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Applying to B-School in the Fall? It’s not too early to start planning! Preparing quality business school applications can take months. If you’re applying in the fall, now is the time to get a head start on understanding the application process. On March 12, 2009, at 6:30 PM at ManhattanGMAT’s New York Location, Jeremy Shinewald, founder of mbaMission, will conduct a free seminar, providing you with advice on how to best use your time leading up to first round deadlines.

Seminar topics will include the following:

•    Maximizing the Impact of Community Activities
•    Accelerating Personal Goals
•    Building an Alternative Transcript
•    Taking and Retaking the GMAT
•    Making the Most of Campus Visits

For more information or to register, please click on the link in the text above. All attendees of this exclusive event will receive 10% off any nine-session ManhattanGMAT course, free access to a ManhattanGMAT computer adaptive practice exam and the opportunity to meet with Jeremy Shinewald, founder of mbaMission.

As candidates continue to interview, many have asked whether they are obliged to bring new information to their interviews or whether they can simply repeat the strong stories they offered in their essays. Well, the vast majority of interviews (CBS, Chicago, Tuck, Kellogg, Wharton, etc.) are blind. Your interviewer may have read the resume you sent (and actually, some may not have!), but he/she will likely be unfamiliar with the breadth and depth of your accomplishments. So, you should not think that you are repeating yourself, but that you are simply showcasing the best of yourself.

In the case of HBS, where the AdCom actually does read candidates’ essays before interviews, you still do not need to fret, because HBS asks very specific questions. Rarely will an HBS interviewer ask an open-ended question like, “What is your greatest leadership accomplishment?” Instead, an HBS interviewer will likely ask about a particular story that he/she read about in your essays and delve deeper—for example, “What made you choose to take a greater leadership role as a member of the board of charity X?”

In any case, candidates should rest easy and just focus on creating a connection with their interviewer.

(A notable exception to this rule is MIT-Sloan, which uses its own Behavioral Events Interview Format.)

For five years, we have been collaborating with ManhattanGMAT to offer free resources to applicants—hosting admissions events at ManhattanGMAT centers across North America, answering questions on the ManhattanGMAT Web forum, distributing our “Complete Start to Finish” Guide to ManhattanGMAT clients and more. Today, we welcome ManhattanGMAT to our blog, where they will be posting a GMAT challenge question each Wednesday and an answer each Thursday. We are certain that MBA candidates will benefit from this resource!

For those of you in Silicon Valley looking to connect with fellow MBAs and enjoy a drink on someone else’s tab, Manhattan GMAT has got an event for you! Our GMAT firm of choice is hosting a networking mixer, where you will be able to share war stories with other young professionals and learn some of the basics of how to approach the GMAT. We have attached the official Manhattan GMAT invitation below:

Learn the ins and outs of the GMAT, while mingling with fellow young professionals working at top companies in and around Silicon Valley. Enjoy drinks and appetizers as one of our expert Instructors helps clarify the myths that have surfaced about this challenging exam. We’ll separate fact from fiction – you’ll walk out knowing how the GMAT works, what it tests, how business schools interpret scores, and why short-cuts and tricks will only get you so far.

All attendees of this exclusive event will receive:

• 10% off any 9-session course
• A chance to win a 9-session course or a complete set of course books
• Free access to a ManhattanGMAT computer adaptive practice exam
• An opportunity to meet some of the brightest young minds in Silicon Valley today 

Register now on our website or by calling ManhattanGMAT at 800-576-4628.

Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.

As interview requests increase from a trickle to a flow, a few questions begin to trouble MBA candidates.  Should I travel to campus to meet with the Admissions Committee, or should I meet with an alumnus in my area? Further, if I am on campus, am I at a disadvantage if I meet with a current student instead of an Admissions Officer?

Well, the good news is that Admissions Officers constantly emphasize that there is no additional weight given to meeting with a member of the Admissions Committee and state that all interviews are treated equally. (Logically, what incentive do they have to mislead you? Why would they want to disadvantage one group of candidates over the other? ) That written, we do advise candidates who have not yet visited their target campuses to seize the opportunity to do so via their interviews. If time and funds are not at issue, candidates should elect to travel to campus, as they can “kill two birds with one stone” — they can experience and evaluate a target program that is within their reach, all the while revealing their personal interest to the program itself.