Posted by Clear Admit on December 29, 2006, at 4:09 am
Posted in:  Fridays from the Frontline It’s been a quiet week for applicants, most of whom seem to be hard at work to meet January deadlines. Several excited bloggers wrote to share news of recent admit decisions. Rungee582 and Juggler each celebrated an acceptance to Wharton, Hobbes announced acceptances at Darden and Duke, and JatWarrior took things a step farther and confirmed his spot in the Tuck Class of 2009. Congratulations to them all! In other admissions news, Iday S wrote to share his post-admissions experience with the Chicago GSB and Inblue took a break from writing Harvard and LBS essays to ponder the remaining likelihood of a nod from Tuck. For those applicants dealing with a waitlist decision from Wharton, current Wharton student LL writes to offer “living proof” that an R1 waitlist can turn into an R2 admit. Finally, AsianGal writes with reassurance that reusing and recycling those admissions essays is easier than you might have expected and Median2K9 reports on a conversation with an MIT Sloan couple — passing on some good tips for any MBA application.
In student news, there’s a lot of celebration, reflection and travel this week as the fall term wraps up and the winter break begins. Managing to combine both travel and reflection, Jacek checks in from the Barcelona airport with lessons learned from term one at ESADE. Also in Barcelona, Ashwyn shares his own lessons from the fall term at IESE and Gandaki expresses his excitement at an upcoming trip to an IESE classmate’s home in Finland. At INSEAD, students in both Singapore and Fonty celebrated the end of the term in style. Hallonman describes the enjoyable excess of the end of term party and DomoDomo shares a recommendation for a great bottle of wine. Although many students are celebrating the end to the first term, some are just getting started, and InvisibleInk wrote to announce an easier-than-expected visa process in preparation for heading to INSEAD.
One student blogger is filled with excitement about doing, well, nothing. Home in Valencia over the winter break, it seems Karlitos is just starting to realize how busy he was at LBS. Fellow LBS student AngelAngie is taking time over the break to ponder her career direction and whether the recent record bonuses paid out to investment bankers are a positive or negative sign for aspiring i-bankers. In the U.S., MBA students were headed overseas this week, with Stanford GSB student Mbwana considering the challenges to scaling a business in Tanzania and Brownoski packing his suitcase to head to Hong Kong to participate in the Yale SOM’s new first year international experience.
Finally, a few current students wrote to offer advice to this year’s group of applicants. Phantom writes from Rice to discuss the pros and cons of pursuing a dual . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on December 28, 2006, at 3:00 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips While the past few weeks have seen a number of admits and rejections handed down to round one MBA applicants, the fate of many remains uncertain. There is no reason for waitlisted candidates to lose hope, as the top programs admit a fair number of individuals from the waitlist in round two and thereafter, but we know that cautious optimism does not make the wait for an answer any easier. To help those in this situation make sure that they’re doing all they can, we wanted to share a few waitlist tips:
1. Know – and follow – the rules. Schools vary in their stances when it comes to interaction with those on the waitlist; some shun communication from applicants and even go so far as to discourage on-the-record campus visits, whereas others welcome correspondence and assign waitlisted candidates to an admissions office liaison. We know that the natural impulse is to reach out to the adcom and update them on that recent promotion or the final grade from that accounting class you took to bolster your academic profile. At first blush, it might seem that there’s no harm in sending a short letter or making a call, but no matter how exciting the information you wish to communicate, ignoring the adcom’s instructions is ultimately going to reflect badly on you. Though such a policy may seem frustrating or unfair, it’s important to respect and abide by the preferences of each school.
2. Communicate if you can. For those programs that do permit or encourage contact from waitlisters, it’s absolutely a good idea to send an update. In addition to the obvious news items mentioned above, it’s beneficial to read over your essays and reflect on whether there is some piece of your background or interests that you haven’t gotten across yet. Taking the time to write about your relevant recent experiences, positive developments in your candidacy and ways that you’ve enhanced your understanding of the program is a nice sign of your interest in the program, and is a good strategy for telegraphing your commitment to attending. It is, of course, also in your interest to make sure that the adcom has the most up to date information so that they can make an informed decision the next time your file comes up for evaluation.
