The M7 business schools represent seven distinct, vivid cultures, each with its own history, values, characteristics, opportunities, and challenges.

Of course, there are many commonalities among the M7 schools, as well: all are highly competitive, offer robust academic resources, are supported by a committed and involved alumni network, and attract top-tier recruiters (even in down business cycles). Yet each one also has a unique, strong, and distinctive personality that both reflects and drives its leadership in the MBA realm. These programs have risen to their prominent position because the schools are the leaders in their domain: graduate business education. So, they reasonably expect their students and applicants to have correspondingly high ambitions, but together, they also represent diversity.

In 2026, the M7 schools continue to attract the brightest minds from around the globe, with highly competitive admissions and world-class academic resources. Let’s take a deep dive into these schools and see what they have to offer the next generation of business leaders.

Table of Contents

• Harvard Business School
• Stanford Graduate School of Business
• MIT Sloan School of Management
• The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
• Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management
• University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business
• Columbia Business School

What Sets the M7 Business Schools Apart

There are other elite MBA programs, of course, but the M7 schools have an ongoing, shared history; their deans connected with each other years ago and formed a group that meets regularly and shares information. Over time, these meetings have grown to include other individuals within their admissions offices, creating a consistent flow of information across multiple levels. The meetings address a range of issues, including best practices for components of the admissions process and responses to current events that directly affect MBA admissions.

Here are some other characteristics that make the M7 schools stand out:

• Prestige – Each M7 school is globally recognized as a leader in business education.
• Rigorous Academics – From the case method at Harvard Business School to the flexible curriculum at Chicago Booth, the M7 programs provide an intellectually challenging environment.
• Top Recruiters – The M7 schools attract the world’s leading companies across industries, ensuring that students have access to unparalleled career opportunities.
• Global Network – The alumni networks of the M7 schools are vast, influential, and highly supportive, offering lifelong connections.

While the M7 schools share these qualities, what sets them apart is their unique cultures and offerings. Let’s explore each one in more detail.

Harvard Business School, Class of 2027

• Median GMAT: 685  
• Median GPA: 3.76  
• Acceptance Rate: 11.2%  

Immersion could be the keyword for the Harvard Business School (HBS) experience. The program’s cornerstone is the case-study approach, intertwined with experiential learning; students read a case and then intensively analyze it both before and in class. The aim is to train students in complex, real-world decision-making. Students then have numerous opportunities to sharpen this training through practical application. By continuously engaging with classmates from different functions, industries/sectors, and geographic regions in these case discussions, students radically expand their perspectives, thought processes, and knowledge. This immersive experience is enhanced by the smarts, passion, and ambition of HBS students. Outside of class, these high-achieving, high-energy students participate in many clubs and volunteer activities. The two years of the MBA program reportedly fly by, thanks to the nonstop immersion and engagement.

What HBS Looks for in Applicants 

Given its case method approach, HBS seeks students and future leaders who will carry their weight and contribute fully in the classroom – people who have something to say and the ability to communicate it. Further, students must be able to listen, respond thoughtfully, and adapt to new ideas as the dialogue progresses. Beyond the requisite high level of accomplishment, HBS seeks people who enthusiastically and effectively engage.

Stanford Graduate School of Business, Class of 2027

• Average GMAT: 740  
• Average GPA: 3.76  
• Acceptance Rate: 6.8% 

Nothing less than transformation, that’s what the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) is about – both yours and the kind you bring to the organizations and communities you touch. Stanford’s Silicon Valley DNA, highly customizable program, and emphasis on innovation, change, and entrepreneurship shape its MBA experience. It’s a small, elite cohort that goes on an exploratory journey together, and many students emerge in a different place than they expected when they started out. This journey integrates the personal and the professional – in Stanford’s multifaceted pedagogical approach, building business and leadership skills is tied to understanding and defining one’s mission and vision. Beyond the MBA classroom, students learn from and engage with numerous guest speakers who represent the cutting edge of their fields. They are also encouraged to access Stanford’s other top-notch programs, including law, medicine, engineering, the humanities, and the sciences. During the MBA program, students form a robust, mutually supportive network for testing ideas, boundaries, and their own assumptions and inclinations.

What the Stanford GSB Looks for in Applicants

Stanford wants people who will be excellent “fellow travelers,” people who have – and will therefore bring to the program – a unique point of view. The school values risk-takers and change agents. At the same time, these individuals deliberately remain a “work in progress,” always open to new information, ideas, and situations and willing to shift gears accordingly. They relish exploration and collaboration.

MIT Sloan School of Management, Class of 2027

• Median GMAT: 730  
• Median GPA: 3.69  
• Acceptance Rate: 14.1%

What’s special about the MIT Sloan MBA program is its zeal for tackling large, multifaceted problems. The school’s students learn how to develop robust solutions that can weather uncertainty, ambiguity, and change, and they relish the challenge. The adcom appreciates people who lead organically by drawing others along the journey to solve complex problems. The Sloan MBA approach is rooted in two concepts that intertwine: invention, which entails creativity and agility, and data-driven analysis, which entails rigor and objectivity. These concepts align with MIT more broadly. Just as a robust process involves iteration, this program supports its pedagogy with ongoing experiential learning opportunities (in other words, practice) to reinforce and deepen the learning and ensure that students grasp topics and hone skills in a real-world context. In essence, Sloan MBA graduates are able to see around corners and make constructive use of whatever they encounter. They lead others through the process, driven by their vision and their passion to tackle compelling problems.

What MIT Sloan Looks for in Applicants

MIT Sloan seeks students who are open to following where the data lead, even if doing so contradicts their personal preferences or assumptions. The school is also interested in people who possess both vision and practical skills, who are creative and analytical. That doesn’t mean an applicant must embody these qualities 50/50, but if, for example, a candidate is primarily creative and visionary, they also need to show a record of concrete impact and achievement. Needless to say, curiosity and a collaborative mindset are also sought.

The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Class of 2027

• Median GMAT: 735  
• Median GPA: 3.7  
• Acceptance Rate: 20.5% 

The Wharton MBA program is big, with almost 900 students per class, multiple opportunities for joint degrees and certificates (from law and veterinary medicine to the MBA/MA Joint Degree in International Studies program with the Lauder Institute and the JD/MBA), more than 20 majors, an extensive range of electives (including courses across the many other campus schools), and clubs in several broad categories: professional, athletic, social and special interest, community service, geographic, and cultural. Yet Wharton does not sacrifice quality for quantity. Its many majors are deep and rigorous. Moreover, the MBA program’s structure – dividing each incoming class into four clusters, each of which is further divided into cohorts of approximately 70 students, and then into diverse five- or six-person Learning Teams – ensures broad exposure and drives dynamism throughout the learning process. What students learn from their teammates and classmates will help them take full advantage of the program’s vast resources. While bigness and abundance characterize this program, Wharton has devised a learning structure that personalizes and optimizes it for students.

What Wharton Looks for in Applicants

Wharton wants applicants who, along with being high performers, are actively engaged in activities and/or interests that contribute somehow. This doesn’t necessarily have to be community service, but it does need to be some form of clear and consistent engagement outside of work that positively affects others. Finally, given Wharton’s extensive opportunities and resources, it is essential that applicants show that they are resourceful; Wharton does not want its abundance squandered.

Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Class of 2027 

• Median GMAT: 687 
• Median GPA: 3.68  
• Acceptance Rate: 28.6%

Management has long been, and remains, the hallmark of the Kellogg MBA program, a comprehensive discipline grounded in leadership and global perspective. The premise is that, given today’s rapid change and high volatility, strong management capabilities are needed more than ever. Moreover, they can be applied across industries and sectors. Kellogg’s renowned management resources include two management-focused majors, “Management Science” and “Managing Organizations,” along with numerous other traditional majors. To complement these pillars of business training, Kellogg offers innovative “pathways,” which are cross-functional sets of courses that address timely topics, including “Growth and Scaling,” “Data Analytics,” and “Social Impact.” Students can mix and match majors and pathways, benefiting from the accumulated wisdom of the scholars and experts who devised them. Kellogg has innovated in another area as well: It is one of the first top-tier U.S. MBA programs to offer a one-year option (for people with some academic business foundation). Not least, Kellogg is renowned for its abundant global opportunities, in which almost one-half of its students participate.

What Kellogg Looks for in Applicants 

Kellogg greatly values work experience that shows an applicant’s exemplary people skills – including leadership, teamwork, collaboration, and communication – and presents a record of meaningful accomplishment. Because Kellogg’s student body is particularly strong in philanthropic activity, including this element in one’s application is a good way to show fit with the program.

University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Class of 2027

• Median GMAT: 736  
• Median GPA: 3.6  
• Acceptance Rate: 28.7%

Academic and intellectual rigor combined with curricular flexibility – this intriguing balance is what the Chicago Booth MBA program offers. Intellectual culture is paramount at Chicago Booth, reflecting the character of the broader university to which it belongs. In the Chicago Booth MBA program, ideas are important – having them, sharing them, challenging them, testing them, and acting on them when the time is right. Chicago Booth has unrivaled quantitative depth and analytic rigor among MBA programs. This is a fantastic asset for students who want to refine their strengths in these areas and for those seeking a rock-solid foundation. The school’s flexibility allows students to tailor their learning program to their needs, which puts the onus on students to understand what they need. Although students do not have to select a major, many do, and some even pursue multiple majors. Chicago Booth offers a wide array of options, including both standard choices, such as “Accounting” and “Marketing Strategy,” and less-common ones, such as “Behavioral Science” and “Econometrics and Statistics.”

What Chicago Booth Looks for in Applicants 

Chicago Booth looks for people who have the self-knowledge, critical thinking skills, and resourcefulness to make the most of the MBA program’s flexibility and strengths and to use them productively. And because the school values ideas, it seeks applicants who will go beyond practical career training to explore new topics, areas, and disciplines and who will challenge themselves intellectually.

Columbia Business School, Class of 2027

• Average GMAT Score: 734  
• Median GPA: 3.6  
• Acceptance Rate: 20.9% 

Integral to the Columbia Business School (CBS) MBA program and identity is its New York City (NYC) home, which the CBS website refers to as a top asset of the program. To CBS, this location equals access. To complement the program’s renowned full-time faculty, CBS attracts adjunct professors and speakers who are thought leaders in many areas of business and beyond, because so many either reside in/near NYC or visit frequently. Within this vibrant setting, CBS builds its student community from the start by creating diverse clusters of 60-75 students who take all first-year classes together. CBS’s depth in finance is unique, and the school offers special programs for private equity and value investing. Other highly acclaimed specializations are “Social Enterprise” and “Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Management,” the latter strengthened by the plethora of major pharma companies within a couple hours’ drive of campus. The NYC location also reinforces and amplifies the program’s entrepreneurship resources, given the city’s strong tech and fintech ecosystem.

What CBS Looks for in Applicants 

Beyond strong professional and academic track records, CBS wants people who have a plan to take advantage of the school’s resources, engage with the surrounding city and its endless opportunities, and pursue their defined goals. Because it’s easy to fade into the background amid the immensity of NYC and the dynamism of Columbia University, CBS also wants students who can and will forge bonds with their peers.

Key Takeaways on the M7 Business Schools

With their deep resources, commitment to academic rigor, and diverse student communities, the M7 schools provide unparalleled opportunities for MBA students. While each school has its own distinctive culture and specialties, all the M7 programs offer transformative experiences that will shape your future.

As the MBA landscape continues to evolve, the M7 schools will remain at the forefront in developing leaders who can navigate tomorrow’s complex business challenges. If you’re aiming for a career that will have a global impact, one of these seven MBA programs could be the ideal place for you to start your journey.

Related Resources

• Free MBA Admissions Guides
• The Business School Selectivity Index: GMAT Scores, GPAs, and MBA Acceptance Rates
• Admissions Straight Talk Podcast

The post M7 MBA Programs: Everything You Need to Know in 2026 appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Here’s a look at eight MBA programs with especially strong consulting tracks and impressive placement rates at elite consulting firms.

1. INSEAD

With campuses in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, INSEAD offers a unique global perspective that is highly valued in consulting. The one-year MBA program is intensive, allowing students to quickly transition into the workforce. INSEAD’s strong network with leading consulting firms and its diverse cohort further enhance its standing in the industry. With 55% of the Class of 2024 hired into management consulting, INSEAD is a great option for individuals interested in this career path and looking for a global MBA program. 

2. Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Kellogg is renowned for its collaborative culture and strength in marketing and strategy, which are critical in consulting. The school’s emphasis on teamwork and strategic thinking aligns well with the demands of top consulting firms. Kellogg also boasts a robust consulting club and high placement rates at McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. Of Kellogg’s Class of 2024, a full 35% accepted jobs in the consulting field. 

3. Chicago Booth School of Business

Chicago Booth’s data-driven approach and analytical rigor make it an excellent choice for future consultants. The school’s emphasis on empirical research and quantitative analysis prepares students for the analytical challenges of consulting. Chicago Booth also benefits from a strong consulting club and an extensive alumni network in the industry. With 33.8% of the Class of 2024 entering jobs in consulting, Booth is an excellent program for prospective MBAs interested in this professional path. 

4. MIT Sloan School of Management

MIT Sloan’s focus on innovation and analytical problem-solving makes it a strong contender for aspiring consultants. The school’s curriculum includes a variety of consulting-focused courses, and Sloan’s Action Learning Labs provide hands-on consulting experience. The program’s graduates are well prepared for the strategic and analytical demands of working at the leading consulting firms. Of MIT Sloan’s Class of 2024, 32.1% accepted consulting roles. 

5. Columbia Business School

Columbia Business School’s location in New York City provides students with unparalleled access to major consulting firms. The program offers a strong consulting track and has a high placement rate at top consulting firms. In addition, its connections make it a prime choice for aspiring consultants, as proven by the 30.6% of its Class of 2024 who entered consulting roles. 

6. The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Wharton is known for its analytical rigor and strong finance program, which translates well into consulting. The school has a strong track record of placing graduates at McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. Wharton offers a dedicated consulting major and numerous consulting-focused electives. With 25.2% of its Class of 2024 accepting positions in consulting, Wharton is a great choice for candidates interested in the big three firms. 

7. Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School (HBS) consistently tops the various MBA program rankings and offers a strong pipeline to elite consulting firms. It boasts a robust consulting club, extensive alumni network, and a curriculum that uses the case study method exclusively – an approach that prepares students particularly well for the rigorous problem-solving component of consulting positions by simulating real-world problems. The latest HBS employment report backs this up, revealing that 18.0% of the Class of 2024 entered consulting. 

8. Stanford Graduate School of Business

The Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) emphasizes leadership and innovation, which are highly valued in consulting roles. The program’s smaller class size ensures that students receive personalized attention and forge strong relationships with faculty, which can be beneficial in securing career placements in consulting. In 2024, the GSB saw 14% of its graduates go into the consulting field. 

For aspiring MBAs who aim to break into elite consulting firms, an MBA from a top business school can be a powerful springboard. The leading programs offer unparalleled recruiting access, consulting-focused resources, and strong alumni connections, while equipping students with the analytical, strategic, and leadership skills needed to thrive in the industry. Ultimately, choosing the right MBA program means weighing each one’s consulting track record, resources, and network against your personal career ambitions.

Related Resources

• How to Write a Winning MBA Goals Essay: Tips to Clarify and Communicate Your Career Vision
• MBA Admissions Advice for Career Changers
• When the MBA Optional Essay Is No Longer Optional

The post Top MBA Programs for Consulting Careers appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Stanford GSB application essay tips

Essay A: What matters most to you, and why?

For this essay, we would like you to reflect deeply and write from the heart. Once you’ve identified what matters most to you, please help us understand why. You might consider, for example, what makes this so important to you. What people, insights, or experiences have shaped your perspectives? (650 words maximum)

The Stanford GSB’s tried and true essay question “What matters most to you and why?” is one of the most challenging MBA application prompts to respond to (so start early). Unlike most MBA essays, Stanford’s is not about describing your accomplishments, even if “achievement” is what you value most. It is not about highlighting your career, even if “ambition” matters most to you. It is not about revealing your “humble beginnings,” even if your childhood is the stuff about which memoirs are written. The school’s primary essay is about what you value most and, more importantly, why it matters most to you. It requires a level of maturity and introspection that only such a question as this can demand. It gives Stanford insight into who you are and what you can bring to the GSB beyond your academic background, professional accomplishments, and personal attributes. 

So, where do you start? Start with the “what.” Ask yourself, “For what would I walk over hot coals?” Still stuck? Review lists of values that resonate with you. Is it peace, relationships, health, creativity, compassion, expression? Do not worry about being cliché with your “what,” because your “why” will be unique to you and how you have lived your life.

Moreover, you can choose something symbolic to help you tell your story. I often talk about a ring my mother gave me. The ring is precious to me because of what it represents and how it has motivated me to make the choices I have made. It is a symbol of an unbreakable mother-daughter bond. 

