Posts by Lena Maratea

About

Lena Maratea is the Digital Marketing Manager at Clear Admit. She's a South Philadelphia native who graduated from Temple University’s Fox School of Business with a BBA in Marketing. She creates and curates essential digital content for the Clear Admit community.

Published: May 14, 2019

GMAT Tip: Don’t Fret Over Two Letter Words

Many students get frustrated when evaluating sentence correction problems, with the biggest point of frustration coming from feeling that they need to memorize chart after chart of idioms. While knowing idioms can certainly be helpful, if you are facing a short timeline, sometimes you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Just like quantitative problems, there are frequently multiple ways to evaluate sentence correction problems. Not clear on determining that we arrive “at” an airport and arrive “in” a city, but we don’t tend to arrive “to” places? Don’t completely despair that – while you should have a decent Read more

Published: April 23, 2019

So, You’re Terrible at Integrated Reasoning…

Since its release on the June 2012 exam, the Integrated Reasoning portion of the GMAT has had some test takers stumped. This 30-minute, 12 question section is oddly scored on a 1 to 8 scale, and no partial credit is given, even for multi-part, multi-answer questions. For the past several years, it was a matter of debate on whether business schools evaluated applicants on the basis of the Integrated Reasoning section. Admissions offices can be slow to adapt to changes in standardized tests, waiting for enough points of comparison to consider whether the change corresponds with other ways that applicants Read more

Published: April 7, 2019

Incoming MBAs: Start your summer with Bain & Company

Bain & Company invites incoming MBA students to apply to ExperienceBain, a series of immersive workshops and events held at Bain & Company’s 57 offices around the world. ExperienceBain consists of five programs—outlined below—that give incoming MBA students exclusive access to Bain & Company before arriving on campus. We want to help you put your best foot forward at school and in your future career—no matter where your post-MBA path may take you. Selected applicants will develop the business toolkit of the future (e.g., design thinking, inspirational leadership), understand the latest challenges facing businesses, join discussions around workplace diversity and build Read more

Published: April 2, 2019

Probability Tip: Three Strategies That Aren’t Used Enough

Some GMAT instructors will say that students often place too much emphasis on studying for Probability and Combinatorics, rather than spending more time focusing on the heavy lifters of Algebra and Arithmetic. Like it or not, GMAT students get fixated on combinatorics and probability because a) these questions are never, never as straightforward as remembering and plugging into the permutation or combination formula and b) these problems have the illusion of being easy and attainable. But these sticky types of GMAT questions are notorious time wasters, driving test takers deep into a rabbit holes without consideration the right strategies. In Read more

Published: March 19, 2019

Sentence Correction Tip: Cut the Junk

Sentence corrections on the GMAT can be particularly tricky. There are so many rules and goals to keep in mind – not only does the correct selection have to be grammatically correct, but it needs to be concise and clear – at least, according to GMAC standards. The biggest strategy that we find even the best GMAT test takers fail to consider is “cutting the junk” when approaching GMAT sentence correction questions. It is easy for a GMAT test taker, particularly a native English speaker, to heavily rely on how a sentence correction questions sounds to make corrections, then jump Read more

Published: March 12, 2019

GMAT Critical Reasoning Tip: Mind the Gap

Let’s start this post with a critical reasoning question: When a group of people starts a company, the founders usually serve as sources both of funding and of skills in marketing, management, and technical matters. It is unlikely that a single individual can both provide adequate funding and be skilled in marketing, management, and technical matters. Therefore, companies founded by groups are more likely to succeed than companies founded by individuals. Which one of the following is an assumption required by the argument? Before we dive into the answer choices, let’s start by wrapping our heads around what this critical Read more

