Whether applying to an MBA, LL.M., or other type of graduate program, I know that many successful applicants put extensive time into networking. I think this is particularly important for those trying to obtain admission at top MBA programs, but in its own way, is also important for those applying to masters and especially Ph.D. programs.
While it is certainly possible to simply read the online and offline school information, submit an application, and get admitted, many successful applicants do much more than that. Start networking now!
VISITING THE SCHOOL
If your finances and logistics permit, there is nothing to be compared to visiting a school before you apply. The advantages are multiple:
1. You can really determine whether the school fits you. I have had clients who visit a school and quickly determine that it is ideal for them, while others have visited a school and realized that it might be less than ideal. If a school is not right for you, it is certainly better to discover that before application. If you realize a school is your first choice then you know how you need to prioritize it.
2. You can obtain a clear image of the program. This will help you both for purposes of writing your application essays and also for any required interviews.
3. You can really personalize what you write in essays and say in interviews about the school. While off-campus encounters with alumni, current students, and admissions officers can also serve this purpose (see below), nothing beats direct experience. Your ability to highly personalize your reasons for attending a particular school will be greatly enhanced by being able to refer to a class you observed, a faculty member you interacted with, your own sense of the place, and your communication with current students.
4. By visiting, you directly communicate your strong desire to attend the school. I know almost all schools will say that it does not matter whether you visit, but actually and especially on the margins, it can. The value of a visit depends on the school, even among top business schools. Don't look for visits to HBS or Stanford GSB to make any difference, but for schools with less popular locations (Tuck and Duke for example), I would assume that it does make a huge difference. Especially for any MBA program that has open interviews (not just invitation-only interviews), assume visiting can make a difference.
5. You can establish meaningful contact with current students. While it is possible to have such contact via email, direct face-to-face contact always has a higher impact. You are more likely to learn both what is good and bad about a program from students in a face-to-face situation.
CONTACTING FACULTY
As both Steve Green, and I have pointed out, contacting faculty is a key networking strategy for Ph.D. and some other types of graduate programs. This method may not be so effective for business or law schools, but is critical for those pursuing degrees that involve doing research under a faculty adviser. Given the importance of such advisers to the completion of a thesis or dissertation, figuring out who you would actually want to work with before you apply is very important. Even with MBA programs, if there is someone on the faculty that you really want to study with, it certainly makes sense to try and have initial contact with them. As schools have different policies on applicants contacting faculty, ask the admissions office if it is OK to do so.
By the way, if you want to learn about how faculty at a school are evaluated by the students, visit Rate My Professors. I have previously discussed that site here.
CONTACTING CURRENT STUDENTS
Many programs have student ambassador or other types of official programs for putting applicants in direct contact with students. Fully utilizing such methods can be a great way to learn about a program. Such contacts can also help you have an even better campus visit. I would also urge you to contact any professional interest (marketing for example) national (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, African, Indian for example), ethnic (African American, Latino for example), religious (Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, Jewish for example), identity (LGBT for example), and personal interest (hockey, salsa dance, wine for example) student clubs that you might want to participate in. For MBA students, contact with students who are likely to share your interests can prove very useful. I think most Japanese readers of this blog know to do so already, but making contact with students can prove extremely helpful. One of the reasons, I am happy to sponsor the HBS, Haas, and Tuck Japan treks/trips is that I know that the Japanese students at those schools are very helpful to Japanese applicants.
Current students are so useful to communicate with because they can really tell you the reality of the program. It is important to talk to multiple students to get a full perspective because each student will have a specific perspective on their experience.
CONTACTING ALUMNI
Some schools make it especially easy to get in touch with alumni. From my perspective, meeting alumni is a very important part of the school selection process, especially for those pursuing professional degrees (MBA, LL.M., MPP, MPA for example). Especially if you are meeting alumni in the place that you intend to return to post-MBA, I think it is important to make sure that you want to be part of this alumni network. One of the core benefits of attending a top MBA program is the network that you become a part of. If you meet the alumni from a school and you are feeling underwhelmed by them, you might really want to reconsider whether it is worth applying to the school. While talking with recent alumni is likely to help you have a better grasp of the present situation at the school, talking with older alumni will help you better assess the longer term value of a degree. While talking with alumni is great, it is important to factor in their lack of present connection to the program when assessing their advice to you.
Finally, the old adage, "it is not what you know, but who you know that matters," does at least partially apply to geting admitted. Networking can be used effectively as an admissions strategy because it can provide applicants with a strategic informational advantage over their less networked competitors. One of the reasons that starting the admissions process early is so important is because effective networking is a time consumming process, so start doing it now!
NEED MBA ADMISSIONS CONSULTING?
If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. To learn more about my services, see here. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール MBA留学 米国ロースクール 米国大学法学院 大学院入学 カウンセリング コンサルティング 大学院 エッセイインタビュー 面接 推薦 履歴書レジュメ
April 15, 2009
MBA Reapplication: Why were you dinged? Now what?
(This is an updated and expanded version of a post from 2008)
Was your admissions game plan for Fall 2009 a failure?
For those, who have yet to apply, do you want to understand some of the common pitfalls you should avoid?
Below are the typical reasons for rejection(stated as questions) and some of my suggestions for developing a new strategy for future applications (mostly stated as questions). I base the following on my experience helping reapplicants successfully obtain admission at such schools as Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Chicago GSB, Kellogg, LBS, and MIT.
1. Were you realistic? If there was one overall reason for failure that I would point to, it would be lack of realism about the process. Usually this involves ignoring one or more important factors:
-Specifically ignoring the rate of admission, average GMAT and/or iBT TOEFL / IELTS test scores, and GPA required of those admitted are all highly likely to result in applying to schools that an applicant has very little chance to enter. See below for more about this.
-Age. I don't blame applicants for this one entirely because B-schools often have an all inclusive message about who they admit that is not quite the real case. This is especially true in regards to age where it is very clear that programs can't say they will not let in older applicants, but actually they usually don't. For example, applying to Stanford GSB or HBS after the age of 30 might be worth trying, but your chances for admission (compared to the average rate of admission) are not great. HBS is fairly direct about the age issue (see my earlier post on the subject), but Stanford does not choose to deal with this issue in an honest and forthright manner. For those over 30, look at average age and age range when considering where to apply. Try to ask admissions privately about this issue, you might get a straight answer or not. (See my interview with Kirt Wood from RSM who gave a very clear answer on this issue.) Applying to most top programs once you are in your mid-thirties may very well be a complete exercise in frustration and once you are past 35, the chances for admission at many top programs appears to be slim. For those in and/or approaching their mid-thirties or older who want a full-time MBA experience, I think programs such as the Sloan programs at LBS, MIT, and Stanford as well as USC IBEAR are all very suitable. An EMBA is always an option.
-Last minute applications: Developing great applications takes time, doing them at the last minute is one of the easiest ways to increase your chances for rejection because it is highly likely that your essays were not well written, sufficiently strategic in the way they marketed you, and, possibly, not even proofread.
-Lack of substantial research into/networking for the programs being applied to. If you did not make full use of each schools' web-based information, did not attend admissions events, did not visit campus, and/or did not communicate with alumni or current students, you probably did not know enough about the schools you applied to make an effective case for why you fit at them.
-Did not obtain sufficient and/or effective advice on your applications and application strategy from mentors and/or admissions experts (see below).
One thing I have found about successful reapplicants is that are highly realistic. Reality is a harsh teacher, but one you cannot afford to avoid.
2. Did you really know about the programs you applied to? How was that reflected in your essays? Did you merely restate obvious information about the school or did you show exactly what aspects of it will meet your academic and professional goals? Did you demonstrate a clear connection to the program? Did you even think about fit? Stating unremarkable things based simply on reading the website or brochure is not enough, you need to show why a specific program really fits your personality and goals. If you had an interview, how effective were you at establishing fit?
3. Was there a problem with the way you expressed your desire for an MBA or your goals?Actually almost every re-applicant I have worked with had a serious problem clearly articulating their goals. If you think your goals might be the problem, read this and complete the table you can find there. Were your goals based on any research? Were they interesting? Finally, reflecting my recent post on trends for Fall 2009 admission, did you take the financial crisis into account? If you were trying to get into finance with no prior experience and making second round applications, your goals were likely to have been a serious problem.
4. Did your essays fully demonstrate your potential as a student and a professional? Did you come across as a unique applicant? The way you write about who you are and what you have done is a major way that admissions evaluates this. More specifically: Could you clearly express selling points about yourself in your essays? Did you provide sufficient details about what you did combined with a sufficient explanation for why? Are your essays about you or just about what you have done? Are your essays mere extensions of bullet points on your resume or do they tell effective stories about you? Do you really understand the essay questions? How effective were in writing about such common topics as contributions, leadership, and/or failure?
As is usual for Chicago GSB admissions, they have provided some great advice, this time on the topic of reapplication. If you plan to reapply to Chicago GSB or are just looking for general reapplication advice, I suggest reading GSB's "Making a Fresh Start." I especially liked the following very useful advice that is really applicable for any applicant:
Show us why you're different. Each year thousands of students apply to business school and yet many qualified candidates are not offered admission. With MBA admissions growing more and more competitive each year, it's really important to stand out in the crowd by attempting to differentiate yourself from those of a similar profile. Tell us about your challenges, interesting achievements, unique perspectives and stories.
Showing admissions why you are unique is something that all applicants should really focus on. For more about, please see my earlier post on being unique
5. Did you put a sufficient amount of time into writing your essays? Writing great essays usually takes time and multiple drafts. Did you write multiple drafts of your essays? Were your essays quickly written? Did a significant amount of thought go into them?
6. Did your resume (CV) present your professional, academic, and extracurricular experience effectively? A great MBA resume requires effective presentation of your past experience so that an admissions committee can gain insight into your potential to succeed in the MBA program and in your future career. A great resume is also an effective agenda setting device for an interview. Did your resume contain clear statements about your accomplishments? Did your resume honestly and effectively represent the full range of your experience? Did your resume showcase your potential as a manager, businessperson, and/or leader?
7. Did you really address any potential concerns that an admissions committee may have about your suitability as a candidate? Even though there is always an optional question available for this purpose, did you make use of it? If there was something you wanted to avoid discussing, maybe you should consider doing so.
8. How were your interviews? If you did interview, were you well-prepared? How do you judge your own performance? Did you practice enough? Are you good at interviewing? For non-native speakers: Are you good at interviewing in your own language? I believe that the only effective way to prepare for interviews is to be over-prepared: You need to appear relaxed and comfortable talking with the interviewer, to be ready to address the hardest questions, to be comfortable with your own selling points and the stories that support them, and have to have enough knowledge about the school to show a passion for it. If you were dinged from one or more schools that offered you an invitation to interview, chances are great that you really need to work on your interview skills. If you know that you are particularly weak interviewing, consider applying to at least some schools were the interviews are not considered very hard.
