Q&A with McCombs MBA Student Adcom Member & Blogger

Tatsuya Ishihara, who will be graduating from the MBA program at McCombs this spring, was kind enough to answer my questions regarding his experience. I have previously mentioned Tatsuya’s blog, which is a great source of information on his experience in Austin.

After graduating from Shimonoseki City University (he also studied as an exchange student at the University of Queensland, Australia), Tatsuya Ishihara worked for NEC Corporation as a strategist in its mobile phone division for four years. He started his MBA program at McCombs School of Business in University of Texas at Austin from Fall 2006 as a Rotary’s International Ambassadorial Scholar. He is a student member of the McCombs Admissions Committee.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Adam: What have you learned from studying at McCombs?

Tatsuya: Among a tremendous amount of learning at McCombs, I want to raise three major aspects below:
1. Solid financial literacy: As many of you may have already known, McCombs is one of the top Accounting schools in US. Not only accounting, but we also have great core/elective finance courses and real-world finance workshops taught by ex Wall Street investment bankers. During my internship period in summer 2007, I literally used many of those financial modeling techniques that I have learned through those courses, which differentiated me from other top MBAs and helped me getting the full-time offer. I had no background regarding accounting or finance prior to MBA. However, after one and half year of my concentration in learning Accounting and Finance here at McCombs, I strongly feel that I have a solid foundation to aim at a CFO/COO position in my mid-term future career.
2. Real-world international team leading skills: I served as a president in the International MBA Student Association (IMBASA) at McCombs. Again, I haven’t had an experience to lead an internationally diverse team using English. We formed 8 member officers group from different cultural backgrounds and organized several international events, including “International Night” which invited over 700 people living in Austin. This experience helped me understand which culture has what kind characteristics regarding how they approach businesses. Now, I am a much better leader who can plan a business/event, package each task so that each member can maximize her/his skills, and share the great feeling of the accomplishment with those diverse team members.
3. Work-life balance: Austin, where McCombs is located, is a great mid-sized city mixing the big-city-like convenience and small-city-like friendliness. Many of the students in UT-Austin, including me, have quite an influence from such a unique environment. I used to have one-sided view about how to live my life, just working and becoming smart. However, after I met really cool people here in Austin I really broadened my view about what kind of life I want to live and I literally imported some of their great personalities. I truly feel that I became a better person and now I have a clear vision of my future in 5-10 years. This is something that I could never have done without my experience at McCombs.

Adam: Can you compare yourself before attending McCombs and now? How have you changed?

Tatsuya: Firstly, before coming to McCombs I didn’t know what’s important in my life and wasted a lot of my time wondering what I really want to do. One of the most painful realities about preparing for and studying at the MBA program for me is that I had to sharpen up my life. It was all about compromising what it’s important to my life for what it’s REALLY important to my life. In fact, I have lost some of my good old friends and even my girl friend along the way. However, throughout the whole process, I could prioritize what is important in my life and spend less time on wondering what to do. Now I feel like I am 100% concentrating on what I want to do. Another less important thing, I have received a full-time offer as a financial analyst and could double my annual salary from that of previous job, being the top 5% of the total working population in Japan at my age of 28. That’ll give me some economic benefits. This is, however, something that does not guarantee my career after MBA.

Adam: I know you already have obtained a job from the company you interned at in the summer. What kind of internship did you do? What kind of job will you be doing?

Tatsuya: I worked at Eli Lilly Japan in Kobe as a summer finance intern. I was assigned a very ambiguous project, which was called “long-term investment optimization.” Not only myself, but also the other interns were assigned a very broad topic and Lilly’s management seemed to be watching the intern’s ability to break down the vague problems and make a significant tangible contribution to the organization within a limited time. Communication with the managers across different divisions was one of the key success factors during the internship.

I will be analyzing the company’s entire income statement, communicating the situation with headquarters in Indianapolis, creating a strategic framework, and implementing projects to increase the value of the firm from the financial side.

ROLE AS AN ADMISSIONS COMMITTEE MEMBER

Adam: I know you have served as student adcom member. Can you please explain how you were selected and what you do?

