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

• Admissions Tips
• Campus Chronicles
• Deadlines
• Essay Topic Analysis
• Essay Topics
• Events
• Fridays from the Frontline
• General
• GMAT News
• GMAT Tips
• Interview Guides
• Interview Tips
• MBA News
• Part-Time MBA
• Part-Time/Executive MBA
• Pre-Matriculation Tips
• Rankings
• School Guides
• School: Berkeley / Haas
• School: Cambridge
• School: Chicago
• School: CMU / Tepper
• School: Columbia
• School: Cornell / Johnson
• School: Dartmouth / Tuck
• School: Duke / Fuqua
• School: Emory / Goizueta
• School: ESADE
• School: Georgetown
• School: Harvard
• School: IE
• School: IESE
• School: IMD
• School: INSEAD
• School: ISB
• School: London Business School
• School: Michigan / Ross
• School: MIT / Sloan
• School: Northwestern / Kellogg
• School: NYU Stern
• School: Oxford
• School: Penn / Wharton
• School: Stanford
• School: UCLA / Anderson
• School: UNC / Kenan Flagler
• School: UT Austin / McCombs
• School: Virginia / Darden
• School: Yale
• Trivia Tuesday
• Uncategorized
• Waitlist Advice
• Which School Wednesdays
• Wiki Wednesdays
• Workbook Wednesdays

School Rankings
Rankings are a good way to start your research on various MBA Programs. Keep in mind each uses a different methodology.
Business Week
Economist
Financial Times
Forbes
USNews
Wall Street Journal

• knowledge@wharton
• INSEAD Knowledge
• Harvard Working Knowledge
• Knowledge @ Emory
• Columbia Ideas @ Work
• knowledge@ W. P. Carey

Blog Archive

• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• August 2006
• July 2006
• June 2006
• May 2006
• April 2006
• March 2006
• February 2006
• January 2006
• December 2005
• November 2005
• October 2005
• September 2005
• August 2005
• July 2005
• June 2005
• May 2005
• April 2005
• March 2005
• February 2005
• January 2005
• December 2004
• November 2004
• October 2004
• September 2004
• August 2004
• July 2004
• June 2004
• May 2004
• April 2004
• March 2004
• February 2004
• January 2004
• December 2003
• November 2003
• October 2003
• September 2003
• August 2003
• July 2003
• June 2003

Submit a report to the Clear Admit Wiki, win $10 to iTunes!

ARCHIVE FOR DECEMBER 2007

Monday, December 31, 2007

Yale Students Travel the World to Study, Meet Prospective Applicants

So you’re interested in Yale’s School of Management (SOM), but Connecticut is not in your immediate travel plans. No problem. Yale students are hitting the road over winter break to share their experiences with prospective applicants around the globe.

Through a series of “winter socials,” current Yale SOM students are traveling the globe and meeting with prospective applicants to share information about the school and its programs and answer questions about the application process. Included among the stops so far have been Austin, Cleveland, Geneva, Mumbai and Ho Chi Minh City. Still ahead in the first weeks of January are Bangkok, Istanbul, Los Angeles and Seattle. In total, 23 events were planned.

According to Bruce Delmonico, Yale SOM director of admissions, the socials give prospective applicants who might not otherwise be able to travel to campus a chance to interact with current students. “I think it’s a testament to the school that students are so willing to take time out on their breaks to organize these events,” he said in a release. “It speaks volumes about the level of support and enthusiasm that exists here for the school.”

Some of the socials were hosted by students traveling on their own over the winter break, but many were planned in accordance with the Yale International Experience, a mandatory component of the Yale Management Integrated Curriculum, in which all MBAs travel to one of 11 destinations on four continents for a unique immersion experience integral to the Yale management curriculum.

Over the course of the trips, students engage in intensive study, meet with local business, government and NGO leaders, and complete individual and group projects. In preparation, they devote a segment of the fall semester researching industries in the regions where they will travel, giving presentations to fellow classmates and hearing from experts on the region. A culminating State and Society course in the spring semester when they return to Yale will focus on cases specific to the regions they have traveled to, helping to further integrate the international experience with the Yale curriculum.

So whether you live in Singapore and want to catch Yale students while they are in your city, or you live in Spokane and want to hear from students who have traveled to South Africa as part of their studies, don’t miss these winter socials.

Round Two Recap and Advice

As we prepare to bid goodbye to 2007 and greet the deadline-packed first month of 2008, we would like to take the opportunity to recap the upcoming Round Two deadlines and offer some advice for hardworking applicants.

