Question 1: What are your career goals? As you contemplate applying to MBA programs, the very first step in your self-evaluation process is to consider where you want to be in your career. Ask yourself what you would do if you didn’t need to work for money and what your core values are.

If your career goals are not immediately revealed, ask your friends and family what they see you doing. This process should reveal good ideas and a spark of passion for your career path.

If you are in a field where MBAs are not traditionally required, you may still benefit if your career goals include rising to senior management within your company or starting your own company. As a first step, look around at the people you most admire and want to be like within your target company or industry. Read their bios to see their skill set and educational background.

Talking to people who are pursuing your target career, at any level, is also a great way to understand what you need to do to accomplish your goals.

Question 2: Why do you want an MBA? While an MBA is a great experience, ultimately it’s a tool to advance your professional aims. The degree is highly focused on practical business applications, not intellectual curiosity.

Preferably when you answer the question of your career goals it will be clear why an MBA is the right degree for you. If your career path doesn’t immediately reveal the need for an MBA, yet you know you want one, you may want to delve into your motivations.

Consider your expectations for the degree and critically evaluate whether your hopes match the reality of an MBA program. If you know current MBA students or alumni, sounding them out first is a great way to start your research and make sure you are committed to the MBA application process.

Question 3: Is an MBA the right degree for you? Evaluating your professional goals might reveal that a different type of graduate degree would be useful.

Those interested in finance might also consider a master’s in finance, which typically prepares students more specifically for a career in corporate finance, financial analysis or investment management. That degree may prepare you to be the chief financial officer of a company, but may not be the ideal degree for a general manager or CEO.

If you’re interested in public policy work or managing in the nonprofit sector, you might look into a law degree, a master’s in public policy or master’s in public administration. On top of those options, you could pursue a joint J.D./MBA or a joint M.P.P./MBA or M.P.A./MBA.

While any one of these degrees can help you achieve your goals, you may want to consider the environment of each school, the academic focus, the time you will spend pursuing the degree and what works best for you personally.

Question 4: Are you competitive in the MBA applicant pool? As you think about entering an MBA program, you should be aware of the competitive pool of candidates who apply every year. Evaluate yourself against successful candidates to the schools you are considering.

The easiest first step is to see what the mean GMAT and GPA is for a successful applicant to your target programs.

If your “numbers” are much lower than the mean at your dream schools, you may want to consider taking classes to build an alternative transcript or retaking the GMAT. While no candidate is perfect, minimizing any red flags in your application will ensure that you have a strong chance at admission.

This post originally appeared on Stacy’s “Strictly Business” MBA blog on U.S.News.com
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If you are looking for guidance on your MBA application, Stacy Blackman Consulting can help with hourly and comprehensive consulting services. Contact us to learn more. Visit the website for Stacy Blackman Reviews, and check out the company’s e-publications for more in depth school-by-school guidance.

If is a positive integer, is

1.
2.

Verbal (CR)

Passengers must exit airplanes swiftly after accidents, since gases released following accidents are toxic to humans and often explode soon after being released. In order to prevent passenger deaths from gas inhalation, safety officials recommend that passengers be provided with smoke hoods that prevent inhalation of the gases.

Which of the following, if true, constitutes the strongest reason to require implementation of the safety officials’ recommendation?

(A) Test evacuations showed that putting on the smoke hoods added considerably to the overall time it took passengers to leave the cabin.
(B) Some airlines are willing to buy the smoke hoods even though they consider them to be prohibitively expensive.
(C) Although the smoke hoods protect passengers from the toxic gases, they can do nothing to prevent the gases from igniting.
(D) Some experienced flyers fail to pay attention to the safety instructions given on every commercial flight before takeoff.
(E) In many airplane accidents, passengers who were able to reach emergency exits were overcome by toxic gases before they could exit the airplane.

