Your Guide to Business School.
YES! Don’t underestimate the value of non-academic, non-work activities! These activities that you participate in – hobbies, sports, volunteering, etc. – do tons to liven up your otherwise one-dimensional application. Here are some reasons why you should bulk up your extracurricular quotient: • Extracurricular activities add life and texture to your application. As mentioned a moment ago, MBA applications can appear flat and
Why am I nagging you to get moving on your MBA application prep? Not just because those Round 1 deadlines creep up with wicked stealth and speed (last year, HBS broke the September barrier). But also because there is so much you can still do between now and then to improve your candidacy (sometimes a lot, sometimes on the margins, but margins matter). Also, preparing now will enable you to apply to more programs earlier, and therefore to
By Betsy Massar, founder, Master Admissions The business school application scares most people. Sure, it looks simple enough – fill out a few forms, take a standardized test, send transcripts, answer some essay questions, get recommendations, and voilà, you’re in. If only. As the founder of Master Admissions, a veteran of the investment banking and investment management worlds, a graduate of Harvard Business School and resume coach
The answer, as is often case in MBA admissions, is…it depends. The chances of gaining acceptance decrease as the rounds progress. That means that acceptance rates during R3 are generally lower than during R1 and R2. Similarly, grants and scholarships are harder to come by later in the admissions game. Now, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t apply. Your chances of acceptance = 0 if you don’t apply. They are >0 if you do
Dealing with Application Deadlines: Set yourself a schedule and work backwards from your deadlines. Allow time for the holidays, sleep, exercise, and of course work. Focus first on the applications with the earliest deadlines. Work on applications one at a time. Adapt essays from your first application, when possible, to later applications. However never merely paste in an essay because the question is similar. Customize it for this
Prospective MBA students often get very nervous about resumes, worrying madly if they’ve got the perfect sequence for admission to the top business schools. Here’s the good news: 1. It’s ok if you have a gap in your resume 2. There’s no perfect work sequence In fact, I consider the worry about a “resume gap” one of the biggest myths in business school admissions and recruiting. Most people I know aren’t “gapping” at
The Indian School of Business has become one of the strongest graduate business programs in Asia: it ranks 13th in the Financial Times’ MBA rankings – only two Asian programs surpass it according to FT, more than 98% of its graduates secure job offers within 3 months of graduating, and the salaries those graduates receive are high – 187% above their pre-ISB earnings! Competition for seats in this esteemed 1-year program is steep and the
THE TWO QUESTIONS BEFORE THE ESSAY QUESTIONS 1) Position sought after graduation Please give us your short term career goal post MBA (up to 5 years). Describe how the IMD MBA will help you achieve this goal and how you will approach your job search. (maximum 2000 characters) Forward-looking, connect-the-dots MBA goals question with a twist. To answer this question, you need to know what you want to do after you complete IMD’s short,
Among the clients I’ve had over the past three years, at a rough estimate I’d say about half came to me stating that (a career in) Private Equity was their Why-an-MBA goal. I could shake some from it, but not others. This year again I’ve already seen a number of ‘PE applications’ and am fielding the question that inevitably comes with it: “Is PE a strong-enough goal? Is it too common?” To answer this, and offer a perspective
Just about everyone, that is, other than McKinsey consultants and Goldman analysts, call themselves non-traditional candidates for business school. Why? Because they think that everyone who will populate the next MBA class comes from management consulting or finance. We all of know a few consultants, investment banking types, and more than a few engineers at business school. And indeed, if you look at the profiles of many business schools
You’ll create the best, most attractive, most convincing MBA application if you are well informed about the goings on in the MBA admissions world. For example, what are adcoms REALLY looking for in 2013 applicants? Who do they think will become the greatest business leaders of the future? What are the two most significant changes to applications this year and how should you respond to them? How do you cram all that info and data that’s in
I recently attended a workshop at the Stanford Graduate School of Business on pitching business plans to entrepreneurs. The experts there kept hammering it home: consider your audience. An MBA application is like any sales pitch. Your audience will not only determine what you have to say, but how you are going to say it. Your audience is your target market. The audience can be one person, it could be hundreds, or it could be a small
This is a question I receive all the time. Sadly, there is no definite yes or no answer to this one (I know, as usual), so I always answer with the only accurate answer I can give, which is: "It depends." After writing 3-5 required essays for your target business school application, you're probably not interested in writing anything more, especially if it has the word "optional" tacked on to the front of it. But that's definitely not a reason
There are those who revere her and those who fear her--but one thing is certain about Dee Leopold, director of Harvard Business School admissions—she tells it straight. After the May 22 announcement that HBS would modify its admissions process, Dee made herself available to answer questions. She granted an exclusive interview with Poets & Quants and immediately scheduled a webinar to explain the new process. I’ve posted highlights of that
Accepted.com refers to the process of writing the MBA goals essay as "mapping." To "map" your MBA goals essay you need to follow our unique MAP strategy. There are two MAP tactics which will be explained below. Make sure your essay responds to the exact wording to the question, but most MBA goals essays are like a roadmap. The adcoms want to see where you have been, where you are right now, and where you plan on going in the future – that
Accepted.com offers loads of MBA resume tips on how to format and design your application resume. In this post, however, we're going to focus on three must-know tips on how to compose your MBA resume's content. Before we do this, though, I'd like to explain what your MBA resume is and what role it plays in the MBA application process. What IS an MBA Resume Anyway? First and foremost, the MBA resume is a clear outline of your employment and
Take a deep breath. Being a member of an overrepresented group is not an MBA admissions death sentence. Most applicants find themselves relating to one (at least) label or group, and that doesn't exclude them from the adcom pickings. What do you think – that the adcom readers only choose candidates who have no associations to any larger group or label? Obviously that would be impossible – if nothing else, applicants fall into either the
What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word "authentic?" My bet would be that you don't automatically think of an MBA student. But someday, you just might. Why? The top business schools are not only looking for applicants with academic potential, but they’re seeking out a new breed of leader—someone who’s passionate, collaborative, and wants to make a difference in the world. They want applicants with more than
Have you been dinged from your top choice MBA programs? Don’t despair – get back on that application horse and try again! (In other words, it's time to put your best efforts forward again in the MBA reapplication process.) Here's what you should do: 1. Analyze why you were rejected. Was there a problem with your MBA profile (like you not have enough work experience or your GMAT was too low)? Or were you competitive but your
Once upon a time there was a beautiful b-school applicant who had a perfect GMAT score, a 4.0 GPA, a dazzling resume, and glowing recommendations. She devoted all her spare time to serving her community, that is, when she wasn't dabbling in her hobby of bassoon-tuning or spinning wool into gold to hand out to needy orphans. To top it all off, she had the glossiest, longest hair, to-die-for eyelashes, and the straightest, whitest teeth – and she
Jenny Strange, 2011 MBA graduate from the University of Georgia Terry College of Business, offers insight for current MBA applicants who have taken a longer break between their undergraduate and graduate careers. She discusses how to take advantage of student life, details her internship process,...
Stephanie Bauer, a 2003 alumni from the University of Maryland Smith School of Business, details her decision-making process when it came to choosing the right MBA program for her. She discusses why she chose to attend business school, the benefits of a part-time MBA program, and how to build...
Edmund Amoye, 2012 MBA graduate from the College of William and Mary, discusses the Mason School of Business program in our latest MBA Alumni segment. He details his background, balancing school and family life, and why Mason School of Business was a good fit for him. Edmund answers the followi...
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