Have time to do a survey?

Dear Readers,

Help an IE MBA student out by taking part in one or both of the following surveys over the next few weeks:

Survey 1: For Everyone interested in learning

 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XNVB3PM

 

Survey 2: For Teachers or people who would like to teach ANY subject, skill or hobby privately

 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XYCGJVF

 

Also, if you know anyone who you think would be willing to take this, please do so.

-Adam

Guest Blogger: 河野太一のGMAT OG12解説 SC1

I am pleased to announce that Taichi Kono, author of two textbooks on TOEFL and one on TOEIC and a highly experienced TOEFL, TOEIC, and GMAT instructor, will now be a regular guest blogger. Most of his posts will be in Japanese. This post is on GMAT sentence correction. All of his posts can be found here.
-Adam
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Hi, I'm Taichi Kono. I offer explanations for "The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 12th Edition." Everyone knows the explanations provided in the book are not remotely thorough or helpful. My explanations are detailed, even to the point of being dense, but I'm sure that following my line of thought, test takers will get a pretty good idea of "how to think" in the GMAT. Sorry, but currently the explanations are offered solely in Japanese.

Visit my school's website at http://www.konojuku.com
The content shown here comes from 河野太一のGMAT OG12解説

河野塾代表の河野太一です。年来の友人であるAdam Markusさんのご厚意で、"The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 12th Edition"の解説ブログの内容の一部をこちらにアップさせていただくことになりました。オリジナルは河野太一のGMAT OG12解説でご覧いただけます。なお、オリジナルのほ うは予告なく内容を変更することがあり、ここに上げたものと相違があることがありますのでご了承ください。

GMAT OG12解説

SC1
The Glass House Mountains...(S) were(V) sighted...(C)。James Cookまでで主節は完成。

(A) 　theyがMountainsを指すのはOK。supposedly becauseはbecause節（副詞節）に副詞がかかる形で、文法的にはOK、意味的にも「おそらく（一般に推定されているところによれば）〜の理由 で」となり、OK。次のitsが何を指すのかをチェック。後ろにsheer wet rocksが続いているところを見ると、指したいのはMountains以外あり得ない。単複が合わないので、ダメ。

(B)　(A)の itsがtheirになっている点はOK。この時点で他の選択肢のお尻を見ると、すべてtheirなので、切れる選択肢はなし。(B)に戻ると、 becauseがandに変わっているため、「名付けられて、そして岩が光っていた」となり、意味的に不適切。andは等位接続詞なのでand以下も主節 と同等の扱いになり、副詞節ではなくなってしまう。したがってsupposedlyをかけることもできない。そうするとsupposedlyはwere namedにかけるしかなくなり、この部分も意味不明になる。

(C)　Ving副詞の意味上の主語は（基本的に）主節の主語に一致する と いう原則から、namingしたのがMountainsになり、ダメ。

(D)　who so named themはOK。これはwho named them so というSVOC型が元にあると考えられる。soは副詞なので厳密には補語とは言えないが、意味的にThe Glass House Mountainsを指し、「そのように名付けられた」の意味になる。くり返しを避けるための表現。このsoが倒置で前に出た形。似た形の表現にin so doing（そうすることによって、その際に）がある。これもin doing soが倒置になったと考えられる。

(E)　itが Mountainsと合わず、アウト。supposedlyがsince節の中に入り込んでいるために、「おそらく」が「岩が輝いていたこと」にかかって しまう。岩が輝いていたことは確かな情報であるとは限らないので、これもアリといえばアリ。しかしどちらが自然かといえば「おそらく名付けられた」のほう が自然なのは明らか。



-河野太一

河野塾ではTOEFL/IELTS/GMATの個人授業を提供しております。なかなかスコアが上が らずにお悩みの方、きめの細かい効果的な個人指導をお求めの方は、ぜひinfo@konojuku.comまでお気軽にお問い合わせくださ い。

Knewton: What Not to Not Do with Multiple or Complex Negations on the GMAT

My blog's sponsor and GMAT content provider has provided me with the following post on the verbal section. If you have not done so, consider taking a free trial of Knewton GMAT.
-Adam

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It’s Wordy, It’s Awkward, It’s… Correct!

What Not to Not Do with Multiple or Complex Negations on the GMAT

Alex Sarlin is a Content Developer at Knewton where he helps students with their GMAT prep.

The GMAT has a limited bag of tricks up its sleeve to disguise incorrect answer choices. Think of the test-makers as politicians caught in a fib; they can exaggerate (extreme answer choices), skirt the subject (irrelevant answer choices), twist the truth further (distortions), or draw dubious inferences to throw you off their scent. In the end, though, any politician will tell you that the most efficient way to get away with a lie is to simply confuse your accuser into submission. The GMAT usually does this by using negation and reversals in unexpected and mystifying ways.
Negations are words that reverse the meaning of a sentence. They include adverbs and adjectives, such as not, cannot, unlike, or without, and verbs that negate their subjects, such as neglect, deny, reverse, refuse, or counteract. Negations can make parsing sentences into a nightmare, especially during the GMAT, when reading quickly is a key skill. Dealing with negations and reversals effectively is doubly important for non-native English speakers, for whom unraveling complicated sentences is sometimes even more difficult.

