Jeanette Brown
Our Latest Podcast: The Great Test Debate—GMAT Versus GRE
In early April, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which owns and administers the GMAT, announced that it is shaving half an hour off the test, bringing it down from four hours to three and a half. GMAC called it a “candidate friendly change designed to enhance the test taking experience,” adding that “the GMAT is the only assessment designed specifically for graduate business school.” To get to a shorter test, GMAC sliced out 23 minutes of unscored (research) questions in the Quantitative and Verbal Reasoning sections and streamlined non-exam portions like tutorials and instructions. GMAC made no mention of... Read more »
Real Humans of the INSEAD MBA Class of 2018D
We’re moving right along in our Real Humans series focused on current students at leading business schools around the globe. Today, enter INSEAD, under a spotlight. Ranked the number one MBA program in the world by the Financial Times in both 2016 and 2017, the global school with campuses on three continents was knocked to second this year by Stanford, but the many of the qualities that helped it dominate in prior years remain. Compared head to head against other international business schools (outside the United States), Bloomberg BusinessWeek ranked INSEAD tops out of 31 schools in its most recent... Read more »
Our Latest Podcast: How to Decide Between Business Schools as an Admitted Student
For some prospective MBA applicants turned admitted students, the choice of where to attend business school is a no-brainer. If you applied and were accepted to your first-choice school, it may be as easy as breaking out the bubbly and sending in your deposit. Of perhaps you got accepted at two schools, one on your reach list and another on your safety list. Many applicants in that situation are going to lean toward the reach school. But very often, admitted students find themselves deciding between schools amid circumstances that aren’t equal. Maybe a lower-ranked school offers you a phenomenal scholarship... Read more »
MIT Sloan Round 3 Roundup from Admissions Director Dawna Levenson
With the Round 3 deadline having passed yesterday for applicants to MIT Sloan School of Management, Director of Admissions Dawna Levenson was quick to add an update post to her “From the Desk of the Admissions Director” blog today letting these late-round applicants know what to expect next. Levenson started out by underscoring that several things make applying in Round 3 unique, chief among them the accelerated timeline. “The next month will certainly be a whirlwind,” she warned. Here are the dates you should circle now on your calendars: Friday, April 20, 2018: Interview invitations go out April 25 –... Read more »
Tuck Adcom Luke Anthony Peña to Pen Monthly Admissions Open Letter
Heading into his ninth month leading MBA admissions at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, Luke Anthony Peña took to the Tuck360: MBA Blog last week to share the month’s happenings on campus. “I have a deep appreciation for our well-earned reputation as an accessible and transparent community,” he wrote. “In that spirit, I want to keep you updated on what’s happening here—at Tuck, in Admissions, and with me personally.” His April communication will be the first of monthly open letters designed to keep prospective applicants in the know. Luke Anthony Peña, Tuck executive director of admissions and financial aid April is... Read more »
Financing Your MBA, Part 4: International MBA Student Loans
In our previous post on financing your MBA, we covered loan programs for MBA students from the United States. Today, we’ll take a look at loans through the lens of international students, who face some different restrictions but who are also eligible for special programs tailored to their unique requirements. By law, federal loans can only be distributed to U.S. citizens or permanent residents. This means that international students must put extra work into finding financial aid and loan programs to support their education if they choose to pursue a U.S. MBA program. International students should research their own countries’ options... Read more »
Our Latest Podcast: April Admitted MBA Students’ Weekends
Depending on where you live, April-like weather may or may not yet have arrived. (It’s chilly here in Philly as I write this.) But spring weather or not, admitted MBA students’ weekends are getting underway at leading business schools throughout the month. The latest episode in our Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast series tells you everything you need to know about these weekends—including what to expect, how to prepare, and what you should try to take away from them. We even offer some advice on what to do if two schools you’re choosing between managed to schedule their events on... Read more »
Financing Your MBA, Part 3: Loans for U.S. MBA Students
Moving right along in our multi-part series on financing your MBA, we’ll take a look today at some of the options prospective MBA students have for obtaining loans to finance their time at business school. For the purposes of this post, we will focus primarily U.S. MBA student loan programs. International students, stay tuned for subsequent posts that will go into greater detail about loan programs tailored for your needs. Of course, because loans must ultimately be repaid—unlike scholarship or fellowship aid—deciding how much you should borrow is as important as understanding how much you can borrow. To make an... Read more »
A Shorter GMAT? It’s True—Starting April 16th
If you’re planning to sit for the GMAT exam in preparation for applying to business school, you might do well to hold off for a couple of weeks. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which owns and administers the GMAT, the test will be 30 minutes shorter than it has been in the past, lasting just 3.5 hours instead of the previous 4, including breaks and instructions. But before you get too excited, we should stress that this does not mean the test will be any easier. GMAC sliced 23 minutes out of the exam sections themselves by... Read more »
Financing Your MBA, Part 2
In the first of our multi-part series on financing your MBA, we took a look last week at the costs involved in attending a top-tier business school. Now, with a better handle on how much money you’ll need, let’s start looking at where that funding will come from. Students typically rely on a mixture of savings, fellowships and scholarships, employer or outside assistance, and loans to meet the cost of an MBA program. According to the GMAC 2017 Prospective Student Survey, the most recently surveyed group of prospective students expected to finance almost half their education through a combination of... Read more »
Our Lastest Podcast: Who Should Apply in Round 3?