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Round 1 – October 1, 2013

Round 2 – January 7, 2014

Round 3 – March 27, 2014

Other top schools which have already published their 2014 deadlines include HBS, Stanford, INSEAD, Michigan, Berkeley and Columbia. You can find a list of 2014 deadlines published so far here: http://www.aringo.com/Current_Deadlines.asp

Mark your calendars and please let us know how we can help you meet your INSEAD (or any other school) goals!

For January 2014 Start Date

- June 12, 2013 – R2 application deadline
- August 7, 2013 – R3 application deadline

For September 2014 Start Date

- October 2, 2013 – R1 application deadline
- November 27, 2013 – R2 application deadline
- March 5, 2014 – R3 application deadline

The first deadline on the list (in June) is less than a month away, and the others will creep up on you shortly thereafter! It’s time to get to work on those INSEAD applications!

For specific advice on how to get into INSEAD, check out our INSEAD B-School Zone. For one-on-one guidance through the application process, see our MBA Application Packages.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Accepted.com’s experienced admissions consultants can help you create the most impressive application possible with comprehensive packages, or provide targeted assistance from picking perfect programs to designing a dazzling resume, constructing engaging essays, or preparing for intense interviews…and more! Accepted.com has guided thousands of applicants to acceptances at top MBA programs since 1994 – we know what works and what doesn’t, so contact us to get started now!

This article originally appeared on the Accepted Admissions Consulting Blog, the official blog of Accepted.com.

So all you Stitcher people: run, don’t walk, to your nearest iPhone, Androiod, iPad, or PC and join Linda for a bi-weekly discussion of what’s new, thought-provoking, and useful in the world of graduate admissions.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Accepted.com’s experienced admissions consultants can help you create the most impressive application possible with comprehensive packages, or provide targeted assistance from picking perfect programs to designing a dazzling resume, constructing engaging essays, or preparing for intense interviews…and more! Accepted.com has guided thousands of applicants to acceptances at top MBA programs since 1994 – we know what works and what doesn’t, so contact us to get started now!

This article originally appeared on the Accepted Admissions Consulting Blog, the official blog of Accepted.com.

Round 1

Deadline: October 16, 2013

Notification: January 15, 2014

Round 2

Deadline: January 8, 2014

Notification: March 26, 2014

Round 3

Deadline: March 12, 2014

Notification: May 15, 2014

The new fall 2014 application will be available in August. For more information, visit the UC Berkeley Haas School admissions website.
***
If you are looking for guidance on your MBA application, Stacy Blackman Consulting can help with hourly and comprehensive consulting services. Contact us to learn more. Visit the website for Stacy Blackman Reviews, and check out the company’s e-publications for more in depth school-by-school guidance.

Round 1

Deadline: October 1, 2013

Notification: December 20, 2013

Round 2

Deadline: January 2, 2014

Notification: March 14, 2014

Round 3

Deadline: March 3, 2014

Notification: May 15, 2014

International applicants are strongly encouraged to apply in the first or second round, and all applications are due at 11:59 p.m. EST on the day of the deadline. For more information, visit the University of Michigan Ross School of Business admissions website.

***
If you are looking for guidance on your MBA application, Stacy Blackman Consulting can help with hourly and comprehensive consulting services. Contact us to learn more. Visit the website for Stacy Blackman Reviews, and check out the company’s e-publications for more in depth school-by-school guidance.

Get ready to read about our next student blogger, Victoria Knight, who blogs at

Accepted: Let’s start by getting some basics: Where are you from? Where and what did you study as an undergrad? Where did you work before heading to MIT?

Victoria: Hi Accepted.com! My name is Victoria Knight and I am a second year student in MIT’s Leaders for Global Operations program. I grew up in Massachusetts, but have also lived in Michigan for three years. I studied Architecture at MIT for my undergrad degree and, after school, I worked for an architecture firm and then in medical device manufacturing. My goal in going to graduate school was to continue to do something tangible afterwards, like manufacturing, rather than make a career transition to finance or something like that.