Consider the following statement:
Employees with children are just as responsible as those without children.
That makes sense. Now, let's throw in a reversal such as you would see on the GMAT:
An employee with children at home is no more likely to neglect his or her work duties than is an employee without children at home.
It's already getting a bit ugly and difficult to parse, but after a moment, we can recognize that “no more likely to neglect his or her work duties” means the same thing as “just as responsible” does. Let's add a few more twists:
Unlike the inconclusive results of research conducted on employees with and without disabled older relatives, the results of one recent study found that employees with children at home are no more likely to neglect their work duties than are employees without children at home; however, the same cannot be said for such employees' attentiveness to housekeeping duties.
Wow, that's a mouthful! There are many, many negations and reversals in this sentence, all of which are there to make the core meaning of the sentence difficult to spot.
Never fear! There are methods to handle negation and reversals on the GMAT that are sure to make it less stressful.

1. Train yourself not only to notice, but to physically feel any negation words that pop up in an argument, passage, or answer choice.
Did you notice the “not only” at the beginning of the last sentence? We hope so. By “feel,” we mean that you should train your brain to be on high alert as soon as you spot a negation; when you read “The CEO denied the charges that his management style had sunk the company's financial situation, but not that it was responsible for the rise in employee morale,” that very first “denied” should color the way you read the entire rest of the sentence; everything after that point is being denied, and any further reversals must fit into that framework as well.

2. When multiple negations appear in a sentence, they can, but don't always, cancel one another out.
a. Unlike Renaissance scientists, early Medieval scientists were not expected to perform impartial experiments.
b. The new vaccine could not decrease the rate of infection among the antelope population.
In (a) above, the negations cancel one another out; we can be sure that Renaissance scientists were expected to perform impartial experiments. In (b), though, we cannot know whether the vaccine increased the rate of infection or whether the rate of infection stayed exactly the same. "Not decrease" does not necessarily mean "increase"... but it could! Think logically! Furthermore, incorrect answer choices often play on this double negation trick; if (b) was in an argument, the GMAT would be likely to offer an incorrect answer choice that states “The rate of infection among the antelope population has increased since the introduction of the vaccine.” This is not necessarily true, and would be an invalid inference and an incorrect answer.

3. Let yourself be a ping-pong ball.
The worst thing you can do is to plow through negations without noticing that they are there; instead, let them bounce your understanding of the sentence around freely, back and forth, until the meaning becomes clear. Practice on this sentence, which has no less than seven negation words or reversals:
Although neither a lack of iron nor a lack of vitamin B12 is a guaranteed predictor of anemia, a condition in which the body does not have enough red blood cells, both of these deficiencies may, in the absence of other countervailing measures, cause the condition.

4. Don't be afraid to re-read sentences with complex negations and to rephrase them in your own words.
An extra few seconds of reading is always better than choosing an incorrect answer. Speaking complex sentences out loud helps many test-takers as well (but not too loudly; mind the others in the room!).
Good luck, and one last piece of advice from us at Knewton:
Never forget to avoid ignoring negations!




 

Steve Green on the GRE'S PPI

Below, Steve Green discusses the PPI.  If you are taking GRE, this is a post worth reading. 

-Adam

Did you sign up for the GRE?  If so, then you have the option to register for the Personal Potential Index (PPI)

Disclaimer:  For four of the past five years ETS has hired me to be a reader for College Board Advanced Placement exams in the subject of Comparative Government and Politics.  My work with ETS has been limited to this exam only and is unrelated in any way to all other ETS exams, including the GRE.  The opinions expressed in this blog post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of ETS.

Last summer the Educational Testing Service (ETS) released the Personal Potential Index, which its website advertises as the “First Large-Scale System for Evaluating Personal Attributes.”  The aim of the PPI is to provide schools and applicants with an additional method for assessing the likelihood of graduate success. This new index originated in Project 1000, a decade-long study at Arizona State University that researched evaluations with an aim to increasing the number of underrepresented groups in graduate programs.  Anyone who registers for the GRE may also sign up for the PPI at no additional cost.   Others, including anyone who took the GRE before May 1, 2009, must pay a fee of $20.  In this post I'm going to summarize what the PPI is and why ETS produced it and then I'll offer my opinion on who, if anyone, should register for it.

WHAT THE PPI IS

The PPI produces a score based on assessments of six attributes:  knowledge & creativity, ethics & integrity, communication skills, teamwork, resilience and planning and organization.  Up to 5 people – chosen by the applicant- use a numerical scale to evaluate the applicant on each of these attributes as well as add additional comments.  The PPI asks the evaluator to score the applicant in relation to other university students the evaluator has known.  The mean scores of each attribute plus an overall score represents the PPI, which, along with comments from evaluators, is sent to graduate schools.  

The PPI is not an aptitude test and does not require any action on the part of an applicant beyond providing contact information for up to 5 evaluators and list of up to four schools to receive the results.

