MBA Admissions Blog by MBA Game Plan

The Art of Not Looking To Desperate When Applying to Business School

MBA Game Plan — Thu, 17 May 2012 04:24:24 +0000

When perusing the data and seeing the average starting salaries at the top-ranked MBA programs and law schools, it’s easy to get the impression that getting into a top graduate school can turn you from an 80-pound weakling into a money-making, world-beating dynamo. But don’t be fooled. Yes, these schools can significantly improve your earnings power, but to get in you have to demonstrate that you’re already a star.

We know what you’re thinking… If you’re already a star, then why would you need an MBA?

Think about what nearly every business school asks in its application: Some form of the “Why do you want an MBA from this school?” question. If you can’t answer this… Well, that’s the first filter to keep out the applicants who aren’t serious. But, beyond that first-cut filter, they hope to see something along the lines of, “I am already progressing quickly in my career, and know that a degree from your school will help me go even further.”

And, they don’t only want to hear you say that, but they also want to hear it from your recommenders, and see it on your resume, and smell it on you… Yes! Smell it on you! People can smell winners and losers, and admissions officers at top business schools and law schools are especially trained in this skill. They’re not interested in finding the 28-year-old who’s stalled in his career and needs a glorious name on his resume to get things going again.

Compare that to this answer to the “Why an MBA?” question: “My boss doesn’t get me. I haven’t yet had a chance to lead anyone. I’m just waiting for someone to discover how great I am. When they do… Then my career will really start to take off.

Here, the applicant is saying, “I know I don’t smell like a winner, but I promise there’s a winner in here somewhere!” Why would admissions officers take a chance on that when they don’t need to? They don’t need to because they’re already inundated with applications from real stars, people who are already doing really well in their careers. Wouldn’t they rather admit one of those stars, and know that they’ll go on to great things?

So, you absolutely must make sure that you show in your application that you’re already on the way up, and that the school can help add that extra 10% that will make you really successful. How? You need to point to evidence of what you’ve accomplished, how you’ve gone outside of your comfort zone and beyond your job description, and how you made a positive mark on the organization and community around you. That’s what a winner smells like, and that’s who an admissions officer wants to admit.

To stay on top on all of the latest news at the top-ranked business schools, be sure to find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

How to Finance Your MBA

MBA Game Plan — Thu, 10 May 2012 03:05:35 +0000

When it comes to getting into the world’s most competitive graduate schools, many applicants can’t see past the challenge of getting into a top program. If they’re fortunate enough to get into a school like Harvard, the thinking goes, then they’ll gladly deal with the question of how to pay for it. While this is somewhat understandable (Why worry about how you’ll pay for a yacht if you won’t ever set foot on one to begin with?), applicants owe it to themselves to consider the true cost and the true reward of the educational opportunity before them.

Many will tell you that borrowing money to pay for school is an investment and not debt, but try telling that to the loan services when they send out the monthly bill. Not only that, but the analysis is rarely about going back to school or not going, but rather about making the best possible choice. It may very well be the case that attending your dream school without the aid of scholarships or grants is the best decision, but it might also be true that a secondary opportunity starts to look a lot better when the calculator comes out.

Today we look at five things absolutely should consider before you choose which graduate school to attend:

Calculate how much you will pay over the life of your loans
A six-figure loan is a lot of money, for sure, but it is really a lot of money when the interest kicks in immediately and keeps accumulating for the life of a 10-year loan period. Students should make sure to work with the financial aid officers to figure out how much they will ultimately shell out by the time they finish making payments. Any differences in “free money” between school A and B will only become more exaggerated over time.

Don’t fall into the “drop in the bucket” mentality
Most grad students find the sticker price of graduate school so shockingly high that they sort of give up before they even get started. Not only does this lead to less-than-careful review of the award letter, lack of effort in contacting the financial aid officer, and a failure to appeal for reconsideration, it can also lead to careless spending. A bigger or nicer apartment, a car payment, and a brand new laptop are all very common expenditures for grad students, and while the extra five or ten thousand dollars doesn’t seem like much next to a $140,000 education, that extra spending will absolutely be paid for by the loans with the worst terms and highest interest rates. Those items will ultimately cost the student twice as much down the road.

