What's Working in M7 Applications

After another round of unprecedented success for my clients, including an over 80% interview invite rate at HBS, GSB, and Wharton for Round 1 (still waiting on admits), I wanted to share a few details on what we know is working in the application process at these top programs:

1) Show an Understanding of the Schools and MBA Programs You’re Targeting

Due to varying cultures, curriculums, perspectives on leadership, etc., every school and MBA program you plan on targeting values different skills and qualities in their MBA candidates. At
Amerasia, we call this the DNA of a school. So, if you make the effort to understand and embrace the unique qualities of each program and allow those qualities to help shape your essays and application, you can begin to elevate your candidacy from being “qualified” to being “ideal.” Contact one of our Admissions Consultants for more detail on how to approach the individual DNAs of each school you’re interested in.


2) Reveal Your Emotional Intelligence by Picking the Right Goals

Admissions officers often want to know about who you are and what you value, not just what you’ve accomplished. Often the best way to do this is through the passion behind your career goals. When you think about a passion, it often stems from a person’s background and values. And a person’s background and values… well, that provides a pretty good window into who you are as a person.

So, you want to pick career goals that reveal who you are, what makes you tick, and shows your values. Here are a few quick tips on picking your MBA career goals:

Avoid something too boring (i.e. I want to get promoted over the years and become an executive – this is a waste of precious essay real estate as it says nothing about you and rather describes a generic path to prosperity).

Avoid something “ripped from the headlines” or otherwise pie-in-the-sky (another way to think about this to borrow from a legal concept that you can only argue “facts found in evidence” – don’t talk about a LT goal in social media or clean tech or something else “buzz worthy” unless you have existing passions and experiences that support those claims).

Instead, land on something interesting that comes from your own life. Nothing is better for an admissions officer than to truly learn about you through your long-term goals. Make sure that whatever you pick connects to who you are as a person.

Make sure that your ST goal will give you skills and/or perspectives necessary to reach this LT goal (otherwise, the bridge starts to break down).

Overall, your LT goals should connect to both your ST goals and your existing life in big, swooping arcs – it doesn’t have to be a tight line from one to the other, but it should make a big circle that reveals who you are through your passion when all is said and done.


3) Show How You Stepped Up as a Leader During the Pandemic

Many current applicants were in college or just starting their career during the COVID pandemic lockdowns. You can show increased leadership, initiative, and passion by sharing how you stepped up during this time. Did you volunteer and raise money to secure PPE for a local hospital? Did you lead an effort through work to impact your community during this crisis? Did you make efforts to increase team moral while working remotely? To differentiate yourself from a competitive field, show that you did SOMETHING, ANYTHING to step up to serve and lead others. While these top programs are not directly asking you “what you did during this crisis,” they want to know that your answer is better than, “I watched a lifetime’s worth of shows on Netflix.”


If you're interesting in discussing your MBA candidacy and working with with an
Amerasia Admissions Consultant, Click Here to get started!

To Build a Successful GSB Essay #1 You Have to Dig

Over the last few years, my GSB clients have achieved remarkable success (with over a 50% success rate) and the key has been to create real, honest, and authentic essays. To do this YOU HAVE TO DIG... and DIG DEEP!

The DIGGING PROCESS goes like this:

• Take the thesis (“I care about sustainability”) and ask WHY. A lot of people don't care about sustainability, some pay it lip service, but few people truly care and want to devote their lives to it. So why are you different? You can’t just say that you care more than others or observe more closely or are more in tune. There has to be an underlying reason that set the stage. We are starting to dig…

• Next layer down, we ask questions to see if there was a “moment of influence” that directly connects to the topic at hand:
o Did someone teach you to value this?
o Did you go on a trip that showed you we have to care about this stuff?
o Did you read a book or watch a movie that made the lightbulb go on?

• It’s possible that you will solve this in the above series of questions, but it’s also possible that nothing jumps out from the above and you find yourself going "I don't know, it's weird, I guess I'm just inclined to see the big-picture and not getting dragged down by short-sighting thinking, and that just leads me to sustainability, naturally," then consider this:
o WHY are you inclined to be the sort of person who thinks big-picture and avoids the "sha, la, la, la, live for today" traps of most of your peers? And we dive back into our questions:
 Did anything early in life teach you to think big picture and consider the long view?
 Did you ever have an analogous experience that taught you this lesson (committing to fitness, finishing a novel, etc., something that took a long time and required maintaining sight of a far-off goal)?
 Were you ever rewarded for thinking this way?
 Or, conversely, did you ever double down on this point of view because someone tried to shame or chastise it?

