APPLICANT RESOURCES

Clear Admit Interview Guides
Be as prepared as possible for your MBA interviews this season with the Clear Admit Interview Guides! School-specific sample questions and in-depth strategy, campus visit details and places to stay.

Clear Admit School Guides
Seventeen titles available! Understand how the leading programs compare and learn more about the MBA experience in and beyond the classroom through Clear Admit School Guides. As featured in the Economist.

Essay Topic Analysis
Below are links to our comments on some of the top programs' essay topics for the 2007-2008 admissions season.
The Career Goals Essay
Berkeley / Haas
Chicago GSB
CMU / Tepper *
Columbia
Cornell / Johnson
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Harvard
IESE *
INSEAD
London Business School
MIT / Sloan
Michigan / Ross
Northwestern / Kellogg
NYU / Stern
Oxford / Said *
Penn / Wharton
Stanford GSB
UCLA / Anderson
UNC / Kenan-Flagler
UT Austin / McCombs *
UVA / Darden
Yale SOM
* denotes last year's commentary

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• School: London Business School
• School: Michigan / Ross
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School Rankings
Rankings are a good way to start your research on various MBA Programs. Keep in mind each uses a different methodology.
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ARCHIVE FOR NOVEMBER 2007

Friday, November 30, 2007

Stanford Interview Guide Released!

For our readers who applied to Stanford in round one, we would like to announce that the Clear Admit Interview Guide to the Stanford GSB is now available. The series now includes seven schools - Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford, Tuck and Wharton - with each title offering sample questions and firsthand interview insight, in-depth strategic analysis and campus visit information.

Visit the Clear Admit shop to investigate further, and stay tuned for more Interview Guide news next week!

HBS, Tuck, Fuqua Collaborative Launches Map of Environmental Polluters and Protectors

Spotting the largest U.S. industrial polluters just got a lot easier. MapEcos, an interactive website launched yesterday by professors at Fuqua, Tuck and Harvard Business School (HBS) along with Dartmouth College students, transforms government data on toxic pollution into a visual portrait of more than 20,000 industrial facilities across the nation.

Though the site does feature alarming photos – power plants emitting huge plumes of black smoke, processing facilities surrounded by otherworldly pools of turquoise waste – the intent of its creators was to provide an even-handed view of industrial environmental performance. To this end, they have also collected information from the facilities themselves about efforts being made to protect the environment.

“We wanted to move beyond finger pointing,” says HBS Assistant Professor Michael Toffel. “We believe MapEcos is the first website that presents information about companies’ environmental performance while providing their managers with an opportunity to publicize their environmental practices and awards.”

Indeed, the website provides maps and satellite imagery of facilities color coded according to their emissions levels. Those facilities that have provided information about their environmental protection efforts – which can include operational policies, management systems, activities, staffing and investment – are marked with a green ring. “By giving managers a voice, we can portray a more accurate picture of what actions are underway and what problems remain,” says Toffel.

Designed to make emissions information easy to access and understand, the website allows users to search facilities by name, location, corporate owner, industry and emissions level. One tool calls up the largest polluters in a given county or state and then serves up photographs documenting the volume and health hazard of its toxic chemical emissions. The site can also deliver data about emissions levels and trends at comparable facilities, helping to provide context.

More than simply a public service, making the information easy to access and understand is central to the site creators’ research goals. “MapEcos lets us create a kind of natural experiment, where we make information more accessible and then see how people respond,” says Michael Lenox, an associate professor at the Fuqua School of Business and faculty director of Duke University’s Corporate Sustainability Initiative. By determining which facilities draw the greatest attention, the site can help predict which facilities need to devote the greatest resources to engaging stakeholders, Lenox says.

How and to what degree facilities choose to respond to this data and provide information about their environmental practices will also offer researchers a glimpse into what motivates companies to take action. “By observing how the thousands of facilities respond to our invitation to contribute information about their environmental management practices on MapEcos, we will better understand why some types of facilities choose to be more transparent than others,” says HBS’s Toffel.

Andrew King, an associate professor at the Tuck School of Business and currently a Marvin Bower Fellow at HBS, was the third faculty contributor to the project. He hopes it will serve as a model for how academic research and public service can go together. “The three of us have been conducting research on business and the environment for years, and we wanted to find a way to do high quality research and make a difference at the same time,” he says.

Young technical entrepreneurs, many of them students at Dartmouth College, helped the faculty make the website a reality. “We built upon familiar Google Maps technology and other mapping software to give the public access to both detailed information about the environmental performance of individual facilities as well as more general information about the broad sweep of industrial activity across the U.S.,” says Evan Tice, Dartmouth ‘09. Giving facilities managers the ability to provide information directly required creating a new system for collecting and displaying data from an existing HBS survey system, said Chris Hughes, another student involved with the project.

