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College Admission News You Can Use
Grad Admission News You Can Use
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Florida Paper Goes to Accepted.com for Essay Advice
The Sarasota Herald Tribune quotes Accepted.com president, Linda Abraham,
in an article about writing college application essays.
See http://www.heraldtribune.com.
Show Me
I am always harping on the importance of showing with examples, description, and
anecdote as opposed to merely telling or asserting. Accepted.com's editor in Japan,
John Sorenson, tired of telling his clients that they need to show their readers what
they experienced. In a fit of "practice what you preach," he decided to
provide them with a list of examples.
John has graciously allowed O&E to use his examples to illustrate
"Show me!" Here are a few of John's gems.
TELLING: I was very sad. I was very cold.
SHOWING: My tears froze.
TELLING: I am perseverant.
SHOWING: I had been up most of the night solving the wiring
problem.
TELLING: I am a leader.
SHOWING: Amidst the chaos an amazing calm came over me. I
picked up the flashlight and said, “Okay, here’s what we are going to
do.”
TELLING: I was surprised when the principal told me that I
had finished #1 in my class.
SHOWING: I stared wide-eyed when the principal told me I should
prepare the valedictory address.
TELLING: Working to save Acme.com, Inc. was a tremendous challenge.
SHOWING: The CEO valued his shares in the millions. My venture capital
partners wanted to cut all funding to Acme.com.
Now go out and show ’em.
Show, Don't Just State, Important Qualities in Your Resume
"Excellent team and interpersonal skills." How many times have I, as an
editor, removed that phrase from the "professional profile" or "qualifications"
section of a resume? Too many to count… It is a completely unsubstantiated statement that
anyone could write, and is therefore meaningless. But it raises the question, how do you
portray important qualities and attributes in a resume?
Through examples. Team and interpersonal skills are indeed extremely valuable in
almost any professional role, and a potential employer will want to know you have them.
But your resume will have more credibility if you show rather than state that you possess
such skills.
Here are some samples of ways to illustrate key qualities:
- Leadership: “Persuaded senior
management to undertake reorganization of XYZ Corp.’s
technology infrastructure; initiative increased customer
response time by 10%”; “Initiated drive to recruit
undergraduates from historically black colleges.”
- Excellent team player: “As team
member, facilitated consensus between risk and marketing,
enabling project to conclude successfully and optimize all
groups’ skills”; “On product development team, set example
for sharing information and ideas that won praise from
project lead.”
- Strong interpersonal skills:
“Motivated 8 reluctant team members by considering each
person’s development interests in assigning tasks”; “As
informal leader of telecom marketing project, obtained
cooperation of and quality input from senior managers.”
- Excellent communication skills: “As liaison between technical team and line managers,
initiated bi-monthly meetings to facilitate mutual understanding of business goals and drivers,
evolving technical capabilities, and opportunities for alignment between the two areas”;
“Based on success in informally training colleagues on ACB system, asked to train external
clients on system.”
While each of these accomplishments could work as a resume bullet item, you can also put them
in the “professional profile” or “qualification” section at the top of the resume,
preceding the point with the quality you want it to illustrate. For example:
Excellent team player: On product development team, set example for sharing
information and ideas that won praise from project lead.”
With such an approach, your qualities and attributes come alive to the reader of your resume.
Cindy
Tokumitsu
Editor, Accepted.com
Member, Professional Association of Resume Writers
Firm Rankings
The Wall Street Journal reports that the ranking bug has bitten law firms. Just as with law
schools, the lawyers (and their clients) recognize the inherent failings of these rankings, but the
firms still use them for marketing purposes and jockey fiercely for position.
So if you want to know who are the most influential lawyers, take a look at the National Law
Journal. To discover the most prestigious law firms, check out
Vault.com.
For the most collaborative firms, review Of Counsel. The list goes on and on.
Upcoming Chats
January 7
Alex Brown, Wharton’s Associate Director of Admissions.
January 16:
Dawna Clarke, Darden’s Director of Admissions, and Suzan Gibbs,
Chair of the Student Admissions Committee.
