Clear Admit co-founders Graham Richmond and Eliot Ingram contributed to articles this week in both the national and local press, sharing their expertise in the MBA space and advising prospective applicants on how to prepare for the group interview component that some top schools are choosing to include as part of the admissions process.
Richmond’s comments appeared in a Bloomberg BusinessWeek article entitled, “How to Stand Out in an MBA Group Interview.” The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business is the latest top MBA program to require applicants to work as a group as part of the application process, joining Switzerland’s IMD and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Bloomberg BW notes. Though the schools are taking this step in an effort to elicit more off-the-cuff responses from applicants, there are still ways to prepare for these new exercises.
Clear Admit’s Richmond advises learning as much as you can about the format of the group exercise and what a particular school is trying to test through it. In addition to trying to get unscripted responses from applicants, the schools are also using team interviews to evaluate how well applicants listen, their overall communication skills, the level of intellectual curiosity they possess and, of course, how they work as part of a group, Richmond told Bloomberg BW.
For more tips from Richmond, as well as from admissions directors at some of the schools incorporating group interviews, check out the complete Bloomberg BW post.
At the local level, Clear Admit co-founder Eliot Ingram contributed to an article yesterday in the Daily Pennsylvanian, the University of Pennsylvania’s student daily. This article, too, focused on the rise of the group interview as part of the MBA admissions process and the steps admissions consultants have taken to respond.
“Whenever a school alters its admission process we alter our strategy given that change,” Ingram, who graduated with an MBA from Wharton in 1999, told the DP. “We help people brainstorm a good idea and think that through so they can get off to a good start.”
But Clear Admit provides applicants with much more than just a dress rehearsal for the group interview, Ingram notes. “I really view my job as akin to being a guidance counselor,” he told the DP. “It’s really helpful for students in their twenties to put a lot of deep thought into what their career goals are. What do you want to do when you grow up? Why MBA? We help people think through those questions.”
Read the complete Daily Pennsylvanian article, “Admissions Consulting Firms Cater to MBA Programs.”