If you’re wrestling with the question of whether or not to apply in Round 3, you won’t want to miss our latest podcast. Clear Admit Co-Founder Graham Richmond unpacks the challenges of this late round, but also the very real opportunities it presents to the right candidates. Fewer spots remain in classes already largely filled with accepted candidates from earlier rounds, and scholarship dollars have often dried up. But schools absolutely do still accept candidates in Round 3, and some indicators suggest that this might be an especially good year to apply. Find out why. Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast... Read more »
Our Latest Podcast: Top Takeaways from the 2019 U.S. News MBA Rankings
In case you missed our written analysis of the recent 2019 U.S. News & World Report‘s ranking of leading business schools, we’ve got what you need to make sense of it all AND listen on the go. Enjoy the latest episode in our Clear Admit MBA MBA Admissions podcast series. You know Chicago Booth tied Harvard Business School for first, knocking Wharton down to third. You know Stanford stayed put at fourth for another year. You know the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business made waves when it broke into the top 10 for the first time since 2005.... Read more »
Weighing Whether to Apply in Round 3? Here’s What MIT Sloan Has to Say
Yesterday, we shared guidance from the head of admissions at Yale School of Management, and today we’ve got advice from MIT Sloan’s director of admissions. When it comes to applying in Round 3, it turns out they have similar things to say. In the opinion of Bruce Delmonico, Yale SOM assistant dean of admissions, prospective applicants “have everything to gain and nothing to lose by applying in Round 3.” A cartoon image of Levenson encouraging Round 3 applicants In a recent post to her Admissions Director Blog, MIT Sloan Director of Admissions Dawna Levenson tackled the same question. Her answer:... Read more »
Our Latest Podcast: Navigating the MBA Waitlist
With the Round 2 MBA interview season officially behind us, we’re excite to move on in the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast series to another topic still of interest to some applicants in both Rounds 1 and 2: navigating the MBA waitlist. Unlike the black and white decisions some candidates have received in recent weeks—the coveted acceptances and the less popular rejections—we know many of you find yourselves in a murky gray area called the waitlist. While a straight-up acceptance would obviously be preferably, we’re here to tell you that top programs really do admit a fair number of candidates... Read more »
Yale SOM Adcom on Round 2 Decisions, Applying in Round 3
With Yale School of Management (SOM) set to release Round 2 decisions today, March 27th, you’ll find real-time coverage as news of acceptances and less favorable results gets reported on MBA LiveWire. Assistant Dean for Admissions Bruce Delmonico took to his admissions blog in a recent post to confirm today’s decision date but also to focus on Round 3. Clear Admit’s DecisionWeek is brought to you by HBX. HBX brings the dynamism of the Harvard Business School classroom to online learning—preparing participants for the next chapter of their careers. Learn how HBX can prepare you for the MBA classroom. Bruce... Read more »
Financing Your MBA, Part I
As more and more of you are receiving your admissions results from all your hard work during the MBA application process, we wanted to turn our attention to how you’ll manage financing your MBA. If you’ve got a spare couple hundred thousand dollars in your bank account, then you can probably skip this series. For everyone else, read on. In this post and a handful to follow, we’ll provide a broad overview of the various costs a typical MBA student faces and the types of funding opportunities currently available. Down the line, we’ll take a closer look at the financial aid processes at... Read more »
8 Key Takeaways from the 2019 U.S. News MBA Ranking
As reported here this morning, Chicago Booth has claimed its first-ever No. 1 rank in the U.S. News & World Report MBA Ranking, released today. It tied for first with Harvard Business School (HBS), which has held or shared the No. 1 spot for four years running. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, which tied HBS for first last year, slipped to third. Stanford Graduate School of Business, meanwhile, remained constant in fourth place for a second year. Last year, the California school was in a three-way tie for the No. 4 spot with MIT Sloan and Kellogg, but this year, those schools slipped to fifth... Read more »
How to Break into the “MBB”—Best Business Schools for Landing Top Consulting Jobs
With starting salaries in the $140,000 to $150,000 range and a customary $25,000 signing bonus on top of that, it’s no wonder so many business school students target the prestige consulting firms known as the “MBB”—McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Bain & Company—as their post-MBA landing pads. That $170,000+ annual compensation package can quickly cut any MBA loan debt you may have taken on down to size. Indeed, management consulting has been one of the most coveted career paths for fresh MBA grads for ages. And though the technology industry has in recent years been stealing some grads from... Read more »
Chicago Booth Tops U.S. News 2019 MBA Ranking for First Time, Tied with HBS
They’re out, and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business can pop the bubbly this year. We’re talking, of course, about this year’s U.S. News & World Report ranking of the nation’s best MBA programs, released today. Chicago Booth has claimed its first-ever No. 1 rank. It tied for first with Harvard Business School (HBS), which has held or shared the No. 1 spot for four years running. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, which tied HBS for first last year, slipped to third. Stanford Graduate School of Business, meanwhile, remained constant in fourth place for a second year. Last year,... Read more »
Our Latest Podcast: Making the Most of MBA Rankings
U.S. News & World Report is scheduled to release its annual MBA rankings tomorrow, and many of you have already taken part in our contest to guess the order of the top-10 schools. (If you haven’t, there’s still time…click here!) Though limited to business schools in the United States, the U.S. News ranking is widely regarded in the graduate management education space as one of the most credible of the many MBA rankings out there. But like all MBA rankings, the results published by U.S. News tomorrow should serve as just one data point among many in the thorough research... Read more »