3. Keep in touch. Don’t disappear after an initial note to the adcom or phone call to your waitlist manager (if applicable). If you have plans to be on or near campus, for instance, send a quick email to alert your waitlist manager (or whoever you may have interacted with on the adcom) to alert them to this fact. In many cases you’ll find that the adcom offers to have you stop by for a friendly chat about your candidacy – something that can go a long way towards helping your case. Beyond a visit, sending a brief update every few weeks or so is another way to reaffirm your interest in the school and keep you fresh in the . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on December 27, 2006, at 3:43 am
Posted in: School: Harvard , Wiki Wednesdays Welcome to this week’s edition of Wiki Wednesdays, in which we cull content from the Clear Admit Wiki to offer insight into the interview practices and admissions processes at the top MBA programs. Following up on last week’s Stanford-specific post, we thought we’d turn this week to Harvard. While some schools, like Wharton, have finished interviewing round one applicants and have already notified hopefuls their final decisions, both Harvard and Stanford issue invitations and conduct interviews up to their mid-January notification deadlines.
Though most HSB interviews are conducted on campus by members of the admissions committee (as the school is very focused on personality-based fit), this particular report comes from someone who met with an alum. One distinguishing characteristic of the Harvard interview, no matter the type of interviewer, is that they are conducted by someone who has read the applicant’s essays and is in a position to inquire about specific comments or events, and even prompt the candidate to share a story not mentioned in his or her written materials. Let’s take a look at the questions this wiki contributor was asked and consider what they might indicate about the school’s focus:
“1. How has your leadership style evolved and what leadership skills do you hope to gain from HBS? 2. What kind of international experience do you have? 3. How will you contribute to Harvard and what was your first impression of HBS when you visited the school? 4. What inspires you the most and why? 5. Who is your favorite leader? (and a lot of follow-up questions on the leader I mentioned) 6. What do you do outside work?”
The first of these prompts, paired with the school’s fourth essay question, suggests that Harvard’s interests extend beyond an applicant’s past leadership experiences and accomplishments. The school seems to be probing to determine the candidate’s level of self-awareness in leading others, seeking students who have carefully considered and worked to enhance their leadership styles. The question about a favorite leader also points to this emphasis and fishes for a hint at what sort of individuals the applicant aspires to emulate.
The insights that one can derive from just a list of questions – and their relevance in preparation for an interview – really illustrate the value of sharing one’s experiences with others through a resource like our wiki. This is why we urge those of you who have interviewed at a top program this season to contribute a brief description by creating an account or emailing your text to us at wiki@clearadmit.com. Meanwhile, those with interviews in the coming weeks are welcome to contact us at info@clearadmit.com for more information on our in-depth School Guides, general and school-specific interview guides, and mock interview services.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 26, 2006, at 2:20 pm
Posted in: General We wanted to take a moment today to post a quick thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in our MBA Search Survey earlier this month. Thank you! By sharing their impressions of a number of top programs and their overall priorities and interests in school selection, participants have provided us with insight that will undoubtedly prove invaluable as we continually aim to offer timely advice and relevant information to business school applicants.
We’ve contacted the lucky winners of the video iPod and 10 iPod shuffles, and will be able to share some data from the survey in late January. In the meantime, we wish everyone targeting round two deadlines the best of luck!
Welcome back from the long weekend! Now that the first semester of the academic year has come to a close, many first- and second-year MBA students will be exploring elective courses. Therefore, we thought this would be a good time to highlight the elective selection processes used by the leading business schools.
We’ve often recommended in our admissions tips that MBA applicants cite their interest in school-specific elective courses in their application essays, since this can reveal specialized academic interests while demonstrating that one has thoroughly researched the school’s academic program. In the next two Trivia Tuesdays we’ll look at how the different processes MBA programs employ for coordinating elective registration impact the odds that students will end up in the courses they desire.
Today we’ll focus on the auction system, which is the most popular of the elective enrollment systems. Schools using this system include Columbia, Chicago, Kellogg, MIT and Wharton. Using MIT Sloan’s auction system as an example we can examine the typical structure of an auction course selection process.
