The Wall Street Journal has the number of applicants who have had their score canceled at 84, with 12 having supplied testing items and 72 having confirmed seeing live items when they took the GMAT. The 84 includes 2 University of Chicago students, and one graduate from Stanford. The article seems to suggest at least one Wharton student has been identified too, as Wharton didn’t say “None of our students were involved,” which was the preferred response of most other schools.

Update – the Wall Street Journal updates that three current and past Wharton students have had their scores canceled.

It will be interesting to see what becomes of the more visible of the 84 in the coming weeks. Be glad it’s not you, and study hard (legitimately)!

We are pleased to announce that Clear Admit will be offering two free MBA application seminars for applicants in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. The first seminar will take place in Santa Clara on Monday, September 15th and the second will be in downtown San Francisco on Thursday, September 18th. Both events will take place from 6:30 – 8:30 PM. Registration is mandatory and space is limited. Sign-up details are below.

What You’ll Learn at the Clear Admit MBA Application Seminars
As the deadlines for leading schools approach, now is the perfect time to attend a seminar that will review the application process, explain MBA admissions from an insider perspective and help you to think through your overall positioning strategy as well as your approach to the essays. Learn what admissions officers look for, how to avoid ˜red flags’ in your application, how to address weaknesses and more. Both seminars will be led by Clear Admit’s Stacey Oyler.

About Stacey Oyler
With a mix of MBA admissions and recruiting experience, Stacey Oyler is ideally prepared to guide business school applicants toward the right schools given their background and goals – and to help them get in. Serving as assistant director of admissions at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth from 2003 to 2005, Stacey read applications, conducted interviews and participated directly in admissions decisions. She also oversaw the waitlist process and provided feedback and coaching to candidates who were not granted admission. Beyond her perspective on what a top MBA program looks for in its students, Stacey’s view extends into what post-b-school employers want. Upon leaving Tuck, she joined McKinsey & Company, leading all West Coast recruiting efforts for advanced degree and MBA candidates.

Prizes!
Seminar attendees are also eligible to receive several prizes, including:
¢ A set of five Clear Admit School Guides (a $175 value)
¢ A set of five Clear Admit Interview Guides (a $100 value)

How to Sign Up
Clear Admit has teamed up with ManhattanGMAT to offer these seminars. The events will take place at the Manhattan GMAT centers in Santa Clara and downtown San Francisco. To sign up for the Santa Clara seminar, click here. To sign up for the San Francisco seminar, click here. (Note: These links will take you to the manhattanprep.com/gmat/ website. If it is your first visit to the site, you will be asked to complete a short student profile.) For questions about the event, contact ManhattanGMAT at 800-576-4628 or email studentservices@manhattanprep.com/gmat/.

Monday, September 15th, 6:30 – 8:30 PM.
Santa Clara Manhattan GMAT Center: 2905 Stender Way, Suite 66, Santa Clara, CA 95054
Register Now!

Thursday, September 18th, 6:30 – 8:30 PM
San Francisco Manhattan GMAT Center: 870 Market Street, 6th floor San Francisco, CA 94102
Register Now!

We look forward to seeing you at these events!

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!

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.

With all of the terrible headlines out there, conventional wisdom would hold that many more people (e.g. displaced individuals from the financial sector) would be applying to business schools this year.

A quick check of GMAT testing volume data for 2008 shows an 11.19% increase over the same period in 2007 – up to 101,039. So that would seem to agree with the overall picture.

However, the majority of that increase is actually accounted for by non-U.S. test-takers, as the growth rate among this group was 19.34% over the period. U.S. test-takers grew a more modest 7.01% in the first 5 months of the year, pretty consistent with the 6% year-over-year growth in the U.S. between 2006 and 2007.

So what’s the takeaway? Though it certainly seems competitive out there, the numbers don’t show a tidal wave of new U.S. B-school applicants in 2008, at least not yet.

If you’re curious, this data is taken straight from the GMAC website.

Note: Jeremy is now fully booked for July 12th and 13th. However, you can set up a phone consultation with him by visiting www.mbamission.com.

We are proud to welcome to New York’s ManhattanGMAT Center, for at least one weekend in July, 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 here in New York.

Jeremy has agreed to conduct one-on-one FREE consultations with up to 24 of our students on the weekend of July 12th – 13th, between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Sign-ups are on a first-come-first-serve basis, and we expect that slots will quickly fill up, so if you’re here in New York 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.

We’ll post an update here when the slots fill up. So if you’re reading this and you’re a student here in New York, you may be in luck!

As you gear up to apply for business school in the Fall, MGMAT is proud to provide you with some of the biggest experts in the field in the month of June.

First, in Chicago on Thursday, June 19th, we are very proud to host Graham Richmond, co-founder of Clear Admit. Graham is a Wharton MBA himself and worked in the Admissions Office at Wharton, so people are always excited to hear from him. Graham is going to let our students know what they need to have in mind when applying this Fall, in one of the most competitive seasons in recent history. To sign-up to meet Graham, click here.

The very next week, on Thursday June 26th, we will be hosting Linda Abraham, founder of Accepted.com in our Santa Monica center. Linda is an MBA from UCLA, and is one of the founding figures of Admissions Consulting. Attendees will have the opportunity to sit down with Linda and her staff to get personalized input concerning your individual applicant profile. To sign-up, click here.

If you live in Chicago or LA, we’ll see you soon! We’re also going to be putting together an event in New York in the coming weeks as well, come back to this space later in the summer for more info.

ManhattanGMAT’s very own Chris Ryan is a guest speaker on the newest installment of MBA Podcaster. This podcast is perfect for anyone who is just starting to ask questions about GMAT Prep and wants to know what steps are next. Still, at 33 minutes, the podcast offers many tips even for students who have already begun preparing for the exam.

Right click here to download the full version (33:06 – 30.2MB).

As always, you can view a full listing of ManhattanGMAT’s podcasts, visit our News and Media page.

Presented from our friends at Accepted.com.
Where Should You Apply?You know you want an MBA. And you know you want to go to a top school. That’s why you have invested in Manhattan GMAT’s top GMAT program. But once you earn that excellent score, what’s next? You have to decide where to apply, and there are at least fifteen schools in the top 10! How to choose?

You have a major decision to make: Where do you want to spend two years and roughly $100,000 while earning your MBA, accelerating your career progression, and hooking into a professional network that will last a lifetime. How should you choose? What criteria should guide you?

Since the MBA is a professional degree, first look at career opportunities and recruiting. How is recruiting in your area of interest at your target schools? What percentage of graduates entered the field you want to go into? How strong are the schools’ ties to the region you would like to live in, if you have a geographic preference? Do the companies you would like to work for recruit at these schools? Is the student body happy with the Career Services Center? What do recruiters think of your school? Study the schools’ web sites, review data (not the raw ranking) at US News, BusinessWeek and the Wall St. Journal, attend school receptions and MBA tours, and contact students and recent alumni to obtain answers to these questions.

Read more