The name of the project itself is a double entendre. Ecos is short for both ecology and economics. “In this age of polarization, we wanted to take a stand for telling both sides of the story,” says Tuck’s King. “The map will keep changing as more companies add information about their environmental improvement efforts.”

A compendium guidebook with additional information about the site and the team is available at www.mapecos.org/about.

MBADiversity Fellows Program

While our primary focus over the past few months has been offering advice and developing resources for MBA aspirants who are applying this year, we realize that a number of our readers are still in the early stages of thinking about this next step in their careers. With that in mind, we’d like to highlight a valuable opportunity being offered by the MBADiversity.

The organization is now accepting applications for the Spring and Summer terms of its Fellows Program, an MBA preparation track that includes GMAT prep courses sponsored by Manhattan GMAT, guidance throughout the application process, an optional Global Immersion Module and inclusion in a National Symposium. More information is available on the Fellows Program application page and in the FAQ section of the site.

Applicants are evaluated on criteria that MBADiversity calls the “3Cs:” Capability, Collaboration and Character. As the name suggests, part of the organization’s mission is to provide support to under-represented groups and increase the diversity of each incoming class of MBA students, but the group also stresses inclusiveness and welcomes anyone to apply. The Regular Decision deadline for the Spring Session is November 30th, and the Early Decision deadline for the Summer Session falls on January 15th.

Fridays From the Frontline

Welcome back to Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit’s weekly rendez-vous with the MBA blogging community. Betwixt drumsticks and thighs, applicants helped themselves to a plentiful portion of contemplation last week, while current students found more time for relaxation and a bit of celebration, although few sat idly or partied heartily for too long. Let’s check in with our bloggers for some firsthand accounts…

Mike finished off Thanksgiving with some bittersweet revelations about the state of his HBS and Stanford applications – thinking back on everything submitted, he would barely change a thing. And yet that somehow means there’s more at stake. Also reflecting on applications past was Wannabe, although with results considerably more doleful: “I cringe at the thought of actually having sent them” he lamented. But fortunately he’s cleaned up his act in time for Chicago! Although out of the woods on the essay front, B-School Bound entered the abyss of the next stage of the application process – stressing over interviews… which he woefully points out are hardly worth stressing over, anyway.

Taking the edge off of this nay saying, however, is Mbabound08 with a glowing Kellogg interview report. The experience wasn’t just successful, it was downright conversational! And then there’s Vidiviciveni. Seeming far from the application process, he’s been partying like there’s no tomorrow for the past two weeks! That’s a lot of forgone tomorrows… but he did manage to seize the day just in time to crank out a Tuck scholarship application.

Moving on to our first-years, this week witnessed mixed feelings in Chicago. Our congratulations go out to writerly Iday, celebrating the fact that he will soon be dividing his writing time between blogging and serving as Editor in Chief of Chibus (among other things). On a less positive note, GSBsutras is still acclimating to life in the home of the GSB; apparently Chicago’s pros include the alluring disbursement of cash from ATM machines in non-$20 increments, but the cons sound a bit more substantive.

Hairtwirler was in good spirits for the holiday weekend, redoubling her efforts to tackle her most pressing homework assignment from Georgetown: eat, sleep and relax! Meanwhile, Christof considered the value of studying macroeconomics and CS finally gave in and joined the Facebook craze at Harvard, gaining 535 friends in the process. Not such a bad deal! Over in Switzerland, Stuart logged on to offer MBAs of all sorts a brief reality check, assuring us that despite what gets portrayed in the applications, few of his peers at St. Gallen are certain of their post-MBA paths.

On the second year front, ambitious Angie offered up a detailed booklist for would-be-traders and hedge-fund-hopefuls, making the incisive point that while these reads probably aren’t necessary for one to get through a decent finance interview, if you can’t bring yourself to pick up a good book on investing, investing probably isn’t the career for you… Nagendra (not technically a second-year since Oxford is a one-year program), too, stayed on the straight and narrow, relating which facets of his Oxford MBA have been most useful on the job. So leave it to La Laudiaria to live it up! She enjoyed a dynamic vacation back home in San Francisco, replete with a healthy dose of R&R, and an even healthier dose of 1996 Veuve Grande Dame, at 11am, no less…

John gets us back on track, posting a public service announcement about an internship opportunity for a couple of CBSers of good conscience, working to launch a socially responsible private equity fund. And last but not least is Rubeo Boy, for whom it took a night on town and a lady in red to learn a tough lesson about appearances in the big apple.

