MBA admissions
Amerasia Consulting
The Hail Mary

Sometimes tossing out an application where you have very little chance of getting in can work in your favor.

The Hail Mary
MBA admissions
Amerasia Consulting
The Student Debt Debacle

OK so you accepted your partial fellowship offer and lined up your student loans.  Think you’re on easy street with financing your MBA education?  Make sure you’re thinking like a business professional before you dive in.

The Student Debt Debacle
MBA admissions
Amerasia Consulting
Backup MBA or Try Again?

Cornell’s early admission decisions for their one-year MBA will be released in a few days, so even if you did not apply to this program, it’s essentially the starting gun for this year’s results.  Since over the next several weeks and months applicants the world over will be getting good and bad news from their target schools, it’s a great time to prepare yourself to receive the responses.  Will you be getting a “yes” from your top choice?

Backup MBA or Try Again?
MBA Application Expertise
Amerasia Consulting
Do Grades Matter?

Getting graded.  It’s been a necessary evil in everyone’s life since we were all old enough to hold a crayon.  At every stage, we either cut the mustard or we don’t and then progress to the next level of grading.  For those applying to graduate school, you may have thought those college grades were all but forgotten, but now find yourself having to face them once again.  And guess what?  The grading doesn’t stop with the application process, because very soon you’ll be back in the classroom.  This begs the question…do grades really matter?

Do Grades Matter?
MBA admissions, making a case for MBA
Amerasia Consulting
Are you a Dream Weaver or a Vision Caster?

So many applicants these days look alike on paper in terms of experience and education, test scores and outside involvement that even highly qualified candidates get lost in the shuffle.  We all think we’re pretty unique until we find out that the next guy also volunteered at a similar NGO, or was promoted to VP before his colleagues.  Particularly if you come from a feeder industry such as banking, finance or technology/engineering, it gets harder every year to stand out. 

Are you a Dream Weaver or a Vision Caster?

Admissions

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Don't Be Redundant, and definitely don't repeat yourself...

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Don't Be Redundant, and definitely don't repeat yourself...

With the trend towards shorter essays, There has been a phenomenon in the applications which can only be described as “redundancy.”  Shortening the essays has resulted in more questions and even mini-essays or micro-essays within the application itself, where often applicants end up repeating information about themselves that is found elsewhere in the application.

Wharton's Group Interview: Ambiguity Equals Opportunity

Wharton's Group Interview: Ambiguity Equals Opportunity

Yesterday was October 23rd.  A relatively uneventful day for many humans, but a big one for a select group of Wharton applicants who received an interview invite.  It’s obviously a magical moment to get that letter, err, email that says that mighty Wharton wants to talk to you.  However, this year that feeling of excitement is lasting for about two seconds for most applicants as it is quickly replaced by a feeling of uncertainty.  That’s because Wharton has partnered with the Wharton Innovation Group to come up with a whole new style of interviewing … the group interview.

When to Apply to Columbia During Regular Decision

Today’s blog post concerns the tricky Columbia Regular Decision deadline, which starts the day after Early Decision (which had a deadline of October 3rd this year) and extends all the way into April. While long, rolling deadlines are commonplace in college admissions or law school admissions, they are strangely out of place in the MBA space, which creates a lot of consternation on the part of applicants everywhere. Here’s the weird part though: normally when applicants ring their hands over something ambiguous and unfamiliar we tell them to buck up and have some courage (“Stop worrying so much,” is a common refrain around here), but in this case, there actually is some very real strategy to consider. We take into consideration a few rules of thumb, some common sense, and our own experiences sitting in the admissions officer’s chair to arrive at a recommendation.