Ross Gives Prospective Applicants a Taste of Class Online

The University of Michigan's Ross School of Business is now making selected material available the public online, through ITunes U. The intitiative is meant to give prospective applicants an idea of the School and its MBA program.

The material that will be released through ITunes U includes video and audio files of Ross seminars, lectures, and events.

For more information, visit the Ross School's ITunes U page: http://itunes.bus.umich.edu/.

Indian Applications to Top B-Schools Soar

U.S. and international business schools saw a dramatic rise in the number of applications from India over the past year, a leading Indian newspaper reports.

According to the Times of India, Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business had twice as many Indian applicants in 2005-2006 as in 2004-2005. The Chicago GSB and the University of Virginia's Darden School both saw application volume from India grow by more than half. Indian applicant pools grew by 23 per cent at UNC's Kenan-Flagler School of Business and by 35 per cent at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Increases were also noted by INSEAD, the London School of Business, and other top international schools.

The number of Indians registering for the GMAT also increased during this period, going up by 10.4 per cent between early 2005 and early 2006.

India's booming economy has created a demand for skilled managers that is prompting many young Indians to seek MBA degrees, and recent U.S. moves to simplify student visa application procedures has revived many Indians' interest in U.S. study.

Source: "More Indians Flock to Foreign B-Schools," by Neelima Mahajan - the Times of India, June 16, 2006

Report: Stanford Will Start Accepting GRE Scores

An odd piece of news caught our eye this morning: according to BusinessWeek, the Stanford GSB will allow full-time MBA applicants to submit GRE instead of GMAT scores beginning this year.

The rationale for the change is that since GRE test fees are lower than those for the GMAT, accepting GRE scores will make Stanford admissions more accessible to underrepresented minorities and to students from developing countries.

We admire Stanford's commitment to diversity, but we have to question the reasoning behind its new test score policy. From an applicant's point of view, it's not a particularly good deal.

There's no question that standardized test fees are expensive, expecially for international applicants. The $250 GMAT fee represents more money than even a manager might earn in a month in a number of countries.

But the GRE is no bargain, either. It costs $115 in the U.S. and from $140 to $175 overseas. Stanford applicants who go the GRE route would only be saving $75 to $115, which is an extremely modest sum in the context of business school costs. A Chinese applicant who pulls together $175 to take the GRE but who doesn't have the resources to apply for a U.S. visa or to travel to California hasn't saved $75 on test fees -- he's lost $175 on an investment he doesn't have the resources to follow through on.

More importantly, MBA applicants who opt for the GRE over the GMAT would be boxing themselves in on school choice. Stanford is the only top business school that accepts GRE scores. Putting all your eggs in the Stanford basket is an extremely risky admissions strategy. Realistic applicants increase their admissions chances by applying to several different schools, which would mean taking the GMAT anyway.

It seems to us that only a small number of applicants really stand to benefit from this change. Students applying to certain dual-degree programs will be spared the ordeal of taking two standardized tests, and college graduates debating between an MBA and a master of arts in another field might be more inclined to apply to the Stanford GSB and see what happens. It's hard to imagine that those are the prospective applicants Stanford has in mind when it talks about attracting a more diverse pool of MBA applicants.

Source: "Stanford Smiles on GRE Scores," by Kerry Miller - BusinessWeek, June 26, 2006

HBS Deadlines & Essays for 2007

Harvard has published the application deadlines and essay questions for the 2006-2007 application season to its admissions website.

Applications must be received by 5:00 p.m. EST on:

Round 1 - October 11, 2006 (w/notification January 17, 2007)
Round 2 - January 3, 2007 (w/notification March 28, 2007)
Round 3 - March 7, 2007 (w/notification May 9, 2007)

HBS encourages applicants to apply in Rounds 1 or 2 because only a few class seats may be left by Round 3.

