• Of the school’s 2024 grads, almost 91% had at least one job offer within six months of graduation.
• BCG, McKinsey & Company, Amazon, Deloitte, and Bain & Company were among the program’s top hiring companies. 
• On-campus recruiting facilitated 86% of students’ job offers. 

There’s opportunity in these numbers. Michigan Ross is a fantastic MBA program that is slightly easier to get accepted to than other top programs, particularly if you want to join an MBB consulting firm!

Ready to get to work on your Michigan Ross application? Read on.

Michigan Ross application essay tips

Michigan Ross has long emphasized real-world impact and community-driven leadership. This year’s essay questions reinforce that identity by asking you to articulate your professional aspirations, personal motivations, and sense of purpose. They give you an opportunity to paint a unique, multifaceted picture of what you value and how you would benefit your peers, faculty, and alumni (like me), who hold Ross near and dear to their hearts. 

Part 1: Career Aspirations

What is your short-term career goal, and how will Ross’ philosophy in Action-Based Learning help you achieve it? Please be specific. Please answer both parts of this question. (300 words)  

Ross wants to know that you have a clear, well-thought-out post-MBA plan and that you’ve done your homework on how Ross specifically will help you achieve it. This is not just a “Why MBA?” or “Why Ross?” question, it’s a strategy and school fit prompt.

Here’s how to approach this essay:

• Start with clarity: Articulate a concrete, achievable short-term career goal (e.g., “transition into healthcare consulting at a firm such as ZS Associates” or “join a big tech product team to work on AI-powered fintech products”).
• Connect your goal to your past: Briefly show how your experiences so far have moved you in the direction of this goal.
• Leverage Action-Based Learning: Demonstrate a deep understanding of Ross’s Action-Based Learning philosophy by demonstrating how experiences such as MAP (Multidisciplinary Action Projects), the Living Business Leadership Experience, and student-led investment funds will prepare you for success in your intended field. 
• Make your essay Michigan specific: Avoid generic language; this is where researching the school really counts. Show the adcom that Ross is the best fit for you. 

Part 2: How will you make an impact at Michigan Ross?

Michigan Ross is proud to support a community of leaders and impact makers. As a future member of this community, we want to know more about who you are and what drives you. Please choose 1 of the following prompts to tell us more about what makes you stand out beyond your academic and work experience. List the prompt you are answering at the top of your response. (200 words) 

• What makes you unique?
• Can you provide a specific example of how you’ve overcome a personal challenge?
• What makes you excited to get up each morning?
• Describe a time when you made a difference in your community or with an individual. 

These four essay questions (of which you need to respond to only one) probe your personal values, character, and interpersonal impact. Ross wants students who will not only succeed individually but also enrich the community and lead with authenticity.

Here’s how to approach this essay:

• Pick the prompt that reveals the most about your character and complements what you have shared in Part 1.
  • If your career goals essay was very professional, consider using this space to highlight your empathy or resilience.
  • If you’ve already shown grit, consider focusing on your passions or community involvement.
• Be specific: Tell a story. Use vivid detail, and don’t be afraid to show vulnerability or passion. Use the STAR method (situation, task, action, result) to keep your essay on topic.
• Connect your theme to Ross, if possible: Subtly suggest how these qualities will shape the contributions you’ll make as a classmate, club member, and/or leader on campus.

Michigan Ross Optional Statement

Is there something in your resume or application that needs a brief explanation? Appropriate uses of this essay would be the explanation of an employment gap, academic outliers, choice of recommender, completion of supplemental coursework, etc. You may use bullet points where appropriate. (250 word maximum)

This isn’t a bonus round; it’s a space for context. Write this essay only if there is a potential concern or gap in your application that requires a brief, clear explanation (e.g., low GPA, job gaps, recommender choice).

Here’s how to approach this essay:

• Be concise and factual: There’s no need to overexplain or make excuses.
• Use bullet points, if helpful.
• If relevant, end with a positive (e.g., what you learned, how you addressed it).

Ultimately, Ross is looking for doers: people who dream, build, collaborate, and create real-world impact. These essays are your opportunity to show that you’re more than your resume, test scores, or transcript: you’re a leader among leaders, a builder of ideas, a contributor to the community, and someone who will thrive in Ross’s action-driven environment.

Make your messages personal. Make them clear. And above all, make them specific to Ross. 

For expert support with your Michigan Ross 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 top MBA programs and look forward to helping you, too!

Michigan Ross application deadlines

Source: Michigan Ross website

*All applications are due by 11:59 p.m. ET on the date listed.  

***Disclaimer: Information is subject to change. Please check with Michigan Ross directly to verify its essay questions, instructions, and deadlines.***

Michigan Ross class profile

Here is a look at the Michigan Ross MBA Class of 2026 (data taken from the Michigan Ross website).

Class size: 396

Women: 40%

International: 44%

Countries represented: 40

First-generation college: 22%

Pursuing a dual degree: 11%

Average GPA: 3.42

Average GMAT: 728

Middle 80% GMAT: 690-760

Average Quant GRE: 162

Average Verbal GRE: 159

Average years of work experience: 6.0

Industry backgrounds:

• Consulting: 17%
• Finance: 21%
• Tech: 14%
• Engineering/Manufacturing: 14%
• Health: 8%
• Other: 8%
• Military: 5%
• Media/Hospitality/Sports 5%
• Energy/Sustainability 5%
• Education/Nonprofit/Government: 4%

Related Resources

• The Business School Selectivity Index
• Applying for Your MBA Through The Consortium: Best Deal in Town
• University of Michigan’s Ross MBA Program: Everything You Need to Know, podcast Episode 479

The post Michigan Ross MBA Essay Tips and Deadlines [2025-2026], Class Profile appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Show Summary

Andrea McHale, the Director of the Michigan Ross Full-time MBA and Global MBA Admissions, returns to Admissions Straight Talk to discuss the newly released essay prompts for the Michigan Ross MBA program. Andrea shares an overview of each of the four questions and gives an inside look at exactly what the admissions committee hopes to learn from applicants. Andrea emphasizes the importance of impact and motivation in the application process. She also discusses the potential use of AI in the admissions process. 

Show Notes

Welcome to this bonus episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for tuning in. Before I introduce our guest, I want to introduce you to a free resource that can really help you with your MBA application essays: Five Fatal Flaws to Avoid in your MBA application Essays. It can help you eliminate mistakes, errors, and misguided responses to application questions. You can download your free copy at www.accepted.com/5FFMBA. 

It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk, Andrea McHale, Director of the Michigan Ross Full-time MBA and Global MBA Admissions. Andrea was our guest just a few weeks ago, but at that point, the essay questions were not out for this year and she told me that Ross would be changing their essay prompts. However, at that point she couldn’t go into any details. So she has kindly agreed to come back on Admissions Straight Talk for a special bonus episode to discuss Michigan Ross’s new MBA essay questions. 

Andrea, welcome back to Admissions Straight Talk. Thank you again for coming back so quickly for this bonus episode. [2:20]

Linda, thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here to share the refresh of our essay prompts.

What are the new questions? [2:33]

Question 1: At Michigan Ross, we believe the best way to learn is by doing. In our Full-Time MBA Program, you will put your skills and knowledge to the test in real-world situations with real stakes. How will this learning environment benefit you, and how do you plan to contribute to the action-based learning experience? (300 words) 

Question 2: Michigan Ross is proud to support a community of leaders and impact makers. As a future member of this community, we want to know more about who you are and what drives you. Please choose 1 of the following prompts to tell us more about what makes you stand out beyond your academic and work experience. List the prompt you are answering at the top of your response. (200 words) 

• What makes you unique? 
• Can you provide a specific example of how you’ve overcome a personal challenge? 
• What makes you excited to get up each morning? 
• Describe a time when you made a difference in your community or with an individual. 

Question 3: What is your short-term career goal, and how will Ross help you achieve it? (200 words) 

Optional Essay: Is there something in your resume or application that needs a brief explanation? Appropriate uses of this essay would be the explanation of an employment gap, academic outliers, choice of recommender, completion of supplemental coursework, etc. You may use bullet points where appropriate. (250 words) 

Before we dive into the specific questions, what is the purpose of the change? [5:33]

Really, it’s two points. One, we had our former essays for four consecutive cycles. So I think that impacts both our prospective student applicant base as well as our readers who are reading similar responses year-over-year. And then our program is evolving, so our prospective students, the market, that all evolves and our admissions process needs to evolve with it. So we created these new essay prompts really to gather more informative and insightful responses from the applicants. The updated prompts that we just shared are really to better understand you as an applicant, what your abilities are, your motivation, and then ultimately cultural fit within the Ross community. So those are really the two main drivers of why we chose to update our prompts.

Let’s dive into the individual questions. Can you share more about the first one? [6:31]

We’re interested in understanding from our applicants, how do you handle real world challenges within their past experience? How do you bring that forward into the action-based learning principles we have here at Ross. It’s to gauge your problem-solving skills, leadership experience, and how you’ve applied your knowledge previously in practical situations. So it assesses again that fit because ultimately every applicant we move to admit we want to make sure that there’s a mutual fit, that you’re going to thrive in the Ross environment, that we provide the right skillset development, the tools and the resources for you to be successful with your goals. But then also too, there are values and competencies that we’re looking for that we know allow you to succeed in this type of environment.

Essay two really has two questions. One is the how will you make an impact at Michigan Ross, which is kind of similar to the second part of essay one. And then the actual prompt that they’re going to be responding to. Are you more interested in motivation or impact or both? [8:04]

It is both, but we really look for impact. People who are willing to put themselves out there to make a difference. So we’re equally interested in both your motivation and your interest, but the prompts that we’ve provided are really to provide a choice on how you want to showcase you as an applicant, what drives you to have quantifiable impact in the actions that you’ve had within your communities. Understanding both the motivation drivers as well as the impact provides us as an admissions committee an understanding of the applicants to know how their actions have led to meaningful outcomes, because we want that same type of motivation leading to meaningful outcomes within our program.

And you obviously want this question to be different. They should be complimentary. You don’t want repetition, otherwise the applicant is wasting their time and they’re wasting your time as well. [9:26]

Yes. And this part two of the essay is really to understand the applicant a little bit more holistically on a more personal basis to really share based on their choice of the prompt, how you’ve made impact within a community or within an individual and how that has enhanced how you see kind of next steps or future. And really how that impact you’ve had within a community or individual drives you to be futurely motivated to pursue the next ambition or the next path. But it’s really ultimately emphasizing an applicant’s personal growth, resiliency. And once again, I mean I’ve probably used impact 10 times already, but impact that you’ve had with the community.

I mean, that’s the title of the question. It makes sense. Do you anticipate that many applicants will use professional experience in responding to part one and a non-professional experience in responding to part two? Do you care? [10:37]

I do care about the impact one. I really would like that to be outside of the professional experience. But ultimately in part one, it is up to you. These are each individualized and there will be a unique response for every applicant. But the action-based learning principles really does lend itself well in terms of impact you’ve had within a project or an experience and then the pedagogy or the curriculum structure of Ross, how you feel you would thrive in that type of environment. The second essay with the prompts, it’s really about your resiliency, your ambition, your motivation, supporting community members, whether it’s on an individualized basis or a community basis.

Going to question three, it asks about short-term goals and how will Ross help you achieve them. I’m a little surprised you didn’t ask about long-term goals. [11:37]

I know. You even pointed out in the video that we talk about that. It is important for us. While the essay does not explicitly ask about long-term goals, we really do want and encourage applicants to understand what are their short-term career goals, how that lends itself into their long-term trajectory. But ultimately, again, we’re looking for does this applicant fit within the culture and can they thrive in our environment because we want them to be successful with those short-term career goals. We also want them to be motivated to understand what that path may look like for them. You’re not tied to the short-term goal either as an applicant.

You’re going to be exposed to so many different opportunities. You’re going to meet with alumni. You’re going to learn new careers and industries that you may not have heard of that are going to be really engaging and motivating for you. So your short-term career goal, your long-term career goal may shift as you grow as an individual, but having the foresight and the motivation to drive your own trajectory is really ultimately what we’re looking for.

That really clarifies it. I mentioned that essay one is partially about what you are going to get and what are you going to give, but I also zoomed out a little bit and it seemed to me like one and three are more about how an applicant hopes to benefit from the Ross experience, and two is more about what they hope to contribute, impact. Impact at Ross and beyond. Is that a fair description? [13:03]

It is interesting. I was part of this task force team that was looking at the essays, and we were really intentional about that. And that’s not an insight that we initially drew. It’s a very insightful observation, I would say. Let’s see, yes, probably possibly. And I think again, we want it to be able to have the applicant be as authentic as possible in these responses. But again, trying to get to those motivation factors of why Ross, why the short-term career goals and what do you want to achieve as an individual in these objectives? So just to focus on essay one, we wanted to understand as an applicant what your values are and then again, how you will thrive in the action-based learning environment. Going to that essay three prompt with your short-term career goals, we want to make sure you’re making an informed decision about why an MBA is going to help you achieve those short-term career goals and specifically why Ross MBA is going to help you. And then essay two, I might bring up impact again, but this centers on how you would contribute into Ross and you as an applicant get to highlight your unique attributes and again, the impact that you’ve been able to accomplish.

Is the optional essay really optional? [15:03]

Yes, it is truly optional. We give a guideline around parameters. So again, if there are gaps in your employment, if you have an anomaly in your GPA or your transcripts, I think anything that you can share to build your story rather than an evaluator from the admission side having to make assumptions or trying to understand what those gaps are, you fill in the blank. So my advice always to applicants, if you feel we did not capture who you are as an applicant within the criteria that we’ve asked for, share it in this optional essay. Do you have missing information that wasn’t covered? Definitely use it to share. Do you have that opportunity to tell more of your story as to why some of the application criteria may be the way that it is? Share.

The more you share your story to an admissions officer, the more that they can advocate for you in admissions committee. So again, it’s not required, but we do find a lot of success with students that may have struggled the first year of their undergraduate degree to then have to recover in their GPA or you had a family emergency where you may have an employment gap. Explaining that in those optional essays really provides a lot of clarity and builds that authenticity. I shared earlier about we want resilient individuals in this program. Those moments build resiliency. So definitely would encourage you to share in the optional essay.

By the way, I think you’re highlighting a really important point here. A lot of people are embarrassed to discuss times when grades dipped or they had a gap in employment or there was some difficulty in their lives. Well, everybody has difficulties and the real story is how you recovered from those difficulties. [16:46]

100%. We’re talking about an action-based learning principle in our curriculum, right? It’s our pedagogy. You are not able to do that effectively or optimally without failures. So having that growth mindset and being okay and overcoming that, that’s who thrives in our environment.

I have one last question on the optional essay. From the text and from your comments, it seems like it really is for providing context to information already found in the application. What if there’s something that didn’t make it into the application but the applicant feels would be important for you to know about them? [17:32]

Use that space. Anything that we did not capture within our application criteria that you feel is pertinent to your application and for us to get to know you as an applicant, use the word count to share. That’s why it exists as an optional essay.

What about using AI in the application process? [18:25]

Okay, so for us at Ross, so we’re not currently using AI or machine learning in our admissions process, but I might, okay, I’m going to get on my soapbox here because there is no official Ross policy yet or governance around how to use AI or machine learning, but I do believe from an admissions side, we will eventually be using AI and machine learning to drive decisions. I think there’s a lot of benefits to trying to be responsive to our prospective student base and making unbiased decisions when it is appropriate. So I don’t think the human element of the admission side will ever go away because we really do need to develop complex and personal relationships with each of our applicants. And so that admissions side, we’re hopefully going to at some point use AI and machine learning to elevate the experience that our applicants and our prospective students have.

And then it’ll hopefully allow us to free up some time to be really intentional with the relationships that we develop within our prospective student base. Now, if you’re planning on using AI in your application as an applicant, we do require that you just disclose, currently, that you disclose that you used a generative AI or an AI tool to provide clarity and grammatical correction to your essays, for example. So we just want you to cite the usage of that. I don’t know if that will change because it’s not a formalized policy. It’s still new to us in higher education as well. So it’s here, it’s a disruptive technology and I don’t think it’s going away. So as it evolves, I think we will evolve along with the usage of AI and machine learning.

I would caution applicants about using AI in writing their essays. That would be my perspective. I don’t think it’s there where it can write really, really good application essays. [20:29]

No, I agree. I mean, your essays should be authentic. They should be you. They should be your words. Again, as a public institution, we’re trying to figure out, okay, if someone’s going to pay for a consultant to help them with the revisions, can an AI tool also help and create that accessibility? But ultimately those initial paragraphs, the content, it should all be yours. So we are trying to figure out what that balance is. But again, I look at it from my team’s perspective and some of the initiatives I want to drive in the near future. It is incorporating some of this AI and machine learning into the process. So I don’t think it’s going away.

Do you see yourself using AI for initial reviews of applications? Is that some of the use that you’re thinking of? [21:27]

No, I’m thinking more in terms of how we’re going to do some of the data analytics on that side. How we are going to, so from a tool and connecting and providing relevant real time feedback to applicant’s questions or what they’re looking to gain out of Ross, using it there. But the evaluation, again, that human connection to another human’s application is really important and I don’t anticipate that would ever go away. It’s why admissions officers, why we do what we do. We really enjoy that part of the process and getting to know applicants. So I don’t anticipate that, at least for Ross. I mean, it could be different. I think everyone, every institution is looking at it in a slightly different lens.

What would you have liked me to ask you that I haven’t asked? [22:26]

Well, we had just connected, so I’m excited to get all of our new updates out on the new Ross application cycle. We’re super excited for the fall cycle, so fall 2025. I can’t believe we’re already recruiting, but if you’re interested in the Ross MBA program, I definitely encourage you to look on our website. We have posted most of our events through November, so you can connect with us virtually, in person, either on campus or we’re traveling a lot starting in July, really through that October timeframe.

Relevant Links:

• Michigan Ross MBA
• Michigan Ross MBA Essay Tips and Deadline
• MBA ROI Calculator
• 38 Ways to Use the Power of Numbers in Your Admissions Resume

Relevant shows:

• Ross MBA Admissions: All You Need to Know for Acceptance
• Former Wharton/Lauder Admissions Director Joins Accepted 
• Advice for Applicants: Moving from 2023 to 2024
• ROI and NYU’s Part-time MBA 
• How to Get Into Wharton

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”] [xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]    [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

Podcast Feed

The post Ace the New Michigan Ross MBA Essay Questions [Bonus Episode] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

[powerpress]

Show Summary

In this episode of Admissions Straight Talk, Linda Abraham interviews Andrea McHale, the Director of Admissions for the Michigan Ross MBA program. They discuss the unique elements of the Ross MBA program, such as its action-based learning principles and emphasis on impact. Andrea also provides advice for MBA applicants, including the importance of showcasing impact in the application, preparing for interviews, and addressing weaknesses or gaps in the application. 

Show Notes

Welcome to the 576th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for listening. You’ve seen the stats that most people have a great return on their MBA investment, but what about you? Are you going to see that return? How much will it be? We’ve created a tool that will help you assess whether the MBA is likely to be a good investment for you individually. Just go to accepted.com/mbaroicalc, complete the brief questionnaire and you’ll not only get an assessment, but the opportunity to calculate different scenarios and it’s all free. 

It gives me great pleasure to have on Admissions Straight Talk for the first time, Andrea McHale, Director of the Michigan Ross Full-time MBA and Global MBA Admissions. Andrea has 10 years of industry experience in marketing, sales and supply chain management within the healthcare and automotive industries. In 2013, she transitioned to education administration. Before joining the Ross MBA team, she worked as the Director of Admissions for Michigan State University’s Broad MBA program. She has a BA and MBA from Michigan State, an MS from the University of Michigan and is currently pursuing her doctorate of business administration from the University of Florida. Pretty impressive.

Andrea, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk. [2:14]

Thank you for the super generous welcome. Yes, I’m also a student, so anyone who chats with me, we can talk about the pros and cons of going back to school as someone that’s been in the workforce for a while, but I definitely have a bias towards a full-time MBA and higher education in general.

Let’s start with a few general questions about Ross and then we’ll get more specific and focused on admissions. Can you give us an overview of Ross’ full-time MBA program for listeners who may not be that familiar with it, focusing on its more distinctive elements? [2:51]

Yes. Absolutely. The Ross School of Business is located within the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. We are 2024 national champions. However, back to the Ross MBA program, our key differentiators are our action-based learning principles. So really, many people have heard about MAP. MAP stands for multidisciplinary action projects. This is a quintessential end-of-your-first-year MBA experience where you are consultants with real-world impact. Fortune 500, NGOs, you name it, and you’re doing a seven-week project on site and back at Ross with them with real deliverables. It’s that pre-internship before the internship.

Sometimes you’ll also hear of “Midwest nice,” but that really does define our culture. We’re a highly collaborative, very inclusive culture, and we want everyone to be highly successful while they’re here at Ross, and we do that through very intentional pedagogy within the curriculum as well as within your experiential learning through student clubs, different organizations. We have a number of centers and institutes to support your learning even outside of your classroom experience. And I think the last thing about Ross and our curriculum particularly is the flexibility of it. We have over 110 top-ranked graduate programs at the University of Michigan. And you have the opportunity not only to dual degree and choose your path in those dual degrees, but also take up to 10 of your elective credits outside of Ross. So really thinking about what is most important and unique to you and what your goals are and your experience for your education, you have the ability to do that here at Ross.

What’s new at Ross? [4:56]

Oh goodness. Now I’m really going to get into the curriculum.

A couple of the things that our leadership team and that our students have really led is the need to be on trend within business. And with that comes AI and machine learning. And so we’ve introduced a few new curriculum electives this year as well as many of our professors are refining their current curriculum to be dynamic within that workspace and really bringing in case studies and opportunities to utilize AI and machine learning because it will become a big part of business as we continue to grow within that space. We had previously had a concentration in sustainability, but there was a student need and obviously an industry desire to be very focused within ESG. So we introduced a new concentration this year of environmental, social and governance. It’s really offered here as a concentration path to support students navigating really that rapidly changing business world, but creating foundations within sustainability, social impact, and administration.

Is that instead of the sustainability concentration? [6:16]

Yes. We have taken parts of the sustainability concentration path that already existed and added in other classes and electives that would really have a more well-rounded focus within ESG to support what our students’ needs are and then what we are hearing from our employers and within the industry.

I visited Ross a few years ago, and I was very impressed at the time. The dean talked about how all Ross students will be involved in starting, investing in, advising, and then managing or running a business. I think that’s what you call REAL. Can you dive a little deeper into that? Is it still true that all students will do that or is it they focus on certain elements of that foursome? [6:40]

I think in many ways all students will encompass this REAL framework. However, again, talking about choosing your own path and the flexibility of your experience, you can really hone in on specific areas of that. Linda had shared the REAL is start, advise, invest and lead. So that management component. And I’ll talk to a couple areas of just some examples of how that works within Ross.

The foundation of that really is in that action-based learning principles. So if you look at the REAL start, that component is about entrepreneurship. Our differentiator here within the MBA program where all students partake is within MAP. But we also have centers and institutes dedicated to entrepreneurship where you can take that even further through an incubator experience or an investment experience or case competitions and pitch competitions with VCs. So you have that ability to really either experience it as a student or really enhance that through other opportunities. We also then have the advise that’s consultive. Again, MAP encompasses that consulting aspect of really having that framework and being a problem solver and a leader of change within any organization. And that’s something that all students do. But then you could also be involved in the student clubs within consulting opportunities within our CDO program in terms of developing those skill sets to be successful within your career.

The next is invest. REAL invest. All of our students will have financial foundational skills within their Ross curriculum, but we have a number of student-led investment funds. A few of them would be the Wolverine Venture Fund or the Social Venture Fund. This is where Ross students, Ross MBA students, where Rossers have the ability to actually make investment decisions with real money, with real teams and you’re guiding growth based on those decisions. And then the last is REAL lead. This is, I feel like, one of our foundation … Part of our culture is that leadership culture. But an example of this even outside of the curriculum is the Sanger Institute for Leadership where you have the opportunity to participate in a crisis challenge within the story lab. They have curriculum both for MBA students across the board within the university, so you could even interact with more than just your MBA students on some of these initiatives. So you can really make the most of all of these different opportunities based on what your interests are.

Obviously, the opportunities for deep dives into any of these areas exist both in terms of extracurricular activities or in terms of choosing a MAP project, but do all students engage in all four of the activities or do you pick and choose what you’re most interested in? [10:01]

So within your curriculum, you’re definitely going to be interacting within all. Advise, invest, lead. But again, there’s those opportunities even outside of your curriculum where you can maximize a specific foundational area of this action-based learning either through our centers and institutes, our student clubs, some of the investment funds that you can lead. So there’s a lot of different opportunities to elect into them. But across the board, every Ross MBA student will have some component of that within their experience within the 20 months that they’re here in Ann Arbor.

I assume that MAP is the place where a student could do a deep dive into their particular area of interest? [11:00]

Oh yes. Absolutely. Or something completely different. I’ve seen MBA students approach it in very different ways. Whether they really want to say, “Okay. I’m switching into marketing and I want to take a marketing-based project, so it’s going to help me enhance my skill sets going into my internship.”, or we have someone that would go into investment baking and say, “I will never have the opportunity again to spend seven weeks supporting an NGO in Malawi, Africa.” And so they take it as this opportunity to grow as an individual, see a different side of the business landscape where that’s going to help them in their current career path, but in a different way where it maybe provides them a different lens or a different scope to be more successful later on. So I see students approach that slightly differently, and each approach is uniquely their own and it’s the right approach to take.

And our students have the ability to select from over 100 projects. They typically get their top three choices. So you really do have a voice and choice in looking through these projects and what’s going to maximize the value and the gain that you can contribute, and then also learn from those experiences. It’s a seven-week intensive where rather than taking classes, you’re working with the employers or the organization that you’re supporting. You’re going on site for part of that to really learn from the employees and the teams that you’re helping support. And at the end of the day, you have a real deliverable. So this is action-based learning at its best.

And it’s full-time? When you’re doing MAP, it’s all you’re doing? [12:51]

Oh, full-time. Yes. Seven-week full-time. In the last half of your semester in that fourth module as a first-year MBA student, you are completing your MAP project.

What don’t people know about Ross that you would like them to know, or what’s a common misconception that you’d like to dispel? [13:05]

I think the biggest misconception is yes, we are located in the Midwest of the US and that when you think of Michigan, you probably think of automotive or manufacturing, which is true. We still have lots of manufacturing and automotive. There’s been a huge tech increase in the Detroit area specifically. But just because you’re coming to do your education within the University of Michigan at the Ross School of Business doesn’t mean that you stay within Michigan. 75% of our students go coastal or within Chicago, so East Coast, Chicago and West Coast. So we coined the phrase, go blue, go anywhere. And it’s really true. We have a huge alumni network. There’s over 67,000 Ross alumni globally and over 600,000 University of Michigan alumni globally. So when you think about the brand and the network that you gain from coming to Ross, that’s huge. I feel like that’s the first misconception that I want to dispel. And I’d like to say yes, it’s not as cold as everybody talks about in Michigan, but for a few months out of the year it really is. But right now it’s beautiful. So it’s short-lived, but yes, if you’re coming from a warm climate area, we do have a pretty significant winter.

