Admissions tip: An interview is a two-way street

Usually when applicants prepare for their admissions interviews, they spend their time trying to figure out what questions will be asked and how they can best answer them. This is important and a good idea. But it’s not the only step to prepping for an admissions interview.

An interview is a two-way street.

Your interviewer will ask you questions and listen your answers, and then will turn the asking over to you. When your interviewer says, “Do you have any questions?” you don’t want to shut the interview down by saying, “Nope, I’m set” but want to keep the flow of the conversation going by taking the reins of the interview into your hands and asking some questions of your own.

There are two things you can do before your interview to help you come up with intelligent questions:

1. Familiarize yourself with the program’s website and other literature. Never ask a question that can be answered easily online.
2. Review your application. Your questions should be specific to your unique situation – your skills, interests, and goals. Questions about the faculty or clubs, for example, should relate to your own education, career, and goals.

Since your goal should be to come up with questions that are specific to your situation, I can’t give you a list of must-ask questions without knowing who YOU are. But here are a few sample questions that you can review and tweak so that the questions are more appropriate for YOU:

• How difficult is it to enroll in a popular class like XYZ? (Insert a class that appeals to you. Not a required course.)
• Do recruiters from XYZ (a company or a particular field that interests you) visit the school? How do students get interviews with recruiters?
• Are business plan competitions (or something else that’s relevant to you) open to all students, or are there certain requirements to qualify?

If you are interviewing with school alum or a second-year student, then you should ask questions about their experiences, for example:

• Who were some of your favorite professors? Favorite classes?
• What is/was a typical day like for you?
• Are there clubs or activities that you would recommend for someone interested in XYZ? What clubs are you involved in? How important do you think it is to be involved in extracurricular activities?
• If you could change anything about your experience at this program, what would it be?

You get the idea. You want to come up with questions that personalize you and that show you have an interest in your interviewer’s experience (if relevant). Be specific, show that you’ve done your research, and most importantly, relax!

Good luck and let us know how we can further help you prepare for your interviews!

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

The trap of marginal thinking in admissions

Are you considering padding your resume or record as you apply to college, graduate school, or a job? Think again. This past week I came across several articles at different times and on different topics that you should know about.

Obviously there are the stories about Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s embellished college record. Just a few hours ago Yahoo confirmed the inevitable: Scott Thomas is now the former CEO of Yahoo. Non-existent degrees on resumes are a hard thing to claim “oops!” about. He is out.

What does a falsehood from thirty years ago reflect on his competence to run Yahoo today? Whether he had the degree or not, don’t his recent accomplishments speak more loudly about his abilities than some stale studies from three decades ago?

That phony degree in computer science may not reflect one iota on his managerial skill, but it speaks volumes about his integrity. In all likelihood if he had just told the truth, he would still have been chosen to be Yahoo CEO, and there would have been no easy target for activist shareholder, Dan Loeb, the CEO of Third Point, to go after Thompson, much less win three seats for the Third Point group on Yahoo’s board.

But Thompson didn’t tell the truth and apparently hasn’t been consistently telling the truth about his academic record for years. Consequently, he is no longer CEO, and could be facing problems with the SEC, and his reputation is in tatters.

That leads to the second story I saw this week. It didn’t generate the headlines of Yahoo’s board shakeup, but the questions and conclusion are surprisingly similar.

Back in January prestigious Claremont-McKenna College acknowledged that a senior administrator had falsified data reported to U.S. News for its highly influential college rankings. The administrator resigned in disgrace. Claremont apologized and hired O’Melveny & Myers LLP to provide the correct data and to detail the extent of the misrepresentation since 2004. Per the Morse Code, the blog of Robert Morse, director of data research for U.S.News & World Report, and based on the newly verified data, Claremont McKenna’s 2012 rank is correct and will not change.

That’s mind boggling! That administrator lied, lost his job, damaged a top school’s name and for what? Nothing. The ranking with the lower, accurate data is unchanged.

While the saints among us may be feeling very smug at this point — “The bad guys got their due, and I would never make up something on my resume.” — I’d like to point out a third article I read this week – this one from Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge. In the fascinating “How Will You Measure Your Life?” Dr. Clayton Christensen writes about the “trap of marginal thinking” both on bottom-line and ethical decisions. In his attempts to teach students how to live a life of integrity he writes, “The marginal cost of doing something ‘just this once’ always seems to be negligible, but the full cost will typically be much higher.” He is so right.

