Accepted Admissions Almanac

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See you at the Accepted Admissions Almanac.

New MBA Admissions Resources on Accepted

Accepted is continuing to post transcripts from recent chats and to add to its rich resources for MBA students:

• In "Three Tips to Reduce GMAT Test Anxiety" Bara Sapir of NY Test Prep provides three important suggestions to reduce test anxiety. Check out these tips if your knees shake when you start to think about test day. Also, learn about a NY Test Prep discount for Accepted clients and visitors. (BTW, Accepted has hosted 186 MBA admissions chats since 1999, most of them with admissions directors at top programs from around the world, and 29 chats in the most recent admissions cycle.)
• 2008 Michigan Ross Part-Time Admissions Chat with Jim Hayes. Ross assembled an impressive team for this chat including a current part-time MBA student and representatives from career services, admissions, and academic services. If you are considering Ross' part-time program, check out this transcript.

International Graduate Application Volume Slows

Following increases of 9% last year and 12% in 2006, graduate school applications from abroad increased by an anemic 3% in 2007-08. A few highlights from the Council of Graduate School's survey:

• Among regular participants in the survey, international applications are down 16% since 2003.
• Applications to CGS U.S. member institutions from both China and the Middle East increased 12% this year, but that figure pales when compared to gains of 19% and 17% last year, respectively.
• Specific fields are experiencing sharp changes. "Physical sciences applications have increased 7%, compared to 19% last year; engineering is up just 1%, vs. 11% in 2007, and there is only 2% growth in life sciences, compared to 17% last year. There is some good news, however: applications to social sciences are up 10% after a 2% decline in 2007." Applications to graduate schools of business increased by 10% in 07-08 compared to 15% in 06-07.

I will be interested  to see if the weak dollar doesn't turn the trend around, especially for applicants from countries with currencies tied to the euro.

Chats: London Business School, Wharton Waitlist, Ross Part Time

And the chats keep on coming.

Recent Transcript Excerpts:

• Wharton Waitlist Transcript with Thomas Caleel
  

thurston (Apr 2, 2008 1:01:32 PM)
Hi Thomas, I am a R2 waitlist candidate for Wharton. First, thank you for hosting this chat. Second, I have a quick admissions question for you. Let say we have two hypothetical RE-APPLICANTS. Both have similar app packages: work experience, extra curricular, GPA, GMAT, references, interview, etc. In fact, the only difference is in a previous year one was waitlisted and the other was outright denied admissions. Both are re-applying and both have demonstrated *very similar* improvements in their application. If you MUST chose between the two, who would you admit -- and, more importantly, why?

ThomasCaleelWHARTON (Apr 2, 2008 1:01:47 PM)
Thurston, thank you for the question. It's really impossible to say outright which one.
This process is very holistic (as Dan and Amelia can attest to), and there is never "one" thing that means admit or deny.

ThomasCaleelWHARTON (Apr 2, 2008 1:02:48 PM)
I do think you are concerned that being on the WL might give you some preference in the re-app process. The answer there is not really. For re-apps, we look at the learning the candidate has undergone, and how they express that in the re-app.

ThomasCaleelWHARTON (Apr 2, 2008 1:03:23 PM)
By the way, simply sitting down and re-reading your original app will be very helpful should you choose to re-apply...

• London Business School MBA with Zoë McLoughlin & Peter Johnson This chat was unique because it was for MBA and MIF candidates at London Business School, which is still accepting applications for 2008 applicants.  The final deadline is May 2, 2008.

andrew (Apr 7, 2008 1:06:25 PM)
Zoe: has the admissions office noticed a large influx of applications this year? If so, please elaborate. Thank you.

ZoeMcLoughlinLONDON (Apr 7, 2008 1:07:16 PM)
Andrew - yes, we have noticed an increase in quantity but there are always places for good candidates, even in Stage 4.

Linda Abraham (Apr 7, 2008 1:06:37 PM)
David & Helen: do you see MBA recruiting at the MBA and the MiF programs affected by the credit crunch and sub-prime mess in the US? Do your graduates have jobs?

HelenGreenLONDON (Apr 7, 2008 1:08:48 PM)
Linda, recruitment has continued to be strong on campus this year with more recruiters than ever coming to meet with our students. Although the market is competitive, there are still considerable opportunities available and recruiters clearly continue to value our students’ wealth of experience and diverse backgrounds. We are seeing recruiters taking a long term view and continuing to maintain their ranks of associates from the MBA and MiF programmes.

