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.

In response to overabundance of law students, Hastings Law cuts incoming class size

Bemoaning the overabundance of law schools and law students, Frank Wu, the chancellor and dean of the University of California Hastings College of the Law, is putting his words into action. Beginning in the fall, Hastings will admit “20 percent fewer students than in years past, a decision that required the college to eliminate several staff positions. No faculty members lost their jobs,” Inside Higher Ed reports.

While Hastings still receives a flood of applications, despite the drop in overall law school application volume, this “reboot” will help ensure that those accepted will have a better chance of finding work post-graduation, instead of swimming in debt with no prospects. As Wu puts it, law school shouldn’t be a “refuge for the bright liberal arts student who didn’t know what he or she wanted to do.” His plan could be a win-win situation: Hastings’ rankings could increase due to higher job placement stats, and those “underqualified” students will avoid years of struggling through and after law school.

Hopefully, more schools will take their cue and downsize their classes, since “by keeping class size constant while job opportunities and application numbers fall, the college[s] would be doing a disservice to [themselves] and [their] applicants.”

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.

Use a great opening anecdote for your law school personal statement

The Top 15 Things Every Law School Applicant Should Know is a series that will teach you the ins and outs of successful law school applications. Stay tuned for the remaining elements. This week we’ll discuss the value of the opening anecdote.

When deciding whether or not you might be interested in reading a particular novel, magazine article, or op-ed piece, many people often turn to the first few sentences to get an immediate sense of whether or not it is a “good fit.” If the opening entices them and makes them want to read more, they’re hooked.

The same thing is true of personal statements. How you open your essay can mean the difference between a captive and engaged audience, and a required but not enthralled reader. Here’s an example:

Opening to essay #1: Hi, my name is Catherine. I want to be a lawyer because I want to help the disadvantaged and underrepresented. (You laugh, but believe me when I tell you I have read this opening, and more than once.)

Opening to essay #2: I looked in the rearview mirror and my stomach flipped. The blue and red lights were flashing, and I was being pulled over – again.

In all honesty, which essay would YOU want to read? The essay that opens with an anecdote or story is often the most successful. You have captured your audience’s attention, you have led with an interesting and unique perspective, and you are showing off your writing aptitude – all skills that will come in handy when you are both a law student and an attorney.

This past admissions season, my favorite essay was about the applicant’s family car. It was well written, heartfelt, and poignant. It opened with an anecdote about the embarrassment of being a “mini-van family” and the desperate desire for a cooler car from which to emerge. But the story unfolded beautifully – the writer talked about the memories that the car had for their family, the trips they had taken, the talks that had transpired going from school to softball practice, even the meaning behind the long forgotten treasures that were discovered between the seats of the car when they got ready to sell it. It was sweet, sentimental, and conveyed to the reader the depth of the applicant’s love for his/her family and the ultimate understanding that what was important was the familial experiences that had transpired, and not the x factor of the car in which those experiences took place. It was lovely and it made me want to get to know the applicant better – not slog my way through yet another applicant’s essay. And what got me hooked? The opening sentence. “I hated my family’s Astro Van.”

So when you are thinking about your opening, consider the value of a well-told and personal story that really opens up your world to the adcom. Don’t know how to choose a story, or how to make it attention worthy? Admissions consultants can help guide the way to a perfect opening to your essay.

By Catherine Cook, Accepted.com Senior Editor.  Published author and former Duke Law admissions officer, Catherine has helped applicants gain acceptance to nearly 30 top law schools.

Prospective law students are getting the message

It seems that at least some prospective law students are getting the message.

As demonstrated by the LSAC’s Current Volume Summary, there has been a large decline this year in both the general number of applicants, and in the number of applicants with high LSAT scores.  However, this data doesn’t reveal who are the potential applicants who have refrained from applying.

Matt Leichter addresses this question in The Am Law Daily, and suggests that “today’s applicants are disproportionately older.” For the reasoning behind his deduction, read his post in depth. But, here’s his bottom line: “First, the people who are not applying to law school are probably young people with mediocre LSAT scores who would have sent out only a handful of applications, mostly to regional schools. […] Overall, this suggests that the ’right’ people—the stereotypical lemmings who think they’ll earn overflowing cash sacks as lawyers—are getting the message, contrary to what the media coverage would have us believe.” He also posits that “the 20 percent of the applicant pool that’s over 29 and whose median LSAT score is under 150 (10 percent of all applicants) has probably declined less than other age groups.” He thus notes that the “message” wasn’t really delivered or received by the older applicants, who are still applying as before.

And despite the general drop in applications, employment projections reveal that there will be an estimated 212,000 new jobs over 10 years, with about 44,000 lawyers graduating from ABA law schools each year. Thus, “even if law schools start reducing their nominal tuition, legal education will still not be worth the effort for many prospective students.”

Potential applicants from all age groups: pay attention, and make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

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

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Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

In my 15 years working in graduate and undergraduate admissions, I have read hundreds, if not thousands, of personal statements. A scant few of those essays have been…well…really bad. Most have been well written and satisfactory. But there are a few that have stayed with me over the years. I haven’t saved them and I don’t refer back to them, but I remember them, and here’s why.

Are these memorable essays interesting, plain and straightforward, or self deprecating and humorous? Are the topics unusual or seemingly ordinary? Do people write about intensely personal experiences, or choose philosophical topics? The answer to all of these questions is yes.  There truly is not a set formula, but without question, the most important thing is that the essay is authentic. Choose a topic about which you are passionate, which you believe really illustrates who you are and what you believe. These are the essays that admissions committees most enjoy reading. It can be about your love of horses, the first marathon that you completed, or the band that you play in every Saturday night. Any topic will work as long as you write about something that is meaningful to you and demonstrates who you really are. However, there is one topic I recommend avoiding, which I have dubbed the “I want to be a lawyer so I can give back to the world” essay. This is so overdone and very, very difficult to write with any degree of originality and sincerity. Take my word for it on this one – choose another topic.

A long time ago, I read an article about the importance of basic kindness towards others. The author’s message was that people will not remember exactly what you said. They will not remember exactly what you did. But they will remember how you made them feel. Choose a topic that is so important to you and so authentic that the admissions officers reading the essay will remember how your story made them feel, long after your first day of law school has begun.

By Catherine Cook, Accepted.com Senior Editor.  Published author and former Duke Law admissions officer, Catherine has helped applicants gain acceptance to nearly 30 top law schools.