2009 May » Clear Admit: MBA Admissions Consultants Blog

APPLICANT RESOURCES

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Admissions Director Q&A
Below are links to Clear Admit's exclusive interviews with MBA admissions directors at leading programs.
Dawna Clarke (Tuck)
Rose Martinelli (Chicago)
Judith Hodara (Wharton)
Sara Neher (Darden)
Soojin Kwon Koh (Michigan)
Randall Sawyer (Cornell)
Beth Flye (Kellogg)
David Simpson (LBS)
Liz Riley Hargrove (Duke)
Linda Meehan (Columbia)
Bruce DelMonico (Yale)
Peter Johnson (Berkeley)
Isser Gallogly (NYU)
Mae Jennifer Shores (UCLA)
J.J. Cutler (Wharton)
Jake Cohen (INSEAD)
Rod Garcia (MIT Sloan)
Mary Miller (Columbia)

Clear Admit School Guides
Become an expert on your target schools overnight! Get the program-specific details you need to craft essays that stand out. See how schools compare head-to-head in key areas like recruiting, curricular structure, elective offerings and more. Available for immediate download. As featured in the Economist.

Clear Admit Career Guides
Understand career-specific offerings at leading MBA programs and identify the schools that will best support your career goals with the Clear Admit Career Guides! Available for Consulting, Investment Banking, Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Healthcare.

Clear Admit Strategy Series
Craft a winning application with the Clear Admit Strategy Series! Step-by-Step guidance through the application process. Titles include a Resume Guide, Recommendations Guide, Waitlist Guide and more!

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.

Application Deadlines
Below are the upcoming deadlines for admission to top-tier schools.
Feb 10: INSEAD R3
Mar 1: Michigan / Ross R3
Mar 3: CBS
Mar 3: LBS R3
Mar 4: Kellogg R3
Mar 8: Cambridge / Judge R4
Mar 8: CMU / Tepper R3
Mar 9: Duke / Fuqua R3
Mar 9: Penn / Wharton R3
Mar 10: Berkeley / Hass R4
Mar 10: Chicago Booth R3
Mar 10: Yale SOM R3
Mar 15: NYU / Stern R3
Mar 17: UCLA / Anderson R3
Mar 19: UNC / Kenan-Flagler R4
Mar 30: Cornell / Johnson R4
Mar 31: UVA / Darden R3
Mar 31: INSEAD R4
Apr 1: UT-Austin / McCombs
Apr 2: Dartmouth / Tuck R3
Apr 2: Oxford / Saїd R3
Apr 7: Stanford GSB R4
Apr 8: Harvard R3
Apr 14: CBS

Essay Topic Analysis
Below are links to our comments on some of the top programs' essay topics.
The Career Goals Essay
Berkeley / Haas*
Chicago Booth*
CMU / Tepper*
Columbia*
Cornell / Johnson*
Dartmouth / Tuck*
Duke / Fuqua*
Harvard*
Indian School of Business*
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 '09-'10 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
MBA.com
Manhattan GMAT
GMAT Club
Princeton Review
Test Prep New York
Kaplan
Beat The GMAT
Knewton

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
Boston College / Carroll
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
Syracuse / Whitman
Texas / McCombs
Thunderbird
Toronto
USC / Marshall
UCLA / Anderson
Vanderbilt / Owen
Virginia / Darden
Washington University in St. Louis / Olin
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
Hult (UK) 1
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
International Student Loans
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

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Interviewing with b-schools in R2? Download our school by school Interview Guides or send us your CV to learn more about our mock interview services.

ARCHIVE FOR MAY 2009

Friday, May 29, 2009

Tuck School of Business Second-Year Student on Winning Team in 2009 Global Social Venture Competition

A second-year student at the Tuck School of Business, working in partnership with a Ph.D. Innovation candidate at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering, took first place in the U.S. and second globally in the recent 2009 Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC). The Dartmouth team won $10,000 for its business plan to reduce counterfeit drug sales in developing nations.

Second-year Tuck student Shivam Rajdev worked together with Thayer engineering student Ashifi Gogo to develop mPedigree Logistics, which gives consumers the ability to check a drug’s authenticity with a simple text message. Gogo came up with the idea after witnessing the devastating effects of fake medication in his native Ghana, where counterfeit drugs often contain little or no active ingredients and can be laced with dangerous chemicals.

“I entered the GSVC because I wanted to demonstrate that it’s possible to have a strong social and environmental impact while delivering good financial results,” Rajdev said in a statement. “It is important to cultivate future business leaders who value the social mission of their enterprises in addition to their profit potential,” he continued.

Rajdev and Gogo’s plan will help guarantee that consumers can access safe drugs while also helping genuine pharmaceutical manufacturers reclaim market share lost to counterfeiters.

GSVC, the largest and oldest student-led business plan competition focused on social ventures, is aimed toward supporting the creation of new social ventures and building awareness of social enterprises.

mPedigree Logistics will use its prize money to conduct a trial of the technology in Nigeria this summer. Rajdev and Gogo hope to launch the technology there by the end of this year and to use the launch as a case study for entering the Indian market early next year.

To learn more about the GSVC, click here.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:00 pm in Events, MBA News, School: Dartmouth / Tuck

Garth Saloner Named Dean of Stanford Graduate School of Business

Earlier this week, Stanford GSB announced the hiring of Garth Saloner as their new dean. He will replace Robert Joss, who has served as dean for the past decade and was responsible for both the development of a new curriculum as well as the launch of construction of new state of the art facilities.

Saloner has been teaching at Stanford since 1990 is presently the Jeffrey S. Skoll Professor of Electronic Commerce, Strategic Management and Economics. He has also served as the director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Graduate School of Business and has been integral in the launch of the new curriculum. Saloner holds a PhD in Economics, Business and Public Policy from Stanford University and is one of only two faculty members to have been awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award at the GSB twice (1993 and 2008). He looks to build upon the momentum generated by Robert Joss as the school continues to forge into new territory with their curriculum and gets set to open its new facilities in 2010-2011. For more information on the history of the Stanford Graduate School of Business as well as all the details regarding the school’s innovative curriculum, read the Clear Admit School Guide to Stanford GSB.

The full press release issued by the school is listed below:

May 26, 2009

STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS —Economist Garth Saloner, a scholar of entrepreneurship and business strategy, will be the next dean of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, President John Hennessy and Provost John Etchemendy announced today.

Saloner, 54, who joined the Stanford faculty in 1990, is the Jeffrey S. Skoll Professor of Electronic Commerce, Strategic Management and Economics, and a director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Graduate School of Business. He will succeed Robert Joss, who is stepping down after 10 years as dean. Saloner’s appointment is effective September 1, 2009.

