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Published: December 15, 2016
Fridays from the Frontline: Five Tips to Make the Most of Your Campus Visit           
Perhaps you’re in the extraordinarily fortunate position of needing to choose between multiple schools that have offered you admission in Round 1. Or maybe you are furiously working on your Round 2 applications. Wherever you are in your process, campus visits can play a vital role in choosing where you ultimately decide to enroll. Today’s Friday from the Frontline post—from Natalia Suarez, a second-year MBA student at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business—provides valuable tips for how to make the most of your campus visit. Suarez, who was born in Colombia but raised in New Jersey and Georgia, Read more
Published: December 14, 2016
Cambridge Judge Professor Talks Competition in Business
In business, it’s always about being the best, looking out for number one, beating your competitor—right? Not so fast, says Professor Shahzad Ansari, who teaches strategy and innovation at Cambridge’s Judge Business School. In a recent news article, Ansari presented a different idea. “You don’t need to blow out someone else’s light to make yours shine,” he said, quoting financier Bernard Baruch. “Going in too aggressively harms your own reputation and can wreck your business,” he added. Read more
Published: December 12, 2016
Which Way the Wind Blows Could Determine the Fate of Elections, CBS Researchers Find
The heads of Congress are calling for greater investigation into whether Russian meddling played a role in Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton last month, but researchers at Columbia Business School (CBS) have another theory. Blame it on the wind—or lack thereof—they say. In a research paper titled “Weather Affects Voting Decisions,” Professor Adam Galinsky and PhD candidate Jon Jachimowicz from CBS, together with co-authors in Great Britain and Germany, find that wind speed has an interesting effect on how voters cast their ballots at the polls. Specifically, windy days lead voters to seek safety, Read more
Published: December 8, 2016
Fridays from the Frontline: Unlocking a World of Opportunities as an International MBA Student
Today’s Fridays from the Frontline contribution comes to us from Prerana Manvi, a second-year student at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. A native of India, Manvi shares in detail her experiences as an international MBA student—including the many opportunities her time at Kenan-Flagler has afforded her. For Manvi, success as an international MBA student has hinged on taking full advantage of in-class opportunities, extracurricular activities and real-world experience. Among other things, she has played an active role in student clubs, serving as vice president of international experience for the Consulting Club and president of the MBA Net Impact Club. Read more
Published: December 6, 2016
Clear Admit, Kelley School Co-Host Webinar on Defining Your Career Path
Last week, Clear Admit was pleased to partner with Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business to offer an informative webinar about how best to develop a career plan prior to getting your MBA. More than 100 participants signed up for the online event, which was led by Kelley Executive Director of Graduate Career Services Eric Johnson. An interactive Q&A session followed, featuring thoughtful queries from many participants. Johnson, himself a Kelley MBA graduate, shared several best practices for defining your career path—including a useful self-discovery matrix that can help you really understand your motivations, interests and passions, as well as your weaknesses and areas in need of development. Read more
Published: December 6, 2016
Forté Foundation Launches New Men as Allies Initiative
Reaching gender equity on business school campuses is far from just a women’s issue, which is precisely why the Forté Foundation is calling on men to get involved. Drawing on successful programs already underway on campuses spanning from Harvard Business School (HBS) to Stanford Graduate School of Business, Forté today announced its new Men as Allies Initiative. It is designed to invite and encourage male students to get involved in a growing movement toward gender equity in business school classrooms and the broader business world. Read more
Published: December 5, 2016
Student Perspectives: Stacey Eryn Chin’s Path to McKinsey
Stacey Eryn Chin, a recent graduate from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, headed off to work as a consultant for McKinsey in its San Francisco office. Prior to business school, Chin held roles that ranged from education and youth leadership development to venture philanthropy and social enterprise. “I loved the work I was doing before business school,” she recalls, noting that she managed lots of teams and got to tackle ambiguous problems, all of which she found really energizing. What she lacked was exposure to the private sector. “That, in a nutshell, is what made me excited to come to business Read more
