Clear Admit, Author at Clear Admit

Published: November 20, 2012

Wharton MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Adcom / Webex

My interview was with an adcom member via Webex (like Skype). The interviewer was very friendly and made the atmosphere relaxed and casual. He made it clear up front that the interview was blind. After that we went right into the following questions: 1. Walk me through your resume. 2. Tell me about a time you lead a team and someone was less motivated. 3. Tell me about a time you managed up. 4. Tell me about a time you persuaded someone/the team to do something. 5. Why now? Why Wharton? 6. Do you have Read more

Published: November 19, 2012

Tepper MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Adcom / Skype

The interviewer was quite friendly and made me feel comfortable while answering questions. It was a blind interview, they had only my Resume to refer to. The questions were pretty much generic, like why i chose Tepper, and how the work I have been doing and my undergraduate degree relates to my mba decision and my post mba goals. Another thing I felt is that there was a lot of emphasis on how I have performed in team scenarios and how I can carry it forward in Tepper. Read more

Published: November 18, 2012

Kellogg MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Adcom / On-campus

I opted to do an on-campus interview and scheduled it for early November. Kellogg is my top choice program and I thought that taking the time to go there and interview in person with the adcom or a student would help prove my interest. Moreover, it would give me a chance to meet students and tour the campus. I don’t regret my decision to pick this option. I purposefully scheduled my interview for a Tuesday (no classes on Wednesday) so that I could spend Monday doing the class visit, building tour, etc. Doing this came in handy when my interviewer Read more

Published: November 15, 2012

Chicago Booth MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Alumnus / Off-campus

I was invited for an interview with an alumnus in my local city in India. The alumnus invited me to her office for the interview. She started by introducing herself and walking me through her career. Then she asked me about myself. I was expecting 4-5 questions in total from her, but she ended up asking a lot of questions from me. She had a sample questionnaire with her (probably sent to her by Booth) and she kept on asking questions, and taking notes. Majority of questions were behavioral in nature. Though I do not remember all the questions that Read more

Published: November 6, 2012

Clear Admit’s Graham Richmond Weighs in on CEIBS in Wall Street Journal Article

The Wall Street Journal devoted a recent feature to the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), turning to Clear Admit co-founder Graham Richmond for his view on how well the Shanghai school has managed to raise its global profile. CEIBS, which opened 18 years ago, stepped up its efforts last year to secure a spot among the top-tier business schools around the globe. It brought in John Quelch, a former administrator at Harvard Business School and a former dean at London Business School, to lead the charge. According to the WSJ report, Quelch has been trying to draw big-name faculty members from elite schools with large salaries and generous perks, believing that outstanding faculty will draw outstanding students, which in turn will attract recruiters and establish a successful alumni body. Read more

Published: October 23, 2012

GMAT Tips: Identifying the Conclusion in Critical Reasoning

Today’s GMAT tip comes to us from Veritas Prep. In today’s blog post, they provide helpful tips on how to identify the conclusion in a Critical Reasoning questions. Read on to see what they have to say! On the GMAT, Critical Reasoning questions often ask you to strengthen a conclusion, weaken a conclusion, or determine an assumption necessary for the conclusion to hold true. In any of these cases, it is of prime importance that you know exactly what the conclusion is saying; otherwise, it can be easy for your answer choice to miss the mark. It is important to ensure that you correctly identify the conclusion of the argument, and to make doing so a priority. There are four clues to determine the conclusion of a Critical Reasoning argument, any of which should help you determine which statement is the argument’s conclusion: 1) Conclusion language such as “thus” or “therefore” 2) A call for action, such as “they must…” or “we should…” Read more

Published: October 1, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: Hima Badu of the Indian School of Business

