B-SCHOOL NEWS Top Business School Stories of 2009 The global financial crisis hammered the MBA job market, school endowments, and financial aid. Some questioned an MBA's value. Bring on 2010
MORE TOP STORIES
FINDING A JOB Jobless MBAs Seek Solace in Support Groups With the job market in shambles, MBAs need encouragement wherever they can find it. For tea and sympathy, many are now turning to B-school support groups
MBA JOURNAL: INTRODUCTION A Cosmetic Change "The decision to apply to business school was one that could not wait any longer. Every year I spent in consulting felt like I was betraying my passion"
VIEWPOINT Reining in College Costs Higher-education costs are spiraling out of control, and quality leaves much to be desired. The surprising solution, argues a college president: online learning
Dartmouth: A Virtual Tour The small student body and easily-accessible professors make Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business a tight-knit intellectual community.
Visit BW Online's interactive forums for wide-ranging discussions about management education. Search through over 1,359,000 posts for topics that interest you. Join in today! Here are a few samples of recent messages:
Getting into B-School — Round 2 Essays — What Not to Do
From: timpower To: All
You've seen a large number of posts from us and many others on what you should do with your essays. Knowing what not to do is probably as important, if not more, than what to do and our essay reviewers (alums from Wharton, HBS and Stanford) pulled together the list below for our blog at http://essaycritique.blogspot.com
So, DON'T:
1. Exceed the word count
2. Use "I realized" ad nauseum - we actually have a tool that counts what we call absolutely overused essay phrases and this is top of the list..
3. Gloss over the details - the AdCom is more interested in understanding the specifics of what you did than the broad, high level generalizations that you felt during the situation you are describing
4. Say "I was enchanted" or enraptured or captured or any such magical sounding verb - c'mon, were you really?!
5. Suggest that you were in the epicenter of the financial crisis and helped solve it - unless you really did.
6. Say you volunteered or are a 'community service' type of guy if you are not. If you are, say where, when, how and how much.
7. Use every essay to talk about your career. You need at least one "personal" essay, if not two (depending on the school that you are applying to)
8. Blame everyone but yourself in your 'failure' essay. Even though you might not think you have, revisit it - we can't state how many people do this because its embarrassing.
9. Ignore the question. As plainly obvious as this might sound, after you have written your essay, re-read your answer once to only check for this - have you answered each component of the question that is asked and done it justice?
10. State the obvious. Let your discussion of situations and experiences naturally lead the reader to your conclusions - e.g., after describing a particularly challenging time in your life, don't say "this experience was extremely challenging" - they get it. Hope this helps - you know where to find me!
Tim Power
From: rlandis To: timpower
haha.. this is a great list! i really am trying to find substitutes for "i realize(d). . ." in my essays!! thans for sharing
From: toofunny To: timpower
I've actually heard its OK to exceed the word count by a small number of words if you've already honed the hell out of the thing. . .Several S2S Wharton threads that discuss this topic. I exceeded my a couple of my word counts by about 2 - 5% and was told that this would not be noticable by Adcom. . .hope I didn't royally screw up!!!
From: timpower To: toofunny
hi toofunny,
Absolutely not - I'm sure that it doesn't keep you from being admitted if you are a few percent over the word limit. Our reviewers do think that no matter what messages you need to convey, there is always a way to do it within the word limit, and that's what the point meant.
A number of you also wrote to ask us what other words (like I realize) to avoid. I want to also clarify - it's not like you can't use "I realized. . ." The point being made was just not to overuse it multiple times in the essay. There are other words like this that we run a Word "terminator' tool on and we'll publish the list on our blog soon.
Thanks,
Tim Power
Getting into B-School — Dilemma Regarding GMAT Retake. . .
