One of the key pieces of an MBA application is the letter of recommendation. This letter, usually written by managers, gives the admissions committee an insightful perspective on the MBA candidate. However, since each program has their own unique form, and candidates are often hesitant to ask managers to fill out multiple recommendations, applicants often limit the number of programs to which they apply. Recommenders frequently cannot dedicate enough time to such letters, resulting in less thorough and perceptive recommendations.  

According to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the Common Letter of Recommendation was born out of the need to save recommenders and alumni time by enabling them to complete one, common, set of questions. Since the questions stay embedded in each school’s existing application system, few major changes are necessary. The Common LOR was developed by a group of leading business schools in conjunction with GMAC. These programs are leading the way, with the support of GMAC, to collaborate, collect information from industry professionals, and collate information from candidates worldwide.   

Benefits of the Common LOR 

• Delivers deeper understanding of candidates by applying the best practices from top programs and using the most up-to-date science in executive assessment 

• Allows for a wider diversity of prospective students and a greater number of applicants by enabling them to ask for multiple LORs. 

• Reduces recommenders’ time demands so they can devote more consideration to crafting a thoughtful and attuned letter. 

Common LOR sections 

The Common LOR is comprised of the following four sections: 

1. Personal Information About the Recommender 

2. Leadership Assessment Grid: Made up of 12 competencies and character traits that lead to successful leadership. They are divided into these five groups: 

• Achievement 
  
  
• Influence 
  
  
• People 
  
  
• Personal Qualities 
  

• Cognitive Abilities 

3.  Recommendation Questions (Open-Ended Questions for Recommenders) 

• Please provide a brief description of your interaction with the applicant, and, if applicable, the applicant’s role in your organization. 
  
  
• How does the performance of the applicant compare to that of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? (e.g., what are the applicant’s principal strengths?). 
  

• Describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response. 
  
  
• Is there anything else we should know? (Optional) 

Schools currently using the Common LOR form 

The widespread uptake of the common LOR is due in part to the longstanding lobbying of admissions professionals. Anna Ivey, former president of the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC), welcomed the development of more schools embracing the shared LOR model: “Applicants have for years found themselves in quite a pickle because they have had to dump so much work on their recommenders. In some cases, their recommenders have had to write more words than the applicants do in their essays. That has created all kinds of distortions, despite good intentions. 

“Any convergence around common recommendation questions not only makes the application process easier for applicants and their recommenders, but also helps preserve the integrity of those recommendations and the application process. Cutting down on the duplication and extra work for recommenders will make it more likely that recommenders write their letters themselves, and that’s a great outcome.” 

We can help you take advantage of the common LOR to get the most from your recommenders and supercharge your application. Our experienced consultants also work with recommenders to provide guidance in crafting compelling letters that will set you on the road to getting ACCEPTED! 

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Related Resources:

• Navigate the MBA Maze, a free guide
• MBA Recommendation Letters: 10 Tips for Writing them Right
• Ingredients of a Great MBA Letter of Recommendation

The post The MBA Common Letter of Recommendation (LOR): An Overview appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Forbes has released its 2019 rankings of full-time MBA programs in the U.S. and one-year programs internationally. These rankings are based on responses from more than 100 schools and 17,500 alumni around the world. Graduates’ earnings in their first five years after graduation from business school were compared to their opportunity cost, which gave Forbes a five-year MBA gain – the basis for the final rank.

The alumni survey reveals that an MBA from one of the top schools continues to be very valuable, and pays for itself in approximately four years. Alumni from the class of 2014 at the top 25 U.S. programs boosted their salaries from an average of $73,000 before their MBA to $193,000 last year. Salaries have gone up on average 10% each year since graduation.

