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What goes into the MBA rankings and why should you care?

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Well shoot. We have literally been intending to talk about this for 1-1/2 years.

We had posted a question for all y’all way back in November 2017, looking for input on why Duke was ranked at a certain spot on the BusinessWeek list of best business schools. We got just one response at the time (hi rwelch9439!), and then another BSer popped in and gave additional insights a couple weeks later (hey buffalo!), and we had planned at the time to do a follow-up post of our own, to mostly agree with what was already said and hopefully continue the conversation about rankings.

But that didn’t happen.

Round 2 2017 took over. And then summer 2018. And then Round 1 2018. And, well, you know. Life.

But rankings are really something we want to discuss.

We would tweet stuff like:

BW ranked @NYUStern P/T MBA #35, after U of Louisville? (U of who??)

or

Here’s a question about the methodology used to gather some of the US News data
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/trying-understand-us-news-rankings-best-undergraduate-teaching#.WV-iY8Y-Kv9.linkedin

And we would remember the many posts in the ‘snarchives where we called out different publications, like this long-ago post about BusinessWeek’s data being unreliable.

And we would privately be scoffing and throwing things and rolling eyes and all sorts of aghastedness when we saw that School X was ranked higher than School Y on such-and-such a listing.

We really wanted to do the deep dive for you, to demystify rankings and help you understand them, so that you’re a more informed consumer of them as you go about your school research tasks.

(Because in case you’re not already aware, EssaySnark is not so much a fan of these rankings thingies.)

We planned to go into detail on points like this:

One factor of The Economist’s ranking is the percentage of students finding jobs through the school’s career services. What are the implications of this when a school decides to tailor its admissions practices in order to score better on a ranking methodology? Does it discourage schools from admitting family business or sponsored students? What if your goals are off the mainstream, so that you’ll by definition be on your own for recruiting? In some respects that could be seen as a positive factor in a profile, as it could convey to the adcom that you’re self-sufficient and ready to carve your own path in life. But could that also be a headwind against you, if a school cares about maximizing their points in the context of how this publication is scoring them? The Economist also used years of pre-MBA work experience as part of their “student quality” measure, which is just really tough to get the head around. Why is years of experience a quality factor? Not getting it.

These methodologies are obviously a very complex topic, and rather than continue to punt it down the road and reschedule it into some never-to-arrive future slot in our editorial calendar, we’re going to offer a very much condensed version today, mostly comprised of links to a few other resources that we encourage you to explore.

Then if you want to come back with your discussion points or questions or observations or theories of how a particular publication’s rankings methodology might have unintended consequences in the business school marketplace, we’re all ears.

You can start here: From a now-dead link, the GMAT people break down the rankings with a useful interactive chart — originally at http://www.mba.com/us/plan-for-business-school/choose-a-school/evaluate-schools/users-guide-to-mba-rankings and thankfully preserved at wayback

Or for a very simple overview, here’s a description of how to use the rankings from a now-defunct admissions directors’ blog targeted to military candidates.

More recently, a cheat sheet to the rankings from Darden

Obviously whenever a school is touting its appearance on a particular rankings, that’s part of its marketing and promotional effort. You know that the schools study this stuff closely. Ranking matters to ALL of them and sometimes a school will bring in a new dean with an explicit mandate to improve their standing in the rankings. It’s a rigged system — not rigged by any one party, but overall, not serving any particular constituent to any true degree of value. The only entity who profits from rankings is the publications who produce them, because it drives sales of their guidebooks and traffic to their site. That’s it. The consumer — you — the student — the supposed audience of this — does not benefit, except from a very gross value level of putting a line in the sand between schools like Michigan Ross and “U of Who?” Many schools are catering to their own colleagues in some of their policies and promotions.

