Choosing the right business school is a critical part of your business school decision making process.  The Economist’s online fairs provide prospective students with the chance to interact with the schools in a convenient online format, and gain insight to help make more informed choices about your school selection process.

The Economist’s three days of business school fairs kicks off this week in November.  The first fair, which focuses on full-time MBA programs, will be held on November 9^th and 10^th.  The second fair, dedicated to executive MBAs, will take place on November 11^th.

Participants will meet MBA admissions officers from programs around the world and gain insight into the MBA experience by chatting with alumni, watching webinars and videos, and downloading resources.

Both fairs provide a unique opportunity for prospective students to interact with admissions officers from schools around the world.  Fair attendees will also be able to speak with alumni from those schools to better understand daily life as a student.  Visitors can watch Bill Ridgers, The Economist’s Business Education Editor, interview full-time and executive MBA alumni in a taped panel discussion.

Interested participants can log on to the fair from anywhere.  Bonus is that applicants can register for free below.  Check it out!

Sign up free or learn more at: http://registermbafair.whichmba.com/?source=applyinthesky

For a chance to win a free iPad 2, sign up at the link above and visit five or more business school booths during the MBA fair on November 9th-10th.

The Economist

Admissions officers, professors, students and alumni were available to answer questions and address the concerns of MBA candidates. Several organizations offered free downloads such as career guides, GMAT tips, scholarship information and links to resources. Anyone who visited five or more exhibitor booths was entered into a free draw for an iPad 2.

Visitors found “a good amount of information regarding MBA admissions, courses and career prospects” and wrote “this is an amazing event” noting that they were “looking forward to the next online fair.”

The next online MBA fair focuses on Executive MBA programs, for professionals with over 5 years of experience considering an Executive MBA structure. Participating universities are located throughout the US, the UK, Sweden and France.  Sign up free at http://registerembafair.whichmba.com for The Economist’s Which MBA? Executive MBA Fair, online on September 21st and 22nd.

Stay informed about online fairs from The Economist by liking us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Online-Fairs-The-Economist/173021752729104

Here are some helpful tips, from our friends at The Economist, on how to make the most out of your MBA virtual fair experience:

1. Prepare: Plan what you would like business schools to know about you, and do some research on the schools you want to speak with.  Although you can gather everything you need to know at the fair, admissions officers will be impressed with those who have done their homework.  Avoid asking questions about basic facts that can be found in school profiles.

2. Prioritize: To make the most of these live events, focus on what you believe are the most important aspects of your business school experience: class size, location, team work, diversity, teaching style, student life, etc.  Finding out more about these key issues will help you figure out which program most closely matches your goals and preferences.

3. Leverage all opportunities: Fair attendees should make sure to leverage all opportunities available to them during the event.  In addition to the information available in each school’s virtual booth, most fairs offer numerous other features.  Some fairs ask schools to bring along alumni and current students who can speak to participants directly about the everyday challenges and rewards of attending their school.  Some fairs also have webinars or videos offering advice on admissions and the MBA experience.

4. Explore and enjoy yourself: Virtual fairs give you an unprecedented opportunity to meet admissions officers, students and alumni around the world.  The knowledge you will gather at this event can help you make an informed decision on the right program for you.  Make the most of your experience and above all else, enjoy it!

The Economist’s Which MBA? MBA Fair, online on September 7^th and 8^th, provides inside access to diverse full-time business schools from all over the world. At the fair you can:

• Talk with admissions officers, current MBA students and alumni
• View webinars and videos with advice from MBA experts
• Attend topical chat sessions about student life and special programs
• Download brochures, videos and school applications

 Prospective MBA applicants can sign up for free here. 

The event includes plenty of time to mingle with corporate and school representatives for one-on-one networking opportunities.