Accepted: Can you tell us about the dual degree you’re pursuing and about the Leaders for Global Operations program you’re in?

Victoria: Leaders for Global Operations (LGO), is a dual degree program between MIT’s Sloan School of Business and MIT’s School of Engineering. It requires a minimum of two years of work experience and was founded 25 years ago with the goal of supporting US manufacturing excellence. It is now more global and also has a focus on operations. After 24 months (18 months of classes and six months of internship), students graduate from the program with a MBA and a MS in an engineering department of their choice. You do have to write a thesis.

I chose Engineering Systems Division (ESD) for my engineering master’s. ESD is a department which covers lots of things, most of which I characterize as “meta engineering” – they look at high level systems problems. These can be anything from supply chain issues and transportation network planning to technology policy. Many of the classes I take are cross-listed in the Mechanical Engineering department.

Accepted: What is your favorite thing about MIT? Least favorite?

Victoria: My favorite thing about MIT is that it is impossible to be bored. Where MIT could most improve is probably is helping people find out about all the cool stuff that is going on and all the resources the campus (or their website) has to offer. I continue to learn about new offices, programs, lecture series, services, etc. that I never knew about before. I did not even know about LGO while I was at MIT for undergrad; I only found out about it in a young alumni email.

Accepted: What is your favorite class?

Victoria: My favorite class that I have taken as part of LGO would have to be a seminar called Lion Teams – we split into teams and acted as consultants for manufacturing companies in China. As part of the class, we visited these companies in China and complete additional on-site work. That was the first time I had been to Asia and it was a fantastic real world opportunity. I think it also gave me useful credibility for my position at Corning Incorporated.

Accepted: Congrats on your job offer! What will you be doing at Corning Incorporated? How did MIT help you find or secure that position?

Victoria: I will start there in mid-July and will be working on manufacturing strategy for their displays division. A large portion of my job will be visiting Corning’s manufacturing plants, many of which are in Asia, and completing analyses for them related to cost, capacity, etc.

I originally applied for a general strategy position at Corning which was listed on MIT Sloan’s Career website. To prep for my interviews I contacted a recent MIT Sloan alumnus who had worked in that role to get more background on the position and the company. After my on-site interview, the HR person from Corning suggested me for this manufacturing focused strategy position and which is the one I ultimately accepted. So, I would say that MIT helped me make the initial connection, but Corning worked to coordinate the final match.

Accepted: Why did you decide to blog about your grad school journey? What have you gained from the experience?

Victoria: I decided to blog about my LGO/grad school experience because of three things:

1. Reading current LGO student blogs was very helpful and important to me in learning more about the program; I wanted to continue that tradition.
2. As an MIT undergrad alumna, I felt that I could add extra information to my blog about how to make the most of campus and things in the Boston/Cambridge area that other LGOs could not.
3. I had kept a personal blog for three years before beginning LGO and so it was something I felt comfortable continuing.

Benefits that have come or will come from my blogging experience are: awesome satisfaction when an applicant tells me that my blog helped them decide to come to LGO, getting to share more about a school I love and finally, having a great set of “memories” written out that I can refer to in the future. I printed the personal blog that I had referenced earlier in a book form and intend to do the same for Let’s Get Operating.

Since I found out about LGO, to some extent, by chance, I am very happy that Accepted.com asked to interview me and that I could help more people learn about the program.

Do you want to be featured in Accepted.com’s blog, Accepted Admissions Blog? If you want to share your MBA/EMBA journey with the world (or at least with our readers), email us at mbabloggers@accepted.com.







Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Accepted.com’s experienced admissions consultants can help you create the most impressive application possible with comprehensive packages, or provide targeted assistance from picking perfect programs to designing a dazzling resume, constructing engaging essays, or preparing for intense interviews…and more! Accepted.com has guided thousands of applicants to acceptances at top MBA programs since 1994 – we know what works and what doesn’t, so contact us to get started now!