The essay questions for 20o7 are posted to:

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/admissionsrequirements.html

Ivey Launches 12-Month MBA Program

The University of Western Ontario's top-rated Ivey School of Business has enrolled the first class of students in its new 12-month, cross-disciplinary MBA program.

The 12-month program was established in late 2005. It will will admit two classes each year, in May and October. Each intake will have about 65 students.

The 12-month MBA program is part of Ivey's conversion to a Cross-Enterprise Leadership curriculum. The program will encourage students to approach management across traditional disciplinary lines such as finance, accounting, and marketing. It will also focus on developing students' personal leadership skills. The curriculum is meant to train high-performing managers who can function beyond traditional job roles and manage their organizations as an integrated whole.

Ivey's 12 month MBA program differs from EMBA programs of similar length in that it does not require the amount of work experience that executive MBA programs do. (Ivey applicants are required to have at least two years of work experience, whereas EMBA applicants typically need a minimum of seven years' experience.)

Source: "Ivey Welcomes First 12-Month MBA Students" - press release, the University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario), June 16, 2006 (http://communications.uwo.ca/western_news/story.html?listing_id=21505)

Profile of Chicago's Class of 2008

Applications to the University of Chicago's full-time MBA program increased by 36 per cent in 2005-2006, according to a post on the School's admissions blog.

Chicago's admissions office also provided this profile of this year's incoming MBA class:

Class size: 550
Average GMAT: 702
10th - 90th percentile GMAT range: 650 to 760
Average GPA: 3.5
Average work experience: 5 years
Range of work experience: 1 year to 15 years

Kenan-Flagler Students Shine in Case Competitions

MBA students from UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School scored a string of wins in national case competitions held at their home school and across the U.S. this year.

Student teams from Kenan-Flagler put together winning strategies to tackle problems related to entrepreneurship, investment mangagement, management consulting, and other fields.

Kenan-Flagler students took first place in the UNC Real Estate Development Challenge, the Wachovia Regional Case Competition, the Leeds School of Business/Net Impact Case Competition, and the IBM Business Technology Case Competition.

Kenan-Flagler MBA students also won second place in Booz Allen Hamilton's Organization and Change Team Case Competition and first and fourth place in the Deloitte Consulting Case Competition.

First-year MBA student Grant Jaax felt that Kenan-Flagler's integrated core courses and emphasis on teamwork gave him and his classmates an edge in the competitions. He also feels that Kenan-Flagler students brought better communication and presentation skills to the contests than students from other top b-schools did, according to a Kenan-Flagler press release.

Associate dean and professor of marketing Valarie Zeithaml said that case competitions are an excellent way for MBA students to apply the knowledge and skills they are learning in their programs. Kenan-Flagler itself launched three new case competition programs this year to showcase students' abilities and to give them opportunities to network with corporate executives and with students from other business schools.

The three new case competitions are:

- The Evergreen Investments Alpha Challenge, on hedge fund trading strategies
- The UNC Real Estate Development Challenge, in which students present complete development plans including site plans, financial analysis, and timelines
- The Sustainable Venture Capital Investment Competition, on applying venture capital strategies to socially and environmentally sustainable projects

Source: "UNC Kenan Flagler Business School Scores High in Case Competitions" - press release, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School, June 15, 2006

Fuqua Offers School-Related Multimedia Content Online

Prospective Duke MBA applicants can now get a taste of the Fuqua experience without leaving home, with the help of a computer and a digital media player.

Duke University's Fuqua School of Business has partnered with Apple's iTunes to make free video and audio files of conferences, speeches, and interviews available online. Fuqua's iTunes page also offers multimedia profiles of the School for visitors and prospective MBA students.

Next year, Fuqua may draw on its iTunes capacity to enhance delivery of EMBA course content to students taking courses online.

For more information, visit Fuqua's iTunes U website (http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/itunes/).

Source: "Duke University's Fuqua School of Business Launches Public iTunes Site" - press release, Duke University, June 13, 2006

Haas MFE Grads Starting Out at $156,000+

Are you one of those people who are debating whether to continue a career in engineering or to branch out and get an MBA?