That about does it for this week’s edition of FFF! Enjoy the wintery weekend and check back with us next week for the latest breaking news.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Women in Leadership Forums in the U.S.

Yesterday we took a look at graduate management programs in Europe and the Middle East that have turned their attention in recent weeks to issues of women in business. U.S. business schools, too, are providing forums to discuss ways to foster leadership by women, and today we’ll share a little about some of those.

In early November, the National Association of Women MBAs held its annual conference and career fair at Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland in College Park. This year’s conference focused on how women are taking the lead in the global economy through innovation while embracing emerging technologies. It featured key note addresses by Campbell Soup Vice President Irene Chang Britt and Raytheon Missiles Systems President Louise Francesconi. Schools interested in hosting the 2008 Conference are encouraged to submit proposals.

Earlier this fall, the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business hosted its 15th Annual Women in Leadership Conference, drawing together hundreds of women to explore both the opportunities and challenges faced by women in today’s business world. Ross alumni, staff and current students also spoke to prospective students in three cities in late summer about the value of an MBA for women, a speaking series it plans to repeat in coming years.

Berkeley’s Haas School of Business hosts its annual Women in Leadership Conference each March, and tickets for 2008 have already sold out. Now in its 11th year, it is the longest-running student-organized conference at Haas. This year’s keynote speakers will be Jennifer Maxwell, PowerBar co-founder, and Mitchell Baker, president and CEO of open source software technology firm Mozilla Corporation. Previous lead speakers include Jenny Ming, president of Old Navy; Linda Dillman, executive vice president and CIO of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.; and the late Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop.

Finally, in late April, Harvard Business School will present its Women’s Leadership Forum, which provides an opportunity for working women from public and private companies and nonprofit organizations around the world to come together for an intensive six-day workshop focused on how to effectively manage innovation for competitive advantage. Through applicable classroom lessons taught by distinguished HBS professors, participants will gain valuable insight and skills they can then implement at their own organizations.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of U.S. forums focused on women in business. For more information, you might also want to consult the following resources:

• Forté Foundation
• MBA-Women.com
• National Association of Women MBAs
• Pink Magazine
• Princeton Review: Women and Business School

Admissions Tip: Round Two Reality

As we prepare to flip over another page of the calendar this weekend, we wanted to take a look at the upcoming December and January deadlines, just in case there are any Round Two applicants out there who aren’t already all too aware of the persistent passage of time.

While the Round One deadlines for the top MBA programs were mercifully spread out over the month of October, the outlook for the next wave of deadlines isn’t quite as rosy; most of the Round Two deadlines are closely clustered over a ten-day period in early January. For those applicants who are targeting two or more of those schools, careful time management during December will be of the utmost importance. Let’s take a closer look at the deadlines on the horizon:

Dec. 5: INSEAD R2
Dec. 11: Haas R2

Jan. 2: UCLA R2
Jan. 3: Darden R2, HBS R2, Ross R2, Wharton R2
Jan. 4: LBS R2, UNC R3
Jan. 7: CMU R2, Stanford R2
Jan. 9: Chicago R2, Cornell R3, Tuck R3, Yale R2
Jan. 11: Kellogg R2
Jan. 15: MIT R2, NYU R2
Jan. 31: Haas R3

As though that weren’t enough, add to the mix Columbia, whose rolling review of Regular Decision applications begins on the already-packed 9th of January.

We know that this very compressed schedule might be a difficult reality to confront for those working on applications for several of these programs, but we hope that this list helps to 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 as hectic a time as it is festive, 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!

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Topic of Women in Business Leads the Discussion at INSEAD, London Business School

While the ratio of women to men in business school classrooms is still far from equal – women made up less than 30 percent of the 2005 class entering the top 20 MBA programs in the U.S., according to a Catalyst report – the subject of women in business, both on teams and in leadership roles, is gaining traction on campuses around the globe.

In a seminar yesterday at the new INSEAD Centre for Executive Education and Research in Abu Dhabi, Chaired Professor Herminia Ibarra encouraged participants to take a closer look at the challenges faced by women executives in the Middle East. The seminar, entitled “Making the Leadership Transition,” is the first in a series of workshops and programs that will focus on the subject of women and leadership in the region.

The Women and Leadership series is one of several new initiatives that will be pursued at the new center, which opened in September. INSEAD will also conduct quantitative and qualitative research on leadership styles in the Middle East.

Ibarra, an expert on leadership development, directs Women Leading Change in Global Business, INSEAD’s first program for executive women. She is also the author of Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career, which outlines a model for successful career changes.

