This is the second of five posts analyzing the Stanford GSB MBA Essay Questions for 2008/2009 Admission. The first post provides an overall perspective on applying to Stanford GSB. The third post is on Essay B. The fourth post is on Essay C. The fifth post is on additional information, resume, employment history, and activities.
A SIMPLE QUESTION
Essay A: What matters most to you, and why?
From my experience, successful applicants to Stanford write essays for at least one or two other schools first. While they are doing those other schools, they have already started THINKING about Essay A. Which raises the following question:
WHERE DO SUCCESSFUL ANSWERS TO ESSAY A COME FROM?
In my experience answers to this question that result in acceptance, come from the HEART and the HEAD. The two combined will allow you to tell your story about what matters most. GSB's Admission Director, Derrick Bolton, makes this very clear in his advice regarding the question:
In the first essay, tell a story—and tell a story that only you can tell.
This essay should be descriptive and told in a straightforward and sincere way. This probably sounds strange, since these are essays for business school, but we don’t expect to hear about your business experience in this essay (though, of course, you are free to write about whatever you would like).
Remember that we have your entire application—work history, letters of reference, short-answer responses, etc.—to learn what you have accomplished and the type of impact you have made. Your task in this first essay is to connect the people, situations, and events in your life with the values you adhere to and the choices you have made. This essay gives you a terrific opportunity to learn about yourself!
Many good essays describe the "what," but great essays move to the next order and describe how and why these "whats" have influenced your life.
The most common mistake applicants make is spending too much time describing the "what" and not enough time describing how and why these guiding forces have shaped your behavior, attitudes, and objectives in your personal and professional lives.
While you will need to consider the leadership implications of what matters most to you, as I suggested in my first post in this series, I suggest beginning with no fixed assumptions about what Stanford wants here.
HEART: The admits I worked with found what matters most to them by looking inside of themselves and finding something essential about who they are. No one is reducible to a core single concept, a single motivation, or any other sort of singularity, but certain things do make each of us tick. Beyond the most basic things of survival, what motivates you? What do you live for? What do you care about? How do you relate to other people? Are you driven by a particular idea or issue? Where do you find meaning?
HEAD: Once you think you have identified that essential thing that matters most to you, begin analyzing it. What is its source? WHY does it remain important to you? HOW?
The heart will tell what it is, but the head must explain it. From my perspective, great answers to this question combine a very strong analytical foundation-A FULL ANSWER TO WHY AND HOW IS MANDATORY- and specific examples. At the Outreach Event I attended last September, Eric Abrams, Director of Outreach at the MBA Admissions Office, gave an incredibly informative and humorous presentation using the best set of Power Point slides that I have seen at any school's session. At his presentation Eric Abrams emphasized the importance of "Why?" during his presentation. Avoid the common mistake that Derrick Bolton mentions above of ignoring the "Why?" and the "How?" by focusing too much on the "What?"
If you are having difficulty answering Essay A to your own satisfaction, I have few suggestions:
1. Write some other schools essays first. In the process of doing so, you may discover the answer. This has worked for a number of my clients.
2. Stanford admissions repeatedly emphasizes that there is no one right answer. Some applicants become paralyzed because they want THE RIGHT MESSAGE. You need to fully account for who you are and what you have done, but should not try to overly sell yourself to Stanford because that is simply at odds with the way in which the school selects candidates. Therefore don't focus on finding THE RIGHT MESSAGE, instead be honest and give an answer that is real.
If you are having some more fundamental difficulties with this question, one book I suggest taking a look at is Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. This classic is worth a look for anyone who is thinking about what their life is about. Frankl makes us think about meaning from the most extreme of perspectives, inside a concentration camp, and in the process helps us to understand that meaning itself is deeply tied to our own survival. If you need to engage in some self-reflection, Frankl’s book is one place to start. I might also suggest reading Plato or doing some mediation, but in my experience those take more time and Frankl's book has the advantage of being short, inexpensiv, available at many libraries, and has been translated from the original German into twenty-two languages.
3. The answer may be real, but is it a good one? If you are not sure, look critically at Stanford GSB's mission statement:
Our mission is to create ideas that deepen and advance our understanding of management and with those ideas to develop innovative, principled, and insightful leaders who change the world.
Does what matters most to you fit within this mission? Think about this statement in the widest possible way. In his presentation, Eric Abrams emphasized that fit is a very important consideration at Stanford GSB. Given the small class size and the highly collaborative nature of the program, admissions will only be doing its job right if they select students who fit into Stanford GSB's mission. As I stated in the first post in this series, Stanford is looking for leaders, but leaders come in many forms and the values and ideals that inform them vary greatly. If what matters most to you is something that admissions can clearly connect to informing your ideals as a leader than you are on the way to forming an effective answer to what is Stanford's most unique essay question.
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
スタンフォード 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 エッセイMBA留学
July 05, 2008
July 04, 2008
Stanford GSB MBA Essay Questions for 2008/2009
This is the first of five posts analyzing the Stanford GSB MBA Essay Questions for 2008/2009 Admission. It provides an overall perspective on applying to Stanford GSB. The second post is on Essay A. The third post is on Essay B. The forth post is on Essay C. The fifth post is on additional information, resume, employment history, and activities.
In this post I provide some overall comments about the essay set for admission to the Class of 2011, an analysis of the centrality of demonstrating leadership potential for admission to Stanford GSB, and some suggestions for how to proceed in order to put together a great application for Stanford GSB.
