APPLICANT RESOURCES

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

• Admissions Tips
• Campus Chronicles
• Deadlines
• Essay Topic Analysis
• Essay Topics
• Events
• Fridays from the Frontline
• General
• GMAT News
• GMAT Tips
• Interview Guides
• Interview Tips
• MBA News
• Part-Time MBA
• Part-Time/Executive MBA
• Pre-Matriculation Tips
• Rankings
• School Guides
• School: Berkeley / Haas
• School: Cambridge
• School: Chicago
• School: CMU / Tepper
• School: Columbia
• School: Cornell / Johnson
• School: Dartmouth / Tuck
• School: Duke / Fuqua
• School: Emory / Goizueta
• School: ESADE
• School: Georgetown
• School: Harvard
• School: IE
• School: IESE
• School: IMD
• School: INSEAD
• School: ISB
• School: London Business School
• School: Michigan / Ross
• School: MIT / Sloan
• School: Northwestern / Kellogg
• School: NYU Stern
• School: Oxford
• School: Penn / Wharton
• School: Stanford
• School: UCLA / Anderson
• School: UNC / Kenan Flagler
• School: UT Austin / McCombs
• School: Virginia / Darden
• School: Yale
• Trivia Tuesday
• Uncategorized
• Waitlist Advice
• Which School Wednesdays
• Wiki Wednesdays
• Workbook Wednesdays

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

• knowledge@wharton
• INSEAD Knowledge
• Harvard Working Knowledge
• Knowledge @ Emory
• Columbia Ideas @ Work
• knowledge@ W. P. Carey

Blog Archive

• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• August 2006
• July 2006
• June 2006
• May 2006
• April 2006
• March 2006
• February 2006
• January 2006
• December 2005
• November 2005
• October 2005
• September 2005
• August 2005
• July 2005
• June 2005
• May 2005
• April 2005
• March 2005
• February 2005
• January 2005
• December 2004
• November 2004
• October 2004
• September 2004
• August 2004
• July 2004
• June 2004
• May 2004
• April 2004
• March 2004
• February 2004
• January 2004
• December 2003
• November 2003
• October 2003
• September 2003
• August 2003
• July 2003
• June 2003

Submit a report to the Clear Admit Wiki, win $10 to iTunes!

ARCHIVE FOR JANUARY 2006

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Wharton Round 2

Wharton interview invites for round two applicants have been steadily trickling out, and will continue to do so until 5pm EST on February 16th. If round one is any indication, invitations will be extended up to the day (and hour) of this deadline - so keep those chins up! With speculation swirling on the student-2-student and Business Week discussion boards, we wanted to take some time to dispel a myth about the order in which invites are sent, as well as offer some tips to those who have already received invitations.

For those still waiting, keep in mind that the order in which invitations are extended is in no way correlated with the applicant’s location, the date the application was submitted, or the strength of one’s candidacy. The biggest variable is actually the schedules of the reviewers. Each application is read by at least two readers before an interview decision is made, and this is the single largest factor responsible for the randomness in this stage of the application process.

Congratulations to those round two applicants who have already received invites! While we offered some sample questions and tips for the Wharton interview in round one, we wanted to offer some advice today to those readers who might be deciding on location. Because traveling to the school is a great way to show your interest in the program and experience the community firsthand, selecting an on campus interview is always the ideal situation. For those applicants who have already visited or are absolutely unable, a hub interview is the next best option, as this will afford you the opportunity to meet with admissions staff. Alumni interviews are of course a perfectly viable selections, but there’s a bit more variability involved here with the interviewer’s level of experience, knowledge about the program, etc.

As you get ready, keep the Clear Admit wiki in mind - we now have over 20 firsthand accounts of Wharton interviews. Good luck to those of you waiting for invitations and preparing for interviews!

Monday, January 30, 2006

Good Luck!

With MIT and Berkeley notifications going out today (Sloan’s in a matter of minutes), we just wanted to wish round one applicants luck as they await their admissions decisions!

FT Global MBA Ranking

The Financial Times has just come out with its 2006 ranking of the world’s top MBA programs. For aspiring MBAs concerned with return on investment, this is a good ranking to investigate; the major considerations in this particular publication’s list are weighted salary (average salary three years after graduation with adjustments for industry) and salary percentage increase (percentage increase in salary from beginning an MBA to three years after graduation). The full key to the criteria and their weightings is available here.

For quick reference, the top 15 are:

1. University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
2. Harvard Business School
3. Stanford University GSB
4. Columbia Business School
5. London Business School
6. University of Chicago GSB
7. New York University: Stern
8. INSEAD
8. Dartmouth College: Tuck
10. MIT: Sloan
11. Yale School of Management
12. Instituto de Empresa
13. IESE Business School
14. IMD
14. University of Michigan: Ross

A few changes of note are that MIT, ranked 13 last year, has inched its way into the top 10, while Ross, previously ranked 16, has edged out Berkeley (down from 13 to 16) and Kellogg (which dropped from 11 to 17) for inclusion in the top 15. The biggest upward mover among these top schools is Instituto de Empresa - up to 12 from 19 last year. The full list of the top 100, along with how each school stacked up with respect to each of the evaluation criteria, can be found here.

