Wharton MBA Fall 2008 Essay Questions & Tokyo Event

Click here for my Fall 2009 (Class of 2011) essay analysis.


UPDATE AS OF 2/8/2008: I will not change my comments below regarding the ethics of Wharton because I think it is important that readers know what I had thought. I stand by my analysis of the essay questions, but given recent events, completely renounce my statements regarding the ethics of the admissions office. Wharton is a great school, but should have been better served by that office. I hope that corrective action is taken at PENN by those who should know better.


I should disclose that I have a bias for the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business, not only because of the great clients I have worked with who attend/have attended there, but because of the very open nature of Wharton's admissions process. As someone who believes strongly that the only ethical approach to admissions is one based on providing applicants with complete information about a transparent process, I consider Wharton's admissions practices a yardstick by which to measure other schools. Click here to learn more about Wharton's admissions process.

Wharton's Director of Admissions and Financial Aid, Thomas Caleel, gave an extensive presentation in Tokyo on September 26, 2007 that was a further demonstration of the very honest and applicant friendly approach that is the hallmark of this school's process.

I mention all of this because I think with Wharton, they are not engaged in trying to stump applicants. To paraphrase what Mr. Caleel said about his own approach to interview questions (he conducts admissions interviews including Tokyo hub interviews), "I ask easy questions that are hard to answer." I think this is equally true of Wharton's essays. They are not trick questions, but that does not make them easy to answer.

First, here is the entire set of questions:

Essay 1 (Required)
Describe your career progress to date and your future short-term and long-term career goals. How do you expect a Wharton MBA to help you achieve these goals, and why is now the best time for you to join our program? (1,000 words)

Essay 2 (Required)
Describe a failure or setback that you have experienced. What role did you play and what did you learn about yourself? (500 words)

Essay 3 (Required)
Tell us about a situation in which you were an outsider. What did you learn from the experience? (500 words)

Essay 4 (Required)
Please Complete One Of The Following Two Questions:

1. Where in your background would we find evidence of your leadership capacity and/or potential? (500 words)
2. Is there anything about your background or experience that you feel you have not had the opportunity to share with the Admissions Committee in your application? If yes, please explain. (500 words)

Essay 5 (Optional)
If you feel there are extenuating circumstances of which the Committee should be aware, please explain them here (e.g., unexplained gaps in work experience, choice of recommenders, TOEFL waiver request, inconsistent or questionable academic performance, significant weaknesses in your application). (250 words)

In total you will need to write at least 2500 words. Keep in mind that Wharton is flexible about word count:

Essay length? We often get asked about essay length, specifically whether it is OK to go over the number of words suggested. Recognize we do not count words (this would take longer than actually reading the essay), nor does our online system count words (and therefore does not truncate the essay at the specific limit etc.)

+/- 10% is going to be fine (and remain unnoticed). Any more than this and it may become an issue as writing succinctly is a skill that is useful in business and business school. You should also realize your readers are reading multiple essays from multiple applicants so writing long essays is not likely to be a positive.

The exceptions to the above may be if you have a more unusual background (by business school standards) and feel you have a little more to explain (about your less traditional goals, experience etc.) In this case you may need to explain the nature of your experiences in more detail, but this does not give you the license to write at will!

I don't think there is a case where it makes sense to write much less than the suggested word count as the essays are going to be an important component to your application and should be used as such.

Summary: Over or under by 10% is fine. In exceptional cases, more than 10% is fine. Say everything you need to say, but use good judgment.

I frequently have applicants start with Wharton because it is flexible on word count and because the essays that you write for Wharton will be helpful for other applications as well.

Essay 1 (Required)
Describe your career progress to date and your future short-term and long-term career goals. How do you expect a Wharton MBA to help you achieve these goals, and why is now the best time for you to join our program? (1,000 words)
At the Tokyo event, Mr. Caleel made it very clear that applicants should answer the entire question, but it does not need to be answered in any particular order. The question breaks down into the following components:
1. Describe your career progress to date.
2. Describe your future short-term career goals.
3, Describe your future long-term career goals.
4. How do you expect a Wharton MBA to help you achieve these goals?
5. Why is now the best time for you to join our program?

I will not provide much further analysis of this question, but instead, I suggest taking look at my analysis of Chicago GSB Essay 1. If you are having difficulty formulating your goals, please see this post. Regarding learning about Wharton, there is little reason for me to discuss that as you can easily learn about by visiting the Wharton website and their truly excellent MBA Admissions Blog!

ESSAY 2: You can read my already posted analysis of Essay 2 here.

Essay 3 (Required)
Tell us about a situation in which you were an outsider. What did you learn from the experience? (500 words)
This is a very open-ended question that admissions can use to understand how you relate to other people. When thinking about this essay, I suggest you focus on a positive situation where you...
(1) learned how to become an insider;
(2)maintained your status as an outsider, but learned something important about yourself;
(3) maintained your status as an outsider, but learned something important about the group you were outside of;
(4) demonstrate an understanding of group dynamics;
(5) demonstrate cultural sensitivity;
(6) demonstrate self-awareness;
(7) demonstrate the ability to integrate yourself into a new situation and have impact;
(8) demonstrate knowledge about the group/place you were outside of;
AND/OR
(9) demonstrate your independence by embracing the status of outsider in order to have impact, preserve your own ethical standards, and/or position.

My suggestions are inherently abstract because of the many possible ways of positively writing this essay. I don't suggest writing about a failure or setback here because you will have already addressed that topic in Essay 2. As I mention in my analysis of the HBS essays, it is possible to use the same content for Wharton 3 and HBS 3b depending on your choice of topics.

Essay 4 1. Where in your background would we find evidence of your leadership capacity and/or potential? (500 words)
Please see How to write an MBA Leadership Essay. The guidance I provide in that post applies to this question. Unlike the HBS question, you don't necessarily have to focus on a single story, but most applicants will in order to provide a fully developed example.

Essay 4. 2. Is there anything about your background or experience that you feel you have not had the opportunity to share with the Admissions Committee in your application? If yes, please explain. (500 words)
This question is exactly the same as HBS 3f. You should use this essay to focus on an important part of who you are that will help convince Wharton that you belong there. I will provide a more extensive analysis of this question in a future post.

Essay 5 (Optional)
If you feel there are extenuating circumstances of which the Committee should be aware, please explain them here (e.g., unexplained gaps in work experience, choice of recommenders, TOEFL waiver request, inconsistent or questionable academic performance, significant weaknesses in your application). (250 words)
See my post on Chicago GSB's optional question as what I wrote there, applies here as well. At his Tokyo presentation, Mr. Caleel specifically encouraged applicants to use this space if they need to because it is better to tell him the reason then to make him guess. Given that he reads all the applications, I suggest doing so IF YOU NEED TO. Don't write anything if you have no concerns.

