense to do your best to verify all of your information before applying to school, so that you can be certain that the data you report is accurate.
5) Won’t the background checking process alert my employer to the fact that I am applying to b-school? Since the process typically takes place long after you’ve been admitted, this ideally should not be an issue. Having said that the schools still try to conduct the checks in an anonymous fashion, consulting with your HR department to verify your dates of employment and salary – but not necessarily revealing that you are heading to business school.
6) How can I ensure a smooth background check? While the obvious answer is to be honest in your applications, it’s also important that you don’t fudge anything out of laziness (a common occurrence). Dig up those old W-2 forms or check with former employers in order to present the committee with the most accurate . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on December 26, 2005, at 12:17 pm
Posted in: General A favorite pastime of many MBA applicants is to look at the various rankings that are published in the press. Here is a list of a few of the offerings that most of you are familiar with:
US News and World Report BusinessWeek The Financial Times The Wall Street Journal The Economist Forbes ROI Rankings CEO Rankings
While the above resources vary in their appeal (and credibility), it is nonetheless interesting to read the surveys and see how the schools stack up. This is especially true if applicants remember to use the rankings in tandem with substantial research, school visits and discussion with current students who are following similar career paths.
In this spirit, we wanted to draw your attention to the work of a former MBA applicant who took a novel approach to measuring the quality of students at the leading MBA programs. The applicant in question developed the RPI rankings, which use a popular sports methodology (based on ‘strength of schedule’) to help understand the preferences in the MBA marketplace and the caliber of students at each program.
In short, the RPI rankings look at two very basic statistics:
1) Where MBA applicants gain admission 2) Where they end up going
In using this information from a large pool of applicants, the survey attempts to measure student quality at the various schools. For the details of this concept and a full PDF report explaining the results, click here. As a word of warning, the RPI rankings were developed a couple of years ago – hence the data is somewhat out of date. Despite this fact, it’s still a novel approach, and one that is certainly worth considering.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 23, 2005, at 2:47 pm
Posted in: Fridays from the Frontline This has truly been a whirlwind week in the MBA blogosphere. We’ve seen more suspense and drama than an Oscar-winning motion picture. While most of the excitement has surrounded R1 applicants who’ve recently received results from schools like Yale, Kellogg, Wharton, LBS and Duke, current MBA students were also dealing with their struggles in exams. Add to the mix the realization that we’re only 11 days from Harvard‘s R2 deadline and you’ve got quite the edition of Fridays From the Frontline!
Let’s kick things off this week with the good news. After speculating that he may be out of the running at Tuck, LaserLikeFocus reported news of an interview invite from the folks in Hanover, NH (perhaps the Tuck admissions committee reads his blog?)… In other positive developments, FrankyA made the cut at London Business School, with a 10,000 pound scholarship to boot! Back on this side of the Atlantic, Brownoski reports an admit from Yale and Marina summarizes her CBS interview (took place on a Monday), admit (received three days after the interview) and the decision to matriculate. Finally, current Wharton students FutureMBAGirl and Bskewl offered their congratulations to the applicants who made the cut at Wharton in R1.
Beyond the good news, there was also a great deal of nervousness and pessimism in the the blogosphere. Ty Coon worried about not receiving word from Yale as he watched other applicants get pre-Christmas admits. BBirds offered a list of things to do to kill time while awaiting MBA decisions and Anand expressed his concern about juggling applications and his hectic work schedule. Most of this week’s nervousness surrounded the Wharton decisions, which RedWolf discussed as the final day of waiting ticked by.
In addition to pessimism and nervousness, there was some downright bad news handed out this week to a few bloggers. We wanted to take a moment to offer a few words of encouragement to those of you who didn’t get the news you were hoping for this week. We hope that Qzoink (who was denied from Columbia) and RedWolf (from Wharton) are able to promptly pick themselves back up and find success with their remaining applications.