First, a summary of this month’s deadlines:

Wednesday, January 2nd -
UCLA Anderson, 11:59 p.m. PST

Thursday, January 3rd -
Harvard Business School, 5:00 p.m. EST
Wharton School, 5:00 p.m. EST
Duke/Fuqua, 11:59 p.m. EST
Michigan/Ross, 11:59 p.m. EST
UVA/Darden, 11:59 p.m. EST

Friday, January 4th -
London Business School, Noon EST
UNC Kenan-Flagler, 11:59 p.m. EST

Monday, January 7th -
Stanford GSB, 5:00 p.m. PST
Carnegie Mellon Tepper, 11:59 p.m. EST

Wednesday, January 9th -
Dartmouth/Tuck, 5:00 p.m. EST
Yale SOM, 5:00 p.m. EST
Chicago GSB, 5:00 p.m. CST
Cornell/Johnson, 11:59 p.m. EST
Columbia Regular Decision review begins (rolling)

Friday, January 11th -
Northwestern/Kellogg, 11:59 p.m. CST

Tuesday, January 15th -
MIT Sloan, Noon PST
NYU Stern, 11:59 p.m. EST

For those candidates who have already submitted their Round Two applications, we wish you a hearty congratulations and an exciting New Year’s Eve. However, for the many applicants still working feverishly to finish, we offer a few pieces of last minute advice:

1) Prioritize. The difference between a January 3rd and 9th deadline didn’t matter much when you started working on your applications in the fall. However, with just a few days remaining, make sure you are taking deadlines into account as you prioritize your work. Though your MIT Sloan essays may need the most revising, save that polishing until after you turn in the Wharton application on the 3rd.  Similarly, for those of you really facing the crunch, you may need to take a step back and pare down your list of target schools, as it’s better to submit three or four solid applications than it is to turn in six half-baked efforts.

2) Proof. Tired of reading the same essay for the 19th time? Ask a friend or family member to provide a final read through, checking for grammar, punctuation, typos, and other easy to miss mistakes. Don’t let a careless error be what the admissions committee first notices about your application.

3) Get a good night’s sleep! While New Year’s celebrations will offer a tempting distraction, remember that clear writing comes from clear thinking, and clear thinking is helped by a good night’s sleep. Ring in the new year, but save the real partying for after the application deadlines!

4) Avoid Loose Ends. While focusing frantically on essays is likely a high priority, do not overlook the fact that there are other components to your application package.  Have you checked with your recommenders to ensure that they’ve done their part?  Have you gathered any needed information for transcript reports?  Have you worked on the application forms (employment history, activities listings, etc)?  In the rush to submit many applicants overlook these critical areas, resulting in an inconsistent application.  

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Wharton Website Offline

As of late yesterday, it seems that Wharton’s main web site is down.  Most visitors to http://wharton.upenn.edu have been getting the following message:

Server Error

——————————————————————————–

Either the Macromedia application server is unreachable or it does not have a mapping to process this request.

For those of you who are frantically trying to work on your R2 applications to Wharton and are used to accessing your online application via the school’s main web site, the best work around is to simply go directly to: https://app.applyyourself.com/?id=UPENN-GSB.  Since the online application is hosted by an off-site vendor (ApplyYourself), it remains up and running despite Wharton’s problems with their own web site.

Of course, this doesn’t help those of you who are still hoping to comb through the pages of the school’s site and gather facts for your application essays.  The good news is that Wharton has traditionally been very prompt about fixing these kinds of errors, and that the student2student forums are up and running if you want to pose questions to fellow applicants or members of the Wharton community.  You might also explore the ‘Wharton’ category of this blog for facts about the program.

Best of luck to those applicants who are working on applications this weekend!

Changes at the Core: Columbia Curriculum to Include More Choices in 2008

In early December, Columbia Business School announced that it plans to shake things up a little. The school will revamp its core curriculum in 2008 in an effort to give students more of an opportunity to tailor their business education to meet specific individual career goals. 

Make no mistake. The fundamentals are not getting tossed. All students will still be expected to complete several required courses, including finance, accounting, leadership and strategy. But in the new core, the number of required first-year courses has been reduced from nine to six, freeing students up to choose from a range of eight electives spread across three main categories in their second semester. These electives constitute the “flexible” part of the new core.

The categories of the new electives are Organizations, Performance and Markets. “They represent a cross section of areas that we wanted to make sure students had as part of their foundation, but where we wanted to also give students a little more flexibility to tailor that material to their career interests,” Paul Glasserman, the Jack R. Anderson professor of business and senior vice-dean at Columbia, told BusinessWeek in an article posted last week. 

Within the Organizations bucket, students can select from Organizational Change, Power and Influence, and Social Capital. In the category of Performance, they can opt for Operations Strategy or Performance Measurement. And for Markets courses, they can choose between Game Theory, Global Economic Environment II: Business Cycles and Financial Markets and Strategy, Structure and Incentives. Some of these courses will be available beginning in spring 2008, and all will be offered by spring 2009.

The choices individual students make within the flexible component of the core can help them shape their education to fit specific career interests or goals, says Glasserman. “For example, under Markets, which includes courses in economics, some students interested in a career in strategy consulting might choose an economics course that would fit with that objective,” he told BW. Meanwhile, all students will get the necessary fundamentals of managerial economics and macroeconomics as part of the required part of the core, he continued.