Top 10 U.S. business schools

Rank	School	Location	5-Year MBA Gain	Years to Payback	Pre-MBA Salary	2018 Salary	Tuition	GMAT
1	Chicago Booth	Chicago, IL	$94.4K	3.9	$83K	$245K	$149K	730
2	Stanford	Palo Alto, C	$90.8K	4.2	$86K	$250K	$144K	732
3	Northwestern Kellogg	Evanston, IL	$89.6K	3.9	$76K	$215K	$150K	740
4	Harvard Business School	Boston, MA	$86.5K	4.1	$88K	$230K	$161K	730
5	Pennsylvania Wharton	Philadelphia, PA	$84.7K	4.1	$92K	$230K	$158K	732
6	Dartmouth Tuck	Hanover, NH	$82.7K	4	$84K	$233K	$153K	720
7	Columbia Business School	New York, NY	$80.9K	4.1	$82K	$230K	$160K	740
8	MIT Sloan	Cambridge, MA	$80.9K	4.1	$80K	$215K	$154K	730
9	Cornell Johnson	Ithaca, NY	$78.3K	4	$68K	$195K	$142K	700
10	Michigan Ross	Ann Arbor, MI	$78K	3.9	$72K	$180K	$140K	720

Top 10 one-year international programs

Rank	School	Location	5-Year MBA Gain	Years to Payback	Pre-MBA Salary	2018 Salary	Tuition	GMAT
1	IMD	Lausanne, Switzerland	$168.9K	2.7	$82K	$200K	$85K	680
2	INSEAD	Fountainebleau, France; Singapore	$154.7K	2.6	$79K	$195K	$90K	710
3	Cambridge Judge	Cambridge, United Kingdom	$153K	2.4	$67K	$183K	$65K	700
4	SDA Bocconi	Milan, Italy	$135.5K	2.5	$60K	$165K	$57K	665
5	Oxford Said	Oxford, United Kingdom	$127.3K	2.8	$76K	$177K	$71K	690
6	IE Business School	Madrid, Spain	$104.3K	3.2	$58K	$149K	$79K	686
7	Indian School of Business	Hyderabad, India	$90.5K	2.4	$15K	$62K	$37K	710
8	Warwick	Coventry, United Kingdom	$83.8K	2.9	$53K	$139K	$48K	660
9	Mannheim	Mannheim, Germany	$83K	3	$51K	$125K	$42K	680
10	ESMT Berlin	Berlin, Germany	$86.2K	3.4	$49K	$118K	$49K	650

Do you need help choosing the best business school for you? Get matched with an Accepted advisor today who will guide you through the process of finding, applying to, and getting accepted to the ideal MBA program for you. Explore our MBA Admissions Consulting for more information.

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Related Resources:

• Navigate the MBA Application Maze: 9 Tips to Acceptance, a free guide
• A Conversation About Today’s MBA Marketplace, a podcast episode
• Do MBA Rankings Matter?

The post Forbes 2019 Best Business Schools: Booth Tops the List appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

For MBA aspirants who want to build or advance their careers in India, the Indian School of Business PGP program offers excellent preparation. International job offers saw a slight uptick in the class of 2018, a total of 30 offers were made for roles outside of India compared with 2017’s 12. While 2018’s industry distribution has not yet been released, the Consulting and Technology industries have in previous years consistently been the largest recruiters at ISB.

ISB students learn from visiting professors from the top MBA programs around the world including Entrepreneurship with London Business School’s Rupert Merson, Negotiation Analysis with Chicago Booth’s Radhika Puri, Leveraging Web 2.0 with NYU Stern’s Anindya Ghose, and Economics of Strategy with Wharton’s Louis Thomas among many other visiting scholars.

ISB is clearly the ROI winner when compared with its peer US programs for Indian students: instead of 2 years out of the workforce for a similarly-ranked US program at a tuition cost of over $130,000, ISB students are out of the workforce for only 1 year, paying tuition of only $37,000, with post-MBA weighted salaries only slightly lower than their American counterparts.

ISB has created new essay questions this year and cut the length of essay 1 by 100 words. Note that ISB’s online application will not accept even one word over the limit of either of its essays.

