Admissions Tips

Browse our weekly admissions tips, or choose the category most relevant to you: researching, planning, applying, deciding.

Published: June 17, 2018

Kellogg Admissions Director Shares Insights on 2019 MBA Application

Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management is one of several leading business schools to release its 2019-2020 MBA application online within the last week. At Kellogg, deadlines for the upcoming admission season are as follow: September 19, 2018 January 9, 2019 April 10, 2019 To help you get started, Director of Admissions Melissa Rapp provided insight into the 2019 MBA application along with some great advice on how to prepare. We’ve shared some of the most pertinent details below. Written Essay Questions Remain Unchanged The Kellogg written essay questions remain the same this year as last. Applicants will need to Read more

Published: June 12, 2018

Leading Business School Admissions Directors Share Pro Tips for Applicants in Unique May Events

Admissions directors from seven leading business schools convened last month for MBA admissions events in San Francisco and Washington, DC, giving prospective applicants an unusual opportunity to learn more about how to navigate the admissions process directly from the people who know best. Clear Admit Editor-in-Chief Jeanette Brown peppered representatives from Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, Duke’s Fuqua School, Michigan’s Ross School, NYU Stern School, UVA’s Darden School, and the Yale School of Read more

Published: June 11, 2018

These Four Attributes Will Help You Get into Tuck’s MBA Program

Nice guys finish last? Not so if you’re an applicant to the MBA program at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. Tuck’s admissions director yesterday outlined new, simplified criteria for evaluating MBA applicants—part of the school’s continuing commitment to being as open and transparent in its admissions process as possible. When it comes right down to it, Tuck wants students who are a combination of the following four attributes: nice, smart, accomplished, and aware. As part of a news story on the school’s website outlining the new evaluation criteria, Tuck Executive Director of Admissions and Read more

Published: May 29, 2018

Get and Give Inside Advice for Great Business School Campus Visits

We’re hard at work on our next new applicant resource—the Clear Admit VisitArchive—which is designed to help MBA candidates learn more about their target schools by reading about the campus visit experience of others. Though VisitArchive is still only in beta testing—look for an official launch later in the 2018-2019 admissions cycle—we have already received great responses from early users sharing tips guaranteed to inform future visits. For example, one visitor who took an Uber to Georgetown’s McDonough School campus offered this advice: “On a hot day, do not let them drop you at the main gate. It’s a Read more

Published: May 21, 2018

MBA ApplyWire Spotlight: Profile Feedback for Business School Admissions

As a new crop of applicants set their sights on the 2018-2019 admissions season, many are wisely turning to Clear Admit’s ApplyWire, a tool that supports MBA application strategy. As an applicant, by posting the business schools you are considering applying to, along with a little information about your credentials and goals, you can get feedback from our community of top-tier applicants to help inform your final choice of schools. In this edition of MBA ApplyWire Spotlight, we take a closer look at two recent posts from new candidates for the Class of 2021. We start with a consultant who has a lengthy list of schools: Clear Admit’s resident admissions expert (and newlywed!), Alex Brown, kicked off the feedback: Read more

Published: May 13, 2018

Admissions Tip: Time-Saving Tools for School Targeting

A critical key to success in the MBA admissions process is targeting the right MBA programs for application. When commencing the MBA admissions process, it can be difficult to immediately identify which programs might be most suitable and where you might be most competitive. A quick survey of MBA rankings may provide clues – and our own tiered ranking system provides additional guidance in terms of which programs are similar from a competitive standpoint – but beyond those basic resources, Clear Admit also has two unique tools to help you quickly arrive at your list of target MBA programs: MBA Read more

Published: May 9, 2018

Meet Leading Admissions Directors, Clear Admit Editor-in-Chief at May 16th Event in Washington, DC