Don’t give up on outside funding
More common among high school students with parents who see their life savings dwindling away, searching for outside scholarships is often something that slips past graduate school applicants. This is a mistake, as there are a variety of unique scholarships, fellowships, and writing competitions available for graduate students of all stripes. Most top grad programs feature a list of such resources on their websites and there are also both free and pay sites that collate these opportunities.

Research every financial aid opportunity at every school of interest
Believe it or not, most applicants do not perform a thorough search of each and every scholarship and fellowship offered at the schools to which they are applying. The reason this is so important is that students may actually qualify for something they aren’t even aware of. Whether it is something fairly well known like Teach For America arrangements or something more unique, students need to perform this simple step of due diligence.

Understand the true cost of the degree
Pay very close attention not only to current tuition, but also the inflation rate at that school. Some universities are seeing tuition go up more rapidly than others, so it makes sense to project the cost for the following year (or years) as well as simply looking at the tuition and cost for the first year.

To stay on top on all of the latest news at the top-ranked business schools, be sure to find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

The Growth in One-Year MBA Programs in America

MBA Game Plan — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 06:37:31 +0000

One recurring theme in graduate management education these days is the growing popularity of one-year MBA programs, especially in the United States, where two-year programs have traditionally ruled. While it used to be that one could count American one-year and accelerated programs on one hand, every other month it seems that a new school announces such a program, or at least signals its intent to launch one.

While these schools are responding to market demand, these moves invite questions about whether or not companies will be as interested in the graduates they produce. While one-year programs tend to attract applicants with more full-time work experience and/or significant business training, as these programs become more common, some wonder if they will start to attract less experienced applicants who ultimately will have a hard time finding the types of high-paying jobs they want to pursue post-MBA.

For years only a handful of top-ranked American business schools have offered accelerated MBA programs, including Kellogg, Columbia, Cornell (Johnson), and Emory (Goizueta). These programs continue to be successful, so much so that some schools are doubling down on their one-year programs, including Kellogg. We expect to see more and more schools follow suit in the next several years. The market for graduate management education is a market, after all, with the sellers (schools) always thinking about how to evolve and meet the needs of the buyers (applicants). Even in education, the sellers need to innovate or risk falling behind.

Two obstacles that schools face as they try to launch compressed programs are the challenges that grads face in finding full-time work (for those who are not returning to their same jobs), and finding a way to make sure the program covers everything that an MBA grad needs to know. Perhaps the most common reason we try to talk clients out of applying to one-year programs is that they frequently underestimate how much work they’ll need to put into landing full-time jobs after they graduate. It’s easy to think that potential employers view all grads at a business school in the same way, and that simply having a degree from the school puts you on even footing with all of your classmates. But, you will be judged for all of the experience you gained before entering business school.

Employers know that you won’t learn everything in business school — even in a two-year program — and they expect that they will need to train you a great deal once you’re hired, anyway. So, they’re as interested in your professional experience and your working style as they are in what you know from your studies. If you only have a couple of years of experience, then compounding that with less classroom training may make you even less marketable as a potential hire. So, while we love the innovation we see in today’s business schools, be wary of pursuing a one-year MBA simply because it seems like a shortcut to a high-paying job. The less full-time work experience you have, the more we urge you to stick with a two-year program, no matter where you plan on pursuing your degree.

To stay on top on all of the latest news at the top-ranked business schools, be sure to find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

Get to Know: Yale SOM

MBA Game Plan — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 04:18:20 +0000

The Yale School of Management has generated a lot of buzz recently, given its soon-to-open new campus and the school’s hiring of Wonder-Dean Ted Snyder last year. Not surprisingly, we get a lot of inquiries about the school. What does surprise us, though, is how many Yale applicants don’t really know whether the school is good fit for them. We always urge these applicants to go back and do their homework a bit more before they start crafting their applications.

