Inside Higher Ed reports on a possible merger between the German departments at Duke and UNC Chapel Hill, two small struggling programs. According to Inside Higher Ed: "In so doing, the two universities believe that their programs could catapult to among the largest — if not the largest — in the country, with 18 full-time…
GRAD SCHOOL ADMISSIONS
Essay Tip: What to Do If You Procrastinated.
I was looking for something on the old blog and came across a post that I thought was timely and worth repeating. I wrote it in early January 2005, when my daughter was applying for grad school (She got in and then decided she didn’t want to go.) It gives advice for those of you…
4 Must-Knows Before Your MBA Admissions Interview: #1 Your Purpose
I wrote this post with MBA’s in mind, but the truth is that while it focuses on MBA interviews, the advice is true for any admissions interview. I also originally wrote this as one long post, but I have a lot to say on this topic. Like Pinocchio’s nose, this post grew and grew. I…
Inge Miller Joins Accepted.com
Inge Miller, former Associate Director of Admissions at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, has joined Accepted.com. She brings to Accepted.com: 4 years of experience as an Associate Director at Ross’ MBA and BBA programs. Extensive experience evaluating applications, interviewing applicants, liaising with waitlisted applicants, and providing feedback to denied applicants. 3 years of…
Joan Davis and Sachin Waikar Join Accepted.com
Thanks to all of you Accepted.com has been growing and expanding our staff. I am pleased to announce that Joan Davis and Sachin Waikar have joined Accepted.com’s staff. Joan comes to Accepted.com with the following qualifications: An undergraduate background in English and Spanish, A law degree, Over 12 years of experience at the University of…
Accepted’s 10-Year Anniversary
I promised a screen shot of Accepted.com in 1996 and here it is. I feel like I’m displaying my high school year book picture. How dorky and dated can you get? Fortunately, Accepted.com wasn’t created to advise on graphics or web design. Its mission was, is, and will be to enable applicants to achieve…
Personal Statement Tip: What’s Memorable?
I went to my daughter’s awards ceremony last night. She’s graduating high school, and the school has a separate ceremony a couple of weeks before the graduation so that the graduation isn’t too terribly long. In any case, I watched a lot of girls get awards for leadership, excellence in a particular academic subject, theater,…
Personal Statement Tip: Umbrellas, Passion, and Resilience
Two unconnected events catalyzed this blog post: I had lunch yesterday with Rahul Choudaha , the Admissions Manager at the Indian School of Business. (That lunch will have its own post in the next few days.) He mentioned that ISB wants applicants with a passion for what they are doing, have done, and want to…
Latest US News Grad Rankings for 2007
The latest US News rankings are out. Here are the top 10 in a few categories: Business: Harvard Stanford Wharton Sloan (Tied with Kellogg) Kellogg (Tied with Sloan) Chicago Columbia (Tied with Haas) Haas (Tied with Columbia) Tuck Anderson Law Yale Stanford Harvard Columbia (Tied with NYU) NYU (Tied with Columbia) Chicago Penn UC Berkeley…
NYU Received $200 Million Gift
This seems to be the week for $200 million gifts in the Big Apple. NYU announced yesterday that it has received a $200 million gift to create the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. The gift from the Leon Levy Foundation will fund the "graduate research and Ph.D. degree-granting center with its own…
Personal Statement Tip: Dealing with Hardship
A friend of mine was recently going through a hard time. Things were going wrong, seriously wrong in her life. She wryly labeled these experiences "character building." It is a sad truth that tragedy and trial build character strength and develop wisdom. Most of us would rather be weaker and stupider than have character building…
Ordinary Things Extraordinarily Well
Stanford’s Graduate School of Business frequently says that it seeks applicants who "have excelled by doing ordinary things extraordinarily well." While Stanford GSB uses this phrase frequently, many other programs seek that quality too Last week I saw the excellent documentary, Paperclips. It tells of a seemingly ordinary middle school principal and two of her…
Metaphors in your Personal Statement and Application Essay
You can use a metaphor as a phrase in your essay or as a whole theme that envelopes your essay. In either case, if used well and thoughtfully, metaphors will add color to your essay and anchor it with concrete images. I wrote previously about using metaphors in phrases as well as other techniques to…
Personal Statement Tip: Topic Choice
Up and down. Up and down we went. My husband and I huffed and puffed up a ridge, down into a lovely canyon, and then back up and down, descending and ascending over 1500 feet during our 6 mile hike last weekend. It was a spectacular, clear day. From the high points we could see…
Cost of Student Debt To Go Up
Congress passed a spending bill that will significantly raise the cost of student aid programs. According to the CollegeJournal, the fixed rate on Stafford loans, the most popular kind of financial aid, will climb from 4.7% to 6.8% on July 1. The rate on PLUS loans will be fixed at 8%.
Personal Statement Fatal Flaw #4: Superficiality
(Continuing my series on essays that sound like baby talk and are frequently application killers.) When you write superficially you tend to blend into the great mass of applicants who on a superficial level are very much like you. They have the same goal. They have prepared similarly to gain acceptance. Of course, blending in is…
Personal Statement Fatal Flaw #1: Lack of Substance
At the end of last month I compared certain personal statements and application essays to my grandson’s efforts at expression and identified 5 fatal flaws in your essays: Lack of substance – nothing demonstrating the qualities claimed. Failure to answer the question. Clichéd. Superficiality. Muddled thinking. Let’s explore them over the next several days one…
Admissions Essay Tip: 5 Fatal Flaws to Avoid
A little over six months ago I wrote about my lousy mood after the departure of my daughter, son-in-law, and worst of all, one and only grandchild. I’m in the same funk now for the very same reason. After a wonderful four-week visit in Los Angeles, where I live, my children had the audacity to…
MIT Sloan, Starting Bloc Help Young Applicants
Starting Bloc and MIT Sloan have set up a program were six Starting Bloc Fellows (college seniors) are accepted to MIT Sloan’s MBA program for deferred admission. The Starting Bloc fellows will work in social or private enterprise for one to two years before matriculating at Sloan. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at…
“These are really good essays!”
As a result of my being quoted in that front-page Wall St. Journal article yesterday, (OK. OK. I’m milking it.) I received a call from a client I worked with in 1996-97. We haven’t spoken in several years, and it was great hearing from him. We worked closely on his application, and he was accepted to several schools,…
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