Tatsuya: I had to write a one page summary of why I want to become the adcom member and what I can bring to the McCombs Admission Committee (MAC) . I also had a brief interview with the 2nd year MAC member and one of the adcom members. MAC consists with the admission members and around 40 McCombs full-time MBA students to represent our MBA program. We were involved in the process of reading and evaluating the applications. We also assist campus visitors to attend our classes, have lunch with us together, and chat about our MBA program.

Adam: McCombs has a very unique to asking about leadership in the application: “The Texas MBA is built around four key pillars of leadership. Describe an experience that you have had that clearly demonstrates your leadership as it relates to one of our
Four pillars:
1) Responsibility/Integrity
2) Knowledge/Understanding
3) Collaborative/Communication
Or 4) Worldview of Business and Society”
How would you answer that question for each pillar based on your experience at McCombs?

Tatsuya:
1) Responsibility/Integrity; As one of the Japanese MBA students and MAC member, I was voluntarily involved with more than 10 campus visits from Japan. Even when I was extremely busy with my own school workload, I organized several dinner sessions with the current Japanese students.
2) Knowledge/Understanding; As a Rotary’s ambassadorial scholar, I have presented several times in the Rotary’s meetings to enhance our cultural understanding. I have communicated with the coordinator to prepare the best material for the event to transfer my knowledge, and had great feedback in every occasion.
3) Collaborative/Communication; Also, during the summer internship, I think I could show my collaborative leadership to proceed the project that I was assigned. I communicated with more than 50 employees to incorporate as many aspects as possible to implement the projects.
4) Worldview of Business and Society; As a president of IMBASA, our team organized “International Night” to enhance our worldview of Business and Society. We had to communicate with the sponsors of the event, faculty members, over 100 student volunteers for their food stands, and with 10 performance groups in the event. The event ended up great by attracting more than 700 participants.

Adam: I was wondering if you could explain a little bit about the role of the pillars in your education at McCombs.

Tatsuya: These are actually the concepts that have developed under the leadership of Dean Hirst from 2006. The faculty tried to re-identify our core values to further develop the Texas MBA programs. The four pillars now act like a compass in our MBA program. For instance, our 1) strict policy on cheating, 2) market-driven specializations, 3) cohort system, and 4) international study opportunities clearly shows towards which direction the school is going.

Adam: Lots of schools have contribution questions, but it always seemed to me that there was more of a sense of reality to it at McCombs (“At the McCombs School of Business, you will be part of an active and diverse community. Referencing your personal strengths and unique experience, how will you enrich the McCombs community during your two years in the program?”) because the application was actually being read by students. Care to comment on that?

Tatsuya: You’re right. First and foremost, we hate smart liars. Those applicants, who write great things in her/his contribution essay, but actually cram themselves for better grades, get a good job, and do nothing for our school and classmates will not fit our culture. Letting such people in our school will destroy our great collaborative environment. We just try to avoid such a thing.

Adam: What general advice do you have for those considering application to McCombs?

Tatsuya: I think they should definitely do a campus visit, ideally before sending the application. But, even visiting after being admitted will still be worthwhile. I was also one of them who would say “Where do I have such time as I’m busy with GMAT!?” However, there is so much information or feeling that we cannot really imagine without meeting the current MBA students and visiting the city. Most likely, the applicants have higher expectations than the reality is. It is important to fill the gap at least before actually getting into the MBA program.

Adam: Do you have any specific advice for Japanese and/or other international applicants?

Tatsuya: Related to the above question, there is so much information or feeling that we cannot really imagine without campus visits. Fit is an essential factor for choosing YOUR MBA program. For example, I was also attracted by the Georgetown’s MBA program, because of its “international” environment. I have nothing bad to say about the program, and Georgetown was a great school. But, it was not my fit. The school provides a great environment for International students to be comfortable with the program. The rate of international students is also high, and the school seemed to be very used to such environment. However, I felt I cannot really develop myself in that kind of environment. In contrast, to be honest, McCombs has less care to the international students. I mean this in a good way. For instance, in our study groups, there’s no discrimination or mercy for international students. We’re supposed to do the same quality of work as American students. Some people would say that’s too harsh. However, I felt this kind of surviving environment will really help me grow into a truly global business leader. Anyway, such decision processes could not have been developed if I was biased only by the general school information.

