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Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they select a business school, but the educational experience is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Each Wednesday, we profile a standout professor as identified by students. Today, we profile Kevin Lane Keller from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Tuck states on its site that Kevin Lane Keller (“Strategic Brand Management”) is known as one of the foremost experts on branding, and Keller has served as a brand consultant for some of the world’s most recognizable companies, including Coca-Cola, MTV and Procter & Gamble. A recent graduate told mbaMission, “It is cool to hear his experiences from different companies he’s worked in.” Another alumnus added, “He is very approachable and in touch with students. He likes to get feedback from students in terms of what they experienced during internships or jobs.” As for Keller’s teaching style, another alumnus explained, “He is more of a lecturer than a class participation professor.” And a second-year student we interviewed described him as “straight out of the West Coast—very laid-back. He’s known as a cool professor, and a brilliant one.”

For the final project (which accounts for 40% of a student’s final grade) in Keller’s “Strategic Brand Management” course, students form a “brand management team” with three to four of their classmates to conduct a brand audit, which involves analyzing a brand of the team’s choosing and preparing a subsequent report and presentation to be made to the class. One alumnus told mbaMission, “I really enjoyed the brand audit project because you get to pick a brand that interests you and then learn all about it. It was a lot of fun and also challenging.” Remarked a second year we interviewed, “That he is such a top guy in his field but still teaches one of the core classes is something that is very special about Tuck.”

For more information about the Tuck and 15 other top-ranked MBA schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

We always encourage MBA candidates to visit their target business schools, because doing so can make a positive impression on the admissions committee, gives candidates opportunity to personalize their applications (essays and interviews in particular—depending on the timing of the visit) and may even help them select their schools. But remember, when you visit campuses for interviews or just to experience the atmosphere at your target schools, you should always be on your best behavior.

Although the receptionist in the Admissions Office is not a “spy,” and your tour guide’s main concern is not to inform the admissions committee of your actions or comments, both of these individuals will likely feel compelled to report any bad behavior to the admissions committee. We spoke with one former receptionist (now an admissions committee member) at a top-ten school, who said that if she encountered rudeness from a visiting candidate, she would make note of it and send a message about the incident to the admissions director, who would subsequently remove the candidate from consideration for admission. Most candidates are on their best behavior anyway, but we nevertheless offer this important reminder.

When tailoring their essays to specific schools, many candidates do not go far enough to show a clear and understandable connection between themselves and their target programs. Offering school-specific information is good, but you must go beyond merely mentioning the particular resource(s) that appeal to you—adding context is key.

What is the difference between a mere mention and providing context?

Mention:

“With a focus on entrepreneurship, I will participate in Columbia’s Entrepreneurial Sounding Board process. Further, I am attracted to classes such as ‘Small Business Finance,’ ‘Real Estate Marketing’ and “Introduction to Mergers.’ I also plan to join the …”

Context:

“With clear plans to launch my start-up immediately after graduating from Columbia, I look forward to testing my ideas through the Entrepreneurial Sounding Board; I find this opportunity to meet with faculty and gain critical feedback and mentoring invaluable as I strive to refine my business plan and learn more about how to source investments…”

In the first example, the candidate shows an awareness of the Entrepreneurial Sounding Board but does not provide the context necessary for the reader to fully understand how the candidate will use this resource; therefore, the mention is entirely superficial. As a result, it is easily forgettable, unconvincing and impersonal (i.e., it could be made by pretty much any candidate with any background and any goals). The candidate has seemingly not taken the time to reflect on this resource and how he/she would use it to progress toward his/her stated goals. The applicant then goes on to begin listing the classes he/she plans to take and essentially succeeds in merely cataloging resources rather than offering a reasoned consideration of how the school’s offerings are necessary.

The second example better explains exactly how the candidate will use the resource mentioned; the applicant has clearly done the necessary homework on the school and truly grasps how Columbia will satisfy his/her academic and professional needs. Because the latter example is more informed and serious minded, the reader can be certain that the candidate has a set path and a clear plan to achieve specific goals.

When it comes to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this weekly blog series, Manhattan GMAT’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.

If you have only recently started studying for the GMAT (or even if you have been studying for a while!), you are likely annoyed by Data Sufficiency (DS). What is this weird question type, and why do they ask it? More importantly, how do we handle it?

What is DS?

The GMAT really is not a math test. (Neither is the GRE—we will look at a weird GRE quant question type next week.) These tests are actually trying to test us on our “executive reasoning” skills—that is, how well we make decisions and prioritize when faced with too many things to do in too little time.

So, DS questions are really about quickly analyzing a collective set of data and trying to figure out which pieces you need to do the job. Imagine your boss dumping a bunch of stuff on you and saying, “Hey, our client wants to know whether they should raise the price on this product. Can you answer that question from this data? If so, which pieces do we need to prove the case?”

We do, of course, have to do some math—and sometimes that math is quite annoying. We usually do not, however, have to do as much as we usually do on regular “problem solving” questions (the normal Quant questions).

How does DS work?

First, we are given what is called the “question stem.” Here is an example:

How old is Oliver?

The question stem asks us a question, naturally. It can also provide information, such as the following:

If Oliver’s age is even, how old is Oliver?

Now we know that Oliver’s age is an even number. If they told me, for example, that Oliver is either 13 or 14 years old, now I know he is definitely 14, because I should only consider even numbers as possible values for Oliver’s age.

Next, the problem will give us two statements, such as the following:

(1) Oliver is 4 years older than Sam.

(2) Sam will be 11 years old in 5 years.

So, can we figure out how old Oliver is? What information would we need to do so? The first statement, by itself, does not help, because we do not know how old Sam is. The second statement, by itself, also does not help, because it does not tell us anything about Oliver.

If we put the two statements together, however, then we can actually figure out how old Oliver is. In this case, using both statements 1 and 2 together is sufficient to answer the question. (And this situation corresponds to answer choice C on the GMAT.)

DS questions have five possible answers:

(A) Statement 1 does help us to answer the question but statement 2 does not.

(B) Statement 2 does help us to answer the question but statement 1 does not.

(C) Neither statement works on its own, but I can use them together to answer the question.

(D) Statement 1 works by itself and statement 2 works by itself.

(E) Nothing works. Even if I use both statements together, I still cannot answer the question.

Okay, these are weird. How do I get better?

These are going to take some practice, yes. In addition, this was only a very short introduction; a ton of great strategies are out there that you can learn. Look for books, articles, classes and other resources to help.  (Here is one to get you started.)

You also, of course, have to learn a bunch of math. What we have presented here, though, should help you get started on this kind-of-bizarre question type in the first place!

Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they choose an MBA program to attend, but the educational experience itself is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Each Wednesday, we profile a standout professor as identified by students. Today, we profile William Cockrum at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

William “Bill” Cockrum has won numerous teaching awards—including the Teaching Excellence Award from UCLA Anderson’s second-year students in 1998 and 2002—has become a “legend” for the case-study entrepreneurial financing course he teaches and is credited on Anderson’s Web site with playing a key role in the school’s number one ranking for entrepreneurship by the Financial Times. He has taught more than 6,000 students at Anderson and was even recognized as the top entrepreneurship professor in the nation in a 1996 BusinessWeek (now Bloomberg Businessweek) survey.

For more information about the UCLA Anderson School of Management and 15 other top-ranked MBA schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.