There's another -- lucrative -- alternative you might consider: a Master's in Financial Engineering.

The Haas School of Business reports that 56 of the 59 people who completed its MFE program this year had job offers within three months of graduation. Their average first-year compensation offer was worth $156,614, reflecting a starting salary of just over $99,000 plus bonuses. That figure marks a 17 per cent increase over last year's average offer of $133,618.

Lehman Brothers was the leading employer of this year's Haas MFE grads, taking on 9 employees from the class. BGI, Citigroup, Fitch Rating, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and BNP Paribas hired two or more graduates each. Other employers were Bloomberg, Dow Jones, Credit Derivatives Research (CDR), LaSalle Bank Corporation, and SAC Capital Advisors.

It's important to understand that a financial engineering degree leads to a completely different career than an MBA does. To put it simply, MBAs are taught to manage organizations and their parts, processes, and resources, whereas MFEs are taught to manage investments.

MFE programs train students to apply financial theory and computer modeling to investment management. Graduates use their skills to make pricing, hedging, and trading decisions in investment banking, corporate consulting, risk management, and other financial fields.

Full-time MFE programs are shorter than MBA programs, with most lasting only a year to 18 months. Strong quantitative skills are an absolute requirement. Most programs have acceptance rates of 10 per cent or lower, with many applicants being rejected on the grounds of insufficient mathematical skills.

For more information on program options, visit these schools' websites:

University of Berkeley - Haas School of Business (Master's in Financial Engineering)
Carnegie Mellon - Tepper School of Business (M.S. in Computational Finance)
Cornell University (Financial Engineering Master's Program)
New York University (M.S. in Mathematics in Finance)
Princeton University (Master of Finance)
Stanford University (Interdisciplinary M.S. Degree in Financial Mathematics)
The University of Chicago (M.S. in Financial Mathematics)
The University of Michigan (Master of Science in Financial Engineering)

An MBA Can Boost a CIO's Career

An MBA can benefit a CIO's career by improving his or her understanding of how technology impacts overall company operations and by helping the CIO work more effectively with general management, a panel of IT experts agreed.

The four IT professionals spoke at the keynote session of CIO Decisions 2006, held in Carlsbad, California, the week of June 5. Their consensus was that an MBA degree was by no means required for CIOs at most organizations, but that it could make a difference in career advancement.

Having an MBA can 'level the playing field' for a CIO dealing with management, especially outside the company, one panelist said. Having an MBA on his resume had helped him establish his credentials when he had meetings at other companies.

Another panelist noted that holding an MBA degree, especially one from a well-respected program, can make a big difference in getting called in for job interviews.

Other panelists said that their MBA educations helped them do their jobs better. One panelist said she gained a much better understanding of industry dynamics, company lifecycles, and how different departments inside a company have to work together. Another panelist said that 'learning the language' of managment helped him understand what he was hearing -- and, more importantly, helped him communicate how technology was benefitting the company.

Another panelist cautioned, however, that IT professionals should understand that MBAs don't make sense for all CIOs. The programs require "intellectual curiousity" and demand exploration of knowledge and fields that may not be relevant to everyone's interests or needs. Prospective students should ask themselves, "What will the degree help you achieve?," the panelist advised. "It will help you grow as an individual. Don't do it if you're not interested in business issues."


Source: "CIOs: MBA Worth the Effort, But Doesn't Guarantee IT Stardom," by Linda Tucci - SearchCIO.com, June 14, 2006

Stats for Yale SOM's Class of 2008

The Yale School of Management says that it admissions yield for 2006 was 66% higher than that for 2005.

The average GMAT score of 2006 admits was over 700, compared to 690 for 2005 admits. Yale says the average GPA for 2006 admits is "over 3.4," compared to 3.4 in 2005.

