Stacy Blackman Consulting - MBA Admissions

Stacy Blackman’s B-School Buzz

Stacy Blackman Consulting — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:46:53 +0000

Welcome back to another edition of Stacy Blackman’s B-School Buzz, where we share the latest goings-on from the MBA applicant and student trenches. This week, our Buzz bloggers celebrate a premiere social event; describe recruiting season; and offer links to videos and blogs that help make the application process just a tiny bit easier.

Business Gives Back recap—As he enters the home stretch of his MBA program at GWU School of Business, Part-Timer recounts the highlights of this student-led initiative celebrating a commitment to responsible business and social change. In addition to supporting a good cause, it provided the opportunity to network with fellow MBAs–something he says part-time students don’t get enough of.

Something to read and something to watch—This week, CCatcher shares two links that contain good advice for MBA applicants. One is a video that helped her reorient whenever she drifted away from the all-important “WHY” while working on those essays; the other is a Seth Godin blog entry she says is relevant to the application process.

It’s recruiting time—After a lengthy hiatus of 12–gasp!–days from blogging, Ellipser is back with the lowdown on recruiting season at Cornell’s Johnson School. Much celebrating has transpired for those recipients of internship offers, and a bit of commiserating with the less-than-lucky has taken place as well. As for Ellipser, he’ll continue working on those cover letters and resumes for the tech companies that he’ll be going after for his summer internship.

Stanford photo diaries—Curious about what it’s like to be an MBA student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business? If so, you’re about to find out. Stanford GSB introduces 15 second-year students who documented their activities for several days during fall 2011 quarter. Read on to find out everything from the classes they took and the housing choices they made, to their favorite memories and post-MBA goals.

Do you have a b-school-centric blog? Want it featured on B-School Buzz? Email me at buzz@StacyBlackman.com.

SBC Scoop: Italian Applicant

Stacy Blackman Consulting — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:11:45 +0000

*Please note that no client details are ever shared in SBC Scoop or otherwise without complete sign off from client.

While top MBA programs in the United States are very interested in European candidates, some aspects of your profile may make it challenging to apply from Europe.

Aldo engaged Stacy Blackman Consulting to consult on his applications to Kellogg, Haas, Wharton, and NYU. Three years of investment banking experience at a bank based in the UK, and 18 months in London, was a good basis for his ultimate goal to work in real estate private equity in Italy. Aldo hoped to work for an investment bank in NYC, specializing in real estate, immediately after his MBA. A balanced GMAT with an overall 720, and a 3.8 GPA presented a very strong academic profile for Aldo.

Aldo’s main issue was that extracurriculars and volunteering was not quite as emphasized in his undergraduate experience, and was not a priority for his peers in banking in Italy or London either. As a result, he had limited aspects to demonstrate the community engagement US programs are looking for.

We worked with Aldo to think of anything he could use in his background to add some interest to his overall profile. Because of a passion for traveling he had visited all seven continents and studied abroad in Singapore. He was able to reference some of the lessons he learned while traveling and living in Singapore in London to demonstrate his cultural awareness and international focus.

Ultimately Aldo was admitted to Wharton and NYU, and attended NYU to have the experience of living in NYC for several years.

Wharton “Tweet Meet” to Provide Live Analysis of Super Bowl Ads

Stacy Blackman Consulting — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:04:00 +0000

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania’s Future of Advertising Program announced Wednesday that it will host the second annual “Wharton Future of Advertising Super Bowl Ad Tweet Meet.”

Experts and pundits participating in the event will include Wharton marketing faculty, advertising executives, students, and journalists, who will comment on Super Bowl TV ads live via Twitter. The panel will begin tweeting their impressions at 7:30 pm ET at www.myfoa.net and #whartonfoa.

“This initiative is part of our year-long efforts to bring together Wharton scholarship, advertising agencies, media and corporate marketers for creative dialogue,” says Catharine Findiesen Hays, Managing Director of the Wharton FoA Program.

“With the support of our Global Advisory Board and the event’s co-creator, Scott Goodson, Chairman of StrawberryFrog, we have assembled some of the finest minds from across the new, more broadly-defined field of advertising and marketing.”

