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Published: August 22, 2016
Book Excerpt: Five Overarching Attributes Fundamental to a Strong MBA Candidate
Welcome back to our 10-part series, in which we share an excerpt from the recently published book Becoming a Clear Admit: The Definitive Guide to MBA Admissions, with added commentary from its author, Alex Brown. In this third part of the series, we look at the five overarching attributes that are fundamental to a strong MBA candidate. Book Excerpt:  Five Overarching Attributes Schools seek out individuals with specific attributes that they consider to be predictive of success both during the MBA program and beyond, once students graduate and progress in their careers. Highlighting these attributes within the application can help Read more
Published: August 21, 2016
Real Humans of MBA Admissions: Soojin Kwon of Michigan’s Ross School of Business
Moving right along with our fun and quirky series, we’ve continued talking admissions directors at leading MBA programs into answering our silly stream of personal questions. To our delight, we’ve had many tell us that they actually had fun in the process. Soojin Kwon has led MBA admissions at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business since 2006. She’s familiar with “non-traditional” MBA candidates, as she was one herself when she got her MBA at Ross. Prior to b-school, she used her MPP from the Kennedy School of Government to work as a budget and policy analyst on Capitol Hill and at the Department of Commerce. She’s also familiar with the private sector as she spent her post-MBA years as a consultant in Deloitte’s Strategy and Operations practice. An active, outdoor enthusiast, here's Soojin in the Rocky Mountains showing Michigan pride. Here, Soojin reveals her pet peeves, where she heads when she wants to get away, the power of her Korean mother’s home-cooked food and more. Read on to learn some little-known tidbits about Soojin. And if you want insider tips about Ross and its admissions process, check out Soojin’s blog and video blogs. Read more
Published: August 18, 2016
Friday from the Frontlines: From Lesotho to the Hilltop
Our Friday from the Frontlines submission comes to us this week from Tahira Taylor, a full-time MBA student at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. As you’ll read, Taylor’s path to the MBA was unlike some of her classmates. Specifically, her journey to Georgetown included prior stops in Morocco and Lesotho, where she worked with the Peace Corps. Earlier this year we reported that McDonough has been selected by the Peace Corps to join the Paul D. Coverdell Fellowship Program for returned Peace Corps volunteers. It is through this program that returned volunteers like Taylor bring the valuable learning and experience they gained through the Peace Corps to the MBA classroom. Recipients of the Coverdell Fellowship receive a minimum of $10,000 in tuition scholarship funding per year and the ability to apply for graduate assistantships. In addition, they complete internships in underserved American communities, where they can continue to put to use some of the skills they learned as volunteers while layering on some of the tools they are learning in business school. Talk about a win-win. Read on to learn about the transferable skills Taylor has discovered served her just as well in Africa as they do in the business school admissions process and the classroom.  Read more
Published: August 17, 2016
Career Services Director Q&A: Julia Min Hwang of the Berkeley-Haas MBA Career Management Group
We are delighted to feature Julia Min Hwang of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in our series of Career Services Director Q&As. Hwang, assistant dean of the Berkeley MBA Career Management Group, has spent 10 years at Haas. Before taking over as assistant dean two years ago, she served as program director for the full-time MBA program. Before that she ran the MBA admissions process at NYU’s Stern School of Business. Our thanks to Hwang for taking time out of her busy schedule to speak with Clear Admit. Read more
Published: August 16, 2016
Wharton, HBS, Kellogg Class of 2018 Profiles Reveal Subtle, Interesting Shifts
Despite its continuing rise in recent years in terms of average GMAT scores—considered an all-important metric in certain annual rankings of schools—the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School back slid just a hair this year, according to its Class of 2018 Profile, released today. After a meteoric rise of 14 points since 2012 to 732 last year—placing it second only to Stanford Graduate School of Business—Wharton this year slipped to a mean GMAT score of 731. The range of GMAT scores the school accepted this year also widened, encompassing everything between 570 to 780, as compared to last Read more
Published: August 14, 2016
Real Humans of MBA Admissions: Shari Hubert of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business
Shari Hubert knows MBA admissions from both sides, having successfully navigated the process as a candidate herself, securing a spot in the Harvard Business School (HBS) Class of 2000. Leading MBA admissions at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business since 2013, she’s now on the other side, getting to know current applicants and trying to determine which of them bring the characteristics and experience that best fit with the values of the school. In keeping with our Real Humans of MBA Admissions series, Hubert shares below some of what makes her who she is. If you are applying Read more
Published: August 10, 2016
Career Services Director Q&A: Liza Kirkpatrick of Kellogg’s Career Management Center
Liza Kirkpatrick, director of full-time MBA programs for the Career Management Center at the Kellogg School of Management, has a long career in recruiting. Before joining Kellogg, she spent almost a decade with a staffing firm, helping to grow it from 12 people to five different offices in Chicago. When she came to Kellogg in 2008, she immediately had to prove her worth in a down market. Since then, she has held several different positions within career services but has always remained focused on student coaching, with oversight of the employer relations team, the coaching team and the operations team. In the interview that follows, she unpacks the recruiting process at Kellogg, shares some of the shifts she’s seeing in terms of employer hiring and student aspirations and stresses the importance of thinking about your career goals before arriving on campus. Read more
Published: August 9, 2016
Johnson’s New Dean Steps Excitedly into Uncharted Territory at Cornell’s College of Business
