The Leading Independent
Resource for Top-tier MBA
Candidates

Recent News

Published: December 22, 2014
Poets&Quants Spotlights “Best of” Advice from Clear Admit’s Jon Fuller
In a sequel to a piece that ran in May, Poets&Quants last week highlighted some of the best advice Clear Admit Admissions Counselor Jon Fuller has offered in response to its readers’ questions. Fuller joined Clear Admit in 2013 from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where he was the senior associate director of admissions for four years. Since March of this year, he’s also been fielding questions as Poets&Quants’ resident expert. The most recent “Best of Jon” compilation, which ran on Poets&Quants on December 18th, features Fuller’s responses to readers’ questions tackling a wide range of topics, from how to overcome mediocre undergraduate grades to how applicants who are over 30 can best position themselves to the admissions committee.   Read more
Published: December 21, 2014
White House Director of Social Innovation Named Senior Fellow at UPenn’s Wharton School
A leading national expert on social innovation and shared value will serve as the next Senior Fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the school announced late last week. Jonathan Greenblatt, who currently serves as Special Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, will become a Wharton Senior Fellow beginning in January, where he will work with the Wharton Social Impact Initiative and lecture on campus for the remainder of the 2014-2015 academic year. Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett expressed his excitement that Greenblatt would soon be on campus working with students and faculty. “He brings a unique perspective on innovation and leadership, enriched by a rare combination of experiences at the highest level of government, business and the nonprofit world,” he said in a statement. Read more
Published: December 18, 2014
Tuck School of Business Professor Releases Annual Picks for Best and Worst CEOs
‘Tis the season to reflect on the year’s best and worst CEOs. Tuck School of Business Professor of Management Sydney Finkelstein has been making a list and checking it twice since 2010, sharing with the public his picks for which CEOs have excelled in the prior year and which have tanked. This year’s losers include the CEOs of Twitter, Sears Holding, Tesco, American Apparel and Banco Espírito Santo. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is not helping the company fulfill its potential, Finkelstein says, noting that shares have dropped by 42 percent and monthly active users have slowed. Sears Holdings CEO Eddie Lampert made the list for the second year running, for what Finkelstein deemed failed strategy, arrogant leadership and Sears’ rapidly dropping stock price. Read more
Published: December 18, 2014
Fridays from the Frontline: Congratulations
Welcome back to Fridays from the Frontline, our weekly summary of happenings in the business school blogosphere. This week, Round 1 decisions came out, and several bloggers got fantastic news! We here at Clear Admit would like to extend heartfelt congratulations to everyone who was admitted this week! Read more
Published: December 17, 2014
ESADE Partners with Barcelona Digital Tech Cluster
Spain’s ESADE will become the business school partner of Ecommerce & Tech Barcelona, an initiative bringing together leading digital companies in and around Barcelona, the school announced today. The new agreement, signed yesterday by ESADE Director General Eugenia Bieto, strengthens the school's ties to the digital business community and its support for the digital entrepreneurial ecosystem. ESADE is dedicated to “guiding digital entrepreneurs throughout the growth process and strengthening their executive and leadership skills,” Bieto said in a statement. The alliance between the business school and the Ecommerce & Tech cluster will facilitate both a study of the impact of the digital entrepreneurial initiative in Spain and the development of academic case studies featuring projects undertaken by the cluster’s entrepreneurs. Read more
Published: December 16, 2014
HEC Paris to Launch Second MOOC Series in 2015
Pleased with the success of its first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which debuted on Coursera in January 2014, HEC Paris plans to release a second series of online courses in 2015, the school announced yesterday. These new MOOCs will address topics related to organizations, social entrepreneurship an technology-based startups. HEC Paris Dean Bernard Ramanantsoa views the school’s partnership with Coursera as an opportunity to open its courses to students who might not otherwise have access to higher education due to practical or economic constraints. “Sharing our faculty’s expertise with the general public at no cost is a truly exciting and meaningful challenge," he said in a statement. Read more
Published: December 15, 2014
$3.8 Million Donation Will Help Fund New INSEAD Leadership Development Center in Singapore
A leading Indonesian family has donated approximately $3.8 million USD ($5 million SGD) to help fund INSEAD’s new Leadership Development Center, which is scheduled to open on INSEAD’s Singapore campus in January 2015. The new building will be home to the “William and Lily Soeryadjaya Amphitheater,” in honor of the gift from the Soeryadjaya family. The opening of the new Leadership Development Center next month marks “Phase Three” in INSEAD’s Asia expansion, which is designed to significantly increase the number of students, executives, leading scholars and practitioners who will be on site in Singapore. INSEAD also features campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and Abu Dhabi. Read more
Published: December 14, 2014
How to Choose the Right MBA Program
Perhaps you’re at the beginning stage of the important process to identify which MBA programs you’ll apply to. Maybe, with multiple acceptances in hand, you have the exciting and life-altering task of deciding where you ultimately want to enroll. In either case, Ann Richards, interim director of admissions at Cornell University’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, has valuable insight to help you make the most informed decision possible. “There are a handful of key elements that are essential when trying to choose the right MBA program for you,” Richards says. “Research, visit and conduct a self-assessment to understand what’s important to you,” she advises. Read more
