BusinessWeek this week screams on p. 007 "34,000: Estimated number of jobs lost on Wall Street in the past nine months."

What if you were a holder of one of those no-longer-existing jobs and planned to apply this fall for matriculation in Fall 09? Does the layoff doom your application?

No. Not at all. Admissions committee members read BusinessWeek and a host of other periodicals that blare the same numbers, gloom, and doom. They  know you are not responsible for a recession (I said it), turmoil in the credit markets, inaccurate risk management at the top of major financial institutions, and the bust that so frequently follows a boom.

But you are responsible for your reaction to the lay off.  If you quickly succeed in obtaining a new position that moves you closer to your long-term goal or that allows you to take on more responsibility and show growth, that's great. But obtaining a good job may be difficult in this business climate. Keep the following in mind:

1. You may have to adjust or alter your career plans to meet market conditions.  Risk management has suddenly become a growth industry. Perhaps your number crunching skills can be put to good use in this suddenly hot field.
2. If your layoff starts to drag on, don't plop yourself in front of the TV, video game, or sudoku book. Do something. Take up a new hobby. Learn new skills. Participate in a community service active. Volunteer for a candidate. (There's more than enough of them this year in the US.) Transform your layoff into a growth experience with initiative, energy, and optimism.  

Either of these responses will allow you to show the resilience and backbone schools value. In addition, by taking these steps you will learn new skills, develop marketable talents, and demonstrate the personal qualities schools (and employers) admire.

Tomorrow's Post: My Stab at MBA Admissions Punditry. 

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 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

Essay questions dealing with failure,  risk, mistakes, and difficult interactions or conflict cause applicants to cringe, squirm, and bite their nails. After all, you want to show yourself succeeding and conquering the world in your application essays and personal statements.  Not falling down.  

Schools ask these questions because they want to see how you get up, how you grow following setback. Do you smile and try again? Do you view the stumble as temporary? Move on? Applaud effort? Accept a helping hand when offered?

A video of my seventeen-month-old granddaughter when she finally decides to walk exemplifies a positive attitude to risk, challenge, and yes even failure. She chose to start walking at the end of a two and a half week visit, minutes before going through security at Los Angeles International Airport. My husband and I were letting her crawl around to tire herself out before the long plane ride and her parents were finishing up with ticketing and luggage, when she just stuck her rump in the air, straightened up, and started to ... walk. ( I caught the event on my camera phone so the quality isn't great.  Babies never perform on cue.)

Despite a lot of practice holding onto fingers and furniture before this grand and sudden experiment, success was neither immediate nor guaranteed. But she tried and tried again. She applauded despite falling. And she accepted big brother's hand when he ran over to help her. I hope she will always display the determination and resilience one sees here.

Similarly you want to display resilience in your essays and applications. I have seen clients and others portray setbacks as growth opportunities and occasions of achievement.  They definitely acknowledge a "blew it" moment, but their "failure" essay screams success, accomplishment, resilience, and character.

As always, don't just talk about "resilience." Demonstrate it with anecdotes that show you picking yourself up, improving, acknowledging effort, persisting, and ultimately succeeding in one way or another. 

You want to portray those qualities in your application.  They will convince the committees that you can indeed conquer the world. Or at least straighten up after a stumble.

AAMC summarized the match this year:

U.S. medical school seniors celebrated Match Day on Thursday. More than 94 percent of seniors who applied for residencies this year through the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) were paired with a program of their choice-the highest percentage in more than three decades. In fact, 84.6 percent of those seniors matched to one of their top three program choices.

The 2008 Match was also the largest ever. Overall, 28,737 applicants vied for one of 22,240 first-year residency positions--the most applicants in history.
A record-high 15, 242 of those applicants were U.S. medical school seniors.
The number of first-year residency positions available through the Match was also the highest in history; 395 additional positions were added this year.

For more information, please read the press release from AAMC.

I am happy to say that we have heard from many happy residency client who matched with their first choice program this year. 

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