The 2011 Forté Forum schedule of events is as follows:

• Sept. 13, Los Angeles (Registration deadline: Sept. 8)
• Sept. 14, San Francisco (Registration deadline: Sept. 8)
• Sept. 15, Houston (Registration deadline: Sept. 8)
• Sept. 19, New York City I (Registration deadline: Sept. 15)
• Sept. 20, New York City II. (Registration deadline: Sept. 15)
• Sept. 26, Atlanta (Registration deadline: Sept. 21)
• Sept. 27, Washington, D.C. (Registration deadline: Sept. 21)
• Sept. 28, Boston (Registration deadline: Sept. 21)
• Sept. 29, Chicago (Registration deadline: Sept. 21)
• Oct. 4, London (Registration deadline: Sept. 29)

To register for any of these events, visit http://www.fortefoundation.org/forum

MORE ABOUT FORTÉ FORUMS

Interact virtually and experience our online resources for women considering pursuing an MBA—Visit http://www.fortefoundation.org/forumonline to learn more about our Podcast series, upcoming Forum webinars and Pre-MBA blog.

MORE ABOUT FORTÉ FOUNDATION

The Forté Foundation is dedicated to encouraging women to pursue careers in business leadership by providing access to information, scholarships and networking opportunities. Forté is backed by 27 leading corporations, 39 top business schools in the U.S. and abroad, and The Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC®).

For more information, contact Forté at info@fortefoundation.org

The SBC Challenge was created in order to award two deserving MBA applicants with a set of tools that will enhance their chances of being admitted to a top business school. As part of this, SBC will be giving two lucky winners packages valued at over $11,000. Winning packages will include a premium test prep course, personalized SBC consulting services, and other tools, including premium access to Apply in the Sky’s online workspace to organize and simplify business school applications across MBA programs.

People who apply for the SBC Challenge must meet the following requirements:

– Have finished college, or in their final year of college;
– Plan to apply to business school in order to enroll in 2012.

This competition is open to international candidates.

Please submit applications online by July 20, 2011.

To learn more, visit: http://www.stacyblackman.com/sbc-challenge.

Good Luck!

Each year I look forward to this amazing event because the women in attendance represent a return on the investment of Forté and its partnering schools and companies. It’s the culmination of months or possibly years of introspection, inspiration, and research leading you to the business school of your choice.  And while the Forté conference is both a satisfying conclusion of that process it’s the start of yet another journey—your MBA career.

Our conference theme is Breaking Through: Courageous Strategies for Extraordinary Leadership. What makes a remarkable woman business leader? What kind of preparation do you need to lead, make a difference, have an impact?

While you can read all about the conference on the website, my goal is to convey to you the genuine importance and extraordinary benefits of joining us. It’s just two days, but the impact will be far reaching. So often women don’t make the time for critical events like this, but the truth is these opportunities to network, build skills, and invest in yourself don’t come along very often.

Forté hosts this conference so you can explore career opportunities at companies early on in the MBA cycle. If you’re just beginning the MBA journey, it’s a chance to figure out what career path is right for you.  At the same time, you’ll develop critical leadership skills through our professional development sessions. And finally, you’ll have a head start on other MBAs out there.

Very few opportunities like this exist for MBA women. And because you have been admitted into a Forté sponsor school you are exclusively invited to take advantage of this one.

I encourage you to make the time for this important conference and kick off your MBA career in grand style. If you’ve already registered, block your calendars and visit this blog regularly for the latest conference news; and if you haven’t – then make the commitment to be with us and register today!

Elissa Sangster
Executive Director, Forté Foundation

Perhaps the most controversial and potentially difficult part of the new policy will be answering Stanford’s essay questions, which are limited to two Tweets apiece.  With the requirement to begin each essay Tweet with Stanford’s username and the question number hashtag (i.e. “@GSB #q1”), applicants are left with only 132 characters per Tweet or 264 total to answer each question.  This is a stark reduction from the current allowance of 750 words per essay.  However, all is not lost as Stanford will allow the use of common texting abbreviations such as “R”, “U” and “LOL”.  They will also be introducing a new set of texting shortcuts based on the most common phrases that appear in their applications.  For example, the shortcut “ISHSTPFF” can now be substituted for “I single-handedly saved the project from failure.”  Other abbreviations will be revealed in time for the next application season.