“Over nearly two decades at Stanford, Garth Saloner has demonstrated that he is not only a top-notch scholar, but also a respected leader among his peers and distinguished teacher highly-praised by his students,” Hennessy said. “His scholarship in the areas of entrepreneurship and electronic commerce is particularly pertinent to our times and the global economy.”

Etchemendy said Saloner has been a leader in the evolution of management education.

“Garth Saloner helped to lead the development and transition to a new curriculum that is truly reinventing the path to an MBA,” Etchemendy said. “In his own words, this new curriculum is the ‘innovation of the MBA.’ As dean, Garth will ably continue the momentum generated by Dean Joss and maintain the research excellence of our business school.”

Saloner said he welcomes the challenges ahead.

“The Stanford GSB has the opportunity to prepare future generations of principled critical analytical thinkers whose actions can change the world. Through our research, we will continue to develop the intellectual underpinnings of management and we will embody that knowledge in our teaching. From our sustainable new management center on the Stanford campus we will promote the free-flow of students, faculty, and ideas across disciplines and schools as we develop management knowledge and business leaders for the 21st century.”

Saloner is known for his pioneering work on network effects, which underlie much of the economics of electronic commerce and business. Saloner’s research has focused on issues of entrepreneurship, e-commerce, strategic management, organizational economics, competitive strategy and antitrust economics. Much of his most recent work has been devoted to understanding how firms set and change strategy, in established firms and startups.

Members of the search committee were impressed with the breadth of Saloner’s experience and widespread respect he has earned across the academic spectrum, according to committee co-chair John Roberts, John H. Scully Professor of Economics, Strategic Management, and International Business in the Graduate School of Business.

“Garth Saloner is an outstanding teacher, a distinguished scholar and an experienced administrator with remarkable leadership skills, significant links to the business world and a global mindset,” Roberts said. “He should be a great dean.”

Saloner is one of only two faculty members to have won the Distinguished Teaching Award at the Stanford business school twice, first in 1993 and again in 2008. He has taught courses in entrepreneurship, electronic commerce, strategic management, industry analysis, and competitive strategy to undergraduates, MBAs, the Sloan Program, PhD students, and in executive programs around the world. He is the Director of the Summer Institute for Entrepreneurship, a summer program for graduate students in non-business fields.

Professor Saloner received a B.Com. and MBA (with distinction) from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He received an MS in Statistics, an AM in Economics, and a Ph.D. in Economics, Business, and Public Policy from Stanford University between 1978 and 1982. He joined the faculty of the economics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in 1982 and was promoted through the ranks to the position of tenured full professor in both the economics department and the Sloan School of Management.

He was one of the founders of the Stanford Computer Industry Project, a major study of the worldwide computer industry, funded by the Sloan Foundation, and a founder of the Center for Electronic Business and Commerce. He served the Business School as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and Director for Research and Curriculum Development from 1993-96. In 2006, he led the Curriculum Review Committee that undertook a major overhaul of the MBA curriculum, allowing students more flexibility in customizing their coursework.

The Stanford Graduate School of Business, with a faculty that includes three Nobel laureates, has established itself as a global leader in management education and has built an international reputation based on educational programs designed to develop insightful, principled global leaders. Since its creation in 1925, the school has continued to innovate its curriculum and to build a faculty known for its cutting-edge research. It enrolls over 800 students in MBA, PhD and Sloan Master’s programs and has more than 100 tenure-track faculty and 50 lecturers and visitors.

The school is currently constructing a new campus, the Knight Management Center, with 360,000 square feet designed to support a wider variety of teaching and learning methods and foster collaboration across disciplines. When completed in 2010-2011, the new campus of eight buildings around three quadrangles is expected to achieve the highest level LEED Platinum certification for environmental sustainability from the U.S. Green Building Council.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 8:00 am in MBA News, School: Stanford

Fridays from the Frontline

Welcome to another installment of Fridays from the Frontline, in which we highlight the latest goings on in the MBA blogosphere. It seems to have been a week of transitions – while recent grads leave the classroom for the job market, first-year students prepare to move from dorms to internships and soon-to-be-first-years move from the workforce towards the MBA campus. The new crop of applicant bloggers (Class of 2012) are also gearing up for a few changes, taking up the writing reins and covering the early stages of MBA applications.

After a late night INSEAD information session, HARI continued his diligent MBA prep with a GMAT practice test. Like many applicant/soon-to-be first-year bloggers this past holiday, Wake Forest ‘11 Omne enjoyed his Memorial Day weekend, but needs to hunker down with his MBA budget for the upcoming year. While Kellogg ‘11 The.Grey.One awaits the verdict for his choices of exotic KWEST destinations, Kellogg ‘11 Orlando received unfortunate news about his stateside housing preferences for the upcoming year. Meanwhile, MBA hopeful Helen is still in limbo with Stanford GSB and remains on the waitlist. On the sweeter side, Fuqua ‘11 The Strange Consultant found business in his pudding cup, while Haas ‘11 Sunnyside Up recounted the pros and cons of Ghirardelli’s brownie mix and low fat vanilla ice cream – not to mention her long-awaited acceptance to Haas’s Class of 2011! (Congratulations, Lauren!) The Class of 2011 are indeed busy making – and living – plans for the summer, as is evident by Stanford GSB ‘11 Palo Alto for a While’s bid farewell for the coming summer months. Looking a bit further into the future, Kellogg ‘11 Managing Magic accounted for a potential Plan B in entrepreneurship and offered a detailed summary of a recent talk about the value of search funds.

A few first years were adjusting to the downshift in schedules, now that final exams have ceased. Having conquered all his finals, McCombs ‘10 Metal accounted for filling his hours now that team meetings and deadlines are in the past. Fellow McCombs ‘10 Paragron2Pieces is making a jump into the heart of downtown Austin and looking forward to more fun times her second year. Kellogg ‘10 La Coguette gave into the guilty pleasure of scanning the BusinessWeek forums – a former procrastination tool from her MBA applicant days – and threw in her two cents on a recent post.

In her recent return to the blogosphere, Chicago Booth ‘09 MaybeMBA shared her perspective on finding a job amidst a tight economy. While things wind down at INSEAD, congratulations are in order for INSEAD ‘09 Forest of Fontainebleau, whose team won INSEAD’s Business Venture Competition!

We can’t wait to hear more about upcoming adventures, big moves and new experiences. If you’ve just joined – or have been milling around – the blogosphere as an MBA applicant or student, send your blog address to wiki@clearadmit.com. We’ll add you to the applicant blogger’s page of the Clear Admit Wiki and you may be featured in Fridays from the Frontline! Happy blogging!

