Application Tips
Admissions Tip: Approaching the Career Goals Essay
With essay topics for the coming year already being released by some schools, there are applicants who are eager to get started on their written applications. Though essay questions tend to vary year to year, the two things that nearly every prospective student can count on being asked are “What are your short-term and long-term post-MBA goals?” and “How will Business School X help you achieve these goals?”
These are the fundamental questions of the entire application process; identifying clear answers will help in everything from creating a list of target schools to communicating effectively with recommenders and interviewers down the line. As such, it’s a great idea to begin drafting answers to the Career Goals essay early and often! To help you get started, here are some general pointers: Continue reading…
Clear Admit’s Kevin Chen Gives Advice to Asian MBA Applicants Targeting Top Business Schools
Navigating the MBA admissions process in the United States and Europe is a tricky task, even for applicants familiar with the expectations of the Western academic and corporate cultures. However, the process presents special challenges for East Asian applicants, who often possess cultural assumptions that can work to their disadvantage. Clear Admit admissions counselor Kevin Chen has nearly a decade of MBA admissions consulting expertise, and has worked extensively with Asian applicants to help them overcome these cultural hurdles and gain admission to top MBA programs including Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, Wharton, Chicago Booth, INSEAD and London Business School.
Chen, who is fluent in English, Chinese and Taiwanese, has been a successful applicant himself: he holds master’s degrees from both Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He also has a wealth of relevant professional experience, as a consultant, marketing professional and writer for firms including McKinsey & Company, the National Basketball Association and Reuters, the largest global news agency. Last week, Clear Admit spoke with Chen about the common missteps and trends he observes in Asian MBA applicants. Continue reading…
Stanford Graduate School of Business Admissions Director Offers Application Tips
In a recent post to the Stanford MBA Admissions Blog, Associate Director of MBA Admissions Lizabeth Cutler provided some tips to prospective applicants on how to provide an authentic, compelling reflection of yourself as you put together your application.
“Try to find the right balance between ‘well presented’ and ‘processed,’ wrote Cutler. “We expect you to show us your best self, just make sure it is YOURself,” she stressed. Continue reading…
Admissions Tip: The Interview Final Touch
Over the last months, we’ve focused on helping applicants prepare to answer the various questions they’ll be posed during their interviews, but there is one in particular to which we have not paid much attention. Today, we wanted to offer a few tips in navigating the nearly inevitable interview finisher: “Do you have any questions for me?”
This seems like a harmless inquiry, and indeed poses a great opportunity, but there’s actually a fine line to walk here. You certainly want to take advantage of this opportunity to show the interviewer that you appreciate his or her time, perspective and knowledge. In determining what to ask, however, you need to avoid those questions to which you could easily find an answer on the school’s website (remember that it’s imperative that you show you’ve done your homework), as well as those that are so specific or obscure that they will stump the interviewer. Another sort of question to avoid are those that seem to be critical of the program or too concerned with other applicants; now is not the time to ask about application volume or the strength of the pool this year. Continue reading…
Admissions Tip: Understanding Background Checks
With a slew of schools releasing the last of their R1 notifications in the coming weeks, we know that many of our readers will be asking about the background checks conducted by leading programs. Here are some quick facts to help explain the process:
1) What are background checks? Background checks involve the verification of information that a candidate has provided in his or her MBA applications. Although the process varies from school to school, it usually includes checking that an applicant attended the undergraduate (or graduate) school(s) that he or she claims to have attended, received the grades indicated and earned the GMAT score reported. It also involves the verification of the candidate’s employment history, job titles, starting and ending dates and salary/bonus information. Finally, some background checks involve contacting recommenders to verify their support and confirming applicant involvement in community activities. Continue reading…
Admissions Tip: Essay-Writing Difference Makers
We often stress that, to present oneself effectively in application essays, it’s 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.
As many applicants are feverishly putting the finishing touches on their essays for programs with deadlines this week and next, we wanted to offer a few general guidelines to keep in mind during that final revision. Time is tight, we know, but a few small changes can make a considerable difference, so today we’re going back to basics and offering a few broadly applicable tips on tone and style to keep in mind when polishing the written elements of 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. Continue reading…
Admissions Tip: Plan of Attack
With November wrapping up this week, Round Two deadlines for a number of programs are just around the corner. As most applicants are targeting multiple schools and still working to narrow down their school selection, we wanted to take some time today to stress the importance of taking a deep breath and a step back and formulating a timeline for the coming weeks. Establishing a set of incremental goals with regard to essay composition and recommender management at this point in the season will help you to avoid feeling overwhelmed and ensure that your aims are realistic.
One of our most important pointers pertains to the process of writing essays. The urge to make progress on multiple fronts leads many applicants to work on essays for several schools in parallel, an approach that can be problematic. One reason for this is that when one spends time immersed in three sets of essays at once, it’s easy to lose sight of the full picture he or she is presenting to any one school. Continue reading…
Education Blog Taps Clear Admit’s Graham Richmond as Its “Ask an MBA Admissions Expert”
Test preparation firm Varsity Tutors recently interviewed Clear Admit co-founder Graham Richmond for its “Ask an MBA Admissions Expert” blog series, and a transcript of that interview posted live to the company’s education blog yesterday.
In the interview, Richmond shares insights he has gained advising prospective applicants to top MBA programs here at Clear Admit, as well as in the years he spent before that working in admissions at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Continue reading…
Admissions Tip: The Long Essay
Essay content you’ve polished for one school often serves as a great starting point for the next application, but as we’ve often said, customizing this text for the school in question is key. One particular challenge we see applicants struggle with each year is effectively expanding a short essay they’ve written for one program (such as Harvard’s 500-character short answer on career choices or INSEAD’s 300-word career essay about one’s long- and short-term goals) in responding to a question on the same topic but with a longer limit. With this in mind, we’d like to offer some pointers on converting condensed comments to more extensive remarks.
1) Expand in proportion. When taking an existing response as a starting point for crafting a longer document, one good rule of thumb is to build upon each subject to more or less the same extent. Continue reading…
Admissions Tip: The Comparison Trap
We wanted to take some time today to discuss a frequently made mistake in the application process. In their desire to make their case to their target MBA programs, many applicants devote sentences and even paragraphs to explaining why the school in question is their “first choice” and arguing its superiority over other schools.
Though certainly understandable, this is actually not a very productive exercise. Let’s consider a few reasons why, from the schools’ point of view:
Tell me something I don’t know. A popular strategy – and not always bad one – for applicants seeking to demonstrate their fit with one school above any other is to study its website to understand the program’s self-determined selling points, and then profess an interest in those. Continue reading…
Admissions Tip: Interviewing the Interviewer
We’ve been offering a good deal of advice lately on how to conduct oneself and prepare responses to MBA interview questions. Today we’d like to highlight the importance of thinking about what you might ask. Virtually all business school interviewers conclude their discussion by offering the applicant a chance to ask some questions about the program. While it might be tempting to claim that you’ve already learned all you need to know about the school, this is actually a great opportunity to gain additional insight, show your enthusiasm about a specific element of the curriculum or community, and demonstrate that you appreciate the opportunity to learn from your interviewer’s experiences.
Here are a few simple guidelines to keep in mind while thinking about what you might ask:
1. Focus on the positive. Now is not the time to conduct due diligence or express skepticism about a school’s academic program or career resources. Continue reading…
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