For those of you who live in San Francisco, Stacy Blackman Consulting will be teaming up with the “GMAT Guru” for an MBA Boot Camp. It’s an all day workshop that we have been doing for the past three years. It’s essentially free and I am sure that any of you who are applying to school this year will benefit. Details are below and on our website.

Date: Saturday, July 14, 2007
Time: 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Location: 88 First Street (at Mission), San Francisco, CA
Price: $25*

This hands-on workshop is more than a basic information session – it will cover key aspects of MBA admissions, allowing attendees to actively develop their personal marketing strategy via interactive exercises. Attendees will leave this workshop with practical information to help them succeed and move forward with their applications effectively and confidently.

The workshop also includes a GMAT information session and mini-course. This two hour section of the Boot Camp will cover all of the major question types tested on the exam, review some of the best self study materials on the market and provide valuable strategic insights needed to score 700+ on the exam.

*At the end of the session, all attendees will receive $25 worth of GMAT study materials.

Speakers:
Seema Kumar, Consultant, Stacy Blackman Consulting
Seema received her MBA from the Harvard Business School and her BS in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
While at the management consulting firm, Bain & Company, Seema worked in a wide variety of industries including Non-Profit, Manufacturing, Private Equity, Consumer Products and others. Her in depth understanding of an array of issues enables her to successfully work with applicants from any field.

Crowan Roberts, President, The GMAT Guru
Crowan, President and Founder of the GMAT Guru, scored 790 (99.9th
percentile) on the GMAT and has developed proprietary GMAT Guru methods to help his clients follow in his footsteps. In the last two years, over 40 GMAT Guru clients have scored at or above 700 on the exam.

To sign up, visit http://www.stacyblackman.com/Boot_Camp.htm

I hope some of you cab make it!

Last summer BusinessWeek.com posted an article on what business school admissions offices don’t want to see. It’s very useful information as we move into the application season. It includes many quotes from admissions officers. Please take a look at the full article.

Here is the quick list of what NOT to do:
1. Making excuses instead of explanations

2. Writing what you think they want to hear

3. Getting too personal (“a good general rule is that if it’s inappropriate for dinner-party conversation, it probably doesn’t belong in your B-school essay”)

4.Obvious resume padding

5. Title shopping (with your recommenders)

6. Playing alpha dog (striking a balance between being confident and being arrogant)

These days there are a lot of exciting posts on the MBA blogs from successful applicants who are preparing to head off to various schools. My MBA Journey reflects on all of the paperwork and preparation before starting at Yale. Strawberrtints celebrates getting financial aid. And Rainierisms even offers some fashion tips on different bags for back to school. But Let me wear a Suit. Please brought up something, albeit with humor, that I haven’t seen much of on the blogs…the fear of failing classes.

With all of the discussions on the GMAT, essays, recs, and interviews followed by the drama of acceptances and rejections, it is easy to forget that the ultimate outcome is going to back to the classroom and that means getting grades. Many applicants may not know that some schools like Stanford practice grade non-disclosure. This means that when students interview with companies, interviewers are not allowed to ask students their grades and students are not allowed to share their grades. The main reason for instituting such a policy is to foster a non-competitive atmosphere. That said, the policy may not be the real problem as discussed in this HBS piece. In fact, in recent years HBS reversed their grade non-disclosure policy, a decision you can read about here.

There are pros and cons to such a policy. I’ve heard students from non-traditional backgrounds (eg, non-profits, military) say it was helpful to go into interviews knowing that their struggles in quantitative classes wouldn’t hurt them. I’ve also heard students from these same backgrounds who were strong quantitatively say this policy hurts them because they can’t show companies that they are ready for a finance position, for example, despite their previous career path.

At any rate, grade disclosure policies are one more question you can ask in information sessions and on school visits to help you get a sense of each school’s culture.

Stanford posted their 2007-2008 application deadlines and essay questions.

Application Calendar
Round one deadline: Oct 22, 2007
Round one notification: Jan 24, 2007

Round two deadline: Jan 7, 2008
Round two notification: April 3, 2008

Round three deadline: Mar, 21, 2008
Round three notification: May 15, 2008

Essay Questions

Please answer essay questions A, B, and C. We provide recommended lengths for each essay, but these are only guidelines. Most applicants will find 7-11 pages (in total) sufficient. If your responses total more than 11 pages, you need to upload the remaining pages in the Additional Information section.

* Essay A: What matters most to you, and why? (Recommended length is 3-4 pages, double-spaced)

* Essay B: What are your career aspirations? How will your education at Stanford help you achieve them? (Recommended length is 2-3 pages, double-spaced)

* Essay C: Short Essays—Options 1-4
Please answer two of the questions below. In answering each question, please tell us not only what you did, but also how you did it. Describe what you felt, said, and thought during these experiences. Tell us the outcome, and describe how people responded. Your responses should describe experiences that have occurred within the last three years.

Option 1: Tell us about a time when you did something that was not established, expected, or popular.
(Recommended length is 1-2 pages, double-spaced)

Option 2: Tell us about a time when you felt effective or successful.
(Recommended length is 1-2 pages, double-spaced)

Option 3: Tell us about a time when you had a significant effect on a group or individual.
(Recommended length is 1-2 pages, double-spaced)

Option 4: Tell us about a time when you tried to reach a goal or complete a task that was challenging, difficult, or frustrating.
(Recommended length is 1-2 pages, double-spaced)

In the coming weeks, we will start breaking down the essay questions for the top schools with tips on how to approach them. The season has begun!