ROTARY SCHOLAR

Adam: I know you are a Rotary Scholar. Would you care to comment on how you obtained the scholarship?

Tatsuya: I knew that I cannot afford to the MBA tuition without getting some financial assistance. My family has slightly less household budget than the Japanese average, but has three kids including me, all of whom graduated bachelors/masters degree. My little brother was going to university at that time as well. So, at the very early stage of my application process (Dec-Jan 2004), I searched for several scholarship programs, and found Rotary’s would be the best option for me. The application process was similar to the MBA application process except for that you don’t need GMAT score. You need to have a reasonable TOEFL score, write essays both in English and Japanese, transcripts, and two recommendation letters (it was okay to have them from previous college professors). I went through one English test in both oral and written, and two interviews before being admitted. I remember there were around 80 applicants at the fist screening, and 4 of us were eventually selected as the scholars. I heard the process depends on which district they apply for, but it shouldn’t be that much different.

Adam: What kind of activities do you engage in as a Rotary Scholar?

Tatsuya: I’m engaged in attending and making presentation at the local Rotary Club meetings for a couple of times in a semester. Also, for a couple of times, I have been invited to do some volunteer work for local activities, such as making spaghetti for the high school football game in the same district. After graduating, I’ll be contributing the local club activities, including making presentations and doing volunteer works in the Yokohama 2590 District (http://rfd2590.blog48.fc2.com/). It’ll be my life-long fantastic opportunity/responsibility to give something back to the sponsor organization and local communities.

BLOGGER

Adam: You have been actively doing a blog in Japanese since you started at McCombs. What has motivated you to do that?

Tatsuya: Because I had hard time deciding my best fit school. I eventually went to the campus visiting after being admitted. I think I made a right decision visit campus, but still I hoped that I could have more visual images and real-life information about the MBA programs. Also, I just thought it’s a huge mistake if an applicant chooses her/his MBA program just based on the ranking or on biased information. I hoped my simple real-life pictures and messages will help the applicants have a clearer view about the Texas MBA life. Also, I am financing the MBA cost by myself, and have a couple of financial supporters including Rotary club. I wanted to keep them informed about how I am doing in US.

Adam: What is your favorite MBA application Japanese language blog?

Tatsuya: “こうすれば受かるMBA 2007.” Actually, Kousurebaukaru website has information from 2000. I referred to the information a lot for my own application and motivated myself with those “old mans’ words.” This was the only web resource for me to collect the information about MBA. There are other dodgy websites related to MBA, but thought they are not much reliable and found some of them had wrong/misleading information. However, this website is all about the applicant’s real-life experience, and more than 50 people wrote their experiences. I think we can learn a quite a bit from their stories.

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I want to thank Tatsuya for taking the time to answer my questions. I hope you found his perspective useful.

Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to.

-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス

ビジネススクール MBA留学

Georgetown University McDonough MBA Interviews

I reviewed the reports of Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business' MBA Full-Time Program interviews found at accepted.com. These reports reveal that there are five key things to consider when preparing for Georgetown 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.

2. You need to be prepared to answer routine MBA questions. Most reported interviews simply consist of them. See my previous post on interviewing.

3. If you are interviewed by students, assume that they will ask you what you are passionate about and how you will contribute to the program.

4. Interviewers (students, adcom, or alum) are friendly and consistently try to create a very relaxed interview atmosphere. This is an interview about fit and your own potential, so make sure you can explain in depth why you want to attend Georgetown, how you will contribute to it, and what you intend to do afterwords. Previous contact with alum, visits to campus, and/or intensive school research are all great ways to prepare.

5. Interviews are scheduled for 30 minutes and usually last 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.

Waitlisted? Now what?

You can find an updated version of this post here.