Where do you go after identifying your “what matters most”? Remember that your “why” is more important than your “what.” You need to explain why the values you highlight are essential to you. The best way to illustrate your “why” is by providing specific examples of how these values have shaped your life. Refrain from offering career examples, because you can state your achievements in the optional “impact” essays, resume, and application form. Your recommenders should be writing about your career achievements as well. If your values only motivate you for work, then these values are likely ones that don’t truly matter most to you, despite your spending 60-100 hours per week working.  

• State the value that matters most to you.
• Explain why this value is essential to you.
• Provide specific examples (anecdotes) that illustrate how the value has shaped your life.
• Discuss how your value has influenced your decisions and actions.
• Explain why you are better off by having this value drive you.

The essay requires a level of honesty and authenticity that few others demand. Be specific and concise. The adcom wants to get to know the real you, so don’t be afraid to share your personal stories and experiences. 

Essay B: Why Stanford for you? (350 words maximum)

Describe your aspirations and how your Stanford GSB experience will help you realize them. If you are applying to both the MBA and MSx programs, use this essay to address your interest in both programs.

Why Stanford for you? 

Four words pack quite a punch: why Stanford for me, indeed? As you approach this essay, consider that Stanford values intellectually curious individuals who can solve problems, see beyond the obvious, and connect the dots. Therefore, I suggest you begin your essay with what you hope to achieve after you graduate from the Stanford GSB. Don’t think about a role as you might with other post-MBA goals essays. Instead, consider the problems you want to solve at the organizations for which you hope to work in the future. It does not matter whether you are considering an MBB consultancy, a Fortune 100 behemoth, a small start-up, a large private equity firm, a midsize family business, or a nonprofit organization. Focus on identifying the problems you can solve with your current skill set, but more importantly, with the knowledge you will gain at Stanford.

Next, address the crux of the essay: Why Stanford? Note that the question is not “Why the GSB?” It is “Why Stanford (for you)?” While you want most of your essay to be about how the GSB can help you achieve your aspirations, consider how other parts of Stanford can add value to your education. And please don’t state the obvious. Resist the temptation to lift your information directly from the school’s website. The admissions committee already knows that Stanford’s location is perfect for entrepreneurship, tech, and venture capital. They already know they are highly selective and highly ranked. They already know the Stanford brand resonates worldwide – they communicated all this to you in their marketing materials. Instead, think about the resources, opportunities, and community Stanford can offer you that will enable you to reach your unique goals. Why does this program make sense for you?

Finally, you will want to discuss how you will contribute to the Stanford GSB community. How will you make a difference at Stanford? What unique skills and experiences do you bring to the table? Why will your peers benefit from having you as a member of their class? If you are applying to both the MBA and MSx programs, the school suggests that you use Essay B to discuss why you are interested in both. In your essay, you will want to clearly spell out your reasons for applying to both programs and explain how you believe each one will help you achieve your goals. Also, if you strongly prefer one program over the other, you should express this in your essay.

To address these essays effectively, you need deep introspection. you need to understand yourself, your goals, what Stanford offers, and your unique value proposition to the Stanford community before tackling these essays.  

Additional Context

We know that each person is more than a list of facts or predefined categories. With this space, we provide you with an optional opportunity to elaborate on how your background or life experiences have helped shape your recent actions or choices. (800 characters)

Some applicants overlook this question, because Stanford tucks it within the Personal Information section of its application. Reflect on all the drop-down menus you clicked on, and consider this mini essay a kind of bookend to Essay A. For this essay, you need to consider how your identity and the uniqueness you bring to the table motivate your actions. Consider cultural upbringing, education, abilities, and life experiences. How have these factors influenced how you view the world? How has your identity – that core of who you are, that core of most significant influences and experiences – expressed itself in your recent actions? This essay is about revealing who you are and what motivates you.

Given that you have a meager 800 characters for this essay, select one factor that drives your decisions. Then, describe the action. Your action is the evidence you will use to support how and why that factor motivates you. For example, my life was heavily influenced by being the daughter of immigrants and a first-generation college student. It drove the overachiever in me. That background influences every action I take, from preparing clients for their GSB interview to advocating for the rights of disabled and infirm people. That identity is how I tell my story. Now, how will you tell yours?

Optional Short-Answer Question

What do we mean by “optional”? We mean you have the opportunity to choose. If you feel that you’ve already described your contributions well in other areas of the application, congratulations, you’re done! If not, feel free to use this opportunity to tell us more.

In the Essays section of the application, we ask you to tell us about who you are and how you think Stanford will help you achieve your aspirations. We are also interested in learning about the things you have done that are most meaningful to you. Using these optional spaces, perhaps you would like to expand upon a bullet item from your resume and tell us more about the “how” or “why” behind the “what.” Or maybe you have had a significant impact outside of work in a way that doesn’t fit neatly in another part of the application. You are welcome to share up to three examples (up to 1,200 characters, or approximately 200 words, for each example).

Question: Think about a time in the last five years when you’ve created a positive impact, whether in professional, extracurricular, civic, or academic settings. What was the situation, what did you do, and what was the impact?

Why does Stanford have optional essays? The school offers these impact essays because too many applicants tried to squeeze their accomplishments into their “what matters most” essay. If you are tempted to write about your achievements in that essay, stop. Then, cut and paste that information here instead. Now you have a space where you can highlight activities and describe your impact on work, extracurriculars, community service, and/or academics within the past five years. 

The best approach to writing an impact essay is to use a CAR or STAR with an added Sig (significance) framework. Select each impact to show some variety in your life (in other words, don’t draw all three examples from your daily work).

C = Challenge (What challenge did you face?)

A = Action (How did you address the challenge? What specific steps did you take?)

R = Result (What was the outcome? Quantify the outcome, if possible. Did you increase revenues? Did you decrease costs? Did you increase membership? Did you minimize the danger? If so, by how much?)

Sig = Significance (Why was this important to you? What did it mean for others in your life?)

or

S = Situation (What background must you describe for the reader to understand your example?)

T = Task (What was your goal?)

A = Action (What steps did you take to achieve your goal?)

R = Result (What was the outcome? Did you achieve the goal? Did you surpass the goal? If so, by how much?)

Sig = Significance (Why was this important to you? What did it mean for others?)

These frameworks will work for any behavioral question that an adcom or interviewers asks you and help you stay on point. Finally, be succinct, because the 1,200-character allotment includes spaces. 

Additional Information

If there is any information that is critical for us to know and is not captured elsewhere, include it in the Additional Information section of the application. Pertinent examples include:

• Extenuating circumstances affecting your candidacy, including academic, work, or test-taking experiences
• Academic experience (e.g., independent research) not noted elsewhere
• Explanation of why you are not using a current supervisor as a recommender

This section should not be used as an additional essay.

Additional information “essays” exist so you don’t have to make the adcom guess the story behind any of the following scenarios:

• You had terrible grades your first year of university (Perhaps your parent became ill, and you flew back and forth to care for them, or you worked 30 hours a week to make ends meet.)
• You received a subpar GMAT or GRE score (Maybe you are not a strong test-taker and can prove it with your inadequate ACT or SAT score and your 4.0 GPA, or you were initially premed and realized after volunteering at a hospital that medicine was not your thing.)
• You did not ask an immediate supervisor to recommend you (You might have only been with the company for a short time, they do not know you well, or requesting such a letter could lead to losing your job.)

Stanford also suggests that you use this section to discuss any academic research, because they do not want to see it on your one-page resume.

Additional information does not mean you should submit an essay you wrote for another school here. Feel free to present your reasons as bullet points, making the section easier to read. If you have multiple bullet points, you might have too many excuses, and many schools, including Stanford, could be a long shot for you.

Stanford GSB application deadlines

Source: Stanford GSB website

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

Stanford GSB class profile

Here’s a look at the Stanford GSB’s Class of 2026 (data taken from the Stanford GSB website):

Applicants: 7,295 

New students: 424

Women: 44%

U.S. students of color: 53%

International students: 39%

Countries represented: 72

Languages spoken: 67

U.S. students and permanent residents (federal guidelines)

• White (including Middle Eastern): 44%
• Asian (including Indian subcontinent and Philippines): 30%
• Black or African American (including Africa and Caribbean): 8%
• Hispanic/Latino: 7%
• Multi-race: 7%
• Declined to identify: 4%
• American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Other Pacific Islander: 0%

Undergraduate degrees

• Engineering: 31%
• Economics: 20%
• Business/Commerce: 18%
• Social Sciences: 16%
• Math/Sciences: 10%
• Arts/Humanities: 5%

Average GPA: 3.75

First-generation college graduate: 12%

Hold advanced degrees: 16%

U.S. institutions: 78

Non-U.S. institutions: 97

Average years of work experience: 5.1

Industries represented

• Consulting: 20%
• Investment Management/Private Equity/Venture Capital: 19%
• Technology: 14%
• Government/Education/Nonprofit: 9%
• Consumer Products and Services: 7%
• Healthcare: 6%
• Financial Services: 6%
• Military: 5%
• Manufacturing: 4%
• Arts/Media/Entertainment: 3%
• Other: 3%
• Cleantech/Energy/Environmental: 2%

Organizations represented: 289

Average GMAT: 738

GMAT range: 560-790

Average GRE Verbal: 163

GRE Verbal range: 152-170

Average GRE Quantitative: 164

GRE Quantitative range: 153-170

Average TOEFL: 113

TOEFL range: 104-120

Our team of MBA admissions experts includes former admissions directors, published authors, and highly experienced business school admissions consultants. We are primed and ready to help you secure a seat at your dream school, just as we have done for thousands of clients for the past 25 years. Schedule your free consultation, and speak to an admissions expert!

Related Resources

• M7 MBA Programs: Everything You Need to Know in 2025
• Admissions Straight Talk Podcast
• Five Tips for Applying for Stanford’s Knight-Hennessy Scholarship

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

For many business degree hopefuls, the MBA remains the gold standard of graduate management education, and not without reason – an MBA can be the start of a new chapter in your life. Professionally, it can help you accelerate your career or make a career pivot. Academically, it can help fill gaps in hard and soft skills. Personally, it can help you discover more about yourself. For these reasons, many cite their MBA experience as being transformative. 

An MBA is the goal for many people who aim to pursue a business career. But what about individuals who have the desire to pursue graduate management study and start making their mark in the business world but don’t meet the work experience requirement of most MBA programs? Is gaining acceptance to business school without work experience possible? The short answer is yes, it is! The two most common paths for candidates in this situation are pre-experience master’s programs and deferred MBA programs.

Pre-experience/Early Career Programs

The terms “pre-experience” and “early career” are used interchangeably, but they both refer to programs that cater to recent graduates (“recent” meaning fewer than three years out of college). While the first offering in this category was the general management MiM (master’s in management) degree, the portfolio of programs now includes master’s degrees in finance, innovation and entrepreneurship, and data analytics, to name but a few options you might find at business schools today. Business master’s (BMs) degrees in data science, accounting, finance, and health administration are generally the most searched BM programs in the United States.

Applicants in this category are commonly referred to as pre-experience or early career candidates, and this market continues to be popular; according to GMAT Geographic Trend Report: Testing Year 2024, while global GMAT scores are most often sent to MBA programs (63% of them are), the proportion of GMAT score reports sent to BM programs has declined from 36% in 2020 to 30% in 2024. Although pursuing an MiM or similar program doesn’t negate the need for an MBA down the road (indeed, you will find individuals with both an MiM and an MBA), these programs are excellent choices for recent graduates looking to explore their options in the business world. 

Candidates who opt to pursue their business studies now, rather than waiting until they’ve earned a few years of work experience, might do so for a few reasons: they might want to specialize early on in a certain area, such as finance or marketing, to enter a specific function; they might want to “convert” their liberal arts or science degree into a business career; or they might come from a business undergraduate degree but want to better understand how theory is applied in the real world so they can hit the ground running in their post-graduate job. Whatever the candidate’s reason, these degrees provide an excellent foundation and help individuals build the skills, knowledge, career support, and network to get a head start in their careers. Additionally, some MBA programs provide a path for their MiM students to return to complete their MBA as a second-year student.

Deferred MBA programs allow students in their final year of study (or just after, if they’re pursuing a master’s without full-time work experience) to secure a seat in the MBA classroom before gaining the generally required work experience. These programs tend to attract highflyers – students with excellent academic credentials and internships, who have demonstrated leadership potential, and who have already started formulating career goals. These candidates understand, and can articulate, how an MBA will help them achieve their goals. These programs are a great option, because they offer security (you don’t have to worry about studying for the GMAT and writing applications while juggling your busy work schedule!) and add some clout to your resume (“Wow, already accepted to an MBA program before you’ve even graduated? Impressive!”). Of course, as with anything, there are pros and cons, so it’s important to determine whether committing yourself to a deferred program makes sense with your career plans. If you decide that a deferred MBA program is the best option for you, bear in mind that they are incredibly competitive. 

Here’s some information to help you better understand which schools offer deferred MBA programs and what these programs are all about. (Information is accurate as of February 2025.)

Harvard Business School 2+2 Program 

Harvard’s 2+2 program is what the name implies – a minimum of two years (four, maximum) of work experience, followed by two years of MBA study. Harvard is looking for “innovative thinkers who have demonstrated leadership and analytical skills and want to develop their knowledge and passion to make a difference in the world.” And this difference doesn’t have to be in a “traditional” business area. In fact, the 2+2 shows some preference for candidates who are pursuing paths “that aren’t as well established”; this could include candidates who plan to work in an operating company, come from a lower socioeconomic background, are first-generation college students, aim to pursue a technically demanding role, or aspire to entrepreneurism. So, if you’re not focused on joining one of the “big three” strategy consulting firms, don’t let that stop you from applying. You might just be what the 2+2 is looking for.

New York University (NYU) Stern NYU x NYU/Stern Program

Undergraduates from NYU’s College of Arts and Science, Tandon School of Engineering, Global Liberal Studies program, Stern School of Business, and Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development can opt to join the full-time, two-year MBA program at Stern (without needing to take the GMAT or GRE) two to five years after they graduate. Financial support is a big pull with this program – accepted students are granted an Early Advancement Award of $10,000, which covers part of their MBA tuition. These students are also eligible for other Stern scholarships, including the Berkley Early Advancement Fellowship, which covers all fees and tuition for the year in which they matriculate. Accepted students with an interest in technology or in the fashion and luxury industries, and who have relevant post-undergraduate experience, can enroll in the Andre Koo Technology and Entrepreneurship MBA program or the Fashion & Luxury MBA program, rather than the traditional two-year MBA program.

Columbia Business School (CBS) Deferred Enrollment Program

CBS’s deferred admissions option offers flexibility; admitted students can explore the professional world for two to five years before beginning their MBA studies at a time that works best for them. This is a great opportunity for individuals who are looking to explore their career options and develop a better understanding of their business interests and passions. The flexibility continues once students begin their studies; they can specify in a letter of intent whether they prefer the 16-month (January) program or the 20-month (August) program, the latter of which includes a summer internship. Having spent time in industry or entrepreneurship during the deferment period can help students determine which MBA journey will offer the teaching and experience they need to achieve their desired professional and academic development.

Wharton Moelis Advance Access Program

Wharton’s deferred admissions program offers recent undergraduate or master’s degree students the chance to work for two to four years before joining the MBA program as a Moelis Fellow. The program is meant for “students who are ambitious, innovative, and prepared to use a sense of professional liberty to maximize their early career experiences.” In addition to seeking proactive, motivated students, Wharton encourages admits to take professional risks during the deferment period and take advantage of the opportunity to “pursue [their] early years with increased confidence and risk-tolerance.”   

Stanford Graduate School of Business Deferred Enrollment Program

Stanford’s program offers something that most do not – deferred MBA admits are able to take as little as one year (but no more than four) to gain experience before beginning their MBA studies. It is open to students in either the final year of their bachelor’s or joint bachelor/graduate program, and to those in a graduate program that they started immediately after their undergraduate study. We should note that Stanford uses the same evaluation criteria for deferred candidates as it does for applicants to its full-time MBA program, assessing how they think, lead, and see the world.

Stanford cites deferred enrollment as a good option for candidates who are unsure of their long-term professional path and feel they would benefit from gaining full-time work experience first. The school also indicates that some industries – such as private equity, biotech, and management consulting – recruit only MBA candidates who have either pre-MBA experience in that field or specialized knowledge. So, taking time out to gain that experience and knowledge can be valuable in ultimately achieving your post-MBA career goals. 

Interested in a dual degree option? Some of Stanford’s programs allow you to wait until the first year of your MBA to apply for a dual degree; others prefer that you apply in the year immediately before you matriculate in the Deferred Enrollment Program.

Stanford expects admitted students to “pursue opportunities that enable [them] to build expertise, enhance [their] skills and knowledge, expand [their] perspective, and develop professional judgment and self-confidence” during the deferral period. So you will need to reflect on what activities will allow you to develop and how you should spend your pre-MBA time.

Kellogg Future Leaders Deferred Enrollment Program

“Graduate with the confidence that incredible things are ahead.” Kellogg’s deferred enrollment program allows admitted students to work for two to five years before beginning their MBA journey. The admissions committee wants to get to know you and to understand your motivations and why Kellogg is a fit for you. Master’s and undergraduate students (excluding law, medical, and PhD students, who apply through the standard admissions process) can come from any study discipline and either graduated in the past year, are in their final year, or went straight into graduate study post-bachelor’s.

