Posted by Clear Admit on December 15, 2006, at 3:19 pm
Posted in:  MBA News The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) recently released their Job Outlook 2007 report, which indicates that employers are planning to hire 22% more MBA graduates from the Class of 2007 than they did from the Class of 2006.
MBA grads interested in manufacturing will enter a particularly strong job market, with employers in that sector planning a 32.4% hiring increase over last year. Employers in the South and Midwest are also planning particularly busy hiring seasons, with expected increases of 59% and 51%, respectively. In contrast, while employers in the Northeast U.S. and Western U.S. are also planning to hire more MBAs, their planned increases are far more modest, at 14.6% and 13.5%, respectively.
The organization says that these trends are in line with hiring patterns across the job market, with overall recruitment of college graduates expected to climb 17% over last year.
The report holds another piece of good news for the MBA Class of 2007 – over 40% of employers responding the NACE’s survey reported that they will offer MBA graduates a base salary of more than $75,000, which should help graduates get started paying back those education loans!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 15, 2006, at 11:02 am
Posted in: Fridays from the Frontline Welcome to this week’s edition of FFF! Let’s take a look at what’s been going on this week in the MBA blogging world.
Our applicant friends have truly been running the gamut of emotions and application experiences this week. Working in reverse, let’s take a look at things from the admissions decision angle. From a slightly removed perspective, Uniqpath sums up the latest news on school decisions and updates fellow applicants on Stanford’s interview timeline, whereas others share more personal news; JatWarrior is elated by a Tuck admit and Rohit shares the happy news of a Notre Dame fellowship, while righty and B-School Diva are singing the waitlist blues about Mendoza and Wake Forest, respectively. Backing up to the pre-decision, post-submission stage, Iday sounds pleased to have been contacted for a phone interview with Kellogg, and we were happy to hear that Necromonger has been having a very postive experience with his INSEAD alumni interviewers. Of course, others are playing the waiting game, with varying degrees of tranquility, as Juggler has been indulging her love of reading as she waits for news from the schools (having resolved not to post any more application advice until she’s sure that it works) and StressTensor writes of being teased by MIT‘s update letter as he eagerly awaits an interview invitation. Moving even earlier in the process, MBA babe celebrates her Haas submission, while inblue is working on working on her Wharton essays (with varying success) and AsianGal notes that her recommenders are moving right along with their HBS and Wharton letters.
It’s clear from students’ blog entries this week that the end of the fall term is fast approaching. At INSEAD, Hallonman is looking for motivation to study for his three P2 finals, while DomoDomo worries about sliding towards the Left-tail of the curve this term because there’s just so much happening around campus. Meanwhile, over at INSEAD’s Singapore campus, Zanat0s celebrates the end of P2 and the approach of his trip to China and Japan.
Gandaki is finishing up classes at IESE, but still working on an extra 4,500 word report for Finance, assigned when 20 students all happened to miss class on the same day! In addition to studying, the end of the semester seems to inspire reflection, as NoellieBellie took the opportunity to reflect on her experience at IESE, giving thanks that she was stubborn enough to return to campus last year after a tough first term, and NintendoWidow shared her thoughts on the first quarter and plans for the coming terms. Jacek’s update on the end of the semester at ESADE reflects how tough the first term of b-school can be, as he stresses out about finals, including one that 25-80% of the class is said to have failed last year (that’s quite a range of reports!). In non-finals news, Benny celebrated his team’s win at Tuck’s UBS Case Competition last week, and LL shares some fun pictures of her Thanksgiving in San Francisco, as well as the Wharton Follies Writers Holiday Debacle 2006. The Divine Miss N also included a photo this week, this one taken of a strange sign at Stern’s reception for departing international exchange students. George is also preparing to finish up his U.S. exchange, bidding farewell to Columbia (and wishing someone had told him earlier that his Columbia grades wouldn’t be noted on his IESE transcript!).
That’s the news for this week! We wish applicants well as they wait to hear from schools, and congratulate students on finishing up the fall term!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 14, 2006, at 1:47 pm
Posted in: General We just wanted to remind our readers of the opportunity to complete our online survey about their views on the leading MBA programs and factors that influence their school selection decisions. We’re seeking this information so that we can better understand how the different schools are perceived and to take an inventory of what information applicants value and feel they need in the application process.
