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 May 31, 2007, at 2:45 am
With the release of most Round 3 notifications in the past three weeks, the 2006-2007 admissions season is coming to a close for the vast majority of MBA aspirants. We’d like to offer our congratulations to all those who have gained admission to one of more of their target schools, and wish good luck to waitlisted applicants whose fate is presently a bit less certain. For all those who submitted their applications in the final round and received an unfavorable decision, we’d like to share a few tips that we hope will make the process of facing rejection as productive as possible:
1) Understand the odds and consider reapplying in the early rounds next year. If you failed to gain admission to . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 30, 2007, at 3:32 pm
The 2007 New Venture Challenge competition culminated last week at the University of Chicago GSB, with nine teams of finalists presenting their business plans to a panel of 18 judges. The first place award went to Braintree Financial, founded by one recent graduate of Chicago’s Executive MBA program and three members of the Class of ’07. The firm has been in operation since 2006 and offers payment processing services, as well as services related to financing and security compliance. The company took home $25,000 in prize money.
The second place award was split between two teams, each winning $15,000. One team presented a plan for a company offering prepared foods, while the other uses an extensive clinical network . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 30, 2007, at 3:04 am
GMAC, or the Graduate Management Admissions Council, will hold its Annual Industry Conference in Philadelphia next month, and we’re pleased to announce that Clear Admit has been tapped to offer insight to attending MBA admissions officers for a second consecutive year!
Clear Admit co-founder Graham Richmond will be moderating and participating in a panel titled “Social Networking: Meeting Students Where They Live.” Along with educational researcher Stephanie Geyer and Angela Dimit, who works in Development and Alumni Relations for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he’ll lend insight into where MBA applicants, students and alumni gather online, and will lead an exploration of available technologies and the ways schools can harness them to build community among past, present . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 29, 2007, at 3:40 pm
As we mentioned earlier today in our MBA news coverage, HBS Executive Director of MBA Admissions & Financial Aid Deirdre Leopold appeared on a Business Week chat this afternoon to field questions from potential applicants to the MBA program. The transcript will be publicly available within a week, but we wanted to take a moment now to comment on a few interesting items from the chat.
Leopold revealed that last year was a good one for HBS, which enjoyed an 11% increase in application volume over the 2005-2006 season. With the increased competition, chat participants were understandably interested in what the school most desires in its students. In response, Leopold stressed the school’s focus on leadership . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 29, 2007, at 12:57 pm
Clear Admit was featured last Friday in a Business Week article about MBA admissions consultants and the schools’ evolving perceptions of the field. While most schools understand that the majority of admissions consultants play a valuable and legitimate role when providing applicants with strategic and editorial feedback, they also know that assistance to applicants come in a variety of forms and remain aware that certain firms cross an ethical line.
“‘The type of help varies widely, ‘says Mae Jennifer Shores, an admissions officer at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. ‘Our concern is when consultants are used to write essays.’”
Clear Admit strongly believes that an admissions consultant can be extremely valuable by coaching applicants on their application, and takes . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 29, 2007, at 7:26 am
Welcome back from the holiday weekend! Here’s a rundown of a few recent news items from the b-school universe:
Live Chat with Harvard Business School’s Deirdre Leopold Today at 1 PM (EDT)
The executive director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at Harvard Business School will be joining BusinessWeek’s Francesca Di Meglio for a live chat about life at HBS, the admissions process and more. Click here to join the chat. Also, for those of you who have an interest in prior HBS chats at BusinessWeek, you can find the transcript from the last one here.
GMAT Courses
A recent BusinessWeek article offered a broad summary of GMAT test prep options from the leading firms in the . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 28, 2007, at 3:45 am
For those of our readers who are looking for a way to combine their passion for film with a solid grounding in finance, NYU has unveiled a new joint degree that is being offered by the Stern School and the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at the Tisch School of the Arts.
