Planning Tips
Tips on how to structure your time and tackle the challenging process of applying to business school.
Published: August 8, 2017
GMAT Tip: 5 Things Undergrads Should Do to Prepare for Business School
As summer starts to wind down, many college students are frantically trying to squeeze in a few more weekends at the beach before heading back to the dorms and classrooms. But for anyone thinking about business school or a graduate management degree, there are 5 things you can do before graduation to help you prepare for business school (or any graduate program). 1. Consider enrolling in “free” quant. Take a look at your current transcript and course load. If you’ve managed to make it through your undergraduate experience (intentionally or not!) without setting foot in the math department, you might
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Published: August 7, 2017
[GIVEAWAY] Download Becoming a Clear Admit: The Definitive Guide to MBA Admissions Free!
If you’re planning to apply to business school this admissions cycle, look no further. We have the book for you! To celebrate the one-year anniversary of its release, we’re giving you the must-read admissions book, Becoming a Clear Admit: The Definitive Guide to MBA Admissions, for free! Just use coupon code CLEARFREE2017 at checkout DOWNLOAD IT TODAY Its author, Clear Admit’s own Alex Brown, brings nearly 25 years of experience in the MBA admissions industry as a consultant, admissions officer, and teacher, including seven years as senior associate director of admissions at the Wharton
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Published: August 6, 2017
Your Business School Application: Four Things to Do Right Now
Sponsored Content Congratulations on the decision to pursue a professional business degree! Are you wondering where to start? Applying to MBA and specialized master’s programs requires careful planning and preparation. Checking these first tasks off your list can help put you on the path to success. 1. Know your strengths. Make a list of things you do well, outstanding professional accomplishments, what you’ve learned from your successes (and failures), and your most ambitious goals for the future. These are all items you’ll want to talk about in your essays and interviews. You’ll also want to start to identify
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MBA ApplyWire Spotlight: Applying to Business School for Brand Management
This week’s MBA ApplyWire Spotlight takes a look at a particularly unique applicant, with a background heavy in nonprofit experience. This candidate has set their sights on six potential business schools: Cornell / Johnson, Dartmouth / Tuck, Duke / Fuqua, Georgetown / McDonough, NYU Stern and UCLA Anderson. Read on for more details about the candidate’s background. Even with so many potential target schools, the first responses suggested an even wider pool of
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MBA ApplyWire Spotlight: Applying to Business School for Consulting
With the launch of Applywire, Clear Admit’s latest tool to aid in your admissions process, we're setting this week’s spotlight on a candidate considering nine MBA programs. This week, we take a closer look at a post from an applicant considering Dartmouth / Tuck, Duke /Fuqua, Harvard Business School, Michigan / Ross, MIT / Sloan, Northwestern / Kellogg, Stanford GSB, Chicago Booth and the Wharton School. Read on for more details about the candidate’s background.
Initial feedback tried to steer towards a timeline:
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New Clear Admit Chat Series Offers Valuable Free Primer for the MBA Admissions Season
Note: You can join the chat in progress here https://www.clearadmit.com/chat/mba-admissions-series/
If you are planning to apply to business school in the coming year, listen up: We’re rolling out a brand-new series of 10 free expert-led chats that together offer a comprehensive overview of the steps successful applicants take in the MBA admissions process. Hosted by Clear Admit’s own Alex Brown—author of Becoming a Clear Admit: The Definitive Guide to MBA Admissions and former senior associate director of admissions at Wharton—each chat in the series will focus in on an individual component of the MBA admissions process.
