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
When it comes to conveying your marketing message to the admissions committees at top business schools, it is important to relate your various profile characteristics in a meaningful way.Often, applicants are naturally very good at doing this in either a quantitative or qualitative way, but it’s actually important to do both.
How to Answer the "What Other MBA Programs Are You Applying To?" Question
Pay particular attention to the question that some b-schools ask during the interview and/or on your application:
What Other Programs Are You Applying To?
Why would they ask this question? The reason is this:
- B-schools are keen to know who they are competing against. They want to know how applicants view the correlation between programs but also if you are using the school as a backup or safe school.
- Note that this question is pretty much asked by MBA programs who have been burned by their "yield" in year's past. That is, the admissions committee extends a lot of invites and only gets a handful of positive replies.
Let's use UCLA Anderson as an illustrative example ...
Applying Round 1 vs. Round 2 — Why You Might Want to Wait.
Advice for Applying to MBA Programs in Round 3
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.
MBA Applicants: Which Round to Apply
As we move through the winter months and host calls with b-school candidates for the upcoming cycle, it's interesting to note that some admissions questions come up a lot more this time of year than they do later. We are going to try to use that as a cue to address these types of issues and concerns here on the blog - and we are starting with a very common question this far out from the process, which is "what round should I apply in?"
THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION DEPENDS LARGELY ON THREE FACTORS.
Chicago Booth MBA Interviews: Current Student or Alumni? On Campus or Off Campus?
Most Common Mistakes on Round 1 MBA Essays
I just saw a whole lot of MBA essays over the past few months and now that Round 1 is (mostly) finished, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to jot down the most common mistake I saw for each of the most common essays I worked on with clients. Round 2 clients can get a leg up by simply avoiding these traps.
Why MBA Candidates Should Ditch the Phrase "Safety School"
Today we are going to take the term "Safety School" and put it through the shredder. Reasonable minds can probably disagree on what the term should mean, but what I want to do is explain why I personally do not believe that "Safety School" should be part of an MBA applicant's lexicon.
First, the term is used incorrectly about 90% of the time. When applicants say "safety school," what they often mean is "a school that is really good but that hopefully I have a better chance to get into." If you are using the term this way, just as a shorthand, that is fine but make sure that it's clarified with anyone you are working with, such as your consultant. The real use for "safety school" should probably translate more or less to "a sure bet." With college applicants - due to the pressure to be enrolled on an exact timeline (following high school graduation, of course) - a "safety school" is a very real thing; you simply have to pick some programs that you are sure to get into. Often this means a program from that student's home state, sometimes with sheer numerical thresholds (lacking holistic admissions processes). If you go to school in California and have a certain matrix of GPA and test scores, you can feel "safe" about getting into certain Cal-State programs. That's a safety school. Ross and Duke Fuqua are not safety schools. Now, what if you are using the term in the right way?
Weighing the pros and cons of getting an MBA outside of the US
Heads up, today's post is for the Americans among us, as we have been getting a lot of questions about international MBA programs.
If you are a US citizen trying to decide where you want to get your MBA degree, it can be tempting to think about schools outside the USA.
After all, the world knows no boundaries thanks to technology and a global marketplace. Right? Spending a couple of years in Spain, England or Asia also sound like nice places to see new things and meet new people while you sharpen your business acumen. And since most programs at reputable business schools are in English, you won’t face the language barrier that may have stopped you otherwise. Seems like a slam dunk? Read on ...
Should I apply Early Action / Early Decision?