While many applicant-bloggers focused on R1 results there were a number of good postings about forthcoming deadlines. As a starting point, we turn to Axechick who celebrated her first year of blogging by offering some good advice to the applicant community. Mave also returned to the ranks this week with a posting on the R2 application process and an assessment of the caliber of essay questions asked by a few schools. Beyond these posts, we heard from SgHama who seems to be coasting through the application process for R2 and RusGirl who has a new plan in place for her next steps.
Before we leave you for some last minute Christmas shopping, we wanted to highlight several strong posts from the current . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on December 23, 2005, at 1:33 pm
Posted in: General As our team begins wrapping up the beta testing on the new MBA resource we’ve developed, we wanted to ask for a few more volunteers to offer their input. We’re looking for MBA applicants and students to spend a few minutes of their time using the web-based resource we’ve created. Please email alexbr@clearadmit.com if you are interested in lending a hand.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 22, 2005, at 9:56 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips , School: Penn / Wharton First off, we’d like to offer our best wishes to everyone who is awaiting word from Wharton today. It’s been a long road and we recognize than many of you started this process over six months ago.
Since we’re aware that not every applicant will receive an admit, we thought we would offer some tips with regards to handling rejection or waitlist situations. In both cases, it’s important to remember that there are several silver linings here:
1) Timing is everything. The fact that Wharton releases R1 decisions before most of the January (R2) deadlines provides applicants with an early signal of where they might fall in the applicant pool. This feedback can be tremendously important when crafting a backup plan. If you didn’t get the news you were hoping for, it may make sense to consider adding a few schools in R2 (there are dozens of deadlines in January).
2) R1 waitlisters often get admitted in R2. If you were waitlisted, fear not! Historically, we’ve seen a very high percentage of R1 waitlisters gain acceptance to Wharton before the season is over. As such, it is critical to maintain a positive attitude. Of course, it also may make sense to explore other options (see #1 above), but there is no reason not to remain hopeful about your chances at Wharton.
3) Wharton is reapplicant friendly. If your heart is still set on Wharton despite a denial of admission, it may make sense to consider reapplication next year. If this is your plan, you should get started immediately on your strategy by thinking about the areas you could improve. Also, keep in mind that Wharton is one of the few MBA programs that offers applicants a feedback session to explain where the application fell short. These sessions typically take place in the summer months. Check the Wharton web site to learn more about signing up for a feedback session (sign-ups usually take place in April or May).
4) One result does not determine your MBA fate. Although getting a decision from Wharton can serve as a great measure of your chances with other top schools, it is also important to remember that one data point does not define your fate. This is why it is so critical to target several top schools. Even the most impressive candidates rarely get into every school they consider.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 21, 2005, at 10:50 am
Posted in: General Between the frantic push for R2 deadlines and the tense waiting game for R1 decisions, there is no shortage of news in the MBA admissions world. Here’s a quick run down of the latest news and notes we’ve picked up on:
The Yale SOM began offering a handful of admits yesterday to R1 applicants. This is in keeping with the school’s tradition of offering some pre-holiday acceptances. The rest of the pool will have to wait until January. For Yale related discussion, click here. In other news, London Business School also sent out R1 decisions yesterday – with a number of admits reporting in to the BW Forums.
Believe it or not, Stanford continues to offer R1 interview invites – with several applicants reporting that they got their invitations yesterday. The school has often issued invites well into January, so hang in there if you are still waiting! Kellogg has been releasing R1 decisions on a rolling basis and will continue to send out results until December 22nd, when the adcom will take a break until January 2nd.
The Wharton admissions team checked in with an update about tomorrow’s R1 decisions, indicating that word will go out to all interviewed applicants at 9:00 AM (ET). See their blog for details. Of course, with Wharton decisions due out tomorrow, the classic Columbia ED debate seems to be stirring up again.
Finally, there are a couple of news items that we wanted to briefly call to your attention:
1) INSEAD’s new dean is Frank Brown (from PricewaterhouseCoopers). Coverage in the Financial Times. There is precedent for choosing a dean from the business world. See Tom Gerrity and Wharton, for one example.
