Georgetown Down To One MBA Essay

The McDonough School of Business

Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business has moved to one incredibly simple MBA admissions essay question: “Why you?” McDonough is asking applicants to answer the question in 750 words, cutting about 600 words from last year’s application which required two essays and a tweet.

The school announced the decision today (July 14), joining numerous other schools that have also cutback on the number of questions asked of MBA candidates. A spokesperson said the school wanted to streamline the process for applicants, not adding to an already stressful process and to ensure that the information we receive is most helpful to the admissions process. “We wanted to learn more about the applicants as individuals, rather than have them repeat our values from our website,” the spokesperson added.

“We know that applying to business school is a huge investment of time and effort, and we wanted to streamline that process a bit,” said Shari Hubert, associate dean for MBA Admissions, in a statement.  “We often hear that prospective MBAs want more flexibility to communicate who they are and why they should be admitted in a way that is truly authentic to them. This is their chance.”

‘WE ARE LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER THAT CANNOT BE FOUND ON OUR WEBSITE’

Hubert said that applicants should note the hint that accompanies the question before they submit their 750-word response: “We are looking for an answer that cannot be found from research on our website.” Hubert explained that in the past, applicants were more inclined to tell the school what they thought the Admissions team wanted to hear or to repackage the values and attributes of the program in their essays.

“Applicants forget that the Admissions Committee already is well-versed in what the school has to offer, so we were not learning anything new from those types of responses,” she said.

Hubert added that there is no “right” answer to the question. “We are not looking for something specific,” she added. “This is more about our applicants having an opportunity to show us who they are and how they think. I believe ‘why’ questions are more thought provoking and allow you to be much more introspective because it requires you to go beyond the facts that can be read in your application or resume.”

WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT THE APPLICANT’S CHARACTER AND POTENTIAL FIT WITH THE PROGRAM

Hubert suggested that applicants may choose to address the question in multiple ways, ranging from their passions to their career aspirations to something they feel makes them special to an experience that caused them to want to pursue an MBA – anything to help the Admissions Committee learn more about each applicant’s character and potential fit with the program.

The school set a round one deadline of Oct. 10, with final notification by Dec. 20, and a second round deadline of Jan. 5, with a decision on March 20. The third and final deadline is April 1, with notification by May 15.

Last year, McDonough asked applicants to answer a two-part essay as well as to pick from two options for their second essay question. See below:

Essay 1 (answer both Part A and Part B):

Part A. What is your short-term goal following graduation from the Georgetown McDonough Full-time MBA Program?  What skills are you seeking to develop or improve upon in order to reach your goals? (500 words)

Part B. What is your long-term career goal? (100 words)

Essay 2 (answer either Option A or Option B):

Option A. Describe a global business challenge and its relevance to your post-MBA career. (750 words)

Option B. Describe yourself both personally and professionally and how you will contribute to the Georgetown McDonough community. (750 words)

“Essay” 3: Why do you want to attend the Georgetown McDonough Full-time MBA Program? Tell us in tweet format. (140 characters or fewer)

Tuck Hits New Annual Giving Record

The Tuck School

Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business said today (July 14) that its annual giving campaign has raised a record $6.35 million in the last fiscal year with more alumni than ever participating—a world-leading 70.9 percent. It’s the the fourth consecutive year that more than 70% of Tuck graduates have contributed to the campaign, a figure more than double the average giving rate of other business schools.

The alumni giving rate is often a proxy for the loyalty and strength of a school’s alumni network. Tuck has long been known for having one of the most responsive MBA alumni of any of the top business schools, partly because of the tight-knit bonds formed among students in a relatively small MBA program in Hanover, N.H.

At most top business schools, annual alumni giving hovers around the 20% to 25% rate. At Chicago Booth, for example, the alumni giving rate was 18.6% in the 2012-2013 school year. At Harvard Business School, 27% of the MBA alumni contributed to its annual giving in fiscal 2013. So the Tuck number–at more than 70%–is unprecedented for a business school.

