Weekly Columns

Keep up with the latest school facts and news from your fellow MBA applicants.

Published: October 19, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: A First-Year Looks Back at Tuck’s Fall A

For this week’s Friday from the Frontline we hear from a first-year MBA student at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, Akshat Kalra. He comes to Tuck from his native India, where he worked in consulting and venture capital. He’s hoping to use his MBA degree to transition to a consumer internet company, where he wants to build exciting products. Originally from Delhi, he shares that he prefers the small town life of the Upper Valley—around Tuck’s picturesque Hanover hometown. In the post that follows, Kalra recounts the special four-week academic Term at Tuck called Fall A, which Read more

Published: October 5, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: A Veteran and Family Man Chose Wharton—Here’s Why

Today’s Fridays from the Frontline comes to us from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and features a recent alumnus, George Dutile, who graduated last spring and now works in private wealth management for Goldman Sachs in New York. Dutile came to Wharton from the military with the goal of making a career transition. Check. He also came to strengthen his family, which he’d live apart from over the course of many overseas deployments with the Marine Corps Special Operations unit. Check. Read on to learn how Wharton was the place for him to achieve both Read more

Published: September 27, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: 7 Lessons from My Time at HBS

As Round 1 applicants to Harvard Business School (HBS) know only too well, next week is a big one, with invitations to interview scheduled to go out in two batches on Monday (October 2nd) and Thursday (October 5th). Since we know some of you have HBS on the mind, we thought you might appreciate hearing from recent HBS alumnus Marco De Curtis on what he learned while there. In the following post, he offers seven tips for work and life that he learned while an HBS MBA student. And for anyone who doesn’t get an interview invitation Read more

Published: September 21, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: A Tuck Student Examines Evolving Media Landscape Through NPR Internship

Admittedly, the media and entertainment industry is not a primary destination for freshly minted MBAs. UCLA Anderson School of Management and NYU Stern School of Business sent more of their Class of 2016 grads into the field than any other leading schools, at just 6.5 and 4.3 percent respectively. And yet, the vastly evolving media landscape calls for innovative thinking, strategic new approaches, and reinvented business models as never before. Meghan McDavid, a student at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, spent her summer interning at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of National Read more

Published: September 14, 2017

From Beijing to Toronto: An International Rotman MBA Student Shares Transition Tips

We love featuring student experiences here in Fridays from the Frontline and couldn’t help but notice this great post from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management on second-year student Haolin Zhang (MBA ’18). A Chinese native with solid work experience in marketing at P&G and Mars, Zhang was looking to make the leap into consulting or finance. He was attracted to Rotman because of its strength in finance and its proximity to Bay Street, but like many international students at Rotman, almost all of his professional and educational experience was outside North America. He found Read more

Published: September 7, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: Ross Student Offers 4 Ways for MBAs to Make the World a Better Place

Today we are delighted to feature a post from Monika Johnson, a dual-degree student with the Erb Institute at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Johnson attended a conference this summer focused on how to promote innovation in business and human rights education and returned to Ross with a call to action for her fellow MBA students. “Let’s seize the opportunity to make the world a better place,” she urged. In the post below—drawing on what she learned at the conference—Johnson offers her fellow MBA students four Read more

Published: August 31, 2017

Friday from the Frontlines: INSEAD Student Reminds Classmates Life Is a Jungle Gym

As students return to business school campuses around the world—or set foot on them for the first time—the student blog machines start churning again. We love it! Today’s Friday from the Frontlines post comes to us from incoming INSEAD MBA student Cissy Martinez, who was born and raised in China but spent 11 years in the United States before deciding to head to business school. Six of those years was spent in auditing and corporate accounting in Big 4 firms and a range of industries, and the most recent year found her working as a company and Read more

Published: August 17, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: Haas MBA Students Help Refugees Using Tech in Greece

Sure, some MBA students get wined and dined on the company dime as part of sweet summer internships at top consulting and i-banking firms. Tech firms, too, have become pretty coveted summer internship landing pads. While there’s nothing at all wrong with that—indeed, there’s plenty to be learned in a more traditional internship position—a group of Haas MBA students this year decided to take a very different tact. Read more

Published: August 10, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: How an NYU Stern MBA Student Went from Not Knowing What Consulting Was to Killing it at Accenture

In the post that follows, NYU Stern MBA student TJ Herrle reveals that he didn’t even know what management consulting was when he first began considering an MBA. He came to business school from a nontraditional background that included a few years in government as well as working internationally at startups. But that unfamiliarity certainly didn’t stop him from landing a summer internship at Accenture between his first and second years—and thriving in it. If you want to learn more about management consulting—and specifically about how to pivot from a less traditional pre-MBA background—check out Herrle’s post below! This Read more

