Taking MBA Admissions Feedback With a Grain of Salt
To GMAT or GRE? That is the Question.
Are You an Alumni? Hint: You're Not.
Are you a dream weaver or a vision caster?
So many applicants these days look alike on paper in terms of experience and education, test scores and outside involvement that even highly qualified candidates get lost in the shuffle. We all think we’re pretty unique until we find out that the next guy also volunteered at a similar NGO, or was promoted to VP before his colleagues. Particularly if you come from a feeder industry such as banking, finance or technology/engineering, it gets harder every year to stand out.
Advice On Scheduling an MBA Visiting Tour
As the 2017 academic year winds to a close, students all over the world are preparing themselves for final exams. With a similar amount of angst and tension, hopeful business school applicants are beginning to prepare as well, but instead of taking tests, they will be writing applications.
One of the most important things you can do to prepare for this, is to visit each of your target schools in person.
How Important is the Integrated Reasoning Section of the GMAT
This is the time of year when many b-school hopefuls are taking the GMAT test in anticipation of nailing down a great score before application season begins in earnest.
After all, your score will help determine where you will be a competitive applicant and can also help you narrow down your school selections. It is essentially everyone's jumping off point in the application process, and one that gets most people feeling anxious. A common point of stress is often over which sections of the GMAT are most important.
Can I Quit My Job to Get Ready for B-school?
Applying to B-school Straight out of Undergrad
How to prepare for Application Season
Path-Bending Leadership at Haas: a de facto 5th Defining Principle
We have all known about Berkeley-Haas' 4 "Defining Principles" for a while now. Personally, I consider Haas' emphasis on "Path-bending leadership" to be a de facto "5th principle" that builds upon the Defining Principles. Most significantly and over the past year, I have seen path-bending leadership take on a greater significance with faculty, alumni and student discussions alike. This trend has implications for your essays and "why Haas?"
How to Personalize Your Interest in an MBA Program
The simplest and most important thing you can do to improve your Why School X portion of career goals essay is to personalize any and all content.
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):
MBA Candidates: Your Audience is not "the Adcom"
One question that we get a lot from clients is "what does the adcom want to hear?" Not only is this the wrong way to approach the process in terms of being an authentic, introspective, and interesting candidate, but it also completely misunderstands who is reading your file. We don't believe in trying to play pin-the-tail-on-the-admissions-officer when it comes to your essays, but we do believe to writing to your audience.
What is your MBA reapplication strategy?
Advice on re-applying to b-school
How to Apply to Accelerated "1-Year" MBA Programs
One trend we're seeing these days is the desire of some candidates to dispense with the frills and just hammer out their MBA in the quickest time possible. Obviously, this means that we're talking "1-year" programs a lot. As is so often the case, we figure we'll bring part of that conversation online.
Here are some of the things we're sharing with clients:
Advice on How to Navigate the MBA Waitlist
Despite the name “waitlist,” there are several things you can do besides simply wait for your dream school to call. From a strategic standpoint, sitting in a state of limbo gives you the opportunity to improve your profile or status as a candidate, and such improvements can and should be communicated to the admissions committees.
How the Waitlist Works
This time of year, many applicants find themselves stuck in the waitlist process at one or more schools, which can be a very slow and painful waiting period. Not only are you competing for fewer and fewer seats, you are doing so against everyone on the waitlist all the way back from round one as well as any fresh, new applicants from the final rounds.
5 Steps for Negotiating Your Offer of MBA Admission (Updated)
Today's blog post builds on a post I've been working on for years, where I continue to add thought about the art of negotiating your MBA offer of admission. I've long said that "negotiation" is not what you do when it comes to securing more financial aid from a business school. The term of art for what you are going to be doing is "asking." Let me explain and try to add clarity around questions that often come up.
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.
The Chicago Booth Waitlist Video Assignment
Let's get into this Chicago Booth waitlist video a bit. It always causes people to feel tremendous stress when they see this option because they immediately think "how can I create an amazing video that will blow away the admissions committee?"
This is especially stressful when there are caveats like not having strong skills in areas like shooting film or editing or things of that nature. So the first ting to do is stop, take a breath, and reframe the entire operation.