Hima Badu oversees admissions and financial aid for the Indian School of Business (ISB), which has campuses in Hyderabad and Mohali. Badu has a background in English literature and a master in management and worked for a marketing agency before joining ISB. In the interview that follows, she shares some of the exciting developments taking place at ISB right now, including the launch of a second campus and accreditation by American-based accrediting association AACSB. She also provides some insight into the admissions process from an operational standpoint and helps explain how candidates can use the essays to present a complete picture of themselves to the admissions committee. Read more

Published: September 26, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: Sherry Wallace of the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School

Our 2014 Admissions Director Q&A with Kenan-Flagler's Sherry Wallace is now available. Sherry Wallace, director of MBA admissions at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business, told us that she wants to make the admissions process as transparent as possible. “There is no advantage to us in our selection process if people feel like they are in the dark,” she said. Wallace herself graduated from the Kenan-Flagler MBA program in 1987 and pursued a career in advertising and marketing with several major consumer packaged goods companies. She later married and returned to North Carolina, and 15 years ago she was offered the opportunity to come back to Kenan-Flagler as part of the admissions team. “It fit me to a tee, and I didn’t need to think very long about coming back to work in Chapel Hill,” she recounts. While she might not have imagined herself in her current role at the start of her career, that she is here now shows the power and flexibility of the MBA, she says. In the interview that follows, Wallace takes the time to completely demystify the admissions process for prospective applicants to Kenan-Flagler, sharing candidly about what they can expect and how best to prepare. She also underscores the strength of the school’s career services offerings, notes the development of a new healthcare curriculum and more. Enjoy! Read more

Published: September 25, 2012

Clear Admit Co-Founder Graham Richmond Contributes to Wall Street Journal Article on MIT Sloan’s Oversubscribed Incoming Class

The Wall Street Journal consulted Clear Admit co-founder Graham Richmond as part of an article today about the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Sloan School of Management, which has given scholarships to a handful of students scheduled to enter this fall in exchange for their agreeing to defer for a year. Sloan found itself oversubscribed by an unusually high number of students this year, and rather than expand the class size, it sought volunteers willing to wait a year to enroll. When it didn’t get enough takers, Sloan sweetened the deal to include a $15,000 scholarship to be applied to next year's tuition, the WSJ reports. Still not getting the response it hoped for, Sloan upped its offer to $20,000. In the end, four students took the offer, and the scholarship, and will begin next year instead. This brings Sloan’s class size to 413 this year, up from 404 last. Read more

Published: September 24, 2012

Clear Admit’s Stacey Oyler Featured in Article on Harvard Business School’s Application Changes

Marking yesterday’s round one application deadline at Harvard Business School (HBS), Poets&Quants today ran an article asking admissions consultants how the applicants they worked with on this year’s application to HBS felt about the school’s move to reduce its required essays from four to two. According to the P&Q report, between 30 and 50 percent of candidates to Harvard are estimated to work with a consultant during their application process, making consultants a good gauge of market reaction to the changes. The majority of admissions consultants polled by P&Q reported frustration on the part of their clients about the new application format, in which applicants have a total of just 800 words to answer two direct questions, namely, “tell us something you’ve done well” and “tell us something you wish you had done better.” According to several consultants, applicants felt like the change didn’t allow them the opportunity to fully tell their story or “fan out all their feathers” as one put it. Clear Admit Senior Admissions Counselor Stacey Oyler had a different view. “I think that the clients took the changes in stride,” she told P&Q. “After the initial surprise, they focused on sharpening their message and telling their stories with the two essays and their resume. It took some fine tuning, but I think most are happy with the applications they crafted.” Read more

Published: September 19, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: Rodrigo Malta of the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business