Published: December 5, 2016
London Business School Leads 2016 International MBA Rankings from Bloomberg BusinessWeek
London Business School (LBS) climbed to the very top spot on Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Best International Business Schools of 2016 list, released yesterday, up a notch from last year’s second-place showing. INSEAD, which has campuses in France, Singapore and Abu Dhabi, followed right behind, inching up from number three last year to second place this year. The United Kingdom’s other powerhouse business schools, Oxford’s Saïd Business School and Cambridge’s Judge Business School, fell in line at third and fourth respectively, representing a three-spot jump for Saïd over last year and a four-spot jump for Judge. Spain’s IESE also experienced gains year over year, sidling up two spots from last year’s seventh place to round out this year’s top five. Read more
Published: December 4, 2016
Real Humans of MBA Admissions: Christie St-John of Vanderbilt’s Owen School of Business
We were delighted to connect last week with Christie St-John, who heads MBA admissions at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. St-John describes her career as “zig-zaggy,” referring to the fact that she started at Vanderbilt back in 1997 before zigging to Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business for nine years and then zagging back to Nashville and to Owen, where she’s been at the helm since 2012. As you’ll see below, her time up north impacted her preference for mountains over beach but did nothing to diminish her love of true southern fried chicken. A more in-depth Admissions Director Q&A with St-John will soon follow, but for now, enjoy getting to know her lighter side. (A big hockey fan, she's pictured above at a Nashville Predators game.)   Read more
Published: December 1, 2016
Fridays from the Frontline: How Did I Get Here? The Road from Science to an MBA
Just how did Chilean native Ignacio Cabrera—with an education in molecular biotechnology engineering and bacteriology and work experience first as research scientist at BioAmber and later as a microbial applications scientist at Kerry Inc.—find his way into an MBA program at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business?  Lucky for us, he candidly shared his journey—including the fact that making the choice to leave his scientific career for business school was far from easy—as part of a recent blog post on the Tuck 360 MBA blog. Luckier still, he’s given permission for that blog post to be republished here for all the Clear Admit audience to read. Read more
Published: November 28, 2016
ENTREPRENEURSHIP@ Columbia Business School: CBS Reframes Its Entrepreneurship Curriculum
As part of a week-long celebration of entrepreneurship earlier this month, Columbia Business School (CBS) unveiled a new framework for its entrepreneurship curriculum—one that is designed to help students quickly and easily understand available coursework as it relates to their individual entrepreneurial interests. “We wanted to put in place a framework that helps students find the right classes to empower them based on whatever their goal might be,” says Vincent Ponzo, senior director of the Eugene Lang Center for Entrepreneurship. Recognizing that goals vary from student to student, the school has grouped its entrepreneurial coursework into four broad buckets titled Think, Start, Scale and Invest and created an intuitive digital tool that allows for easy filtering and class selection. Read more
Published: November 22, 2016
Columbia Business School Celebrates Ally Week
Columbia Business School (CBS) last week celebrated the allies in its community—those who support and stand up for the rights of LGBT people—as part of its annual Ally Week. Taking place from November 14th through 18th, the week included a range of activities organized by Cluster Q, CBS’s LGBT Business Association. Events ranged from an “Ask a Q Anything” Supper Club—giving allies a chance to ask Cluster Q members questions about the coming-out process, politics and identities within the LGBT spectrum—to a “How to Be an Ally” workshop helping define ally-ship and highlight its importance. Read more
Published: November 22, 2016
HBS Admissions Director Reflects at Conclusion of Round 1 Interviews
Harvard Business School (HBS) Managing Director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid Chad Losee took to his admissions blog yesterday to share some reflections as Round 1 on-campus interviews draw to a close. “Many of you told me that you were pleasantly surprised (and relieved) that the interviews were personal, conversational, and substantive,” he wrote. “That’s music to my ears, and I hope it was true for all of you. We are really aiming to get to know you.” Read more