As an Angelino, I can appreciate the people who are afraid of cold, but I was there in June and it’s gorgeous. 

Let’s turn to the application. Ross is asking applicants to submit either a GRE, a GMAT, a PCAT, DAT, MCAT or LSAT score. You almost have the whole alphabet covered there. Or if they don’t do the score, they need to do a statement of academic readiness. What’s a statement of academic readiness and who should apply with the test score and who should submit the statement? [14:31]

I’ll just take a quick second to talk about the standardized test scores and then I’ll move into the statement of academic readiness. Your application is complete whether you choose to submit with a standardized test or a statement of academic readiness. We do not differentiate between the two options. But I will share there’s been lots of changes in even the standardized testing. So this year, GMAT launched the GMAT Focus, and so for the next four years, we will be accepting valid traditional GMAT scores as well as the new GMAT Focus, which has a different scoring range. And what we’re looking there is at the percentiles to really be able to compare with an unbiased and as fair as we can within our application review process. So we do accept both.

GRE this year launched an expedited or a condensed version of their scoring. We do not differentiate between the two tests. They’ve put out a lot of studies in terms of the validity of those assessment scores. So we’re using those comparably across the traditional one or the longer version versus the shorter one. And then the alphabet soup is we do have a number of dual degrees and we do accept various different alternative tests if you’re a dual degree student, and it’s really to reduce any barriers from you pursuing that education that you desire. And that comes to the academic readiness statement. This came about during the pandemic because that became a barrier for students to apply because it was very hard to get to a testing center. We now have enough data to show that students who applied without a standardized test are capable and excelling within the MBA program and obviously within the outcomes. However, this is Ross, and we do need to at least try to triangulate your academic readiness within the application criteria that you provide, and we’re looking for, do you have the quantitative readiness?

The verbal side of things comes with a lot of different things we’re looking at within the application. We’re really trying to understand the quantitative academic readiness that you can bring to your Ross experience. So if you have any type of certifications or you’ve had quant heavy work within your career, if you’ve taken extra classes outside of what’s showing on your transcripts, these are all great ways to reflect your academic readiness and that’s something that we assess. So don’t take that statement lightly. We really want specifics. Not vague response of you’re really smart in mathematics and can do statistics. Provide a specific example, the years that you’ve been showcasing that in your career. That’s really important for us to be able to assess and equalize our applicants within that selection process.

Would you say that if somebody didn’t do so well as an undergrad or didn’t do well in quant courses as an undergrad, they would be wise to take the GMAT or GRE? That’s question number one. And number two, is the PCAT, DAT, MCAT and LSAT, are those really for dual degree applicants? [18:17]

Yes. For the first question, if you had a less-than-desirable outcome from your undergraduate degree in terms of GPA, because that is another criteria that we look at. Not just the GPA, but what was your undergrad focus in, what type of classes that you were taking. We look at all of that in that review process. So if that is less desirable or the outcome that you don’t want to showcase as a strength, taking a standardized test can really help to offset that. You’ve grown, you’ve matured, you’ve taken the time to prepare and study for that test. What if you’re listening to this call and you’re just like, “Hey, I’m not a test taker. This is not a strength of mine.” Possibly the statement of academic readiness may be the best path for you, but at the same time, we’re still looking for academic readiness.

So you’re going to have to take the time to demonstrate … Whether that be through a new class that you take or a new certification, taking the time to still demonstrate that would be important. Now, for the alphabet soup, in terms of the MCAT, the PCAT, the LSAT primarily, yes for dual degree students, but we have individuals that maybe have taken their LSAT. It’s still valid. They’ve worked for a few years as a lawyer and they realized that might not be the right career path for them and they’ve learned that hey, having an MBA and using those transferable skill sets into business may be applicable. Yes, we would accept that. Something to just consider. Again, LSAT. We know that your verbal ability is probably extremely high. Your comprehension and your problem-solving skills probably extremely high, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect your quantitative skill sets. So you just really need to put forth a very holistic application and trying to balance all of those strengths. Highlight the strengths. Be open and honest and authentic about any areas on that criteria of the application that may be a weak point. But altogether we’re looking at you as an individual holistically. Everything can come within balance.

So basically, if there’s a weakness in the application, address it, whether it’s through the test score or classes or certifications or work experience. If you feel that you’re ready, make a case for it. [20:51]

Yeah. Case in point for me. I did not do well my first semester in college. It was a huge transition for me, and I overcame that over time, but my GPA never fully recovered as an undergrad because of a really tough first year. Addressing that and then showing the maturity that I took to not just give up, but to reflect on, hey, I need to figure out what will work for me to be successful. That’s an opportunity to do that. Another area that we’ve been seeing lately is gaps in employment. That’s absolutely okay, but to not address it … If you don’t share it, we fill in the blanks. I don’t want to make any assumptions. So if you just share, “Hey, here’s the rationale why there may be a gap in my employment,” that paints the picture in our mind, and so we understand you as an applicant. Just any weak point, I would just highly encourage you to address in your optional essay.

And I would just add, don’t fudge the dates if there’s a gap in employment. [22:04]

Oh, no. Thank you, Linda.

Ross’ class profile for the class of 2025 has some pretty impressive stats. 719 average GMAT, 3.43 average GPA. The stats also reflect a lot of diversity in the class. What do you look for besides stats? [22:18]

We’re always looking for fit. We want each and every person that we’re admitting into the Ross program to be successful with the tools that we provide within the curriculum, within the student experience. So ultimately that comes through fit and sometimes the best way to that is through essays and your interview. And then also too, it’s not a criteria, but it’s definitely something we look at is how active have you been with the admissions team, with our current students, attending some of our events, whether they’re virtual or in person. Being able to showcase your motivation and ambition is also a huge thing that we look at in terms of the leadership potential, the drive, the desire to be highly motivated. That’s a reflection of those competencies.

I think I know what you’re talking about when you’re talking about fit. I’m sure you know what you’re talking about when you’re talking about fit, but could you tell our listeners what is fit? [23:29]

Yeah. Thank you. It’s a three-letter word. When we look for fit … Again, we talked about our differentiators. We’re action-based learning, we’re collaborative, we’re team-based. But we’re also leaders. So when we think about competencies that would match all of that, are you highly adaptable to different situations? Are you a problem solver? Can you work within teams? Are you motivated? And I reflected on some of the things that we can indicate as motivators. Those are really important competencies that are great for our fit, but weirdly enough, they also transfer into the business world as skill sets our employers desire as well. So we really do want that experience to be mutually beneficial and for you to gain the experience that you love Ross. But at the end of the day too, we want you to be highly successful in your post-MBA career and so we do look for that fit and that cultural competencies carry over into what our employers are looking for as well.

What are the essay requirements at Ross for this cycle? Are they going to change? What do you anticipate? [24:40]

Thank you for asking this. I’m not able to share quite specifics yet. At the end of this, we’re going to share our information on how to connect with us on our webpage, but I can give you the themes. We’ve had the same essays for I think the last three application cycles. And so this fall ’25 intake, it was time for a refresh. So in terms of the essays, we’re going to have three required. They’re going to continue to be a very condensed essay word count. We’re known for that and we did not want to go away from it. And then we will also have an optional essay. So the theme is how do you embrace action-based learning principles. We’ve talked a lot about this, Linda, so far in terms of really that’s a key to our culture. The next one is how will you make impact? That’s probably not something I’ve shared enough in this session, but we’re really looking for people and individuals who fit  in our culture to drive impact. Whether it be within industry, whether it be within community. So that’s going to be a next essay theme.

And the next is career aspirations. So getting back to what are those short-term career goals, long-term career goals and why, and ultimately how does Ross fit within that. And then the last is the optional essay and that will not change. If there’s anything that you have not shared in your application that you feel is important for an admissions officer to know, we will have that optional essay for you to share and reflect where maybe we missed within our application criteria.

One of the hallmarks of the last three years has been that people have had the choice of which prompt to respond to. So you’re moving away from that? [26:28]

Not necessarily moving away from. The impact one, there will be prompts that you can select from, but there were two previously. We’re going just to one, and it’ll have about four prompts for you to answer a question, and that one will be on impact.

In discussing the essays, I think the focus has been much more on people’s motivations and what they’ve done in the past. Where do you think that an applicant can really show impact the most? [26:54]

A lot of them will be not necessarily behavioral in nature, but they’re going to be based on your own experiences. So think through when have you made impact. It could be you’ve driven impact for an individual or a group or an entire community or an entire business process. But being really intentional. Again, talking about specifics in a short word count is going to be important. So think through, maybe jot down like, “Hey, these are experiences that I’ve had that have made a difference in someone or in many people’s lives.” And then from there, narrowing down, which one do you want to showcase, which one represents you the most is going to be key. It’ll be similar to the prompts that we previously had, where you really need to be intentional with what you’re showcasing and what you’re sharing with us. So we didn’t want to get away from that too much, but we definitely wanted to refresh those prompts for our applicants because we’ve had the same ones for a few years.

That’s all fine. Obviously the questions have been very much focused on the essay. In the context of the essays, I think this is an excellent response. But I was thinking that the best place to show impact, not that the essays you can’t, is the resume and the experience sections of the application. I didn’t ask about the resume, so I realize that you were thinking about the essay, but that’s something I think should be highlighted. It is an excellent place. Use those boxes and use the resume to quantify your impact. [28:24]

Yeah. Linda, I agree 100%. I actually think that’s an area where sometimes our applicants don’t spend enough time. This is business school. You really need to spend a significant amount of time preparing your resume and updating your resume. Every bullet you have on your resume should reflect impact. So I think the Google XYZ format or … There’s one other one where it’s like basically everything has, what did you do, how did you do it and what was the result. So everything should have impact within a one pager. But it’s also an opportunity. You’re more than just the work that you do. And there are transferable skill sets in any type of volunteering opportunity or leadership position that you’ve held even outside of your corporate career or the role that you’re playing right now. So adding that to the resume. But if it’s on your resume, it definitely has to reflect impact. Why is it on your resume? I always want to see the why and what amazing things did you do. So I feel like that’s a great opportunity for all applicants. I think it’s a great start when you start preparing for your application is to start with your career and your experiences and your resume because it really provides that foundation for the rest of the criteria that you submit with your application.

We also at Accepted have a check sheet. It’s called 38 Ways to Use the Power of Numbers in Your Admissions Resume. And I’m going to link to it from the show notes. That’s one of the best ways:  to quantify the impact you’ve had. And again, use those boxes, use that resume, don’t leave them for the last minute. If anything, think about it ahead of time. And then you can still discuss motivations and impact in the essays as Andrea was suggesting. But don’t overlook that part of it. I think raising the point of the importance of impact is really, really an excellent point. 

What can applicants expect if they’re lucky enough to be invited to interview? [30:28]

Oh, wonderful. Our interview process is by invitation only, so we will go through after a round and we will do a first evaluation on every applicant and then from there invite to interview. Our interviews … And they will continue to be into this next cycle too, are conducted virtually by our Ross alumni. So you get to connect with an alum that’s out there working in careers and in locations that you’re either already in or desire to be in. A lot of these alums become mentors through the remainder of this process. So I think it’s a great opportunity to just really even initially start to connect with our alumni.

Now, it is still an interview. Our questions are going to be on some of the competencies that I have shared in terms of what we look for and fit. So resiliency, adaptability, problem solving skills, leadership, cultural IQ. Do you embrace the DEI and diversity of thought and what ways do you reflect that? Our questions are mainly behavioral. It should not be a high stress environment, but at the same time, come prepared. Think through what type of questions may you hear in terms of the behavioral response and then when you think about the ways to respond to behavioral questions, either star or car. We want specific examples. So situation, task, action, and result. If you’re using the STAR framework or context, action result, if you’re using the CAR format. So think through and be really intentional. So within two minutes you need to describe the situation, the task you specifically did, the action that you took and the results. Never forget the results. I think that’s probably the one area that many people in an interview forget. So if you come prepared, you should have a really wonderful time connecting with an alumni, building that relationship. And ultimately that gets added into your application and then you have a completed profile of an applicant and you’ll go through another review.

And there’s no more group interview, right? No more team-based interview? [33:28]

No. Not at this time. Yeah. Ross was one of the first MBA programs to have a team-based interview approach. We keep looking at possibly bringing that back. It was something that was super valuable, but we haven’t figured out a way yet in our timelines to bring that back.

It’s also logistically difficult. That’s just the reality of it. We discussed that before you apply you should learn about the program, we’ve discussed the essays, we discussed the resume, and the interview. What’s the most common mistake you see applicants making in the application process? [33:53]

Yeah. Linda and I chatted just now about the importance of your resume, and I just want to highlight that one more time. Really take time to focus on your resume. Anything going into your resume should reflect impact. You’re taking the time to show us what you’ve done. And it’s not just your work responsibilities. It’s what are the outcomes that you’ve had within these experiences? I see that as a mistake. Some people will just put a job description for their work.

Responsibilities but not results. [34:45]

Yes. And we really need to see that. And then we just talked about the interview aspect. So not spending time preparing for your interview. Because they’re alumni driven too, I can’t stress enough, take some time to prepare. Think through even the responses that you’re having back and forth with this alumni. They’re volunteering their time. So even when you go to say, “Hey, John, we were connected as a interview. Here are some times that I’m available.” So really take a moment to think through what is your availability, provide some options. And that way it’s a lot easier for the alum interviewer to connect a little bit more immediately with you so that they’re not having to plan that out. I feel like that’s an area. And then the last thing is not showcasing in the optional essay either a weakness within your application criteria, a gap in your resume. I cannot stress, once again, you share your story. Don’t leave any holes for us to try and fill in. That is the most important thing in creating a complete application.

Do you have any advice for two categories of applicants, both coming to terms with results or lack of results. One is wait-listed applicants, the other is re-applicants. Let’s talk about wait-listed applicants first. What advice do you have for those people in purgatory? [36:00]

It’s true. That’s what happens. One, pat yourself on the back, if either at Ross or any other program that you are placed on a waitlist. You are an admissible applicant. When we review our applications and make decisions, it’s part your criteria that you’re submitting, but it’s also part each year is going to be slightly different in the amount of applications we’re receiving, the overall quality of those applications. So you just have to understand that it’s a process and we don’t take it lightly. We do thorough reviews. So you’ve got to the wait list status. That’s awesome. We have a wonderful process and that’s managed by our admissions officers. So we provide you the opportunity at any point to give us updates, to make updates to your application until a final decision is made. So don’t take that lightly either.

If you have any type of substantial update, whether it be a job change, a promotion, if you retake a standardized test, all of that is valid up until the time a decision is made. So use that as an opportunity to continue to refine your application criteria. Strengthen your profile as much as you possibly can. That will ultimately one, reflect motivation and ambition. And so that just looks good that you’re taking the time to interact with us, that you’re using this as an opportunity to advance yourself and your outcomes. So I would really encourage that.

And then the second part in terms of … Sorry, did you say wait list and then re-applicant? We have a number of re-applicants, and that’s an opportunity for you to do the same thing within a year cycle and say, “Okay. My application may not have been as competitive as I would have liked.” And you received a deny at the year that you initially applied.

Be reflective about that. Look at the Ross class profile or any other program that you’re looking at. Okay, what are areas that maybe I have a weak point that I should look at trying to improve upon for this next cycle? Whether it be your work experience or your standardized test. Your undergraduate GPA is what it is, but are you taking classes or opportunities to enhance those areas and is this something that you can reflect within your application? Those are all important things. And then the last thing is stay engaged. Attend events, try and come on campus if you can. Build those relationships too, because then now we’re talking about those core competencies of success within the classroom experience and outside into your career. So being diligent does pay off. So I would just really encourage re-applicants to think through how they can improve their application profile and stay engaged.

Great advice. Thank you. Can I add one point to your reapplicant advice? I would say take a critical look at how you answered the questions. Did you really answer the questions? Is your application full of mistakes and typos? There’s being qualified, which I think you have addressed superbly, and there’s presenting your qualifications effectively. So you have to look at both when you’re applying. [39:32]

Yes. Absolutely.

What advice would you give to someone thinking ahead to Fall 2025 or later application? They’re probably working now, they’ve finished college. What should they be thinking about and doing? [40:01]

Oh my goodness. It’s a process. So if you’re at the very early stages of, hey, I’m thinking about a full-time MBA, give yourself some grace, but also create a plan. I would initially say, look around on the programs that you’re interested in or the Ross website, and then also get on email distribution lists. I know not everybody checks their emails, nor do I, but it is a great way just to have a continuous update from Ross or any other school that you’re interested in in terms of what’s going on. And then the events will come that way too. So once you’ve done your initial research of understanding what programs may be a good fit for you, that next step is to attend some of the virtual or within your location if they’re coming to you, if you’re in a large metro area, attending some events where you can start to meet with admissions officers, alumni, and current students.

Once you narrow down to your top schools, even probably before you submit an application, or if you maybe start at the beginning of the process, you should come on campus. You really want to make sure that you feel at home, that you’re going to be able to thrive in this environment, that it’s a good fit for you, and that it may inspire you as you go through the rest of that application process.

And then lastly too, take time in the application process. So Linda just said, answer the questions, don’t have any typos. Each school there’s going to be similar themes, and you’ll notice those themes pop up. But the way that each program and specifically the way that Ross asks our questions, we want that question answered. So take time within the essays to frame that. And then the last thing, we didn’t talk about this at all, but it usually takes the longest, is letters of recommendation.

If you’re asking a manager to write a letter of recommendation on your behalf, it takes time for them to do that really effectively and to articulate the experiences that they’ve had for you and the competencies that each program’s looking at. We use the GMAC standard form. So many schools are getting towards that, which is helpful to your recommender, but not every program does. So you’ll need to bake in a few months for them to submit that letter of recommendation in a timely manner. So you’re going to have to create a timeline when is the round deadline that you’re planning on applying in and back that up a few months for a letter of recommendation, even a few more months for you to complete your profile and your criteria in a timely manner. So it is very doable while you’re working, but it does take some intentional planning and effort on your part to be successful.

That’s great advice. Thank you so much. I’m glad you brought up the recommenders. You don’t want to ask your recommender a month or even two weeks before the due date because they could be going on vacation. [43:07]

Yes. It’s true. Or you work for a team … I always give the … I’ll never forget my husband had a very large team and he worked for a tech company and it was booming and everybody wanted to go get their MBA. And so he’s like, I will do one a month for every employee that he knows that is doing their MBA, and he could only commit to one a month, because if you had five employees looking to get their MBA in the same year, it is timely on their part. So I think setting that expectation with your manager or whoever’s doing the recommendation for you so you understand what their timeline might look like is important.

What would you have liked me to ask you? [44:01]

Oh, goodness, this is really comprehensive, Linda, and I had a lot of fun. It’s really reflective as we’re going into this next recruitment cycle, so I really appreciate your time.

The thing I would think about is how do you get involved? So if you’re interested in Ross, the first few things I would tell you to do is go onto our website. There’s a request for information form that we have. It’s very brief. I think it’s like five fields that we have you fill out. But from there on, you’re going to get our bi-monthly updates., And that will have news, events, curriculum changes that we have going on, and then our admission event programming. So as you get to know the program even more, as you get ready to start registering for events, this is a great time.

We are going to be kicking off our recruitment season in the end of June, the beginning of July, and we’ll be going to many major metro areas across the world. So we hope to see you there. And then the next step is to go to our virtual programming and then ultimately to some of our on-campus events. We take those very seriously. We try to do very intentional programming, so you get to live and breathe what it’s like to be a Ross MBA student. So I highly encourage if you have the opportunity to attend those to do that, because I feel like you get the most out of what this experience could be like, and then it’s a great opportunity to interact with the admissions team.

Great. Andrea, I want to thank you so much for joining me today. This has been a highly informative, enjoyable interview. Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about Michigan Ross full-time MBA program? [45:35]

michiganross.umich.edu

Relevant Links:

•  Michigan Ross MBA
• Michigan Ross MBA Essay Tips and Deadline
• Accepted’s MBA ROI Calculator, a free tool
• 38 Ways to Use the Power of Numbers in Your Admissions Resume

Relevant shows:

• Former Wharton/Lauder Admissions Director Joins Accepted, podcast Episode 570
• Advice for Applicants: Moving from 2023 to 2024, podcast Episode 557
• How to get into Berkeley Haas, podcast Episode 547
•  ROI and NYU’s Part-time MBA, podcast Episode 552
•  How to Get Into Wharton, podcast Episode 545

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”] [xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]    [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

Podcast Feed

The post Ross MBA Admissions: All You Need to Know for Acceptance [Episode 576] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

[powerpress]

Show Summary

Are you a college junior or senior with an interest in business and a non-business major? Or perhaps you recently graduated and realized you need to boost your business knowledge to propel your career? 

Tune into this episode with Julia Hoffert, Director of Admissions & Recruitment of One-Year Master’s Programs at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business. Julia provides an overview of the program, including the curriculum, opportunities for international exposure, and job outcomes for graduates. She also discusses the application process, including the academic background and experience requirements, the essay questions, and the interview process. Julia highlights the resources available to students at Michigan Ross, such as the Ross Career Development Office, and emphasizes the fun, happening character of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Show Notes

Welcome to the 560th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me. Before we dive into today’s interview, I want to mention a resource at Accepted that can help you prepare your statement of purpose to a Master’s in Management program or other graduate programs. Download Five Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your Grad School Statement of Purpose to learn how to avoid the five most common mistakes we see in statements of purpose, as well as to gain tips on how to write a statement of purpose that makes your story memorable and highlight your qualifications for your target programs. Download this valuable and free resource at accepted.com/560download.

Our guest today is Julia Hoffert, Director of Admissions & Recruitment of One-Year Master’s Programs at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business. Julia earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Vocal Performance, which was one of the less common educational foundations for a career in higher education that I’ve come across. She moved into higher education administration at NYU with its educational theater program and then became Assistant Director of Admissions there at NYU. In 2012, she moved to Michigan, and in 2013, she became the recruiting director for U of Michigan’s Master of Public Policy and Master of Public Administration programs. She has been in Admissions at the University of Michigan ever since. She became the Director of Admissions & Recruitment for Ross’ One-Year Specialty Master’s Programs in August 2023.

Julia, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk. [2:15]

Thank you, Linda. Thank you for having me.

Let’s start with a basic question. What is the Master of Management at Michigan Ross? Can you provide an overview of the program? [2:22]

Absolutely. The Master of Management program is a 10-month program that is really designed to offer a very foundational business skillset for individuals who do not come from a business background from their undergraduate degree. On a very basic level, the type of people that we see that are the most interested in this type of program come from a variety of undergraduate programs and curriculums, but somewhere in the course of that time, they realize that they lack a certain skill set to add on top of their expertise from their undergraduate program, and they see the business skillset as something that would be a jumping point for them, whether that career be directly from what they did in their undergrad or perhaps even a pivot. But this program really is designed to offer that foundational business skillset that is so functionally useful.

Can you discuss the structure of the program? [3:35]

Within the curriculum, you will see elements of marketing, accounting, financial evaluation, and economics. It’s really sort of an overarching view of the business fundamentals that we would likely use in any scenario that we might be doing. We also have students have the opportunity to take elective credits, and that’s where they can, in their own way, perhaps take advantage of some of the other areas of interest at Ross, specifically some of the MBA electives. It’s very exciting for a lot of students. But in the general sense, you’re looking at a really foundational skillset within accounting, finance, and marketing and getting quantitative-based skills within that.

You mentioned that you get a wide variety of applicants, basically everybody except those who majored in Business or got a BBA. So, this is for, let’s say, somebody who studied Chemical Engineering as well as somebody who was an English major? [4:23]

I think that’s one of the things I love the most about this program. I can think of, this year alone, somebody that I worked very closely with in this program was a viola performance major in their undergraduate. And then we have engineers, as you mentioned. Interestingly enough, I love to see this. We have many students who are considering maybe a medical degree or a law degree later on but feel that this skillset will be really useful for them as they head into that type of practice.

I see pre-law, I see pre-med, I see people that are coming from all of these really interesting STEM or Science or Arts-related backgrounds, and they see this as just a really foundational opportunity for them, and they plan on using that later on in their own practice. It’s fascinating.

So for many of them, it’s not at all a terminal degree? [5:28]

Not necessarily, but I think what ends up happening is, I think, sometimes we come into something, and we think, “Well, I’m going to do this after. I’m going to go get a PhD or I’m going to go get an MBA.” But, sometimes, what happens is they land a position that they really like, and then they find themselves heading in a different direction that they didn’t necessarily think of before, and it might ultimately change their trajectory.

Michigan Ross has four One-Year Master’s Programs, the Master’s in Management, which is the focus of today’s episode, and Master’s programs in Accounting, Business Analytics, and Supply Chain Management. Those other three seem to be much more focused degrees. From what you’ve said, it sounds more of a generalist degree for those without a business foundation. Is that right? [6:09]

I’m going to see it through a different filter than that presentation. In part, because I think in some ways we’re comparing apples to oranges in terms of the type of program. What I would say specifically about Master of Accounting, Master of Supply Chain Management, and Master of Business Analytics is that it is not atypical for us to see business majors going into that type of degree. So they’re often coming from already having those business foundational skillsets, and they’re looking for another type of skillset to add on to what they’ve already done business-wise. Whereas our students often come into the Master of Management and they are experts in something. They spent four years gaining a level of expertise through their undergraduate, and they’re looking to this to layer onto that to then leverage that expertise.

So I hesitate to really think of it from a generalist perspective because these students are very specialized in their own way coming into the program. For them, they’re looking to leverage their expertise rather than to develop new expertise.

Can you give me an example? [7:37]

I think in some ways, what sometimes happens, since we talked about pre-med just recently, we have students who initially went into pre-med and may have done perfectly well within those courses but, through shadowing doctors or being in a situation, have actually ultimately realized they don’t want to be a doctor. But they want the business skillset so that they can head into an administration type of role within a healthcare system or be a healthcare consultant, that type of work. Sometimes it is where they are using that expertise they already have from their undergraduate, adding that business layer on top of it, and then still going into a very related field within that, but just in a different way than they had originally anticipated.

I’m really glad you provided this alternative perspective to it. I think it’s great. Thank you. I noticed in preparing for the call that the winter semester in the MM has something called a Management Consulting Studio. What’s that? [8:37]

Oh, it’s fantastic, Linda. So, we offer a consulting studio very specifically for Master of Management students. We also have it for our Supply Chain program. We also have it for our Business Analytics program. The reason we don’t have it for Accounting is that we have a separate type of experience for them, Ernst & Young in DC. So the consulting studio is actually a required course, and what happens is our partners, the Office of Action-Based Learning, do this incredible job of sourcing projects or issues with companies and industries in and around the United States, sometimes even abroad, and these companies offer students basically an opportunity to take everything that they have been learning in the course of their degree and applying it in a very real world scenario with that company. But that is still within the scope of a course.