Our 2014 interview with McCombs' Rodrigo Malta is available now. Rodrigo Malta, a native of Brazil, moved to the United States for high school and college and ultimately graduated from the McCombs full-time MBA program in 2007. While a student at McCombs, he was highly involved in admissions activities, and after graduation he remained in Austin, accepting a marketing position with Dell. A year later, when then-Director of MBA Admissions Tina Mabley contacted him about a job opening with her team – as associate director of admissions focused on diversity recruiting – he jumped at the chance to return to campus and work on something he was really passionate about. Later, when Mabley was promoted to program director for the full-time MBA, Malta applied for and got the admissions director’s position. Did he ever imagine as a prospective applicant to McCombs that he would be sitting in the decision-maker’s seat today? “Never,” he says. “Working in admissions while an MBA student was a lot of fun, but I never considered it as a career,” he says. It wasn’t until he returned to the corporate world at Dell that he found himself missing higher education. Prospective applicants may be happy to learn that Malta understands the position they now are in on such a personal level. Perhaps that’s why he’s so full of useful tips and advice. Read on to learn what he has to share. Read more

Published: September 17, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: Katelyn Rosa Stephenson of the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University

We were lucky enough to catch Katelyn Rosa Stephenson just weeks into her role as interim assistant dean and director of MBA admissions at the McDonough School of Business. But though she is new to heading up admissions, she is not new to McDonough. She joined the admissions staff in March 2008, bringing with her plenty of experience from time spent working in undergraduate admission at the George Washington University. Read on to learn what Rosa Stephenson has to share about the new curriculum McDonough will implement this fall, including the steps the school is taking to provide its students with a truly global education. She also highlights the contributions of Georgetown’s Jesuit origins to the MBA program and provides practical advice and insight regarding the admissions process. Check it out. Read more

Published: September 13, 2012

Clear Admit’s Stacey Oyler Featured in Article on Business School Admissions Staffers Turned Admissions Consultants

Stacey Oyler, a senior admissions counselor here at Clear Admit who came to us from the admissions office at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, was recently featured prominently in a Poets&Quants article about that very topic – namely, former admissions committee members at top MBA programs who become admissions consultants to prospective MBA applicants. The article ran today on the P&Q website, as well as on the CNN Money and Fortune websites. As the article indicates, Oyler worked on the Tuck admissions committee for two years, from October 2003 to July 2005, participating in every admissions decision for two full classes as part of a process that involved reviewing applications in a locked room with seven colleagues until they reached unanimous decisions of whether to admit, deny or waitlist. Read more

Published: September 12, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: Stephan Chambers of the Saïd Business School at Oxford University

Over the past decade plus, Stephan Chambers, the current MBA director at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, has gotten to watch the school grow from about 50 students to more than 200 and from nowhere in the rankings to the top 20 in the world. Chambers, who is also the chairman of Oxford’s Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship, founded and ran for a decade the Oxford Executive MBA before assuming his current role. Prior to coming to Oxford he had a 15-year career in the private sector, specifically in publishing, where he invested in and ran companies. In the interview that follows, he shares why he thinks right now is the best possible time – perhaps in history – to be in business school in general, as well as why it’s an exciting time to be at Oxford. A new dean is championing new initiatives, and Chambers tells us all about them below, so read on. Read more

Published: September 11, 2012

GMAT Tips – GMAT Sentence Correction Question Type: Modifiers

Today’s GMAT Tip comes to us from Kaplan. In this article, Kaplan GMAT instructor Bret Ruber provides helpful advice on answering Sentence Correction questions with modification errors: Of all of the common errors that appear in the sentence correction portion of the GMAT, modifiers are usually the last type for which test-takers look. However, modification errors are among the most common types of errors on the GMAT and finding these errors right away can often lead you directly to the correct answer. When checking for modifier errors, you should keep in mind that the GMAT will feature three kinds of modifiers. The first is adjectives. Adjectives are used to modify nouns. For example, in the phrase, “the blue chair,” ‘blue’ is an adjective modifying the noun ‘chair.’ The second is adverbs. Adverbs are used to modify all parts of speech except nouns. Therefore, adverbs will be used to modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. Adverbs are usually created by adding ‘ly’ to the end of an adjective. For example, the adjective, “quick” becomes the adverb, “quickly.” Read more

Published: September 11, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: James Frick of the Tepper School at Carnegie Mellon University