Women as Team Players

Earlier this month, researchers at London Business School’s Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business released findings from a study that examined women and men working together on teams to determine what gender mix proved most innovative. The golden equation? An equal split between men and women.

The findings of the study, entitled “Innovative Potential: Men and Women in Teams,” were announced at the Centre’s third annual Women in Business Forum on November 1st. The forum featured Katherine Garrett-Cox, Alliance Trust chief investment officer, as its keynote speaker and included a panel of top women executives from Google, American Express and IBM.

“This research has highlighted for the first time the potential that gender balance has on the innovative potential of professional teams,” said Professor Lynda Gratton, director of the Lehman Brothers Centre. (Gratton, incidentally, was one of only three women to make the 2007 Thinkers 50 list in October. She was joined by INSEAD’s Renée Mauborgne and Harvard’s Rosabeth Moss Kanter.)

The study found that optimal conditions for innovation – openness to experimentation, a flowing exchange of knowledge and high task performance and efficiency – existed on teams where individual team members serve as “boundary spanners” between sub-groups, where the psychological climate and communication felt safe, and where team members were self confident. Of the more than 100 teams surveyed – drawn from a range of disciplines at companies in several different industry sectors around the world – the ones where these conditions existed in greatest levels were those with equal numbers of men and women.

“Men are from Mars and women are from Venus,” or so the saying goes. In fact, the study found that the two sexes are remarkably similar in terms of the goals and aspirations they hold for their work life. There were key differences between the genders at home, though, that impact a team’s ability to be innovative.

Men in leadership are far more likely to have children, and especially young children, than women. (Of women in leadership roles, 52 percent were childless.) This meant that a spillover effect – home impacting work and vice versa – was greater for men, and depleting cycles of this spillover were more negative for men than women. Women leaders, however, tended to carry a much more significant share of domestic responsibilities at home – as much as six times their male counterparts – and generally tended to work fewer hours than their male counterparts (44 per week compared to 52 for men, on average).

Because equal gender representation seemed to unlock the innovative power of teams, the study provided recommendations for companies to help make this team composition more possible. Among the recommendations:

• Encourage shared domestic labor at home (by offering ‘family friendly’ policies and practices, encouraging paternity as well as maternity leave)
• Actively manage spillover (reduce working under time pressure, encourage a more open dialogue with men about stress)
• Manage and minimize the ‘minority experience’ (recognize that neither men nor women perform at their best when they are in the minority on teams).

Not to be outdone by their European counterparts, business schools in the U.S. also offer forums to examine the opportunities and challenges faced by women in today’s business world. We’ll have more on that tomorrow, so please check back!

Free B-School Panel Event in Chicago

We wanted to remind our readers based in and around the Chicago area of a free event next week being sponsored by our friends at Manhattan GMAT. This informative panel event is open to the public, and will center on the subjects of application strategy and the b-school admissions process in general.

Featuring admissions representatives from the Chicago GSB and Kellogg School of Management, as well as Clear Admit’s own Graham Richmond, this event offers a great opportunity for round two applicants hoping to glean some insight on how to polish their materials, and also for prospective applicants who are just beginning to think about the admissions process. Here are the details:

Date: Thursday, December 6, 2007
Time: 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Location: 222 West Ontario Street, 4th Floor, Chicago, IL 60610

Registration is required; see the MGMAT Event Detail page for instructions. Hope to see you next week!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

GMAT Mobile Testing Center Continues on Its Second U.S. Tour

Coming soon to a town near you: the GMAT Mobile Testing Center. That’s right, the “GMAT bus” set off last month on its 2007 tour of the United States. Once again, prospective MBA applicants who don’t live within easy travel distance of an existing testing facility can sit back and let the test come to them.

The GMAT bus tour is part of an effort by the Graduate Management Assessment Council (GMAC) to make the standardized exam – a prerequisite for admission to many top graduate management programs – more accessible to people interested in attending business school.

“Our goal is to make the GMAT as convenient as possible for a diverse population of men and women who are interested in going to business school,” David Wilson, GMAC president and CEO, said in a statement announcing the tour’s debut.

The Mobile Testing Center is a full-length bus outfitted with six GMAT testing stations where prospective applicants can take the exam just as they would at any other testing facility. Each station is equipped with high-speed data connectivity via satellite and features electronic security systems to ensure that the testing experience is not compromised in any way.

To take the test on the GMAT bus, applicants must schedule an appointment just as they would for a normal testing facility. (Appointments may be scheduled online, by phone, by mail or by fax.) The bus kicked off its 2007 tour in early October at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA, and will conclude its seven-month trip in early May at Washington State University in Pullman, WA. The tour has 28 scheduled stops this academic year throughout the continental United States. Included among the stops are several military institutions, historically black colleges and universities and institutions serving Latino populations. Consult the tour calendar and map to find the scheduled stop closest to you.