January 22
Elissa Ellis, Assistant Dean, Matt Turner, Admissions Director, of
University of Texas’ McCombs School of Business, and McCombs’
second-year student.
January 28
Sally Jaeger, Tuck’s Director of MBA Admissions, and a Tuck
second-year student
February 4
Don Martin, Director of Admissions at the University of Chicago’s
GSB, and two second-year students from Chicago.
Mark your calendars and please join us.
Transcripts Tell All
Accepted.com has hosted some outstanding chats over the last several weeks, indeed the last
several years. Accepted.com’s chats have enjoyed increased attendance and participation culminating
with the Consortium chat, which had almost eighty participants! If you would like to see transcripts
from recent chats with adcom directors or some of the oldies-but-goodies from a couple of years ago,
please visit our MBA Chat Transcript Index. You will
find over twenty chat transcripts covering admission and student life at Harvard, Stanford, Wharton,
Columbia, MIT, UCLA, Haas, Michigan and many more.
For example, Julia Min, Stern’s Director of Admissions answered the following question:
“How can I, as an applicant, differentiate myself from other candidates?”
For Julia’s answer, please view the transcript.
Businessweek Chat Transcripts
Businessweek also has had
excellent chats
with adcom directors and other admissions professionals, but I want to highlight the interviews
it has recently conducted with
adcom directors from Kellogg, Tuck, CMU and other schools.
View the Q&As.
Potpourri
Yale won the third annual Net Impact socially responsible case competition.
Columbia Business School and Haas will launch a bi-coastal executive MBA program enrolling
its first class of 65 in June 2002.
Anderson announced that its 2001 graduates enjoyed a 6% increase in base salary over 2000
graduates, with the total median compensation package increasing by approximately 4.5%.
Nearly 50% of graduating Anderson MBAs found work in finance, followed by consulting (24%)
and marketing (16%). High tech dove from 29.1% in 2000 to 8.9% in 2001.
Residency Programs in Need of Matchmakers
Musical chairs. Courtship. Jilted at the altar. Those are the metaphors for the process that
apportions 23,000 residency positions among 33,000 candidates. Ideally, the system matches the
students most interested in particular programs with the programs most interested in them in an
orderly and fair manner. The reality is that would-be-residents and schools frequently find that
their partners don’t stick to the rules. According to The Chronicle, the National Resident
Matching Program is planning to crack down on residents who cheat the system.
Gender Differences in Degree Completion
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that women earned 57% of all bachelors degrees in
1999-2000 and 56% of all masters degrees, but 56% of doctorates went to men.
Slight Increase in PH.D.s Awarded in 2000
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that 41,368 Ph.D.s were awarded in 2000, up from
41,060 a year earlier. Observers interviewed by The Chronicle believe that this modest increase,
following a year of decline really represents a situation of stability or modest growth in the doctoral
field. Life science saw the biggest percentage increase (4.7%) while physical science had the largest
loss (4.1%).
Early Admissions Policies
The Los Angeles Times published an article blasting early admissions programs at elite schools.
It quoted critics, including the president of Yale, who claim that these programs advantage the already
advantaged and put too much stress on college students.
I’m going to stay out of the debate about the programs’ effect on equal opportunity, and highlight another
aspect of this article and others that I have read on early admissions: their advantage IF an applicant
really wants to attend a particular school. For instance, 29% of Yale’s early applicant pool was accepted,
as opposed to 11% of the much larger regular pool. The University of Pennsylvania has already accepted
49.5% of its entering class. Researchers at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government analyzed five years of
admissions records at 14 elite colleges and universities that have early admissions programs. They estimate
that applying via an early admission program has the same impact as scoring 100 additional points on the
SAT.
These are startling numbers with serious implications if you are applying to college next year. As long as
these programs exist and you know which school is your first choice, make your case through an early
admissions program.
Tight Job Market Greets 2002 Graduates
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that this year’s graduates can expect a 6-13% decline in
entry-level jobs for college graduates. Technical fields are hardest hit with engineering jobs down an
expected 10% and IT positions down 17%.
Tell a Friend
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