Admissions directors from seven leading business schools will convene for a second multi-school MBA admissions event on Wednesday, May 16th, in Washington, DC. Moderated by Clear Admit Editor-in-Chief Jeanette Brown, the DC event will feature representatives from Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Cornell’s S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management, Duke’s Fuqua School, Michigan’s Ross School, NYU Stern School, UVA’s Darden School, and Yale School of Management (SOM). The first event, which took place in San Francisco on May 10th, filled up completely. Dozens of alumni from participating programs now working in the Bay Area were also on hand to share their first-hand experiences as students with participants. Read more

Published: May 6, 2018

Admissions Tip: Round 3 Results

With the MBA programs releasing their final round notifications in the upcoming weeks, the 2017-2018 admissions season is coming to a close for the vast majority of MBA aspirants. We’d like to offer our congratulations to all those who have gained admission to one of more of their target schools and wish good luck to waitlisted applicants whose fate is presently a bit less certain. For all those who submitted their applications in the final round and received an unfavorable decision, we’d like to share a few tips that we hope will make the process of facing rejection as productive Read more

Published: May 3, 2018

Our Latest Podcast: Reapplying to Business School

If your dream of attending a top-tier business school was dashed by a rejection this year, we know how hard that can be. To work so tirelessly toward a goal that you don’t achieve can be spirit-crushing. And yet, we’re here to tell you that it does happen. You are not alone. We’re also here to tell you that you might want to think about reapplying. Did you know—one out of every 10 students in most Harvard Business School MBA classes applied more than once and was rejected the first time. That’s right. On average, a tenth of the HBS Read more

Published: April 24, 2018

Our Latest Podcast: Clear Admit’s 12-Step Program for Early Bird MBA Applicants

Looking to get an early start on your MBA applications for the 2018-2019 application season? Don’t miss our latest podcast episode, in which Clear Admit Co-Founder Graham Richmond outlines a 12-step program for early bird MBA applicants. By getting the ball rolling this far in advance, you’re already setting yourself up for success. Richmond’s suggested steps can help ensure that you stay on track and take full advantage of your great head start. Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast Episode 11: Clear Admit's 12-Step Program for Early Bird MBA Applicants Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Read more

Published: April 23, 2018

Your Essential Guide to Pre-MBA Diversity Conferences, Boot Camps, and Forums

Several organizations are focused on helping increase the pipeline of underrepresented demographics—such as women, LGBTQ students, and those from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds—to business school and the larger business world. As part of these efforts, many host pre-MBA conferences, boot camps, and forums providing recruiting and networking opportunities to diverse admitted students headed off to business school in the fall. For eligible participants, these opportunities, designed to provide a head start for students in the MBA recruiting process before they even arrive on campus, are well worth pursuing. Forté MBA Women’s Leadership Conference The Forté Foundation, a non-profit Read more

Published: April 8, 2018

Financing Your MBA, Part 4: International MBA Student Loans

In our previous post on financing your MBA, we covered loan programs for MBA students from the United States. Today, we’ll take a look at loans through the lens of international students, who face some different restrictions but who are also eligible for special programs tailored to their unique requirements. By law, federal loans can only be distributed to U.S. citizens or permanent residents. This means that international students must put extra work into finding financial aid and loan programs to support their education if they choose to pursue a U.S. MBA program. Read more

Published: April 4, 2018

Financing Your MBA, Part 3: Loans for U.S. MBA Students

Moving right along in our multi-part series on financing your MBA, we’ll take a look today at some of the options prospective MBA students have for obtaining loans to finance their time at business school. For the purposes of this post, we will focus primarily U.S. MBA student loan programs. International students, stay tuned for subsequent posts that will go into greater detail about loan programs tailored for your needs. Of course, because loans must ultimately be repaid—unlike scholarship or fellowship aid—deciding how much you should borrow is as important as understanding how much you can borrow. To make an Read more

