Watch now | View all podcasts

Read more

We are having a fantastic response to tomorrow's telethon. Frankly, it's a tad overwhelming.

If you want to obtain a free mini-consultation or profile evaluation, please sign up ASAP. During the telethon, Accepted.com admissions consultants will be available to take your call, review your resume, and answer your questions. Free. However, we have only twenty spots left.

Here is feedback from participants in previous telethons:

"Everything was great. Inge Miller was very kind and helpful. I dont know how you can make it better..."

"The telethon was very useful, Cindy helped me look at a couple of aspects from a different angle which will help me throughout my application process..."

"During these 15 mins i got much info. regarding the apps."

"Yes, Mr. Bodine was very knowledgeable and helpful."

"The telethon was extremely useful. I found out more information in 15 minutes than I did reading through all of the 'how to' books out there. No complaints. For a free service, it exceeded my expectations."

Please sign up for one of the remaining spots in tomorrow's MBA admissions telethon. This is the last telethon before the Round 1 deadlines.

I recently came across a blog, MBA on the Horizon, by a "California girl on her way to b-school" with the intriguing nickname of ardentmeerkat (meerkats are fascinating little guys!) What struck me most is how she is doing everything right, yet in a recent blog post she wonders if she is doing everything all wrong (sort of.)

Ardentmeerkat, give yourself credit! Granted, starting the long and winding road to b-school is an arduous process. It takes time, clarity, organization, self-awareness, curiosity, confidence and sharp analytical skills. And then some. But you have to start somewhere, and ardentmeerkat, you have all of your ducks in a row. Impressively so. Don't let those inevitable moments of self-doubt get you down.

So what can you learn from what ardentmeerkat has done so far? In a nutshell:

• Clear communication. She lays it all out in a way that is thoughtful, simple and clear. Even her moments of self-doubt are expressed in an easy-to-understand, almost linear way. No tortured or ponderous thought process here.
• Start the process as early as possible. The October deadlines may seem far away but they are right around the corner. Trust me.
• Get the GMAT over with as early as possible. For better or worse, a good GMAT score has become indispensable. Many, many people have to take the test more than once. You want to have time for this possibility. Moreover, you don't want the stress of a GMAT test hanging over your head while you are working on your applications and holding down a full-time job.
• Thoroughly research your dream schools. Scour the Internet, school websites, books, your network.
• Go beyond the brand. Analyze what each school offers. Assess your fit with the school. This is crucial.
• Visit said schools. Sit in on classes, talk to students, network, get to experience the vibe and philosophy of the school firsthand. - Start thinking about your recommendation letters. Like all of us, your bosses/higher-ups are overworked. Writing a letter of recommendation takes time and concentration. It is not something to be taken lightly, neither by the applicant nor by the recommender. A good letter can be extremely valuable. And a bad one can be a drag on your application.
• Gather the essay questions from your target schools. Analyze them. Organize them in a spreadsheet. Ardentmeerkat's excellent approach of answering each question by school, rather than by type of question, is far more likely to make the argument for a good fit.
• Reflect upon your career so far, as well as your strengths and weaknesses. Think about your long-term goals and why you are likely to meet them. Which messages do you want to send the schools? Which accomplishments or situations best illustrate those messages? Which ones best answer each essay question?
• Last but not least, take a break. Rest up. Enjoy your friends and family. Have some fun. Recharge those batteries because the road ahead is an intense one, particularly in this competitive year. You want to tackle it with a clear head.

Special message to ardentmeerkat. Setting pen to paper (or finger to key) is possibly the most daunting part of the process but many years ago, a former client shared with me a little tip he had learned at Kellogg called STAR. I pass this on to all of my clients and it works wonders, especially for the experiential questions such as "Tell me a time when..." "Describe to me a project in which..." And so on. S = Situation. State the situation and put it in context. What was your job/position, where were you (company/school/organization), what was the timeframe (was this your first year at this job? Were you on a fast track? Were you the President of the organization?), etc. T = Task. What task or responsibility were you given? What were the stakes? Why were you asked to take on the task? What were the circumstances surrounding the task? A = Action. What action(s) did you take? R = Results. What were the results (including on you, on the company, on your teammates, etc.)? What did you learn?
I have also seen this framed as SOAR, with O standing for Objective, rather than Task.