This article originally appeared on the Accepted Admissions Consulting Blog, the official blog of Accepted.com.

• Former McKinsey consultant, resume screener, and case interviewer.
• Passed 60 out of 61 case interviews and landed 7 consulting job offers.
• Author of Case Interview Secrets, an extremely clear and well-written book on excelling in case interviews.
• Since 2003, strategic adviser and consultant to owners of mid-size business in service or web- based industries with $1M – $25M in sales.
• Speaker and expert on business issues turned to by media outlets including TIME, The Wall Street Journal, Inc, Fortune, and others.

I plan to focus this segment of Admissions Straight Talk on preparation for a career in management consulting. I have a bunch of questions I know I want answers to, but I am also wondering:

What would you like me to ask Victor? What would you ask him if you could?

Please put those suggestions, requests, and questions in comments below. Don’t be shy. I am asking this same question in various social media too.

I’ll take the ones I’m dying to ask along with the best ones you send me, and they will be the building blocks of the next Admissions Straight Talk podcast.

We’ll post the segment here on Thursday May 23. To make sure you don’t miss it or any other segments of Admissions Straight Talk, the podcast for graduate school applicants, please subscribe:

• iTunes
• Stitcher
• Accepted’s blog

It can’t be easier, just put your questions in a comment below.

By Linda Abraham, president and founder of Accepted.com and co-author of the new, definitive book on MBA admissions, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools.

Accepted.com’s experienced admissions consultants can help you create the most impressive application possible with comprehensive packages, or provide targeted assistance from picking perfect programs to designing a dazzling resume, constructing engaging essays, or preparing for intense interviews…and more! Accepted.com has guided thousands of applicants to acceptances at top MBA programs since 1994 – we know what works and what doesn’t, so contact us to get started now!

This article originally appeared on the Accepted Admissions Consulting Blog, the official blog of Accepted.com.

That being said, there are certain numbers that will be significant hurdles. Say, for instance, you have a GPA of 2.9 and your top choice MBA program’s GPA average is 3.5. In such a case, your chances of acceptance have just taken a major hit. If, on the other hand, that same applicant applies to a b-school with a GPA average of 3.2, then he or she may have a chance of acceptance, provided, the rest of the application is solid, or better yet, above average.

Here’s another “it depends” situation: Overrepresented demographics—Indian engineers or investment bankers from over-represented ethnicities—will have a harder time getting into a top MBA program than a corporate finance executive from an under-represented background with the same stats. In such a case, a GMAT score in the lower part of the school’s 80% range and a GPA of 3.3 may be just too low for one person and just high enough for another.

The point is, you need to examine the details of your scores and reflect on them in the context of a bigger picture. Ask yourself these questions:

• Is one score low, but balanced out by other higher numbers? Can you provide other evidence of academic ability?
• Did your overall GPA improve as you matured through the college experience?
• Do you have flawlessly-written, compelling essays that prove your strong writing and communication skills despite a somewhat lower-than-average GMAT verbal score?
• Do you offer specific examples and anecdotes in your essays that highlight your quantitative skills, even though your GMAT quant scores weren’t as high as you’d like?
• Do your recommenders vouch for your abilities—especially ones that the numbers don’t reveal?
• Have you chosen schools that will view your scores as competitive?
• Have you taken additional college courses in an attempt to boost your quant or verbal capabilities?
• Have you written the optional essay to further boost your competitive edge?

You need to assess and interpret how you’ll be perceived with such scores and numbers, and then develop an application strategy to address those issues.









Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Accepted.com’s experienced admissions consultants can help you create the most impressive application possible with comprehensive packages, or provide targeted assistance from picking perfect programs to designing a dazzling resume, constructing engaging essays, or preparing for intense interviews…and more! Accepted.com has guided thousands of applicants to acceptances at top MBA programs since 1994 – we know what works and what doesn’t, so contact us to get started now!

This article originally appeared on the Accepted Admissions Consulting Blog, the official blog of Accepted.com.