Published: April 1, 2018

Financing Your MBA, Part 2: Where to Look for Funding

In the first of our multi-part series on financing your MBA, we took a look last week at the costs involved in attending a top-tier business school. Now, with a better handle on how much money you’ll need, let’s start looking at where that funding will come from. Students typically rely on a mixture of savings, fellowships and scholarships, employer or outside assistance, and loans to meet the cost of an MBA program. According to the GMAC 2017 Prospective Student Survey, the most recently surveyed group of prospective students expected to finance almost half their education Read more

Published: April 1, 2018

Thanking Your MBA Recommenders—Our Guide to Gift Giving

The process of applying to business school is a complicated beast with numerous steps to consider along the path from application to acceptance. As Round 2 decisions roll in, many applicants may find themselves approaching one of the final steps in the process: Finding an appropriate gift for thanking your MBA recommenders. While this step might seem insignificant on the surface—or at the very least merely symbolic—make no mistake: Experts hold this one in especially high esteem. Clear Admit’s DecisionWeek is brought to you by HBX. HBX brings the dynamism of the Harvard Business School classroom to online Read more

Published: March 29, 2018

Fridays from the Frontline: HBS Student Shares Why Applying in Round 3 Made Sense

Fridays from the Frontline Better late than never? For b-school hopefuls who for one reason or another let the Round 1 and Round 2 deadlines pass them by, conventional wisdom has often been to wait until next year. But most schools do feature a Round 3, and for the right applicants, applying in this late round can work out just as well. To be sure, applying to MBA programs during Round 3 has its challenges—classes have largely been filled and scholarship aid is at its most scarce. That said, Round 3 can actually have more of a strategic function than Read more

Published: March 29, 2018

Our Lastest Podcast: Who Should Apply in Round 3?

If you’re wrestling with the question of whether or not to apply in Round 3, you won’t want to miss our latest podcast. Clear Admit Co-Founder Graham Richmond unpacks the challenges of this late round, but also the very real opportunities it presents to the right candidates. Fewer spots remain in classes already largely filled with accepted candidates from earlier rounds, and scholarship dollars have often dried up. But schools absolutely do still accept candidates in Round 3, and some indicators suggest that this might be an especially good year to apply. Find out why. Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast Read more

Published: March 26, 2018

Weighing Whether to Apply in Round 3? Here’s What MIT Sloan Has to Say

Yesterday, we shared guidance from the head of admissions at Yale School of Management, and today we’ve got advice from MIT Sloan’s director of admissions. When it comes to applying in Round 3, it turns out they have similar things to say. In the opinion of Bruce Delmonico, Yale SOM assistant dean of admissions, prospective applicants “have everything to gain and nothing to lose by applying in Round 3.” A cartoon image of Levenson encouraging Round 3 applicants In a recent post to her Admissions Director Blog, MIT Sloan Director Read more

Published: March 26, 2018

Our Latest Podcast: Navigating the MBA Waitlist

With the Round 2 MBA interview season officially behind us, we’re excite to move on in the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast series to another topic still of interest to some applicants in both Rounds 1 and 2: navigating the MBA waitlist. Unlike the black and white decisions some candidates have received in recent weeks—the coveted acceptances and the less popular rejections—we know many of you find yourselves in a murky gray area called the waitlist. While a straight-up acceptance would obviously be preferably, we’re here to tell you that top programs really do admit a fair Read more

Published: March 26, 2018

Yale SOM Adcom on Round 2 Decisions, Applying in Round 3

With Yale School of Management (SOM) set to release Round 2 decisions today, March 27th, you’ll find real-time coverage as news of acceptances and less favorable results gets reported on MBA LiveWire. Assistant Dean for Admissions Bruce Delmonico took to his admissions blog in a recent post to confirm today’s decision date but also to focus on Round 3. Clear Admit’s DecisionWeek is brought to you by HBX. HBX brings the dynamism of the Harvard Business School classroom to online learning—preparing participants for the next chapter of their careers. Read more

Published: March 26, 2018

April Fills Up with MBA Admitted Students’ Weekends

Spring has officially sprung, which means that business schools around the country have geared up to host their admitted student welcome events. In doing so, top schools aim to attract the best and brightest by giving them an early look at what their programs and institutions have to offer. Read more