Published: November 21, 2016
Harvard Business School Women Speak Out Against Steve Bannon Appointment
In a letter to the editor of the New York Times published on Friday, 650 female Harvard Business School (HBS) graduates and current students came together to “unequivocally disavow” the appointment of Steve Bannon, a fellow HBS alumnus, to serve as chief strategist and senior counselor to President-elect Donald Trump. Read more
Published: November 20, 2016
Real Humans of MBA Admissions: UC Berkeley Haas’s Morgan Bernstein
Morgan Bernstein is currently in her first year as executive director leading the full-time MBA admission team at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, having taken over last March for Stephanie Fujii, who held the role for four years before that. “I’m excited about growing my team, learning, figuring out what I know and what I don’t know,” she told us last week while taking a break from reading applications. “Stephanie left some big shoes to fill.” But Bernstein is by no means a stranger to the school or its admissions process. Indeed, she was part of the admissions team for five years before stepping into her current role, and she knows things from the other side as well. A successful applicant herself, she graduated from Haas with her MBA in 2009 (and married a fellow alumnus to boot).  Read more
Published: November 17, 2016
Fridays from the Frontline: Harvard MBA on the Politics of Free Speech
As President-elect Donald Trump begins to establish his cabinet, many are still processing the outcome of the U.S. election earlier this month. At Harvard Business School (HBS), second-year MBA student Preeya Sud, who serves as editor-in-chief of the school's newspaper the Harbus, sought out reaction from her classmates in the days immediately following the election, only to find that few students were comfortable signing their names to their political views, regardless of what those views were. Instead, the Harbus invited students to express their reactions anonymously. Read more
Published: November 16, 2016
Columbia Business School Admissions Team Offers Application Process Update
The admissions team at Columbia Business School (CBS) has completed reading applications from all of its January and Early Decision applicants, according to an email sent yesterday to the Association of International Graduate Management Consultants (AIGAC). Many of those decisions have been rendered, and all remaining final decisions are expected to be communicated by November 24th. Regular Decision review will start on November 21st, with interview invitations scheduled to begin rolling out on December 1st. “Approximately 30 percent of the pool is interviewed and 17 percent ultimately admitted,” read the email. Read more
Published: November 15, 2016
Amid Roller Coaster Rides for Some, HBS Stays Put atop Bloomberg BusinessWeek Ranking
For the second consecutive year, Harvard Business School (HBS) tops the Bloomberg BusinessWeek annual ranking of MBA programs—released today—making it one of the few leading schools that didn’t experience shifts in a list that holds lots of changes this year over last. Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) shot up to second, from its seventh spot last year, and Duke’s Fuqua School followed right on its heels, moving from eighth last year to number three. Together, they knocked the University of Chicago Booth School of Business down from second to fourth. Read more
Published: November 14, 2016
MBA Students, Faculty, Administrators React to a Trump Presidency
In the wake of an American presidential election that has left a country divided and the rest of the world looking on with reactions ranging from surprise to disbelief, issues of racism, sexism, nativism and homophobia have erupted at the surface of national discourse. President-elect Donald Trump ran on a campaign that included promises to ban Muslims from entering the country, build a wall between the United States and Mexico and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Trump’s own comments, endorsements from outspoken individuals with ties to racist organizations and pledges to nullify executive orders issued by President Barack Obama have caused millions to question his commitment to protecting the rights of women, minorities and members of the LGBTQ community. Read more
Published: November 13, 2016
Real Humans of MBA Admissions: UC Berkeley Haas’s Peter Johnson