In other FT news, the publication has assembled a panel of experts to answer applicants’ questions about the risks and rewards of completing an MBA:

On Wednesday February 1, between 12.00 and 1.00 GMT, a panel of international experts - Della Bradshaw, the FT’s business education editor, Laura Tyson, dean of London Business School, Rosemaria Martinelli, Associate Dean, University of Chicago GSB, Calum Forrest, Head of Recruiting for Goldman Sachs EMEA and Philip Delves Broughton, student at Harvard Business School and FT diarist - will answer your questions about doing an MBA.

Should you study in the US or in Europe? What are the relative values of studying on a one-year or two-year programme? What is life like on an MBA programme? How difficult is it to get a job in investment banking? Answers will appear at www.ft.com/mbaexperts.

Email your questions now to ask@ft.com

Friday, January 27, 2006

Fridays From the Frontline

Greetings from this week’s edition of Fridays from the Frontline! Let’s take a look at what’s been going on in the blogging world this week:

Interviews and anxiety seem to be the major themes for applicant bloggers. For readers prepping for Stanford interviews, current student Cliff_Clavin provided a nice writeup of his GSB interview experience. On that topic, KTyler reflects on the difference between his Haas and Sloan interviews. After extensive preparation, MBA Jackass completed his Kellogg interview and provided fellow applicants with a very thorough write up. Now that he has nothing to do but wait for word from his target schools, he’s pondering a name change and hoping his programs of choice send an interview invitation his way. He’s not alone: MBA Cutie notes even the smallest news about her Wharton application status and I_Will_Make_It agonizes over Anderson, Nagendra waits to hear from Michican and Northwestern with a Kellogg interview waiver in hand, and Resolute sings the TOEFL blues as a result of an ETS snafu affecting his Kellogg application.

Bbirds, at least, is finding the period of uncertainty while he waits on Wharton and Stern to be much more bearable thanks to his ISB admit. Kilgore Trout, similarly, found a creative way to keep himself occupied while waiting to hear from Tuck (while he’ll have to wait a bit longer, we’re glad to hear he’s still in the running). No stranger to the waiting game, LaserlikeFocus passed the time reflecting on how to make himself stand out from other applicants to get out of Kellogg waitlist limbo and into the program (and is now facing a similar challenge at Tuck).

This week did bring definitive decisions to some. Hoping not to strike out after two dings, GunnerMBA considers one year programs (and might want to take a look at Franky4mba’s INSEAD/LBS comparison). Tuck showed some love to Sghama and Vatsa, and FooBarMe (who recently had a revelation about fit sparked by an Anderson info session) received a call from Fuqua that warranted a celebratory half day. Congrats! We were also happy to read of AxeChick’s growing excitement about attending Columbia and Ty Coon’s exciting career development.

Switching gears, several student bloggers took some time to help students applying to their programs. IESE MBA 2007 answers questions frequently asked by non-EU prospective students, and Divine Miss N offers tips on the LBS essays.

While many student bloggers wrote last week about their predictions for the semester, this week they focused on the unexpected. KV’s surfing exploits suddenly help him in the LBS classroom, George’s appreciation of Wes Anderson proves a distraction in managerial accounting class at IESE, Poweryogi has some temporal troubles at Chicago, Buckyhoo is surprised to hear applicants consistently announce something very unsurprising when visiting UNC, Beau finds himself approaching literature in a new way due to a business ethics class at Darden, Keven marvels at his brutal Monday schedule at Wisconsin, GSB Mennonite describes what happens when operations meets poetry at Chicago and Wakechick’s interest in poker lands her a leadership position in the GSB Risk and Gaming Club.

We’re glad to hear that Mbawana is fairing well with closed list interviews at Stanford. However, not everyone is faring quite so well. Duke Kim found that i-banking internship recruiting at Stern is not terribly kind to philosophy majors (although if his interview experience has been anything like Poweryogi’s exploits at Chicago, his undergraduate background might not be the culprit), and the uncertainty theme reemerges as JB laments being waitlisted for an internship at Yale. Speaking of Poweryogi, he also aired his frustrations - not with the process or his performance so much as the attitudes of his Chicago classmates. Meanwhile, Vijay doubts the merits of case interviews based on his observations at ISB. In an effort to help out first year students tackle this challenge, Marquis writes about organizing interview prep at Stanford to help others avoid the pits he fell into last year.

In addition to concerns of class and recruiting, some blogging veterans weighed in with their thoughts on a few big questions, and we’d like to end this week’s FFF with some food for thought. In particular Mark defends MBA students with no full-time work experience and explains that they can make a valuable contribution to sections at HBS, and bskewl takes a pro-disclosure stance in the Wharton GND debate.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Admissions Tip: Stanford Interviews

With a large number of Stanford applicants anxiously awaiting interview invitations, we wanted to offer some information and sample questions to round two hopefuls who’ve been thinking about the next step in the application process. Unlike many schools that encourage applicants to travel to campus and meet with a student or member of the adcom, Stanford only offers local alumni interviews. When possible, applicants are paired with an interviewer who currently works in his or her target field, so keep in mind that you may be expected to “talk shop” in addition to articulating your goals and reasons for seeking an MBA.

The questions below have been taken from field reports that our clients have provided and are excerpted from Clear Admit’s Guide to Stanford Interviews.