Question? Comment or write me at adammarkus@gmail.com
-Adam Markus
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How to write an MBA Leadership Essay

You can find my analysis for Fall 2009 Admission here.

In this post, I will specifically refer to Harvard Business School Essay 3a for Fall 2008: Discuss a defining experience in your leadership development. How did this experience highlight your strengths and weaknesses?

HBS is about leadership. The HBS mission statement makes that clear: The mission of Harvard Business School is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. As such HBS places a very high premium on applicants' leadership potential:
A Habit of Leadership
We recognize—and welcome—leadership that may be expressed in many forms, from college extracurricular activities to academic or business achievements, from personal accomplishments to community commitments. We appreciate leadership on any scale as well, from organizing a classroom to directing a combat squad, from running an independent business to spearheading initiatives at work. In essence, we are looking for evidence of your potential — a portfolio of experiences, initiatives, and accomplishments that reflect a habit of leadership.
Harvard thus has a very open-ended conception of leadership, but they are rigid in the necessity that applicants demonstrate it. I think this is true for other schools to a varying extent as well. For example, like HBS, "INSEAD is looking for applicants who can demonstrate their potential as leaders." Even if a set of business school essay questions does not necessarily explicitly ask for you to show leadership, it had better be expressed.

Leadership is no easy thing. Nor is it obvious. The worst possible thing is to conceive of leadership as simple formal responsibility or a title because this conveys nothing about the person in that position. While some applicants will, in fact, have held formal leadership positions, many will not have.

Formal leadership positions are great to write about if they involve the applicant actually having significant impact, making a difficult decision, being a visionary, showing creativity, or otherwise going beyond their formal responsibility, but the same is true for those showing leadership without having a formal title.

If you are having difficulty really understanding leadership, I have a few suggestions.

First, one great place to read about leadership, and business in general, is Harvard Business School Working Knowledge. The last time I checked there were 159 articles on leadership posted there.

Second, find out what kind of leader you are by taking this quiz based on Lewin's classic framework. I think leadership is more complicated than Lewin's framework, but this quiz is a great way to get you started thinking about yourself, a key part of answering any leadership essay question effectively.

Third, if you have not done so, I suggest reading relevant essays in 65 Successful Harvard Business School Application Essays: With Analysis by the Staff of the Harbus, The Harvard Business School Newspaper. Reading through the essays on leadership should help you to understand the great diversity of topics that are possible.

OK, now that we have grounded ourselves in understanding the importance of leadership and begun to develop some possible leadership stories, how does one proceed?

I have developed the following grid to help you outline your leadership story. The categories this grid employs may go beyond any particular schools essay requirements. Filling it out completely will help you write about your leadership in a way that will help convince admissions of your leadership potential.
CLICK TO ENLARGE. EMAIL me at adammarkus@gmail.com if you want the original excel version.

How to use the grid:
1. Decide a specific story
2. Identify the most significant things you did in the situation, these are you action steps.
3. For each action step identify
a. What skills or qualities you demonstrated to complete this step.
b. The strengths and/or weaknesses you demonstrated to complete this step.
c. The kind of leadership you demonstrated.
d. What you still need to learn about leadership.
4. Think about the results and identify how they relate to your action steps.
5. After completing the chart you will see that some aspects of your action steps maybe repeated. If there is a total duplication and nothing new is shown, you need to try and think more. Either you need to redefine the action step or you may decide not to focus on it very much.
6. Once you think you have two to four fully worked-out action steps, start writing your essay. In the initial draft get everything in.
7. Next start re-writing. Eliminate duplicate points made between action steps. Make choices about what parts of each action to step to highlight. Given that there are usually word limits, you will have to some decisions.
8. Finalize. For purposes of HBS question 3a- Discuss a defining experience in your leadership development. How did this experience highlight your strengths and weaknesses?- ask yourself the following questions (the questions you ask at this stage will vary depending on the exact wording of the essay):

1. Is this essay about one experience? That is to say, one story?
2. Why is this a defining experience? What does your essay really reveal about you?
3. What strengths as a leader have you discussed?
4. What weaknesses as a leader have you discussed?

Finally, thinking and writing about leadership is an important part of preparing for interviews because you can be certain that you will have to talk about leadership.

Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.

-Adam Markus
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HBS Essays: Choices! And easier too! (updated)

You can find my analysis for Fall 2009 Admission (Class of 2011) to HBS here.

This is the first in a series of posts on the Harvard Business School MBA Application Essays for the Class of 2010. Click for further analysis of Essay 2 and Essay 3a.
It is rather obvious that the questions an MBA program asks you reflect its admissions strategies. This is as true for the Harvard Business School as for any other school. For example when HBS introduced the following question in 2005, it was directly connected to an effort to recruit younger applicants:
3 c. What would you like the MBA Admissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience?
This question is obviously ideal for a graduating senior or someone with 1 or 2 years of work to answer. Given the emphasis that HBS puts on academic ability, it is no surprise that they ask this question. For those who have been out of school for a while or would prefer to emphasize other aspects of their background, this question was not perceived as an ideal one to have to answer. Now luckily it need not be answered because HBS has now introduced a choice of questions into its application. Of course, many schools have done this for a long time. For example, Kellogg has consistently given applicants one or more essays where they have had a choice of topics.

HBS, for the last several years has been considered a hard application by many, not principally because of the lack of choice of which questions to answer, but because of the difficulty of some the questions as well as the word count limits. In particular, the question I just mentioned and a question on ethical issues you expect to encounter in in your professional future were considered quite difficult. The ethical issues question has now been removed entirely. However looking over the present set of questions, I don't think any of them can be described as difficult.

THE TWO MANDATORY QUESTIONS
All applicants will have to answer the two mandatory questions in this essay set. The fact that these two questions are mandatory indicates that HBS wanted to have a common point of comparison for all applicants based on these two topics. As you will see, HBS does not ask the "Why MBA?" question as one of these two. It may initially seem that the choice of these two is arbitrary, but it most certainly is not.

1. What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit)
HBS has asked this question for a very long time. According to 65 Successful Harvard Business School Application Essays, "This is one of those essays that is probably a permanent fixture in the HBS application (p. 121)." I think the reason HBS has made this one of the mandatory questions is quite simple:
-Accomplishments reveal your potential to succeed at HBS and afterwards.
-Accomplishments reveal your potential for contributing to your classmates.
-Everyone has had accomplishments, so it is easy to compare applicants.
-What you consider to be an accomplishment are real tests of your self-awareness and judgment.