Source: "From the Admissions Office," a notice posted to the Yale SOM website (http://mba.yale.edu/news_events/CMS/Articles/5659.shtml)

2007 Deadlines for Tuck

Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business has released its application deadlines for fall 2007 admissions. They are:

Early Action - October 12 (w/notification by December 15)
November Round - November 30 (w/notification by February 2, 2007)
January Round - January 11, 2007 (w/notification by March 23)
April Round - April 5 (w/notification by May 14)

Applicants who want to be considered for scholarships are encouraged to apply in the earlier rounds. They must submit an Application for Tuck School of Business Funds by the appropriate financial aid deadline (see http://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/admissions/dates/index.html for more information). Tuck begins awarding scholarships in the Early Action Round.

Application volume at Tuck grew by over a third last year.

A Harvard MBA Sizes Up the Value of... the Harvard MBA

Is a Harvard MBA really worth the anxiety, money, and effort that people put into getting one?

As an HBS grad could tell you, there's one way to get a solid start on answering that question: quantify. That's what HBS alumnus Adam Richman has been up to for the last decade by making a series of documentary films about the the post-MBA lives of a group of his Harvard classmates.

Richman began his filming as an extracurricular project during his second year at HBS. His purpose was to determine whether a Harvard MBA was really as valuable as people said it was. To that end, he decided he would revisit the a group of 10 classmates he selected every five years and document their successes and failures, their decisions, and their changing values and priorities. His academic advisor, HBS associate professor Monica C. Higgins, was so taken with the idea that she eventually became a consultant for the series and uses the films in her classes.

Richman, with Higgins' help, selected 4 women and 6 men as the central subjects of his study. He also conducted a baseline survey of about 130 other students to gather information about post-MBA plans, salary expectations, and family status. Follow-up surveys were conducted in 2001 and 2006. Richman and Higgins plan to continue the project through 2026.

So far their research has found that most study participants and survey respondents are happy with the value of their HBS education. Richman's fellow alumni say their MBA experience gave them the knowledge and confidence they needed to pursue their dreams.

What has changed over the years is the way that study participants define their priorities and measure their success.

In 1996 and 2001, survey respondents ranked a list of life goals in the same order: life balance first, then peer respect, then a CEO or CFO position, and then a high salary.

In 2006, however, that order changed. This year's survey results indicated that life balance, financial security, and corporate success were still important to Richman's classmates, but that peer respect had become a secondary concern. Another change was that a number of respondents added another goal to the top of their lists, this one being 'to make a positive difference' in their company or in the world.

Higgins speculates that 9/11 and the dot-com collapse help explain study participants' continuing concern with quality of life issues. One of the main study subjects, a man who left a corporate career to found a company that runs charter schools and who now heads a nonprofit devoted to public education, said his decisions were shaped by a post-9/11 appreciation for public life and civic duty.

Entrepreneurship was another common theme in the lives of study subjects. Among the 10 main study subjects were people who started a consulting firm, a private equity fund, a software company, and a telephone start-up. One of the subjects took a year off from her career to pursue interests in photography and mountain climbing; another left a job with the Federal Government to write a novel before resuming her career with Google.

Overall, the quality of the MBA education that Richman's classmates expressed the most satisfaction with was the added control it gave them over their lives and careers. They knew that their degrees were seen by others as proof of their intelligence, drive, and accomplishments, and that they could always find work when they wanted it. That knowledge gave them confidence to take risks, including the risk of taking time off to pursue personal goals. "It's this big safety net," one woman is quoted in a New York Times article on Richman as saying. "It's a credential that makes it easier to get a job later."

Source: "Was Earning That Harvard MBA Worth It?," by Abby Ellin - the New York Times, June 12, 2006

96% of 2006 HBS Grads Had Job Offers Before Graduation

The Harvard Business School held graduation ceremonies for its 96th MBA class on June 8th. 900 MBA candidates and 3 Ph.D. candidates received their HBS degrees at the ceremony. The top 5 per cent of the MBA candidates graduated with high distinction, as Baker Scholars. The next 6 per cent of the MBA class graduated with distinction.