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. Read more
Published: December 11, 2014
Fridays from the Frontline: Beginnings and Endings
Welcome back to Fridays from the Frontline, our weekly summation of goings-on in the business school blogosphere. This week is a week of beginnings and endings, as some applicants work on their final list of schools and begin the application process, while others are anxiously waiting for news from their top choice schools. Read more
Published: December 10, 2014
London Business School Awards Two £30,000 Scholarships to Female Business Execs
London Business School (LBS) has awarded two female business executives £30,000 scholarships for the school’s Senior Executive Program, concluding an initiative launched in August with the 30% Club, an organization devoted to increasing female representation in the C-suite of leading corporations. Andreea Moldova, general manager (Czech Republic and Slovakia) at Avon Cosmetics, and Yasmin Becker, assistant director at the Nursing and Midwifery Council, so impressed the judging panel that LBS increased its commitment and provided two scholarships, though the completion was originally intended to have a single winner. Read more
Published: December 9, 2014
Construction Begins on $60 Million Student Building at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business
A magnificent new building devoted entirely to student learning and interaction is now under construction at the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, scheduled to open in fall 2016, Berkeley Dean Rich Lyons announced last week. Called the North Academic Building, the six-story, 80,000-square-foot structure will cost $60 million, funded with private donations from alumni and friends of the school. Designed to serve as a “learning laboratory,” the new building will feature state-of-the art technology, flexible spaces, many group study areas and a large event space with views of the San Francisco Bay. The student-centric facility will hold no administrative offices. Read more
Published: December 8, 2014
Darden School of Business MBA Students Host Events to Discuss Sexual Assault
Amid controversy stemming from a Rolling Stone article describing the alleged sexual assault of a University of Virginia (UVA) undergraduate student at a campus fraternity party, students at UVA’s Darden School of Business have chosen to host special events to educate the Darden community on the school’s sexual assault policy. The Darden School Association (DSA) organized a “Not on Our Grounds” First Coffee – using the informal community gathering that takes place in Darden’s PepsiCo Forum each morning after the first class of the day as an opportunity to discuss the case in the news as well as the Not on Our Grounds campus initiative to end sexual violence. Read more
Published: December 4, 2014
McDonough School of Business MBA Student Shares Career Search Experience
What does the career search process really look like when you’re an MBA student? Vanessa Dumonet, a second-year MBA student at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, generously took time out of her Thanksgiving break to share just how things unfolded for her. Dumonet entered Georgetown having worked for five years in marketing and business development for a large international law firm. Drawing on a range of resources at McDonough – including career coaches, career-focused student groups, peer advising and the alumni network – Dumonet has already received multiple full-time offers for next fall and is looking forward to beginning her post-MBA career at luxury beauty company Estée Lauder. In the interview that follows, you’ll hear from Dumonet herself about which resources proved most valuable in landing her dream job. She’s also got some great advice for prospective applicants on how to jump-start a career search even before arriving on campus, so take note! Read more
Published: December 4, 2014
Fridays from the Frontline: Resources for Applicants
Welcome back to Fridays from the Frontline, our weekly summation of happenings in the business school blogosphere. As applicants begin working on their Round 2 applications in earnest, MBA applicant bloggers are sharing several resources for other applicants. Current students are reflecting on their MBA experiences so far and turning their attention to another application process: the job search. Read more
Published: December 3, 2014
Tepper School of Business MBAs, IEEE Seek Standards to Support Evolving Robotics Industry
With robotic applications promising breakthroughs in fields ranging from healthcare and energy to defense and agriculture, MBA students at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business are working with experts to analyze and identify standards, best practices and ways to share knowledge that could help advance the robotics industry. Engineers, designers and entrepreneurs face both opportunities and challenges in the burgeoning field of robotics. As part of a graduate level course in marketing, Tepper MBA students are working with CMU’s Robotics Institute as well as experts from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and other industry stakeholders to understand how standardization might help the industry as a whole. Read more
Published: December 2, 2014
Harvard Business School Study Attributes Leadership Gender Gap to Corporate Structures
A recent study by two professors from Harvard Business School (HBS) and a third from Hunter College examined the career ambitions of 25,000 HBS alumni to help understand the gender gap that exists in senior management positions. They found that despite similar ambitions upon joining the workforce, male respondents were much more likely than their female counterpoints to feel like their goals were met. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the survey’s results showed that this disparity had more to do with corporate structures than with women “opting out” to have families. The study, “Rethink What You ‘Know’ About High-Achieving Women,” was conducted by HBS Professor Robin J. Ely, Pamela Stone of Hunter College and HBS Gender Initiative Assistant Director Colleen C. Ammerman and published this month in Harvard Business Review. Instead of finding that women’s careers were sidetracked because they chose to prioritize family over work, the researchers discovered that the women who left their jobs after having children did so because “they find themselves in unfulfilling roles with dim prospects for advancement” or facing other career limitations. “It simply isn’t true that a large proportion of Harvard alumnae have ‘opted out’ to care for children,” they continued.   Read more