Published: March 25, 2018

Financing Your MBA, Part I: What’s an MBA Going to Cost

As more and more of you are receiving your admissions results from all your hard work during the MBA application process, we wanted to turn our attention to how you’ll manage financing your MBA. If you’ve got a spare couple hundred thousand dollars in your bank account, then you can probably skip this series. For everyone else, read on. In this post and a handful to follow, we’ll provide a broad overview of the various costs a typical MBA student faces and the types of funding opportunities currently available. Down the line, we’ll take a closer look at the financial aid processes at Read more

Published: March 19, 2018

Anticipating Round 2 Decisions via Clear Admit’s LiveWire and MBA Chats

Throughout the rest of March, leading business schools will be rolling out their decisions to Round 2 MBA applicants. While many are eager for the gift of admission via phone, email or portal, waiting for a decision can push anxiety levels to full tilt for the Class of 2020 hopefuls. But, fear not, anxious applicants! At Clear Admit, we have two resources that are designed to help you navigate the next couple weeks: Clear Admit LiveWire and Clear Admit MBA Chats. Reports from Real Candidates on MBA LiveWire Keep your finger on the pulse of MBA Read more

Published: March 19, 2018

MBA DecisionWire Spotlight: Applying to Business School for the Non Profit Sector

In this week’s MBA DecisionWire Spotlight, which recounts MBA candidates’ choices as shared in Clear Admit’s DecisionWire, we're setting the spotlight on a candidate choosing a business school for the non profit sector. We take a closer look at a post from a candidate considering Cornell / Johnson, Georgetown / McDonough, or NYU Stern. Read on for more details about the applicant’s background. Initial feedback turned to Johnson: Read more

Published: March 11, 2018

Three Reasons to Apply to MBA Programs in Round 3

As we move through March, the Round 3 deadlines of leading MBA Programs are drawing near. Conventional wisdom in the MBA admissions world suggests it’s best to avoid the final rounds when applying to top business schools, but sometimes circumstances dictate otherwise. One thing to keep in mind is that all indications suggest that this year could actually be a good one in which to apply in R3. This is because a strong global economy and job market (particularly in the US and Europe) have led to declines in MBA application volume at many business schools. As such, several top programs will likely Read more

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MBA Applywire

November 20, 2024 9:42pm ET

Applying: Babson / Olin, , Carnegie Mellon / Tepper, Emory / Goizueta, Rice / Jones, Rochester / Simon, SMU Cox, UCI Merage, Washington U. / Olin

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Technology - Entrepreneurship

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Technology, Entrepreneurship

GRE: 333

GPA: 2.56

Years of Work Experience: 5

Location: Lagos

Notes:

I just got rejected for WashU Olin and I have an interview invitation with Questrom. GPA continues to bother me but I addressed it in my supporting essays.

November 19, 2024 12:51pm ET

Applying: Berkeley / Haas, Cornell / Johnson, Dartmouth / Tuck, Duke / Fuqua, INSEAD, Michigan / Ross, MIT Sloan, Northwestern / Kellogg, U. Chicago Booth, UPenn / Wharton, Yale SOM

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Tech in government

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Entrepreneurship Companies: Bain , McKinsey

GRE: 319

GPA: 2.9

Years of Work Experience: 7

Notes:

I got cancer when I was undergrad that's why my undergrad GPA is low. After MBA I want to work in consulting then make a social impact in Africa through entrepreneurship

November 19, 2024 12:06pm ET

Applying: Duke / Fuqua, Harvard Business School, Michigan / Ross, Northwestern / Kellogg, Stanford GSB, U. Chicago Booth, U. Washington / Foster, UNC Kenan-Flagler, UT Austin / McCombs, UVA / Darden

Pre-MBA Career: Wealth Management and Military

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Asset Management, inc. HF, Other Companies: Bain , BCG , Deloitte , McKinsey , Goldman Sachs , JP Morgan Asset Management , State Street , Vanguard

GPA: 3.80

Years of Work Experience: 7

Location: San Diego

Post MBA Location: Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Charlotte

Notes:

UG Degree: BBA Financial Markets at an Accredited Institution.