The changes to the core were put into motion following a unanimous vote last May by a committee convened by Columbia Dean Glenn Hubbard. “The whole process of reviewing the curriculum was a very positive one,” Glasserman, who served on the committee, told BW. “This really was the outgrowth of a faculty effort,” he added.

Students and corporate recruiters, too, provided input into the core changes, according to Glasserman. In addition to completing teaching and course evaluations, students also were asked to participate in focus groups as part of the review of existing courses. Columbia also brought in representatives from six consulting firms to provide targeted feedback on the proposed syllabi for some of the new courses, which Glasserman anticipates will be done in other areas as well.

Students’ concern about being prepared for summer internships was a major driver toward increasing flexibility in the core curriculum for the first year, Glasserman says. “Being able to take more electives in the first year allows them to tailor some of the foundational knowledge to what they plan to do during the summer,” he said.

But the faculty felt strongly that this flexibility should not come at the expense of providing a strong educational foundation for the rest of their careers, Glasserman continued. The resulting core, with its required and flexible parts, attempts to strike a balance between the two.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Fridays From the Frontline

Welcome back to another Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit’s weekly trek through MBA blogging terrain.  From voyeurism to idealism, applicants ran the gamut this week; current students were busy recollecting and reflecting, with a splash of globe trotting, too.  Let’s check in with our bloggers for some firsthand accounts…

Miss Curly Bee spent her holidays sick in bed, and when she got sick of writing essays in bed, she revitalized herself with a trip to the BusinessWeek forums, the Jerry Springer of the b-school world – if she had it her way!  Entertaining a slightly more honorable distraction, B-School Bound pondered his position between the rock of arrogantly announcing his acceptances to the world and the hard place of keeping quiet and seeming ungrateful to those who dared to bear with him throughout the ordeal.  Speaking of ordeals, Wannabe’s gone through 52 versions of Chicago’s whopping essay 1 so far, and still isn’t done!

Meanwhile, Mbarunnergirl qualified her previous elation on acceptance at Chicago with the shocker that she’d been hoarding a Columbia admit for a whole week prior!  After an essay-worthy ethical dilemma, she decided to honor her Early Decision commitment to Columbia, because it felt like the right thing to do.  Also facing a tough decision was Mbabound08 – to attend Haas or not to attend Haas?  She also kindly pointed out that we’ve been in a bit of a pickle ourselves as to her gender…

Reporting back from the first-year arena, Anand offered a play-by-play account of a typical day in “Black November” – the heart of Darden’s workaholic second semester.  UniQpath was also hard at work, stopping for a moment to celebrate her fourth-of-the-way point at Wharton, warning that the rigors of the school’s MBA so far will put any engineering program to shame. In Singapore, Necromonger shared some photos of the INSEAD building’s futuristic interior, while MBAStarter came to the last-minute rescue of last-minute applicants, posting a Fuqua essay primer for those Duke hopefuls just digging into the school’s substantial set.

Second-year posts were slim this week, and perhaps schedules like Ash’s explain why: After spending the week acclimating a group of Indian Institute of Management students to Stanford, he set off on a whirlwind Korea study trip… next stop, Machu Picchu – where else?!  Laying local, La Lauderia coined a new term and made plans for a new year filled with friends and adventure, while John sent out a call for posting requests.

And that just about rounds off this week’s run down.  See you right back here next year (a.k.a next week!) for the latest breaking news on Fridays From the Frontline…  And of course, best wishes for a safe and joyful New Years!

GMAT Volume Update; Increased Competition at Leading MBA Programs

The latest figures from the Graduate Management Admissions Council, makers of the GMAT exam, indicate that both registration and test-taker volume have clearly been on the rise in 2007.  The number of candidates who registered for the exam from January 1st through November 30th of 2007 is nearly 12% greater than the number of registrations for the same time period in 2006.  In addition, the number of actual tests taken through November 30th of 2007 has risen by more than 13%.  This means that not only are more candidates registering for the exam, but more of them are actually taking it than in years past. 

These figures from GMAC seem to corroborate the application volume news we’ve been hearing from leading MBA programs (most claim to be seeing at least 10% more applications vs. last year at this point).  Stay tuned to this blog for continued updates on how this year’s applicant pool is shaping up and what it means for the level of competition at leading MBA programs.

For all the official details on GMAT volume, click here.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Fuqua Expansion Enters Final Phase with New Classroom Building Construction

Though perhaps not as crucial a consideration as curriculum or faculty, a school’s physical environment does play into the decision of where to pursue a graduate education. With this in mind, those of us here at Clear Admit want to keep you up to date on the changing architectural landscape at the world’s top schools. Today we’ll take a look at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, which has recently embarked on the third and final phase of a facilities expansion begun in 1998.

Fuqua has enjoyed rapid growth since its original facilities were constructed in 1981, at which point the school consisted of 148,000 square feet of space in the current Keller East and West buildings. The first expansion took place in 1989, with the construction of the R. David Thomas Executive Conference Center, designed by Edward Larabee Barnes, who also designed the original facilities.