We are looking forward to connecting soon with Morgan Bernstein, current admissions director at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. In the meantime, we’re delighted to have caught up with Peter Johnson, who formerly held Bernstein’s role and has recently returned to Haas as assistant dean, full-time MBA program and admissions. In his current role, he oversees Bernstein and her team in admissions as well as academic and student affairs for the full-time MBA program. Johnson has spent his entire professional career in admissions—including an eleven-year stretch as executive director of full-time MBA admissions at Haas. He’s just returned after six years away, including four in Hungary leading student services for the Central European University. Members of both the Haas community and the graduate management admissions community are thrilled to welcome him back. Read more
Published: November 10, 2016
Wharton Observes Veterans Day by Honoring Its Women Warriors
To commemorate Veterans Day, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School yesterday held a “Spotlight on Female Wharton Warriors” panel, part of a week of events recognizing the former military service members who are part of the Wharton community. Wharton MBA students Meredith Sandberg and Sophie Hilaire joined other women vets in sharing their experiences and answering questions from fellow MBA students curious about military life. The panel was jointly organized by Wharton Women and Business (WWIB) and the Wharton Veterans Club. Read more
Published: November 10, 2016
Friday from the Frontlines: #MBAsOpenUp at Goizueta
In the wake of an extraordinarily contentious American presidential election with a result that stunned many both within the United States and around the world, much remains uncertain. This much, though, is clear: The election of Donald Trump to serve as its 45th president has revealed the United States as a deeply divided society and underscored the vital importance of dialogue to reach a point of understanding and a path toward a future that supports and protects the rights of all the country’s citizens. Read more
Published: November 9, 2016
From Mosul to an MBA: Veteran Kyle Shelato’s Path to Cornell’s Johnson School
Kyle Shelato came to Lehigh University as an undergraduate with a single-minded focus. “I am interested in being an Apache helicopter pilot—how can I do that?” he asked as soon as he arrived on campus. For him, the answer involved participation in ROTC throughout college while also pursuing dual degrees in electrical engineering and physics. Upon graduation, he enlisted in the Army, was selected into the aviation branch and went directly to flight school. Two years of training later, he was doing just what he set out to—flying Apache helicopters. Read more
Published: November 8, 2016
A Johnson MBA Student on What It’s Like to Intern at Amazon
A native of Israel who spent three years performing audits for PwC—mostly on pharmaceutical firms and hedge funds—Ran Rabinowitch was really looking for a change. “I knew I wanted to go work for one of the tech companies, and most are headquartered in the United States, so I began looking at U.S. MBA programs,” he says. Married, he wanted a school known for its community and smaller class size—where he thought his wife would fit in well. “I was also a little afraid that at schools in large cities, all the Americans would just maintain existing friendships, so it would Read more
Published: November 7, 2016
Trump vs. Clinton: What It Means to Business School Students
It may be U.S. citizens headed to the polls today, but another group is watching the outcome of the presidential election pitting Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton with much more than simply passing interest. Prospective international students thinking of studying in the United States could be significantly impacted by today’s outcome. Read more

MBA Livewire

December 19, 2024 3:42pm ET
Accepted to Yale SOM
Round: Round 1
Received via phone on December 04, 2024
GPA: 3.83
GRE: 326
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Consulting
Application Location: CA
December 19, 2024 3:25pm ET
Accepted to NYU Stern
Round: Round 2
Received via email December 19, 2024
GPA: 3.8
GRE: 319
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Marketing
Note:

Received application status update email with link to updated portal
December 19, 2024 12:07pm ET
Accepted to Columbia
Round: Round 1
Received via portal on December 11, 2024
GPA: 3.6
GRE: 340
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Finance
Application Location: Singapore
Note:

No scholarship
December 19, 2024 9:36am ET
Accepted to NYU Stern
Round: Round 1
Received via phone on December 17, 2024
GPA: 3.97
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Technology
Application Location: Midwest
Note:

Portal update by this afternoon!
December 18, 2024 9:45pm ET
Accepted to Columbia
Round: Round 1
Received via email
GPA: ~3
GMAT: 735
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Finance
Application Location: Mumbai
Note:

130k scholarship

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