Responding to requests from schools that participated in last year’s tour, the bus will make longer stops this year to provide greater flexibility for test takers. Schools not currently on the bus route that are interested in having the Mobile Testing Center visit their campus should email gmatbus@gmac.com.

Because the hardest part of taking the GMAT shouldn’t be getting to the testing facility.

Trivia Tuesday: Visiting the Chicago GSB

Welcome to another edition of Trivia Tuesday, where we bring you school-specific details about the leading MBA programs in order to highlight important differences between the top schools. This week’s entry focuses on the experience of visiting the University of Chicago’s Hyde Park campus for an interview, and the flexibility offered by the school’s Gleacher Center in downtown Chicago.

Applicants who have scheduled an on campus interview and will be traveling to Hyde Park should consider planning their stays so as to get the most mileage out of their time there. Because applicants need to express enthusiasm for the school and demonstrate that they have conducted extensive research on Chicago’s program, it would be ideal to arrange to tour the school, sit in on a class and have lunch with current students before the interview. In addition to providing great fodder for interview discussion, many applicants find that these activities are quite energizing and set a positive tone for this important meeting. To arrange a tour, class visit or lunch with students, candidates may contact the GSB Admissions and Financial Aid Office, which is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every weekday. Admissions staff members are also available to answer questions on a walk-in basis.

While visiting Chicago, candidates should also consider stopping by the Gleacher Center in downtown Chicago, approximately seven miles from the GSB’s main campus. The home of the evening, weekend, and executive MBA programs, the Gleacher Center shares the same professors and course offerings as the main campus. However, because the Center caters to working professionals, most courses are taught in the evening and on weekends, while weekday courses are the norm at the main campus. The fact that the same courses - by the same professors - are taught multiple times each week on the two campuses gives Chicago GSB students a unique “back-up” option for making up missed classes. Although professors are not required to let full-time MBA students attend the Gleacher Center section of a class if they’ve missed their session on the main campus, most professors do not have a problem with the practice. This has the benefit of allowing Chicago students to balance their academic, recruiting and extracurricular commitments with greater ease, though may also result in less-cohesive course sections, since in any given week there may be students who choose to attend an alternative class meeting.

For more information on the University of Chicago’s Gleacher Center, academic scheduling or interview process, check out the school’s website, or the Clear Admit School Guide and Clear Admit Interview Guide to the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business!

Monday, November 26, 2007

Annual Venture Capital Conference Returns to MIT Sloan

Entrepreneurship took center stage at Oxford last week. This week it’s the focus in Cambridge. Cambridge, Massachusetts, that is, as MIT Sloan prepares to host the 2007 Venture Capital Conference this Friday, November 30th.

The conference, now in its tenth year, brings together more than 400 participants – including venture capital professionals, corporate execs, angel investors, entrepreneurs, MBAs and academics – for debate, panel discussions and valuable networking opportunities. Venture capital in enterprise software, life sciences, new media and clean energy will be among this year’s highlighted discussion topics.

Keynote speakers include Frank Moss, director of the MIT Media Lab; Christopher Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google and Diane Greene, founder and CEO of Vmware. Representatives from Advanced Technology Ventures, Common Angels, Fir Capital/DFJ Brazil, General Catalyst, General Partner, IDG Ventures, Polaris Ventures, Quattro Wireless and Spark Capital are also expected.

New this year, the conference will also feature an Entrepreneur Showcase, which will give select entrepreneurs a chance to debut new products and services for the high-tech, mobile, bio-tech and energy sectors. The showcase, open to the public, will take place the evening before the conference, on Thursday, November 29, from 5 to 8 p.m. at the MIT Museum. Companies interested in participating should contact showcase@mitvcconference.com.

“Not every idea grows into a new enterprise,” said student organizer Bashar Mashal, MIT Sloan MBA ’08, in a statement announcing the event. “Successful innovations are founded by savvy entrepreneurs and enabled by the right relationships and guidance,” he continued. “We encourage participants to discover new entrepreneurs, enterprises and opportunities that will enable the next generation of businesses and leaders.”

Campus Chronicles: Columbia Business School, Chicago GSB

Welcome back from the long weekend (at least in the U.S.)! With first semester in full swing, let’s check in on the many campus happenings at Columbia and the Chicago GSB, as reported in the schools’ student newspapers.