2. What have you learned from a mistake? (400-word limit)
This second mandatory question has been asked by HBS and many other schools. Note the use of the word "mistake" and not "failure." Mistake is much more broad category that includes failure. I think using the word mistake takes into account that some people simply have not experienced outright meaningful failure, but we all have erred whether intentionally or otherwise. The reason I think it is included is because learning from mistakes is a core part of what case study analysis is about. Please click here for more about Essay 2.

CHOICES
3. Please respond to three of the following (400-word limit each)


a. Discuss a defining experience in your leadership development. How did this experience highlight your strengths and weaknesses?
I know that some will say that since HBS is all about leadership, you should write Essay 3a. Now 3a is most certainly a classic MBA essay topic and one that in various forms has been a part of the HBS application for a very long time. I would say that 3a is not necessary to write if you have sufficiently demonstrated your leadership potential elsewhere, especially in 1. IN ANY EVENT, IF YOU APPLY TO HBS YOU SHOULD READ MY DETAILED ANALYSIS OF THIS QUESTION BECAUSE DEMONSTRATING LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL IS CRITICAL AT HBS. However, since you will likely have to write on this topic for other schools and will most certainly need to be ready to discuss it in an interview, I think it is great to write on if you have a strong topic. Keep in mind that a defining experience need not be an accomplishment, but given that you are already writing about a mistake in Essay 2, if you decide to write about any sort of failure here, you should make sure that it is quite distinct from what you write in Essay 2 and that your overall essay set focuses effectively on your potential.

b. How have you experienced culture shock?
This is a new question for HBS, but a very standard for European MBA programs like HEC, INSEAD, and London Business School. This question really tests ones potential to succeed in new or challenging environments: International experience and experience in unusual places would demonstrate this. Another would be your ability to handle a difficult social environment. If you are also applying to the University of Pennslyvania, it would certainly be efficient if you have a topic that will work for both the HBS question and Wharton's Tell us about a situation in which you were an outsider. What did you learn from the experience?

c. What would you like the MBA Admissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience?
I have already partially addressed this question above. I think that this question is great for any applicant who learned something valuable in their undergraduate academic program. You don't need a high GPA to answer this one and in fact those who don't have a high GPA, but actually did something meaningful as part of their program of study, should consider writing on this to help mitigate the impact of a weak GPA.
d. What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you?
As with Essay 3a, I think some will say that you must write on this topic. While I think it is important that the MBA Admissions Board understand what motivates you, I don't believe that you necessarily have to answer this question to tell them that. While many applicants are likely to want to answer this question, if you want to set yourself apart from the pack, don't do it unless your answer is really very compelling. The reason they made it optional is because they don't want to read standard obligatory goals essays. That said, you still need to have very clear goals. Whether you write on this question or not, I strongly suggest taking a look at my three previous posts on goals: (1) (2) (3).

e. What global issue is most important to you and why?
Again, a new question for HBS. This one, like Essay 3c. is ideal for recent graduates. Anyone should be able to write on this topic, but obviously it is ideal for anyone with a serious record of commitment to a global issue. It is also an alternative space for discussing goals if your goals relate to a global issue.

f. What else would you like the MBA Admissions Board to understand about you?
The mother of all choice questions! Here you can write about anything that you think the Board really needs to know. While I will discuss this one in greater detail, I would say that you should avoid using this as a typical optional question like Chicago GSB's optional question. Instead use this question as another way to help HBS understand you and to become convinced that you belong there.

Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
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MBA留学

Fall 2008 MBA "Failure Essay Quesions"

This post has been updated for 2009. Click for my analysis for Fall 2009 Admission Analysis for HBS and Wharton.

In this post, I will look at the "failure essay questions" asked by Wharton and Harvard Business School (click here for my initial analysis of the entire essay set). I think the reason both HBS and Wharton as well as many other schools ask about mistakes, failures, and setbacks is because they want to see that you have the ability to learn from errors and/or problems. Case study analysis, is often the analysis of mistakes, failures, and setbacks.

For a number of years, the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business has asked MBA applicants to analyze a failure or setback that they learned from. While the wording has changed over the years, the Fall 2008 application is no exception:
Essay 2 (Required)
Describe a failure or setback that you have experienced. What role did you play and what did you learn about yourself? (500 words)

I think it is important that we read what is written here very closely as it will help you see that there are multiple correct ways to answer this question.

First, keep in mind that you may not necessarily have been the cause of the failure or setback because it states very clearly that it is just one that you have experienced. Also given that you are asked what your role is, there is no assumption being made that you are the cause. Therefore the failure or setback might very well be one where you are an observer, a victim, and/or the source of a solution.

Second, keep in mind that whatever failure or setback you experienced, it is critical that you learned something meaningful about yourself. And your learning about yourself had been be important, otherwise why tell admissions about it? Therefore the key constraint of this question is that whatever the failure or setback is, you have learned something important from it. While not stated, you may very well find that one way of showing what you learned is to discuss how you applied your lesson to a new situation.

Third, what is the difference between between a failure and a setback? I think the easiest thing to do is look at standard definitions of both words:

FAILURE: 1. The condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends: the failure of an experiment. 2. One that fails: a failure at one's career. 3. The condition or fact of being insufficient or falling short: a crop failure. 4. A cessation of proper functioning or performance: a power failure. 5. Nonperformance of what is requested or expected; omission: .failure to report a change of address. 6. The act or fact of failing to pass a course, test, or assignment. 7. A decline in strength or effectiveness.

SETBACK: An unanticipated or sudden check in progress; a change from better to worse.

All setbacks can in some sense be understood as failures in sense of the seventh definition of failure cited above, but actually the difference is one of nuance: a setback does not carry with it any sense of finality. A failure conveys that sense of finality.

To use the experiment example above, "a setback in an experiment means the experiment could still succeed, but if the experiment is a failure, there is no chance for success. The only option is a new experiment.

I think it is useful to compare the Wharton question with Harvard's Essay 2:
What have you learned from a mistake? (400-word limit)

First, I let's look at the definition:
MISTAKE: 1. An error or fault resulting from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness. 2. A misconception or misunderstanding.

A mistake is wider in scope than a failure because not all mistakes necessarily lead to failure though human failures are certainly the result of mistakes. A mistake may lead to either a failure or a setback. A mistake may actually lead to a positive unintended outcome.

Notice that HBS does not say "your mistake." It is possible that the mistake you learned from may like in the Wharton question be one where you were an observer, a victim, and/or the source of the solution.