According to Hays, a new addition to the Tweet Meet is the planned rating of ads live during the Super Bowl. Panelists will judge the commercial spots in four categories:

Word of Mouth: Will members of the public really love it and will they talk about it online and offline?
Creative Excellence: Is the ad creatively excellent?
Business Impact: Will this achieve the advertiser’s business objectives?
Societal Impact: Will this campaign have a positive impact on society?

Goodson calls the Super Bowl the largest, most talked-about marketing event of the year, as well as an opportunity for marketing innovation. “All of us on the Second Annual Wharton Future of Advertising Super Bowl Ad Tweet Meet will be giving our colorful comments live – thumbs up and thumbs down – and debating the cross cutting implications of the ads,” Goodson says.

At Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management will also be analyzing the most and least successful ads aired during the game at the eighth annual Super Bowl Advertising Review. According to Kellogg, the Ad Review’s unique focus is on effectiveness–looking beyond the popularity polls to consider the strategy and branding.

The Review is led by Kellogg professors Tim Calkins and Derek Rucker, who follow Super Bowl advertising closely and speak about advertising trends, themes, strategies and predictions, including:

What qualities are essential to produce an effective Super Bowl ad?
2011 was the year of the automobile in Super Bowl ads. What will 2012 bring, and what might it signal for the economy?
Online views of this year’s Super Bowl ads are expected to nearly double from 2011. How should marketers capitalize on this trend and enhance the value of their investment in the game?
Why is creating a strong Super Bowl ad so difficult? Why do some advertisers consistently perform well while other regular advertisers struggle to create strong spots?

Results of the judging at Wharton School will be posted at www.myfoa.net Monday, February 6, 2012. Professors Calkins and Rucker have already started sharing insights about this year’s Super Bowl advertising on their blog at http://kelloggsuperbowlreview.wordpress.com, and will provide a comprehensive wrap-up after the big game.

Babson Launches New Advertising, Marketing Campaign

Stacy Blackman Consulting — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:27:46 +0000

Babson College has announced the launch of a new advertising and marketing campaign aimed at expanding what entrepreneurship truly means, asserting that “The World Needs a New Definition of Entrepreneurship. It’s Being Written Here at Babson.”

The keystone of the campaign is a new digital hub, define.babson.edu, which creates opportunities for the community at-large to participate in the “Redefining Entrepreneurship” effort by posting and sharing their definitions and accessing information about the entrepreneurial experience.

“Technology has evolved. The economy has shifted. The world has changed. And today’s entrepreneurs do more than just start businesses,” says Babson’s Chief Marketing Officer, Sarah L. Sykora.

“Today, more than ever before, the social, economic and environmental issues confronting our world require solutions – the type that entrepreneurship, broadly defined, is uniquely capable of delivering. Through this campaign, we invite the community to help us extend the definition of entrepreneurship and, in doing so, help shape how the world views and values entrepreneurs.”

During last month’s soft launch, more than 1,000 definitions were entered by students, faculty, and friends of the college, including ABC-TV’s Shark Tank Host and Babson Entrepreneur in Residence, Daymond John.

Later this year, Babson plans to incorporate the definitions submitted into the branding campaign to help change the way the world looks at entrepreneurship.

The campaign, conceptualized and executed in partnership with Boston advertising agency Connelly Partners, includes print, digital and radio components.

One of the first ads of the campaign features the work of footwear designer and Babson alumna, Ruthie Davis. The ad, pictured here, is one of several that will run in outlets ranging from Forbes and Fortune to People Magazine and Sports Illustrated.

“Babson College offers the most progressive business education available; its rankings demonstrate the success Babson has achieved as a thought leader,” explains Connelly Partners’ President and Chief Creative Officer and Babson alum, Steve Connelly. “This campaign advocates for the same ideologies utilized in Babson’s approach to education.”

Business Schools Send Students Out of Classrooms

Stacy Blackman Consulting — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:27:51 +0000

This post originally appeared on the U.S. News–Strictly Business MBA Admissions blog.

Hypothetical question: Should you land in the hospital and find that your treatment will be managed by a medical student rather than an attending physician, would you feel a bit panicky, or proud to play a role in what is known as a “teachable moment”?

In the latest issue of Harvard Business Review, dean of Harvard Business School Nitin Nohria says that disconcerting or frightening though it may be, we have an obligation to help train the next generation of doctors—and business schools can learn a lot from the medical profession.