HOW THE PPI WORKS

Applicants select up to 5 evaluators who can rate the applicant on the 6 attributes listed above by assigning a value of 1 to 5 on four variables for each attribute. Variables include “Is intensely curious about the field” (knowledge & creativity), “speaks in a way that is interesting” (communication skills) and “behaves in an open and friendly manner” (teamwork), along with 21 other variables.  Click here to watch a short ETS video about how the PPI works.   Go to the ETS PPI Main Page to find links to a sample PPI report, such as would be sent to a graduate school, as well as to a copy of the evaluation report and the 24 variables listed on it.

WHAT YOU DO

When you register for the GRE you can set up an online account for the PPI at ETS (go the PPI Main Page).  In your account you list graduate schools you would like to receive your PPI score as well as provide the contact information for up to 5 evaluators. (ETS will send reports to 4 schools for no extra charge and to additional schools for $20 each.)  Although you have the right to view each evaluator’s assessment of you, you have the option to waive that right.

You may produce different PPI reports that are completed by different evaluators: You are not limited to the same evaluators for every report.  ETS allows you to choose up to 25 different people to evaluate you within the PPI system.   Therefore, if you decide to register for the PPI, then I suggest you strategize about whom and which combination of potential evaluators would be best for you for each program.  Obviously, you will need to think carefully about who can say what about you- and for which programs those assessments might matter most. In theory, your positive attributes should be universally valued. In fact, your evaluation will reflect your best skills as they were seen in a particular time and place.  If you have a lot of professional experience but are applying

 

WHICH PROGRAMS REQUIRE THE PPI AND WHERE IS IT OPTIONAL?  

Apparently, the PPI is required by some graduate programs but is optional at most.  You will have to check with your target programs to find out. ETS did not seem interested in sharing with me which schools actually require the PPI.  Last September, I contacted Mark I. McNutt, Manager, Media & External Relations for ETS, and asked him if he could provide a list of schools that accept or require the PPI.  He said he did not have that data available and, although he kindly sent me a link to press releases later, he did not send me the list of programs that accept or require the PPI.    That was in September, 2009.   Now, in March, 2010, I cannot find that information on the website. (I also notice that the press releases have not been updated since July, 2009.) 

SHOULD YOU REGISTER FOR THE PPI?

I provide a list below of reasons why you may or may not wish to request a PPI score.

Before asking 5 people to devote time to trying to evaluate you on 24 different variables you should FIND OUT IF YOUR TARGET PROGRAM EVEN CARES.   If the departments to which you are applying don't require the PPI then you may gain NO STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE BY SUBMITTING A SCORE.  After all, the adcom cannot fairly judge others compared to your PPI if no one else submits one (because no one else has to submit one) but IF a school accepts your PPI, and you want to submit one, then great- please proceed to the next section. 

YOU MIGHT WANT TO REGISTER FOR THE PPI IF:

• One or more of your target schools accepts a PPI report AND/OR
• You believe your personal traits distinguish you:  You feel like your GPA and GRE scores alone, or in combination with each other, do not accurately represent your potential for success and you believe some combination of the 6 attributes measured on the PPI contributed to your academic and/or professional success as much if not more than your intellectual ability alone AND/OR

• The PPI can shine the spotlight on those personal attributes you describe in your statement of purpose (SOP).  Since a good SOP contains detailed examples of personal traits that, in addition to brainpower, drive your accomplishments, the PPI can offer not only collaborating evidence to your claims, but additional evidence of other exceptional traits.  (After all, you cannot write about all 6 personal attributes much less the 24 ways they are measured on the PPI evaluation.)

If PPI is an option and not a requirement, then I think you should register for it IF and ONLY IF one of the two points above applies to you.   In that case, be sure you can identify between 3 and 5 people in a position to carefully evaluate the 6 attributes of the index.   I think one or two evaluators are insufficient to provide enough additional information about you. Three or more can illustrate a pattern to your personal qualities, especially in combination with the contents of your recommendation letters.   However, quality, not quantity, is the most important factor to consider when seeking evaluators so only choose those best positioned to judge your personal attributes in relation to others.  Such people include a university professor, a supervisor, a coach or director, or a mentor, among possible others.  As with recommendation letter writers, do not ask family members or friends to complete a PPI evaluation for you. Obviously, if you can identify a larger pool of potential evaluators then you will be able to consider who and what combination of people will help you most for each particular program.  

YOU SHOULD NOT REGISTER FOR THE PPI IF:

• It is not accepted by your target schools AND/OR
• You do not believe you can obtain helpful evaluations from at least 3-5 people for any reason AND/OR

• You do not believe it would be an accurate measurement of your potential AND/OR
• You have a high GRE score, excellent GPA and reasonably expect supportive letters of recommendation then you may reasonably conclude that you not need to provide additional evidence of your potential for success.  