DavidMorrisLONDON (Apr 7, 2008 1:09:23 PM)
Linda, building on Helen's answer, there is also a growing number of companies from the Industry sector recruiting at the school, either coming to campus and/or posting jobs.

Upcoming Chats:

Accepted is hosting the first Michigan Ross Part-Time MBA Program chat tomorrow Tuesday April 15 at 3:00 PM PT/6:00 PM ET. If you are interested in Ross' part-time MBA program, please join Jim Hayes, Senior Associate Director of Admissions and other members of the Ross PT team in Accepted's Chat Room for an informative chat.

MBA Reapplicant Tips and Resources

Most '08 MBA applicants know if they are starting b-school in the fall or not. If you fall into the "or not" category, you are facing a reapplication decision.

MBA Reapplication Tips

I am reprinting my tips for reapplicants along with a list of resources you can use as you ramp up for a successful MBA reapplication effort.

1. Determine what you need to change. Your previous approach didn't work. Don't turn in the same essays.
2. Analyze your qualifications versus your target schools' average stats and requirements.  Don't rely on miracles. Be realistic.
3. Seek feedback. Fewer and fewer schools are providing feedback, but if yours does, grab it. If it doesn't, consider obtaining an MBA Application Critique.
4. Evaluate your application. Do your essays and letters of rec (if you have access to them) add to the reader's knowledge of you? What could you do to improve them? Again, consider using Accepted's application evaluation service.
5. Work on weaknesses. For example, if you applied to business school with a low GMAT, study for and retake the test.
6. Prepare to highlight valuable recent experiences. When you reapply, you want to show that you are "new and improved."

MBA Reapplication Resources:

• Create a Better Sequel: How to Reapply Right to Business School , Accepted's featured ebook, is 20% off this month. A reader recently wrote, "After a string of Dings, the information in Create a Better Sequel: How to Reapply Right to Business School gave me confidence to start my re-application process this fall! "
• MBA Admissions: Advice for Reapplicants
• Re-Applying to Business School After Being Rejected, a podcast from MBA Podcaster. The podcast highlights the somewhat different reactions of b-schools to reapplicants .  Note the emphasis on evaluation and growth.

Not sure you can objectively evaluate your past application? Demoralized by a stack of dings? To deal with your morale issues, please see:

• Personal Statement Tip: Pick Yourself Up and Applaud.
• Admissions tip from Dr. Pausch's Last Lecture

To provide objective analysis and ensure the positive change you want to show, jump-start your reapplication effort by combining Accepted's Application Evaluation with our Start Smart MBA Mentoring(TM) service.

Economic Woes Hurt 2008 Hiring

The drums of economic downturn have been beating loudly. Very loudly during the last few weeks. Almost like daffodils after a spring rain, articles about grads having fewer job opportunities and employers, especially in financial services, cutting college and MBA recruiting have sprouted:

• From The Wall St. Journal: "For Class of '08, A Scramble for Jobs." This article focuses more on this year's college senior.
• From BusinessWeek "It's Looking Grim for New Grads." The impact of the credit market melt-down is felt throughout financial services and by all grads interested in careers in business, specifically those interested in financial services.
• From BusinessWeek "Bear Stearns Rescinds Job Offers." Now it's official Bear Stearns is rescinding some offers extended to members of the MBA Class of '08. While it may have been more shocking if none of the offers had been rescinded, the reality is increasing nervousness and tension throughout MBA-dom. The memories of rescinded offers are recent (2002) and painful.
• From the NY Sun "Economic Woes Could Be Felt by MBAs of 2009.", a slightly more optimistic piece. It looks at the market and concludes that 2008 grads "dodged the bullet." The outlook for 2009 MBA grads is much more cloudy. In fact b-schools, like MIT Sloan, are pro-actively turning to their alumni to help with placement for '09 grads.

Implications

If you are graduating in this market, you may need to be flexible and bring out Plan B. IT, government, and health care are still hiring and going strong. Engineering grads are in demand.  Alternatively, this year may be a great time for travel or community service perhaps prior to grad school with the hope of graduating in an up economy.