-Tell me about a book that you read recently.
-What were your favorite courses in college?
-What is your single most important accomplishment?
-Knowing what you know now, is there anything in your career that you’d change?
-Describe a situation when your expectations were not met.
-Describe characteristics of a bad team member or supervisor you’ve worked with.
-What is the most constructive advice given to you at work?
-How can you tell when you have inspired someone?
-What drives you toward your career goals?
-What differentiates Stanford from other schools?

Keep in mind that your interview will be blind and resume-based. This school in particular is looking for applicants who are intellectually curious and can demonstate significant reflection on their experience, so forethought and preparation will be crucial. For round two applicants looking to get up to speed on the Stanford interview, we’ve already received a few firsthand reports since the recent launch of the Clear Admit wiki - and round one applicants who’ve been through the process are encouraged to add to this resource.

Best of luck to everyone waiting to hear from Stanford GSB!

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Wiki Wednesdays: R2 Interview Scoop!

As many anxious R2 applicants are no doubt aware, interview invites have begun trickling out from schools like Wharton, Stanford and the University of Chicago. If history is any indication, Harvard will follow suit within the next week or so. Given that so many of you will be preparing for interviews in the coming weeks, we wanted to highlight the growing number of interview reports that have been added to the MBA Admissions Wiki. For example, here’s a report that was just posted on the Wharton interview experience:

R1 Applicant; Application Submitted October 13; Interviewed November 21, 2005
I interviewed on-campus with a second year student. He was very professional yet kept things conversational and relaxed. The interview lasted approximately 35 minutes and began with the standard, “Let’s take a look at your resume.” I walked him through my educational background - beginning with my choice of undergrad school and major, moved on to my two job experiences since undergrad, and briefly touched upon my long-term career goals (since they tie in with my career choices to date). Here is a summary of the basic questions I answered:

-Walk me through your resume
-Tell me about a time you were a leader and experienced adversity; how did you deal with it
-Tell me about your long term career goals
-Tell me why you’re looking at Wharton
-What can you add to the program?
-Is there anything else you would like to add?

I think he was originally planning to ask more questions, but I spent a significant amount of time preparing and was able to fit some key leadership anecdotes into the interview as we walked through my resume. In preparing, I would recommend compiling a list of key questions listed on websites like this - I found the questions I pulled from websites to be exactly those covered in the interview. Know your application inside and out. I think the last question - “is there anything else you would like to add” - is your opportunity to really stand out from the crowd. I had it at both of my interviews (Kellogg and Wharton) so I would recommend preparing for it. The key is to be excited about the program. Regardless of whether or not it truly is your first choice, know the MBA program inside and out and have thoughtful questions.

I wrote a thank you note to my interviewer - to which I received an e-mail response with well wishes. He was very gracious and helpful. I was extremely impressed with all my Whartonite interactions.

I was admitted to Wharton.

At this point, there are 20 Wharton interview reports in the MBA Admissions Wiki (all of them are from this admissions season)! This is exactly the sort of resource that can help you to better understand what to expect as you begin your preparations.

Speaking of the fact that there are so many interview reports in the Wharton section, we’ve now archived the first 15 entries on a separate page for easier browsing. This will also eliminate potential concerns over editing mistakes as the wiki grows (since the archived page is now static). We’ll be making similar archives for each school as the wiki continues to expand.

In other news, we’ve added a new section to the wiki that covers campus visits. Our sincere thanks go out to the applicant who so eloquently shared the details of his trip to Kellogg! Here’s a quick excerpt from the posting:

“I had a great day at Kellogg. I sat in on a marketing class as well as the celebrated “Fin D” or Financial Decisions class. My lack of familiarity with terms such as “beta” and “unlevered” left me hanging, but I could see myself sitting in these classes and both professors were particularly good.”

We’d also like to encourage our readers to follow suit and post entries about their campus visits at the top schools, so if you’ve been to Harvard, Wharton, Chicago, Columbia, MIT or any other leading business school, sign up for your free wiki account and share your thoughts. To get an account, you simply need to send an email to wiki@clearadmit.com and specify your preferred username.

Overall, this past week was the busiest ever for the MBA Admissions Wiki - with dozens of new content additions! The entire Clear Admit team would like to extend our thanks to those of you who have been sharing your experiences with the applicant community. Of course, we’d like to once again point out that the wiki is only as strong as the content that our readers are adding….so we look forward to reading more great posts in the future!

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Will Wharton Follow HBS’ Lead?

On the heels of Harvard Business School’s decision to impose the end of the grade non-disclosure (GND) era on its student body, it would appear that the rumblings of a policy change are growing louder at Wharton. Yesterday’s Wharton Journal published two articles of note on this subject:

1) MBA Executive Committee Reveals Policy Changes. This article describes the Executive Committee’s proposed overhaul of academic life at Wharton. In essence, the proposal comes down to four suggested changes:

-Making sure that class time is “viewed as sacrosanct” by creating stricter attendance rules, eliminating potential extracurricular conflicts, rewarding student collaboration, etc.

-Placing restrictions on what the school calls ‘hyper-recruiting’ to reduce distractions from academics (see our blog posting on this subject from two weeks ago).