The fact that some publications use the opinions of other deans as a ranking factor is just ridiculous. How could a dean at one school know what’s going on at another school? How could Dean Wharton evaluate Dean Stanford? Sure, they are professional peers, they likely interact in a variety of professional settings, and hopefully they’re following what their competition is doing in the marketplace, in terms of big new programs or initiatives being launched — but don’t hold your breath. Most deans have trouble staying on top of what’s going on at their school much less following the changes at all the other five-ish schools they consider to e direct competitors to, much less the 15-ish schools that are broadly considered to be “the best.” (Pro Tip: If you ever hear an admissions person claim that their school is “the only one who” has such-and-such a program, they’re almost always wrong.) How can a ranking put ANY weight on what the deans thinks of the other schools? It’s all just who’s got a puffed-out chest and is making noise and attracting attention. A school like NYU who has in the recent past had more low-key deans who don’t go out there strutting their stuff, yet who are very busy making all sorts of improvements to their programs and expanding to new geographies and focusing on their culture, those schools don’t get noticed. They don’t have the “reputation” — yet these are incredible schools that offer a high-value and high-impact educational experience. But you wouldn’t know it based on many of these rankings systems.

So, the main message today is, caveat emptor as far as rankings go. When a school is touting how they are #1 on this scale or #3 on that one, take it with a grain of salt. There are now so many different rankings and categories of rankings and subrankings that every good school is bound to end up in a respectable position on at least one of them. Heck, EssaySnark even posted our own rankings before!! Based on how easy it is to get into one school versus another. If you’re really focused on rankings, seems like that would be the most important one of all, no?

 
 
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($) Talking to current students about their bschool experience

by EssaySnark

One of the very best ways you can find out about a bschool that you’re interested in is to talk to the students who are going there. (Yeah, this seems like an obvious statement, but you’d be surprised. Lots of applicants never do any of this.) Right now is a Prime Time Great Opportunity to…

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Bschool is what you make of it.

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If you’re sitting here in early 2019 thinking about applying to bschool in the fall for the Class of 2022, then we hope you’ll take today’s advice seriously.

And if you’re sitting here in early 2019 having already gone through that process, feeling grateful that you’ll be starting an MBA program this fall yet tormenting yourself with the decision about which of your multiple-school admit offers to accept, we also hope you’ll listen close!

We’ll call the pre-applicant BSer Case A. You’ve not yet applied to any school (or perhaps you have and you’ve only seen rejections so far 🙁 ).

We’ll call the happy success story BSer Case B. You’ve made it in and felt the rush of excitement, not once but twice or more, and then gone through many difficult days of trying to figure out this all-important decision on where to actually attend.

The Case A BSers may not appreciate this, but the Case B BSers probably do:

The most important task in the entire MBA application process is school research.

Why do we say that?

Because the only way that you’ll be able to easily navigate Case B is if you have figured out which of the schools is the right fit for you.

Yes that should happen BEFORE you apply. But often, it doesn’t.

Everyone wants to go to “the best” bschool. Many many many applicants, though, outsource the determination of “the best” to some external source. Rankings will not tell you what school is best for you. You come up with a list based on M7 or some other nonsense and you get those apps out. It’s very possible to still make it in even without doing your own firsthand research, but then if you were lucky enough (aka, your profile was strong enough and you worked hard enough on your apps) to get in to multiple schools, well, then what? Do you just go with the school that’s ranked higher?

Or, sometimes, Case A BSers figure, “All bschools are the same and I just want to go to a good one” so they paper the country with applications, which rarely works and is VERY expensive.

For Case B, the tl;dr is:

There’s a lot of factors that go into the decision of which school to choose but in the end we always tell folks to go with the gut — and to solicit opinions, but not really listen to any of ’em, ‘cuz nobody else has any skin in the game for this except for you! If you were admitted to two or more schools among the Top 10, then some people simply choose the one that they feel is “better” — so, if they get into Duke and Kellogg, many choose Kellogg. If they get into Tuck and Wharton, they choose Wharton. Etc. Often, in an admit-pairing, there’s one school that’s got more prestige, where you’ll be impressing your friends to say you are going there.

But is that automatically “the best” school for you?

Maybe it is. Certainly, if you cracked the Top 10 with more than one app, you cannot go wrong, whichever you choose! It’s not like we’re dissing any of these schools. It’s totally your decision, and if you feel that the best school for you is the one that’s ranked higher, that’s totally normal and natural and nothing wrong with making that choice.