The usual admissions requirements apply – test scores, essays, letters of recommendation, interviews – for some candidates, but not all. Applicants who are already engaged in undergraduate studies at Northwestern are exempt from having to take either the GMAT or GRE, so that’s one application requirement that can be ticked off the list for candidates already wearing the purple N.

Yale School of Management Silver Scholars Program

Yale’s program works slightly differently from the other deferred admissions programs on this list. College seniors earn their MBA in a fast-tracked, three-year format immediately after they complete their undergraduate degree. The program structure is as follows: Year 1 covers the core curriculum, Year 2 involves a full-time internship, and Year 3 comprises electives. The opportunity to develop academic skills while simultaneously gaining professional experience is a unique one. In addition, Silver Scholars learn alongside students from Yale’s traditional MBA program. Access to knowledge and experience? Check!

Yale says, “Silver Scholars are chosen for their combination of intelligence and common sense, maturity and curiosity, passion and compassion. Each has made a difference and distinguished themselves in a particular field of interest.” You’ll need to ensure that you really stand out through the application process (which is largely the same as for the traditional MBA program). Remember, you’ll be studying alongside students with five years of professional experience. You’ll need to convince the adcom that you have what it takes to contribute to classroom discussion and debate.

Chicago Booth Scholars Program

Chicago Booth’s program is open to students who plan to pursue either the full-time or part-time MBA and allows candidates to apply before they graduate from college, then defer and gain professional experience for two to five years before enrolling in one of the school’s MBA programs. Booth cites flexibility as one of the major differentiators. Booth Scholars have the option of pursuing the Evening MBA or Weekend MBA, if one of those programs is a better fit with their career objectives.

Booth says that candidates for the Scholars Program “demonstrate intellectual curiosity, personal maturity, competitive scores, and leadership” and that they “have a history of substantive internships or part-time jobs and/or an entrepreneurial spirit.” The application essays make clear that successful candidates need to be able to articulate their career goals and where the MBA fits in. The school wants intelligent, independent thinkers with a considered career map. Although one’s professional goals can change during the deferment period, of course, the adcom wants to see that candidates have taken the time to think through their career path and how attending Booth aligns with it.

UVA Darden Future Year Scholars Program

Darden’s program allows final-year undergraduate students, or full-time master’s students without work experience, to work for two to five years before starting their MBA studies. Student backgrounds are diverse, because Darden aims to recruit individuals who bring to campus a range of abilities and professional and academic experience. In 2024, 121 Future Scholars were admitted and were in the deferral period, busy enhancing their professional experience. This group comprises an internationally (20%) and academically (46% non-business degrees) diverse group of students hailing from 16 countries and 43 undergraduate institutions. Applicants are evaluated in three areas: academics, extracurricular involvement, and personal characteristics. While the latter of these criteria is vague, the adcom does say that the school is looking for individuals who “aspire to be future ethical leaders and managers in a global world.” Putting thought into why you have the potential to be this kind of future leader, and whether your values align with Darden’s, would be time well spent.

MIT Sloan Early Admission

If you are an “ambitious and forward-thinking student,” Sloan’s deferred admissions option might suit you. It is open to final-year students who will not enroll in a PhD, MD, or JD program immediately after graduation and to those in graduate study (who started immediately after completing their bachelor’s) without full-time work experience, except for internships or co-op experiences. Accepted students can work for two to five years before joining the MBA program.

The admissions process is slightly different for Early Admission candidates, and the application calendar differs for non-MIT undergrads. Candidates are required to submit a 300-word cover letter demonstrating their fit with the school. MIT is quite specific about who it’s looking for. The school wants “thoughtful leaders with exceptional intellectual abilities and the drive and determination to put their stamp on the world … people who are independent, authentic, and fearlessly creative … who can redefine solutions to conventional problems, and strive to pre-empt unconventional dilemmas with cutting-edge ideas.” There is a lot to think about and squeeze into a one-page cover letter, so carefully consider how you fulfill the program’s stated criteria. Additionally, candidates must submit a resume and a 60-second video in which they introduce themselves to the class. This video is an excellent opportunity to show your personality and bring the person introduced in your cover letter to life. A second video is required in whish applicants must respond to open-ended questions that are randomly generated.

Additionally, interested MIT students who have a cumulative GPA of 4.2 or higher are in luck, because they can waive the GMAT/GRE.

Berkeley’s Accelerated Access Program 

Berkeley’s Accelerated Access Program is open to undergraduate and graduate students and encourages domestic and international candidates with diverse backgrounds and academic areas of study to apply. Admitted students not only have access to the full-time MBA program but are also eligible for consideration for dual degree programs.

Students are required to work for a minimum of two years before beginning their MBA studies but are allotted a maximum of five years in which to explore their career interests. Although Berkeley does not require its deferred students to follow particular career paths, it prods them to pursue “employment that enhances [their] leadership profile and prepares [them] to contribute to the mission-driven business community” at the school. To ensure that admitted students are meeting the required criteria, some admissions offers are conditional, and students are required to attend check-ins with a Berkeley Haas advisor or career coach. Additionally, a review might be conducted prior to the intended enrollment date to ensure that the student has met the required terms. 

Carnegie Mellon Tepper Future Business Leaders Deferred MBA Admissions Program

In February 2021, Tepper joined the deferred admissions space with its Future Business Leaders program, which allows students to defer for up to four years while they gain professional experience. The program is open to college seniors who plan to graduate from a U.S. university in the current academic year and do not yet have full-time work experience. The school says that “competitive applicants will have a strong academic record, professional internships, and undergraduate leadership experience.” Tepper’s adcom also expects candidates to have put some thought into their career goals and why the program format is a good fit for them (essay alert!). The GMAT/GRE is waived for Carnegie Mellon students, and admits are eligible to apply for scholarships, with decisions to be made at the time of matriculation.

Georgetown McDonough MBA Advanced Access Program 

The most recent player on the MBA deferred admissions scene is Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, with its MBA Advanced Access Program (MAAP). The program allows candidates who are either in their final year of undergraduate studies or in graduate school – and have no full-time work experience – to apply for deferred enrollment. Accepted students can secure a place in the class two years out from when they apply, with the option of extending this time period to three or four years.

The application process is thorough. In addition to the standard written application essay (candidates have three question options to choose from) and video essay, MAAP candidates must complete program-specific essays. The prompts for these essays ask candidates not just about their career goals but also about where they stand in working to achieve them. Additionally, applicants are expected to describe their personal and professional development plans. So, you’ll want to take some time to reflect on how you can present yourself as a proactive, principled future leader who will contribute to the school’s community and make an impact in the business world.

If these options sound interesting, but you’re still unsure whether you should study for a master’s now or wait to pursue an MBA, schedule a free consultation with an Accepted admissions expert today!

Related Resources:

• MBA Acceptance Rates: The Selectivity Index
• Admissions Straight Talk Podcast for MBA Applicants
• Retaking the GMAT with a 700 – Should You Consider It?

The post Deferred MBA Programs and Other Options for MBA Hopefuls with No Work Experience appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

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Show Summary

In this podcast episode, Linda Abraham interviews Dr. Kevin Schulman, the director of Stanford’s Master of Science and Clinical Informatics Management Program. They discuss the opportunities available at the intersection of medicine, business, and technology, and the problems that you can solve by combining these interests in your career. The program at Stanford combines business courses, technology courses, and ethics to train leaders who can transform healthcare delivery. The program is designed for working professionals and is a one-year, part-time cohort program. Graduates of the program can pursue careers as Chief Medical Information Officers, start their own companies, work in tech or industry, or advance in clinical leadership roles. Finally, the interview concludes with a discussion on the potential risks and benefits of technology in healthcare, and the importance of personalizing healthcare through technology.

Show Notes

What are the opportunities for you, if you’re interested in the intersection of medicine, business, and technology? What problems can you solve if you combine those interests in your career? What education would you require? We’re going to find out in this interview with the director of Stanford’s Master’s program and Clinical Informatics Management.

Welcome to the 540th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me. Whether you are applying to a niche, innovative graduate program or more traditional one, the challenge at the heart of admissions is showing that you both fit in at your target schools and are a standout in the applicant pool. Accepted’s free download, Fitting In and Standing Out: The Paradox at the Heart of Admissions will show you how to do both. Master this paradox and you are well on your way to acceptance. 

Dr. Kevin Schulman, director of Stanford’s Master of Science and Clinical Informatics Management Program is also Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and Professor of Operations Information and Technology at Stanford GSB. He is our guest today, and those are just three of his titles. He has several more, along with over 500 publications. His research focuses on organizational innovation and healthcare, healthcare policy and health economics, which leads us directly to Stanford’s Master’s in Clinical Informatics management or the MCIM. 

Dr. Schulman, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk. [2:00]

Oh, thanks so much for having me, Linda.

My pleasure. I’m really delighted to be speaking with you. I saw an ad for the program online and it just felt like such a fascinating program that I looked into it and I thought, gee, it’d be great to have you on. So let’s start with a couple of really basic questions. I am not a techie and I’m not a healthcare professional. I do have an MBA. What is clinical informatics management? [2:05]

That’s a great question. As you think about healthcare compared to other services that you receive on a daily basis, we’re just lagging so far behind in terms of how we provide digital services to our patients, to consumers, how we do follow-up, how we provide education. So we wanted to build a program to help create leaders that will transform the delivery of healthcare in this country and around the world. To do that, we combine business courses and technology courses and ethics in a year long program for working professionals where we meet every other weekend.

So my next question was going to be, can you give us an overview of the MCIM program, and you kind of just did that, but can you go into a little bit more detail about how it is structured and what is actually taught in the program? I mean, again, it just sounds absolutely fascinating to me. [3:06]

So at a high level, when I first started a program like this after the HITECH Act in 2009.

Oh wow, it was back that far? [3:27]

I was at Duke at the time, it wasn’t here, but our CIO said, look, we need more people to help me implement technology. And he saw that actually as a business issue. How do we get cost and quality improvements from using technology? So our curriculum really has evolved from that, but follows, so we need business skills. How do we understand the language of business, how to talk to business leaders at a health system or elsewhere in a language where we make a conversation that they understand. So we do finance, accounting, strategy and management. Two of the courses I really like that are slightly different, one is marketing. So when we go from analog seeing your physician in their office to digital, we actually go from a one-to-one conversation to a one-to-many. And so we’re using marketing tools and strategies all around us to influence behavior. Most of the time it’s to get you to buy products and services, but imagine if we could use those same strategies to help you take your medicines.

To remind you to get certain tests. [4:26]

So that’s marketing. And the final business course is service operations. We do from a machine learning perspective, how do we use this technology to improve productivity at the grassroots level? And then the technology courses are really interesting. So we’re not a programming core, we don’t teach you how to program, we teach you how to work with people who understand these technologies. So of course this is Stanford. So we’re going to start with data science and machine learning. And we have one of the great strengths of Stanford is something called the design school. So IDEO came out of there. Our Biodesign program built a special course for us, Biodesign for Digital Health that looks at needs finding and building solutions that can be scalable and actionable. We also have a data architecture class. How do we understand standards? I teach a course called Health IT and Strategy, which is interesting, which basically again, my background’s health service research, health economics. And so my question is how have other industries used technologies to improve productivity and improve efficiency? And what are those economic models and how can we apply them to healthcare?

And then there’s a stats class we call Quality and Safety in Healthcare because at the end of the day with all this data, we have to understand statistics, but we also have to understand the reports we get as managers and where those data come from.

And then there’s two final pieces. One’s a required practicum project, which is a piece of work that will help you kind of hone in on one of your interests, either to build an interest, to write a business plan, exclude an interest. That has four tracks. You could create a case study, you could do a research project, you could do an experiential project working with leaders at Stanford or beyond. And the final one is writing a business plan. A lot of students do these days. And then the ethics program is a year-long ethics program.

I noticed that. I was very intrigued by the fact that you have an ethical component. So first of all, the program is a one-year program. Let’s just start with that. [6:24]

It’s a one-year program. Yeah, it’s a full Stanford Master’s program. We just hold the classes every other Friday, Saturday.

So it’s also a part-time program. [6:38]

Well, it’s scheduled for working professionals, but it’s-

That’s what I mean. Yes, better way to put it. [6:44]

Yeah, the class hours are the same as if you took a full-time master’s program here.

And it’s a cohort program, right? [6:52]

So everyone starts together and finishes together. There’s 25 people in the program and they become very close friends very quickly. We also rotate, everyone’s on an assigned team and we rotate the teams throughout the year. So you get to meet the other people in your cohort, but you’re all here together in class.

Then obviously you have assignments in between classes. We have guest speakers either on the weekends, you’re here, in between depending on the time of the year.

You mentioned that the program in your head started in 2009, but when did it actually start? [7:20]

Here at Stanford, this is our third year. And Stanford brings a lot to a program like this from the design perspective. Everything at Stanford is AI and ML. Entrepreneurship and innovation is a huge piece of the Stanford ecosystem, but we also have a great ethics program. How do we think about ethical aspects of AI? How do we think about developing technologies? How do we think about deploying them and data privacy? Not only are we dealing with technologies where society’s got lots of questions about the ethics of the technology in the first place, but then we’re applying them to healthcare.

Could you give an example? [8:02]

So how do we think about building models from a dataset? Is there adequate representation of different patient populations in that dataset before we use it? That’s a core basic question a lot of people on campus are asking. And then Dave Magnus, who heads our ethics program, as things come up during the year, they’ll get distracted by whatever the topic du jour is, if it’s vaccines, if it’s data breaches, personal health records, whatever the – he kind of has some core ethical principles to really topical kind of assignments.

I just had an experience today my elderly mother has a video appointment with her doctor and it required my sister or me to go to her apartment to participate in the video appointment because it was not set up so that you could log on from different places. I assume that’s for privacy concerns, but there’s also very definite usability limitations as a result. [8:39]

Absolutely. And fortunately she had you available, fortunately you all spoke English.

That’s true. But I’m going to guess that that would be a reflection of conflicting priorities, usability versus privacy and security or no? [9:10]

Yeah, no, I think it also reflects the question of who are we providing services for and what’s that definition? So the doctor got paid to provide a service to your mother, but your mother needed a service for her and her care team, and that was not in the concept of how we build a CPT code. And so we really had a very limited vision of how we would provide that service under current billing services. One of the things we’re working on right now is just intellectually, what else should you have gotten? So you had your video visit. Did you get a copy of the visit?

No. [10:00]

Did you get any materials like emailed to you about? 

I’m fairly certain that there is an after visit summary. My sister actually was at this thing. She physically went to my mother’s and was on the appointment. My mother’s at an age, and this was of a seriousness where we felt somebody else had to be there. [10:07]

No, absolutely.

But it was not, I don’t, to my knowledge, there’s no recording of it. If there is a recording of it, I don’t know about it. And my mother doesn’t know about it, my sister doesn’t know about it. And there probably is a written after visit summary. Now my mother’s vision is fairly good, but there’s another elderly relative who can’t see. So every after visit summary that she gets is an utter waste of time and an act of frustration for her. [10:25]

And you still have to log into the system to even get that.

Sure. She can’t do that at all. [10:52]

And it’s assuming that after visit summary is written in English and at an inappropriate reading level.

Right. [10:59]

There’s no video. There’s no pictures. So one of the things, actually, this is a long time ago, but we built a personal health record. I was at Duke before Stanford in our portal, and one of the things we linked was pictures of your pills. So your mother’s on X number of pills and if she mixes up the pill bottles, how do you know which one is the blue pill and-

They actually do have pictures of the pills. That I’ve seen. [11:21]

You’re in a good position then.

But those are some of the things just again, personally that I’m dealing with now that have very much to do with information, clinical medicine and yes, management. 

But let’s go back to the program. I could go on like this for a long time and I don’t want to take up too much of your time. In the videos for the MCIM  program, there was a strong emphasis on the entrepreneurial opportunities presented via the program. And you’ve touched on it a little bit. Could you go into that? Could you maybe give me an example? [11:29]

Yeah, so one of the things that we ask, we are here for the students who come here, and Stanford attracts a lot of people who are interested in innovation in entrepreneurship. So they have projects for several of the different classes which can end up being the nucleus for a new business plan. We have this required practicum project that several people last year submitted business plans for. Students either in MCIM or in my other classes on campus are doing work on discharge planning tools, research for rare disease platforms. I was just on a call about a new technology to use voice to help your mom take her meds. So lots of different ideas there, but there are also some ideas that are kind of buried. Can we do better jobs building databases for AI, ML research? That was a big interest of one of the students from last year.

And who is the program intended for? Is it intended for computer science people, for people in business, for healthcare providers? Any of the above? All the above. [12:57]

Well, actually all the above.

Is it more defined by goal? [13:08]

All the students are, I guess the common denominator is they all see that healthcare is an opportunity to make a change. It’s a field, it’s a four and a half trillion dollar healthcare economy, but it’s not an efficient delivery system. And again, not using technology anywhere near the way we should be using it. So all of them are motivated by the opportunity to really make a difference and make a contribution. I try to mix people in the class. We have about 40% with a clinical background, and then the rest are going to either have a business background, a technology background or a finance background. And they’re all going to be on teams, cross functional teams where they have to be able to talk to each other across disciplines. We also do something unique where we’ll take some students right out of college all the way up to people, the oldest person program right now I think is either close to 60 or at 60.