-Changing the scale for the grading system. Currently, Wharton students do in fact receive grades (they just can’t share them with recruiters). The grades they receive are as follows: Distinguished (DS), High Pass (HP), Pass (P), Qualified Credit (QC), Fail (F). The new system that has been proposed involves a shift to the standard A-F scale, with + and - options. The idea here is to help students get more of a range of feedback (13 variations from A+ down to F vs. the current 5 variations). This system is also more familiar to most students.

-Endorsing the notion that getting rid of GND is fine by the committee. The committee stressed that the grades students receive are “private property” and that they should have the right to disclose those grades if they wish. [Of course, keep in mind that grade non-disclosure is a student-driven policy at Wharton, so this change essentially amounts to the administration expressing their strong opinion that disclosing grades is fine with them.]

2) A History of Wharton Grade Non-Disclosure. This second article reprints the existing policy in detail, pointing out that it is a student driven policy. Interestingly enough, when GND was first passed in 1994, 78% of the student body voted for the policy. In other words, it seems hard to imagine the students voting it down.

For more background on GND, see our blog entry on the topic from September of 2005. This entry explores the pros and cons of GND while also looking at the various programs that have similar policies in place.

Of course, with the rumbles of change at Wharton, there are dozens of students, applicants and alumni weighing in on what will happen next. First-year Wharton student and Clear Admit ‘Best of Blogging‘ award winner Bskewl posted an extensive entry in his blog about Wharton’s new policy, suggesting that eliminating GND might be a good idea, since it would force the faculty to look elsewhere for change when they realize that it’s not the magic bullet:

“…..none of the real issues are going to get fixed until we get past this grade disclosure issue. The student-enforced GND policy will remain an external scapegoat for failure to create a top-notch learning environment. The sooner that goat is slain, the sooner our administrators will be forced to turn their gazes inwards for some fruitful self examination…”

Finally, here are some relevant links to further discussions:
BW Discussion Forums Thread: Wharton GND Bites the Dust
Wharton student-2-student Forums Thread: Grade Disclosure

We’ll have to see where the dust settles, but at present it looks as though the Wharton student body holds the cards. Of course it is also worth pointing out that this entire debate offers a very interesting look inside the differences between two leading MBA programs (HBS and Wharton) in terms of student involvement, process, etc.

Monday, January 23, 2006

MBA Admissions Podcast

Clear Admit has just been featured in a podcast about the use of MBA admissions consultants at the top schools. This report tackles the subject from the viewpoint of a current MBA student, an admissions officer and an admissions consultant. You can download it for free and listen to it on your computer or iPod/MP3 player.

Click here to download the podcast and listen now!
(right-click, then select ’save target as’ to save the podcast to you desktop - or just left-click to listen online)

Podcast on MBA Admissions Consulting
Guests
-Graham Richmond (Co-founder, Clear Admit)
-Judith Silverman (Senior Associate Director of Admissions, Wharton)
-a current MBA student who utilized an admissions consultant
[Reporter Janet Nankano (of NPR fame) leads the discussion.]

Key Takeaways
-Graham Richmond outlines Clear Admit’s role in the MBA admissions community, linking the firm’s services to the sort of counseling that is par for the course in the medical, law school or even college admissions process (where universities and high schools provide pre-med/pre-law or college guidance counseling to their students to help them through the process). Richmond also stresses how crucial it is for applicants to identify their unique strengths and tell their stories in their own voice, and to do so consistently across all components of the application (essays, interviews, data forms, etc).

-Wharton’s Judith Silverman reports that the school is aware that admissions consultants are out there and does not penalize students who avail themselves of these kinds of services. At the same time, Ms. Silverman points out how important it is for applicants to present a consistent and sincere message across the essays, interview and application forms - warning that some applicants who submit polished essays but flop in the interview (or submit poorly crafted data forms, recommendations that don’t add up, etc) might do harm to their candidacy. Silverman also encourages applicants to use the Wharton discussion forums and other resources that the school provides to guide applicants through the process.

-The student who used an admissions consultant points out that he knew he had the basic components of a competitive candidacy, but that he lacked an insider understanding of the application process. He also knew he could answer the questions the schools were asking - but he found his admissions consultant’s advice to be critical when it came to grasping the latitude that one has in responding to essay questions and crafting an effective overall strategy.

Link to the MBA Podcaster site and podcast summary.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Fridays from the Frontline

With Kellogg, Harvard and Stanford among the programs releasing decisions this week, there have been a flurry of updates on this long-awaited news. We’d like to open this week’s FFF with congratulations to Franky and Loki (in at INSEAD and HBS, respectively), and to any of our readers who’ve received positive news over the past few days. Of course, some bad news does come with the good (or with the indefinite or the nonexistent, as the case may be). It fortunately sounds as though MBA Cutie’s Ross admit has softened the blow of a Stanford ding, and that Ty Coon’s sense of humor and realistic expectations prepared him well for his HBS results.

News of interviews also arrived for many applicants this week. Creativentis was overjoyed to hear from ISB, and FooBarMe suprised by the speed with which Tepper came knocking. A few field reports of interviews have also appeared: Brownoski provides an informative account of his experience with MIT’s unique process, angel angie describes her LBS alum interview for the reference of second round applicants, and FooBar reflects on his performance in a very open-ended interview at Haas. Thanks to everyone who’s contributed his or her insight on this and other topics to the Clear Admit wiki (which we’re thrilled to hear you’ve been finding helpful)!