9. How were your recommendations? Did your recommendations honestly and effectively endorse you? Did they contain sufficient detail to help an admissions committee understand your selling points? Did your recommendations really evaluate both your strengths and weaknesses? Were your recommendations authentic or is there any possibility that an admissions officer would be concerned about their authorship? For more about recommendations, see here (Note: I have not posted an MBA specific recommendation post).
10. How good was the advice you received from other people about your application(s)? In addition to yourself, who read and advised you on your essays, resume, interview(s), and/or other aspects of your application process? Alums, mentors, admissions consultants or counselors, editors, and/or ghostwriters? While I would not suggest blaming those who advised you, you may want to seek out new or additional advisers. Of course if they told you that your essays, resume, or some other aspect of your application were weak and you did not address it, they were providing good advice. Additionally if they expressed concerns about your likelihood for admission, their advice might be good (beware of those who always hedge their bets).
If you relied extensively on an editor or paid a ghostwriter and seem to be getting dinged quickly, you have discovered the pitfalls of those highly dubious strategies. Consider writing your own stuff, getting an ethical and professional admissions consultant to advise you, and/or discovering the potential of your voice.
If you used an admissions counselor or consultant and did not get any good results and they told you that your applications were good, find someone else. If your counselor had limited experience, this is pretty much an indicator that you should have gone with someone experienced. If your counselor seemed exhausted or rushed, you also have a problem because this person is unlikely to be able to be devoted to helping you enough. If you purchased a counseling service and not the services of a particular counselor, I would not be surprised if you encountered someone overworked. After all, one critical difference between consultants who work for themselves and those that work for someone else is the amount they make for the work performed. Those that work for someone else make considerably less per hour and often have to work more and under higher pressure than those that work for themselves. Regardless of whether you use an individual consultant or a service, the issue will always come down to the specific advice you are being given, which means the particular person you are working with. In addition to contacting me, one good resource for finding a new counselor is through the Association of International Admissions Consultants where you can find a directory of my colleagues (including my guest blogger, Steve Green) around the world who are committed to providing high level service to their clients.
11. Was your GMAT within the school's 80% range? Was your GMAT below average? Obviously if your score was below the 80% range, you should assume your chances for admissions were less than the stated admissions rate. If it was was within the range, but significantly below the average score, you should assume that it was a contributing factor to your results. I am not saying to apply only to schools where you are within the range (see my earlier post on this issue), but I would suggest taking account of the risk in terms of (1) school selection, (2) the number of programs you need to apply to, and (3) expectations for success. As far as reapplication goes, studying GMAT is almost always necessary for those with less than a 700 GMAT. If your GMAT was 700 or higher and you were rejected, GMAT was almost certainly not your main problem.
12. Was your GPA equal to, above, or below the average reported GPA for the school? If it was below, this may have been a factor against you. If you GPA is significantly below the average GPA and your GMAT is equal to or above the average score, did you write an optional essay? Did you highlight your academic potential in some way to counter the issue of your GPA?
13. Did your TOEFL meet the school's minimum stated requirement? If your score was below the minimum, did you discuss this in the optional or some other essay to make the case for your English abilities? At this stage, you need to improve your score for Fall 2010 admission. If your score on TOEFL is really weak, have you considered taking IELTS? Some applicants actually will do better on this test than on ibt TOEFL. It is not easy to prepare for a new test, you might really want to try it out and see which test is better for you.
14. Were you realistic about school selection? I think you need to look at the portfolio of schools you applied to and ask yourself the following questions:
-Did I apply to programs with low rates of admission?
-Did I apply to enough programs?
-Did I apply to a wide enough range of programs?
See my posts on ranking such as "The 99" for some strategies for selecting schools.
15. Were you honest about the way you presented yourself in your whole application? As a strong advocate for honesty, I have a bias for this particular approach to the process. If you are getting dinged after misrepresenting one or more aspects of your experience, you might want to consider that it is the job of admissions officers to eliminate liars. Liars get through anyway, but not all of them. If you have over-marketed yourself, you may also have come across as less than authentic.
I know that getting rejected is no fun, but if you are committed to the process, I think you can make your next round of applications a success.
NEED MBA ADMISSIONS CONSULTING?
If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. To learn more about my services, see here. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール MBA留学 コロンビアビジネススクール
Was your admissions game plan for Fall 2009 a failure?
For those, who have yet to apply, do you want to understand some of the common pitfalls you should avoid?
Below are the typical reasons for rejection(stated as questions) and some of my suggestions for developing a new strategy for future applications (mostly stated as questions). I base the following on my experience helping reapplicants successfully obtain admission at such schools as Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Chicago GSB, Kellogg, LBS, and MIT.
1. Were you realistic? If there was one overall reason for failure that I would point to, it would be lack of realism about the process. Usually this involves ignoring one or more important factors:
-Specifically ignoring the rate of admission, average GMAT and/or iBT TOEFL / IELTS test scores, and GPA required of those admitted are all highly likely to result in applying to schools that an applicant has very little chance to enter. See below for more about this.
-Age. I don't blame applicants for this one entirely because B-schools often have an all inclusive message about who they admit that is not quite the real case. This is especially true in regards to age where it is very clear that programs can't say they will not let in older applicants, but actually they usually don't. For example, applying to Stanford GSB or HBS after the age of 30 might be worth trying, but your chances for admission (compared to the average rate of admission) are not great. HBS is fairly direct about the age issue (see my earlier post on the subject), but Stanford does not choose to deal with this issue in an honest and forthright manner. For those over 30, look at average age and age range when considering where to apply. Try to ask admissions privately about this issue, you might get a straight answer or not. (See my interview with Kirt Wood from RSM who gave a very clear answer on this issue.) Applying to most top programs once you are in your mid-thirties may very well be a complete exercise in frustration and once you are past 35, the chances for admission at many top programs appears to be slim. For those in and/or approaching their mid-thirties or older who want a full-time MBA experience, I think programs such as the Sloan programs at LBS, MIT, and Stanford as well as USC IBEAR are all very suitable. An EMBA is always an option.
-Last minute applications: Developing great applications takes time, doing them at the last minute is one of the easiest ways to increase your chances for rejection because it is highly likely that your essays were not well written, sufficiently strategic in the way they marketed you, and, possibly, not even proofread.
-Lack of substantial research into/networking for the programs being applied to. If you did not make full use of each schools' web-based information, did not attend admissions events, did not visit campus, and/or did not communicate with alumni or current students, you probably did not know enough about the schools you applied to make an effective case for why you fit at them.
-Did not obtain sufficient and/or effective advice on your applications and application strategy from mentors and/or admissions experts (see below).
One thing I have found about successful reapplicants is that are highly realistic. Reality is a harsh teacher, but one you cannot afford to avoid.
2. Did you really know about the programs you applied to? How was that reflected in your essays? Did you merely restate obvious information about the school or did you show exactly what aspects of it will meet your academic and professional goals? Did you demonstrate a clear connection to the program? Did you even think about fit? Stating unremarkable things based simply on reading the website or brochure is not enough, you need to show why a specific program really fits your personality and goals. If you had an interview, how effective were you at establishing fit?
3. Was there a problem with the way you expressed your desire for an MBA or your goals?Actually almost every re-applicant I have worked with had a serious problem clearly articulating their goals. If you think your goals might be the problem, read this and complete the table you can find there. Were your goals based on any research? Were they interesting? Finally, reflecting my recent post on trends for Fall 2009 admission, did you take the financial crisis into account? If you were trying to get into finance with no prior experience and making second round applications, your goals were likely to have been a serious problem.
4. Did your essays fully demonstrate your potential as a student and a professional? Did you come across as a unique applicant? The way you write about who you are and what you have done is a major way that admissions evaluates this. More specifically: Could you clearly express selling points about yourself in your essays? Did you provide sufficient details about what you did combined with a sufficient explanation for why? Are your essays about you or just about what you have done? Are your essays mere extensions of bullet points on your resume or do they tell effective stories about you? Do you really understand the essay questions? How effective were in writing about such common topics as contributions, leadership, and/or failure?
As is usual for Chicago GSB admissions, they have provided some great advice, this time on the topic of reapplication. If you plan to reapply to Chicago GSB or are just looking for general reapplication advice, I suggest reading GSB's "Making a Fresh Start." I especially liked the following very useful advice that is really applicable for any applicant:
Show us why you're different. Each year thousands of students apply to business school and yet many qualified candidates are not offered admission. With MBA admissions growing more and more competitive each year, it's really important to stand out in the crowd by attempting to differentiate yourself from those of a similar profile. Tell us about your challenges, interesting achievements, unique perspectives and stories.
Showing admissions why you are unique is something that all applicants should really focus on. For more about, please see my earlier post on being unique
5. Did you put a sufficient amount of time into writing your essays? Writing great essays usually takes time and multiple drafts. Did you write multiple drafts of your essays? Were your essays quickly written? Did a significant amount of thought go into them?
6. Did your resume (CV) present your professional, academic, and extracurricular experience effectively? A great MBA resume requires effective presentation of your past experience so that an admissions committee can gain insight into your potential to succeed in the MBA program and in your future career. A great resume is also an effective agenda setting device for an interview. Did your resume contain clear statements about your accomplishments? Did your resume honestly and effectively represent the full range of your experience? Did your resume showcase your potential as a manager, businessperson, and/or leader?
7. Did you really address any potential concerns that an admissions committee may have about your suitability as a candidate? Even though there is always an optional question available for this purpose, did you make use of it? If there was something you wanted to avoid discussing, maybe you should consider doing so.
8. How were your interviews? If you did interview, were you well-prepared? How do you judge your own performance? Did you practice enough? Are you good at interviewing? For non-native speakers: Are you good at interviewing in your own language? I believe that the only effective way to prepare for interviews is to be over-prepared: You need to appear relaxed and comfortable talking with the interviewer, to be ready to address the hardest questions, to be comfortable with your own selling points and the stories that support them, and have to have enough knowledge about the school to show a passion for it. If you were dinged from one or more schools that offered you an invitation to interview, chances are great that you really need to work on your interview skills. If you know that you are particularly weak interviewing, consider applying to at least some schools were the interviews are not considered very hard.
9. How were your recommendations? Did your recommendations honestly and effectively endorse you? Did they contain sufficient detail to help an admissions committee understand your selling points? Did your recommendations really evaluate both your strengths and weaknesses? Were your recommendations authentic or is there any possibility that an admissions officer would be concerned about their authorship? For more about recommendations, see here (Note: I have not posted an MBA specific recommendation post).
