MBA

Are you a Dream Weaver or a Vision Caster?

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. 

Applying to Business School Straight out of Undergrad?

Applying to Business School Straight out of Undergrad?

This time of year is replete with many young candidates who want to apply to business school directly out of undergrad.  Is this possible?  In some cases, yes it is. 

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

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.

Should You “Think Bravely” on Your Kellogg Application?

Should You “Think Bravely” on Your Kellogg Application?

In case you haven’t noticed, Kellogg recently launched a new “motto” that reads: “Think Bravely: we believe that business can be bravely led, passionately collaborative, and world changing.”  The introduction of this laboratory-cooked slogan caused much hand-wringing among Round 1 applicants, so now that we have a moment, we wanted to address it and help out those of you applying to Kellogg in Round 2.  So, should you focus your applications on “Thinking Bravely”?  Let’s break it down.

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.

Relax! HBS’ 3rd essay really just a 400-word chill pill (email)

Today the MBA-journalism website Poets & Quants published an article that was more or less a summary of a recent blog post from Dee Leopold, the managing director of admissions and financial aid at HBS.  In it, she tries to better articulate HBS’ much-discussed new “post-interview” assignment.  In a series of emphatic points, she takes great pains to tell applicants the following:

  1. Relax
  2. This is meant to emulate the Real World (capitalizing these words was not our idea, by the way)
  3. Admissions consultants are NOT ALLOWED

All three of these points are sort of ridiculous and we will take them in the order presented above.