Like with the Wharton question, HBS emphasizes learning.
I would, in fact, argue that the heart of any sort of "failure question," whether it is an essay question or an interview is what you learned. Also depending on what your role was, how you reacted to the failure, setback, or mistake is also very important.

The basic components of an answer:
1. Clearly state what the failure, setback, or mistake was.
2. Clearly state your role.
3. Explain how you reacted to the situation.
4. Explain what you learned.

Depending on how you write this essay, you may find that if you are applying to both HBS and Wharton, it is possible to use the same topic. Given that you have 500 words (or more) for Wharton, if you are applying to both schools, I would start with Wharton first and than cut it down for HBS. I wish you every success in your failure story.

Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.

-Adam Markus
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UC Berkeley Law & MBA Tuition Increase

One good argument for doing a graduate degree sooner rather than later is that it gets more expensive over time. This expense can be measured in terms of opportunity costs (lost income) and simple cost of tuition. The following is just one example of the latter.

According to The Daily Californian, the Regents of the University of California, approved a large fee increase for both Berkeley's Law School and Business School:

According to the regental item, total fees for Boalt will spike to $30,931 in 2008-09 and could reach $40,906 in 2010-11, up from $26,897 this year.

Total fees for the Haas graduate program will jump to $30,913 in the coming year and could hit $40,882 by 2010-11, up from this year’s $26,881.

According to the Associated Press, these increases are being introduced selectively throughout the UC system:
The increases, under which some campuses will be charging more than lesser-known branches, were a departure from the tradition of having more-or-less uniform fees by discipline across the 10-campus system.
-Adam Markus
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Harvard LL.M. Essay Questions for Fall 2008

As I discussed in my previous post, I think everyone who applies to top LL.M. programs should think about the Harvard Law School essay questions even if they don't intend to apply to Harvard. Harvard has the most difficult set of essay questions that any LL.M. program asks and most who apply to Harvard will be utilizing their content for other schools. So even if you don't apply to Harvard, you should be aware of what some of your strongest competition will be doing. Harvard has four essay questions (you can download the application here).

The Personal Statement questions:
Personal Statement: Please read parts (a) and (b) below carefully and write an essay addressing both questions, with part (a)constituting at least half of the total length. Your entire statement should be no more than 1500 words—anything exceeding the word limit will be disallowed. Please type or word-process your statement, with your full name on the top of each page and your signature at the end, and attach it to your application.
(a)Briefly describe either an important issue in your field of interest or a current legal problem facing a particular country, region, or the world, and then propose a theoretical framework or a legal analysis or strategy to address this issue.
(b)Please tell us something about yourself—in particular, why you wish to pursue an LL.M. degree at Harvard and how doing so connects with what you have done in the past and what you plan to do in the future. Important: Your personal statement must address the above questions specifically, and must be solely the product of your own efforts. We reserve the right to disqualify a statement written by, or with the help of, someone other than the applicant.

Now while (a) and (b) are the main questions, there are actually two other essay questions:

Academic interests: Please describe the areas of your academic interest, including a list of three to five courses in which you are most interested. If you are interested in pursuing the concentration in international finance, tax, human rights, or corporate law and governance, or in the six-credit LL.M. Thesis option, please so indicate. (Note: Please limit your response to no more than 200 words.)

Career plans: What are your career plans (both short-term and long-term) after you complete your graduate law studies? (Check � no more than 3) Law teaching: Full-time Part-time Government service Law Firm In-house (Corporate counsel) International Organization Non-Governmental Organization Judiciary Prosecutor Research Business (non-law) Other (please specify): Please elaborate on your plans. In which country (or countries) do you intend to pursue your career? (Note: Please limit your response to no more than 200 words.)

Clearly no applicant should duplicate the content they write in essay (b) and in these two shorter questions, yet I believe many applicants do because they treat these two shorter questions as simply application questions and not essay questions. If you think of them as essay questions, you see that, in fact, Harvard gives 1900 words maximum to each applicant. This is more than you are likely to write for any school with the possible exception of schools that don't specify essay length.

Now let's analyze the questions:
(a)Briefly describe either an important issue in your field of interest or a current legal problem facing a particular country, region, or the world, and then propose a theoretical framework or a legal analysis or strategy to address this issue.
Question (a) is what makes Harvard's essay really different from most other LL.M. applications. This is a real test of your analytical and legal thinking. It is also test of your ability to communicate something important in 750-1000 words. You need at least 500 for (b) and (a) must be at least 750 words long. From my experience the most effective way to write this essay is to:

1. Identify a legal issue that you know really well and can provide a nuanced perspective on. Ideally it should also relate to what you intend to study at Harvard, but at minimum should be a reflection of your best legal thinking.

2. Write a long first draft, say 1000-2000 words.

3. Expect to go through at least four more drafts before it is close to being finished.

4. Show it to a lawyer or other legal expert who can assess whether what you say is actually accurate and impressive. With my clients, I always tell them to do this. Even if I am very familiar with the legal issue my client is analyzing, I ask them to try to get expert advice. If expert advice is not available, find the next best thing, a fellow legal practitioner whose opinion you trust.

5. If you use an admissions consultant, you should ask him or her to assess this essay within the context of your entire application and in comparison to other applicants who were admitted to Harvard.

(b)Please tell us something about yourself—in particular, why you wish to pursue an LL.M. degree at Harvard and how doing so connects with what you have done in the past and what you plan to do in the future.

This is actually a very standard question though somewhat different from the standard catchall questions that most other schools ask. The real issue here is think first what you don't need to include here and that requires looking at the next two essays first, so we will come back to this question.

Academic interests: Please describe the areas of your academic interest, including a list of three to five courses in which you are most interested. If you are interested in pursuing the concentration in international finance, tax, human rights, or corporate law and governance, or in the six-credit LL.M. Thesis option, please so indicate. (Note: Please limit your response to no more than 200 words.)

For most other schools, this would be a standard part of the main question, but Harvard does it a little differently. This means that in (b) you don't have discuss your academic interests in detail because you will doing it here. In the context of your answer, provide the list they ask for. I suggest only focusing on two or three areas of legal interest because if you try to do more you will not be able to say anything very intelligent about it. Instead come across as someone with a very focused academic plan. Your academic plan at Harvard should be consistent with your future career plans.

Please elaborate on your plans. In which country (or countries) do you intend to pursue your career? (Note: Please limit your response to no more than 200 words.)

You should use this space to provide a specific career plan. You will have already talked about your future in (b), but at a more conceptual level. Here you should provide details of your future plans.