10. How good was the advice you received from other people about your application(s)? In addition to yourself, who read and advised you on your essays, resume, interview(s), and/or other aspects of your application process? Alums, mentors, admissions consultants or counselors, editors, and/or ghostwriters? While I would not suggest blaming those who advised you, you may want to seek out new or additional advisers. Of course if they told you that your essays, resume, or some other aspect of your application were weak and you did not address it, they were providing good advice. Additionally if they expressed concerns about your likelihood for admission, their advice might be good (beware of those who always hedge their bets).
If you relied extensively on an editor or paid a ghostwriter and seem to be getting dinged quickly, you have discovered the pitfalls of those highly dubious strategies. Consider writing your own stuff, getting an ethical and professional admissions consultant to advise you, and/or discovering the potential of your voice.
If you used an admissions counselor or consultant and did not get any good results and they told you that your applications were good, find someone else. If your counselor had limited experience, this is pretty much an indicator that you should have gone with someone experienced. If your counselor seemed exhausted or rushed, you also have a problem because this person is unlikely to be able to be devoted to helping you enough. If you purchased a counseling service and not the services of a particular counselor, I would not be surprised if you encountered someone overworked. After all, one critical difference between consultants who work for themselves and those that work for someone else is the amount they make for the work performed. Those that work for someone else make considerably less per hour and often have to work more and under higher pressure than those that work for themselves. Regardless of whether you use an individual consultant or a service, the issue will always come down to the specific advice you are being given, which means the particular person you are working with. In addition to contacting me, one good resource for finding a new counselor is through the Association of International Admissions Consultants where you can find a directory of my colleagues (including my guest blogger, Steve Green) around the world who are committed to providing high level service to their clients.
11. Was your GMAT within the school's 80% range? Was your GMAT below average? Obviously if your score was below the 80% range, you should assume your chances for admissions were less than the stated admissions rate. If it was was within the range, but significantly below the average score, you should assume that it was a contributing factor to your results. I am not saying to apply only to schools where you are within the range (see my earlier post on this issue), but I would suggest taking account of the risk in terms of (1) school selection, (2) the number of programs you need to apply to, and (3) expectations for success. As far as reapplication goes, studying GMAT is almost always necessary for those with less than a 700 GMAT. If your GMAT was 700 or higher and you were rejected, GMAT was almost certainly not your main problem.
12. Was your GPA equal to, above, or below the average reported GPA for the school? If it was below, this may have been a factor against you. If you GPA is significantly below the average GPA and your GMAT is equal to or above the average score, did you write an optional essay? Did you highlight your academic potential in some way to counter the issue of your GPA?
13. Did your TOEFL meet the school's minimum stated requirement? If your score was below the minimum, did you discuss this in the optional or some other essay to make the case for your English abilities? At this stage, you need to improve your score for Fall 2010 admission. If your score on TOEFL is really weak, have you considered taking IELTS? Some applicants actually will do better on this test than on ibt TOEFL. It is not easy to prepare for a new test, you might really want to try it out and see which test is better for you.
14. Were you realistic about school selection? I think you need to look at the portfolio of schools you applied to and ask yourself the following questions:
-Did I apply to programs with low rates of admission?
-Did I apply to enough programs?
-Did I apply to a wide enough range of programs?
See my posts on ranking such as "The 99" for some strategies for selecting schools.
15. Were you honest about the way you presented yourself in your whole application? As a strong advocate for honesty, I have a bias for this particular approach to the process. If you are getting dinged after misrepresenting one or more aspects of your experience, you might want to consider that it is the job of admissions officers to eliminate liars. Liars get through anyway, but not all of them. If you have over-marketed yourself, you may also have come across as less than authentic.
I know that getting rejected is no fun, but if you are committed to the process, I think you can make your next round of applications a success.
NEED MBA ADMISSIONS CONSULTING?
If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. To learn more about my services, see here. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール MBA留学 コロンビアビジネススクール
April 13, 2009
Columbia J-Term Application up on 4/20
For those considering or planning to apply to the Columbia Business School January Term 2010 Program, the application will be up on the web on April 20. I intend to analyze it immediately once available. In the meantime, you can find my previous posts on Columbia January 2009 Term, Early Decision, September 2009 Term, and interviews. It will be interesting to see what questions they ask for January 2010 term.
I expect that the number of January Term applications will be huge, so getting one in early would be a very good idea.
NEED MBA ADMISSIONS CONSULTING?
If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール MBA留学 コロンビアビジネススクール
I expect that the number of January Term applications will be huge, so getting one in early would be a very good idea.
NEED MBA ADMISSIONS CONSULTING?
If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール MBA留学 コロンビアビジネススクール
TO FALL 2009 ADMITTED BLOG READERS
Congratulations!If I don't have the opportunity to congratulate you in person, at least I can give you a virtual toast.
If the advice on my blog helped you get admitted to an MBA, LL.M., Public Policy, or other type of graduate program, I would love to hear about it. Please feel free to leave comments or email me at adammarkus@gmail.com.
Cheers,
Adam
アダム
Steve Green: Graduate School Blues
In this post, Steve looks at one of the darker sides of graduate school.
-Adam
-Adam
GRADUATE SCHOOL BLUES
This post addresses a potential and serious bad side-effect of being a graduate student but offers some pointers for applicants to help avoid or minimize it.
Graduate school can make you unhappy. If you already prone to feeling unhappy, then grad school can make you even more unhappy. That’s the main point of an article by Piper Fogg, “Grad School Blues,” in the February 20, 2009 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education (available online to subscribers or buyers of a short-term pass.) The author notes that:
Graduate school is gaining a reputation as an incubator for anxiety and depression.
Honestly, having been to grad school I am surprised only at the statement’s implication that it had not already earned this reputation. Happily, the issue raised by this article does not apply to everyone, but I firmly believe that everyone should be aware of the potential impact of grad school on their emotional well-being.
Applying to graduate school? You are probably thinking about the financial costs (i.e. tuition, books, costs of living) and opportunity costs (i.e. the income you would be earning if you were not in graduate school). You should also consider the potential emotional costs. Obviously, these are impossible to quantify and calculate and will vary greatly according to your own emotional resources as well as to the type of students and faculty in any given grad program.
Everyone I knew in graduate school, beginning with myself, felt intimidated, frustrated, lonely, and, in some cases, simply depressed at one time or another.
Fogg notes:
Social isolation, financial burdens, lack of structure, and the pressure to produce groundbreaking work can wear heavily on graduate students, especially those already vulnerable to mental-health disorders.
Graduate students face threats to their self-confidence and basic happiness on multiple fronts including a heavy intellectual workload, having to subject written and verbal analytical skills to the scrutiny of peers and professors several times every week (one of my grad school friends spoke for many of us when she lamented that she felt like she was constantly having to prove she was “smart enough”), the solitary nature of the process (are you prepared to spend almost all of your waking hours outside of class reading and writing?) and probably living on the same shoestring budget that barely kept your head above water as an undergraduate (which is no fun, of course, but especially frustrating when your working professional friends are earning decent salaries and you constantly have to decline their offers to vacation together or even to meet for a nice dinner.) In addition:
"Grad students are in a remarkable position of powerlessness," says Thomas B. Jankowski, an adjunct assistant professor of political science and gerontology at Wayne State University who runs PhinisheD, an online support group to help graduate students finish their dissertations. Often a single thesis adviser seems to control a student's destiny, he notes…
And to make matters worse:
it can take years to finish a dissertation. And even if a student finishes, success on the job market is far from guaranteed; today's poor economy has only worsened job prospects.
In a nutshell, graduate school can challenge even the most confident of personalities.
What can you do now as an applicant? As noted above, determining the potential emotional costs of earning a grad degree is not nearly as clear-cut as figuring out the financial and opportunity costs, but you can minimize them by doing the following:
Take the Socratic adage to heart: KNOW THYSELF! Be honest about how happy and self-confident you are in general and, in light of the conditions of grad school described above, assess whether or not you’ll risk deep unhappiness by going to grad school now. Furthermore, ask yourself over and over again if you really want to go to graduate school or are applying because it “seems” like the right thing to do or because you are avoiding something else. These kinds of reasons can put you on the fast track to unhappiness once grad school starts.
KNOW THE GRAD STUDENTS: As you gather information about grad programs, contact student representatives of those programs and ask them frank questions about the quality of life in the department and the city or town. Try to find out how cooperative and congenial current students are with each other. Graduate-school work is solitary work, but that does not mean each student is an island unto himself. In the graduate program at the Dept. of Politics of the University of Virginia (UVa.) I was really pleased by how friendly and supportive students were with each other. We formed study groups to meet outside class and often socialized. In grad school I met some of current best friends, people I will be close to for the rest of my life.
KNOW THE FACULTY: When you contact grad students you should also try to learn their opinion of faculty. Ask them about the availability of professors for grad students outside of class hours, and about whether and to what degree faculty support grad students in finding internships, funding, and publishing opportunities. Find out if they like most of their professors. On this point I was also highly satisfied with my own grad program. The professors in my department were extremely friendly, supportive and available, even as they were highly demanding and challenging. I have known people at other programs and in various fields who could not say the same thing and they envy the collegial atmosphere of my department.
KNOW ACADEMIA: In addition to reading up on academic work in your field of interest, I encourage you to read publications such as The Chronicle of Higher Education and Insider Higher Ed, both of which provide excellent in-depth coverage of news related to higher education from the perspectives of students, professors and administrators. If you read these regularly you will gain a valuable perspective on the business- in both a literal and metaphorical sense of the word- of higher education and graduate school, which can only help you to assess your fit for any grad program in particular and for graduate school in general.
As always, good luck! Please don’t hesitate to make comments on this post if you have any questions, I am always happy to try to answer them.
To learn more about my graduate admissions consulting services, please click here.
- H. Steven ("Steve") Green, グリーン・ハロルド・スティーブン
April 12, 2009
Steve Green: Start Early! Start Now!
In this post, Steve discusses the importance of starting early for those planning on Fall 2010 admission.
-Adam
START EARLY. START NOW!
Applying to graduate school disproves the old adage that “Good things come to those who wait.” Wait too long to prepare your graduate school application and you risk having a bad thing come to you- failure to enter a school of your choice.
This post presents a list of to-dos for the period between now and when you can actually access schools’ application forms.
It’s only April but I’ve already acquired new clients who are applying for graduate school programs for 2010. Online and paper application forms will not be available until late in the summer so: Isn’t it too early to begin preparing your graduate school application? No!
You should prepare as far ahead of program deadlines as possible. Most US grad school applications are not available until the end of August or beginning of September and most deadlines are somewhere between mid-December and mid-January.
If you wait until you can download them you will have a narrow window of time in which to complete all of your applications. Many people do, in fact, wait until fall to take any action on their application. They seem to treat the actual release of the forms as an official starting line for the application process and become stressed as they race to accomplish so much in so little time.