James Frick calls himself a lifer at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. “I have been at Tepper since 1998," he says "Scary! How did that happen?” Frick began on the program side, which means that for his first five years there his function was much more working with students once they came to campus. In this role he did a lot of systems work, a lot of advising, etc. But the fact that Tepper is such a small organization really benefitted him, he says. “It allowed me to have half a foot in career services, half a foot in admissions.” And the more of admissions he did, the more he loved it. He transitioned officially to the admissions team in 2003 and became director of admissions in 2010. In the interview that follows, he shares his enthusiasm for Pittsburgh and its baseball team and highlights a new leadership coaching program that he thinks will help students really learn to communicate and implement the analytical skills they get through the Tepper program. He also shares some sage advice for how to approach the essay portion of the application – advice that will be useful whether you are applying to Tepper or to any other top MBA program. So don’t miss out. Read more

Published: September 5, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: Megan Lynam of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business

In our most recent interview as part of our continuing Admissions Director Q&A Series, we got to know Megan Lynam, the director of admissions for MBA and MMS programs at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Lynam is no stranger to Fuqua. She earned her MBA there in 2003 and has been working in the admissions office since 2005, focusing on marketing and operations before assuming her current role as admissions director. Lynam spent her early career in consulting, working for PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte. Upon graduation from Duke she held a role at Brunswick Corporation's Leadership Development Program, where she led the MBA recruiting effort at Duke. Read more

Published: September 3, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: Christine Sneva of Cornell University’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management

Christine Sneva has been director of admissions at Cornell University’s S.C. Johnson School of Management since May 2011 and spent several years before that directing the school’s International Academic Exchange Program. There are a lot of interesting things happening right now at Johnson, she tells us. Not the least of which is the arrival of a new dean, Soumitra Dutta, who began on July 1st. Read on to learn more about the things Sneva is most excited about – like a New York City tech campus – as well as her advice for approaching this year’s essay questions and more. Read more

Published: August 29, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: MIT Sloan School of Management’s Rod Garcia

An MIT Sloan veteran, Rod Garcia has been at the school for the past 24 years and admissions director for the last 13. Before coming to MIT Sloan in 1988, he worked in admissions at the University of Chicago. In the interview that follows, Garcia reveals that MIT Sloan had a record yield this year, exceeding the target class size by 15 students. “It is a good problem to have,” he says, noting that some schools are struggling to meet their targets amid declining application volume. He forecasts recovery in the year ahead in terms of overall business school application volume – and a very competitive season at MIT Sloan. So you’ll want to pay close attention to the insight he provides regarding the application process at MIT Sloan and what his team is looking for in response to their unique essay questions. Read more

Published: August 27, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: Ankur Kumar of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania

~A CLEAR ADMIT EXCLUSIVE~ Ankur Kumar, a Wharton alumna, joined the school’s admissions team three and a half years ago. In 2010 she was promoted to run admissions for the MBA program. Kumar, who received her B.S. in finance from Wharton and her B.A. in economics from the College of Arts and Sciences, worked in investment banking and finance before returning to Wharton to pursue her MBA in strategic management. Upon graduation, she went into management consulting. Asked to leave management consulting to join the Wharton admissions team, Kumar jumped at the opportunity to shape the program and have an impact. “For me, this transition was really a chance to leverage the skills I enjoyed about finance and consulting and bring them to a program I feel very strongly about and that is personal to me,” she told us. In particular, her time as a Wharton student helped her appreciate the importance of having a diverse class of students who come from all over the world and bring with them a range of ways of thinking about business, she says. This is something she has pledged to keep top of mind as she brings together Wharton’s future classes. Read more

Published: August 22, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: INSEAD’s Peter Zemsky