See where this kind of thinking takes you. I coach all of my clients to peel back several layers - or many more feet down in the dirt, to use the digging example - to get at some of these rich, interesting WHY elements. The “why” behind what matters most to you is almost never the first thing that pops into your head. Sometimes it can be a person or experience that informs your value (and that is fine, by the way – some of the best essays I’ve ever seen landed here; sometimes you hit paydirt earlier in the digging process), but other times you have to figure out why you are the kind of person who might have grown to care about what you do – and that takes even more digging. So get your shovel ready.

For more in-depth insights into the GBS essays and application process, as well as other MBA programs, I invite you to reach out and schedule a free initial consultation at
https://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact. You can also contact me directly at drewhoff@gmail.com.

I am here to assist you and provide guidance throughout your application journey.

Changes to the Columbia Business School Application

This year, CBS made a significant change to its MBA application essays. In previous years, applicants were asked to respond to a prompt that required them to discuss their favorite book, movie, or song and explain why it resonated with them. However, this year, CBS decided to replace that essay with an optional essay from two years ago, which focuses on the Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership (PPIL).

The decision to jettison the previous essay prompt indicates that CBS was not obtaining the desired insights from MBA candidates with the "fun" prompt. It seems that many applicants were overly focused on the book, movie, or song itself, rather than emphasizing the applicant's perspective and transferable skills, such as leadership, teamwork, and innovation. While we coached our clients to successfully connect their favorite cultural work to a pivotal personal moment that demonstrated leadership and community impact, it is clear that a significant number missed the mark.

This year, CBS is taking a more explicit approach and explicitly stating that they want applicants to share an experience that exemplifies the mission of the PPIL program, highlighting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). To craft a compelling essay, it is essential to reflect on a defining moment in your life that relates to DEI and showcases your leadership abilities. Describe the situation you encountered, the challenges or complications you faced, the actions you took to overcome those obstacles, and the outcomes you achieved. The outcomes should encompass both the practical results and your personal growth and development.

By following this simple approach, you can create an essay that resonates with the new prompt and effectively highlights your leadership and community impact. For more in-depth insights into the CBS essays and application process, as well as other MBA programs, I invite you to reach out and schedule a free initial consultation at
https://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact. You can also contact me directly at drewhoff@gmail.com.

I am here to assist you and provide guidance throughout your application journey.

Chicago Booth Ph.D. Program Receives $100 Million

Chicago Booth Ph.D. Program Receives $100 Million

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.

Are You MBA-Ready? Here Are 5 Indicators You Are

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.

How to Prepare for Important Career Moments

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.

5 Ways To Becoming an Effective Manager

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.

Women And Equality at the Leadership Table

Women And Equality at the Leadership Table

Imposter syndrome for women is real, according to Kris Mercuri, director of MBA admissions, recruiting, and outreach at Yale, and women must acknowledge it as one of the things they can manage. Women are required in all areas as thought leaders and decision-makers but how do women can actually get there? In this blog post, we discuss the obstacles of gender parity and how to overcome them.

Georgetown McDonough: What’s New in 2023?

Georgetown McDonough: What’s New in 2023?

The McDonough School is founded on the idea that students should take action to protect the vulnerable, address societal problems, and promote the greater good. This goal has evolved into one of longevity for McDonough. Creating practices that safeguard natural resources while also balancing economic development with fair treatment for all. As a result, the school has made sustainability one of the pillars of its MBA curriculum this year.

D'Amore-McKim: What's new in 2023?

D'Amore-McKim: What's new in 2023?

It is time to reimagine a new MBA program for the future - not just update or refresh an existing one. Therefore, D’Amore-McKim launched the new online MBA program in October last year, with another cohort starting in April 2023. An example of flexibility in online education is that students now have the ability to take live or taped classes when enrolled in the new program. According to a professor who helped design this program, this program is designed for students with a fair share of business experience already.

Harvard: What's New in 2023?

Harvard: What's New in 2023?

