Cambridge MBA Application Tip #1 — “Be original in your essays. We want a sense of your personality and contribution to the programme.”

Cambridge MBA Application Tip #2 — “Articulate your career goal clearly. If you don’t have one yet this is fine but show why and some options.”

Cambridge MBA Application Tip #3 — “Have you told GMAC to release your GMAT score to us yet? Contacted referees? Do this as early as you can.”

Cambridge MBA Application Tip #4 — “Be sure to allow time to check your application for typing errors. We see an amazing number of these!”

Also, for an insider glimpse into life at Judge, check out this recent entry on the Financial Times MBA blogs, Too Old for an MBA at 30?. Aswini Anburanjan’s contribution is especially thought-provoking for its “youth-versus-experience” angle.

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If you are feeling stumped by your application essays and need some additional guidance, check out our NEW series of essay guides for MBA applications. Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton available now. They are seriously terrific and we are proud to say that almost every person who has ordered one has come back for more!

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Turnitin.com, a website dedicated to finding and preventing plagiarism, launched the web-based tool Turnitin for Admissions in December, after much urging from admissions deans frustrated by receiving identical personal statements from multiple applicants.

According to the accompanying news release, “Turnitin for Admissions automatically analyzes materials for instances of unoriginal content, enabling admissions officers to quickly identify plagiarism, recycled submissions, duplicate responses, purchased documents, and other potential violations of application standards.”

Admissions committees may frown upon the practice, but so-called “self-plagiarism”–as when you send the same essay to all ten schools to which you are applying–isn’t really the problem. In fact, Turnitin’s process and business development manager Jeff Lorton, in commenting on the BW article, says the service has various safeguards to avoid self-matches to the applicant.

“We refer to recycled submissions as those application documents that are submitted by multiple applicants,” Lorton writes. “The volume of applications and the number of folks reading those applications make it difficult to identify those recycled essay answers. Technology is one way to help the admissions professional level the playing field and help them make fair well-informed decisions about applicants.”

The story generated a lot of feedback on BusinessWeek, both from readers perplexed as to how reusing one’s own work constitutes plagiarism, and wondering whether schools will notify applicants of their use of Turnitin for Admissions. What do you think? Please leave us a comment with your reaction below.

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Registrants of the upcoming MBA Tour events in New York City and Washington D.C. will have a chance to win one of Stacy Blackman Consulting’s fantastic MBA essay guides. Once you’ve signed up for one of the events, email matthew@onqcommunications.ca with your full name, and you’ll be entered to win!

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Stacy Blackman, interviewed by Francesca Di Meglio of BusinessWeek for her recent piece, Explaining Blemishes on the B-School Application, says, “If you handle it right, it can boost your application.”

Blackman shared with BW the case of one client who earned acceptance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School despite an incident involving plagiarism during his undergraduate education. He owned up to it, says Blackman, and showed what he had learned from the experience and how he had changed as evidenced by his participation in student government.

How to handle the explanation of a questionable issue? Short and sweet should be your goal, the experts say. “Provide basic information and do a good job of showing what you’ve learned,” says Jim Holmen, director of admissions and financial aid at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. “Offer proof that this is not an indicator of your potential.”

Lastly, don’t forget to brief your recommenders, who may inadvertently bring up the issue in a letter of recommendation. To avoid this, Di Meglio counsels, tell your recommenders how you approached the subject in the application and share an outline of how you’ve resolved the problem and changed. Ideally, your recommenders will be validating what you’ve already written to the business schools.

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If you are feeling stumped by your application essays and need some additional guidance, check out our NEW series of essay guides for MBA applications. Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton available now. They are seriously terrific and we are proud to say that almost every person who has ordered one has come back for more!

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Rose Martinelli, associate dean for student recruitment and admissions, updated her Rose Report Blog yesterday with some Round 2 reminders…check those out here.

And now, for a sampling of the Q&As of interest to anyone applying in an upcoming round…

I have taken the GMAT test late, therefore it is very difficult for me to apply in Round 2. Do the chances of an admit drop in R3?

If you have taken the GMAT by the Round 2 deadline, you can still apply in Round 2. That said, you are welcome to apply in Round 3 as well. We do admit fewer applicants in Round 3, as we have fewer spots available. We suggest that you apply when your application is at its best.

Please highlight the difference between the two rounds, R1 and R2.

There are very few differences between Rounds 1 and 2. Round 1 starts the entire process, and the slate is clean when we begin. Round 2 is typically our largest round, and as a result, we make the most offers of admission.

I don’t see any limit about the number of words for the optional essay. In your opinion, how long should the optional essay be?

There is no limit; however, we encourage you to keep the optional essay brief, and to be judicious about how to use this portion of the application. It should be utilized to explain any anomalies in the application, or to talk about some aspect of your candidacy that can’t be discussed elsewhere.