THE CAMPAIGN PROVIDES ABOUT 8% OF THE SCHOOL’S OPERATING REVENUE

“This is so much more than just a number,” said Dean Paul Danos in a statement. “It speaks to our graduates’ satisfaction with Tuck and to their continued confidence in our approach to management education. It is also something we never take for granted. Such an achievement takes hard work and dedication, and I am continually inspired and humbled by the efforts of our many volunteers and donors.”

The effort surpassed the $6.3 million raised in 2013 and the $5.7 million raised in 2012. This year’s campaign was given an extra boost by a $43,000 challenge gift—for the annual fund’s 43rd year—from the TAG Executive Committee and an anonymous donor that helped send participation and revenue figures into record territory. Tuck Annual Giving, all of whose funds raised are unrestricted as to use, provides approximately 8% of the school’s operating revenues along with direct support for innovation.

“Alumni loyalty and generosity connected with the extraordinary diligence and care of our annual giving team in Hanover and our volunteers around the globe help make Tuck strong and unique,” said Don M. Wilson, III T’73, chair of the Tuck Annual Giving Executive Committee for the past 10 years.

UK B-schools Reject TOEFL Exams

A handful of UK business schools are no longer accepting the internationally popular TOEFL tests as proof of English language ability for overseas students needing visas. The move comes after the BBC uncovered testing fraud earlier this year.

The University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School, Durham University Business School, and London’s Cass Business School have all suspended use of TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) exams as proof of English language ability for students from outside Europe who require a student visa to study in the UK. Other UK universities are also not accepting the test.

The UK government suspended leading test provider English Testing Service (ETS), which administers TOEFL, as official evidence of English language ability after fraud came to light in another ETS-administered test, TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication), in February. But UK universities have vigorously lobbied the government to accept any ETS tests taken in good faith so far, and last week the government revised restrictions.

“We have emailed every overseas applicant about the situation,” says Jill Howarth, postgraduate admissions manager for Durham University Business School, which is advising future applicants to take alternative tests.

Although ETS will no longer be an acceptable official test provider, the UK’s Home Office, which is responsible for visas and immigration, will accept any visa applications dependent on TOEFL provided they are submitted and paid up by July 22, 2014.

But all of this may be a red herring: Universities and business schools recruiting international students have the UK government’s “highly trusted status” to determine their own language requirements and assessments, including TOEFL, for overseas student visas.

Importantly, restrictions on ETS only apply to visa applications for courses below degree level, which of course excludes MBAs and master’s programs. “This change doesn’t affect higher education institutions’ ability to choose their own method of assessing prospective students’ English language competence,” according to the Home Office. In other words, schools can decide whether to accept a TOEFL test, even if the test is taken after the immigration rules go into effect.

Despite the loophole, some institutions prefer to play it safe. “The University of Cambridge will no longer be accepting TOEFL test scores as sufficient to meet the language entry requirements for graduate study,” says a statement on Judge’s website. “Unless we receive further guidance, we won’t change,” said a spokesman from the university’s graduate admissions office. Cass also says it won’t accept TOEFL from September and is advising applicants about the changes. “But we’re not expecting the withdrawal of TOEFL as a SELT (Secure English Language Test) to cause any significant disruption to our enrollments next academic year,” a spokesperson said.

But other schools such as Said, Henley, London Business School (LBS), and Warwick have confirmed they will continue to accept the TOEFL test for students outside the European Union. “Despite the initial concerns about TOEFL coming from the Home Office, there are no lasting changes affecting Tier 4 [visa] students who have taken or who wish to take TOEFL for study at Warwick at degree level and above,” said a Warwick Business School spokesman.

LBS, which interviews all shortlisted candidates in English and sometimes follows up with its own English language telephone test, says it will continue to make its own assessments. “We accept a range of different English language test scores but recognize their limitations,” says David Simpson, LBS’ director of  MBA admissions. “Therefore, we don’t have strict score cut-offs but approach assessment in a more holistic way.”

