Shopping Around for Business Schools?

A nice article plugging The MBA Tour just appeared on the CNN web site, giving business school applicants an overview of the event and describes some of the benefits of attending.

One interesting note is that The MBA Tour will charge a small admittance fee for the first time this year. Despite adding the fee ($5 in advance, $10 at the door), the people who run the event are bullish on beating last year's 30% year-over-year attendance increase. At least the proceeds will go to a good cause -- they will go toward a scholarship fund established by the Tour's founder, Peter von Loesecke.

The tour doesn't yet cover every metropolitan area, but if it it comes to your town, it's worth checking out as a way to jumpstart or supplement your school research. If you do go in 2008, be on the lookout for the Veritas Prep booth near the entrance. As an ongoing sponsor of The MBA Tour, we're excited to participate once again this year!

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Introducing the Veritas Prep Business School Selector

Today marks the beta launch of Veritas Prep's Business School Selector. This new tool analyzes an applicant's prospects of entering the top 25 U.S. business school programs as defined by Veritas Prep's own proprietary model. It serves to help answer the question on every b-school applicant's mind: "What are my chances of getting in?" This is a question that I hear almost every day from my Admissions Consulting clients.

This tool was created to generate an optimal range of business schools for you. By "optimal," we mean that these are the highest-ranked schools to which you have a reasonable chance of getting accepted. While no model is perfect, especially in beta, you can use the range of schools at the bottom of this page as a way to start narrowing your choice of MBA programs.

Please don’t take the model too seriously. Since it only utilizes a subset of data, it cannot be considered a comprehensive tool for all situations and applicant profiles. The admissions process is highly subjective, and no one model can serve as an "oracle" or "magic eight ball."

And please keep in mind that this is a beta version. We have opened up the tool to the MBA admissions community to make it more robust over time. We’ll continue to improve the model by adding even more useful criteria to help you find the right MBA program.

So try it out, see what MBA programs you may want to target, and let us know what you think!

Click here to access the Veritas Prep Business School Selector.

You can also follow the action on the Businessweek.com business school forums here.

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Business Games

One of my favorite hobbies is to play video games. There’s just something about them. And I’m not alone either… the video game industry is a hot market. And it got me thinking the other day about how the big three companies (Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo) went about conducting business in this current “generation” of video game consoles (the X-Box 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii, respectively). What can we learn about business decisions by looking at the ones made by these three companies? Read on to find out!

When designing their new systems, Microsoft and Sony both decided to create enhanced versions of their previous systems, capable of outputting in HD, utilizing new video technology, building extensive online communities, and so on. Nintendo, on the other hand, chose to innovate, rather than expand. The introduced an entirely new way of playing (with a motion-sensitive controller), and opened the door to completely new kinds of games.

What were the ramifications of Nintendo’s decision to build something completely different, rather than try fighting with Microsoft and Sony in terms of power? It was truly a gamble, because they would need to come up with something incredible if they weren’t going to fight in terms of power. The question is, how did they do?

The answer is pretty simple: Nintendo is destroying the competition. In this era of bigger games, fancier graphics, robust online communities, etc., the most successful company (in terms of units sold) is the one that refused to play that game.

It seems counter-intuitive. After all, isn’t one of the cardinal rules of business and marketing to know your audience? Doesn’t the “typical” gamer want a more powerful system, one that can run nicer graphics, larger worlds, and all those new features boasted by the Microsoft and Sony consoles? Absolutely. But that’s not who Nintendo is marketing to.

Nintendo is marketing to everybody else. The “non-gamers”. They’re targeting entire families. While Microsoft and Sony duke it out to win over members of the established niche group, Nintendo is just bringing in everybody else. My mother, who I could never get to play my X-Box for more than 5 minutes, bought a Wii. And she continues to buy games for it. My whole family plays on occasion. Even my 4 year-old cousin plays when she comes to visit.

So what’s my point? What’s the lesson I think you should take away from this? I guess I’m just trying to say that when it comes to building up your business, you don’t always need to play by the established rules to win. Sometimes, thinking outside the box (as cliché as that may be) is the way to go. You need to be smart about it, of course, but don’t be afraid to be bold.

Know of any other examples of this kind of effect? Drop us a link in the comments!

[- Read the rest here -]

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Parents, Don't Let Your Kids Grow Up To Be ... Parents

In two months, my wife will be giving birth to our first child. Becoming a parent has always been a scary proposition, but never more so than now. You see, in the world of admissions, I've now become the enemy.

At least, it seems that way if you take your cue from this recent feature from The New Yorker Magazine about the Internet scandals that have rocked the august New York (Riverdale) prep school Horace Mann. I've been to Horace Mann and have marveled at the cutting edge facilities wrapped up in an old world campus. I've noted the success rates of their students in applying to top universities. Granted, I was only there one day, but it seemed like a pretty great place to learn and prepare for life.

