2018 Trends: How Much Can You Get Out of a Boston MBA?
Boston, the largest city in New England, is often considered the academic, economic, and cultural center of the Northeastern United States. Beantown is also considered one of top college towns in the country thanks to its numerous esteem colleges and universities. Lots of that talent sticks too: Forbes ranks the city as one of the best places for business and careers. Continue reading…
How To Save Valuable GMAT Time
MetroMBA’s sister site Clear Admit recently offered up some essential tips about how to get an MBA, specifically when it comes to saving valuable GMAT time, which you can read below.
When working through GMAT Quantitative problems, at times some students will comment, “well, I solved this problem this way, so that’s fine right???”
Totally. As we’ve covered in quite a few posts, there are always several different ways to get to the correct answer for a problem solving or data sufficiency question. However, there are ways that are more efficient than others, and it’s all about what you do “inside” your work on the problem that makes a difference.
Reality: the GMAT is a timed test. With oodles of time, it’s likely that a lot of us could get to the right answer. But the GMAT expects that you complete quantitative questions without a couple minutes, on average. This means that each question CAN be done within that time frame, but it’s more likely that a savvy, high-scoring test taker will average out to two minutes a problem.
There are quite a few problems, particularly in the 500 range, that can be completed in just a spare few seconds if you understand the core concept being tested. There are others that require a few calculations, but once you see the pattern or where a problem is moving, the right answer becomes apparent. And, lastly, there are questions in this space that are best accomplished working backwards from the answer choices, because those answers choices show us where to get started.
Completing these questions as quickly as possible is essential to “saving up seconds” for higher order thinking questions.
But, once we get to the more complex questions, where we save time is all on a) recognizing when we’ve taken the wrong path and need to circle back and/or b) having efficient scratch work.
Many students are so used to “showing the work” that they waste time in scratch work writing out steps they already understand or manually doing calculations in their heads, on their fingers, or simply, more efficiently. Saving seconds allows us to apply time where it is needed (setting up the problem, double-checking the right answer) supporting a high score.
Over the next few posts we’ll highlight questions that fall into this category. In the meantime, as you approach your quantitative practice, think – where can I shave seconds?
Stay tuned to MetroMBA and Clear Admit for more valuable advice about admissions, GMAT tips, and more.
Northwestern Students Embrace Human-Machine Intelligence In Studies
Attention prospective MBAs: Adam Pah, clinical assistant professor of management at the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management in Chicago, has some news for you that sounds straight out of a sci-fi movie. Pah believes that “artificial intelligence and machine learning are eating software” and business students need to understand how and why. Continue reading…
How to Master the Letters of Support on Your MBA Application
While business schools require candidates to submit anywhere from 1-3 recommendations as part of the regular admissions process, we’re devoting this admissions tip to a lesser known relative of the formal recommendation: the letter of support. The letter of support is very different from a typical letter of recommendation, in ways that we will detail below. In fact, we’ll use this admissions tip to share the following information:
• What is a letter of support?
• Who can author and submit such letters?
• When should a letter of support be submitted?
• What should a letter of support cover in terms of content?
• Should I seek out a letter of support at my target schools?
• How many letters of support should I seek out?
So without further ado, let’s dive into this lesser known element of the MBA admissions process.
What is a letter of support?
A letter of support is a short document (1-2 pages in length) that is submitted on behalf of an applicant by a third party – often without any involvement from the candidate. The letter is addressed to the director of admissions and seeks to make a case for the applicant’s candidacy at a given school. In many respects, a letter of support is really just an informal letter of recommendation.
Who can author and submit a letter of support?
Letters of support typically come from any one of three sources:
- Students at the school to which you applied
- Alumni of the school to which you applied
- Faculty of the school to which you applied
These are the stakeholders of the institution, and as such, have a voice in the campus community that the admissions team is open to engaging. The logic is that stakeholders in the school community should naturally seek to positively influence the outcome of admissions decisions (e.g. they should want the best and brightest to join the community of which they are a part) and that they will speak up (via a letter of support) if an exceptional candidate they know has applied.
When should a letter of support be submitted?
Most letters of support are submitted after the candidate in question has applied – usually within 2-5 weeks of the application submission date. The reason these letters should not be submitted prior to the candidate’s application is because it creates an extra hurdle for the admissions team – they can’t ‘match’ the letter to a file in their system until they actually have the application. It also makes sense, from a timing perspective, for the letter to come in after the application so that it can provide a bit of color commentary – or even a last word – on the candidate.
