the admissions consulting industry

($) A Stanford applicant case study: Avoidable mistakes

October 21, 2019 by EssaySnark - Discusses Duke Fuqua, Stanford GSB

Reblahgging because based on some profiles and BSers we’ve seen, this may be useful again!! We got an essay submitted for a freebie review last November and we spent a day reviewing it for everyone right before Round 2 (Stanford “What matters most and why?”) (tl;dr: getting rejected from Stanford is no indication of...

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We don’t publish sample essays for your own benefit, and now we have science to back that policy up

October 3, 2019 by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

We have never published sample essays on the blahg. We also encourage you not to read others’ essays even if they make them available to you. As we have cautioned umpteen times before, reading other people’s essays will not make it any easier for you to write yours. And, there’s never any guarantee that someone […]

($) So how competitive will MBA admissions be this year?

September 30, 2019 by EssaySnark

We could be totally off on this but… based on our reading of the tea leaves and examining the overall state of affairs in MBA admissions and the world so far with Round 1, we’re starting to wonder about things. We had been pretty confident when the season opened up that things would be stable...

That thin line between being smart and cheating.

September 11, 2019 by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

Aw man, here we go again. Yet another post from EssaySnark on ethics. You’d think we’d get sick of hearing ourselves talk about this. But no. Because it matters. Especially in this mixed-up world we’re living in now. Ethics really really matters. In case you missed it, our title says: That thin line between being […]

Do you want someone to tell you that you will get in? Or do you want someone to tell you the truth?

August 9, 2019 by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

There’s an unfortunate reality in this MBA admissions consulting scene where the lack of transparency works against you, the client/bschool applicant. You want to pick the best advisor to help you with your apps. But how do you know who that is? How do you evaluate whether an admissions consultant will help you get in […]

($) MBA app volumes and you

July 3, 2019 by EssaySnark

As we started to discuss yesterday: Yes, applications have gone down to the top schools in the U.S. Simultaneously, there’s been a strengthening of interest in bschools in places that aren’t called the United States. We’ve talked about this plenty o’ times, and it seems to be largely attributed to the image of American unfriendliness...

($) OH NO! Bschools in trouble! (aka, Are MBA applications REALLY tanking?)

July 2, 2019 by EssaySnark - Discusses Yale SOM, Harvard

Apparently it’s time for our “Is there a bubble?!?” post. We write these every few years (2015 version: Our annual “bubble” post; 2014 version: The whole “MBA bubble” thing rises again; 2011 version: The cost of education/is there a bubble? 8-part series), because apparently it’s a cyclical trend. The media gets bored, or someone (usually...

No, you don’t need to work for a big company to get into a top school. But there is one advantage.

June 18, 2019 by EssaySnark Leave a Comment

One of the very resilient myths out there in MBA Admissions Land is that you need to work for some big-brand famous-name company in order to get into Whanvard. We’ve covered such myths many times before: 3 Myths about MBA Admissions *Really* debunking the “big-name company” myth And this alternate take: 5 Myths about MBA […]

($) What will admissions be like for the Class of 2022?

May 30, 2019 by EssaySnark

We’ll go out on a limb and offer this bold prognostication: It’s going to be easier for the well-prepared candidate to make it into a top MBA program this year. This won’t hold true for everyone; there will still be crowded pools of candidates where each individual will need to fight to stand out, and...

($) When are the business schools going to release their MBA essay questions for the Class of 2022 applications?!?

May 20, 2019 by EssaySnark

We’ve got a tradition here of keeping data on stuff, and sharing it with you Brave Supplicants, to try and make this whole process a little less opaque, and also help you to prepare (and encourage you to get started early!!) One of our annual posts is this one: When will the darned schools release...