In addition to the bloggers who’ve been documenting their paradoxical combination of post-submission anxiety and relief (Pupstar78 is “under review” at Wharton and MBAyisyen is finished with Stern), many continue to offer advice. RusGirl’s taken the time to draw up a recommended timeline for the application process, offering both an ideal plan and a condensed version for those coming down to the wire. She makes an especially solid point about the data forms, an element of the application that is often rushed or overlooked. Meanwhile, Axechick weighs in with some comments about the importance of entering the application process with clear career goals - for the sake of both one’s essays and one’s sanity. Finally, with the caveat that he’s just submitted his application and has yet to see the results of his approach, Ash has written up a nice account of his personal approach to Harvard’s challenging essays.

There were also a number of great posts about issues that crop up after the post-decision dust settles. Axechick steps back and considers the cost of a Columbia MBA (and of living in NYC) and Marina, also CBS-bound, explains the Kroll screening process. Breaking the news to one’s employer is another potentially stressful subject, but we’re glad to read that Resolute had a fairly easy time of it and is excited to move on.

Meanwhile, things continue to pick up for student bloggers as the new semester kicks into gear. While JB reflects on the lessons he learned during his previous semester at Yale, Metal ponders how to make this semester at McCombs a relatively relaxed one and Jeff D plans to integrate excercise into his Brandeis schedule, others are undergoing more dramatic adjustments. For instance, Beau, having just returned from exchange, braces himself anew for cold calls at Darden, while Tagad_Tale adjusts to Tuck’s cold winters and Noelle experiences an IESE accounting-induced panic attack.

First impressions and predictions for classes were a popular topic with bloggers this week. Keven is in for a semester o’ quant at Wisconsin, Olivier looks forward to an interesting courseload in Singapore, and George offers a humorous account of the way that a particular movie named after its main character led to the “comment of the century (maybe)” at IESE. Death Spiral explores his personal EQ in the INSEAD course “Social Psychology of Management” and, speaking of psychology, Jain explores the factors that might influence selection of electives at Cranfield. The electives at his program were so enticing that Karibu signed up for too many and is already feeling overloaded at LBS. Perhaps he should take a page from Buckyhoo’s book; not one to subscribe to the “all work, no play” lifestyle, he writes of his love of Journey and gratitude that there are no Friday classes at UNC this semster.

Recruting was again much discussed this past week. The Divine Miss N provides a good, good account of the bad, bad goings on during the LBS “milkround” (this sentence will make much more sense once you’ve read her post), and Al offers a clear explanation of this UK-specific term, along with a detailed comment on his own experiences. Wakechick’s internship search at Chicago GSB isn’t going as well as she’d hoped, but at least she’s planned a fun spring break while she waits for her summer to fall into place. She’s not alone, though, as Simba will attest to the beating career changers and i-banking hopefuls are taking after the first week of recruiting at Duke and MargaritaLuvr comments on the palpable relief of her Columbia classmates upon the end of banking recruiting.

While some angle for summer internships, others are fishing for more long-term employment. George recounts a challenging but ultimately successful interview with BCG, In the process of documenting his job application process, ISB student Vijay has made some great comments on importance of thinking for oneself and evaluating one’s fit with a firm idependently of its brand. Future MBA Girl, with a job offer in hand, faces a very different dilemma as she considers the potential consequences of having too much time on her hands during her last semester at Wharton.

That concludes this week’s installment of FFF. Good luck to applicants and job/internship-seekers alike, and have a wonderful weekend!

Thursday, January 19, 2006

MBAs Can’t Write?

Tuesday’s Career Journal (a Wall Street Journal publication) featured an interesting article on the writing skills of MBA students. According to recruiters, both writing and speaking skills are often sorely lacking in the crop of students they evaluate for jobs.

Given how critical these communications skills are for key leadership positions, we’re convinced that recruiters have the right idea. This is one of the reasons that we spend so much time working with MBA applicants to help them understand how to improve their interviewing and essay writing skills - two areas that are often rusty if one has been at the same job for several years and is accustomed to crafting PowerPoint slides instead of prose!

For the full article (which is an excerpt from The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Top Business Schools) click here: M.B.A. Recruiters’ No. 1 Pet Peeve: Poor Writing and Speaking Skills

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Harvard and Stanford R1 Decisions

As many of you know, today is decision day for Harvard Business School first round applicants. In case you are jittery, there are many other folks discussing the wait in the BW Forums. Blogger ‘Ty Coon’ also posted his thoughts (as a R1 applicant who did not get an interview invite). Of course, no matter how tempting, we’d like to encourage all applicants to avoid efforts to get their results earlier than authorized.

Stanford is also issuing R1 decisions. The offical date is tomorrow, but it would appear that some admit calls have started going out today. As with HBS, there is a great deal of Stanford discussion taking place in the BW Forums - with a fair number of applicants reporting on acceptance calls from Derrick Bolton, the Assistant Dean and Director of MBA Admissions.

For those of you who are anxiously awaiting news, we’d like to wish you the best of luck!

Wiki Wednesdays

Welcome to the second edition of Wiki Wednesdays, our new weekly column that is designed to highlight the latest and greatest content additions to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Wiki.