This actually just happened a couple of weeks ago. We had the reveal, which was a lot of fun. Students have the opportunity to learn about which companies and what project or issue they’re looking to have the students do. They then have the opportunity to basically do a rank order and say, “This is what I would like to be considered. These are my top three choices.” Ultimately, the professor will assign students in groups with one another with that company and they work on that project for the duration of the winter semester. I love it. To me, it’s where we talk a lot at Ross about the concept of action-based learning, and this is, for me, one of the pinnacle points of how we live that out because students are working on a real project with a company and really having to synthesize everything that they’ve been learning up to that point.

All right. When I was reviewing the website, I was thinking, where does action-based learning come in? Because that is Ross’s signature and brand really, and this is apparently it, right? [10:46]

I would say this is probably the most forefront of that or the easiest way to show it. But in truth, I think for a lot of students, what is really surprising for them is the type and the delivery of the courses that they go to. I think a lot of us are accustomed to our undergraduate degrees heading into lectures, where our primary job is to listen and take notes. And that is still certainly an element of a lot of the courses. But on the other side of it, within each course, there are group projects and expectations of engagement. I think there’s a thread of action-based learning throughout the entirety of the curriculum in that that’s a very active and engaged type of course experience. And then I think the consulting studio just takes it, notches that up, just one more level.

What are the opportunities for international exposure, which is certainly a really important element of most MBA programs? [11:50]

Due to the fact that it is a 10-month program, we don’t send students away for a semester because that would constitute a huge amount of time. But we do have short-term global opportunities that are done over the spring break. So students will have the opportunity, and I believe this year, if I’m remembering correctly, if they’ve decided to opt into that, they are going to Italy, which sounds spectacular to me.

Is there a consulting project? [12:25]

Oh, it’s definitely part of a course. So there is some sort of course and there are objectives to the experiences. It’s not just, “Hey, let’s go have fun in Italy,” which is a perfectly normal thing to want to do, but this is tied into learning objectives. I certainly would love to do that.

What jobs are graduates of the MM getting? For those who don’t go to medical school or law school. [12:47]

Unsurprisingly, one of the most popular spaces is consulting. I’m part of the team that does the admissions interviews and that is often identified as one of the top types of jobs that people are looking to go into, and a decent portion of them do. Consulting, media, entertainment, it’s sort of a smattering. We have our employment data posted on the website, and it’s really interesting to see how it sort of breaks down, but the three top ones are consulting, marketing and sales, and finance.

Are they doing well in terms of job outcomes and employment opportunities? [13:40]

Absolutely. I think for a lot of students, it helps get the foot in the door, and then ultimately, once the foot is in the door, it helps with how fast they’re able to progress within an organization because they have the skillset on top.

What kind of academic background are you looking for from applicants? [14:08]

Well, for this particular program, anything but business, full stop. And within that, what we see and what we ask for is we do have one prerequisite course. We want one quantitative course that we can sort of look at and review. We specify that that has to be either Pre-Calculus or Statistics. Obviously, if people have Calculus or above, that’s great, but the baseline is that we need to see one prerequisite quantitative coursework during college.

Do AP credits from high school count? [14:40]

If the AP transferred over to college credit, we will still accept that. Because if the university that you’re going to says that that is legitimate for that type of course, then we will accept that.

And in terms of grades? [14:57]

If we were to look right in the middle, I would say the average GPA stands around 3.6 to 3.7.

And in terms of experience? Obviously, most of them won’t have full-time work experience. What are you looking for there? [15:08]

For us, it is very specifically a pre-experience program. They cannot have over two years of work experience by the time they apply to the program. And I would say probably a solid 90% of the people coming into the program are coming directly from their undergraduate degrees. So some of them are definitely in the zero category.

We don’t have expectations necessarily. So the students, due to the varied backgrounds that they have, it’s not uncommon for us to see maybe one to two internships or part-time work experience or sometimes we really try to contextualize if we have students that come from backgrounds where they had to work during the entirety of their college career to be able to pay for it and therefore didn’t have the opportunity to do internships. So, I think in general, we want to see students who have somehow engaged within their community while in college, during their college years, and if they have an internship or two that has helped craft why they want to do this program, that’s even better.

Let’s turn to the application components. I know the test requirement is the GRE or the GMAT, but if an applicant can waive the test if their GPA is above 3.3, is that correct? [16:43]

That is correct.

Is there any test preference between the GRE and the GMAT? [16:56]

There isn’t. So the students who can waive it must have a cumulative undergraduate of 3.3 and above. And then we simply do not have a preference, GRE versus GMAT, if they have to take that exam. Practically speaking, because I’m always practical, I understand that students will likely apply to multiple programs, so take the test that makes sense for all of the programs you’re applying to.

Are there other scenarios where somebody got the waiver or they got the 3.3, they waived the exam, and you would say, “Gee, I really wish I would have a test score to help me evaluate this person’s candidacy”? [17:37]

No. If we put that information out there that we’re okay with the 3.3 and above, then we have to live by that. So we’re very strong about that. But we do retain the right that if we need to ask for that, we will ask for that. I would say in a circumstance where I might feel that is if I am seeing a transcript where I have way too many withdraw or pass/fail courses on there and the 3.3 that’s on there, especially if they’re towards the 3.3, that’s the end of that spectrum if you will.

Honestly, Linda, I just don’t see a lot of that in my group of applicants, thankfully. I have not had to necessarily exercise that right. But we do retain that right to say, “Listen, we need a little bit more information about you, could you provide it?” And that would be something we would do, but it would have to be a fairly extreme circumstance.

The essay questions seem to value concision, with their 200 and 300-word limits. Okay. Which is not a bad quality. Could we review them, and could you give some tips for answering them? [18:50]

Essay One: How will the Master of Management support you in achieving your short and long-term goals? What led you to pursue a graduate degree in business? 200-word minimum. Content above 300 words will not be reviewed.

Essay Two: Please describe two or three meaningful ways in which you have engaged in your communities. 200-word minimum. Content above 300 words will not be reviewed. 

Essay Three: Please answer the following questions and provide specific examples where possible:

• Please describe your strengths and provide detailed examples of where these strengths were exhibited. 150-word minimum, 300 maximum. 
• Please comment on your areas of development or weaknesses and what efforts you have made to address those areas. 150-word minimum, 300 maximum. 
• Please describe your ability to work with others on group projects or other team settings. Provide an example of when you contributed positively in a group project or team setting. 150-word minimum, 300 maximum. 

So, let’s talk about the brevity first. The reason why we’ve put this out there is that a few reasons. Number one, we live in the world of AI, where we can generate a lot of text fairly easily, but not necessarily a lot of meaning within that text. So what I don’t need and what none of the readers need is 1,000 words of expounding and fluff. What we want is a sense of purpose and a sense of efficiency, which is frankly within the business realm. A lot of times when we’re talking about making first impressions and being able to talk about yourself, you’ve got to get to the idea, and you’ve got to get to it efficiently. Otherwise, you’re going to lose your audience.

This is not to be punitive, but it is to drive home the example that we don’t want. I am not here to look at your academic sample writing elements. We are here to review information about you that we need to know that we’re not necessarily going to be able to glean from the other elements of your application. So, if we wanted to walk through the first one about the short-term versus long-term career goals and what led, we need to know your overall ideas for yourself.

I will say for the Master of Management students, this essay overall tends to be a little bit more general than some of my other programs that are reviewed for, in part because, in some ways, students are still exploring what that might look like for them. That’s okay. But really, being able to talk and be aware of that is wonderful. And also, the second part of that question is how this program fits within the scope of why you want to do this and how it will help you. So that’s what we would like to see. If you have some specific goals, fantastic. I will take that a thousand times over. If you have dreams for yourself, beautiful. That’s what we want to see. We want to see people that are really excited about something. Whether or not they know the specifics yet of that something, we can work with that.

Then when we talk about student engagement beyond the classroom, one of the joys of my job that I really love creatively is thinking about asking questions that really get at the heart of what we’re hoping to understand about somebody. We previously used to ask questions that said, what would you do while you’re at Ross? What ended up happening was that I would get my website regurgitated in an essay form. And what I realized was, wait a minute, what I really want to know is how you have engaged in the past. Because sometimes, past behaviors will show the type of person that will be coming into this program. That’s more useful.

So I’d love to see a student who has been involved in some kind of extracurricular activity that means something deep to them and perhaps where they have grown into it. I started off as a participant in this, and now I’m the VP, or I’m doing the marketing or I’m doing something. It’s wonderful to see when people have actually taken an activity and grown with it, rather than just put it on a resume to have a checkmark. I don’t want a check mark. I want to know how you’ve made an impact.

And then, the self-evaluation is new this year, and I love this because it gives us the opportunity and allows the student to do some self-reflection. What do I do really well? What are my key strengths? Our team just recently did the Clifton StrengthsFinder. It’s really interesting to see your strengths and know that and be able to talk about them. Where do I need to develop? That’s an important thing to ask yourself, and I love seeing students that can say something specific. “I’ve really had to work, and I continue to work on my presentation skills.” Or “Public speaking is not my favorite thing, but here’s what I’m doing, here’s how I’m sort of thinking about it,” or my networking skills. Things that are opportunities and ways for them to grow. If all I get through the course of an application is how perfect a student is, I have no reason to understand why a student would need to gain these skills. What’s the point?

And then finally, the other one we find really important because a lot of times when we talk about, we see people that have amazing GPAs, their test scores are off the charts, everything’s off the charts, but how are they to work within a team environment? Ross, and the way the students learn here, you do not get to sit in a corner of the library by yourself and work on an island of your own. You are working in a group setting very frequently. Are you going to be a good group member? How have you been a good group member?

What’s really interesting to me, you will probably giggle, but a few times on the one where we have asked for comment on your areas of development, we’ve had people brave enough to just simply put N/A, which is not a good thing. We all have areas of development. This is not to trap somebody in the corner, but this is to see a level of self-reflection and understanding.

I remember one client said, “I’ve never failed.” And I was thinking to myself, “You just failed at self-evaluation.” I don’t think I said that to him, but that’s what I was thinking. [25:57]

Can you imagine working with that within the scope of a team? What would that be like?

What about the optional essay? Is it really optional? [27:05]

Oh, absolutely. The concept of the optional essay is truly not a trick. You do not have to submit it, but if you do, I want information in there that you feel we really need to know about you for some reason or another. As admissions professionals, our goal and our job in reviewing an application is to see where there may be gaps or holes that could look like a really crummy semester where you took way too many classes that were not your strength, and it just didn’t go well for you. It could be a semester where perhaps you had a health crisis of some type, and that affected you.

So we see when something is slightly not right. And if you are willing to give us some context and talk a little bit about acknowledging that and how you perhaps journeyed through that to another positive side, that is what that optional essay really is for. If on your resume you have no internships and your extracurriculars are limited, maybe talk to me about how you’ve been working 20 to 25 hours a week at a job so that you could help fund your undergraduate college degree education and that’s why you don’t have those types of things.

You can also talk about what you learned in that part-time job. [28:29]

Exactly. I love it when I see applicants list the part-time jobs within their resume and see they’ve been doing it for three years and progressed in their duties. That speaks volumes to me. Let me know about these things. This is your opportunity to flesh out areas of your application that may just be great for us and that we may not understand. So give us an opportunity to understand it. I would say probably, on average, in any given cycle, it’s about 15% to 20% of students who ultimately submit that optional essay. I don’t want the personal statement you wrote for another school to just be put in there as something to put in there. Don’t feel that you have to put something in there. Give me something that gives me more information.

What can an interviewee expect if lucky enough to be invited to interview? Are all admitted students interviewed? [29:20]

They can expect a party, Linda. It’ll be so much fun.

They can expect somebody from the Admissions or recruiting team to be doing their interview. This is not a current student, nor is it an alumni, but someone who is on the Admissions and recruiting team here in the One-Year Master’s Program. They can expect a Google meeting for a 20-minute conversation. The questions are centered on behavioral-based types of questions, your academic behaviors and experiences, and perhaps your professional experiences and behaviors. We will sometimes ask things about diversity, equity, and inclusion, as those are the values of our university and we want to really talk about those in a substantive way. We want to try to assess how you behave in these scenarios to understand how you might be within a group scenario if you’re on a group project.

So the questions might be like “How have you handled xyz situation in the past?” [30:30]

Absolutely. We might ask a question like “Tell me about a time when you disagreed with a team member. How did you handle that disagreement?” Or “Tell me about a time you’ve had to motivate your group.” Or “Tell me about a time when you’ve had a different idea than the rest of the group. How did you manage communicating that?” These are not designed to trick you. I’m not looking to ask you to create an algorithm from something. I’m not looking for your skillset. I’m looking to understand a little bit more about your behavioral-based scenarios.

The interviews are conducted by the Admissions Office personnel and they’ve reviewed the application. Would they possibly ask a question about something in the application? [31:14]

No, we won’t put anyone on the spot like that. We’re more likely in that scenario to simply have the resume in front of us and maybe ask or reference pieces of the resume in terms of telling us about this extracurricular activity that you did. What did you learn from it? Those types of questions. We’re going to presume that if there are those gaps we will give the student the opportunity to have addressed that in the optional essay portion.

Is an applicant at a disadvantage if applying in Round 4 or Round 5? Are they better off waiting until next year? [32:24]

Julia Hoffert:

The first question, in terms of whether they are at a disadvantage, I would say no. We absolutely, in the past, have admitted from every single one of the rounds. We have never closed down applications or stopped admitting people from rounds. That is not something I anticipate happening this year. So, I would not put that as a point of concern. I will always advocate for an earlier application simply because it takes that task list off of your task or a task off of your task list, so to speak, and gets that out of your way. However, one of the things I really want to drive home is to apply for the round in which you feel really ready to submit the materials, and you have your materials ready. And then on top of that, this year we have published the dates that if admitted within a certain round when we expect a student must give us their final decision as to whether to attend the program.

So I want students to really apply for the program so by the time they know that they got into the program and the time they have to tell us, they know they are ready to make that commitment. We very specifically put those dates on our website purposefully this year to avoid situations where they’re waiting for another school to tell them their decision. Apply for the round that you are ready to apply and ready to make the commitment.

What are some common mistakes that you see in applications to the Master of Management program at Michigan? [34:00]

One hundred percent, my top mistake is when somebody submits their essay for another program. It’s a combination of charming and slightly unfortunate that that happens. What I will tell you is we are not mean. We do not throw the baby out with the bathwater and say, “That’s it. How dare they talk about Duke during their application to us?” We don’t do that kind of stuff. But please do yourself the favor and review everything before submitting it. That’s one of my top ones that definitely happens.

The second one that happens is deciding that the recommender source that somehow flashier is better, or that special is better in terms of the person. I don’t want the top name of the people that you know in your world. What I want is the person who will take the time to actually write a thorough, thoughtful recommendation about you that is going to give me information that I’m not going to get from the rest of the application.

I’ve had a circumstance before where I’ve had an excessively famous rock star write a recommendation. This was from NYU Steinhardt, but it was two sentences long. So yes, the name and the autograph were so exciting on a very basic level, but the information was really not there, and that’s not useful. So, choose the professor or even the TA or GSI, as we call them in our world at U of M. If that person has had a lot of time with you and has seen your growth academically, that’s great. I want that type of source. Or I love the supervisor from your internship. Or, if you are a student-athlete, I love the coach who talks about how you are on the team, how you’ve grown as a human being, and what types of attributes you have. But I don’t need a famous person just for the sake of having a famous person. That’s not the goal.

A consultant in Accepted was the Admissions Director at Michigan Business School. Before, it was Ross. I’m almost positive. She said that they got a letter of recommendation once signed by former President Ford, who was originally from Michigan. It got passed around the office, and it was a novelty, but it didn’t say much. He barely knew the applicant. And he was doing somebody a favor and signed a letter. It was a novelty, and that was all. I think the key is that you want your recommender to know you well, not to be the most known in the world. [36:13]

It’s not helpful. I know a lot of people think that it just takes a secret handshake or knowing the right person. That’s not really the case. We just want to know about you and we want to know it in a thorough way, not from a flashy novel source. It just doesn’t do anything.

Keep the focus on you, not on the recommender. [37:16]

One hundred percent. Always keep the focus on you.

Let’s say I’m a junior in college now, and I’m thinking that a business degree would really complement, as you said earlier, the skillset that I’ve developed in college. How can I prepare myself to apply successfully in 2024/2025? [37:26]

Absolutely. My first thing is to get the prerequisite course out of the way if you have not already done so. If you don’t have Statistics or a Pre-Calculus-based course, then get that done. Just register for it now, or make sure you register for it for the fall of your senior year. Don’t hold off later to do that. Then my second recommendation would be to start interacting with us through our recruiting events. We offer online recruiting events, and we also have an upcoming Ross OYM Open House happening on February 1st, where you can come into the Ross building and meet our students, talk with our centers and institutes, and really get to know us and see the space in person, which is very powerful for a lot of people, but start interacting with us.

We have two incredible Admissions Advisors who are part of our team. Jillian Drzinski is the person who oversees the Master of Management one specifically. She would be somebody to start having a conversation with. Their primary job is really to welcome a student into the process of applying and to be of reasonable assistance. And by reasonable, I mean at least do your homework online, look at things, don’t ask us things that you can find out online very easily, and come to the table with a little bit of preparation.

Let’s say I go for the Master of Management, work for a few years, and then decide I want to go back for an MBA at Ross. Will I have to take the full two-year MBA program at Ross? [39:08]

I want to say this with a big qualifier. Right now, the answer to that is yes. My qualifier is, please have this conversation with me in another one to two years, and we might have a slightly different conversation. Now, what I will say about that current answer of yes is that the expectation is never that someone has to repeat the same coursework that they’ve already done. So there are waiver exams offered where students can potentially waive out of some of the core courses required for the MBA.

Now, what that means is you waive out of having to take that course, it does not waive you out of the credits. So you could find other courses to fulfill those credits and augment your experience. But currently, the MBA program would still be at the two-year mark. Again, I want to have this conversation with you in one to two years, and we will recheck with each other because things evolve as they should, and this may evolve.

What is your favorite resource or part of the MM program at Ross or being a part of Ross? [40:17]

I would be remiss to not really highlight the Ross Career Development Office. It is 100% one of my absolute favorite elements of the experience for students here that I think, oh, man, I wish every school in college had something like this. I wish I had had this when I was going through my 20s. The Ross Career Development Office is the hub for what it means to be looking to go into your career post-Ross. And what that looks like is career coaching, so you have the opportunity to speak with a career coach who is in contact with the industry and really understands the temperature of what’s happening in the industry so that students can have really substantive and realistic conversations about their goals.

Also, we do resume-building, networking opportunities, and other skills-building pieces so that when students are heading into the recruiting season, they are really in a space where they’re putting their best foot forward to have the most successful outcome that they can hope for. Also, one of the things I love is that the office engages our alumni beautifully, which is a distinctive quality about U of M as a whole, as well as Ross. Our alumni are excessively interactive and want to stay connected with our students. And I think students are not required to take advantage of this resource but it’s amazing. I think had I had the opportunity to have a conversation about my career trajectory in my early 20s, what a beautiful thing, what a great idea. And I think that that is one of my absolute favorite resources.

What question would you like to answer that I haven’t asked? [42:05]

Well, I think that every school and every town has its character. And I think that one of the things I love is the character of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the Ross School of Business lives. I’m going to filter it through my perspective, so please pardon that because this is not about me, but I think it’s important to know that I’m a big town girl. I love a big city. I spent 13 years of my formative life in New York City. It was one of the best things in the world. But it was also time to leave when it was time to leave. I had a two-year-old kid, and getting through the subway system with a stroller and everything else was just no longer my jam. But, what I will say is that Ann Arbor as a town and as a home space was really the one place that we as a family and myself as an individual really looked at and thought, wow, this is really excellent.

Did you have family there at the time? [43:07]

No. So, my husband is an alum of U of M. And a little fun fact that you don’t know about me, Linda, is that I started at U of M and then transferred to NYU. So I already have a little bit of experience here at U of M and in Ann Arbor. And what I love about it is that we find that there’s still so much culture and distinctive qualities that really allow for students to be in an incredibly active and engaged atmosphere. And that is such a fun and distinctive space. I think whenever anyone is looking at a college or a university, what you never know until you go there is how you’re going to feel when you’re there. And that’s the part that I really wish I could bottle it up, put it in a cute little package, and send it to students because I think that being in this community is an important part of the entire experience.

You can go to a football game in The Big House, and then you can go to a concert in Hill Auditorium, which is one of the most acoustically perfect spaces in the United States. There’s just this incredible variety and spectrum of opportunities, and I think students are often really surprised by that. They think, “Oh, it’s the Midwest, right? This is just the Midwest.” No, there’s a lot happening here, and it’s really a great time to spend a year here. I mean, I plan on spending much longer than that. But for those going into this program, it’s a year. And that’s the other thing I really want to highlight, it’s a year.

So keep that in mind. When you’re dealing with a rigorous curriculum and all of the things you’re trying to figure out, we can get through a lot of things. And a year, functionally speaking, is not … You can get through anything in a year. But Ann Arbor is a great place to be, and I think how it feels to be here is fun and exciting.

Relevant Links:

• Master of Management at Michigan Ross
• 5 Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your Grad School Statement of Purpose

Related shows

• How to Get Into CMU Tepper’s NEW MS in Management Program, podcast Episode 553  
• CMU Tepper’s MS in Business Analytics: All You Need to Know, podcast Episode 510
• University of Michigan’s Ross MBA Program: Everything You Need to Know, podcast Episode 479
• How to Get Accepted to Berkeley Haas’ Master of Financial Engineering Program, podcast Episode 540
• What’s New at NYU Stern’s Online Masters of Science in Quantitative Management, podcast Episode 447

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]   [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

Podcast Feed

The post Michigan Ross’ Master in Management (MM): All You Need to Know [Episode 560] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

[powerpress]

There is tons of advice on Accepted.com and on previous episodes of Admissions Straight Talk, about what you should do when you’re applying to top MBA programs. But what about common mistakes? What about the things that you shouldn’t be doing? What are the errors that applicants like you all too frequently make on applications? 

Today you’re going to hear different admissions committee directors from around the world talk about what they think are the most common mistakes in MBA applications, and you’re invited to listen in.

Welcome to the 538th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Before I turn to those mistakes I mentioned a second ago, I have a question for you: Are you ready to apply to your dream MBA programs? Are you competitive at your target schools? Accepted’s MBA admissions quiz can give you a quick reality check. And you’ll not only gett an assessment; you’ll also get tips on how to improve your qualifications. Plus, it’s all free. 

If you’re a regular listener to Admissions Straight Talk, you know that during most episodes of AST I interview a guest. Occasionally, I do a solo show. Frequently, the guests are admissions directors. I also have many times asked my guests, “What are the most common mistakes that you see when you’re reviewing applications?”

Today’s episode is a collection of guests’ answers to the questions, what are the most common mistakes you have seen during the MBA application process? What are the most common mistakes that you see when reviewing applications? All featured guests are admissions directors at top MBA programs sharing what you should not do when you are applying. 

The two most common mistakes were in broad categories, 

1. Lack of authenticity, a sense that you’re not really revealing yourself. 
2. And number two, sloppiness, which can come in many forms and you can learn about those forms through the admissions directors’ comments. 

There are nuances and details that the admissions committee directors provide in their comments, and you want to hear from them in their words what they are – so don’t go anywhere. Don’t just think that the two items I listed, you’re done for the day.

In addition, there were some other errors that don’t fit into those two categories and still are common and damaging to applicant’s chances. For example, one would be to not adjust in your resume for business school, but give in the technical resume that you have used in getting jobs. That’s not going to work when you’re applying to an MBA program. 

But again, you’re going to want to hear what changes you need to make and you’re going to want to hear it from the admissions’ director’s mouth. In short, to make sure that your applications shine like gems, first, remove the impurities. Those impurities are the common errors discussed in the rest of this episode. I’ve arranged the episodes in alphabetical order by school name. 

Teresa Peiro, Associate Director of Global Admissions for Degree Programs at INSEAD [3:22]

Linda Abraham: Our first speaker is INSEAD’s Teresa Peiro, Associate Director of Global Admissions for Degree Programs. 

Now, you’ve been doing this for a few years, what’s the most common mistake you see in the application?

TP: I would say lack of motivation. We know that the application process is long and it takes time, and our recruitment team is always saying  focus on the essays, focus on what you’re writing. You need to prepare. So a sloppy application is a no go.

TP: Essays that aren’t well-structured, essays that are not well-prepared, things that are mismatching, lack of consistency, that would be a killer.

And that translates to you as lack of motivation.

TP: And this is a big investment and it’s not only about money, but it’s also who you’re going to… This INSEAD will follow you for the rest of your life. We tend to say that you’ll never travel alone, for instance. So it’s something that we want to be sure that you’re really going to enjoy. I always say that we are looking for motivated candidates, engaged students, proud alumni. Candidates know that pre-selection is purely based on your application form. So it’s like your business card.

Linda Abraham: If you’re getting the impression that INSEAD really wants to understand what makes you tick, I think you’re right. It’s not the only school, but I think she’s very clear about it.

Taya Sapp, Senior Associate Director of Admission at Michigan Ross [4:53]

Linda Abraham: Taya Sapp, Senior Associate Director of Admissions at Michigan Ross, sees underestimating the importance of your resume as the biggest mistake. Learn why in this clip.

TS: I think honestly, one of them is kind of overlooking the importance of the resume. That’s the first thing I look at when I open an application, and it’s the snapshot of your whole professional career. And so I think it’s really important, and I’ve seen a lot of people kind of just assume I already have that done. I don’t need to worry about that. Let me focus on the essays. And I think it’s important to think this should not be the same resume that you might’ve just applied for your current job with and what that looks like, because it might include a lot of technical jargon that is only appropriate for your particular career path. It might not have as much, I mean, hopefully it has impact, but I think earlier in our careers, we’re more often thinking about what our responsibilities are and need to be shifting into the impact. I do see a lot of resumes that it doesn’t seem like people have stopped and really spent time on thinking about how they want to be representing their professional career and what that looks like. So that’s what I think.

Linda: I frequently tell applicants who want to start early, get your resume done, and focus on your accomplishments, not your responsibilities, that kind of stuff. So that’s a great, great input, I think. 

Dawna Levenson, Assistant Dean of Admissions at MIT Sloan [6:23]

Linda Abraham: Dawna Levenson takes a somewhat different tack. Do you want to write something shocking in your application? Something provocative for MIT Sloan? Well, Dawna, Assistant Dean of Admissions, reveals why that’s a bad idea, along with another critical error.

DL: So the most common mistake is trying to stand out in an inappropriate way. Provocative is the best word I can use on your video or perhaps in your cover letter where you talk about subject matter that has a shock factor tied to it. You use unprofessional, inappropriate language. It happens, every year there’s a handful of them. Aside from just not following instructions. I believe are very reasonable if we ask for a cover letter to be 300 words, we are not word counters. If it’s 310-ish, no big deal. If you submit a five-page essay, it raises a red flag for us.