This seems to be a very tough year to get admitted. I think we can assume next year will be even worse because more Americans will be applying to graduate school in lieu of being unemployed or underemployed. When the US economy goes bad, applications rise and the reverse is also true. Like every year, applicants find themselves getting waitlisted. While this post will focus on MBA, it also applies in general to other kinds of graduate programs. Here are my suggestions for how to proceed if you are waitlisted at B-School:

1. Don't panic or become depressed. The reason you were waitlisted is because there were too many qualified applicants and adcom likes, but don't know that they love you yet. Now is the time to think clearly and act effectively.

2. There are many reasons for getting waitlisted, but one I would like to immediately mention is yield control. That is to say, waitlisting highly qualified candidates who are applying to other top schools, is one way to further maximize yield (the percentage of admitted applicants who attend). Adcom directors want higher yield rates, not lower ones. After all, a higher yield indicates that more admits are choosing their school over other schools the applicants were admitted to. Consider the following yield rates ("Admitted applicants who enrolled in the newest class") taken from Businessweek:
HBS 89%
Stanford GSB 80%
CBS 77%
Wharton 67%
NYU 57%
Chicago GSB ?????

What does this tell you? As we could expect HBS and Stanford have very high rates, probably with double admits declining one for the other. Columbia which typically loses admits to HBS and Stanford, comes next, but as I stated in an earlier post, their numbers are somewhat inflated because of Early Decision. Wharton is next and it loses to HBS and Stanford consistently, and sometimes to Columbia (LOCATION!). NYU is next and it clearly loses to the rest of these schools as well as some others I did not list. Chicago GSB does not indicate what their yield is. Do they have something to hide? In my experience, they do because they consistently lose to HBS, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, and perhaps MIT as well. The University of Chicago, for all of its association with free markets, does not seem to believe that MBA applicants should be able to make purchasing decisions on the basis of good data.

Waitlisting is a highly reasonable tactic for admissions to take to see who really wants to attend after the 2nd round decisions come out. Therefore you may have been waitlisted because they think you will go elsewhere and they can afford to bet on it.

Keeping yield control in mind, one clear objective of communicating with adcom after you get waitlisted is to show your strong commitment to attend.

3. For those waitlisted from 1st round, you should, of course, know that adcom likes you, but they really wanted to see the main pool of applicants, before making any decisions. You might be waiting for a quite a while longer, but be patient.

4. Be proactive, but not aggressively annoying, with admissions. Adcom will let you know what additional materials they will accept and you should most certainly provide them. That said, the worst thing you can do is send a continuous stream of correspondence or otherwise annoy the admissions office. If you turn yourself into an annoying freak, you can assume you will not get admitted.

5. GMAT & TOEFL: If you can take it again, do it, if your score goes up report it. Higher scores always help.

6. Additional recommendation: If they will take one, provide it. Think very strategically about your selection. You don't want a recommendation that will not add something substantially different from what your previous recommendations stated. Try to use a recommender who will do one more of the following:
(a) A recommender who will provide support for any areas of professional weakness in your background.
(b) A recommender who will provide a perspective on different part of your background.
(c) A recommender who will provide support for earlier or more recent period of your life.
(d) If academic recommendations are acceptable and your GPA is not great, consider getting an academic recommendation if you can get a strong one.
(e) If your English ability maybe the issue, consider getting a recommendation from someone who can speak positively about your English communication skills.

Additionally, many schools will also take informal recommendations from alums, so if you can get one from someone who knows you, it can't hurt.

7. Waitlist essay. Write one! The typical components:
-Additional reasons why you want to attend to show your real commitment and passion for the school. Think classes, school's culture, or any other reason that would make the school ideal for you.
-Discussion of changes that have taken place in your professional career after your applied. If anything new and great has happened, you should most certainly write about it.
- New content that was not emphasized in your application. Use some combination of the following possible topics:
(a) If you did not sufficiently discuss your leadership or teamwork abilities, you should most certainly do so.
(b) Write about contributions you can make to the school based on your experience, background, personality, and network.
(c) If your academic potential was not obvious, you should try to demonstrate that.
(d) If you have SUBSTANTIAL personal or professional accomplishments that you did not discuss, you should do so.
(e) If you did not focus very much on non-professional content in your application, focus on it here.