ESSAYS:
As I will mention the specific essay topics below, here they are for your reference:
Essay A: What matters most to you, and why?
Essay B: What are your career aspirations? How will your education at Stanford help you achieve them?
Essay C: Short Essays—Options 1-4 Answer two of the questions below. Tell us not only what you did but also how you did it. What was the outcome? How did people respond? Only describe experiences that have occurred during the last three years.
But other things are changing at Stanford GSB as well. Consider the following "Student Perspective" from Karen Hart, Class of 2009:
Former Goldman Sachs banker Karen Hart says she appreciates the new curriculum's emphasis on globalization and managing in a global environment.... Although the workload can be challenging—at the beginning of the term she was spending up to 60 hours a week on class preparation and now averages 30-40 hours a week on academics outside class—Karen remains pleased at the ongoing level of collaboration among students.
Now if Karen was doing 60 hours per week when the program commenced and now is doing 30-40 hours of academic work per week, what about students whose first language is not English? The new curriculum that commenced in Fall 2007 is clearly no piece of cake and anyone who thinks that Stanford GSB will be easier than schools that are well know for being tough, like HBS and Darden, is likely to be in for a surprise.
THE CENTRAL ROLE OF LEADERSHIP AT STANFORD
Another consideration is that in the past, Stanford has clearly not been so closely associated with a leadership-focused education. Whether this is true or not is another issue, but it certainly has been the case that HBS has been much more clearly associated with a leadership-focused education. At this point, I would not consider such a dichotomy to be particularly useful. Consider what Stanford says about the first quarter, Management perspectives curriculum:
HBS's MBA curriculum includes a range of exciting courses and is frequently refreshed with new content. The goal is to give students a firm grasp of broad-based fundamentals. The School's inductive learning model goes beyond facts and theories—a process that teaches individuals not only how to manage organizations, but also how to continually grow and learn throughout life.
Now I will not deny that there are significant differences in the use of learnings methods, culture, and the overall structure of these two programs, but are the expected learning outcomes different? If the objective is to teach individuals how to be global leaders who can change and grow overtime, the answer is "No." Maybe this comes as no surprise to the reader, but I do point it so that no one thinks leadership matters less at Stanford than it does at HBS.
STANFORD IS LOOKING FOR LEADERS
A recent blog post by Kirsten Moss, Stanford GSB's Director of Evaluation, indicates the extent to which there is a focus on finding students who demonstrate leadership potential (this post also includes the full set of questions and Moss's comments in regards to them, so I have reprinted most of it):
This year's essay and recommendation questions are really the result of a journey that began over three years ago. Derrick Bolton, the Director of MBA Admissions, and I worked with experts in the field of leadership assessment from all over the world. We wanted to develop a set of questions that would stand the test of time--that would effectively elicit only the information most critical to our assessment criteria.
1. Over-marketing: While I believe in the value of the marketing metaphor to some degree, I also believe you have to be able to understand that a crude, over-determined approach to doing so will not work here (For more about this, click here). If you are not real, you fail as one of Derrick Bolton's "flat friends."
2. Not writing your own essays. If your essays are not written in your own voice and don't reflect your English ability, don't expect to make it past Derrick Bolton's team. Their position is quite clear:
Begin work on these essays early, and feel free to ask your friends and family members to provide constructive feedback. When you ask for feedback, ask if the essay’s tone sounds like your voice. It should. Your family and friends know you better than anyone else. If they do not believe that your essays capture who you are, how you live, what you believe, and what you aspire to do, then surely the Committee on Admissions will be unable to recognize what is most distinctive about you.
However, there is a big difference between "feedback" and "coaching." There are few hard and fast rules, but you cross a line when a piece of the application ceases to be exclusively yours in either thought or word (excluding the letter of reference, which should be exclusively the recommender’s in thought and word).
Appropriate feedback occurs when you show someone your completed application, perhaps one or two times, and are apprised of errors or omissions. In contrast, inappropriate coaching occurs when either your essays or your entire self-presentation is colored by someone else. You best serve your own interests when your personal thoughts, individual voice, and unique style remain intact at the end of your editing process.
The above sounds very good in theory. If you have a friend or family member who can act as mentor in the way Stanford suggests, that is great. As I have discussed elsewhere in a series of posts on mentors, admission consultants, editors, and ghostwriters, such unpaid advisors are indeed valuable. However many applicants may very well find that they have no one around them who can provide such advice and Stanford's position does not account for that. Also the dichotomy between "coaching" and "feedback" is simply false because coaching is about feedback. What I find particularly ironic about Bolton's position on this issue is that Stanford GSB provides extensive career coaching to its students through the Career Management Center (CMC):
Personal advising and support—with only 360 students per class, the CMC staff works directly with you on your interests and goals.
Self-assessment—help with identifying and leveraging your strengths, as well as direction for skill development, if needed.
Resume and cover letter preparation—CMC staff can assist you with developing personal marketing tools that will stand out above the clutter, emphasize your abilities, and target your specific goals.
Mock interviews—role-playing and practice interviews enable you to gain confidence, hone your responses, and think on your feet.
