Posts by Jeanette Brown

Welcome to this week's Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly summation of the business school blogosphere.  We check in with applicants who are in the final, feverish stages of GMAT preparation, as well as with current students who let us in on their comparatively less stressful post-GMAT lives. In the applicant corner, Naijambagal tells the shocking story of how an eye problem sent her to the hospital and made her miss the GMAT!  She also explains how she studied for the test for about an hour everyday while in traffic on the way to work.  Meanwhile, Grantmeadmission brings insights from brain science to bear on GMAT prep strategies.  As he explains, the process of forming a memory comes in three stages--encoding, reinforcement, and retrieval--and there are things we can do to facilitate each stage.  Meditation and eating foods like parsley, berries and dark chocolate improve encoding, whereas caffeine, sleep, and taking breaks boost the process of reinforcement. Read more

This week in the business school blogosphere, MBA students travel the world and embark on promising business ventures, while applicants continue wading through the complex and often mysterious process of applying to business school. Many applicants are doling out advice about how to navigate the MBA admissions game. First, Texaswannabecali recommends getting “behind the scenes info” on your target schools by contacting alumni, current students, and visiting campus. She also stresses the importance of researching your schools before visiting: “Don’t you just hate the person who asks a question in class that the teacher LITERALLY just answered 3 seconds ago? Yeah, don’t be that person.”  Read more

This week in the business school blogosphere, applicants are gearing up to take the GMAT or contemplating what went wrong for them last time. Meanwhile current students prepare to enter the business world, and alumni look back on their time in business school. Scheduled to take the GMAT next week, Naijambagal shares his advice on GMAT test-taking, which comes down to knowing the material, doing practice questions, reviewing your mistakes and not getting nervous.  The last one is easier said than done! Read more

Hello and welcome to Fridays from the Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly exhaustive enumeration of the enterprising entries in the b-school blogosphere.  This week, current applicants are in full GMAT prep-mode, contemplating choice of schools and full versus part-time programs, while the Class of 2016 is looking forward to starting their MBA programs  in just a few short weeks, and all the life and career changes that will bring. This week we also welcome blogger QuietTiger81, who is sharing his perspective as a second year student at Oxford.  MBAonMyMind has added YaleSOM to the tally board, given the school's focus on  social impact businesses, and with three weeks into GMAT prep, all is going according to plan. With a GMAT prep plan of his own, GrantMeAdmission is gaining on his 760 goal with three life hacks to help him stay focused and positive.  GrantMeAdmission also takes some time to discuss the pros and cons of doing a part-time MBA, and why he chose to go the full-time route. Read more

Hello and welcome to Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly roundup of the ruminations of the b-school blogosphere.  This week, we continue to meet UCLA Anderson's entering class of MBA bloggers, welcome a new applicant blogger to the weekly round-up, as well as check up on the hard-working current applicants already kicking off round 1 applications, even as summer is just beginning to heat up. Zubin Davar '15 is a second year Anderson student, who is sharing his experience as a summer intern at Google.  Despite his  first day nerves, Zubin is relying on key takeaways from his first year.  Those who are looking forward to their first year at Anderson include Mike Leve who recounts the true cost of an Anderson acceptance letter, of which the actual application fee is a very small part. Piyush Jain shares his excitement at joining the Anderson community, and explains his unique international perspective, as he prepares to leave his current location in the Middle East for California's West Coast. Read more

Hello and welcome to Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly summation of the best of the b-school blogosphere. This week, UCLA Anderson welcomes a group of incoming MBA students and bloggers, and current applicants discuss what's involved in staying focused on the admissions process during the summer. Zafeer Khan Anderson '16 shares his journey from Bangladesh to pursuing the MBA in Sunny California.  Classmate Asher Kurland is enjoying happy hours with fellow admits in Brooklyn.  Nikhil George Punnoose '16 is moving away from living on oil rigs, to learning about the business side of production, and James Huntington rounds out the introduction of Anderson '16 bloggers by describing his reasons for selecting Anderson. Chief among them are the school's family friendly policies, and the Joint Ventures Club. We wish all of these new student bloggers all the best as they embark on their MBA journey together! Read more

Hello and welcome to Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly summation of the best of the b-school blogosphere.  As the school year has finished, current students have taken the opportunity to reflect on the experience of first year, while MBA hopefuls are putting together a plan of action to ensure a successful application process. Those Round 1 deadlines are not that far off! (Check the Clear Admit blog for up to date deadlines and essay information.) Read more

It's June. Summer's here. Time to kick back and relax, right? Well, maybe not if you're applying to top MBA programs. Take a look at this spreadsheet: It's from Read more

Hello and welcome to Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit’s weekly summation of the soliloquies of the b-school blogosphere. This week, even as we are about to announce the winners of the Best of Blogging 2013 contest, we have two new bloggers to feature with interesting and thoughtful updates on the application and admissions process, while current students and recent graduates also  share their perspectives. GrantMeAdmission starts off  a busy week by outlining how he carefully selected the schools to apply to, along with a list of 8 questions every application should ask before applying. Once finished with that Read more

A New York Times article this weekend examined the growing number of trips and other “lifestyle experiences” that now compete with academic ones as part of the MBA program at many leading business schools. Even those that don’t offer any form of academic credit can be viewed as valuable networking opportunities that can help position students for jobs upon graduation—worth their steep price tags in the eyes of some. As an example, the Times story lead with a February ski trip to Park City, Utah, that about a third of the MBA class from the University of Texas as Austin’s McCombs School of Business went on. The three-day trip, planned by a student-run group called the Graduate Business Adventure Team, was advertised to cost about $1,000, though final costs may have ended up higher. Read more

Hello and welcome to Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly roundup of the ruminations of the b-school blogosphere. This week, several of our 2016 applicants weigh in with  recommendations, from audio books to MBA programs, while current students take stock of the MBA experience, including the challenges and rewards of transitioning from the military to pursuing an MBA. MBATheNonProfitWay has made a resolution to switch her audio-book listening habit away from fiction to various business related books. The first selection, "The McKinsey Mind" did not fare so well in review. JourneyOfaGMATer took some time to share insights on the definition of 'problem', while Sarah'sMBAJourney hasn't given up on the idea of pursuing the MBA, and is now looking at a Cranfield MBA, although she does have some concerns and is open to other options as well.  Read more