This past week saw more than 20 new pieces of content added to wiki, including interview reports for Columbia, Chicago, UNC, UCLA, Michigan, Kellogg and LBS. Beyond interview reports, several users were kind enough to share their general thoughts on the application process at schools like Stanford and Kellogg.

As expected, several areas of the MBA Admissions Wiki are continuing to grow. The Harvard Business School Interviews page now contains seven detailed interview reports and the Columbia Interviews page has six reports. These pages are clearly must-reads for those of you who receive invites from these programs.

In other wiki news, we’d like to thank Ash for his blog posting that explains exactly what a wiki is and for his recent contributions to the wiki. In fact, here’s a helpful excerpt from his wiki entry about Stanford’s “What Matters Most” essay:

…..I then scrapped all my drafts and wrote the most interesting events in my life to date, including my family, friends, studies and work. I put them on yellow stickies on a wall. And then I could see the thread, because deep down inside I am driven by certain beliefs (which I will post once Stanford tells me whether I’m in or not), and these beliefs drive me personally and professionally. ….It took me three months to reach my final draft, but when I read it, the tone was me and I felt truly honest about everything that I wrote.

We’d also like to alert our readers to the continued press we’ve been receiving:

MBA Admissions Process: Wiki-Based Clear Admit Has The Insider View
The Clear Admit MBA Admission Wiki uses a wiki technology as a resource in which applicants and students alike can contribute to and add their own insights, in a simple and very organized fashion. In this case, wiki technology demonstrates, how collaborative and cooperative interests by individuals that are physically disconnected can be made to converge and synergize to produce valuable insight and information not otherwise available anywhere else.

Shore News Commentary
This blog is designed to host commentary on the latest news and trends in content and related technologies. The Clear Admit MBA Admissions Wiki was featured under the “Cool Tools” listing for the week!

Mutex
This tech blog focuses on unique web-based solutions. The author had the following thoughts on our wiki: “This is a really good example of an evolution toward a greater shared truth.”

Last but not least, it seems that the discussion concerning our wiki is happening in multiple languages: D’altra parte, Clear Admit ha fatto partire una soluzione per la condivisione gratuita dell’informazione che permette a ciascun candidato MBA di raccogliere e recensire molte delle più aggiornate informazioni sul processo di ammissione MBA in ciascuna delle maggiori scuole MBA.

Thanks again to everyone who has posted to the wiki thus far! As you know, the wiki is only as good as the content we receive, so we’d like to encourage more applicants and MBA students to sign up and participate. You can get a free wiki account by emailing wiki@clearadmit.com and including your preferred username.

# posted by Clear Admit @ 11:58 am in Wiki Wednesdays

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Admissions Tip: The Waitlist

What should an applicant do when placed on the waitlist at his or her dream school? While most applicants regard the waitlist in a negative light (we’ve even heard it described as “a sort of purgatory prior to getting dinged”), the best approach is to view the glass as being half-full (especially for R1 waitlisters). In all cases, getting waitlisted is much better than getting denied.

Here are a few tips to help you navigate this often difficult and mysterious process:

1) Know your file. Before you can develop a waitlist strategy you need to understand where you may have fallen short in the application process. Read over your file with a critical eye and try to identify any weaknesses. Talk to anyone you know who might be able to give you feedback (MBA students at the target school, former admissions officers, admissions consultants, etc).

2) Familiarize yourself with the school’s waitlist rules. Do you need to ‘opt-in’ in order to be on the list? Are you allowed to submit supplemental materials to bolster your case or inform the committee of changes to your candidacy? Does the school offer a chance for feedback via a phone session or interview with a ‘waitlist manager’?

3) Follow the waitlist rules.

CASE A: Schools that accept supplemental materials. If a school hints that you may want to provide a supplemental essay or recommendation letter, then by all means, take this offer seriously and get something together for them. Approach these materials in the same way that you would approach the application process (e.g. do not just send along something that you dash off in a matter of minutes). If you have several items you wish to send, it may make sense to spread them out over the course of a few weeks to demonstrate steady interest.

CASE B: Schools that do not accept supplemental materials. This may sound obvious, but if a school indicates that they do not want supplemental materials, then you should respect their guidelines. In other words, do not send along a new recommendation or an essay if the program has clearly indicated that you should not do so. There may be exceptions to this - for example, if a dramatic change has taken place in your candidacy - but in most cases, you should simply follow the rules. [Contact us to learn about other ways to improve your waitlist status with schools that frown on supplemental materials.]

4) Consider a school visit. It may make sense to visit the school, particularly if you have not been before. So many different things can happen on a visit:

a) You never know when you’ll have that chance meeting with an admissions officer who is willing to give you a little feedback (and who through the process of meeting you face to face might get a better sense of your candidacy)

b) A school may take note of your visit (if you sign in with the admissions office) and view it as a potential sign of your interest

c) You may interact with students or professors who can better inform you of opportunities at the school and provide you with helpful ‘content’ for any waitlist materials you go on to submit

d) By visiting, you may find out that school X is really not for you, enabling you to move on and remove yourself from the waitlist

Just as there are a number of waitlist to-do items, there are also countless things to avoid doing. We’ll devote another post to that at a later date. Please contact the Clear Admit offices for questions about waitlist strategy and our related services (info@clearadmit.com, +1 215-568-2590).