But what if you are planning to apply to MBA programs this fall? I went out on a limb and gave my predictions for the upcoming MBA application season on April Fools Day, with the observation that time will tell whether that post was an April Fools Day joke or something more meaty. Commenter "It's Happening" points to the BW articles (published April 3) as proof that my predictions are coming true.

I like to be right, but there is also evidence going in the other direction. For example, MBA Tours reports that attendance at its events in Fall and Winder 07-08 increased 30%. I suspect that much of that increase took place before Bear Stearns collapsed and before the news got as bad as it has been for the last month or two. I also hear that a surge in recently employed investment bankers is taking the GMAT exam.  A year or so ago, I was reading articles about these financial jocks who didn't feel it paid for them to go for their MBA.  Clearly something has changed dramatically.

I still believe that if articles continue to appear about unemployed MBA's, lower average salaries for MBA grads, and more rescinded offers, potential applicants who have jobs will be reluctant to give up the security of a paycheck for the uncertainly of a tuition bills, student loans, and no income.  Fewer applicants could make next year a little less competitive year and an opportune time to apply. Furthermore, the fact that 08 or even 09 could be tough hiring years says nothing about hiring for 2010. Just like last year's recruiting environment implied nothing about this year.

MBA Admissions Grabbag

A potpourri :

• London Business School Chat on Monday, April 7 at 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/5:00 PM GMT when Zoë McLoughlin, MBA Marketing Events Manager & Peter Johnson, Admissions Officer - Masters in Finance, will be available to answer your questions. This will be a combined chat for those interested in both the Full-time MBA Program as well as the Masters in Finance.
• Senior Editor Paul Bodine’s book, Great Application Essays for Business School , continues to jump off the bookshelves. It has been ranked no. 2 in Amazon.com’s Business Reference books category for some time. A new Chinese-language edition has been published by McGraw-Hill Taiwan and a Korean edition will be published soon. Finally, McGraw-Hill India is providing Indian readers with a way to order the book in India rather than from the U.S.:  contact McGraw-Hill Education India Pvt Ltd. at UK_Prasad@mcgraw-hill.com or Phone: 091- 044 – 24769557 – 62 (6 Lines), Mobile: 99400 64903.
• Waitlist Chat transcripts. We have hosted several waitlist chats with different program over the last several months. You can review waitlist policies at different schools in the following transcripts:
  • Michigan Ross Waitlist Chat with Soojin Kwon Koh
  • INSEAD Waitlist with Virginie Fougea
  • USC Marshall Waitlist with Kellee Scott
  • Cornell Waitlist with Randall Sawyer
  • MIT Sloan Waitlist with Jen Burke Barba

Wharton's waitlist chat transcript from today's chat should be posted next week.

• Yale SOM has posted an excellent article on its waitlist policies.
• BusinessWeek has published a special report on European programs.

MBA Admissions: Gazing into the Crystal Ball for 2009 Applicants

It's nail-biting time for a lot of people. The business climate is stormy. The news is gloomy. Uncertainty thunders over the horizon.

So why am I going to attempt to predict the future? Because I've lived through downturns before.  The recession that followed the dotcom bust and 9/11 caused a precipitous decline in MBA hiring and consequently in MBA application volume.  It's instructive.

If articles start to appear about b-school grads without jobs, application volume will decline. Sharply.  If hiring remains reasonable and most grads find jobs, even they don't receive super-sized bonuses, application volume will level off and perhaps decline slightly, but you won't see the dizzying drop that business schools experienced in 2002 and 2003.

One "leading indicator" of MBA application volume is GMAT test-taking and registration volume. For the first two months of 2008, those numbers have headed north, but mainly because of sizzling interest overseas.

"The number of GMAT registrations in the United States during the first two months of calendar year 2008 increased 5.53% compared with registration volume during the comparable period in 2007. Outside the United States, registration volume increased 24.22% during the period."

"The number of GMAT tests taken in the United States during the first two months of calendar year 2008 increased 7.08% compared with testing volume during the same period in 2007. Outside the United States, testing volume increased 21.92% during the period."

If the US economy remains in the dumps, I expect US b-school application volume to soften, especially if MBAs can't find jobs. Barring 9/11-type events or a sudden increase in the dollar's value, international demand for top business programs around the world will remain strong, probably stronger outside the US than in.

Implications: US MBA applicants could find opportunities if they apply this fall and take the MBA plunge in Fall '09.  I expect that outside the top 10-15 schools competition will ease and applicants could gain entry to schools they didn't have a chance at this year. I don't think the softening will be as marked in the top tier.  Overseas, US applicants may find that top international schools are much easier to get into and much harder to pay for.