With Stanford’s influence in the MBA space, it will only be a matter of time before other heavyweights like HBS and Wharton follow suit, adding their own nuances as they try to differentiate their policies.  This could be the start of a brand new era in MBA admissions.  Our advice to prospective applicants is to get on Twitter (if you aren’t already) and grab as many followers as you can find.  And for those Twitter experts out there that think they’ve spotted a loophole in the new policy, think again–bit.ly links will not be accepted.

We’ve now reached the third and final phase of the school selection process.

This final phase typically occurs while you are actually applying to school, and may even extend past interviews and into Admit Weekend for the schools where you are accepted. This is no longer about figuring out where to apply (save any last-minute surprises), but rather about determining what schools you actually plan to attend.

PHASE 3: Experiencing it Live

By this point you should have a very good understanding of the programs to which you’re applying; enough to write about them in your application essays, and to describe your interest in the school in an educated fashion in the context of an interview. Yet, no matter how thorough your research or how much knowledge you think you have amassed, nothing beats experiencing an MBA program first hand.

Thankfully, this is not difficult to do. All it takes is committing the time to go visit campus, and as long as travel logistics are at all feasible, it’s something we strongly advise you to do.

When you visit campus, definitely make sure to take part in all the organized activities. Take a campus tour, attend the info session and ask questions, get lunch with some students, and attend a class.

Attending a class is especially useful because it gives you a sense for the academic environment at the school (which will form a significant part of your everyday life), and also provides insight on the nature of the interactions among students. Is the discussion lively? Is there even discussion? Do students mingle before class? Do they speak with the professor during the break? Are they even paying attention to the professor during class, or are they heads-down gaping at their laptops? These are all valuable clues into what a school is really about.

Finally, when all the official activities are over, resist the temptation to take the earliest bus back home. Stay on campus a bit longer and try to imagine yourself doing this day after day.

Go to a coffee shop, sit down in the library or the study lounge, take a stroll outdoors if the weather is nice. If you have friends at the school, or if you hit it off with any of the students you met during the day, kindly ask if you can stick around with them a bit longer. Even better, make plans to go out with them that evening if you can. All this will give you a sense for what it would feel like to be part of a particular MBA program.

Indeed, while many aspects of your MBA decision are going to be clear and quantifiable, your personal fit within a particular program is largely an emotional thing. Yet it is no less important than career statistics or academic specialties. Fit is what is ultimately going to make you excited to wake up in the morning and go study and hang out and network with your classmates. It is perhaps the greatest single indicator of your future success during your MBA program and beyond. So don’t take it lightly.

PHASE 2: Reaching Out

Now that you have a sense for what schools might interest you, it’s time to reach out to students and alumni to get a better perspective for what life there is really like. It will also provide you with an opportunity to get a more informed opinion on all the conclusions you drew from your independent research in Phase 1.

The best way to reach out to students and alumni is through friends, family and colleagues, since that connection will incentivize them to give you a really honest insider’s perspective. If you can’t get in touch with anyone directly, certainly reach out to the schools themselves and they’ll be able to put you in touch with someone willing to talk to you. Definitely also make sure to go to information sessions in your city, and take a campus tour if travel logistics are at all feasible. This will also benefit you in applications and interviews, since it demonstrates your interest in the program and enables you to speak about it intelligently and from an informed perspective.

An additional resource that you should not discount is online MBA discussion boards. The two most active ones are GMAT Club and the BusinessWeek MBA forums. There you will find both applicants and students willing to help each other out and provide an additional perspective on schools and the application process. The signal-versus-noise ratio is sometimes not perfect, especially with service providers using these forums as a marketing vehicle (the BusinessWeek forums primarily, since GMAT Club is more actively moderated), but they can be a valuable fount of information.