As we reported here, Cornell’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management appointed a new dean in early July, part of a larger reorganization that will integrate Johnson, the School of Hotel Administration and the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. Falling under the heading of the Cornell College of Business, the union promises a wider range of courses for students, enhanced abilities to draw top recruiters and faculty and greater efficiencies and depth in specific fields. We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Johnson Dean Mark Nelson Read more
Published: August 7, 2016
Real Humans of MBA Admissions: Kurt Ahlm of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
It’s that time again—where we offer insight into just who it is who’ll be deciding your fate in the upcoming MBA admissions season. This week we’re featuring Kurt Ahlm, associate dean for student recruitment and admissions at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Ahlm is a veteran in the admissions world, having started out in undergrad admissions at Northwestern University 20 years ago. He then worked in corporate recruiting for a stint before returning to higher education at Chicago Booth in 2002. MBA admissions, he finds, provides the perfect mix of the academic and corporate worlds, Read more
Published: August 4, 2016
Fridays from the Frontline: The Pre-MBA Journey—What to Do with Your Summer Vacation
This week’s Fridays from the Frontline comes to us from a soon-to-be first-year student at MIT Sloan School of Management. Jayesh Kannan, a member of Sloan’s Class of 2018, reflects on the happy news of his acceptance (which conveniently came on his birthday!) before diving in to outline all that he hoped to accomplish before getting to campus. If you’re gearing up to apply to business school this fall, tuck this away for suggestions of how to spend next summer. If, like Kannan, you’re coming to the end of that summer before business school, how many of the things Read more
Published: July 31, 2016
Real Humans of MBA Admissions: Wharton’s Frank DeVecchis
Next up in our series of glimpses into the real people behind MBA admissions is Frank DeVecchis, who has been director of admissions for the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School since March 2015. His tenure at Wharton began well before that though—he started back in 2009 as associate director for the Wharton Fund and led global immersion programs, academic affairs and academic operations from 2011 to 2015. He also got his own master’s degree, in higher education, from the University of Pennsylvania. So he’s most certainly an insider. In talking to him, his allegiance is abundantly clear. “Wharton is Read more
Published: July 28, 2016
Fridays from the Frontline: What It’s Really Like to Work at Amazon
Our Fridays from the Frontline this week comes from an MBA student at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business who has spent the summer interning at Amazon’s Seattle offices. A New York Times article last summer described the Amazon workplace in harsh terms, a “bruising” place where one employee reported seeing nearly every person he worked with cry at their desks. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is known for his allegiance to data-driven management and regular culling of staff that aren’t delivering results. But what’s it really like to work at Amazon? Darden first-year Linden Read more
Published: July 27, 2016
LBS Admissions Director on Reduction in Required Essays, Importance of Interview
With London Business School announcing its essay questions for the upcoming application season this week, we thought it a good time to check in with David Simpson, admissions director for the school’s MBA and Master in Finance programs, to see what led to some of the changes implemented this year. David Simpson, admissions director, MBA and MiF, London Business School In brief, LBS has decided to reduce the number of essays it requires from two to one, while retaining an optional essay. Read more
Published: July 26, 2016
Changing of the Guard: Derrick Bolton to Leave Stanford GSB Admissions
Just as Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) welcomes a new dean of school, it will be losing its beloved, longstanding dean and director of MBA admissions. On September 1st, as newly appointed Dean Jonathan Levin takes office, it will be without Derrick Bolton at his side leading MBA admissions for the world’s most selective business school. Bolton has accepted a new role as dean of admissions at the recently launched Knight-Hennessy Program. Derrick Bolton, who has led MBA admissions at Stanford GSB for the past 15 years For the past 15 years, Bolton has helped decide the fate of more than 90,000 hopeful Stanford MBA applicants, ultimately giving a nod to about 6,000 of them. Indeed, he is credited with increasing applications to the Palo Alto school by 55 percent during his tenure, making it the hardest business school to get into not just in this country but in the world. Read more
Published: July 26, 2016
Wisconsin Dean François Ortalo-Magné Heads to London Business School
London Business School (LBS) kicked off the week with an announcement that it will have a new dean beginning a year from now. François Ortalo-Magné, currently the dean of the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will serve as LBS’s ninth dean starting August 1, 2017, succeeding Sir Andrew Likierman, who will return to the faculty after his serving in the role since 2008. “I am delighted to be joining London Business School, an institution with an enviable reputation as one of the world’s leading business schools,” Ortalo-Magné said in a statement. “It has achieved so Read more
Published: July 24, 2016
Real Humans of MBA Admissions: Rodrigo Malta of UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business
Brazilian-native Rodrigo Malta is next up in our series designed to showcase the real people behind the MBA admissions process at leading business schools. Malta heads admissions at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, where he himself got his MBA a decade ago. He went to work in marketing at Dell for a bit after graduating but was ultimately wooed back to the admissions office—where he’d also worked as a student—by mentor and then-Director of MBA Admissions Tina Mabley. He jumped at the chance to return to campus and work on something Read more
Published: July 21, 2016
Fridays from the Frontline: How to Know When You’re Ready for an MBA