From: vd53 To: All
Hi All,
I am an Indian IT Applicant .I am planning to apply to US and UK B Schools for fall 2011 intake. I have taken the GMAT 4 times with scores ranging from 640- 660. The Mean score for Indian applicants for my target colleges(30- 50 ranked US colleges) is around 700. So i am in a dilemma whether i should retake the GMAT and score 700+ to improve my candicacy especially considering the fact that my profile is pretty ordinary. But i am skeptic that the adcoms will view me unfavourably if i take the GMAT 5 times.So could you please let me know whether i should go for the GMAT for a 5th time.Have any of you known candidates who have made it to top B-schools after taking GMAT 5 times?
Regards vd53
From: TVU121 To: vd53
Hmm, one word of advice is that you should look at the actual applications of the schools to see which of them asks you to divulge how many times you've taken the test. Booth asks how many times, but doesn't ask what the prior scores were. Tuck only asks for top 2 scores. So I'd look at it from that viewpoint. But I would recommend retaking the test if you're comfortable with having explored the requirements of each school.
From: Jinshil To: vd53
Every question to Adcoms that I have heard regarding multiple GMAT has been been answered with "we only take the highest GMAT".
Even a few admissions consultants here have said multiple GMAT will not hurt you unless you go down in a spiral.
From: timpower To: vd53
vd53,
My recommendation would be to focus on your essays rather than taking the GMAT one more time. By saying that, I'm not doubting that you will succeed in getting 700+ the fifth time — What I mean is that your time will be better spent explaining your story to AdCom in a way that will make the GMAT score less relevant in the context of your overall application.
If you look at the range of GMAT scores on any of the big school websites, you'll notice that the range starts around 600ish. This tells you that there are people who get in with scores in the 600s because they had a well defined and articulated story.
Email me if you need help essaycritique@gmail.com.
Thanks,
Tim Power
From: EMBAapplicant10 To: timpower
Hey Tim,
I got a 620 on the GMAT (v 83%, q 49%). I did a lot of studying (4+ months, 10+ hours a week) so I was very disappointed with my score.
I did the Kaplan program and my score didn't really go up much after the 3rd practice test (got 530 on diagnostic, then 570, then 620, then bounced around a bunch and went as low as 510 and as high as a 640).
Do you think there is much point in taking again? I feel pretty burnt out from studying, especially when my score didn't improve much considering the time I put in. Maybe I'm just stuck with a low score. . .
Based on your experience helping people, do you see big score jumps on retakes, even after people have studied and taken their first test seriously? According to GMAC statistically people don't do much better on retakes, but I'm not sure if they have an angle.
Thanks!
B-SCHOOL BLOGS
View over 4,500 blogs in our MBA Blogs community today! Share your journey, meet new friends, and expand your network. Connect with MBA students, applicants and alumni from Columbia, Kellogg, Notre Dame, and more! Become a blogger today! Here's an excerpt:
iMBA The Ghost of The MBA Past. . .
By iMBA
Keeping in spirit with xmas (for those that are locked in their rooms applying to R2, working on essays and dreaming of exponents and sentence correction idioms YES IT IS ALREADY XMAS OUT THERE), this post will explain how I ended up locked in my room, studying for the GMAT test in London, one of the most beautiful cities in the world during the Xmas of 2009.
Close to graduating from my undergraduate school and having not worked very hard for it, I decided that as a wonderer it would be too soon to return to my Ithaca (not Cornell's one - )
Unable to find a job I decided to take a Masters offer I had from a top 5 UK school and move to London. At the time the decision made no sense as I was not interested in continuing studying (I wanted to find a job as an IT consultant and the IBMs and Accenture's were my dream) and on top of that I was having the time of my life at a small city outside London.
Amongst other factors that made me, a key reason that I took the masters offer was the fact that as a wonderer I had to keep moving. . .during my first year in London I did not manage to do ANYTHING. . .was trying to juggle a few balls at the same time (job hunting, networking, studying, London life and a new person in my life) and ended up with a masters BUT without a job. Stubborn that I am, I decided to stay another year in London and look for a job in the greatest capital of Europe.
