This article, written by Eric Caballero, was adapted from our upcoming book, The GMAT Roadmap: Expert Advice Through Test Day. The full book will be available mid-November.

Make no mistake about it. Business Schools love the GMAT. And despite admissions officer statements that the GMAT score is only one piece of your application, it is a huge piece. Since its inception in 1953, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) “ creator of the GMAT “ has studied the desires of Business Schools. In fact, GMAT content is refined by intelligence gathered from frequent surveys of MBA faculty around the world. Additionally, GMAC sets aside profits to fund management education research ” since 2005, GMAC has awarded $1.3MM in grants and fellowships to business school faculty and PhD candidates. The lesson? Take your GMAT seriously. Here’s why: Read more

A few months ago, we shared an article with MBA-Social.com about how to avoid becoming That Guy at business school. It was an excerpt from the recently published book Case Studies & Cocktails: The Now What? Guide to Surviving Business School, and we found it to be a witty overview of how to keep one’s ego in check in b-school. There can be no denying that prospective MBAs are remarkable people: they’ve attended prestigious undergrad programs, earned good grades, launched companies, excelled in business, and stopped just short of saving the world.  For all of this, we applaud them “ we just don’t need to be reminded of it constantly.

Enter Mike Moradian.  Read more

By Shahid Hussain

If you are studying or applying for an MBA in your native land, skip this post, go home and make love to your passport.

I’m a limey by birth, and was lucky to get into Kellogg’s class of 2009. I was excited, but I had no inkling of how the visa process and dreaded words administrative processing would affect me over the coming years.

Home of the brave

We had people from all over the world at Kellogg “ Brazil, France, Japan, Indonesia “ you name it. Why did we all come to the U.S.? Read more

In my first year as an MBA alumna and as a startup entrepreneur, I have realized that the same lessons for startups apply to how you might conduct yourself in business school.

Two years is not a long time “ ask any recent grad “ and making the most of the experience is something every student should think about before they arrive on campus.

I’ll admit I could be stretching this analogy “ but since startups and MBAs are my life, here is some of the best advice I’ve received as an entrepreneur that I think applies to making the most of your MBA. Read more

by Jonathan McEuen, guest blogger

Jonathan McEueun is a Manhattan GMAT grad who is off to Wharton this fall. We asked him to share his application process with us. What follows is Part 4 of 5 posts in a series about his experiences. You can read Part 3 here.

Be A Score With A Story

How do you tell a great story in a few essays or a few minutes of dialogue? How do you make it compelling but not desperate, informative but not pandering? How do you make sure that your reason for applying to an MBA program comes through clearly, with goals that are both realistic and inspired?

It’s a lot for a couple thousand words to accomplish.  But in sitting down to the essay-writing process, that’s the end goal (at least, it is by my opinion). Read more

Whether you are headed off to business school in the fall or just planning for the day when you will be, summer is the perfect time to beef up your knowledge with a little summer reading.  We spoke with Chris Ryan, Manhattan GMAT’s Vice President of Instructor and Product Development, and with Jason Arvanites, MGMAT Instructor and Yale School of Management 2^nd year, to ask them what books they thought should be added to the incoming MBA student’s summer library. (And if you’re looking for more books after reading the list below, be sure to check out last year’s summer reading list.)

Stumbling on Happiness, by Daniel Gilbert

What makes you happy?   Read more

by Jonathan McEuen, guest blogger

Jonathan McEueun is a Manhattan GMAT grad who is off to Wharton this fall. We asked him to share his application process with us. What follows is Part 3 of 5 posts in a series about his experiences. You can read Part 2 here.

Don’t Get Lost Before The First Step

The big question of How should I prepare for this test? quickly becomes a set of much more detailed, specific questions:  Do I enroll in a course? Should I buy books and study on my own?  What if I need to take the test multiple times?  All this tends to become a little overwhelming.

I tried to calm down and bring myself back to the first question.  I knew I needed structure and guidance.  I again turned to friends for recommendations.  It was word of mouth that Read more

by Jonathan McEuen, guest blogger

Jonathan McEueun is a Manhattan GMAT grad who is off to Wharton this fall. We asked him to share his application process with us. What follows is Part 2 of 5 posts in a series about his experiences. You can read Part 1 here.

Deciding to apply was the easy part.

Once you weigh the pros and cons (the bird “ or paycheck “ in the hand, the uncertainty but immense potential of an MBA program that is right for you and that suits your goals), you start to see the hurdles ahead.  Application season is an expensive and stressful marathon no matter what school you apply to.  My road was looking no different.

I was going into what felt at the time like a particularly hard journey, especially considering my work situation, slightly atypical background, the amount of change going on in my life, etc. etc. etc.  But at the end of the day, Read more

The two authors of Case Studies and Cocktails, Chris Ryan and Carrie Shuchart, were recently interviewed on The MBA Show. See what they have to say below about dating, relationships, sex, and b-school jargon:

Last week, in one of the government’s biggest insider trading cases ever, Raj Rajaratnam was found guilty on fourteen counts of securities fraud and conspiracy.  His conviction has stirred up even more conversation on what has been a hotbed topic since the financial crisis in 2008-09: business ethics.  Now, with 36 unrelated insider trading convictions in the past 18 months and several major b-schools attempting to refocus their curriculums, we thought we would share with you some of the articles we have been reading on the matter.

In an article on Poets & Quants, Joel Schectman discusses the hypersensitivity of Wharton graduates following the conviction of Raj Rajaratnam, a member of the Wharton ’83 class, just days before the business school’s May 15^th graduation.  The piece, which is filled with quotes from the students and staff, conveys the Wharton community’s mixed feelings about the trial.  Some of our favorite reactions include: We are all ethical; We can prepare them for the temptations, but we can’t inoculate them completely; and We hope we can do better. Read more