Wow. [14:05]

And so each generation has different ways in which they think about technology, use technology. And so not only do we have to communicate across disciplines, but we have to communicate across generations of technology users. And so that leads to lots of really interesting insights.

Especially in healthcare where you’re typically the older and the elderly use healthcare more than younger people, typically as a group, they are horribly challenged by technology, depending on where in the age span they are. [14:25]

Yeah, that’s a design failure. We should be developing technology that is much easier for them to use. I mean, if my kids make fun of me for how I use technology, so can we make it easier? Can we make it seamless? Can we do some kind of authentication? So I don’t have to remember 6 million passwords. My mother-in-law has got a notebook of all the passwords that she’s forgotten. So she has the passwords, but she doesn’t know what they connect to in terms of the databases. So I think by 2030 we’re going to have 10 million people in this country age 85 and above. If we’re going to have 72 million people in Medicare, we need a healthcare system that provides access to those people. And so the technology’s going to be a lot more useful.

What kind of careers do you anticipate the graduates of the program will go into? [15:21]

So again, I think our idea is these are leadership skills. We’re training you to be leaders to move forward. We’ve gotten some great traction already with things like Chief Medical Information Officers, but other people, a couple have started up companies, smaller, larger tech companies, other people are out in industry. Some of the clinical people are back to their clinical position and moving up in leadership roles there. So it’s a really nice diversity of where they’re going. Also, because it’s a one-year program and it’s pretty intense for working professionals, frankly, I tell people, you’re going to build these skills and then we’ll use it in a career. It doesn’t have to be in this year. It could be in the next year, the following year. And so we’ve seen some of that as well.

I can imagine they can also apply what they’re learning as they’re working since they don’t leave the workforce. [16:12]

Absolutely. Every single day, they come back for the next class weekend. That concept you brought up, we use that. I have another person who’s actually from our first cohort, I was talking to this week and she was opening up her notebooks from class. Literally she just took a new job and she went back and reread all of her stuff. So you can use it, but definitely the business skills and the business concept that you get are things that are going to carry you forward.

What is the application process like? For the MCIM? [16:47]

We really focus, it’s especially after the Supreme Court decision, it’s a holistic review trying to understand where you’re at, what your goals are, what your accomplishments have been and your success have been to date, whether that’s in academia or in the workforce, especially in tech. We have a lot of people in non-traditional career paths to say the least. There’s a guy who has a little company here in Menlo Park who dropped out of college after Harvard. So we have to be flexible. And then we have essays where you really do have to think about letting us know why this is an important program for you, why you’re going to be successful in the program, why you’re going to be a good collaborator in the classroom and with your teammates. And then we’ll do a one-way video interview, and then if people get selected, they’ll have interviewed with two of our admissions committee members.

That’s it. But on our side, the challenge is to really think about a cohort that’s going to work well together in the classroom. It’s going to be a very intense experience. Again, because it’s so focused. Yeah, it’s going to be a very intimate experience because working, you’re sitting next to each other all day for a year, but we also need to have different backgrounds. It can’t be a physician MBA program that there’s no one to learn from all the same set of background. So we need a cohort that can really blend these things together. Because we’re Stanford, we want to make sure we also are building leaders that represent what our country looks like in terms of who’s going to lead us forward and the kind of backgrounds that people have.

You mentioned that the class has 25 members. Is there any interest in growing that number? [18:32]

Yeah, it depends. It’s up to the provost here, and it’s Stanford, so they’ll take their time making the decision, evaluating it, but it’s a permanent program. We’ll always be here. I think we’ve had really good interest in the program and our graduates are doing really well. They’re very happy with the program and the experience, so I’m very optimistic about that going forward.

I noticed in preparing for the call that the application process does not include a test requirement. You give permission or you say that people can share their scores if they have them. Who should share their scores? [19:05]

I think part of this ends up being some people, like our physician applicants, took their MCATs or whatever test years and years ago. So for mid-career professionals, the test didn’t make a lot of sense. So I think if you’re closer to, if you have scores, if you’re on the junior end of the curriculum, that’s helpful. I should say within I think seven years of graduating college, our program participates in a really unique program here at Stanford, the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, which has a different application process, but that provides pretty generous financial support. So those people, I think if they don’t have a lot of experience, those scores will be helpful. But for people who’ve been out in the workforce five or 10 years, I think their letters of recommendation and their essays are going to be much more useful.

And I would assume the importance of the GPA also varies depending upon the time that you’ve been out of school. Is that true? [20:09]

Yeah, we need evidence that you can– it’s a rigorous program when your master’s program is, so we want to make sure you can perform well in the classroom. But you can show that in lots of different ways as far as I’m concerned. We’re pretty cognizant of different backgrounds, different trajectories people have had, and we’re looking for evidence of success out there in the workforce.

Now there are three required essays for the MCIM. One is a statement of purpose, which is very common in almost all master’s programs. Another one is a statement I guess, saying how you could enrich the learning community in the MCIM. And the third one is the program time management statement, which given the intensity of the program makes a lot of sense to me. 

How should those three essays provide you with the information that you’re seeking from applicants? I mean, they have different foci, and what advice can you give applicants on those essays? [20:42]

Well, I think that first and foremost is again, the thing that binds everyone together is this, is passion for change. They want to make a difference in the world. A master’s degree, especially for working professionals, is a big investment of time and effort, and we want to make sure that you’ve really considered that and that it really is going to be valuable to you. So I think that’s really helpful to us. And then letting us know how you think that’s going to help you. Either I’m going to go start a company or I’m going to get a promotion or I’m going to move into a different role intellectually. Say you have a tech background and you want to move into project management or leadership or move out of marketing into healthcare, but let us know about that.

In terms of we’re very serious that you’re going to learn, most programs probably say this, but half of what you learn is going to be from your faculty and half is going to be from your colleagues in the classroom. And so we take that very seriously. We want people that could work well with each other as we build the cohort. With 25 people, that is even more important than if it was a bigger program and since we’re in person, it’s even more important than if we were a distance program. So we are not perfect at that, but that’s a big piece of what we do. We’re very happy Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 that finished our programs really kind of love each other. The saddest day of the whole program was graduation when they weren’t going to be together every other weekend for the next year.

And then time management is, again, a chance for them to let us know if they’re working professionals, that they’ve got the schedule down pat, that they’ve anticipated what the requirements are going to be. If they have support from work, that’s also really important. Some of the people have had real challenges. Either your boss is really supportive when you apply in February and something’s happened in the company by June or the managers rotate. It puts a lot of challenge on you. You’ve committed to this program and all of a sudden it’s a real challenge.

Well, thank you for that. We’ve talked a lot about machine learning and AI and all that. What do you think of applicants using ChatGPT to help them with their essays? [23:23]

We’ve written a paper on hallucinations from ChatGPT.

That is one of the better responses I’ve got to this question. [23:36]

My kids text all the time. They’re really good at texting. When they have to do longer form essays they get kind of nervous. But this is your chance to communicate with us and communicate that your level of skill and ability to perform in the classroom, and if you think that’s your level of skill and ability that says something. Hopefully you could do a little better than that.

Is there any kind of career support offered through the program? Through the MCIM? [24:10]

Yeah, actually we’re in the school of medicine, and we have something called the BioSci Careers program, and so they support us in things like resume workshops and networking workshops and job postings, so that those resources are all available. People come to Stanford looking at recruiting all the time, but we also, we’re going to end up with 25 people, 25 different kind of ideas of where they want to go in their career. Though you will have a lot of support, but there’s also a lot of individual networking and responsibility moving forward. Again, you don’t have to change your career just because you come into the program and then obviously you have access to all those resources as an alumni as well.

Do the MCIM students interact with let’s say med students or engineering students or GSB students? [25:00]

Yeah, some of them do. Some of them are just here for the class Friday, Saturday and don’t have any other time. This year we actually have people commuting from the East Coast.

Wow. [25:18]

To come here, so there’s a limited amount that they could take advantage of in terms of Stanford. Some of our international students are here on campus seven days a week doing all kinds of things. The students in the MCIM program have built actually a network of people interested in healthcare here at Stanford in the MCIM program and beyond, and then actually it’s gone national. I think they have a thousand people in their network right now, so there’s lots of opportunities in that direction. Some of our outside speakers, the MCIM students get much better access to them than I also teach at the GSB, so some of the MCIM students get a lot better access than our GSB students even.

Now this episode should air November 7th. Your first deadline is November 10th, so it’s kind of a little tight there, but the final deadline for the cohort entering in June is January 12th. What advice do you have for potential applicants aiming for the January 12th due date? In other words, they will have about two months from the time the show airs to when they submit their application. [25:57]

To me, being on this side of the evaluations, letters or recommendations are so important.

We haven’t touched on them at all. [26:31]

And when you have a lot of people that are really, really extremely talented applying to a program, it’s only letters that can really differentiate you. How do I know about you as an individual in terms of your strengths on a team or leadership capabilities? So if you have the luxury of time, I would think about those letters and who you’re going to ask to write a letter, what part of your background or experience that you want to emphasize through those letters. That’s really helpful.

Great advice. Thank you. Now, let’s say somebody’s listening to this podcast and says, “I’m not ready for this year, but this seems really intriguing and I’d like to plan for it for the following year.” What advice would you have for that applicant, potential applicant planning ahead to apply next year or later? [27:00]

Yeah, like I said, this is a permanent degree. We’re not going anywhere, and so especially for thinking about how am I going to take a year working over the weekend, I’ve talked to people. “I just took a new role. I was really interested in this program. I just took a new role. I can’t go to my boss right now, but I want to do it next year”, and I think that’s perfectly fine. We have information sessions that will start over the summer. I think if you’re ready, you apply during round one in the November deadline. If you’re potentially a candidate for Knight-Hennessy, that’s due in the fall as well. Yeah, I would use this time to just get ready and get the application in.

The advantage of round one, especially for people with clinical backgrounds, my clinical schedule is set a year in advance, so we wanted round one’s there partially so that clinical people could know by December if they’re in the program or not, so they could adjust their schedules if they need to. Lots of advantages to applying then. But between now and then, I think really just trying to think about why do you want to do the program, what other information can you get, I really advise people to reach out to the students in the program.

All the students are telling me that lots of people are reaching out to them, but I could tell you from the head of the program perspective what I think we’re delivering, but they could tell you how it’s having an impact on their careers. It’s everything we’re talking about and more, and they can give you a real flavor for that.

Like I said, this is a big decision. You don’t need a master’s degree to get ahead in your career. Like we started with, again, there’s a really famous dropout here in town that’s done pretty well. A masters degree could help some of the rough edges, but you don’t need it. I was talking earlier today about some of the challenges of single moms taking care of their kids, how would they ever get access to a program like this? Well, it may not be the best. It may not be totally accessible, so I don’t want people to feel bad they can’t take the time off or it’s not the right time of their lives to do something like this. There are short courses, there’s other ways to get some of this material, but I’m really proud of our program and what people are getting out of it.

I think you have a lot of reasons to be proud. Again, it seemed fascinating when I first heard about it, and it seems more fascinating now. As we’re coming to the end of this interview. What would you have liked me to ask you? [29:42]

Oh, that’s a great question. I think you’ve done a really good job of tackling through this. I mean, I think as we look forward, again, we’re trying to tackle this big problem of how do we improve productivity in healthcare? How do we change the healthcare market and why technology? There’s all kinds of other ways you could think about it, and at the end of the day, technology’s, for better or for worse, one of the least regulated spaces in healthcare. And because of that, if you believe in Clay Christensen and disruptive innovation, disruptive innovation only comes in unregulated markets, and so technology’s the only unregulated market in healthcare or the least regulated, and so it’s the one opportunity we have to really make significant change, and I think that’s the reason why we put this program together. That’s why technology is such an emphasis, not only because technology is a great solution to a lot of problems, but technology’s really a way to really dramatically rethink how do we deliver care, make it more affordable, make it more accessible?

Do you think that there’s maybe a risk in depersonalizing healthcare? You go into the doctor and the doctor’s staring at the screen the whole time and not looking at you and that kind of thing? Not exactly the Norman Rockwell image. [31:04]

Yeah. It’s not the Norman Rockwell. I would put it back the other way. I think we’re on the approach of actually being able to personalize your healthcare, because imagine right now while I’m staring at the screen and saying, “Here are the three things that are recommended.” Then we’ll make sure you get scheduled and the amount of time. How do I customize the experience for you? How do I build tools that’ll help you with your personal health goals? Like whatever your exercise plan is, help you take your medicines, help you do your cancer screening. You are paying huge amounts of money for healthcare, and you get no assistance whatsoever in any of those things. It just makes no sense. And at the other end of the spectrum for people with multiple chronic conditions, the healthcare system gets more complex and more difficult to navigate. We need tools to help us do that.

Especially with the elderly. [32:15]

Yeah, so I think it’s actually going to get more personal.

That sounds great to me, and that’s a wonderful note I think to end on also. Increased personalization and improvement in the healthcare system, positive change, and it sounds to me like that’s what the MCIM is all about, right? [32:20]

Absolutely.

Okay, great. Dr. Schulman, I think we’re just about out of time. You’ve been very generous. This has been an absolutely fascinating conversation. [32:36]

Relevant Links:

• Master of Science in Clinical Informatics Management | Clinical Informatics Management (MCiM) | Stanford Medicine
• Fitting In & Standing Out: The Paradox at the Heart of Admissions – a free guide

Related Shows:

• Transitioning from the Military to an MBA at Stanford GSB  – podcast Episode 471
• What These Seasoned Startup Founders Have Done Since Earning Their Stanford MBAs  – podcast Episode 382
• Combining a Stanford MBA with a Tech Startup Career – podcast Episode 369
• Mike Hochleutner on Stanford’s MSx Program for Experienced Leaders – podcast Episode 

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The post Stanford’s MCiM Combines Technology, Healthcare, and Business [Episode 548] 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

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The post Applying for Your MBA Through The Consortium [Episode 532] 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.

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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.

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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.

Are you the Harvard, Stanford, or Wharton “type?”

Each year, Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton are flooded with applicants who have great experience and powerful stats. However, most are not the applicants these programs are looking for. If these elite programs are on your radar, you need to know if you will be considered a viable candidate. And if you are, you’ll want to know the ingredients of an application that will positively wow the admissions committee. 

So if you’ve got Harvard, Stanford, or Wharton on your mind, don’t miss our on-demand webinar, What Does It Take to Get Into Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton? with MBA admissions veteran Linda Abraham, founder and president of Accepted. During this hour, Linda answers the most important questions that smart applicants ask about applying to these programs, including: 

• How can you determine ‘fit’ with the cultures of these schools?
  
  
• How do the interview processes differ in each school?
  
  
• What are the schools looking for in their essays?
  
  
• Is there even such a thing as a Harvard type? A Stanford type? A Wharton type?

And more! 

You don’t have time to waste applying to schools where you don’t fit. Instead, learn which top programs will fit like a glove! Show your business smarts by making time to watch our on-demand webinar.

Watch now:

About the Presenter:

Since founding Accepted 25 years ago, Linda has been a sought-after admissions expert for media outlets including Bloomberg Businessweek, CBS News, U.S. News, and The Wall Street Journal. She is the host of the Admissions Straight Talk podcast, co-author of MBA Admissions for Smarties, and has been a frequent contributor to Poets & Quants. Every year Linda looks forward to hearing from Accepted’s many clients who have been accepted to Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton, among other top MBA programs.

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!

The post What Does It Take to Get Into Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton? appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Everything you need to know about the Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program

Overview:

• What is the KHS Program?
• Who is eligible to apply?
• Unique application deadlines and procedures
• KHS Acceptance Rate

Application elements:

• Resume
• Recommendation letters
• Institutional letter of endorsement
• Short answer questions
• Essay question
• Video statement

What is the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program?

The Stanford Knight–Hennessy Scholars Program is a unique opportunity to join a cohort of graduate students from interdisciplinary backgrounds who plan to tackle some of the world’s most complex and pressing issues, including the environment, healthcare, education, inequality, and/or social justice. 

Those accepted to this program receive full tuition reimbursement as well as a healthy stipend for the entirety of their graduate degrees at Stanford. In addition to their academic studies, Knight-Hennessy Scholars are also exposed to a specialized curriculum related to leadership, professional development, interdisciplinary dialogue, and entrepreneurship. The program aims to generate academic and technical expertise in individuals committed to using their knowledge to become public leaders who go on to make impacts far beyond the university. 

Becoming a Knight-Hennessy Scholar is a truly unique opportunity to shape your experience of graduate school, and it is also incredibly competitive. 

As the rest of this post explains, the application for Knight-Hennessy Scholars is a complex puzzle of small components that must add up to create an image of you as a highly driven and visionary individual. In order to put together a strong set of materials, take the time to strategize the big picture of the application before you start the writing process. Together, every aspect of the application can be used to draw a larger picture of you as the whole of many parts. If you take the time to build connections within the content of each of the application components, you will be able to pull the reader through a cohesive message about how your past experiences have shaped your future goals, and why those goals matter.