As an admission consultant it is frustrating to watch highly successful, intelligent people risk handicapping their chances by writing essays in an agitated, worried frame of mind as they struggle mightily to accomplish many things in November and December that they could have done earlier.
If you are a full-time student or professional you will need to budget your time carefully. A great way to do so is to have less to do when application season “formally” commences.
Here are four things to start doing now. I summarize them first and say more about each below.
Get the test monkey off your back before you start writing essay drafts!
Prepare for any tests required as part of the application. Learn what the test requires, what the minimum accepted scores for each school are, and then aim to reach your highest possible score before this fall, if possible.
Start researching graduate programs. I provide a useful link below. Plan to know which programs you will apply to by August.
Decide whom to request as your recommendation letter writers and contact them now.
Brainstorm and outline possible essay topics.
Let’s look at each of these in more detail.
1. Prepare for the GRE, LSAT, MCAT, GMAT and any other test you may have to take as part of an application Non-native English speaking applicants to North American universities will almost certainly have to take the TOEFL. For more about test preparation, see Adam's earlier posts on the subject.
First, find out which test you have to take. Applying to graduate school in the arts and sciences? You’ll probably need to take the GRE. Law school? The LSAT. Medical school? The MCAT. Business school? The GMAT (and/or for some schools, the GRE).
Next, if you are unfamiliar with the contents of the test you will have to take, then visit the website of the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which is the sole creator and administrator of most university, graduate- and professional school aptitude exams. For GMAT, which is administered by GMAC, see here. (Disclosure: I am an annual reader for ETS Advanced Placement exams in Comparative Politics. These exams are administered to high school students. My clients do not include high school student applicants to universities. The content of this blog does not in any way, shape or form represent the views of ETS.)
Go to your favorite bookstore (ADAM'S ONLINE BOOKSTORE IS A GREAT PLACE TO START) or library and get a practice book for the test you will take. These usually contain multiple practice exams and you should simulate actual exam conditions a few times before you take the test “for real.” In addition to official guides published by GMAC and ETS, popular test-prep book publishers include Barron’s, Kaplan, Peterson’s, and The Princeton Review. PLEASE DON'T ASK EITHER ADAM OR I FOR ADVICE ON WHICH OF THESE BOOKS TO USE, WE ARE NOT TEST PREP GURUS! That said, some combination of an official guide and test prep books is the way many applicants start to prepare.
Find out if your local university or community college offers test-prep courses. Many do and enrollment is typically open to anyone.
Think about taking test-prep class. At the best schoools, the teachers usually are hired only after obtaining a score in the top 1-2 percentile and can introduce you to time saving strategies for answering questions. Way, way back in the pre-Internet age I took the GRE without studying for it. Armed with high self-confidence and the notion that the test would be a glorified version of the ACT(an undergraduate entrance exam) - on which I earned a high score without any preparation - I entered the examination hall sure I’d ace it. I did not. As a Christmas present, my family purchased a space for me in a test prep class, and I earned the score I needed for my target schools. (This was so long ago that I do not remember the actual name of the business. The teachers were good, though.)
Also consider online courses as they may offer the same value to you as a live course depending on your needs.
If you are taking the time to read this blog, you probably do not possess that fatal combination of ignorance and arrogance that I had. Perhaps you are disciplined enough to study on your own. Perhaps you need the structure of a classroom setting. Do what works best for your own habits and learning style and aim to get the highest possible score. For more about learning style, see Adam's earlier post.
A note on why test scores matter: Admissions committees rely on these a) as indicators for potential success and b) as a factor for awarding limited graduate scholarships and awards to incoming students. The higher your score, the more valuable your application becomes on these two points. Furthermore, many schools set a minimum expected test score and will not review essays and recommendation letters from applicants whose test scores do not meet the threshold.
2. If you've chosen your field, then begin researching programs.
A good combination of databases from which you can start a search are GradSchools.com and US News & World Report’s annual guide to America’s Best Graduate Schools. The former can help you find most any program within a particular field and link you to that program’s homepage. The USN&WR guide tells you which programs in a given field are ranked the highest and why.
My MPA/MPP posts have links to great databases for finding schools and the details about them. You can fine the first post here.
Talk to people you know in your chosen field and find out where they went to graduate school and why they entered a particular program.
Find out where the scholars and experts whose work has most influenced your thinking attended graduate school.
3. Choose whom you will ask to be your recommenders and contact them as soon as you know which field you wish to pursue. It is too soon to obtain the recommendation forms for most schools, but you can never let potential recommenders know early enough that you seek their help. Think about sending them a polite note requesting their recommendation, letting them know your plans and promising to send them the necessary links/forms as soon as you obtain them yourself.
4. Start brainstorming for your resume and Statement of Purpose. Begin thinking about what your different strengths are and which of your accomplishments best illustrate them.
First, determine your specific career goals. For a fantastic way to identify your career goals see Adam's advice and methods here. I always send this particular post to my clients and they have all found it extremely helpful.
Prepare your resume or CV. My guide to producing a resume is here,
The following points are copied and condensed from the first of my two posts on writing a statement of purpose (SOP) essay for most graduate school programs (outside of business schools.) For a complete, detailed summary of how to write an SOP I hope you will look both of my posts.
Choose several accomplishments from your resume/CV to write about in your SOP. Choose accomplishments that illustrate the strengths that will help you to succeed in graduate school. Highlight different skills, i.e. do not use different accomplishments that illustrate the same strength.
Decide how you can distinguish yourself. Assume that everyone applying to the same programs is as qualified as you. (After all, everyone who is accepted will, as will be many who are not accepted.)
What makes you unique? Think about this in terms of marketing yourself: Figure out how to stand out in a field of qualified applicants.
SUMMARY & CONCLUSION
Ideally you should have only two things to do this fall: Write essays and complete application forms, including collecting recommendation letters and/or confirming they have been sent directly to schools when necessary. By August you should have obtained a strong test score, selected your target graduate programs, secured commitments for letters of recommendation. Between late summer and mid-December or January you should focus on writing the best possible graduate application essays, free of other application-related worries.
You probably don't need to do work on these things every day between now and this fall, but if you keep them in the back of your mind now then they'll get to the front of your mind, and onto your notebook or computer screen sooner rather than later.
GOOD LUCK!
- H. Steven Green
For questions regarding this post, please contact me at h.steven.green@gmail.com. To learn more about my graduate admissions consulting services, please click here.
- H. Steven ("Steve") Green, グリーン・ハロルド・スティーブン
大学院留学 カリフォルニア大学バークレー校 マクスウェルスクール シラキューズ大学 ハーバード大学ケネディスクール コロンビア大学の国際関係・公共政策大学院（通称SIPA)
Guest Blogger Steve Green is Back
My guest blogger and colleague, Steve Green, is back!
-Adam
Hi, I’m back! After an extended break from guest-blogging, I am glad to be back on the blog, home of the very best MBA admissions information. Due to higher than expected demand, clients kept me busier than I’d anticipated this past application season.
I am pleased to report that all of my graduate clients gained admittance to one or more of their target schools. My clients are highly accomplished and intelligent and were accepted to prestigious schools. My MPP/MPA clients were accepted to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (KSG), the School of International & Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia, and the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins, among others.
I was also fortunate to work with a talented professional in the field of urban planning & development who gained admittance to Columbia’s School of Urban Design, among other programs. I truly enjoyed working with my clients this past season and am proud to have helped to play a part in the realization of their dreams.
What were the secrets of their success? In addition to what you might expect- great essays, GPAs, test scores, and references- I believe all of my clients succeeded for two reasons:
First, they started working on their essays well ahead of admissions deadlines (as well as on their entire application package).
Second, they worked diligently on their essays by devoting most of their free time to composing and revising their drafts until they’d created compositions that revealed their most excellent stories in the best-possible style and form.
I’ve already acquired new clients for the next application season. I am impressed at their early start to this process and I am excited to get to know more about their professional and academic dreams.
Whatever your grad school dreams are, I hope you will devote the necessary time and energy to achieving them! Good luck!
- H. Steven Green
For questions regarding this post, please contact me at h.steven.green@gmail.com. To learn more about my graduate admissions consulting services, please click here.
- H. Steven ("Steve") Green, グリーン・ハロルド・スティーブン 大学院留学 カリフォルニア大学バークレー校 マクスウェルスクール シラキューズ大学 ハーバード大学ケネディスクール コロンビア大学の国際関係・公共政策大学院（通称SIPA)
-Adam
Hi, I’m back! After an extended break from guest-blogging, I am glad to be back on the blog, home of the very best MBA admissions information. Due to higher than expected demand, clients kept me busier than I’d anticipated this past application season.
I am pleased to report that all of my graduate clients gained admittance to one or more of their target schools. My clients are highly accomplished and intelligent and were accepted to prestigious schools. My MPP/MPA clients were accepted to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (KSG), the School of International & Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia, and the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins, among others.
I was also fortunate to work with a talented professional in the field of urban planning & development who gained admittance to Columbia’s School of Urban Design, among other programs. I truly enjoyed working with my clients this past season and am proud to have helped to play a part in the realization of their dreams.
What were the secrets of their success? In addition to what you might expect- great essays, GPAs, test scores, and references- I believe all of my clients succeeded for two reasons:
First, they started working on their essays well ahead of admissions deadlines (as well as on their entire application package).
Second, they worked diligently on their essays by devoting most of their free time to composing and revising their drafts until they’d created compositions that revealed their most excellent stories in the best-possible style and form.
I’ve already acquired new clients for the next application season. I am impressed at their early start to this process and I am excited to get to know more about their professional and academic dreams.
Whatever your grad school dreams are, I hope you will devote the necessary time and energy to achieving them! Good luck!
- H. Steven Green
For questions regarding this post, please contact me at h.steven.green@gmail.com. To learn more about my graduate admissions consulting services, please click here.
- H. Steven ("Steve") Green, グリーン・ハロルド・スティーブン 大学院留学 カリフォルニア大学バークレー校 マクスウェルスクール シラキューズ大学 ハーバード大学ケネディスクール コロンビア大学の国際関係・公共政策大学院（通称SIPA)
The Fall 2009 Admisisons Season: Results and Trends
Sorry for the long delay in my return to regular posting, but clients from around the world have been keeping me busy. In this post, I discuss my clients' results, some trends I have noticed for Fall 2009 (mostly MBA) admissions, and some suggestions for Fall 2010 admission strategy related to goals, school selection, and an issue specific to Japan candidates (日本のみなさん、下を見てください). My analysis of trends is subject to change as more data becomes available.