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Published: December 15, 2016
Admissions Tip: Planning for Round 2
Now that the bulk of Round 1 decisions are in, we wanted to take the time and look ahead to Round 2. The advice here is relevant for both Round 1 candidates who are considering additional applications in Round 2 as well as for those looking ahead to a later round. As most applicants are targeting multiple schools and still working to narrow down their school selection for Round 2, we wanted to take some time today to stress the importance of taking a deep breath and a step back in order to formulate a general timeline for the coming weeks. Establishing a set
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Published: October 11, 2016
MBA Admissions Mashup: Round 1 Next Steps
Every Wednesday, we share a round-up of the latest news from MBA admissions blogs at the top business schools. MBA applicants around the world have hit submit on their Round 1 applications or are planning ahead for Round 2. Several of you have already heard back from the likes of HBS, Chicago Booth, LBS, Yale, and more. This week we’re devoting the mashup to those of you that are anxiously waiting on some news — may it be good or bad (because closure). In a week and a half
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Published: August 21, 2016
Savvy MBA Application Strategy: How Many Apps, Which Schools, When to Apply
You’ve decided the MBA is the next stop on your career path. What now? The smartest applicants are those who take the time to create an informed MBA application strategy—a well thought-out game plan that can help you obtain your goals as efficiently and effectively as possible. One of the first challenges you’ll face is school selection—strategically choosing which schools to target, bearing in mind the competitive mix of those schools. In recent years, MBA applicants appear to be trending downward in terms of the total number of schools to which they apply. Where applying to five to seven
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Published: August 14, 2016
The MBA Application: Know Your Audience
As Round 1 deadlines approach, applicants are coming to understand that applying to business school is an incredibly demanding process. In addition to taking the GMAT, assembling academic transcripts and providing recommendation letters, candidates are required to draft multiple essays, job descriptions, lists of activities and more. With the obvious incentive to save time wherever possible, it’s understandable that many applicants simply cut and paste content from an existing resume and write about their work in the manner that comes most naturally. However, in doing so, countless candidates each year assemble their materials without ever asking a
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3 Ways To Convince The MBA Admissions Committee That You Only Have Eyes For Them
With August soon approaching, it’s the time of year when many applicants are beginning to work on their application essays and learning more about their target programs in the process of rounding out their “why are you pursuing an MBA/why [insert school name here]?” discussions. Keeping this important component of the MBA admissions process in mind, we wanted to take the time today to offer some advice on how to convince the MBA admissions committee of your love for them and get the most mileage out of this section. MBA Admissions is Personal Schools look for applicants who seem genuinely excited about
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Published: March 22, 2016
MBA Admissions Mashup: Admissions Tips & Career Services
Every Wednesday, we share a round-up of the latest news from admissions blogs at the top business schools. The past couple of weeks on MBA LiveWire and MBA DecisionWire revealed admissions decisions, interview notifications, and enrollment decisions, in addition to a focus on R3 applications. As such, we’re featuring a couple MBA admissions tips and advice on the career search. Today is Northwestern / Kellogg’s decision day (there’s a sea of green on MBA LiveWire) and the Kellogg adcom is really excited (understatement)! They posted a welcome on their blog as well as recalled their
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Published: February 28, 2016
Everything You Need to Know About Applying to Business School in the Final Rounds
Is it worth applying to business school in Round 3 or any of the late rounds? This is the question that MBA applicants have asked time and time again. With final round deadlines roughly a month away, we thought it would be worth exploring this topic in detail. Why Do Schools Have a Final Round? Why do schools bother to have a final round of admissions when the acceptance rate is typically so low? Why not just have two rounds of admissions deadlines and call it a day? Before we write off the final round or suggest that it should
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Published: January 24, 2016
Admissions Tip: MBA Interview Prep
With MBA interview invitations from a number of programs already on their way out to Round Two applicants, and more anticipated in the days ahead (Harvard Business School will release its first batch of interview invites on Wednesday, January 27), we wanted to offer some advice on this element of the admissions process. The following are some steps one can take to prepare for the interview itself. Know what to expect. This might go without saying, but MBA interview types and duration vary across programs. For instance, nearly all invited Stanford applicants interview with alumni, while on-campus Wharton interviews
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Published: January 17, 2016
Admissions Tip: 4-Part Comprehensive MBA Interview Series
Interview season for Round 2 candidates will soon be in full swing. In fact, some candidates have already interviewed with schools that offer ‘open’ interviews, such as Dartmouth / Tuck and Northwestern / Kellogg. Soon enough, schools that interview via invitation only (like Harvard Business School, U. Chicago Booth, UPenn / Wharton, and more) will begin doling out those coveted invites. While we know that many of you won’t give the interview a second thought until you have an invitation in hand (or start seeing invites crop up on MBA LiveWire), we think it’s
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Published: January 12, 2016
MBA Admissions Mashup: Admitted Students Weekends
Every Wednesday, we share a round-up of the latest news from admissions blogs at the top business schools. Congratulations to all Round 1 applications who have received positive news from their target schools! (Needless to say, we urge you to head on over to MBA LiveWire to share the good news!) Now that you’ve been admitted, you’re surely receiving invitations to attend Admitted Student Weekends where you’ll have plenty of opportunity to mix and mingle with other future MBAs. Your future classmates await! With this in mind, we’re taking a look at schools hosting admit weekends as
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Published: November 29, 2015
Understanding the Early Decision Round at Columbia Business School
The last couple of weeks have seen a flurry of activity on MBA Livewire regarding decisions for Columbia Business School’s Early Decision (ED) round. This makes Columbia one of the first MBA programs in the United States to get decisions out for the 2015-16 cycle – despite having a deadline for ED (October 7th) that falls after a number of other top schools. That Columbia is able to get decisions out in a shorter timeframe than many of its peers is commendable. With that said, many applicants and admissions consultants
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Published: November 22, 2015
Admissions Tip: How Round 1 Applicants Should Approach Round 2
For many applicants who have applied in Round 1, now is a time of great stress and uncertainty that is likely testing your patience. This is because any of the following scenarios might apply to you: You have been denied by schools without the opportunity to interview You have interviews scheduled with schools, but not yet completed You have completed interviews with schools and are awaiting a decision You have been told that your file is competitive but will be pushed into R2 for further review (a sort of mid-season waiting list, if you will) And of course, many of
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Published: October 26, 2015
GMAT Tip: Relieving Test Anxiety in the Last Week
“The hay is in the barn.” Before you start thinking you’re reading the wrong blog, this isn’t about farming or agriculture. The saying means that all of the hard work has been done, and all that’s left to do is execute. Everyone gets nervous and anxious in the weeks and months leading up to test day, but what about the last week or two leading up to test day? If you’ve been sticking to a study plan and schedule, the hay should be in the barn, but you may still be looking for ways to up your test day game.
