Admissions Director Q&A Below are links to Clear Admit's exclusive interviews with MBA admissions directors at leading programs.
Application Deadlines Below are the upcoming deadlines for admission to the leading MBA programs.
Essay Topic Analysis Below are links to our comments on some of the leading programs' essay topics.
MBA Tipline We encourage admissions officers, students and applicants to alert us of interesting news and developments, please send an email to news@clearadmit.com so we can blog it. MBA Programs: North America If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
MBA Programs: The Rest of the World As there is some variety in the length of international MBA programs, we have denoted the length of the program next to its name (1 = one year; 2 = 2 years). If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
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Posted by Clear Admit on September 30, 2008, at 2:11 pm
“Brace yourselves – because we are!” read an email to Wharton School alumni sent last week. “We expect this to be one of our highest years in terms of applications received.”
Business school application volume has historically run counter to the economy, spiking in times of financial downturn. Accounting for the increase in volume are both those seeking simply to ride out the storm in school and those viewing a slowdown as an opportune time to obtain an advanced degree to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive job market.
The past couple of years have been no exception. GMAT test registration volume, which can be a good indicator of how many people are considering applying to business school, has been rising steadily.
According to the most . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 30, 2008, at 2:38 am
It’s time for another look at the programs, resources and opportunities that help differentiate the leading business schools. Today we will examine the options available to help incoming Fuqua students start the school year on the right foot.
All Fuqua first-year students participate in the recently-introduced, four-week Global Institute pre-term program. The Institute, held in August before the start of classes, consists of three core courses designed to help students gain a more nuanced understanding of the global business environment and enhance their collaborative leadership skills.
In addition to the mandatory Global Institute, Fuqua offers a Summer Math Review Course and a Language Institute in the weeks before New Student Orientation to help students build targeted skills before the start of classes. Although . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 29, 2008, at 11:47 am
Robert Joss, dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), announced last week that he will resign from his post at the end of the current academic year.
Joss, who will have served as dean for 10 years when he steps down, can claim many accomplishments during his tenure. Under his leadership, Stanford GSB developed and introduced a new MBA curriculum in the fall of 2007, planned and begun construction on a new environmentally sustainable campus expected to be complete in 2011, and nearly tripled its endowment, increasing it from $387 million in 1999 to $1 billion in 2008.
“Back in 1999, I never could have imagined how much we would have accomplished through the creativity of our faculty, staff . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 29, 2008, at 2:02 am
With MBA schools’ R1 deadlines just around the corner, we wanted to offer some words of advice about an often overlooked element of one’s file: the application data forms. All too often, we see candidates leave these online application forms for the last minute, even rushing to enter all the required information from work on ‘deadline day’. The truth is that a weak effort on these forms can do serious harm to one’s candidacy, as it might reflect poorly on the applicant’s professional polish or commitment to the application process. This being the case, here are a few tips for those who are in the midst of completing this component of the application:
1) Don’t be lazy. We know that many applicants . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 27, 2008, at 1:58 pm
With the nation squarely focused on the state of the economy and Congressional negotiations toward a bailout plan waging on, business schools, too, have kept the financial crisis at the forefront of their communications.
Harvard Business School’s Admission Director Dee Leopold yesterday posted an entry on her blog directed toward prospective applicants wondering how the current economic situation will impact upcoming admissions volumes and cycles.
According to Leopold, the Admissions Office at HBS has been receiving a new array of questions given the climate of uncertainty in the financial markets. Questions have ranged from whether or not HBS intends to increase the size of next year’s class and/or the number of admits from financial services in light of higher application volume to whether . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 26, 2008, at 6:07 pm
Partnering with the Wall Street Journal and CNBC, Yale School of Management (SOM) held a roundtable discussion Tuesday in New York on the current financial crisis, drawing together business leaders and scholars from Yale, Wharton, NYU, Columbia and Harvard to examine the state of the economy and the proposed Treasury Department bail-out plan.
“We were inspired by the outpouring of interest and the quick response to this event,” said its organizer, Yale SOM Senior Associate Dean Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. Planning began on Sunday night, and by Tuesday afternoon a staggering roster of economic thought leaders had assembled around the table to share their insights.
Among those in attendance were a former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the former executive chairman of . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 26, 2008, at 8:34 am
Sara Neher assumed the role of director of admissions at the University of Virginia’s Darden School two years ago. She came to Darden from just across campus, at UVA’s Jefferson Scholars Foundation. There, as director, she’d already been working with Darden in the course of launching the Darden Jefferson Fellowship. Now in its fourth year, the prestigious prize, awarded solely on the basis of merit, covers full tuition, fees and living expenses for the two-year MBA program for a few chosen students in each class.