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 1:31 am in Fridays from the Frontline

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Stanford Essay Topic Analysis 2009-2010

Following the announcement of Stanford’s deadlines and essay topics, we’d like to take some time to provide guidance on the essays. While Stanford continues to fine-tune the topics for the shorter Essay 3 responses, the prompts for Essays 1 and 2 still constitute the heart of one’s application. Ideally, an applicant’s responses to Essays 1 and 2 would work together to provide the adcom a picture of the guiding force or principle behind his or her experiences to date (which can be covered in the first question) and objectives for the future (discussed in the second). While it’s possible that the thing that matters most to an applicant might be something completely removed from his or her professional objectives, it almost seems natural that the career goal discussion would be a slightly narrower continuation of the theme developed in Essay 1.

Essay 1: What matters most to you, and why?
The open-ended and somewhat philosophical nature of this question can make it a challenging starting point. If a topic doesn’t immediately spring to mind, a constructive approach might be to think about your experiences to date (growing up, attending school, working, pursuing outside activities and general interests) and look for some unifying theme among some or all of them. Because it’s always a good idea to introduce specific details and anecdotes to really tie the general ideas expressed in your essays to the key elements of your candidacy, it would be wise to select a topic that not only gives the adcom a sense of your values and priorities, but also allows to you discuss some of the ways you have translated these into action. Needless to say, this is one of the more challenging essays in the business school world, so feel free to reach out to Clear Admit if you seek tailored guidance vis-a-vis your candidacy.

Essay 2: What are your career aspirations? How will your education at Stanford help you achieve them?
All told, this is a fairly standard career goals essay. In fact, Stanford narrows the scope of the question to keep the focus on one’s professional objectives. Though Stanford leaves the question somewhat open, it will still be to the applicant’s benefit to sketch out a specific short and long-term goal, explaining the motivation and reasoning behind each, and to provide a detailed discussion of the ways a Stanford MBA would be conducive to achieving these aims, as well as the potential contribution he or she could make to the program.

As is the case with most schools, demonstrating an understanding of the unique merits of Stanford’s program is crucial to an effective response to this question. Taking the time to learn about the school’s curriculum, special programs and extracurricular activities – whether through a visit to campus, conversation with alumni or reading the Clear Admit School Guide to Stanford – will pay dividends here.

Essay 3: Answer two of the four questions below. Tell us not only what you did but also how you did it. What was the outcome? How did people respond? Only describe experiences that have occurred during the last three years.
Option A: Tell us about a time when you built or developed a team whose performance exceeded expectations.
Option B: Tell us about a time when you made a lasting impact on your organization.
Option C: Tell us about a time when you motivated others to support your vision or initiative.
Option D: Tell us about a time when you went beyond what was defined, established, or expected.

Following the broader, more philosophical tandem of essays 1 and 2, these brief questions (Stanford offers a 300-words as a guideline) lend themselves to crisp, concise anecdotes from the recent past. Looking at the first item in the set, Stanford has retained last season’s question about building or developing a team, with a new emphasis on exceeding expectations. Here, the Stanford adcom signals a pointed interest in positive change and noticeable improvement, though the spotlight remains on one’s abilities to foster the growth of others while working together toward a goal. Meanwhile, the word “build” allows applicants to include instances in which they have built a team from scratch or recruited key players to work on a project. To summarize, applicants should aim to discuss how they established a cohesive and effective team that achieved X, Y, and Z.

Options B and C are new this year. Option B, with its focus on lasting impact, encourages applicants to discuss positive change that they have brought about that was a transforming and enduring improvement. To illustrate this improvement, applicants might establish a “before” and “after” picture in their essay to highlight the importance of their actions in the particular situation.

Option C is in a similar vein to last year’s question about effective leadership. This year, however, instead of simply reflecting generally on their leadership, applicants need to discuss their leadership in the context of teamwork. In answering the question, applicants should highlight how they coordinated and inspired co-workers or teammates to perform at a high level. Along these lines, applicants might showcase their ability to understand the group’s needs and strengths and weaknesses, give teammates a sense of ownership over their work, set an example, and counsel others when needed.

Option D is a long-standing essay topic and looks for an anecdote in which applicants set themselves apart from the pack. The adcom is looking for someone with the confidence to deviate from the norm, explore new channels, or see a situation or problem in a different light. Fitting topics might include developing an innovative solution through nontraditional channels or challenging the norm with an eye for how operations could be enhanced. Ideally, the end result would be one in which you reached new insight or perspective, created a new process, took a stand in a professional or extracurricular setting, etc.

While these action-oriented essays serve as a contrast to the preceding broad questions about the candidate’s motivations and objectives, truly effective applications will find a way to make these responses work in conjunction with Essays 1 and 2, reinforcing themes and complementing the ideas already presented, and completing the picture of who you are.

In addressing any of these questions, it will be important to provide a clear description of the initial situation at the outset of the essay, as this will help the reader to understand the reasons for your thoughts, feelings, words and actions. Providing a detailed “before picture” will also allow the adcom to fully appreciate the difference you made. To decide which two of the four options to select, it would be wise to consider all of the situations you could discuss in response to each question, and select those that will provide a balanced picture of your activities and interests (one story from work and another from a key extracurricular might be a nice balance) while supporting the message set forth in response to Essays 1 and 2.

3 Comments »

# posted by Clear Admit @ 2:00 pm in Essay Topic Analysis, General, School: Stanford

Cornell’s Johnson School of Business Joins Diversity Consortium

On May 15th, the Johnson School at Cornell University became the 15th school to join the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, whose mission is to enhance diversity in business education and leadership by increasing the representation of African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans on business school campuses and in the ranks of management.

“Joining the consortium will help us build the diversity of our MBA classes and enrich the learning experience for all our students,” Johnson Dean Joseph Thomas said in a statement announcing the new alliance. “The Johnson School works to promote a culture that not only values differences but treasures them as sources of strength,” he continued.

The consortium will begin recruiting prospective MBA students for the Johnson School in the fall of 2009, with the first class graduating in the spring of 2012. In addition to its recruitment efforts, the consortium also awards more than $12 million in full-tuition, merit-based MBA fellowships annually and has been instrumental in assisting more than 5,500 underrepresented minority students earn their MBAs and advance their careers in corporate America.

As the newest consortium member, the Johnson School joins 14 other top business schools including Carnegie Mellon University, Dartmouth College, Emory University, Indiana University, the University of Michigan, New York University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Rochester, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Yale University.

