Accepted.com 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

What's New at Accepted.com

Medical Chats

On Monday June 4, 2001 at 7:00 PM Pacific Time (8:00 PM Mountain Time; 9:00 PM Central Time; 10:00 PM Eastern Time) Dr. Cynthia Lewis, medical school admissions consultant and former advisor at CSU at San Diego, will return to Accepted.com for our next chat. Dr. Lewis will discuss the factors and criteria you should use in choosing which medical schools to apply to. She will also touch on strategies for dealing with the Web-based AMCAS application's technical problems.

On Monday June 18 at 6:00 PM Pacific Time (7:00 PM Mountain Time; 8:00 PM Central Time; 9:00 PM Eastern Time) Michael Yang will join us for a lively question and answer session. Michael is currently completing his first year at UCSF. When he applied to medical school he was accepted to 21 out of the 24 schools to which he applied. So whether you have questions on applying to med school, interviewing, or the life of a med student, especially at UCSF, Michael can give you the answers. Please join us in the Chat Room on June 4 and 18.

MBAs Save the Date! BusinessWeek Online Chat

I have been invited to participate in an online chat on June 27, 2001 at Businessweek Online. The topic: MBA Application Essays. In addition I will be happy to respond during the chat to questions about wait-list strategies, letters of recommendation, and MBA admissions in general.

The time has not yet been confirmed, but the chat will probably occur in the afternoon Eastern Time and the exact time and URL will be posted both on the Businessweek B-school site and Accepted.com.

For more information, please visit our Home page or BusinessWeek Online closer to June 27.

Transcripts Online

The waitlist chat transcript from our April 30 chat is now online. So for those of you in the purgatory known as the wait-list, visit the transcript at http://www.accepted.com/chat/ to find out the right way to get out of purgatory and into Top Choice U.

Acceptances!!!!

Those acceptances are rolling in! Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, Penn, Yale, Columbia, Duke, Tuck, UCLA, Chicago, Cornell. 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 or e-mail acceptances@accepted.com. Alternatively, let your editor know how you fared.

Your Opinion Please...

We are currently evaluating our site performance. If you have found the Accepted.com site slow, or if you have suggestions for improving its content, please send your comments to feedback@accepted.com. Thanks!

Essay Tip of the Month

The Leadership Thing

Whether you are applying to college, an MBA, MD, JD, or almost any graduate program, adcoms like to see leadership potential or skills. Consequently, many of you will write about leadership experiences and achievements. Good idea. But when you analyze that experience, will your insight sound like that of everyone else writing about leadership? Not if you resist the widespread compulsion to focus on some commonly found and understood aspect of leadership, especially when discussing how you were effective and what you learned. Even if your experiences are impressive and unique, those common answers make you sound like the other 80% of applicants who have light bulbs with similar wattage. That's a bad idea. So what can you do?

Here are a couple of ideas:

1. Really THINK about your leadership experiences. Instead of simply repeating the latest leadership pablum, the hottest and greatest leadership mantra (MBAs !!!), or even some truth that we all know about leadership (like the importance of vision and buy-in), come up with an insight that isn't found in every other applicant's essay and apply it to your unique story. Tell me something I don't already know. This route admittedly is not easy, but it will distinguish you from the crowd. For example, I recently read an article about the failings of political leaders in which the author noted that leaders must balance the needs of the moment with long-term goals. I am not suggesting that all of you now have to write about this balance or that this is the ultimate insight on leadership. It genuinely reflects, however, the author's views and experience, and he then applied it to his critique of political leaders. A couple of days later, I received a letter from my children's high school principal who commented that her leadership experience confirmed for her that a leader changes as a result of the experience as much as the institution being led. She then applied this lesson to her circumstances. Again, I am not suggesting that this is THE ideal leadership lesson; just that it reflects her thought and experience — and not what she expected the reader to want to hear. I rarely if ever have seen these ideas reflected in an application essay, but I suspect that others have learned these lessons too.
2. What if you genuinely want to focus on vision and buy-in or other common themes in leadership? Then go deeper so you can distinguish yourself through details and profundity of thought. How did vision motivate those being led? What vision worked and why? How did this vision help you lead effectively? How did you obtain buy-in? Why were your techniques effective? What would you do differently the next time and why?

Following these suggestions will allow you to make the leadership insights you include in your essay distinctively yours.

Resume Tip of the Month

The Informal Interview

Many job hunters are naturally intimidated by the idea of leaping into the job interviewing process cold. One excellent way to overcome job interview anxiety is to request an informational interview: a brief (20 to 30 minute) meeting with an employer to gain insights and advice about the career path you're pursuing. The beauty of the informational interview is that it eliminates the "I need a job — please give me one" subtext of the formal job interview, which puts both the employer and you on the spot. By establishing clearly and immediately that you seek only information you create a more informal opportunity to become comfortable interacting with employers or hiring managers, learn how to make a good impression, and build a professional network while gaining firsthand information about your chosen career from someone succeeding in it.