Applicants (and applicant parents): Please, please, put your best foot forward in your applications BUT make sure it’s your foot. Don’t embellish. Don’t falsify. Don’t lie. You should have learned this in kindergarten, but if you didn’t, realize that the long-term cost of these falsehoods can be far higher than whatever pain or small cost is exacted by simply telling the truth.

Scott Thompson just learned this lesson. That Claremont McKenna administrator learned this lesson. It would be wonderful if applicants and their parents could also learn this lesson — before their names find their way into the headlines for some long-ago “inadvertent error” that clearly was intentional.

By Linda Abraham, president and founder of Accepted.com and co-author of the new, definitive book on MBA admissions, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools.

This article originally appeared on Technorati.

New ScoreSelect option makes GRE even more user-friendly

Following the success of the new GRE revised General Test, ETS announced another step in making the exam more “test-taker friendly,” with a ScoreSelect^SM option.

On the test day itself, once test takers have viewed their scores at the test center, they can either choose the ScoreSelect Most Recent option, so only the scores from their current test administration are released, or the ScoreSelect All option, where all their scores from the last five years are sent off. Both of these options are free, and “test takers can decide which option to use for each of their [four] free score reports.”

For a fee, test takers can release Additional Score Reports after test day and choose one of three options: Either ScoreSelect Most Recent option, and only send their most recent test scores; the ScoreSelect All option, and send all their scores from the last five years; or the ScoreSelect Any option, in which they can “send their scores from one OR many test administrations in the last [five] years.”

These new options will certainly ease the whole test taking experience for students, lessening some of the pressure often felt on test day. And, “the new ScoreSelect option will be available for both the GRE revised General Test and GRE Subject Tests, and can be used by anyone with reportable scores from the last five years.”

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Birthday Book Sale Ends Tomorrow!

Yesterday was my birthday, and today is your day to celebrate with super bookstore savings! Today and tomorrow are the last days of Accepted’s birthday blowout book sale, during which you can save 50% on ALL Accepted books with promo code SAVE50!

Browse our growing collection of books, choose the ones that match your admissions goals, and save 50% by using SAVE50 at checkout!

This is an important time for all of us – I’m one year older and wiser, and you’re one step closer to gaining admission at your top choice undergraduate or graduate program! Congratulations to us all!

Choose your MBA, med school, law school, grad school, or college admissions books now!

The Accepted.com staff wishes Linda a very happy birthday!

By Linda Abraham, president and founder of Accepted.com and co-author of the new, definitive book on MBA admissions, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools.

Birthday Book Sale!

To celebrate my birthday (May 10th) we’re giving you a present!

Buy any Accepted.com books between now and Sunday, May 12th and save 50% when you use promo code SAVE50!

Browse our bookstore to choose the best admissions books for you!

• MBA Admissions Books
• Medical School Admissions Books
• Law School Admissions Books
• Graduate School Admissions Books
• College Admissions Books

Note: My new book, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Top Business Schools, is included in the sale!

Happy birthday to me, and happy book sale to you!

By Linda Abraham, president and founder of Accepted.com and co-author of the new, definitive book on MBA admissions, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools.

How does the increase in Chinese applicants affect you?

Earlier this month the Council of Graduate Schools reported that 2012 is seeing a continued torrent of Chinese applicants to US graduate programs: up 18% for fall 2012, following increases of 21% in 2011 and 20% in 2010.  The most popular recipients of the applications are engineering, business, and earth sciences programs.   This significant news was featured widely, including in the Wall Street Journal, which concisely discusses some of the drivers of this trend.

What does this trend mean to you, in practical terms?

Chinese applicants tend to have strong academic track records and high standardized test scores.  Moreover, as they learn from the experience of their seniors who are now students in the US, and as they have more access to consultants, they are increasingly sophisticated about the application process.  In short, they’re often formidable candidates.

If you are Chinese and applying to programs favored by your countrymen, you will face the challenge of being in an over-represented group.  Your academic record and test scores will be compared to others of your nationality, so (a) high scores are all the more important, but alone will not win you acceptance, and therefore, (b) your essays, resume, and interviews should distinguish you within this group.

If you are a non-Chinese applicant to programs that receive many Chinese applicants, realize that these applicants likely raise the bar in terms of test scores and undergrad records.  While adcoms will still evaluate applicants in comparison to their own demographic groups, if one major group’s scores are high, it still raises the bar overall.

If you are a foreign, non-Chinese applicant to programs that receive many Chinese applicants, your nationality potentially represents a point of diversity as programs seek a range of geographic perspectives.  Try to get some mileage out of this distinctiveness in your application.