Course selection at Sloan is organized through an online bidding system. Students receive 1,000 points at the beginning of each semester and use those points to place bids on the elective courses in which they wish to enroll. Spaces in the class are filled starting with the highest bidder, though students are only “charged” the points bid by the lowest bidder who won a spot in the course. Following two rounds of bidding, students are given another 1,000 points to use to bid for a spot on the waitlist of courses they did not win entry to in the regular rounds. Finally, in the weeks before classes start, Sloan holds one final round of bidding, allowing students to swap sections of the same course in order to optimize their class schedules.
Although Wharton uses an auction system for both pre-term activities and elective course selection, the organization of their system is slightly different. First, instead of being given new points each semester, Wharton students are given an “initial endowment” of points that they must use across their time in the program. This adds an extra layer of strategy to the course selection process, since students must think ahead about when the most-desired electives will be offered and budget their points accordingly. This system also has the added twist of allowing students to accumulate large point balances through “selling” spots in popular courses to other students at premium prices. By making shrewd sales, some Wharton students are able to collect enough points to ensure that they get all of their top-choice, high-demand classes in the final semester.
For students with a background in trading or strategy, online bidding systems may prove to be a fun, easy way of registering for classes. However, for those students who enter the MBA program without much trading experience, the auction system may be more challenging. However, it’s important to remember that the auction systems are used primarily to assign spaces in the most . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on December 25, 2006, at 3:59 am
Posted in: Uncategorized Wishing you and your family a wonderful holiday season!
-The Clear Admit team
Posted by Clear Admit on December 22, 2006, at 3:30 pm
Posted in: Admissions Tips , School: Penn / Wharton Now that Wharton’s D-day has come and gone, we wanted to extend our congratulations to those applicants who gained admission, and extend our sympathy to those who received less favorable decisions. For those applicants smarting from a waitlist decision or a ding, we wanted to point out the silver lining from a few different angles:
1) Timing is everything. The fact that Wharton releases R1 decisions weeks before most schools’ R2 deadlines provides applicants with a chance to reevaluate their approach and regroup with time to apply to other programs. 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. This is looking particularly likely this year, as the buzz on the BW forum and student-2-student forum indicates that the school handed out a rather high number of WL decisions. Of course, it 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 late spring and 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: there is a certain amount of randomness in the process, and even the most impressive candidates rarely get into every school they consider.
Best of luck to everyone in your ongoing application efforts!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 22, 2006, at 1:51 am
Posted in: Fridays from the Frontline With admissions decisions rolling out to round one applicants and the fall term at most schools coming to an end, it’s been an eventful week in the MBA blogosphere.
Let’s start off this week’s installment of FFF with a look at the news on the applicant front. Though there’s been some less-than-joyful sentiment – Hobbes is suffering from application burn-out and fears that his Haas application reflects this, the stress of waiting for a Kellogg decision is getting to MBA babe, Iday also eagerly awaits word from that program after his phone interview and Median2k9 is in the same boat after interviewing with Columbia – this week has been dominated by celebration. It’s been an Illinois kind of week for Juggler, who proudly and excitedly shared some positive news from Kellogg and Chicago, and is joined in the latter by Iday, who welcomes the end of his essay-writing days, and by Inblue, who shares her GSB notification saga. Meanwhile, RusGirl was thrilled to learn of her acceptance to LBS, and Rungee counts herself lucky to have both London and Duke as options for next year. We’d like to join AsianGal in offering our congratulations to all our blogger friends whose hard work has been paying off of late!
Of course, not all the news can be completely positive, and a number of bloggers will have to wait a bit before hearing definitively from their target programs. Taking a stoic stance on his Tuck waitlist decision, Anand analyzes the adcom’s comments and is maintaining hope for an admit, while Jatwarrior is disappointed and surprised that he’s stuck in limbo at both Darden and Chicago. If the sample of bloggers are any indication, the GSB’s been handing out a number of waitlist decisions, it seems, as ScareCrow and Forrest Gump both joined the waitlisted ranks as well.