Suspicion of student visas as an immigration scam runs high in the UK. This is especially true after a BBC current affairs program secretly filmed candidates faking test results for the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) exam. As a result of the program, ETS no longer offers the TOEIC test for U.K. visa-granting purposes

Privately, admissions departments admit to confusion around the UK government’s decision to suspend ETS. The TOEFL test, which is considered the gold standard for many students wishing to study in the US and UK, was never implicated in the fraud – and while ETS sets the test, third-party contractors administer it.

“The TOEFL is the test my clients overwhelmingly take for business schools across Europe and North America,” says admissions consultant Rachel Korn, who works mainly with U.S., European, and Israeli clients. “Over my 18-year career in admissions I have found the test to be a rather accurate reflection of the taker’s ability to function in English.”

And it’s still used as an acceptable qualification for students who don’t require visas, Durham’s Howarth points out. “Generally universities and business schools require higher standards of English for postgraduate study than those required by the Home Office, anyway,” she says. Like many schools, Durham provides English language tuition before and during business courses. “We’ll still accept TOEFL as proof of ability for European students who don’t need visas.”

Where Top CEOs Went to Business School

Harvard Business School Again Leads The CEO Race

How influential is a college degree in landing the top job in a major corporation?

It’s a hard question to answer because more often than not it’s the person–not the school–that is responsible for professional success. The best schools, of course, often draw the more ambitious and driven people who are more likely to climb to the top.

So it’s no surprise that Harvard Business School again leads the pack when it comes to Fortune 100 chief executives. Just look at their graduate roster over the years: Michael Bloomberg, Jamie Dimon, Sheryl Sandberg, Salman Khan, Henry Paulson, Mitt Romney, and Jeffrey Immelt. And let’s not forget George W. Bush, Jeffrey Skilling, and Rajat Gupta, too. Talk about a Who’s Who from the business and political headlines!

In 2014, eight CEOs from the Fortune 100 elite earned their MBAs at Harvard Business School. Aside from GE’s Immelt and J.P. Morgan Chase’s Dimon, Harvard MBAs-Turned-CEOs include Boeing’s W. James McNerney Jr., MetLife’s Steve Kandarian, Freddie Mac’s Donald Layton, and the Hess Corporation’s John Hess.

Wharton finished second to Harvard with four CEOs on the list, including Johnson & Johnson’s Alex Gorsky, Sysco’s William DeLaney, General Dynamics’ Phebe Novakovic, and MassMutual’s Roger Crandall. The University of Chicago (Booth), Northwestern University (Kellogg), and the University of Minnesota (Carlson) each boast two CEOs on the list.

Some 18 other MBA programs, several of them at unranked business schools, count one Fortune 100 CEO among their alumni. That goes to show that you don’t have to go to a big brand school to make it big, although let’s not kid ourselves, it probably helps to have your ticket punched by the likes of a top 10 or top 20 school.

Overall, 36 CEOs in the Fortune 100 earned MBAs. Harvard also headed the list of undergrad programs with alumni heading Fortune 100 companies. According to Fortune, engineering, business administration, and accounting degrees were the most popular undergraduate majors for CEOs. Among Fortune 100 CEOs with advanced degrees, MBAs were the most popular degree, beating out J.D.s by a margin of 57 percent to 20 percent.

To see the business schools with Fortune 100 CEO alumni, check out the table below.

School	Fortune 100 CEO MBA recipients	U.S. News Business School Rank
Harvard Business School	8	1
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	4	1
Northwestern (Kellogg)	2	6
University of Chicago (Booth)	2	4
University of Minnesota (Carlson)	2	33
Brigham Young (Marriott)	1	27
Columbia University	1	8
Cornell University (Johnson)	1	17
Duke University (Fuqua)	1	14
Indiana University (Kelley)	1	21
New York University (Stern)	1	10
Our Lady of the Lake (TX)	1	N/A
Southern Methodist University (Cox)	1	55
Stanford University	1	1
University of Dayton	1	Unranked*
University of Hartford (Barney)	1	Unranked
University of San Diego)	1	Unranked
University of Tulsa (Collins)	1	96
University of Virginia (Darden)	1	11
University of Houston (Bauer)	1	92
University of Utah (Ecceles)	1	63
Washington University (Olin)	1	22
Xavier University (Williams)	1	Unranked

Source: U.S. News and World Report

10 Things I Wish I’d Known Before My MBA

It’s been three years since I graduated from Harvard Business School, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I wish someone would have told me BEFORE B-school and definitely while I was going through my job search.

