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 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

Stacey Koprince

Business Insider recently reached out to our very own Stacey Koprince for expert guidance on navigating the increasingly relevant “GMAT or GRE?” conundrum.

Stacey told Business Insider that there are only two circumstances in which a prospective b-school student would spurn the GMAT for the GRE:  Read more

Recently, we took a look at a story problem dealing with ratios, and I finished up by giving you a second problem to test your skills. How did you do?

If you haven’t already, try the GMATPrep® problem below and then we’ll talk about it. Give yourself about 2 minutes. Go! 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.

More women are headed to business school these days, according to a piece over at Forbes.

The numbers certainly are striking. In the last decade, women have enrolled at business schools across the country in ever-greater numbers. Between 1997 and 2007, the percentage of MBAs awarded to women jumped from 39 percent to 44 percent”a 12.8 percent increase over a single decade.  Top schools are showing big leaps, too: HBS went from 28 percent women in 1995 to 38 percent in 2010, while Wharton’s female population climbed from 32 percent in 2007 to 40 percent in the class of 2011.

So what’s driving the increase? The article suggests it’s the combination of a weak economy, recruiting initiatives targeted to women, and, most of all, the flexibility offered by an MBA. Female grads can take their degrees into the nonprofit world or even start their own businesses, says Deirdre Leopold,  Harvard’s managing director of MBA admissions. That allows more wiggle room, especially for students juggling family responsibilities.

The increasing gender balance sure seems like good news to us!