It’s finals season at a number of schools, so exams have been a very popular topic of conversation among the student crowd. Hallonman has been making steady progress in his end of term work at INSEAD and classmate Zanatos crosses days of his calendar and items off his finals checklist, while LL works to maintain as positive an attitude as possible with respect to finals at Wharton, MBA Gladiator takes readers through his procrastination play-by-play at Yale and Jacek deconstructs his exam performance at ESADE. Over at IESE, second-year student Noelle is finished with her single exam, comments on her preference for papers and presentations, and expresses her sympathy for first-year students – like Ashwyn – who are working their way through a test-heavy week. Basking in the light at the end of the tunnel, UCLADawg recounts the heroic efforts of the Student Association’s “Finals . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on December 21, 2006, at 11:21 am
Posted in: School: Penn / Wharton It seems that Wharton is following a slightly new approach in delivering their final decisions to R1 applicants. In past years, the committee ‘flipped a switch’ at 9 AM on the nose. This enabled all applicants to see their results by logging into their online application. It also meant that admits, waitlists and rejections all went out simultaneously as applicants gathered in front of their computer screens in the morning hours, frantically hitting ‘refresh’ until the nine o’clock hour had arrived…
This year, the committee has promised decisions “by 5 PM” today, and it seems they’ve opted to reach out to some admits by telephone in the early morning hours (as of this post, the adcom had been calling admits from approximately 9 AM – 10 AM ET).
Just a few minutes ago, a post in the student-2-student forum from Mae Shores indicated that the adcom had flipped the switch as of 9:58 AM. Our understanding is that all decisions should now be available - but this initial delay seems to have caused confusion in some circles, so we wanted to get the word out to our readers.
Best of luck to everyone! Hang in there!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 21, 2006, at 3:00 am
Posted in: School: Berkeley / Haas , School: Chicago , School: Cornell / Johnson , School: Dartmouth / Tuck , School: Duke / Fuqua , School: Harvard , School: INSEAD , School: London Business School , School: Michigan / Ross , School: MIT / Sloan , School: Northwestern / Kellogg , School: NYU Stern , School: Penn / Wharton , School: Stanford , School: UCLA / Anderson , School: UNC / Kenan Flagler , School: Virginia / Darden , School: Yale The waiting game has come to an end for many first-round applicants, as a number of leading programs – Chicago, Tuck, Cornell, Duke, UNC, Darden, Kellogg, Yale, Columbia and LBS among them – have been releasing admissions decisions over the past few weeks. With Wharton releasing final decisions today to all round one applicants who were invited to interview, we thought this would be a good occasion to say good luck to everyone eagerly expecting news from that and other schools!
For those keeping track, here’s what the final notification calendar looks like for those programs that have yet to release all of their admissions decisions to this crop of applicants:
January 8: Kellogg January 15: Michigan January 17: Harvard January 18: Stanford January 19: INSEAD, UCLA, Yale SOM January 29: Haas, MIT Sloan
Again, best of luck to those waiting to hear, and congratulations to those who’ve already received some positive news! Stay tuned to this blog in the coming weeks for advice on a range of topics such as deciding between schools, dealing with a ding, and navigating the waitlist.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 20, 2006, at 4:00 am
Posted in: School: Stanford , Wiki Wednesdays Welcome to Wiki Wednesdays, where you’ll find updates on new and notable additions to the Clear Admit Wiki, our repository of firsthand information about the MBA admissions process. We’ve received new interview reports this week for ever-popular programs like Harvard, Kellogg and Wharton, but in this WW installment, we’d like to highlight a recent contribution to the Stanford interview page.
Among the rarest of invitations due to the school’s small class size and high selectivity, all Stanford interviews are conducted by alumni. The benefits of an alumni interview are that applicants gain exposure to a member of the Stanford community who has been through the GSB experience. Of course, since your interviewer will be a knowledgable business person, you’ll need to be prepared to speak specifically about your career plan, industry focus, etc. A look at the questions one applicant was recently asked is also telling of a unique element of the GSB admissions process:
-10 minutes of icebreakers/small-talk.
-When did you realize you needed an MBA?
-Time when you saw poor leadership at work?
-Time when you did something that impacted people (in or outside work).
-Why Stanford?
-Favorite course at school, and why?
Stanford is known for its emphasis on academic aptitude in the admissions process, and seeks students who are intellectually curious and engaged learners. The question about a favorite course points to this, as does the other popular Stanford interview question “What are you reading at the moment?”