Though it’s buried on page 11 of the Columbia Bottom Line, there was much-anticipated news coming out of the CBS administration, with Vice Dean Ziv introducing the new core curriculum that will take effect in Fall 2008. The new curriculum grew out of the school’s periodic review of the core and has been under discussion for more than a year. The design retains the current academic calendar, cluster system, and use of waivers, but adds several new academic options. Most significantly, the first-year core will now be divided into a required core, similar to the current model, and a “Flex Core,” which will allow students to choose one course from each of three “Flex Core Menus.” For a fuller explanation of the new model, be sure to check out the chart on page 11 that accompanies the article. In other CBS news, the 4th Annual Healthcare Conference set attendance records (story pg. 4) and the 5th Annual Social Enterprise Conference, featuring keynote speaker Patrick Cescau, Group Chief Executive of the combined Unilever PLC and Unilever N.V., was “better than ever” (story pg. 1). In other front page news, Columbia second-year student Chris Chen sat down for an interview with the Bottom Line to discuss his new DessertTruck venture, a mobile restaurant specializing in desserts that he began with a partner this fall. It’s a great example of how MBA students are able to put their ideas into action - and his descriptions of desserts are sure to make readers’ mouths water!

At Chicago, art was a hot topic of conversation in the latest issue of the Chibus. Chicago’s Harper Center has a committee that selects and purchase original artwork for display in the building, and two Chicago students offer their personal views of the collection. Second-year student Carolyn Teague took a tour of the Harper Center with professor Candice Prendergast, who heads the committee that selects the artwork. Said Teague afterwards, “I left feeling inspired.” Teague then tried to pass along that feeling by taking fellow student Ryan Granner on a tour of the artwork. Granner’s view: “You call this art?” The Harper Center’s artwork is a daily part of life for Chicago GSB students, so prospective students planning a visit to campus should be sure to check out the pieces - both the good and the bad - mentioned in these articles.

This week’s Chibus also featured several stories on students’ international experience opportunities. For students seeking a “unique” study abroad experience, the International Programs Office suggests studying abroad at one of Chicago’s partner schools in Asia, which include IIM-Ahmedabad, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Melbourne Business School. Writing on a similar theme, second-year student Krisztina Kohlhaas shared the story of her recent travels in Cambodia, a country whose people and past inspired a sense of “fierce respect.” In other GSB happenings, second-year student Leif Jackson wrote with an update on the Chicago contingent’s trip to the recent Net Impact Conference in Nashville. Chicago’s attendance at this event more than doubled last year’s total from the school, which Jackson sees as a sign of the “social and environmental mindset change in the make-up of [the] student body,” and which is certainly a positive sign for prospective Chicago students interested in social responsibility. Finally, like Columbia, Chicago also counts creative entrepreneurs among its students and alumni. In this issue, members of the Chibus staff sat down with Chicago area alumna Chandra Greer, who runs GREER, a successful stationery business inspired by the John F. Kennedy quote that “Civility is not a sign of weakness.” Those students and applicants considering starting up their own enterprises should be sure to check out Greer’s advice on successful entrepreneurship at the end of the article.

For more news from the schools, be sure to check out the full issues of these papers, as well as recent editions of the Harbus, Wharton Journal, Monroe Street Journal and Fuqua Times!

Friday, November 23, 2007

Fridays from the Frontline

Welcome to a holiday edition of Fridays from the Frontline, Clear Admit’s weekly look at the newest contributions to the MBA blogosphere.  Applicant and student bloggers alike had plenty to write about in the days leading up to the Thanksgiving break.  Let’s see what they were up to:

Vidiviciveni attempted to relax and empty his mind of all application thoughts this weekend, and despite some initial trouble doing so, he came to some meaningful conclusions about his career goals.  He might want to take a cue from –tvu, who seems to be doing a fine job of it while he’s traveling in Vietnam.  He might also want to check out Powerleveler’s very sound thoughts on the psychological state of the MBA applicant.  Mike returned from his Chicago visit and interview, and promptly posted his positive impressions both on his blog and on the Clear Admit Wiki (thanks Mike!).  Likewise, mbabound08 came away from her Wharton interview feeling good, but she also cautioned future interviewees to think about just how silent their cell phones’ silent modes really are!  B-school Bound’s request for interview tips sparked a questionable conversation about interview fashion statements.  Bokaa was considering adding Yale to his list, and asked his readers for their insights on the program there.  Describing her Ross interview, Tamasin reported getting an interesting question from her interviewer about how he should remember her.

There were some interesting first-year MBA student posts last week, touching on everything from the profound to the mundane.  Le blog hog considered the allure of a Private Equity career for himself and his fellow INSEAD classmates while Asiangal described high stakes of the BCG Case Competition at Wharton, in which the first place prize is cash and a summer internship.  With a little time to digest the experience, CS gave a more in depth description of the HBS Cyberposium 13 event, a huge tech conference in the MBA community.