But is it “the best” for you as an individual? Can you identify the reasons why? For you personally?

If you’ve got the curse of good luck and you’re sitting here stuck between multiple admits, then the most effective way to decide of course is to participate in the Welcome Weekend events for both schools. That’s how you discover what the school culture and experience will be, where you get to know your potential future classmates and get a feel for what this school is like. And the food.

But you wanna know the better way to go?

Bschool is about people, yes. You want to see what these other admits are like and figure out if you sync with them.

Bschool is about the jobs, yes. You want to know if the employers you’re interested in are recruiting at your school to fill the jobs you’re currently planning to pursue — knowing, too, that those plans may change, and so not being overly fixated on these specifics, but researching them nonetheless.

But in the end, the paper-the-country applicant is absolutely right: Bschools are in fact interchangeable on this one very important dimension, the dimension that matters most in this process:

What about YOU? Which school will allow you to do your best work? Which school is the place that you get excited about, that has the programs and initiatives and opportunities that make your mouth drool? (and now we’re not talking about the food)

Here’s a trick:

Dig out that essay you wrote for your school.

Now that you’ve been admitted, go back over the reasons you cited for why you wanted to go there in the first place.

For 99.9% of all applicants, those reasons at the time were totally manufactured. It was an artificial process, where you read through the website until you found something that fit the point you were trying to make about the career goal that you’re interested in. It was pretty arbitrary; it was just plugging School Resource X into a box, and then going back and finding Resource Y, and Resource Z, and doing the same on the next school’s essay thereafter.

But now that you’ve been admitted, open up those essays. What did you say about this school at the time, when you were begging at the altar of an admit?

Do those reasons still apply?

Or do you have others?

Can you articulate clearly why this school is right for you?

What will you actually DO there when you get on campus and start, like, learning stuff?

Many schools have very similar programs and clubs and opportunities so it’s not like, “Oh, this school calls it this but this other school calls it that….”

No.

We’re talking about, have you actually discussed these programs and resources and clubs with actual students? Do you know what these things will do for you, what you will gain from them, why you should bother? On the surface they may sound alike but are they REALLY alike? What are the differences? Why do they matter? Based on what type of person YOU are, how are they relevant? What are your specific priorities? If you can only do one significant international trip as part of your MBA, which one will it be, and why? What school has the best opportunity for that? What is the timing for that experience, based on where you will be in the course of the overall education? How will you leverage it? Will you already have been able to take Course X that you want to do first, or will that course only be offered after the trip?

These are just basic ideas to help you analyze all of the options. All of this is meant only to emphasize: The most important part of this process is school research.

Or another way to put it is, go to the school where you will do your best work (thank you, Dean Bruner). Understanding that requires you to understand yourself first. What kind of environment do you thrive in?

All of these questions need to be asked.

Regardless of whether you’re at the very beginning of this process and just starting to kick the tires on which programs you might be interested in, or at the very end where you’re making the seemingly impossible decision and selecting between two awesome opportunities, keep that in mind: Where will you do your best work?

That’s all that matters in the end, don’t you think?

 
 
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What’s going on with Fuqua?

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Well that’s a provocative headline ain’t it.

As industry-watchers, we, you know, watch the industry. We try to keep our fingers on the pulse of what these MBA programs are doing, how they’re responding to changes in the marketplace of interested prospective students, in some cases, how they’re responding to each other, what they’re doing to anticipate the future needs of employers in the world and how they are (hopefully) innovating and strengthening their offerings to better prepare the workforce of tomorrow.

It’s really hard to know for sure what’s going on at a school from the outside. This of course is why we constantly emphasize the importance of a campus visit in order for you to know if a school is even right for you. After all, you’re the one who’s saying she wants to spend two years of your life there. What if it’s not even a place that you really like? What if they don’t have the focus on the niche sector you’re most interested in? What if the students don’t seem to prioritize quite the same things?