In addition to helping us continually aim to offer relevant advice and resources on business school admission, participants also stand to benefit from our survey giveaway; those who take the ten minutes needed to respond to our questions can enter to win a prize. With 11 gifts available – 10 iPod shuffles and a 30GB video iPod – respondents have a great chance of winning a sleek new toy for themselves, or a great holiday gift for someone else!
Thanks in advance for your help!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 14, 2006, at 3:00 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips We often stress that, to present oneself effectively in one’s application essays, it is critical to think carefully about what a given question is asking and what this might indicate about a specific school’s admissions priorities. Of course, it’s also imperative to communicate clearly and appropriately regardless of the target program or particular inquiry. Today, we’re going back to basics and offering a few broadly applicable tips on tone and style to keep in mind when drafting written materials for your applications.
1. Be Professional. While a number of schools ask fun questions and most urge applicants to be themselves rather than submitting “overly polished” materials, it’s important to remember that this is a graduate school application and you should approach your essays with a degree of formality. You do want your unique narrative voice to come through, but even professional writers know to vary their tone based on their audience. As such, you should avoid using slang and conversational speech patterns in your writing.
2. Emphasize Action. A common pitfall for many applicants is lapsing into the passive voice, constructing sentences about how some unseen force or agent acted upon something or someone else (e.g. “we were required to” or “the project was completed”) rather than putting their own thoughts and actions at the fore. By making a conscious effort to write “I/he/she did x” rather than “x was done to y” you can make your comments more informative, dynamic and, often, more concise.
3. Avoid Repetition. It’s often a good idea to give the reader a sense of an essay’s direction through an introduction and to sum up the key ideas through a conclusion, but ideally each sentence of an essay will add some new information to the document or build the reader’s understanding of what you’ve already written. Keeping this rule in mind as you revise can help trim a response down to the word limit and ensure that you are including as much relevant information about your candidacy as you can within the allotted length.
Best of luck! For more information about how Clear Admit might assist you in communicating your experiences and goals to the adcom in a way that will be engaging and well received, contact us at info@clearadmit.com to set up a free initial consultation.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 13, 2006, at 3:15 pm
Posted in: Deadlines , Essay Topic Analysis For those applicants targeting January deadlines and hard at work on their essays, we wanted to put together a quick list of links to our Essay Topic Analysis. We’ve arranged the list by the date of each deadline, which might also help those having difficulty deciding which program to tackle first.
January 3: Harvard, UCLA
January 4: Wharton
January 5: Kellogg, LBS
January 7: Michigan
January 8: CMU, Duke
January 9: Cornell
January 10: Chicago, MIT Sloan, Stanford, Yale
January 11: Darden, Tuck
January 15: Stern
January 31: Berkeley
Happy writing! To complement these school-specific insights, stop by this blog tomorrow for some broadly applicable essay advice on tone and style.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 13, 2006, at 3:20 am
Posted in: School: Harvard , School: Yale , Wiki Wednesdays Welcome to another edition of Wiki Wednesdays, our consistent column highlighting new and notable content from the Clear Admit Wiki. As many applicants have learned, even the schools that notify first round applicants of interviews relatively late in the season – namely, Harvard, Stanford and MIT – have begun releasing invitations. As interview season kicks into high gear, more candidates than ever are considering the differences between programs’ interview styles and reflecting on how to present themselves most effectively.
For instance, this post from a recent HBS interviewee does a great job alerting other applicants to the nature and necessary preparation for a meeting with Harvard’s adcom, nicely illustrating the value of a resource like our wiki:
My questions were quite specific to my application but not quite in the way I had imagined. My interviewer used what I had in my essays as a springboard to delve further into certain aspects of my candidacy, but she didn’t reference any of the items I had written about at any point. In fact, she asked that I stay away from those examples and provide new ones during the course of our discussion (which was a little difficult even though I had thought about it).
Meanwhile, a very recent addition to the Yale interview page also sheds some light on the school’s process and the merits of knowing what to expect: a lesson that, unfortunately, seems to have been learned the hard way for this applicant (we hope that it went better than he or she thought!):
My interview was with an admissions officer in November. She was incredibly nice. The atmosphere was relaxed. It completely threw me off. I went in expecting a hard grilling session and had studied tons of interview questions. That was a mistake. The interview started with a “walk me through your resume” question. Basically, I think I blew it because I was deconstructing other answers in my head and re-forming it as I talked. Not smart on my part because it came out jumbled, or at least I thought so…
Applicants have come to rely on the Wiki as a source of up-to-date information on this season’s interview trends, so we hope that our readers will continue to share their experiences and add to this resource! For those with interviews in the coming weeks, feel free 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 12, 2006, at 4:29 pm
Posted in: MBA News , School: Penn / Wharton Since 1984, applicants to the MBA program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton school have had the option of applying to pursue a Masters in International Studies at the Lauder Institute in conjunction with their business courses. A great option for those interested in working abroad after graduation, the program offers eight language tracks and a summer in-country immersion experience.