It seems as though Stanford has two different standards for coaching: Stanford claims admissions consulting is bad because it helps applicants get into Stanford, but Stanford career consulting is good because it helps Stanford students get jobs. The services that Stanford offers to its students are the ones I and other ethical admissions consultants offer to their clients. The type of service I provide falls within Stanford's notions of the acceptable, though they would call it "coaching." There are other admissions consultants who will provide rewriting and ghostwriting, but I don't suggest using them if you want to go to Stanford or other top schools. Whoever assists you had better be able to make sure that their feedback helps you to best present yourself authentically.
IS STANFORD RIGHT FOR YOU?
Stanford really does provide great advice about both the Stanford GSB essays and about how to handle your applications. Review the curriculum, the school's mission statement, and the vast online resources (including a blog, podcasts, and "Myth Busters" ) that admissions provides to make this determination. Don't make assumptions about what Stanford GSB is or based on what someone told you it is. Instead, make that determination yourself after sufficient research. If you are thinking about Stanford GSB and have not yet attended one of their Outreach Events, I suggest doing so if you can.
DON'T WRITE STANFORD ESSAYS FIRST IF YOU CAN HELP IT.
Essay writing is a learning process. The more you do, hopefully the better you become. As such, given the difficulty of getting into Stanford, it seems like a bad idea to me to give them your rawest stuff.
Instead try work on two to three other schools first so that you have a better idea of what your best stories are. You will need them for Stanford.
SHOULD I WRITE ESSAY A OR B OR C FIRST?
Applicants sometimes ask me this question.
I think it is important that your goals, Essay B, be clearly established first. If you think about it, what matters to you most (A) must be consistent with and complimentary to your goals. As far as Essay C goes, the potential you show through the skills and values that you demonstrate in Essay C must also support the goals you write about in Essay B. Therefore start with Essay B.
As to whether you should then do A or C, chances are, if you have written a bunch of essays for other schools first, that you have multiple options for Essay C, but don't make any final decisions on Essay C until you write Essay A because you might very well find that a particular story that is ideal for Essay A was one you were considering for Essay C. Use your best examples to support what you say matters to you most because you should try to make your answer to Essay A, the only truly Stanford specific question, as strong as possible.
CONCLUSION
Getting into Stanford GSB is simply harder than getting into any other MBA program, but if it is where you want to go and if you think you fit there, commit to putting a significant amount of time into making a great application.
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
スタンフォード 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 エッセイMBA留学
In this post I provide some overall comments about the essay set for admission to the Class of 2011, an analysis of the centrality of demonstrating leadership potential for admission to Stanford GSB, and some suggestions for how to proceed in order to put together a great application for Stanford GSB.
ESSAYS:
As I will mention the specific essay topics below, here they are for your reference:
Essay A: What matters most to you, and why?
Essay B: What are your career aspirations? How will your education at Stanford help you achieve them?
Essay C: Short Essays—Options 1-4 Answer two of the questions below. Tell us not only what you did but also how you did it. What was the outcome? How did people respond? Only describe experiences that have occurred during the last three years.
- Option 1: Tell us about a time when you built or developed a team.
- Option 2: Tell us about a time when you felt most effective as a leader.
- Option 3: Tell us about a time when you tried to reach a goal or complete a task that was challenging, difficult, or frustrating.
- Option 4: Tell us about a time when you went beyond what was defined, established, or expected.
PAGE LIMITS OUT, WORD COUNTS IN
The Stanford GSB MBA Essay Questions for 2008/2009 are short:
Your answers for all of the essay questions cannot exceed 1,800 words. Each of you has your own story to tell, so please allocate the 1,800 words among all of the essays in the way that is most effective for you. We provide some guidelines below as a starting point, but you should feel comfortable to write as much or as little as you like on any essay question, as long as you do not exceed 1,800 words total.
With word counts for the first time, that laid back California page limit attitude has been replaced with a more uptight East Coast HBS-like precision. With the C essays coming in at 300 words each, Stanford has outdone Harvard's 400 word maximum per essay for essays 2 and 3. For both schools you get 1800 words maximum. Use them well. Otherwise the biggest change is that two out of the four options in Essay C have changed.
But other things are changing at Stanford GSB as well. Consider the following "Student Perspective" from Karen Hart, Class of 2009:
Former Goldman Sachs banker Karen Hart says she appreciates the new curriculum's emphasis on globalization and managing in a global environment.... Although the workload can be challenging—at the beginning of the term she was spending up to 60 hours a week on class preparation and now averages 30-40 hours a week on academics outside class—Karen remains pleased at the ongoing level of collaboration among students.
Now if Karen was doing 60 hours per week when the program commenced and now is doing 30-40 hours of academic work per week, what about students whose first language is not English? The new curriculum that commenced in Fall 2007 is clearly no piece of cake and anyone who thinks that Stanford GSB will be easier than schools that are well know for being tough, like HBS and Darden, is likely to be in for a surprise.
THE CENTRAL ROLE OF LEADERSHIP AT STANFORD
Another consideration is that in the past, Stanford has clearly not been so closely associated with a leadership-focused education. Whether this is true or not is another issue, but it certainly has been the case that HBS has been much more clearly associated with a leadership-focused education. At this point, I would not consider such a dichotomy to be particularly useful. Consider what Stanford says about the first quarter, Management perspectives curriculum:
- What responsibilities does a corporation have to society?
- What do markets do well, and what do they do poorly?
- What are the costs and benefits of commitment?
