Manhattan Prep is teaming up with mbaMission to cover every base in helping you prepare for the 2016–2017 MBA admissions season. Join us for a free, five-part webinar series, Your Dream MBA: 5 Steps to Getting In. Get expert advice from our test prep masters on how to approach your prep in order to maximize your score, learn all the nuances of MBA applications and admissions from mbaMission’s Senior Consultants, and participate in a Q&A session with admissions officers from Columbia, Yale, and other top B-Schools. Read more

What have you been told about applying to business school? With the advent of chat rooms, blogs and forums, armchair “experts” often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and undermine an applicant’s confidence. Some applicants are led to believe that schools want a specific “type” of candidate and expect certain GMAT scores and GPAs, for example. Others are led to believe that they need to know alumni from their target schools and/or get a letter of reference from the CEO of their firm in order to get in. In this weekly series, mbaMission debunks these and other myths and strives to take the anxiety out of the admissions process.

“I had an internship from June to August of 2014. Will the MBA admissions committee count it as work experience?”

“I was running a lab during my Master’s program—is that part of my total number of months of work experience?”

“I ran a small business that ultimately failed—will I get credit for my time as an entrepreneur?” Read more

What have you been told about applying to business school? With the advent of chat rooms, blogs and forums, armchair “experts” often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and undermine an applicant’s confidence. Some applicants are led to believe that schools want a specific “type” of candidate and expect certain GMAT scores and GPAs, for example. Others are led to believe that they need to know alumni from their target schools and/or get a letter of reference from the CEO of their firm in order to get in. In this weekly series, mbaMission debunks these and other myths and strives to take the anxiety out of the admissions process.

Many MBA candidates believe that admissions committees have narrowed down their criteria for selecting applicants over the years and that each school has one distinct “type” that it seeks. So, in this world of stereotypes, Harvard Business School (HBS) is looking only for leaders, Kellogg is looking only for marketing students, Chicago Booth is looking only for finance students, and in some extreme cases, people actually believe that MIT is looking only for “eggheads.” Of course, these stereotypes—like most stereotypes—are not accurate. Chicago Booth wants far more than one-dimensional finance students in its classes, and it provides far more than just finance to its MBA students (including, to the surprise of many, an excellent marketing program). HBS is not a school just for “generals”; among the approximately 950 students in each of its classes, HBS has a wide variety of personalities, including some excellent foot soldiers. So, at mbaMission, we constantly strive to educate MBA candidates about these misconceptions in hopes that they will eschew these stereotypes, which can sink applications if applicants pander to them. Read more

Here’s a scenario that might seem familiar to many of you: you take your first GMAT practice test, then you see the score. Ouch! Probably lower than you were hoping for, right? Read more

What have you been told about applying to business school?

With the advent of chat rooms, blogs, and forums, armchair “experts” often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and undermine an applicant’s confidence. Some applicants are led to believe that schools want a specific “type” of candidate and expect certain GMAT scores and GPAs, for example. Others are led to believe that they need to know alumni from their target schools and/or get a letter of reference from the CEO of their firm in order to get in. In this weekly series, mbaMission debunks these and other myths and strives to take the anxiety out of the MBA admissions process.

We at mbaMission know of a now 70-year-old man who graduated from a virtually unknown Canadian undergraduate school in 1963 and who, with no work experience at all, applied to Harvard Business School (HBS), Wharton, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), earning acceptance at all three (though the GSB deferred his entry for one year so he could earn a little more experience first). He ultimately studied at HBS and now runs a small grain-trading business. You could not meet a nicer man, and although he is certainly wise in many respects, one thing he knows nothing about is MBA admissions. “I attended so long ago, things must have changed since then,” he says. “I did not have any work experience at all. I had studied four years of commerce, and that was it!” Read more

Are You Prepared for B-School Admissions?

Join Manhattan GMAT and two other leaders in the MBA admissions space— mbaMission and MBA Career Coaches

—for an invaluable series of free workshops to help you put together a successful MBA application, from your GMAT score to application essays to admissions interviews to post-acceptance internships. We hope you will join us for as many events in this series as you can. Please sign up for each sessions separately via the links below—space is limited.