Neher is no stranger to Charlottesville. She was an undergraduate there as well. But she left for long enough to get a solid grounding in the business world, including obtaining an MBA at Emory’s Goziueta . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 26, 2008, at 2:30 am
Hello and welcome back to Fridays From the Frontline, your weekly Clear Admit b-school stress bail out. Summer has officially ended and many might wonder what, exactly, happened to the first half of September? MBA students and aspirants continue to find new reserves of focus, determination and drive in order to manage their workloads (be they essays or case studies), let’s see how they’ve all done over the last seven days!
As October, the unofficial starter’s pistol of b-school application cycles, approaches all the planning and strategizing that ’11 aspirants have done is finally being put to the test. Ahembeea submitted his INSEAD application and shared his feelings on Wharton’s essays. Maverick, all planning aside, decided to apply . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 25, 2008, at 5:54 pm
Find the answer to yesterday’s Challenge Problem below!
Question
If n is a positive integer, what is n?
(1) 3^n – 1 has three prime factors, not necessarily distinct.
(2) n^2 = 2^n.
(A) Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient to answer the question, but statement (2) alone is not.
(B) Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient to answer the question, but statement (1) alone is not.
(C) Statements (1) and (2) TAKEN TOGETHER are sufficient to answer the question, but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient.
(D) EACH statement ALONE is sufficient to answer the question.
(E) Statements (1) and (2) TAKEN TOGETHER are NOT sufficient to answer the question.
Answer
The given information simply guarantees that n is a positive integer.
Statement (1) indicates that 3^n – 1 has three prime factors, not necessarily . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 25, 2008, at 11:35 am
The Kelley School of Business at Indiana University next week will host its first CFO roundtable, drawing chief financial officers from top global companies to discuss how they manage financial risks.
CFOs from FedEx, Whirlpool, Ernst & Young LLP, John Deere and six other companies are scheduled to attend the October 3rd event, and faculty from Kelley and the IU School of Law—Bloomington will moderate 12 panel discussions. More than 500 Kelley School students are expected to participate.
I”I think most students don’t have a good idea about what chief financial officers do and the challenges they face,” David Greene, a clinical professor of accounting at Kelley, said in a statement.
“This event will provide our students with an understanding that what they are . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 25, 2008, at 5:54 am
Oxford/Said’s essay topics remain unchanged this year. With a total of 3000 words between two essay topics, Oxford presents a unique challenge in terms of sharing important and relevant information about one’s candidacy while staying on topic. For this reason, careful reflection and outlining is even more important when approaching this sort of application than one with a long series of shorter answers.
Essay 1: Explain why you chose your current job. How do you hope to see your career developing over the next five years? How will an MBA assist you in the development of these ambitions? (1000 word maximum)
This is a very standard career goals/why MBA essay. Note the explicit five-year goals timeline; while it’s certainly fine to look . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 24, 2008, at 3:50 pm
Welcome to this week’s edition of Workbook Wednesdays! As always, we’d like to thank our friends at ManhattanGMAT for providing this week’s Challenge Problem. Check back tomorrow for an in-depth look at the answer!
Question
If n is a positive integer, what is n?
(1) 3^n – 1 has three prime factors, not necessarily distinct.
(2) n^2 = 2^n.
(A) Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient to answer the question, but statement (2) alone is not.
(B) Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient to answer the question, but statement (1) alone is not.
(C) Statements (1) and (2) TAKEN TOGETHER are sufficient to answer the question, but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient.
(D) EACH statement ALONE is sufficient to answer the question.
(E) Statements (1) and (2) TAKEN . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 24, 2008, at 2:01 pm
The Economist called it “an insightful portrait of HBS life.” HBS Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs Carl Kester said, “The book contains numerous factual errors and mischaracterizations that range in nature from minor to egregious.” BusinessWeek crowned it an “excellent book [that] only deepens the puzzle” of how so many Americans at once resent and revere the ivy-draped Cambridge, Massachusetts, institution. Adam Ireland, a contributing writer to HBS’s student paper, meanwhile, concluded after an arguably quite balanced review, “When it comes down to it, this isn’t a particularly good book.”
Perhaps on this we can all agree: Philip Delves Broughton’s tell-all tale of his two years at Harvard Business School has created quite a buzz. . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 24, 2008, at 10:38 am
Clear Admit has been invited to serve as a ‘featured expert’ in the highly popular Beat The GMAT forums. Starting immediately, Clear Admit’s Graham Richmond and Eliot Ingram will be responding to queries from MBA applicants in the forums and moderating the ongoing discussion.
As our long-time readers know, Beat The GMAT originally started as a blog written by Eric Bahn back in 2005. Eric was devoted to beating the test and opted to chronicle his experiences preparing for it – with the aim of helping others do the same. In fact, Clear Admit’s Fridays From the Frontlines column followed Eric as he posted information about the test and the Beat The GMAT scholarships . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 24, 2008, at 4:00 am
What Type of Essay do You Consider The Most Difficult to Write?
Goals Essays
Leadership Essays
Failure or Mistake Essays
Ethical Dilemma Essays
Other Essays
View . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 23, 2008, at 5:23 pm
Darden’s application essay topics this year mark a rather large departure from those of the prior years. Last year, Darden posed rather narrow questions that seemed designed to force applicants to self-select and cultivate a certain type of community. Meanwhile, this year’s essays have swung back toward a more mainstream focus, making them somewhat easier to answer. Let’s take a closer look at each of these questions:
Essay 1: What pivotal choices have you made in your life that have influenced your decision to pursue an MBA? (500 words)
Whereas last year’s ‘why MBA’ question was framed in terms of what mattered most to them both professionally and personally, Darden has reworked this question to focus instead on specific, significant choices rather . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 23, 2008, at 10:09 am
~A CLEAR ADMIT EXCLUSIVE~
As many of you may know, former Wharton Admissions Director Thomas Caleel stepped down in June, and a search for his replacement is currently underway. Of course, the important work of the admissions office cannot be put on hold. Anjani Jain, vice dean and director of Wharton’s Graduate Division, has stepped in as interim director until Caleel’s successor is named. He is supported by a veteran staff of senior and associate admissions directors led by Judith Hodara, who joined the Wharton Admissions Committee in 2000.
Amid a busy season of travel to admissions events around the globe, we managed to catch up with Judith last week on the road. She shared enthusiastically about the new accelerated three-year JD/MBA program . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 23, 2008, at 4:38 am
It’s time again for another edition of Trivia Tuesday, our weekly examination of the programs and opportunities that differentiate the leading MBA programs. This week we turn our attention to UCLA Anderson and an unusual feature of their second-year academic program: the Applied Management Research Project.
As second-years, Anderson students test their business skills in a practical setting by partnering with organizations to address complex internal business problems or evaluate strategic opportunities. Some students opt to put their entrepreneurial abilities to the test, fulfilling the two-quarter Applied Management Research Project (AMR) requirement by establishing their own ventures. Many students cite the AMR as one of their most rewarding and confidence-building experiences at Anderson.
Students choose their own AMR teams, which are comprised of . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 22, 2008, at 4:42 pm
As career services offices at business schools everywhere are scrambling to help current students and alums impacted by the recent crisis on Wall Street, schools are also rethinking the way they approach teaching about banking and finance.
In an announcement that preceded Monday’s meltdown by a couple of weeks, in fact, New York University’s Stern School of Business revealed that the wheels are already in motion there to create a new executive MBA program, in partnership with the Swiss Finance Institute, designed specifically to tackle future challenges presented by the global financial system.
“As researchers and educators, we must promote a greater understanding of the risks and opportunities confronting our financial institutions,” Thomas Cooley, dean of NYU Stern School of Business, said in . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 22, 2008, at 12:13 pm
~ A CLEAR ADMIT EXCLUSIVE ~
As part of our continuing coverage of the Wall Street shakeup and its impact on students at top business schools, we recently spoke with Jack Oakes, director of the Career Development Center at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. Here’s a little of what he had to share.
“Both Lehman and Merrill have been strong recruiters at Darden over the long term, so we have some students who are directly affected” by Lehman’s declaration of bankruptcy and Merrill’s forced sale of itself to Bank of America, Oakes reports.
Together with his staff, Oakes has been in close communication with the affected students since just after the announcements were made, reaching out to the group as a whole and . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 22, 2008, at 3:23 am
As applicants are coming to understand as we move towards R1 deadlines, applying to business school is an incredibly demanding process. In addition to taking the GMAT, assembling academic transcripts and providing recommendation letters, candidates are required to draft multiple essays, job descriptions, lists of activities and more.
With the obvious incentive to save time where ever possible, it’s understandable that many applicants simply cut and paste content from an existing resume and write about their work in the manner that comes most naturally. Indeed, each year countless candidates assemble their materials without ever asking a fundamental question:
Who will read my application?
While the answer to this question may vary from school to school, one thing is certain: it is unlikely that the . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on September 19, 2008, at 11:54 am
~A CLEAR ADMIT EXCLUSIVE~
In our continuing series of interviews with admissions directors at each of the top business schools, we spoke most recently to Dawna Clarke, director of admissions at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.
Clarke joined Tuck’s admissions staff as director in 2005. Prior to coming to Tuck, she spent 15 years in the admissions office at the University of Virginia’s Darden School, including five years as admissions director there. Before Darden, she also served as associate director of admissions at University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler.
In the interview that follows, she has interesting information to share about a new initiative called Tuck 2012, as well as some useful dos and don’ts for application essays.
Clear Admit: What’s the single most exciting development, . . . → Continue Reading
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MBA Admissions Wiki In the Clear Admit Wiki, you can share your experiences through the application process and learn from those of others. Below are the five most popular pages in the wiki:
BW Business SchoolsThe BusinessWeek Discussion Boards are another way to learn about the issues applicants face. Clear Admit hosts the Ask Clear Admit thread, which should help answer your questions. Here are the five most recent discussions taking place in the forum:
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