When you’re going on name and reputation alone or have outsourced your decision on where to apply based on what some business publication has decried as “the best” then you’re flying blind. You don’t really know what a school is about. You certainly aren’t in a position to discuss its culture and community if you’ve not experienced it firsthand.

And so EssaySnark is indeed going out on a limb with the questions we’re posing today. Because we’re outsiders; we don’t know what’s going on in the halls of Fuqua. We can’t say for sure what’s behind the things that we’re observing today.

All we can do is evaluate the adcom’s actions, meaning three specific components that we use as tea leaves:

1. What is the school’s strategy? What are they doing to attract candidates? How “out there” are they in drumming up interest? How engaged on social media, how visible in the marketplace where applicants congregate (be that virtual or IRL)?

2. How does the school construct its application? What means do they have to solicit useful and insightful information from candidates that allow them to shine as individuals?

3. Who are they accepting? What do they value most in a candidate? Where are they overlooking flaws like lower GMAT in favor of interest and diversity? Where are they sticklers for stats?

These three dimensions give us quite a bit of information, as esoteric as they may seem, upon which we can draw conclusions about trends that are in play at a school and where that school is going.

For example, over just five or so years, Ross has fully impressed us with their focus on culture and new initiatives, and they’ve gone from an almost second-tier school that many applicants used only as a safety, to a school that many BSers now choose as a top pick. They have made their value prop visible, and you likely have at least a reasonably positive impression of them even if you have not got them on your short list. You probably have been exposed to enough buzz about Ross that it’s rubbed off on you and your overall sense is that it’s a good school, regardless of how well, or not, you personally have researched them before.

This phenomenon is something called “brand equity” and it’s the intangible value that you associate with a firm or a product, like the generally positive associations with Apple, or the leaning-negative feelings about Facebook. Brand equity is the reason why HBS is in constant demand and is seen as the pinnacle school — even when you don’t really know why.

If you’ve become enamored of Ross and decided you really want to go there, it’s likely you can rattle off at least three reasons unprompted.

Most people who apply to HBS cannot come up with even one. Or they say “case method” but that’s not a reason to go to Harvard Business School. That’s not something to be excited about; it’s just how it’s done there. Every other bschool in the world also uses cases as part of its pedagogy, but yet when you wrote your essays to them you didn’t gush about the case student method in your “why MBA” essay.

Nobody on the planet wants to go to Harvard because of the case method.

No.

You want to go to Harvard because it’s Harvard.

Okay, back to Duke.

Duke is a good school. We saw Fuqua embrace culture as a critical component of the bschool experience before many of its peers did. Duke University is of course world renowned, a very good school, just like Northwestern or Dartmouth or University of Chicago or all these other places.

Fuqua was practically a renegade when they created their “25 Random Things” non-essay essay, way back in 2012. That was pretty revolutionary at the time. The only other schools that gave applicants such a blank-slate approach to an app requirement then were NYU and Booth.

But 2012? Dang, that’s a long time ago now.

Sure, the 25 Random Things has proven the test of time. It’s probably the most FUN assignment of any business school’s app. Apparently the Fuqua admissions people have a “it ain’t broke” philosophy in place. Their app requirements have been almost entirely unchanged in all of that time (excepting some tweaks to the phrasing of the long-essay prompt).

Okay, but what about category #3 that we can observe: Who gets in?

What seems to be happening in the most recent admissions cycles is, candidates who are accepted to a set of two or more schools, where Duke is among that set, are often choosing the non-Duke school to matriculate.

Candidates who are accepted only to Duke are going to Duke.

Obviously this is a gross generalization, and we don’t have access to the entire results of all applicants everywhere.

But from our slice of the admissions landscape, it’s a trend that we seem to have spotted, which has generated this working hypothesis.

Other schools like Ross are really kicking it into high gear. Same with Darden, which used to be seen as a next-tier school, but which has gotten a somewhat higher visibility sheen in the past few years. But Duke? They’re not really on our radar as much. It’s not like they’re a safety school; oh no. They’re still quite selective and it’s by no means easy to get in.