In addition to helping you verify your conclusions from Phase 1 of the investigatory process, speaking to students and alumni will further enable you enrich your knowledge of MBA programs along the dimensions of culture and fit.

Here are a few questions worth asking:

• How close are you to your classmates?
• What do you do for fun?
• How competitive or collaborative is the recruiting process?
• How competitive or collaborative are academics?
• How accessible are the faculty and other academic services?
• How much interaction is there between first and second year MBA students?
• How much interaction do you have with people outside your career track?
• What is the relationship of the MBA program with the rest of the university? Is there a lot of interaction, or do they operate largely separately?
• What student leadership opportunities are there?
• What is the relationship between the administration and the students? How involved are students in campus initiatives?
• What student groups are especially active on campus?
• What student groups are you involved in?
• What roles do student groups (both social and career-oriented) play in your daily life?
• What would you change about the program if you could?
• Why is 6 afraid of 7? (Because 7 8 9!)

Another very important thing you can glean from talking to students is specific insight on the recruiting process, which ultimately will be the most important part of your MBA program.

Valuable questions here are the following:

• Do you currently have a job for the summer/full-time?
• How supportive is career services in the recruiting process?
• How understanding are professors about recruiting schedules?
• Do XYZ companies take part in on-campus recruiting?
• Is ABC industry well-represented in on-campus recruiting?
• What kind of support does career services provide for off-campus recruiting?
• How much of the recruiting process occurs on- versus off-campus?
• Beyond career services, what organizations or student groups are there to offer assistance in the recruiting process?
• How helpful are second years in recruiting?
• How helpful are alumni in recruiting?
• Any nightmare recruiting stories?

At this point, you should have a good sense for what schools you actually want to apply to. Your short list will likely include a couple of top choices that you really love, and some back-up schools that while not ideal would still suit you well in terms of fit, career prospects, and academics. To be clear, your top schools need not be the highest ranked ones, or the ones with the most notable brand. Your top schools should simply be the ones that you would be most excited overall to attend.

Armed with this knowledge, you should begin working on your applications, even as you enter Phase 3 of the school selection process. That’s right, the school selection doesn’t end here. Chances are, it’s going to last all the way to the day you finally sign your acceptance letter.

Up next… Phase 3: Experiencing it Live.

You’ve decided that an MBA makes sense for you.  You have a sense for how it’s going to fit into your career.  And if you can just get through the GMAT, you can already begin to imagine yourself back in school, taking MBA classes, as well as networking, recruiting and socializing alongside your classmates.

The question is… Where should you go?

Time to start thinking about what schools you want to apply to!

If you’re like most applicants, a few names will immediately spring to mind – mainly because they are high in the school rankings or geographically desirable – and not necessarily because you have a clear sense for what those MBA programs are really about.

That’s not a good thing. Relying on rankings, geography or vague notions about a school’s brand to guide your decision seldom leads to the optimal outcome. Instead, you should figure out what schools will be a good fit for your personal goals. And your first order of business is to start gaining a better understanding of the schools that might interest you, so that you can then filter those down to the select few you will actually apply to.

So to help you make sure you’re covering all your bases, here’s a simple roadmap to help you navigate this first important phase of the process. We’ll be following up with additional tips for Phase 2 and Phase 3, over the next few days.

PHASE 1: Independent Research

The first thing you should do, as you start think about schools, is gain a sense for what your professional and personal goals are, and whether the schools you have in mind will truly help you achieve them.  For example, are you looking for a school that is strong in general management and leadership?  Or are you more interested in brushing up on your financial and accounting knowledge to complement your existing skill set?  Are you looking for a full-time or executive degree program? How important is the alumni network to you? Will geography significantly affect your employment opportunities?