In 1998, with the school once again stretching the limits of its capacity, a second architectural team, Perkins & Will, was called on to create a campus master plan that would include a new faculty building, student center and classroom building. The Magat Academic Center and Fox Student Center were completed in 1999 and 2002 respectively, more than doubling the campus’s original size and bringing total space to 400,000 square feet.

In November of this year, the final stage of the Perkins & Will expansion plan began, with the construction of a new classroom building that will include state-of-the-art lecture halls; two new auditoriums; a new, larger library and a team room suite, as well as additional offices and multipurpose spaces.

The new classroom building will face onto East Science Drive and will serve as the “front door” to the school for prospective and existing students as well as corporate recruiters. In keeping with the existing architecture of Duke academic buildings, the entrance to the new building will be through a tower made of Duke stone. The building in fact will rise five stories from its ground floor, located 30 feet below the road, creating an outward facing tower façade whose height matches that of other campus towers.

The new building will feature a two-and-a-half story lobby affording interior views down to the atrium and library below. A central open-tread monumental staircase will connect from the lobby to the ground floor level.

Once complete, the new classroom building will house the daytime and executive MBA admissions offices, complete with six dedicated interview rooms and gracious waiting areas for prospective students. The offices for Executive MBA Operations will also shift to the new building, which will provide additional space in the existing Magat Academic Center for faculty and research centers. The Center for Excellence in Business Education also will find its home in the new building and will include instructional technology R&D, distance pedagogy and support for the executive programs.

A three-story atrium and two-story library will connect the new tower with the existing Keller East tower. This translucent connecting space will join the pre-cast towers in a way that provides the public spaces surrounding the buildings with both ample light and a view of the activity within the school, while also creating large, airy interior spaces that take full advantage of the serene surrounding wooded landscape.

The new library formed as part of this connecting space will be double the size of the existing Ford Library. It will be home to a flexible reading room that can be rearranged as dictated by the evolving nature of business resource materials. Ample and comfortable seating is planned, to allow students plenty of room in which to spread out and study.

Finally, on the mall level, new classrooms and small auditoriums will continue the line of existing classrooms in the Keller East tower. The new lecture rooms will all feature state-of-the-art audio-video capabilities. The spaces will maintain the in-room interactive layout of current tiered classrooms, but they will also be designed to be reconfigured for distance learning as necessary. A suite of team rooms will be located to the south of the lecture rooms.

Construction Timeline
So this all sounds great, but when will it become a reality? In fact, work is already underway. Beginning this past summer, utility lines running under the front entrance to the East Keller tower were relocated to clear the footprint of the new classroom building for construction. An interim asphalt pathway is being constructed from the 751 parking lot through the woods to the back of the Fox Student Center. This lighted path with emergency phones will provide access for students during construction. Construction on the building itself began in November and is slated for completion by August 2008.

Further renovation of existing spaces will follow the new building’s construction. Meanwhile, fundraising efforts for the expansion and additional renovation continue. Donations from alumni and friends have helped Fuqua raise $13 million toward the project’s estimated $40 million cost.

To view a gallery of renderings, site plans and elevations for the new classroom building, click here. For a live web cam view of ongoing construction, click here.

We’ll plan to provide periodic snapshots of changes underway on business school campuses in this space going forward. If you know of construction projects that you think would interest our readership, please email press AT clearadmit.com.

Admissions Tip: The Comparison Trap

Picking up the thread we began earlier this month of essay-writing tips for Round Two applicants, we wanted to take some time today to discuss a frequently-made mistake in the application process. In their desire to make their case to their target MBA programs, many applicants devote sentences and even paragraphs to explaining why the school in question is their “first choice” and arguing its superiority over other schools.

Though certainly understandable, this is actually not a very productive exercise. Let’s consider a few reasons why, from the schools’ point of view:

Tell me something I don’t know. A popular strategy - and not always bad one - for applicants seeking to demonstrate their fit with one school above any other is to study its website to understand the program’s self-determined selling points, and then profess an interest in those. The thing that essay writers don’t always consider is that while a school’s distinguishing characteristics might be the factors that set it apart from others, this is not necessarily what the admissions committee wants to read about in an applicant’s essays. The very admissions officer reading your file spends months every year pushing this marketing message out to prospective students. Members of Harvard’s and Darden’s admissions staff know all about the merits of the case method, Kellogg and Duke’s admissions committees are already up to their ears in team-orientation, and Stanford and Yale could not be more aware of the benefits of a small class size. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t touch briefly on these key points (the schools highlight these for a reason), only to suggest that to put together a really compelling application, it’s important to push beyond high-level differentiators and immediate association and demonstrate that you’ve learned about the program on a deeper level. In making room for this level of detail within a restrictive word limit, cutting other schools out of the picture is a great starting point.