Over the years, we’ve seen many applicants with an interest in areas like film finance and film production. Many of these applicants were forced to target schools were they could create their own sort of specialized degree by pursuing outside coursework in film alongside the MBA. It seems that NYU has recognized the growing need for a mix of business and creative training, which is great news . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 25, 2007, at 3:19 am
Welcome back to another episode of Fridays From the Frontline, our weekly sampling of the savoriest stories in the MBA blogosphere. With a holiday weekend just around the bend, MBA students and applicants alike can count on a bevy of reasons to celebrate. Let’s see what all the commotion’s about…
Just as she predicted, Angel Angie was a proud part of LBS’ sweeping victory at MBAT 2007, and has pictures, not to mention a cold and a fever from cheering on her classmates in the rain, to prove it. Around the world in Los Angeles, UCLADawg also caught the school pride fever, reveling in UCLA’s 100th NCAA win – and the fact that the Bruins were the first . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 24, 2007, at 2:51 am
Now that you’ve been accepted to b-school you’re probably thinking about things like getting a decent apartment and which exotic locale to visit before school starts, but you might also want to put some thought into your academic preparation. Will you have pre-term classes? Without them you might be jumping right into the deep end of the pool. Even with pre-term, you may often learn the mechanics without the context, especially when it comes to quantitative classes.
For example, when you take introductory accounting in business school you’ll learn how to do accounting, but it’s unlikely that you’ll get the bigger picture. Here’s a topic that gives you good insight into how accounting is applied: accounting fraud. There have been an unprecedented . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 23, 2007, at 3:17 am
Since many of our readers are just beginning the business school application process, we wanted to offer some basic tips on a critical variable in the MBA admissions equation: recommender selection.
Selecting Your Recommenders
When choosing your recommenders, remember that it can be seen as a test of judgment – selecting a recommender whose letter is ineffective or who appears dubious about your qualifications may raise doubts about your ability to judge your interactions with others or to select the right person for a job.
In order for your letters to be as effective as possible, you should look for several qualities in a recommender. First, all of your recommenders should have greater seniority than you, unless the school specifically asks for a peer . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 22, 2007, at 2:32 am
Welcome to another edition of Trivia Tuesday, our weekly exploration of the special programs, interesting opportunities and unusual policies that impact the MBA experience at the leading business schools! Today we turn our attention to residential life, an often-overlooked aspect of student life and campus culture. Although most of the leading business schools offer some on-campus housing options for full-time MBA students, space tends to be limited and the rooms or apartments tend to be in residence halls shared by other graduate programs at the university.
However, two of the leading MBA programs best known for their strong sense of community are also two of the schools that have actively expanded the number on-campus housing opportunities for MBA students. At Tuck, nearly . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 21, 2007, at 2:34 am
The school year is coming to a close and the student newspapers are winding down – let’s check in on the final issues of the papers from Chicago, Harvard and Stanford.
The mood at Chicago’s Chibus is lighthearted, as coverage of academics and events gives way to a year-end social wrap-up. The staff of the Chibus makes the biggest news, as they carry on the tradition of compiling the annual Chicago GSB hotlist, which names the 10 hottest men and women on campus (though this year’s panel added an 11th man). The staff notes that the students on the hotlist are notable not just for their looks, but for their “overall intelligence, wit, and business acumen” – a . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 18, 2007, at 2:56 am
Welcome back to this week’s Fridays From the Frontline report. It seems the words “lazy summer days” do not exist in the vocabularies of our MBA applicant and student bloggers: While not everyone is still hitting the books, they remain an active bunch, carefully plotting their next moves and gainfully reflecting on past experiences, not to mention squeezing in some serious celebrating and adventuring. Let’s take a closer look and hope some of their industriousness rubs off.
From partying until 4am with fellow admits and current students at Ross’ Go Blue Rendezvous to enjoying Harvard’s similar bash to receiving that coveted invitation to the Wharton class of 2009, AGirl’sMBA has enjoyed a whirlwind few weeks of success. Yet, for all her shopping . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 17, 2007, at 12:50 pm
BusinessWeek’s Debate Room has sparked a lively conversation over the value of the MBA degree. A reporter for BusinessWeek suggests that the MBA is overrated and that prospective students either already have the knowledge and skills they need to succeed – or won’t develop them in business school. Cathy Dove, an Associate Dean at the Johnson School, takes up the opposing view and argues that the MBA has a dramatic impact on graduates’ career paths and that despite criticism, students continue to flock to the MBA and recruiters continue to increase their hiring of MBA grads.
The debate continues in reader comments – consider checking out the debate so far and adding your own voice to . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 17, 2007, at 2:57 am
A few weeks ago, we published an entry to inform Class of 2010 applicants about the merits of beginning work on one’s resume early in the season. To follow up on those comments, we wanted to offer some general tips on getting the most mileage out of this document in the admissions process.
1) First things first. Because you’re applying to graduate school, it makes sense to lead this document with a section detailing your academic history. This is also the format that many business schools’ career offices instruct students to use when applying for internships or full-time jobs post-graduation.