A new Masters of Finance degree program and a new Singapore section of the INSEAD Global executive MBA program are among the developments Peter Zemsky chooses to call out in the interview that follows. Zemsky, a professor of strategy with a focus on competitive strategy, industry evolution, value innovation and action learning, is the acting dean and dean of the degree programs and curriculum at INSEAD. He also teaches the core competitive strategy course in the MBA and eMBA program. Zemsky doesn’t waste words in his answers to our questions. Read on for his concise, practical tips on how to make your application to INSEAD stand out. Read more

Published: August 20, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: Conrad Chua of Cambridge University’s Judge Business School

Our 2014 Admissions Director Q&A with Conrad Chua of Cambridge University’s Judge Business School is now available. Conrad Chua met an alumnus of Cambridge University’s Judge Business School while working in business development and was soon sold on the school’s values and ethos. Three years ago he became head of MBA recruitment and admissions. Chua, a native of Singapore, worked in the public sector there for 10 years, but he completed his undergraduate education at Stanford and a graduate program at London Business School. “The masters I did at LBS really opened my perspective, and I decided I didn’t want to stay in Singapore,” he told us. He and his wife moved to the United Kingdom five years ago. As Chua heads up admissions at Judge and his wife works toward her PhD, they are also learning the ropes as new parents to an eight-month-old baby. We are grateful to Chua for making time to speak with us and share some of his hopes for the school under the leadership of Christoph Loch, who joined as its new director last year. Among the things to watch, Chua says, is for Judge to become the center of entrepreneurship and startup energy in Cambridge. He also helps define what collaborative diversity means at Judge and why it’s such an important part of the experience there. If Judge is on your list of target schools, you won’t want to miss this interview. Read more

Published: August 19, 2012

Trivia Tuesday: Chicago Booth’s Academic Calendar

Welcome once again to Trivia Tuesday, our regular exploration of the special programs and opportunities that differentiate the leading business schools. Today we're featuring an excerpt from the Clear Admit School Guide to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business about the school's academic calendar. "While many schools arrange their academic years into two semesters, Chicago divides the year into four quarters that correspond with the seasons. This quarter system was invented by William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, as a means of exposing students to more material than the traditional semester system allows. The quarter-based calendar is used by all schools at the University of Chicago, as well as at several other leading business schools, including Stanford, Tuck and Kellogg. "The standard academic year spans Autumn, Winter and Spring Quarters, and MBA students occasionally take courses in Summer Quarter as well. However, since most Chicago Booth students choose to take an internship between their first and second years, enrollment in summer courses is not the norm. Read more

Published: August 15, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: Dawna Clarke of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business

Dawna Clarke is a veteran in the MBA admissions world, where she has worked for more than 25 years. She was appointed director of MBA admissions for the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth by Dean Paul Danos in September 2005, and since then she has served as the primary point of contact for MBA applicants and worked to actively promote the Tuck MBA program to prospective students. Clarke came to Tuck from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, where she spent 15 years, the last five as director of admissions. And before Darden, she was associate director of admissions at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business. So she knows a thing or two about what it takes to get into a top-tier MBA program. Read more

Published: August 13, 2012

Admissions Director Q&A: Bruce DelMonico of the Yale School of Management

Our 2014 Admissions Director Q&A with Bruce DelMonico, the Admissions Director of the Yale School of Management, is now available. Yale School of Management (SOM) Admissions Director Bruce DelMonico recently took time out of his busy schedule to bring us up to speed on things in New Haven. A lawyer by training, DelMonico grew tired of sleeping in his office and traveling for weeks on end, so in October 2004 he joined Yale SOM as deputy director of admissions in his native New Haven, Connecticut. He assumed the role of admissions director in November 2006. There are lots of things to be excited about in the coming year at Yale SOM, DelMonico tells us. A new dean, Dean Edward Snyder, has been at the helm for the past year, helping to put into motion several exciting new developments, including the launch of a new Global Network for Advanced Management and the re-launch of the school’s Leadership Development Program. Construction continues, meanwhile, on a new home for the business school called Evan Hall, designed by famed architect Lord Norman Foster. Read more

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