Enough about us, let’s talk about you. It’s not uncommon for applicants to become so engrossed in explaining how their target program differs from other business schools that they neglect to really articulate how their own interests, personality and preferences fit into the picture. Very nearly every school requires that prospective students compose an essay explaining how the MBA program will help them accomplish their goals, but there’s not a single one that adds “better than any other MBA program.” Though several schools do explicitly inquire about other target programs if an applicant advances to an interview, at this early point the adcom is much more interested in hearing about the candidate and his or her fit with the school. It’s a bit premature to assure a school that it’s your #1 when the adcom hasn’t even decided whether they’re interested. Better to use all the space at your disposal in the essays to cover your experiences and accomplishments, share your aspirations and showcase your research on the MBA program.

I bet you say that to all the girls. Seriously, though, if an applicant goes out of his way to profess that Chicago is the best school for him, is his first choice, etc., the GSB really has no assurance that this applicant hasn’t written an equally passionate love letter to regional rival Kellogg. If a strategy seems likely to work in one place, might as well use it everyplace, right? Yes, it’s generally true that schools prefer to admit students who are excited about their program and seem likely to attend, but actions speak louder than words. The details of campus visits and conversations with students and alumni are far better topics to cover in your essays. To invoke a classic essay-writing maxim, “show, don’t tell” the adcom that you care. Further, the best way to convince the adcom that you “only have eyes for their school” is to not mention any other school at all.

We hope that this offers a number of helpful “do”s to offset this big essay “don’t.” It’s true that the deadlines are looming, but there is still plenty of time to get an in-depth understanding of your target MBA programs and engage members of the community. Happy writing and researching!

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Oxford’s Saïd Business School Launches New Blog

Oxford’s Saïd School of Business last week launched a new blogging site, BusinessBlogs@Oxford, designed to provide a glimpse into the lives and activities of current students in the school’s MBA, Executive MBA and Msc in Financial Economics programs. 

The blog, which is maintained by Saïd’s marketing and admissions department, features posts by current students as well as links to students’ posts on other sites. There is also an extensive resources section, providing information about the Oxford admissions process, GMAT and TOFEL information, a link to the Financial Times MBA rankings and – we are proud to say - a link to Clear Admit.

In recent posts, students have given their views on the college system (specifically, what it’s like as a B-school student to have occasion to intermingle with students pursuing other studies), the Oxford Entrepreneurship Project and even the weather (according to one student from Oregon, it’s not that bad!).

There is also a significant section devoted to fun, including everything from a catalog of spots on Oxford’s campus featured in the Harry Potter films to a YouTube clip of B-school students drumming out their stress as part of a team building exercise in the school’s amphitheater.

A great new resource, especially if Saïd is on your list of target schools. Good luck to everyone working toward fast approaching application deadlines!

Admissions Tip: Navigating the Waitlist

While the past few weeks have seen a number of admits and rejections handed down to round one MBA applicants, the fate of many remains uncertain. There is no reason for waitlisted candidates to lose hope, as the top programs admit a fair number of individuals from the waitlist in round two and thereafter, but we know that cautious optimism does not make the wait for an answer any easier. To help those in this situation make sure that they’re doing all they can, we wanted to share a few waitlist tips:

1. Know - and follow - the rules. Schools vary in their stances when it comes to interaction with those on the waitlist; some shun communication from applicants and even go so far as to discourage on-the-record campus visits, whereas others welcome correspondence and assign waitlisted candidates to an admissions office liaison. We know that the natural impulse is to reach out to the adcom and update them on that recent promotion or the final grade from that accounting class you took to bolster your academic profile. At first blush, it might seem that there’s no harm in sending a short letter or making a call, but no matter how exciting the information you wish to communicate, ignoring the adcom’s instructions is ultimately going to reflect badly on you. Though such a policy may seem frustrating or unfair, it’s important to respect and abide by the preferences of each school. 

2. Communicate if you can. For those programs that do permit or encourage contact from waitlisters, it’s absolutely a good idea to send an update. In addition to the obvious news items mentioned above, it’s beneficial to read over your essays and reflect on whether there is some piece of your background or interests that you haven’t gotten across yet. Taking the time to write about your relevant recent experiences, positive developments in your candidacy and ways that you’ve enhanced your understanding of the program is a nice sign of your interest in the program, and is a good strategy for telegraphing your commitment to attending. It is, of course, also in your interest to make sure that the adcom has the most up to date information so that they can make an informed decision the next time your file comes up for evaluation.

3. Keep in touch. Don’t disappear after an initial note to the adcom or phone call to your waitlist manager (if applicable). If you have plans to be on or near campus, for instance, send a quick email to alert your waitlist manager (or whoever you may have interacted with on the adcom) to alert them to this fact.  In many cases you’ll find that the adcom offers to have you stop by for a friendly chat about your candidacy - something that can go a long way towards helping your case.  Beyond a visit, sending a brief update every few weeks or so is another way to reaffirm your interest in the school and keep you fresh in the minds of the adcom - something that could work to your advantage in a discussion of which candidates to admit from the waitlist.  In all cases, it is important to remember that there is a fine line between persistance and pestering, so please use good judgment!