ATTENTION APPLICANTS FROM CULTURES WHERE IT IS DIFFICULT TO OBTAIN THE "STANDARD" 2-3 LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATIONS:   If you come from a society in which professional supervisors and academic advisers are reluctant to write letters or recommendation and/or will simply not support an employee's or a student's plans to leave their current institution for oversees study, then THE PPI PROBABLY IS NOT FOR YOU.   I think this issue is a potential BLIND SPOT FOR ETS's plans to make the PPI a commonly used tool by graduate programs.   It is already difficult to the point of impossible for applicants in some cultures to obtain 2-3 conventional letters or recommendations from the person best positioned to comment authoritatively and in detail about them.   Finding a substitute for a supervisor that is acceptable to their target programs is already a challenge.   To expect these same applicants to feel comfortable asking an additional 3-5 people to evaluate them would put them in a highly uncomfortable position within their own culture.  In other words,  if the PPI becomes a requirement, then it will put many international applicants at a serious disadvantage.  (I cannot imagine too many US graduate programs want to risk a decline in international applicants so my guess is they are resisting any requests to make the PPI a requirement.)

I work with many international clients who face enormous difficulties obtaining recommendation letters from their supervisors because the supervisor opposes their plans and might fire them if they do not get into a program or because the supervisor is simply too busy to bother take the time to help someone who is planning to leave "the team." Furthermore, asking someone to write a recommendation letter and/or complete an evaluation for a grad program is considered an imposition: Many try to avoid fulfilling such requests and many try to avoid asking more than the absolute minimal number necessary. 

In conclusion, as my comments above suggest, I am not convinced the PPI is useful for most people, especially for many international applicants.

YAYS & NAYS: WHAT OTHERS SAY ABOUT THE PPI

The ETS website contains this endorsement of the PPI from Michael J. Sullivan, Director of the Hispanic Research Center, and Program Director of Project 1000, Arizona State University:  "I expect the ETS Personal Potential Index to help level the playing field for students who… have not done particularly well on standardized tests…. Having the PPI evaluation as an option helps to show a broader picture of the applicant — that they're more than a GRE score."

Carol Lynch, who is Dean of the Graduate School and Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder and who has served on the Board of Directors of the Council of Graduate Schools, as well as the GRE Board. According to Inside Higher Ed, she expressed that “one motivation [for creating the PPI] was dissatisfaction with letters of recommendation. ‘Some of the things we're trying to get at here appear in some letters, but most do not; some letters are helpful [in making decisions] and some are not…There are some busy faculty members who write the same letters for every student.  And it's amazing how many students are in the top 10 percent" of those taught by those writing letters. By asking very specific questions in the index, the new measure should yield better information.’”

In contrast, according to US News & World Report, the University of Southern California’s dean of admissions and financial aid, L. Katherine Harrington, believes the best recommendations are individualized letters and is not sure a standardize form would have any value.

A more generalized criticism comes from Robert Schaeffer, public education director for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing.  He told Inside Higher Ed, “it is difficult to differentiate between genuine attempts to improve the admissions process and calculated efforts to sell more products.”  


 For questions regarding this post, please contact me at h.steven.green@gmail.com. To learn more about my graduate admissions consulting services, please click here.
- H. Steven ("Steve") Green, グリーン・ハロルド・スティーブン

大学院

Knewton on GMAT Verbal: It’s Wordy, It’s Awkward, It’s… Correct!

My blog's sponsor and GMAT content provider has provided me with the following post on the verbal section. If you have not done so, consider taking a free trial of Knewton GMAT.
-Adam

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It’s Wordy, It’s Awkward, It’s… Correct!

Joanna Bersin, is a Content Developer at Knewton where she helps students with their GMAT prep. 

Like a salesperson trying to trick you into purchasing an expensive item by appealing to your emotions, the makers of the GMAT try to trick test-takers into both “buying” grammatically incorrect answer choices by making them concise, and eliminating answer choices that are grammatically correct by making them appear awkward and unwieldy.

How do we usally avoid splurging on unnecessary purchases? We train ourselves to shop wisely, basing our decisions on a range of criteria and not solely on what "seems" to be the most attractive option in the store. We focus on specific features, using logic to compare items. How can you choose the correct answer on test day? You don’t just listen to your ear; first make sure that each sentence you eliminate violates a concrete rule of English grammar. When choosing between the remaining, seemingly error-free, constructions, use the differences between the options to identify errors; all other things being equal, always pick the less wordy, less awkward, and more active answer choice.

But buyer, beware: The test-makers, like salespeople, want your ear to tell you what to do. Before going into “negotiations” with these tricksters, it’s best to learn some of their most common tricks.

First, make sure to hold on to wordy and awkward but otherwise error-free constructions. The test-makers especially like to make choice A (the original sentence in the prompt) sound particularly awkward, even when it is the only error-free option. This encourages test-takers to eliminate it immediately, and then to waste time picking between the remaining options. They want us to think “This is the ‘sentence correction’ section, our minds tell us, so this sentence, especially a wordy and awkward one, must need some correcting."  But not necessarily!

Next, do not waste time struggling with pronoun-antecedent errors in complex sentences. Because it is easy to spot a pronoun within a sentence, there is not much that the test-makers can do to create errors with an underlined pronoun. Therefore, do not let pronoun use distract you; check for a logical antecedent, and make sure that the pronoun agrees with this antecedent in number- and move on. On the GMAT, a pronoun is even allowed have two physically possible antecedents within a sentence as long as only one of these antecedents is logical.

On questions dealing with parallelism, items that are linked must be the same part of speech. Options that follow this rule are sufficiently parallel. Once you are choosing between sufficiently parallel options, look for other errors. On tough questions especially, the GMAT-makers will often make the most parallel-looking option incorrect for some other reason, luring you to into choosing it over a sufficiently parallel option without other errors.

For example:

"For the play, the creation of a humorous script and the care of choosing from a cast are important."

And:

"For the play, the creation of a humorous script and the care with which the cast is chosen are important."

… are both parallel. The first sentence uses "of" after "care" and looks even more parallel than the second sentence. However, the less parallel-looking option, the second one, is grammatically correct and logical, whereas the more parallel-looking option is awkward and does not have a clear meaning. "The care of choosing from a cast" does not make sense. 

Don't be fooled; appearances aren't everything.

Finally, when down to those final two options, plug each back into the original sentence and check for sentence logic. An underlined portion itself may read error-free, but, when read in the context of the entire sentence, the meaning of the sentence formed may be illogical. Which option clearly places all modifiers, especially adjectival ones, as closely as possible to the words they modify? Which choice connects clauses logically?

The salespeople use the same tricks over and over again. Learn the gimmicks and buy only what you came for.

University of Michigan Ross MBA Interviews

This post is updated from last year.

Interviews for the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business are not particularly hard. Based on my experience as well as the reports found at accepted.com and clearadmit.com, I can say that they are generally seem to be friendly, focused on fit, and require the applicant to discuss the basics.

Ross interviews are conducted blind, but since what you say in the interview will be checked against what you wrote, make certain that your oral and written presentations are consistent, especially in terms of your goals.

My colleague, Steve Green, has compiled the following common questions:

INTRODUCTION AND “BASICS”  (GOALS, REASONS FOR MBA)

• Tell me about yourself. Walk me through your resume. What should I know about you?  *Probe resume: Cross-reference, push for details about why and how.
• Tell me about your current position.
• What do you do outside of work?
• What are your career goals?
• Why do you want an MBA?
• Why now?
  Why Ross?
• How will you be involved outside of class?
• What will you do if not accepted to Ross?

TEAMS

• How would you deal with a teammate who doesn’t act like a team player?
• Tell me how you dealt with a team member who was under-performing.
• Tell me about your role on a team.
• Tell me about a time when your team faced a lot of obstacles? (WHAT LEARNED?)

 

LEADERSHIP

• Tell me about a time you showed initiative.
• How do you manage conflict?
• Please give me 3 examples of your leadership experience?
• What does leadership mean to you?

 

SELF-AWARENESS

• What 3 adjectives would your friends use to describe you and why?
• What makes you unique?
• What was a challenging experience in your life?
• Tell me about a time when you had a professional failure and what did you learn from it.
• Tell me about a time when you received negative feedback from a supervisor and how did you respond.

Ross interviewers are admissions officers, students, and alumni and interviews can be in person or by telephone. Reported length for interviews is usually 30 minutes with some going 45 minutes and few lasting an hour (these seem to be an exception). Campus interviews will most likely be 30 minutes. Given that this is a short interview, I think it is particularly important that you have a very clear idea about what you want to cover. The most frustrating thing about such an interview could easily be lack of time to cover your own perceived key points, so make sure that when you think about the likely questions above, you have fully considered how you will use your answers as a vehicle to help your interviewer understand why you should be offered a place at Michigan. For more about strategy, see here.

If you are interviewed by a student, take it seriously! Apparently a sufficient number of applicants were not in R1 for 2010 admission because Soojin Kwon Koh, the Director of Admissions, posted the following:

I wanted to pass on a bit of advice to Round 2 (and 3) applicants based on some experiences during Round 1. It seems that some applicants view interviews with an MBA2 who is part of the Admissions Student Committee as less "serious" than an interview with an alumnus or staff member. Some applicants were a bit unprofessional, shall we say, probably thinking that an MBA2 is on the level of a peer/buddy rather than a bona fide admissions interviewer. Don't let that be you. 

Treat whoever you interview with equal seriousness.


-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

Cornell Johnson MBA Interviews

This post is updated from last year.


Based on my own clients' reports and those found at accepted.com and clearadmit.com, I think that there are five key things to consider when preparing for The Johnson School at Cornell University MBA interviews:

1. Interviewers use a standard list of questions according to a number of reports. My colleague, Steve Green, has compiled the following:

INTRO: RESUME

• Walk me through your background / resume.
• Why did you choose your undergraduate university/ college?
• Tell me about your current company and what you do.
• How has your job role changed over the years?
• What roles have you played? 
• What skills have you learned?
• How did you choose your career path?
• What do you do for fun outside of work?

GOALS, REASONS FOR MBA, REASONS FOR CORNELL

• Why an MBA
• Why now?
• What are your post-graduation goals?
• Brief me about your work post-graduation? (Follow up with q’s about the “actual work”)
• How did you choose this career path?
• Have you done research about this path?
• Why Cornell?
• What are you going to learn at Johnson?
• What Immersion Program will you join?
• Which clubs interest you at Cornell? Why? Are you interested in leading any of them?
• What other schools did you apply to?
• What is the main difference between (OTHER SCHOOL) and Johnson, in your eyes?

TEAMWORK

• Tell me about a conflict you faced in a team.
• Example of a time when you had a conflict in team and how you reacted to it.
• How would your teammates describe you as a member of their team?

LEADERSHIP

• Tell me about a significant leadership experience.
• Example of a leadership situation - where you had to convince a colleague or team about something they disagreed with.
• What 3 qualities do you believe a leader must have? Which of these is your weakest?

SELF-AWARENESS

• Tell me about a time you had to make a difficult decision.
• Tell me about the most difficult professional experience you’ve ever had.
• How do you deal with failure?
• What are 3 adjectives you would use to describe yourself to the admissions committee?
• What was your most innovative solution?
• What are your 3 strongest strengths and weakness?
• How will you work in a difficult team situation, when someone don't even care to contribute?
• How would your friends describe you?
• What are you reading right now?
• What do your parents do?
• What makes you nervous about business school?

CONCLUDING COMMENTS/QUESTIONS

• Any questions for me?

See my previous post on interviewing for more about how to handle many of these questions.

2. The interviewer will only have access to your resume, so know the contents well, but assume the agenda for your interview will be set by the list of questions that interviewer has and not only by your resume.

3. I don't know nor have seen reports of any trick questions really. Be prepared to ask questions about the program. If you have an alum interview, be prepared to have a number of questions.

4. Interviewers (students, adcom, or alum) are usually try to create a friendly interview atmosphere. Some reports indicate that admissions staff were rough. I know based on reports I have heard from clients that admissions staff can be aggressive. Regardless of how your interviewer performs, just be relaxed and positive. This is an interview about fit and your own potential, so make sure you can explain in depth why you want to attend Johnson, how you will contribute to it, and what you intend to do afterwords. Previous contact with alumni, visits to campus, and/or intensive school research are all great ways to prepare.

5. Campus interviews usually last 45 minutes. Alumni interviews seem to last about 45 minutes to about an hour.


-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

Northwestern University Kellogg MBA interviews

This post is updated from last year.


Just as with essays, interviews for the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management MBA applicant interviews are all about fit.

My comments below are based on reviewing reports from my clients as well as those found at accepted.com and clearadmit.com (As I have mentioned previously, both companies should be praised for collecting these reports for all to see. I should state as a matter of disclosure that I am a member of AIGAC, a professional organization, with consultants from both organizations). These reports reveal that there are five key things to consider when preparing for Kellogg interviews:

1. You need to know your resume completely as you will likely be asked about content in it. Review it carefully and consider what your interviewer might ask you to explain more thoroughly. If it is on your resume, it is fair game. Kellogg interviews are conducted blind, so your interview will not have read your application. The only thing they will have is your resume. Most interview reports indicate extensive questions about the contents of the resume.

2. You need to be prepared to answer routine MBA questions. Most reported interviews simply consist of them. See my previous post on MBA Application Interview Strategy.  You should expect to have to answer questions regarding teamwork (Examples where you demonstrated it, how you handled problems on teams, and how you would handle a low-performing team member in group work at Kellogg are common examples).  Be absolutely comfortable explaining core questions regarding fit (Why Kellogg? Why the Kellogg community is right for you?  Contributions?) as these always come up.   Be ready to ask questions and obviously make those questions fit to the person you are talking (admissions officer, student, or alumni).

3. Kellogg interviewers do not really ask any unexpected hypothetical and/or critical thinking questions,instead, as previously stated, you can expect more standard questions. My colleague, Steve Green, has collected the following common questions:
-

• Tell me about yourself. / Walk me through your resume. PROBE ANSWERS
• Tell me about [particular accomplishment]
• Tell me about [particular promotion or change]
• What is missing from your resume that you’d like to tell me about?

• Why did you choose your undergraduate school?
• Why did you choose your major?
• Tell me something about your undergraduate experience?
• What was your legacy at your undergrad school?

• Why did you choose consulting for your career?
• What are your current responsibilities?
• What do you clients say about you?
• What do you outside of work?

• Tell me about your teamwork experience.
• Describe a difficult team situation you have had to deal with in the past?
• Tell me about another teamwork experience.
• What would you do when a team member wasn’t pulling his own weight?

• Who do you admire as a leader?
• Have you held leadership positions at work?
• Tell me something about your leadership experience?
• Have you faced any challenges as a leader? How did you deal with them?

• Why do you want an MBA/
• Why now?
• Why Kellogg?
• What are your goals?
• How will Kellogg help you achieve those goals?
• How do you envision yourself being involved in the Kellogg community?
• How will you enhance the diversity of the Kellogg class?

• What are your two main strengths?
• What are your two main weaknesses?
• If time and money were not an issue, what would you do?
• What three words would you use to describe yourself?
• Who is a good negotiator?
• Have you ever been in a negotiation where it wasn't win - win, rather, win-lose or lose-lose.

• What do people misperceive about you when first meeting you?
• What would you say is a weakness in your application? -
• If I asked your colleagues about you, what would they say?
•  What questions do you have for me? / Do you have any questions for me?

4. Interviewers (adcom or alumni) usually try to create a very relaxed interview atmosphere. As some adcom interviewers are 2nd year students, be aware that a campus interview might not be with an admissions officer. I know of a few instances when student interviewers were not necessarily that friendly to the applicant. In any case, this is an interview about fit (just like Kellogg Essay 3), so make sure you can explain in depth why you want to become a part of the Kellogg community and how you will contribute to it. Previous contact with alum, visits to campus, and/or intensive school research are all great ways to prepare. If you have not previously read my Kellogg essay analysis, I suggest doing so as it contains my analysis of Kellogg's culture.

5. Reported interview length could be from 30 to 60 minutes, with most reported interviews taking 30-45 minutes.

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

Stanford GSB MBA Interviews

This post is updated from last year.  My analysis of the Stanford GSB essays for 2010/2011 can be found here.

 

Stanford GSB MBA interviews, while so hard to get, are not necessarily that hard in any obvious way. This is interview about fit as determined by an alumni "gatekeeper." Chances are good that this gatekeeper might be in your industry or in some manner have a complementary background for assessing you.  For example, if you might be perceived as lacking a particularly important attribute (professional experience in the field related to your goals or English skills for example), don't surprised if the alumni is someone who is in a good position to judge this. While I imagine in some places with few alumni, a high level of complementary assessment (e.g., McKinsey applicant interviewed by Boston Consulting Group alum) would be less likely, I can say that it is the rule rather the exception in Japan. Expect a lively exchange and whatever you do, don't make any plans for it to end on time as Stanford interviews are well known for going long. Based on my experience, I can say that every client who had a long interview got in. This might be coincidence, but I doubt it.

My analysis of Stanford is based on my own personal knowledge as well as reviewing the reports of Stanford University GSB interviews found at accepted.com and clearadmit.com.

Some key things to consider when preparing for Stanford GSB interviews:

1. My colleague, H. Steven Green, has put the following together by reviewing interview reports:
RESUME

• Tell me about your background/walk me through your resume.
• Tell me a bit about yourself
• What extracurricular activity are you most proud of?
• What did you take away from your undergraduate experience?
• What do you like to do outside of work?
• Tell about a time you streamlined operations/made things more efficient? What did you do?  How did you measure its success?
• What metrics did you use?
• Tell me about your international experience.
• What is your favorite place you’ve traveled?
• What is your company’s strategy?  Is it succeeding?

GOALS, REASONS FOR MBA, REASONS FOR STANFORD

• Tell me about a specific time when you realized you needed an MBA.
• Why a Stanford MBA?
• Why do you need an MBA?
• Why now?
• Why Stanford?
• How would you decide between schools if you got into multiple MBA programs?
• What will you bring that is unique to the program?
• How will you contribute to Stanford?
• What are your short-term goals? Long-term goals?
• Where else have you applied? How have those worked out?
• Explain how you are ready for academic rigor.

CHARACTER & CHALLENGES TO YOUR BELIEFS AND VALUES

• Tell me about a time you faced an obstacle and what did you do about it?
• Tell me about a time you faced an ethical situation.
• Tell me about a time you had your beliefs challenged.
• Tell me about a time you had to stand your ground and how did you do it?
• Tell me about a time your values were challenged and you had to consult your moral compass?

DIFFICULT WORK RELATIONSHIPS

• Tell me about someone difficult to work with that was in a position above you and what you learned from it.

CRITICISM AND FEEDBACK FROM OTHERS

• Tell me about a time when others have pointed out a weakness of yours.
• Tell me about the most valuable piece of feedback you've ever received. How did it change your relationship with that individual? Why was it important?
• What is a valuable piece of feedback you have received?

FAILURE

• Tell me about a time things didn’t go according to plan and you failed? What did you learn from it?
• What did you learn from a failure?
• Tell me about an individual or group failure.
• Tell me about a time when you failed. What did you learn from that event and how have you implemented what you learned from that failure?
• How do you deal with failure?

BOOKS YOU’VE READ

• Name a book that you've read recently that was not for work. We then discussed that book.
• What is your favorite book that is not work related?
• What are your 3 favorite books?

INSPIRATION, PASSION,

• Tell me about what inspires you.
• Is there anything you’ve done merely out of passion?
• If money were not an issue, what cause would you pursue most vigorously?
• Tell me about a time you wanted to give up but found the motivation to keep going?
• What is your greatest accomplishment?
• Tell me about a time you had to make a trade-off between two equally attractive opportunities?

TEAMWORK

• Tell me about a time you worked with a difficult team member or manager.
• Tell me about an individual or group failure.
• Tell me about a team experience.
• Have you ever led a team?

LEADERSHIP

• Tell me about a time when you had to lead a team of individuals. What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn about leadership?
• Tell me about a leadership experience.
• Tell me about a time you knew you were an effective leader and how did you know?
• What is your leadership style? Give me an example of how you've led that way.
• When have you led peers and how?
• Tell me about a time when a leader fell short and you had to step up and lead.
• Tell me about a time when you've been challenged as a leader and what you learned from it.

As you can see, the questions are pretty standard. Expect some behavioral style questions and prepare accordingly.

2. You need to be able to explain in-depth why you should be admitted to Stanford, what you can contribute, and what you want to learn. Be willing to openly discuss what soft and hard skills you need to improve/acquire. Show yourself to be open, dynamic, change oriented, and a highly motivated person because the alum will be.

3. Since there is supposed to be time for you to ask questions to the alum, you need to give some significant thought to formulating those. Consider what year the alum graduated and any other background information if you can determine that through Linkedin or other sources of information. Develop four or more questions to ask.

4. Whoever you interview with, they are likely to be quite friendly and the style of the interview is conversational. Stanford alumni are provided with very clear guidelines for how to conduct interviews. Just because your interviewer is friendly, it does not mean that you are doing well. Don't assume a friendly interviewer is not actually a super critical one. Alumni are the gatekeepers and Stanford can afford to reject anyone. Take nothing for granted. Also keep in mind that the admissions process at Stanford is holistic and a great interview is no absolute guarantee of success.

5. Reported interview length for interviews is official 45 minutes, but can go on for longer than that. It usually consists of 30-40 minutes of questions from the alumni followed by 5-15 minutes of question to the alum, but often the interviews go longer, an hour or more is not uncommon. In my own experience with clients, I would say that if the interview goes for an hour or more, that is a good sign, but a 45 minute interview is not necessarily a bad sign. Interviews that last 75 minutes to 120 minutes are not uncommon.

If you are interested in my interview preparation or other graduate admission consulting services, please click here.

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

Dartmouth Tuck MBA Interviews

This post is slightly updated from the one I did last year as it now includes a list of typical questions that Tuck asks. My analysis of Tuck's essays can be found here.

Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth interview is about fit, so make sure you can explain in great depth why you want to become a part of Tuck's small intensive community in Hanover. If you interview on-campus expect to be asked about how you liked it. If you have never been to Hanover, contact with alumni and intensive school research are all great ways to prepare. Keep in mind that the objective of this research is to determine what you really like about the school, about how Tuck is right for you, and how you imagine yourself contributing to it. Try to focus on what you need from the school, not merely stating obvious information about it.

Demonstrated enthusiasm to attend Tuck is very helpful. Based on my experience, that enthusiasm in combination with the ability to provide solid answers to routine MBA questions is most critical to succeeding at this interview. Most reported interviews found at accepted.com and clearadmit.com simply consist of standard questions. See my previous post on interview strategy. Expect questions about teams, friendship, and extracurricular activities.  My colleague, Steve Green, has identified the following as very common Tuck interview questions:

INTRO: RESUME

•  Walk me through your resume.
• “We definitely covered the whole resume, though not in order, i.e. no "walk me through your resume" question”
  
• Tell me more about yourself that I can’t see from your resume
• Talk about your current job
• Talk your work in .. (location)
• How do you spend your free time?
• Do you have any/ What is your  international experience?

GOALS, REASONS FOR MBA, REASONS FOR TUCK

• What are your goals?
• What motivates you to get an MBA at this point in your career?
• Why do you want an MBA at Tuck?
• What will you be involved with at Tuck?
• How will you contribute to Tuck?

TEAMWORK

• Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult teammate.
• Tell me about a time you had to work in a team.
• What are the qualities that make you successful on a team
• Tell me about a time you experienced conflict on a team, and how you handled it?

 

LEADERSHIP

• What type of leader are you?

SELF-AWARENESS

• Tell me about a time you disagreed with your boss and how it was resolved.
• What is your biggest accomplishment in your personal and/or professional life
•  Tell me about a failure.
• Tell me about your analytical skills.
• What are your 3 strengths?
• What are your 3 weaknesses?
• Imagine you are selling yourself to the adcom. What 3 things do you want them to know about you?
• What do your colleagues most admire about you?
• What are three things you’d like the adcom to know about you?

CLOSING COMMENTS/QUESTIONS

• Is there anything else you’d like Tuck to know about you?
• Is there anything you hoped I’d ask, but didn’t?
• Questions for me?

You need to know your resume completely as you will likely be asked about content in it. Review it carefully and consider what your interviewer might ask you to explain more thoroughly. If it is on your resume, it is fair game. Even an admissions officer interviewer will only have your resume, but you should assume they will know the contents of it fairly well. As Clear Admit states, "Tuck employs a ‘blind’ interview process, using only the resume as a basis for the interview.

Interviewers, according to the Tuck FAQ:
Interviews on campus are scheduled primarily with admissions associates (second-year students) and occasionally with members of the admissions committee. Off-campus interviews with an alumni interviewer, admissions committee member, or admissions associate are scheduled by invitation only.


Reported interview length: 30 to 45 minutes.

If you are interested in my interview preparation or other graduate admission consulting services, please click here.

Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my recent post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant."
-Adam Markus
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