If the length is not stated, I would try to keep it to between 500 and 1000 words. More is not inherently better, quality is, so don't write about everything you can think of. This essay is quite important, so make sure that the content is at least as good as that of your original application.

8. If you can visit the school, do so.

9. Get a fresh perspective on your application by rereading it now. By doing so, you will probably have a good idea about what kind of recommendation to get and waitlist essay to write.

10. Consider seeking the advice of an admissions consultant. If you have already worked with one, you can go back to that person if you are otherwise pleased with their work. They know you and they could help you put something together that caught admissions' eye. On the other hand, you might want to pay for a fresh perspective. I offer both waitlist and reapplication counseling in addition to interview and comprehensive consulting services.

11. Do you need a PLAN B? If you are waitlisted and/or dinged everywhere you applied, it is now time to start thinking about whether you are going to apply for more schools for Fall 2008, reapply for 2009, or give up. Whichever the case, you need Plan B in place. See my earlier post on getting dinged first round for some suggestions on how to proceed as what I wrote there applies to your situation.

Best of luck and may your wait be short and culminate in admission!

Questions? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to.

-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス

ビジネススクール カウンセリング コンサルティング 大学院 合格対策 MBA留学

Legacy Admissions Versus Merit-based Admissions

I strongly suggest reading Shikha Dalmia's excellent essay, "Legacies of Injustice: Alumni preferences threaten educational equity--and no one seems to care." As someone who believes that university admissions at both the undergraduate and graduate level should be based on the merits of the applicant, I hope that the preferential admissions of applicants who are the children of alums is ended. This unfair practice was eliminated by the University of California in 2000 and I hope that we see it happen elsewhere. All applicants deserve a fair shot at the admissions process.

World-class institutions of higher learning should be required to operate transparently when it comes to all administrative processes, but especially those concerning admissions. These institutions play a core role in a world increasingly based on merit, not inherited position. We should demand of them at least the same level of accountability we expect from publicly traded corporations and the government. If the Ivy's, in particular, don't regulate themselves, expect to see American politicians doing it. I think the day is not far away when the educational equivalent of the Securities and Exchange Commission is established to regulate university admissions and financial aid practices. If these schools can't regulate themselves, they should be regulated by the state or lose all US government funding.

Access to institutions of higher learning should not be subject to outmoded old boy networks and the dead weight of tradition. No doubt some will claim that is this will impact alumni giving, but I sincerely doubt it will have any significant impact on major contributors who expect no such quid pro quo arrangements. Ultimately the alums who really give over the long term will do so anyway. Alums who have deep pockets can take care of their children. We should have institutions that establish a legacy of fairness, not ones that offer legacies a back door into institutions for which they would otherwise not qualify for.

Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to.

-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス

MBA Interview Preparation: Special Offer to My Readers

If you have appreciated my blog posts on MBA interview preparation, you can now get get even more comprehensive advice from me. To thank readers of my blog, I am happy to offer a comprehensive interview preparation consulting session service. This special offer is available only for those seeking interview preparation and consists of the following:

1. We will have a one-hour session consisting of a mock session and
feedback. Alternatively for those who want a pure strategy session, the mock session will be omitted.

2. Face-to-face sessions are available in Tokyo, but otherwise the session will be conducted via Skype or, at your expense, by telephone.

3. I will review your complete application for one school in order to give you detailed personalized advice on how to prepare for and succeed at even the toughest interviews.

4. If you are interviewing for a school where the questions are likely to based on your application, I will formulate a list of questions specific to you.

The total cost will be $200 or 20,000 yen per session (you choose the currency). Additional sessions maybe scheduled as well. Contact me for details regarding bulk session discounts.

For information about my other services, see adammarkus.com, but note that the website will not mention this special offer.

If you are interested in preparing thoroughly for your interviews, please email me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange for payment and scheduling of your session.

Please Note: This offer expires on April 1, 2008, but maybe withdrawn without prior notice due to my limited availability.

-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス

ビジネススクール カウンセリング コンサルティング 大学院 合格対策 MBA留学