To learn more about the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, click here.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 11:30 am in MBA News, School: Cornell / Johnson

Campus Chronicles: Summer Reading

With the end of the academic year, the student presses have fallen silent and it is time to put our weekly roundup of campus papers on hold until the start of the fall semester. However, for those applicants looking for some fun summer reading that has the added benefit of enhancing your MBA applications, the archives of student newspapers are a wonderful resource that is well worth exploring. As we’ve pointed out in past Campus Chronicles columns, student papers often offer excellent insight into the culture on campus and provide a great window on the events and controversies at each school, making them an important part of the MBA application research process.

Candidates beginning the application process might find it helpful to read through some of the back issues of a school’s paper. Information from the papers can become a valuable addition to MBA essays later this summer – perhaps you would like to help organize one of the conferences or speaker series profiled in the paper? Maybe the summaries of the multi-school case competitions or athletic matches stir your competitive spirit and inspire you to join one of these activities at business school? Alternatively, perhaps you’ve appreciated how helpful the student newspaper is to applicants and would like to contribute to its production as an MBA student? Each of these ideas for involvement can help you tailor your application essays to a school while adding flavor and interest. For applicants’ convenience, we’ve listed below the MBA programs whose student newspapers were regularly profiled in this year’s Campus Chronicles column.

Chicago: Chibus
Columbia: Columbia Bottomline
Harvard: Harbus
Michigan Ross: Monroe Street Journal
MIT Sloan: Fifteen
NYU Stern: Stern Opportunity
Wharton: Wharton Journal

Happy reading!

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:00 am in Campus Chronicles, General

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

HBS Essay Topic Analysis 2009-2010

For the 2009-2010 admissions season, Harvard Business School applicants will need to respond to a total of four essay questions. While the number of responses candidates must compose remains the same as last year, HBS aspirants now have an additional option. Candidates must respond to the two initial questions on the list and may then choose two of five additional questions – one more than last year – to round out the set. With this greater flexibility, it becomes even more important for applicants to choose topics judiciously to provide a comprehensive and meaningful picture of their candidacy. Applicants must also be clear and concise to fit their essays within the 1800 word total limit. Let’s take a look at the essay questions for this year:

1. What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit)
This essay question has been a hallmark of the HBS application for many years. Due to its top billing, this question could be the first element of your file that the adcom reads, making this response a great opportunity to present the reader with three strong stories that introduce the major themes of your candidacy. Each accomplishment can be presented as a stand-alone section here, so you needn’t be overly concerned about composing a seamless narrative.

HBS has traditionally been very impact-oriented in evaluating applicants’ credentials, so one way to determine which three accomplishments to describe in this essay is to think about the end results. Experiences in which you made a lasting and quantifiable impact can lend themselves to concise, factual narratives, and considering that each accomplishment must be described in approximately 200 words, this can be an important consideration. However, this isn’t to say that the process followed, skills gained, and lessons learned along the way aren’t important, too; these factors could be a great way to address the second half of the question: why you view these accomplishments as your most significant to date.

A final point is that it’s also important to select stories with an eye to balance. An applicant who describes two professional successes and one extra-curricular accomplishment, or perhaps one each from the professional, academic and activities realms, can show that he or she excels in any environment.

2. What have you learned from a mistake? (400-word limit)
This question makes an appearance for a third consecutive year. The subject of failure or setback is a popular one for business school essays in general, and there are a few important elements to consider in addressing this and similar prompts. Firstly, professional maturity, self-reflection and insight are key qualities to communicate. Towards that end, successful essays will describe the mistake in straightforward, step-by-step detail, and will also own the misstep rather than making excuses.

Another important element to touch on is that you’ve experienced some growth or development since the initial mistake. While applicants should not ‘gloss over’ their mistakes, it is important to emphasize positive growth and the learning experience that can come from missing the mark. An effective essay will present this growth in terms of thoughts and feelings, while balancing comments about internal reflections with descriptions of more external actions and changes in behavior.

Please respond to two of the following (400-word limit each):
1. What would you like the MBA Admissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience?
While MBA applicants often draw upon their extracurricular experiences during college as topics for essays, it’s rare that they get a chance to talk about their more intellectual interests and achievements. This is your chance to go into some detail about why you chose your school and major and tell the admissions committee about your academic interests and educational milestones. A great essay will underscore an applicant’s intelligence and work ethic, as well as incorporate some element of leadership (especially if the applicant had a significant impact on the department or school as a whole).

2. Discuss how you have engaged with a community or organization.
Carried over from last season, this prompt opens a wide range of topics for discussion and skills and qualities that an applicant can highlight. While the “organization” component clearly lends itself to coverage of an extracurricular involvement or leadership at work or at school, the “community” side could just as easily apply to international experience or immersion in a new team or demographic – essentially focusing just on the positive conclusion of a “culture shock” or “outsider” essay. Harvard’s continued use of this question suggests a strong interest in applicants who are proactive in making connections and building relationships, perhaps toward some specific cause or goal. The interpersonal elements of this experience will therefore be of just as much interest and your reasons and the results of this engagement. Though this essay lends itself nicely to a discussion of a long-term or ongoing involvement with the community or organization in question, centering the essay on a single meaningful anecdote will also be a viable strategy for showing your skills in action.

3. Tell us about a time when you made a difficult decision.
New to the HBS application, this essay topic calls for applicants to discuss a choice that had significant professional or personal ramifications. Not all situations in life are win-win, and this question may be designed to help the adcom glean some insight into the approach and considerations a candidate takes in arriving at the best possible solution in light of situational limitations and necessary sacrifices. A wide range of situations could be applicable to this question, from taking a semester off from school or taking a professional risk to confronting an ethical dilemma at work or making a tricky call in the absence of a supervisor. Meanwhile, the thing that effective responses will have in common is a carefully considered explanation of the situation and through process that led to the final decision; hopefully there will be some positive results or personal growth to share as well. Given the great emphasis that Harvard places on leadership, it would be a nice bonus to discuss a situation in which you exercised leadership qualities and demonstrated confidence and maturity.

4. Write a cover letter to your application introducing yourself to the Admissions Board.
While this essay prompt is new to the HBS application this year, it mirrors MIT Sloan’s long-standing cover letter essay topic. Given the current economic climate and resulting ultra-competitive job market, it’s hardly surprising that the adcom would take an explicit interest in how candidates tie their experiences together to market themselves in this context.

In approaching the cover letter, applicants should prepare to discuss the standard cover letter themes, such as attributes and skills, why you are interested in joining the ‘company’ (HBS), and what you feel you could contribute.

A potential outline for this essay might open with a ‘greeting’ to the committee followed by a statement of your interest in HBS and what you would bring to the school, then a short statement of your career goals with a summary of the ways in which your experience to date has prepared you, then a “why HBS” section briefly explaining why it is the best place for you in terms of what you need from an MBA and your fit with the school (though this particular explanation won’t be as important, given that HBS hasn’t traditionally put much emphasis on “why HBS”), concluding with a thank you.

