I would like to invite all 2009 MBA applicants to sign up for the second 2009 MBA Admissions Telethon on Tuesday, May 13th between 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM PT (1:30 PM ET - 3:30 PM ET; 6:00 PM GMT - 8:00 PM GMT). What is the MBA Admissions Telethon?

Two hours when 6 MBA admissions experts will be available to answer your individual questions via telephone. Prior to calling in, you will receive a brief, 6-question questionnaire and submit it along with your resume to a designated email address. (No essays, please.) When you call in, your consultant will review the information you provide, and you will have 15 minutes to discuss with him or her your most pressing MBA admissions questions.

Oh, by the way, the 2009 MBA Admission Telethon is free.

You can learn more details and sign up at 2009 MBA Admissions Telethon.

News for '09 MBA Applicants:

• Columbia has posted its J-term 2009 MBA Application.  I'll post the questions and tips in the next few days. If you want to get started on your J-term essays, you can do so now with the essay questions from CBS.
  
• HBS Director of Admissions Dee Leopold announced in a recent blog post that the Harvard Business School 09 application should be available in mid-May. Go HBS!

The US News released its 2008 Grad School Rankings today. I'm going to list the top ten for business school, law school, and medical school and provide links to the ranking methodology for each category. For other graduate specialties, please visit the US News site.

Business School Rankings and methodology 
1. Harvard
1. Stanford
3. Wharton
4.  MIT Sloan
4. Northwestern Kellogg
4. Univ. of Chicago
7. Dartmouth Tuck
7. UC Berkeley Haas
9. Columbia
10. NYU Stern

Law School Rankings
1. Yale
2. Harvard
2. Stanford
4. Columbia
5. NYU
6. UC Berkeley
7. Univ. of Chicago
7. Penn
9. Northwestern
9. Univ. of Michigan
9. Univ. of Virginia

( I am not including a link to the law school methodology because as I am writing the link provided is a bad link.)

Medical School Rankings (Research)  and Methodology
1. Harvard
2. Johns Hopkins
3. Washington U (St. Louis)
4. Penn
5. UCSF
6. Duke
6. Univ. of Washington
8. Stanford
9. UCLA
9. Yale

A few caveats: My strong recommendation is to use the rankings as a library of raw data  conveniently compiled in one location and not as a tried and true guide of educational quality. They are not the latter. They are the former. To the extent you are going to use the rankings as a guide to school reputation and brand value, you must understand the methodology behind them and what they are measuring. Be cognizant of the differences between what is important to you and what is important to the rankings.

A few observations on the rankings themselves:

1. There are many ties in the rankings, which implies that the differences in reputation are almost imperceptible when talking about closely ranked programs. For example the difference between being "in the top ten" and out of the the top ten (i.e. #11) for MBA programs is 1 point,  for the top law schools is 2 points, and for the top medical schools is 1 point. Don't get hung up on these differences.
2. The "top ten" changes little from year to year. In most cases, if you compare these rankings to the 2007 version, it looks as if US News just reshuffled the deck a little.

For more on rankings, please see:

• Rankings: Controversy and Magazine Sales
• Thoughtful Dean Looks at Rankings
• Law School Admissions: Study Says Rankings Influence Decision Makers

Yesterday I met with a LAMP client who is shrewdly starting now to prepare for his fall application. We went over his profile, and I made several suggestions as to what he can do between now and this fall to improve his chances of acceptance next year. He found the session very valuable. And again, I commend him for starting early to work on his application. I want to be able to commend and mentor and help prepare more of you.

For years I have encouraged MBA applicants to lay the foundation for their MBA application in the months before applications come out. That's why I wrote Best Practices for MBA Admissions, a featured ebook this month. That's why Accepted has hosted MBA Admissions Telethons and teleseminars. And that's why Accepted is introducing a new subscription form of MBA Admissions Consulting: Start Smart ™.

With Start Smart, you can meet up to one hour per month with your adviser, an experienced Accepted consultant and editor who for years has seen what works and what doesn't. Our experienced staff shares my frustration when talented but flawed clients come to us in September wanting to apply in Round 1 and hoping that a magic wand will make them competitive. We don't have that wand. We do have decades of collective experience that we would like to share with you on an individual basis through Start Smart.

With Start Smart, you can have a mentor guide you in:

• Identifying the core stories for your application.
• Focusing on specific schools.
  
• Strengthening your application and ameliorating weaknesses.
• Choosing recommenders.

We can even help you work out an application time table.

In addition, Start Smart is something that rewards your early-bird-gets-the-worm approach to your applications:

• You will pay less per month when you sign up for more months.
• Your credit card is billed on a monthly basis for the exact number of months you want. You do not pay for the entire service up front so it is more affordable.
  

For you super-star college juniors who know you want a top MBA, HBS 2+2 has announced that its application is available. Here is the email that HBS sent yesterday:

We are pleased to announce that the 2+2 Program application for the class entering in the fall of 2011 is now available online. To access the application instructions, policies, and materials, please visit the 2+2 Web site.

Please note that the application submission deadline is July 1, 2008, at 5 p.m. EST. To apply in this admissions cycle, you must be a current college junior (or equivalent) with at least one remaining semester, after July 2008, necessary for the completion of your degree.

We hope you will consider Harvard Business School as you think about reframing your plan for leadership. Your seat is waiting.