MBA Insider's Blog

Happy Holidays from MBA Admissions & Financial Aid!

To all of UCLA Anderson's prospective and admitted students, as well as alumni, around the world.

Early Release of Select Group of UCLA Anderson MBA Round 1 Admits

A small batch of Round 1 admissions have been released today, ahead of the scheduled release date of 08 January 09. All students admitted today were sent email notification of their decision. A member of the Admissions Committee will make every effort to personally welcome each of the admitted students to our community.

The remainder of Round 1 decisions will be released on 08 January 09, as planned. If you are applying for Round 2, please remember the deadline for submitting your application is also 08 January 09.

Happy Holidays from the MBA Admissions & Financial Aid Team

Holiday Closure

Happy Holidays!

MBA Admissions & Financial Aid will be closed for the holidays beginning at 3pm on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 through January 1st, 2009.  We will return to regular business hours on Friday, January 2, 2009.

Enjoy the holidays and have a safe New Year!

 

Thoughts on MBA Admissions Consultants

It is time to apply to business school. And you are worried about the competition. Your friend, Ricardo, has hired a consultant to help him prepare his b-school applications. He has successfully located someone who appears to know all the 'ins and outs' of applying, and has offered to help him write some 'winning' essays.   

Should you consider hiring your friend's consultant? What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages?  On the plus side, there’s the general knowledge that consultants have of MBA programs. Some have even worked for an admissions office and are familiar with how candidates are evaluated.

On the downside, consultants can so finely tune your essays that your own personal voice is lost. Or, even worse, your essays may read like they were written by multiple authors.  Admissions staff reading your application will gain little, if any, insight into the true you. And they may question the authenticity of your work, calling your integrity and admissibility into question.              

While a consultant may seem like a quicker route to your MBA destination, he or she can be expensive and not without pitfalls. So, if you are do use a consultant, use him or her in an advisory capacity – as a sounding board and someone with whom to discuss your thoughts and ideas. If you are unable to find a suitable coach or choose not to use one, do not be concerned. All the resources you need to present the best application possible are readily available.

Virtual resources to guide you in your MBA preparation include the websites listed along the left-hand navigation bar of this blog; websites of individual business schools; mba.com, managed by the General Management Admissions Council (GMAC), an organization supporting business schools; and applicant and student blogs (don't forget to view our MBA Student Voice Blog, accessible via the right-hand navigation bar on this page).       

You may also learn about b-schools and the application process through campus visits (view our campus visit program),  attending forums such as The MBA Tour or QS World Tour where representatives of hundreds of schools from around the world are interested in meeting and talking with you, as well as receptions and other events sponsored by individual schools and/or groups of schools (view a list of our worldwide events).

As you prepare your application(s) to business school(s), keep this one thing in mind: most MBA programs select the best applicants to their programs rather than the best applications.  Spend less time on 'impression management' and devote more energy to letting us admissions officers get to know the genuine you.

Women's Business Connection Holiday Coffee Chats

During the holiday break members of UCLA Anderson's Women's Business Connection will be hosting relaxed coffee chats in a city near you.  This is a great opportunity to interact with current students and get a first-hand account of the UCLA Anderson experience.  Ask all of your questions about academics, the career search, extracurricular activities, and student culture.  Please check the Admissions events page for more information on dates and locations.   

MBA recruiting in the Middle East

Dubai was the venue for our first joint Information Evening with the UCLA - NUS Global Executive MBA Program and we had interesting candidates there to learn about both MBA programs.  Since Dubai is a global city, attendees hailed from all over the world, and they expressed strong interest in expanding their international knowledge and network through UCLA opportunities.  Prospectives from Arab countries were also happy to learn about fresh MBA sponsorship possibilities from the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum Foundation.  Shiny new developments outside the window provided a fitting backdrop for these discussions about the promise of the future.

      

My last stop was down the road in Abu Dhabi, for another Access MBA event.  This was a hybrid affair, where one-on-one interviews with candidates in the morning were followed by an open MBA fair in the afternoon.  Once again plenty of prospectives took our materials to learn more about the UCLA Anderson MBA as well as regional sponsorship programs.  Then after a wonderful dinner on the seaside corniche with fellow school representatives, I started on my 24-hour-long journey home to Los Angeles.  Now we are reading all the applications that we helped to generate on our global recruiting travels, and it is a pleasure to meet some people again on paper, with more to come in our Rounds 2 and 3 early next year.   

-- Craig Hubbell

 

The MBA Application Essays

Occasionally, I’ve been asked which part of the application I enjoy the most and the least.

It’s simple. What do I enjoy reading the most? Essays.  And what do I tend to dread? Essays.

It seems a bit contradictory, I know. I truly enjoy reading essays that demonstrate creativity and express one’s personality, especially since it helps me envision who an applicant is and how an MBA at Anderson fits in with his or her future plans. However, we do encounter essays that are rather dry, tedious, and (do I dare say this) boring. Those are not so fun to read.

The Anderson application essays questions are purposefully left somewhat general to give our applicants the opportunity to think about and express in writing who you are as a person, your character, your experiences, your hopes and future aspirations, all within a given set of parameters. And this is definitely a challenge. You have a finite and sometimes an excruciatingly short amount of space to convey this information.  So here are some tips that can hopefully help you in case you get a serious case of writer’s block (or find yourself suffering from an attack of being overly loquacious):

Self-reflection is key! Spend some time thinking about the qualities you want the admissions committee to know about you.

Create an outline, jot down notes, then create a framework for what you plan to write about for each question.

It’s easier said than done.Try to keep within the parameters designated for each essay – those instructions are there for a reason. We want to you to be clear and concise in your writing.

Use reasonable sized fonts and margins. Some people try to get away with cramming as many words as possible by using miniscule font and 1 millimeter margins. Any reason to not resort to using a magnifying glass to read an essay is always appreciated by the admissions committee.

Have a friend proof your writing. Sometimes, it can be difficult to catch spelling or grammatical errors after reading and re-reading an essay over and over again.

So when all’s said and done, use your allocated essay space wisely! Admissions officers come from all walks of life, so write in a universal tone to appeal to a vast audience. Remember that Anderson’s diversity is one of the main attractions of our program, so convince us of how you can add to this tradition as a part of the Class of 2011.

Looking forward to getting to know you (on paper)!

Jessica C.