Admissions Director Q&A Below are links to Clear Admit's exclusive interviews with MBA admissions directors at leading programs.
Application Deadlines Below are the upcoming deadlines for admission to the leading MBA programs.
Essay Topic Analysis Below are links to our comments on some of the leading programs' essay topics.
MBA Tipline We encourage admissions officers, students and applicants to alert us of interesting news and developments, please send an email to news@clearadmit.com so we can blog it. MBA Programs: North America If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
MBA Programs: The Rest of the World As there is some variety in the length of international MBA programs, we have denoted the length of the program next to its name (1 = one year; 2 = 2 years). If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
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Posted by Clear Admit on January 31, 2006, at 9:05 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 30, 2006, at 4:57 pm
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 30, 2006, at 9:55 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 27, 2006, at 8:01 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 26, 2006, at 10:11 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 25, 2006, at 8:58 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 24, 2006, at 11:31 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 23, 2006, at 10:31 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 20, 2006, at 9:26 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 19, 2006, at 9:36 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 18, 2006, at 5:12 pm
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 18, 2006, at 11:58 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 17, 2006, at 10:43 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 16, 2006, at 9:40 pm
The Wiki has returned to . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 16, 2006, at 1:34 pm
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 16, 2006, at 11:58 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 13, 2006, at 9:00 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 12, 2006, at 11:40 am
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 11, 2006, at 1:03 pm
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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 10, 2006, at 1:44 pm
While many leading MBA programs will be issuing decisions for R1 applicants next week and beyond, both Chicago GSB and Michigan/Ross will be notifying R1 applicants this week:
-Chicago: decisions are slated for release on January 11th
-Michigan: all decisions will be posted online by January 13th
This information (along with decision dates for several schools) can be found in the ‘Current Status’ section of the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Wiki.
In the news this week, the Boston Business Journal has published an interesting article on the 2002-2005 downward trend in MBA admissions volume. Although the article seems somewhat ill-timed (with application volume reportedly on the rise at most leading MBA programs this year), it covers the trend that plagued MBA admissions for . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 9, 2006, at 4:09 pm
While many applicants are breathing a sigh of relief after last week’s deadline crunch, many others are still working hard on applications for schools with round two or three deadlines coming up between now and the end of the month. For those of you who may be racing against the clock and wondering precisely how much time you have, we wanted to share some information about the exact deadlines for the top programs with deadlines coming up in the next few days.
Monday, January 9, 2006
-CMU/Tepper: all mailed materials must be received by, and all online applications must be submitted on, the day of the deadline (presumably 11:59pm Eastern Time).
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
-Duke/Fuqua: interestingly, the online application lists the exact round two . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 6, 2006, at 2:56 pm
Welcome to the first edition of FFF2006 – or as we like to say at Clear Admit HQ, “New year, same riveting content.” [OK, we haven't actually said that before, but it sounded good....] Without further ado, let’s see what’s been happening in the b-school blogging community over the past few days.
As MBA student-bloggers have been enjoying their hard-earned winter break, we turn to the applicant-blogger community to support this week’s report from the blogging front lines. Several applicant bloggers were busily submitting applications to leading programs this week and offering their take on the admissions process as they clicked ‘submit’. Bbirds had some truly helpful tips on the ISB application, reminding readers that word counts aren’t always what they . . . → Continue Reading
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Clear Admit’s Most Recent Posts
MBA Admissions Wiki In the Clear Admit Wiki, you can share your experiences through the application process and learn from those of others. Below are the five most popular pages in the wiki:
BW Business SchoolsThe BusinessWeek Discussion Boards are another way to learn about the issues applicants face. Clear Admit hosts the Ask Clear Admit thread, which should help answer your questions. Here are the five most recent discussions taking place in the forum:
Beat the GMATClear 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:
GMAT ClubGMAT Club
Below are the five most recent posts to the GMAT Club message boards.
Wharton Student2StudentStudent2Student
The student-2-student Discussion Boards are managed by Wharton. Here are the five most recent discussions.
Studylink ForumsClear Admit manages the Applying section of the StudyLink MBA discussion boards.
School-Hosted BlogsStraight from the source: aggregated posts from students and administration. Below are the seven most recent posts in school-hosted blogs.
Individuals’ BlogsA selection of the latest updates to MBA blogs compiled by Hella.
MBA Applicants
MBA Students
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