Danielle Richie, Director of Full-Time MBA Admissions and Student Recruitment [7:14]

Linda Abraham: UNC Kenan-Flagler’s Danielle Richie, Director of Full-Time MBA Admissions and Student Recruitment, returns to the theme of authenticity and failing to reveal the human non-professional side of you in her comments. 

Linda: What are the most common mistakes that you see applicants make during the application process?

DR: Not being themselves. So I think that’s one of the first things. And then also, I mentioned that human component earlier, and I feel like that’s another thing. Everyone has a professional side. Yes, but there’s that personal side to who you are, and I feel like sometimes that’s lacking in an application, and it would be great to fully see and know a candidate throughout the application process. So bringing in that human side, bringing in that EQ is really important.

DR: So if you have extracurriculars, I mentioned earlier, I’m a soccer referee, most people wouldn’t understand what goes into that, the trainings, the thought process, that’s absolutely something I would put on my resume and talk to because in any given game, you can make between 300 and 350 decisions. And so that’s a great talking point to bring up and for someone to think on their feet. So when you have extracurriculars, maybe you’re part of a team, maybe you have volunteer experience, those types of things the committee would love to know about and see how you are outside of work too, because there’s so much more than just your job title in your career.

Rodrigo Malta, Managing Director of MBA Recruitment and Admissions at UT Austin [8:49]

Linda Abraham: UT Austin’s Rodrigo Malta, Managing Director of MBA Recruitment and Admissions, provides three common errors that he says he sees year after year. Don’t make them.

RM: I know that your listeners are awesome and they’re not going to make these mistakes because they’re listening to this podcast. So the first one seems really simple, but it’s not answering the essay prompt. So as you build your application and you focus on those essays, it is really important for you to engage with individuals within your community. If you have an opportunity to work with an admissions consultant, awesome as well. But always ask yourself and those that are reviewing your essays, if you’re appropriately answering the essay prompt.

RM: I know that applicants have a lot to share, right? And they want to share everything with us. Remember that there are a lot of different application components and opportunities for you to share who you are. The essays are a great asset to your application, but it’s only going to be one that you’re going to be able to capitalize on if you answer that essay prompt. So that’s kind of number one. And I have two other ones, if I can sneak them in, is that okay, Linda?

Linda: Absolutely. Go for it. This is great.

RM: So the second one, it’s also around essays, and it seems really basic. So I can see some of our listeners maybe rolling their eyes whenever they listen to this, but mentioning the wrong school name in the application, it’s a big no no. That happens more often than you think. So make sure to double, triple check the materials that you’re submitting with your application that you’re listing out the right school name. And the second one is a kind of a new nuance that we’ve been seeing, I would say as of the past three to five years, which is discrepancies between your resume that you submit with the application and any information that you have that have out on LinkedIn.

RM: So as part of the application here at Texas McCombs, applicants can submit their LinkedIn if they have a LinkedIn profile. If you are going to submit your LinkedIn profile with your application, and that piece of it is optional, the resume is not optional. To submit your LinkedIn profile, make sure that the LinkedIn profile matches the resume on the jobs that you’ve had, on the dates, et cetera. Because if there are discrepancies between both of them, you may raise questions from the admissions committee and you don’t want the admissions committee to have questions. You want to answer any questions that we have. So those discrepancies between resume and LinkedIn can be a little bit tricky sometimes. So be on the look for that.

Linda: Those are great insights and great input. The first two I’ve heard before, and actually I’ve many times been asked, what are schools looking for? And my first answer is they’re looking for the answer to their question. That’s why they asked the question, – they want the answer.

Amber Janke, Director of MBA Recruitment and Admissions at UW Foster [12:01]

Linda Abraham: Amber Janke, Director of MBA Recruitment and Admissions at UW Foster, shared two common mistakes and returns to the theme of insincerity, and shares a second common failing in applications.

AJ: I have a couple that I want to share. One is not being authentic in your application. I think sometimes people believe as though the admissions committee wants to hear just one thing or a certain thing. And really what we’re trying to do is get to know each individual applicant, authentically. We want to know who you are. We want to know what your goals are, your dreams are. We want to know truly who you are and what your experiences have been. And time and time again, I’ll talk with an applicant for an info interview and they say, “My friends are telling me I shouldn’t share this very lofty goal.” And I’m like, “Well, you should think about what you really want to achieve. Certainly have a plan B, but if that’s really what you want to achieve, you’re going to want to share that as part of your application.”

AJ: So that is one thing, people feeling as though they can’t be authentic in their application, and I would encourage you to do so because if you aren’t authentic, we’ll be able to see that in an interview. So that’s really important. The second really is just not doing research on the program ahead of time. We know you want an MBA, but why do you want to Foster MBA? We’re a small program, we can help you achieve certain things, and we want to know that people really want to be part of this type of program. But you got to do the research on your end as well. It’s not just about the MBA, it’s about what you are looking for in an MBA experience and doing some of the research ahead of time to learn if you think a program might be a right fit for you.

AJ: You don’t have to have figured it out yet. That’s totally fine. That’s part of the MBA application process. But start to do some of the work on your end to really understand about not just why you want an MBA, but why you want an MBA from Foster or maybe another program.

Linda: I sometimes talk to applicants and they’ll say something like, “I want to work for Microsoft.” Or, “I want to work for Amazon.” Or they’ll name some other company and some other school. Would your response to that be that’s a good reason, or would it be why do you want to work for Amazon? Or why do you want to work for Microsoft?

AJ: I mean, certainly those are part of people’s goals that they might have certain companies or roles in mind. But an MBA program is not just about what you do immediately post MBA, it’s about what the experience is for the two years that you’re here. It’s about what you want to gain, how you want to learn, how you want to grow for five years, 10 years down the line. Plus.

Linda: It’s your professional life.

AJ: Exactly. For your professional life.

Linda Abraham: So remember NOT to do the things discussed in this episode. And before you submit an application, make sure that you’ve crossed the T’s and dotted the I’s, both literally and figuratively. And of course, make sure that your application reflects the best side of you, but the real you. 

If you’d like help in presenting the best of the authentic you, please contact Accepted for guidance and presenting your best self and polishing that gem of an application. Discover how Accepted’s experts can help you and take advantage of an initial free consultation.

Related Resources:

• MBA Admissions quiz
• Five Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your MBA Application Essays
• School Specific MBA Essay Guides

Related Episodes:

• Get Into INSEAD, the Business School for the World – podcast Episode 520
• University of Michigan’s Ross MBA Program: Everything You Need to Know – podcast Episode 479
• How to Get Accepted to MIT Sloan MBA – podcast Episode 498
• How to Get Accepted to UNC Kenan-Flagler Full-Time MBA Program – podcast Episode 496
• Get Accepted to UT Austin McCombs – podcast Episode 452
• Get Accepted to UW’s Foster School of Business – podcast Episode 461

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]   [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

Podcast Feed

The post Admissions Directors Reveal the Most Common Mistakes Applicants Make [Episode 538] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Our consultants receive a lot of questions from clients about applying to MBA programs through The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. I’ve heard myths that suggest that applying to one (or more) of the 22 Consortium schools through The Consortium’s application is disadvantageous. But as the former director at two Consortium schools, I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth — provided you meet The Consortium’s minimum qualifications.

Though the requirements, participating schools, and corporate partners have changed over The Consortium’s 57-year history, not only is the organization the best deal in town but it also gives its members an alumni network that extends throughout the 22 member schools.

The Consortium history and mission

Initially, The Consortium provided opportunities for young African-American men to have a fair chance at rising up the corporate ladder via the MBA. Later, The Consortium added Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and women to its mix. Membership came along with the fellowship.

However, after the Supreme Court decided the Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger cases, The Consortium opened its doors to offer membership to selected applicants that further The Consortium’s mission to promote the “inclusion in global business education and leadership . . . of African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans.” Members do not need to belong to one of these groups but must demonstrate the mission through community and professional action and impact. Thus, membership is no longer race based but rather mission driven. Applicants must also demonstrate the ability to succeed in a Consortium member school’s MBA program.

Consortium member benefits

Like the undergraduate Common App, candidates can apply to up to six schools with only one application for a fraction of the cost that the candidate would incur by applying to each school separately. The Consortium membership grants the candidate access to the orientation and corporate partners. Many members receive internship offers before the start of school.

To summarize the benefits:

1. Applicants can use a single application for up to six schools at one low cost.
   
2. Members gain access to a vast alumni network of 22 schools, including mentorship from among the approximately 9,000 Consortium alumni (formal or informal).
   
3. Students gain access to corporate sponsors at orientation if selected as a member.
   
4. If selected as a fellow, students receive full tuition and a stipend.

READ: The Consortium Application: Tips for Your CGSM Essays >>

Consortium member schools

* School’s class profile presents a score/GPA range rather than an average.

To learn more about applying through The Consortium, please contact me for a consultation.

By Natalie Grinblatt, the former admissions dean/director at three top business schools. Natalie has reviewed more than 70,000 applications, interviewed more than 2,500 candidates, and trained nearly 700 admissions directors and alumni volunteers to select outstanding candidates for admission. Her clients gain admission to top programs, including those at Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Cornell, Columbia, Berkeley, Chicago, Northwestern, and NYU. Natalie holds an MBA from Michigan Ross. Want Natalie to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• Top MBA Application Essay Questions: How to Answer Them Right
• The Consortium Application: Tips for Your CGSM Essays [2022 – 2023]
• What the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management Can Do for MBA Applicants – podcast episode 395

Can the Consortium Help You Get Accepted and Fund Your MBA? [Episode 532]

[powerpress]

In this episode, the Director of Recruiting at CGSM details the benefits – and opportunities! – available to Consortium members, what it takes to become a member, and why applying in Round One may not always be an applicant’s best strategy.  [SHOW SUMMARY]

There’s an organization that can help U.S. citizens and permanent residents get accepted to top MBA programs, fund their MBA, and even provide career support post-MBA – provided the applicants support the organization’s mission. Let’s learn all about it from the Consortium for the Graduate Study of Management’s (CGSM) Director of Recruiting.

An interview with Bianca Keys, director of recruiting at the Consortium for the Graduate Study of Management. [Show Notes]

Welcome to the 532nd episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me. 

Sometimes I’m asked, is the MBA worth it? And my answer is, it depends on your individual circumstances. But I’ve got good news. We’ve developed a tool that will help you evaluate whether an MBA is worth it for you and your individual circumstances and by how much. Just go to accepted.com/mbaroi and check how much you’re likely to benefit, or not, from earning an MBA. And using it won’t set you back even one cent, it’s free. 

I’m delighted for the first time on Admissions Straight Talk to talk with Bianca Keys, Director of Recruiting at the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. Bianca earned her bachelor’s degree from Lindenwood University and her master’s in Business Management and Leadership from Webster University. She has worked in enrollment management, DEI training, and admissions in different capacities since 2008. She became CGSM’s Director of Recruiting in September 2022. 

Bianca, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk. [1:53]

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

I’m delighted to do so. Now let’s start with something really, really basic. What is the Consortium? [1:59]

All right. So, the Consortium, we are pretty much an alliance of top graduate business programs and also top corporate partners, and we’re supported by alumni and students. We were founded in 1966 by Washington University’s professor, Sterling Schoen. And his one driven mission was actually inspired by him noticing a lack of African American men in leadership in American corporations.

So, with the partnerships of some corporate partners and some founding schools, they were able to pretty much create this alliance to give African American men the business skills to be able to secure positions in American corporations. So, now we’ve grown.

And I assume it’s no longer limited to African American men. It’s now African American men and women, right? [2:59]

Yes, men and women. And our target pops are African American men, Native American and Hispanic American, but our applications are open to all.

How does one become a CGSM member? [3:16]

In order to become a member, you would have to, of course, apply. And three of our requirements are that you must be a U.S. citizen or U.S. permanent resident of any race or ethnicity, you must demonstrate a commitment to our Consortium’s mission, and hold a four-year bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in the U.S. or equivalent. So, to be approved for Consortium membership, an applicant must demonstrate the commitment through their resume, our essay, and their letter of recommendation.

I have in front of me your mission, so I’m just going to read it off. “The mission of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, an alliance of leading American business schools and some of our country’s top corporations, is to enhance diversity in business education and leadership by helping to reduce the serious underrepresentation of African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans in both the member schools’ enrollments and the ranks of management.” 

So, again, there’s no racial requirement in terms of membership as long as you support and identify with and support and have supported that mission in the past. [3:59]

Yeah.

All right. So, one of CGSM’S benefits is the ability to apply through CGSM and pay one application fee, and I think it goes to a maximum of six schools, correct? [4:33]

There’s no max anymore.

There’s no max anymore, ooh! [4:44]

So, two things, two updates. We’ve removed rankings. So, there are no rankings, and you can apply to as many member schools as you would like. So, from one to two schools is $150, up to six schools which is $300, but each additional program is $25. Yeah, so they can apply…

And so, in the past with our ranking system, the top ranking school, they were the only school that was able to offer a fellowship opportunity. And now if you applied to all six schools or more, they have the opportunity to offer you… they each have an opportunity to offer you a fellowship. And we empower the student to be able to make the better choice of what school best fits them.

Wow, that’s a big change. When did this change take place, like last year? [5:38]

This last application.

Last cycle. Should’ve interviewed you then. No, I’m teasing. That’s great news. I somehow missed that announcement. Okay, good to know. Good to know. So, there’s no more ranking and there’s no more maximum, and multiple schools could offer a fellowship. [5:43]

Yes.

Now you apply for membership at the same time that you submit your application, correct? [6:00]

Yes. It’s a one stop shop,

It’s a one-stop deal, one application. So, it is possible to use the CGSM application process and ultimately not be approved for CGSM membership, is that correct? [6:09]

Yes, that is possible. But the application is still considered an application, so you won’t get rejected from the member school just because you didn’t get membership. They still go through their standard process of admissions. And a lot of times they’ll offer you other fellowship opportunities or scholarship opportunities that they may have available at the schools.

And the schools don’t even see your decision in terms of CGSM membership. They don’t see the membership essay, correct, the membership application essay? [6:46]

They don’t see any of the membership application essays or letters of recommendation. All they see is the decision once we’ve made it.

Now I saw on your website that Stanford partnered with CGSM last year and became the 22nd school to become a partner school. Have any other schools partnered since then? [7:02]

Yes, I’m excited to say that…

Well, you got lots of news today. [7:17]

Yeah, I do. I do. Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, they are our newest, our 23rd school, which we are so excited to have them. They will begin July 1st, actually, and they will be on our application this upcoming cycle. And this upcoming cycle is for students fall 2024, that will begin fall 2024.

What is the benefit of applying through CGSM as opposed to just using the school’s portal? Portals, I should say. [7:45]

We, one, save you money. An average application for any grad program can be up to about $300 for one application, where six applications is $300 applying through us. So, it’s definitely a win for the students. Whether they get membership or not, it’s saving them money and they are allowed to go by our application deadlines as well. So, if maybe Columbia or one of the schools, maybe their application deadline may be September 15th, they still would recognize the application on our deadline, which our Round One is October 15th.

And I believe it’s also easier to apply. Aren’t there fewer essays required or is it pretty much the same at this point? [8:50]

Right, so it is the core essay which asks the applicants to discuss their MBA goals, and then there’s a second core essay that the applicants are able to detail any additional information that they may want to add that they weren’t able to explain in the application.

Right. And is there typically a supplemental per school essay, or do the schools ask for their own essays in addition to the Consortium essay? [9:20]

Sometimes they ask for their own supplementals that are added in addition. We are going through that process of application updates as we speak.

But it’s not all schools that do that? [9:38]

No, no. No, no.

Usually the student has the mission essay and then the two GMAC format essays.

Are you worried about CGSM’s applicants using ChatGPT and preparing their essays? [9:51]

Oh, the ChatGPT.

You got it. I’m asking everybody this question. [10:03]

And that’s a good question. So, with it being such a newer phenomenon right now, I just want applicants and students to be mindful that there are advantages and disadvantages to using ChatGPT, because what we’re looking for is consistency in their demonstrated commitment to the mission. And I doubt it if they’ll be able to convey that in an interview based off of a ChatGPT essay.

So, a lot of the admissions advisors and committees, they’re looking for authenticity. They’re looking for unique perspectives and their applicant’s ability to be able to express themselves. So, I don’t know if they can… It probably is a good tool to help guide them in forming their essay, but I don’t think it should be something that can express exactly your commitment.

I’ve played with it a little bit, and sometimes there are outright errors in it. It’s wrong. [11:09]

Right, right.

And other times it’s just very generic, and it has to be generic. You’re not going to get a lot of authenticity. But it does sometimes help. [11:17]

Yeah, yeah.

But to rely on it blindly I think is a big mistake. [11:28]

Yeah. Yeah. Especially if you don’t check.

Absolutely. Absolutely. [11:35]

Attention to detail.

Are there other elements to the CGSM application? We discussed you pay a fee. You have the core essays. You might have supplemental essays. Are there short answer essays or anything like that or is it pretty straightforward? [11:40]

Yeah, it’s pretty straightforward. If the school has any changes or supplements to each essay, that may be the different shift or change. But pretty much transcripts, resume. We always advise students to make sure that your experience, if you’re a part of organizations like Forte or MLT, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Teach for America, making sure that that’s actually on your resume. That definitely helps. Your test scores, GRE, GMAT or Executive assessment, letters of recommendation. One for the mission, and then there are two for the schools. Yes. And making sure you get the right recommender.

What makes a right recommender? [12:41]

Someone who can explicitly… Especially for the Consortium mission letter of recommendation, somebody who can explicitly pretty much show your demonstrated commitment to our mission and they know about that.

They’ve observed it. [13:01]

Yeah, they’ve observed it, and they can actually speak to it. And they’re not saying, “Well, I don’t know about their demonstrated commitment, but Jane is a great person and we love her personality. She’s very professional.” It’s like, what?

That’s not the question. [13:17]

So, definitely communicate with your recommender about expectations. And with us, it doesn’t have to be your supervisor with the Consortium mission letter of recommendation. It can be as long as it’s not a family member. It could be anyone who can speak to it.

That you’ve somehow supported that mission. Makes sense [13:40.

Yes.

What are the non-admissions benefits of being a CGSM member or fellow, and what is the difference between being a CGSM member and fellow? So, there’s really two questions there. Why don’t we start with the non-admissions benefits of membership, and then we’ll get to the difference between being a member and a fellow. [13:46]

So, the non-admission benefits are pretty much the early access to corporate partners. A lot of our students, we just had OP, our orientation program this past June, and it was amazing. It was amazing.

I know you’re working very hard on it. [14:20]

Yeah. Oh man, it was definitely a job, but it’s worth it. And just to see all of the students that we worked with from the beginning up until that point, from all their stress points, their pain points, to see them, they made it, and they’re at the orientation program. So, them having early access to our corporate partners.

They also have access to our system that is… We have a platform that is called Hello Fellow that allows them to join different groups that are industry groups. And our corporate partners have access to them as well, and they’re able to apply to positions that are open to those corporate partners.

Also, at our orientation program, we had a corporate open house that’s not like your traditional job fair. All of our corporate partners actually already had our students’ resumes, they already had a student look book, they’ve already seen the students and they already know the students prior to them even coming to the expo.

So, they definitely have a great advantage by being a Consortium fellow. And then the camaraderie, the support that they have with each other, there’s nothing like it. I love how each campus had… they call themselves CFAM.

Campus family, yeah. [15:53]

Yes. Each campus, each Consortium cohort on each campus, they’re so close. A lot of our alumni mention that the connection, that’s like a trending thing with us here at the Consortium is connection. Being able to connect students with not only each other, but also with our corporate partners and with our top MBA programs.

So, they have lifelong connections with all three of those different entities, and they enjoy being able to talk with someone who understands them, someone who may be going through the same even issues at their jobs or anything like that, and that connection. And if there’s a job loss or anything like that, we do provide the support to help those students to be able to reconnect with corporate partners and find another opportunity.

So, just to clarify, the orientation program is open to all Consortium members, not just fellows, correct? [16:54]

So, Consortium fellows, you’re applying for membership, but the membership allows you to become a Consortium fellow. So, whether you received a fellowship or not, you are considered a Consortium fellow.

So, you’re a Consortium fellow whether you get a scholarship or not? [17:16]

Right.

Got it. And all the fellows/members can go to the orientation program. How long is the orientation program? [17:26]

So, it’s a four-day conference, and it consists of a lot of hands-on career development. We have diversity theater, which is amazing. A lot of our corporate partners, they have private interviews with a lot of the students. So, a big portion of our students leave with internships or career opportunities.

For next year, for next summer, or for this summer? For next summer? [17:56]

Yes. For this upcoming year –

For summer 2024, let’s say? [18:03]

Yes.

And what is diversity theater? [18:06]

Oh my goodness, diversity theater. This was actually my first year to experience it. Hearing it from other coworkers and staff was not the same as experiencing and seeing those difficult conversations displayed on stage.

So, there’s actors that are on stage, and they may act out a scene where some coworkers that may deal with microaggressions or different challenges that you may face at work and how to address that, and just having those conversations amongst your peers. And it really was eye opening for not only the students, but for staff, for a lot of our corporate partners and admissions representatives as well. So, it was pretty amazing, and we have it annually as well.

And it seems like the orientation program is very much career oriented. Is there any prep for the actual study of the MBA, or is that assumed that the schools will handle that? [19:09]

So, the schools, the admissions representatives and career services representatives are present. So, they do have an advising session that they get to work with them and meet with them one-on-one for prep with the corporate partners, but also any questions that they have about the upcoming program that they’re about to start in the fall. They have all of that one-on-one time, a lot more one-on-one time than they would normally get during the school year.

Sounds like a very busy four days, very full. [19:54]

Yeah, it is very full.

Okay. How does CGSM help its fellows in career placement, both during and after the MBA? [20:00]

So, during the MBA, again, we have the Hello Fellow and our annual program, our annual orientation program and career forum. Like I mentioned before, they have the opportunity to interact with the corporate partners. The corporate partners get to review their resumes and their backgrounds early on before even meeting them face-to-face. Our alumni network, our Hello Fellow system, allows them to, again, engage with these corporate partners.

And then our student and alumni relations department, they are amazing with connecting with the students. They engage with student liaisons as well in providing that support that they may need throughout the year. And if there’s a student, like we just had tech layoffs recently. And our alumni development department, they were able to help and assist with reengaging with those students or those alumni to be able to help them to get placed in other career opportunities.

A few weeks ago you had the OP. It was mostly geared towards people starting the MBA in 2023, but it also had people who started the MBA in 2022. Is that correct? [21:18]

We had some second year. Like if something happened last year, I know dealing with the pandemic and other issues, some students were not able to attend last year, and so they were given the opportunity to attend this year.

But it’s usually just for the people about to start the MBA, the OP? [21:48]

Right, it’s usually first year students.

What do you see coming down the pike for the Consortium? [21:54]

Oh my goodness. Continued growth, continued engagement with a lot of the students. We’re working on increasing our exposure and engaging. This year we shared a lot of our OP activities on our social media and got a lot of good feedback and engagement. So, definitely I think we have a good momentum right now to be able to get all of the good things that we do at the Consortium out to the public and to the world.

What advice would you give to someone applying to apply via the Consortium in this, the 2023-2024 application cycle? [22:34]

Definitely begin your MBA journey. And beginning your MBA journey does not start with the application. It starts with the preparation.

Yes, that’s right. [23:13]

Definitely starts with the preparation. So, researching a lot of the schools that you’re interested in, finding out if you’re interested in the Consortium, finding out what that Consortium culture looks like on each campus to see what best fits you. Also, looking into preparation for GRE, GMAT, or the Executive Assessment and finding out what the class profiles are for each school that you’re interested in so you can have a good idea of where you stand. And don’t rush your application. Don’t rush it.

Yay! [23:54]

I always have some overzealous students that want to, “I’m getting it in for Round One.” Wait a minute. Make sure that you’re submitting the strongest application and that this is the right time for you to start a program. There’s no rush. There’s no rush. There’s no rush. Make sure you have the strongest application. Utilize all resources that you need to support you through your application process.

We always advise students to attend our events. We have member school webinars that are… We actually have one coming up on July 10th, which will have Washington University, University of Rochester Simon, and UCLA Anderson. And they will be talking about their MBA programs, but also talking about their Consortium cohorts on their campus as well.

And we also have our MBA application preparation seminars, which is MAPS, which will be in person this year. So, we will be in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, and DC.

Wow. You’re getting around. [25:16]

Yes.

Not all Consortium schools require a test score. Does the Consortium require a test score even if the school does not? [25:21]

So, for membership we don’t require a test score. But if you are applying and they offer a test waiver, we would need to have that test waiver submitted, or you would need to submit that in the application. And then we just confirm it with the member school whether that test waiver was actually approved. Yeah. And then if it wasn’t approved, then they would have to submit a test score.

Are any of the programs or any of the partner schools entirely test optional? Do you know off the top of your head? I wasn’t sure as I was thinking about it. [26:03]

I don’t think so. Well, it depends on the school and what policies they have in place this upcoming school year.

I think most of them have a test waiver option, and I also would have to go through each one. [26:19]

Yeah. I always advise students to talk with them early about it, because last year I ran into the issue of students who just missed it. It was like they just missed the test waiver window. So, definitely talk with your school of interest to find out when that test waiver timeframe is and get that in if that’s an option for you.

Wonderful advice even if you’re not applying through CGSM, by the way. [26:51]

Right, absolutely.

What would you have liked me to ask you? [26:56]

These were all great questions.

What would you like to share that I haven’t asked? [27:02]

I would like to share just my… In my position as Director of Recruiting, what my passion and desire and vision is for the Consortium moving forward is to be able to expand our exposure to those who definitely need the opportunity, to be able to expand our exposure to those areas, because sometimes we are in this collegiate bubble.

Aacademia. [27:37]

Yeah, absolutely. And to be able to… We do so many great things.

You do. [27:45]

And just being able to see just the energy that I get from the students, just being around them, and just the positive nature of it all, being able to give that to others who don’t know about the Consortium. So, that’s my mission and goal is to increase exposure and to really share about the great things we’re doing here at the Consortium.

Well, today in this podcast, you did it. [28:14]

Thank you. Thank you, Linda.

You’re very welcome. Bianca, I want to thank you so much for joining me today. Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about CGSM? [28:21]

They can check us online at www.cgsm.org or on our LinkedIn page and our Instagram page and on Twitter.

Relevant Links:

• The Consortium for the Graduate Study of Management
• Applying For Your MBA Through The Consortium: Best Deal In Town
• MBA ROI Calculator   

Relevant shows:

• How to Get an MBA at Columbia Business School – a podcast Episode 528
• How to Get Accepted to NYU Stern – a podcast Episode 525
• How to Get into Dartmouth Tuck – a podcast Episode 514
• How to Get Into Georgetown McDonough’s MBA Program – a podcast Episode 512
• How to Get Accepted to UNC Kenan-Flagler Full-Time MBA Program – a podcast Episode 496

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]   [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

Podcast Feed

The post Applying for Your MBA Through The Consortium [Episode 532] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

[powerpress]

Learn what you can do to prepare for your future employment [Show Summary]

Diana Economy, former Head of Admissions at Michigan Ross and Senior Talent Acquisition Manager at Vail Resorts, offers her unique perspective on how students can prepare for future employment even while applying to or completing an MBA program. 

