Getting into a top MBA program may feel like winning the lottery. But for international students, getting a job afterward may depend on winning an actual lottery.
Forget Star Wars. The MBA talent wars are coming to a b-school near you.
Forget Star Wars. The MBA talent wars are coming to a b-school near you, according to a recent survey by Poets & Quants.
With admissions officers more active than ever in recruiting today’s best and brightest, P&Q asked a group of leading MBA consultants where their top clients are heading for their graduate educations. And their answers may surprise you.
Quick & Dirty Tips for Maximizing your Business School Visits
Why Elite MBA Candidates Fail the "Failure Essay"
Today, we are going to be breaking down the failure essay and the biggest reasons why everyone blows it. This is particularly relevant to the season, as we begin to take on our usual batch of INSEAD clients (for both January and September intakes) and that schools asks a very tricky little failure question. We have a very specific approach to the accomplishment part of that essay that transforms run-of-the-mill answers into INSEAD-worthy submissions, but we're going to keep that locked in the vault. The failure essay though ... we owe some thoughts to the masses, just as a public service.
Would Saint Thomas Aquinas Have Hired an MBA Admissions Consultant?
Warning: this blog post will be more esoteric than most. If you don't like deep thinking, you might want to wait for the next one. Because what I am going to do is use some of Thomas Aquinas' teachings to explain that there are different ways to going about the MBA application process. Namely, that one can "seek learning," "be taught," or "rush out and share what he has learned," which loosely translates to doing the applications on your own, hiring a consultant, or engaging in forum culture. I am a consultant, so you will never guess which one I am saying he would have endorsed! In all seriousness though, this is some interesting stuff so I encourage you to dive in, be willing to self-assess, and possibly achieve a new perspective.
Is an on-campus tour or MBA class visit required for admission?
I was recently asked "Is a campus visit required for admission?", followed up by "is it going to be viewed negatively if I don't visit?" The official party line - most admissions committees will tell you that a campus visit is not going to be considered when making admission decisions. However, most MBA applications will ask you if you have talked to anyone from the program. Some program apps - such as Columbia - will get a bit more granular and only ask what current students have you spoken to?"
So what is the deal with school visits and do you have to do them?
Tips for Reapplying to MBA Programs
Rankings: Best MBA Programs for Technology Jobs (2015) - Haas
Today's blog post is a follow up to our Best MBA Programs in Finance ranking. It's also our attempt at ranking top MBA programs by industry and based on publicly available data. We've never felt completely comfortable with the rankings because (to our knowledge) the raw data that drives the rankings has never been fully disclosed. So we decided to start over and with the very numbers that the school's career centers are reporting via their respective employment reporting.
Yale SOM's 2015 Essays - Read the Fine Print
Today we are analyzing Yale's 2015 Essays ... sort of. What we are really doing is taking a look at them and using this essay set as a way to remind everyone to read the fine print when it comes to dealing with applications and even schools in general. I'm not blowing the whistle on some grand conspiracy or anything like that, but just illustrating that you can't take everything at face value. This is especially relevant at a time when applicants are killing themselves to try to hit Round 1 deadlines because an admissions officer "told them to," or when candidates make horrible errors in judgement based on the same logic. The truth of the matter is you have to keep your eyes open and use your own common sense when navigating this process.
Cognitive Bias and Tuck's 2014 Essays
Tuck released its new essays and they feature no changes to Essay 1, the removal of one word from Essay 2, and the cutting of their old Essay 3 (on setback/failure).
No doubt everyone in this space will be analyzing those changes today (I am too), but my guess is they will come to incorrect conclusions in many cases. There are a lot of reasons why people make incorrect determinations when analyzing changes, but much of it can be attributed to cognitive bias - everything from recency bias to bounded rationality to confirmation bias. We tend to read things in one way and our flow of assumptions follows that set path. I will explain what I mean with the context of each questions - but just be forewarned that this blog post serves two functions: an analysis of Tuck's questions, but also an attempt to figure out why people trip up and make errors in interpretation.