One thing to keep in mind: HARVARD IS FOR LEADERS. It does not matter if your leadership is as a judge, a prosecutor, a leading attorney in your field, a government expert, a scholar, or a in-house legal counsel, Harvard is looking for people who will make a difference. Your career plan is the place to show how you will use the legal knowledge you acquire at Harvard to become a credit to the legal profession. In (b) you will focus on "why?"

Now back to (b):
(b)Please tell us something about yourself—in particular, why you wish to pursue an LL.M. degree at Harvard and how doing so connects with what you have done in the past and what you plan to do in the future.

Given that you don't need to provide the details of either your academic plan at Harvard or your career plans, there is plenty of room in (b) to focus on what Harvard wants to know:

1.Why do you want an LL.M. at Harvard? Explain clearly the reason(s) for obtaining an LL.M. and at Harvard in particular.

2. Connect to the past: You need to reveal something about yourself, in particular your motivations for pursuing a legal career and need to trace that motivation to your desire to pursue an LL.M. Tell a story that reveals something about you. If you are having difficulty understanding how to do that, I suggest taking a look at one of my earlier posts.

3. Connect to the future: You need to explain why an LL.M. will help you achieve your future goals. The details for that plan will be discussed in your career plan essay. If you are having difficulty formulating goals, please click here.

A good (b) answer should effectively provide the conceptual backbone that connects all four essays because essay (b) is about your past and future motivations as a legal professional. Those motivations should certainly impact what legal issue you write about in (a) as well as your academic plan at Harvard and your future career plans.

Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
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Why All LL.M. Applicants Need to Understand Harvard's Questions

After almost six years of counseling clients on US LL.M. admissions I have reached the conclusion that anyone applying to top LL.M. programs needs to understand the Harvard essays even if they are not applying there. When it comes to LL.M., I think Harvard Law School does. My reasoning is as follows:

1. Harvard Law School is the top general LL.M. program. Yale and Stanford are harder to get into, but they are small specialized programs. Harvard has the best name brand reputation of any American university in the world and so does its law school.

2. Not a single one of the LL.M. admits to Harvard I worked with or know about ever rejected it to attend Columbia, Chicago, or other top general LL.M. programs.

3. For applicants who apply to Harvard, it is the hardest application they will likely have to complete. The only other exception might be UC Berkeley because of the need to have a very detailed plan of study, but that is arguable and highly variable.

4. Most importantly, those who apply to Harvard are also applying to the other top programs and many will most likely be utilizing their Harvard content to prepare essays for other schools. The rigorous analytical and legal thinking that makes for great Harvard essays will thus impact not only their chances for admissions at other schools, but all other applicants' chances as well.

Therefore even if you don't apply to Harvard's LL.M. you need to apply the same level of intellectual rigor to your essays that a successful Harvard admit would be applying to his or her essays. Since you are competing with those who apply to Harvard, you need to write essays at the same level as required by Harvard. In my next post, I analyze Harvard Law School's four essay questions for Fall 2008.

-Adam Markus
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Free GRE Preparation

While looking at the University of California Office of President's website, I came across http://www.number2.com/, a site that offers free GRE preparation. I am not sure how good their preparation system is, but if the University of California is willing to link to it, I would certainly think it would be worth trying. "The company was founded by professors and graduate students who wanted to make high quality test preparation universally accessible." Sounds good to me. If you use it, please let me know what you think.

-Adam Markus
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How hard is it to get into top US LL.M. programs?

In the following post, I provide a detailed analysis of LL.M. acceptance rates. UPDATES TO THIS POST CAN BE FOUND HERE, BUT READ THIS FIRST. 10/6/07: I have now updated my table on LL.M. admissions rates. Please read this post for my overall analysis, but refer to my most recent for admissions rates.

As I indicated in an earlier post, US Law Schools provide very comprehensive admissions results for their J.D. programs, but significantly less information for LL.M. programs. While ABA approved J.D. programs are required to report detailed admissions information, LL.M. programs are not required to report such data. Using US News and World Report's Law School information, I put together the chart below to look at how difficult it is to get into the J.D. and LL.M. programs at America's Top 20 Law Schools. CLICK ON THE CHART TO ENLARGE IT.
Email me at adammarkus.gmail.com for an excel or pdf version. See below for hyperlinks to where I obtained my data.

While there are many other great US Law Schools, I have, for the most part, focused on the schools that the LLM applicants I have worked with in Japan are most likely to apply to. The great exception is Yale, which is included because of its rank. Given that Yale's program is specifically designed for those who are seeking academic careers, my clients, lawyers (弁護士 Bengoshi), patent lawyers (弁理士 Benrishi), judges, prosecutors, and company and government sponsored legal experts don't typically don't fit the admissions criteria.

SO HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO GET ADMITTED?
Well for some schools like University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, the program in Banking and Financial Law at Boston University, and USC it is not even possible to determine from their websites how many students attend each year. While I could contact students in these programs to get more numbers, I was specifically interested in seeing to what extent these schools actually provide good admissions data easily accessible to applicants. I have to say, as you can see from reviewing my table or actually looking at the websites I reference at the end of this post, that the amount of data available is quite limited.

ESTIMATED ACCEPTANCE RATES:
I am have created estimated LL.M. acceptance rates mostly based on J.D. Yield. I do this based on the following assumptions:
1. J.D. Yield is an excellent indicator of a school's overall popularity with applicants. All things being equal someone admitted to a school with a higher yield is simply more likely to go there than someone admitted to a school with a lower yield. This is not always the case, but it generally the case.
2. LLM applicants, in-part, make decisions based on overall school ranking and ranking and yield are generally well connected (though not conclusively so).
3. I think JD yield rates accurately reflect the way my own LL.M. clients have acted in the past.
4. For NYU, which had more than 2000 applications and 425 students at the New York City campus and 40 in Singapore for Fall 2007, this formula does not work because the number of estimated admits that the formula generates is absurdly high. I have assumed their yield was 50%, which produces an acceptance rate of 47%. Their J.D. yield rate is very low and their LL.M. class is very big, so I think this is a reasonable adjustment. Of course, I wish I had real the numbers!

My formula for LLM Estimated Number Accepted:
(Number of LL.M. Enrolled/(JD Yield)=(Estimated LL.M. Number Accepted)
My formula for LL.M. Estimated Acceptance Rate:
(Estimated Number Accepted)/(Number Applied)= (Estimated LL.M. Acceptance Rate)
My estimated LL.M. acceptance rates are simply a guess and I would not be surprised if they are wrong. Use them at your own risk. Hopefully, I will be able to get better real numbers from schools, but I think my estimates are better than nothing.
Assuming my estimates are correct (a big assumption), the admission rates for top LL.M. programs are typically somewhere between 26% and 45%.