Interview with Diana Economy, former Head of Admissions at Michigan Ross and Senior Talent Acquisition Manager at Vail Resorts [Show Notes]

Welcome to the 501st episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for listening. I hope you tuned into our very special 500th episode last week. If not, you can still catch it.

You’ve seen the stats that most people have a great return on their MBA investment, but what about you? Are you going to see that kind of return? How much will it be? How much can you anticipate? We’ve created a tool that will help you assess whether the MBA is going to be a good investment for you. Just go to accepted.com/mbaroicalc, complete the brief questionnaire, and you’ll not only get an assessment but also the opportunity to calculate different scenarios. And it’s all free. 

It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk, Diana Economy, Senior Talent Acquisition Manager – Programs and International for Vail Resorts, and formerly the Director of Full-Time MBA Admissions at Michigan Ross. After graduating with a BA in Organization Studies from the University of Michigan, Diana worked in talent management for companies like Kearney and Kirkland & Ellis. She returned to Ross and earned her MBA in 2010, and then again worked for Kirkland & Ellis and BCG before returning to Ross as Associate Director of Admissions. She was the Director of Admissions for the Michigan Ross Full-Time MBA program from 2017 until just this past July when Diana joined Vail Resort. 

Before we get into the interview, I have to ask how’s the skiing? [2:35]

Oh my gosh, Linda, I have never thought so much about snow. It’s going well so far. It’s always kind of fun to hear as the resorts are beginning to get the snow and opening. Especially in the work that we do with talent acquisition, a lot of folks are starting over the course of the next month. It’s a really exciting time in the industry.

What is the common thread between recruiting MBA students and recruiting talent for Vail Resorts? [3:16]

It’s really interesting, given the cyclical nature of the admissions cycle and, of course, the cyclical nature of the ski season. A lot of our resorts are open through the summer as well, but no question that we’re hitting the Super Bowl timeframe of the operations. As I think about what I learned from my time in admissions, as well as working in talent acquisition and the kinds of things that we look for in our employees, I really find that people who have a good sense of who they are and how they can contribute, those qualities translate both to admissions committees and to our guests.

If any of you have been to ski resorts or resorts in general and you think about the people that you interact with, whether it’s somebody who’s running the lift or doing these other things, they’re very engaging, they’re very natural in doing that. Of course, an MBA is doing a very different type of work and a different skill set is required to get into the MBA program. But there’s something to be said about those who thrive in an MBA program and their ability to build those connections and have the ability to impact and influence those around them that I see as very fluid between both the MBA admissions and recruiting that I did and what we look for in great talent at Vail Resorts.

I find your focus on contribution very interesting, especially when you talk about networking, because networking has such a strong connotation of “what’s in it for me.” [4:46]

You’re right. When we’re reading applications and admissions, one of the things you’re thinking about is “Who is this person going to be when they’re sitting in the classroom? What kind of contribution are they going to make there? Who is this person when they’re on a team of people where there’s no leader on the team, and everybody has to work together to figure out how to get to the output for the class assignment? Who is this person at 10 o’clock at night?” MBA programs are not like a 9:00 to 5:00 job where you go home, and you’re somebody else. It’s very fluid. There are a lot of social experiences, academic experiences, career, and cultural experiences, and I think moving in and out of those experiences and being authentic and natural to who you are, as well as open-minded to learn from those around you is very important.

How do you suggest people choose where to apply and, if accepted, where to attend among multiple acceptances? [6:04]

This is an interesting question in light of something you and I have been talking about online, which is law schools not using rankings anymore. I think a common answer here might be that a lot of people look to the rankings first to figure out where to apply. Something I’ve always said is that rankings, or anything else, need to go much deeper than that. One of the things that I think COVID brought forward for candidates is the many ways to engage with schools now. They used to wait for an admissions officer to come to their country or location, and they’d only come once, and this was the one chance to interact with a school. Maybe there were a few virtual events, but students were really relying on a website.

Now, there are so many virtual office hours, engagement opportunities, and on-demand content that are really prescriptive about what the experience is going to be like. I know at Michigan Ross, we had over 300 student ambassadors, and you could filter by their background, their interests, and where they were from. I always told people that if, at minimum, they just read the student ambassador bios on our site, they were going to get a really good idea of who’s in that program and the people they’d be learning with.

To hear firsthand about that directly from the people that are part of that community is invaluable and certainly goes well beyond the rankings. You’ll find the school if you’re listening for the right things. I would tell you as you’re taking notes, if you created a spreadsheet, the things that are important to me and I’d recommend you to write down are who you talked to and how you felt after. Not just what you heard from them, but did you enjoy that conversation? Would you want to speak to somebody else at that school? I think a lot of times if you talk to the one person at any given school that’s very much like you, you’re probably going to hear what you would expect to hear. But it’s in that second or third or fourth conversation with somebody else that might have different interests that you get some perspective. Are you hearing some similar themes with the way that the students react to the program? I think it’s in that voice that you’re hearing about the experience they’re articulating that you start to understand your own fit.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-free-discovery-call”]

I’m not defending the rankings here, but I’ve always viewed them as stores of data. In that sense, they served a function and they were valuable. But as rankings, I think they were named for sales purposes and marketing purposes, and they worked in that sense. But they were terribly misnamed. [9:23]

Very misnamed. They started at a time when people had much more limited access to data and information. You’re right, the number of students I find who don’t spend time thinking about what the rankings measure and compare them against their own value set. If you take a look at the US News, it’s 25% of admissions data. What does that really mean? It means GMAT, GPA, and a little bit on selectivity, how many people you’re selecting in with the number that have applied. That’s it. Otherwise, it’s what other deans think about your school and what recruiters think of your students. It’s not about job satisfaction, but what job did you get? Did you get it in a timely manner? And how much money are you making as a result? 

If you care about the diversity of people in the classroom around you, that ranking doesn’t really measure that. There are so many pieces that people prioritize that are just not considered in the ranking. 

What’s the most common mistake that you think applicants make in the process? [11:08]

I think a lot of people think there’s a right answer for a school’s essay questions, and they Google it. They’ll search, “What is the right answer to school X’s essay questions?” and they use this external perspective to help inform their story. Now, it’s one thing to use this perspective to guide generally around themes, but if you do that and your own personal self-reflection is absent, the essays come across very generically. It comes across as “I’m writing what I think they want to hear” versus “I’m writing what I’m truly passionate about.” 

I would say, whether an essay question asks you this or not, and probably most do not, I would answer the question for yourself of what you’re passionate about and why. I don’t think we give ourselves enough opportunity to have that exploration. What makes your heart race and makes you so excited to want to do it? What does that look like for you? I think if you hone in on these things, they’ll really come across in your essays.

There are more similarities than there are differences in post-MBA jobs. There’s a reason that a variety of industries recruit from the same type of program. I think if you understand what you’re driven by, that’s going to still be there. Once you get your MBA, you’re just going to get this toolkit around you that’s going to allow you to direct those interests and passions in a way that’s going to be most beneficial to you and to the company. I think people are surprised to realize that what the tech industry is looking for, what the consulting industry is looking for, and what they’re looking for in brand management are more similar than different. That last 20% to 30% that makes those roles different can be a material difference for you if you are self-aware of how you want to apply your skill set and the kind of environment or roles that might benefit from that.

How do you recommend students maximize their MBA experience and investment with employability in mind? [13:39]

Every job that I’ve had post-MBA, I have gotten because of my network. Largely because of my MBA network. At Vail Resorts, I am working for two alums whom I love, who have done very well at Vail and who have painted this picture of what could be there. It wasn’t just the relationship that got me in the door, but it was their confidence and the way that they were articulating what the company has meant to them and how they have grown personally and professionally.

It helps that I had that conversation with somebody who knows me as well. It wasn’t just the network that opened the door, it was the further conversations that we had that allowed me to better understand my fit with the company and what that could look like going forward. That’s why I say when you talk to student ambassadors or alumni, you are really investing in a network for life. Not all networks are created equally. There’s a good bit of similarity between the top MBA programs and their networks, but there are some differences too. I think that’s up to candidates to explore through the set of conversations during the admissions process.

It sounds to me like you not only had a network, you had relationships. [15:18]

You got it. That’s an important distinction. I’m glad you said that because you’re right, people think of networking as self-serving. Nobody’s going to remember you if you’re just a number. They’re not going to pick up the phone quite as easily as they would if they had a real connection with you.

I saw in Poets&Quants this week, John Byrne published an article that argues the decline in MBA applications over the last couple of years is not a cyclical downturn due to the type of job market but really a reset due to the increasing cost of the MBA. What’s your take? [15:50]

That’s a good question. I will say COVID was such a weird timeframe for schools with this huge fluctuation in applications. I think candidates were trying to figure out their stability and what was happening next. As we see these tech layoffs now, I think there’s a new wave of what’s next. I will say that I’m hopeful. I think this is a boost in the need for innovation in the MBA program. I don’t think it’s a move away from the MBA program. I’m hoping it’s a bit of a call to action for schools to continue to innovate and grow and build with the market to get candidates what they need. I think in this new environment where candidates are expecting and craving more flexibility and more specialization and customization to the needs that they have, the schools are well prepared, especially with the academic customizations and things that you can do through an MBA program.

I think the next question for MBA programs, especially for a two-year residential program, is going to be whether or not it needs to be two full years. How many months are needed with your cohort to be able to build the relationships that you need to sustain your career? I will say after two years, you have very, very deep relationships. As the world has evolved, people want to get to the job market a little bit sooner. They want to be able to make money. Is there a hybrid experience that still allows you to engage with your cohort at some point? Maybe it’s just the final semester or some period of your second year that gives candidates that flexibility to be able to get the cohort experience, get the education that they need, but also start to try out these skills maybe a little sooner so that they can continue to build and grow those skills.

You can see it in the second year that folks will say, “I have a job lined up in 10 months, but I could be making some money now to help to offset some of these costs.” What does that look like? I’ll tell you, at Michigan Ross, there’s a strong focus on experiential learning. There are a lot of opportunities for students to take on very experiential opportunities. I presume that that has started to move more towards some paid opportunities that students are doing complimentary to their MBA experience.

When you’re hiring for management positions at Vail Resorts, what are you looking for? [19:06]

In my role at Vail, I work on the talent acquisition strategy or the things that make talent acquisition go. When I’m doing international recruiting, it’s actually mostly students. It’s more similar than it is different to the work that I did at Ross. Having said that, I see some similarities, especially as you look for executives. As I talk to friends in other industry spaces, there’s this notion that somebody needs to be able to come in and be resilient and adaptable because everybody can say, “Okay, I’ve developed a set of hard skills, and I can run these reports and do these spreadsheets and manage these technical skills,” but I think businesses are changing so fast. Vail acquired a ton of resorts in the last 10 or 15 years. They went from a handful of resorts to 40+ resorts.

It’s not just the tech industry where you see this evolution of what the new business looks like. It’s other industries that maybe didn’t have as much change in the past that could be accelerating that change. A lot of businesses are looking for you to be adaptable to that. I think change is uncomfortable and a little scary for folks but I think the MBA is a great playground, if you will, for change. It’s a great space to try new things and adapt and flex those skills such that you can demonstrate them to employers. That’s probably what’s going to differentiate these laid-off tech workers. A lot of them have a technical skill set. Probably some are a little better than others, but let’s say most of them are more similar than they are different. What’s going to differentiate them? It might be their relationships or their ability to demonstrate that they can pivot and adapt to change.

How can career changers enhance their chances of making the pivot they hope to make even before they’re accepted to school? Maybe I’m computer programming and I want to go into general management and want to apply to an MBA program in the fall. What steps can I take now that will help me make that change? [21:55]

We’re in November, so candidates might be applying now for next September. You mentioned that maybe they have some interest in general management or brand management or whatever the case is. There’s an inkling that they have developed, whether it’s through their own professional experience or otherwise, from hearing more about these other professions about what that future could look like. They’re starting to visualize themselves in that future. They’re starting to put together a career goal essay. They’re already thinking about that right now. I think there are so many ways to learn about what that future could look like. I know that Ross, over the course of the last month, just did a bunch of webinars, a full hour on why Ross for healthcare, why Ross for marketing, and why Ross for data and analytics.

Not only are you going to learn how that school is going to help prepare you to get into that field, but you’re also going to hear directly from people about what they did during their internships and why they chose the companies they did. That’s one small piece of a lot of this knowledge that’s out there about what these career paths really look like. 

If you apply next fall, you’re literally only 12-14 months from doing your internship interview. I think people don’t realize that that starts in maybe December or January of your first year. You are a year away from needing to demonstrate a set of skills to a future employer. I think if you have some clarity around those skills and some space within your current job, this is the time to seek out a stretch project or experience that’s going to allow you to acquire a specific resume bullet or, at a minimum, bring more direct, applicable experience into an interview.

What’s a common misconception about the hiring process and talent acquisition? [24:52]

I’m going to build from the first year of that MBA experience because I think for prospective MBA applicants, they don’t realize just how early the recruiting process starts. I don’t know if that’s necessarily a misconception, but just something that maybe there’s not as much awareness on. Just to give some context, a lot of schools over the course of the summer do a substantial amount so that when you hit the ground on day one of school, you probably have already had a lot of prep and focus on what your career path is intended to be. I think people think the MBA is two full years to explore. Do people go on one path on the internship and then change for their full-time job? Maybe. But I think it surprises people how fast that process happens.

Once you get into the networking period, which could be happening over the course of several months, and even into the interviews, the misconceptions that I see around the actual job process or experience is that people feel they have to be a certain way. Especially with consulting, companies looking for client-ready candidates. If you are only telling them about your data and analytics skills and not about your ability to build a team or relationships or develop a relationship with a client, they’re not going to pick you. 

I think a misconception is just honing in on what they believe to be a particular skill. They do value that skill, but they value well-roundedness too. You have to make sure that you’re pulling in those stories to show the other parts of who you are. I will say if you went to engineering school and you are an engineer or have been in a technical role, you must, in the admissions process for in the networking and interview process for recruiting, demonstrate something other than your engineering skills and technical background. Show the ability for small talk. 

You and I see this is different for international students too. It is really culturally different when international candidates from different parts of the world come, and they realize that the first five minutes of the conversation might be about the Michigan football game or about something that’s happening in the world or a variety of things that have nothing to do with the job. That takes practice. Again, it’s hard for Americans too, but in particular, there are nuances for international candidates. The schools work very closely to try to make sure that those cultural nuances translate and that the candidates are ready.

Do you think the withdrawal of Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley Law from the US News rankings are going to spill into business school? [28:19]

I do and I’ll tell you some of the other trends that we saw that maybe took business school a little bit longer to catch onto. You saw test waivers happening earlier than the MBA programs were bringing those forward. It was for equity reasons, and they did it across campus. I think there’s something to be said if an action is taking place on your campus. It raises the awareness of the deans around you. You can bet that the deans of Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley Law schools talk to the deans of the business schools there. They do. They get together from time to time. It’s just the nature of how deans stay connected, interacted, and engaged. I am confident that the conversation will continue to evolve. 

When the MBA programs or business schools decide to pull out, I think is an interesting point. If you’re a Yale or a Harvard, that’s a little bit different than the school that’s ranked number 27, deciding to do the same thing first. The domino effect, when it starts at the top, can sometimes move a little bit faster. I’ll be intrigued to see what happens here in the coming weeks.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Selectivity-Index-MBA–Button”]

I think the same question could be asked about test waivers. [29:35]

When we started our test waiver at Michigan Ross, the top schools didn’t do it. It was a lot of discussion about what it would mean for the school. How do we maintain quality? What does it look like? What measures are we looking at for success? We also did it at a point at which people were saying, “I cannot get to a test center to be able to take the test.” Or, “I live in an environment that’s not great for me to have four dedicated hours to be able to take this test and perform my best.” When we heard that, we made adjustments based on the candidates’ situation. I’ll be honest, we made those adjustments thinking, “Well, we’re going to try this right now.” It was situational in the moment. We gathered data along the way and we now have data that says people that have the test waiver did well in the classroom. People that have the test waiver are still getting good job outcomes. 

At Michigan Ross, it’s still only like 80% have the test and 20% do not. There are a number of candidates who choose to take the test as an added demonstration of their candidacy or maybe build up a deficiency they feel they have. It is still the case that a lot of people are taking tests. It’s probably because a lot of schools still require the test. They’re applying to schools where they need a test, but even as we move into this post-COVID world, Michigan Ross has continued their test waiver. We’ll see if that continues. But it’s in a new environment, and I think the fact that we saw some demonstrated success from it. There are other measures that we can take a look at to be able to determine both candidacy as well as scholarship.

How can someone get a job at Vail Resorts? [31:59]

That’s a good question. There are so many jobs, Linda. This is one of those environments where I get a chance to work with people who run the mountains. They run lift operations or the tickets or the rental business or all these things. It’s fascinating to me just because there’s such amazing diversity of talent in the work that we are all doing collectively to make this a great place. One of the things that drew me to Vail was that we’re looking to create an experience of a lifetime for our customers and for our employees. For me, what I see is a drive and a passion for the people around me, whether it’s doing great work for the guests or whether it is how we support our employees.

You can imagine, during ski season, how many guests we’re getting and all the things that are happening. But we’re also thinking about how we can support employees’ growth and success. If you’re looking to work for Vail, it comes back to this drive to both bring the experience of a lifetime to our guests and an experience of a lifetime to our employees. If that motivates you, I think that that passion comes through, and you can figure out the opportunities within that will ultimately lead towards similar objectives.

Is there anything you would’ve liked me to ask you? [33:28]

I don’t want people to be worried that the MBA is going away. I say that meaning people have to make their own assumptions and things about that. But I look at it as such a transformational experience. Like his experience of a lifetime for our employees and guests, that’s what the MBA is too. It’s an experience of a lifetime for students. I know that we hit on a theme of whether or not the MBA is still valuable. The MBA is what you make it. I think that when you go into that experience, if you’re mindful of what you want to get out of that experience and have a focus, it can be life-changing and truly transformational. I would say the question that I wish you would’ve asked is what else candidates should know about this great experience. Beyond the classes, MBA students are having incredible experiences, like going to a wedding in India with 50 of their classmates because one of their classmates is getting married. How often have you done that in your professional life, right? There are just going to be experiences that come up that you really can’t replicate outside of this very intensive, focused environment with so many great people around you. I hope you consider applying and I hope you consider applying to Michigan Ross.

Related links:

• Michigan Ross MBA Essay Tips and Deadline
• MBA ROI Calculator
• Accepted’s MBA Admissions Consulting Services

Related shows:

• University of Michigan’s Ross MBA Program: Everything You Need to Know
• How an MBA Can Help Entrepreneurs
• How to Get Accepted to UNC Kenan-Flagler Full-Time MBA Program
• The Questions You SHOULD Be Asking – ANSWERED!

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]   [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

Podcast Feed

The post How Can You Prepare for Your Post-MBA Career Before You’re Accepted [Episode 501] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

U.S. STEM MBA Programs: An Overview

STEM certification programs have proven application bonanzas for top business schools. STEM certification may have begun pre-pandemic as a way to alleviate uncertainty in the visa process, but the programs have proven to be a robust inducement for MBA applicants, particularly from foreign countries. According to Poets & Quants, “At Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, the move to designate its entire MBA program STEM in early 2021 paid dividends this year. . . Its applications rose by an incredible 21%, an increase of 450 to 2,555, even though Cornell presumably felt the same domestic squeeze as its peer schools.”

[List of top STEM OPT U.S. Business Schools >>]

Cornell’s new MBA class has students from 43 countries, a dramatic rise from 30 countries from 2021. Cornell is receiving roughly double the number of international applications as domestic applications. Poets & Quants also reported strong upticks in foreign student enrollment among 27 B-schools surveyed: “In the top 10, the average gain was 10.2 percentage points, or 36.6%, with Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business the biggest by points — 18, or 72%, to 43% — and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania the biggest by percentage: 84.2%, or 16 points, to 35%.

“Across all 27 schools, the average gain from 2020 to 2022 was 14.6 percentage points, or 69%. The biggest gain was at CMU Tepper, which doubled its total from 28% to 56%; notably, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School gained 23.5 points, or more than 200%, to 35%. Three other B-schools more than doubled their international ranks in two years.”

Are you an international MBA applicant? We’ve helped hundreds of applicants get accepted to top MBA programs! CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT HOW WE CAN HELP YOU GET ACCEPTED >>

The GMAC’s survey from 2019 was the first to inquire about a program’s STEM-certification, and found that these programs were more likely to report growth in international applicants. A total of 195 of the 804 U.S. programs responding reported that their programs were STEM-certified (24%). Among them, the most common program types were Master of Data Analytics (28%); Master of Finance (22%); and Master of Information Technology (14%). And while a majority of both STEM-certified (53%) and non-STEM (57%) programs reported declines in total applications during this period, STEM-certified programs fared better among international applicants. In the 2019-2020 academic year, 43% of STEM-certified programs grew their international applications, compared with 26% of non-STEM programs.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-selectivity-index-avg-GMAT”]

Given ongoing concerns over visa status and one’s ability to work in the U.S. after business school, programs that are STEM-certified are sure to be more appealing to this applicant pool.

While some MBA programs – such as Chicago Booth, Wharton, Virginia Darden – now offer specific concentrations that qualify international students for STEM OPT, others – such as Berkeley Haas, Carnegie Mellon Tepper, and Rochester Simon – qualify MBA graduates of all majors in their MBA programs for this extension.

During 2021, MBA programs have seen a rebound in international applicants, and many schools (NYU Stern, Darden, and Yale) are touting this return. Still, they are maintaining their STEM certifications because it will pave the way for their graduates to get jobs and stay in the U.S. long enough to pay off or pay down their loans. Despite its cost, the MBA degree continues to pay robust dividends right off the bat. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article: “At about 98% of universities that offer master’s of business administration programs, graduates typically made more money two years out of school than they had borrowed, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal student loan data for nearly 600 programs found.”

STEM MBA Programs

Name of MBA Program	Majors That Are STEM Designated	MBA Essay Tips
Arizona State Carey	All MBA Platforms	Tips
Babson MBA	1) Business Analytics and Machine Learning 2) Quantitative Finance	Tips
Berkeley Haas	All Majors	Tips
Brigham Young Marriott	Management Science and Quantitative Methods	Tips
Carnegie Mellon	All Majors	Tips
Chicago Booth	All MBA programs	Tips
Columbia Business School	MBA and EMBA programs	Tips
Cornell Johnson	1) Two-Year Management Science MBA 2) One-Year Management Science MBA 3) Tech MBA 4) MPS in Management 5) MPS in Management - Accounting Specialization	Tips
Dartmouth Tuck	STEM track	Tips
Duke Fuqua	Second Major in Management Science and Technology Management (MSTeM)	Tips
Georgetown McDonough	Management Science major	Tips
Harvard Business School	Management Science track	Tips
Indiana Kelley	Accounting, Business Analytics, Finance, Marketing or Supply Chain and Operations	Tips
Lehigh University College of Business	Business Analytics (a concentration within 1-MBA)	Tips
Michigan Ross	STEM track	Tips
MIT Sloan	MBAn	Tips
New York University	Tech MBA Two-year full-time MBA	Tips
Northwestern Kellogg	Management Science MMM Program for Dual Engineering/MBA Degrees	Tips
Notre Dame Mendoza	MBA/Master of Science in Business Analytics Dual Degree	Tips
Pace University	MBA in Information Systems	Tips
Purdue Krannert	MBA-STEM	Tips
Rice Jones	All MBA Programs	Tips
Rochester Simon	All Specializations	Tips
Rutgers	STEM designation	Tips
Stanford GSB	1) All MBA majors 2) MSx	Tips
Syracuse	FT MBA, M.S. in Business Analytics, MS in Finance, MS in Marketing and MS in Supply Chain Management	Tips
Texas McCombs	14 of the 22 concentrations for the full-time MBA program	Tips
University of California, Davis	All Majors	Tips
University of California, Irvine	Analytics in Digital Leadership concentration	Tips
University of California, Los Angeles	All Specializations	Tips
University of California, Riverside	All MBA Programs	Tips
University of California, San Diego	1) Full-time MBA 2) FlexEvening 3) FlexWeekend	Tips
University of California San Francisco	1) Financial Analysis, MS 2) Information Systems, MS 3) Full-Time MBA 4) Marketing Intelligence, MS 5) Energy Systems Management & MBA 6) Environmental Management & MBA (4+1), BS/MBA 7) Financial Analysis & MBA (4+1), BSBA/MS	Tips
University of Connecticut	1) Business Analytics 2) Digital Marketing Strategy 3) Financial Analysis and Investments	Tips
University of Delaware Lerner	Major in Business Analytics	Tips
University of Georgia Terry	Only open to U. of Georgia undergraduates; includes 45 majors	Tips
University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler	All MBA Programs	Tips
University of North Texas Ryan	MBA in Business Analytics	Tips
University of Washington Foster	Management Science	Tips
University of Wisconsin - Madison	1) Specialization in Operations and Technology Management 2) Supply Chain Management	Tips
USC Marshall	Specialization in Management Science	Tips
Vanderbilt Owen	Finance Concentration	Tips
Wharton	1) Business Analytics 2) Business, Economics & Public Policy (BEPP) 3) Business, Energy, Environment & Sustainability (BEES) 4) Operations, Information & Decisions (OID) 5) Quantitative Finance 6) Statistics	Tips
Washington University in St. Louis (Olin)	Full-time MBA	Tips

We’re going to do our best to keep this table current. However, please do not rely on this table; confirm the STEM designation yourself to make sure that the MBA programs you apply to really have that designation. And if you find out a school has attained STEM certification and is not on the list, please let us know by emailing blog@accepted.com.

If you would like to learn how to get into top MBA programs that offer STEM OPT eligibility and are a good fit for you, register for a free consultation with me. 

At Accepted, we’ve helped hundreds of applicants get accepted to top MBA programs and look forward to helping you too! CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—WBR—Get-Accepted-to-Harvard”]

By Jennifer Bloom, admissions consultant at Accepted for 20 years and 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 application, Jennifer can suggest a number of options that work with any budget. Want Jennifer to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• STEM Applicants: Why Your Statement of Purpose is So Important
• Top MBA Application Essays: How to Answer Them Right (school-specific essay tips)
• The Questions You SHOULD Be Asking – ANSWERED!, a podcast episode

The post Top STEM MBA Programs: A Comprehensive STEM-OPT Eligible List appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Distance learning and unstable market conditions due to the Covid pandemic have not hurt the fortunes of MBA grads from top programs. The 2022 employment reports released in recent weeks from top schools, including NYU Stern School of Business, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business, MIT Sloan, Harvard, and other peer programs have all announced record-breaking starting salaries for grads. 

