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Introducing a first of its kind MBA application writing class, led by veteran mbaMission admissions consultant Angela Guido: “Constructing a Standout MBA Application Boot Camp.”

Three-Session Class – 12 Hours of Instruction

Throughout this three-session class, we will guide you step by step through the process of creating a compelling MBA application that reveals your unique character and will inspire the admissions committee to grant you that coveted letter of acceptance. In a classroom “workshop” environment, you will brainstorm for unique ideas, outline and structure your essays, prepare multiple drafts of your essays and construct an appropriate resume for your target school. Further, you will get a head start on your recommendations and interviews, and develop a timeline for completing the rest of your applications. The class is designed to jump-start your application process and get you headed in the right direction with all your applications.

Constant Feedback

During this class, you will complete a series of targeted brainstorming and writing exercises, engage with classmates on your work, receive specific feedback and guidance from your peers and benefit from direct access to the workshop leader to hone your final product. You will also learn the key techniques of effective storytelling, which you can then apply to your future professional communications, including other business school applications and interviews.

Expected Outcomes

In this class you will accomplish the following:

• Understand how to view essays through the lens of the admissions committee
• Learn to identify the characteristics of a great essay and avoid common pitfalls
• Dig deep into your past experiences to reveal your most compelling stories
• Begin constructing your essays/resume for one target school, with feedback and direction from your peers and the instructor
• Benefit from the workshop leader’s deep subject matter expertise on the MBA admissions process and top programs
• Workshop your essays and resume in an online session a week and a half after the formal instruction sessions to enhance your drafts and move your work towards the final draft stage

What Others Are Saying about “Creating a Standout MBA Application Boot Camp”:
“I would say that this class has changed the way I viewed writing a grad school essay. It’s a must for anyone wanting direction on grad school essays.” – Paul K.

“Now that I’ve started writing essays and have a much clearer idea of what the AdCom is looking for, I am much less overwhelmed by the whole process.” – Christine L.

“I just really feel like you’ve given us the tools to write a good essay. I had no idea what it meant to write a good MBA essay when the class started, and although I feel like I’ve still got a ton of work to do, I do at least feel like I will know when I’ve written my best essay. The curriculum has been great.” – Peter D.

“This class has been a self-discovery experience! The class got me to think about aspects of my life and personality outside the professional framework I was always accustomed to…GO FOR IT!” – Latif B.

Class Dates:

The first two sessions of the class will be held in New York City. The final session will be an online workshop.

Friday, August 12, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 13, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (INCLUDES ONE-HOUR BREAK)
Wednesday, August 24, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. (PLEASE NOTE THIS SESSION WILL BE HELD ONLINE)

Fee:

$475 for the three-session, 12-hour course on the specific dates listed. Space is limited. Sign up today!

Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they select a business school, 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 Robert Howell from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Robert Howell (“Financial Statement Interpretation and Analysis”) has been teaching for more than 40 years and is quite accomplished in the field of accounting and financial management, having served as chief financial officer of two publicly traded consumer product companies earlier in his career. In addition to teaching the “Financial Statement Interpretation and Analysis” course, Howell is the faculty advisor to the Tuck Investment Club. A recent graduate told mbaMission, “Everyone takes his class.” For one of the course’s major projects, which occurs near the end of the term, students work in teams to analyze a company and present their recommendation on whether to buy, hold or sell its stock. “Professor Howell has a sense of humor, and he told students that ‘it’s better to be directionally right and not precisely wrong,’” shared another recent graduate.

A second year described Howell to mbaMission as “a character, and a really, really great professor. His classes are very entertaining, and he is strongly opinionated. He makes even diagnosing financial statements fun; he operates on the assumption that these don’t tell you much unless you can unwind them, so it’s a very valuable class. I sometimes see him in the Tuck gym; he’s a really down-to-earth, approachable guy.” Another second-year student likewise spoke highly of Howell, saying, “He is a fantastic professor. The consummate practitioner-scholar, Professor Howell has an unsurpassed ability to simplify and explain complex financial concepts. More importantly, Professor Howell teaches a coherent investment philosophy regarding how to make investment decisions. I believe that the framework he provides will prove useful long into my career in finance. … [He] peppers his class discussions with pertinent anecdotes and examples underlying investment principles borne from his deep real-world experience and through his work teaching executives investment concepts.”

For more information about the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and 14 other top-ranked MBA schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

Several top business schools explicitly ask candidates about the steps they have taken to learn about their MBA program. Via such questions, the schools are testing you: they want to know that you have a sincere desire to gain a place in their next entering class, and so they want to know that you have made a concerted and genuine effort to get to know them. So, when answering such questions, you absolutely must demonstrate your profound interest in the school.

Explaining that you have read the school’s Web site is not sufficient, considering that this resource is available to anyone, and frankly, the MBA admissions committee would expect you to do this. Although you could mention your Web research as a starting point if something very particular or unusual caught your attention, you are better off immediately sharing your a priori experiences with the school instead. By discussing the details of your class visits and particularly of your interactions with admissions officers, students, professors and/or alumni, you will “prove” to the admissions committee that you have truly been striving to learn more and understand your fit with the school. In essence, if you are showing the committee that you have extended yourself to learn, you have surpassed a minimum requirement.