Session 1: Assessing Your MBA Profile and GMAT vs. GRE  

Tuesday, March 24, 2015 (7:30- 9:00 PM EDT) SIGN UP HERE

Session 2: Selecting Your Target MBA Program and How

to Study for the GMAT in Two Weeks

Tuesday, March 31, 2015 (7:30- 9:00 PM EDT) SIGN UP HERE

Session 3: Writing Standout B-School Admissions Essays

and Advanced GMAT: 700+ Level Sentence Correction

Tuesday, April 7, 2015 (7:30- 9:00 PM EDT) SIGN UP HERE

Session 4: Five Pre-MBA Steps to Landing Your Dream Internship and

Advanced GMAT: 700+ Level Quant Strategy

Tuesday, April 14, 2015 (7:30- 9:00 PM EDT) SIGN UP HERE

Session 5: Questions and Answers with MBA Admissions Officers

Tuesday, April 21, 2015 (7:30- 9:00 PM EDT) SIGN UP HERE

We’ve invited our friends at mbaMission to share their 2016 MBA Class Profile Infographic! Check out their findings below and visit mbamission.com to sign up for a free consultation.

Choosing the right MBA program for your needs can be challenging. How do you identify the best one for your specific personal, educational, and professional goals? Read more

Are You Prepared for B-School Admissions?

Join Manhattan GMAT and three other leaders in the MBA admissions space—mbaMission, Poets & Quants, and MBA Career Coaches—for an invaluable series of free workshops to help you put together a successful MBA application—from your GMAT score to application essays to admissions interviews to post-acceptance internships.

We hope you’ll join us for as many events in this series as you can. Please sign up for each sessions separately via the links below—space is limited.

Session 1: Assessing Your MBA Profile,
GMAT 101: Sections, Question Types & Study Strategies
Monday, September 8 (8:00 – 10:00 PM EDT)
Click here to watch the recording

Session 2: Mastering the MBA Admissions Interview,
Conquering Two 800-Level GMAT Problems
Wednesday, September 10 (8:00 – 10:00 PM EDT)
Click here to watch the recording

Session 3: 9 Rules for Creating Standout B-School Essays,
Hitting 730: How to Get a Harvard-Level GMAT Score
Monday, September 15 (8:00 – 10:00 PM EDT)
Click here to watch the recording

Session 4: 7 Pre-MBA Steps to Your Dream Internship,
Survival Guide: 14 Days to Study for the GMAT
Wednesday, September 17 (8:00 – 10:00 PM EDT)
Sign up here.

We’ve invited mbaMission to share their Business School Essays Analyses as they’re released for the 2014-2015 application season. Here is their analysis for Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan).

The MIT Sloan School of Management bucks conventionality this admissions season and has added to the word count for its application essays—moving from a maximum of 1,000 words to 1,250. The school’s first essay question remains the same as last year’s, but its second essay prompt presents an interesting challenge in that the admissions committee asks you to do exactly what it does not want you to do in reality: write your own recommendation letter. At least in this case, the school is allowing you to do so in the light of day. Thankfully, perhaps, Sloan has dropped its befuddling optional essay, which had invited applicants to share any additional information in any format. Candidates will be content to see clearer directives in the program’s essay questions. As always, our analysis follows…

Essay 1:  The mission of the MIT Sloan School of Management is to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world and to generate ideas that advance management practice. Discuss how you will contribute toward advancing the mission based on examples from your past work and activities. (500 words or fewer)
Read more

We’ve invited mbaMission to share their Business School Essays Analyses as they’re released for the 2014-2015 application season. Here is their analysis for University of Michigan (Ross). 

The Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan has refashioned its essay questions, going “smaller” with its requirements, as have several other schools this application season. Ross’s broadly worded essay prompts give you ample breadth—if not an overabundance of words—in which to tell your story. As always, think carefully about what you want to say and the impression you want to make before you start writing, because more opportunity lurks here than you might realize at first.

Essay 1: What are you most proud of professionally and why? What did you learn from that experience? (400 words)
Read more