Application Tips
Strategic advice on executing your MBA application, including tips on your résumé, data forms, and essays.
Published: August 15, 2017
Admissions Director Q&A: Rodrigo Malta of the University of Texas’s McCombs School of Business
Rodrigo Malta, a native of Brazil, moved to the United States for high school and college and ultimately graduated from the McCombs School of Business 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 little over 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 assistant dean for the full-time MBA program, Malta applied for and got the admissions director’s position in 2010.
Prospective applicants may be happy to learn that Malta understands their position on such a personal level. This empathy might also be why he’s so forthcoming with useful tips and advice. Read on to learn what he has to share—including exciting plans for the new home of the Texas MBA, the many experiential learning opportunities that complement classroom time, and more.
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Published: August 6, 2017
Your Business School Application: Four Things to Do Right Now
Sponsored Content Congratulations on the decision to pursue a professional business degree! Are you wondering where to start? Applying to MBA and specialized master’s programs requires careful planning and preparation. Checking these first tasks off your list can help put you on the path to success. 1. Know your strengths. Make a list of things you do well, outstanding professional accomplishments, what you’ve learned from your successes (and failures), and your most ambitious goals for the future. These are all items you’ll want to talk about in your essays and interviews. You’ll also want to start to identify
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Admissions Director Soojin Kwon Shares the Skinny on Ross’s New Application Essays
Soojin Kwon, who leads MBA admissions at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, began her most recent Director’s Blog by suggesting that things are quiet on campus right now—only to reveal big news about planned changes to its approach to essay questions this year.
Soojin Kwon, Ross director of admissions
The two are connected, of course. It’s the relatively quiet time—when students jet off for global immersion courses around the world or gear up for summer internships every bit as far flung—that the Admission Committee can finally catch its breath, review its process, and really examine what’s working and where there might be opportunity to change things up a little.
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New Clear Admit Chat Series Offers Valuable Free Primer for the MBA Admissions Season
Note: You can join the chat in progress here https://www.clearadmit.com/chat/mba-admissions-series/
If you are planning to apply to business school in the coming year, listen up: We’re rolling out a brand-new series of 10 free expert-led chats that together offer a comprehensive overview of the steps successful applicants take in the MBA admissions process. Hosted by Clear Admit’s own Alex Brown—author of Becoming a Clear Admit: The Definitive Guide to MBA Admissions and former senior associate director of admissions at Wharton—each chat in the series will focus in on an individual component of the MBA admissions process.
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Published: January 24, 2017
HBS Round 2 Interviews Are Almost Here
As 12 p.m. Eastern time steadily approaches, the waning moments of anxiety and anticipation for Round Two interview invites to Harvard Business School are reaching a boiling point. Earlier this week, HBS Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Chad Losee sent out a reminder to all applicants over at the HBS ‘Direct from the Director‘ blog. While nerves may certainly be on high for a host of applicants, Losee reminds everyone not to worry too much if you don’t receive an invite just yet. “Remember,” he writes, “this is only a portion of the interview invites;
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Published: December 26, 2016
Admissions Directors Weigh in on Data Forms
In recent weeks we’ve featured a couple of admissions tips focused on the evolving nature of data forms as part of the MBA admissions process. Specifically, we’ve noticed that data forms at many schools have grown more extensive in recent years, in some cases in tandem with a move away from requiring candidates to write as many essays. To get a better understanding of this shift—and how candidates can best approach the data forms—we turned to admissions directors at several business schools to get their input.