HBS's MBA curriculum includes a range of exciting courses and is frequently refreshed with new content. The goal is to give students a firm grasp of broad-based fundamentals. The School's inductive learning model goes beyond facts and theories—a process that teaches individuals not only how to manage organizations, but also how to continually grow and learn throughout life.
Now I will not deny that there are significant differences in the use of learnings methods, culture, and the overall structure of these two programs, but are the expected learning outcomes different? If the objective is to teach individuals how to be global leaders who can change and grow overtime, the answer is "No." Maybe this comes as no surprise to the reader, but I do point it so that no one thinks leadership matters less at Stanford than it does at HBS.
STANFORD IS LOOKING FOR LEADERS
A recent blog post by Kirsten Moss, Stanford GSB's Director of Evaluation, indicates the extent to which there is a focus on finding students who demonstrate leadership potential (this post also includes the full set of questions and Moss's comments in regards to them, so I have reprinted most of it):
This year's essay and recommendation questions are really the result of a journey that began over three years ago. Derrick Bolton, the Director of MBA Admissions, and I worked with experts in the field of leadership assessment from all over the world. We wanted to develop a set of questions that would stand the test of time--that would effectively elicit only the information most critical to our assessment criteria.
Let me summarize why each of them is meaningful to our committee:
Moss's "confession" makes it very clear that rather than having completely open-ended criteria about who will fit at Stanford, the admissions committee is specifically looking to admit applicants who can (ESSAY A) express values and ideals that will guide them as leaders and/or decision makers, (ESSAY B) express why their professional goals require a Stanford MBA education, and (ESSAY C) clearly demonstrate leadership potential. In one way, these criteria are not new because demonstrating leadership potential was always a consideration, but for me, as someone who has had clients admitted to Stanford in the Classes of 2010 (click here for my client's testimonial), 2008 (Click here for my client's recommendation on LinkedIn, but you have to join LinkedIn to see it), 2007, 2006, and 2005, the clear focus on leadership represents a significant change. (I also had clients who were interviewed for the classes of 2009 and 2007, but not admitted.) But shortening the essays and by adding Essay C, Stanford GSB has created more focused questions designed to make it easier for them to determine who to interview.
STANFORD IS LOOKING FOR HONESTY
On the other hand, one thing that has not changed is that the applicants I have worked with who have gotten interviewed and/or admitted, wrote their own essays and were honest in their presentations of themselves. In my discussion of Essay A, I will discuss the critical importance of providing honest answers to Stanford's questions, but the following comments from Derrick Bolton apply to the essay set as a whole:
Please think of the Stanford essays as conversations on paper—when we read files, we feel that we meet people, also known as our "flat friends"—and tell us your story in a natural, genuine way.
Our goal is to understand what motivates you and how you have become the person you are today. In addition, we’re interested in what kind of person you wish the Stanford MBA Program to help you become.
Reflective, insightful essays help us envision the individual behind all of the experiences and accomplishments that we read about elsewhere in your application.
1. Over-marketing: While I believe in the value of the marketing metaphor to some degree, I also believe you have to be able to understand that a crude, over-determined approach to doing so will not work here (For more about this, click here). If you are not real, you fail as one of Derrick Bolton's "flat friends."
2. Not writing your own essays. If your essays are not written in your own voice and don't reflect your English ability, don't expect to make it past Derrick Bolton's team. Their position is quite clear:
Begin work on these essays early, and feel free to ask your friends and family members to provide constructive feedback. When you ask for feedback, ask if the essay’s tone sounds like your voice. It should. Your family and friends know you better than anyone else. If they do not believe that your essays capture who you are, how you live, what you believe, and what you aspire to do, then surely the Committee on Admissions will be unable to recognize what is most distinctive about you.
However, there is a big difference between "feedback" and "coaching." There are few hard and fast rules, but you cross a line when a piece of the application ceases to be exclusively yours in either thought or word (excluding the letter of reference, which should be exclusively the recommender’s in thought and word).
Appropriate feedback occurs when you show someone your completed application, perhaps one or two times, and are apprised of errors or omissions. In contrast, inappropriate coaching occurs when either your essays or your entire self-presentation is colored by someone else. You best serve your own interests when your personal thoughts, individual voice, and unique style remain intact at the end of your editing process.
The above sounds very good in theory. If you have a friend or family member who can act as mentor in the way Stanford suggests, that is great. As I have discussed elsewhere in a series of posts on mentors, admission consultants, editors, and ghostwriters, such unpaid advisors are indeed valuable. However many applicants may very well find that they have no one around them who can provide such advice and Stanford's position does not account for that. Also the dichotomy between "coaching" and "feedback" is simply false because coaching is about feedback. What I find particularly ironic about Bolton's position on this issue is that Stanford GSB provides extensive career coaching to its students through the Career Management Center (CMC):
Personal advising and support—with only 360 students per class, the CMC staff works directly with you on your interests and goals.
Self-assessment—help with identifying and leveraging your strengths, as well as direction for skill development, if needed.
Resume and cover letter preparation—CMC staff can assist you with developing personal marketing tools that will stand out above the clutter, emphasize your abilities, and target your specific goals.
Mock interviews—role-playing and practice interviews enable you to gain confidence, hone your responses, and think on your feet.
