The MBA Round 2 Advantage
Navigating the Perils of MBA Application Season
2017 MBA Application Trends
The Part time-Full time MBA Jobs Battle
One of the main challenges at the schools with both part time and full time programs has nothing to do with rankings, but rather with job placement. Getting your MBA is mostly about landing that dream job at the end, and the last thing a graduating MBA needs to worry about is whether or not they will be able to land one. But this can sometimes be exactly the challenge at schools with large part time programs. In fact, since these schools often have a far larger part time program than their full time program, there is sometimes a glut of graduating MBAs at these schools who are competing against each other for jobs from both tracks.
MBA Networking Tips
We have established that MBA networking should begin well before business school and that some schools have better networking than others. What we haven’t really covered yet, are the nuts and bolts of networking and how you go about doing it effectively. Below is a baker’s dozen tips for building a network which will pay dividends as you apply to business school, as you attend business school and as you dive into your post MBA career…
What Flavor MBA Suits You?
How to Identify the Right MBA Program for You
Finding the best MBA programs in the world is not a difficult task. To be sure, resources abound which slice, dice and rank top programs from just about every angle imaginable. The digital age has made this process even easier. In fact, there is so much data out there, one can quickly get mired down in “analysis paralysis,” in the absence of a perspective. Your main focus, however, should not be to find the best programs, but rather to find the best programs for you. How can you do this?
5 Tips for MBA Initial Consultation Calls
Obviously we take a ton of "free consults" or Initial Consultation calls as part of our business model, so it seemed like a good idea to pass along some thoughts on how applicants can best utilize these. It depends on the people involved (both the consultant and the applicant) obviously, but as general rules, these might help you go in better prepared - not only to respond to questions, but to have a clear agenda for what you can achieve and take away from the experience.
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.
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:
MBA Application Advice: How to Build a Compelling Work History
One of the most important profile characteristics for any b-school applicant is their work history.
Unlike Law School, Medical School and just about every other terminal degree or master’s level program, business school requires students to come with some kind of work experience under their belts in order to “qualify.”
MBA Application Advice: Innovation is more than launching products
In addition to being a strong leader, a team player and an all-around impressive contributor to the workplace, business schools are looking for innovative thinkers. Of course, entrepreneurs have a fairly easy time convincing the adcoms they are innovative, after all, starting up a company, especially one which has shown some success, takes a lot of ingenuity.
But what about intra-preneurship?
MBA Application Strategy & Business School Demographics - What We Call "Demo-lition Derby"
When you charge people thousands of dollars to help them with their MBA applications, you had better be sure to look in every nook and cranny for an advantage.
We pride ourselves on doing just that and that mentality has allowed us to come up with incredibly helpful strategies for our clients. Everything from "structure your essays like a Hollywood screenwriter" to "finish your energy strong with a simple shift in body language" to "add an alternate short-term career goal to your first paragraph on your first Columbia essay" has come from a dogged determination and willingness to constantly find advantages. Obviously, most of those advantages are not for public consumption as it would neither be fair to our clients or terribly bright to reveal every "state secret" we have. That said, there are some tricks and methods that we find ourselves talking about so often on initial consultation calls that we figure no harm can come from letting the whole world know about it.
Today we've got one of those tricks, which we fondly call "demo-lition derby."
MBA Application Advice: Time Management
MBA Application Advice: Quantitative vs. Qualitative Impact
