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[kchen95]

UCLA / Anderson Essay Topic Analysis 2009-2010

UCLA Anderson’s MBA application essay topics are largely similar to last year’s in terms of length and format. The school requires that candidates respond to four essay prompts, three in writing and one, preferably, in an audio recording, and covers topics ranging from one’s upbringing to professional goals. The school has replaced a question on an influential experience with an inquiry about a significant risk, suggesting a more active interest in applicants’ hands in shaping their own lives and futures this season.

Let’s consider each of the school’s prompts and how one might approach them.

Essay 1: Describe the ways in which your family and/or community have helped shape your development. (750 words)
Anderson has opened its application with a question about candidate’s family backgrounds for many years running now. While we generally caution applicants against writing at length about their families and upbringing when they could cover other topics in their essays (lest they sound immature or create the impression that they haven’t done anything of note more recently), Anderson makes the unusual move of explicitly requesting information on this subject. The school is likely asking this to get at information that might not otherwise come up in an applicant’s file - such as a childhood spent abroad or difficult socio-economic circumstances overcome - to get a more complete sense of the person as a whole and what an applicant might bring to the community in terms of background and perspective. Another possible motivation might be to identify reflective and self-aware applicants who are able to identify the ways their early experiences have influenced who they are today. No matter what approach you choose to take in framing your comments, remember that in spite of the somewhat unconventional subject, it’s important to speak directly to the question and explore the subject in-depth.

To read more of Clear Admit's analysis, click here: http://blog.clearadmit.com/2009/07/ucla ... 2009-2010/


Kevin Chen
http://blog.clearadmit.com
www.clearadmit.com
kevin@clearadmit.com

Send your resume to kevin@clearadmit.com or info@clearadmit.com for a free assessment of your profile.

[kchen95]

Admissions Tip: The Optional Essay

We realize that the questions of whether to answer an optional essay and, if so, what to say are ones that loom large for many b-school applicants at this time of year. While we’ve been offering a great deal of school-specific essay advice over the past few months, we wanted to take some time to suggest a few considerations that applicants might want to take into account when making this call.

To read these helpful hints, click here: http://blog.clearadmit.com/2009/08/admi ... l-essay-3/

Kevin Chen
http://blog.clearadmit.com
http://www.clearadmit.com
info@clearadmit.com
kevin@clearadmit.com

[kchen95]

Dear Taiwanese applicants,

I am Kevin Chen, Senior Admissions Consultant at Clear Admit. On behalf of Clear Admit, I want to announce that we have established an office in Taipei in response to increasing demand from Taiwanese applicants for our consulting services in the past three years. We are very excited about this initiative and are confident that we will be able to provide the most strategic and personal services to applicants in Taiwan by delivering our services directly from Taipei.

I am the Clear Admit representative in Taipei, and all of our Taiwan-based clients will work 100% with me. I am fluent in Mandarin, so communication is not an issue for applicants who prefer to speak with me in Mandarin. I was based in Clear Admit's headquarters in the United States for the past three years and worked extensively during that time with applicants from the U.S., Taiwan, China, Europe and other countries. My Clear Admit colleagues and I have utilized our insider's knowledge on admissions strategies from our experiences as former admissions officers at top MBA programs and our ongoing communications with current admissions directors at top MBA programs such as Stanford, Harvard and Wharton to help our clients gain admissions into the best schools. Even though I now am based in Taipei, I will continue to have the full support of the Clear Admit team in the U.S. and worldwide to ensure that our clients in Taiwan benefit from our entire team's knowledge and network.

As for my personal and professional background, I graduated from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and received a second masters degree in public policy from Harvard University. I also have a BA in Political Science from Princeton University. I have worked in Taipei as a Senior Associate for McKinsey & Company and as a Senior Correspondent for Reuters, which enabled me to develop my professional writing and editing skills.