Harvard's Class of 2006 did well on the job front, too. HBS reports that approximately 96 per cent of MBA graduates had received at least one job offer by graduation day. That's even better than the Class of 2005, in which 94 per cent of MBA candidates had at least one job offer by graduation, did.

Source: "Harvard Business School Celebrates 96th Commencement" - press release, Harvard Business School, 8 June 2006

Stanford Adopts New MBA Curriculum

The Stanford Graduate School of Business will introduce a revised MBA curriculum in the fall of 2007.

The revised curriculum will give students more flexibility to select classes according to their educational and career needs. It will also emphasize student-faculty advising relationships, international experience, and the teaching of critical analysis and communication and leadership skills. Students will also be required to undertake an international program, such as an internship, student exchange, or study abroad program, at some point during their two years at Stanford.

Under the new curriculum, all first-year students will take core courses in organizational behavior, strategic leadership, finance, and global management during their first semester. They will also form an advising relationship with a member of Stanford's faculty who will help them make appropriate class choices for the following semester and year. The remainder of the MBA program will be highly customizable, allowing students to tailor their MBA education to their needs. Throughout the program, students will be encouraged to think across disciplines and functions and to take an active part in small class discussions.

Stanford plans to expand its faculty by 5 to 10 per cent and to construct a new classroom building in order to accommodate the smaller classes that the revised curriculum entails.

Jeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford's Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior, called the new curriculum "the most important thing that has happened at Stanford in my 27 years here."

Other Stanford faculty say that the revisions are needed to fully meet the needs of Stanford's diverse student body. Students come to Stanford with widely varying amounts and kinds of business experience. A customizable curriculum allows each student to develop the skills and abilities they need most without re-learning what they already know.

The new curriculum also takes advantage of Stanford's relatively small size to allow students more class choice and a more active learning environment. Stanford's enrollment is about 750, compared to 1,800 at Harvard and 1,600 at Wharton.

Sources:

"Stanford Graduate School of Business Adopts New Curriculum Model" - press release, Stanford Graduate School of Business (Stanford, California), June 6, 2006

"Stanford to Let Students Tailor MBA Studies," by Robert Weisman. The Boston Globe, J

HBS Columbia Case Study Wins Industry Award

Harvard Business School's multimedia case study of the Columbia space shuttle disaster has won a 2006 Codie Award from the Software & Information Industry Association.

"Columbia's Final Mission" was named this year's Best Postsecondary Education Instructional/Curriculum Solution at the SIIA's annual awards ceremony held in San Francisco in May. The Codies, which are regarded as the Oscars of the software industry, recognize excellence in the software, digital content, and education technology industries.

Harvard Business School CIO Judy Stahl credited the close working relationship between HBS faculty and IT staff for the quality of the Columbia case study package. Faculty and staff work hard to apply emerging technologies to the curriculum in order to enhance students' learning experience, she said.

"Columbia's Final Mission" engages students in a role-playing exercise simulating the decision making process that took place at NASA in the hours before the space shuttle re-entered Earth's atmosphere. Each student plays the role of one of six managers or engineers. The program presents each player with actual emails, reports, and transcripts from NASA and allows them to listen to audio recordings of re-enacted meetings. The students then take part in a classroom reenactment of a Mission Management Team meeting where critical decisions about Columbia's re-entry were made. The exercise focuses on organizational dynamics that played a role in the shuttle disaster and is meant to teach students leadership perspectives and skills.

"Columbia's Final Mission" was created by former HBS Professor Michael Roberto and HBS Professors Amy Edmondson and Richard Bohmer together with IT multimedia producer Melissa Dailey, Flash developer Chris Lamothe, and research associate Erika Ferlins. HBS uses the case study in both its MBA and EMBA programs.

