In “Essay Retrospection,” July Dream invokes baseball analogies when wondering what essays hit the proverbial grand slam with adcom, and which completely strike out. Her two tips: show your passion and remember what’s important to you. Apparently the strategy works, since she received a special package last Thursday of Darden “Swag.”

Oops! I Plan to Do it Again rationalizes a ding from Harvard Business School, saying that the $250 application fee “Should be a Write-Off” since in this class season, “rumor has it” the adcoms don’t seem to want anyone over 25.

Bluey Road to MBA–INSEAD gives the lowdown on “I.N.S.E.A.D. towards the end of P1“, which is fraught with academic, summer internship and networking stress.

Stuart Little Gets an MBA at St. Gallen lays out a “Pragmatic Guide to Choose Your MBA” that will improve your chances of getting the job you desire, post-MBA.

One Columbia J-termer’s B-School Odyessy shares some news regarding the “Social Enterprise Fellowship Program @CBS” which helps subsidize students who spend their summers working for non-profits, NGOs, etc.

Here’s an update for those waiting for admissions news from HBS. Dee Leopold, Managing Director Admissions and Financial Aid, says in a 2/19/08 blog post, “We are about 4 weeks from Round Two notification date on March 26. Members of the Admissions Board are getting ready to travel to Europe, Asia, and the West Coast to conduct interviews. While interview invitations will continue to be issued up until notification date, it is fair to say that the vast majority have been sent.”

Some Round Two applicants — both those who have been interviewed and those who haven’t — will be invited to join the wait list on March 26.

Round One applicants on the wait list will continue to receive periodic updates from the Admissions Office.

A couple of bloggers share their experiences as they wait for the HBS interview invitation:

Sustained Agony: MBA Admissions in Yay Chicago, Boo Harvard

Oops! I plan to do it again in This should be a write-off. 

Harvard Business School has laid out a series of special events designed to celebrate the school’s centennial in style. Focusing on innovation and achievement, the activities created for the celebration “Will showcase Harvard Business School’s history of innovative research and teaching and the extraordinary impact of our alumni around the world,” said Jay Light, Dean of Harvard Business School. “Our Centennial also will be an opportunity to ask the important questions that will frame our work over the next century. What is the future of business and business education in a global economy? How can we help shape it?”

The school has announced that throughout the year, faculty, students, staff, and alumni will commemorate 100 years of HBS with a wide and global array of activities, including academic and industry seminars, alumni gatherings, and a business summit in the fall. A new website, Institutional Memory, also highlights significant milestones in the school’s history and provides an interactive forum for dialogue on the major business issues of today and the future.

HBS graduates will celebrate the Centennial through the Global Outreach Program, which will bring together alumni and faculty in 30 countries in a series of events and outreach efforts that will benefit nonprofit organizations in their local communities.

A highlight of the Centennial Celebration will be a global business summit, Leading in Business and Beyond, planned for October. More than 2,000 alumni are expected to attend this event filled with thought-provoking discourse, debate, and insight into important topics facing the global community. Business Summit speakers include the Honorable Palaniappan Chidambaram, Finance Minister of India; Jamie Dimon, Chairman & CEO, JPMorgan Chase; Orit Gadiesh, Chairman, Bain & Company, Inc.; Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft Corp.; Jeff Immelt, Chairman & CEO, General Electric Company; and Meg Whitman, President & CEO, eBay.

For further information on these events and all Centennial activities, please visit www.hbs.edu/centennial

This week’s GMAT challenge from PrepForTests.com is a sentence correction question.

Select the best form of the underlined section of the sentence below from the given answers.

Have a go at answering this and then review your answer.