"Ardentmeerkat, you go girl!"

Looking for more MBA advice or guidance? My colleagues and I are happy to help.

By Tanis Kmetyk, with well over a decade of experience helping prospective clients all around the world identify and get into the right schools for them.

On Friday I promised a whole new Accepted.com,and it's up! Please check it out. We know there a few items to clean up, but please let us know what you like and dislike. You can let us know in comments below or just by contacting us.

We have also implemented a change that many of you requested in a last spring's survey. We asked if you would like excerpts from blog posts on the home page as opposed to full blog posts. A plurality preferred excerpts, and they now display on Accepted's home page. (RSS feeds, Facebook, etc. still provide full posts.) How do you like it?

A few other happenings at Accepted.com:

• We received great feedback from the almost 300 people who attended the recent Roadmap to Bold & Brilliant MBA Essays webinar. For example, @CammiJC on Twitter wrote "Just finished listening in to a fantastic essay MBA webinar. Thanks to Linda @accepted for the wonderful tips!!" If you missed the live event or simply want to review the information a second time, the recording is now online. Feel free to tell your friends about it too.
• The last MBA Admissions Telethon before Round 1 deadlines is this Wednesday, July 22, 2009. Obtain your free profile evaluation or mini-consultation. Sign up today for the MBA Admissions Telethon.
• Early-Bird MBA Special ends July 31, 2009. Save 15% on all MBA Essay Editing and Program-Specific Services.
• Residency & Fellowship Special ends Judy 31, 2009. Save 15% on all medical residency and fellowship essay services.

Are you studying for the MCATs now with a test date later this month or in August? Most applicants in this position should wait and apply next year for 2011. There are several factors that must be considered when making this decision.

(1) If you have never taken the MCATs it is wise to wait to apply since you are really investing a lot of time and money applying through AMCAS without knowing the result of a very large part of your application. Having a solid MCAT score and applying early for 2011 is the right choice.

(2) If you have a solid MCAT score, in the 28-30 range, and you are retaking the MCATs to improve your score then you could apply this year for 2010. Ideally you will get your application in as early as possible and your application will start being reviewed with your past MCAT score. Before you apply, be honest with yourself, think about your application and ask yourself if the rest of your application is competitive. If so, then applying is a good idea. If not, wait and spend the next year improving your credentials.

(3) If you have taken the MCATs before but scored badly, mid 20’s or less, then you should definitely wait until you have received a solid, competitive, MCAT score before applying. You do not want to apply with two low scores on your application, it doesn’t show good judgment.

(4) Lastly, if you are taking the MCATs later in the summer and are waiting to submit your application to AMCAS until after you take the MCATs then the best choice is to wait to apply. You have already put yourself at a severe disadvantage - applying mid-late August is just too late even if you score a 35 on your MCATs.

In most cases, unless you are in group (2), the answer to “Should I Apply if I’m Taking the MCATs in Late Summer” is NO.

By guest blogger Theresa Davies-Heerema, Ph.D., who has advised many medical and dental school applicants during her career in post-graduate education.

The MBA Math Monday series helps prospective MBA students to self assess their proficiency with the quantitative building blocks of the MBA first year curriculum.

Linear regression helps to identify the best line characterizing two sets of data.  Regression generally is used where one factor managers control, such as advertising, is believed to influence another factor of interest, such as sales.  The notion of causality can be wrong, however, so like much of statistics it is important to understand the tool and use it wisely.  Linear regression also quantifies the degree of linearity in a relationship, which you can see in a scatterplot by the extent to which the data create a line versus a scattered set of dots. 

Various nonlinear regression options are available at the click of a button in Excel, all with risks of incorrect assumptions and unwise overprecision. 

One need only look at the monumental financial consequences of failure to anticipate the end of rising house prices to understand that extrapolating the past blindly into the future can be disastrous.  Understanding linear regression is an important step in absorbing the value and limits of statistics.

Exercise:

Consider the following sample data for the relationship between advertising budget and sales for Product A:

What is the slope of the "least-squares" best-fit regression line?

Solution (with audio commentary): click here

Prof. Peter Regan created the self-paced, online MBA Math quantitative skills course and teaches live MBA courses at Dartmouth (Tuck), Duke (Fuqua), and Cornell (Johnson).