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Who is eligible to apply?

If you earned, in January 2016 or later, a U.S. bachelor’s degree or its equivalent from a college or university of recognized standing, you are eligible to apply. U.S. military (active or veteran) applicants who earned their undergraduate degree in 2014 or later are also eligible. 

This year, Stanford has opened eligibility requirements so that any student who has already been admitted by and deferred enrollment to Fall 2023 or any current Stanford PhD student who is entering their second year can submit an application to KHS. Furthermore, current Stanford graduate students who wish to add a second full-time Stanford graduate degree that starts in Fall 2023 are also eligible.

Based on program limitations, a few graduate level applicants are not eligible for consideration when applying to KHS, these include: 

• Applicants to the Honors Cooperative Program
  
  
• Applicants to the Master of Liberal Arts
  
  
• Applicants to the Doctor of Science of Law (JSD)
  
  
• Current Stanford students applying for coterminal graduate study
  
  
• Current Stanford PhD students adding an MA or MS degree in their current discipline

Technically, there are no other eligibility requirements. However, KHS clearly outlines the kind of person that will be a competitive candidate in the “criteria” section of their website. Three important qualities that Knight-Hennessy Scholars demonstrate are: 

• independence of thought
  
  
• purposeful leadership, and; 
  
  
• a civic mindset. 

Given the open-ended and brief format of the required essay prompts, it is important to make thoughtful decisions about how to address aspects of yourself and your life that demonstrate these qualities. 

Unique application deadlines and procedures

Applying to participate in the Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program is a completely separate process from that of applying to a specific graduate program at Stanford University. However, most Stanford graduate programs require KHS applicants submit their graduate school application materials much earlier than those who choose not to apply for the award. 

Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program application deadlines

* Graduate program application deadlines for KHS applicants vary based on Stanford’s division of schools, departments, and programs. The application dates and deadlines instructions clearly state that your degree application must be submitted by December 6, 2022 or your degree program’s deadline, whichever is earlier. 

Required application components 

In addition to background information, transcripts, and test scores, the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Application requires the following materials: 

KHS Resume

Since the KHS application instructions are very clear about the format and length (1 page) of the resume, it is extremely important for you to curate the content of this document so that it enhances the rest of your application materials. You do not have to include everything you have ever accomplished in the resume. Instead, consider only including the experiences and accomplishments that are most relevant to your short- and long-term vision of the future and KHS’ criteria. 

KHS Recommendation letters

The KHS committee requests very specific content to be included in letters of recommendation. Given that these types of questions are rarely addressed in academic letters, you should select writers who are familiar with you as a person and make sure that you provide these individuals with KHS’s instructions:  

1. Please explain how you know and interact with the applicant.
   
   
2. We seek visionary thinkers who demonstrate independence of thought. Describe how the applicant demonstrates intellectual curiosity and creativity to address challenges. 
   
   
3. We seek courageous leaders who demonstrate purposeful leadership. Describe how the applicant takes initiative to achieve meaningful results and effect positive change. 
   
   
4. We seek collaborative community members with a civic mindset. Describe how the applicant acts in service of others to elevate the greater good. 
   
   
5. Is there anything else — positive or negative — that we should know about the applicant?

Reminder note

It is fine to ask the same person to provide recommendations for your graduate program and for the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program, but you must ensure that your recommender submits distinctive letters of reference for each audience.

Institutional letter of endorsement (optional)

Depending on where you went to school for undergraduate study, your campus may have an individual who has been designated as the KHS Campus Contact. This person can advise you on the process of applying and, though this is not mentioned explicitly on the KHS website, your campus contact may also contribute a supplemental Institutional Letter of Endorsement to your application. This would be viewed as a third letter of recommendation. 

Please review this list of campus-contacts and check with your university’s KHS contact about any internal deadlines regarding institutional endorsement letters. 

If your institution is not represented on the KHS campus contact list, then reach out to the person or office that advises students on processes related to selective national awards like the Fulbright Fellowship Program, and the Truman or Goldwater Scholarships. It’s possible that this person or office can submit an institutional endorsement letter for KHS as well. 

Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program writing prompts [2022 – 2023]

The written answers to the questions below serve as the only chance for you to contribute to the narrative trajectory of your life and goals in your own voice. Given the brevity of these statements, you want to make every word count. From my experience working with students and clients on these application components, making every word count means that you will have to resist the temptation to tell stories with flourish. Instead, figure out which details, facts, and specific moments best demonstrate your overarching message and then arrange your answers carefully so that, within the whole application, the details and facts you consider to be most important are all mentioned.

Find out how an admissions expert can help you craft a winning KHS application >>

Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program 3 short answer questions

1. How will your Knight-Hennessy Scholars experience prepare you to realize your immediate and long-term intentions? (250 word limit)
   
   This is a pretty straight-forward question about short- and long-term goals. With 250 words you don’t have time to be vague, so I suggest that you provide a very realistic set of short-term goals and clearly show how the Knight-Hennesy Scholars experience will enable you to pursue those more immediate intentions after graduating. Here is an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you know something about the programming offered by KHS. Take some time to review the King Global Leadership Program, previous guest speakers, and the greater Stanford Community. Then ask yourself “how can some of these specific resources or programs prepare me to successfully pursue my immediate goals?” You’ll want to be specific here. Anyone who reads the website will be able to name-drop “the King Global Scholars Leadership Program” as useful, but you want to dig a little deeper. Are there aspects of the leadership model that will be particularly useful to you? Can you identify past speakers that demonstrate community support for your goals? How will you engage with the broader community and why will those dialogues be critical to your success? You might even want to review the current list of scholars and see if any of their research, entrepreneurial projects, and talents line up with your interests and goals. From there, explain how you envision that your experiences with KHS will enable you to succeed with your short-term goals, therefore leading you to achieve your broader long-term goals. Ideally, your future intentions are not completely out of the blue. Rather, it should be easy for the reader to see your goals as a direct extension of some of the work, research, or activism that you have engaged with in the past.
   
   
2. Please tell us when you: a) made someone particularly proud of you, b) were most challenged, and c) fell short of expectations. (150 word limit combined)
   
   There are a few ways to answer this set of questions. You could tell one story about a series of events in which you did not meet expectations, rose to a difficult challenge, and made someone proud of you. Or you could treat each of these three questions as an opportunity to tell three 50-word stories that stand alone. Depending on how wordy you are, fifty words constitutes about 2-3 sentences. Much as you compose your list of eight improbable facts, I suggest that you treat these stories as an opportunity to mix things up, have some fun, and squeeze in any information that you weren’t able to share in other application components. Remember, not everything has to be about successful, academic, or laudatory accomplishments. The variety in questions shows that KHS wants to know about your personality too.
   
   
3. Please tell us eight improbable facts (things that are unlikely but true) about you. Improbable facts are aspects about you – experiences, beliefs, traits, skills, etc. – that seem unlikely but are true. This does not mean a list of achievements. Use this as a way to show a different side of you. And have some fun! (150 word limit combined)
   
   I suggest that you wait to write this part of the application until after you’ve solidified your content for answering all of the other questions. This list of eight improbable facts is a chance for you to share some information about your personality, values, lived experiences, and any additional accomplishments that are not displayed in other components of the application. Ideally what you choose to share here will round out your materials with a mixture of fun facts and breadcrumbs of interest for the reader. Given the brevity and multiplicity of application components, I think it’s best for you to review your resume, essay, and short answers to identify missed opportunities that can appear here.

Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program essay question

The essay prompt invites you to reflect deeply on your life’s journey and the people, events, and circumstances that have impacted it.

There is no right answer, topic, or format — only you can tell your own story — and yet we hope you will focus much less on what you have done and much more on who you are. The strongest essays balance introspection with recognition of external influences, and are so personal that no one else could have possibly written it. The essay topic:

Connect the dots. How have the influences in your life shaped you? (600 word limit)

Though this prompt encourages you to reflect on past influences, it is incredibly important for you to keep in mind that your answer should be future-driven. By this I mean that you should only include stories from the past that build up to how you currently envision your future goals. Focus on the circumstances, key influences, mentors, or moments that have taught, surprised, and motivated you to pursue the goals you plan to work towards as part of your graduate degree while at Stanford. This is the largest piece of text that you will be able to submit for the application, so you must address the personal “why” of your future plans. What moments from the past have shown you that your goals matter to people other than yourself? Why do you wish to have the impact that you wish to have? By connecting the dots in this essay, you should be drawing a clear line, from the past to the present, to your anticipated future and the dream goals that go along with it. Reminder Note: The essay helps the Knight Hennessy Scholars application review committee understand who you are – as opposed to what you have done – and provides you with a rare chance for structured introspection. Think about your past and how the people, events, and situations of your life have shaped who you are today. Then tell us a story that only you can tell.

Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program video statement (By invitation in January 2022)

The video topic is: Teach something to your cohort of fellow Knight-Hennessy Scholars. (up to 2 minutes long)

Recording yourself as you teach something to an audience is a fantastic way to show how you translate complex ideas into a format that can be understood by just about anybody. It is also a chance for you to have some fun as you reveal something special about your interests, hobbies, knowledge, and skills. Since the committee is explicitly not interested in the production quality of this video, your audience really truly wants to get a sense of what you’re like in person, what teaching means to you, and how you present yourself to an audience of strangers. 

Reminder note: After you submit your online application, you will only be able to access information about how and where to record the video statement if you are invited to submit one in January 2023.

If you make it to the finalist level (top 150 applicants), then you will be invited to KHS’ Immersion Weekend. This type of invitation is an incredible honor in and of itself, but it does not guarantee success. To prepare for a weekend of assessed Individual and Group Interviews, Faculty Presentations, Group Activities, and Social Events you’ll want to make sure that you have clear talking points ready to use at any time. Our Mock Interview Packages are a great option for you to generate strategic talking points and practice using them with one of our consultants.

Stanford Knight-Hennessy Program acceptance rate: A brief reality check 

Though Stanford Knight-Hennessy is only in its sixth year of existence, it is one of the most competitive awards for graduate school in the world. This is especially true because anyone in the world who wishes to participate in any graduate program at Stanford is eligible to apply. Considering that only 3,000 people are admitted to Stanford’s graduate school programs every year and that, of those admitted, only 80-100 individuals will be admitted to the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, the chances of winning this award are slim. However, taking the time to write such rich materials about yourself and your goals is a great opportunity to build a portfolio of materials that you can use for a number of extramural fellowship and scholarship applications throughout your time in graduate school. That alone makes it worth a shot.

Accepted’s clients received over $2 million dollars in scholarship offers in the last application cycle. We can help you reach your scholarship goals as well. For professional guidance with your Knight-Hennessy application, check out Accepted’s scholarship application services.

Student Affairs Advisor and scholarship expert, Rebecca has six years experience reviewing and editing large grant applications, research-based proposals, statements of purpose, personal statements and fellowship materials. Want Rebecca to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!

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Related Resources:

• Stanford GSB MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines
• The Personal Statement That Got Me a Large Scholarship to Cambridge
• How to Pay for Graduate School

The post Applying to the Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program [2022-2023] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

The relatively complex MSx online application and your resume (and ideally your recommendations as well) will establish you as a leader in your organization (and possibly even your domain), and that leadership role is essential if you want to be a qualified MSx applicant. But it’s just a qualification. Being qualified is just step one, because Stanford MSx always receives applications from more qualified applicants than it admits. Your application needs to do more – and that’s where the essays come in. They must make the case for why the adcom should admit YOU from among other well-qualified applicants in your industry, function, geographic region, etc.

In thinking about our successful Stanford MSx clients, one quality is immediately clear: they’re vibrant. They stand out. They have impact, not just because of solid career strategies and impressive results, though that’s part of it. They are propelled forward by character traits: passion, courage, energy, curiosity, commitment, rigor, vision, big thinking, heart. These essays are your opportunity to reveal your own special character and clarify how it will add to the Stanford MSx mix. You’re already a substantial leader organizationally with a track record to show it. To shape the future, you must have something to say, a point of view, a distinctive voice – so don’t hesitate to take a stand in these essays.

Stanford MSx application essays

The essays are a key aspect of your application and are designed to inspire thoughtful reflection.

Your essays help us understand what character traits have propelled you in your career and tell us how the MSx Program is integral to maximizing your impact in the world.

(Your answers to the two essays questions combined may not exceed 1,050 words. We recommend up to 650 words for Essay A and up to 400 words for Essay B.)

Required Stanford MSx essay #1

What matters most to you, and why? For this essay, we would like you to reflect deeply and write from the heart. Once you have identified what matters most to you, help us understand why. You might consider, for example, what makes this so important to you? What people, insights, or experiences have shaped your perspectives?

To really hit a home run with this essay, you need to bare your soul, at least a bit; take a risk, be open and probing about some essential aspect of yourself. That doesn’t mean the topic must be about your personal life, though for many applicants it is. You could, for example, discuss a political belief, religious faith, or social issue that truly engages you and shapes your perspective. I do suggest using a topic that has some profound meaning to you and that will allow you to ground this essay in your experience. Ultimately, it’s your experience and how you process or synthesize it that will be a key part of this essay. However, don’t allow this essay to be “just talk” (no matter how sincere or well-meaning). To be credible, and to impress the adcom, include actions you’ve taken and impacts you’ve had related to what matters most. (You know the cliché: actions speak louder than words…)

Sometimes my clients worry when facing this question that their most intuitive topic isn’t “unique” – to which I say, it will be, by the time you’re done with the essay, if you delve deep into your experience and deliver your message via detailed anecdotes and frank reflection. 

Don’t make this essay overly or overtly strategic; that ends up feeling superficial and manipulative given the topic. One straightforward approach is to structure the essay as a story, with reflection and insight at various pivotal points.

Last, don’t forgot to explicitly address “why” your chosen topic is what matters most to you. The explanation need not be long, and the “why” may be obvious from the thrust of the essay. But do still address it.

Stanford MSx essay #2

Why Stanford MSx, and why now? Please describe your aspirations and how your Stanford MSx experience will help you realize them. Why is this the right time for you to pursue your master’s degree at Stanford GSB?

I suggest starting with your professional objectives – include specific details about position, company, anticipated responsibilities, etc. – and, equally if not most important, why you want to pursue this position/role. What motivates this projected career path, what impact do you aim to have? This information will invigorate the essay and turn a competent essay into a compelling one. It ideally will get the adcom excited about supporting your career journey.

Note that the essay says “aspirations,” not “career aspirations,” so feel free to add a specific point or two about your personal objectives for attending this program if relevant to your case. Personal objectives need not be divorced from professional ones – often, development of a given trait or capability will benefit various aspects of one’s life.

Be explicit about “why now” – it’s an especially relevant point for mid-career professionals pursuing a full-time program. It’s also the key factor that differentiates this question from the required short-answer career question below. “Why now” is often a convergence of factors: frequently your career trajectory combined with market and/or economic conditions, and/or organizational situation, and/or industry trends, etc. Address each of those threads and weave them together into a coherent statement. 

In discussing how the program will benefit you, be specific: describe what skills and knowledge you need and how the program meets those needs. Also refer to the structure, culture, and special features of the program, detailing how they will support you and your aspirations.

Career aspirations short-answer question (Required)

Please tell us about what you aspire to do in your career. How will the Stanford MSx Program, combined with your experience, education or background, help you achieve your career goals? Be specific. (Up to 1200 characters, approximately 200 word limit)

Yes, this question does mirror about 85-90% the required essay question 2. This question also asks about how the program balances your education and/or background to prepare you, so focus on that different aspect. To avoid being redundant of essay 2 on goals, focus on different aspects of your goals—for example, in essay 2 you could focus on your career vision, things you want to achieve, and here focus on how your role will evolve accordingly (or vice versa). Certainly, there is plenty about MSx to discuss across these 2 essays – break it up based on your goals discussion.

Optional short-answer questions

… In this section, we provide an optional opportunity to go beyond your resume to discuss some of your contributions more fully. What do we mean by “optional?” We truly mean you have the opportunity to choose. In evaluating your application, we want to know who you are, what you have done, and how your background may have influenced your experiences. If you feel that you’ve already addressed these questions well in other areas of the application, congratulations, you are done! If not, feel free to use this opportunity to tell us more by answering one or both questions.

I have never yet met a qualified, competitive MSx applicant whose career and life didn’t contain such an abundance of fascinating and relevant experiences that it made best sense to skip these questions. In every case, I’ve seen these essays as little gems that help the applicant shine all the brighter through their different facets.

Optional short-answer question #1

Think about times you’ve created a positive impact, whether in professional, extracurricular, academic, or other settings. What was your impact? What made it significant to you or to others? You are welcome to share up to three examples. (Up to 1200 characters, approximately 200 words, for each example)

Ideally, present examples from the different areas. With 200 words each, just tell the story and make crystal clear the impact. Do try to have at least 1-2 fairly recent. Be strategic: use this section to round out your candidacy and/or spotlight significant achievements that may be just a bullet point on the resume.

