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Index
What's New at Accepted.com
Essay Tip of the Month
Resume Tip of the Month
Law Admission News You Can Use
MBA Admission News You Can Use
Medical Admission News You Can Use
College Admission News You Can Use
Grad Admission News You Can Use
Our Services
New Web Site - It's Up!!!!
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Acceptances
We've been hearing lots of good news! Thanks for sharing. 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 http://www.accepted.com/forms/acceptance_survey.asp or e-mail acceptances@accepted.com . Alternatively, let your editor know how you fared.
Spin and Slant
I recently evaluated a young woman's rejected application to a top b-school. I found a number of problems with her application, but one item caught my eye, because it was small and subtle, yet important: a negative portrayal of certain decisions and experiences. For example, in an optional essay she wrote that she was taking business classes because she had no business classes as an undergrad.
Not a great way to go. Bad slant. Wrong spin. Instead of putting her motivation in a positive light, she emphasized the negative. She was really taking the classes for a number of reasons:
- She had not taken any business classes as an undergrad.
- She needed to compensate for a mediocre GPA.
- She wanted to explore her growing interest in business.
- She wanted to improve her business skills for professional reasons.
- She wanted to prepare for business school.
Reasons 1 & 2 draw attention to negatives in her profile. She should have mentioned only reasons 3-5 to put her decision and recent courses in the best light.
Whether applying to college or graduate school, putting a positive spin on your actions or motivations means you recognize that admission essays are not your personal issue of True Confessions. Emphasize the positive to ensure that your essays reflect the best in your actions and motivations as you honestly answer the questions and present yourself in the most acceptable light.
How Competitive Are You? Your Resume Provides The Answer
There are three applicants to top-10 MBA (or law or medical) programs. All have a 3.7 GPA from a top-20 U.S. university, competitive test scores, substantial community involvement, and 4.5 years of work experience. All three are the same gender and from the same demographic group. One has an MSE with a 3.9 GPA from a top engineering program. Who is the most competitive applicant?
Look to their resumes for the answer - specifically, to the quality of their work experience. The answer is not necessarily the one with the MSE, but the one whose professional experience exhibits the most significant leadership, the most substantial increase in responsibilities, and the greatest impact on the organization. This principle is central for MBA applicants, because MBA programs consider work experience a key admission criterion. However, the same principle applies for law and medical school applicants who have had post-college work experience-the adcoms will look at it to see whether you are a person who makes a real difference in your professional environment.
To understand your competitiveness at top graduate professional programs, it is critical to understand first how your work experience stacks up against that of your competitors. The top programs want to see more than competence; they want to see accomplishment beyond what is expected, beyond what would generate a typically positive performance review. This accomplishment can be broken into three general, interrelated categories:
- Leadership. Is your vision on the job larger than your job description? Do you propose ideas that surpass your defined role, and then generate management and peer support for them? There are many definitions for leadership, and each adcom will have its own slant on it, but consistent leadership beyond what your position requires is a sought-after quality.
- Impact. Is the impact of your efforts broader and deeper than what would have been expected when you were hired or promoted? This impact can be quantitative and/or qualitative.
- Advancement. Did you gain promotions and/or expanded responsibilities faster than the typical track for an excellent performance? You should show advancement beyond what is usual for a high-performing employee, not just for a satisfactory employee.
Many applicants to top MBA, law, and medical programs are outstanding in all of these qualities, and they are your competition. They stand out on the job, not just among employees of similar age and level overall, but among the top performers of their age and level. Review your resume carefully: does it show accomplishment that surpasses the high end of normal? If so, assuming other factors are within range, you may be competitive at top-10 graduate professional programs.
Next month's resume tip will explain how to ensure that your resume communicates these qualities effectively.
Cindy Tokumitsu
Senior Editor, Accepted.com
Member, Professional Association of Resume Writers
Early-Bird Special Thru 7/31
For 2003 MBA applicants, purchase essay or letter of recommendation packages by July 31 and save 10%. For details, please visit http://www.accepted.com/services/mbaservices.aspx.
Chat: Admission Strategies For 2003
Members of Accepted.com staff will help you join the MBA class of 2005 on June 10 at 6:00 PM Pacific Time/-8:00 GMT (7:00 PM Mountain Time; 8:00 PM Central Time; 9:00 PM Eastern Time). Bring your questions to http://www.accepted.com/chat. We'll provide the answers..
Save The Date -- Re-App Chat With Maxx Duffy
Maxx Duffy, a former member of the HBS admissions committee and current president of the admissions consultancy, Maxx Associates, will return to Accepted.com for a chat dedicated to MBA re-applicants. If you are determined to make your next application a successful one, please join us at http://www.accepted.com/chat on July 17, 2002 at 6:00 PM Pacific Time/-8:00 GMT (7:00 PM Mountain Time; 8:00 PM Central Time; 9:00 PM Eastern Time).
Haas Hiring Spree
Haas has found its new chancellor, Stanford Law School professor and former congressman Thomas J. Campbell. Replacing Laura Tyson, who became dean of the London Business School last year, Dr. Campbell represented Silicon Valley for five terms in Congress and has been a law professor at Stanford since 1983. He earned his JD from Harvard and his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.
In addition, Haas has added six new faculty members, including Pino Audia from the London Business School (organizational behavior) and Tech Hua Ho from Wharton (marketing).