Published: August 3, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: How Yale SOM’s MAM Program Prepared Me to Lead in a Humanitarian Disaster

Victor Padilla Taylor, a 2015 graduate of Yale School of Management (SOM)’s Master of Advanced Management (MAM) program, reveals in this week’s Fridays from the Frontline how his time at SOM helped prepare him to confront humanitarian disasters in his current role as a project lead supporting the Logistics Emergency Teams (LET) at the World Economic Forum. Yale SOM’s unique MAM program is a one-year, post-MBA opportunity open to exceptional graduates of business schools within the Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM) who aspire to become global leaders for business and Read more

Published: July 27, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: HBS Alumna on Why the MBA Is Still Relevant Regardless of Industry

Newly minted Harvard Business School (HBS) graduate Ellen DaSilva (MBA ’17) opted to take two years out of the workforce—in Silicon Valley—to pursue her MBA despite the fact that some in the technology industry give “sideways glances at the mention of an MBA.” In this week’s Fridays from the Frontline, DaSilva argues clearly and persuasively for why she believes the MBA is still relevant regardless of industry because of the leadership skills it hones, the authenticity it encourages, and the network of people it helps establish. Our thanks to DaSilva and to HBS for allowing us Read more

Published: July 24, 2017

MBA ApplyWire Spotlight: Applying to Business School for Consulting and Technology

Welcome to another edition of MBA ApplyWire Spotlight, in which we take a closer look at distinctive entries in Clear Admit’s ApplyWire tool. This week, we highlight feedback for an applicant with international experience looking for a post-MBA career in consulting and technology. The target schools include Harvard Business School, INSEAD, Stanford GSB and Wharton. To start, a community member honed in on the high bar of selected schools: Read more

Published: July 20, 2017

Fridays From the Frontline: A Foster MBA Grad’s Journey from Appalachia to Accenture

This week’s Fridays from the Frontline first appeared on the MBA blog of the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. Its protagonist, Steve Tomick, is a recent MBA graduate of the program headed off to a management consultant role at Accenture in Seattle in the firm’s communications, media, and technology group. But as you’ll read, his background couldn’t have been more different. An undergraduate dual major in history and education at Wake Forest, Tomick spent six years working with the Appalachia Service Project, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve substandard housing for low-income families Read more

Published: July 13, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: A Wharton MBA Techie Shares Six Strategies for Recruiting

Recent Wharton/Lauder graduate Victoria Cheng left Philadelphia for Hangzhou, China, where she’ll complete a one-year rotational program at e-commerce giant Alibaba. She came to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School MBA program and Lauder Institute East Asia program with the goal of working in China upon graduation. But that doesn’t mean this MBA techie hasn’t lost sight of her longer-term interest in self-driving cars. In a recent “Wharton Stories” feature on the school’s website, writer Kelly Andrews shares more of Cheng’s story, as well as Cheng’s own astute strategies for recruiting—which seem to have served her Read more

Published: July 6, 2017

MBA Applicant Spotlight: London Business School Calling

Welcome to another edition of MBA Applicant Spotlight, in which we catch up with individuals on their admissions experiences. This week, we hear from Mauricio Coindreau, a native of Mexico who currently works as a vendor manager for Amazon. He was part of the Mexico country launch, taking on multiple vendor manager roles in several categories, including books, music, video games and most recently Amazon fashion. Read more

Published: July 6, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: So You Want to Be a Social Entrepreneur at Kellogg

Today’s Friday from the Frontline post comes to us from Saumya, a recent graduate of the two-year MBA program at Kellogg School of Management. With her MBA degree, Saumya’s plans are to return to India, where she worked as a social entrepreneur before coming to Kellogg for business school. Prior to Kellogg, Saumya ran a startup called YellowLeaf in her native India, whose mission is to save migrant blue-collar workers from exploitation. While at Kellogg, she had the opportunity to incubate a second social enterprise, an agri-tech venture called Kheyti, whose low-cost, Read more

Published: June 29, 2017

MBA Applicant Spotlight: Finding Fit at Cornell / Johnson

Welcome to another edition of MBA Applicant Spotlight, in which we share admissions experiences from the latest candidates for business school. This week, Mukul Aggarwal, a mechanical engineer from India, shares his journey to the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. Read more

Published: June 29, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: Two UCLA Anderson MBA Alums Discuss Running a Company

Entrepreneurship is one of the fastest growing career choices; Forbes estimates that approximately 543,000 new businesses are started each month. That said, the truth is that 90 percent of startups eventually fail, which makes it vital for budding entrepreneurs to learn from their predecessors. Recently, Erik Basu, a UCLA Anderson School of Management MBA alum and founder/CEO of Sentek Global, and John Tabis, Anderson MBA ’06 and co-founder of the Bouqs Company, shared their advice about running a company. And while both company founders offered different perspectives, their advice is valuable for any potential entrepreneur. We thought it made perfect fodder for today's Friday from the Frontline. Read more