THE TOP THREE
While not recorded on my table because it is completely outside my methodology, I assume the acceptance rates at Yale, Harvard, and Stanford are fairly close to the rates of J.D. admission. Given Harvard's size and the fact that the only schools a Harvard admit is likely to choose over Harvard are Yale and Stanford, I assume Harvard's LL.M. acceptance rate can't be higher than 15% and maybe as low as 10%.

Is Better LL.M. Admissions Data Available?
In effort to answer that question, I have emailed all 20 of the schools that I researched. I sent them all the same identical email at the same time. While I have specific contacts at some of these programs, I also wanted to see how the programs would react to such a request using their standard email addresses. I will report my results as I receive them. Questions? Comments? Write comments here or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.

Specific urls cited for LL.M. data from US News and World Report's Top 20 US Law Schools for 2008 (in rank order)

Yale
http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/LLM.htm

Harvard
http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/graduate/admissions/downloadapplication.php
(download application, it mentions 150 spots, but no other information)

Stanford
http://www.law.stanford.edu/program/degrees/advanced/

New York University
http://www.nyulawglobal.org/graduateadmissions/eligibilitystandards.htm

Columbia
http://www.law.columbia.edu/llm_jsd

University of Chicago
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/prospective/llm-faq.html

University of Pennsylvania
I found nothing on their site, http://www.law.upenn.edu/prospective/grad/coursestudy.html#llm

University of California, Berkeley
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/admissions/advdegree/catalog/page6.html

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
http://www.law.umich.edu/prospectivestudents/graduate/degreeprograms.htm
Assume 55 per year.

Duke
http://www.law.duke.edu/internat/internationalStudents.html

University of Virginia
http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospectives/grad/faq.htm
"Virginia Law receives several hundred applications each year for a class of fewer than 50 students." The brochure states 45 per year.

Northwestern
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/admissions/profile/
provided no information. It used to.
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/statistics/llm.html
99 in the class of 2006 for both the LL.M. and LL.M./Kellogg programs.

Cornell
http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/admissions/degrees/lmm_jsd.cfm
I assumed 900 applied and 60 matriculated.

Georgetown
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/graduate/foreign.cfm
"Each year Georgetown Law Center provides Master of Laws degree programs for more than 100 students who received their legal training outside the United States." I used 100.

UCLA
Nothing found at http://www.law.ucla.edu/home/index.asp?page=2266
or elsewhere.

USC
Nothing found at http://lawgip.usc.edu/llm/admissions.cfm or elsewhere.

Vanderbilt
http://law.vanderbilt.edu/prospective-students/llm-program-/llm-class-of-2008-profile/index.aspx
I counted the LLM students in the photo: 25.

University of Texas-Austin
http://www.utexas.edu/law/academics/degrees/llm/
"The LL.M. program is a small and extremely selective program. Each year we receive approximately 250 applications for the 30 or so places in the LL.M. class. In 2006–2007, our LL.M. class included 28 students from 14 countries." I assumed 30 attend and 250 applications.

Washington University St. Louis
No data provided at http://law.wustl.edu/ataglance/
or elsewhere.

Boston University
http://www.bu.edu/law/prospective/llm/american/faqs.html#faqs-large
http://www.bu.edu/law/prospective/llm/intellectual/faqs.html#howlarge

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
http://www.law.umn.edu/llm/apply.html#17
"We receive about 200 applications per year on average." "We enroll a class of 25 to 30 students each year." I assume 200 applications and 30 students.
=============================================
-Adam Markus
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US Law School Admissions Data Reporting Requirements

In the first post in this series, I considered the impact on LL.M applicants caused by the discrepancy between the way LL.M. and J.D. admissions data is reported. In the third post in this series, I will provide analysis of the relative difficulty of getting into top J.D. and LL.M. programs.

Here, I consider the role of the primary credentialing authority for American Law Schools, the American Bar Association (ABA). As I will explain, ABA Approved Law Schools are, in fact, subject to reporting admissions data for J.D. programs (Download Chapter Five and read Standard 509, Interpretation 509-1, Section (1) ), but have no obligation to report LL.M. admissions data.

One reason for the discrepancy between the way US Law Schools report admissions data for LL.M. and J.D. can be traced to the ABA approval process:
The ABA does not formally approve any program other than the first degree in law (J.D.).

ABA accreditation does not extend to any program supporting any other degree granted by the law school. Rather the content and requirements of those degrees, such as an LL.M., are created by the law school itself and do not reflect any judgment by the ABA accrediting bodies regarding the quality of the program.

For those not familiar with the way the bar works, this lack of oversight of LL.M. might seem odd because one could mistakenly believe that the ABA actually regulates bar admission. So how do LL.M.s get admitted to the bar?
The criteria for eligibility to take the bar examination or to otherwise qualify for bar admission are set by each state, not by the ABA or the Council for the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.

Thus states determine who can take the bar, not the ABA. The ABA is thus able to avoid the whole issue of LL.M. programs and bar passage.

Interestingly enough, even though the ABA does not provide direct oversight on LL.M. degrees, the two states, California and New York, that routinely accept the US LL.M. degree for bar admission, only accept LL.M.s from ABA approved schools.

In California, the LL.M. is accepted if it is from an ABA approved school, but California also accepts J.D. graduates of non-ABA approved schools. Hence California which actually oversees non-ABA approved law school's J.D. programs appears to assume that the ABA is providing oversight for the LL.M., which the ABA is not doing.

In New York, the standards for LL.M. or other graduate degree study are explained in great depth. Again the assumption appears to be that New York assumes ABA oversight:
Approved Law School - Approved law school means a U.S. law school approved by the American Bar Association (ABA). Please note that the Board cannot recommend a particular law schools nor does the Board maintain a list of schools that offer programs that will satisfy the Rule 520.6. You may contact the ABA's Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar at their website (http://www.abanet.org/legaled) to obtain a list of ABA approved law schools.

I conclude from the above that neither state bars or the ABA are particularly concerned about LL.M. programs and certainly not something as particular as the reporting of admissions data.

The other principal body that one could look to would be the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), but my review of the requirements for member institutions leads me to the conclusion that the aforementioned ABA requirement for the reporting of J.D. admissions numbers is one that ABA Approved Schools are required to follow. However the AALS Bylaws does include language that I find very interesting:
Bylaw Section 6-2. Admissions c. A member school shall deal fairly with applicants for admission.