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

NYU Stern MBA Salaries Soar

Median base salaries for NYU Stern were $170,000–the highest ever–up $15,000 from the previous year. Median signing bonuses of $35,000 were on par with 2021, and average total compensation rose by $14,340 to an unprecedented $196,143. 

Within three months of graduation, 94.1 percent of Stern graduates had accepted job offers; 86.6% had accepted job offers by graduation. Top hiring industries remained consistent: consulting (31.2 percent), investment banking (27.2 percent) and tech (17.0 percent). 

Brian Ruggiero, Associate Dean of Career Services, boasted that the Class of 2022, which had begun their MBA studies during the pandemic, “adapted quickly to the resulting paradigm shifts. The demand for these skills is clear,” he said, pointing to the high acceptance rates for jobs three months after graduation being on par with pre-pandemic levels, as well as the highest compensation on record. Early data for the Class of 2023 also show “strong demand for Stern talent,” he added, evidenced by a 100% success rate among seekers of internships. 

Michigan Ross MBA Class of 2022 Almost at 100% Employment

Similarly, University of Michigan Ross School of Business reported that an eye-popping 99% percent of their 2022 grads were offered jobs within three months of graduation, landing median salaries of $165,000 and a $192,270 median salary package. Both salary figures reflect a $21,000 increase over the previous year.

The B-School Selectivity Index:
Are You Competitive at Your Dream School? >>

UC Berkeley Haas, Dartmouth Tuck, and Georgetown McDonough Report Great Employment Outcomes

On the West Coast, the 2022 class at UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business had a 93.8% job offer rate, up 4% from the prior year, returning that figure to among the highest of the pre-pandemic years. The median base salary for Haas MBAs was $155,000, up by 3.7% from the previous year.

Dartmouth Tuck’s employment data released November 22 for the Class of 2022 showed that 98% of Tuck grads had job offers within three months of graduation, with median base salaries rising by 16.7% to $175,000 from $150,000 in 2021. Ninety-three percent of grads received a median signing bonus of $30,000, bumping median total compensation to $202,900, up more than 15% from last year.

Georgetown MBAs enjoyed average base salaries of $138,552, up from $126,107 last year, and an average signing bonus of $36,342. A statement from their website noted that “96% of students received a job offer within three months of graduation and 95% accepted their offers – tying last year’s placement records as the highest levels ever achieved by Full-time MBA graduates. The record-setting average salary marks a 10% increase from 2021, with bonuses increasing by 6%. 

“The outcomes presented in this report are a testament to the extraordinary talent in the Class of 2022,” said Christy Murray, associate dean and managing director of career services at Georgetown McDonough. “These students began their MBA journey amid ongoing disruptions and uncertainty from the global pandemic, yet through their hard work, perseverance, and commitment to excellence, they were well positioned to secure impactful roles in business across a wide range of industries and sectors.” 

Wharton MBAs pocketed their highest-ever median base salary of $175,000, a jump of 12.9 %. Salaries had been flat at $150,000 in 2019 and 2020, rising only to $155,000 in 2021. Within three months of graduation, 98.7% of Wharton’s MBAs seeking jobs received offers. Wharton’s 20222 employment report, released November 17, also revealed that more grads than ever found jobs in tech, despite the current flurry of layoffs and hiring freezes at tech giants Meta, Amazon, and Twitter. 

However, an article in Poets&Quants cautioned that Wharton’s impressive results in landing tech jobs may be a bit of an outlier: 

“. . . techies should be wary of seeing Wharton’s success in tech as a sign of rebound. While the raw number of Wharton MBAs finding jobs in tech is higher than ever, the percentage of the class in the industry is down slightly, as the number of job-seeking graduates in 2022 (633) is 8.2% more than in 2021 (585) as a result of Wharton enrolling larger classes at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Moreover, Whartonites’ success in landing tech gigs runs counter to many of their peer schools, where tech hiring is down — and in some cases down big — and likely points to a very different tech landscape graduates faced this summer as they rounded out their offers.”

Other MBA 2022 Jobs and Salary Stats

The following data is from Poets&Quants and underscores that whatever hardships and uncertainties students experienced while applying and earning MBAs during such a volatile period, their investments are paying off handsomely now.

• Harvard Business School grads saw a 16.3% year-to-year increase in median salary to $175,000 and median performance bonuses increase to $40,000 powered a leap in total median compensation to $223,100, a one-year jump of 17.5%.
  
  
• Virginia Darden School of Business MBAs made a median $175,000, up 21% from the Class of 2021;
  
  
• At MIT Sloan School of Management, average base salary increased 7.6% from the previous year, to $159,391, and median base salary grew 10% to $165,000; total median compensation was $204,700, up 4.7% from $195,600 last year;
  
  
• At Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, median salary for the class jumped $15,000, to $165,000, and is up 18% since the last pre-pandemic graduating class in 2019; bonuses stayed at a median $30,000, and with 87% receiving them, median total pay came out to $191,100, up 8.7% from $175,800 last year.

Soaring MBA Salaries’ Significance for Applicants

These stats reflect several factors: 

1. The enduring value of the full-time two-year MBA degree from top MBA programs.
   
   
2. Inflation, which increases salaries and will allow most of those who borrowed their tuition to pay off their debt with cheaper dollars.
   
   
3. A tight labor market in which businesses – even if we are in a recession – are willing to pay for top talent.

Many of the 2022 MBA grads applied to business school in winter and spring 2020 at the height of COVID lock-downs, social isolation, and distance learning. Unemployment hit 14.8% in April, 2020 and remained above pre-COVID levels until Fall 2021. These grads looked at the dismal events of the time, swallowed hard, and concluded that the environment is paving the way for them to obtain their MBA. As you consider whether to apply at a time of rising layoffs, possible recession, and general instability, consider the payoff that these grads have experienced by taking the plunge when they did.

Are you considering an MBA to maximize your earning potential? The stats show that the investment is worth it, but it takes an outstanding application to impress the elite schools. Our experienced MBA admissions consultants work with you one-on-one, throughout the process, to help you get ACCEPTED!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

For 25 years, Accepted has helped business school applicants gain acceptance to top programs. Our outstanding team of MBA admissions consultants features former business school admissions directors and professional writers who have guided our clients to admission at top MBA, EMBA, and other graduate business programs worldwide including Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Booth, INSEAD, London Business School, and many more. Want an MBA admissions expert to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related resources:

• Starting Salaries for MBA Grads Climbing
• M7 MBA Programs: Everything You Need to Know in 2022
• Is an MBA Worth It, or Is the Sky Falling Down on the MBA Degree?, a podcast episode

The post Class of 2022 MBAs Earn Bullish Starting Salaries appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Taken together, the two mandatory Ross EMBA essays provide both a macro forest-level (essay 2, goals) and close-up, tree-level (professional achievement) view of your career. Each question gives a specific lens through which to focus your approach and shape your answer. Thus, while you address the two questions’ points and nuances, keep in mind the larger picture of your career and your character that they portray together. Also, since question 2 refers specifically to the Michigan Model of Leadership, ensure that the story you present in essay 1 is consistent with the model’s underlying values and character.

Michigan Ross Executive MBA application essays

Ross EMBA essay #1

What is your proudest professional achievement? (maximum 400 words)

Although this essay asks you to discuss your proudest professional achievement, it also, indirectly, is personal, because what is important to you in any area of your life reflects your values, your concerns, your interests, your passions. Accordingly, even though the question doesn’t ask it, I suggest clarifying WHY the chosen achievement is your proudest. It might just be a phrase or sentence, but “why” is what will ultimately make it resonate.

Select a more recent achievement, if there is one that can rise to the superlative (proudest) level, as it’s a chance to show the reader your impact in a higher-level context that you’ll also be bringing to the “EMBA table.” If it’s an older experience, it should be truly pivotal, and perhaps add a sentence about how the experience has influenced you going forward. With only 400 words, keep the structure simple – start with the story and tell it directly, with perhaps a brief concluding reflection.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”EMBA-free-consultation”]

Ross EMBA essay #2

Adopted by thousands of businesses and leaders around the world, and recognized by the Financial Times as one of the 40 most important management frameworks in history, the Michigan Model of Leadership underlies all leadership research and teaching at Michigan Ross. Please describe your personal leadership goals and how the Michigan Model of Leadership and the EMBA leadership development curriculum will help in the achievement of those goals. (maximum 400 words)

First, to state the obvious, familiarize yourself with the Michigan Model of Leadership (MMoL). To encapsulate, I quote from an article on MMoL by Ross professors and others: “At the centre of the MMoL is a core purpose: to make a positive difference in the world” and “The Michigan Model of Leadership enables leaders to recognise and effectively manage competing tensions in organisational life. Leaders who utilise the process of Mindful Engagement learn to balance these tensions and make an impact in a world where there are no easy answers. We need leaders with empathy, drive, integrity, and courage … whose core purpose is to make a positive difference in the lives of others.”

With that as a context, discuss your goals, spotlighting the leadership component. That means what you will do in terms of position, industry/company, AND how your envisioned impact aligns with the MMoL AND how in the specific positions you will employ leadership consistent with MMoL. Give more detail about the roles immediately post-EMBA and the several years following. Longer-term goals need less detail, but they should present a clear direction, building on the earlier roles. In both short- and long-term goals, present them through the MMoL lens – i.e., discuss things such as the difference you want to make, the likely tensions and conflicts that you’ll face, the ambiguity you’ll have to navigate, and how you intend to employ MMoL-based leadership in managing these factors.

In discussing how the MMoL approach and Ross’s leadership development curriculum will benefit you, again be specific: describe where you are as a leader and where you need to improve, and how the program meets those needs.

Ross EMBA essay #3 (optional statement)

This section should only be used to convey information not addressed elsewhere in your application, for example, completion of supplemental coursework, employment gaps, academic issues, etc. Feel free to use bullet points where appropriate.

This is your opportunity to fill in any information gaps, clarify any issues for context, and explain specific relevant points (e.g., why you aren’t using a supervisor for a recommendation) that are necessary for an accurate  understanding of your candidacy. Do not veer from this focus. Be as succinct as possible.

For expert guidance with your Michigan Ross Executive 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 top EMBA programs and look forward to helping you too!

Michigan Ross EMBA 2023 application deadlines

Source: Michigan Ross EMBA website

[xyz-ihs snippet=”EMBA-SR-Top-EMBA-Essay-Tips”]

Related Resources:

• Ace the EMBA, a free guide
• How to Get Accepted to a Top EMBA Program: The Experts Speak
• EMBA: The Ultimate Guide for Applicants

The post University of Michigan Ross Executive MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines [2022 – 2023] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

[powerpress]

What’s new at Michigan Ross? [Show Summary]

Taya Sapp, Senior Associate Director of Admissions, shares all of the latest updates including a new dean, new testing policy, and a new essay question.

Interview with Taya Sapp, Senior Associate Director of Admissions at Michigan Ross School of Business [Show Notes]

Welcome to the 479th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for listening. You’ve seen the stats that most people have a great return on their MBA investment, but what about you? Are you going to see that return? And how much will it be? We’ve created a tool that will help you assess whether the MBA is likely to be a good investment for you individually. Just go to accepted.com/mbaroicalc, complete the brief questionnaire, and you will not only get an assessment but also the opportunity to calculate different scenarios. And it’s all free. 

It gives me great pleasure to have on Admissions Straight Talk for the first time Taya Sapp, Senior Associate Director of Admissions at Michigan Ross School of Business. Taya practically bleeds Michigan blue. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in American Culture in 2003 and then worked as an Admissions Counselor at another college for several years before returning to Michigan. She joined the admissions staff at Michigan Ross in 2011, rose through the ranks, and today is the Senior Associate Director of Admissions. 

Could you start with a basic overview of Ross’s full-time MBA program for listeners who may not be that familiar with it, focusing on its more distinctive elements? [2:09]

I think the one thing that we are really known for is learning by doing. I always like to tell people if you learn best by doing, there’s no better place to be than Michigan Ross. I can give a couple of examples of that. The cornerstone is MAP which stands for Multidisciplinary Action Projects. It’s a seven-week consulting project that every single student does at the end of their first year at Ross. This past year we had projects with Blue Origin, a social responsibility project with Amazon, and we also had nonprofit students analyzing data sets to help design fundraising campaigns. There’s a pretty big variety in the projects. It’s a huge differentiator for us because students spend a full seven weeks doing it and then get to do their internship. A lot of times, people think of it as almost two internships. It’s also a great opportunity for travel. We did start sending people internationally again this year, and the nice thing is the sponsor covers all travel expenses.

Can you tell us a little more about what’s new in the Ross MBA program? [3:33]

We have a new Dean starting on August 1st. We are really excited to have her come to Ross and see her vision for leading our community here. There are a few other things I’m excited about. We started something called the Business+Tech initiative this past year which is a hub for everything tech. They launched a tech literacy week, which is basically a bunch of workshops to help people orient themselves to different areas of tech. It covers everything from how a lack of diversity can impact artificial intelligence to boot camps and machine learning and different programs like Python and Blockchain. They’re really helping prepare students for not just the recruiting aspect but also the actual knowledge in tech.

We have seven different student investment funds at Ross, and the newest one just started this year. It’s called the Michigan Clean Venture, and it’s focused on clean tech investments. I think it’s really exciting that our students saw a need for that, and we were able to launch it this past year. 

I’m really excited to see both of those growing.

Is there anything that you think people generally don’t realize about Ross that you’d like them to know or any myths you want to dispel? [5:09]

I think the biggest one is that people have an expectation that when you go to a business school, you’re more likely to end up there post-MBA, and that’s where you get your job. I know that is true for some business schools, but with Ross, that’s really not the case. We have three-quarters of our students going to the East Coast, the West Coast, or Chicago. The East Coast and West Coast alone are about 30% of our students. We like to use the phrase go blue, go anywhere.

Ross requires either the GMAT, the GRE, the MCAT, the LSAT, or a statement of academic readiness. I don’t see the EA in there, is that an accepted test? [5:55]

We don’t accept the EA.

What is a statement of academic readiness? [6:16]

The statement of academic readiness is new for us. As you said, we have done a test waiver the past two years, which was a separate application, and we decided to build it into the admissions application this year so that we can basically review everything that you’re submitting with your application to understand if you’re ready for the academic rigor at Ross. We’ll look at transcripts, the resume, and recommendations as factors for understanding if you’re likely to be successful in the classes. 

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Resume-Power-of-Numbers-List”]

The statement itself is basically a narrative around what those things are in your application that are demonstrating you have strong quantitative skills. You also have the opportunity to upload a professional license or share anything that might not be in your application that would demonstrate that.

Is the focus of the statement of academic readiness mostly on quantitative skills? [7:14]

The focus is mostly on quantitative skills. We have other ways that we’re going to be assessing different skills as well.

What do you look for besides stats as you are evaluating an application? [8:00]

It all boils down to people. Like I said earlier, we have this environment of learning by doing, and we want to find people who are going to thrive in that environment and have qualities that demonstrate they’re comfortable with ambiguity and adaptable. These are things that are important when you’re in environments of learning by doing. It’s not just one or two traits we’re looking for. We want diversity in the class. We want to know that everybody is bringing their own unique qualities. The other side is we want to know who applicants are at 10:00 AM when they’re working, but also at 10:00 PM too. We want to know who they’re going to be in the community and how they’re going to be involved.

How do people present these qualities? [8:50]

The most common way is in essays. Our essays are written to dive into some of those traits. We ask things like, “I was challenged when…”, “I was humbled when…”, “I want people to know that…” And that’s where we get to know who they are, what they care about, what their passions are, when they’ve taken risks, and how they’ve built resilience. Not everybody has to demonstrate the same exact traits, but I think understanding those things that are important to them or that really stand out for them, in particular, helps us.

What are the essay requirements at Ross for this cycle? Can you share the changes that were made in the required essays? [9:33]

We kept some things the same and changed a few things. We have a couple of short answer sections. In the first set, students get to choose between a couple of prompts. You get to write two essays. For the first one, applicants choose from: “I want people to know that…”, “I made a difference when…”, or “I was aware that I was different when…” For the second one, the choices are: “I was out of my comfort zone when…”, “I was humbled when…”, or “I was challenged when…” They get to pick one question from each of those, and that’s the same as it was last year. We love those essays. We really do think they help us understand the traits that stand out about them and how that aligns with some of the values that we have at Ross.

The new one this year is we’re asking people to tell us one thing about their resume. It’s a variety of things that people can choose from, but we just wanted to give them a chance to dive a little bit deeper into something on their resumes. The resume is really important to us. It’s something we spend a lot of time on in the admissions review. Sometimes there’s more of a story that you want to tell beyond what you can fit in a bullet point. I would say, quite often, I’ve read a recommendation where they tell me a whole story about something I saw on the resume and I would’ve liked to hear that from the candidate, too but I recognize they just didn’t have enough space or a place to put that. It’s brand new and we’re excited to see what kinds of things people choose to write about this year.

We also have the career goal essay. It’s basically the same as it was before, but we just split it up this year. We really focus on the short-term career goal in particular. We don’t ask about the long term. Right now, we’re already preparing people for recruiting and just know that recruiting happens really fast, and we know people change their minds but splitting out exactly what your career goal is helps people focus. In some essays, it was getting lost for some people, and we just want to give them a chance to pull it out and say, “This is exactly what it is, and this is the why.”

One of the interesting things about the Ross application is that you don’t ask anywhere, “Why Ross?”. Do you care about why applicants choose Ross or do you just evaluate the suitability of the Ross program given the person’s background and goals? [13:12]

We care about that and we did ask that a long time, but we ended up taking it out. It just felt like people were copying and pasting from the website. It didn’t come across as authentic. We care most about what your goals are at this stage, and then in the interview, we’re going to ask more about why you chose Ross and how you want to be involved. Have you talked to any of our students? What kinds of clubs are you interested in? We give people a chance to do that in the interview when they can be a little bit more authentic about it.

What happens to the application after the applicant hits submit? [14:42]

The main thing that we start with is figuring out if you’re ready academically because that’s easy to tell from everything that you’re submitting on paper before we have the interview. That’s the first step. Obviously, there are a lot of people who have that and might not get the interview invitation too, so we’re looking beyond that. We read all the applications and do an initial review to assess whether their professional background seems to be competitive. 

How many people review the applications? [15:40]

Before the interview, we do it twice. Then once the interview happens, we do another full read and then talk about it in committee.

What do you do if you have a split between decisions in the admissions committee? [16:16]

We talk about it as a team usually. The other thing is we look at them relative to our whole pool.

What can applicants expect if they’re lucky enough to interview? Are you interviewing now on campus, in person, or virtually? [16:34]

We are doing all of our interviews virtually and all will be with alumni. We decided it was just the best way to keep things equitable so we’re going to stick with that this year. The other thing to keep in mind is these aren’t like “gotcha” interviews. We’re genuinely trying to get to know you and your background better. People can always expect to be asked, “Why Ross?”, “Why an MBA?”, and “Why an MBA now?”.

After doing this for 11 years at Ross, what’s a common mistake that you see applicants make in this process? [17:23]

Honestly, one of them is overlooking the importance of the resume. That’s the first thing I look at when I open an application, and it’s the snapshot of your whole professional career. I’ve seen a lot of people kind of assume they’ve already done it and don’t need to worry about it and instead, they focus on the essays. I think it’s important to realize this should not be the same resume that you might have used to apply for your current job because it might include a lot of technical jargon that is only appropriate for your particular career path. I think earlier in our careers, we’re more often thinking about what our responsibilities are and need to be shifting into the impact. I see a lot of resumes where it doesn’t seem like people have stopped and really spent time thinking about how they want to be representing their professional career and what that looks like. 

We asked listeners recently what they would ask admissions directors if they could. We had a wonderful response, and here is the first of some of their questions: What surprises Michigan Ross MBA students the most when they actually start at Michigan Ross? [19:06]

That is an interesting question. It’s ironic because a lot of people choose to come to Ross because of the community, but I can’t tell you how many students say, “I heard it was great, but once I got here, I really experienced it and it was even better than I thought.” People really do share interview questions and help people out, even though you’re recruiting for the same jobs.

We do a lot as a school to help facilitate building community too. We have events like Food, Friends, and Culture, where each month there’s a different cultural club that holds an event that talks about something related to a specific culture or how they grew up and then they share native food.

There’s an event called, Look Who’s Coming to Dinner, where you sign up and you have no idea who else is going to be at your dinner and you just get to meet other people within your section. 

The other thing is being in Ann Arbor. Most people move here and don’t know anybody else in Ann Arbor, whereas, in other larger cities, you may have friends who might be there. Here, you’re really getting to know your classmates and building a strong network. It’s funny because the community is a big reason, something why people choose Ross, but I think a lot of times they don’t realize just how great it is. 

The next listener question is, “What advice do you have for applicants who applied in the 2021-2022 application cycle, but who were denied and want to reapply to Michigan Ross this year?” [20:55]

I just did a webinar on this a couple of weeks ago so this is top of mind for me. We admit re-applicants every year. Quite honestly, a lot of times, it’s more of a function of the pool than the individual applicant. I think it’s sometimes more of an us problem than the applicant’s issue, which doesn’t always feel good.

The other thing I would say if I’m actually giving advice to a re-applicant is to spend time reflecting on how you could strengthen your application or what you could do differently because that is an opportunity to demonstrate that you have self-awareness. Most applicants don’t get to do that so easily and that’s something we really value. When I get to see that, and somebody really nails it, I think that’s an incredible trait to be showing.

What advice would you give to someone thinking ahead to a 2023 application? [22:27]

I like your advice about the resume.

I think the other thing is to really take time to think about why you want to do this. Think about different careers you might want to do and look people up on LinkedIn and see what their paths look like. The one thing I would say is don’t focus so much on the application process. Think about what types of stretch projects you can do at work or how you can be improving your resume. Think about the things that are going to take a longer time to do. What types of projects can you take on at work? What does this look like that might turn into a bullet point for your resume? I think if you are planning that early, you have time to do that. Think about taking on some things that are really going to challenge you that you might be able to write about in an essay or make as a bullet point.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Resume-Power-of-Numbers-List”]

There’s one question I forgot to ask earlier and I’m going to circle back to it. Whom would you recommend writing the statement of academic readiness, and whom would you recommend taking the test? [23:32]

With the statement of academic readiness, I would say, if you do not have strong quantitative skills or a strong way to demonstrate that, you should definitely take the test. That’s how you can demonstrate it if you don’t have that in your background. If you think you can do well on a test, take a test if you have access to it. It’s hard to do well on a test, and that’s one way to stand out in your application. There are a lot of ways, but having a great test score is one way to stand out. If you think you can do well and take it, then by all means do that. But if for some reason you have barriers, and you’re not able to take the test but you have these things that are strong examples that you will do well in the quantitative courses at Ross, then go ahead and do the statement of academic readiness. With the test waiver, we admitted some really great candidates, and we’re looking forward to continuing to do that going forward.

How are the students who were admitted with test waivers doing academically? [25:04]

We’ve obviously been tracking that because we want to make sure we’re setting people up to be successful. They’ve done well academically. This summer we have people doing internships at all the MBB consulting companies. We have a few different people in investment banking roles at the big banks. They’ve been able to be successful in both recruiting and in classes, but that’s because they have quantitative skills. We wouldn’t award the test waiver if we didn’t see that evidence.

Is there anything you would have liked me to ask you that I haven’t asked? [25:47]

We just did our 30th year of MAP so it’s something that has been around a long time and it’s truly incredible. When I ask alumni what they love about Ross, it’s either the community or MAP. It’s a reason a lot of people come to Ross, and it’s something that really stands out. I just want to emphasize how incredible of an experience it is. It is a big differentiator for us.

I’d also encourage all of your listeners to be talking to student ambassadors. We have over 300 student ambassadors on our website and alumni as well. The great thing about MAP is since it’s required, every single person can tell you about their own experience.

Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about the Michigan Ross full-time MBA program? [26:47]

You can go to our website at michiganross.umich.edu.

Related links:

• Michigan Ross School of Business
• Michigan Ross MBA Essay Tips and Deadline
• MBA ROI Calculator
• 38 Ways to Use the Power of Numbers in Your Admissions Resume
• Accepted’s MBA Admissions Consulting Services

Related shows:

• Empowering International Students with the Financing for Grad Ed
• When Should I Plan to Apply to Grad School? NOW!!!
• Transitioning from the Military to an MBA at Stanford GSB
• Applying to Wharton Lauder? Do Your Research!
• Get Accepted to UW’s Foster School of Business

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]   [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—SR—Top-MBA-Essay-Tips”]

Podcast Feed

The post University of Michigan’s Ross MBA Program: Everything You Need to Know [Episode 479] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Chicago Booth and Wharton (University of Pennsylvania) share the #1 spotlight in U.S. News’ Best Business Schools of 2023 rankings, released March 29.

The metrics for the rankings are based on career placement success, student excellence and qualitative assessments by experts. MBA rankings are studied voraciously by applicants, students, and alumni but remain controversial. 

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

Notable changes this year

• Chicago Booth’s rise reflected improvements on several metrics: a class GMAT score up by six points to 730; an acceptance that fell by five points to 22.6%; a higher score by corporate recruiters that now matches Harvard and Wharton; and a spike in average salary and sign-on bonus for last year’s MBA grads of $7,300 to a record $180,144–the second-highest of any business school. (NYU Stern had the highest of all schools at $181,803.) Placement for the Class of 2021 jumped five points three months after graduation, at 96.4%. 
  
  
• Wharton’s acceptance rate dropped by 4.9 percentage points to 18.2% and their average GMAT score rose by one point. Wharton MBAs enjoyed a jump in average salary and signing bonuses by $6,600 to $179,692, the second-highest of all schools behind only Booth. Job placement three months after commencement moved up by 3.3 percentage points to 96.8%.
  
  
• Top-ranked schools continued to jostle for position, with some flagship programs rising and others falling. Stanford’s GSB dropped by three notches, tying with Kellogg (Northwestern) for #3. Harvard and MIT Sloan remain tied at #5–no change from last year. Yale University’s SOM notched its highest ranking ever at #7, with Columbia and Haas (UC Berkeley) nipping at its heels, sharing the #8 ranking. Yale’s rise stemmed from a six-point rise in its average GMAT score to 726; a drop of six percentage points on its acceptance rate to 23.6%; and a dramatic 8.8 percentage improvement on its placement rate three months after graduation to 94.1%.
  
  
• Harvard Business School’s fifth-place showing reflects a surprisingly low employment at graduation of 69.0%, lower than any other Top 10 school. Its placement rate three months after graduation was 92.3%, the second-lowest for a Top 10 program. And the average salary and bonus for Harvard’s MBAs last year was $172,774, lower than seven other U.S. business schools. Harvard lost out on other metrics as well, including a higher admit rate of 12.5%, up from 9.2% last year, and average GMAT and undergrad GPAs that were lower than many other competitors. 
  