Optional short-answer question #2

Tell us about a time within the last three years when your background influenced your participation at work or community. (up to 1100 characters, approximately 180 words) 

This too calls for a story, albeit with a twist: “when your background influenced…” You can interpret “background” as you wish: ethnic, religious, geographic, economic, social, educational… Clarify this “frame” at the start, and then just tell that story! Ensure the actual influence is clearly described. Don’t overlook the specified time frame, the last 3 years.

Also note that Stanford MSx is asking for “a time.” In other words one example.

Additional information

The application provides an additional opportunity for you to share any other pertinent information not otherwise captured in your application. You might use this opportunity to:

• Describe the circumstances affecting academic or work performance

• Explain why you are not using a current supervisor as a reference

•Address an academic suspension or expulsion

The wording of this question suggests that you should use this space to explain things that need explaining in some way. Indeed, the application form plus the essay questions provide ample opportunity to present your holistic candidacy, so use this space for the purpose indicated – to explain something that warrants explaining in order to clarify aspects of your candidacy.

For expert guidance with your Stanford MSx 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 Stanford MSx’s MBA program and look forward to helping you too!

Stanford MSx Application Deadlines for 2022-23

Source: Stanford MSx website

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Related Resources:

• Applying to the Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program: Everything You Need to Know
• The Ultimate Guide for EMBA Applicants
• MIT Sloan Fellows Essay Tips & Deadlines [2022-2023]

The post Stanford MSx Application Essay Tips & Deadlines [2022 – 2023] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

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Football, Air Force Academy, and business; hear how they come together in this Stanford MBA’s journey [Show Summary]

Captain David Harris has been a leader since childhood. Growing up and in college, he played football. After graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy, he served as an officer in the U.S. Space Force, and now he’s preparing for an MBA at Stanford GSB. In this episode, he shares his story. 

Interview with David Harris, US Air Force veteran, Stanford GSB MBA candidate [Show Notes]

Thanks for joining me for the 471st episode of Admissions Straight Talk. 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? We’ve created a tool that will help you assess whether the MBA is likely to be a good investment for you individually. Go to accepted.com/mbaroicalc, complete the quiz, and you’ll not only get an assessment, but also the opportunity to calculate different scenarios. And it’s all free.

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I’d like to welcome to Admissions Straight Talk, Captain David Harris of the U.S. Space Force. I first met David when he won a free consultation after attending an Accepted webinar. I was very impressed with him and here’s why: In addition to being a delightful person to speak with, David graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 2017. While there, he was a football team captain for the Academy’s Division I team. Upon graduating, he worked first as a Nuclear Cruise Missile Manufacturing and Production Program Manager for the U.S. Air Force and is currently serving in the United States Space Force’s National Reconnaissance Office. Parallel to his service in the military, David has pursued internships in private equity and venture capital, participated in Management Leadership for Tomorrow’s Professional Development Fellows’ program, and co-founded his own investment management company, Ikon Capital Group. 

Can you tell us a little bit about your background? [2:38]

No problem. I’m David Harris. Originally from Dallas, Texas so a Cowboys fan by law. I was actually born during a Cowboys game and that kind of laid the framework for my early pursuits. I played football growing up and that ultimately opened the door for football scholarships at the Air Force Academy, which I chose for the leadership and academic challenge. I majored in management and played football, as you mentioned, and then graduated. That’s where I caught the bug for finance. I was really interested once I got into my major, specifically the finance course to dive a little deeper into private equity. So I got an internship at Pharos Capital down in Dallas before I went into active duty at the Nuclear Cruise Missile Program Office, where I was working for three years. It was a great opportunity to lead with decent size team of up to 30. I got the real challenge when I went to the National Reconnaissance Office leading a team of about 125 and managing $250 million worth of software development satellites. It was definitely an amazing experience. I tell people all the time I had the luckiest military career of all time. Then from there, I was able to do a venture capital internship before I head to GSB where I’ll be looking to go into private equity post-MBA. And a quick update, I’m headed to Blackstone at the beginning of June for a pre-MBA internship.

So you have three parallel paths: football, Air Force Academy, and business. What do you like to do for fun? [4:19]

I’ll give you two things. One, I really love volunteering with the Riordan Programs from UCLA. I’ve really enjoyed helping out the youth in southern California. That’s been a big passion of mine for the past four years. I’m actually flying out next week to go to the Riordan Gala where we’ll be presenting a few awards.

Outside of that, really, I really enjoy cooking. When I was tall enough to reach a stove, I was cooking scrambled eggs under my grandmother’s supervision, of course. I’ve been cooking ever since. She’s been that stewardess for our family, and we’ve grown up cooking the entire time.

What do you like to cook? What’s your favorite cuisine? [5:09]

Ooh. That’s tough. I’m going to be a little basic and say I love steak. Steak is absolutely an all-time favorite. I’ll put my steak against any steakhouse. I’m definitely experimenting now. My entire family loves to cook and during Christmas, we actually have like an Iron Chef cook-off. My mother and grandmother will pick the ingredients and we have to create a dish so I like to try definitely different recipes. I know my sister and my brother do too – to practice different recipes throughout the year. Right now, I’m firming up my cacio e pepe recipe. I really love that. And I will say I’m the reigning champ in the family just in case anyone from the family hears this. It definitely brings us together as a family.

How did you decide to start your professional career in the military? [6:19]

It’s really a long story and it’s kind of how I got interested in business as well. It all started when I was younger. It’s one of those core memories. I was five and I was at a family event and all the kids were together and the adults started asking, “Hey, what do you want to be when you grow up?” My cousins went before me and when it was my turn, I proudly stood up in front of everyone and said, “I want to be a manager when I grow up.” The music stopped. Everybody was like, “What do you mean by that?” And I said, “I want to be a manager at McDonald’s.” My mother is a teacher, so everyone is expecting a more studious answer from me. I’ll never forget it. My uncle started dying laughing. My mom was like, “Explain it to me.” 

Even though I was five, I did kind of get what was happening around me. I remember family members getting laid off. There was some discrimination in the workplace. I heard about bad things going on. So if I was a manager, I could be in control of all of that. I could provide a safe atmosphere and workplace for my family and the community around me. That was my whole purpose. I just kind of explained that in five-year-old terms to my mother and she was like, “That’s perfect.” She kind of hit my uncle and told him to stop laughing.

It has been that common theme throughout. I think that sense of being in a community and serving the community definitely pushed me towards the military and team sports early on. That’s initially how it started. Then I went to the Air Force Academy. It’s kind of a meld of both playing football, of course, getting the academic rigor, but also then, after graduating, serving and continuing that sense of serving the community. That’s initially how I got started in the armed forces.

How did your interest in business develop? [8:21]

I always kept that sense that I want to serve. That kind of grew upon me through volunteering. Having more free time after graduating from the academy, I was able to do a little bit more. Once I got that edge for business and I went to Pharos Capital before I went on active duty and there I actually saw the transformation that could happen through access to the capital and impactful investments. We were specifically working on a roll-up of oncology companies in the Midwest. We were able to combine and create access with over 30 physicians and that opened up access to thousands of people in the Midwest. When I took a step back, I realized that the money that we invested didn’t cost people jobs, it actually helped people find access in a very rural community in the Midwest. 

After seeing that, the wheels start turning. That’s something I definitely want to get back to. This has been the common thread that’s leading me here. I was selling candy in the eighth grade. I was very industrious. At my football banquet, I got a student athlete of the year award, but with an asterisk for the high candy seller in the district as well. So business has always been there. 

But building on the Pharos story, that’s only something you can do with access to capital. Looking back at communities I’m involved with I realized the abysmal funding numbers that we have in the Black community, for example. It’s just something that really ignited me to make the pivot to finance.

Why did you want to pursue an MBA? [11:03]

It’s three-fold for me. One, just from a mechanical perspective, it’s definitely the easiest way to switch careers. After researching, I quickly learned I can’t just stop working one day and then try to break into high finance. So that was one thing. 

And then, two, taking it one step deeper, it was the best and most efficient way for me to transpose my military experience into business acumen. Once I figured out that’s how I could do that coming from a nontraditional background, it was immediately the push that got me towards the MBA. 

The third piece that I think we lose sight of at the Academy is that I didn’t have a lot of free time and it was very time-constrained. Especially with football. A lot of that came at the detriment of things that you enjoy and don’t have time to get into. I took every engineering course possible even though I was a business major because that’s just part of the curriculum. It definitely served me well in the military, especially going into the Space Force and Aeronautical Engineering. But you kind of lose sight of everything else. Even though I enjoyed a lot of my business courses, it wasn’t as if I could throw myself as deep as I could into the academics behind it. So now, looking towards MBA, it’s all business courses. This is a lot of what I found interesting in college and now I can dive deeper into that. I’m really excited just to learn and hit the ground at GSB and dive deeper into a lot of the phenomenal instructors and courses that they have.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in the MBA application process? [13:05]

It was the GMAT for me. That’s definitely the hardest piece that most people say and it was true for me. It was a fight. I think I took it six times and luckily got a score that was good enough but it was a sludge. It’s different for everyone, but I think it took me six or seven months of dedicated grinding it out every day. 

I got lucky that I started towards the end of 2020. It was peak pandemic time, so I definitely had a lot of extra time to study. Creating a group of people that applied with me made it easier, I definitely couldn’t have done it without my team of Former Air Force Academy grads all applied this year.

Did you have any particular challenges in terms of the essays or the interviews or any of that part of the application? [14:11]

I mean, it’s all tough. I did MLT MBA prep which definitely helped with the essay portion of it and getting my story down. For the interview, my mindset was, “If I just get a shot to get in front of them, I’ll take advantage of that. I can capitalize.” But I was like, I have to get the score first before I can even get there.

You mentioned your participation in MLT (Management Leadership for Tomorrow). How did it help you? What forms of assistance did it provide you? [15:11]

I’m a double MLT-er and proud to say so. I’m in the MBA Prep Program and the Professional Development. It’s an absolutely phenomenal cohort just teeming with excellence. I’m glad to be a part of it. One of the biggest pieces I got was that community of high-performing individuals all moving toward the same path. I think it was about 300 of us for the MBA Prep Program. I met lifelong friends and business partners there. It has been phenomenal getting to know my cohort. 

The second piece was my coach. I have to give a shout-out to her, Coach Candace Gonzalez. Even though she was my MBA coach, she was more like a therapist helping me through the process. She kept me sane throughout a lot of it and helped me get through it. The Professional Development Program has also been phenomenal. We just had our initial conference two weeks ago and we have the next one at the end of the month. It has been amazing getting out in front of the leading firms worldwide like Goldman Sachs and understanding where they’re coming from and how they’re looking to assess talent and grow their business with very open ESG & DEI-minded individuals. It’s really a great experience learning from the spearhead of finance.

One challenge frequently faced by applicants transitioning from the military to business school is translating military experience into civilian terms. Did you feel that was a challenge for you? How did you handle it? [17:10]

It’s a huge challenge and the 25 or 30 iterations of my resume definitely speak to that. It’s something that is extremely nuanced. You have to get it right, especially coming from the military. I will say there are so many resources to help with this. One is prior vets. Every vet that I talked to was extremely supportive saying, “Send me everything. Anything you want me to read, I can help make sure it makes sense. Because if I can’t understand it, I know someone that isn’t in the military isn’t going to understand it.” The vet community across business schools has been phenomenal. There are also a lot of the programs like Service to School. I didn’t use that program, but I have heard many great things from others who have worked with them. 

Going back to the coaching, I think a lot of just practice. It’s reaching out and talking to a lot of people on both sides. Like I said, reach out to the vets, but also reach out to the people that evaluate this. Ask family members. I asked my girlfriend many times, “If you read this, could you understand what was going on?” She gave me some fantastic candid feedback. She was probably the initial 10 of those iterations of my resume. I think a big piece of it is getting out in front and making sure that both sides understand what’s going on and understand the process. It’s a tough ask, especially in a classified environment. My work at the National Reconnaissance Office was top-secret. That’s something you have to keep in mind to make sure you don’t include anything you’re not supposed to. That’s just part of the iterative process and going over it.

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How did you decide where to apply? Did you apply only to Stanford or other schools also? [19:30]

Once I finished working at Pharos I realized if I’m going to continue this work, I’m going to need an MBA. The next question was, “Which one are best suited for that?” It was all of the top finance schools that I was thinking of: NYU, Wharton, GSB, HBS, Booth, and CBS. It was the usual suspects in the finance realm where I figured I’d have the best chance of pivoting to finance. From the very beginning, those are the schools where I was gunning. Just by happenstance, the community surrounding those schools was absolutely fantastic. Especially the vets I’ve already alluded to. The sheer amount of support I got from each one of those schools was absolutely phenomenal. They definitely made it easy and helped me pick the school based on my career goals. It was a self-selecting process toward those six schools.

What are you planning to get involved with when you’re at Stanford? What are you planning to concentrate on? [21:42] 

Absolutely. Beyond the PEVC Club, I definitely want to get involved in the Impact Fund. It’s our student-led VC fund and I’ve heard phenomenal things about it. I actually wrote about it in my essay. One of the professors is one of the managing partners of the fund. So you can learn in class about an initiative one day and then, later on that day, you have a meeting at Impact Fund and put that into practice right there. That’s definitely one of the things I am extremely excited to potentially get involved with. Another is the Black Business Student Association. It’s a really amazing program and they’ve already helped me out a lot. Shout out to Devon, who is the outgoing president. The last one is the Veterans Club. Also, we have a consulting service and I’d love to volunteer there to help people with the application process specifically for GSB. I’m excited to get into a lot once I get to GSB and take advantage.

What are your post-MBA plans? [24:06]

Right now, I’m simply interested in private equity. After that internship before I went on active duty, it really opened my eyes to the amount of good that investing can do. Private equity, specifically in the tech realm, is something that I’ve been passionate about for four or five years and is exactly what I’m going to target post-MBA. I’m going to get my fair share of that here in a few weeks at Blackstone with their tactical opportunities group. I’m excited to dive deeper into that and, post-MBA, get the secure spot there.

What advice do you have for those interested in pursuing a graduate degree and coming from the military? [24:48]

This definitely should not be something you’re afraid of. I know a lot of people in the military started out at 18. Maybe you went and enlisted first and maybe you went straight to college and went from college. It’s all you’ve really known in your professional career. One of the things you’ve got to get over is the fear of the unknown. It can be good. We’re used to having everything scheduled: you have your assignment a year in advance, you know where you’re going, you know what your job is going to be. You pretty much always have a job. It’s getting over that ambiguity that comes in the private sector that gets a lot of vets. Especially from business school. Many will say “I’m taking out how much? To not have a job for two years?” It’s important to understand that that’s normal. People do that and we have a lot of support from a financing perspective. It’s understanding that there’s no reason to be afraid about that. Hitting on the financing piece, there are so many avenues that you can tap into specifically for vets. 

The biggest piece is don’t be scared. Don’t be afraid of the unknown. I hear it so often. We have built so much stability into our lifestyle that it becomes hard to break that. But just reach out. Obviously, reach out to me. Reach out to the vets at any of the schools you want. And just talk. We’ve all been there. I actually separated in March, and so it’s just been a big adjustment, especially with what’s going on with the world. But it’s absolutely doable. Look forward to the future.

What would you have liked me to ask you? [26:47]

That’s a great question. One thing I do wish you would’ve asked is who my inspiration was throughout this whole process?

I think there’s no better time than to shout out to my mother, with Mother’s Day coming soon. I attribute a lot of who I am to her, especially her work ethic. She was an elementary school teacher since I was born and actually taught me in the third grade. Definitely don’t recommend that. It’s amazing to see how hard she worked and how passionate she was and still is to help the next generation. I just was visiting with her a few weeks ago and she was just telling me about some of the issues she has going on with a lot of her students teaching in the virtual world. It just amazes me that she keeps that level of dedication and passion, over 30 years and counting. I can’t say it enough. My mother was definitely the biggest inspiration in my whole journey so far. I definitely want to give a shout-out to her and all the mothers listening to the podcast and of course you too, Linda.

You previously shared that people can catch up with you on LinkedIn. Is that correct?

That’s the best place. Click here to get in touch with David on LinkedIn

Related links:

• David Harris on LinkedIn
• MBA ROI Calculator
• From US Military Officer to IE MBA Student
• A U.S. Navy Vet Discusses His Dartmouth Tuck Experiences
• Business Skills Learned in the Army
• Accepted’s MBA Admissions Consulting Services

Related shows:

• An MBA Success Story Reflects on His HBS Experience, 7 Years Later
• Elissa Sangster, CEO of the Forte Foundation, Returns for AST’s 10th Anniversary
• Get Accepted to UW’s Foster School of Business
• Stanford MBA Discusses Coffee Chats
• What These Seasoned Startup Founders Have Done Since Earning Their Stanford MBAs

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The post Transitioning from the Military to an MBA at Stanford GSB [Episode 471] 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. 

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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

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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!

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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!

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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.

Most grad students take out student loans to finance their higher education and can end up saddled with debt running into hundreds of thousands of dollars by the time they graduate. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal student loan data for nearly 600 programs, graduates of approximately 98% of universities that offer MBA programs usually made more money two years after graduation than they had borrowed. Contrast this with law schools, where approximately 6% of programs had grads with higher median salaries than debt for the same time period.