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Published: September 18, 2016
Declare Your Love (and Explain It)
With Round One already under way for a number of programs, it’s the time of year when many applicants are working hard on their application essays and learning more about their target programs in the process of rounding out their “why are you pursuing an MBA/why [insert school name here]” discussions. Keeping this important component of the MBA admissions process in mind, we wanted to take the time today to offer some advice on how to polish this element of one’s file and get the most mileage out of this section. MBA Admissions is Personal Schools look for applicants who seem
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Published: August 28, 2016
Admissions Tip: 10 Basic Essay Writing Rules
Before you complete your MBA application essays, it is worth noting the context within which they will be read. The adcom will be reading many essays in a short period of time. They may not have as much time as they’d like to reflect deeply on your content and ‘connect the dots.’ They will be trying to make subjective decisions in order to make recommendations regarding whether to offer interviews or admissions, the easy call, or whether to deny, which is a final, and often more difficult, call. Given that, there are 10 basic rules that you should follow (in no particular
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Published: August 21, 2016
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. Where applying to five to seven
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Published: August 14, 2016
The MBA Application: Know Your Audience
As Round 1 deadlines approach, applicants are coming to understand that applying to business school is an incredibly demanding process. In addition to taking the GMAT, assembling academic transcripts and providing recommendation letters, candidates are required to draft multiple essays, job descriptions, lists of activities and more. With the obvious incentive to save time wherever possible, it’s understandable that many applicants simply cut and paste content from an existing resume and write about their work in the manner that comes most naturally. However, in doing so, countless candidates each year assemble their materials without ever asking a
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Admissions Tip: The MBA Career Goals Question in Essays, Short-Answers, and Interviews
Though essay questions tend to vary year to year, the two things that nearly every prospective student can count on being asked are “What are your short-term and long-term post-MBA goals?” and “How will Business School X help you achieve these goals?” Even those schools that do not ask this question directly in their essays will likely ask the question in their data forms, or during the interview. These are the fundamental questions of the entire application process; identifying clear answers will help in everything from creating a list of target schools to communicating effectively with recommenders and interviewers down
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Admissions Tip: Feedback Etiquette
Recently, we discussed the importance of signing up for a feedback session when one is planning to reapply to a program that provides this opportunity. Today we’d like to follow up on that post by offering a few thoughts on feedback session etiquette. While on one hand a feedback session marks the close of this year’s process, it’s crucial that you realize that the impression you make on the adcom member conducting the session, as well as the advice that the adcom member provides, may be added to your file and come to bear on your candidacy next year. Taking
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Published: February 29, 2016
Round 4 at Kenan-Flagler School of Business: Admissions Director Weighs In
For the right candidates, applying in Round 4 to the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler School of Business is by all means a worthwhile endeavor, the school’s admission director assures us. We spoke yesterday with Sherry Wallace, who has led admissions at the Chapel Hill business school for close to two decades. “Every year we get as many as 10 to 15 percent of our applicants in Round 4, and we fully intend to admit from this round,” she says.
UNC Kenan-Flagler Director of MBA Admissions Sherry Wallace
In fact, the school will continue to accept applications beyond the March 11th Round 4 deadline if the class is not set at that time, and most of the time it’s not, Wallace says. “We don’t want to discourage anyone who happens to find us late to apply even then,” she says. To be clear, there are not a ton of seats still available after the Round 4 deadlines, she says. “But for the right candidate who finds us late, there can definitely still be a spot.”
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Published: February 23, 2016
MBA Admissions Mashup: Diversity & Inclusion
Every Wednesday, we share a round-up of the latest news from admissions blogs at the top business schools. This week’s MBA Admissions Mashup takes a look at what business schools and MBAs are doing to promote diversity and inclusion on campus and we’ve sprinkled in several admissions tips...just in time for your MBA interview or a Round 3 target deadline.
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Published: November 1, 2015
Admissions Tip: Submitting Additional Materials
For those of you who applied in Round 1, your applications are now submitted and you are ideally hearing from some of your target schools regarding interview invites. You should be feeling good about all the work you put in and are perhaps even a bit excited about any upcoming interview opportunities, but something is nagging at you. Ever since you clicked ‘submit’ in the online applications, you feel you now have less control over the process. As one applicant put it: “It’s like a black hole, an emptiness – you race to submit everything and have all this energy
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Published: October 27, 2015
MBA Admissions Mashup: Breaking News from HBS, Value of Alumni Networks, and the Importance Balance
Every Wednesday, we share a round-up of the latest news from admissions blogs at the top business schools. In this week’s edition of MBA Admissions Mashup, we take a look at some breaking news from HBS, the value of a vast alumni network, careers and internships, work-life balance, on-campus conferences as well as some last minute admissions advice. This morning, Harvard Business School Managing Director of MBA Admissions & Financial Aid, Dee Leopold announced that she will be stepping down from her post in May 2016. In the post, she assures all of you Harvard Hopefuls
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Published: September 10, 2015
Does Working For The Family Business Hurt Your MBA Potential?
This post has been republished in entirety from its original source, metromba.com.
Working for the family business can be an incredibly rewarding and fulfilling experience. Building a family legacy that will last for generations is the main goal of many family businesses. And often, to achieve that goal, additional education, such as an MBA, is necessary to move the company to the next level. However, it’s not always easy to head into an MBA program when you work for the family business and plan to continue working for the family business.
Letters of recommendation, work history, application essays, and interviews can all become awkward when you suddenly mention that your experience is all connected to your family. But that shouldn’t stop you from pursuing your MBA. In fact, many MBA applicants that come from family businesses can make their experience work to their advantage. After all, no one can be more difficult to work for than family.
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Published: September 7, 2015
How To Make Sure Your Job Enhances Your MBA Application
This post has been republished in entirety from its original source, metromba.com.