What should a letter of support cover in terms of content?
The key narrative should be about your fit with the school. The author of the letter does not need to follow the questions the school asks of the required recommenders. Schools are always interested to learn about how a candidate would integrate into the learning community of the program – and a supplemental recommender should be able to address this, through the lens of her own experiences with the school and with you. The more heartfelt and detailed the recommendation, the more useful it will be to the admissions team. A few sentences won’t make much of an impact, but a page or two that brings the applicant’s background and personality to life will signal that the writer really cares about your candidacy.
Should I seek out a letter of support at my target schools?
This is a question that many candidates ponder. The answer is that it depends on whether or not you know of someone who qualifies to submit such a letter (e.g. a student, alum or professor at the school) AND who knows you well enough to write a supportive and illuminating letter. Of course, you will also want to take into account a given school’s policy on such letters (more on this below).
Beyond whether you should seek out a letter of support, it is also worth considering what you might do if someone offers to write a letter on your behalf. Some schools actively encourage their stakeholders to offer informal recommendations (letters of support) for candidates they know. These schools may even have a process in place to solicit such input. Engaging with alumni, students and faculty in this way can also become an effective marketing tool for the school, allowing the members of their community to actively reach out and shape the next generation of MBA candidates.
Of course, some schools actively discourage any additional materials, post application. So if you are going down this path, then you should take into account the individual school’s policy for additional materials post-application submission. Of course, even in cases where a school tells applicants not to submit anything once their application is ‘in process’ it can still be fair game to a) have a supplemental recommender provide a recommendation prior to submitting your application, or b) if a member of the school community submits a letter unbeknownst to you. Of course, in the case that such a letter comes in prior to your application, you may find that it is harder to ‘match’ that letter to your file (as we indicated earlier).
How many letters of support should I seek out (if any)?
In most, if not all, cases, a single letter of support (per school) is sufficient. The risk of soliciting multiple letters is that it might suggest a ‘letter writing campaign’ (with the applicant overtly attempting to pull strings) and may not be welcomed by the admissions committee.
A Final Thought
For those who are unable to gain a letter of support from a stakeholder of the school, don’t panic. While this type of letter can help a school learn more about fit, the majority of candidates will not have this type of informal recommendation – and schools work hard at being fair to candidates with varying degrees of access to their school during the admissions process. As always, there are many other aspects of a candidacy that the school considers before making an admissions decision.
This article has been edited and republished from our sister site, Clear Admit.
Comparing The U.S. News Full-Time and Online MBA Rankings
When it comes to business school rankings, U.S. News & World Report issues one of the most comprehensive annual lists. The annual rankings includes separate lists for the “Best Business Schools” and the “Best Online MBA Programs,” but deciding which format is right for you can still be tricky. Continue reading…
London Business School Prof Warns of the Future for Tech Giants
Last year, tech giants such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook already started facing new regulations and pushback from government officials. For example, last November, the State of Missouri launched an investigation into Google to see if it had violated antitrust and consumer protection laws. Julian Birkinshaw, a professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at London Business School, thinks that’s only the beginning.
“The tech giants are huge beasts, and there is a growing sense of unease about their power,” Birkinshaw said in a news article on the school website. He went on to talk about various fines already levied against big tech firms such as Google, which was ordered to pay €2.4 billion last June for abusing its internet search monopoly to promote its online shopping service. Facebook, meanwhile, got slapped with a €110-million fine by the European Union for providing misleading information about its takeover of WhatsApp.
According to Birkinshaw, these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. “Over the coming year we can expect to see more of this aggressively activist approach in tackling companies with dominant positions,” he wrote.
What’s driving this more aggressive regulation? Birkinshaw believes it has to do with the old supplier-manufacturer-distributor-consumer model, which doesn’t fit these new tech giants. Antitrust legislation wasn’t designed to cope with tech companies whose profitability increases rapidly alongside its growth.
For example, Facebook has more than two billion active users, Google handles 42 percent of all U.S. digital advertising, and Amazon has all but eliminated would-be competitors. Birkinshaw sees no signs of these companies slowing down.
“The more people who join Facebook or use Google, the more data the company can mine. The economies of scale become ever greater,” Birkinshaw wrote. “So we need to rethink the way we monitor the power of the huge companies now dominating the business landscape.”