# posted by Clear Admit @ 10:43 am in Admissions Tips

Monday, January 16, 2006

Wiki Update

The Wiki has returned to normal operations.

# posted by Clear Admit @ 9:40 pm in General

Upcoming Deadlines

While many applicants are awaiting word on applications submitted in the early admissions rounds, we wanted to take a moment to offer a quick list of the remaining MBA deadlines for this season.

As we’ve often remarked in this blog, the final rounds of admission can be particularly competitive - so we encourage our readers to exercise caution. At the same time, for candidates who haven’t yet received positive news or who may be looking to ‘trade up’ based on excellent results thus far, a third (or final) round application can sometimes make sense. In addition, it is important to remember that many programs offer four (or more) deadlines, often making their February and March dates the penultimate deadlines.

Without further ado, here are the key deadlines on the horizon:

January 20th: Berkeley/Haas
February 1st: INSEAD, IMD, Emory, UT Austin/McCombs
February 10th: Georgetown/McDonough
February 15th: USC/Marshall
February 21st: UCLA/Anderson
February 24th: London Business School
March 1st: UVA/Darden, Columbia (int’l), Cornell/Johnson, Michigan/Ross
March 2nd: Wharton
March 3rd: UNC/Kenan-Flagler
March 7th: Harvard
March 10th, Berkeley/Haas, Kellogg/Northwestern
March 15th: Stanford, Yale SOM, NYU/Stern
March 20th: Carnegie Mellon/Tepper
March 21st: Duke/Fuqua
March 22nd: INSEAD
March 24th: Oxford/Said
April 1st: USC/Marshall
April 10th: Dartmouth/Tuck
April 20th: Columbia (domestic, rolling)
April 28th: UCLA/Anderson, London Business School
April 30th: U. Toronto/Rotman
May 26th: Oxford/Said
May 31st: Cambridge/Judge (rolling)

# posted by Clear Admit @ 1:34 pm in Deadlines

Wiki Maintenance

FYI: We’re in the process of making some changes to the MBA Admissions Wiki. As a result, you may have noticed some downtime over the weekend and this morning. We’ll post a note here as soon as the site is back up and running at full speed. Thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, we are proud to announce that our wiki was featured in a leading technology and marketing/communications blog! Here is a quote from the posting:

“Clear Admit has enabled a powerful and free information sharing solution that allows any MBA applicant anywhere to gather and review lots of valuable and up-to-date information relating to the MBA admission process at each of the major MBA schools.”

For the full article, click here.

# posted by Clear Admit @ 11:58 am in General

Friday, January 13, 2006

Fridays from the Frontline

As admissions decisions continue to roll out, we’d like to open this edition of FFF by extending congratulations to our blogging friends who’ve received good news over the past few days, as well as our condolences to those who received word that wasn’t as positive. Resolute is glad to have a definitive yes from ISB, and Bbirds shares news of his ISB admit with financial support (offering some words of encouragement to fellow applicants who didn’t quite make the cut). We were pleased to read about RedWolf’s Chicago admit as well as Angel Angie’s positive news from LBS and MBA Cutie’s acceptance to Michigan. A waitlist decision from Chicago solidifies Moe’s decision to enroll at LBS, while Nagendra accepts an imminent rejection and Anand comes to terms with a ding. While we were sorry to read that things didn’t work out this season, we’re glad to hear that RusGirl is excited about her new job and considering reapplying.

While some applicants can at least rest easy with an answer, many more are still waiting on decisions, and the past week found many bloggers jumping every time the phone rings, checking email for interview invites, analyzing interviews, catching typos in essays, and trying to stay motivated. Some school’s models seem to cause more stress than others, as MBA Cutie comments on the acute agony inflicted by Kellogg’s practice of gradually releasing decisions and Ty Coon considers how application timing factors into Columbia’s rolling review process. FooBarMe also continues to prepare for a Berkeley interview (which hopefully he’ll report in the wiki) and wait for an answer - albeit not from the program he applied to!

Meanwhile, Kilgore Trout explores another element of application-induced anxiety as he wonders how to break his b-school plans to his boss (and might want to investigate Brownoski’s comments on his lame duck status as he prepares). Of course, the decision date doesn’t always bring the painful uncertainty to an end, as Ty attests in relation to his Yale waitlist situation.

There does, however, seem to be rest for at least some of the weary. Finished with the work on their end, Moe and Nick offer their perspective to fellow applications with a suggestion on a fitting and thoughtful gift idea for recommenders and some retrospective tips on the application process (respectively). Others are simply grateful to have some time to relax: Pupstar78 plans an evening off after lining up his Kellogg interview, Sorebrek breathes a sigh of post-application relief and LaserLikeFocus decides to take a break from thinking about b-school altogether.

Last week’s FFF was light on content from current students, but they’re back in force now that winter break is drawing to a close (and Future MBA Girl is already feeling the effects of senioritis!). Even though class is just starting up, the simple recollection of students in the same place after scattering from break can make for memories and blog fodder, as IESE blogger George demonstrates with an illustrated account of his last hurrah before the start of the semester.