Knowing whether now is the right time for an MBA depends on a host of variables that are unique to each individual trying to make the decision. We were struck by a recent post on the MBA blog for the UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business that gets at a few of the different answers that helped recent MBA students there decide that the time was right. Read on to hear how students from each of the three Berkeley-Haas programs (Full-time MBA,Evening & Weekend MBA, MBA for Executives) knew they were ready. The following post has been republished Read more
Published: July 20, 2016
New Study Shines Spotlight on Challenges Facing LGBT Entrepreneurs
Getting a startup off the ground is no easy feat, but a recent study shows that startups founded by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) entrepreneurs can face even greater odds. The study, conducted by StartOut—a national non-profit organization that supports, educates and connects LGBT entrepreneurs—found that entrepreneurs in the LGBT community are at risk for discrimination that can affect where they locate their businesses and their ability to raise capital and build trust with investors. The study, “The State of LGBT Entrepreneurship in the U.S.,” was written by four StartOut members, two of whom work on the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The first study of its kind to shed light on the LGBT founders of high-growth companies, it was sponsored by Credit Suisse with support from Booth’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Read more
Published: July 18, 2016
ENTREPRENEURSHIP@ CBS: Tamer Center Seeds Social Enterprise Ventures
From “shrink wrap for crap” to a “greenhouse in a box,” unique ventures tackling serious challenges around the globe were among those awarded seed funding by Columbia Business School’s Tamer Center for Social Enterprise earlier this month. The awards, announced July 7th, went to four teams of entrepreneurs from across the Columbia University community. Each team received $25,000 in seed funding to help take their ideas to the next level, as well as access to the Tamer Center’s array of social enterprise resources. Bruce Usher, co-director of the Tamer Center and chair of the investment board for the Tamer Fund for Social Ventures, was thrilled and a little surprised when even more teams applied as part of the process this spring than in the inaugural round last fall. “This is only the second cohort, and after the first in the fall we weren’t sure how many additional ventures would apply for funding,” he says. In fact, they saw a slight uptick, from roughly 25 to 30 this spring. Read more
Published: July 17, 2016
Real Humans of MBA Admissions: Johnson Graduate School of Business’s Judi Byers
Moving right along in our new series designed to give applicants a glimpse into the real, live people who run admissions at the world’s top business schools, we’re pleased this week to feature Judi Byers. The Hawaiian-born Byers now calls upstate New York her home, where she’s overseen admissions and financial aid at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Business since 2015. (Prior to that she directed admissions at American University’s Kogod School of Business in Washington, DC.) “I hope you’re getting the sense that I am very comfortable with who I am,” she said matter-of-factly as she rattled Read more
Published: July 14, 2016
Chicago Booth to Seek New Dean as Sunil Kumar Leaves to Become Johns Hopkins Provost
University of Chicago Booth School of Business Dean Sunil Kumar is leaving to become the next provost of Johns Hopkins University, effective September 1st, the Baltimore school announced today. The Indian-born Kumar becomes the school’s 15th provost and the first-ever Asian to hold the position. Kumar just last year was appointed to a second five-year term as dean at Chicago Booth. In his tenure there, he is credited with helping raise more than $300 million, focusing on student recruitment, including increasing the female enrollment of full-time programs from 35 percent to 42 percent, and expanding courses for undergraduates, Read more
Published: July 14, 2016
Fridays from the Frontline: One Week in Bangkok
This week’s Fridays from the Frontline has it all. A Shark Tank‒like pitch performed on live national television, a plan to help India’s smallholder farmers meet growing demand for local, fresh produce and even a Thai massage. Even though the team at its center—five MBA students from Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Business—didn’t take home the very top prize, we think the story’s a winner. Thanks to Jeremy Kuhre (MBA ’16) for sharing it with us! The following post has been republished in its entirety from its original source, Johnson’s Student Blogs page.  One Read more
Published: July 13, 2016
What Brexit Means for Britain’s Business Schools
With David Cameron having officially resigned and Prime Minister Theresa May taking up residence behind “the most famous black door in the world” at 10 Downing Street, speculations abound regarding just what the full implications of the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union will be. Immediately following the Brexit vote, we reached out to admission directors at leading business schools in Britain to get their views on what it means for incoming MBA students in the short term, as well as what some of the longer-term impacts might entail. Read more
Published: July 11, 2016
Real Humans of MBA Admissions: Julie Barefoot of Emory’s Goizueta Business School
Julie Barefoot of Emory’s Goizueta Business School is a self-professed foodie who loves to cook and especially enjoys trying out new recipes. She can also make the fun claim of having admitted someone who today leads MBA admissions at another top-tier business school. Darden’s Sara Neher, who kicked off our Real Humans of MBA Admissions series last month, is a Goizueta grad whose candidacy Barefoot was in charge of evaluating. “We often laugh about how I admitted her and now we’re ‘competitors,’” Barefoot says. Read more
Published: July 11, 2016
GMAC Launches New Online MBA Rankings Tool to Demystify Rankings
In their most recent rankings, U.S. News & World Report and Bloomberg BusinessWeek named Harvard Business School the number one business school around. But wait…according to the Economist, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business gets top bragging rights. And then there’s the Financial Times, which names INSEAD number one, and Forbes, which says it’s Stanford Graduate School of Business. Confused yet? Many applicants to business school look to rankings as a way to make sense of the many different choices that exist for getting an MBA—but making sense of the Read more

