Andrew Hoff
What's Working in M7 Applications
What's Working in M7 Applications
Chicago Booth
Amerasia Consulting
Chicago Booth Ph.D. Program Receives $100 ...

On Monday, May 1, Chicago Booth stated that businessman and philanthropist Ross Stevens, Ph.D. '96, had given the school's Ph.D. program $100 million to help push the boundaries of academic business research.  The program will be called the Stevens Doctoral Program to honor Stevens.

Chicago Booth Ph.D. Program Receives $100 Million
Application Advice, Application Process
Amerasia Consulting
Are You MBA-Ready? Here Are 5 Indicators You Are

People often decide to pursue an MBA without giving it much thought, but that's not a good idea. Before you start getting ready to apply, you should really think about why you want to get the degree and make sure it's the right choice for you. Here are five indicators that can help you decide if you're ready to apply to business school or not.

Are You MBA-Ready? Here Are 5 Indicators You Are
B-school Life, Key Thoughts, Leadership
Amerasia Consulting
How to Prepare for Important Career Moments

Have you ever woken up from a recurring nightmare in which you had to take an exam for which you hadn't studied? No one likes the feeling of not being prepared. And this worry takes over many parts of our professional lives. No one wants to be caught off guard in front of an MBA admissions committee, a current client or boss, or even a networking event. The answer is to be confident in all of these conversations and presentations. How? Preparedness. In this blog post, we'll talk about what you should do to get ready for a variety of common career scenarios.

How to Prepare for Important Career Moments
Key Thoughts, Leadership
Amerasia Consulting
5 Ways To Becoming an Effective Manager

Becoming a great manager is essential for becoming a great leader. Good managers not only extract great output from their employees, but they also relieve the executive team of most of the day-to-day operations, allowing them to focus on more tactical challenges. Leaders develop a vision, while managers develop goals and guide their teams toward shared goals connected to that vision. This blog post will go over five strategies to becoming a successful manager.

5 Ways To Becoming an Effective Manager

Chad Losee

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A Tip for Writing Harvard Business School Essays - "don't overthink, overcraft and overwrite"

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A Tip for Writing Harvard Business School Essays - "don't overthink, overcraft and overwrite"

I wanted to get ahead of something - a problem I see with my clients to Harvard Business School (and Stanford GSB.) HBS calls it out as "overthinking, overcrafting and overwriting." I call it "overselling" yourself when writing.

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Advice on How to Handle the HBS Waitlist

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Advice on How to Handle the HBS Waitlist

Going quick and nothing fancy here, just looking to get the word out on "HBS Waitlist Day" as it will likely become known in the future.  

I stunning number of candidates appear to have been WL'd today, just based on what I'm seeing stream across my inbox.  The biggest group looking for answers are candidates I've never heard of, who are seeking answers and asking what to do.  This is when I know I have to go to the blog.  Let's work through this.  

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Responding to your HBS decision (2016)

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Responding to your HBS decision (2016)

This Wednesday (October 12) is one of those days on the calendar that tend to stop everyone in their tracks and dominate the headlines.  Nevermind that the Duke Fuqua or Dartmouth Tuck deadlines are right around the corner - no, it's all about the final HBS Round 1 notification deadline.  Interview or ding?  Rather, interview or ding or deferral, as that appears to be a popular option this year as well.  Let's make sense of things and offer some advice on how to respond from here.  We'll group it result-by-result.

Tackling the “other” questions inside the business school application

Tackling the “other” questions inside the business school application

With the release of the 2016 HBS application, it is clear that shortening the number of essays is a trend that is here to stay for now. With only one essay on the HBS application again this year, it is becoming more important than ever to not only communicate effectively and concisely, but also to leverage the balance of the application (and of course the interview) to stand out from the crowd.

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3 Key Thoughts on the HBS Essay

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3 Key Thoughts on the HBS Essay

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Despite HBS featuring the most publicized changing of the guard in admissions that I can remember, they are basically keeping their "open-ended" question style intact.  In fact, more than keeping it intact, they have reverted to the more straight forward version they used in 2013 and 2014, rather than the more clever (but probably ultimately less effective) "introduction" prompt from last year.  

And because they are staying in this lane, it means that my three thoughts need to stay in the same lane they have been in for years - because understanding the psychology behind this essay goes a long way to explaining how you might solve it.  

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Quick Thoughts on the HBS Essay

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Quick Thoughts on the HBS Essay

Unlike Columbia and Stanford, HBS did not make any changes to its essay from last year.  As explained by Dee Leopold in her blog, they were quite simply happy with the content that this prompted generated.  Those handful of people who have spoken to me on consult calls this year know that I predicted HBS would keep this essay and that it would be for this reason - I had a feeling this experiment worked well.  This is because I watched the MASSIVE (all caps are necessary here) gulf between good and bad use of this space, among candidates.