While there’s been some talk of getting back in gear academically (Hella is bracing himself for a heavy courseload and busy few months at Wharton and The Divine Miss N is already swimming in finance homework at LBS, while Noelle has been able to ease back into things at IESE more gradually), the hot topic in the student blogosphere has undeniably been recruiting. Preparation methods vary; from Ben at Ross’ sorting through various metaphors for the process to Mbwana looking into the statistics behind his prospects (and outlining a course to help maximize his chances). While anyone who’s applied for a job or school knows the stress involved in the process, droodoggie makes an interesting comment on the pressure that comes from being placed in such direct competition with classmates and friends. On a humorous note, Miss N learns that the job prospects aren’t the only thing worth getting excited about. More seriously, a few veterans offer up some tips to first year students looking for consulting positions - be sure to check out Marquis‘ thoughts, if this applies to you.

The start of a new semester also means a new setting for students taking advantage of exchange programs. While different cities and schools come with different factors to consider - from Death Spiral’s first impression of the well-organized city and modern conveniences of INSEAD’s Singapore campus to LBS blogger Guillaume’s account of earthquake preparedness orientation at Anderson - the keyword this week seems to be “adjustment.” There’s understandably not much to report at this point and most student-bloggers are just checking in to let readers know they’ve landed, but we look forward to hearing more as the semester goes on.

Finally, we’d like to welcome Harvard_Dream and Angel Angie into the blogging fold! The former is a first year student at HBS who has just kicked off a blog that looks like it will be an excellent resource on life at Harvard Business School. The latter is an LBS admit, who will be joining the class of 2008 and reporting on life in London. These blogs have been added to the HBS Blogs and LBS Blogs pages in the MBA Admissions Wiki. We encourage our readers to add their blogs to the wiki if we’ve missed them.

Congratulations to those of you who know where you’ll be and what you’ll be doing next, and good luck to those still navigating the admissions and recruiting processes! Have a great weekend…

# posted by Clear Admit @ 9:00 am in Fridays from the Frontline

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Networking, Internships, ‘Early’ Decisions and More!

There’s a great deal of news to report today, ranging from recent headlines to admissions results. We’ll start with a run-down of a few articles that are worth reading:

1) Getting Something Extra From an MBA Program. This article was published on the Wall Street Journal’s College Journal site (a free site) and covers the subject of experiential learning and networking in business school. Highlighting activities that range from Tech Treks at MIT/Sloan to corporate links between a pharmaceutical management concentration at Rutgers and local firms (Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb), the author focuses on how schools go beyond basic classroom learning when educating their students and helping them to build networks.

2) Internship Offers Are Too Early for MBAs. This article about MBA summer internships was published yesterday (also on the College Journal site). Author Ronald J. Alsop documents the growing battle that corporations are waging to get first dibs on first-year MBA students, by showing up earlier and earlier in the school year to wine and dine potential recruits. In fact, Harvard Business School was forced to instate a ‘do not disturb’ period that stretches from pre-term through mid-November so that students can settle in at school and not be distracted by constant recruiting events (other top schools now have similar rules). While the recruiting process can certainly be distracting, it’s certainly a nice problem for the schools to have!

3) MBAs Who Double Up. This BusinessWeek Online feature documents the growing popularity of dual-degree pursuits (JD/MBA, MBA/MHA, MBA/PhD, etc). The rationale coming from those students who have ‘doubled up’ is that doing so enables them to demonstrate more of a focus and drive. Of course, the downside to this practice is that students are often over-extended and heavily in debt. Clearly, the decision with regards to a dual-degree must be made on a case-by-case basis to ensure that it’s the right move for the applicant.

Live Chat with CMU
In other news, we wanted to call our reader’s attention to a Live Chat with Laurie Stewart, the executive admissions director at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. The live chat will be hosted by BusinessWeek Online and gets started today at 12 PM (EST). To sign into the chat, click here.

Decisions Update
Finally, we’d like to extend our hearty congratulations to our readers who received good news from Chicago GSB and Michigan/Ross this week! Both schools released several R1 admits a day ahead of schedule, opting to phone the lucky applicants to give them advance word.

# posted by Clear Admit @ 11:40 am in General

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Wiki Wednesdays

Welcome to Wiki Wednesdays, a new column that we’re introducing to help our readers stay on top of the latest additions to the MBA Admissions Wiki. As you might expect, there have been several exciting developments, since last week’s wiki launch, so let’s get started:

1) Applicant Bloggers. We’ve added a new page to the wiki that is called Applicant Bloggers. This page serves as a helpful index of those applicants who are blogging their way through the MBA admissions process (the same bloggers who are presently featured in our Fridays From the Frontline column). While this page is currently set up as a bare-bones list, we’d like to encourage applicant bloggers to add a brief (one sentence) description about their blog, perhaps indicating where they are from (location, industry) and which schools they are targeting. [If you are an applicant blogger, click here to learn how to get your wiki account and add a description.]

2) GMAT Preparation and Experience. We’ve created a new page for applicants to post their insights with regards to GMAT preparation, scheduling, etc. This page is already off and running with some wonderful tips courtesy of the BeatTheGMAT blog.

3) Content, Content, Content! As dozens of MBA applicants and students have been signing up for their wiki accounts, a lot of really wonderful content has started to flow into the wiki. Here’s a quick list of several pages that feature new content:
-Wharton Interview: This page of the wiki continues to grow rapidly, with a total of 11 interview reports contributed in just a handful of days!
-Tuck Interview: There’s a Tuck interview report that was added today and features a list of