But inserting business students into real-world managerial situations is no easy undertaking. Unlike med students, who often help make life-and-death decisions, Nohria notes that M.B.A. candidates typically rely on case studies to navigate thorny business scenarios, albeit from a safe distance. At HBS, that all changed a few weeks ago when more than 900 first-years embarked on the global immersion component of the new M.B.A. curriculum module known as Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development (FIELD).

Working in teams of six, students connected with 140 organizations to create a new product or service for one of them for a developing market. If sending the entire first-year M.B.A. class to a dozen cities in 10 countries scattered across the globe sounds ambitious, it was.

Harvard had to establish partnerships with foreign companies to help students secure visas and obtain the necessary immunizations, and it had to familiarize its students with the customs and business etiquette they would encounter. It’s easy to see why Poets & Quants called it the “boldest experiment ever carried out in graduate business education.” (To better understand the course from a student’s perspective, M.B.A. blogger Parker Woltz provides an engaging description of her FIELD experience in Vietnam.)

HBS has clearly seized the “go big or go home” philosophy in an effort to close what the dean calls the “knowing-doing gap”; however, HBS is by no means the first elite business school to embrace managerial field training.

In 1992, the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business introduced the groundbreaking Multidisciplinary Action Projects (MAP) course, an intensive field-study experience requiring teams of first-year students to spend an entire semester collaborating to resolve high-stakes business challenges inside actual organizations.

The action-based learning approach is the cornerstone of the Ross experience, and after executing more than 1,500 projects for 750 organizations worldwide, Alison Davis-Blake, the school’s dean, asserts in her latest blog post that “Experiential learning is a true differentiator in our graduate programs, especially in the global context.”

One of the more unusual examples of a field experience comes from the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. In professor Viva Bartkus’s course “Business on the Frontlines,” M.B.A. students study about and then travel to countries struggling to rebuild their economies after a war or violent conflict.

The aim is to examine the role of business in these countries’ attempts to restart their economic growth, pull their populations out of poverty, and stabilize society. The course has a lengthy waiting list of students, says Mendoza’s Carol Elliott, and has recently expanded in both size and scope to include students from the Peace Studies Institute and Notre Dame’s law school.

Most business schools today acknowledge that a global career is inevitable for incoming students, and field experiences that transcend sector and geographical borders are one of the best ways for M.B.A. students to prepare for a competitive job market.

But Nohria, Harvard’s dean, admits the FIELD program will probably face some bumps in the road for the first few years. “Like hospital patients being treated by a new resident, everyone involved will experience some nervousness and discomfort,” he says. “But in a global economy that will put heavy demands on the next generation of managers and leaders, that’s a small price to pay for knowledge and experience.”

February Conference Dates for the MBA Tour

Stacy Blackman Consulting — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:25:28 +0000

Getting ready for your MBA? Get to know admissions representatives from both local and international business schools at these upcoming MBA Tour conferences. More than just a fair, The MBA Tour events offer unique formats to explore MBA programs and to help you discover your ideal school and gain a competitive edge in the admissions process.

Washington DC – February 2, 2012
New York – February 4, 2012
San Francisco – February 6, 2012

Panel Presentations:

“Earning and Financing your MBA”

“Choosing the Best MBA Program for you”

“How Admissions Decisions are Made”

“Studying in Europe”

MBA Panel Presentations: Cover all your basic MBA application questions before speaking one-on-one with reps.

Individual School Presentations: Admissions directors give 30 to 40 minute presentations. Learn a lot in little time!

Open Fair: Meet one-on-one with admission directors and alumni representatives.

Conferences are free for MBA applicants, Register Today.

Participating Business Schools:

US: Duke-Fuqua School of Business, Cornell’s Johnson School, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, Georgetown McDonough School of Business, NYU Stern, Rice, UCLA Anderson School of Management, UC Riverside, UC Irvine, Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, Northeastern, Washington U – St. Louis, University of Maryland, College of William and Mary, Fordham, Baruch and more!

Europe: IMD, INSEAD, IE Business School, City University London, Copenhagen Business School, ESMT, HEC Paris, Politecnico di Milano, University of Cambridge and Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School and more!

Asia: Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business – China, Fudan University – China, INSEAD – Singapore