Currently, the school gives approximately $42,000 in annual support to MBA students, with half of each cohort getting some type of financial assistance. HBS allocates $45 million per year to pay MBA fellowship funding. While financial aid does not cover yearly living costs (approximately $31,000), it does bring in a diverse group of students and enhances the learning process.

Northwestern's MBAi Program

Northwestern's MBAi Program

This MBAi program is designed for students who have previous undergraduate STEM expertise and/or job experience in the technology industry. It will be a fast-paced five-quarter program. The program will include the full Kellogg MBA core curriculum as well as specialized classes in machine learning, artificial intelligence, data handling, robotics, and computational reasoning for business.

The Future of Artificial Intelligence and MBAs

The Future of Artificial Intelligence and MBAs

Artificial intelligence advancements have pushed scholarly and tech crowd discussions to new heights. Prospective MBAs are leaning in to profit on a future with AI's amazing wins and vast unknowns. The ways in which technology is changing the world of work is a popular topic for business leaders across industries. As a result building the right skillset for a tech-driven future is becoming an important part of MBA education.

The New GMAT Focus Edition

The New GMAT Focus Edition

The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) has revised its exam, the most significant change since it was converted from paper to computer in 1997. The GMAT test will be cut by nearly an hour, with no writing required and all questions being multiple choice.

Johns Hopkins Announces $30,000 Carey Tech Fellowship

Johns Hopkins Announces $30,000 Carey Tech Fellowship

Johns Hopkins Carey Business School stated two days ago on March 15th, that it will give up to $30,000 in scholarships to employees who have received the pink slip and want to return to school to start an MBA in the fall. Additionally, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School stated that eligible students may use the Carey Tech Fellowship to complete their MBA program online, part-time, and in a manner that supports both synchronous and asynchronous learning. It also stated that qualified applicants will be exempt from entrance exams and application fees.

What’s New at Kellogg in 2023?

What’s New at Kellogg in 2023?

Kellogg was the first institution to waive test requirements for technology vets.  The GMAT or GRE are not required for the round 3 application deadline on April 5th 2023. Kellogg only requires transcripts, a résumé, and an application for either the part-time or full-time MBA program. Additionally, the 2022 full-time graduates received a high pay of $191,100, up nearly 9% from the previous year's pay, and it continues to rise over time. Furthermore, Kellogg is second only to Wharton in terms of career-long ROI. According to The Financial Times, the full-time program has risen 7 places in 5 years in terms of school rankings.

What’s New at HEC Paris in 2023?

What’s New at HEC Paris in 2023?

HEC Paris has made significant investments in entrepreneurship, digital development, and social responsibility in recent years and is continuing to do so. HEC Paris also established its Creative Destruction Lab two years ago, with the goal of growing companies devoted to combating climate change. HEC Paris intends to organize the MBAT event in person again this year. Last year, Hubert Joly established the Joly Family Chair in Purposeful Leadership to promote "responsible and inclusive capitalism."

What’s New at Dartmouth Tuck in 2023?

What’s New at Dartmouth Tuck in 2023?

Tuck got a $52.1 million gift from an unnamed acquaintance six months ago to fund a recurrent global summit on health, wealth, and sustainability held by Tuck. What exactly does this mean? This conference will discuss the intersection of public policy, health care, and climate change, as well as establish Tuck as a hub for funding in these fields. What does this mean for you? Tuck wants to turn into a ground zero for scholarships in this field.

Cornell: What's New in 2023?

Cornell: What's New in 2023?

Cornell University's Johnson School stated last autumn that it will be discontinuing its one-year Accelerated MBA program. This will allow relocating of funds to Cornell Tech and to the full-time MBA program. Additionally, the EMBA Americas program and the Immersion Program in Ithaca is prospering as well as in 2021-2022 the full-time MBA applications increased by 21%. Unfortunately, however, Dean Mark Nelson will step down in the summer, hopefully his legacy continues.

Wharton: What's New in 2023?

Wharton: What's New in 2023?

What's New at Wharton in 2023? The Wharton School will begin its Global Executive MBA online in May 2023. Wharton has been offering online courses for over a decade, but it is the first of the top five business schools to offer an online hybrid MBA program. Secondly, Wharton continues to invest in improving the learning environment. Tangen Hall, its entrepreneurial centre, is included. Finally, this year, Wharton will launch new specialties in ESG and DEI. The school not only teaches these courses, but it is also progressively operating on the basis of them.