Three Hints for Maximizing Campus Visits

Last week, we talked about using the month of May to jump start your fall applications to MBA programs, and one of the best ways to do that is to take advantage of the opportunity to visit campuses while school is still in session. Waiting to tour a business school (or any grad school) during the summer months is almost a complete waste of time, because there are no classes in session and all you are seeing is a bunch of empty buildings.

That leaves either the end of the school year (now), or the fall. And the problem with waiting until the fall is that you run the risk of missing out altogether, as many schools have round one deadlines that occur before campus visitations fully open back up (for example, Stanford GSB's round one deadline last year was October 7, while most opportunities to engage with students and faculty kicked off in mid-October), or your are simply too busy cranking on your applications to find the time.

All of which makes May a critical month for visiting campus. With that in mind, here are three suggestions for maximizing your campus visit:

1. Be the buyer, not the seller.
Too many people think of a campus visit as a chance to show off and impress the school. This is a poor use of your energy, for a couple of reasons. First, a campus visit is all about acquiring information - info that will help you choose your list of schools, info that will help you ultimately pick which school you will attend, and info that will help you gain admission in the first place. You are on an investigative mission, not an audition. Second, MBA programs simply will not know whether you were amazing or an abomination. Not to diminish the people who work in admissions (hey, I was one of them), but there is no way that a business school has the resources to closely monitor and record the actions of a random visitor who comes to campus four months before the next application deadline.

Right now, admissions officers are finalizing enrollment for the incoming class of 2010, they are planning upcoming recruiting trips, and taking vacations to recover from another busy year. To think they are filing away notes about you is crazy. Knowing this, free yourself from the burdens and pressures of "performing." Don't do something stupid that gets you kicked off campus or turns you into a cautionary tale, but at the same time, don't worry about winning over the student or professor standing in front of you. Ask them real questions. Get some dirt. Engage in the world around you.

A big advantage to visiting campus in late spring is that everyone lets their hair down. So let yours down as well and really come away from the trip with an understanding of that program's DNA. If you visit a campus in May and come away feeling like it was an artificial experience, it either means that your approach was wrong or the school is as fake as a million-dollar bill.

2. Work on your sales pitch.
In last week's blog, we talked about honing your sales pitch and there is no better place to trot it out than at an actual business school. If your reasons for pursuing an MBA seem odd, if your timing is all wrong, if your career goals are overly ambitious, there is no better way to find that out than by talking to a current MBA student who is dealing with a live marketplace.

You want to come out of a campus visit feeling like your personal pitch - your reasons for applying, your goals, your passions - has either been validated or improved. If you find yourself confused after visiting campus, it might be time to seek consultation with an expert.

3. Start composing your application.
We don't mean literally, of course, but you should absolutely check out last year's essay questions and do some thinking about what the MBA program in question really cares about. Knowing that Wharton has an ongoing focus on student community and globalism helps you when you go to the Penn campus. Now you can ask questions, visit classes, take tours, and explore programs with those key themes in mind. You will leave your visit with a better idea of how you fit with that school and also with some specific conversations and interests that you will want to mention in your essays.

Context is everything when applying to grad school, and being able to place yourself and your life/career arc into the context of what makes a school tick is critical in writing impactful essays and properly expressing program fit. Your very best chance to marry "you" the candidate with the MBA program in question is when you are physically there. So while you are researching as a consumer, don't forget that you are also an applicant who has to connect all the dots. Give yourself the opportunity to collect data, make connections, and lock in a fit with the place while you are there visiting.

These are three simple suggestions, but they will make a big difference on your campus visit. If you stay relaxed about your own need to "perform," it will allow you to stress test your goals and start building a powerful application story, even as you are checking things off your own wish list.

To start planning your own business school candidacy, give us a call at (800) 925-7737 and speak with an MBA admissions expert today. And, be sure to subscribe to this blog and follow us on Twitter!

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The Medical School Boom

Over the weekend, The New York Times ran an interesting article about an expected boom in the number of medical degrees that will be awarded in a given year ... the most dramatic increase in years. The article focused on the two dozen new medical schools opening their doors, the 18 percent increase in total number of seats, and the ability to educate more doctors in American medical schools. It all sounds pretty great.

Leave it to one of the best legal blogs around to throw cold water on everyone. The edgy legal blog Above the Law ran a terrific opinion piece that pointed out all of the potential problems with this development by drawing comparisons with the law school arena.

The ATL article exists to ask the big question overlooked in the Times piece, namely, is it a good thing to generate more doctors? The piece takes the "good news" of the Times article and subverts it. Whereas The Times bemoans the fact that "qualified" med students have had to go abroad or into other areas of study, ATL hypothesizes that the mere fact that there are more qualified med students than seats is what preserves high salaries and prestige in the medical profession.

If that seems like an overly simplistic idea (and one that may fly in the face of the U.S.'s ever-pressing need for doctors), the article's author, David Lat, quickly finds support for the premise by looking at the current situation in the legal profession. Just last week, Mark Greenbaum wrote a terrific op-ed piece for The Los Angeles Times that basically begged for a moratorium on new law schools and the expansion of legal training. His stance was pretty simple: there are too many lawyers of varying quality, training, and employability and the net effect is that everyone in the legal profession is suffering as a result. Greenbaum drills the ABA for not creating more barriers to entry and for making a bar card too easy to come by.

Lat takes this observation and simply applies it to the news that medical schools are going to generate 18 percent more doctors. Not surprisingly, he theorizes that this development is going to have the same ramifications as the law school expansion ... too many doctors, not enough gigs, a drop in quality (or at least perceived quality), and, ultimately, a diminution of the prestige and job security of the profession.

The ATL article eventually tails off into a position defense and winds up focusing more on the legal profession than the medical field, but the initial thoughts offer up tremendous food-for-thought. Do we want to make an MD more accessible? Does America need more doctors? If the market floods, does it start a downward spiral?

Most importantly - for people applying and for companies like ours that work with those applicants - what does this mean for long-term career prospects? Surely most candidates are excited about the idea of more spots as it alleviates some of the pressure associated with medical school admissions. But if the value of the degree is jeopardized in the process, who much is that initial relief worth?

At the end of the day, most medical school students are driven by passion and a desire to serve just as much as they are by the money and prestige of being a doctor, so it is possible that these questions will have little impact on the average applicant's decision-making process. And that's probably a good thing. Let's just hope that we can one day say the same thing about the influx of med schools. These driven, passionate people don't deserve to sit around 10 years from now wondering what happened to their career paths.

For more advice on medical school admissions, call us at 800-925-7737 and talk to one of our admissions experts!

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