It seems as though Stanford has two different standards for coaching: Stanford claims admissions consulting is bad because it helps applicants get into Stanford, but Stanford career consulting is good because it helps Stanford students get jobs. The services that Stanford offers to its students are the ones I and other ethical admissions consultants offer to their clients. The type of service I provide falls within Stanford's notions of the acceptable, though they would call it "coaching." There are other admissions consultants who will provide rewriting and ghostwriting, but I don't suggest using them if you want to go to Stanford or other top schools. Whoever assists you had better be able to make sure that their feedback helps you to best present yourself authentically.
IS STANFORD RIGHT FOR YOU?
Stanford really does provide great advice about both the Stanford GSB essays and about how to handle your applications. Review the curriculum, the school's mission statement, and the vast online resources (including a blog, podcasts, and "Myth Busters" ) that admissions provides to make this determination. Don't make assumptions about what Stanford GSB is or based on what someone told you it is. Instead, make that determination yourself after sufficient research. If you are thinking about Stanford GSB and have not yet attended one of their Outreach Events, I suggest doing so if you can.
DON'T WRITE STANFORD ESSAYS FIRST IF YOU CAN HELP IT.
Essay writing is a learning process. The more you do, hopefully the better you become. As such, given the difficulty of getting into Stanford, it seems like a bad idea to me to give them your rawest stuff.
Instead try work on two to three other schools first so that you have a better idea of what your best stories are. You will need them for Stanford.
SHOULD I WRITE ESSAY A OR B OR C FIRST?
Applicants sometimes ask me this question.
I think it is important that your goals, Essay B, be clearly established first. If you think about it, what matters to you most (A) must be consistent with and complimentary to your goals. As far as Essay C goes, the potential you show through the skills and values that you demonstrate in Essay C must also support the goals you write about in Essay B. Therefore start with Essay B.
As to whether you should then do A or C, chances are, if you have written a bunch of essays for other schools first, that you have multiple options for Essay C, but don't make any final decisions on Essay C until you write Essay A because you might very well find that a particular story that is ideal for Essay A was one you were considering for Essay C. Use your best examples to support what you say matters to you most because you should try to make your answer to Essay A, the only truly Stanford specific question, as strong as possible.
CONCLUSION
Getting into Stanford GSB is simply harder than getting into any other MBA program, but if it is where you want to go and if you think you fit there, commit to putting a significant amount of time into making a great application.
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
スタンフォード 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 エッセイMBA留学
July 03, 2008
What will GMAC do with Scoretop's customers?
I guess because I don't deal in the realm of the criminal, I had never heard of Scoretop back in the days when it was selling real GMAT questions. Based on GMAC's FAQ, I am sure they are figuring out what their legal options are vis-a-vis the Scoretop customer base. According to Businessweek, only one customer's scores have been canceled, but he bragged about using the service publicly, so probably has no legal defense. My guess is that GMAC will decide that the potential litigation involving one or more class action suits by plaintiffs who claim that they were the victims of Scoretop and not engaged in cheating on the GMAT is enough for GMAC to decide it is not worth do mass score cancellation. Combine this defense with potential privacy issues and it is has the makings for some serious litigation that GMAC will probably want to avoid. But if I am wrong, assume you will be hearing a lot more about Scoretop.
I really do like what GMAC has done with the Scoretop website. This is my favorite part:
And for those who are thinking about gaming the system, my advice is to study, get the best GMAT score you can, apply intelligently, and go knowing you did not cheat.
What do you think? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール 留学 必須試験 GMAT
I really do like what GMAC has done with the Scoretop website. This is my favorite part:
"If you are caught disclosing, accessing, or using "real" GMAT® questions:
- Your GMAT® scores will be cancelled.
- You will not be allowed to take the GMAT® exam again.
- Business schools will be notified.
- You may be subject to a civil lawsuit or criminal prosecution.
You are responsible for making sure your preparation materials don’t violate our intellectual property rights. In other words:
- Do not purchase, request, or share materials that claim to be “real” GMAT® questions in any form.
- Do not download GMATPrep® software from anywhere but www.mba.com, where authorized GMATPrep® software is available for free.
- Do not request or distribute pirated software or books such as the GMAT® Paper Tests, GMAT FocusTM or the Official GMAT® Guide."
And for those who are thinking about gaming the system, my advice is to study, get the best GMAT score you can, apply intelligently, and go knowing you did not cheat.
What do you think? Write comments or contact me directly at adammarkus@gmail.com.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール 留学 必須試験 GMAT
June 30, 2008
Secrets of the MBA admission process revealed at last!
Secrets of the MBA admission process revealed at last!
Actually not. I have to admit I am always suspicious of anyone who writes or says that they have MBA or graduate admission secrets. Such secrets always seem to have the same level of seriousness as much of the spam email I receive. The use of the word "secrets" strikes me as the worst sort of marketing designed to attract the badly informed and the desperate.
I suppose the holders of such secrets might know something, but is it really a secret? Often the information provided will be focused on getting you an insiders perspective on the admissions process. Yet such perspectives are easy to learn about through contact with admissions officers, reading guides like Montauk's How To Get Into the Top MBA Programs, and in any event are not too hard to imagine. Just because someone is not aware of something does not make it a secret, it simply makes learning that thing new information.
I suppose some might consider it a secret that admissions committees are subject to pressure from administrative entities within a university, but that is just a failure to treat universities as organizations. A holistic admissions process is one when every factor is taken into consideration. That does not just mean you as an individual applicant are judged only in terms of who you are, but you are also judged in relationship to the whole applicant pool, and to the institutional interests of the school. It certainly is not a secret that admissions committees judge applicants based on multiple factors and I have yet to meet a single applicant to a "Top 20" MBA program who did not think they were in competition to get admitted. The same is true of those applying for Ph.D.s and any degree program that is competitive to enter.
