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Odds 'N Ends
We have decided to publish this newsletter as a service to our clients and others who
register for it on our Web site. Accepted.com's Odds 'N Ends will bring you our
tip of the month, admissions information for grad, law, MBA, and medical school applicants,
and news about Accepted.com.
We also welcome contributions from readers. If you have comments, questions, or perhaps
an article idea, please e-mail our editor.
We cannot publish everything we receive, but we will try to respond to everyone. And as always,
we appreciate feedback.
Index
What's New at Accepted.com
Essay Tip of the Month
Resume Tip of the Month
Grad Admission News You Can Use
Law Admission News You Can Use
MBA Admission News You Can Use
Medical Admission News You Can Use
College Admission News You Can Use
Our Services
Resume and College Sections Go Live
Accepted.com has gone through a growth spurt! While the Web site is
constantly growing and evolving, this past month Accepted.com added
two entirely new sections: our college and resume sections. So if you
have friends or relatives about to embark on post-secondary education,
refer them to our new College content.
If you or someone you know is job or internship hunting, send them
to our Job Search section.
Of course, you or your friends may want more than excellent tips and
advice. If you want a professional to edit your college application essay
or write your resume/cover letter for maximum impact, please
register.
Acceptances
Those acceptances are rolling in! Stanford, Kellogg, Penn, Columbia, Duke,
Tuck. If Accepted.com played any role in your application process —
whether as an informative Web site or advisor and editor — please let
us know where you are admitted, how we helped you, AND how we can do better.
Visit our acceptance survey form,
or e-mail acceptances@accepted.com.
Alternatively, please let your editor know how you did.
Save the Date
On March 28, 2001, Linda Abraham, Odds 'N Ends editor and Accepted.com's president,
will give a presentation at the American Medical Student Association's Annual
Convention in Anaheim, California. Ms. Abraham's presentation is entitled
"Ace the AMCAS Essay."
She would love to see you there. Please say "Hi."
For more information about the premed activities at the convention, please
visit http://www.amsa.org/news/conv/info.htm#premed.
Handling Negatives
Hey, you're not perfect. Neither am I. We're human and frequently have weaknesses to deal
with. February and March's tip will help you handle evidence of your humanity.
This month, let's focus on mitigating the impact of weaknesses. What can you do
to lessen the impact of low grades, mediocre test scores, or experience that may be
less than ideal qualitatively or quantitatively?
Low grades - Earn new, high grades to show what you can do when motivated, mature,
and not distracted by personal problems that may have contributed to a bad semester
or two. One or two A's won't make up for a 2.0 GPA earned over four years, but
creating a new grade point average either by taking classes at a local community
college, earning an additional degree, or enrolling in a post-bac program can
definitely put a different spin on a GPA that is in the 3.0 range when Top Choice
U's average accepted GPA is closer to 3.5.
Low test score - No magic bullets here. You simply have to retake and raise the
score. Many programs will consider the highest of your test scores. Some average,
but look more closely at the most recent numbers. Don't retake if you don't have
time to prepare or if you don't think you can raise it. In that case, try to take
classes in your area of weakness and read next month's tip on addressing weaknesses.
Inadequate experience — If you don't have experience that is directly related
to the direction you want to take, get some. Now. Even if you have already applied,
your new on-point experience could provide great material for a wait-list letter. If
you can't immediately get a job or volunteer position in your desired field, then
either on the job, in school, or in a volunteer capacity assume responsibilities
that will reflect the values of the programs you want to attend. For example, all
grad programs value leadership. If you can't lead on the job, you can organize
and run a charitable event for a cause that you believe in. Another example:
law schools value research and writing skills. If you can't obtain a spiffy legal
internship, take a class that will require a significant research project.
Resume Tip of the Month
The International Resume
Job hunters seeking employment overseas may encounter an obstacle they hadn't considered:
their American-style resume is inappropriate for many foreign business cultures. It's wise
to customize your resume to the culture of your specific target country, but preparing a
generic International Style Resume (ISR) may be sufficient. The ISR is what Americans know
as the curriculum vitae — a long (4-8 pages), detailed, often unimaginatively formatted
document that tells the foreign employer everything it wants to know. The ISR is used to
apply for positions in many industries, not just for scientific, academic, and medical posts
as in the U.S.
The first major difference between U.S. resumes and ISRs is the personal data block. Many
non-U.S. employers don't have to concern themselves with violating anti-discrimination laws,
so information such as marital status, age, and health is fair game. Foreign employers will
be interested in your country of citizenship, visa status or work restrictions, and gender
(not always obvious from your first name to the non-U.S. reader). Your age may tell an
organization whether you are too young (or too old) for an international scholarship;
marital status can be relevant for determining housing needs; and your health can be more
of an issue in societies where handicaps or medical conditions are accommodated less
routinely.