4. Have a contingency plan. While it’s important to do be consistent and enthusiastic when waitlisted and communicating with staff at your target program, it’s also wise to have a backup plan. With the round two deadlines for several top programs about 1-2 weeks away, there’s still time to put together a solid application to another school. Even if you’re waitlisted at the school of your dreams and intend to reapply if not admitted, it’s also never too early to start thinking about the coming year and what steps you might take to enhance your candidacy before next fall.

Best of luck to those of you playing the waiting game, and feel free to contact us at info@clearadmit.com to learn about our application feedback and waitlist counseling services. Hang in there!

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you and your family a wonderful holiday season!

-The Clear Admit Team

Monday, December 24, 2007

Johnson Students Devote Time, Muscle to Giving Back in New Orleans

In the last of our series of posts about MBA students giving back around the holidays, we’ll take a look at a group from Cornell’s Johnson School of Business who spent a week in mid-December volunteering for the New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity (NOAHH).

Led by Jim Bride (MBA ’08), the team of 10 students headed to St. Bernard Parish, one of the communities most devastated by Hurricanes Katarina and Rita, on December 10th. Staying at Camp Hope, a converted school that provides basic housing for volunteers, the students worked with NOAHH to construct new homes in an area where every residential and commercial unit suffered significant structural damage in the storms. With help from students like those from Johnson, NOAHH hopes to build more than 1,500 new homes in the New Orleans area over the next five years.

In fact, the Johnson students’ work began long before they picked up hammers in New Orleans. A significant fundraising campaign preceded the trip, aimed at helping offset the travel and accommodation fees for the group. Dawn Randall (MBA ‘08) and Michelle Wonsley (MBA/ILR ‘08) led the effort, soliciting corporate donations from Chevron, Pixel Lounge, Maxies Super Club, and Triad Foundation, as well as student organization donations from the Healthcare and Biotech Club, Net Impact, and the Strategic HR, Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness Group. These, combined with alumni donations and grassroots fundraisers including a bake sale and pasta dinners, helped raise more than $7,000. In addition to travel and accommodation expenses for the group, the funds raised also provided for a $1,500 donation to NOAHH.

The December trip was a return to the storm-ravaged area for several of the participants. Bride spent several weeks in Mississippi in the fall of 2005 and felt compelled to return while in business school. “I wanted to do my part to address the devastation that has affected over a million Americans,” he said. “While in Mississippi, I was amazed at the destruction wrought by nature, but also deeply moved by the resilience of the people that I met.”

Another student, Ben Rollins (MBA ‘09), worked with a different chapter of Habitat for Humanity the year before he came to Johnson, helping families rebuild in the storm-ravaged community of Beaumont, Texas “I worked alongside several families who had lost everything in the hurricane, but they were extremely grateful to Habitat and all the volunteers for helping them get back into a home,” he said. “Seeing the struggles in the area gave me a greater appreciation for all that my wife and I have been blessed with.”

Our thanks here at Clear Admit go out to the many MBA students in programs around the globe who have shown that even amidst a hectic business school schedule, there’s still ample time and opportunity to give back if you look for it. Happy holidays everyone!

Trivia Tuesday: Pre-Deadline Holiday Roundup

Welcome to special holiday edition of Trivia Tuesday!

With Round Two application deadlines rapidly approaching, we would like to highlight an important component of application success: a candidate’s ability to convey enthusiasm for and fit with the target school. The best way to convey this fit is through an in-depth understanding of the school’s culture and of the ways in which you could gain from and contribute to the program as a student.  Of course, as many applicants rush to assemble their essays for the January deadlines, this is one aspect of the process that falls by the wayside far too often - usually with disastrous effects on the application since candidates are unable to convince the MBA programs of their interest. 

With this in mind, we offer a round-up of previous Trivia Tuesday entries - the distinguishing details presented in these columns are a great starting point for gaining the in-depth knowledge needed to ace your essays!

First-Year Experience: Yale’s First-Year Class, Teamwork at Harvard, Kellogg & Wharton, Academic Commitment (Darden), Immersion Programs (Cornell Johnson)

International Opportunities: Wharton’s Lauder Program, International Study Trips (Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, NYU Stern, Wharton), International Management Certificates (Berkeley Haas, UCLA Anderson), M-Treks (Ross), International Orientations (Harvard, MIT Sloan, Tuck), International Consulting (Berkeley Haas)

Special Academic Programs: Health Care Management (Fuqua), Non-Profit Management (Yale), Applied Management Research (UCLA Anderson), Summer Start (NYU Stern), Independent Activities Period (MIT Sloan), New Venture Support (Cornell Johnson, Michigan Ross)

All of the content in the blog entries above has been culled from the Clear Admit School Guides.  Candidates who are looking for in-depth information and comparative analysis across the leading programs should strongly consider investigating our downloadable School Guides.  These publications can be of great assistance as one brushes up on the distinctive elements of their target programs in preparation for a great application.  Ordering the School Guides is easy, and delivery is immediate via download - which means that you will be able to promptly gather the needed details on a major, professor, club or program to polish up your application essays!