2) HBS claims that their average graduate from the class of 2005 is earning $174,580/year. This indicates a rather dramatic upswing in starting salaries and suggests that the hiring spree we’ve been documenting in this blog is having an impact on salaries for top MBAs. See the article “Money and morals clash” also in the FT.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 20, 2005, at 11:05 am
Posted in: General While the past year has seen ethics become a particularly hot topic on the admissions end of the business school experience, it seems that social responsibility is a growing concern on the other end of the process. The Wall Street Journal’s College Journal recently published an interesting article about the growing demand for MBAs with backgrounds in this area – and the increasing ease of finding such candidates in the recruiting process. Meanwhile, individuals looking to work in a traditional business role while promoting corporate citizenship and social responsibility within the ranks of an organization find themselves in an ideal position to effect positive change:
M.B.A. graduates say their degree gives them greater credibility when they try to spread social responsibility throughout a company. Unlike many people who move into the corporate world from nonprofit organizations, M.B.A.s can speak the language of business and relate social responsibility to brand management, corporate strategy and financial analysis.
Aspiring MBAs who are seeking to develop these competencies by making social responsibility a priority in their school search will be interested in the latest edition of Beyond Grey Pinstripes, a survey conducted by the Aspen Institute and World Resources Institute that aims to “spotlight innovative full-time MBA programs and faculty that lead the way in integrating issues of social and environmental stewardship into business school curricula and research.”
The aforementioned WSJ article focuses heavily on Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, which finished at #11 in this year’s ranking. The full text is available here.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 19, 2005, at 1:54 pm
Posted in: Deadlines This year’s January deadlines for the top schools are compressed into an incredibly short time-frame. Here’s the rundown:
Tuesday, January 3rd: Harvard Business School Wednesday, January 4th: Chicago, Stanford, Cornell/Johnson Thursday, January 5th: Wharton, UCLA/Anderson Friday, January 6th: Kellogg, London Business School Saturday, January 7th: Michigan/Ross
As you can see, the top 5 MBA programs all have deadlines within a 4-day window. To make matters worse, things don’t really let up the following week:
Tuesday, January 10th: Duke/Fuqua Wednesday, January 11th: MIT/Sloan, Yale SOM Thursday, January 12th: UVA/Darden, Dartmouth/Tuck Sunday, January 15th: NYU/Stern
Throw Columbia’s “rolling” admissions process into the mix, along with Berkeley’s January 20th deadline, and it’s not hard to see that January should be a very busy month for MBA applicants.
This brings us to the point of today’s blog entry, which is that applicants who are aiming for the January deadlines should resist the temptation to put off their applications until after the holidays. This is particularly important for applicants targeting schools with deadlines during the first week of January. We expect a flood of candidates to login and complete their online applications as of January 1st. Given that increased server traffic often results in problems, it makes sense for applicants to target the next two weeks to wrap things up.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 16, 2005, at 10:36 am
Posted in: Fridays from the Frontline As the weeks zip by and the holidays approach, the MBA blogging community is faced with numerous challenges. Applicants are attempting to juggle interviews, R2 essay-drafting and pending decisions (for those that applied to schools in R1). First-year MBA students are struggling to the finish line of the infamous “first semester” and second-year students are equally focused on finals and recruiting.
We’ll kick off this week’s edition of FFF with a look at the applicant-blogger community. For those of you who are considering applying to schools in January, we’d like to highlight a post by IWillMakeIt, who describes the frustration associated with missing Cornell’s latest deadline and the need to push things off until January. The reason that this is relevant has to do with the serious deadline compression we’re seeing on the horizon: in a span of 5 days in early January, there are 9 schools with R2 deadlines! We cannot stress enough how important it will be for R2 applicants to make use of the next two weeks in order to avoid a last-minute panic. On a lighter note, applicant-blogger Qzoink offers another fashion commentary – this one after checking out students on the UCLA campus.