Employers are willing to extend you this courtesy for a variety of reasons: they may be flattered by your interest, impressed by the knowledge and enthusiasm you showed in your request for the interview, owe a favor to the associate who referred you, or anticipate hiring but don't yet have a specific opening. Whatever the reasons, send the employer a resume before the meeting (again making clear that you seek information, not a job) and research his or her industry and company so you can ask informed questions. The better informed you are, the better impression you will make. Typical general questions to ask are "What is an average work day for you like?" or "What is a typical career progression?" But you should also prepare questions that show you've done research on the employer's company.

Near the end of the interview you may also ask if the employer knows of other people who would be willing to talk with you about their careers. This will expand your network and thus your chances of winning a real job interview. But never (ever) use an information interview to ask for a job — it's just bad form. Finally, always send a brief but personalized thank-you note within a day of the interview.

Paul Bodine
Editor, Accepted.com
Member, National Resume Writers Association and
Professional Association of Resume Writers

Grad Admission News You Can Use

Academic Life and Six-Figure Salaries

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports a shortage of business school professors at a time when existing faculty are approaching retirement and the demand for a business school education has grown. The result: many unfilled positions at prominent business schools and multiple six-figure offers for freshly minted Ph.D.s looking for teaching positions.

Sounds to me like opportunity is knocking.

Loyola of Chicago Eliminates Grad Degree Programs in Classics

The Chronicle of Education revealed last month that Loyola University of Chicago is eliminating all graduate programs in the classics in response to sliding enrollment and revenue. It will retain the classics department for undergraduate students and allow currently enrolled graduate students to complete their degrees.

Law Admissions News You Can Use

Women's Enrollment Expected to Surpass Men's in 2001

According to the ABA, women accounted for 49.4% of the 43,518 students who enrolled last fall in law school. As of March 16, more women, 33884, had applied for admission to law school than men, 33,355. Some schools, such as Yale, Columbia, and NYU, have already crossed the 50% women's enrollment mark. Women's representation in law schools today is in stark contrast to their 4% enrollment in 1960.

MBA Admissions News You Can Use

REVIEW: Getting the MBA Admissions Edge

Written by Europeans for international applicants, Getting the MBA Admissions Edge by Alain De Mendonca and Matt Symonds is a valuable resource for all MBA applicants. It contains a solid overview of the MBA admissions process and advice on choosing schools, preparing for the GMAT, writing the essays, and interviewing. The MBA Admissions Edge, however, saves the best for last: in-depth profiles of 10 top schools — Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, INSEAD, Kellogg, LBS, MIT, NYU, Stanford.

If you are an international applicant or if you are an American applicant applying to any of these schools, the book is more than worth the hefty $50 price and is as close to mandatory as possible. If you are an American applying to other schools, it still contains well-organized, valuable information, but I don't view it as indispensable because much of the information contained in the book can be found in other books and on the Internet. Without The Edge, however, you will take more time to find it.

You can purchase Getting the MBA Admissions Edge at Amazon.com.

Comings and Goings

Dr. Dipak C. Jain, associate dean for academic affairs at Kellogg, will become dean on July 1, succeeding Donald Jacobs, who is retiring after 26 years as dean. Dr. Jain, in addition to his duties as associate dean, has been the Sandy and Morton Goldman Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies and a professor of marketing.

Dean Ted Snyder of Darden will leave the University of Virginia to become dean of the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, succeeding Robert Hamada, who served as GSB's dean for the last eight years.

Darden has formed a search committee, headed by Dr. C. Ray Smith, to name a new dean by September 1, 2001.

Wanting It All

In its article "So Where Do MBAs Want to Work?" Fortune discusses the results of a survey of 2000 MBA students. Bottom line: graduating MBAs want the informal, team-oriented atmosphere of a start-up with the security of large firm.

The most popular sectors remain management consulting, investment banking, Internet/e-commerce and consumer goods. The ten most popular firms:

1. McKinsey & Co.
2. Boston Consulting Group
3. Cisco Systems
4. Goldman Sachs
5. Bain & Co.
6. Accenture
7. Booz-Allen & Hamilton
8. Intel
9. Hewlett-Packard
10. Morgan Stanley Dean Whitter

Med Admissions News You Can Use

AMSA Web Application

As many of you now, AMSA's Web-based application has been plagued with service problems. Medical school applicants complain that it is either very slow or impossible to log onto. AMSA has decided to limit the number of applicants who can log on at any one time as a temporary measure while they increase their server capabilities.

Choosing Your School

The New Physician had an excellent article in its May-June issue on choosing medical schools to apply to. The article highlighted different approaches to teaching, the importance of primary care, early patient contact, computer-based learning, and different grading systems. It also stressed the importance of thorough research. You can't simply assume that a certain school has a particular program because of its location or name. Investigate and confirm before you spend the time and money necessary to apply.

College Admissions News You Can Use

The Questions You Usually Forget to Ask

Petersons.com had a thoughtful article this month on the questions you should ask when you visit a college campus. The article divides questions into the following categories: learning-style questions, fun questions, tough questions, campus-life questions, what's-it-really-like questions. The article suggests sample questions and prods you to think of issues and qualities that will be important to your college experience.

You can find this article at Petersons.com.

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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