But from what we can tell, they’re just not impressing the BSers out there enough to get them to say “yes” when there are multiple options on the table.

We’re going to keep watching and see if this theory is wrong.

About six years ago, Duke was so popular that they became quite difficult to break into.

But just this past season, we’re not sure that still holds as true as it was.

Anyone get into Duke + other schools who wants to share your experiences and impressions? Where are you leaning? What school will you choose, and why? Is Duke a first choice for lots of you? Why or why not?

We want to learn. Comments are open if you want to share your opinions!

($) You got in somewhere good. Should you try for somewhere better?

by EssaySnark

This question comes up fairly often: “Hey EssaySnark! I got into School B! Do you think I should try for School A?” where School A = Harvard or Stanford or Wharton, and School B = not When this question comes at this stage of the admissions season – right after Round 1, before Round 2…

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Success Story! A post-MBA retrospective (part 2)

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Let’s continue what we started on Friday! Here’s a Q&A from EssaySnark to a long-ago Brave Supplicant who’s now made it all the way through the process, completed his MBA, and been spit out the other side. Catch up on Part 1 if you missed it, and here is Part 2!
 

## **EssaySnark:** How did you determine if a school met those priorities or not? What was the best resource you used or action you took to learn about the school and decide if it was a fit for you?

**former BSer** Any school on my list would have been fine. Heck, any school in the top 20 or 30 would have worked for my original consulting goal. Mainly this was because I didn’t care about recruiting. After networking into BCG on my own without an MBA, I knew I did not need to depend on the usual recruiting game.

What really changed everything was the visits.

My first visit specifically.

To Tuck.

Ah, Tuck! Tuck is like the high-school crush you move on from, but always remember with a sigh. My visit was amazing, and it helped me realize what all the jabber about “fit” really meant. This, ahem… refocused my priorities, and it’s why Darden eventually rose to the top.

You see, Darden is akin to a southern Tuck, which made it a fantastic fit for me. Furthermore, Darden prides itself on an educational experience built around the case method classroom, which is exactly what I needed to do better in consulting case interview. (The GMAT proved it wasn’t a mental horsepower issue, and my earlier networking provided it wasn’t a fit issue. This left confidence as the problem, and so a classroom built on the case method would be perfect).

The school visits changed my thinking.

At Tuck, I fell in love with the school.

Then, at Wharton, I felt like a number in a large system. A good friend with a Wharton MBA would later tell me that it took her almost a full year to find her crew. Looking back, that would not have been the best place for me. (Wharton is a fantastic school, and “not the best for me” is nearly a distinction without a difference).

At Kellogg, I had a good time. Almost too good of a time. Actually, I was beginning to suspect the hardest part of my MBA would be keeping up with all the twenty-somethings late night shenanigan-izing.

At Darden, they let me visit a real class. And I still remember it clearly. It was the last session of a first-year strategy class. The interactivity and thoughtfulness of the classroom discussion blew me away.

Honestly.

Best classroom I’d ever seen. Hands down.

Darden only lets you visit one class, but I charmed my way into a second one, because I figured the one I had seen was a fluke. So I visited an operations class. I saw the same level of interaction. It was as if the students were teaching the course, while the professor was conducting or directing the discussion.

As you guessed from all that gushing, Darden went to the top of my shortlist.

Actually, Darden turned me down for their regular MBA but wanted me to interview for the EMBA. I was so totally and emotionally invested in the MBA that it took a couple weeks to work through my feelings to make an objective assessment. I boiled the situation down to a simple question. Was an MBA worth $200,000 more than an EMBA? (This is a simplistic estimate based on lost wages and loans, disregarding the NPV of future income, but it was the key question that focused my analysis of the choice.)

Because I had been so caught up in my plan to get an MBA for consulting, it was difficult to admit the EMBA was actually a far better option for me. However, I still stand by this assessment. It would have been a personal and financial step backwards for me to go into a regular MBA.

 
 
 

 

 
Hmmmm….. the plot thickens! More to come as we follow along retrospectively with this former BSer’s adventures to bschool! UPDATE: POSTED HERE! In the meantime, we can offer this post from the ‘snarchive on related topics….!

