Wharton Admissions to Host Online Chat Tomorrow for Round Two Applicants

The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School Admissions Office this week will host an online chat for Round Two applicants to the MBA program. The chat will take place on November 30th at 6 p.m. (EST).

“As our January 4th deadline is getting close, this chat will be your opportunity to ask questions regarding essays, recommendations and our admissions process in general,” the Admissions Office wrote in a post to the Wharton Admissions Blog.

Other prospective applicants who are not planning to apply in Round Two but who are interested in learning more about the Wharton MBA are also invited to participate. Tomorrow’s online chat will be hosted by admissions officers as well as current students. To see the upcoming chat schedule or to launch the chat, click here.

Admissions Tip: Plan of Attack

With November wrapping up this week, round two deadlines for a number of programs are just around the corner. As most applicants are targeting multiple schools and still working to narrow down their school selection, we wanted to take some time today to stress the importance of taking a deep breath and a step back and formulating a time line for the coming weeks. Establishing a set of incremental goals with regard to essay composition and recommended management at this point in the season will help you to avoid feeling overwhelmed and ensure that your aims are realistic.

One of our most important pointers pertains to the process of writing essays. The urge to make progress on multiple fronts leads many applicants to work on essays for several schools in parallel, an approach that can be problematic. One reason for this is that when one spends time immersed in three sets of essays at once, it’s easy to lose sight of the full picture he or she is presenting to any one school. While it’s important to be oneself in the application process, it’s also crucial that an applicant tailor his or her materials to each school, a process that is made harder when constantly going back and forth among responses for various programs. Another issue is that it’s easy to waste time implementing the same edits across documents for multiple schools, or to lose track of what one has changed in which essay. For these reasons, we generally recommend focusing one’s full essay-writing attention on one program at a time.

Of course, your writing and story will improve with practice, and the last application you finish will likely be your strongest: a tricky situation, given that most applicants take care of their top choice school first to ensure that they’re able to submit in the earliest possible round. With this in mind, we recommend that you build space into your timeline to allow yourself to revisit and revise each set of essays before submission.

The order in which you tackle tasks will naturally depend on the deadlines for each school. With this in mind, let’s take a look at this winter’s deadline calendar:

December 1: INSEAD R2

December 2: Haas R2

January 3: Tuck R3

January 4: MIT R2, Wharton R2, Duke R2, Cornell R3

January 5: Chicago R2, Ross R2, UCLA R2, Darden R2

January 6: Stanford R2, Yale R2

January 11: Kellogg R2, HBS R2

January 15: NYU Stern R2

January 20: Haas R3

Best of luck to all of our readers who are presently working their way through the lengthy application process! Stay tuned to this blog for additional tips, news and notes as the admissions season unfolds.

[source: http://blog.clearadmit.com/2010/11/admissions-tip-plan-of-attack-4/]

Dean Q&A: INSEAD's New Leader

Dipak Jain, INSEAD's dean-to-be, explains why he chose the European B-school as his next destination and his lofty plans for the MBA market

Dipak Jain had just finished an eight-year stint as dean of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management (Kellogg Full-Time MBA Profile) when he got a phone call from a member of INSEAD's (INSEAD Full-Time MBA Profile) dean search committee informing him he was on their short list of candidates.At the time, Jain was on a one-year sabbatical and not in the market for a deanship, but in April he agreed to fly to Europe to learn more about the job.Ash clouds from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano prevented him from making the trip over the Atlantic, but the committee pressed him to reschedule the interview for later that spring.Once Jain finally arrived in Paris, the search committee described to him the global vision and mission of INSEAD, which has campuses in France, Singapore, and the Middle East, and an MBA class that hails from more than 80 countries.The pitch intrigued him enough to postpone his plans for a quiet life as an academic in order to accept the dean's position at INSEAD, Bloomberg Businessweek's No.1 ranked international school.

Jain will officially become dean of INSEAD in March, taking over for J. Frank Brown, who is stepping down from the position he has held since 2006. Currently Jain is a professor of enterpreneurial studies and marketing at Kellogg. He was formally introduced to the INSEAD community at the 10th anniversary celebration of the school's Singapore campus on Nov. 12, where he led a discussion on the future of management education in Asia. It's an area that Jain is deeply familiar with; during his time at Kellogg, he expanded the school's ties to Asia and also worked to help launch the Indian School of Business, now one of the leading business school in India.