Civilian Work History: 3 years as Wealth Advisor under an RIA in Minneapolis and Denver. Total AUM of ~$350-400M, served as a salaried advisor in a primary and secondary capacity. Holistic services to include investment management, estate planning, retirement planning, insurance planning, tax planning, etc.

Military History: 4 years as a supply/logistics officer heading efforts for air/ground mobility, defense contracting, supply and procurement, and fiscal budget management while located at various bases within CONUS and multiple forward deployed locations.

Professional Certifications: Obtained Certified Financial Planner designation (2022) and Series 65 (2019).

November 18, 2024 12:50am ET

Applying: Columbia, Dartmouth / Tuck, Duke / Fuqua, Emory / Goizueta, NYU Stern, UNC Kenan-Flagler, Yale SOM

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Consulting

Post-MBA Target Industry: Investment Banking Companies: Bank of America , Barclays , Citibank , Credit Suisse , Goldman Sachs , JP Morgan Chase

GRE: 323

GPA: 3.32

Years of Work Experience: 7

Notes:

Education:
- Combined Major in Economics and Statistics
- CFA Charterholder (passed all three levels on the first attempt)

Professional Experience:
- Manager at a Big 4 firm Specializing in capital projects and infrastructure, with a role similar to investment banking
- Seven years of experience, mainly in financial services in Ghana

Extracurricular Activities:
- Pro bono capital-raising services for SMEs
- Aspiring to run a full advisory firm for SMEs in the future
- CFA exam coaching and tutorial classes for candidates
- Founder of a travel and tour club offering affordable trips to explore beautiful and historic scenes in Ghana

Will being 32 years old affect the attractiveness of my candidacy?

November 17, 2024 9:24am ET

Applying: Columbia, , Georgetown / McDonough, Harvard Business School, INSEAD, NYU Stern, Oxford / Saïd, Stanford GSB, UCLA Anderson, Yale SOM

Pre-MBA Career: Higher Education

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Technology, Investment Banking, Venture Capital, Private Equity, Media, Undecided Companies: Bain , BCG , McKinsey , JP Morgan , Morgan Stanley , JP Morgan Chase , Apple , Google , Microsoft , Andressen Horowitz , Charles River , Sequoia Capital , Blackstone , KKR , 21st Century Fox , Comcast , Walt Disney

GPA: 3.97

Years of Work Experience: 5

Location: Denver, Colorado

Post MBA Location: New York City

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MBA LiveWire

November 23, 2024 12:41am ET

Accepted to SMU Cox

Round: Round 1

Received via email November 22, 2024

GPA: 3.6

GRE: 331

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Marketing

Application Location: Delta, Nigeria

November 22, 2024 11:09pm ET

Accepted to NYU Stern

Round: Round 1

Received via portal November 22, 2024

GPA: 3.65

Program Type: One Year Program

Target Career: Technology

Application Location: NY

Note:

Submitted on 9/1, interview invite on 10/8, interviewed on 10/30. No phone call but portal updated on 11/22 around 1pm est. No scholarship..

November 22, 2024 8:42pm ET

Accepted to SMU Cox

Round: Round 1

Received via phone November 22, 2024

GPA: 3.9

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Consulting

Application Location: Mississippi

November 22, 2024 8:34pm ET

Rejected at SMU Cox

Round: Round 1

Received via portal on November 21, 2024

GPA: 3.89/4

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Consulting

Application Location: Asia

November 22, 2024 8:33pm ET

Accepted to Georgia Tech / Scheller

Round: Round 1

Received via email November 22, 2024

GPA: 3.76

GRE: 329

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Technology

Application Location: Pakistan

Note:

Accepted with Full GRA

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