MBA Livewire

December 17, 2024 1:30pm ET
Accepted to UT Austin / McCombs
Round: Round 1
Received via portal December 17, 2024
GPA: 8.03/10
GRE: 329
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: General Management
Application Location: India
Note:

$50k scholarship (~45%). Reapplicant from last year, got my GRE way up and clarified my goals. Never back down!!
December 17, 2024 12:50pm ET
Accepted to UT Austin / McCombs
Round: Round 1
Received via phone December 17, 2024
GPA: 4.0
GMAT: 750
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Note:

$80k scholarship
December 17, 2024 12:32pm ET
Accepted to UT Austin / McCombs
Round: Round 1
Received via phone December 17, 2024
GPA: 3.12
GRE: 327
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Technology
Application Location: Midwest
Note:

Got a call from student at 12:30PM EST. Good luck to all.
December 17, 2024 12:20pm ET
Accepted to UT Austin / McCombs
Round: Round 1
Received via phone December 17, 2024
GPA: 3.95
GRE: 319
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: General Management
Application Location: West Coast
Note:

got a call from a super sweet student! scholarship email and update in portal this afternoon :)
December 17, 2024 12:03pm ET
Accepted to UT Austin / McCombs
Round: Round 1
Received via phone December 17, 2024
GPA: 3.91
GRE: 318
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Consulting
Application Location: United States
Note:

US veteran, got a call from another vet student
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