Once you have a list of your general criteria in the back of your mind, go online and start researching MBA programs.  Start with the schools you know you’re interested in, browse through their websites, and see whether you can confirm or reject that assumption.  Read first-hand accounts of the schools through blogs and guest posts in popular sites, and get a sense for whether popular perception seems consistent with the image each school might be advertising.

Then expand your universe to other schools. Sometimes it’s simplest just to take one of the popular MBA rankings (BusinessWeek, Forbes, or The Economist), and to see what appeals to you.  But keep in mind that popular rankings are only as accurate as the assumptions behind those rankings and the weights that the editors of those rankings have assigned to criteria they assume to be important.  Your personal ranking and fit with schools can differ widely from what Forbes or BusinessWeek may suggest, so it’s important to have at least some sense for what you are looking for before you start your research.

At this stage of your selection process, schools are going to distinguish themselves primarily along the following dimensions:

• Brand: Schools have distinct brand images that impact the way your MBA will be perceived. Some, like Harvard, Wharton and Stanford, have extremely strong brands that will automatically place them in the forefront of your mind.  For other schools this might be more subtle. Your job when it comes to brand is to be aware of it and how it can work in your favor (strong brands often come with strong alumni networks and extensive recruiting opportunities), but also to avoid being entirely blinded by it.  Finding the right school for you is far more valuable than just going for the best-known brand.
• Ranking: While many will argue that rankings do matter, don’t let this take precedence over other aspects of each program that will determine your experience there as well as your career opportunities on the other side.
• Geography: Don’t underestimate the importance of geography.  Beyond cold winters or the opportunity to go surfing on the weekend, geography has a very serious impact on your recruiting prospects.  Most industries are closely tied to certain locations: the epicenter of finance is in New York (or in London if you’re thinking about Europe); entrepreneurship is hottest in the Bay Area; much of media and entertainment is based in LA (and to a lesser extent, New York); traditional energy jobs have significant concentrations in Texas… Even when it comes to companies with multiple offices across the country and worldwide, you will always have the highest exposure to jobs in your geographic area. So it’s worth keeping geography in mind as you think about your career goals and fields of interest.
• Specialty: Different schools have different specialties, whether it’s finance, marketing, management or entrepreneurship… Often these will be advertised as such on the school websites, but you should take your research a step further.  Go into the department websites for your areas of interest, and actually browse what classes they have available. Syllabi are often available online. Or you can sign up for school tours and observe actual classes. Be sure to look at this from a career perspective, as well as an academic perspective. Sites like BusinessWeek publish statistics on what industries MBA grads end up in, and this is an important indicator of what a school’s true competency in a particular area is.
• Programs Available: If you have specific interests, definitely look into all the different programs that a school offers.  This may include joint degree programs with other departments (like law, medicine or public policy), study abroad programs, or specific experiential programs in particular areas that combine academics with real-world practical training through internships during the school year.  Finding a specific program that is truly tailored to your interest can make for a unique MBA experience, and can turn a particular school from just marginally interesting into your top choice.
• Teaching Methods: This one often gets ignored, but it’s actually very important. As we’ve written about before, teaching methods (case method, group projects, experiential, etc.) can differ greatly by school and can make the difference between enjoying your classes and cringing at the thought of going showing up every day.
• Selectivity: Realistically, you’re ultimately going to have to balance what school you want to attend with where you can actually get in. While MBA admissions are a complex and somewhat mysterious process, you should certainly cross-check your GPA and your test scores with the averages at your target schools. If your scores are much lower than average, this doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t apply, but it might mean you should give that GMAT another shot, or think about what other strengths to play up in your application.  In any case, come decision time, it pays to be realistic and you should always apply to a few back-up schools, no matter how confident you feel.

By the time you’re done with this process, you should have a short list of five to eight schools that appeal to you, including at least a couple of back-ups in case you don’t get into your top choices.  Your next task will be to dive deeper into your research and refine these choices further.

Next up on our roadmap… Phase 2: Reaching Out.
And later… Phase 3: Experiencing it Live.