There are many ways to interpret such a fairness standard. At least at this time, it does not include proving LL.M. applicants with the same quality of data as J.D. applicants. I think this should change because LL.M. applicants should be able to make admissions decisions based on the same kind of admissions data that J.D. applicants have access to. In the next post in this series, I will explain what I will be doing about this issue.

Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
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The Lack of Transparency in the LL.M. Application Process

One thing that I find highly ironic about US LL.M. admissions is the real lack of information provided by law schools. The irony is that law schools provide huge amounts of data regarding their J.D. program, but the very same schools provide very little information about acceptance rates and yield (percentage of accepted students who attend) for their LL.M. program(s). Here I focus on LL.M. programs for international students. Thus the very same schools that make it very easy to think about school selection for J.D. applicants, don't make it easy for LL.M. applicants. It is reasonable to say that as result, LL.M. applicants at a huge disadvantage relative to J.D. applicants for purposes of formulating an efficient application strategy.

One example. The typical way an LL.M. program reports its relative level of difficulty is exemplified by the University of Chicago (Chicago actually reports the number of applications, which makes it better than some other schools. I use Chicago simply as an example, but not in an attempt to make it look bad.):
Each year the Law School receives approximately 750 applications for the 50 positions in the LL.M. program

Keep in mind that this only tells you the number of admits, but not the number admitted and not yield, so you don't know what percentage decided to attend. Contrast this with the J.D. applications for 2005 (the most recent on the US News and World Report site):
Acceptance Rate: 15.9%
Number of Applicants: 4818
Number Accepted: 766
Number Enrolled: 192

If J.D. applicants only knew the number enrolled and the number of applicants, they might draw the mistaken conclusion that only approximately 4% of applicants were admitted. Based on that same mistaken impression, 50 out of 750 for the LL.M. program gives us approximately 7%. Now the actually rate of admission for the LL.M. program? Certainly it is easier than the J.D. program, but by how much? Based on what I know about the process as well as my experience with clients who get into Chicago, I bet the actual percentage of admitted students is somewhere between 25% and 30% (I will be happy to be corrected, I sent this post to the Dean of the Law School over two weeks ago and have yet to receive a reply).

Essentially international LL.M. applicants to US programs experience information asymmetry in their school selection, while J.D. candidates have a situation of almost perfect information (they can look at their LSAT & GPA and a clear sense of their relative likelihood of acceptance to any particular program). This is simply unfair and inexcusable. Make no mistake about it, most LL.M. programs engage in a set of practices that, whether intended or not, obfuscate the ability of applicants to determine the real difficulty of admission.

While admissions officers might argue that the LL.M. program is more like graduate programs in other parts of the university, I find this argument unacceptable for two reasons. First, LL.M. programs are part of Law Schools that easily have the means for reporting full information on their admissions decisions. Second, J.D. program admissions results reporting is, generally speaking, the standard by which to measure all other graduate programs and therefore applying the lesser standards generally used in the Arts and Sciences would simply be to engage in bad practice. (Yes, I said that, really only professional schools in Law, Medicine, and Business consistently report good numbers).

So why not report on acceptance rates and yield? Well, as anyone who has actually helped applicants at this for years can tell you, there is- with the exception of the very top programs (Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, Chicago, Northwestern, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, UC Berkeley, UCLA, New York University, University of Michigan, and Georgetown)- very little relationship between the difficulty of entering the school's LL.M. and J.D. programs. And even for the schools I mentioned, it is hard to know for sure because of the lack of LL.M. data for most of these programs.

The lack of information that schools provide is further compounded by the lack of information provided elsewhere. Given the relatively small size of the LL.M.applicant market, no one is publishing books on this. At best LL.M.programs get a passing mention. The only decent general LL.M. site, http://www.llm-guide.com/, is forced to show J.D. ranking information because there really is nothing better.

Some may argue that knowing a school's J.D. ranking is enough, but given my experience I don't think so. First of all, the Japanese lawyers (弁護士 Bengoshi), patent lawyers (弁理士 Benrishi), judges, prosecutors, government officials, and legal experts I have worked with, have often had to apply to too many schools because they were uncertain about the actual level of difficulty and the only really good numbers that they really have to look at for J.D. programs. I don't know about the situation in other countries, but LL.M.applicants in Japan tend to apply to more programs than applicants in other fields. It is common for Japanese LL.M. applicants to apply to 8 to 12 schools, as compared to the usual 4 to 6 that most graduate applicants apply to.

In the situation of information asymmetry that LL.M. applicants find themselves in, the only rational thing is apply to as many programs as they can in order to see what the best result is. I can't believe such actions are really in the interest of admissions offices, which get flooded, relatively speaking, with applications from Japan. Japanese represent a very large percentage of LL.M. applicants. Consider that 8 out of 50 in Chicago's 2007-2008 Class are Japanese, three more than the next largest nationality represented. This percentage of Japanese students is quite typical for most programs (Yale and Stanford probably being the exceptions due to their small size and selectivity). Assuming similar behavior from applicants in other countries, one can assume that with the exception of Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, these programs must have relatively low yields. Of course, I can't know that for sure. However in the third post in this series, I attempt to answer that question. But before turning to that question, please read the second post where I analyze the impact of American Bar Association reporting requirements on the difference between the way J.D. and LL.M. admissions data is provided.


Questions? Comments? Write comments here or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
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Hedge Funds and Private Equity: MBA?

Anyone interested in working at a hedge fund or in private equity, should most certainly read Hedge Funds and Private Equity Alter Career Calculus, a recent article in The New York Times. According to many of the industry insiders sited in the article, if you are already working in a hedge fund or private equity and thinking about an MBA, you may want to think again because the value of the MBA may be negligible or worse. On the other hand, if you are international (non-US applicant) or a career changer an MBA may be ideal:

Recruiters at banks say a large number of the students that they are hiring from business schools are from an international background or are changing careers. These students are valuable, they say, but they come in with a different background from someone who has been in finance since age 22.

One thing that is also interesting about this article is that the views of Thomas Caleel, Wharton's director of admissions, are directly contradicted by the other sources cited in the article:

Eventually, these young people may want to raise money and start their own fund, suggests Thomas Caleel, director of admissions at Wharton, and that’s where an M.B.A. and the connections that come with it could help. “If you are trying to raise money for a hedge fund, you will need that network,” he says.

Mr. Talpins of Element said he had no trouble raising money for his hedge fund without an M.B.A. After all, he had a track record from Citi and Goldman Sachs to show to potential investors. In his corner of the world, where math equations are likely to be scrawled on white boards around the office and young people hold the purse strings to millions of dollars in investor money, it seems there is no point in going to business school just to punch a ticket.