There are many reasons that students pursue an MBA – the promise of a significantly higher salary, the ability to enter a new industry, or the pursuit of an executive track to name a few. However, the high cost of getting an MBA, which can range from $100,000 to $250,000 or more after living expenses are added to tuition and fees, can be enough to change many potential students’ minds. Despite the relatively low-interest federal loans available to grad students, the amount that students can borrow is fixed at $41,000, leaving some students with no choice but to take out additional higher-interest (but unlimited) Grad Plus loans. So it is encouraging to potential MBA applicants to see that what has long been thought of as a “no-brainer investment” does essentially pay off.

However, there are other factors which skew the data somewhat. There have been efforts to diversify the applicant pool for business schools, yet a significant proportion of MBA applicants still enter programs with professional experience, often in finance or other high-earning industries, thereby accelerating their career paths and making the post-MBA cohort a financially healthy group. Moreover, the data in the Wall Street Journal’s analysis reflects federal government loan programs and does not include private loans.

Not everyone who graduates with an MBA sees significant increases in salary. According to Paulo Goes, dean of Tulane business school, 2020 grads have had an especially difficult time since a lot of companies stopped recruiting MBA graduates during the pandemic. The impact of this slow-down is seen in graduates’ placements and salaries.

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For-profit business schools had a lower rate of students who repaid their loans after two years. Strayer University in Washington, DC had 2% of students fully repay their loans during the two-year period following graduation, with about 33% asking to temporarily stop payments. Strayer students borrowed a median of $74,000, but half of the grads earned less than $57,000 two years post-graduation.

Approximately a dozen other business schools revealed median debt loads that were greater than grads’ median salaries. Several schools stated that this is because students attended their expensive dual-degree programs. Roseman University of Health Sciences reported the highest debt to earnings of any program, with students borrowing a median of $172,000.

Even so, there is much to be gleaned from the data that would make an MBA worth the time and investment. Analysis shows that at several elite programs, including Harvard Business School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the median starting salary after graduation permitted more than half of grads to pay off their federal student loan debt within two years. 

Interestingly, some of the most expensive MBA programs had some of the lowest debt load. Graduates of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business borrowed a median of $41,000 in federal loans without turning to more expensive Grad Plus loans. Harvard Business School graduates had a median of $41,000 in debt, and median salaries of about $172,000. According to Chad Losee, Harvard’s managing director of MBA admissions, approximately 56% of the class of 2020 graduated with some debt, averaging $79,000 in combined federal and private loans. 

As Poets & Quants points out in its analysis of the Journal’s article, earnings are a reflection of the graduate’s chosen industry and the job’s location. Harvard reported a record pay year with 7% of the latest class taking positions in hedge funds and investment management jobs. The median total compensation for last year’s grads was $203,307, including a median salary of $152,682, sign-on bonuses of $27,500 reported by 54% of grads, and $132,500 in other guaranteed compensation reported by 27% of grads.

It is also worth noting that business schools have been increasing the number of scholarships they award to students over the last decade. Harvard distributes scholarships to defray the cost of its MBA program, distributing $40 million in fellowships to its MBA students last year. Approximately half of the enrolled students received scholarships averaging more than $42,000 per student in fiscal 2020.

P&Q top 10 business schools debt-income ratio

There seems to be much reassurance in the data that an MBA from a top school will indeed open doors to a lucrative career and allow one to pay off debts sooner than other programs.

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!

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Related Resources:

• Is an MBA Worth It, or Is the Sky Falling Down on the MBA Degree?, a podcast episode
• Top MBA Application Essays: How to Answer Them Right
• Top 10 or Bust: Dispelling 2 MBA Myths

The post MBA Students Pay Off Student Loans Faster Than Other Grad Degrees appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

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What can you do before starting business school to set yourself up for a valuable MBA experience? [Show summary]

Bob Manfreda discusses his experience in the Stanford GSB program and shares wisdom from his co-authored blog, MBA Coffee Chats, and book, Coffee Chats: Thoughtful advice on how to get the most out of your MBA.

How coffee chats can help you clarify your career goals, prioritize activities and more [Show notes]

Welcome to the 437th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for tuning in. Before I introduce our guest, I have a question for you: are you ready to apply to your dream MBA programs? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted’s MBA Admissions Quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com/mba-quiz, complete the quiz and you’ll not only get an assessment but tips on how to improve your qualifications. Plus it’s all free!

I’d like to welcome to Admission Straight Talk Bob Manfreda, Stanford MBA and co-author of Coffee Chats: Thoughtful advice on how to get the most out of your MBA. Bob earned his Bachelor’s in Applied Physics and Chinese at Notre Dame, worked at Deloitte as a consultant, earned his MBA at Stanford as an Arjay Miller Scholar and is now a manager at Deloitte. He is also the Chief Booth Officer for PhotoFox Photo Booth. 

My first burning question is, do you like coffee? [1:53]

I do. I made myself an iced coffee for the occasion.

You were at Deloitte before you went to Stanford GSB and you’re now again at Deloitte. Did you intend to return to Deloitte after your MBA as you’ve done? [2:04]

“Intend” might be too strong of a word. I knew it was a strong option, and it was one that I was excited to have. I was sponsored to go to school. I cared to come back, but I also wanted to explore some other careers just because I’d been at Deloitte for four years already. And there was a lot out there. I think I had a little bit of a wanderlust career-wise. So I did some poking around in venture capital, in mid-stage startup and then entrepreneurialism which was a list of three things that I came up with that I thought would allow me to maybe be financially equivalent but still explore something new.

I started working my way through that list. For whatever reason, I never really got a lot of momentum on starting my own thing. I realized after a couple of coffee chats actually that venture capital probably wouldn’t be something for me. And I interned at a mid-stage, tech startup and had a great time, but it didn’t really work out for my career perspective. There wasn’t necessarily a path there. When I got to my second year, Deloitte made the official offer to return, and it felt like the best thing at the time for me.

Has it worked out for you? [3:20]

It has. Deloitte is a good company. They’ve got great benefits. I’m currently actually on paternity leave. We had our first son, Jackson, who is six months old. My wife works for a company called Snowflake, and they updated their policy to six months so she had a bunch of time off. Anyways, long story short, now I get months 6-10 off with Jackson which I’m really excited about.

Going back to consulting, for me, I think there was the professional benefit of getting to manage people soon and to continue developing some of the core skills. But I think there was also the personal element of it that I knew I’d have that benefit available to me of good paternity leave, and I’d be able to go to where I want to in the country so it was more than just a professional decision.

Let’s turn to your Stanford experience. What did you enjoy most while you were a student at Stanford GSB? [4:19]

I think it was the freedom to choose every single day. As I went into school and reflected on life growing up through school, the goal was always me getting better and pursuing an interest. That’s the mandate of educational institutions. When I went to the professional world, that was certainly a goal, but it wasn’t always goal 1A. It’s usually profits or something related to that. And going back to school, I could go play pickup basketball or read a book, and on the quarter system at Stanford choose a different class every three quarters. My classmates were all incredibly passionate about things so I just felt like every day I got to wake up and explore something new and whatever it was, that gave me the most energy that day. That was a lot of fun.

Looking back on the MBA program, the education, the extracurricular opportunities, whatever it was – what class experience or extracurricular activities were most valuable to you or really stand out in your mind? [5:11]

I think there’s two in particular. Everyone’s got different goals. So I think that will drive a lot of the outcome to this question. For me, the social element of business school was not a priority. My own relationships and my personal health were. Neither were some of the career pivot options that were out there so I didn’t end up doing many clubs or those things, which also could be really good experiences for other people. I got a lot of value out of classes actually. At Stanford in particular, there’s the whole soft skills curriculum that Stanford’s built its brand around like Touchy Feely. But it’s so much more than Touchy Feely. It’s the whole environment at Stanford that’s built in that ethos of emotions as the basis of connection, and that made me very uncomfortable. I grew up with a tax lawyer dad. Emotion was bad – it’s the enemy of reason. Don’t be emotional. Stanford challenged all of that for me but in a way that was, I think, really helpful and pushed me to become a better version of myself. I can relate to people more frequently and on easier terms. I have less arguments with my wife. My personal relationships have never been stronger. And professionally, the summer between year one and year two, I remember getting frustrated with my manager at the time at my internship. I think old Bob might’ve argued why something else was done incorrectly and why my position was right. And new Touchy Feely Bob said something like, “I’m a little frustrated right now, or I feel frustrated. Can we take a step back?” And that was totally new to me and not something I ever would have done, but that a week and a half into my internship was the total pivot point for what ended up being an awesome relationship with my manager that summer because instead of us fighting over what was right or wrong, we took a step back, related on how we were feeling about things, what drove that, what we needed to do to correct how we were working together and then got back to the core of it. To me Touchy Feely, the Arbuckle Leadership Fellows, and a lot of the similar classes are all centered around that idea and those types of experiences for getting to know people.

That’s wonderful. It wasn’t the answer I expected particularly because your book seems to talk so much about the value of everything but the classes. [7:46]

Well, that’s a tricky one because I think that’s a common element for the MBA in general. It’s like people feel that way. There are so many resources available to you at school. I think that can be true that for a lot of people class isn’t the core part of the program. For me, I was excited about the academics of it and so I got a lot out of that. To be clear, if it was just Touchy Feely, it wouldn’t have been as powerful if not for the community and the people and the experiences around it, but everyone’s goals and experiences with the MBA are different. And it just so happened that for me, I think class had a pretty awesome part of it.

There are so many things coming at you and setting a couple of things aside helped me make the most of what I decided to prioritize. I think people so often talk about prioritizing as a big theme for business school. I think it’s possible to over-prioritize. I think more often people don’t prioritize enough, but I do think that is one of the central themes to having an effective MBA experience. I think that’s great advice that you tell people.

What could have been improved? Even though Stanford GSB is a fantastic institution and experience, what could have been improved for you, or what do you wish you would’ve done differently? [9:32]

That’s actually a great segue to one of the comments I just made about over-prioritizing, which I think is the mistake that I made. I mentioned going into it that I decided that I’d focus on either a startup VC or a growth stage or starting my own thing. Looking back, I feel like those are three things of a very similar flavor to what I was already doing. Like consulting, it’s very bizarre. Obviously it’s a business strategy, and I don’t think I did enough to open the aperture going into school, because I kept hearing from people it’s so important to prioritize. That way you know which lunches to go to, which classes to take, what to work on. But there are so many amazing resources at these schools that you don’t have before you show up that can be helpful in finding new things to do.

Everyone has different goals for their MBA like we were saying, but a very common one is to get into a certain career, whether an elevated position or a different one in some professional degree. I think to the extent that you over-prioritize prior to school, you can sub-optimize your professional outcomes because you’re not seeing everything that’s out there. Specifically for me, I realized during my second year of school that search funds and sales careers, both were actually really interesting and played into the things that I might enjoy but they were just much different than the experience I’d had previously. I wasn’t familiar with them and because I over-prioritized, I didn’t start exploring them until too late in my two years there.

I’m wondering how one could balance that need not to try everything and at the same time focus maybe with more exploration before you get there [11:16]

I think that’s one of the places coffee chats come in because at the end of the day, the best way to balance this is to have a test and fail method which is so common with startups now. How quickly can you have a thesis, test it, and either set it aside or decide to invest further in it? One of the things we talk about in the book is why a pre-school internship could be valuable. I think one of the quickest, lowest time investment opportunities to explore things is the coffee chat. You’re so focused on curating a diverse class of students that if you reach out to people at your school, there’s a very good chance that someone will have done what you might be interested in and during a 30-minute conversation with them, you’ll learn a ton about whether it may or may not be a good fit. 

That’s what happened for me with venture capital. The way it was described to me is it’s a hugely extroverted job where you’re meeting new people, you’re out there, you’re exploring new companies and you’re creating these deals in a large part on your own. For me that felt tiring, not energizing and coming from a very team-based consulting environment, I was a little unsure if I liked the single environment. Instead of spending a whole semester and hours investing in VC recruiting, I was able to rule that out after a couple of coffee chats. I think that’s the whole essence of this book, having conversations early before you show up. Then again once you’re at school, you can start broad but then try to prioritize quickly down to what you do want to spend your time on.

Are you glad you earned your MBA? [13:07]

I am glad. I think so often, that question is evaluated on extrinsic terms. How much did I pay for the MBA? And is it worth it? I’m not sure about that yet to be perfectly honest. I think it’ll depend on the long-term. If I was trying to be a middle manager for my long-term career goal, I’m not sure it would be, to be honest. The MBA is really expensive, but I’m hoping it creates lots of upside for me. And I think between the network, the sticker on the resume, there’s a few ways it could do that. But intrinsically, I learned a lot. I feel like I’m a better person from some of the soft skill things. I made some good friends, and I really enjoyed those couple of years. It was a luxury. Fortunately I had a partner who was working full time, I had a company that was willing to sponsor it. It was a luxury that I felt like we could afford, and I really enjoyed it.

What advice do you have for applicants who want to get a Stanford MBA? [14:20]

Good luck. The application process is a slog. It’s hard. It’s introspective. I’m still not sure why I got in to be frank. But I’ll share the three pieces of advice that I picked up from some of my classmates that I thought did a good job. 

One, don’t overthink what matters most to you and why. For most people, it was a simple concept with a bunch of stories behind it that shows why it was very important. 

Two, the whole application should be related. What matters most to you and why should be largely personal. So why Stanford should build on that. Those aren’t two separate questions.

And then three, Stanford’s whole motto with an emphasis on driving change, I think is really important. They like people who are willing to think through the implications of their actions and how their goals will affect others. So if you want to start a nonprofit that will feed the world, obviously there’s an easier link there, but you also might be someone who wants to be a consultant partner or a private equity leader. The goals are varied but don’t just want to be that for its sake itself. Maybe it’ll create jobs. How will it affect the world? I think telling that story is really important for the GSB application.

What are coffee chats? [15:46]

Coffee chats are what we’re doing right now. It’s a conversation. Questions, answers, back and forth. It’s something that people do a lot at their MBA program and in life in general. I felt like they were very frequent when I showed up at school where people would say, “Hey, you seem interesting. Let’s grab coffee and chat.” It’s a good way to get to know people. Typically one-on-one. Sometimes it’s a beer. Sometimes you don’t get anything to drink, but coffee for whatever reason is typically how it’s referred to.

How did you and Adam Putterman, your co-author who’s a Kellogg MBA and also your pre-MBA colleague from Deloitte, come to write the book called Coffee Chats? [16:19]

Adam and I both found ourselves enjoying and having lots of coffee chats every year. Working at a big company like Deloitte and then at these schools, you get put in touch with friends, siblings, friends of friends saying, “Hey, I’m interested in going and we’d love to pick your brain about it.” We found ourselves having often similar conversations with people and sometimes if we were higher energy and better fed and well slept, our answers might be better, and other times they wouldn’t be as good. Adam and I realized that while talking every couple of months during school. We had become good friends while we were colleagues and, as a bit of an aside, one of the things that we talk about in the book is the importance of finding ways to remember everything getting thrown at you during school. One of the things that Adam and I found ourselves doing was just chatting once a month, once every two months. It happened organically at first where we were comparing notes like, “You’re doing a lot of team projects. I haven’t had any yet. How’s that driving you? What’s happening? What are you learning from that?” And so as we were having those conversations, we came across or we realized that we were having a similar experience with coffee chats.

At the same time we realized, “Hey. We’d like working together sometime. What’s a good way to test that?” and all of these things dovetailed together to, “Hey. It’d be really cool to write about this and to put some of our better answers together to help people that we were having conversations with.” And then those seemed to be received well. So then we thought, “Hey. Why don’t we put it out on Reddit?” We both are on that website a fair amount. We can hit up r/MBA and see what happens. That also got some good traction. And it just was a path of serendipity from there.

During that we got in touch with a writer of recommendable books who’s also now a publisher. He ended up being an advisor to us and as our book was finished and we were sharing it with friends more informally, he then suggested publishing it so we started working with him on that. Then we went through the whole publishing process and now I’m here sitting and talking with you. It’s amazing how the journey has unfolded over time.

Did you and Adam ever compare the cultures at Kellogg and Stanford and discuss some of the similarities and differences? [19:02]

All the time. In one of our interesting theses, I think – anyways to pat myself on the back, is that these schools are more similar than different. People get really hung up on the culture and the differences between them. But all of these schools have wonderful professors and resources and academic institutions, an intense social scene with a lot of A-types who want to get out there and be active, very good job opportunities, interesting clubs, lots of travel. A lot of times if you ask people a question like, “What do you love about your school?” we hear the same answers repeatedly.