Applying for an international job means placing more emphasis on your language proficiency
(basic, proficient, fluent, or native), your previous international work or study abroad
experiences, and your cross-cultural training. Non-U.S. resumes are generally less
"flashy" than their American cousins — substantive words are favored over
action verbs, accomplishments are more frequently omitted from the education section, and
sophisticated designs are more often avoided. "Internationalizing" a resume means
checking small things like date style -- changing the abbreviated U.S. date style of
"month, day, year," for example, to the "day, month, year" format.
Likewise, you should change your American-style "GPA" to the more universal class
ranking ("top 5%") or at least spell out "GPA" and indicate what grading
scale your GPA represents (3.4 out of 4.0, etc.). Finally, language differences can be
the trickiest part of the internationalized resume -- the president of a U.S. corporation
may find that she has demoted herself two levels if she lists herself as "presidente"
in some countries. For more information on international resumes, consult June L. Aulick's
(ed.) Resumes for Employment in the U.S. and Overseas.
Paul Bodine
Editor, Accepted.com
Member, National Resume Writers Association and
the Professional Association of Resume Writers
Higher Stipends at Yale and Princeton
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Yale is increasing its stipends for Ph.D.
students by 20% to $13,700 per year. Yale is facing a unionization drive among its teaching
assistants, but it claims the increase was not in response to the threat of unionization.
The Chronicle also reports that Princeton will provide full-tuition fellowships and
stipends to all first year Ph.D. students in engineering and science. Yale, Harvard,
and MIT have a similar policy.
Tenure Getting Tougher
The Chronicle of Higher Education had a lengthy article this month on the increasing demands
made on junior faculty working towards tenure. The article cited instance after instance of
institutions that have raised the tenure bar, specifically requiring more research and
publishing. The universities, in intense competition for top undergraduate students, want
their faculty to have increasingly impressive credentials — that means published books
and articles in prestigious journals.
Women Dissatisfied with Legal Careers
Catalyst, a nonprofit research and advisory organization working to
advance women in business and the professions, just released a study
exploring the reasons men and women are dissatisfied with the legal
profession and specifically why legal employers are unable to retain
women lawyers.
The study points out that although over 40% of law school students
since 1985 are women, women still make up less than 16% of law partners
nationally and 14% of Fortune 500 general counsels. The study
blames difficulty in balancing family and professional responsibilities
along with a lack of mentors for the women's inability to advance in the
legal profession.
Surprisingly, the study showed that in-house legal work did not enable
women to better achieve professional or work/life goals. The study reports
that while 57% of women who went to work in-house did so to achieve a better
work/life balance, 66% did not find it.
Financial Times Rankings
The Financial Times has come out with its international ranking of MBA
programs. Here are the Top Ten:
- Wharton
- Harvard
- Stanford
- Chicago
- Columbia
- MIT
- Insead
- London Business School
- Kellogg
- Stern
For more information, FT's Top 100, the Top Ten in different fields and
FT's criteria, please visit
http://career.ft.com/BusinessEducation.
From the Inbox
Actually, this isn't from our Inbox; it's from the
BusinessWeek Forum
In addition to the much-appreciated kudos for Accepted.com, it contains
insight on writing MBA application essays and handling your recommenders:
Linda,
I just want to thank you for Accepted.Com 's advice on essays and recs. I
applied only to HBS Round 1 and got in, no interview.
I think the most important thing I did in my essays was to use a
conversational tone, add humor, and reward the adcom for reading them!
As for the recs, I spent as much time preparing a package for my recs to
use as I did writing my essays. That way I got them to say exactly what
was needed and things that helped fit my whole story together.
FYI, for all those who will want to know:
Accepted to HBS, No Interview:
Female
680 (Very low quant score)
3.9 Top 3 Liberal Arts
4 W/E (1 consulting; 3 Top Brand Management)
Thanks for Accepted.Com!
University of Chicago Medical School Dean Resigns
Dean Glenn Steele is leaving the University of Chicago Medical School to
take over the rural HMO, Geisinger Health System.
$$$ and Teaching Hospitals
The New Physician had an excellent article in its December issue on the
financial crisis in teaching hospitals and the impact it is having on
medical education. I strongly suggest you, soon-to-be consumers of
medical educations, read this article, even though it isn't available on
the Internet.
Princeton Announces No-Loan Policy
Princeton University will no longer require undergraduates on financial aid to obtain loans
to help pay for their education. Beginning next fall, Princeton will eliminate its loan
requirement and replace loans with grants.
Wouldn't it be great if Princeton were to start a trend?
For further details, please visit
http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/01/q1/0127-aid.htm.
Tell a Friend
Please share this issue with friends and colleagues who share your interest in graduate
school admission. Tell a friend or two about
Accepted.com's powerful array of online pre-professional resources. They will thank you
and so will we!
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