For international applicants, especially those coming from countries like India that are over-represented in the applicant pool, competition will remain intense, especially in the top tier schols. 

For those of you wanting to accrue the benefits of a timely or even early start to your '09 MBA admissions attempt, Accepted has two services just for you:

• Start Smart, our new, monthly mentoring program.
• Pre-season Consulting ($20 off during April) for those of you who just want to have a one-time consultation with an MBA admissions expert. 

Time will tell whether this post is genuinely prophetic or just a symptom of April Fools' Day.

Admissions Tip: Applying After Being Laid Off

BusinessWeek this week screams on p. 007 "34,000: Estimated number of jobs lost on Wall Street in the past nine months."

What if you were a holder of one of those no-longer-existing jobs and planned to apply this fall for matriculation in Fall 09? Does the layoff doom your application?

No. Not at all. Admissions committee members read BusinessWeek and a host of other periodicals that blare the same numbers, gloom, and doom. They  know you are not responsible for a recession (I said it), turmoil in the credit markets, inaccurate risk management at the top of major financial institutions, and the bust that so frequently follows a boom.

But you are responsible for your reaction to the lay off.  If you quickly succeed in obtaining a new position that moves you closer to your long-term goal or that allows you to take on more responsibility and show growth, that's great. But obtaining a good job may be difficult in this business climate. Keep the following in mind:

1. You may have to adjust or alter your career plans to meet market conditions.  Risk management has suddenly become a growth industry. Perhaps your number crunching skills can be put to good use in this suddenly hot field.
2. If your layoff starts to drag on, don't plop yourself in front of the TV, video game, or sudoku book. Do something. Take up a new hobby. Learn new skills. Participate in a community service active. Volunteer for a candidate. (There's more than enough of them this year in the US.) Transform your layoff into a growth experience with initiative, energy, and optimism. 

Either of these responses will allow you to show the resilience and backbone schools value. In addition, by taking these steps you will learn new skills, develop marketable talents, and demonstrate the personal qualities schools (and employers) admire.

Tomorrow's Post: My Stab at MBA Admissions Punditry.

US News Grad Rankings Are Out

The US News released its 2008 Grad School Rankings today. I'm going to list the top ten for business school, law school, and medical school and provide links to the ranking methodology for each category. For other graduate specialties, please visit the US News site.

Business School Rankings and methodology
1. Harvard
1. Stanford
3. Wharton
4.  MIT Sloan
4. Northwestern Kellogg
4. Univ. of Chicago
7. Dartmouth Tuck
7. UC Berkeley Haas
9. Columbia
10. NYU Stern

Law School Rankings
1. Yale
2. Harvard
2. Stanford
4. Columbia
5. NYU
6. UC Berkeley
7. Univ. of Chicago
7. Penn
9. Northwestern
9. Univ. of Michigan
9. Univ. of Virginia

( I am not including a link to the law school methodology because as I am writing the link provided is a bad link.)

Medical School Rankings (Research)  and Methodology
1. Harvard
2. Johns Hopkins
3. Washington U (St. Louis)
4. Penn
5. UCSF
6. Duke
6. Univ. of Washington
8. Stanford
9. UCLA
9. Yale

A few caveats: My strong recommendation is to use the rankings as a library of raw data  conveniently compiled in one location and not as a tried and true guide of educational quality. They are not the latter. They are the former. To the extent you are going to use the rankings as a guide to school reputation and brand value, you must understand the methodology behind them and what they are measuring. Be cognizant of the differences between what is important to you and what is important to the rankings.

A few observations on the rankings themselves:

1. There are many ties in the rankings, which implies that the differences in reputation are almost imperceptible when talking about closely ranked programs. For example the difference between being "in the top ten" and out of the the top ten (i.e. #11) for MBA programs is 1 point,  for the top law schools is 2 points, and for the top medical schools is 1 point. Don't get hung up on these differences.
2. The "top ten" changes little from year to year. In most cases, if you compare these rankings to the 2007 version, it looks as if US News just reshuffled the deck a little.

For more on rankings, please see:

• Rankings: Controversy and Magazine Sales
• Thoughtful Dean Looks at Rankings
• Law School Admissions: Study Says Rankings Influence Decision Makers