CLIENT RESULTS
Working with applicants for Fall 2009 admission has kept me rather busy, but my clients’ results have been great. I have redone my client results and testimonials page to be both more comprehensive and more readable (I hope). You can find that page here. I am certain that more great results will be coming in. I work with a small group of clients every year, mostly MBA applicants, a few LL.M. applicants (two out of three were admitted to Harvard Law School), and small group of applicants applying to other types of programs.
A HARD YEAR FOR APPLICANTS
Given that I only work with a small group of clients, my perspective on trends is anecdotal, but I clearly think this was a highly competitive year for applicants. It seems to me that highly qualified applicants are still getting in, but I think there has been a net increase in the amount of waitlisting and a decrease in the number of offers per client. Again, this is not based on real data, but a sense of what I am seeing with both my Japanese and non-Japanese (US, South Korea, India, China, Turkey, Europe, Middle East) client base. Beyond my own client base, I am hearing stories that are consistent with this view. While I have clients who were admitted to top schools who only applied to two or three MBA programs, most clients applied to five or more schools. For Fall 2010, I would highly recommend that highly qualified applicants plan on applying five to ten top schools to maximize their chances. Especially for those who have obvious weaknesses (low GPA, low test scores, spotty work record), to maximize the chance for admission to a top program, I think application to seven to twelve "top" schools is likely to be necessary to maximize admission results. If I an applicant is applying to safety schools, I am not necessarily convinced there is any to initially apply to more than one or two of those. The good thing about safety schools is that since there yields are likely to be low, they are generally easy to enter in late rounds.
A CAREER IN ANYTHING? INTERNSHIPS ARE HARD TO FIND AND OFFERS ARE DECREASING, SO FOR 2010…
Both the anecdotal job and internship placement news I have heard from MBA students and that presented in the mass media has been basically bleak. I assume all the readers of this blog are familiar with the sorry state of the worldwide job market. It would seem to me that those planning on attending MBA programs over the next couple of years have be prepared for a bleak job market and limited internship options. The reasonable expectation of a well-paid internship and multiple job offers for those attending top MBA programs is likely to be something that ended with the graduating class of 2007. Things started to become hard in Spring/Summer 2008, but that will be nothing compared to the situation this year. One could optimistically hope for a recovery that would make 2010 more promising, but I remain pessimistic about the chances for a quick recovery. For Fall 2010, applicants will really need to think extremely carefully about showing both the viability and flexibility of their short-term goals. Hedging short-term goals (HAVE A PLAN B!) would be quite reasonable. Long-term career vision, ones overall aspirations, are likely to be increasingly more important to focus on because of the lack of short-term certainty.
A CAREER IN FINANCE? IT DEPENDS WHO YOU ARE
For Fall 2009 admission, applicants with professional backgrounds in finance could obtain admission at top programs based on post-MBA finance goals. However, those who stated their intention of moving into finance careers may have encountered significant obstacles. Especially for those who are not in the finance industry, post-MBA finance career goals seem increasingly untenable. Here in Japan, the situation is somewhat different because the banks are significantly healthier than elsewhere. Still, unless you have significant finance industry experience, I can’t recommend having goals that involve getting into the finance industry. MBA career services offices are increasingly telling their job hunting students who had plans to go into finance to look for finance related jobs within companies because of the lack of employment opportunities within the industry. If you are without finance industry experience, unless you are simply incapable of coming up with a clear alternative to a career in finance, I can see no good reason for making your MBA essay goals centered on such a career.
MANAGEMENT CONSULTING: THE ONLY BIG GAME IN TOWN, BUT FOR HOW LONG?
Many of the former consultants who were going to go into finance post-MBA are no doubt working hard to get back into consulting. Still, stating an intention to go into management consulting post-MBA remained effective for application purposes for those without prior management consulting experience. I hope that it continues to be the case because with finance sector jobs becoming increasingly hard to find, management consulting is now without rival in terms of its importance for post-MBA employment. Clearly certain areas of consulting (management or otherwise) will grow in the present economy: Turnaround, outplacement, compliance-related, and regulatory-related consulting are likely to grow over the coming years in the US and Europe.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
I have found that those who have post-MBA entrepreneurial goals are doing just fine. I assume that this trend will continue and likely expand. Downturns are traditionally considered good for entrepreneurship (Cheap talent is in large supply, the opportunity cost involved in taking a smaller salary and greater risk are proportionally smaller, and investors are looking for something to put their money into) and so this is a great time for those with entrepreneurial aspirations. So for Fall 2010, as long as you can sound like you know what you are talking about (If you can’t them believe in an MBA application essay, you probably lack the necessary potential to convince a VC!), entrepreneurial goals will work well. It will be completely in-line with most school’s admissions messages anyway. My guess is that MBA programs will be putting more resources into entrepreneurship because it dovetails well with the present economy and is directly associated with other “sexy” areas like social entrepreneurship, green business, and small scale enterprise.
GOVERNMENT JOBS
More and more MBAs (and lawyers and accountants) will find themselves looking for secure government jobs. The compensation might not be as (hypothetically) great as what would be available in the private sector, but many will find the option increasingly attractive. MBA programs with a strong public sector focus like Yale will likely benefit from this trend in the coming years. Look for both increased competition and cooperation between MBA and public policy programs.
FIND A NICHE!
As always those who can identify and make a strong case for defending a very specific niche are likely to find themselves in a very happy position. As in past years, some of my clients articulated goals that were totally unique to themselves. This is not an easy thing to do or do well, but if you can, the admission results can be great.
THE SHORT-TERM OPPORTUNITY COST TO ATTEND MBA PROGRAMS IS GOING TO INCREASE FOR MANY APPLICANTS
As regular readers of this blog know, I initially approach the whole issue of obtaining an MBA and school selection from the viewpoint of economic rationality (See here as well as my posts on school selection). That is to say, I assume the market value of MBA (Increased salary and increased labor mobility) is the primary reason for pursuing this degree. This is not the only reason why someone would get an MBA, but it is certainly a primary one. Given, a declining job market, it is natural to assume downward pressure on salaries. I would not be surprised to see post-MBA starting salaries declining significantly at programs across the board. Thus the opportunity cost involved in attending an MBA program (lost income, employment risk, increased debt load) will increase as the benefits (increased salary and better job opportunities) for attending decline. In times like these, I think it is especially important that applicants think about the long-term value of the degree and work very hard to obtain admission to top ranking programs in order to mitigate these opportunity costs. I remain passionate about helping such applicants obtain admission to the world’s top MBA programs.
JAPANESE APPLICANTS: FIRST ROUND AT HBS AND STANFORD
The number of Japanese admitted to HBS and Stanford in the first round for Fall 2009 significantly increased from Fall 2008. For purposes of Fall 2010 admission, I would urge those who will be ready for the first round to get their Stanford applications in at that time. The second round might very well prove to be less promising. Given the much larger class size at HBS, the issue is not quite as urgent, but still I am certainly advising those who are ready to apply first round if possible. HBS significantly increased the number of Japanese who were offered interviews this year, but Stanford appears not to have done so. I hope that this HBS trend continues for Fall 2010. For other top schools, I detect no particular difference between first and second round for Japanese applicants.
NEED MBA ADMISSIONS CONSULTING?
If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール MBA留学 米国ロースクール 米国大学法学院 大学院入学 カウンセリング コンサルティング 大学院 エッセイインタビュー 面接 推薦 履歴書レジュメ
CLIENT RESULTS
Working with applicants for Fall 2009 admission has kept me rather busy, but my clients’ results have been great. I have redone my client results and testimonials page to be both more comprehensive and more readable (I hope). You can find that page here. I am certain that more great results will be coming in. I work with a small group of clients every year, mostly MBA applicants, a few LL.M. applicants (two out of three were admitted to Harvard Law School), and small group of applicants applying to other types of programs.
A HARD YEAR FOR APPLICANTS
Given that I only work with a small group of clients, my perspective on trends is anecdotal, but I clearly think this was a highly competitive year for applicants. It seems to me that highly qualified applicants are still getting in, but I think there has been a net increase in the amount of waitlisting and a decrease in the number of offers per client. Again, this is not based on real data, but a sense of what I am seeing with both my Japanese and non-Japanese (US, South Korea, India, China, Turkey, Europe, Middle East) client base. Beyond my own client base, I am hearing stories that are consistent with this view. While I have clients who were admitted to top schools who only applied to two or three MBA programs, most clients applied to five or more schools. For Fall 2010, I would highly recommend that highly qualified applicants plan on applying five to ten top schools to maximize their chances. Especially for those who have obvious weaknesses (low GPA, low test scores, spotty work record), to maximize the chance for admission to a top program, I think application to seven to twelve "top" schools is likely to be necessary to maximize admission results. If I an applicant is applying to safety schools, I am not necessarily convinced there is any to initially apply to more than one or two of those. The good thing about safety schools is that since there yields are likely to be low, they are generally easy to enter in late rounds.
A CAREER IN ANYTHING? INTERNSHIPS ARE HARD TO FIND AND OFFERS ARE DECREASING, SO FOR 2010…
Both the anecdotal job and internship placement news I have heard from MBA students and that presented in the mass media has been basically bleak. I assume all the readers of this blog are familiar with the sorry state of the worldwide job market. It would seem to me that those planning on attending MBA programs over the next couple of years have be prepared for a bleak job market and limited internship options. The reasonable expectation of a well-paid internship and multiple job offers for those attending top MBA programs is likely to be something that ended with the graduating class of 2007. Things started to become hard in Spring/Summer 2008, but that will be nothing compared to the situation this year. One could optimistically hope for a recovery that would make 2010 more promising, but I remain pessimistic about the chances for a quick recovery. For Fall 2010, applicants will really need to think extremely carefully about showing both the viability and flexibility of their short-term goals. Hedging short-term goals (HAVE A PLAN B!) would be quite reasonable. Long-term career vision, ones overall aspirations, are likely to be increasingly more important to focus on because of the lack of short-term certainty.
A CAREER IN FINANCE? IT DEPENDS WHO YOU ARE
For Fall 2009 admission, applicants with professional backgrounds in finance could obtain admission at top programs based on post-MBA finance goals. However, those who stated their intention of moving into finance careers may have encountered significant obstacles. Especially for those who are not in the finance industry, post-MBA finance career goals seem increasingly untenable. Here in Japan, the situation is somewhat different because the banks are significantly healthier than elsewhere. Still, unless you have significant finance industry experience, I can’t recommend having goals that involve getting into the finance industry. MBA career services offices are increasingly telling their job hunting students who had plans to go into finance to look for finance related jobs within companies because of the lack of employment opportunities within the industry. If you are without finance industry experience, unless you are simply incapable of coming up with a clear alternative to a career in finance, I can see no good reason for making your MBA essay goals centered on such a career.
MANAGEMENT CONSULTING: THE ONLY BIG GAME IN TOWN, BUT FOR HOW LONG?