Perhaps the secrets are about techniques for admission? Well I have yet to see such a technique. I provide lots of advice, but I have never thought that any of it was a secret. If I said it was, my mentor who helped me get into graduate school would, no doubt, laugh in my face. I would hope that my fellow admission consultants would also refrain talking of secrets, but there is always someone who will claim a special gimmick.
I am a great believer in creating an effective admissions strategy and utilizing specific tactics to do so, but I would never say that such strategies or tactics are secrets, rather they are methods. Some are writing methods, others relate to interviews, while still others relate to goal setting. I consider myself to be a methodological pluralist: The are many ways to peel an onion. My recent series of posts on ranking reflect that pluralism as does the way I analyze essay questions. If you review my Harvard Law School LL.M. and/or Harvard Business School MBA essay analysis for Fall 2009 admission as well as the schools I covered for Fall 2008, you will see that I have a variety ways to I analyze questions for the purpose of assisting applicants. These methods of analysis, while not secrets, are based on my clients' results.
In July, I will be analyzing the essay questions for Stanford GSB, Kellogg, Columbia (My J-Term analysis is up already, but the questions may change for September 2009), and some other programs. Look for a series of posts on recommendations, hopefully some more interviews with students, and perhaps a surprise or two.
Stay cool.
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
留学 カウンセリング コンサルティング
Actually not. I have to admit I am always suspicious of anyone who writes or says that they have MBA or graduate admission secrets. Such secrets always seem to have the same level of seriousness as much of the spam email I receive. The use of the word "secrets" strikes me as the worst sort of marketing designed to attract the badly informed and the desperate.
I suppose the holders of such secrets might know something, but is it really a secret? Often the information provided will be focused on getting you an insiders perspective on the admissions process. Yet such perspectives are easy to learn about through contact with admissions officers, reading guides like Montauk's How To Get Into the Top MBA Programs, and in any event are not too hard to imagine. Just because someone is not aware of something does not make it a secret, it simply makes learning that thing new information.
I suppose some might consider it a secret that admissions committees are subject to pressure from administrative entities within a university, but that is just a failure to treat universities as organizations. A holistic admissions process is one when every factor is taken into consideration. That does not just mean you as an individual applicant are judged only in terms of who you are, but you are also judged in relationship to the whole applicant pool, and to the institutional interests of the school. It certainly is not a secret that admissions committees judge applicants based on multiple factors and I have yet to meet a single applicant to a "Top 20" MBA program who did not think they were in competition to get admitted. The same is true of those applying for Ph.D.s and any degree program that is competitive to enter.
Perhaps the secrets are about techniques for admission? Well I have yet to see such a technique. I provide lots of advice, but I have never thought that any of it was a secret. If I said it was, my mentor who helped me get into graduate school would, no doubt, laugh in my face. I would hope that my fellow admission consultants would also refrain talking of secrets, but there is always someone who will claim a special gimmick.
I am a great believer in creating an effective admissions strategy and utilizing specific tactics to do so, but I would never say that such strategies or tactics are secrets, rather they are methods. Some are writing methods, others relate to interviews, while still others relate to goal setting. I consider myself to be a methodological pluralist: The are many ways to peel an onion. My recent series of posts on ranking reflect that pluralism as does the way I analyze essay questions. If you review my Harvard Law School LL.M. and/or Harvard Business School MBA essay analysis for Fall 2009 admission as well as the schools I covered for Fall 2008, you will see that I have a variety ways to I analyze questions for the purpose of assisting applicants. These methods of analysis, while not secrets, are based on my clients' results.
In July, I will be analyzing the essay questions for Stanford GSB, Kellogg, Columbia (My J-Term analysis is up already, but the questions may change for September 2009), and some other programs. Look for a series of posts on recommendations, hopefully some more interviews with students, and perhaps a surprise or two.
Stay cool.
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
留学 カウンセリング コンサルティング
June 29, 2008
The Aspen Institute Guide to Socially Responsible MBA Programs: 2008-2009
You can find an alternative version of the post below that includes the Aspen Institute's Top 20 Ranked Programs on the AIGAC blog.
A review of The Aspen Institute Guide to Socially Responsible MBA Programs: 2008-2009.
As I have indicated in earlier posts (1 2 3), the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education's (CBE) www.caseplace.org is a great source for MBA case studies focused on issues related to social responsibility. CBE's other site www.beyondgreypinstripes.org actually ranks MBA programs through its "Beyond Grey Pinstripes" rankings. The most recent was for 2007-2008.
Before going onto a review of The Aspen Institute Guide, I think it is helpful to consider the source of data that the guide was based on. While I will not reprint the entire "Global 100," I would mention that the schools that rank well on this list include both unsurprising perennial "Top 20" schools and some schools that get little if any attention from Businessweek, US News & World Report, EIU, FT, Wall Street, or Forbes. Seeing alternatives is always valuable because it makes one look at something from a new perspective. Getting a new perspective on ranking is always a good idea from my perspective(as anyone who has followed my various methods for ranking programs can tell). For that reason alone, for anyone looking for an MBA program with strong social responsibility content, "The Global 100" is worthy of serious consideration.
