The MBA Application Process: A Test of Potential

One key way of thinking about the MBA application process is to see it as a test of potential. MIT puts it this way:
The Admissions Committee looks for excellence—applicants with high academic potential and achievement, and strong motivation and leadership potential. High academic potential and achievement are normally reflected in high GMAT scores, excellent academic records, and recommendations that go beyond the usual polite endorsement. Ability to achieve is usually shown in relevant experience, your essays, and recommendations.

NYU Stern admissions has a Podcast series with one episode focused specifically on academic potential. I highly recommend the whole series.

Potential itself can mean different things at different schools and so you must keep in mind differences between schools and in particular must pay close attention to what schools say really matters when they assess applicants. Harvard Business School Admissions states:
Genuine business talent cannot be narrowly defined. Instead of looking for an "ideal" candidate, HBS invites MBA applicants who exhibit a variety of skills, accomplishments, and temperaments. The true common characteristics of our students are demonstrated leadership potential and a capacity to thrive in a rigorous academic environment.

Therefore please keep in mind that while many key indicators will be discussed in this series of blog entries, a core part of your own application strategy should be determining which of these to emphasize both overall and for a particular school. For example, at HBS, clearly "demonstrated leadership potential" and a strong academic background are necessary. In fact, the latter is particularly important at HBS, especially because the forced grading curve makes it a particularly academically challenging environment. Read more about HBS essays here.

Potential can be measured by those characteristics that are really prerequisites for academic and professional success. As Chicago GSB says: The Admissions Committee looks for people who have demonstrated the ability to succeed through work experience, academic endeavors and extracurricular or community service involvement.

Chicago GSB then states that an applicant's demonstration of the above is compared against an overall framework:
Our evaluation criteria are applied against three broad themes: our curriculum, our community, and your career.
While schools will vary on the way in which they analyze you, it is certainly the case that you be evaluated both on the basis of who you are and your fit. Wharton states this very clearly: At Wharton, admissions is all about the right fit. Therefore the real issue is to be aware of that and to put together an application that best presents, in the words of Stanford GSB, The Total Package. Programs will be judging you holistically in comparison to other applicants. Kellogg explains it directly:
The Committee reviews the personal essays, academic record, GMAT score, TOEFL score (if applicable), Career Progress Survey, resume and evaluative interview report [(recommendation)] to assess each applicant’s candidacy compared to the overall pool of applicants.

And given that you have absolutely no control over the other applicants, you have to simply focus on making the best possible "Total Package." In the posts that will follow, I will discuss specific indicators of potential and how to demonstrate them so that you can put together your best "Total Package."

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

ハーバード, シカゴ, スタンフォード, ウォートン, MITスローン, ケロッグ, ビジネススクール, MBA留学

Official Launch of My Graduate Admissions Consultancy

I am pleased to announce the official launch of my graduate admissions consultancy. As of September 1, 2007, I have begun offering my services as an independent service provider. Since 2001, I have had the opportunity to advise many clients who were successfully admitted to top US and European graduate schools. I am now happy to offer my services to not only people in Japan, but around the world.

Making full use of Skype, other teleconferencing software, and email, I offer highly flexible services to best meet the demands of busy professionals seeking graduate admissions to top MBA, LLM, and other types of graduate programs. For those residing in Tokyo, I can also offer consulting at select locations including my clients’ offices. My objective is to both maximize the quality and time efficiency of the service I offer.

I have been asked what the name of my company is. The name of my consultancy is “Adam Markus.” I am what I offer to clients so I don’t need to use a company name. I have no intention of hiring other consultants. My focus is on working closely with a select group of clients to provide them with the best possible service.

In addition to offering one-to-one consulting, my other primary aim is writing and publishing graduate admissions related opinions and information. At present, I am focused on developing the contents of my blog, http://adam-markus.blogspot.com. In addition to these primary objectives, I will be actively seeking opportunities to provide consulting to organizations.

For more about my graduate admissions consultancy, please see http://adammarkus.com. For more information regarding me, please see, http://www.linkedin.com/in/adammarkus. I am the first Japan-based member of AIGAC, the sole professional organization for graduate admissions consultants (see http://www.aigac.org/directory.htm).

Please feel free to pass along this information to anyone who might be interested.

Write comments here or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
MBA留学, LLM留学, 大学院留学

MBA Students blogs: English & 日本語 (Japanese) Blogs

Blogs are a great source for inside information about MBA programs, the MBA application process, and the life of MBA students. Through the process reading about different applicants and students' experiences you can get a much better idea about the reality of the application process and what it is like to be in an MBA program.

Below I discuss English and Japanese language blogs because those are the ones I am familiar with.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE BLOGS
A good first stop for MBA students blogs would certainly be the League of MBA Bloggers. The League has blogs from students studying worldwide.

The Clear Admit Admissions wiki is also a great way to find English language student blogs. Clear Admit posts about blogging in its Fridays from the Frontline series.

Businessweek has a dedicated MBA blog section, see http://www.mbablogs.businessweek.com/home/moreFaces.htm for the complete list, but this is a rather small selection compared to what you can find via the League or Clear Admit.

日本語 BLOGS
Regarding Japanese student blogs, given the limitations of my reading abilities, I have only read a few of them using Google translator.