So here are my top 10….

1. They were right – at least half of the classmates I know (if not more) are at a different job 18 months out than they had when they left school. Which makes me really question what the career services team gets graded on in terms of performance…

2. Nobody mentions how much more confusing and scary (and cash constrained) life gets AFTER the MBA. Yes taking out loans to go on trips during school is an integral part of making deeper relationships…but damn…I still haven’t paid off enough to get back to the original loan amount I took out to begin with!

3. Generally (and please don’t take offense if this doesn’t apply to you), if you dig past the surface “things are going great!” conversation BS, people who didn’t go into finance, consulting, PE seem truly happier – but no less stressed out. But people STILL chase those jobs coming out of school like their life, status, and future happiness depend on it (for the transferable skills of course. Right…)

4. It’s scary and frustrating as a career switcher to feel like I’m starting from scratch again while I watch my non-MBA friends who now have 7 years of experience kick ass at their jobs

5. Getting an MBA didn’t prepare me to DO actual skill work in my industry at all really. It taught me how to see a big problem and make snap decisions on what should be done. But actually DOING work?  I’m learning as I go and it’s a steep steep learning curve.

6. It’s going to take more time than I thought to do really BIG things (you know the stuff they allude to on your first day about how you’re going to change the world while forgetting to mention that it won’t happen quickly because you’ll likely be funneled back into an industry/job role that thrives on the status quo)

7. The expectations are SO much higher – at work, from friends, from myself, my family, would-be employers. Everyone expects you to be able to just DO amazing things, and KNOW things simply because you went to B-school.

8. Once you’re in the job…nobody really cares you have an MBA. If anything, some people who don’t have one hate you for it on the low.

9. Most people don’t want to admit to themselves that even if they knew what they really wanted to do…they probably still wouldn’t leave their well-paid, high status job to go do it.

But most importantly….

10. While my MBA prepared me to be able to speak eloquently even when I don’t have the answers – it most certainly did NOT help me figure out what I want to do in life, how to find my passion and purpose or give me any clarity on HOW I’m going to change the world. I tell a lot of MBA hopefuls that your time at school opens a thousand doors and exposes you to things you’ve never heard of before, but that can be paralyzing because what they DON’T do is help you figure out which one to go through. So you end up rationalizing why you followed the crowd (transferable skills, paying off loans faster and THEN you’ll figure out what you want to do, need another brand name on the resume to prove myself, etc.)

So, I figured I’d start a blog. And use it as an excuse to talk to MBAs and ask them about how they’re handling their lives and careers after 2 years of wedded bliss to the idea that they were handpicked out of the masses to do bigger and better things with the education and network from their MBA program.

Hopefully, I can have candid conversations with folks and share what they’ve learned, what they wish they knew going in (and coming out) and how they’re navigating the world with a few more letters after their name and all the expectations and pressures that came with it.

Maybe if I can get past the façade we learn to put up and hear some real stories, I can start learning how others handling work/life balance (ha!) while climbing the ladder, or choosing a path less traveled and the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes with that.

We learn in B-school (or at least at HBS) that social capital is scarce and no one wants to be associated with the person who doesn’t have it all together. But maybe if more folks knew it isn’t all rosy after you graduate and that many people are struggling with the same questions, insecurities, frustrations, and life decisions, we could learn from each other’s experiences and create more realistic expectations for the droves of people turning to B-school as the next step in life.

Or not. We’ll see.

But if you’ve got a story – want to chat – have something to say about what you wish you would have known, hit me up! Would love to hear from you!