Since the program’s inception, this degree has been available only in connection with the Wharton MBA. Last week, however, Penn announced that Lauder is establishing a second joint degree program with its Law School, giving students a chance to earn a JD/MA over the course of three years. On the reasoning behind the planned program, Law School Dean Michael Fitts commented:
“Legal education in today’s complex world requires that students graduate prepared to navigate easily across boundaries in law-related areas — and even more so in the international arena. The Penn Law/Wharton Lauder Institute program is a fine example of the cross-disciplinary education that is essential for law students.”
Obviously a boon to those interested in learning more about global issues and mastering a foreign language during their legal studies, the announcement has implications for MBA students as well. Whereas the Lauder program was previously an option reserved exclusively for graduate business students, it seems likely that future Wharton participants will be sharing the classroom with law students, a change that could result in a lower average age and increase diversity of students’ backgrounds and interests.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 12, 2006, at 4:29 am
Posted in: School Guides , School: Dartmouth / Tuck , School: Penn / Wharton , Trivia Tuesday It’s Tuesday once again and it’s time to check in on the important details and differences of the leading MBA programs. This week’s focus is teamwork, now a hot topic in business education. For the last decade or so, business schools have moved towards greater use of teams in coursework. This trend has been prompted by the reality that much of modern business depends on the work of functional, productive teams. In response, many business schools have integrated mandatory teamwork into the MBA curriculum, especially into the first year. Today we’ll look at a few of the models used by the leading MBA programs.
Wharton was among the first of the leading business schools to incorporate small learning teams into the first year. Wharton’s teams are assigned in August, at the end of Pre-Term, and students work with their assigned team members throughout the first year. The teams go on a 2-3 day Learning Team Retreat before classes start, during which they get to know one another and start laying the foundation for their work together during the school year. In addition to working together on class projects and studying together for core courses, Wharton’s learning teams also serve as the focus for the half-credit core course Foundations of Leadership and Teamwork. The course, which meets for the first and last six weeks of the first year, focuses on self-awareness, working in teams, and leading others, key concepts for any effective manager or teammate.
Tuck students are also assigned to small study groups prior to the start of fall classes and work with this group throughout the fall quarter. However, unlike Wharton, Tuck reassigns students to new study groups just prior to the start of the winter quarter, and students work with this new group until the start of spring quarter, when they are free to choose their own study mates. Although Tuck students are often disappointed to leave their fall study groups – espeically after helping each other through the intensity of the first quarter of the MBA – they usually report enjoying the opportunity to work with a new group of people and gain new perspectives on class material.
In the end, regardless of how the learning teams or study groups are organized, they all share a common goal: providing students with hands-on practice in working effectively with a group of diverse people with divergent strengths, personalities and work styles. Given the centrality of the study group experience to first year life at most MBA programs, applicants would do well to consider the type of team experience they seek from an MBA program. For some, Harvard’s looser team structure (described here) may fit a more independent personality. Others may be looking to business school to help build teamwork and team leadership skills, in which case the daily teamwork experience offered by Wharton, Tuck, Columbia, and others may be more desirable. However, not all leading MBA programs use assigned study groups to promote team-based learning – a topic we’ll cover in next week’s Trivia Tuesday. In the meantime, 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 guides to Kellogg, MIT Sloan and Stanford!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 11, 2006, at 1:37 pm
Posted in: Admissions Tips , General Clear Admit’s Graham Richmond is quoted in a recent BusinessWeek article on how to survive the waitlist at top business schools. In the article, Graham and several MBA admissions officers give applicants advice on what to do – and what not to do – when waitlisted at a favorite MBA program. With Round 1 decisions starting to come out, now is a good time to read up on the basics of waitlist strategy. Later, if you do end up with a waitlist decision from that first choice school, we’re happy to work with you to devise an individualized waitlist strategy – just contact our office for a free initial assessment.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 11, 2006, at 4:59 am
Posted in: School Guides , School: Chicago , School: Columbia , School: Dartmouth / Tuck , School: Harvard , School: MIT / Sloan , School: Northwestern / Kellogg , School: Penn / Wharton , School: Stanford We are happy to announce the release of the Clear Admit School Guides to Kellogg, MIT Sloan and the Stanford GSB, which join Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Tuck and Wharton in our roster of available School Guides!