Source: "Harvard Business School Case Wins Codie Award" - press release, Harvard Business School (Cambridge, MA), June 5, 2006

UCLA Students Win $250,000 in Venture Capital Competition

A team of four MBA students from UCLA's Anderson School of Management has won the second annual Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) Venture Challenge business plan competition.

DFJ and its California-based affiliates will invest $250,000 in the students' company. Their venture, Precision Reproduction LLC, will deliver a patented, improved technology for in vitro fertilization to doctors and clinics. A venture capitalist from DFJ or one of its affiliates may also join the board of Precision Reproduction.

Silicon Valley-based DFJ, a leading firm in early stage venture capital, invites the winners of business plan competitions at California universities and colleges to participate in the Venture Challenge each year. Fifteen teams participated in this year's contest. The six finalists came from UC Berkeley, Stanford, California Tech, and USC as well as UCLA.

Source: "Draper Fisher Jurvetson Awards UCLA Student Team with $250,000 Investment in Second Annual Venture Challenge" - press release, DFJ (Menlo Park, CA), June 5, 2006

MIT Application Deadlines for 2007

MIT's Sloan School of Management has published its deadlines for fall 2007 admissions:

Round 1 - November 1, 2006 (notification by January 29, 2007)
Round 2 - January 10, 2007 (notification by April 2, 2007)
LFM Program - December 15, 2006 (notification by March 12, 2007)

The Sloan School will publish essay questions for the 2007 application in July.

Essays for Columbia's January MBA Program

The application form and essays for Colombia’s 2007 Accelerated (January) MBA program are now available on Colombia’s website. October 11 is the final deadline for applications to the January program, which lasts 16 months and is meant for students who are staying with the same company or who run their own businesses. (The program is not a good choice for career changers because classes run straight through, without a break for internships.)

Columbia’s fall 2007 application will be published in July. Application deadlines for fall admissions to the 2-year, full-time program are October 11 for early decision and either March 1 or April 18 for regular decision (March 1 for international students and April 18 for US citizens and permanent residents).

Applicants who want to get a head start on a fall 2007 application can safely start work on questions 1 (required) and 5 (optional) from the January application form. Those questions ("What are your short-term and long-term post-MBA goals? How will Columbia Business School help you achieve these goals?" and "Is there any further information that you wish to provide to the Admissions Committee? ") appear on Columbia applications year in and year out. However, it's wiser to wait to see the fall application before doing any further work on essays. Questions 2 through 4 on the January application can give you a general idea of the kind of essays you'll be asked to write, but there's no guarantee the exact same questions will be used for fall admissions.

Fuqua Research on Why We Repeat Mistakes - Like Re-Submitting Flawed B-School Applications

It’s long been conventional wisdom that people will stick to a non-productive course of action because they are reluctant to walk away from a project they have already invested time and resources in. In other words, a gambler on a losing streak will keep making bets not so much because he rationally believes that his luck is about to change but because he hates to admit having lost his previous wagers.

Two researchers from the Fuqua School of Business have proposed a new twist to that theory – and it’s one of potential benefit to business school re-applicants.

Fuqua professors Bill Boulding and Rick Staelin, together with co-author Eyal Biyalogorsky of the University of California at Davis, argue that failure to absorb negative feedback is often the reason why managers resist proposals for change. In other words, people repeat mistakes because they either cannot or will not listen to bad news.

The researchers conducted an experiment in which 142 MBA and EMBA students were asked to read a case study about a new product. Some participants were given market research that indicated the product would be successful, and others were given research that said it would fail. Only some of the participants were asked to make a decision about whether to launch the product.

The researchers then presented students who chose to launch the product with reports showing that the item had fared poorly during its first two years on the market. The same material was shown to a control group of participants who had not been asked to make a decision about the product launch. 52 per cent of both groups of participants – including those who had no psychological investment in a previous decision to launch the product – opted to continue production despite the negative reports.