Here are ISB’s questions with my advice in blue:

ISB MBA Essay Question #1

At ISB we value diversity as it enhances both the in-class and out of class learning experience. Tell us how would you contribute to the same? (400 words max)

Applicants must decide what unique experiences and insight they have gained that will best contribute to the learning experience of their fellow students. In my experience, the most compelling essays will share anecdotes that illustrate your leadership and impact, not simply a list of roles that mirror the application form’s details about your responsibilities, initiatives, and achievements. This is your opportunity to explain the “why” (what motivated and drove you to these experiences) and the “how” (what creativity and interpersonal skills you applied to make an impact) and how these will benefit the learning experience of your classmates.

ISB MBA Essay Question #2

Enrolling in a Business School is an important career decision. Critically look at your career to date, the choices you have made, the key influences behind those choices, your goals for the future and how do you think ISB’s PGP can help you in achieving your goals? (300 words max)

I like that this question breaks down the essays into components: how and for what reasons have you directed your career in the past, what are your goals for the future, and how will ISB help you reach them?

MBA programs ask about your goals to ensure that they are reasonable: can their program prepare you for them and has your career so far positioned you to achieve them? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then they cannot accept you – you will simply be unhappy when you graduate – so speak with recent graduates about their recruiting experiences and take the initiative to speak with post-MBA professionals with 10 or more years of experience to guide you in your longer-term career discussion.

ISB does not offer an optional essay. However, applicants have space on the Education page of the application to explain any gaps during their education.

The only comfort in such a short application is that your fellow applicants are just as limited in how much they can share!

For expert guidance with your ISB MBA application, check out Accepted’s MBA Application Packages, which include comprehensive guidance from an experienced admissions consultant. We’ve helped hundreds of applicants get accepted to ISB and look forward to helping you too!

ISB MBA Application Deadlines:

Advantages of applying in Cycle 1:

• Full tuition fee waivers will be offered only to Cycle 1 applicants

• 50% of all merit and need-based waivers will be offered to Cycle 1 applicants

Non-Indian Origin Applicants

To enable non-Indian origin applicants to complete their Visa formalities in time, we follow a rolling evaluation process for them. Their application is evaluated and their admission decision is communicated within six weeks of receiving the completed application.

***Disclaimer: Information is subject to change. Please check with individual programs to verify the essay questions, instructions and deadlines.***

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Jennifer Bloom has been a consultant with Accepted for 19 years and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW). She is an expert at guiding you to produce application materials that truly differentiate you from the rest of the driven applicant pool. If you would like help with your ISB application, Jennifer can suggest a number of options that work with any budget. Want Jennifer to help you get accepted? Click here!

Related Resources:

• 5 Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your Application Essays, a free guide
• 4 Application Strategy Tips: Stand Out AND Fit In
• Leadership in Admissions, a free guide

The post Indian School of Business MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Indian School of Business

Teeming, packed, noisy streets connecting the serene, sprawling, park-like campuses of Infosys and the Indian School of Business. Slum hovels just yards/meters away from beautiful apartment buildings.

These are a few of the images from the busy three days I, and roughly 16 other MBA admissions consultants, spent in Hyderabad, India as guests of the Indian School of Business. We made the trip to learn more about this top-ranked business school with a distinctive structure and mission.

ISB Hallway

ISB Deputy Dean Deepak Chandra addressed us on Tuesday morning and provided a brief history of ISB and clarified its focus. In two words: Emerging markets.  Since ISB’s exceptionally strong partnership with Kellogg, Wharton, and London Business School brings a steady stream of professors to teach in ISB classrooms frequently using HBS cases, students certainly study about developed countries and economies. However, the faculty focuses its research on developing markets. The professors naturally bring that research into the classroom and also offer students the opportunity to assist them. Whether it’s the Centre for Entrepreneurship, the Centre for Leadership, Innovation and Change, the Centre for Real Estate or any of the others, according to Dean Chandra, the research will seek to answer these questions:

• How do emerging market economies differ from developed economies?
• How do different emerging market economies differ from each other, and what can they learn from each other?
• What can developed countries learn from emerging markets?