At Clear Admit we believe that success in the application process starts with an understanding of each school’s unique merits, including the applicant’s individual fit with the school’s academic program and student culture. However, we know that learning about even one school in this depth can be difficult when juggling GMAT studying, essay writing, and interview prep – especially on top of a full time job!
To this end, the Clear Admit School Guides are designed as a one-stop resource for applicants in all stages of the admissions process, whether researching schools to decide where to apply, gathering information for use in a planned application, preparing for an admissions interview, or choosing between offers of admission.
We are confident that applicants will find the reliable, centralized information in the Clear Admit School Guides to be a valuable, time-saving resource. To read some of the great feedback we’ve already received from applicants, current students and alumni (as well as the full text of The Economist article on the School Guides), check out the Reviews page. To learn more about the project or to purchase a Clear Admit School Guide, be sure to visit the School Guides section of our web site at http://www.clearadmit.com/guides.html. Happy reading!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 8, 2006, at 4:56 pm
Posted in: General Over our 3+ years of blogging, applicants have turned to the Clear Admit blog as a source of reliable information and valuable advice on the MBA admissions process. Because we want to ensure that we are providing content that is as relevant as possible, we are conducting a survey to help us better understand our readers’ goals and needs. We’d like to invite all of our readers to share their school selection priorities and views on the leading MBA programs.
This online survey should take just 10 minutes to complete. We would love to receive as many responses as possible before the closing date of Monday, December 18th – and will be giving away 10 iPod Shuffles and a ‘grand prize’ video iPod as a token of our gratitude! Respondents can enter their email address for a drawing upon completing the survey questions.
Thanks in advance for your participation! Click here to take the survey.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 8, 2006, at 9:58 am
Posted in: Fridays from the Frontline Welcome to this week’s edition of FFF! Let’s take a look at what’s been going on of late in the b-school blogosphere:
While the month of December is just beginning, the academic year is in full swing. Though there are some exceptions (InvisibleInk, for instance is just paying tuition and preparing for pre-term at INSEAD), most students are in the midst of finals and recruiting. Some are focused on their performance, as in Keven‘s comments on his work in a popular Negotiations class at Wisconsin and Hallonman‘s evaluation of his team’s work so far in Managerial Accounting group assignments. Meanwhile, others place an emphasis on experience; John Galt comments that a three-day Wharton leadership workshop was worth the hit his accounting grade will take as a result, and IESE student George seems to be having such a great time on exchange in New York that his daunting finals workload at Columbia is a fair trade. Others still have devoted some time to sharing the details of their experiences and thoughts on their programs. DomoDomo has done a great job this week describing a unique INSEAD case covering a historical event and recounting the latest social event, Helen considers some things she might change to improve Owen’s program, and ESADE student Allen shares an email he wrote to a prospective student in which he compares two Spanish schools.
In addition to the present, the future has been another popular topic among current MBA students. Tim has found that along with finals, the end of the semester brings club officer elections at Austin and leadership opportunities for first-year students. Fellow first-years are thinking about internships; UCLADawg took a trip to visit San Francisco-based banks as part of Anderson’s “Days on the Job” event and, with classes finishing up, LL is bracing herself for round two interviews (though her involvement in Wharton Follies sounds like a great diversion). Second-year students are similarly concerned with recruiting, as Noelle has been going through interviews galore at IESE and Mbwana was struck by an odd experience with a firm recruiting at Stanford.
Also in the vein of the future, several students are looking forward to a change of scene. Incoming INSEAD student InvisibleInk is already thinking about spending an exchange term at Wharton, while Chicago student dipThong bids farewell to the GSB on his way to a semester in Singapore and brownoski, in the midst of recruiting at Yale, is counting down the days until his trip to Hong Kong. Finally, though it doesn’t sound as though he has any travel plans, it sounds like Jerry Blank might have wanted to disappear after committing what we can only call an impressive cell phone faux pas at the SOM.