The same is true of The Aspen Institute Guide to Socially Responsible MBA Programs: 2008-2009. The book brings life to the data found at www.beyondgreypinstripes.org. For those who are trying figure out where to apply and are interested in socially responsible investing, non-profit management, environmental issues, social entrepreneurship, socially responsible management practices, sustainability, and development, The Aspen Institute Guide provides an efficient way to learn which programs focus on these issues. It highlights socially responsibility related core and elective courses, institutes and centers, annual events, other events, student clubs and programs, and, where applicable, faculty pioneers. Actually, when I advise my clients about what they need to highlight to show why they want to attend a particular program, it is often these categories that I suggest they focus on. While The Aspen Institute Guide could not possibly include every potentially relevant aspect of the program, it does quite a good job of providing a solid introduction.
That said, as this is the first edition, I do hope they make some improvement to it in future editions. The summaries are very good, but the analysis of each program is rather limited. While the ranking analysis is available on www.beyondgreypinstripes.org, I think the authors needed to make the book stand on its own. Unfortunately at an analytical level it does not.
I was surprised to see that the book did not even include "The Global 100" rankings. I think this is rather unfortunate. Readers will have to refer to the ranking list because they will not find "The Global 100" in The Aspen Institute Guide.
But that is not my chief criticism. Rather, I found "The Bottom Line," The Aspen Institute Guide's attempt at analysis to be useless. Instead of providing some sort of a real analytical narrative about the program, the only analysis is a set of comments that simply represent data:
"We applied a statistical analysis to determine the relative strength of each along a few select criteria...We then make qualitative remarks using the flowing terms to reflect precise statistical scores:
Stanford: "Compared to other business schools in our survey, Stanford University offers a truly extraordinary number of courses featuring relevant content, and does a truly extraordinary job in those courses explicitly addressing how mainstream business improves the world. Stanford University requires 23 core course featuring relevant content." (p. 144)
IE: "Compared to other business schools in our survey, IE Business School offers a truly extraordinary number of courses featuring relevant content, and does a truly extraordinary job in those courses explicitly addressing how mainstream business improves the world. IE Business School requires 40 core course featuring relevant content." (p. 144)
It would be better to have the data behind such comments than to have this qualitative version of it. The creators (writers does not seem appropriate, perhaps editors and/or statisticians) of the guide should be willing to provide the numbers. After all, any would-be applicant who can't handle a few numbers is going to have a difficult time getting a decent GMAT score, not to mention surviving business school. While it would be easier to see the numbers, including ranking data, what I would really wanted is an analytical section that reflected real expertise and not mere statistical conclusions. The Guide's authors hope that prospective students, the business education community, and recruiters will use it(p. 10). If so, it had better provide all three intended audiences with some guidance to and not just a summary of programs.
Another area of future improvement would be to identify socially responsible companies that recruit at each school. This is no easy task, but to include such data would be very helpful to applicants as well as make recruiters more interested in The Aspen Institute Guide.
I should point out that there is also some inconsistency between "The Global 100" and The Aspen Institute Guide. The most extreme example from my perspective was that HBS, while not part of "The Global 100," received "Bottom Line" comments that are in no significant way different from Stanford GSB or IE:
"Compared to other business schools in our survey, Harvard University offers a truly extraordinary number of courses featuring relevant content, and does a truly extraordinary job in those courses explicitly addressing how mainstream business improves the world. Harvard University requires 9 core course featuring relevant content." (p. 79)
This alone suggests that CBE needs to a better job of linking its guide to its rankings. If CBE is to be the authority on socially responsible business programs, it needs to create a consistent set of publications so that applicants, schools, recruiters, and even admissions consultants like myself will be looking at CBE 's "Global 100" the same way we do when looking at Businessweek's or other more generally recognized rankings of MBA programs.
On a more positive note, I want to mention that The Aspen Institute Guide includes very useful appendices on MBA concentrations, joint MBA degrees, and a geographical breakdown of the location of the programs. This information will prove useful to all applicants as part of their school selection process.
Again, the summary is great and I would recommend the guide to those who are interested in exploring their options for a socially responsible MBA education, but it is only a first step. In addition to it, you must certainly look at CBE's two great websites (mentioned above) as well as The 2007 Net Impact Student Guide to Graduate Business Programs. I hope that future editions of The Aspen Institute Guide to Socially Responsible MBA Programs will include introductory essays, perhaps by some of the faculty pioneers, as well as a greater analysis of how each MBA program creates a socially responsible business education, and also some qualitative-based comparisons between programs. Given the ever-expanding number of MBA applicants who have a social responsibility agenda, I am confident that The Aspen Institute Guide will become a standard resource for many future applicants.
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
MBA留学 ビジネススクール カウンセリング コンサルティング MBA ランキング
A review of The Aspen Institute Guide to Socially Responsible MBA Programs: 2008-2009.
As I have indicated in earlier posts (1 2 3), the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education's (CBE) www.caseplace.org is a great source for MBA case studies focused on issues related to social responsibility. CBE's other site www.beyondgreypinstripes.org actually ranks MBA programs through its "Beyond Grey Pinstripes" rankings. The most recent was for 2007-2008.