2) Keep it simple. While you’ll certainly want to describe your professional responsibilities and achievements in some detail, remember that this . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 16, 2007, at 3:30 am
If you are like most business school students, you will get your first taste of accounting in pre-term or during your first semester. Maybe you think of accounting as a ‘necessary evil’ that some CPA does so that a business knows how much tax it owes. As a result, you may end up spending hours in classes making sure you absorb enough to pass the course – without actually taking away anything useful. Unfortunately, while introductory accounting courses usually focus on important aspects of how to do accounting – such as T-accounts, credits, debits, transactions, contra accounts, etc. – they are less likely to teach why you might care enough to learn and use the material.
Accounting is actually about much more . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 15, 2007, at 2:50 am
It’s time once again for Trivia Tuesday, our weekly foray into the unusual, uncommon, or just plain interesting programs at the leading business schools. This week we’ll follow up on our earlier posts about pre-term at Kellogg, Tuck, and Wharton with an examination of Chicago’s Random Walk program.
Prior to the school’s mandatory pre-term program, Chicago second-year students organize an optional program called Random Walk. Similar to Kellogg’s KWEST program, Chicago’s Random Walks offer incoming students a choice of over a dozen group trips to domestic and international destinations. The purpose of the trips is to “party, play and bond with” a group of first-year students prior to the start of the school year. The trips . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 14, 2007, at 3:19 am
Welcome to Monday! To get the week started, let’s check in on a couple of news items from the MBA world.
To start, MIT Sloan’s Leaders for Manufacturing Program (LFM) announced the addition of five new corporate partners, including Amgen, Pepsi Bottling Company, and Spirit AeroSystems. Students participating in the LFM Program earn an MBA and a Masters of Science in Engineering in just two years of full time study. Because participants must forego the typical MBA summer internship in order to complete their dual coursework, the program instead arranges internships during the academic year with one of LFM’s two dozen corporate partners. In return for the internship support, all LFM partners provide generous fellowships for the program’s . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 11, 2007, at 8:35 am
Welcome back to Fridays from the Frontline, our round up of new and noteworthy activity in the MBA blogosphere! This week, posts about endings and beginnings abound. Let’s see what MBA applicant and student bloggers are up to…
Firstly, a big congratulations goes out to MBA_Salsera, who finally received an offer and a scholarship from Georgetown! Hopefully now she can join other applicant bloggers as they relax, anticipate new experiences and make moving arrangements. Asian Gal reflected on her leisure reading habits this week, in response to MBA Podcaster’s recent book recommendations. Forrest Gump also posted about reading material this week; he urged applicants to go beyond schools’ websites to learn about their different cultures, making special note . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 10, 2007, at 1:18 pm
While most accepted applicants are busily plotting a departure from their place of employment and scouting out exotic summer travels, we wanted to alert our readership to a series of online courses that should help ensure a smooth transition back into the classroom – especially for those of you who fall into the “non-traditional” category or lack an undergraduate background in business.
Telestrat’s Pre-MBA Prep Course offers online lessons in accounting (financial statements and financial analysis), valuation and corporate finance. Described as a ‘crash course’ in MBA topics, the online seminars focus on giving new MBA matriculants a high-level view of where they are going so they can hit the ground running when they get to school. In addition, the seminars are taught by HBS and Wharton . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 10, 2007, at 3:25 am
With competition at top graduate programs on the rise, more and more applicants are turning to admissions consultants for guidance. This demand has fueled explosive growth in the admissions consulting industry, and while most consultants are ethical, experienced professionals, it can be difficult for applicants – and admissions officers – to sort out the good from the bad.
In response to the rapid, unregulated growth of the admissions consulting industry, Clear Admit and other leaders in the field have joined together to establish the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC). AIGAC’s primary objectives, as explained in today’s press release, are to ensure high ethical standards, commitment to principles of good practice, and continued professional development among admissions consultants. AIGAC . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on May 9, 2007, at 4:00 am
Welcome to another edition of Which School Wednesdays, where we take a look at some of the tough choices that admitted students are making about which MBA program to attend. This week, we found a couple of conversations around the web that consider the pros and cons of attending programs that have just been thoroughly revamped.
First, this question came up for blogger MBA Babe as she made the very tough choice to matriculate at Stanford instead of Harvard. She attended admitted students’ weekends at both schools and debated key points, including her first impressions of potential classmates, curriculum flexibility, the weather, the alumni network, and more. These are typically the important considerations, but MBA Babe’s thoughts on Stanford’s recent . . . → 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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