Published: June 26, 2017

MBA DecisionWire Spotlight: Cambridge / Judge or London Business School for Consulting

In this week’s MBA DecisionWire Spotlight, which highlights MBA candidates’ choices as shared in Clear Admit’s DecisionWire, we round up responses to a candidate considering Cambridge / Judge or London Business School for consulting. The candidate laid out the options in the initial post:Initial feedback leaned towards LBS: Read more

Published: June 22, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: Why David Washer Pursued a Dartmouth Tuck Joint MBA/MPH Degree

For David Washer, who knew he wanted to pursue a career serving the social sector and striving for social justice, a joint MBA/MPH (Master of Public Health) degree seemed like just the ticket. In the post that follows, he shares why the Dartmouth Tuck Joint MBA/MPH degree made the most sense for him—as well as why he believes adding the MBA is a valuable option for social justice advocates considering graduate study. This following post has been republished in its entirety from its original source, the Tuck 360: MBA Blog. Why I Pursued Read more

Published: June 15, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: Darden MBA Student Molly Deale Shifts from Making Hats to Managing Finances

It’s Friday—which means it’s time for some perspective from the MBA community. Today it comes from Molly Deale, a rising second-year MBA student at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. Deale’s pre–business school work experience is pretty unique: She managed a New York City millinery studio, creating hats for film, TV, and Broadway clients including Hamilton and Wicked. In the interview that follows, she reveals how she took that experience and married it with Darden’s case-based MBA curriculum, the strong Darden alumni network, and the resources provided through the school’s career services offices to land a summer Read more

Published: June 12, 2017

MBA DecisionWire Spotlight: Chicago Booth or Northwestern / Kellogg for General Management

In this week’s MBA DecisionWire Spotlight, which recounts MBA candidates’ choices as shared in Clear Admit’s DecisionWire, we highlight a candidate’s choice between Chicago Booth or Northwestern / Kellogg for general management. Each offer came with scholarships as well. Initial feedback boiled down to fit: Read more

Published: June 8, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: Johnson Student’s Summer MBA Internship Building a Veterinary Hospital in Mumbai

Some MBA students choose to intern at investment banks in New York or London, others at tech firms in Silicon Valley, others at big multinational consulting firms. But it’s not every day you hear of someone packing up for a summer internship building a veterinary hospital in Mumbai. And yet, that is precisely how Shantanu Naidu, a “half MBA” at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, will spend his summer. In the post that follows, Naidu shares his family’s ties to India’s Tata Group—which span four generations. He also describes how his first year as an Read more

Published: June 5, 2017

MBA DecisionWire Spotlight: Northwestern / Kellogg, UCLA / Anderson or U. Washington / Foster for Social Impact

In another installment of MBA DecisionWire Spotlight, which highlights MBA candidates’ choices as shared in Clear Admit’s DecisionWire, we take a closer look at a candidate’s choice among Northwestern / Kellogg, UCLA / Anderson or U. Washington / Foster for social impact. The offer from UCLA / Anderson came with a scholarship as well. Feedback began with a focus on weather and finances: Read more

Published: June 1, 2017

Fridays from the Frontline: UCLA Anderson FEMBA Student on Why the Future Must Be More Female

This week’s post comes to us from sunny Southern California and UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. Its author, Sana Rahim, is a student in UCLA Anderson’s fully employed MBA (FEMBA) program while also working as a sales manager at McMaster Carr. Despite the competing demands of work and school, she also finds time to serve as a strategic consultant for social impact at the Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. And this summer she will be on fellowship at the United Nations in Istanbul to work toward sustainable development goals. The preceding sentences alone suggest that Rahim Read more

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MBA Applywire

January 14, 2025 12:01am ET

Applying: Duke / Fuqua, Northwestern / Kellogg, U. Chicago Booth, UPenn / Wharton, UVA / Darden

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Private Equity tax consulting

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

GMAT: 675

GPA: 3.95

Years of Work Experience: 9

Location: Bangalore, India

Post MBA Location: East Coast

Notes:

I have primarily worked with venture funds and startups covering a range of tax advisory projects from M&A, due diligence, venture fund setup etc. I want to go beyond tax and step into strategy consulting roles, with a focus on fund strategy and portfolio acceleration in private equity.