Best of luck to those of you who are presently drafting essays for R2! 

Friday, December 21, 2007

Tuck MBA Fellows Rank Top Tech Toys for the Year

To help guide parents through the gift-giving season – especially in the aftermath of several highly publicized toy recalls – MBA Fellows at Tuck’s Center for Digital Strategies have ranked their picks for the top tech toys of 2007.

Developed under the direction of management professor Eric Johnson, a supply chain management expert who has studied the toy industry, the list provides recommendations for all age levels from infant to adult. Top picks include magnetic building blocks for tiny tots that double as floating bath toys, a talking ball that reinvents the game of catch and a musical toothbrush to encourage thorough brushing with songs by the Black Eyed Peas, Hillary Duff, the Beach Boys and others.

“We picked what we thought were the best new tech toys for various age groups based on the use of the technology and the play value,” said Tuck second-year student Shilpa Karnik. Karnik is one of seven MBA Fellows at Tuck this year. The MBA Fellows Program is designed for second-year students interested in digital technology and its impact on the business world.

In addition to testing and ranking the toys, the MBA Fellows also provided an on-campus demonstration of their top picks in mid-November, accompanied by a toy donation drive to benefit Toys for Tots.

A benefit to parents, certainly, the MBA Fellows’ focus on toys is also good business training. In fact, Johnson, who is the director of the Center of Digital Studies at Tuck, has centered much of his supply chain research around the toy industry, where short product lifestyles provide ever changing opportunities to learn.

“They’re like the fruit flies of business,” Johnson says. “You see toys go through many cycles quickly compared to other products.” The toy sector is also on the leading edge of low-cost sourcing, Johnson adds, and therefore often helps predict manufacturing trends in other sectors.

To see the full list of top tech toy picks from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, click here.

Fridays From the Frontline

Welcome back to this week’s Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit’s weekly report on current events in the MBA blogosphere. With visions of admits dancing in their heads, applicants were in a frenzy this week, while current students found themselves rather nostalgic for acceptances past. Let’s hear what all the buzz was about…

Congratulations to B-School Bound, who found himself among the ranks accepted at Wharton. On the other hand, his “now at least I know I’ll be going somewhere next year” sentiment probably found him little company! To his credit, later in the day he sounded a bit more excited… Our congratulations also go out to Power Leveler, whose “Yes” from INSEAD (complete with her first homework assignment) rescued what was otherwise shaping up to be a pretty dismal week.

Sadly, the yes/no limbo isn’t over for Bschool Diva, who got the old “hurry up and wait” from the Chicago GSB adcom, while Wannabe meditated on a ding with sting from Tuck, not to mention the future of his blog. Mbabound08 stuck to the basics regarding his Wharton news: No he didn’t get in, and no he didn’t want to go anyway, at least not to Philly. But what’s there to hate about “the city that loves you back”?!

Reminiscing on this glorious day last year, Jat congratulated Tuck’s Early Action admits, urging them to start getting to know each other through the online Tuck community. However, Forrest felt for those still in the waiting game, offering some insightful advice on escaping the waitlist at the GSB and elsewhere. Necromonger was also in an altruistic mood, continuing his resume tutorial with the top five CV dos and don’ts.

In Cambridge, AGirlsMBA checked back in after a lengthy hiatus, extolling her peers, profs, section, the case method, the social life… pretty much everything about life at HBS! In blustery New York City, Iday was also feeling pretty peachy, despite kicking off his trip to the big apple in the hotel lobby for several hours.

On the second-year front, John apprised fellow students of the many viable marketing internship opportunities knocking on the door at CBS. Meanwhile, Rahul turned 30 at Kellogg, celebrating by studying for the next day’s Bankruptcy exam. Oh, does anyone remember Mbagladiator? He reappeared after what sounds to have been a very focused absence with news that his fundraising dreams will come true as Associate Director at CCS fundraising! Also notable were some mouthwatering pics of his SOM study group’s holiday Turducken meal. Jacek returned this week, too – to ESADE after three months in Africa, that is, finding his first breaths of European winter like a cold shower on a sweltering day.

And that about wraps up this week’s wrap up! So you can get back to wrapping up your presents, but please don’t forget to check back with us next week for a shiny new edition of Fridays From the Frontline!

One Last MBA Search Survey (and iPod!) Reminder

So far we have heard from many people interested in sharing their thoughts on MBA programs, but we would still love your input. We’ve extended the survey deadline to Sunday, December 23rd in hopes that a few more of our readers find a few moments to complete our 10-minute online survey.  By completing the survey you will help shape the future content of this web site and ensure that we are providing MBA applicants with a valued resource.