  
• Ross (University of Michigan) ascended into the Top 10 from #13, while Tuck (Dartmouth College) dropped to #11. Stern (NYU) and Fuqua (Duke University) share the #12 spot. Many other programs in the top 25 leaped forward, including Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, rising five places to #21 and Mendoza College of Business (Notre Dame) gaining 11 places to rank 25th. 
  
  
• Outside the Top 25, Washington University’s Olin Business School in St. Louis rose seven spots to #29 and the University of South Carolina’s Moore School of Business rose eight positions to place #47.

While U.S. News had dropped standardized test scores from its online MBA ranking earlier this year, it kept the average class GMAT and GRE scores in its formula for the full-time program rankings. 

The rankings were based on a survey of all 493 institutions with master’s-level business programs in the U.S. accredited by AACSB International. A total of 363 survey recipients responded; the final rankings are based on 134 business schools that provided enough data on their full-time MBA programs and had large enough 2021 graduating classes seeking employment for valid comparisons. The rankings also include some programs conferring degrees such as Master of Science in Management and Master of Science in Industrial Administration.

U.S. News 2023 Top 10 Full-Time MBA Programs

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Selectivity-Index-MBA–Button”]

U.S. News 2023 Top 10 Part-Time MBA Programs

Hoping to start business school in 2023 at one of these top-ranked programs? Check out our MBA Admissions Consulting & Editing Services and work one-on-one with an expert consultant to create an application that will get you ACCEPTED!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—SR—Guide-to-selecting-right-one”]

Related Resources:

• Do MBA Rankings Matter?
• Top 10 or Bust: Dispelling 2 MBA Myths
• Is an MBA Worth It, or Is the Sky Falling Down on the MBA Degree?
• Financial Times Ranks Wharton as #1
• M7 MBA Programs: Everything You Need to Know

The post U.S. News MBA Rankings 2023 [Full-Time & Part-Time] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

The Financial Times has released its global rankings of the best MBA programs and has considerably shuffled the deck. Several top-ranked programs fell several notches, while others rose considerably. For the first time since 2011, Wharton has returned to its status as #1 in FT’s list. 

Other programs that made giant strides in the rankings include Columbia Business School (ranked 8th in 2020), and Kellogg (Northwestern), now #5 (11th place in 2020). One reason for such huge fluctuations was that five of the top U.S. programs (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, and Columbia) were not listed at all last year at all, skewing that year’s results. 

Other highly rated programs that suffered serious tumbles in the rankings include London Business School, Tuck (Dartmouth), and UVA Darden. In fact, 69 of the 91 schools ranked fell in the rankings, many of them by double digits.  

Compared with last year, many of these schools’ rankings looked like riders on a roller coaster, with some plunging far below and others rising by as much as 20 points to unprecedented heights. 

As we have cautioned before, it’s vital to keep these rankings in perspective. They are based on many variables that have little or nothing to do with the quality of the curricula per se.

Do you see yourself in one of these top programs? Find out how working one-on-one with one of our Admissions Consultants can help get you ACCEPTED!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—SR—Guide-to-selecting-right-one”]

Related Resources:

• Top 10 or Bust: Dispelling 2 MBA Myths
• Top MBA Programs Get STEM-Certified to Attract Int’l Students
• B-School Selectivity Index: Discover the Schools Where You are a Competitive Applicant

The post Financial Times Ranks Wharton as #1 in 2022 Rankings appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Looking for the best possible admissions advice?

How about admissions advice from the admission committee members themselves?

Linda Abraham, founder of Accepted and host of the Admissions Straight Talk Podcast has a collection of highly enlightening interviews with directors of admissions and adcom members of top business schools!

Listen in as Linda asks her adcom guests pointed and to-the-point questions about the schools, the admissions process, how to get in, and…how to get rejected.

Listen, enjoy, and apply successfully!

For a varied menu of thought-provoking and informative conversations with business leaders, entrepreneurs, MBA students, and more, check out the Admissions Straight Talk Podcast:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]             [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Accepted-Sig-Code—MBA”]

The post From the Mouths of MBA Adcom Members: How to Get Accepted appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

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! 

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Accepted-Sig-Code—MBA”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-SR-Guide-to-Becoming-Competitive-MBA-Applicant”]

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.

An invitation to an MBA interview is an achievement and cause for celebration, but the interview itself can be a daunting prospect – if you are not properly prepared. Make the most of this opportunity by following our tips for a successful interview.

1. Preparation is everything

While you may not have control over the questions you’re asked, you can prepare a set of flexible responses that you can apply to commonly asked questions. You should be able to discuss the following:

1. A walk through your resume (focus on what you accomplished and learned at each job, and why you transitioned to the next position)
   
   
2. The reasons you chose your undergraduate school
   
   
3. An example of an extraordinary achievement in the context of your job
   
   
4. An example of how you influenced stakeholders to bring an idea to fruition
   
   
5. An example of when you led a team to produce quantifiable results
   
   
6. An example of when you failed and what you learned from that failure
   
   
7. Your career goals and future ambitions
   
   
8. The top reasons you want an MBA (make it school specific, explaining why the school is ideal for you, and what unique qualities you would bring to the school)

2. Structure your stories

Frame your answers to tell a story. If you follow a clear structure you can ensure you don’t leave out vital information while simultaneously displaying an organized mind and confident communication. I suggest loosely following the S-O-A-R framework: Situation-Objective-Action-Result. (I also suggest adding one more letter to the acronym: L for “Learned”.)

• SITUATION: Give background and context to the situation such as where you were working, what your role was, and who were the stakeholders involved. Be succinct, yet specific.
  
  
• OBJECTIVE: Describe what your goal was, and any obstacles that complicated the situation.
  
  
• ACTION: Discuss how you proceeded toward your goal, and how you overcame an obstacles.
  
  
• RESULT: Quantify the impact that you had on the situation.
  
  
• LEARNED: Tell the interviewer what you learned about yourself, leadership, or business from the experience.

Your response should take no more than about 2–3 minutes. You don’t want to bore the interviewer with a lot of unnecessary information. Once you’ve got your top stories down, when you’re on the spot you’ll have a reservoir from which to draw that will be easily adaptable to the interviewer’s questions.

3. Practice, Practice, Practice

Practice is the key to successful preparation. Make sure you find at least two people with whom you can sound out your answers. A close friend or family member is often more willing to put in the time but may be less objective when it comes to constructive criticism. An acquaintance, colleague, or teacher can give you good feedback on your first impression or body language without the hindrance of knowing you too well but may be less inclined to be negative than someone who loves you faults and all. Because of this it’s important to find a variety of practice partners to work with. More practice means you are better prepared, and you do want to practice – a lot – however, you don’t want to end up sounding over-rehearsed and unnatural. No memorized, robotic answers allowed!

We recommend setting up a mock interview or interview coaching from an Accepted professional to help you strike the right balance.

4. Stay relevant

Let’s say they ask you what accomplishment you are most proud of. In your heart of hearts, it might have been working two jobs to put yourself through university. Now that is quite an accomplishment. But if it was more than say, three years ago, you need to pull from something more recent. You don’t want the interviewer to think your best days are far behind you.

If it truly was a significant achievement from your past, you can use it. But bring that accomplishment into the present by explaining how it influences your values or interests right now. Show progress from past to present and how you are building on it for the future.

Keep your answers relevant to place as well as time. Customising your examples to show connection to a particular school will help you connect to the adcom on a personal level and show them why you are an ideal candidate for their program. Pick up on any relatable aspects of the course curriculum, school values, or alumni community and showcase them in your answers.

5. Hit the right tone

Remember the adcom is trying to imagine you fitting in with future alumni. You want to communicate your fit in the way you present yourself, including body language, the way you speak, and even what you wear.

This is a conversation between humans so be natural and at ease. Don’t list off your academic results like a machine– all that information is on your transcript. The interview is your chance to show who you are as a human being, not a set of grades or publications. Focus instead on your accomplishments in the real world, collaborating with others, and working as a team.

Don’t be argumentative or object to a line of questioning. Stay friendly, open, and communicative – the sort of person one would want to have a conversation with again in the future. Try to match your interview style to the culture and tone of the school and your chosen course. Some schools are more informal, some more conservative. Researching your school is part of good preparation and can help you decide which is the right program for you. Once you know that you can show the adcom why you are right for them.

6. Roll with it

Some schools like MIT and Harvard grant non-blind interviews. That means the interviewers have full access to your resume, essays, and letters of recommendation, though to what extent they’ve reviewed them is variable. Your interviewer could be an experienced senior member of the admission committee or a new member of the team. Many schools rely on alumni or current students to gauge the compatibility of applicants, and they typically only see your resume. For this reason it is extremely helpful to prepare for different styles of interviews so you can feel comfortable and self assured in each situation. 

Sometimes an interviewer may throw a surprise question into the mix, just to see how you handle pressure. That curve-ball question is a great opportunity for you to prove your worth under fire. Keep calm and draw on that reservoir of prepared examples – the right preparation means you will have something relevant in the bank.

They will also want to know how you deal with problems and failures. Take the time to go over your resume (or have an objective person check it) for any discrepancies, holes in your work history, or problematic areas that the interviewer may pick up on so that you don’t feel blindsided. And if they do ask, embrace it! This is your chance to demonstrate your resilience in the face of obstacles, your ability to learn from mistakes, and your talent in converting adversity to accomplishment.

Be honest – don’t try to fudge things to make yourself look better. You can admit when something went wrong but make sure you show how you grew from the experience and what you were motivated to do as a result.

7. Group interviews

Some business schools, such as Wharton and Ross, require group interviews so they can easily identify the leaders and team-players. This is a framework that merits its own preparation as the dynamics can be more unpredictable. You don’t know what sort of people will make up the group or what task you will be asked to perform. Signing up with an interview prep service is the perfect way to make sure you are ready to think on your feet and deal with a high-pressure situation. How do you show natural leadership qualities without steamrolling the other applicants? Allow space for a team effort without being a pushover or shrinking violet? Can you collaborate easily within a team, making your voice heard but not alienating your teammates? Compete with other alpha candidates without becoming dictatorial? These are all skills that can be developed, practiced, and achieved with the right preparation.

The interview process gives you the scope to express who you really are, to jump off the page of your application and present yourself as a three-dimensional future MBA graduate. A successful interview is within your grasp if you put in the groundwork and take advantage of the fantastic resources available.

Our expert admissions consultants will work with you one-on-one to help you prepare for your interview. Check out our MBA Services Packages, including mock interviews, interview prep, and admission guides and get on the road to being ACCEPTED!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Signature-Code—Michelle”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—Interview-Prep-Services”]

Related Resources:

• Perfect Answers to MBA Interview Questions, a free guide
• 9 Tips for Team Interviews
• Preparing to Answer Your MBA Interview Questions

The post Seven Tips for MBA Interview Prep appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

[powerpress]

Applying to business school during a pandemic [Show summary]

Soojin Kwon (Managing Director, Full-Time MBA Admissions and Program at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business) and Diana Economy, Director of Full-Time MBA Admissions at Ross, answers pressing applicant questions about applying to Ross. They address how the application process has shifted in light of COVID-19 and what accepted students can expect from their MBA experience this fall.

What prospective MBAs should know about applying to Michigan Ross [Show notes]

Are you among the many MBA wannabes who are thinking about applying for an MBA? Are you wondering whether to apply  this cycle or next? We’ve invited Soojin Kwon and Diana Economy to answer the most common applicant questions related to COVID-19 and its impact on MBA admissions, specifically at Michigan Ross. During the podcast, Soojin Kwon provides an excellent framework for evaluating whether you should apply now or not.

Most of us have been confined to our homes for over a month. I first of all want to express my profound hope that all listeners and their loved ones are well. The restrictions and challenges of the coronavirus have wreaked havoc on so many areas of our lives, and this show is devoted to the challenges it has posed in the MBA admissions world, specifically at Michigan Ross’ top-notch, full-time MBA program.

It gives me great pleasure to have on today’s show Soojin Kwon, Managing Director of the Full-Time MBA Admissions and Program at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, and Diana Economy, Director of Full-Time MBA Admissions at University of Michigan Ross School of Business. Both are returning guests to Admissions Straight Talk and I’m thrilled to have them back. Soojin and Diana, in addition to being highly experienced in MBA admissions, and specifically Ross admissions, are both also highly articulate in this extraordinary time in so many ways. I’ve invited them on so that we can learn how the Michigan Ross program is dealing with the challenges of COVID-19. I’ve also used questions drawn from Accepted’s recent COVID MBA webinar, so my questions in this podcast, even more than usual, are really your questions, applicant questions, in an attempt to help you determine if you should apply for your MBA, and specifically if and when you should apply to the Ross MBA. But even if you’re not applying to Ross, you’re going to find a lot of valuable insight in this episode. 

Other than the health risks and inconveniences that we’re all dealing with, as admissions directors what are your concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on the MBA classes now at Ross and those considering the 2020 and 2021 application cycle? [2:31]

Diana: This has taken up every meeting, every day right now, and we are regularly talking about both our students and our incoming students and doing everything we can to think about their needs and try to prioritize our planning accordingly. We meet regularly with the Dean’s office, whether myself or Soojin, to make sure that we’re in sync with their plans as they navigate and manage for the fall. Our Dean’s office has been great about doing regular town halls for our students. So we have done town halls for our full-time MBA students at least a few times already. We’ve even done town halls for our admitted students and even prospective students because we recognize the importance of communication during these difficult times.

<< Read: How Will COVID-19 Impact Your Admissions Journey: 5 MBA Admissions Experts Speak >>

We’re trying to communicate as much as we can, knowing that there are a lot of answers that are unknown right now, but doing what we can to stay in touch with our constituents. For our current students, one of the big areas that we’re working with them on, of course, is employment, so the internships and full-time opportunities for them. And while at this point, we haven’t seen that many internships or full time offers be rescinded, we are continuing to stay in contact and making sure that they have what they need to be successful this summer. And if something has mitigated their plans, our career office is in touch with our alumni and others to help support our students.

One of the things the career office is doing is a panel of alums from 2008, 2009, and 2010 (which actually is the time that I was in school), using those alums to say, here’s how I navigated things during these times to demonstrate sort of some of the tactics and things they can think about that may apply to them as well.

For prospective students, I think the biggest question is, “Should I apply now or should I apply in the fall?”, right? What’s the situation going to look like? And I’ll let Soojin share a little bit more on that since she also oversees the MBA program and experience, but we recognize it as an unprecedented time in business school, and it still might be one of the best times to apply, given all that the MBA offers.

The reality of the market is that it’s a buyer’s market. There’s a smaller applicant pool, so there’s a strong demand for students. So there’s perhaps never been a better time to apply. In addition, as things potentially trend towards recession, this is a great chance for students to build leadership skills and experiences. We are working, whether school is happening in-person or virtually, to make as many opportunities available for students to stretch themselves and expand their skill set while they’re with us.

Soojin: One of the things that I’ve shared with prospective students is a framework to think about, “Should I apply and come to school or stay at work?” And so I introduced the concept of a two-by-two matrix.

Across the top is: The world is still in stay-at-home regulations, or the world is back to normal of some sort, or we can be in-person again. Those are the two at the top, and then you can either stay at work or you can go to school. 

So let’s say you decide to stay at work and the lockdown is still in place. That’s the left top quadrant. In that scenario, you’re still going to be working remotely, if you’re still able to work as the economy downsizes. There’s a lot of risk to all of our jobs. So that’s kind of a precarious box to be in: staying at work, continued lockdown.

Now, if you stay at work and there is no more lockdown, what happens then is the economy is still going to be sluggish and your opportunities for growth and moving to different jobs are kind of limited, and you’re not developing new skills certainly. So when the world comes out of this COVID crisis and we’ve got a vaccine, 2022/2023, you’ve got no MBA. You’re still doing what you’re doing at best, and your options are limited.

Now, let’s go to the quadrant where you choose to get an MBA and the world is back to normal. So in that quadrant, you’re going to be going to business school, getting an MBA, expanding your opportunities, developing your skills, expanding your network, having a great experience. Even if it’s delayed or partially online, you’re going to end up in 2022 with an MBA that expands your career opportunities like nothing else can.

Now, if you decide to get an MBA and the world is still on lock down this fall, most schools are still planning to deliver their programs. Whether it’s a virtual start or a delayed start, you’re still going to learn. You’re still going to have opportunities for career development, leadership development and the network, and then in 2022, guess what? You have an MBA, and the market’s going to be hungry for talent.

What changes have you made to the admissions process for the 2020 incoming class? [8:33]

Diana: We are of course accepting the at-home test, whether it’s the GMAT, the GRE, the TOEFL test that people can take online. We also recognize those tests are a work in progress. So we are doing our best to be able to accommodate candidates as they start to take those tests in this new frontier. What I will say is we are not going to waive the test. We will accept a test score after a candidate applies, so they can apply without a test score, but we cannot render a decision until we have that test score in-hand. We won’t give them a positive answer if we don’t have a test score.

For international students, we really need international students to have complete applications sooner rather than later. And while we have extended our application deadline to May 29th, we have encouraged international students to apply by May 6th. May tends to be the months by which we stop admitting international students from the waitlist or in general. And even though we’re in this new environment, we believe it’s even more important than it ever has been for us to be able to give international students a decision for them to deposit so that we can begin the I-20 process and that they have every chance of being able to get a visa, as we know that the visa centers are closed right now. Any later, and they risk not getting a spot in line essentially even when they do open up to get their visa in a timely manner.

<< Watch: International MBA Applicants and COVID-19: Risks & Opportunities [Short Video] >>

So we are going to allow for a later test deadline, but we do want internationals in particular to apply with their test to the extent possible. For the American candidates that have a little bit more time, we’ve offered an extension to when they can submit that test. But again, we are planning on starting orientation August 24th, and at this point, we are moving towards an in-person, public health-informed start in the fall. With any transition, time is of the essence, and we recognize people need that time to be able to make those transition plans.

One of the concerns I’ve heard from applicants over and over, especially those planning to take the GMAT, is that the online GMAT (the only one available right now) takes more time, and the scores are going down. Are you taking that into account as you evaluate scores? [10:47]

Diana: That is a good question, and I think one of the elements of this process is we, as an admissions team working with candidates, are very human, right? We very much want to work closely with candidates on that path. We always take a look at much more than the test score anyways to assess academic readiness. So of course we’re taking a look at your undergraduate transcript or taking a look at your professional work experience. There may be elements that help us understand how likely you are to be successful in the classroom. And I’ll be honest with you, Linda, one of the things I tell candidates is that scrappiness matters sometimes, right? The candidate who wants to do well in school, who tries hard, who goes to the office hours, who puts the work in, sometimes you see those students do a lot better than those with a much higher score who don’t put the same amount of effort into being as successful in the classroom. Perseverance, resilience, all of those things matter in the MBA experience and in the classroom.

What is the deadline for submitting the test score? Any chance you’ll further that application deadline for domestic applicants beyond May 29th? [12:09]

Diana: We will accept test scores as late as late July. And again, I don’t recommend that candidates wait that long to submit a test score because we cannot give an admissions decision. But if we get the test score by late July, as I mentioned, we’re starting orientation on August 24th. That still gives a small window for candidates to be able to get the admissions decision and transition to the full-time experience. I do not anticipate that we will extend beyond May 29th. The deeper that we get into the summer, the later that admissions decisions are given, the more difficult it is for our students to have a really successful onboarding experience, and we do a ton with our students over the summer.

And while we’ve always brought people up to speed later, if they’re admitted off the waitlist, let’s say in June or later, it is helpful to have the career preparation over the summer: the quantitative skills workshops and experiences that we have planned, the student life, health and wellness committees and DEI panels and such that we’re already planning for our students. We want our students to have as much opportunity as possible to be as ready as they can be for the full-time experience.

How is Ross going to treat international accepted applicants who cannot get into the country due to visa processing delays? [13:57]

Soojin: If international students are unable to get their visas despite their best efforts or for travel restriction reasons, and if they aren’t able to get to the US, they can choose to start online or get a deferral. For international students who received a scholarship offer this year, we will do our best effort to honor that in the next year. Now, budgets are what they are. We don’t know what our budget will be next year, but we’re going to make every effort to honor those.

We don’t know what percentage of international students will choose to defer. There are a lot of international students who’ve already said, “I’m really excited as long as I can get my visa or even if it’s online, I’m coming.”

Have any members of the class of 2020 had job or internship offers withdrawn? [15:12]

Soojin: We’ve seen just a couple of full-time offers get rescinded. There are a few more for internships. Some of them have been shortened, but some of the ones that are getting shortened are getting guaranteed full-time offers in consulting. I’m hearing this happening. So that’s something that’s brand new. And then Ross is creating some summer action learning experiences, kind of like our math program or Living Business Leadership Experience, LBLE, with companies where our alums are to ensure that students can continue to develop their skills and be ready for full-time recruiting in the fall. And I talked to our career development director just before our podcast, and she said that the good news is that recruiters have been requesting dates to come to campus next year, so they’re still interested in recruiting MBAs. So we’re very hopeful for our incoming and continuing students.

Let’s say an applicant lives in a country where they cannot take the online GMAT or GRE (China is probably the most prominent example), and they would like to apply to Ross. Would Ross consider an application without a test score? [16:08]

Diana: We aren’t going to consider an application without a test score this year. We recognize there have been some changes in the market, so we will take a look again at that as we look at the next application cycle, but I don’t actually anticipate any changes in the test score. What we are reviewing right now is other alternatives to the standardized tests that might also be a substitute, but we’re not certain if that will happen in the coming year. But for consistency with the rest of this application cycle, we aren’t going to admit anybody without a test score. So I realize that in some countries, that may be restrictive for the fall of this year, but we look forward to welcoming the applications of those candidates next year.

If a significant percentage of the academic year ends up being online, are there any discussions at Ross about providing a discount, or a partial or full refund? [17:05]

Soojin: We know that’s on the minds of a lot of students right now. Decisions like that about tuition are made at the university level. We don’t make it at the school level, and they have to be approved by the regents. So it’s something that is on the University of Michigan President’s radar, but no decisions have been made. I’ve not been informed about anything.

If people are nervous about starting school now (not the ones who can’t get to campus, but the ones who can and are nervous to attend due to concerns about getting a job, etc.), can they defer? [17:42]

Soojin: We’re not granting deferrals for people who are not wanting to start online. When we say “online,” it doesn’t mean what a lot of people think online is: recorded lectures that are sent out, asynchronous. That’s not what we’re going to be. Online for us just means remote learning. It’s synchronous. The professor is still going to cold call you. There’s a lot of engagement. There’s a lot of breakout discussions. So it’s going to be very interactive; that’s still going to be delivered. And they’re still going to be getting the career prep. They’re still going to be getting the leadership development, the networking opportunities.

In fact, they’re going to have more networking opportunities, now that the world is used to being virtual, than they ever had before. So many of our alumni have been willing to host webinars or chats with our incoming students that would have had a harder time getting their schedules to accommodate coming to Ann Arbor because they’re really busy or they have kids. This has really opened up a new way of connecting our current and incoming students with the vast alumni base that we have. So they’ll have that.

And then our student clubs. I’m already working very closely with them to deliver a lot of the stuff over the summer online so that students can hit the ground running in the fall, hopefully in person, so they’re aware of what the clubs are, what they plan to do, what they’re going to get out of it, and then be more prepared to make decisions about what to join. That’s often an overwhelming time, actually, when students first come to campus and they’ve got to figure out, well, what do I want to recruit for and what clubs do I want to join and what extracurriculars do I want to do? Because we’re now so used to being virtual, we’re going to deliver a lot more of that over the summer, so they have time to digest and get more full information. I’m really excited for how much more prepared incoming students can be in this format.

At our commencement address today, we had Brad Keywell, Tom Brady, Jim Harbaugh, Steve Ross, Robin Washington, who was formerly at Gilead. I’m kind of excited about it because it does open up so much more opportunity, so much more connectivity, and it changes our thinking about how we can connect with each other and how we can learn. Not everything has to be the way it used to be.

Diana: The other thing that’s incredible is we’ve made significant amounts of investment in digital technologies. We are the most highly-ranked MBA program with an online MBA. And while the experience would be different for our full-time MBA students, we have what I would call the equivalent of a CNN studio at the business school where you can move around charts and graphs, and it feels very visually engaging. That also means that we have faculty who have taught in an online environment before. This is not a brand-new thing for them, and the ramp up period isn’t going to be as severe for our faculty as it might be for others. And so while it’s not our preferred format, I think Michigan Ross was really, really well positioned to deliver an incredible experience, whether it’s going to be in-person or online.

Are you waitlisting more applicants now than in other years? How is the process for them different than in previous years? [21:49]

Diana: Our round two notification deadline was March the 18th. So when we made decisions about round two candidates, which of course is the bulk of the candidates that have a response at this time, it was with an awareness that this was going to be happening, though of course not with the full awareness that we have right now. So I would say we waitlisted a healthy amount of students, but we never waitlist any candidates that we don’t think have a viable shot at getting in. That still continues to be the case. I would say a slight difference this year is we actually did start admitting waitlist candidates earlier than we ever have. We’ve admitted some into the middle to the late of April already. And even now, we will continue to evaluate waitlist candidates as we also are simultaneously reviewing our round three candidates.

At this point, we’ve got waitlisters, we’ve got folks in a rolling round three timeline, and almost daily, we’re reviewing and re-reviewing and trying to stay in touch with our waitlist candidates to the extent that we’re able to understand their plans and priorities and also answer questions that they might have. We recognize it’s a confusing time for many, with a lot of unknowns. And so we want to try to be as compassionate and empathetic about that as possible. So we do encourage candidates to reach out to us at rossadmissions@umich.edu if they have any questions.

And we always have kept in touch with waitlist candidates, I would say maybe even more so in this year with so much uncertainty. I think historically, we would say, “We’re going to review candidates again during this timeframe, you may hear from us,” those types of things, but now we’re trying to put ourselves in their shoes to think about what information we need to be providing and how often. I realize they probably would want to hear from us even more often, and I think there’s only so many times that you can say that it’s still unknown, right? So we’re trying to be mindful of that balance of communicating, but also trying to be thoughtful about communicating when we have something to say or a new decision or a timeframe to be able to share.

Is there scholarship money available to applicants admitted during the extended deadline rounds? [23:57]

Soojin: Absolutely. We specifically set aside money for candidates who apply in later rounds. Now, that doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to get a scholarship. Scholarships are still going to be merit-based, and they’re discretionary. But absolutely, everyone still has a shot at some money.

If applicants apply by the extended deadline, which is May 29th, and they don’t get in, will they be hurt if they reapply round one? [24:17]

Soojin: We’ll have a very different way of looking at round one re-applicants this year than in any previous year, but it won’t hurt them in the process. And in fact, we’re going to waive their reapplication fee and the reapplication process is going to be much easier than the initial application. They don’t have to submit a new essay. They don’t have to submit a new recommendation letter, and if they are invited to interview, they don’t have to interview again. So it’s really just an updated resume. If there’s anything new, it will be a cover letter saying, “Here’s what’s new and different since I last applied,” and then the form so we have all of your information still, but no app fee.