5. What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you?
Always unique among b-schools, HBS not only frames its essay about the applicant’s professional future in terms of a broad vision rather than concrete goals, but also makes it optional.

Harvard’s adcom tries to identify future business leaders, so applicants presenting a directed vision will make a positive impression. Because this essay is about your career vision, you might summarize your past experiences in a very concise manner (i.e. just a few sentences) before moving on to a detailed discussion of your future plans and the reasons that these plans are meaningful to you. Whereas many schools request a clear description of the candidates immediate post-MBA program, this particular question lends itself to a long-term, big picture outlook. Of course, you might also touch on the ways in which HBS will help you achieve your vision. Think about how Harvard’s program (specific classes, classmates and clubs) would prepare you for your future.

Conclusion
While each of these topics require a careful approach, one of the more challenging aspects of the HBS application is assembling the right mix of anecdotes across essays so as to provide the committee with the most complete (and strategic) view of your candidacy. This is compounded by the fact that HBS allows for several choices in the final two essay topics. As such, we recommend that our readers be sure to take a step back and consider their essays holistically as they move through the process of topic selection and writing.

As is the case with most schools, demonstrating an understanding of the unique merits of HBS’s program is crucial to an effective approach to the essays. Taking the time to learn about the school’s unique curriculum, special programs and extracurricular activities – whether through a visit to campus, conversation with alumni or reading the Clear Admit School Guide to Harvard – will pay dividends here.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 2:00 pm in Essay Topic Analysis, General, School: Harvard

Kellogg School of Management Hosts Second Annual Green Week

Earlier this month, student groups at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management collaborated to host the school’s second annual Green Week, encouraging students to go green on both a personal and professional level.

Together, Kellogg’s Net Impact chapter and the Environmental Sustainability Business Club (ESBC) organized a series of events focused on sustainability and the environment lasting from May 5th through 8th. Events included a range of lectures and speakers as well as opportunities for students to participate in environmental initiatives on campus.

ESBC members staffed a booth in the Kellogg Atrium, urging students to make a “green pledge” and passing out giveaways and coupons from local green businesses. Other students coordinated with Kafé Kellogg to replace plastic utensils in the campus eatery with biodegradable ones, and a solar car parked outside the Donald P. Jacobs Center helped showcase Earth-friendly transportation alternatives.

A visit from Michael Mandelbaum, author and professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, was scheduled to coincide with Green Week. Mandelbaum gave a lecture entitled “How Green Will Our Future Be?” on May 5th. Green Week organizers also invited Laura Flanigan, a consultant from Five Winds International, and John Vlahakis, founder and president of Winnetka, Ill.-based Earth Friendly Products, to deliver lectures.

Vlahakis, a Kellogg alum (’85), founded Earth Friendly Products in 1993, and today the company manufactures more than 60 household products and 16 pet-care items. The small, family-run business competes with Clorox and Proctor & Gamble’s green products, selling at large distributors like Sam’s Club and Costco.

“What separates us is that we’re the only guy that makes its own product,” Vlahakis told students. “And we’re beating the big boys at their own game – we’re beating Procter & Gamble in 154 Sam’s Club stores.”

In his lecture, Vlahakis encouraged his fellow Kellogg students to consider careers in which they can give back to society or the environment. “I’m using [my company] as a tool to do more in society,” he said. “We have a finite time here on the planet and you want to do more than make money.”

To learn more about Green Week at Kellogg, click here.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 12:00 pm in Events, School: Northwestern / Kellogg

How Long is Your Resume?

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:00 am in Poll

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

New Building, New Faculty at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business

In the year ahead, Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business will welcome 13 new full-time faculty members and open a much-anticipated new building for business school classes. The new professors will begin teaching at the school in August, and the new building will open officially later this summer.

“I am pleased we can add so many outstanding faculty to our roster,” Dean George Daly said in a statement on May 15th. “This is the largest influx of such scholars during my time at the school. These appointments also coincide with the opening of our new building this fall, which will enhance learning and interaction between our students and faculty,” he continued.

Two of the new hires come to McDonough from the private sector: Bill Novelli, former CEO of AARP and co-founder of the global public relations firm Porter Novelli, and Mary “Meg” VanDeWeghe, former senior vice president for finance at Lockheed Martin. Also among the new faculty hires are two current adjunct professors, Michael Fitzgerald and Charles Skuba.

The remaining 11 new faculty hires include William Baber in accounting; Bumjean Sohn and Phillip Swagel in finance; Michael O’Leary and Chris Long in management; Kurt Carlson in marketing; Volodymyr Babich and Victor Jose in operations and information management; and Daniel Baer, Jacob Gramlich and David Tan in strategy. Finally, McDonough also has hired Jie Yang as a research associate who will teach one finance class.

For detailed information about each of the new hires, click here.

The new home for the McDonough School, meanwhile, is the culmination of an $82.5 million privately funded construction effort that began in March 2006. The 179,000-square-foot facility will serve to alleviate overcrowding, improve undergraduate classrooms and allow for expansion of the school’s graduate and executive programs.

The new building will feature seminar classrooms for a new introductory International Business Seminar for first-year students, a lecture classroom specifically tailored for accounting classes, more faculty offices and more common space for students to study and meet to work on group projects.

The new building is located on the site of a former parking lot adjacent to the Leavey Center. The selected site, at the center of campus and convenient to the Leavey Center ’s conference and hotel space, will unify the upper and lower parts of Georgetown ’s Main Campus and provide a new cross-campus promenade.

For more information about construction status, click here.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 12:00 pm in MBA News, School: Georgetown

Trivia Tuesday: International Orientation Programs at HBS, MIT Sloan and Tuck

Welcome to another edition of Trivia Tuesday! Each week in this column we examine the programs, policies, resources and opportunities of the leading business schools with the goal of highlighting distinctive aspects of the student experience. This week we turn our attention to programs for international students beginning their MBA studies in the United States, with a focus on the resources offered by Harvard, MIT Sloan and Tuck.

Most international orientation programs are held on campus in the week or two before all first-year students are required to arrive. In general, these programs offer an introduction to U.S. culture, an overview of the academic expectations of the MBA program, and workshops in written and oral English language skills.

For instance, in addition to the standard orientation for all students, Tuck offers a five-day International Orientation Program that is highly recommended for international students who have not previously lived or worked in the United States. Held the week before the school-wide Orientation, students in the program engage with Tuck faculty, staff and teaching assistants to become familiar with the case-study method, the standards expected in verbal and written communications, and how to work on teams with people from other backgrounds and cultures. The Career Development Office also leads workshops on resume writing, interviewing and networking. Likewise, for international students with little prior experience in the U.S., MIT Sloan’s two week Communication and Culture workshop in mid-August provides an introduction to Sloan’s classroom environment and to U.S. business and social norms.

