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

APPLICANT RESOURCES

Admissions Director Q&A (New!) Below are links to Clear Admit's exclusive admissions director Q&A sessions.
Dawna Clarke (Tuck)
Rose Martinelli (Chicago)
Judith Hodara (Wharton)
Sarah Neher (Darden)
Soojin Kwon Koh (Michigan)
Randall Sawyer (Cornell)
Beth Flye (Kellogg)
David Simpson (LBS)

Clear Admit School Guides
Eighteen 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.

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.
Nov. 17: Cornell / Johnson R2
Nov. 26: INSEAD R2
Dec. 5: UNC Kenan-Flagler R2
Dec. 9: Berkeley / Haas R2
Jan. 2: Michigan / Ross R2
Jan. 6: HBS R2
Jan. 6: LBS R2
Jan. 7: Chicago GSB R2
Jan. 7: UVA / Darden R2
Jan. 7: Dartmouth / Tuck R2
Jan. 7: Duke / Fuqua R2
Jan. 7: Stanford GSB R2
Jan. 7: Yale SOM R2
Jan. 8: UCLA / Anderson R2
Jan. 8: Wharton R2
Jan. 9: UNC Kenan-Flagler R3
Jan. 12: Cornell / Johnson R3
Jan. 12: Kellogg R2
Jan. 13: MIT Sloan R2

Essay Topic Analysis
Below are links to our comments on some of the top programs' essay topics.
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*
USC / Marshall*
UT Austin / McCombs*
UVA / Darden*
Yale SOM*
* denotes '08-'09 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
GMAC
Manhattan GMAT
GMAT Club
Princeton Review
Test Prep New York
Kaplan
Beat The GMAT

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
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
Texas / McCombs
Thunderbird
Toronto
UCLA / Anderson
Virginia / Darden
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
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
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

Friday, December 16, 2005

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 with reports from final exams in the last week. MargaritaLuvr mentions that finals at CBS are “no joke”, LadyRattler reports on finals and GND at Stanford, FutureMBAGirl celebrates the end of the semester at Wharton (while Hella still has some work to do) and Wakechick wraps up the quarter at Chicago (see LeVoyageur’s Chicago summary too). Keven also checked in with a finals update from Wisconsin, Jerry Blank seems to have created his own mid-term awards at Yale, Buckyhoo describes a marketing final at UNC, Ben reflects on changes at Ross/Michigan and Amit checks in after finishing exams at IIM. Closing out our exams/curriculum segment, we turn to KV, who is trying to finish up the semester at LBS, IESE-MBA-2007, who has learned a lot at IESE and DeathSpiral, who offers a list of things to do instead of studying at INSEAD!

Congratulations to everyone who’s finished up exams this week or received admits to b-school. Our fingers are crossed for LaserLikeFocus and PupStar78 who just submitted at Berkeley/Haas and GunnerMBA who finished his INSEAD application. That’s the news for this week. Have a great weekend everyone!

# posted by Clear Admit @ 10:36 am in Fridays from the Frontline

DISCUSSIONS / BLOGS / WIKI

Clear Admit's Most Recent Entries

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.

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

Chicago Discussion Forums
The Chicago Discussion Boards are managed by the University of Chicago. 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

2007-2008 Top Ten:

2006-2007 Top Ten:

2005-2006 Top Ten:

2004-2005 Top Ten:

Blog Information Profile for clearadmit