I will be available on this forum to answer questions about MBA admissions and share insights from Clear Admit on admissions-related topics. You also may contact me or send your resume to me at kevin@clearadmit.com for a free assessment of your profile.

Good luck everyone! I look forward to working with you.

Kevin Chen
http://blog.clearadmit.com
http://www.clearadmit.com
kevin@clearadmit.com

[kchen95]

Stanford GSB Essay Topic Analysis 2011-2012

Following up on last week’s announcement of Stanford’s 2011-2012 essay topics, we wanted to weigh in with some guidance on how applicants might approach their work on this particular application. Stanford GSB has retained the format we’ve seen for several years running, posing two required and rather open-ended questions, followed by two shorter situational prompts. While the adcom provides a recommended breakdown for each response, candidates have some flexibility around word count, requiring only that applicants limit their four responses to a total of 1,800 words. This means that in addition to choices about subject matter and structure, there’s also leeway for strategic decision-making around length across Stanford’s four-essay set.


That said, let’s take a look at each prompt in more detail:


Essay 1: What matters most to you, and why? (Recommended 750 words)The open-ended and somewhat philosophical nature of this question can make it a challenging starting point for the Stanford application.

To keep reading, click here:

http://blog.clearadmit.com/2011/06/stan ... 2011-2012/


Kevin Chen
http://blog.clearadmit.com
http://www.clearadmit.com
kevin@clearadmit.com

[kchen95]

Harvard Business School Admits More Women, Fewer Finance Candidates

Harvard Business School (HBS) earlier this month released a preliminary profile for the Class of 2013, revealing a record number of women in the fall entering class and a notable drop in admits from private equity and finance backgrounds.

Women will make up 39 percent of the incoming class, the highest in the school’s history and an increase of 3 percentage points over each of the past two years. The percentage of admits from private equity and investment banking backgrounds, meanwhile, fell – 5 and 2 percentage points respectively. Overall, finance types will make up 25 percent of the fall entering class, representing a small but significant shift for a school where class makeup doesn’t often change much from year to year. Candidates with manufacturing backgrounds gained ground and will make up 14 percent of the entering class, up from just nine percent last year.

To keep reading, click here:

http://blog.clearadmit.com/2011/06/harv ... andidates/

Kevin Chen
http://blog.clearadmit.com
http://www.clearadmit.com
kevin@clearadmit.com

[kchen95]

Fuqua Dean Steps Down to Oversee Duke’s New Chinese University

Blair Sheppard, dean of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, will step down, according to reports yesterday in the Financial Times and Economist. Sheppard has been asked instead to oversee fundraising and development for Duke’s new Chinese University in Kunshan, near Shanghai.

According to the Economist report, this news overrides a recent announcement that Sheppard had been appointed to a second five-year term as Fuqua dean. William Boulding, Fuqua’s deputy dean, will serve as interim dean for a two-year term beginning August 1st, according to the FT. Fuqua will begin an international search for a new dean during Boulding’s second year.

To read more, click here:

http://blog.clearadmit.com/2011/07/fuqu ... niversity/

[kchen95]

U Michigan’s Ross School of Business, College of Engineering Name Co-Directors for New Entrepreneurship Master’s Degree

The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor has named co-directors for its new joint master’s degree program in entrepreneurship, which will begin in fall 2012, the school announced this week.

Bill Lovejoy of the Ross School of Business and Aileen Huang-Saad of the College of Engineering will lead the new program, which is designed to help train students to transform ideas into inventions and, ultimately, successful businesses. Final approval of the program by the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan, is pending but expected in October.

The joint entrepreneurship master’s degree is a one-year, 36-credit-hour program that will feature a combination of science- and engineering-focused courses along with courses in business. The school hopes the new program will help cultivate an already thriving entrepreneurial culture at the University of Michigan.

To keep reading, click here:

http://blog.clearadmit.com/2011/08/u-mi ... 9s-degree/

Kevin Chen
http://blog.clearadmit.com
http://www.clearadmit.com
kevin@clearadmit.com