So we compare our cultures and in that sense, there are a lot of similarities. But the differences I think are often what are more interesting and what drive difference. The differences we noted about our two schools, again after all of those similarities and positive things, is that Kellogg has obviously a very intentional team-based culture. And Adam’s like, “I can’t imagine not doing a project with a team.” Stanford, I think, creates a very choose-your-own-adventure academic environment. I hadn’t done any projects with teams, because I would often opt to do them on my own because then I could squeeze it in at 11:30 and be home to be with my partner at the end of her workday. I had flexibility by doing it my own way. So the result was very different attitudes around working together versus Stanford, I think, everyone was exploring their own thing. And there was certainly plenty of team culture and teamwork as well. But I think the emphases were different.

In the book you identified several key questions for admits. The biggest question you have is, “How can I make the most of my MBA experience?” How would you answer that question? [21:11]

Linda, I think you already did in a way – it’s the goal. The goals are so often front and center as an applicant and during your time there, I think it’s about finding a way to stay true to them. There’s an incredible speed and the pace and the level of interesting things that are made available in the first few months and then throughout the time there. You have an incredibly smart group of people who I think are still very prone to herd mentality, where they will swarm to whatever the “it” thing is because everything is interesting and exciting, and it can make it hard to stick to those goals. I think having the goals upfront and then finding the time for intentionality to step back, whether that be talking with my buddy Adam at Kellogg or writing if you’re a writer, finding a way to revisit those goals regularly. I think coffee chats are a great way to do that because it forces you to say it out loud, to bounce ideas off people and to re-evaluate them as needed. Having goals doesn’t mean they can’t change. They will change throughout your time, and it should happen.

One topic you address in your book is preserving your relationship with your partner, and you’ve noted that both you and Adam were able to do so. Could you review the suggestions you gave on that topic? [23:03]

Adam is a great person for this. He’s actually starting a relationship wellness company. He helped form a lot of our thoughts around this. I think the big thing is just intentionality around your time and, again, your goals. I think for most partners, there’s two ends to the extreme. One is we are going to do everything together, and my significant other, my partner, the non-student, is going to be involved in everything socially. And the other end is they’re not going to be involved at all. Obviously there’s a lot of space in the middle. Ironically, Adam and I took somewhat different paths, where my partner was from the Bay Area where I was in school, had her own job and decided early on, “Hey. I don’t think the Stanford MBA crew is for me. And I’ve got a lot of other things I’ve got to do with my own life right now.” So that was fine as long as it wasn’t a surprise and it meant occasionally I missed the happy hour to go home and cook dinner together. I think for Adam, the two of them would go to things together frequently and enjoy their time in that way. Adam especially helped us put a whole bunch more tactical things in the book. And one included carving out specific time, whether it be a Sunday morning or a Tuesday evening, whatever works for you. But I’ll leave that as a teaser to read the book actually.

The other point you made by the way was setting expectations both ways, the student’s expectations and the partner’s expectations. [25:42]

Part of what’s so hard, and I’m sure people listening to this can relate to how different their college undergraduate experience schedule was to their working schedule and that’s exactly what happens now. One person is on an undergraduate school schedule, and the other person is working in the real world with air quotes. So setting expectations when two people are occupying such different mental mind frames and mindsets and schedules is incredibly important because otherwise you’re just ships passing in the night all the time.

What are your plans going forward? Any more books, more coffee chats? What do you think you’re going to do? [26:26]

Definitely more coffee chats. I really enjoy them, it’s a lot of fun connecting with people, sharing experiences. I’ve learned a lot from it, like how people are thinking about their goals, what they’ve worked on. So I think coffee chats will always, at this point, be a front and center tool for me in my career, for work, personal life, as a way of staying in touch with people. More books is an interesting question. It was a really rewarding experience. I got to do a whole bunch of things I had not done before, including recording a podcast. Thank you for this opportunity. I don’t know if we’ll write more books on the MBA topic. One of the things we were always very cautious of, and I mentioned this when we were talking beforehand, was we don’t want to be seen as having all the answers on the MBA experience. It’s something that is so personal for a lot of people with different goals and different ways to go about it. I think we’ve said our piece and as you noted, the book is short in part because we realized there’s a small number of tribal factoids or knowledge sets that I think are widely shareable, but for most people you still need to have the coffee chats to figure out what matters or what’s most relevant to you personally. I’d love to write a book about a different topic at some point in the future. It was a lot of fun to re-engage with the poet in me, whereas I’ve always been more of a quant.

It’s a little bit off topic but why Chinese as an undergrad? Just curious. Physics and Chinese, that’s an interesting combo. [27:55]

Maybe it wasn’t overly well thought-out. For me, it was a pursuit of interest. Physics was hard. It was interesting. And it explored the world around me. I wanted to be an engineer but I was in such a rush that when the school told me Engineering and Chinese would take me five years, I said, “Never mind. I want to be gone in four years.” Then I switched to Physics. And that was the whole reason for Physics and Chinese. Ironically, my dad, who’s one of my greatest mentors and role models, I think when I was a sophomore in high school, he was like, “Hey. You should really learn Chinese. There’s a lot happening in that part of the world.” And then I did it. I got pretty good at it and unfortunately managed to forget all of it, just about. So I studied it for six or seven years. It’s amazing how when you just don’t practice something differently than what you do everyday, you lose it.

Is there anything that you would have liked me to ask you or anything you want to share at this point? [29:15]

One of the things we touched on a little bit that I’ll come back to because it’s my personal drum that I’ve banged a fair amount is that these schools are most different based off the academic experience and location. I think they’re very similar, but that’s my opinion because I think the time you spend in school is significant and just like work doesn’t define your day-to-day experiences as a professional today, but it does affect your happiness because you spend 40, 50, for some people up to a hundred hours doing it. The classroom environment, whether you need to prepare for a cold calling case environment or not, whether you have required classes or not, whether classes are mandatory or not, all has a big impact on how your time is available to you.

I think as an applicant, that’s usually important to suss out and understand about where you apply. On the other side of school, I think it’s really interesting when people apply to both the GSB and HBS. I understand why, but it’s two phenomenally different experiences. Obviously location is different and can affect some of the career outcomes. Like we were talking about earlier, I think too often people underestimate the importance of academics with the MBA. Even if it’s not your goal, if you have to prepare for class every day, it will affect how much time you have to work on your startup, for example.

When you talk about location, are you talking more about something like region of the country or world or small city vs big city? [30:43]

When I said it, I meant region. The Stanford class of 2019 GSB’s WhatsApp for the Bay Area is 250 people. It is a full WhatsApp thread and there are a ton of people here. It’s more than half the class. I’m sure some of them have moved in and out, but there are nodes of a much more saturated environments, I think, after school. It also can affect career. Berkeley and Stanford have incredible access to tech startups right now. I think you see that in outcomes. Columbia with finance, Wharton with finance in general and PE as well. I think those locations can affect your career outcome, but also just where you want to be in the world afterwards.

Where can listeners find the blog and learn more about Coffee Chats: Thoughtful advice on how to get the most out of your MBA, the book? [31:59]

We are at mbacoffeechats.com.

Related Links:

• Coffee Chats: Thoughtful advice on how to get the most out of your MBA
• Stanford GSB MBA Application Essay Tips & Deadlines [2021 – 2022]
• Kellogg MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines [2021 – 2022]
• What is Stanford GSB Looking For? a blog series
• M7 MBA Programs: Everything You Need to Know in 2021
• Why MBA? a free guide to clarifying and discussing your MBA goals
• MBA Admissions Consulting Services

Related Shows:

• What Post-MBA Life Is Like, During COVID and Beyond
• An Insider’s Look at MBA Admissions
• Is an MBA Worth It, or Is the Sky Falling Down on the MBA Degree?
• What These Seasoned Startup Founders Have Done Since Earning Their Stanford MBAs
• A Stanford MBA with a Passion for Both Business and Humanities
• Stanford MBA Grows His Amazing Tech Startup

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The post Stanford MBA Discusses Coffee Chats [Episode 437] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Our recent masterclass, Get Accepted to Stanford Graduate School of Business, offered a roadmap on how to maximize your chances of acceptance at this elite program. 

We know your days are hectic, so if you weren’t able to attend the session live, we have made it available for you for free, on-demand viewing. 

Find a quiet spot where you can focus, get what you need to take some killer notes, and watch the recording now!

Watch the masterclass:

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The post Dreaming of Studying at Stanford GSB? Don’t Miss This Video! appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Do you have the smarts that Stanford GSB is looking for? What are the qualities that Stanford GSB is looking for as they build their class? How do successful applicants stand out from the crowd? At a school as competitive as Stanford, it’s a fact that many smart, accomplished applicants won’t get in—so how can you demonstrate that you have that “it” factor? Let us walk you through Stanford’s evaluation criteria and give you some advice.

Intellectual Vitality

You’re smart. But this isn’t about smart. Most of the people Stanford GSB rejects are smart (usually very smart). A person of average IQ may have enormous intellectual vitality, while a person with a stratospheric IQ may have scant intellectual vitality. Pretty much everyone uses their raw intellect, whatever its degree, in practical application – to get things done. People with intellectual vitality do that and more:

• They nurture and refine their raw intellect to make it a powerful force that draws them to explore new and challenging territory; to question and probe. They turn it into energy (something vital, as in – yes – vitality).  Now that’s attitude! (Attitude being part of intellectual vitality, per the website.) No wonder Stanford wants it.

Let’s parse it further. Here are 5 key components (separated for discussion purposes only, as they’re interconnected).

1. Zest for ideas.

   When you encounter a new or challenging idea, you’re tantalized. You have to find out more. What does it really mean? Where did it come from? And how, and why? You relish ideas for their inherent meaning and for their potential implications; they’re alive to you. You value them as a new lens to see through.

2. Dynamic, engaged mind.

   You’re always mentally comparing and contrasting, probing limits and boundaries, seeing overlaps between disparate points and differences between similar ones. To you, an event is not static, but rather part of a continuum, with a history to explore and future ramifications to consider. You never take things at face value!

3. But why…?

   When you were a child, you probably were told you’re too curious. But curiosity underpins intellectual vitality. It drives you to learn more and more and more about something, to set off on thrilling learning journeys. (And you sometimes snag other people along for the ride!)

4. The reasons behind what you believe and what you do.

   Back to ideas – they animate you. Whether you’re politically conservative, moderate, or liberal, you’re not that way because your family or friends are, but because you’re interested in and think about the issues – from multiple angles – and come to certain conclusions. Your thought process informs your decisions, beliefs, actions.

5. Open, as in unafraid.

   So, you have your beliefs, your ideas. But you don’t hide behind them. You welcome them being challenged – it’s actually… fun. Intellectual fun. And you challenge back, thoughtfully. You’re a skillful devil’s advocate, able to argue from multiple perspectives, even ones you personally disagree with. You relish discerning what drives and underlies opposing ideas and beliefs (there’s that curiosity again).

Hopefully the above points make clear that intellectual vitality is not something ponderous – it’s a thrill! Yes, it engages matters of seriousness and gravity. But it’s fundamentally invigorating. It fuels you. And it scintillates others.

Now, how do you let Stanford know you have it? The application essays are the perfect venue for showcasing this quality – integrate it into anecdotes, details, and reflections. If you are invited to interview, that’s an ideal place to demonstrate intellectual vitality.

Applying to Stanford? Check out our MBA Admissions Services and work one-on-one with an expert advisor who will help you create a stand-out application for Stanford GSB. Click here to learn more about how we can help you get accepted.

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Related Resources:

• The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Competitive MBA Applicant, a free guide
• M7 MBA Programs: Everything You Need to Know in 2021
• Stanford GSB MBA Application Essay Tips & Deadlines

The post Understanding Stanford GSB’s Core Value of Intellectual Vitality appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

What are the qualities that Stanford GSB is looking for as they build their class? How do successful applicants stand out from the crowd? At a school as competitive as Stanford, it’s a fact that many smart, accomplished applicants won’t get in—so how can you demonstrate that you have that “it” factor? Let us walk you through Stanford’s evaluation criteria and give you some advice. 

Demonstrated leadership potential

Of course, Stanford GSB seeks demonstrated leadership potential – don’t all b-schools? And naturally you’ve got leadership, or you wouldn’t be applying to Stanford.

But. There are some unique nuances to Stanford’s conception of leadership that are essential to understand in order to portray it effectively in your application. Let’s break the phrase down word by word, starting with the core principle.

Leadership.

Leadership starts with your personal character in Stanford’s eyes —your own “values and ideals.” Whatever change you’re guiding the client to achieve, or whatever vision you’re advocating, or whatever project you’re driving the team through Hades to complete on time – your character informs it in some way, shape, or form. Even if the project in question is not of deep importance to you – still, how you lead the group will reflect your character. To provide appropriate and meaningful leadership, you must have core values or ideals and be guided by them – including as you lead. GSB’s preferred leadership is essentially value- and ideal-driven, what it calls “directed idealism.”

Potential.

Even if you are already a leader per the above definition, you’re not satisfied. You know that improving will only enable you to achieve more of what you value – therefore you actively seek to grow as a leader. You are open to critique and feedback, you are resourceful, you are humble, and you are hungry to learn.

Demonstrated.

Concrete evidence that convinces the adcom to conclude that you will grow as a leader and provide leadership in the future. You must demonstrate both leadership and potential to grow as a leader. For the former, provide this evidence by portraying experiences in your application boxes, essays, resume, and (if you provide some suggestions for your recommenders) recommendations that reflect your leadership to date. For the latter, in these same application components frankly reflect on where you are in your leadership development – you understand what parts are innate to you, and where you need to improve.

So “demonstrated leadership potential” is actually rather complex. Spend some time and effort on a strategy to integrate these points into your entire application.

Check out the first post in this series, Understanding Stanford GSB’s Core Value Of Intellectual Vitality. 

Applying to Stanford? Check out our MBA Admissions Services and work one-on-one with an expert advisor who will help you create a stand-out application for Stanford GSB. Click here to learn more about how we can help you get accepted.

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Related Resources:

• Get Accepted to Stanford GSB, a free webinar
• Stanford GSB MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines
• Show Intellectual Vitality to Get into Stanford GSB

The post Understanding Stanford GSB’s Take on Demonstrated Leadership Potential appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

What are the qualities that Stanford GSB is looking for as they build their class? How do successful applicants stand out from the crowd? At a school as competitive as Stanford, it’s a fact that many smart, accomplished applicants won’t get in—so how can you demonstrate that you have that “it” factor? Let us walk you through Stanford’s evaluation criteria and give you some advice.

Personal qualities and contributions

In an MBA essay on a meaningful personal experience:

• Applicant A describes his ascent of Machu Picchu; we learn that it was awe-inspiring, challenging, and required excellent teamwork; he concludes by asserting that he was moved on a deep level and grew from the experience.
• Applicant B takes us on a walk around her block. We learn about the struggles of her neighbors facing gentrification and her mixed feelings as one of the gentrifiers; how she informally refereed an argument among residents over local policing; the diversity of canine life on the block and the blossoming friendship between her pug and a neighbor’s Rottweiler. She eventually gathers a diverse group of community members to try to proactively address the policing issue.  

Personal qualities

We conclude from these essays that Applicant A spends a lot of money on personal fulfillment, lacks imagination, relies on banalities, and relishes physical challenges; and that Applicant B is alive to the richness of daily life, addresses ambiguity head-on, has humor, is compassionate, is attentive, and cares about meaningful issues.

Point: Our personal qualities flow from and mirror our character. And when it comes to personal qualities, be assured, Stanford will prefer those of Applicant B – even though Applicant A’s topic is superficially more dramatic – because of the quality of character they reflect. Unlike Applicant A, Applicant B’s personal qualities represent an engaged, observant, thoughtful person. Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with climbing Machu Picchu or with writing about such an experience – but it’s not the fact of doing it that will impress; rather, what you have to say about it, arising from your personal qualities and reflecting your unique perspective that will catch the thoughtful admissions reader’s eye.

• Don’t struggle and strain for “unique” things to say.
• Rather, for Stanford, share your life. Open it up, let it dance or swagger or sashay or skip or march or cartwheel, whatever your style is.

Contributions

Now the contribution part. Because Applicant B is attentive to and cares about her surroundings, she responds and contributes to the daily life of her neighborhood. She is involved, she acts, and her actions have an impact (small and large: refereeing the argument; later starting a community group). She cares. She has specific questions and concerns and feelings and insights – and based on them she takes meaningful actions. She can bring this abundance, this world, this humanity and this energy “to the table.” You just know this person will be a big contributor wherever she is. She doesn’t have to explain that fact – it’s obvious! Follow her example. Let your personal qualities come alive by sharing what’s meaningful to you in your essays (and elsewhere if possible in the application) and how they are a springboard for involvement and action. Don’t explain that you will contribute; show that you do contribute. It’s simply who you are.

Applying to Stanford? Check out our MBA Admissions Services and work one-on-one with an expert advisor who will help you create a stand-out application for Stanford GSB. Click here to learn more about how we can help you get accepted.

You can also register right here for our upcoming (free!) webinar, Get Accepted to Stanford GSB:

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Related Resources:

• 5 Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your MBA Application Essays, a free guide
• Stanford GSB MBA Application Essay Tips & Deadlines
• “I’m Smart, Really I Am!” Proving Character Traits in Your Essays [With Sample Essays]

The post Understanding Stanford GSB’s Interest in Personal Qualities and Contributions 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! 

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Related Resources:

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

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