A recent piece in the Economist provides confirmation of the sense that this is shaping up to be a VERY competitive season for Business School applicants. It may be a good idea to apply to a few extra schools to make sure you have some options in the Spring if you’re committed to attending school next Fall.

Of course, a high GMAT score can’t hurt your chances either. 🙂

We are proud to welcome back, by popular demand, Jeremy Shinewald, founder of MBA Mission! MBA Mission is one of the leading admissions consulting firms in the industry, and we’re very fortunate to have Jeremy in to speak with our students in Chicago and New York.

Jeremy has agreed to conduct one-on-one FREE consultations with up to 20 of our students in Chicago on Monday, September 8th and Tuesday, September 9th between 4:30 and 9:30 p.m. Sign-ups are on a first-come-first-serve basis, and we expect that slots will quickly fill up. If you’re in Chicago, contact Dan McElroy (operations@manhattanprep.com/gmat/) to get your name on the list. If you make the list, you’ll then submit your resume and other info so that Jeremy can review them ahead of time before meeting with you.

Jeremy, being a man on a mission (pun intended) will then head to MGMAT HQ here in New York for an Essay Workshop Thursday night, September 11th from 6:30 – 8 p.m. The question Jeremy will address is “How do you write essays that will grab the attention of Admissions committees?” Wouldn’t we all like to know! Click here to sign up for this event.

Last, Jeremy will be conducting more FREE one-on-one consultations in New York on Saturday, September 13th and Sunday, September 14th from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. each day. Here again, you should e-mail Dan McElroy (operations@manhattanprep.com/gmat/) to register for a time slot.

We’ll post an update here when the slots fill up. So if you’re reading this and you’re a student in Chicago or New York, act fast!

Occasionally, we speak to someone who is confused between us and Manhattan Review. The confusion generally lifts very quickly, when they realize that we are the ‘Manhattan GMAT’ that their friend(s) mentioned to them (“the one that serves Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Morgan Stanley, etc.”).

It’s actually a surprise that it doesn’t happen more often, as Manhattan Review’s primary marketing strategy seems to be confusing students who are looking for Manhattan GMAT. They regularly pretend to be us and try to muddy the waters, particularly online.

Thankfully, we talk to hundreds of students and dozens of Instructor candidates, and no one has ever mentioned using Manhattan Review, considered teaching for them, etc. So the confusion can’t be too bad. 🙂

A recent article in the New York Post references Manhattan GMAT, and provides a useful summary of Scoretop for mainstream readers. We’ll take ‘legitimate’ any day! 🙂

Again from Businessweek we have Business Schools themselves reacting to the Scoretop affair. A wait-and-see attitude seems to be the dominant theme until more facts and numbers are presented. Certainly the number of affected individuals seems to be substantially smaller than the 6,000 identified students to date.

This is the latest in a series of How To Analyze articles that began with the general How To Analyze A Practice Problem article (click to read the original article). In this installment, we’re going to analyze a specific Sentence Correction question. Try it now (1 minute, 15 seconds):

Research has shown that when speaking, individuals who have been blind from birth and have thus never seen anyone gesture nonetheless make hand motions just as frequently and in the same way as sighted people do, and that they will gesture even when conversing with another blind person.

A) have thus never seen anyone gesture nonetheless make hand motions just as frequently and in the same way as sighted people do, and that

B) have thus never seen anyone gesture but nonetheless make hand motions just as frequently and in the same way that sighted people do, and

C) have thus never seen anyone gesture, that they nonetheless make hand motions just as frequently and in the same way as sighted people do, and

D) thus they have never seen anyone gesture, but nonetheless they make hand motions just as frequently and in the same way that sighted people do, and that

E) thus they have never seen anyone gesture nonetheless make hand motions just as frequently and in the same way that sighted people do, and

After trying the problem, checking the answer, and reading and understanding the solution, I try to answer these questions:

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Were there many ringers taking the GMAT for other people?

Apparently, GMAC isn’t taking any chances. In the aftermath of the Scoretop affair, we now get news from the Wall Street Journal that GMAT test-takers will soon be subject to a palm scan.

Though this seems a bit aggressive, the truth is that it’s really not much of a change; students were already getting fingerprinted, photographed, and videotaped when they took the test. The palm scan is simply the next level of fingerprinting.

Still, it certainly sends the message that one shouldn’t expend energy doing anything but studying for the GMAT itself!

ManhattanGMAT’s prep courses are ordinarily priced around the industry standard (despite the fact that we pay our Instructors $100/hr. + bonuses, about 4 times the prevailing rate). The conspicuous exception is in the Los Angeles area, where MGMAT courses are only $1,090, about 25% cheaper than normal.

Why the discrepancy? Do we like Los Angelenos better than others? Are our pricetags made of ice, such that they melt in the sun?

The actual reason is that several years ago, we accepted an invitation from our friends at Pepperdine University to host our GMAT courses in their very nice campuses throughout the Los Angeles area. In return, we agreed that we would offer discounted pricing.

So if you live in Los Angeles, you can add discounted ManhattanGMAT courses to the long list of great things about living in L.A., along with the sunshine, palm trees, beaches, etc. 🙂

When we study practice problems, our overall goal is to master the problem we’re working on right now. What does mastery mean? It means that, when we see a future different problem that tests the same thing as this current problem, we will recognize that the future problem has certain things in common with this current problem, and we will know what steps to take as a result ” we will, literally, recognize what to do on the future different problem, a problem we’ve never actually seen before.

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Our friend at MBA Mission, Jeremy Shinewald, has provided us with the first of two parts of an MBA Article that discusses how to plan for the road ahead when you apply to b-school. Jeremy expounds upon the importance of being proactive in a meaningful way. He recommends:

• Visiting campuses now
• Meeting with alumni or current students
• Taking a leadership role in the community
• Advancing personal achievements
• Enrolling in additional courses

Of course, the article does read much better than the “Top 5” list I wrote above, so check out the article and get started planning your MBA!

Be sure to check back next week for the second part of the article.