“What exactly am I supposed to be researching?!??”

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We actually posted this in May — but we’re resurfacing it again today because if you’re ready to take our advice from this week and want to gear up for Round 2, then school research needs to be happening NOW.

 
 
We’ve been saying it over and over again lately [errr– in May we did and we should probably be saying it again now — oh wait, that’s what we’re doing by reblahgging this here in November]: YOU NEED TO RESEARCH THE SCHOOLS.

But what if your response to that exhortation is, “Okay great I will! But what am I supposed to be researching???”

There are many facets to be exploring and plenty of things to uncover about a target MBA program.

First and foremost, you want to evaluate the basics, like location and size of the class. Geography is important — be sure to read the comments on that post about how easy it might be to recruit in one part of the country when you’re in a school somewhere else. Geography also affects climate, obviously, and if you’re allergic to the cold and the snow then that’s going to rule out a whole bunch of schools as possible targets. Class size matters a lot too, and there are legitimate pros and cons on both ends of the spectrum. A very small school has certain advantages, and a very large one has different ones.*

What are your priorities?

Knowing this is the first step.

Then, once you have a working list of schools — which will undoubtedly change, even perhaps dramatically, as you continue your research (since that’s the whole point of doing research in the first place! to validate and vet your initial ideas, and make sure that you’re honing in on the schools that are really right for you) — you’ll dive in with your efforts on each individual school. And yes, this is a lot of work — but it tends to be super fun work. You’re reading websites and logging onto chats and watching webinars and talking to people about their experiences. You’ll be continuing all of these tasks from now to eternity the day you decide on a specific program, which is well past the time when you a) submit your app, b) do your interview, c) get your decision, d) attend the school’s Welcome Weekend, which won’t be happening until something like the end of January.

Yes, you’re going to be doing this for awhile!

Once you have a pretty good idea that yes, you will in fact be applying to a specific school in Round 1, then your main objective will be uncovering concrete facts and details about the program that can help you articulate WHY you want to go to this program.

Yes you want an MBA. Yes this is a great school to get one. But WHY?

WHY is it a great school?

And WHY do you need an MBA?

(Pro Tip: Having your career goals well articulated now, before you are knee-deep into researching the schools, can get you really far down the path of answering these questions!!)

Can you answer that simple question? Why do you need an MBA?

‘Cuz you’re gonna have to answer that when it comes time to write some essays!

What you must vow to us, right here right now as you’re reading it, is that you will never ever use the phrase “business acumen” in any of your essays.

Please.

Do it.

Just promise.

It’ll make EssaySnark feel better.

Your goal in your school research, then, is in providing you with meaning FOR YOURSELF.

Knowing you want an MBA is one thing, but knowing WHY you want to spend two years of your life – plus at least one full year more in this blasted application process – and spend oodles and oodles of cold hard cash, and go through all the pain and suffering and trials and tribulations of not just applying, but flying around tarnation to visit these places, and the stress of the interviews, and then a massive major relocation that uproots everything in your life, and that’s even before you’ve started!!!

WHY DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS?

There are macro and micro answers to this.

You should be gathering notes on them both.

This is the raw material from which your most excellent essays will be drawn.

 
 
 

*None of that even starts to touch on the issues involved if you have a partner who’s going to be following along with you, relocating to a new city and building a life of their own there. We have posts here on the blahg about applying for an MBA with a partner and a bunch more in the ‘snarchive about couples applying together, so those are places to start if that’s you.

“Rankings will not tell you what’s the best school for you.”

by EssaySnark - Discusses Leave a Comment

The first page of the Kellogg School MBA application has a very polished video that flashes images of the gorgeous new Global Hub building and plays one-second soundbites of students sharing the stress and anxiety (and self-reflection) that they experienced in their application.

It’s easy to tune out and not really absorb any of it. We’re hit with so many marketing messages every day that we become immune.