I have heard that a few MBA programs avoid people with more experience due to difficulty in placing them. I have nine years of experience in IT , a GMAT score of 760, and am currently a project manager. How would you look at my CV?

To be candid, we do not focus a lot of attention on years of experience, rather an applicants ability to convey their sense of urgency for enrolling in an MBA program at this stage of their career. Why is now the essential time for you to get an MBA? For some they come to that realization early in their career for others it takes longer, but we need to understand why this makes sense for you at this stage of your career and why it makes sense at Booth.

Could you please elaborate on the slide presentation? Should it take form in a picture format? Essay? What is rewarded for this task? Creativity? Innovative thinking? What exactly is a slide presentation? Can it simply communicate our interests and goals?

The slide presentation is an opportunity for you to share additional information with us in a format that bests suits you. There are no strict guidelines for this, as we would like to give you the freedom to express yourself. The only restrictions to the slide presentation are including sound or motion graphics, as we print out the presentation (in color). Our best advice for the presentation is to use it strategically within your application. Make sure that the information you choose to share is not included elsewhere in the application, and that it answers the question posed.

How long does it generally take for interviews to get scheduled after the second round application deadline?

Invitations for interviews will begin after 1/20/09. If you choose to conduct an alumni interview it can take a few days for you to connect to one of our alums.

Are Early Career Applicants at a disadvantage to regular applicants? Do you have any recommendations to someone who is planning on applying to Booth early in their career?

Early career candidates are not at a disadvantage. We are looking for the best applicants. Many of our early career candidates do a great job explaining their career path, work experience (if any), level of maturity and reasons for getting an MBA from Chicago Booth.

For more from this live chat with admissions, see the complete transcript here.

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If you are feeling stumped by your application essays and need some additional guidance, check out our NEW series of essay guides for MBA applications. Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton available now. They are seriously terrific and we are proud to say that almost every person who has ordered one has come back for more!

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A drum roll, please, for the…

Top Ten Tips for Getting Into B-School

1. Speak from the heart– Business school applications force you to be introspective and while you’re trying to present yourself in the best light possible, make sure you stay true to yourself.

2. Know what the GMAT score means– All it shows is the correlation between how you will do academically in your core classes in your first year, says Isser Gallogly, executive director of MBA admissions at NYU Stern. A high GMAT score is nice to have but it certainly isn’t everything, Gallogly stresses.

3. Find your fit– Admissions officers are looking for candidates that will compliment the school’s culture. You really want to choose the people very, very carefully, says Gallogly. Choose the people and the fit first, and then look at some of the other factors second.

4. Don’t try to game the process– There’s far more arts and science when makes an admissions decision. It’s like putting together a puzzle looking for different kinds of expertise, different kinds of experiences that makes the classroom environment far richer and everyone’s experience through the MBA program far better, says Jim Holeman, director of admissions at Kelley School of Business.

5. Visit schools– If possible, don’t rely solely on websites, blogs, message boards or podcasts to get a feeling for your school of choice. Nothing beats the experience of walking on campus, talking to students, sitting in on a class if you can. By making a personal connection with a school, you’ll be able to more accurately convey why the fit works for you and your application will benefit.

6. Know what you want and why you want it– Business school is a place to get it done, not to figure it out, Gallogly says, adding that it’s not a time for self reflection and self discovery. If you’re not really pretty clear in what you want to go do, take the time to figure that out and then apply to business school.

7. Be consistent– Admissions officers like to see your application as one complete story of who you are, Nakano says. Imagine a unifying thread that connects everything from your GMAT score, academic record, essays, recommendations and interview.

8. Don’t be desperate– You know how difficult getting into a top program is; some business schools accept a mere 10% of the applicant pool. Even if you would be thrilled, or would kill to be in that group of admits, remember to keep your cool and don’t beg, bribe or badger the admissions committee, Nakano advises.

9. Apply when you’re ready– My advice to candidates is always apply when you feel that your application is at its strongest, says Holeman, adding that he’d much rather see an application come in for a later deadline that’s strong than someone who rushed to meet an early deadline but is not satisfied with the submission.

10. Know the admissions officers are people, too– It all still comes down to whether the individual reader digs what you’re trying to say or not, Holeman explains. Because of that it goes back to the whole concept of being yourself and being engaged and being sincere about who you are, what you’ve done and what you want both in the essays and the interviews because that is what people will remember.

To hear this podcast of top ten tips for getting into business school, click here.

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If you are feeling stumped by your application essays and need some additional guidance, check out our NEW series of essay guides for MBA applications. Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton available now. They are seriously terrific and we are proud to say that almost every person who has ordered one has come back for more!

We are on Facebook – join the Stacy Blackman Consulting group, or become a friend of Stacy Blackman.

I am on Twitter too…click to follow me on Twitter! www.twitter.com/stacyblackman