After reading the feature about Facebook scandals and parental bullying of the school's educators, I'm not so sure. It seems like teaching (and therefore learning) in the face of a tyrannical parent board is next to impossible. And I'm quite sure this sort of thing is happening at other elite prep schools. I received a first-hand look at parental pressure during my time in undergraduate admission and imagine that that the dial has only been cranked in one direction in the interim. How can students be expected to learn when their lives are scripted, when they bear no responsibility, and when there are no consequences for their actions? We laugh at shows like Gossip Girl for being so ridiculous, but reality might be even more ridiculous.

The worst part is that the cycle will only continue as today's teenagers reap the rewards from their parents' insidious behavior and then - having sufficiently learned by example - set off on a path to repeat it.

Fortunately, this sort of boorish pay-your-way-out-of-anything approach to parenting and education does not extend to every pocket of affluence in our country. I've enjoyed observing those parents who have fourth grade students in my wife's class at a private school in Pacific Palisades. In nearly unanimous fashion, this group supports the school and its educators, has expectations for their children's behavior, and maintains proper perspective. Even more promising, I've seen many of these parents adopt the same approach with older children - kids who are gearing up for the competitive process of private high school admissions and then, of course, for college. It's a great relief to find that there are still some families - some parents - who recognize value in true education.

Hopefully I can identify a few more of those to look up to - and fast. After all, I've only got two months left.

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Recruiter Demand for MBA Grads Remains Strong

This month the Graduate Management Admission Council released a report showing that demand for business school graduate remains strong even as the economy shows signs of weakness.

The report, produced by GMAC in partnership with the MBA Career Services Council and European Foundation for Management Development, shows 6% growth in the percentage of employers making offers to MBA grads, and an 11% increase in the average number of hires by each hiring company.

The results for compensation growth also looked encouraging. Three-quarters of employers reported that they expect to increase the annual base salary of 2008 grads vs. last year's hiring class. The projected starting base salary for all business school graduates is $89,621, about 4% more than last year. Not surprisingly, consulting (over $111,000) and finance (over $110,000) offer the highest average total compensation.

What does this mean for you? Most of all, it suggests you should stay the course. No radical changes to the hiring outlook suggest that you, if you've been planning to apply for business school, don't stop now. If you haven't been planning on doing so, then these numbers probably won't change your mind.

It will be interesting to see what next year's numbers look like, and what impact the overall economy has to the number of people applying to business school in 2008-2009.

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HBS Releases Application Essays & Deadlines for Class of 2011

If anything marks the official beginning of the 2008-2009 application season, this is it: Harvard Business School just released its deadlines and application essays for the Class of 2011.

For those of you who are planning ahead, the application deadlines are mostly the same as last year, except for the Round 1 deadline, which is almost two weeks later than last year's. The deadlines are as follows:

• Round 1: Oct. 15, 2008
• Round 2: Jan. 6, 2009
• Round 3: Mar. 11, 2009

Remember that you want to aim for Round 1 or Round 2. Applying after Round 2 means competing for very few open seats, so you want to do everything you can to apply no later than Jan. 6, 2009. Since the Round 1 deadline is just five months away, it's not too early to start preparing! That especially goes for the GMAT. Study until it hurts, take a GMAT prep course if you want some extra help, and then nail the GMAT and get it off of your plate. The last thing you want to do is have to cram for the GMAT while you're also trying to perfect your essays and chase after the people writing your letters of recommendation!

Looking at the HBS application essays, there are now just four required this year, compared to five last year. Two are required, and two can be chosen from a list of four questions.

Required Essays

1. What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit)
2. What have you learned from a mistake? (400-word limit)

Optional Essays (choose two)

1. What would you like the MBA Admissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience? (400-word limit)
2. Discuss how you have engaged with a community or organization. (400-word limit)
3. What area of the world are you most curious about and why? (400-word limit)
4. What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you? (400-word limit)

Of the optional essays, many applicants will assume #1 is only meant as a "Let me explain why my undergrad GPA is low"-type essay, but also consider using this as a chance to discuss a time when you pushed yourself out of your intellectual comfort zone. Looking at #4, the "why is this choice meaningful to you" part is what is most interesting. HBS isn't looking for you to just rattle off your five-step plan for world domination. Explore why you want to do it, and why you're passionate about it. This kind of introspection is key to setting yourself apart in HBS admissions officers' eyes.

If you would like more information about applying to HBS, visit our Harvard Business School profile page. And for more information on business school application deadlines, visit our MBA admissions deadlines page.

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New Dean at Cornell

Cornell recently announced that Joe Thomas would take the role of dean at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Business. Thomas has been serving as the interim dean since 2007. Learn more about Dean Thomas

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The Value of Education

How much is an MBA really worth? Well, according to this article, new MBA grads are pushing and exceeding $100,000-a-year. Evaluate an MBA

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