After completing the survey, enter to win an iPod Touch or one of four new iPod Nanos!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Haas and Stern Interview Guides Available!

With the release of NYU Stern School of Business late last week and the launch of UC Berkeley Haas today, the Clear Admit Interview Guide catalog has 10 available titles:

Chicago Graduate School of Business
Columbia Buisness School
Haas School of Business
Harvard Business School
Kellogg School of Management
MIT Sloan School of Management
NYU Stern School of Business
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Tuck School of Business
Wharton School

For more information, check out our Interview Guide announcement post or visit the Clear Admit shop.   Good luck to all round one applicants who are still in the midst of this process!

‘Tis the Season: MBAs Give Toys, Tips, Time

In the midst of this season of holiday exchanges, MBAs at top U.S. schools are taking time out of their studies for – and, in some instances, even devoting their studies toward – giving. In a series of posts over the next few days, we’ll look at how students in management programs around the country are helping donated toys find their way to needy children, rebuilding houses in storm-ravaged communities and helping parents make informed gift-giving decisions by ranking the year’s top toys.

Kellogg Students Play Santa

At Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, the student-run organization Business With a Heart (BWAH) is in the midst of its annual Holiday Gift Drive, which will help grant the holiday wishes of approximately 500 needy children in the greater Evanston area this season.

The drive is organized in conjunction with Family Focus (a Peoria-based family services center with branches in Chicago and Evanston), Evanston’s Oakton Elementary School and area youth resources and support center Youth Organizations Umbrella. BWAH members, who this year number more than 400, volunteer their time collecting “wishes” from children, marketing the event on campus and then gathering and wrapping donated gifts.

Included among the gifts this year was a shipment of Barbie dolls and trucks donated by Mattell for Kellogg’s pre-term Complete Immersion in Management orientation week. Though the students’ appreciated Mattell’s gesture in donating the toys to the “boys and girls of Kellogg,” BWAH immediately saw their more valuable re-gifting potential, according to Kellogg Student Activities Director Wendy Metter.

Metter serves as a community liaison between BWAH and the charitable organizations it works with – providing a consistent contact as the student-run group’s members change with each new MBA class. Thanks to the efforts of BWAH, the donated dolls and trucks will find their way to a local women’s shelter and the YMCA, Metter says. “Kellogg students are not just in the business of business, they are in the business of giving back,” she adds.

Kellogg’s commitment to bettering the Evanston community it is a part of was a major draw for BWAH President Andrea Courtois. “As I was looking for an MBA program one of my key decision points was the school’s community service and emphasis on social responsibility,” she told Kellogg School of Management News. BWAH immediately caught her eye during her school search because of its breadth of opportunities and the impact it has on the larger community. “You don’t see that in a lot of other schools,” Courtois added.

Tune in again tomorrow, when we’ll turn to Tuck’s MBA Fellows to learn which of the tech toys for 2007 make the best use of technology while packing the greatest play value.

Wharton Admissions Decisions, R1 Wrap-Up

The waiting game has come to an end for many first-round applicants, as a number of leading programs - Chicago, Tuck, Cornell, UNC, Kellogg, Columbia and LBS among them - have been releasing admissions decisions over the past few weeks.  With Wharton releasing final decisions today to all round one applicants who were invited to interview, we thought this would be a good occasion to say good luck to everyone eagerly expecting news from that and other schools!

For those keeping track, here’s what the final notification calendar looks like for those programs that have yet to release all of their first-round admissions decisions to this crop of applicants:

Carnegie Mellon - December 21st
Cornell Johnson (R2) - January 11th
Michigan Ross - January 15th
Harvard - January 16th
Duke Fuqua- January 18th
UCLA - January 18th
Stanford - January 24th
MIT Sloan - January 28th
Berkeley Haas- January 29th
NYU Stern - February 15th

Again, best of luck to those waiting to hear, and congratulations to those who’ve already received some positive news!  Stay tuned to this blog in the coming weeks for advice on a range of topics such as deciding between schools, dealing with a ding, and navigating the waitlist.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Tepper Students Kick Off 2008 with East, West Coast Networking Trips

Lining up a summer internship or full-time position for after graduation tops the New Year’s resolution lists of many a current MBA student. At Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business, students get a helping hand thanks to two annual school-led tours of major job markets on the east and west coasts in early January.

Approximately 45 first- and second-year students are scheduled to depart for the West Coast on January 3rd as part of a seven-day tour that will include meetings with such top employers as Apple, Google, Cisco, HP, Intel, SAP, KLA-Tencor, Agilent and Yahoo! Additionally, the tour is scheduled to coincide with the West Coast Forum, a collaborative recruiting event with the MBA programs at Duke University, Yale University, Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina.

As a special feature this year, the West Coast trek will also include a Silicon Valley Technology Leadership panel at Yahoo! featuring Tepper School alumni, including Jeffrey Housenbold, CEO of Shutterfly,