Bloomberg Businessweek's Alison Damast recently spoke with Jain about his new role and INSEAD's plans to expand its presence in Asia and the Middle East. Here is an edited transcript of their conversation.
It sounds like becoming dean of another business school wasn't what you had originally planned when you left the position at Kellogg last September. What was it about INSEAD that changed your mind?

A lot of people ask me why I'd want to do this again since I've already been a dean. I tell them that very few people get a chance to become dean once, and I am going to do it twice. I took the job because I liked INSEAD's emphasis on diversity, its commitment to research, and its global model in terms of how it is trying to be a business school for the world. INSEAD is the only school in the world that has shown you can create another campus in addition to your own campus with equal vitality and energy. I thought it was very different from what I had seen in the U.S., and I believe in the vision of the school, which is to be the business school for the world.

How did your eight years as the dean of Kellogg prepare you to take on this new role?

The Kellogg experience was instrumental for me even to be considered by the committee and faculty here. Kellogg and INSEAD have a lot in common, and what I have learned at Kellogg will help me in trying to deliver on INSEAD's vision. The INSEAD program is a one-year program, and Kellogg is the only business school in the U.S. among the top schools that also offers a one-year program. It was important that I had some experience running a one-year program, because you need to believe in the product. I thought the passion I had for Kellogg and what INSEAD is aspiring to be...
[full article: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/nov2010/bs20101118_711675.htm

Finding the right MBA Admissions consultants

If you are planning to pursue an MBA, then chances are you are looking out for professional help to help you get admitted to the school of your choice. You must know what to expect from MBA admissions consultants before you select one. If you get mistaken here, it is not just the money that you lose, you also lose out on a chance to make it to a top B-school. Your MBA admissions consultants should first help you realize yourself. The first process of any admission for MBA requires that you know yourself well. Only then can this knowledge manifest in your essays and interviews and other paths of presentation. Your MBA admissions consultants will not do your work. Instead he will equip you with the skills required to do it yourself and to be able to criticize your own work. He will help you with communication and will also draft reviews when required. He would not let go of you until you make it. That is the hallmark of a good consultant.

What does it take for getting Harvard MBA admissions?

The mecca of business studies is Harvard. It is a dream for every individual who wants to do an MBA, to be associated with this B school. However Harvard only takes the best of the best. Even the best, have to prep themselves up before they send in their applications. This takes a lot of introspection and Harvard MBA admissions panel places great emphasis on an individual understanding of himself or herself. Based on this introspection, a prospect is required to present essays and participate in interviews. The Harvard MBA admission procedures set very high standards and those who do make it are cut apart from the rest. That said, it should also be stated that Harvard MBA admissions and other reputed B school admissions are not just about academic achievements. They test how much a person knows and how much he is willing to learn and adapt.

Defining good MBA consulting services

The prospect of applying to a top B school is fraught with nerves and uncertainty. For a prospective student, it is very important to understand what a B school is looking for. This is where MBA consulting services come in. A good services provider will clearly explain what B schools look for. The admission procedure involves a host of things and preparing for the procedure is time consuming and hard work. Hence it needs to be done thoroughly and before the deadline. MBA consulting services help a candidate build his case, through CVs, through essays and prepare for interviews. They also help a student with discussions, SWOT analysis on timely basis. All of this is done online and good MBA consulting services providers offer to do reviews until the candidate gets it right and is accepted. A student should look for such services before decide for a guide.

MBA coaching institute - Do you need assistance from one?

The answer is YES. You are academically sound and have a splendid profile but presenting yourself is a skill, that as a student it is not possible due to lack of experience. An MBA coaching institute would have several students like you and hence it would be able to guide you with building your profile and CV, in addition to grooming you for interviews and discussions. At every stage it will assess you and let you know where you stand. This analysis is essential and a good MBA coaching institute will do it until you get your admission. The reviewing apart, an MBA coaching institute will also help you learn the skills required to write a good essay, to market yourself and present your strengths in a manner that brands you as a future leader that B schools are looking for.

Why do you need MBA coaching classes?

MBA coaching classes have immense benefits. A prospective MBA student is not aware of different procedures that various B schools have for evaluating the candidates. As such, he may not meet the expectations due to this ignorance. MBA coaching classes will help a prospect understand the procedures in order to present themselves in the best of ways. These classes will push a candidate to introspect and draft his profile. It will also include live sessions to guide the candidate with interviews and discussions. Analysis of strengths and weaknesses, the common mistakes that prospects make and many other aspects of the admission process are covered. In all MBA coaching classes help a prospect acquire skills of presentation and analysis, which are very important for a manager. In addition to these things, a good coach will help also a prospect manage stress, which is normal, during the admission process.