Meanwhile, Harvard Business School offers one of the longest international orientations among its peers. The school’s Pre-MBA International Program is a five-week course during which students from abroad are introduced not only to life in Boston and at HBS, but also to the basics of the case method. Outside experts are brought to the campus to speak to international students about writing, business English, and publication skills, after which attendees participate in several mock-case discussions to prepare them for the pace and tenor of class sessions.

For international students concerned about making the transition to business school and to the U.S., these specialized orientations are a great resource. Participants at all schools report that in addition to learning about the academic environment and brushing up on language skills, the international orientations are also a wonderful way to meet fellow international students and to start building a network of business school friendships. For more information on orientations, pre-term programs, and resources for international students, be sure to talk with current students or to check out the Clear Admit School Guides!

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 2:29 am in School: Dartmouth / Tuck, School: Harvard, School: MIT / Sloan, Trivia Tuesday

Monday, May 25, 2009

Stanford GSB Deadlines and Essay Topics 2009-2010

Following Harvard Business School’s announcement last week, the Stanford Graduate School of Business has followed suit by publishing their deadlines and essay topics for the coming application cycle. The main areas to note with this year’s application are some changes to the options for essay 3 and a new R1 notification date (before Christmas instead of in January – a change that mirrors Harvard’s decision to notify applicants earlier this year as well).

Without further ado, let’s look at the details:

Application Deadlines
Round 1: October 7, 2009
Round 2: January 6, 2010
Round 3: April 7, 2010

Note: All deadlines are 5 p.m. (Pacific)

Notification Dates
Round 1: December 16, 2009
Round 2: March 31, 2010
Round 3: May 19, 2009

Essay Questions
Essay 1: What matters most to you, and why?
Essay 2: What are your career aspirations? How will your education at Stanford help you achieve them?
Essay 3: Answer two of the four questions below. Tell us not only what you did but also how you did it. What was the outcome? How did people respond? Only describe experiences that have occurred during the last three years.
Option A: Tell us about a time when you built or developed a team whose performance exceeded expectations.
Option B: Tell us about a time when you made a lasting impact on your organization.
Option C: Tell us about a time when you motivated others to support your vision or initiative.
Option D: Tell us about a time when you went beyond what was defined, established, or expected.

Essay Length
Stanford provides the following guidelines on essay length:

Your answers for all of the essay questions cannot exceed 1,800 words. Each of you has your own story to tell, so please allocate the 1,800 words among all of the essays in the way that is most effective for you. We provide some guidelines below as a starting point, but you should feel comfortable to write as much or as little as you like on any essay question, as long as you do not exceed 1,800 words total.

Essay 1: 750 words
Essay 2: 450 words
Essay 3: 300 words each

Formatting
Stanford provides the following guidelines on formatting:

Use a 12-point font, double spaced
Indicate which essay question you are answering at the beginning of each essay
Number all pages
Upload all four essays as one document
Preview the uploaded document to ensure that the formatting is true to the original
Save a copy of your essays

With the flurry of top programs releasing their deadlines in recent weeks (Chicago, INSEAD, Columbia, HBS and Stanford), applicants should begin to get a sense of how the fall calendar is shaping up. See the left-hand column of this blog for a running list of fall deadlines.

As always, we’ll be back with a post in the coming days that offers our in-depth analysis of the Stanford GSB essay questions along with tips as to how candidates might think through their approach. Stay tuned.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 8:00 am in Deadlines, Essay Topics, School: Stanford

Admissions Tip: Feedback Session Etiquette

At the end of March, we discussed the importance of signing up for a feedback session when one is planning to reapply to a program that provides this opportunity. Today we’d like to follow up on that post by offering a few thoughts on feedback session etiquette.

While on one hand a feedback session marks the close of this year’s process, it’s crucial that you realize that the impression you make on the adcom member conducting the session may be added to your file and come to bear on your candidacy next year. Taking heed of the following advice could help to make your feedback session as productive as possible – both in terms of gaining information about your weaknesses that you can address now and fostering a positive relationship with the school that will pay off in the future.

Be pleasant. Though the admissions process is a highly emotional one and to have invested time, effort and money in an application without having an acceptance to show for it is undoubtedly very frustrating, receiving the adcom’s comments in an appreciative – not defensive – manner is of the utmost importance. While it might be tempting to argue with the adcom’s criticisms of your file or counter their comments about your weaknesses with steps you’ve taken to address them, this is simply not going to be productive. You should view this as an exercise in listening and an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to the school. No one ever converted a rejection to an admit by merely arguing their case in a feedback session.

Take what you can get. Because time is so limited, we often encourage applicants to approach the adcom member conducting their session with pointed questions about specific elements of their application and ideas for improvement. However, you need to remember that there is some information they are simply not at liberty to divulge. If you’ve waived your right to view your recommendations, for instance, they might not be able to speak on this subject, and they might also hesitate to go into detail about your interview as well (for fear that you’ll track down an alumni or student interviewer to complain about their review). When you meet a roadblock like this, the best strategy is to leave it at that, letting the adcom member share what he or she is comfortable saying rather than pressing or probing for more information.

Follow through. If you take down the name and email address of the person conducting your feedback session, it would be a nice touch to send this person a brief thank you note after your meeting. Further, by keeping in touch with this individual and updating him or her of your progress over the months leading up to your application and decision, you can make that person your advocate by demonstrating that you’ve been following their advice (an email or two between April and November is sufficient).

Of course, the schools are not always able to tell an applicant the whole story; for instance, it’s difficult to tell an applicant who comes from an oversubscribed group and had fine numbers and essays that the class simply didn’t need another banker by the time he applied in round three. For this reason, it’s important to seek feedback from other sources, such as current students or colleagues. If you’d like an objective and informed assessment of your candidacy and previous application, feel free to contact us for information about our comprehensive feedback reports.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:00 am in Admissions Tips, General

Friday, May 22, 2009

New Requirements for International Applicants to Harvard Business School

In a recent post to her blog, Harvard Business School (HBS) Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold announced that for future incoming classes, HBS will accept only the Internet Based Test (IBT) version of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing Service (IELTS) exam. The change will take place beginning with the class of 2012.

The TOEFL or IELTS test is required of applicants to HBS who did not use English as the language of instruction in their undergraduate education. Because both the IBT version of the TOEFL and the IELTS feature speaking components, the new test requirements will enable HBS to assess the speaking ability of these prospective applicants.