The two I follow most closely are:

MIT MBA留学日記
Most recently, Kaz1204, who is beginning his studies at MIT Sloan has written at great length about his application process. He discusses his MBA application process and his new life at MIT at MIT MBA留学日記 (warning he says good things about me). You can find out about his application experience as well as that of other applicants at こうすれば受かるMBA 2007.

Tatsuya "Tats" Ishihara 's Blog.
Another blog that I have been following is that of Rotary Scholar Tatsuya "Tats" Ishihara, who is now in his second year at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. Filled with photos, I think Tat's blog is a great source of visual information. Anyone with a strong interest in applying to McCombs would be well served by looking at it. Tats is also featured on page 40 and 41 in the 2007-2008 Texas MBA Viewbook. You can find all the Japanese student blogs at McCombs here.

You can find a huge listing of Japanese language blogs at MBA blog Portal, but since the listing does not include the Class of 2008, I don't think it has been updated for a while. I will update this post if I can find a more up-to-date list. You can read Japanese Tuck student blogs here.

Do you have any blogs that you think I should mention? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
MBA留学

Do you need an MBA?

I am not in the business of telling anyone that they need an MBA, only in helping committed applicants get in. Frankly I think one of my strengths as an MBA admissions consultant is that I am neutral about this question because I don't believe that an MBA is always worthwhile or even necessarily the best option for graduate school.

If someone says to me, "Should I get an MBA?" my response usually goes like like this:

"I can't answer that question for you, but here are some questions you need to ask yourself:
1. If you obtained an MBA, how would it impact you personally and professionally?
2. Why do your professional goals require an MBA?
3. Do you really want to spend one to two years back in school?
4. How will you pay for an MBA?
5. Are you ready to commit yourself to the application process?
6. Have you really thought about the opportunity cost involved, not only in money, but in time?
7. Have you calculated the ROI (Click here for the Businessweek MBA ROI calculator.)?
8. Are you sure this is the right degree for you? Have you thought about more specialized degrees or training?
9. How much do you know about MBA programs?
10. What schools are you planning to apply to? Why?

You need to answer the questions above because doing so will help you assess whether you really need an MBA. Additionally, once you have answered them, you will have a good initial basis for handling MBA essays and interviews. If you are not satisfied with your own answers to these questions, you need to think more deeply and do more research. "

In my experience, people who take the time to fully consider their options make the right decisions. If they decide to pursue an MBA, they do it from a position of strength.

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

University of Chicago GSB Optional & Overall Plan

This is the fourth post in a four part series. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Before discussing an overall plan for addressing the 2008 Chicago GSB's MBA application questions, we need to look at the optional essay.

The University of Chicago GSB's MBA application for Fall 2008 also includes space for an optional essay (I have taken it from the more complete online application. See here for the web version). The question and the tip read as follows:
(Optional) If there is any important information that is relevant for your candidacy that you were unable to address elsewhere in the application, please share that information here.
Optional Essay Tip
The optional essay is provided to give you an opportunity to explain any potential anomalies or ambiguity in your application. For example, you can explain why you did not use your current employer to write your recommendation, you might provide some clarity as to why there are significant gaps in your resume, or you may help us to understand why your grades declined in your junior year.
Please note this question is very functional in its design, it is to provide clarity on aspects of the application, not to give you an opportunity to write another creative essay.
If you read the above, it should be clear enough that this is the place to explain anything negative or potentially negative in your background. DO NOT USE IT FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE. Yes, you may have written a great essay for Tuck, Wharton, Harvard, Stanford, NYU, MIT, INSEAD, Columbia, or London Business School, but unless your objective is to tell that to Chicago GSB don't include it here. GSB gives you three questions and 2200 words or more to talk about all the good stuff. YOU ONLY NEED TO WRITE THIS IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING POTENTIALLY NEGATIVE TO EXPLAIN.

Finally, if you have no explanation for something negative, don't bother writing about. For example if your GPA is 2.9 and you have no good explanation for why it is 2.9, don't bother writing something that looks like a lame excuse. This is more likely to hurt than help you. In the same vein, don't waste the committee's time telling them that your GMAT is a much better indicator than your GPA (the opposite is also true). They have heard it before and they will look at both scores and can draw their own conclusions without you stating the obvious. That said, if you have a good explanation for a bad GPA, you should most certainly write about it.

Now that we have dispensed with the Optional Question, let's consider a plan for handling these questions.

Start with Question One
You need to effectively segment your content. Question 1 has a clear focus, so it is the best to start there. In general, for any application, starting with the goals essay always makes sense because what you say in it will impact what you say elsewhere. After all you want to show how other aspects of who you are will support your goals. If you having a problem forming goals, please look here. If you think your goals are not interesting, look here.

NEXT
Is really up to you. Some applicants will find it easier to start with Question 2 and others will find it easier to start with Question 3. The important thing is that the content in these two essays be different. Make sure that you helping yourself by presenting clear and distinct aspects about you in these two essays.

NEXT
Write the Optional Essay if you need to. Just remember what I wrote before about it.

FINALLY
After you have written everything, make sure it works as part of your entire application strategy.

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

シカゴ、ビジネススクール, MBA留学




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