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Accepted.com Odds 'N Ends
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Essay Tip |
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How to Choose Where to Apply
What is the one common thread in all graduate school application
questions, be it for law, medicine, business, or academia?
Goals. The reason(s) for choosing a particular profession,
program, or school.
I am frequently surprised by the percentage of applicants to
grad school who have NO idea what they want to do with the
degree, which makes it much harder to decide on an appropriate
program, not to mention justify in an essay or interview your
choice of a particular school.
You will have to determine your professional goals, but I can
provide guidelines for helping you choose schools. You do not
have to address this topic in all grad school essays, but it is
extremely important in many of them.
Grad school is not a place to find yourself or define your
goals. You need to identify them before you apply. Business
schools in particular insist their students have clearly defined
goals. Law and medical schools want applicants to have concrete,
but more general goals. These institutions acknowledge that law
and medical students will refine and narrow their aspirations as
they go through their respective programs. Academic programs
require a statement of purpose obviously because they want their
applicants to know the purpose of their studies.
Once you know what you want to do after you complete your
graduate program, you need to match your goals with school
strengths. Too many students look exclusively at overall
rankings or school reputations and don't do the necessary
research to learn about schools' specific attributes. A school
may rank below the Top 50 overall, but earn #1 in a particular
field. Look at Babson in Entrepreneurship.
When you match school strengths to your goals you have part of
the equation for choosing the schools to which you will apply.
What's the missing variable? Your qualifications. It makes no
sense, unless you want to throw out time and money, to apply
only to programs at which you have virtually no chance of
gaining admission. Don't sell yourself short, and of course,
give one or two dream schools a shot even if your stats are
below their averages, but be realistic. Must you go to Harvard
to achieve your goals? Do you have a prayer of gaining
acceptance to Harvard? Would a Top Twenty (or Fifty) school in
your particular field take you where you want to go? Would a top
regional school do the job - and provide financial aid?
Obviously, you will have other variables to consider, too:
Finances and scholarship opportunities, significant others, and
personal preferences for climate, geography, and urban vs. rural
locations. But unless these other issues are set in concrete,
first match school strengths and your goals, school requirements
and your qualifications.
This article is one of the great tips contained in
Submit a
Stellar Application: 42 Terrific Tips to Help You Get Accepted.
You can get the other 41 by purchasing this informative ebook.
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Resume Tip |
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Executive Resumes, Part 2.
We looked at some of the key differences between executive
resumes and traditional resumes in our last column. The big
difference is length. Executive resumes can be as long as 4
pages. Executive resumes also adopt a more discursive, narrative
style. Instead of brief bullet points; paragraph-long
descriptions are common.
The narrative "mini-essay" approach to executive resumes offers
other possibilities as well. For example, it enables you to use
brief quantitative tables like this--
| |
Sales ($MM) |
% Change |
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1999 |
109 |
4.5 |
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2000 |
121 |
11.0 |
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2001 |
144 |
19.0 |
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2002 |
177 |
23.0 |
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2003 |
230 |
30.0 |
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2004 |
304 |
32.0 |
The text surrounding this table would explain that the resume
writer joined her firm as CEO in early 2000 and would cite this
table as graphic proof of her impact.
The executive resume format can also enable you to do away with
canned labels like "Objective," "Summary," or "Profile." In
their place your can use a brief, arresting headline such as
"CEO with a Track Record of Turnarounds." This eliminates the
usually vague and self-inflating Summary section and grabs the
reader's attention with a dramatic claim-you resuscitate
distressed organizations. Of course, the remainder of your
resume had better persuasively back up this claim. Even in the
body of your resume, however, you can use headline-style phrases
to steer the reader:
How Were These Results Achieved?
I reduced the number of product categories from 16 to
the most profitable 7 in 2003 and . . .
Remember, however, that these elements are only effective for
longer executive-style resumes. Until you've been given keys to
the executive washroom, stick with the traditional short,
bullet-list resume. For more pointers on executive-style resumes
read John Lucht's
Rites of Passage.
Paul Bodine, Senior
Accepted.com Editor
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| Wrap Up
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