While some applicant-bloggers are focused on the upcoming deadlines, others are awaiting R1 results with bated breath. In particular, many applicants are getting jumpy with each seemingly innocuous email that admissions offices send out. Brownoski describes how his heart skipped a beat when he got a recent note from the MIT/Sloan adcom (to alert him to the fact that his file was ‘ready for review’) and Ty Coon describes the feeling of getting an email from Yale only to find that it was in fact just a newsletter.
The beauty of blogs, forums and other tools is that they allow applicants to share information and support each other through the process. LaserLikeFocus used his blog to report that Kellogg will begin releasing some R1 decisions this week (which they have), Ty Coon checks in with the fact that Yale has started to deny some of their R1 applicants and John Galt reports that he has gained an admit from Tuck (congratulations!). On a less positive note, Resolute reports that he received a deny letter from Chicago – hopefully better news awaits on the Wharton front (after a positive interview). Given that so many of you have great information to share, we’d actually like to invite all members of the blogging community to have a look at the tool we discussed earlier in the week.
Beyond the decision jitters, many R1 applicants continue to navigate the MBA interview process. RedWolf checks in with a report from his Wharton alumni interview, ForrestGump describes his U.Michigan/Ross phone interview, BBirds describes the panel interview at the Indian School of Business and SgHama describes how he was invited to schedule a Tuck phone interview.
Turning to the MBA campus, the blogosphere was inundated . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on December 15, 2005, at 11:06 am
Posted in: General In a not-so-shocking conclusion to the raging debate, Harvard Business School has eliminated its grade non-disclosure policy. Where HBS students had long been forbidden from revealing their marks to recruiters, the HBS Class of 2008 will now be able to do so. Acting dean Jay Light made the announcement yesterday by sending an email out to the HBS community (see below).
This decision raises two very important questions:
1) How will the fact that recruiters have access to GPAs change the level of collaboration among students at Harvard? Will classmates be less likely to assist one another for fear that firms like McKinsey or Goldman Sachs may be relying heavily on individual performance? Will second-year students seek out easier classes to ensure a high GPA?
2) How will the decision at HBS impact the debate that is currently being waged at other top schools with grade non-disclosure (like Wharton, Chicago and Stanford)?
HBS Blogger Mark checked in with his comments on this decision:
Personally, I’m disappointed by this move. I think it is rash to announce a potential change in October, provide scant details until November, and then make the change in December. That doesn’t even begin to address the fact that the decision was made by a temporary Dean who almost certainly won’t be in that position when the Class of 2008 arrives in September. This decision also says very negative things about how the administration values student feedback, and I have very low expectations for these “working groups.”
Here is the official letter from Harvard’s acting dean:
14 December 2005
Dear Students,
I am writing to let you know that, beginning with the Class of 2008, Harvard Business School will no longer prohibit students from disclosing the grades they earn in the MBA program. I recognize that this decision will not be welcome news, for I understand most of you would prefer to continue with our current policy.
In making this decision, I have listened carefully to concerns voiced by current students, and sought the views of faculty, staff, former students, recruiters, and other key constituencies who also care deeply about this issue and its effect upon HBS. I have consulted extensively with Rick Ruback, the MBA Program Chair, and sought advice from the Senior Associate Deans who comprise the faculty leadership. After carefully weighing the arguments on both sides of the issue, and in light of our long-standing mission and reputation, I believe this is the right decision for the School.
Fundamentally, I believe it is inappropriate for HBS to dictate to students what they can and cannot say about their grades during the recruiting process. I believe you and your classmates earn your grades and should be accountable for them, as you will be accountable for your performance in the organizations you will lead in the future. You each should be at liberty to provide recruiters with the fullest possible picture of your accomplishments — including your academic performance while here at the . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on December 14, 2005, at 12:20 pm
Posted in: General The Clear Admit team recently spent time designing a community-based online tool to enable MBA applicants and students to share their respective experiences. We are presently soliciting a small group of beta testers to offer feedback on this tool. If you are interested in helping to test-drive and ultimately shape this project please email alexbr@clearadmit.com. You must be a current MBA applicant or student to participate. Beta-testing is already in progress. Thanks for your help!
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