Though it’s been a quiet week on the applicant front, those who have been posting have been making it count by sharing interview experiences, reporting on visits to and by schools and celebrating completed applications. Finished with Darden, Anand is getting ready for a vacation in Bangalore, while Suser McLoser is just generally jubilant upon submitting her final application for the season. Though glad to have submitted her Tuck materials in time, Inblue expresses her disappointment that she won’t be able to meet admissions representatives at the sold-out Mumbai information session. Iday, meanwhile, found the Chennai stop on the World MBA Tour to be a bit lacking (Wharton and Tuck were no-shows) but was impressed by Darden’s representatives. Also eager for information about their target programs, MBA babe made an overdue visit to Haas and Rungee attended Duke’s Weekend for Women. She also discusses her LBS interview, which, like Rusgirl‘s, was rather long but generally positive (aside from the latter’s minor whiteboard debacle). In other interview news, we’re very glad to hear that MBA babe is feeling good about her Harvard interview performance, that Juggler had a great interview with a Wharton alum in spite of a harrowing trip to the site, and that Uniqpath handled some unexpected questions with grace in her interview for the same program. Don’t forget to share your interview reports by pasting them into the MBA Admissions Wiki for the benefit and convenience of the broader applicant pool!
Best of luck to everyone in their continued endeavors, and have a wonderful weekend!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 7, 2006, at 8:30 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips , Deadlines , School: Chicago , School: CMU / Tepper , School: Cornell / Johnson , School: Dartmouth / Tuck , School: Duke / Fuqua , School: Harvard , School: London Business School , School: Michigan / Ross , School: MIT / Sloan , School: Northwestern / Kellogg , School: Penn / Wharton , School: Stanford , School: UCLA / Anderson , School: Virginia / Darden , School: Yale We’ve been devoting a fair amount of attention in the past few weeks to the interview experiences and preparations of round one applicants. Now that we’re well into the first full week of December, we wanted to consider how things are shaping up for those targeting schools’ round two deadlines.
Because time management is a crucial element of the application process, it’s important to think about when each application is due. This is an especially relevant consideration for those targeting multiple schools with January deadlines, as the majority of programs have set their dates in the first two weeks of the month:
Week 1
January 3rd: Harvard, UCLA
January 4th: Wharton
January 5th: Kellogg, LBS
Week 2
January 7th: Michigan
January 8th: CMU, Duke
January 9th: Cornell
January 10th: Chicago, MIT Sloan, Stanford, Yale
January 11th: Darden, UVA
We know that this very compressed schedule might be a difficult reality to confront for those working on applications for two or more of these programs, but hopefully this will put the coming weeks into perspective. It’s not too late to take a careful inventory of the work required for each school and devise a realistic plan of attack. Because the end of December can be a very hectic (but festive) time for everyone, we suggest frequently checking in with your recommenders over the coming weeks and, if possible, completing at least one school’s essays before the holidays kick into high gear. Best of luck!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 6, 2006, at 8:27 am
Posted in: School: Yale , Wiki Wednesdays Welcome to this week’s edition of Wiki Wednesday, highlighting interesting and informative additions to the Clear Admit Wiki, our repository of information about the MBA admissions process. While there have been some great contributions to the Wharton, Tuck and Chicago interview pages this week, we’d like to focus on a report that was recently added to the Yale collection. This account of the SOM’s interview process – particularly the interesting note about length – could be very useful in helping other applicants prepare for their own interviews.
My interview was with a second year student. The conversation was fairly straight forward. No tough questions at all.
1. Go over your resume.
2. Before I finished with the first question, she asked me about why I needed to pursue an MBA, I also gave the answer of why now
3. Then the typical: Why Yale
All the above went in about fifteen minute (I felt, did not have time to watch time), then it was time for me to ask questions… The interview was weird as it was so short. When I came out of it it was less than thirty minutes and other interviewees had a similar experience because they all came out about the same time as I did. I checked for some afternoon interviewees and they all lasted less than thirty minutes.
Essentially, this account indicates that Yale applicants might want to provide as robust a resume walk-through as possible, as there might not be another chance to share information about their prior work experience.
As always, we’d like to extend our thanks to this contributor, and to all the others who have helped to build this resource. We hope that round one applicants will continue to post their reports to the wiki as they interview with their target programs. MBA aspirants are also welcome to post their campus visit experiences and share any issues they’ve encountered with the logistics of applying to any given school. Registration is easy and free!
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