At the time, we were way out of the dot com crisis and well into the bubble of the new one. Banks were paying a 5hit load of money to grads so I decided to start applying for IT graduate schemes in banks. What I didn't know at the time, and soon realised, was that to get hired for the bank you needed an INTEREST in financial services. . .
So every time I had an interview I read about financial news, learned new financial jargon and google-d anything related to CDO, CDS, spreads, yields etc. the problem was that I went to A LOT OF interviews. . .it turned out to be a full time job. . .as you can imagine I learned A LOT OF stuff about banks. . .
By that time I was infected with the "bug". . .Having secured an offered I got a temp job at a stock broking office. The job was easy and had lots of free time to spent with the stockbrokers and traders. . .Managed to learn quite a few things but most importantly decided to pursue a career in the "markets". . .
The markets got a unique characteristic. . .it s you against the whole world out there and there is evidence of your success; your p+l is a daily/weekly/monthly/yearly of how good you are at what you are doing. But unfortunately the credit crunch hit the markets. So, on top of not having the proper knowledge and qualifications I had to deal with decreasing supply of jobs.
But as I mentioned before, my stubbornness conquered my laziness. . .I decided to explore my options and come up with a plan how to get my dream job. So here I am blogging about GMAT, ranknings, extra curr and learning the mba forum's jargon (reach school, HBS etc). . .only time will show where this adventure will take me. . .
Ps. Disclosure: the above is not my "Why MBA" essay ! It s more like the spark that lit the MBA fire. . .will write an extensive blog in the future explaining all the reasons I am pursuing an MBA
PS2: no comments yet. . .started to wonder waz the reason behind. . .
This newsletter is a FREE service provided by BusinessWeek.com.
To sign up for other newsletters, cancel delivery, change delivery options or change your e-mail address, please go to our Newsletter Preferences page.
If you need other assistance, please contact Customer Service or contact:
Wanda Cooper BusinessWeek Customer Rights Communications Data Services 1995 G Avenue Red Oak, IA 51566 Phone: 1-800-635-1200
To learn more about how BusinessWeek.com applies this policy, you can contact our Marketing Department.
With 2009 drawing to a close, and the long, awful, monstrosity of it all finally coming to an end, last week seemed as good a time as any to revisit the business school stories that made it such a nightmare for everyone involved in the business of management education. In our list of the top ten b-school stories of the year you'll find all the usual suspects (the collapsing job market for MBA talent, for example) but also a few unexpected twists and turns, such as ETS' efforts to break the GMAT stranglehold on the b-school admissions testing market.
As you read the compilation of stories, take a moment to give thanks for the year that was. Yes, it was hard, and a great many people and institutions suffered setbacks. But we all learned something, too, something important about risk and greed and the catastrophic price that's paid when human nature disregards one in the headlong pursuit of the other. We also learned a little something about resiliency and hope. As the late, great Kurt Vonnegut might have said: and so it goes.
On behalf of the b-schools team, enjoy a safe and happy New Year celebration, and a healthy and prosperous 2010.
Louis Lavelle Business Schools Editor BusinessWeek
UCLA Anderson: Admissions Q&A MBA Admissions Director Mae Jennifer Shores explains what UCLA's Anderson school has to offer and what it takes to get in
MBA Insider Check out this feature-rich area for advice and tools that will help you choose the right B-school -- and develop a strategy for getting accepted
Full-Time MBA Rankings & Profiles BusinessWeek's Top 30 U.S. programs and Top 10 international programs. Plus, scan in-depth profiles of more than 300 full-time programs around the world
The Best Undergraduate B-Schools Undergrad business programs are getting MBA-like respect, and competition to get into them is hotter than ever. Here's how the top schools stack up
B-School Calendar BusinessWeek.com's scheduling tool will give you an idea of upcoming events at B-schools in the U.S. and around the world. You'll find information on admissions receptions, application deadlines, networking events, alumni events, conferences, and much more.
Reader Dorothy Beach Writes:
MBA Insider 
B-School Calendar 
EMBA Rankings & Profiles 
Exec Ed Rankings & Profiles 
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep a civil tongue.