Diana: We also recognize that for candidates who are applying right now, there’s a variety of reasons for that, right? There are some candidates for whom, maybe, rounds one and two weren’t what they thought they would be, and now they have a little bit more time to apply. But there’s also a whole host of candidates who, in the last handful of weeks, have said, “Wow, I need to apply to MBA, and this fall seems even better, maybe because I’ve lost my job recently or things have changed.” Or maybe this time at home has allowed them additional time to reflect. But that also might mean that they haven’t been preparing for 12 months. They now have three weeks to kind of think through some of these things, and so we’re going to take that into consideration as candidates do apply this round, and we’ll use that and try to review what we can.

And like I said, if it doesn’t work out, we’ll take a look again in the fall, with a respect for where they’re at in the process and what we might learn from them in both of these rounds.

Will you give feedback to rejected applicants, or do you not have the resources for that? [26:36]

Soojin: We don’t have the resources for that. We are actively trying to recruit for next year, still trying to make decisions, still trying to figure out how we do classes and doing contingency planning, and we can’t just plan for a regular orientation. We’re planning for plan B, plan C. So there’s so many things going on right now.

Diana: When I talk to candidates who are re-applicants, somebody might come up to me at a fair to say, “I’m trying to reflect.” And when I ask them, “Well, what do you think it was?” And almost every single time they know, right? They know, “I think my GMAT probably wasn’t where I wanted it to be, and I knew I wanted to take it again, but I didn’t get a chance.” Or, “I don’t think I put my best foot forward in my interview or my essays.” Candidates know. And so while I think that the feedback can be reassuring on an individual basis, we do try to give general themes of things that we see in candidates and an overview of really what we’re looking for to try to be as clear as possible, so the candidates can use that to take this time to do some self-reflection as to what they might do to strengthen their app next year.

Would you encourage applicants who were rejected round one or round two to appeal that decision? [27:46]

Soojin: We’re not taking appeals.

Is there anything you would’ve liked me to ask you? [27:56]

Soojin: We always want people to ask us, what is the biggest misconception about Ross? The biggest misconception is that you’ll get stuck in the Midwest. I have two things to say about that. We have a phrase that goes, “Go blue, go anywhere,” which means you get a degree from Michigan, and your network is the world’s. We’ve got the largest living alumni network in the world, and our Ross MBA grads go to the coasts, primarily. San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Boston, D.C., LA, and then Chicago. There are very few who stay right here, although we’re seeing a lot more of our grads who go off somewhere and then they’ll move back here because they loved Ann Arbor so much.

That’s the second thing about Ann Arbor is that people are surprised at how livable this is. It’s 20 minutes from an international airport, easy for our recruiters to come here, for our students to go elsewhere, for them to travel the world, which they did in crazy amounts before all of this happened. And they leave here feeling like, wow, I never thought I could have loved a place so much. But this is home. They think of the place as home. Even after they leave here, they can’t wait to come back for football games, for recruiting, to see friends. They say, “Those were two of the best years of my life.”

Any final advice for this cycle’s or next cycle’s applicants? [29:22]

Diana: One of the things that I tell candidates to look for is when you talk to people who are a part of a community, the Michigan Ross community, whether it’s students, whether it’s alums, whether you are able to engage with us, when you’re putting your spreadsheet together and trying to assess which school is going to be the right one for you to apply to or the best fit, I really encourage students to write down how they’re feeling after they have those conversations. Were you energized by that conversation? Were you de-energized by that conversation?

And not just the one person. If you reach out to the one person who is from your country or the one person who is doing exactly what you want to do, you’re probably going to hear exactly what you want to hear, and it sounds good and it sounds like you could go to school with that person. But you’re not just going to school with that person. You’re going to school as part of a community of faculty, staff, students. If you’re hearing consistency with the third, fourth, fifth, sixth person you talk to . . . and I don’t mean the same thing, the same lines or anything like that. I just mean consistency in the way that people are reflecting on the program, the energy that’s coming from that program and how you’re personally responding to that energy to see if you might be a fit, that’s going to be really important. If you don’t have that on your spreadsheet, you’re going to only evaluate a school based on the programs that they offer and certain objective characteristics. There’s another facet that needs to be part of your consideration set as you evaluate and talk to candidates or talk to our community.

Soojin: That’s great advice, Diana, because my son is a high school junior, and his high school counselor has a framework for how to choose colleges. And one of the things that they ask these juniors to do is when you do college visits or you talk to these students who are in the programs, write down how you are feeling after you have gone on the school visit or talked to others who are in the community. See what you observe, record what you observe, record how you feel, and then go back to it after you’ve done that across all schools because there will be something surprising that might emerge based on your feelings. And the feelings are really important because that’s kind of a glimpse into how you might feel being a part of that community.

Business school is not just about going to classes; it’s not just about getting a job. What kind of people are you going to be surrounded by? How much are they going to inspire you to be your best self? How much are they going to be there for you when you take that risk and you fail? Are they going to be there for you? Those are the intangibles that are going to matter so much to a student’s experience. It’s going to matter so much to what you end up doing because of the community. You’re either going to be inspired or you’re just going to stay on the straight and narrow path and take these classes, get that degree, and go. If that’s what you want, there are plenty of schools where you can do that. But find the school where you are going to feel like, “I can’t wait to do all of these things. I can’t wait to be a part of this community. There is something about this place that really connects with me.”

Diana: As we reflect on this new recruiting environment, which is to say, it’s both a mix of candidates that are applying right now as well as those this fall, we as an admissions team would be traveling around the world over the next couple of months, but that’s obviously not going to be the case. We’re going to have to do things virtually to the extent that is needed to promote the health and wellness of our teams and the fair environments. If you’ve ever been to one, there are many, many people in the same room. So I don’t know when that will start up in that format again. But candidates often ask, what can I do to get on your radar? Or what do I need to do to impress you? Or what types of events do I need to go to?

The reality is this: With any online or other events or relationships that you’re building with our student ambassadors, for us, what matters is that you learn a lot about the school in a way that helps you make a good decision for yourself. It’s not about checking a box, and you’re not going to even probably be able to visit campus anytime soon, right? Even as things come together in the fall, if we are in-person, we have talked about, what does a socially distant in-person fall look like? Well, it probably doesn’t look like bringing a whole lot of people to come to campus to visit in a way that we might, but we’ll see what happens. So take your time to review our website. We’ve got a lot, probably over 40 recorded webinars. “Why Ross” for consulting, finance, marketing, life in Ann Arbor. “I have a partner,” “I’m a veteran,” “I’m from this country.” Lots of ways to connect with our community.

Over 200 student ambassadors are listed on our webpage. You can filter by their backgrounds, their interests, where they’re from. And if you did nothing other than read the bios of the student ambassadors on the webpage, you’d get a really good idea of who was at Michigan Ross. But the good news is you can actually reach out to them right from that page, chat with them, get a feel for their experience. So tons of virtual opportunities to stay connected and engaged, and we hope that you do, and we’ll continue to offer more and more opportunities to get to know more about the program in the community.

Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about Ross’ MBA program? [34:47]

Diana: They can certainly go to our website or email rossadmissions@umich.edu to gather more information. Our full-time MBA website has a lot covered there, and our events page is where you’ll find all the webinars.

Related Links:

• Navigate the MBA Application Maze: 9 Expert Tips to Getting Accepted, a free guide
• Michigan Ross MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines
• A Day (and a Year) in the Life of a Ross MBA Student
• Linda Abraham and Al Dea Discuss COVID-19 and MBA Admissions
• MBA Deadline Updates: How Will COVID-19 Affect the MBA Application Process?
• Accepted’s Admissions Consulting Services

Related Shows:

• An Admissions Expert’s Top Tips for Business School Applicants
• Michigan Ross MBA: It’s About REAL, Clear, and Teamwork
• MBA, Private Equity, Cop: Meet Nik Kumar, Columbia MBA 2019
• Michigan Ross MBAs, Entrepreneurs, and Founders of Bschool Travel
• Michigan Ross’ Brand-New Online, Part-Time MBA
• Yale MBA: The Inside Scoop on The Essay, Videos & Behavioral Assessment
• Toronto Rotman MBA: The Spike Factor

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]     [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-SR-MBA-MAZE”]

Podcast Feed

The post What Prospective MBAs Should Know About Applying to Michigan Ross [Episode 365] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

With the unprecedented reality of a worldwide pandemic, it is reasonable to be concerned about the MBA admissions process. Universities have emptied out their campuses, and both students and teachers are rapidly trying to adjust to remote learning and a host of other modifications in traditional education. Additionally, job prospects are dwindling as the economy dips and layoffs begin. The lack of clarity around MBA programs with deadlines in summer 2020 or fall 2020 can be anxiety-provoking, so here at Accepted, we want to provide you with the best guidance possible as you consider your application options.

You’ll find below a roundup of MBA deadline extensions and changes. Check back soon for more advice and insight into pursuing an MBA during the current health crisis.

<< How Will COVID-19 Impact Your Admissions Journey? [Watch the Webinar] >>

Surveying the deadlines

Here’s what you need to know: [Please note that this list is not all-inclusive, and that the schools listed below may change their policy again in response to change circumstances; please check school websites for updates.]

Chicago Booth

The Chicago Booth Round 3 deadline remains April 2, 2020. However Booth will continue to accept applications through May 31, 2020 with decisions released on a rolling basis.

For all Round 3 applicants, test scores can be submitted as late as July 1, 2020. Admissions decisions will not be made until the score is received.

Check out Chicago Booth’s website for more information.

CMU Tepper

CMU Tepper is waiving application fees through July 31st and is accepting applications on a rolling basis from June 1 – July 31, 2020. They are also allowing applicants with “robust quantitative backgrounds” to apply without a GMAT or GRE. (They will need to meet other requirements to start and stay in the program.)

Check out CMU Tepper’s website for more information.

Columbia Business School

The deadline for August admission at CBS has been extended to June 1, 2020. The deadline for submitting test scores has been extended to July 1, 2020.

Check out Columbia Business School’s website for more information.

Cornell Johnson

Johnson is maintaining its application submission deadlines, but allowing applicants to submit test scores later.

• One Year MBA Applicants: Application deadline is April 15, 2020. Test scores must be submitted by April 30, 2020. If not, your application will be moved to the 2020-2021 application cycle.

• Two-Year MBA Applicants: The application deadline is April 8, 2020. You will have until June 1, 2020 to submit your test scores. If you are unable to do so, your application will be moved to the 2020-21 application cycle. 

Check out Cornell Johnson’s website for more information.

Dartmouth Tuck

Tuck is maintaining its Round 3 deadline and adding a Round 4 this year for applicants who need additional time. Round 4 will work on a rolling basis, and applicants can submit any time between April 1 – June 1, 2020.  The applications will be processed as they come in, and Tuck will provide decisions within “several weeks” from submission from May 11 – July 1, 2020.

Tuck’s criteria and required materials, including required test scores, are unchanged.

Check out Dartmouth Tuck’s admissions blog for more information.

Duke Fuqua

Duke Fuqua’s new Round 4 application deadline is May 19, 2020.

Duke has also postponed the orientation start-date for the Class of 2022 by approximately one month in response to the pandemic.

Check out Duke Fuqua’s website for more information.

Georgetown McDonough

Georgetown has relaxed its testing requirements and added a rolling admissions deadline of June 24 (following it’s Round 4 deadline of April 27th).

Check out Georgetown McDonough’s website for more information.

Harvard

The deadline for Harvard Business School’s 2 + 2 Round was postponed to June 1, 2020 in light of COVID.

Accepted Harvard Business School students have the option to request a deferral to start their full-time MBA studies later than this fall. Deferral requests must be made between May 15th and June 1st.

Check out Harvard Business School’s website for more information.

Indiana Kelley

Kelley will accept applications from domestic candidates on a rolling basis after its April 15th deadline.

Applicants who were unable to take the GMAT or GRE are welcome to submit their applications. Final admissions decisions will be made once test scores are received by the school.

Check out Indiana Kelley’s website for more information.

Kellogg

There are currently no delayed start dates for any of Kellogg’s programs. Decision release dates are similarly unchanged. Day at Kellogg for newly admitted students will take place virtually instead of in person.

While Kellogg’s Round 3 deadline of April 8, 2020 still stands, it will accept applications on a rolling basis through June 1st. (Applicants who submitted by the Round 3 deadline will receive admission and scholarship decisions on May 13th.)

Updated April 14: Kellogg is waiving the GMAT/GRE/TOEFL/IELTS requirement for those applying to Round 3.

Those who were either waitlisted or denied in Rounds 1 or 2 will be able to submit an appeal to have their application reconsidered.  Kellogg will provide instructions on how to file the appeal “in the coming days.”

Check out Kellogg’s website and admissions blog for more information.

Michigan Ross

Ross is extending its Round 3 deadline. Soojin Kwon wrote: 

“The priority deadline will remain March 30, but we will accept applications until May 29. Applications received after the priority deadline will be evaluated on a rolling basis. International applicants are highly encouraged to apply by the priority deadline.”

Applicants taking advantage of the extended deadline are reminded that scholarship funds are still available.

Ross is accepting applicants without test scores, though scores must be received by the program before a final admission decision can be made.

Check out Michigan Ross’s website for more information.

MIT Sloan

MIT Sloan has added an Extended Round 3 Deadline and will accept applications until June 15, 2020 on a rolling basis.

Check out MIT Sloan’s website for more information.

NYU Stern

The March 15 deadline has been pushed to May 1st, 2020. International applicants should strive to apply sooner to allow time for visa arrangements.

Check out NYU Stern’s website for more information.

SMU Cox

SMU Cox is waiving the GMAT/GRE requirement for all graduate programs beginning May 2020 and August 2020. It’s also extending its deadline to August 2, 2020 .

Check out SMU Cox’s admissions blog for more information.

UC Berkeley Haas

Haas is opening a new Extended Deadline of May 4, 2020. Applicants for this deadline will receive decisions on June 4. 

Haas has also announced the launch of The Cal Advantage Program, which will enable UC Berkeley seniors and alumni of all undergraduate and graduate programs to apply to Haas for fall 2020 entry. Cal Advantage applicants will enjoy a shortened application process, featuring one essay, one recommendation and optional test scores. Applicants to this program must apply in May or June of 2020 (click here for more info).

Check out UC Berkeley Haas’s admissions blog for more information.

UCLA Anderson

UCLA Anderson extended its application deadline to June 1, 2020.

Check out UCLA Anderson’s website for more information.

UNC Kenan-Flagler

UNC Kenan-Flagler will delay start of its full-time MBA program to August 31, 2020. It has also extended the Round 4 deadline through July 13th. Decision will be made on a rolling basis. 

Check out Kenan-Flagler’s website for more information.

UVA Darden

Darden is transitioning to rolling admissions for the 2019-20 application cycle with a final deadline of July 15, 2020. The sooner you apply, the sooner you will receive Darden’s decision.

UVA Darden already accepted any graduate admissions exam including the GMAT, GRE, LSAT, and MCAT. In light of COVID19 and closed testing centers, it will evaluate your application with an ACT or SAT or country-specific university entrance exam.

It encourages you to apply even if you are missing one or two elements in your application. Darden will begin the evaluation process, but hold your application until all elements are submitted. 

Check out UVA Darden’s admissions blog for more information.

Wharton

Wharton extended the Round 3 and Advance Access application deadlines to:

– Round 3: April 15, 2020

– Advance Access: May 27, 2020

Round 3 and Advance Access applicants can submit applications without having sat for a standardized test. However, if you do have scores to report, please do so.

Check out Wharton’s website for more information.

Yale SOM

Giving Round 3 applicants an extra ten days to submit their test scores. So if you submit your application by SOM’s Round 3 April 14 deadline, you will have an additional 10 days to submit your GMAT/GRE scores (until April 24). You will receive an answer by May 19.

In addition, Yale SOM is adding a Round 3 Extended deadline of May 27, 2020. You will receive an answer in the second half of June.

Check out Yale SOM’s admissions blog for more information.

We’re going to do our best to keep the changing deadline information current. However, please do not rely on this post; confirm the deadlines yourself because the situation is so fluid.

In addition, if you find out a school has changed their deadlines and is not on the list, please let us know by emailing blog@accepted.com.

The consultants at Accepted are here and ready to help guide you! All of our experts are available to work remotely and business is in full swing in spite of the current global circumstances. Check out our services and let us help you get accepted!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-WBR-COVID-19″]

With 30 years of career/admissions experience at four universities, including Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Business and College of Engineering, Dr. Karin Ash has met with thousands of recruiters seeking to hire the best students from leading schools. She has served as a member of the admissions committee, ensuring that the applicants who ultimately enroll are a good fit for the program and prime candidates for employers. Karin has been a Consultant with Accepted for 8 years and has facilitated students’ entry into top engineering, data science, MBA, and other STEM graduate MEng, MS, and PhD programs. Her clients have been accepted into MIT, the University of Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, UPenn, and USC. Want Karin to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• Get Your Game On: Prepping For Your Grad School ApplicationGet Your Game On: Prepping for Your Grad School Application, a free guide
• How to Write Your Master’s in Engineering Statement of Purpose
• How This Student Got Accepted to MIT’s Engineering Program and Landed a Job at Apple, podcast Episode 460

Related resources:

• School-Specific MBA Application Essay Tips
• How Will Coronavirus Impact Testing? [GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT, ACT, SAT, TOEFL]
• 7 Steps to MBA Acceptance in 2021, free webinar

The post MBA Deadline Updates: How Will COVID-19 Affect the MBA Application Process? appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

The U.S. News 2023 ranking is now live! Click here to check it out >>

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

U.S. News just released its 2021 ranking of full-time and part-time MBA programs. The rankings are based on expert opinions about the quality of each program and statistical indicators that calculate the quality of a program’s faculty, research, and students. The reputation surveys were sent to academics and professionals in fall 2019 and early 2020. This year, for the first time, the specialties of business analytics, real estate, and project management are ranked.

In order to rank each school. U.S. News assessed the data for each quality indicator and then standardized the value of each indicator about its mean. Each indicator has a weight assigned to it, which indicates U.S. News’ judgment about their relative importance, after consulting with experts in the field. 

<< Are you competitive at your dream school?
Check out the Selectivity Index to find out! >>

These final scores were rescaled to give the highest-scoring school a score of 100, with the other schools’ scores recalculated as a percentage of the top score. A school with a score of 100 did not necessarily receive the highest score on every indicator, it merely accrued the highest composite score.

Highlights of the 2021 MBA Ranking

• The biggest news of all is that Harvard Business School slipped down to sixth place this year from third in the 2019 full-time rankings. 
  
  
• Stanford University gained a position this year to tie the University of Pennsylvania for the top slot for full-time MBA programs. 
  
  
• Northwestern University jumped from a three-way tie for 6th place last year to a two-way tie this year at #3 with the University of Chicago. 
  
  
• New York University broke into the Top 10 this year, jumping from a three-way tie for #12 to the #10 spot. 
  
  
• Further down in the rankings, North Carolina State University leapt more than 30 spots, from a tie at #85 to #52 this year.
  
  
• Chicago Booth maintained the top position among part-time MBA programs. 
  
  
• Also in the part-time rankings, the University of Washington joined the Top 10 this year, rising from a two-way tie at #12 to #10 this year.  

2021 Top 10 full-time MBA programs

Rank	School	Location
1	Stanford University	Stanford, CA
1	UPenn Wharton	Philadelphia, PA
3	Northwestern Kellogg	Evanston, IL
3	Chicago Booth	Chicago, IL
5	MIT Sloan	Cambridge, MA
6	Harvard Business School	Boston, MA
7	UC Berkeley-Haas	Berkeley, CA
8	Columbia Business School	New York, NY
9	Yale SOM	New Haven, CT
10	New York University Stern	New York, NY

2021 Top 10 part-time MBA programs

Rank	School	Location
1	Chicago Booth	Chicago, IL
2	UC Berkeley-Haas	Berkeley, CA
3	Northwestern Kellogg	Evanston, IL
4	NYU Stern	New York, NY
5	UCLA Anderson	Los Angeles, CA
6	Michigan Ross	Ann Arbor, MI
7	UT McCombs	Austin, TX
8	Carnegie Mellon University Tepper	Pittsburgh, PA
9	Indiana Kelley	Bloomington, IN
10	Emory Goizueta	Atlanta, GA

Would you like to be a member of the class of 2022 in one of these top programs? Check out our MBA Admissions Consulting & Editing Services and work one-on-one with an expert consultant to create an application that will get you ACCEPTED!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—SR—Guide-to-selecting-right-one”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Accepted-Sig-Code—MBA”]

Related Resources:

• The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Competitive MBA Applicant, a free guide
• Business School Selectivity Index [Can I Get Into My Dream School?]
• Do MBA Rankings Matter?

The post U.S. News Announces 2021 Ranking of Best MBA Programs appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Each year, thousands of MBA students graduate from business school and embark on the next chapter in their careers. This often means moving up to a higher role in a current field, taking on a new role, or jumping head-first into a new industry. The impact of these changes is often looked at in terms of quantifiable measurement, such as a higher salary, or increased long-term earning potential, but when you talk to MBA students you often realize there is so much more that an MBA education provides. I know this personally, as an MBA graduate myself, but also because for my book, MBA Insider: How to Make the Most of Your MBA Experience, I talked to hundreds of MBA students about their time in business school to understand how students were using business school to progress their careers and what they were learning in school that they found valuable and insightful. 

For prospective MBA students, here are some lessons you can think about as you prepare to start on your MBA journey.

Lesson 1: Become a lifelong learner

“Business school taught me that I never want to stop learning. I will always want to push myself to learn and grow, and become the best version of myself.”

– Katie Blach Ellington, Wharton, Class of 2017

Business school is a time for learning and growth. To do that, you need to step outside your comfort zone, even if it may seem challenging. Katie Blach Ellington learned this during her time at Wharton, where she regularly raised her hand for stretch opportunities. “I took on so many stretch opportunities which taught me that I never want to stop learning, pushing myself, and broadening my perspective and pushing myself to stay curious and continue to grow.” 

By embodying a growth mindset, or the belief that new skills and learnings can be gained over time Ellington was able to not only build new skills, but take on new experiences and opportunities that she may have found otherwise.

Lesson 2: Follow your own path

“The situations where I thrived the most were when I pursued activities, opportunities, that were aligned to me. It always just felt right.”

– Jasmine Ako, Yale SOM, Class of 2019

One of the benefits of going to business school is the chance to be surrounded by lots of intelligent, hard-working, and career-driven individuals. This can also be a challenge, as it can cause individuals to feel like they don’t belong. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed or overmatched when you are surrounded by so many smart people, which often leads to questioning yourself and your abilities. 

To quell this fear, Jasmine Ako learned the importance of honoring your interests. “Intentionally following my passions and interests helped me quell the imposter syndrome I had,” Ako said. Furthermore, upon reflection, Ako realized that when she prioritized her interests, it allowed her to focus on her values and vision for success, not the ones of others.

Lesson 3: Experiment and take risks

“Not trying something in safe space with lots of resources is a bigger risk than failing”

– Collin Keeler, Wharton, Class of 2019

While failure isn’t “free,” it costs a lot less in a learning environment such as business school. It is a great opportunity to take intelligent risks, and to stretch yourself. Whether that’s by taking a class you normally wouldn’t have taken because it was on a subject you weren’t strong in, taking on a club leadership role, exploring an entrepreneurial idea, or trying a new career or industry, the full-time MBA experience gives you the opportunity to try things, knowing that they may not work out but things will still be OK. 

During his time at Wharton, Colin Keeler decided to start BeenThere. While this was an inherent risk, Keeler knew he was surrounded with resources and access to people to support him along the way, so even if he made a mistake, or a misstep, he had plenty of resources at his disposal to pick himself back up. “I realized that the cost of trying something was higher than failing, especially in a place like business school,” Keeler said. 

Lesson 4: Practice self reflection and self awareness

“In a world that moves so fast and work that demands so much of our time and mental energy, business school allows you to pause and think about who you are, what you’re good at, and how you can make an impact on the world in a meaningful way”

– Shannon Griesser, Fuqua, Class of 2019

Business school is a unique experience because it gives you two years to hit the pause button to work on yourself and your career. This is a great time to take a step back and to not only reflect on what you’ve done, but where you want to go. But reflection isn’t something that happens naturally for most. Because life can get busy, it can be difficult to find the time.

Shannon Griesser made reflection a priority amidst her many other activities. She tried to make space to reflect on her experiences and what she learned, and used those reflections to inform her future decision making. On a regular basis, Griesser would take time to write down her ideas or thoughts on what she was learning or experiencing, and then tie them to how they were helping her work towards the goals she set for herself. Griesser also relied on others to get feedback. Having experts and thought leaders like professors, professionals and administrators advising you as you work through your reflection and learning is a critical component to helping you make sense of the experience.

Lesson 5: Set your team up for success

“When building teams or coalitions, it is important for leaders to understand what those on their team want to get out of an experience.”

– Triston Francis, HBS, Class of 2019

As Student Body Co-President at Harvard Business School, Triston Francis managed a team of 70+ peers and a budget of $1.3 million. For Francis, the learning opportunity came from thinking about how to motivate peers to be excited about giving up time in order to give back to the HBS community. “What I learned from this experience is that when building teams or coalitions, it is important for leaders to understand what those on their team want to get out of an experience.” 

Francis focused on empowering his peers through roles and assignments that aligned their individual interests with the needs of students and their unique skillsets. “I focused on designing roles that allow people who are working with you to have a phenomenal experience and get from it what they want all while having a positive impact on the broader student body,” Francis said.

Lesson 6: Career development is a lifelong process

“Business school isn’t just about landing a job when you graduate, but building the career development skills you will need to evolve and grow for the rest of your career”

– John Huang, Ross, Class of 2015

Students come to business school to find or transition to a new job. While many achieve that, the reality is that almost all MBA students will eventually have to change jobs or careers after they graduate. While the process of finding the right MBA internship and full-time opportunity after graduation is important, the value of those experiences is that they teach graduates skills career management skills that are useful and important for the rest of their careers, long after that first job post graduation. 

John Huang began his post-graduation career in an MBA Leadership Development Program at Wal-Mart, before moving to an early stage startup, which led him to spending a few years at Twitter, before finally ending up in a Product Growth role at a fast-growing startup. Along the way, Huang used these career management skills to identify each new opportunity and pivot.  

To learn more about what MBAs learn in business school, Check out MBA Insider on Amazon today.

Find out how Accepted can help you earn in a spot in your dream school! << Learn more >>

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—WBR—Get-Accepted-in-2017″]

By Al Dea, Founder, MBASchooled.com, Author of MBA Insider: How to Make The Most of Your MBA Experience

Related Resources:

• MBA Action Plan: 6 Steps for the 6 Months Before You Apply, a free guide to applying to business school at your best
• Business School Selectivity Index [Can I Get Into My Dream School?]
• MBA Application Timeline: How to Get Accepted in 2020

The post What Do You Learn in Business School? 6 Unexpected Lessons appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.