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.
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.
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.
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.
What's the real value of LinkedIn with respect to business school? Determining how realistic your business school goals are - especially your short-term goal - as well as what business schools are the most appropriate for your goals. Overwhelmingly, b-schools will look at your short-term goals from a recruiter's POV.
Last month Paul Lanzillotti, founder of Amerasia Consulting, presented a talk for GMAT Club on LinkedIn Presence and Leveraging LinkedIn for your MBA Research. He specifically talked about determining realistic goals using LinkedIn and how to go about it. Here are a few questions you should ask yourself.
Ideas for your 2021 MBA New Year's resolutions. What to include? Become more informed. Incorporate project management into your MBA resolutions routine. Make one new professional MBA connection each month. Identify a strength and improve it. Identify a weakness and enhance it. Get extra certifications. Self-care.
How to nail your virtual MBA interview. Find all the interview preparation and technical reccomendations here. How to prepare the best lighting, background, sound, camera angle for your virtual MBA interview. How to look and feel your best for the interview. The camera is your friend. Speak clearly, concisely and show excitement!
These days, in addition to helping our clients navigate financial aid decisions and a few waitlist scenarios, we also meet a lot of new folks who didn't use admissions consulting services to apply - but now are wondering if perhaps they should have. Most often, they are asking for "ding analysis," which is basically "please tell me if I did something wrong and whether I can fix it for next time." We are happy to oblige, of course, and so we see a lot (we mean A LOT) of rejected applications, to a lot of schools. In giving feedback time and again, we naturally are starting to see some of the same issues cropping up.
What do I mean by "personalize?" Simple: make anything you write about the school specific to you, your experience, your desires, or what you require from a program. Never just state absolutes, generalities, or even known truths and facts - always make them personally-held viewpoints. Examples are the best way to understand this (after the jump):
Why would I just share this with the public, you might ask? In part because the real value of our services with Ross (unlike with some other schools) is going to be in implementation rather than in the setting of strategy - so I don't feel I am cheating my clients at all. Further, we just don't have that many clients select Ross, to be honest. This is confusing to me, as Ross is an amazing school and a true value pick ... but that's a column for a different time. Today, I want to present a really simple way to work through Ross' seemingly wide open essays. I'll be using one part common sense and one part program knowledge, but both are born out of lots of experience just being someone in this world (by "in this world" I mean working in "higher education" and with "people trying to maximize their lives and abilities"). Let's get into it.
How should you begin to construct your candidacy? That is, how would you begin to think about where you stack up relative to an MBA programs themes -- thus showing fit with the school. As we know, the primary place to demonstrate this fit is through a school's essay questions. I have created a simple visualization that demonstrates how you would approach aligning your background with a school's specific essays. In the following graphic, I use "Wharton" as an example. However, the "career goals", "failure" and "significant accomplishment" essays illustrated below are representative of many top MBA programs (in a not necessarily specific to Wharton.)
MBA Program Essay Map
[caption id="attachment_186" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="MBA Program Essay Map"][/caption]
So what are you looking at above?
The schools essays are represented by the colored circles and the numbers one, two and three. for this representative school, essay number one is a career goals essay. If you move from right to left, you will see that this career goals essay should incorporate the following elements -- short and long-term goals, current and past work experiences, your values/norms/beliefs, why MBA/why this program/why now? if you continue to move from right to left, you will see the elements that make up each item. For example, your values/norms/beliefs will incorporate elements of your family, personal and academic histories. Constructing this type of map visualization for each program or essay type will definitely help you think about all the elements that make up a successful candidacy.
Please keep in mind, that the above visualization is merely an example. For example, if you are constructing a career goals essay, some schools do not want you to delve into any sort of personal leaf system or values. They simply want you to state your short and long-term goals. This is why you have to read each essay prompt very carefully. Reference the following career goals example:
Haas asks this --
What are your post-MBA short-term and long-term career goals? How do your professional experiences relate to these goals? How will an MBA from Berkeley help you achieve these specific career goals? (1000 word maximum)
Meanwhile, Wharton asks this --
What are your professional objectives? (300 words)
So what is the deal? The first thing to notice is the difference in word count, along with the relative complexity of each question. Haas wants you to delve into your background, your values/norms/beliefs and how they have taken shape at your workplace, both past and present. They also want you to sell them on your knowledge of the school in this essay. This is a lot of information from one essay. If you stop and think about it, this is why it is a 1000 word essay. I would personally suggest using 500 words of it to describe your goals, 250 words to describe how your professional experiences provide a meaningful and even personal justification for pursuing these goals, and the remaining 250 words to sell Berkeley on how you fit the program. That is, the last 250 words should be dedicated to demonstrating what you bring to the table, using the school's programs and courses as a conduit.
On the other hand, Wharton just wants you to get to the point. This is a simple exercise in stating your long and then short-term goals (or vice versa.) So it makes sense that this type of very direct question prompt would only require 300 words. You do not need to overtly sell Wharton on what you know about the school or how bad you want to go there. Keep in mind that your choice of relevant career goals covertly sells the Wharton admissions committee on whether or not you are a fit (or even have a clue as to what the school can do for you.)
Overall, this type of brainstorming and mapping should be one of the first steps you engage in as an applicant applying to business school. Your map does not have to be as complicated as the above. Maybe you write it on the back of an envelope or maybe you construct PowerPoint, nonetheless it is a very valuable exercise.
If you need help constructing your candidacy and applying to business school – either comprehensively or just stress testing your essays to make sure they hit the mark – email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com to set up your complimentary consultation. The arms race for consulting help usually starts in April for Round 1 of the next year, but the best value is probably right now. You can get more distance from the field by doing your homework early and the quality of your preliminary work will make a huge difference when it comes time to hit submit.