Before going onto a review of The Aspen Institute Guide, I think it is helpful to consider the source of data that the guide was based on. While I will not reprint the entire "Global 100," I would mention that the schools that rank well on this list include both unsurprising perennial "Top 20" schools and some schools that get little if any attention from Businessweek, US News & World Report, EIU, FT, Wall Street, or Forbes. Seeing alternatives is always valuable because it makes one look at something from a new perspective. Getting a new perspective on ranking is always a good idea from my perspective(as anyone who has followed my various methods for ranking programs can tell). For that reason alone, for anyone looking for an MBA program with strong social responsibility content, "The Global 100" is worthy of serious consideration.
The same is true of The Aspen Institute Guide to Socially Responsible MBA Programs: 2008-2009. The book brings life to the data found at www.beyondgreypinstripes.org. For those who are trying figure out where to apply and are interested in socially responsible investing, non-profit management, environmental issues, social entrepreneurship, socially responsible management practices, sustainability, and development, The Aspen Institute Guide provides an efficient way to learn which programs focus on these issues. It highlights socially responsibility related core and elective courses, institutes and centers, annual events, other events, student clubs and programs, and, where applicable, faculty pioneers. Actually, when I advise my clients about what they need to highlight to show why they want to attend a particular program, it is often these categories that I suggest they focus on. While The Aspen Institute Guide could not possibly include every potentially relevant aspect of the program, it does quite a good job of providing a solid introduction.
That said, as this is the first edition, I do hope they make some improvement to it in future editions. The summaries are very good, but the analysis of each program is rather limited. While the ranking analysis is available on www.beyondgreypinstripes.org, I think the authors needed to make the book stand on its own. Unfortunately at an analytical level it does not.
I was surprised to see that the book did not even include "The Global 100" rankings. I think this is rather unfortunate. Readers will have to refer to the ranking list because they will not find "The Global 100" in The Aspen Institute Guide.
But that is not my chief criticism. Rather, I found "The Bottom Line," The Aspen Institute Guide's attempt at analysis to be useless. Instead of providing some sort of a real analytical narrative about the program, the only analysis is a set of comments that simply represent data:
"We applied a statistical analysis to determine the relative strength of each along a few select criteria...We then make qualitative remarks using the flowing terms to reflect precise statistical scores:
- Truly Extraordinary-given to schools that scored more than one standard deviation above average
- Excellent- given to schools that scored between average and one standard deviation above average
- Good-given to schools that scored between one standard deviation below average and average" (P. 12)
Stanford: "Compared to other business schools in our survey, Stanford University offers a truly extraordinary number of courses featuring relevant content, and does a truly extraordinary job in those courses explicitly addressing how mainstream business improves the world. Stanford University requires 23 core course featuring relevant content." (p. 144)
IE: "Compared to other business schools in our survey, IE Business School offers a truly extraordinary number of courses featuring relevant content, and does a truly extraordinary job in those courses explicitly addressing how mainstream business improves the world. IE Business School requires 40 core course featuring relevant content." (p. 144)
It would be better to have the data behind such comments than to have this qualitative version of it. The creators (writers does not seem appropriate, perhaps editors and/or statisticians) of the guide should be willing to provide the numbers. After all, any would-be applicant who can't handle a few numbers is going to have a difficult time getting a decent GMAT score, not to mention surviving business school. While it would be easier to see the numbers, including ranking data, what I would really wanted is an analytical section that reflected real expertise and not mere statistical conclusions. The Guide's authors hope that prospective students, the business education community, and recruiters will use it(p. 10). If so, it had better provide all three intended audiences with some guidance to and not just a summary of programs.
Another area of future improvement would be to identify socially responsible companies that recruit at each school. This is no easy task, but to include such data would be very helpful to applicants as well as make recruiters more interested in The Aspen Institute Guide.
I should point out that there is also some inconsistency between "The Global 100" and The Aspen Institute Guide. The most extreme example from my perspective was that HBS, while not part of "The Global 100," received "Bottom Line" comments that are in no significant way different from Stanford GSB or IE:
"Compared to other business schools in our survey, Harvard University offers a truly extraordinary number of courses featuring relevant content, and does a truly extraordinary job in those courses explicitly addressing how mainstream business improves the world. Harvard University requires 9 core course featuring relevant content." (p. 79)
This alone suggests that CBE needs to a better job of linking its guide to its rankings. If CBE is to be the authority on socially responsible business programs, it needs to create a consistent set of publications so that applicants, schools, recruiters, and even admissions consultants like myself will be looking at CBE 's "Global 100" the same way we do when looking at Businessweek's or other more generally recognized rankings of MBA programs.
On a more positive note, I want to mention that The Aspen Institute Guide includes very useful appendices on MBA concentrations, joint MBA degrees, and a geographical breakdown of the location of the programs. This information will prove useful to all applicants as part of their school selection process.
Again, the summary is great and I would recommend the guide to those who are interested in exploring their options for a socially responsible MBA education, but it is only a first step. In addition to it, you must certainly look at CBE's two great websites (mentioned above) as well as The 2007 Net Impact Student Guide to Graduate Business Programs. I hope that future editions of The Aspen Institute Guide to Socially Responsible MBA Programs will include introductory essays, perhaps by some of the faculty pioneers, as well as a greater analysis of how each MBA program creates a socially responsible business education, and also some qualitative-based comparisons between programs. Given the ever-expanding number of MBA applicants who have a social responsibility agenda, I am confident that The Aspen Institute Guide will become a standard resource for many future applicants.
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
MBA留学 ビジネススクール カウンセリング コンサルティング MBA ランキング
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