Many of the former consultants who were going to go into finance post-MBA are no doubt working hard to get back into consulting. Still, stating an intention to go into management consulting post-MBA remained effective for application purposes for those without prior management consulting experience. I hope that it continues to be the case because with finance sector jobs becoming increasingly hard to find, management consulting is now without rival in terms of its importance for post-MBA employment. Clearly certain areas of consulting (management or otherwise) will grow in the present economy: Turnaround, outplacement, compliance-related, and regulatory-related consulting are likely to grow over the coming years in the US and Europe.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
I have found that those who have post-MBA entrepreneurial goals are doing just fine. I assume that this trend will continue and likely expand. Downturns are traditionally considered good for entrepreneurship (Cheap talent is in large supply, the opportunity cost involved in taking a smaller salary and greater risk are proportionally smaller, and investors are looking for something to put their money into) and so this is a great time for those with entrepreneurial aspirations. So for Fall 2010, as long as you can sound like you know what you are talking about (If you can’t them believe in an MBA application essay, you probably lack the necessary potential to convince a VC!), entrepreneurial goals will work well. It will be completely in-line with most school’s admissions messages anyway. My guess is that MBA programs will be putting more resources into entrepreneurship because it dovetails well with the present economy and is directly associated with other “sexy” areas like social entrepreneurship, green business, and small scale enterprise.
GOVERNMENT JOBS
More and more MBAs (and lawyers and accountants) will find themselves looking for secure government jobs. The compensation might not be as (hypothetically) great as what would be available in the private sector, but many will find the option increasingly attractive. MBA programs with a strong public sector focus like Yale will likely benefit from this trend in the coming years. Look for both increased competition and cooperation between MBA and public policy programs.
FIND A NICHE!
As always those who can identify and make a strong case for defending a very specific niche are likely to find themselves in a very happy position. As in past years, some of my clients articulated goals that were totally unique to themselves. This is not an easy thing to do or do well, but if you can, the admission results can be great.
THE SHORT-TERM OPPORTUNITY COST TO ATTEND MBA PROGRAMS IS GOING TO INCREASE FOR MANY APPLICANTS
As regular readers of this blog know, I initially approach the whole issue of obtaining an MBA and school selection from the viewpoint of economic rationality (See here as well as my posts on school selection). That is to say, I assume the market value of MBA (Increased salary and increased labor mobility) is the primary reason for pursuing this degree. This is not the only reason why someone would get an MBA, but it is certainly a primary one. Given, a declining job market, it is natural to assume downward pressure on salaries. I would not be surprised to see post-MBA starting salaries declining significantly at programs across the board. Thus the opportunity cost involved in attending an MBA program (lost income, employment risk, increased debt load) will increase as the benefits (increased salary and better job opportunities) for attending decline. In times like these, I think it is especially important that applicants think about the long-term value of the degree and work very hard to obtain admission to top ranking programs in order to mitigate these opportunity costs. I remain passionate about helping such applicants obtain admission to the world’s top MBA programs.
JAPANESE APPLICANTS: FIRST ROUND AT HBS AND STANFORD
The number of Japanese admitted to HBS and Stanford in the first round for Fall 2009 significantly increased from Fall 2008. For purposes of Fall 2010 admission, I would urge those who will be ready for the first round to get their Stanford applications in at that time. The second round might very well prove to be less promising. Given the much larger class size at HBS, the issue is not quite as urgent, but still I am certainly advising those who are ready to apply first round if possible. HBS significantly increased the number of Japanese who were offered interviews this year, but Stanford appears not to have done so. I hope that this HBS trend continues for Fall 2010. For other top schools, I detect no particular difference between first and second round for Japanese applicants.
NEED MBA ADMISSIONS CONSULTING?
If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール MBA留学 米国ロースクール 米国大学法学院 大学院入学 カウンセリング コンサルティング 大学院 エッセイインタビュー 面接 推薦 履歴書レジュメ
April 01, 2009
WHARTON AND COLUMBIA BUSINESS SCHOOL TO MERGE
As a result of the financial crisis and the reduced demand for MBAs in the financial sector, reliable sources inform me that Wharton and Columbia Business School will be merging. More details to follow.
If you believe this, you don't know it is April Fools' Day.
-Adam
If you believe this, you don't know it is April Fools' Day.
-Adam
March Madness: Sorry for the lack of posts
Sorry for the lack of posting in March, but my clients have been keeping me busy.
-Adam
-Adam
March 18, 2009
Reminder: Take the MBA Search Survey!
Reminder: Take the MBA Search Survey! Win Fabulous Prizes!
I know that many applicants visit my site as a source of reliable information and valuable advice on the MBA admissions process. As a member of the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants, we are conducting a survey to help us better understand the goals and needs of applicants. I ’d like to invite all of my readers to share their school selection priorities and views on the MBA application process.
I know that many applicants visit my site as a source of reliable information and valuable advice on the MBA admissions process. As a member of the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants, we are conducting a survey to help us better understand the goals and needs of applicants. I ’d like to invite all of my readers to share their school selection priorities and views on the MBA application process.
This online survey should take just 10 minutes to complete. We would love to receive as many responses as possible before the closing date of Friday, March 20th - and will be giving away an iPod Touch and two iPod Shuffles as a token of our gratitude!
Thanks in advance for your participation!
3/23 UPDATE: The survey has ended.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール MBA留学
March 11, 2009
Take the MBA Search Survey!
Take the MBA Search Survey!
I know that many applicants visit my site as a source of reliable information and valuable advice on the MBA admissions process. As a member of the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants, we are conducting a survey to help us better understand the goals and needs of applicants. I ’d like to invite all of my readers to share their school selection priorities and views on the MBA application process.
I know that many applicants visit my site as a source of reliable information and valuable advice on the MBA admissions process. As a member of the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants, we are conducting a survey to help us better understand the goals and needs of applicants. I ’d like to invite all of my readers to share their school selection priorities and views on the MBA application process.
This online survey should take just 10 minutes to complete. We would love to receive as many responses as possible before the closing date of Friday, March 20th - and will be giving away an iPod Touch and two iPod Shuffles as a token of our gratitude!
Thanks in advance for your participation!
3/23 UPDATE: The survey has ended.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール MBA留学
March 03, 2009
Thinking about Fall 2010 Admission?
While the Fall 2009 admissions season is not completely over, for those of you thinking about Fall 2010 admission, I am taking appointments for initial free consultations now. I have already started working with some clients already for Fall 2010 MBA admissions. In addition to MBA, I help clients gain admission to LL.M. and other graduate programs.
What I can do for my clients: Quite simply, I can help you get in. I can't guarantee success at any specific school, but no one who is honest with you can. Since 2001, I have helped my clients obtain admission to top US, UK, and Continental European MBA, LL.M, and other graduate programs.
My objective is to provide my clients with successful cost-effective consulting that results in their admission to programs of their choice. I will make the application process as pleasant, efficient, and successful as possible.
I offer a high level of flexibility in terms of pricing and service delivery to best meet the diverse needs of my clients. Information about my pricing and service structure is here. Client testimonials and results can be found here.
If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール MBA留学 米国ロースクール 米国大学法学院 大学院入学 カウンセリング コンサルティング 大学院 エッセイインタビュー 面接 推薦 履歴書レジュメ
What I can do for my clients: Quite simply, I can help you get in. I can't guarantee success at any specific school, but no one who is honest with you can. Since 2001, I have helped my clients obtain admission to top US, UK, and Continental European MBA, LL.M, and other graduate programs.
My objective is to provide my clients with successful cost-effective consulting that results in their admission to programs of their choice. I will make the application process as pleasant, efficient, and successful as possible.
I offer a high level of flexibility in terms of pricing and service delivery to best meet the diverse needs of my clients. Information about my pricing and service structure is here. Client testimonials and results can be found here.
If you are looking for a highly experienced admissions consultant who is passionate about helping his clients succeed, please feel free to contact me at adammarkus@gmail.com to arrange an initial consultation. Initial consultations are conducted by Skype or telephone. For clients in Tokyo, a free face-to-face consultation is possible after an initial Skype or telephone consultation. I only work with a limited number of clients per year and believe that an initial consultation is the best way to determine whether there is a good fit. Whether you use my service or another, I suggest making certain that the fit feels right to you.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
ビジネススクール MBA留学 米国ロースクール 米国大学法学院 大学院入学 カウンセリング コンサルティング 大学院 エッセイインタビュー 面接 推薦 履歴書レジュメ
February 12, 2009
Carnival of College Admissions Graduate Section
I have joined the Carnival of College Admissions. While most of this blog carnival is focused on undergraduate admissions, from this edition on, a graduate section has been opened and my recent post on waitlisting is mentioned. This edition of the Carnival of College Admissions is hosted by Mark Montgomery, an independent undergraduate college counselor. Thanks to Mark for putting this together.
- Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
- Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
BW on MBA compensation and Forbes on hiring
If you have not done so, I strongly suggest reading BusinessWeek's "MBA Pay: A Crystal Ball" because it provides a very useful perspective on compensation and another alternative way to rank programs. BusinessWeek commissioned a study of MBA pay over a period of 20 years for "45 top-ranked full-time MBA programs—BusinessWeek's 30 Best B-Schools of 2008 plus 15 additional second-tier schools." What the study shows is that BusinessWeek ranking is for some schools is a very good indicator of their 20 year performance, while for others it is not. Play with the interactive table and you can see the 20 year rankings compared to the BusinessWeek rankings. As the article makes clear, the study they did does have limits and past performance is no clear indicator of future performance, but still for those deciding where to apply or those who need to decide where to attend, it is quite useful.
Moving from long-term to more immediate considerations, Forbes' "It's A Good Time To Go To A B-Level B-School" reports that job expectations and placement for those graduating from second tier schools is in some sense better than at higher ranked programs. The article actually provides no real comparison data and seems to be a case of a writer gloating about the diminished opportunities for those who graduate from top schools:
Not that M.B.A. holders from the name-brand schools are going without work. With their first-choice jobs gone, they're finding there are plenty of smaller employers eager to hire them. They're just not starting careers as rich or as glamorous as they once expected. They're going to places they wouldn't have taken a second look at in the past.
Anyway, both articles are worth looking at.
Moving from long-term to more immediate considerations, Forbes' "It's A Good Time To Go To A B-Level B-School" reports that job expectations and placement for those graduating from second tier schools is in some sense better than at higher ranked programs. The article actually provides no real comparison data and seems to be a case of a writer gloating about the diminished opportunities for those who graduate from top schools:
Not that M.B.A. holders from the name-brand schools are going without work. With their first-choice jobs gone, they're finding there are plenty of smaller employers eager to hire them. They're just not starting careers as rich or as glamorous as they once expected. They're going to places they wouldn't have taken a second look at in the past.