ISB Courtyard

This focus on developing economies was echoed by the international students we met. To paraphrase one Spanish student, Daniel, “I wanted to go where there is growth, and that’s not in Europe or the US, where growth has slowed or stopped.” Articulate and bright, he has been thrilled with ISB and its emerging market passion.  He already has a job at Novartis in Hyderabad and will start working there after graduation. He assumes he will return at some point to Europe and is convinced his Indian experience will only add to his resume and job prospects wherever he goes.

Mr. V. K. Menon, ISB’s Senior Director of Career Advancement Services, provided a solid basis for Daniel’s assumption. He explained that multi- nationals in Asia, like Novartis, the strategy consulting companies, or large financial concerns, love to hire people who have Asian experience and a European or US passport. These individuals have fewer visa issues when continuing their careers in the EU or the US. With their emerging market experience and graduate business education, they are better prepared to be global business leaders.

Throughout our sessions with students and alumni, we asked about the ISB student experience. They are pleased overall with the accessibility of the faculty, the quality of teaching, the professional diversity amongst their fellow students. A few marveled at the spectacular ISB campus, and the level of assistance and support provided to students – all reside on the 260-acre campus, which has its own ATM, grocery store, pool, fully equipped gym, and basic medical facilities.  (We felt like we were in a serene bubble, an oasis, when we returned to campus after an outing in bustling Hyderabad.) A couple of current students actually wished the program was a little longer. They felt it is so intense that they can’t experience it fully or take advantage of as many of opportunities as they would have liked.

When we sat in on a class, I was impressed with the students’ engagement in the class discussion. They asked good questions and had thoughtful responses to the professor’s questions. I didn’t see anyone checking email or Facebook; I can’t say the same for other MBA classes I have attended.

ISB Library

A few students and members of the administration expressed regret that the program is not more geographically diverse. Only about 5% of students (not counting those on exchange programs) are not of Indian origin. That statistic reveals opportunity for the non-Indian passport holder interested in emerging markets as the foundation for a global management career.  It also represents opportunity for the student who is well-qualified (ISB has an average GMAT of 710 and climbing), wants a career in management consulting or investment banking, and is interested in experiencing India, but who can’t quite make the cut at the elite US or EU schools where those professions primarily recruit.

Essentially the foreign applicant is an “under-represented minority” on the ISB campus, and ISB wants to increase that representation.  I had the distinct impression that if the foreign applicant shows he or she can do the work, even if the GMAT is a little low or the GPA has some issues, or the applicant is attempting to change both function and industry – the toughest kind of career change – ISB will stretch to consider and accept that applicant. I also inferred that generous scholarships are available for admitted international applicants.

Infosys CampusIn contrast to international students, ISB has been very successful in recruiting top performing Indians in India. For India, a post-graduate, research-based, independent (i.e. not government-funded) program requiring full-time work experience is something new. Its ties to internationally renowned business schools add enormously to its appeal, not to mention its impressive placement record at leading corporations like Infosys, Novartis, Deloitte, McKinsey, Citicorp, Goldman Sachs, and many others.

In addition, as one alumnus – who has been working at Microsoft since graduating from ISB – pointed out, ISB can ease the transition for Indians abroad who want to both change careers/move into management and return to India. Since it is a one-year program, ISB also costs far less than the traditional US two-year program both in out-of-pocket expenses and opportunity cost.

I can’t tell you how glad I am that I decided to accept ISB’s invitation to this conference. It was intense – probably mirroring the intensity of the program. Like all top MBA programs, ISB is a great fit for the right people — not for all people. I am convinced that more applicants should consider ISB than I believed when I left Los Angeles last Sunday at 6:00 AM.

If you would like to discuss whether ISB, the top Indian MBA program with a commitment to the study and service of emerging markets, is a fit for you, please feel free to contact me and write “ISB” in the comments box.

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.

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The post Indian School of Business: Thoughts After My Visit to Hyderabad appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.