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.

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.
  

I checked my email this morning and found several informative MBA interview reports that had arrived over the weekend from applicants interviewing at HBS, Wharton, Columbia, London Business School, INSEAD, and other programs. Consequently, I decided it would be timely to post a mini-round up of MBA admissions interview news and resources.

•  The HBS blog announced last week that HBS has issued most of its round 2 interview invitations. In Dee Leopold's words, "While interview invitations will continue to be issued up until notification date, it is fair to say that the vast majority have been sent."
  
• Wharton has completed posting its round 2 interview invitations. Those round 2 applicants who did not receive an interview invitation are denied.  Those who have received the precious invitation can jump in the air, dance for joy, and then check out the resources provided later in this post.
• The Darden Student Blog has a post outlining Darden's reasons for going to an "invitation only" interview policy. According to Bill Gray, the student author,  Darden previously required all domestic applicants to interview in Charlottesville, and just this year switched to invitation-only because the previous policy increased costs to  the school and the applicant, and  meant that domestic and international admissions processes differed. He also pointed at global warming, which I found a little disingenuous, but the other reasons make complete sense. A member of the Class of '09 who applied under the old policy,  Bill also wrote " I personally found it helpful to visit Darden before writing my essays.
• Haas presents a great series of tips for MBA interviews in its monthly admissions newsletter. Check out "How to Ace the Admissions Interview", by Peter Johnson, Director of Admissions, Full-time MBA Program
  

Now for the resources:

• MBA Mock Interviews and Coaching.
  
• MBA I.V.: Mainline to Top MBA Programs MBA Interview Questions and Tips.  We can barely keep this ebook in stock, ;-), and we have received fantastic feedback on it, which we haven't even posted yet. Here is a sampling:

• MBA Interview Feedback Database. The perfect source for the preparation Peter Johnson recommends in his tip article, the searchable database contains hundreds of interview reports from MBA interviews organized by school. Free.
  
• MBA Interview Prep. A five-day email mini course. Free.
  

Take advantage of the resources your wallet, sense of confidence, and general interview preparedness dictate.

 And finally, a couple requests:

1. After you interview, please share your MBA interview experience so the database will continue to grow and provide value.  Doing so automatically enrolls you in Accepted's It's a 10! contest . Winners received an Amazon gift certificate of up to $20.
2. When visiting b-school campuses, take a few pictures of any school (or its environs) listed in the Accepted B-school Zones page and send them in to Accepted's Beautiful B-School Photo contest . In addition, we will soon add pages for UNC, Notre Dame, Emory, and Georgetown so feel free to send in pictures for those schools too.  All honorable mentions receive a gift, and the three winners will take home up to a $200 gift certificate from Amazon. Right now, we only have one submission, so your chances of winning are outstanding. The contest ends April 30.

Since last week the activities of three admissions directors have raised a storm of controversy in the admissions world. These directors serve or have served on an advisory board at a private admissions consultancy in Japan. The directors have positions at Wharton, UNC Kenan-Flagler, and Columbia Teacher's College. Wharton has since requested that the director resign both from the Japanese advisory board and from her own private undergraduate consulting business; she has done so.

Accepted fully endorses the position of the Association of  International Graduate Admissions Consultants, which it co-founded  last year and where I am currently president. The AIGAC blog post, "Admissions Director & Consultant– Simultaneously?" details how this arrangement violates AIGAC's Principles of Good Practice ("PGP") in two respects:

• AIGAC's PGP  requires members to “Maintain independence of thought and action.” Accepting payment both from the school and from applicants and/or an admissions consultancy representing applicants compromises that independence. An AIGAC member, like Accepted, would not be allowed to participate in such an arrangement.
• One article quotes the Wharton director as saying that to avoid any conflict she arranged to receive from the consultancy a list of applicants to her school and intended to recuse herself from consideration of these applications. While her motives are commendable, the consultancy's release of client names would also violate AIGAC’s PGP. AIGAC members agree to “Maintain client confidentiality”;  providing a list of client names (presumably without clients’ permission) to an associate director of admissions at the school to which the clients are applying once again is in violation of the PGP.

Several of the articles indicated that both IECA (an undergraduate admissions consultants' organization) and GMAC (the association of leading business schools) are scrambling to establish standards for their  members and employees. Adoption of and adherence to AIGAC's PGP would have prevented  the controversy and the appearance of impropriety in this case. I suggest that IECA, GMAC and the graduate schools consider adopting them.

Now to Accepted's practice: As a member of AIGAC, Accepted, unlike the consultancy that hired the admissions directors and the directors themselves, is bound by the terms of AIGAC's PGP. We, however, view AIGAC's PGP as our starting point in avoiding conflicts of interest.

Business requires a constant weighing of clashing interests and values. Accepted strives to serve applicants exclusively and to put its customers and clients' interests first, even when doing so means forgoing income or turning away an admissions director interested in moonlighting for us.  We have taken both steps to preserve our independence.  We will continue to do so in the future. 

I am pleased to invite you to a chat tomorrow at Accepted with UNC Kenan Flagler's Director of MBA Admissions, Sherry Wallace will answer your questions about UNC's program, admissions policies, and student life. Joining her are:

• Julie Wiley, Assistant Director of Admissions
• Matt Kippeny, UNC MBA Student

Sherry and her team can answer any questions about UNC admissions from domestic or international applicants. This is an outstanding opportunity for you to get solid, reliable answers to your important queries. 

The chat will take place on Wednesday Jan. 30 at 1:00 PM PT/4:00 PM ET/9:00 PM GMT. Please note that there has been some confusion about the time and it is different from most of our chats. So mark your calendars. Set your reminders and join us in the Accepted chat room.