But we encourage you to spend time with this, and with every other production that every other school you’re trying for makes available. Sometimes their messaging is straightforward; sometimes it’s so overbranded that you can’t actually distill anything meaningful. But in many, there are real gems of wisdom that are not only important but also relevant, and can possibly be reflected on to find nuggets on the inside of you that you can leverage in presenting your message back in your apps.

One comment that somebody makes in the video is “Rankings will not tell you what’s the best school for you.”

This is the type of thing that can wash right over you, because yeah, you know it’s true.

But why not stop and think about it?

Many, many people are focused on rankings and often rankings alone in their choice of an MBA program. This makes total sense, since everyone wants to go to the best program they can. But rankings tell an exceedingly limited story.

The only legit way to choose schools solely on rankings is if you have spent the time yourself to dig into the methodology used by that publication that develops the rankings. If you cannot sit here and spout off the factors and weightings that Bloomberg BusinessWeek uses to identify Kellogg as a Top 10 school, or that USNews does, then it’s irrelevant that Kellogg is Top 10. (Their methodologies are quite different, BTW.) To go only by rankings is to completely outsource the entire selection process to some nameless corporation. Rankings are useful as a starting point, but that’s it. We’re not going to go so far as to say that rankings are fake news but in this day and age especially, you need to be an informed consumer of everything you take in.

After all, we’re talking about YOUR LIFE.

Remember that these promo videos by the schools are designed for a reason. Significant time and effort is put into them. They are the result of many deliberate choices to try and convey something about the school — something that the school thinks is important. While it’s easy to think that all schools are alike, and to review a bunch of websites makes all of them start to blur together, it’s also important to recognize that each school is desperately trying to convey what they’re about.

Sometimes all it takes is that you listen.

($) The joint MBA/Master’s app: Is it easier to get in?

by EssaySnark - Discusses , , , , , ,

We’ve previously spoken of applying for an MBA along with another graduate degree and today we’ll offer additional points to consider as you’re thinking about dual-degree application strategy, including the perennial question of “Is it easier to get in?????” New programs typically do not get that much interest, so app volumes are usually lower, which…

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Handy Guide to How to Ask Questions at an Info Session!

by EssaySnark 3 Comments

It’s time for MBA admissions directors to fly around the world meeting with chipper-faced Brave Supplicants!

It’s time for Brave Supplicants to not squander the opportunity!

If you’re planning on applying for the Class of 2021 at any of these top MBA programs in the fall, then we hope you’ve been signing up for the schools’ events and subscribing to their email lists, so that you can stay informed of when they will be visiting your area.

Or, even better, you can plan a trip to them! Visiting campus in the summer isn’t ideal, since there are few students around and typically no classes in session, but it’s still valuable to get a feel for the vibe of the place, and most schools have info sessions available on campus every week.

Today we’re serving up this useful reference tool that you may want to memorize for those all-important Q&A sessions at the end. As you can see, it’s for asking questions at a conference, but it doubly applies to your time with an adcom person!!


Apologies to whoever we stole this from — it was on some internet site or another in the past few months and we captured it without remembering to note where it came from.
 
 

Here’s something to remember: At any in-person function with the bschools, you’re not there to impress your peers! You’re there to impress THE ADMISSIONS PEOPLE.

To that extent, don’t model your behavior, or your attire, on current students or alumni. They’re the ones who already have what you aspire to get. They’re the ones goofing off, dressing down, being utterly relaxed.

It’s not that you shouldn’t strive to be relaxed — but if you show up in wrinkled clothes and your Teva sandals since that’s what everyone at your casual office wears, or you jostle for position in trying to get the attention of an admissions person when everyone’s gathered round, or you crack an off-color joke or in any other way act like a mild version of a buffoon, you’re not going to score points with the adults in the room.

By the same token: Some admissions people are young enough to be your peer — but please don’t mistake them as such! We’re not saying you should be in suck-up mode (please don’t) but we are reminding you of your role in this situation. Being friendly, yet polite, and always professional is the way to go.

Good luck at your functions! Bring good questions! Have fun! These are great opportunities for you to interact with the school community. Make the most of them!