What a difference a recession makes.
It certainly stands to reason that those graduating from top schools right now would be experiencing diminished expectations, but to assume that those at lower ranked schools are actually in a better position is a rather large assumption. Where is the data?Anyway, both articles are worth looking at.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
ビジネススクール MBA留学
アダム マーカス
Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
ビジネススクール MBA留学
February 11, 2009
"Real" Global MBA Rankings for 2009: "The 100"
The "Real" Global MBA Rankings for 2009: FT Global MBA Rankings in Weighted US$ Salary Order
This is my second annual ranking of programs in salary order. This year, instead of 98 schools, FT has 100, so I have 100. The rankings below should hopefully be of value for both those engaged in initial school application selection and for admitted applicants who have been accepted to multiple programs and need to determine where to go.
“Methodology”: All FT "Global MBA Rankings 2009" Data was ranked in order of “ Weight Salary ($).” No other methods were employed.
Justification #1: Whatever they pay you when you graduate is the market value of your degree, all other factors are mere conjecture.
Justification #2: One may very well value an MBA beyond mere salary calculations, but salary will certainly be a factor for almost everyone.
Justification #3: Since each school reports its own data, assuming that data is good, the ranking is based on objective criteria that all programs have in common.
Disclaimer #1: I could use some other accumulation of salaries for this same purpose, but FT's list is global, so I decided to use it. If your school is not included on this list of the top 100, please don’t be offended. If FT ranked more programs, so would I.
Disclaimer #2: Actual market value will very much depend on your situation. The numbers below are only averages.
Disclaimer #3: Salary is but one measure of ROI. This survey does not account for relative increase in salary, opportunity costs, or other less tangible, but important factors.
Disclaimer #4: These rankings in no way measure the value of the educational experience at any of these programs, merely the likely post-MBA salary outcome.
School Selection Strategy for Those Admitted to Multiple Programs: Go to the highest salary ranked program if you want to obtain the most market value.
School Application Selection Strategy Based on Salary Approach.
Simply compare salaries to rates of admission. I will provide new data on this, but here is the old data. If you want new data, you should go to the various ranking lists to obtain Fall 2008 admission rates.
1. Apply to the highest ranked programs you think you can get it into.
2. Find bargains: Schools with a high salary and a high rate of admission.
3. Avoid application to schools with a relatively low admissions rates and lower salaries.
4. Caveat emptor.
1 Stanford University GSB U.S.A. $170,340
2 University of Pennsylvania Wharton U.S.A. $169,784
3 Columbia Business School U.S.A. $164,310
4 Harvard Business School U.S.A. $163,637
5 MIT: Sloan U.S.A. $156,451
6 Dartmouth College: Tuck U.S.A. $156,124
7 CEIBS China $151,641
8 IMD Switzerland $151,624
9 University of Chicago: Booth U.S.A. $150,272
10 Indian School of Business India $148,339
11 INSEAD France / Singapore $147,908
12 London Business School U.K. $146,565
13 New York University: Stern U.S.A. $144,125
14 University of Cape Town GSB South Africa $143,693
15 Northwestern University: Kellogg U.S.A. $142,645
16 UCLA: Anderson U.S.A. $141,065
17 Yale School of Management U.S.A. $140,803
18 University of California at Berkeley: Haas U.S.A. $137,699
19 University of Virginia: Darden U.S.A. $137,215
20 University of Oxford: Saïd U.K. $135,502
21 IE Business School Spain $132,925
22 University of Michigan: Ross U.S.A. $132,522
23 University of Cambridge: Judge U.K. $130,160
24 Duke University: Fuqua U.S.A. $128,692
25 Cornell University: Johnson U.S.A. $127,858
26 Australian School of Business Australia $127,474
27 Cranfield School of Management U.K. $127,004
28 Emory University: Goizueta U.S.A. $126,262
29 IESE Business School Spain $124,645
30 City University: Cass U.K. $124,026
31 Georgetown University: McDonough U.S.A. $121,786
32 ESADE Business School Spain $121,776
33 University of North Carolina: Kenan-Flagler U.S.A. $120,198
34 University of Strathclyde Business School U.K. $118,683
35 HEC Paris France $117,630
36 Imperial College Business School U.K. $117,119
37 Carnegie Mellon: Tepper U.S.A. $116,773
38 University of Southern California: Marshall U.S.A. $116,258
39 University of Rochester: Simon U.S.A. $115,867
40 University of Texas at Austin: McCombs U.S.A. $114,761
41 Warwick Business School U.K. $114,653
42 Vanderbilt University: Owen U.S.A. $110,768
43 Melbourne Business School Australia $110,290
44 RSM, Erasmus University Netherlands $109,997
45 Babson College: Olin U.S.A. $109,541
46 Washington University: Olin U.S.A. $109,507
47 Rice University: Jones U.S.A. $109,302
48 Manchester Business School U.K. $109,066
49 SMU: Cox U.S.A. $109,052
50 University of Maryland: Smith U.S.A. $108,404
51 Hong Kong UST Business School China $108,364
52 Boston College: Carroll U.S.A. $108,162
53 Indiana University: Kelley U.S.A. $107,653
54 University of Bath School of Management U.K. $107,613
55 Lancaster University Management School U.K. $106,960
56 University of Notre Dame: Mendoza U.S.A. $106,487
57 Pennsylvania State University: Smeal U.S.A. $105,728
58 U. of Washington Business School: Foster U.S.A. $105,558
59 Boston University School of Management U.S.A. $105,532
60 University College Dublin: Smurfit Ireland $104,934
61 SDA Bocconi Italy $104,859
62 University of Western Ontario: Ivey Canada $104,456
63 Nanyang Business School Singapore $104,294
64 Durham Business School U.K. $104,282
65 Michigan State University: Broad U.S.A. $102,897
66 Univ. of California at Irvine: Merage U.S.A. $102,010
67 Univ. of Edinburgh Business School U.K. $101,884
68 George Washington University U.S.A. $101,530
69 University of Florida: Hough U.S.A. $101,343
70 Vlerick Leuven Gent Mgnt. School Belgium $101,180
71 University of Arizona: Eller U.S.A. $101,066
72 Leeds University Business School U.K. $100,918
72 Purdue University: Krannert U.S.A. $100,856
73 Wake Forest University: Babcock U.S.A. $100,727
74 Nottingham University Business School U.K. $99,647
75 Arizona State University: Carey U.S.A. $99,624
76 Case Western Reserve U.: Weatherhead U.S.A. $99,238
77 Thunderbird School of Global Mngt. U.S.A. $99,187
78 Wisconsin School of Business U.S.A. $99,138
79 Texas A & M University: Mays U.S.A. $98,647
80 University of Minnesota: Carlson U.S.A. $98,451
81 Brigham Young University: Marriott U.S.A. $97,789
82 University of Toronto: Rotman Canada $97,413
83 Coppead Brazil $96,938
84 Hult International B. School USA/ UK/ UAE $96,915
85 Bradford School of Management/Tias
86.Nimbas Business School U.K. / Netherlands / Germany $96,144
87 NUS School of Business Singapore $95,926
88 University of Pittsburgh: Katz U.S.A. $95,633
89 Ohio State University: Fisher U.S.A. $93,744
90 U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign U.S.A. $92,863
91 University of Iowa: Tippie U.S.A. $92,166
92 U. of Miami School of Business U.S.A. $92,064
93 U. of South Carolina: Moore U.S.A. $91,774
94 EADA Spain $89,786
95 U. of British Columbia: Sauder Canada $89,682
96 York University: Schulich Canada $88,609
97 Aston Business School U.K. $86,364
98 Grenoble Grad. School of Business France $83,516
99 Birmingham Business School U.K. $82,624
100 University of Alberta Canada $75,084
One advantage of a salary-based list of programs worldwide is that it helps to see the rising global market value of MBA programs. It also means that those of us who help applicants considering worldwide application, start to pay more attention to such national leaders as the Indian School of Business, China Europe International Business School, and Australian Graduate School of Management.
For those with a US MBA bias, this ranking should be humbling because so many of what are usually ranked quite highly in the US, don't, at least at the salary level, look as attractive as a FT, Businessweek or other such ranking might suggest.
From a school selection perspective, I think looking at the stark reality of the expected financial outcome is critical. Looking at this solely helps to put the outcome into focus. "The 100" is only one possible way of doing this.
I am well aware that applicants don't simply make selection choices on the basis of salary, but I think evaluating programs on this basis is one important consideration.
Given the present grim economic situation, it stands to reason that we might see a decline in these salary numbers over the next couple of years. It will especially be interesting to see whether US and UK schools that are highly connected to the financial industry lose their present high rank on this list.
Finally, I would like to thank "my team" at FT for doing all of the hard work. They have this nifty way of generating excel documents that really reduced my work by hours.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
ビジネススクール MBA留学
This is my second annual ranking of programs in salary order. This year, instead of 98 schools, FT has 100, so I have 100. The rankings below should hopefully be of value for both those engaged in initial school application selection and for admitted applicants who have been accepted to multiple programs and need to determine where to go.
“Methodology”: All FT "Global MBA Rankings 2009" Data was ranked in order of “ Weight Salary ($).” No other methods were employed.
Justification #1: Whatever they pay you when you graduate is the market value of your degree, all other factors are mere conjecture.
Justification #2: One may very well value an MBA beyond mere salary calculations, but salary will certainly be a factor for almost everyone.
Justification #3: Since each school reports its own data, assuming that data is good, the ranking is based on objective criteria that all programs have in common.
Disclaimer #1: I could use some other accumulation of salaries for this same purpose, but FT's list is global, so I decided to use it. If your school is not included on this list of the top 100, please don’t be offended. If FT ranked more programs, so would I.
Disclaimer #2: Actual market value will very much depend on your situation. The numbers below are only averages.
Disclaimer #3: Salary is but one measure of ROI. This survey does not account for relative increase in salary, opportunity costs, or other less tangible, but important factors.
Disclaimer #4: These rankings in no way measure the value of the educational experience at any of these programs, merely the likely post-MBA salary outcome.
School Selection Strategy for Those Admitted to Multiple Programs: Go to the highest salary ranked program if you want to obtain the most market value.
School Application Selection Strategy Based on Salary Approach.
Simply compare salaries to rates of admission. I will provide new data on this, but here is the old data. If you want new data, you should go to the various ranking lists to obtain Fall 2008 admission rates.