Published: December 1, 2014
London Business School Expands Mentoring Program for Entrepreneurs from London to Dubai
Building on the success of a program launched 18 months ago on its London campus, London Business School (LBS) has expanded a mentoring program to benefit aspiring entrepreneurs to its Dubai Center, the school announced late last month. Called the “Entrepreneurship Mentor in Residence” program, the program will provide entrepreneurial students and alumni access to year-round mentorship from four successful business executives in the region. The Dubai program’s first mentor panel will include former alumni Genny Ghanimeh, Mohamed Nassar, Tommy Wakefield Smith and Aman Merchant. Students will now have direct access to these mentors for one-on-one consultations up to twice a month. Read more
Published: November 30, 2014
UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business Donors Break Record in One-Day Online Fundraiser
The University of California at Berkeley recently launched a single-day online fundraiser, and participating students from the Haas School of Business outnumbered those from any of the university’s other schools. The Big Give, UC Berkeley's first-ever 24-hour campus-wide online fundraiser, kicked off at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, November 19th. When it ended 24 hours later, Berkeley-Haas had raised about $561,000 from 651 donors, the school reports.  Read more
Published: November 27, 2014
New Computerized Matching Process Replaces Course Auctions at UPenn’s Wharton School
Professors at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School have developed a new process for MBA course selection, one they think is more fair, less stressful and less time-consuming than traditional course auctions, the Financial Times reports. Called Course Match, the new system involves a single round of bidding by students, after which 10 high-powered servers spend 12 hours running algorithms to allocate courses. Wharton professors decided four or five years ago that the auction system then in place wasn’t working as they had intended it to. Some students (especially former financial traders) were fairing really well in the auction system, in which class seats were allocated like shares issues. But others were getting inferior schedules. The process was also stressful and time intensive, requiring students to predict the bidding strategies of their peers and go through eight rounds of bidding.   Read more
Published: November 27, 2014
Fridays From the Frontline: A Quiet Holiday Week
Welcome back to Fridays from the Frontline, our weekly roundup of happenings in the business school blogosphere. This week has been a quiet week on the web, as US applicants have taken a break to spend some time with family over Thanksgiving (and/or to spend some time searching for the best Black Friday deals). Most applicants are relaxing before beginning their sprint to finish round 2 applications. Although it's been a quiet week, a few applicants have put in some time working on their round 1 applications and round 2 plans, and current students have described their business school experiences. Read more
Published: November 25, 2014
Columbia Business School Shares Updates on J-Term Admits, Regular Decision Interview Invites
Columbia Business School (CBS) has completed its Early Decision and J-term application review and will welcome approximately 200 new students as part of its January intake, the CBS Admission Committee announced earlier this week. Of those, roughly half come to CBS from international locations. After taking a week’s hiatus from reviewing Regular Decision applications, the Adcom will pick up where it left off after the Thanksgiving holiday and expects to release the first interview invitations during the first week of December. Read more
Published: November 24, 2014
Chicago Booth School of Business Partners with U of I College of Engineering
A new partnership between the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the University of Illinois (U of I) College of Engineering promises to spur entrepreneurship by allowing top MBA and engineering students to combine their talents and expertise on joint startup ventures, Crain’s Chicago Business reported last month. Previously, Chicago Booth MBA students hoping to pursue entrepreneurial ventures requiring engineering know-how were at a disadvantage because the University of Chicago Booth has no engineering school. U of I’s College of Engineering, located in Urbana-Champaign, is one of the 10 best engineering schools in the country – making the partnership with top-ranked Chicago Booth a natural fit. The collaboration is one the schools hope will prove mutually beneficial. Read more
Published: November 23, 2014
Indian School of Business to Award 10 Merit-Based Full Tuition-Fee Waivers
As part of a new initiative this year, Indian School of Business (ISB) is offering 10 full tuition-fee waivers to the school's top 10 applicants this admissions season. These full waivers – valued at INR 2 million (roughly $66,000) – complement a range of other merit scholarships the school awards to applicants based on leadership potential, past academic performance and personal attributes. No application is necessary for these new full tuition-fee waivers. Simply complete the ISB application. The Admissions Committee will select the recipients based on its evaluation of all of the candidates. The top 10 candidates, as measured by a combination of academic strength, leadership potential, work experience and other attributes, will be awarded the full tuition-fee waivers. Recipients will be notified of this decision at the time of admission. Read more
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. Read more