Extracurricular : Involved with Rotaract for 2.5 years, taken part in multiple corporate responsibility initiatives at the firm , volunteer in pet rescue initiatives for the community

January 13, 2025 11:26pm ET

Applying: Columbia, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, UPenn / Wharton

Pre-MBA Career: Consulting at MBB; will continue with consulting post-MBA as I am considering firm sponsorship

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Venture Capital Companies: Bain , BCG , McKinsey , Andressen Horowitz , Sequoia Capital , Other

GRE: 335

GPA: 3.94

Years of Work Experience: 2

Location: India

Post MBA Location: NY, Chicago, Boston

Notes:

- South Asian (Non-Indian), Male, 25 year old

- Bachelor in Finance and Economics (1st in Class) Graduated May 2023

- Activities:
Debating (Coached National Debate Team to its best performance in the World Championship, 3x Asian Top 10 debater, won/competed in finals of Oxford Intervarsity, UCL Intervarsity, Durham-Oxford-Cambridge Open, and many more prestigious competitions, Mentored 100+ debaters across 15 countries and advised Debate Organizations in Australia and China).
Non Profit (Founding member of a student org; Conducted 5 city-wide projects on Food Security, Clothing for the poor in Winter, and Improving sanitation in slums that received national coverage)

- More on Work: My focus is on Growth Tech (Startups and fast scaling businesses) and Public Sector practice area. I have led the writing of a report we co-published with a client (my name is on the acknowledgement section). The client and Partners loved my work and have now staffed me in writing another report for the same client. Evals are highly positive and have endorsements from 2 Senior Partners in the org (who are happy to write my recc)

- What I am doing outside of work now: I had a merit scholarship offer from LBS for its MiM program upon graduation. I have been helping folks from my country get into top tier early career master's programs pro-bono (Most people here cannot afford Western Admissions consultants as the charges are exorbitant for us given the country is an LDC). Since joining work, I have continued to work as a selector for National Debate Team and I take pro-bono sessions for disadvantaged schools. I have also taken sessions at local consulting firms to teach them what I have learned from my MBB experience (I am the first from my country to make it to an MBB after a local undergrad; MBBs do not have offices in my country)

- Future Plan: Continue at MBB and specialize in Venture Capital/ Startups. I have a very good network with VCs and founders in my home country. I would love to raise a fund to help the startup ecosystem of my country in the future or work in the capacity of mentoring founders.

- Target: Full-rides to top schools such as HBS, Wharton, CBS, Sloan. Looking for tips to develop my profile for 2027 Fall entry. I believe that I have what it takes to make it to an M7 but would love to take the 2 years to solidify my profile so that I can be in the mix for a good scholarship

Interests: Martial Arts, Reading (I have read books from Wharton Professors such as Adam Grant, Angela Duckworth, and Katy Milkman) Weightlifting, Marathon Running (I am aware this is super cliche haha)

Side-note: My GRE split is 166 Q (84%ile), 169 V (99%ile), and 5.5 AWA (98%ile). I can improve my Quant to 169-170 but I doubt the extra effort needed now will make a material difference. Would love to have your thoughts

January 13, 2025 2:37pm ET

Applying: Harvard Business School, INSEAD, London Business School, MIT Sloan, Stanford GSB, UPenn / Wharton

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Consulting - Government

Post-MBA Target Industry: Technology, Undecided Companies: Google , Microsoft

GRE: 338

GPA: 3.66

Years of Work Experience: 4

Location: US

Post MBA Location: Undecided

Notes:

Background in design. Graduate degree in design from Harvard. Transitioned public sector consulting and planning work.

January 13, 2025 6:32am ET

Applying: Columbia, NYU Stern, U. Chicago Booth

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Consulting

Post-MBA Target Industry: Investment Banking, Private Equity

GRE: 323

GPA: 3.0

Years of Work Experience: 7

Location: Uzbekistan

Post MBA Location: NYC

January 12, 2025 11:33pm ET

Applying: Dartmouth / Tuck, UVA / Darden

Pre-MBA Career: Construction and real estate

Post-MBA Target Industry: Other

GMAT: 665

GPA: 7/10

Years of Work Experience: 5

Location: India

Post MBA Location: India

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MBA LiveWire

January 15, 2025 6:53am ET

Interview Invite to Stanford GSB

Round: Round 2

Received via email on January 13, 2025

GPA: 3.2

GRE: 318

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Technology

Application Location: United States

January 15, 2025 5:45am ET

Interview Invite to Georgetown / McDonough

Round: Round 2

Received via email on January 09, 2025

GPA: 3.7

GMAT: 645

Target Career: Technology

January 15, 2025 5:44am ET

Interview Invite to Carnegie Mellon / Tepper

Round: Round 2

Received via email on January 08, 2025

GPA: 3.7

GMAT: 645

Target Career: Technology

January 15, 2025 3:30am ET

Interview Invite to Yale SOM

Round: Round 2

Received via email on January 12, 2025

GMAT: 695

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Consulting

January 14, 2025 11:44pm ET

Applied to Harvard Business School

Round: Round 2

Received via portal

GPA: High 2:1 (UK)

GMAT: 695

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Technology

Application Location: Korea

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