MBA candidates most often apply to business school because they are seeking more rapid career advancement, or they want to dramatically change their career path. However, for many full-time MBA candidates, job dissatisfaction is just as likely a reason—otherwise they wouldn’t be applying for an MBA. But no matter the reason behind the MBA, every applicant should remember that their application is a chance to sell their skills and demonstrate the value that they will add to the program. To do this, it’s important to learn how to spin your work experience.
We reached out to Julie R. Barefoot, the associate dean of MBA admissions at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, for her advice on making the most out your job experience. Here’s what she had to say:
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Published: August 16, 2015
Common Recommendation Dilemmas
As many of our readers are aware, MBA recommendation letters are a central part of the application process. We would like to take a look at how to handle the snags that often arise for applicants in unique employment situations. The applicant who is most likely to have trouble finding a suitable recommender is either self-employed or works in his or her family’s business. First, self-employed entrepreneurs by their very nature do not have a direct supervisor. Similarly, an applicant who works for the family business may have trouble finding a non-related supervisor, or someone who can
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Admissions Tip: Avoiding Red Flags
When applying to the top schools, it is important to avoid “red flags” in your application. For the uninitiated, red flags are negative items that stand out in your file and may result in rejection from business school. While most applicants understand the basic red flags, like a 2.4 GPA or a recommendation letter that raises serious concerns about the candidate’s maturity, there are many less obvious triggers.
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Published: March 29, 2015
Admissions Tip: Addressing Academic Strengths
While we devoted time last week to advice on addressing weaknesses in one’s academic record, today we wanted to explore the other side of the issue: the strengths that lie in your undergraduate record.
Beyond issues of aptitude or previous achievement, there are a number of other things that your academic profile might say about you. For instance, if you have a range of quant-focused classes in your record, this might create the impression that you are well prepared for the sort of coursework you would undertake in business school. Meanwhile, if you have pursued extensive coursework in an area beyond the more traditional disciplines of economics, business administration or engineering, this could indicate some unique interest or perspective that you would bring to the classroom.
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Published: March 22, 2015
Admissions Tip: Addressing Academic Weaknesses
To follow up on last month’s advice about GMAT preparation and timing, we wanted to offer some general comments about the role of academics in the admissions process. Many candidates considering business school focus on the credentials they will hold and the network that they will join upon graduation, but it is important to keep in mind the academic experience at the heart of any MBA program. Because a business school is, after all, a school, it makes sense to begin your consideration of your profile by thinking about your academic aptitude and track record to date. Your performance in your educational endeavors up to this point will be treated as a predictor of your success in business school.
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Published: December 11, 2014
Kellogg Admissions Director Shares How School Assesses Candidates’ Interpersonal Skills
The director of admissions at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management has devoted a series of recent blog posts to demystifying the admissions process at the school. Her most recent post shares what she and her team are looking for as they assess candidates’ interpersonal skills.
How well a candidate fits with the school’s MBA program is a significant consideration for the Kellogg admissions team, as it is at many top programs. “Our community values collaboration, involvement and giving back, and we look for that in our applicants as well,” wrote Admissions Director Beth Tidmarsh in a blog post earlier this week. Candidates who thrive in team-based environments will fit in well at the school, she continued.
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Published: November 23, 2014
Admissions Tip: Avoiding Common Pitfalls, Part II
Last week we offered some advice to help applicants avoid common pitfalls in writing their essays for the Round 2 deadlines. This week we’d like to offer some more advice. Although these tips might not apply to everyone or to every school, these are some good basic strategies to employ. For personalized advice about your applications, contact Clear Admit directly.
1) Think strategically when delving into anecdotes that are highly personal
While breaking up with your college sweetheart may have had some impact on who you are today, you’ll want to be careful about using personal matters as the basis for an essay. While there are certainly exceptions, we find that examples from the professional sphere or from extracurricular activities typically make for stronger, and more compelling, essays, as they speak to the things that the admissions committee cares the most about, including qualities and skills that relate to professional success.
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Published: November 16, 2014
Admissions Tip: Avoiding Common Pitfalls, Part I
Today we would like to offer a handful of essay pointers in brief in order to help applicants avoid common pitfalls as they gear up for the Round Two deadlines. While we should caution that every applicant is unique and that some of these tips may not apply to everyone, we wanted our readers to have an introduction to some of the basic strategies they should be employing. As always, contact Clear Admit directly for more tailored advice to your candidacy.
1. Remember your reader
In application essays and résumés, applicants often get caught in the technicalities of their work, losing their reader in jargon. Keep it simple in order to make your discussion easy for your non-specialist audience to understand. Such clarity will help the reader to appreciate the nature and significance of your work.
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