10 Movies Every Business Student Must Watch

You can only learn so much from case studies. Sure, the lessons may be grounded in the real world, with real people suffering real consequences. In the end, do these examples really stick with you? Do you mimic lines from a study to your friends? And do you occasionally return to a key person or decision in a study and think, “I can really see myself doing that.” 

Sometimes, the best way to translate reality is through fiction. And no genre resonates more with people than cinema. Take the topic of business. Our work consumes over a third of our lives. For many, work is a community where they fulfill their life’s mission. In that world, you’ll find the great truths: The corrosive effect of power, money, and hubris; the fruits of hope, sweat and perseverance; the trade-offs and unforeseen results inherent to making decisions; and the ever-present opportunity for reconciliation and redemption.

Hollywood may embellish reality, but the behind-the-scenes business dealings in movies often reflect the real world all too closely. From Jordan Belfort to Howard Hughes, movie storytelling takes us inside deeply flawed, three-dimensional characters, whose key moments of achievement, betrayal, and epiphany remind us of our own potential and frailty. Whether we admire or loathe these characters, we remember them – and the cautionary lessons many represent.

Looking for some practical lessons that may get lost in a case study? Here are ten must-see movies that will amp up your business acumen with an up close and personal look at the temptations and ambiguities you’re bound to eventually face:
 

1) Wall Street

This has to be right at the top if you talk about must-watch movies for business students. The movie digs into everything a business hides behind the scenes. As a thrilling journey into Gordon Gekko’s life, it shows exactly how people barter their morals to become filthy rich and make it big on Wall Street, with principles like, “Money is everything,” and “Greed is good.” Take those lessons with a grain of salt!

2) The Insider

Al Pacino and Russell Crowe share the screen in this movie, which is reason enough to watch it, but it’s also a must-watch to know what ethics and integrity in business really mean. It’s a story of a man who is faced with an ugly choice of doing the right thing and risking his life, or keeping his mouth shut.

3) Tucker : A Man and His Dream

Searching for some inspiration to trigger your spirits before a leap into the world of entrepreneurship? This movie can be your unforgettable inspiration. Make yourself feel good while this movie works as an inspiration to your psyche by telling you exactly what it is like to follow your dreams…a bed of roses…but roses with spurs, where you have to make sacrifices.

4) Citizen Kane

Build a business tycoon image for yourself and see what you pay for it! Negotiating with your ethics is a choice many businesspeople will eventually face. This brilliant movie tells you what it’s like to build an empire and what dangers you are going to face in the process. Don’t let this classic miss your watchful mind!

The lesson is a bitter truth: Success can often come at a price, and at the top, life can be relatively empty.

5) It’s a Wonderful Life

This timeless black-and-white classic of Frank Capra is an illustrative lesson of the moral, financial and the practical! The most important lesson a business student needs to learn is that money can’t buy happiness and that real happiness lies not in your business or job, but in family ties, love and friends. It truly is a wonderful life!

6) Office Space

What do you do when you have soul-sucking 9-to-5 job? You probably never managed to make it as hilarious and scary as Peter Gibbons. This movie showcases office politics at its best. If not in the past or the present, you are definitely going to relate to this movie at least once in your life.

7) Smartest Guys in the Room

ENRON goes down in history as one of the world’s biggest business frauds, and you, as a business student, definitely want to know what actually happened and what mess was created. Get real life business lessons and learn the difference between doing things right and doing the right things!

8) The Godfather

You can’t afford to miss on this one! A must watch for all business students. The Godfather is a 70mm bible about why relationships and building networks are important, why helping people is good for business and why knowing about competition is non-negotiable.

9) Barbarians at the Gate

Knowing the reality of hostile takeovers and leveraged buyouts is an important lesson for passionate business student. So, here comes a real story and a real lesson! As a classic must-watch for business students, this movie will take you through the saga of a battle for power, a hostile takeover and a leveraged buyout.

10) Norma Rae

Why do unions operate as they do? Find an answer in this wonderful depiction of the determination of a single mother who fights to improve the working conditions of her textile mill.