In other corner’s of the MBA-student blogosphere, Anand modeled the financial state of the average MBA student - demonstrating the influences of Darden’s academic rigor!  On a less abstract note, HairTwirler took her readers back to the basics of McDonough academics, after realizing that she and fellow bloggers often neglect important details.  Going to an even more basic level, Chicago GSB student MaybeMBA contemplated the extent to which money is a motivator for business school students.

Regardless of winters’ bleak descent, Iday had a great time at Chicago’s Golden Gargoyles event, and Necromonger followed up on the very important task of documenting last week’s INSEAD dash – oh, and he also took care of a few other responsibilities.  Meanwhile, for busy readers who want to read about the first three months of business school all in one breathless telling, c2c has finally had the time to debrief on the first-year Kellogg experience.

With the end in sight (or perhaps it’s the beginning?), second year student Angel Angie walked her readers through her final decision to sign with an investment bank instead of a hedge fund for next year, and made some cheerful projections about her months remaining at LBS.  John gave his readers a glimpse of one of his start-ups in progress, which he’s working on during his second year at Columbia; and Fran directed his readers’ attention to a new launch from a recent LBS graduate.

MBA Gladiator checked in for his monthly post, and pondered whether or not life at Yale SOM, though still fun, had become a bit routine.  On the other end of the spectrum, Jacek surfaced far from ESADE – wandering the dunes of Namibia?! – just long enough to write a quick post to his readers.  On another well-timed trip to Washington D.C., Rubeo Boy reveled in the glory of the MLS Cup championships (sounds like perhaps he’s been feeling the absence of soccer madness at Stern).

That does it for this week in the MBA blogosphere.  Best wishes for a wonderful fall weekend to our fellow bloggers, and of course to all our readers!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a quick note to wish our American readers a very Happy Thanksgiving!  We’ll be back with our regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow.  In the meantime, best of luck to those of you who are working on MBA essays and interview preparation at this point of the admissions cycle!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Chicago Interview Guide Released!

Just a quick note to let readers know that the Clear Admit Interview Guide to the Chicago Graduate School of Business is now available!  As with the other Guides in this series, which already includes Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Tuck and Wharton, this document features an introduction the Chicago interview process, frequently asked interview questions, strategic analysis and advice, and detailed campus visit information.  All of the Interview Guides are available in the Clear Admit shop.

Stay tuned to the blog for announcements of more new Interview Guides over the coming weeks!

Cornell Prof’s Research Proves It’s Really Hard to Find a Good Mechanic

Have you ever wondered if your auto mechanic was being straight with you? When consumers require the services of an expert to both diagnose and fix a problem – be the expert a doctor, a plumber, a seamstress or a mechanic – the consumer’s relative ignorance can sometimes put him or her in a precarious position.

Henry Schneider, an assistant professor of economics at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management, calls this the “expert service dilemma,” and in recent research he set out to take a closer look at the phenomenon. Specifically, he wanted to see what effect the possibility for repeat business had on the accuracy of diagnoses.

Posing as an unwitting motorist in need of car repair, Schneider took the same car, with the same problems, to 40 different auto mechanics. In some instances, he presented himself as someone who had just moved to the area – and so, presumably, someone who would represent potential repeat business. In other instances, he told mechanics that he would soon be moving away. In each instance, the problems with the car were relatively easy to spot and repair: a loose battery cable, low engine coolant, and a blown taillight.

What did he discover? In 27 percent of cases, overtreatment ensued. That is, the mechanics diagnosed problems that weren’t present and repairs that weren’t necessary. In 77 percent of cases, undertreatment was the problem. Because two of the three issues with the car were relatively inexpensive to fix, Schneider hypothesized, many mechanics didn’t take the time to look for them.

The major finding was that reputation incentives – including the possibility of repeat business – did not seem to influence the accuracy of diagnosis. “The prevalence of under and overtreating, even when repeat business is possible, suggests that motorists are typically unable to detect its presence and indicates that diagnoses may be highly unreliable,” Schneider said.

So, yes, it’s really hard to find a good auto mechanic.

In an effort to give our readers a fuller picture of various management education programs around the globe, we will include periodic snapshots of the research professors are conducting at top schools. We welcome recommendations for interesting studies and papers!

Wiki Wednesdays: Call for Content

Welcome to another installment of Wiki Wednesdays, reporting the latest goings on with the Clear Admit Wiki. Firstly, we’d like to say thanks to all the applicants who’ve been submitting interview reports lately! In the last two weeks alone, applicants have posted detailed descriptions of their interviews at a number of leading schools, including Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Tuck, and Yale.