What happened? The professors believe that participants had developed positive feelings about the product during the first part of the experiment, and that those feelings led them to discount or ignore subsequent information that contradicted their favorable impressions. “People interpret negative feedback based on their prior beliefs about the worthiness of a product or project whether or not they are personally invested in that project’s success,” Prof. Boulding said in a Duke University press release. “People fall into the trap of not acknowledging the veracity of new, negative information when it goes against their previously held positive beliefs about that project.”

A b-school applicant who gets dinged is in a situation similar to that of a manager whose product line has failed. You invested a lot of time and toil in your applications and – let’s face it – you thought it was great. A rejection letter, however, is about as clear a piece of negative feedback as anyone can get.

A remarkable number of re-applicants do the same thing that the 52 per cent of participants in the Fuqua professors’ study did: they stay the course. They re-apply with an application that is essentially identical to the one that was rejected. They might have a better GMAT score or list some additional work experience or an additional community activity, but the essence of their application is unchanged from the previous year.

In some cases (probably not very many), this approach works. It can happen that someone really was on the brink of being accepted, but something like a low quant score on the GMAT kept the admissions committee from extending an admissions offer.

More often, however, people are dinged for more complex reasons. One of the reasons why many schools have mixed feelings about giving feedback on unsuccessful applications is that it can be very difficult to articulate exactly what led to a denial. It’s often not because of just one thing. Admissions committees read applications as a single package, not as a collection of parts. The kinds of things that bother them are often found throughout the application, not just in one particular component.

One problem that re-applicants face is that it is difficult for anyone to read something like a b-school application with the objectivity that an admissions committee member reads it with. You’re too close, psychologically, to the application you prepared.

That's why it’s helpful for re-applicants to do what a product manager should do when faced with unwelcome feedback on a product they feel attached to: get an outside view, and listen to what that person has to say as if they’re talking about something totally new and unknown. That’s the surest way of guaranteeing that you’re not sabotaging your re-application by an ingrained bias against negative feedback on a project you feel strongly about – i.e., you and your future.

Source: “Research Provides New Insights Into Managers' Unwillingness to Cancel Unsuccessful Projects” – press release, Duke University (Durham, NC), May 31, 2006

Wharton's Top 10 Reasons for Dings

Wharton admissions officers have published this list of the ten most common weaknesses they see in MBA applications:

1. Assuming that being qualified is enough.
2. Failing to use insight into self and experiences in the process, particularly essays and interviews.
3. Responding to essays and interview questions with what the applicant "thinks" the Admissions Committee wants to hear (i.e., assuming there is an "ideal candidate" we seek. )
4. Approaching the application as though each part is a separate entity. We evaluate candidates holistically, based on their overall profile or the picture that emerges from the entire applicaton.
5. Selecting recommenders who are unable to answer questions we ask on the recommendation form (e.g., academicians/professors are not always able to speak to a candidate's managerial and/or leadership potential).
6. Lacking focus - unable to articulate career progress to date, as well as plans going forward.
7. Trying to be all things to all people.
8. Failing to follow directions (yes, this still happens after high school graduation!)
9. Including too little/too much information in the application.
10. Taking an admissions decision too personally. Students are admited (or denied) from among a group of highly accomplished and talented individuals. Many fine individuals are denied yearly as there is limited space in each entering class.

We couldn't help noting that many of these shortcomings can (and should) be addressed in candidates' application essays.

It's your essays that bring your application together and give the admissions committee a coherent idea of your purpose in pursuing an MBA. Your essays are also your best opportunity to show the real you, not just by explaining your background, hopes, and plans, but by conveying your voice and personality. Above all, your essays are your best chance to demonstrate that you're not just qualified for MBA study, but also an appealing candidate who would fit in well with the school and thrive in its program.

These are just some of the reasons why your essays are one of the most important parts of your business school applications, and why you should plan to put a major part of your resources into their preparation.

Source: "Reflections on Wharton's MBA Feedback Sessions for Denied Applicants Who Plan to Reapply" - the Wharton Admissions Blog, June 1, 2006