Are you thinking about applying to Yale SOM this year? If so, why? How do you know if it’s really is a good fit for you? More importantly, how do you know the Yale admissions team will think you’re a good fit for the school? Today we present four things that you should know about Yale SOM before you apply:

“Raw Case” Approach
Yale SOM offers a unique version of the popular case method teaching style, known as the “Raw Case” approach to management education. Most case method programs use what are commonly referred to as “cooked” cases (or “closed” cases) that are packaged and synthesized before use. Yale SOM has developed its own set of cases which are housed on a multimedia platform and feature the types of open-ended, “fuzzy” source materials that a professional might encounter while analyzing a problem. Sometimes, the opportunity to tackle a “live” case presents itself, for example, when a high-visibility corporate issue is being actively followed in the media. These cases require students to sift through all the data and information to find what is pertinent and what can be ignored. Distilling information is often one of the most challenging aspects of real-world problem-solving, and Yale SOM attempts to teach students how to jump over this hurdle before diving into an analysis.

“Coopetition”
Many schools emphasize teamwork and a collaborative culture. Yale is a friendly school where generally, people are trying to help each other succeed. The term of art for this is “coopetition” (SOM Professor Barry Nalebuff even wrote a book on it) and you can find it in action both inside and outside the classroom at Yale.

Required International Experience
First-year students are required to travel to one of several destinations in the world as part of the International Experience Destinations program. (Stanford introduced a similar requirement after Yale launched theirs.) These ten-day trips allow students to study their businesses of interest within another culture and setting. The trip is linked to the spring course State and Society and the year-long Leadership Development Program. This furthers SOM’s long-standing history of maintaining a global perspective.

Diversity
Most top programs have some level of outreach to underrepresented groups (women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans). However, Yale is much more proactive in their diversity initiatives. The new Pre-MBA Leadership program is a fully-sponsored summer session for minority college students, which is designed to introduce them to the MBA experience – and hopefully help them choose Yale when they are ready for their MBA. Yale has also participated in The Consortium, a joint effort among many good schools that offers a streamlined application for minority candidates (though note that Consortium applications have different deadlines, and at Yale, all Consortium candidates are evaluated together, with decisions released for all of them in mid-February).

To stay on top on all of the latest news at Yale and other top-ranked business schools, be sure to find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

Get to Know: INSEAD

MBA Game Plan — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 04:11:33 +0000

Competitive European MBA applicants almost always are interested in INSEAD, and among U.S.-based applicants, INSEAD is almost always their first or second choice if they’re interested in earning an MBA abroad. This makes sense given the terrific international exposure that INSEAD students get at the school’s two campuses. What frequently surprises us, though, is how little applicants really know about the school, beyond that fact that it’s a highly-ranked program with a high profile around the world.

Are you thinking about applying to INSEAD? Here are five why INSEAD may be the perfect school for you to target for your MBA experience. While not all six of these need to describe you, the more these descriptions sound like you, the more likely you are to thrive at INSEAD:

You want to take advantage of multiple programs and opportunities in multiple countries
With INSEAD’s close partnership with Wharton and Kellogg and affiliations with major business schools in Asia and elsewhere, students are able to study at multiple premier graduate schools all while pursuing their INSEAD degree.

You want to work in a multinational company or you want to work overseas
This is a common profile for an INSEAD candidate and its unique program offers obvious advantages to candidates with goals in an international context. It can be somewhat more challenging for graduates to find jobs in the U.S. when coming out of INSEAD, although they can leverage the recruiting resources available at INSEAD’s partner schools like Wharton and Kellogg to gain a “home field advantage” in the job search process.

You have clear goals
With the need to hit the ground running on Day One at INSEAD, students don’t have much time to figure out what to do next. They should have career goals well defined in advance. If changing careers, then the January intake might be a more suitable option, and students need to be prepared to put in extra effort to secure the right internship to enable their transition.

You are headed to work in a family business
Only a few schools have resources devoted to the challenge faced by those taking over a family legacy (ESADE is another). INSEAD has a specialized Family Enterprise Challenge executive education program and faculty such as Christine Blondel have focused their research on multi-generational family business and the successor’s dilemma.

You are flexible and are comfortable with ambiguity
When applicants don’t even know where they’ll literally be going to school if accepted — Europe or Asia — they need to bring with them a resilience and a willingness to adapt, just to survive the admissions process. One sign of the maturity that INSEAD values in candidates is the ability to roll with the punches and be agile to change. The INSEAD program is so fast-paced and hectic that it might be a burden to someone who is ill prepared.

To stay on top on all of the latest news at INSEAD and other top-ranked business schools, be sure to find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!