MBA Applywire

7
February 16, 2026 8:01am ET
Applying: Berkeley / Haas, Columbia Business School, Cornell / Johnson, Northwestern / Kellogg, NYU Stern, UCLA Anderson, USC / Marshall
Intake Year: 2026
Pre-MBA Career: Media Marketing
Post MBA Career: Marketing, L'Oreal, Estee Lauder, Personal Care, Warner Media, Paramount Global, Netflix, Mattel, Media/Entertainment, Coca Cola, Beverage, Consumer Goods
GRE: 319
GPA: 3.33
Years of Work Experience: 9.5
Location: India
11
February 13, 2026 6:36pm ET
Applying: Chicago Booth, Columbia Business School, Duke / Fuqua, Emory / Goizueta, Indiana / Kelley, NYU Stern, Penn / Wharton, SMU Cox, Stanford GSB, UT Austin / McCombs, Yale SOM
Intake Year: 2026
Pre-MBA Career: Tech (Samsung, Twitter, Amazon, Disney)
Post MBA Career: Insight Partners, Vista Equity Partners, TPG, Silver Lake, General Atlantic, Private Equity, PJT Partners, Rothschild & Co, Finance, Commercial Banking, Morgan Stanley, Investment Banking, Centerview Partners, Greenhill & Co, Guggenheim Partners, Lazard Freres, Moelis & Company
GMAT: 615
GPA: 2.88
Years of Work Experience: 8
Post MBA Location: New York
6
February 8, 2026 10:33am ET
Applying: Berkeley / Haas, Chicago Booth, Harvard Business School, Penn / Wharton, Stanford GSB, UCLA Anderson
Pre-MBA Career: Wealth Management
Post MBA Career: Other Industries, Management Consulting, Asset Management, Finance
GPA: 4.0
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Post MBA Location: Bay Area, California or New York
Notes:

Hello Alex,

Decided to post my deferred MBA specification after binging the Clear Admit podcast with you and Graham. Love the show and thank you for providing valuable, anecdotal advice for the world's aspiring MBA students!

I'm planning to apply to the aforementioned MBA programs as a deferred applicant, looking to obtain some work experience before matriculation.

I am currently in my senior year at a top 2 public university in California, majoring in a social science. I originally transferred from my local community college with a 4.0, and will most likely finish out my current quarter at the four-year university with the same GPA.

Ever since the beginning of community college, I have been involved in student organizations: I was the president of a business leaders student org, and a treasurer for an honors society during community college. I am also a founding member and VP of an economics club at my four-year university.

In addition, from the beginning of high school to before I transferred to a four-year university (6+ years), I volunteered and founded a recruitment program at my local senior center that harbored over 100 new volunteers. While the org was not an NGO, it did provide caregiving services for senior citizens in our local community.

I have had 3 wealth management internships: a top 10 mega RIA, a boutique firm, and a top 5 wirehouse. I have a return offer, which I plan to pursue, from the wirehouse and plan to partner with a senior advisor as an associate advisor on a 1.3B+ AUM portfolio. This will involve financial advisory and investment management services for UHNW clients, but I also foresee greater involvement and client ownership as I obtain my requisite designations.