Chinese applicants and students are known for their focus and their drive to excel.  I speculate that this drive makes them less likely to drop out of grad programs and more likely to finish on time.  If you’re applying to programs that attract many Chinese applicants, it can only help to convey serious determination while portraying your motivations and passions.

By Cindy Tokumitsu, author of numerous ebooks, articles, and special reports. Cindy has advised hundreds of successful applicants in her last thirteen years with Accepted. She can help you assess your strengths and weaknesses and develop a winning graduate admissions strategy.

This post is courtesy of our friends at Magoosh, and an excerpt from their new ebook,

The new GRE scale may seem pretty arbitrary. After all, who has ever been graded on a test from 130 – 170? Not that the 200 – 800 scale was standard, but, still, there was a certain panache in being able to say, “I got an 800!” (a 170 sounds far from perfect). And, just to clarify, both these scales apply to the verbal section and math section, so, technically, the new GRE is out of 340 (which sounds equally awkward).

So, why the strange range (pardon the rhyme)? Well, according to ETS, they wanted to stick to three digits so that the colleges wouldn’t have to overhaul all the textbox entries that call for three digits. Fair enough. Also, to avoid confusion with the current scoring system, ETS made sure the two score ranges didn’t overlap (had they made the new GRE out of 200, then a person who’d gotten that score on the current GRE would suddenly look a lot smarter if they were to say a few years from now, “Hey, I got a 200 on the GRE verbal section”).

On the surface, the new GRE scoring range appears to be more limited than that of the current system. After all, 200 – 800, based on 10-point intervals, allows for only a 61-point spread, compared to the new GRE’s 41-point spread, based on one point intervals. The new GRE makes up for this more limited range by giving more significance to the extreme ends of the scale. For example, on the current GRE, there really isn’t much difference between 730 and 800 on the verbal—they are both in the 99th percentile range. On the new GRE, the difference between 165 and 170 will be the 99th percentile vs. the 96th percentile.

At the end of the day, you are not going to be tested on these statistical nuances. The important thing to remember is that many colleges base their rankings on a percentile score, which you will also receive as part of your score report.

For more GRE tips, download the free ebook now.

This post is courtesy of our friends at Magoosh, and an excerpt from their new ebook,

On the old GRE, the test adapted within each section. The computer would assume that every test taker was equal and would start with a mid-range question. If the test taker answered a few questions correctly, the test would become progressively difficult. And if the test taker answered the questions incorrectly, the test would become easier.

The old GRE algorithm is slightly more nuanced than this, but really the details, at this point, are moot. We only care about the revised GRE.

The Revised GRE adapts between sections

A salient difference between the old and revised GRE is that the revised GRE has two sections for math and two sections verbal. The old GRE had one section for each.

That the revised GRE has two sections for each subject is significant – this allowed ETS to make the test make the test adapt between sections.

There is no adaptation within sections

The section adaptation is the only adaptation that happens on the new GRE. What this means is that the questions do not change depending on whether you answer them correctly. You can think of it this way – each section is static. Your performance on the first section will determine whether you get an easy section or a difficult section. The easy section is static and the difficult section is static. Again, this means the questions in the section do not change. You could miss the first ten and question 11 will still be question 11. You could work backwards from the last question, nailing all of them, and question 11 is still question 11.

The level of difficulty of questions is random

Even though a section is static it doesn’t mean that, theoretically, it couldn’t become progressively harder. After all, this is what the old old GRE, meaning the paper-based 1990 GRE was like. However, there is no order of difficulty on the Revised GRE. The first question can be the hardest and the last question the easiest. Most likely, the first and last question will be medium ones.

Each question is weighted the same

Do not spend 5 minutes trying to answer the question in which four circles are wedged inside some octagon (actually, that would make an interesting question – but another time!). Each question is weighed the same. So the question that gives you the radius of a circle and asks for the area, which should take no more than 15 seconds, is worth the same as the one about the monstrous polygon.

Can you let up at the end?

Again, each question is weighted the same – and the computer hasn’t “figured you out” the way it supposedly did with the old GRE. Your score on the new GRE is based on how many questions you miss. The point here is that you do not reach a certain level in which the computer “thinks” you are doing very well (à la the old GRE). So do not slack off at the end, thinking you answered most questions correctly and now you’re set.

The only reason I even mention this – as it is counterintuitive – is because many are still operating under the conception of the old GRE, in which you could, at least somewhat, slack off at the end without hurting your score too much.

Takeaways

1. The Revised GRE does not adapt within a section, only between sections
2. Each question is weighted the same
3. Difficult questions and easy questions are randomly mixed throughout the section

For more GRE tips, download the free ebook now.