Which MBA program is right for you? How can you find the best fit? In this presentation, Mili Mittal, senior consultant at mbaMission, will help prospective MBAs understand the differences between the top business school programs. Mili will elaborate on areas that will profoundly affect your academic and social lives in business school, including the flexibility of a program’s curriculum, the breadth of core courses, different methods of instruction, varying sizes of the cohorts and more. Start preparing now so you can be sure to make an educated decision when you apply!

A Q&A session will follow the presentation, after which Mili will remain online to respond to any additional inquiries.

Date: Thursday, July 21, 2011
Time: 8:30-10:00 p.m. EST
Location: Online
Price: Free!

To register for this event, please click here.

Two years ago, UCLA Anderson introduced an application essay question that required candidates to creatively express themselves. Last year, the school made the question optional. This year, it dropped this much-discussed essay question altogether. Were the segments overproduced? Did the question give a technological advantage to some, but not others? Who can say? What we do know is that UCLA Anderson’s essay questions this season are now pretty sparse. Essay one offers your best opportunity to stand out, so use it wisely.

REQUIRED ESSAYS:

Please be introspective and authentic in your responses. Content is more important than style of delivery. We value the opportunity to learn about your life experiences, aspirations, and goals.
1. What events or people have had the greatest influence in shaping your character and why?   (750 words)

In offering you the opportunity to discuss an event or people that have shaped your character, UCLA Anderson is trying to learn, not about others, but about you through others. So, if you were to write about Gandhi, you are not writing a biography of the man, but the story of his influence on you. Of course, we strongly advise that you not write about how Gandhi, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett or some other highly notable public figure influenced you, because it will be very difficult to own your connection to this person – how has Gandhi, for example, influenced you, in a way that he has not influenced others? It is possible to write about how a less public philosopher or business leader influenced you, but the connection must truly be profound and his/her influences must be very deliberate in your current actions. You have to show how this person’s influence has manifest and indeed, “shaped” you.

Many candidates will write about family members, who can be a fine choice. Again, what needs to be clear is the cause and effect relationship. The reader needs to understand the profound influence the individual has had on you and needs not to learn about you through this person

Bad: My grandfather was born in 1935 in what is now Slovakia. He grew up on a farm and has subsequently always loved to grow his own vegetables.

Good: My first memories come from my grandfather’s garden, pulling up carrots, picking tomatoes and digging up potatoes. As we harvested what we had grown together, he would laugh and say to me, “You have to take time to watch the potatoes bloom…”

With respect to events, again, we are similarly learning about you through an externality and again, the event need not be known to the public, but here you have more leeway. For example, one could talk about the changes that occurred when a loved one went to fight in Iraq, but then, the experience is still focused on you and your life, your family, not on the war. Still, you need not worry if you did not have an experience that was this profound. Again, you simply need to think about an event that became an experience for you and the impact of it must be highly personal.

We often advise applicants to tell their stories narratively and to launch directly into the action; this approach would work particularly well for this essay. Starting this essay with a formal introduction, wherein you sum up for the reader what he/she is about to be told in the rest of the text, will prevent you from being able to create momentum or suspense in your story. Consider the following example:

Bad: “The most influential event in my life occurred when I defied expectations and was elected student president of my 50,000 person college.”

With this kind of opening, where is the mystery? Where do you go from there? By contrast, consider the following:

Good: “Rushing to class on a chilly fall morning, I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw a poster advertising the upcoming class elections.”

By launching into the “action” of your story and maintaining the mystery within it, you will grab and hold your reader’s attention, and the story of your shaping event will have maximum impact.

2. What are your short-term and long-term career goals, and how will an MBA from UCLA Anderson specifically help you achieve these goals? (750 words)

Because Personal Statements are similar from one application to the next, we have produced the mbaMission Personal Statement Guide, which helps applicants write this style of essay for any school. We offer this guide to candidates free of charge, via our online store. Please feel free to download your copy today.

Do not use up precious word count here detailing your professional career and accomplishments to date, but do include some general reference to your past work experience to frame why you need an MBA education to attain your stated goals. You must then clearly explain what UCLA Anderson offers in particular that will help you. As always, avoid telling the school what it already knows about itself, and instead strive to demonstrate links between specific offerings at the school and your aspirations. You will need to do your research to best identify direct ties between what Anderson offers and your professional goals, personal beliefs, study style, etc. The deeper your knowledge of the school, the easier pinpointing specific resources will be in the context of your future success, and thus, the more effective your essay will be. Take time to go beyond the school’s view book and Web site and contact students and alumni—and, ideally, visit the school and attend a class.

For a thorough exploration of UCLA Anderson’s academic program/merits, defining characteristics, crucial statistics, social life, academic environment and more, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guide to the UCLA Anderson School of Management.