Published: March 3, 2019

Round 2 Applicants: Your Handy Guide for Leading MBA Programs’ Decisions

Round 2 leading MBA program decisions are upon us! For those who have applied in Round 2 and are anxiously awaiting their decision, you’re in the right place. Use this to guide you through Round 2 decisions that will be released in March 2019. School Decision Date Emory / Goizueta March 8, 2019 (Round 3) Toronto / Rotman March 8, 2019 Vanderbilt / Owen March 8, 2019 Berkeley / Haas March 14, 2019 Dartmouth / Tuck March 14, 2019 CMU Tepper March 14, 2019 Michigan / Ross March 15, 2019 UNC Kenan-Flagler Read more

Published: February 27, 2019

Four Reasons You Need to Visit Clear Admit’s Interview Archive

If you're preparing for a Round 2 MBA admissions interview, we wanted to remind Class of 2020 hopefuls that Clear Admit can help with the final hurdle to acceptance: the interview. The Clear Admit Interview Archive is a repository of first-hand accounts shared directly by MBA applicants after they have interviewed with one or more of their target top-tier business schools. The details shared in these reports—from the questions asked to what the applicant would do differently if he or she had it to do over—provide invaluable information as you prepare for your interviews. Read more

Published: January 24, 2019

Clear Admit Webinar: How to Prepare for Round 2 MBA Interviews

Do you need help preparing for your Round 2 MBA interviews? Look no further. Clear Admit’s experts are here to give you advice and tips to be successful at navigating this important stage in the admissions process. In this 90-minute webinar, Clear Admit’s Alex Brown will take a deep dive into what it takes to best prepare for your interviews at the elite MBA programs. The webinar will cover: Different types of interviews that business schools conduct and why understanding each interview type matters for candidates. Nuances that exist across alumni, admissions committee and student-led interviews. A break down of the Read more

Published: January 13, 2019

Jumpstart your MBA journey: The MBA Tour North America

The MBA Tour North America: MBA & Business Master’s Conferences Our friends over at the MBA Tour are back on the road again. Meet University of Southern California, Boston University, University of Cambridge, IESE, HEC Montréal, & more top Business Programs! Join them in a city near you: Los Angeles: Saturday, January 26 San Francisco: Monday, January 28 Boston: Wednesday, Read more

Published: December 11, 2018

GMAT Tip: Precarious Prepositions

When offering up strategy for sentence correction questions, we often talk about “decision points” – understanding what type of error is being tested and what subtle changes exist between multiple-choice selections. One of the most common questions we see from students is “shouldn’t the answer be ______, because the subject is ______, and therefore (singular/plural)? Nine times out of ten, inquiring test taker has simply not correctly identified the subject of the sentence because of his/her failure to eliminate the prepositional phrase. GMAT questions are not straightforward – when you are being asked to identify a correct verb, there can Read more

Published: November 18, 2018

A Comprehensive Set of MBA Interview Resources

As interview season kicks into high gear, for this week’s admissions tip we wanted to offer a comprehensive resource with all of our key interview tips. We begin with our four-part series that discusses the different types of interviews that MBA programs undertake. We then included our six tips for interview etiquette, our post on the five most popular interview questions, and finally our review of the seven hardest interview questions. Part 1: Open versus Selected What you will learn from Part 1: We examine which schools offer open interviews, and which offer interviews by invitation. We examine why schools Read more

Published: November 8, 2018

How to Prepare for MBA Interviews – Clear Admit’s Webinar Recap

Do you need help preparing for your MBA interviews? Clear Admit’s experts are here to give you advice and tips to be successful at navigating the admissions process. On Wednesday, November 7, we aired our interactive webinar “How to Prepare for MBA Interviews,” hosted by Alex Brown, Clear Admit’s long-time admissions expert and author of Becoming a Clear Admit: The Definitive Guide. The webinar covers: Different types of interviews that business schools conduct and why understanding each interview type matters for candidates. Nuances that exist across alumni, admissions committee and student-led interviews. A break down of the five most common MBA admissions interview Read more