Talpins is not the only one who contradicts Caleel. Just read the entire article. Caleel comes across as selling something that at least one particular segment of potential customers does not appear to need.

I have seen numerous clients make the jump into banking post-MBA, so the value for both international and career changers is clear enough to me. As to those already well on their way to making the very large salaries the article cites, unless they are looking for a career change, I don't see the ROI.

Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
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MBA留学

Even Professors Use Resume Editors!

I have been asked on many occasions if it is acceptable to have a professionally produced resume. My answer has always been "yes" because such services are very commonly used by professionals in the US. Even The Chronicle of Higher Education, the premier higher education industry publication in the US, partners with a CV and resume writing service. Professors and others in higher education frequently use the The Chronicle to find employment, so clearly it must be acceptable to use resume and CV rewriting services in higher education. If it is good for faculty, we can safely assume it is also good for applicants.

Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
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INSEAD and Chicago GSB Admissions Events

I recently attended two great admissions events. All applicants should try to attend such events as they are great way to learn about a school if you can't visit. They are also a great way of meeting alums in your country of residence. I think it is especially important to meet alums because they are often the best way to judge whether you want to attend a particular MBA program. Given that who you are in class with will really impact your overall educational experience meeting alums is just a great way to see if there is a good fit between you and the program. Of course, you could also learn about the faculty.

If you are interested in INSEAD and can attend one of their seminars with a case study presentation by a faculty member, I can highly recommend it. I attended Professor Jacob Cohen's seminar in Tokyo on September 7th and was very impressed. For more information about INSEAD events.

The Chicago GSB's Rose Martinelli made a great presentation in Tokyo on September 11th. While I have met with Rose before, this was my first opportunity to see her presentation. She was not only very informative about Chicago GSB, but really incredibly helpful in providing great general MBA admissions advice. If you have the chance to see her present, I strongly recommend it. For more information about Chicago GSB events.

Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
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MBA留学

Harvard Law School Essays

There are no LL.M. essay books available, so if you want to get a sense of what kind of essays get someone into a top LL.M. program, there is no text to really look to. This is not the case with J.D. In fact, 55 Successful Harvard Law School Application Essays: What Worked for Them Can Help You Get Into the Law School of Your Choice By The Staff of the Harvard Crimson, is a useful guide for seeing the variety of essay topics that J.D. applicants write on.

Keeping in mind that the J.D. application essay is premised on the idea that the applicant may not necessarily know anything about the law, it is clearly quite different from LL.M. An LL.M. applicant should be able to demonstrate their knowledge of the law and be quite specific about what they intend to study. Therefore looking at book of J.D. essays is mostly useful for getting an understanding of (1)the ways in which applicants describe their initial motivation to study the law, (2) the ways in which applicants effectively demonstrate their intelligence through what they write, and (3) how applicants make their essays very personal.

Given that LL.M. applicants will most certainly find that they will need to describe their motivations to study law and demonstrate their intelligence, reviewing 55 Essays will certainly reveal a variety of methods for doing so. Regarding the issue of personality, effectively communicating something about who you are can really make a signficant impact on admissions.

While many LL.M. applicants take a very basic template-like approach to writing their essays, if you are willing to put in the time to really show what motivates you as a legal professional, what kind of legal thinker you are, and who you are as a person, you can really improve your chances for admission. To that end, I would recommend reading 55 Essays.

I do have one major criticism of the book: I found the analysis of the essays by the Harvard Crimson to be relatively inconsistent. I was especially annoyed when I read some of the analysis that was simply negative about essays that did what they were supposed to do: Got the applicant into Harvard Law. I suppose if one ignored the obvious- the essay worked because the applicant got in- it is possible to be critical about these essays, but for what reason?
I think most readers will find that in general it is better to skim or skip the analysis and just read the essays. Given the low cost of 55 Successful Harvard Law School Application Essays: What Worked for Them Can Help You Get Into the Law School of Your Choice and its potential benefit, I feel quite comfortable in recommending to applicants looking to get greater insight into law school admissions essays.

Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
LLM留学

Should I do my admissions counseling in English?

One of the regular Japanese readers of this blog has asked me the following:

I am thinking about whether to do my MBA admissions counseling only in English or in English and Japanese, which do you think is better? Why?

First, for readers outside of Japan, let me explain that some applicants here use Japanese language admissions counseling services either in addition to or in lieu of English language services. Second, just as is true of English language counselors, Japanese language counselors provide various kinds of services. See my general post on admissions consultants here.

I think the answer to this question really depends on you. I think you should consider using Japanese language counseling if you answer yes to any of the following:
1. I have no clear idea about what I really want to study.
2. I need career counseling.
3. My English language skills are very limited.

If you answered "yes" to statements 1 or 2, you may really need the advice of a certified career counselor. Before spending much money on admissions counseling services, I think you should consider getting the advice of a certified career counselor. There are certified industrial counselors and career consultants who also do admissions counseling, so you may want to consider working with one of them.

If you answered "yes" to statement 3, I think you may need Japanese counseling. However, if your English skills are too weak for you to prepare your applications in English, how will you survive and succeed in graduate school? If you are planning on doing an MBA and will have to interview in English, you really would benefit from doing your admissions counseling in English because this will force you to communicate your ideas in English and thus help you prepare for interviews.

If you do some of your counseling in Japanese, I suggest keeping the following in mind:

1. Focus your Japanese counseling on career counseling, school selection, and assistance with logistical issues. These are likely to be the areas where Japanese counseling will be of some benefit.

2. I don't see the value in doing any sort of essay or interview counseling in Japanese because inherent linguistic and cultural differences mean that you will only increase your work when you have to write and speak in English. Your English localization efforts may prove very inefficient, especially if your content does not translate well. In my experience, this is often the case.

3. While there may be some limited value in reading the analysis of essay questions in Japanese, the chance for misinterpretation is simply increased. If you can understand what I write on my blog, you don't need a Japanese language analysis of an essay question that you will have to answer in English. If you can't understand this blog, you will not have read what I just wrote! :)

While my comments have been made in relation to MBA, the answers apply generally to LL.M. and other graduate degrees as well.

I hope this answers your question. I know the admissions process can be hard and the opportunity to do counseling in your own language might seem attractive, but be absolutely certain that is what you really need.

Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス

ビジネススクール, 米国ロースクール、米国大学法学院, 大学院入学, カウンセリング, コンサルティング, 合格対策, エッセイ, インタビュー、面接, MBA留学, LLM留学, 大学院留学