1. Apply to the highest ranked programs you think you can get it into.
2. Find bargains: Schools with a high salary and a high rate of admission.
3. Avoid application to schools with a relatively low admissions rates and lower salaries.
4. Caveat emptor.
"THE 100"
Rank School Country Weighted Salary1 Stanford University GSB U.S.A. $170,340
2 University of Pennsylvania Wharton U.S.A. $169,784
3 Columbia Business School U.S.A. $164,310
4 Harvard Business School U.S.A. $163,637
5 MIT: Sloan U.S.A. $156,451
6 Dartmouth College: Tuck U.S.A. $156,124
7 CEIBS China $151,641
8 IMD Switzerland $151,624
9 University of Chicago: Booth U.S.A. $150,272
10 Indian School of Business India $148,339
11 INSEAD France / Singapore $147,908
12 London Business School U.K. $146,565
13 New York University: Stern U.S.A. $144,125
14 University of Cape Town GSB South Africa $143,693
15 Northwestern University: Kellogg U.S.A. $142,645
16 UCLA: Anderson U.S.A. $141,065
17 Yale School of Management U.S.A. $140,803
18 University of California at Berkeley: Haas U.S.A. $137,699
19 University of Virginia: Darden U.S.A. $137,215
20 University of Oxford: Saïd U.K. $135,502
21 IE Business School Spain $132,925
22 University of Michigan: Ross U.S.A. $132,522
23 University of Cambridge: Judge U.K. $130,160
24 Duke University: Fuqua U.S.A. $128,692
25 Cornell University: Johnson U.S.A. $127,858
26 Australian School of Business Australia $127,474
27 Cranfield School of Management U.K. $127,004
28 Emory University: Goizueta U.S.A. $126,262
29 IESE Business School Spain $124,645
30 City University: Cass U.K. $124,026
31 Georgetown University: McDonough U.S.A. $121,786
32 ESADE Business School Spain $121,776
33 University of North Carolina: Kenan-Flagler U.S.A. $120,198
34 University of Strathclyde Business School U.K. $118,683
35 HEC Paris France $117,630
36 Imperial College Business School U.K. $117,119
37 Carnegie Mellon: Tepper U.S.A. $116,773
38 University of Southern California: Marshall U.S.A. $116,258
39 University of Rochester: Simon U.S.A. $115,867
40 University of Texas at Austin: McCombs U.S.A. $114,761
41 Warwick Business School U.K. $114,653
42 Vanderbilt University: Owen U.S.A. $110,768
43 Melbourne Business School Australia $110,290
44 RSM, Erasmus University Netherlands $109,997
45 Babson College: Olin U.S.A. $109,541
46 Washington University: Olin U.S.A. $109,507
47 Rice University: Jones U.S.A. $109,302
48 Manchester Business School U.K. $109,066
49 SMU: Cox U.S.A. $109,052
50 University of Maryland: Smith U.S.A. $108,404
51 Hong Kong UST Business School China $108,364
52 Boston College: Carroll U.S.A. $108,162
53 Indiana University: Kelley U.S.A. $107,653
54 University of Bath School of Management U.K. $107,613
55 Lancaster University Management School U.K. $106,960
56 University of Notre Dame: Mendoza U.S.A. $106,487
57 Pennsylvania State University: Smeal U.S.A. $105,728
58 U. of Washington Business School: Foster U.S.A. $105,558
59 Boston University School of Management U.S.A. $105,532
60 University College Dublin: Smurfit Ireland $104,934
61 SDA Bocconi Italy $104,859
62 University of Western Ontario: Ivey Canada $104,456
63 Nanyang Business School Singapore $104,294
64 Durham Business School U.K. $104,282
65 Michigan State University: Broad U.S.A. $102,897
66 Univ. of California at Irvine: Merage U.S.A. $102,010
67 Univ. of Edinburgh Business School U.K. $101,884
68 George Washington University U.S.A. $101,530
69 University of Florida: Hough U.S.A. $101,343
70 Vlerick Leuven Gent Mgnt. School Belgium $101,180
71 University of Arizona: Eller U.S.A. $101,066
72 Leeds University Business School U.K. $100,918
72 Purdue University: Krannert U.S.A. $100,856
73 Wake Forest University: Babcock U.S.A. $100,727
74 Nottingham University Business School U.K. $99,647
75 Arizona State University: Carey U.S.A. $99,624
76 Case Western Reserve U.: Weatherhead U.S.A. $99,238
77 Thunderbird School of Global Mngt. U.S.A. $99,187
78 Wisconsin School of Business U.S.A. $99,138
79 Texas A & M University: Mays U.S.A. $98,647
80 University of Minnesota: Carlson U.S.A. $98,451
81 Brigham Young University: Marriott U.S.A. $97,789
82 University of Toronto: Rotman Canada $97,413
83 Coppead Brazil $96,938
84 Hult International B. School USA/ UK/ UAE $96,915
85 Bradford School of Management/Tias
86.Nimbas Business School U.K. / Netherlands / Germany $96,144
87 NUS School of Business Singapore $95,926
88 University of Pittsburgh: Katz U.S.A. $95,633
89 Ohio State University: Fisher U.S.A. $93,744
90 U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign U.S.A. $92,863
91 University of Iowa: Tippie U.S.A. $92,166
92 U. of Miami School of Business U.S.A. $92,064
93 U. of South Carolina: Moore U.S.A. $91,774
94 EADA Spain $89,786
95 U. of British Columbia: Sauder Canada $89,682
96 York University: Schulich Canada $88,609
97 Aston Business School U.K. $86,364
98 Grenoble Grad. School of Business France $83,516
99 Birmingham Business School U.K. $82,624
100 University of Alberta Canada $75,084
One advantage of a salary-based list of programs worldwide is that it helps to see the rising global market value of MBA programs. It also means that those of us who help applicants considering worldwide application, start to pay more attention to such national leaders as the Indian School of Business, China Europe International Business School, and Australian Graduate School of Management.
For those with a US MBA bias, this ranking should be humbling because so many of what are usually ranked quite highly in the US, don't, at least at the salary level, look as attractive as a FT, Businessweek or other such ranking might suggest.
From a school selection perspective, I think looking at the stark reality of the expected financial outcome is critical. Looking at this solely helps to put the outcome into focus. "The 100" is only one possible way of doing this.
I am well aware that applicants don't simply make selection choices on the basis of salary, but I think evaluating programs on this basis is one important consideration.
Given the present grim economic situation, it stands to reason that we might see a decline in these salary numbers over the next couple of years. It will especially be interesting to see whether US and UK schools that are highly connected to the financial industry lose their present high rank on this list.
Finally, I would like to thank "my team" at FT for doing all of the hard work. They have this nifty way of generating excel documents that really reduced my work by hours.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
ビジネススクール MBA留学
February 10, 2009
HBS MBA Interview Preparation: Rip Yourself Apart!
This is a short follow-up to my post on HBS MBA interviews. In that post I wrote:
You need to know your application very completely as you will be asked by adcom about its content. Review your entire application (not just resume and essays, but everything including the transcript) very carefully and consider what your interviewer might ask you to explain more thoroughly. Remember: Anything is fair game. Assume that the weakest parts of your application will be topics in the interview. Assume the worst-case scenario and be very prepared to address their concerns. Given the annual failure rate at HBS, if you have any academic weaknesses (low GPA, a relatively weak TOEFL, insufficient proof of a quantitative background), be ready to address those issues. Be prepared to tell new stories and alternative versions of the stories you told in your essays.
A point I will be making to own clients who have been invited for the HBS interview is that proper preparation for this interview really requires that you look for all the weak points in your application: Rip yourself apart in order to try and determine what you need to be especially ready to address. Getting a fresh perspective by reviewing your own application is certainly helpful. In addition, you should consider having one or more other people who can help you prepare for this, review your entire file. If you use any paid services, make sure that the mock interviewer (admissions consultant, admissions counselor, interview coach) will be reading your application first and developing a list of questions partially based on that review, otherwise they are not really helping you prepare for an HBS interview. When I do mock interviews for interview-only clients, I always ask to read their applications if they are not doing a blind interview. For schools like HBS and MIT, which are never blind, reading the whole application (especially the essays) is critical for simulating the real thing.
If you are interested in my interview preparation or other graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant."
-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 MBA留学 インタビュー 面接
You need to know your application very completely as you will be asked by adcom about its content. Review your entire application (not just resume and essays, but everything including the transcript) very carefully and consider what your interviewer might ask you to explain more thoroughly. Remember: Anything is fair game. Assume that the weakest parts of your application will be topics in the interview. Assume the worst-case scenario and be very prepared to address their concerns. Given the annual failure rate at HBS, if you have any academic weaknesses (low GPA, a relatively weak TOEFL, insufficient proof of a quantitative background), be ready to address those issues. Be prepared to tell new stories and alternative versions of the stories you told in your essays.
A point I will be making to own clients who have been invited for the HBS interview is that proper preparation for this interview really requires that you look for all the weak points in your application: Rip yourself apart in order to try and determine what you need to be especially ready to address. Getting a fresh perspective by reviewing your own application is certainly helpful. In addition, you should consider having one or more other people who can help you prepare for this, review your entire file. If you use any paid services, make sure that the mock interviewer (admissions consultant, admissions counselor, interview coach) will be reading your application first and developing a list of questions partially based on that review, otherwise they are not really helping you prepare for an HBS interview. When I do mock interviews for interview-only clients, I always ask to read their applications if they are not doing a blind interview. For schools like HBS and MIT, which are never blind, reading the whole application (especially the essays) is critical for simulating the real thing.
If you are interested in my interview preparation or other graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant."
-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 MBA留学 インタビュー 面接
HBS: 750 Round Two invitations go out with 50-100 more to follow
If you did not get an HBS 2nd round invite today, as the HBS Admissions Director makes clear on her 2/9 blog post, it is not over yet:
Today we are sending emails to about 750 applicants inviting them to interview. Detailed information will be included in the email. I think there will be between 50 and 100 additional invitations sent between now and April 2. These will be sent out as files are reviewed - not on a designated day or days.
So, if you applied to HBS, till you hear otherwise you are still under consideration.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
Today we are sending emails to about 750 applicants inviting them to interview. Detailed information will be included in the email. I think there will be between 50 and 100 additional invitations sent between now and April 2. These will be sent out as files are reviewed - not on a designated day or days.
So, if you applied to HBS, till you hear otherwise you are still under consideration.
-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
February 09, 2009
Tuck Japan Trek 2009 Sponsor
The Japanese students at Tuck are putting on their first Japan Trek this year, which I think is wonderful way for them to teach their fellow MBA students about Japan. I am very pleased to serve as an official sponsor of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth's Japan Trek 2009 because I know such trips will build lasting bridges between individuals and nations. -Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
Questions? Write comments, but do not send me emails asking me to advise you on your application strategy unless you are interested in my consulting services. Please see my FAQ regarding the types of questions I will respond to. Before emailing me questions about your chances for admission or personal profile, please see my post on "Why I don't analyze profiles without consulting with the applicant." If you are interested in my graduate admission consulting services, please click here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
