Our good friend, Jeremy Shinewald, over at mbaMission is writing a two-part article for our weekly newsletter, GMATTERS about how the current crop of prospective business school candidates face distinctly unique challenges other rounds of applicants have not had to face. Jeremy touches upon a lot of great points in the first part of his article, so we thought it would be a good idea to share it. Enjoy!

Long-Term Planning: The Big Picture

By: Jeremy Shinewald of mbaMission

With the final round of MBA applications for almost all of the top schools upon us, we can take a brief moment to reflect on the main story of the year thus far: application volumes are up significantly as a result of economic turmoil. So, with the promise of increased competition for a finite number of spaces going forward, it is best that prospective MBA applicants who are targeting admission for next year (or even beyond) start working to improve their chances now. Further, regardless of this macro-trend, by being proactive, candidates can remove a great deal of stress from the process and ensure that in July, when the 2008 applications appear, they can simply focus on mastering the applications. We at mbaMission have several big picture recommendations for candidates to consider so that they can be as competitive as possible.

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It’s conventional wisdom that, in a weak economy, more people will apply to business school to wait out the bad times in a productive manner.

Well, it appears that conventional wisdom is correct, as we’re seeing a bit of a rush to apply, including people trying to make 3rd round deadlines for Fall, 2008, just as the economy hits a rough patch.

Anecdotally, business schools have caught on that there may be a late rush of qualified applicants – they seem to be employing their Waitlists more than in past years, presumably to keep their options open in terms of filling their final slots.

What does all this mean? Well, it likely means that 3rd round applicants for this Fall are going to face even steeper odds than in past years. Most admissions officers will tell you that you’re better off applying for the 1st round rather than the 3rd round in any given year. So if you’re on the fence, you may want to consider trying to sharpen your application for next Fall rather than rush to get it in now.

The following article was provided to us by our friends at Accepted.com. Accepted is hosting a number of telethons in mid-2008 that allow MBA applicants to call in for a free 15-minute consultation. Click here for more details.

Recipe for Acceptance

Take a few buzzwords like synergy, global village, sustainability, social responsibility, leverage, empower, diversity. Season with acronyms B2B, B2C, ETF, M&A,CDO, TLA, and PE. Stir in generous platitudes about forces that molded you into the person you are today and the top-notch faculty, diverse student body, and outstanding alumni network at the schools to which you are applying. Cook on your smart phone while seeking feedback from a bevy of your fifty closest colleagues, friends, and relatives. And voila! You have an MBA application essay.

No, you may have a recipe for rejection.

All too often MBA applicants grope for a recipe for success, a one-size-fits-all approach to writing the essays. Push the right buttons, stir in the tried-and-true ingredients, and you’ll have it made. Right? Wrong!

That recipe doesn’t exist. You aren’t making pancakes here; you’re trying to portray yourself as a multi-faceted, one-of-a kind gem. How do you do that? Use the Ten Tools for Terrific MBA Essays below to focus on your uniqueness, accomplishments, and strengths as you refine your essays.

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The best resource around for MBA-related podcasts is the aptly named MBAPodcaster, which includes Admissions tips and discussions with admissions officers from various institutions.  Their library is deep enough for you to constructively fill many a morning commute or jog on the treadmill.  Something else to do when you’re not prepping for the GMAT!  🙂

A couple weeks ago, we promised an audio recording of our Admissions Consultant Panel. Today, we’re releasing it to the public! To download the audio, simply right click on the link and select “Save Link As…”. After clicking “OK” on the next prompt, your download will begin. The panel discussion has been split up into various subsections for your convenience.

Table of Contents

Last night saw the Business School Admissions panel here in New York, with Admissions officers from Harvard, Kellogg, NYU Stern, and Wharton in attendance. Each school aired a presentation highlighting the specific features of its MBA program, and then answered questions for over 140 prospective students in a lively Q & A session.

We will be posting some of the insights generated via the panel in this space in the coming days. One early tidbit – Harvard is reducing the total number of essays it requires, and also increasing flexibility to give applicants more choices for essay topics (2 required + 3 chosen from a number of different topics).

Andrea Mitchell Kimmel, Associate Director MBA Admissions at Harvard Business School answers a question, as Ellen Kim of Kellogg and Alison Goggin of NYU Stern look on.

The event was tremendous, and we’d like to thank our panelists for sharing their time. Again, we will be posting additional points raised and addressed by the panelists in the days to come.

Also, while we’re thanking people, here’s a picture of the organizer of the panel, Jessica Eliav (on the right), Director of Corporate Accounts for ManhattanGMAT, with Katie Buongiorno from the Marketing Department. Kudos to a great event! 🙂

Due to an immense level of interest, we are going to be capping attendance at our Business School panel on June 21st here in New York (Admissions officers from Harvard, NYU, Kellogg, and the recently added Wharton are scheduled to attend). If you missed out this time, we will be having another similar panel here in New York later in the year. If you’re already coming, see you on the 21st!

The next Business School Admissions Panel discussion will take place on Thursday, June 21st, from 7 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at ManhattanGMAT’s Chelsea Center (138 West 25th St.).

Admissions Officers from Harvard, Kellogg (Northwestern), and NYU Stern will be in attendance to discuss the business school admissions process. They will also be advising applicants on what one should and shouldn’t be doing to prepare.

I will post again with the link to sign-up for this FREE panel discussion in the coming week or so. Watch out for it, as this event will be first-come first-serve until it reaches capacity.

We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Jeremy Shinewald, founder of MBA Mission, to get his thoughts on the admissions season that just passed, and to provide a look ahead.

MANHATTAN GMAT: We are in the final stages of one admissions season and the earliest stages of the next. Let’s start with a look back “ can you share some observations on the 2006-2007 admissions cycle?

JEREMY: Well, the MBA was all but written off by BusinessWeek a few years ago. Now, due to the strength of the economy in general and Wall Street in particular, 2006-2007 definitely proves that the MBA is back. Candidates are confident that they will see a significant return on their respective investments and are once again clamoring for places in top-MBA programs.

As you guys know, there has been a sharp rise in GMAT test-takers (approximately 24% year over year) this year and top-schools are reporting significant increases in application volume. A few weeks ago, Soojin Kwon Koh, Director of Admissions at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, wrote in the school paper that applications were up 31% and that 2006-2007 might be Ross’s most competitive year ever. She then noted that a portion of this increase could be attributed to individual candidates applying to a greater number of schools, not just to there being more applicants in general. I have heard similar comments from other admissions officers as well and am pretty certain that, as the perception of greater competition spreads, this trend will as well.

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The Boston Business School Admissions Panel took place last week, with 4 top 10 programs in attendance – Harvard, MIT Sloan, Columbia, and Northwestern.

One of the interesting trends was that MIT Sloan joined Harvard in favoring applicants from undergraduates. MIT, like Harvard, will waive your application fee is you are still an undergraduate, and will consider deferment. See MIT Sloan’s website for more details. (Click here for the past blog posting on Harvard’s similar policy).

It should be noted that this is still somewhat unusual among top schools. The admissions officer from Northwestern/Kellogg commented that they did NOT consider undergraduate applicants, as they require some work experience after college for successful applicants.

Another interesting fact from MIT Sloan – the admissions office emphasizes the recent experience of its applicants more heavily (i.e. what you’ve been doing the past 2 years) than what applicants did earlier in time in making its decisions.

More info to come from the business school panel later in the week.