Entries from December 1, 2005 - January 1, 2006
MBAs: Happy Days are Here Again!
Businessweek's article " A Heady Job Market for MBAs" bodes well for MBAs. It is all upbeat news for MBA job hunters graduating from European and North American schools:
- Management consulting and investment bankers are back on campus in full force at the top programs, frequently hiring double the number of MBAs they hired three years ago.
- "At London Business School, 96% of 2005 grads had accepted full-time jobs within three months of graduation, an 11% increase over 2004 and a record for the school."
- At Richard Ivey School of Business, 94% of 2005 grads had an offer within three months of graduation, compared to 68% in 2004.
- Salaries are up --remember your supply/demand curve: At the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, the average starting salary was $98,000, up from $91,210 just a year ago.
The article saves the best news for last: "Experts expect employment to continue on this path for at least the next two MBA classes.'Unofficially, companies like DaimlerChrysler (DCX ), McKinsey, Goldman Sachs (GS ), and others are telling us that they see strong hiring through 2008 as well," says Samer Hamadeh, co-founder and CEO of Vault, a New York-based company that provides industry information to job seekers. "For someone graduating in May, 2007, it [will be] a bull market for jobs.'"
If you want to know what recruiters want to see in MBA please see the transcripts from our recruiter chats for MBA applicants.
What's the cloud within this nice thick silver lining? This news is going to drive up application volume and make it harder for you to gain acceptance to top programs. Watch that GMAT volume continue its upward climb.
Linda Abraham
in MBA Admissions, Chicago, London Business School
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Defining Your Goals for Residency; The Match
AMSA's monthly magazine, The New Physician, has a couple of excellent articles on the Match and choosing your speciality. Although neither article is online, the "Choice of a Lifetime: Picking a career is one thing they don't teach us." is particularly valuable because it gives concrete suggestion on researching different specialties.
If you are looking for tips on matching at the programs of your choice, please see the following Accepted.com resources:
Linda Abraham
in Medical School Admissions
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Hastings Has New Dean: Nell Newton
University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco will have a new dean: Nell Jessup Newton, who will leave the University of Connecticut where she has served as dean for the last six years. During her tenure, the endowment at UConn Law has doubled to $16 million.
In moving to Hastings Newton is returning to her alma mater, an important factor in her decision.
Linda Abraham
in Law School Admissions
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Application Essays: A Balancing Act
We Accepted.com editors have a private mailing list where we can share best practices. This weekend we were discussing certain nuances in responding to the Harvard essay questions, specifically HBS 4:
"In your career, you will have to deal with many ethical issues. What are likely to be the most challenging and what is your plan for developing the competencies you will need to handle these issues effectively? (400-word limit)"
One element in our discussion pertained to the question of whether an example of a situation where you handled an ethical issue would strengthen your reply to this question. In a nutshell, the answer is "yes."
In almost all application essays and personal statements you need to balance description with analysis, what you did with your motivation for doing it or the lessons learned. If you leave out the experiential aspect entirely, you risk writing a highly theoretical and superficial reply. Also realize that your actions and experiences speak volumes about who you are as a person. Some would even argue, myself among them, that what you do says more about who you are than what you believe or intend.
So why the need for both anecdote and analysis? Because telling only what you did or what happened, leaves the reader wondering why you initiated or responded as you did. In admissions, the reader wants to know what makes you tick. They want to understand motivation as well as results and impact. And impact isn't just impact on others or on an organization or even something that you can always quantify (although to the extent you can quantify external impact you better convey it). Impact also includes the effect on you: What did you learn? How have you changed? How do you now act differently as a result of the earlier experience?
So in answering HBS 4 and most other application questions as well when writing less directed statements of purpose and personal statements, remember to balance anecdote and analysis, experience and interpretation, reality and theory.
Linda Abraham
in Law School Admissions, MBA Admissions, College Admissions, Medical School Admissions, Grad School Admissions, Harvard HBS
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NYU Stern #3 on Public Radio's Marketplace
NYU's Director of Admissions, Isser Gallogly, was interviewed today on Public Radio's Marketplace about Stern's MBA application question #3. It is a wonderful, short segment, devoted entirely to NYU Stern #3, and mandatory listening for anyone applying to Stern.
Gallogly emphasizes that #3 is all about "personal expression." It is an opportunity for you "to get across who you are beyond business aspirations, beyond academic performance, but to who you really are as a person." Marketplace also interviews two current Stern students and reads a couple of sample Stern #3 essays.
Listen to this segment if you are applying to Stern.
Linda Abraham
in MBA Admissions, NYU Stern
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