We have two great chats scheduled for this week:

• USC Marshall with Kellee Scott, Senior Associate Director of MBA Admissions,  and two Marshall MBA students today November 5 at 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/6:00 PM GMT.
  
• Michigan's Ross School of Business with Soojin Kwan Koh, Director of MBA Admissions; Doug Thomas, Assistant Director of Admissions, and a Ross student on Wednesday November 7 at 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/6:00 PM GMT.
  

Both chats will take place in the Accepted chat room.

We also posted several chat transcripts last week, and I am providing brief excerpts:

• CMU Tepper with Laurie Stewart
  

PR (Oct 16, 2007 1:07:34 PM)
Laurie: Could you talk a little about the application review process. Do current students read the application? How many reviews does the application go through before a decision is made?

LaurieStewartCMU (Oct 16, 2007 1:09:32 PM)
PR--all of our reviews are conducted by members of the admissions staff members and we do 3 reviews; 2 by admissions committee members and one by me before a decision is made.

Linda Abraham (Oct 16, 2007 1:09:55 PM)
Jeremy, why did you choose Tepper?

JeremyHastingsCMU (Oct 16, 2007 1:10:25 PM)
I chose Tepper for a few reasons: 1 - a small program: I wanted to make sure I had a group of friends I would know when I left, not just be 1 of 600.
2 - pushing my own skill set: I had very non-quant work experience, and I wanted to challenge myself to learn how to analyze data and make decisions based on it. 3 - change the trajectory of my career: going to Tepper meant no one was ever going to ask me if I could do the work. It's a given. You go to Tepper, you can run and interpret regressions, you can do data analysis, you can build models. That is a statement only a few schools can make, Carnegie Mellon is one of those schools.

LLU (Oct 16, 2007 1:12:05 PM)
Laurie: The optional essay is a great way to feed in bits and pieces about one's profile that may not have been represented in it's entirety in the other essays. It is likely that one may want to dwell on 2 or 3 rather disconnected areas in the optional essay - a kind of "catch all". Is such a thing frowned upon- i.e: would you rather want all applicants to focus on just one aspect in the optional essay or is it OK if one covers a 2 or 3 disconnected areas as well?

 LaurieStewartCMU (Oct 16, 2007 1:14:47 PM)
LLU--great question--we really look for the optional essay to do one of two things (or both): highlight areas that candidates think are strengths that they didn't have a chance to address elsewhere in the application and also to address anything they are concerned might be perceived as a weakness in their application--as such, it isn't uncommon to have the optional essay cover more than one topic, although you do want to make sure to make decisions about what is really important to cover.

Cornell Johnson MBA with Randall Sawyer

MP (Oct 24, 2007 1:29:41 PM)
Randall: I won't be able to visit campus because I have to be at work on weekdays (when classes and info-sessions are held). Are applicants who have not visited campus at any disadvantage as far as admissions decisions are concerned?

RandallSawyerCornell (Oct 24, 2007 1:32:52 PM)
Hi MP--I don't think applicants who have not visited campus are at a disadvantage. However, all admissions directors care about your choosing the right place to go and many times "fit and feel" of the school and campus are vital to making the right decision. I would urge you to visit all schools you apply to or are accepted at before you attend. We would hate to see you head to a school for your MBA that you feel uncomfortable at--it will be a long two years for you if that is the case.

INSEAD MBA with Carolilne Diarte Edwards

jerex (Oct 29, 2007 1:29:00 PM)
Do you have any numbers on the number of applicants in the January vs September intakes at INSEAD?

CarolineDiarteEdwardsINSEAD (Oct 29, 2007 1:29:19 PM)
The level of competition is the same for both intakes, but we don't give out application figures. We are seeing an increase in application volume, but we don't give out the statistics.

goenka (Oct 29, 2007 1:30:36 PM)
Guess, you missed my question....How good would INSEAD be for someone who wants to make a career change into Finance; Consulting being the strength of INSEAD.

CarolineDiarteEdwardsINSEAD (Oct 29, 2007 1:31:28 PM)
It's a misperception that we prepare our class for consulting more than finance. We have roughly 1/3 of the class going into consulting and 1/3 going into finance.