If you’ve interviewed at a top program this season, have some thoughts on the application process at a particular school or would like to recount a campus visit for the benefit of other applicants, you can add your content to the wiki yourself by creating an account, or simply email your contribution to wiki@clearadmit.com. Meanwhile, those with interviews in the coming weeks are welcome to contact us at info@clearadmit.com for more information on our in-depth School Guides, general and school-specific interview guides, and mock interview services.
Welcome to another edition of Trivia Tuesday, our weekly examination of the distinguishing details of MBA programs. Last week we took a look at the first year learning team and study group systems at Wharton and Tuck, which are representative of the small group learning arrangements used at many of the leading business schools. However, we hinted that not all MBA programs use static, assigned study groups to cultivate team-based learning in the first year. This week we follow up by taking a closer look at Kellogg, a school known for its focus on teamwork, yet one of the only leading MBA programs not to assign first-year study groups.
Like other b-schools, Kellogg does split its entering class into smaller sections, usually consisting of approximately 65 students each, and students in each section take all of their core courses together. (Fun fact: Kellogg’s section names are among the most unusual of any b-school’s, with the eight sections called Big Dogs, Bucketheads, Bull Frogs, Cash Cows, Highlanders, Jive Turkeys, Moose and Poets.)
Despite not breaking down the sections into smaller study groups, Kellogg students do work in teams throughout the curriculum. Students report that most of their class assignments require small group work, with the group assignments usually made by individual professors. Because Kellogg students may be in different study or project groups for each course, they miss out on the experience of sustained interaction with a single group of peers, but instead gain experience in working with a broad range of personalities. This system also hones students’ time management skills, since scheduling a group meeting for 5-6 people who are in 4-5 other small groups (while also working around classes, clubs, and recruiting activities) requires a sophisticated ability to juggle schedules!
Overall, most Kellogg student praise the school’s choice to use a dynamic team structure, feeling that this organization mimics teamwork situations in the professional world. However, since students at Wharton, Tuck, Columbia, and other schools often believe that their long-term group assignments best prepare them for teamwork in the business world, applicants should think carefully about the type of teamwork experience they are looking for, as well as the kind of group work they expect to encounter after graduating from business school.
To find out more about the team-based learning at the leading MBA programs, be sure to check out the schools’ websites or the Clear Admit School Guides, including the brand-new guide to Kellogg!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 18, 2006, at 12:15 pm
Posted in: General We just wanted to remind our readers that today is the last day to take the MBA Search Survey to share your views on the top programs and offer insight into your school selection process and priorities. This online questionnaire, which closes tomorrow, should take just 10 minutes to complete. In addition to assisting us in our ongoing efforts to provide interesting and helpful content, you can also help yourself out by entering to win one of 10 iPod Shuffles or even a 30GB Video iPod!
We hope to hear from you!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 18, 2006, at 2:57 am
Posted in: MBA News , School: Columbia Welcome back from the weekend! Today we’re highlighting two recent news stories featuring the activities of current MBA students and recent graduates.
To start us off, BusinessWeek recently ran an article investigating the fate of business plan competition winners. Business plan competitions, which are held at most of the leading MBA programs, encourage teams of students (and sometimes professors) to develop and present a viable, compelling idea for a new business. These competitions tend to award anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 to the winning business plan, which often enables the winning team to translate their concept into reality. The popularity of business plan competitions has increased dramatically from 2002 to 2006, but little systematic follow-up has been done to gauge the impact of these competitions (and the prize money) on the success of start-up ventures. Although BW’s article is not a full accounting of the effect of business plan competitions, it does provide an interesting overview of the experiences of winning teams at schools such as Wharton, Chicago, Darden, Haas and others, that is sure to be of interest to any current students or applicants considering participating in a school’s competition.
Although not part of a business plan competition, students from Columbia Business School and Parsons The New School for Design are collaborating to design and market luxury goods as part a project sponsored by the Luxury Education Foundation. Currently in its 12th year, the project seeks to bring Columbia and Parsons students together with top executives from companies such as Louis Vuitton, Lalique and Saks Fifth Avenue to design successful luxury products. The project is a way for students from both schools to exercise their specialized skills while learning about the luxury busines from highly successful designers and executives. To read more about the project, be sure to check out the article on the Interior Design newswire.
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