Round 3 applicants used to be viewed as disorganized, but now, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, they may be viewed as “appealing but unconventional prospects” or as “an offbeat catch” who “liven the mix of an incoming MBA class.” I was quoted in the article when I explain how the first two…
International GMAT Test Takers Score Higher than Americans
U.S. GMAT test-takers are performing poorly compared to test-takers from Asia-Pacific reports a recent Wall Street Journal article. In response to this growing performance gap, adcom at U.S. schools are seeking to implement new evaluation metrics to make domestic students appear better. Here’s an example of how things have changed: For the quant section, in…
Law School Enrollment Plummets
The American Bar Association reports that first-year law school enrollment dropped 11% this year, down 5,000 students to 39,675. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, this is the lowest first-enrollment has been since 1977 (when enrollment was 29,676 – just one student higher). Here are some additional stats from the WSJ article: • This…
Best B-Schools for Entrepreneurs
A recent Wall Street Journal article discusses the difficult mission of finding the right b-school for entrepreneurs. It lists the different rankings sites and the variety of results they offer for top entrepreneur-focused b-school programs: Businessweek puts Stanford at the top of the list; Entrepreneur magazine gives top marks to Michigan Ross; and Poets &…
WSJ Law Blog Offers Most Recent Law Applicant Stats
Highlights of the Wall Street Journal article, “Number of LSAT Test Takers Is Down 45% Since 2009,” include: • The number of LSAT exams administered in October 2013 (33,673 exams) is 11% lower than in October 2012 (37,780 exams). This is the lowest test taker volume since 1998. • The total number of LSAT test takers in…
MBA Internship-to-Job Rate Rises as Employers Increasingly Pick from Summer Talent
While the internship-to-job funnel has long existed in the banking and consulting industries, a Wall Street Journal article reports that more industries are filling full-time positions with their former MBA interns. And they’re not just increasing their internship-to-job rates, but some have started their hiring a year before the position start date, offering full-time positions…
When You Receive College Rejection Letters
Accepted’s college admissions expert, Whitney Bruce, responds to Suzy Lee Weiss’s Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, “To (All) the Colleges That Rejected Me.” When I work with high achieving students, as I presume Suzy Lee Weiss to be, we talk about failure. To the straight-A, student leader, it’s often a foreign concept in 11th grade….
Does Interview Prep Make You Phony?
I was thrilled Thursday to be quoted in The Wall Street Journal’s “Frankly, Wharton Wants Candor,” which focused on Wharton’s Team Based Discussion (TBD) and Harvard’s interview reflections. I disagree, however, with disingenuous arguments in the article that applicants who seek to prepare beyond a school’s recommendation are intrinsically less than genuine. I sat in…
Top Feeder Schools to Big Law
Wondering which law school will lead you to that coveted Big Law job? Well, the WSJ Law Blog broke it down for you using newly released data from the ABA. This data involved employment summary reports for individual schools, revealing that only about 8% of 2011 grads found jobs at big law firms. Plus, “schools…
New Ph.D.s Find Jobs Abroad
The Wall St. Journal reports that while U.S. universities are suffering from hiring freezes and shrinking budgets, schools in Asia and the Mideast are eager to recruit the holders of U.S. doctorates. For example, Frederick “Fritz” Monsma, earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston College in 2003. After applying for countless positions without success, he…
How Business Schools Have Failed Business
Business school deans and educational thought leaders are doing a lot of soul-searching concerning the role and culpability of graduate business schools in the economic downturn. Dean Robert Bruner of Darden on April 5 wrote on Twitter “Controversy over the role of B-schools in the crisis. Did they warn strongly enough about the risks of toxic…
European B-Schools In Demand
This was a week for articles about the demand for European business schools like London Business School, INSEAD, and IMD among US applicants seeking both MBA and EMBA degrees. Here is a sample: An MBA With Savoir Faire from The Wall St. Journal. BusinessWeek’s Special Report: “B-Schools in Europe 2009.” Several of the articles profile specific schools,…
NYU Stern’s Isser Gallogly: Finance from an Admissions Perspective
Part of an ongoing series “MBA in Finance: Forget It?” My question: Given the weakness in investment banking, hedge funds, and financial services in general, how do you react to applicants who say they want an MBA to enter IB, PE or a related field that has been devastated by the economic downturn? Is the…
Recruiting Drops at Business Schools
The Wall St. Journal continues the drum beat of bad news. Recruiting is down at business schools. A survey by the MBA Career Services Council, an association of business school career offices, reveals: 56% of surveyed career office representatives — a significant jump over the fall figure of 12% — say on-campus recruiting has declined by…
WSJ EMBA Rankings — Part 2
Taking a leaf from Forbes, The Financial Times, and The Economist, which all use ROI in calculating their rankings, The Wall St. Journal published a second ranking of EMBA programs based exclusively on ROI. The September ranking surveyed EMBA students and recruiters and asked them how well the programs “develop management and leadership skills.” The new Top 5…
US News May Modify Law School Rankings
The Wall St. Journal reports today that US New & World Report, which publishes the much watched and reviled law-school rankings, is considering changes to its rankings formula. These changes could have serious consequences for law schools and students. The front-page article “Law School Rankings Reviewed to Deter ‘Gaming’ “ claims that many schools are…
Ivy League Edge?
The Wall St. Journal reports on a survey conducted by Payscale.com showing that the college one attends “can make a big difference in starting pay, and that difference is largely sustained into midcareer.” Personally, I would like to see this study conducted so that it removes the impact of SAT and high school GPA. Are…
MBA Admissions Round-up
Let’s look at a few MBA items: Accepted and Manhattan GMAT are teaming up for a free MBA admissions information session. on Thursday June 26 from 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM at MGMAT’s Santa Monica Center. During the first part of the session, I will explore the purpose of the MBA application essays, suggest an…
Law Admissions: Look at the job market
According to Law.com "All together, the top 20 law schools that NLJ 250 law firms relied on most to fill their first-year associate ranks sent 54.9 percent of their graduates to those firms, compared with 51.6 percent in 2006." Obviously that does not mean that the remaining 55.1 percent were all unemployed, but if you…
Economic Woes Hurt 2008 Hiring
The drums of economic downturn have been beating loudly. Very loudly during the last few weeks. Almost like daffodils after a spring rain, articles about grads having fewer job opportunities and employers, especially in financial services, cutting college and MBA recruiting have sprouted: From The Wall St. Journal: "For Class of ’08, A Scramble for…
