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Submit a Stellar Application

MBA BlastOff: 45 Terrific Tips to Launch Your MBA Application to Acceptance.

How to Write Great College Application Essays and Stay Sane

How to Write Great College Application Essays and Stay Sane

Best Practices for
MBA Admissions

The Finance Professional`s Guide to MBA Admissions Success

The Consultant`s Guide to MBA Admission

The Techie`s Guide to MBA Admissions


The Nine Mistakes You Don`t Want to Make on a Law School Waitlist


The Nine Mistakes You Don`t Want to Make on a Med School Waitlist

The Nine Mistakes You Don`t Want to Make on an MBA Waitlist

Great Application Essays for Business School

Great Personal Statements for Law School

Write Your Way to a Residency Match

Write Your Way to a Fellowship Match

MBA I.V.: Mainline to Top MBA Programs MBA Interview Questions and Tips

Create a Better Sequel: How to Reapply Right to Business School

November 2004 Volume 7, Issue 11
Free monthly newsletter Subscribers: 4680
Back issues ISSN: 1526-2316
Published by Accepted.com Linda Abraham, Editor
Subscriber self administration

Accepted.com Odds 'N Ends

What's New At Accepted.com
Essay Tip
Resume Tip
Wrap Up

 
What's New at Accepted.com
 

New Ebook at Accepted.com
I am pleased to announce the publication of our newest ebook, The Consultant's Guide to MBA Admission, by Linda Abraham and Cindy Tokumitsu.

If you are a consultant applying to business school, this is the ebook especially for you. It provides you with:
  • Concrete tips that help you distinguish yourself from your competition.
  • A unique perspective that lets you see how successful applicants earn the fat envelope.
  • A complete set of HBS essays.
  • A sample letter of recommendation.

The Consultant's Guide is a must read for consultants applying to b-school. Don't apply without it.

Thanksgiving MBA Special
Sign up for a Buy-7-Get-1-Free Package and take an additional $100 off the price! Don't delay. Offer ends November 30, 2004.

New Sample AMCAS Essay
For a humorous take on the AMCAS essay, take a look at the Ultimate AMCAS Essay.


"It's a 10!"
Share your MBA interview experience, and you can win "It's a 10!". Every tenth MBA applicant who fills out an interview feedback questionnaire will win a $10 gift certificate. Just fill out a questionnaire after your interview for admission to an MBA program, and you are automatically enrolled in our contest. For additional information and contest rules, please visit our contest details page.

Don't Miss the Admissions Chatter!

November 4 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/ 6:00 PM GMT Chicago GSB Kristen Pawlowski
Chicago GSB students
November 8 5:00 PM PT/8:00 PM ET/1:00 AM GMT USC Marshall Kellee Scott
Missy Bailey
Marshall students

On deck for December: Top EU schools and Tuck.

And of course, last month's chats have generated must-read transcripts:

Haas MBA Admissions with Peter Johnson
NYU Stern MBA Admissions with Isser Gallogly

The following transcripts will be posted shortly and available from the MBA Admission transcript index.

  • Forte Forum: MBA Value Proposition for Women
  • CMU Chatter with Laurie Stewart

Back to top
 

 
Essay Tip
 
 
Admissions Tip: Choosing Recommenders for Your Application
I am getting a lot of questions about choosing recommenders. I thought a tip or two might be helpful for O&E readers as well as readers of my blog, who saw it first on the Accepted Admissions Almanac.

Key qualifications for recommenders:

1) Willingness to write a positive letter on your behalf.
2) Ability to base that positive letter on personal experience working with you or teaching you. (MBAs: You need professional recs, not academic ones. All references to academic recs are for applicants to other programs.)

A letter of recommendation from some bigwig or VIP (unless said VIP's name is on the school's building) is not as good as one from a professor for whom you wrote a great paper or one from a supervisor, especially if your work is related to your graduate study.

What makes a great letter of recommendation? The same elements that create great personal statements and application essays: Meat. Substance. Details. Anecdotes. In contrast, broad, unsubstantiated declarative statements merely damn with faint praise.

If you want your recommenders to back up their praise, help them do so:

  • Remind them of your superlative achievements in a memo or note that they can refer to when drafting your letter.
  • Provide them with stamps, envelopes, URLs, anything they might need.
  • Give them enough time to write the recommendation. Request the recommendation at least one month before you want them to submit.
  • Be realistic; an occasional reminder about approaching deadlines is mandatory.
  • Send thank-you notes to your recommenders after they submit their letter of rec.

For more tips on letters of recommendation, please see:

The above two tips, and many more, are found in Submit a Stellar Application: 42 Terrific Tips to Help You Get Accepted.

Back to top

 
 
Resume Tip
 

Community Service on Your Resume
Yes, single-handedly negotiating the largest deal in your company's history will give your resume extra luster. But another powerful way to make it stand out is to ensure it adequately represents your community or volunteer activities. In fact, it's virtually impossible for such involvements to convey anything but the most positive impression of you. List them in reverse chronological order under an appropriate heading like "Community Service," "Volunteer Work," "Public Service," "Charitable Commitments," or "Civic Involvement." If your volunteer activities can be grouped into two or more themed categories, by all means do so. For example, your work for Make-a-Wish Foundation and Christian Children's Fund could be grouped under the subheading "Helping Children" and your work for the symphony and local theater under "Cultural Volunteering."

Don't list your role or title as "volunteer." If you tutored, say "Tutor"; if you coordinated a project, say "Coordinator." As elsewhere in your resume, always be specific. Don't say "Tutored children" when you really mean "Tutored 15 developmentally disabled first-graders in art and music."

Highlighting community activities on your resume offers an additional benefit if they advertise skills or experiences that employers need. The best thing about raising $10K for AIDS research is benefiting a good cause, but it also shows you know how to attract money -- an effective theme when your goal is to run a mutual fund or launch a startup. Similarly, supervising 15 volunteers on a Habitat for Humanity site underscores your leadership ability. You may be surprised how many skills your community work has entailed -- training others, writing, public speaking, project planning, etc.

Volunteer activities can also be used to work against stereotypes. If you are a database administrator, your work organizing a major charity bike-a-thon or speaking to corporate audiences about arts education will squash the Dilbert "cubicle drone" image. Community activities can help portray you as a well-rounded, energetic, committed "doer" -- every employer's ideal.

By Paul Bodine, Senior Accepted.com Editor

Back to top

Wrap Up
Forward This Issue
Please forward this issue to friends interested in graduate school admission. They will thank you and so will we!


Our Services

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Copyright
Copyright 2004 Accepted.com. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reprint or host on your web site without explicit permission. However, if you found this newsletter helpful, we encourage you to e-mail it to a friend or colleague. Thank you.

Information provided in this document is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

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