As we’ve stressed in this blog, and as anyone who’s used the site to prepare for their interviews will attest, having access to firsthand accounts of the interview process at a given program can be invaluable in understanding what a program is looking for and arriving at a feeling of readiness. With these reports in mind, applicants are in a great position to follow the advice posted by one recent Columbia interviewee:

My advice/tips: Prepare, prepare, prepare. This is an important piece of your application, as important as all the other pieces like GMAT or letters of reference. Do mock-up interviews with a coach, a friend, your wife/husband, whoever — but the more you know the answers to these questions, the more you will be successful on D-Day.

We already have two full seasons’ worth of interview accounts posted on the wiki, but we’re always hoping to build the resource further by encouraging applicants who’ve interviewed in the past few weeks to post their interview reports and campus visit accounts.For those wondering what sort of details to include in their wiki entries, we find that the most helpful and informative reports include the following information:

- Date/Admissions Round
- Description of visit and/or interview atmosphere
- Type of interview (alum vs. adcom, blind vs. application-based)
- List of interview questions
- Commentary (What did you think of the interview? What surprised you? What didn’t surprise you? What might you conclude about the school based on this experience?)

Applicants who would like to supplement the information available on the wiki and dig deeper into interview strategy can check out our Clear Admit Interview Guides, which are hot off the press. Thanks in advance for your interview reports!

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Oxford’s Saïd Business School Welcomes Silicon Valley Experts

As part of its ongoing commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship, the Saïd Business School at England’s University of Oxford this week hosted its seventh annual Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford (SVOC) event, drawing luminaries from the technology industry together to address the school’s MBA students and faculty, as well as local entrepreneurs and corporations.

Leaders from several cutting-edge Silicon Valley companies took part in yesterday’ day-long interactive event, which included a kick-off panel discussion focused on current entrepreneurship issues, master classes taught by visiting experts and “Garage” innovation sessions, in which participants were led through real-life business scenarios by Valley insiders.

Drawing 15 key speakers, more than in any prior year, the event’s opening panel discussion focused on innovation and tech start-ups and gave attendees tips for which trends to watch for in the sector. Speakers this year included Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives for Google; Reid Hoffman, founder and CEO of Linkedin; Craig List’s Jim Buckmaster; Bob Goodman of Yelp; Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston of Y Combinator and many others.

Writing on the Guardian’s “pda:the digital content blog,” Jemima Kiss summed up some of the conference’s hottest topics. Openness, user-created content and the user experience topped the list, according to Kiss.

As an example of the power of openness, Google’s Sacca pointed to the social networking site Twitter, which saw a 20-fold increase in web traffic when it released its Application Programming Interface (API) online.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, who led one of the master classes at yesterday’s SVOC event, draws a clear link between Twitter’s openness and its success. “When users form a community around a product, discuss that product and build compelling applications on top of a product, then that service is showing signs of success,” he told the Guardian last May. “We expect to see more folks invite their friends to Twitter or discover our service through various integrations made possible by our API,” he continued. Seems the company’s expectation has been met.

Paul Graham, another of this year’s SVOC speakers, shared investment advice. “Look for things that are evil, broken or stupid,” he told attendees. “These are usually great opportunities.”

Graham is co-founder of Y Combinator, an investment house that bucks investing trends by throwing small sums of money – usually less than $20,000 – at start-ups in their earliest stages in exchange for small stakes in the companies’ futures. Further, Y Combinator funds start-ups in batches, two per year, during which the founders from all the different fledgling companies come together for a boot camp of sorts at the investment house’s Silicon Valley headquarters.

Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford, which has established itself as a leading European event for debate and networking in the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship, is just one example of Saïd’s focus on innovation. All Oxford MBAs complete a required two-term Entrepreneurial Project culminating in the presentation of a business plan to panels of experts and venture capitalists.

Additionally, Saïd is home to not one but two major centers of entrepreneurship, the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, established by ebay founder Jeff Skoll, and Oxford Science Enterprise Centre, which sets out to provide scientists with critical business skills. Finally, several faculty and staff are actively involved in research relating to entrepreneurship and innovation. For more on entrepreneurship at Oxford, click here.

Clear Admit Interview Guides!

With Round One interviews in full swing, we wanted to share the details of an exciting new resource for applicants: Clear Admit Interview Guides!

The Clear Admit Interview Guides are designed to provide school-specific insight and strategic advice to help applicants ace their admissions interviews. Based on our years of MBA admissions experience and our work with hundreds of applicants to the leading programs, each Clear Admit Interview Gu