Chicago Trying To Attract Younger Students
BizEd reports that the University of Chicago Business School is trying to attract talented younger students by accepting select University of Chicago seniors and offering them an automatic deferral of one to three years. The Chicago class that entered in Fall 2001 had an average of five years of full-time work experience and was 29 years old. According to Ann L. McGill, Chicago's deputy dean for the full-time MBA program, Chicago would like "to attract more students in their mid-20s."
Affirmative Action
Affirmative action at public law schools has drawn a lot of attention this month. First, the Center for Equal Opportunity, a private research center opposed to affirmative action, issued a scathing report regarding UVA and William and Mary law schools' racially based preferences, but concluded that George Mason's practices did not reflect racial preferences.
A few days later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the constitutionality of the University of Michigan Law School's admissions process, which uses race as a factor in the admissions process to ensure "the benefits of diversity" in the law school classroom.
At the National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals conference last month, which occurred before the Michigan decision was announced, I heard much discussion of affirmative action and the conflicting legal decisions surrounding it. Although the U.S. Supreme Court issued the Bakke decision in 1978 and that ruling supposedly established clear guidelines for admissions without quotas and set-asides, the Bakke rules have become muddied and blurred over time. The whole issue will probably end up again before the Supreme Court.
Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me A Match
The NRMP match has been attracting much attention during this past month. AMSA's New Physician magazine had an excellent series of articles on the match process and alternatives to it: finding a residency outside of the match and doing something other than a residency upon completing medical school. I would have said that these informative articles should be mandatory reading for every pre-med and medical student until . . .
A group of residents, led by Dr. Paul Jung, currently a fellow at John Hopkins, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of 200,000 residents alleging anti-trust violations against NRMP, AAMC, numerous other acronyms, and 35 teaching hospitals. The suit charges that the defendants have used the match program to keep residency wages low and hours long. The articles that I read about the lawsuit in The NY Times (http://query.nytimes.com/search/abstract?res=F4091FFE3F540C748CDDAC0894DA404482) and in letters from AMSA both say that the suit's outcome is uncertain. Its impact on the match in the future is completely unknown.
Clearly, wages for residents who have completed four years of medical training are much lower than for other professionals with comparable training and working conditions are poor. One-hundred-hour weeks are not unusual. The growing concern over this situation is unusual, even before Jung, et al. filed their suit. For example, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the Accreditation Council for Graduate Management Education has threatened to withdraw its accreditation from Yale's general surgery residency in July 2003 because residents routinely work more than 100 hours per week. In response, Yale has magnanimously promised to reduce the surgical residents' hours to less than eighty hours per week.
I am no matchmaker, but I think that the residency match may need some counseling.
Key Qualities For Med School Success
AAMC recently interviewed 171 medical school faculty members, residents, and students about the behaviors most likely to result in success in medical school and residency. According to the survey, the following ten qualities are key:
- Taking an active role in helping to shape their own learning and knowledge acquisition
- Self-management and coping skills
- Effort to foster a team environment
- Interpersonal skills and professionalism
- Empathetic and listening skills when interacting with patients and their families
- Technical knowledge and skill
- Extra effort and motivation
- Ethical judgment and integrity
- Mentoring skills
- Demonstrating an ability to maintain calm under pressure
You can find the full report at http://www.aamc.org/data/aib/aibissues/aibvol1_no4.pdf .
Endowments
Two medical schools received historic gifts in the last month. According to The Chronicle, the University of Pennsylvania reported that it will receive a $100 million endowment in seven years from the Philadelphia Health Care Trust. UCLA Medical Center also revealed receipt of $200 million from David Geffen, the movie mogul. Gerald S. Levey, MD, Dean of the School of Medicine, announced, "This $200 million gift is the largest in the history of the University of California and the largest gift ever to a medical school in the United States. It will be used entirely for endowment to support the academic mission of the School of Medicine." In return, the medical school will become the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Getting In
I want to give my highest recommendation to Dr. Katherine Cohen's book The Truth About Getting In. She demystifies the college admission process and gives you the tools and exercises to handle it. Her section on essays, specifically the sample essays, is among the best I have seen, and her advice on letters of recommendation is solid. The book is packed with concise insight and valuable information.
I do have a couple of bones to pick with Dr. Cohen. Considering that she devotes more than a third of her book to excellent advice on writing, her condemnation of writing coaches in the admissions process is ridiculous. On another note, Dr. Cohen correctly urges college applicants to look deeply within themselves to determine what they want out of the college experience and to research the schools with the same thoroughness. Excellent advice. But in her zeal to encourage teenage applicants to do their homework, she occasionally and unnecessarily disparages parental input. In this case, overstatement takes away from an otherwise valuable resource. And despite these criticisms, I strongly recommend Getting In as an excellent "how-to" for college admissions.
You can purchase it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0786887478/acceptedcom.
College Internet Guide
A fun, short guide to all, well maybe most, things collegiate and on the Web.
You can purchase it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0971399107/acceptedcom.
Yale Seeks To End Early-Decision Programs
The Wall Street Journal reports that Yale University has asked the U.S. Justice Department if it can consult with other colleges about ending its early-decision program. Yale fears that joint action by the Ivies could bring a government lawsuit alleging anti-trust. At the same time, Yale's President Richard C. Levin is apparently hesitant to act unilaterally, even though he called for an end to such programs in December.
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