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On the Road: Off-Campus MBA Information Sessions
For all those applicants who have recently opened a calendar to plot out the next few months only to realize they can’t possibly fit in campus visits on top of full time jobs and essay writing, never fear! It’s true that traveling to a school’s campus is the ideal way to learn about their MBA program, but visiting is often not a viable option for applicants who are located remotely or unsure of their level of interest in a given school. The good news is that business schools might very well come to them. Many b-schools are
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How to Use MBA Program Rankings to Your Advantage
There are a number of authoritative sources that knowledgeably rank the “top” MBA programs each year. Because the methodologies of these rankings can differ considerably, however, a given school may well be ranked quite differently across these various lists, making it difficult to decipher which are the “best” schools. For that reason, we'd like to talk today about how b-school applicants can use MBA program rankings to discover which schools truly are the best -- for them. Although the general merits of each school are important, we also believe that it is essential for MBA applicants to develop ranked preferences for schools based on their individual needs and interests.
Here are our tips for using official MBA school rankings:
1. Use rankings to create a consensus
Ranked lists of top schools are seldom identical, which makes it difficult to identify which schools are in the "top five” or "top ten." Instead, it’s best to compile these different sources of rankings to form a consensus regarding the top schools. For example, if your target program is consistently listed in the top 15, regardless of its individual ranking among different sources, you should feel confident that it is regarded as a top school by industry professionals and future employers. You may not be able to pinpoint the ultimate “number one” school, but you will be able to distinguish between the different tiers of schools.
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Published: March 15, 2015
Admissions Tip: Feedback Sessions for Denied Applicants
As many of our readers know, a small number of leading MBA programs offer admissions feedback sessions to applicants who did not make the admissions cut in a given season. Though we’ve touched upon this subject before, we’d like to use today’s blog entry to underline the importance of these feedback sessions for those of you who are considering reapplication.
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Published: February 22, 2015
Admissions Tip: Extracurricular Activities
Because it’s the time of year when applicants aiming for Fall 2016 intake are just beginning to think about the admissions process, we wanted to focus today on one element of the application that candidates often underestimate: extracurricular activities.
In order to understand why this category is important, candidates should keep in mind that the adcom is responsible for crafting a dynamic class each year. The aim is to admit individuals who will support a vibrant campus community and step into leadership positions. In other words, as admissions officers consider each applicant, they ask themselves “what’s in it for our school?” An applicant who has previously demonstrated a talent for writing, for example, by contributing to a nonprofit’s newsletter, will really catch the adcom’s attention if she also expresses her intent to contribute to a specific publication on campus.
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Admissions Tip: Extracurricular Activities
Because it’s the time of year when applicants aiming for Fall 2015 intake are just beginning to think about the admissions process, we wanted to focus today on one element of the application that candidates often underestimate: extracurricular activities.
In order to understand why this category is important, candidates should keep in mind that the adcom is responsible for crafting a dynamic class each year. The aim is to admit individuals who will support a vibrant campus community and step into leadership positions. In other words, as admissions officers consider each applicant, they ask themselves “what’s in it for our school?” An applicant who has previously demonstrated a talent for writing, for example, by contributing to a nonprofit’s newsletter, will really catch the adcom’s attention if she also expresses her intent to contribute to a specific publication on campus.
Volunteering is of course a great way to expand one’s
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Published: March 26, 2013
Exclusive GMAT Insights and Advice for MBA Hopefuls From Top GMAT Community Leaders
Each year thousands of individuals begin journeys that they hope will ultimately lead to an acceptance offer from top-tier business schools around the world, and for the majority of these applicants one of the first steps on the b-school path is studying for and taking the GMAT exam. With the 2012-2013 application season wrapping up, a whole new cohort of aspiring MBA students are beginning to get serious about their own school choices and application materials. Most schools won’t be releasing their updated application requirements until later in the summer, so one concrete element of their application that they can start working on now is properly preparing themselves for taking the exam. We sat down with the founders of the major online GMAT communities (Beat The GMAT and GMAT Club) as well as the Director of Academic Programs at leading GMAT test prep firm, Veritas Prep. These individuals have a combined wealth of experience to draw upon when providing helpful tips and insights to share with anyone contemplating an application to business school in 2013-14. In the article that follows, readers will have the opportunity to learn about common misconceptions many test takers have about the exam, successful approaches to creating a study schedule, specific tips that can help those who struggle with either the verbal or the quant sections, and valuable insights on how to approach retaking the test. We additionally have checked in with the official information provided by GMAC, the organization that creates and administers the GMAT exam.
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