I also founded a social enterprise that has received over 200K in pre-seed angel investment funding. I am working with a lean group of software engineers and social scientists to supply affordable business consulting and accounting for small businesses. While the startup is still in the seed stage, I plan to continue working on this throughout my pre-MBA career alongside my role in wealth management.

Not sure if this is relevant or something I should include in my application, but I also had a few side gigs during school to help pay for tuition. I worked as a server for over 3 years during the latter half of high school and throughout community college. I was also an account analyst in the university's department of wealth management during the first year. Then, I picked up an AI data annotation gig for the second year. One of the main reasons for choosing community college after high school was the cost savings, so it was imperative that I worked during college to help pay for tuition.

My intention in obtaining an MBA is to learn more about entrepreneurship or social entrepreneurship, looking to combine the explosion in the current tech/AI market with social impact. Also looking to learn management fundamentals for mid/late-stage startups.

While I do not have a test score at the moment, I do plan to take the GMAT Focus at the end of the month. I am hoping to get around the median scores of the M7; 685+. Also hoping to crush the quant component of the GMAT to mitigate quantitative doubts, but hopefully, some of my internship experiences with investment management help. I also took some entrepreneurship classes at the four-year university that involved accounting principles.

Looking for some advice on whether I am aiming too high. I am almost viewing my deferred application as an opportunity to shoot for the stars, but at the same time, I don't want to fall too hard. Any other advice on how to clean up my application is also welcome!
5
February 7, 2026 9:38am ET
Applying: Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, Michigan / Ross, NYU Stern, Yale SOM
Intake Year: 2026
Pre-MBA Career: Military
Post MBA Career: Finance, Investment Banking
GRE: 327
GPA: 3.29
Years of Work Experience: 8
Post MBA Location: New York
4
February 6, 2026 10:10am ET
Applying: Chicago Booth, Harvard Business School, Northwestern / Kellogg, Stanford GSB
Intake Year: 2026
Pre-MBA Career: Technology
Post MBA Career: Bain, BCG, Deloitte, Consulting
GPA: 4.0
Years of Work Experience: 8
Location: USA
Post MBA Location: USA (West Coast)
Notes:

GPA: 4.0 Undergrad (Business Admin/Accounting)

Work Experience: 8 Years as an IT Director/Information Security Director

Test Results: Hoping to get a waiver but am willing to take an exam

Targeted Programs: Hoping to get into Kellogg Part-Time/Evening/Accelerated Full-Time, or Stanford preferred but open to options

I also do have my PMP and CISSP, which are not relevant pre se but was asked if I had one before. I am going to get CPA once I finish MBA or part of MBA due to state requirements. I am also white and have owned businesses and do have copyrights and trademarks due to a brand I own.

Does this profile seem good enough? I did have one of the admissions officers ask why even get an MBA, but I want one, and feel they are valuable. Also, scholarships would be cool but plan on self-funding if scholarships are unavailable.
View or Submit Entries

MBA LiveWire

February 18, 2026 12:12pm ET
Waitlisted at MIT Sloan
Round: Round 2
Received via portal on February 16, 2026
Standardized Test: GRE
GPA: 3.5
GRE: 332
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
February 18, 2026 9:54am ET
Interview Invite to Stanford GSB
Round: Round 2
Received via email February 18, 2026
Standardized Test: GRE
GPA: 3.9
GRE: 326
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Post MBA Career: Other Industries
Application Location: New York
February 18, 2026 8:42am ET
Interview Invite to USC / Marshall
Round: Round 2
Received via email February 18, 2026
Standardized Test: GRE
GRE: 327
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Post MBA Career: Consulting
Target Career: Consulting
Application Location: China
February 18, 2026 8:16am ET
Interview Invite to MIT Sloan
Round: Round 2
Received via email February 18, 2026
Standardized Test: GRE
GPA: 3.43
GRE: 324
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Post MBA Career: Consulting
Target Career: Consulting
Application Location: United States, New York
February 18, 2026 3:50am ET
Rejected at MIT Sloan
Round: Round 2
Received via portal February 17, 2026
Standardized Test: GMAT
GPA: 3.4
GMAT: 695
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Consulting
Application Location: Georgia, Tbilisi
View or Submit Entries
Live
Wire