Looking at INSEAD's January Intake? Download Our Guide
Every year, we work with a growing number of INSEAD applicants who decide to take advantage of the staggered intake system to submit a sterling "summer app" to what many believe is the top non-U.S. business school in the world. It is due to this rise in popularity that we added an INSEAD guide to our "how to apply" series that previously featured HBS, Wharton, and Columbia (GSB and Booth are in the works). We are also happy to say that we have enjoyed a success rate with June INSEAD applicants that is basically unprecedented. Whether this is because of the added focus (other than HBS 2+2, we really don't have any other clients applying to schools in late May or July) or because we just have INSEAD nailed, it's hard to say.
Either way, if you are considering a summer submission to INSEAD, we would encourage you to download our guide at the very least. If you are interested in full consulting services, shoot us an email at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com and we can share with you our approach for nailing the DNA of INSEAD and helping a diverse mix of applicants gain enrollment to that program. We've helped applicants young and old, in elite jobs and out of work altogether, and from four different continents and we can help you as well.
Round 3 Strategies: UCLA Anderson Beckons
We've been running a lot of Round 3 strategies on this space the last few weeks. Why? It is timely, obviously. But also, Round three is just so misunderstood that we find every conversation leads to new epiphanies for our clients. In turn, we pass along the broadest and most helpful of those pieces of information to the general public. Today, we're talking about a specific school that you might want to consider if you are firing off Round 3 bullets.
Don't Apply Round 3 ... Until You Read This Post!
The common myth surrounding Round 3 of the MBA application process is that you can't, or shouldn't, apply late in the admission cycle. "The class is pretty much full" is one refrain. "You have to be a truly unique applicant" is another. "Only European programs admit people that late" is yet another. As with anything, there are bits of truth in these sound bites ... but only bits.
Ambiguity Equals Opportunity: The Story of the New HBS Application
Today we are going to talk about the new HBS application and what it means for applicants. We've already gone on record with our thoughts on how something like "this" (a school eliminating required essays) might impact our work as consultants, so this post is going to break down what this means for applicants. First, we are going to provide some context, to properly frame expectations.
In Brief - What Counts as Significant International Work Experience?
Must Read for Reapplicants - A Word of Advice
This time of year, we get a huge number of inquiries from students gearing up for the reapplication process. This makes sense, as this subset of students is often driven to succeed, still hurting from the sting of getting rejection letters, and aware that going at it alone all over again might not make much sense. Here are a few techniques and things we have discovered that can help all reapplicants, not just those who become our clients:
"New" HBS Round 1 Deadline is September 16, 2013 / "New" MIT Sloan essay questions coming out "mid-May"
Thinking about a JD/MBA? A word of advice
This time of year, we start to hear people ask a lot about the JD/MBA degree path. It's understandable, given the popularity of both programs and the temptation to get two degrees normally totaling five years of school in just three or four years. That said this is a time we usually ask people to stop and think things through. Why? Because you can shoot yourself squarely in the foot if you rush off and apply as a JD/MBA applicant instead of one or the other.
Let's work through this.
The Art of Transferability: brainstorming pre-MBA experiences and skills you *already possess*
In working with clients of all age, gender, nationality, and industry, one thing we're always trying to do is identify things that connect everyone - common elements that become and remain true, regardless of differences. To be honest, there aren't many such elements. Almost everything about the MBA admissions process is a contextual exercise. You can almost never divorce a unique applicant or a specific school from your analysis. It's part of the reason this is such a difficult endeavor for people, part of the reason why so many admissions consultants do a horribly incomplete job of advising candidates, and a huge part of the reason why admissions consulting even exists. You have to do a lot of things right and you have to do them with great contextual specificity. If you confront "one size fits all" advice, typically you can sprint away from that as fast as possible.
That said, there is one universal truth that we have uncovered that seems largely overlooked by the rest of the MBA admissions landscape and that is how enormously important it is to abide by what we call the Art of Transferability.
MIT Sloan's Supplemental Essay - Mandatory or Optional?
Our clients are reporting to us that during their visits to MIT a number of admissions committee members are "strongly encouraging" applicants to submit Sloan's Supplemental (Optional) essay. This is advice that should definitely be considered, but only if you really have something to say - not just a rehash of prior content or an ill-advised attempt at a goals statement. At a high-level, the supplemental essay is a test of your ability to deal with ambiguity. So consider this a de facto requirement, but (again) only if you have a different dimension of your character to bring to the table. If you can pass that sniff test - read on.