Below is a sentence that you may very well be able to solve the traditional method. Indeed, you should attack every Text Completion by first trying to come up with your own words. However, if you are stymied and are not able to come up with words—or are unsure that your words are even the correct ones—then plug in both answer choices and see if they create a sentence that makes sense.

Apply the Strategy

Were scientific advancement simply a question of the mere accumulation of facts then we have made (1) ______ progress over the last two centuries; however, it is not sheer data alone but rather a scientist’s ability to interpret this information that accounts for the (2) ______ breakthroughs of the last couple hundred years.

(1)

1. Inimitable
2. Scant
3. Evident

(2)

1. Diligent
2. Momentous
3. Limited

Explanation

One way to make this Text Completion easier is by noting that the first blank is either little (as in little progress) or big (as in major progress). The second blank is the exact same. Breakthroughs can either be small or big.

Next, determine whether the blanks are the same (e.g., little…small) or opposite (e.g., major…small).

For the first blank, you probably know the definition to (B) scant and (C) evident. Do not be thrown off by (A) inimitable. For now discount it. Only if neither (B) nor (C) works should you return to (A).

Let’s assume that science has made scant progress (little progress). If that were the case, what word would fit in the second blank? You may be tempted to say ‘big’ because of the word ‘however,’ which reverses the direction of the sentence. However, the keywords, it is not sheer data alone, show that accumulated facts and scientist’s ability together create a certain type of breakthrough. Thus the two blanks are similar.

But does it make sense to assume that we have made little progress, and small breakthroughs? Notice keywords such as scientist’s ability to interpret. Clearly there is a positive connotation. That is scientists have helped science progress through their ability to interpret, not just to collect facts.

Plugging in (C) evident and (E) momentous we can see the sentence makes sense: if facts alone counted for progress then we have made obvious progress. However, momentous breakthroughs require not just facts but scientists’ ability to interpret information.

It is important to note that you should not automatically assume that the second blank is momentous. True, this is a reasonable assumption, as most would agree that science has come a long way since Darwin set sail on the Beagle. For the Text Completion, however, you must base your answer solely on the information in the Text Completion. Oftentimes, your “reasonable” assumption may backfire. That is there will be specific words in the sentence that go against your assumption. So remember—the answer to any blank will always be in the sentence.

This post was written by Chris Lele, GRE Expert at Magoosh, and originally posted here.

An April Fool's guide to college and grad school admissions

Where you choose to go to college or grad school will define what you do in the future. It’ll set you out on a certain career path; it’ll be where you meet lifelong friends; and it will influence the way you think, the books you read, and the professors you connect with.

Some smart people (who clearly have loads of time to just sit around and THINK) choose a college or grad school based on “fit” – that is, where they’ll fit in culturally and academically. They choose a school based on professional and educational goals, curriculum, intellectual rigor, extracurricular opportunities, social or religious diversity, location, cost…and the list goes on and on. Who has time to think about all that?

Here – we’ve made this silly decision-making process easy for you by boiling down your decision points to the following 4 criteria:

1. Published rankings – If U.S. News or BusinessWeek say that Harvard or Stanford or Princeton (or whatever school they choose this year) is the best, then it really must be, for you and for everyone…no questions asked. The rankings should be the most prominent guide in helping you decide which schools are best for you. Don’t even consider applying anywhere that’s not in the top 5. Imagine what people will think of you if you don’t end up at one of the world’s best schools?
2. What your parents or best friend or the most popular kid in school want – Your dad went to Penn, your best friend is a freshman there this year, and the most popular kid in school just got in Early Decision. You would be a fool to consider going anywhere else. After all, if Penn was the best choice for these super important people, then it’s obviously the best choice for you.
3. Which school has the best weather – Obviously sunshine implies educational excellence.
4. Where you’ll get the best grades doing as little work as possible – Ever hear of grade inflation? You want to choose a school that’s known for making its students work as little as possible. College/grad school isn’t the place to work; it’s the place to slack off and party! Go with the school that will challenge you the least.

I know, I know. The above points still require you to think a bit more than you may like. If this is causing too much of a brain-ache, then I would recommend the following for you: Slap together an application, do a Find and Replace to change the name of the school you’re applying to, and send it off to 20-30 schools whose websites feature the best looking people. One of them is bound to accept you. And who knows, maybe after you’ve partied your way through the first year, you’ll earn a spot on the school’s website too!

HAPPY APRIL FOOL’S DAY!

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best