“In our discussion-based, case method classroom, we have found that speaking ability (along with strong listening, reading and writing skills) is critical to success,” Leopold said. “Therefore, we need to see speaking scores in order to evaluate applicants appropriately.”

The IBT version of the TOEFL is available in all testing centers, according to Leopold’s post.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 2:00 pm in MBA News, School: Harvard

Fridays From The Frontline

Hello! Welcome to Fridays From The Frontline, Clear Admit’s ongoing series of posts focused on exploring the b-school blogosphere. As exams wrap up and graduations take place, students have begun their summer internships or re-entered the workforce after two years of academia. While we may be saying goodbye to some familiar bloggers in the next few months, new applicant voices will soon emerge to fill the gap.

One new voice, 2012 MBA Guy noted that many schools have commenced with posting their application deadlines and essay questions, and outlined his application checklist for the next few weeks. Another newbie to FFF, Hari, shared how he studies for the GMAT on a budget. While aspirants start thinking about their essay topics and application strategy, members of the class of 2011 continue to prepare themselves for their transition to b-school. Kellogg ‘11 The.Grey.One struggled to choose the destination for his KWEST trip and crossed his fingers about getting on-campus housing. Fellow Kellogg classmate Samantha also found the KWEST sign up process challenging. Kellogg ‘11 D.G. wanted to go to South America for his KWEST trip and hadn’t figured out where he was going to live once in Evanston.

For some, the b-school path continued to be uncertain. Bizwiz, waitlisted at Chicago Booth, struggled to define what was appropriate communication with the adcom and what was overkill. Ahembeea’s visa was approved on the same day that he learned that Kellogg was not going to take him off their waitlist. IIMC ‘10 MyNameisNeo posted a lengthy entry about the different stages of MBA life. Stanford ‘11 PaloAltoForAwhile provided her tips and perspective on Stanford’s ‘Essay A’. Kellogg ‘11 Orlando summarized his first and second interviews for a BCG scholarship. Fuqua ‘11 ChocHeaven found herself with more time on her hands and looked back fondly to the era before cell phones and Google. Lauren implored readers to vote on her next dessert masterpiece.

First year MBA students were taking big breaths as their school year came to a close. Harvard ‘10 Gabrielle reflected on her first year and shared some of the highlights while her fellow classmate Rob discussed some of the things he missed out on over the course of the year. Darden ‘10 JulyDream was already in Atlanta and three days into her internship. McCombs ‘10 Paragon2Pieces was glad the semester was over and that she was three quarters done with her combined MBA/JD studies. Melbourne ‘10 RonJon considered the differences between the public and private sectors. Kellogg ‘10 La Coguette got schooled.

Second years or, in many cases, recent graduates, were a generally quiet bunch. Darden ‘09 Mandy and Anand did, however, post graduation photographs on their respective blogs.

More caps and gowns will be donned before this month comes to a close and we wish all class of 2009 graduates the best of luck as they rejoin the workforce and go off to fulfill their career goals. For those of you just beginning the process, make sure to check out the many resources located within the Clear Admit blog, and let us know if you’re blogging. As always, thanks for reading and tune in next week for another edition of Fridays From The Frontline.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:00 am in Fridays from the Frontline

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Value of MBA Degree High Amid Economic Crisis, GMAC Research Shows

Though employers report plans to hire fewer MBAs this year than last due to the global recession, they will pay a premium for those they do hire, according to new research from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC).

The recently released 2009 GMAC Corporate Recruiters Survey revealed that recruiters expect to hire an average of six new MBAs in 2009, down from 12 last year, and that the number of firms planning to hire MBAs this year declined 9 percent compared with 2008. But when they do hire MBAs, recruiters reported they plan to pay them nearly twice as much as college grads and higher average starting salaries than people with other graduate management degrees, such as a master’s in finance.

“The fundamentals have not changed. Corporations continue to value the MBA, and they continue to pursue people with the unique mix of skills and talents that characterize business school graduates,” Dave Wilson, president and CEO of GMAC, said in a statement. “But just as employers across the economic spectrum have had to take a wait-and-see approach to their hiring plans this year, firms that hire business school graduates have been compelled to retrench in response to the downturn.”

The survey, which drew responses from 2,825 hiring managers from 2,092 companies in 63 countries, revealed uneven hiring activity across sectors of the economy. In some industries, such as consulting, healthcare and energy, demand for MBAs remains strong. In other industries, such as the nonprofit and high-technology sectors, it is weaker. But recruiters across the board value business school graduates, with 98 percent of survey respondents saying they are satisfied with their current employees who have MBAs.

To learn more, click here.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 1:00 pm in General, MBA News

Harvard Business School (HBS) Deadlines and Essays Topics 2009-2010

As promised in an earlier post, the HBS deadlines and essay questions have just been released for the 2009-2010 admissions cycle. Though much remains the same, there are several notable differences over last year’s deadlines and essay topics, which we’ve summarized below:

Round 1 Deadline Set for October 1st
The Round 1 deadline is almost two weeks earlier this year, taking place on October 1st instead of October 15th. This should give HBS a bit of distance from some of their peer schools that traditionally place their deadlines towards the middle of the month – good news for applicants targeting multiple schools.

Round 1 Decisions Delivered in December
For the first time ever, HBS will be delivering Round 1 decisions in December as opposed to late January (similar to Wharton and Chicago Booth’s approach). Clear Admit applauds this decision, as it not only gives HBS applicants a faster response, but it will also allow rejected or waitlisted candidates to quickly shift to a plan B by targeting R2 deadlines in early Janaury at other schools. In previous years, the HBS R1 decisions were not available until the bulk of R2 deadlines had passed.

Round 2 Deadline Pushed Back
This season’s R2 HBS deadline is slated for January 19th – a full two weeks later than last year’s R2 date. The benefit of a later deadline in this case is that it should put less pressure on candidates to be writting their essays around the holidays. It will also mean that most candidates who have applied elsewhere in R1 will have results in hand from those schools prior to the HBS deadline for R2.

New Essay Questions
The 2009-2010 application will still require just four essays, and the required responses (essays 1 and 2) remain the same. The major change comes with essays 3 and 4, where candidates now have five topics to choose from instead of four – two of which are new for this season. One of the two new topic choices (drafting a cover letter to introduce yourself to the Admissions Board) should be familiar to those candidates who have studied MIT Sloan’s application requirements, as that program has required a cover letter for nearly15 years now. The other new question (about a difficult decision the candidate has made) is also long-time theme in the MBA admissions process (as both an essay topic and admissions interview question).

Without further ado, here are the details:

Application Deadlines
Round 1: October 1, 2009
Round 2: January 19, 2010
Round 3: April 8, 2010

Note: All deadlines are 5 p.m. EST.