Published: October 30, 2018

GMAT Tip: Completing the Critical Reasoning Blank

While strengthen, weaken, and inference questions tend to make up the bulk of GMAT Critical Reasoning questions, another question Critical Reasoning type that appears often is those that require completing the blank, following the prompt: Which of the following most logically completes the argument below? These question types are asking you to figure out what makes sense, typically as part of a plan of action based upon data, surveys, or other kinds of feedback. Let’s take a look at a sample problem below: Which of the following most logically completes the argument below? NowNews, although still the most popular magazine Read more

Published: October 21, 2018

Waiting on an Interview Invitation? Tune into Clear Admit’s LiveWire and MBA Chats

Since we know some of you may be waiting anxiously in the next few weeks for interview invitations, we wanted to remind you about two key resources that can help you through this busy—and often stressful—time: MBA LiveWire: Live reports from real candidates throughout the admissions process. Find the profiles of other applicants who applied to your target schools. Get live updates of those who have received an interview invitation or an admissions decision. Sort by school, admissions round, and the status of each entry to find the information you’re looking for. MBA Chats: Chat rooms dedicated to the top schools below, in Read more

Published: October 9, 2018

GMAT Tip: Focus on Sentence Corrections

GMAT test takers tend to get really focused on the quantitative section. Somehow, it seems like that in order to score a 700+ on the GMAT, we must work on endless amounts of algebra and geometry concepts, coupled with hundreds of problem solving and data sufficiency questions. The verbal section must be easier right? You scored a 54% in quantitative and a 43% in verbal, but you were just not having a great grammar day, right? Not necessarily. The vast majority of GMAT students overlook the obvious and, often, more attainable question types – particularly sentence correction. In some instances, Read more

Published: September 18, 2018

MBA LiveWire Data Predicts HBS, Wharton & Stanford Interview Invite Timing

October is an anxious month for MBA aspirants who have submitted applications to the leading MBA programs for Round 1. Many of these programs roll out their interview invite decisions during the month. If you are one of these candidates, MBA LiveWire is a good place for you to keep up to date with what’s going on; we hope you will also share your news. Harvard Leads the Way Harvard generally leads the way with Round 1 interview invite decisions. In 2017, HBS released its decisions on two dates, October 2nd and October 5th. The latter date included all those Read more

Published: September 18, 2018

GMAT Tip: Three Tips for GMAT Integrated Reasoning

When the Graduate Management Admission Council introduced the Integrated Reasoning section a few years ago, it was in response to considerable business school feedback around evolving technology, changing student skill-sets and the need to continue adapting. Now with a few years of data available, schools are starting to determine how to best utilize this score data, so while the GMAT Integrated Reasoning section doesn’t fall nicely and neatly into the quant or verbal bucket, let’s break down IR since this section doesn’t look quite like the others. Familiarize Yourself with GMAT Integrated Reasoning Answer Formats and Types. Integrated Reasoning questions Read more

Published: August 14, 2018

GMAT Tip: Read It Right On The Screen

Many test takers get frustrated when they uncover that a point of weakness in their GMAT practice tests is the reading section. “But I have an English degree!” or “I read part of a book each day!” While reading difficult, dense reading material each day – like the Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, or The Economist – can certainly boost and hone your reading comprehension skills, the reality is that (just like the rest of the test) there is a strategy behind the reading comprehension section that is more than, well, just reading. One strategy that a lot of test takers don’t think Read more

Published: August 13, 2018

Clear Admit and Tuck School of Business Host Webinar – “A Walk Through the Tuck Application”

Are you planning on applying to The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth this admissions season? If so, it may be helpful to know that they have made some exciting innovations to the application process. We’ve just made the “A Walk Through the Tuck Application” webinar we conducted with Kristin Roth, Tuck’s Associate Director of Admissions, available online – and we highly recommend that you give it a listen as it brings valuable insight into applying to tuck! The webinar covered: What a Tuck MBA Candidate looks like How to navigate the application process at Tuck The best advice for taking on the Read more

Published: August 12, 2018

Savvy MBA Application Strategy: How Many Apps, Which Schools, When to Apply

You’ve decided the MBA is the next stop on your career path. What now? The smartest applicants are those who take the time to create an informed MBA application strategy—a well thought-out game plan that can help you obtain your goals as efficiently and effectively as possible. One of the first challenges you’ll face is school selection—strategically choosing which schools to target, bearing in mind the competitive mix of those schools. In recent years, MBA applicants appear to be trending downward in terms of the total number of schools to which they apply. Research we have undertaken on data Read more

Published: August 7, 2018

GMAT Tip: The IR Matters

Many test takers spent the vast majority of their preparation working towards improving in the Quantitative and Verbal Reasoning sections, only taking a day or two to skim through the Integrated Reasoning sections, and almost always skipping the IR section on practice exams. Not giving the Integrated Reasoning section due diligence and/or just a tenth of preparation time may be detrimental for a competitive application. Set up as an experimental section, many b-school experts felt that the IR would never become a valid aspect of a GMAT application. But more recent surveys indicate that IR is, in fact, becoming an Read more

Published: August 5, 2018

Admissions Tip: Applying to Business School as a Younger Applicant

As many of our readers know, it has become increasingly common for younger individuals to apply to MBA programs. Whereas the average age and years of work experience at the leading business schools has traditionally hovered at around 28 and five respectively, many programs are now carefully considering the more youthful end of the applicant pool. Of course, the fact that admissions officers are taking a closer look at younger applicants does not mean that getting accepted to a top program is easy for this group. In fact, it may be difficult for younger applicants to present themselves as fully Read more

Published: July 4, 2018

Ready for Your MBA? Register for Free to Meet Top B-Schools at The MBA Tour This July!

Summer is in full swing! While you may be enjoying the time to travel, hit the beach and spend time with family and friends, it’s also the best time to prepare for your MBA admissions journey. As such, we wanted to let you know that our friends from The MBA Tour are hosting their U.S. Tour throughout July. If your located close to one of the following events, don’t miss out on this great opportunity to meet with admissions directors from Columbia, MIT, UC Berkeley, Chicago Booth, IE, Northwestern Kellogg and more top business schools. You’ll be able to attend admissions panels, Read more

Published: May 17, 2018

Clear Admit and CommonBond Host Webinar on Financing Your MBA

Are you heading off to school this fall and beginning to tackle the big issue of how to pay for it? If so, you’re in luck! We’ve just made the ‘financing the MBA’ webinar we conducted with our friends at CommonBond available online – and we highly recommend that you give it a listen. You could save yourselves a lot of headaches and some cash along the way. The webinar highlighted: How to factor in the full cost of attendance that students can expect What funding options are available How to choose a loan that is right for each student Next steps Read more

MBA Livewire

November 14, 2024 8:16am ET

Interview Invite to Berkeley / Haas

Round: Round 1

Received via email November 14, 2024

GPA: 3.6

GRE: 321

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Non Profit / Social Impact

Application Location: Australia

November 14, 2024 3:40am ET

Interview Invite to USC / Marshall

Round: Round 1

Received via email

GPA: 3

GMAT: 710

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Finance

Application Location: Taiwan

Note:

Interviewed on 11/8 with Benjamin Greenfeld. Didn’t expect to get invited by my dream school. It’s was quite conversational but very professional. I’m not sure how the interview went because I’m just too nervous. Questions are mostly related to my profile and soft skills.

November 14, 2024 3:28am ET

Interview Invite to Berkeley / Haas

Round: Round 1

Received via email on November 12, 2024

GPA: 3.4

GRE: 328

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

November 14, 2024 3:07am ET

Rejected at Duke / Fuqua

Round: Round 1

Received via email on November 12, 2024

GRE: 323

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Application Location: India

Note:

I guess now I have to question everything.

November 14, 2024 1:51am ET

Interview Invite to Duke / Fuqua

Round: Round 1

Received via email November 13, 2024

GPA: 8.0

GMAT: 763

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Technology

Application Location: India

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