Since today is Ross Decision Day* we thought we’d do a shout-out to the Michigan admissions committee. We’re holding them up for esteem for a similar reason that we did for Chicago Booth recently: they have a blog — or more precisely, the Ross Admissions Director has a blog — that contains a veritable treasure trove of information.
The advice and insights offered by Soojin Kwon are part Ross-specific — telling you how things work behind the scenes1, giving you information about the goings-on with the school — and they’re part awesome and applicable to most any school.
Like the advice about the importance of your bschool resume
Like the advice on how to prepare for an interview1
And like the repeated outreach and reassurance that they provide to waitlisted candidates (e.g., this )
Another reason that we like Ross? This year, they moved their Round 1 decision date up by almost a month. Yes, that’s right, they have compressed their processes and accelerated their decision time in an effort to accommodate you Brave Supplicants. (Last year, Rd 1 decisions weren’t released till mid-January. This year, it’s December 20th.) This is squarely in the Majorly Applicant-Friendly category — yet you probably weren’t even aware of it. So we’re tellin’ ya. This is just one more indication that this school cares about you BSers and is trying to minimize the stress and help you through the cycle.
(Sure, it’s also probably due to market pressures — if you find out from two of your schools in December that you’re accepted but you don’t know about Ross for several more weeks, then Ross may be at a disadvantage when you go to make your final decision. So it’s in their interest to have an earlier decision date. But still, it’s way more in your own interest than in theirs, so we give them kudos for it.)
And finally, one last reason we super love Ross and Soojin in particular: It’s because of their openness and responsiveness to candidates. In this blog post from last year, she literally responded to a complaint1 that had been posted by a BSer in the comments of one of her prior posts (the person was b!tching about the Ross process — we’re guessing you know what we think about that).
We frequently caution against eliminating a school from consideration based upon a negative experience with admissions, and we have the same advice in reverse. You shouldn’t choose a school because they have a good admissions team. The adcom is not going to teach your classes. The quality of the school cannot be judged based on this aspect alone. However, it’s a pretty good indication that the school cares about culture, and experience, and values, when they have the type of philosophy and attitude that we see in schools like Ross.
If you applied to Ross, hopefully you will be singing the praises of the adcom today too – after you’ve received word of your acceptance!!! If not, then we’re very sorry, Brave Supplicant… but there’s still time to regroup for Round 2! Good luck to everyone!
UPDATE: There’s a chat today!
*It’s Wharton Decision Day today too of course, and we do like them too – but they haven’t won our hearts in comparison to the likes of Ross.
1 On 1-15-17 we updated links to external sites where we could, and the now-dead links to these Ross Admissions Blog posts were removed:
- how things work behind the scenes: http://rossblogs.typepad.com/admissions/2011/12/touching-base-on-round-1.html
- how to prepare for an interview: http://rossblogs.typepad.com/admissions/2012/11/standing-out-in-an-interview.html
- In this blog post from last year, she literally responded to a complaint: http://rossblogs.typepad.com/admissions/2011/11/demystifying-the-interview-invitation-process.html (really wish we could find that one but alas)
Tell us what you think.