Notification Dates
Round 1: December 15, 2009
Round 2: April 6, 2010
Round 3: May 13, 2009

Essay Questions
1. What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit)
2. What have you learned from a mistake? (400-word limit)

Please respond to two of the following (400-word limit each):
1. What would you like the MBA Admissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience?
2. Discuss how you have engaged with a community or organization.
3. Tell us about a time when you made a difficult decision.
4. Write a cover letter to your application introducing yourself to the Admissions Board.
5. What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you?

As always, we’ll be back with a post in the coming days that offers our in-depth analysis of the HBS essay questions along with tips as to how candidates might think through their approach. Stay tuned.

1 Comment »

# posted by Clear Admit @ 4:23 am in Deadlines, Essay Topics, School: Harvard

Campus Chronicles: MIT Sloan’s Fifteen

This week, Campus Chronicles takes a look at one of the last publications of the 2008-2009 school year. MIT’s Fifteen provides a recap of the exciting end-of-the-year programs and activities at Sloan.

Along with MBA students from Kellogg, Chicago Booth, and Columbia, twenty-eight MIT Sloan students trekked to Omaha to visit Warren Buffet at the end of April. The students first visited Nebraska Furniture Mart, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway that was founded by Rose Blumkin, a Russian immigrant, in 1937. Rose Blumkin built her business on the philosophy “Sell Cheap and Tell the Truth.” The next stop on the trek was the Field Club of Omaha where the students had a two-hour Q&A session with Warren Buffet. During the session, Mr. Buffet discussed everything from politics, economics, and investing to family and succession planning at Berkshire. After Mr. Buffet treated the group to lunch, the MBA students were off to Borsheim’s jewelry, another Berkshire subsidiary, where the students gained a greater understanding of Mr. Buffet’s investment style. Students recognized the great independence that Mr. Buffet gives to his managers, as Mr. Buffet works to “find good businesses with good managers… and stay out of their way.” Students came away from the trek with valuable lessons about investing and building a strong business reputation.

At the beginning of May, a group of MBA students from the leading business schools in China descended upon MIT Sloan’s campus for a one week visit. Part of the annual Sloan China Lab program, this visit reciprocated the visit that MIT Sloan students paid to the Chinese MBA programs earlier in the year. Jonathan Lehrich and Professor Yasheng Huang designed the program, which allows MIT Sloan MBA students and Chinese international MBA students (IMBAs) to collaborate on consulting engagements for Chinese companies over several months. At first students worked together via phone and the internet, but then they had the opportunity to visit their group members’ countries. During the Sloan Innovation Period and spring break, Sloanies spent two weeks in China, experiencing the culture first-hand and gaining insight into Chinese business interactions. The Chinese students followed this visit with their own to MIT, and Sloanies showed the IMBAs around MIT and Boston, taught the students how to say “chowda,” and brought them to their MBA courses. Fondly looking back on the experience, Ali Ahmad, a writer for Fifteen, called the program an “experience of a lifetime.”

Stay tuned next week for the final edition of Campus Chronicles!

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:00 am in Campus Chronicles, General

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Whose Opinion Matters the Most?

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 1:00 pm in Poll

INSEAD/Kellogg Research Reveals Link Between Study Abroad and Creativity

According to recent research from INSEAD and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, the experience of living outside your home country and adapting to a new culture may enhance creative thinking.

From El Greco to Ernest Hemingway, many artists have sought out experience in a foreign culture as a means of stimulating their imaginations and enhancing their work. But does living abroad really stimulate creativity? “It’s a longstanding question that we feel we’ve been able to begin answering through this research,” said the study’s lead author, INSEAD assistant professor of organizational behavior William Maddux, in a statement.

Together, Maddux and Kellogg’s Adam Galinsky conducted five studies to test the links between the two. Their findings were published in the May issue of the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Using MBA students as test subjects, two of the studies presented problems of logic and negotiation designed to test creative insight. The results of both studies showed that the longer students had spent living abroad, the more likely they were to come up with the most creative solution. In both instances, time spent traveling abroad didn’t impact creativity the way living abroad did.

After conducting the five test studies, Maddux and Galinsky then ran a follow-up study to better understand the link. With a group of MBA students at INSEAD, they determined that those students who had adapted themselves to the foreign cultures when they lived abroad were those most likely to solve the classic creative insight challenge.

But while the studies did show a strong link between living abroad and greater creativity, they don’t prove that adapting to a new culture actually causes increased creativity. “We just couldn’t randomly assign people to live abroad while others stay in their own country,” Maddux said in a statement.

So instead, they tried a technique called “priming” to try to understand what causes someone to be creative. In two experiments, they primed students at the Sorbonne to mentally recreate their past experiences living abroad and then measured whether doing so caused them to be more creative, at least temporarily. Another group of students were asked instead to recall experiences that didn’t involve adapting to another culture, such as going to the supermarket.

The results revealed that students primed to recreate past experiences of living abroad then drew space aliens and solved word games more creatively than those primed to recreate domestic experiences.

According to Maddux, the research findings could have something to show about the increasing impact of globalization on the world. “Knowing that experiences abroad are critical for creative output makes study abroad programs and job assignments in other countries that much more important, especially for people and companies that put a premium on creativity and innovation to stay competitive,” he said.

To read the full article, click here.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 9:37 am in General, MBA News, School: INSEAD, School: Northwestern / Kellogg

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Discussion Boards

BusinessWeek Forums
The 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 is a link to the original interface (for those of you who didn't like the recent upgrade). Also, here are the five most recent discussions taking place in the forum:

Beat The GMAT Forums
Clear Admit is a featured expert in the BeatTheGMAT forums, answering questions from applicants across the globe. Feel free to ask us your questions in this forum! Here are the most recent posts:

StudyLink Forums
Clear Admit manages the Applying section of the StudyLink MBA discussion boards.

GMAT Club Forums
Below are the five most recent posts to the GMAT Club message boards.

student 2 student
The student-2-student Discussion Boards are managed by Wharton. Here are the five most recent discussions.

School-Hosted Blogs

Straight from the source: aggregated posts from students and administration. Below are the seven most recent posts in school-hosted blogs.

Individuals' Blogs

A selection of the latest updates to MBA blogs compiled by Hella.
MBA Applicants

MBA Students

Bloggers by School

The following are links to bloggers at each of the schools listed.
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

Community Blogs

Bshoolers.com
Community blog with MBA student and alum contributors.

Forté Foundation MBA Diaries
Video blog entries posted by women MBA students.

Owen Bloggers
Independent blog with content by Vanderbilt MBA students.

Best of Blogging

2008-2009 Top Ten: