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Dawna Clarke (Tuck)
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Randall Sawyer (Cornell)
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David Simpson (LBS)
Liz Riley Hargrove (Duke)
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Clear Admit School Guides
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Application Deadlines
Below are the upcoming deadlines for admission to top-tier schools.
Jan. 2: Michigan / Ross R2
Jan. 6: HBS R2
Jan. 6: LBS R2
Jan. 7: Chicago GSB R2
Jan. 7: UVA / Darden R2
Jan. 7: Dartmouth / Tuck R2
Jan. 7: Duke / Fuqua R2
Jan. 7: Stanford GSB R2
Jan. 7: Yale SOM R2
Jan. 8: UCLA / Anderson R2
Jan. 8: Wharton R2
Jan. 9: UNC Kenan-Flagler R3
Jan. 12: Cornell / Johnson R3
Jan. 12: Kellogg R2
Jan. 13: MIT Sloan R2

Essay Topic Analysis
Below are links to our comments on some of the top programs' essay topics.
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*
USC / Marshall*
UT Austin / McCombs*
UVA / Darden*
Yale SOM*
* denotes '08-'09 commentary

Categories
Use categories to access all that has been written on each of the topics. We have categorized by school and by subject matter.

Interview Reports
A selection of interview field reports from fellow applicants posted to the MBA Admissions Wiki. Add your reports when you are finished with your interviews.
Chicago
Columbia
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Harvard
Kellogg
Michigan / Ross
MIT / Sloan
Stanford
UNC / Chapel Hill
Virginia / Darden
Wharton
London Business School

GMAT Resources
GMAC
Manhattan GMAT
GMAT Club
Princeton Review
Test Prep New York
Kaplan
Beat The GMAT

Writing Resources
Guide to Grammar and Writing
The Internet Grammar of English
English Usage, Style and Composition
The Economist Style Guide
Paradigm Online Writing Assistant

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

Career Guides
The following resources should be useful to those who want to research the careers open to them after (or before) earning an MBA.
Vault.com
Wetfeet

Business School Resources
The following are business resources offered by a variety of leading Business Schools. It's useful to subscribe to these resources, especially for the schools to which you are applying.

MBA Programs: North America
If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
Berkeley / Haas
Carnegie Mellon / Tepper
Chicago
Columbia
Concordia
Cornell / Johnson
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Emory / Goizueta
Harvard
HEC Montreal
Indiana / Kelley
Michigan
MIT / Sloan
Northwestern / Kellogg
New York / Stern
North Carolina / Kenan Flagler
Notre Dame / Mendoza
Pennsylvania / Wharton
Queens
Stanford
Texas / McCombs
Thunderbird
Toronto
UCLA / Anderson
Virginia / Darden
Western Ontario / Ivey
Yale

MBA Programs: 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.
AGSM (Australia) 2
Cambridge / Judge (UK) 1
CIEBS (China) 2
Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (China) 1
Cranfield School of Mgmt (UK) 1
ESADE (Spain) 1 or 2
HEC (France) 2
IESE (Spain) 2
IMD (Switzerland) 1
INCAE (Costa Rica) 2
INSEAD (France) 1
IPADE (Mexico)
ISB (India) 1
London Business School (UK) 2
Manchester Bus. School (UK) 2
Melbourne (Australia) 2
Oxford / Said (UK) 1
Rotterdam (Netherlands) 1
Tsinghua IMBA (China) 2
University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) 1

Additional Resources
Here we link a host of additional resources available across the web. E-mail info@clearadmit.com to have resources added to this list.
AACSB International
Association of MBAs
Beyond Grey Pinstripes
EFMD
gradschools.com (worldwide)
Infozee
mba.com (GMAT Scores)
MBAInfo
mbaleague.blogspot.com
MBAzone
MBA Jungle
TOEFL
Top MBA

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.

Blog Archive

Friday, October 17, 2008

Admissions Tip: Essay Basics

We often stress that, to present oneself effectively in one’s application essays, it is critical to think carefully about what a given question is asking and what this might indicate about a specific school’s admissions priorities. Of course, it’s also imperative to communicate clearly and appropriately regardless of the target program or particular inquiry. Today, we’re going back to basics and offering a few broadly applicable tips on tone and style to keep in mind when drafting written materials for your applications.

1. Be Professional. While a number of schools ask fun questions and most urge applicants to be themselves rather than submitting “overly polished” materials, it’s important to remember that this is a graduate school application and you should approach your essays with a degree of formality. You do want your unique narrative voice to come through, but even professional writers know to vary their tone based on their audience. As such, you should avoid using slang and conversational speech patterns in your writing.

2. Emphasize Action. A common pitfall for many applicants is lapsing into the passive voice, constructing sentences about how some unseen force or agent acted upon something or someone else (e.g. “we were required to” or “the project was completed”) rather than putting their own thoughts and actions at the fore. By making a conscious effort to write “I/he/she did x” rather than “x was done to y” you can make your comments more informative, dynamic and, often, more concise.

3. Avoid Repetition. It’s often a good idea to give the reader a sense of an essay’s direction through an introduction and to sum up the key ideas through a conclusion, but ideally each sentence of an essay will add some new information to the document or build the reader’s understanding of what you’ve already written. Keeping this rule in mind as you revise can help trim a response down to the word limit and ensure that you are including as much relevant information about your candidacy as you can within the allotted length.

Best of luck! For more information about how Clear Admit might assist you in communicating your experiences and goals to the adcom in a way that will be engaging and well received, contact us at info@clearadmit.com to set up a free initial consultation.

# posted by Clear Admit @ 10:36 am in Admissions Tips, General

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Chicago
Columbia
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Harvard
Kellogg
Michigan
MIT / Sloan
New York / Stern
North Carolina / Chapel Hill
Stanford
Virginia / Darden
Wharton
Yale
ESADE
IESE
INSEAD
London Business School

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Community blog with MBA student and alum contributors.

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Video blog entries posted by women MBA students.

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