The MBA Student Voice

MBA application tips for fast approaching deadlines

It is that time again – less than two months until the first MBA application of the year is due! Hopefully by now you are already knee deep in the application process, but if not don’t fret because some careful planning and committed execution can get you into the school of your dreams.

In this post I want to focus on three factors – the GMAT, application essays, and interview.

GMAT: If you have already taken the GMAT and scored in your school’s target range, then stop reading here and move to the next section because retaking it and getting those 10 extra points won’t give you near as much of an advantage as having carefully crafted, articulate essays. If you have yet to take the test, or achieve your target score, then you better rethink what you are doing this Friday night and set a library date with your study materials. My recommendation: select the Manhattan GMAT guides that correspond to your four weakest areas and master one a week for the next month. It is difficult to overstate the importance of the GMAT in the application process.

Essays: In my applications, the essays were by far the most challenging aspect. How could I package my life story into 750 words or fewer? The simple answer is I didn’t need to, and neither do you. What you do need to do is paint a picture for the admissions committee – provide them with a story or a tidbit that will force them to remember you and leave them no choice but to invite you for an interview to hear more. Who are you more likely to remember; the accountant who graduated with high honors and a 750 GMAT, or Caroline the girl who used her passion for accounting and education to help a Brazilian nonprofit locate $200K in misallocated funds that were reapportioned to help build a new school? Everyone has a story that makes them unique, find yours and use it.

The second part of my essay advice is something I wish I had done more of – show the schools that you know what makes them unique….and let me tell you the culture, curriculum, and great professors are not enough! Dig deeper and find something that the students are proud of and use specific examples. At UCLA, our orientation period is extremely important to develop the relationships that make our class so cohesive. And we are extremely serious when it comes to Challenge 4 Charity (which can be seen in our participation and sports day domination this year), so read up on specific topics that interest you and write about them.

Interviews: Once we get closer to releasing interview invitations I will do a separate post on interview tips, but for now my advice would be as soon as you click submit on that application, start practicing for your interviews. Develop a clear, concise story for every question you may be asked, and practice delivering them to friends, family, or the mirror because the interview is now the last hurdle standing between you and two of the best years of your life.

UCLA Anderson doesn't mess around at C4C!

Matt Harris

Class of 2015

Ready for the next two years

In the words of the late Christopher Wallace, “I’m going going, back back, to Cali Cali.”  Ever since making the decision to attend Anderson a few months ago, I am pretty sure that song has been playing on repeat in my head.  I am so excited to return to my home state and start my journey at Anderson!

My name is James Huntington, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be one of the UCLA Anderson Class of 2016 student bloggers.  I hope I can offer even a fraction of the insight that I was able to gain through reading the posts of bloggers from the Class of 2015, as well as other past student bloggers.

Anyway, a bit about me.  I was born in Okinawa, Japan.  My mother is Japanese and my father is from the U.S.  Contrary to most assumptions, my father did not serve in the military.  They actually met in Idaho of all places… and the rest is history.  I lived in Japan for a total of about eight years.  Other than that, I primarily grew up in Northern California.

In 2003, I moved to Provo, UT to attend Brigham Young University.  I graduated in 2008 with a BA in Japanese.  Post-graduation, I worked at The O.C. Tanner Company, an HR consulting firm in Salt Lake City as an International Operations Analyst for just over two years.  I then transitioned into my current role at Goldman Sachs, where I will be for a few more weeks until we moved down to LA the beginning of August.  I have been working as an Operations Specialist for a little over two years now, and have been focusing on risk management related to futures and options trading for the firm and our clients.

Year 1 finish line

This week I realized that the first year of MBA is done. Yes, I still have a couple of take-home exams to submit by Wednesday, but the mood is already in the summer mode and the time has come to make conclusions about first year experiences and set the goals for the next year.

In the past couple of months I have met a lot of people thinking about getting an MBA or who were admitted to UCLA Anderson and the most common question I hear is "why did you choose UCLA Anderson" and what were your experiences like?". You can read my reasons to choose the school in my last year post. In terms of the experiences, this year has been awesome and I can't be happier to have chosen UCLA Anderson a year ago and further I will tell you why.

• School name is a very good brand. Whenever I mention I am attending UCLA Anderson, people say it is very good school with strong reputation and community. A lot of companies have very strong relationships with Parker Career Management Center and they hire a lot of Anderson folks. Alumni network is also very strong and supportive: whenever I had any queries about the job in a company, I could always reach out to alums and ask for an informational interview - even top level managers could always find the time for me.
• Community at school is super supportive. Should I have any issue with not understanding a concept in class or personal issue like getting to another part of the city without a car, my classmates are always ready to give a helping hand. It is also true for people several years out of school - I got the mentor from Women Business Connection Club and she has been very helpful to me in terms of advice on my career search and she helped me to get ready for the interviews for my summer internship. This kind of relationship is very valuable and clearly demonstrates the community at school.
• Career services. We all come to school to ultimately find a job or start your own business. This year has been very stressful in terms of the career search but Parker CMC has been my point of contact, my family, my psycological center, my decision-making place and advice center. I am looking forward to helping Parker CMC with the newly admitted class of 2016 in their career search.
• Location. Honestly I don't go to the beach very often but being 1 year in a wonderful climate helped a lot. I became more healthy in terms of food I eat and amount of exercise I do, I have seen a lot in the city and fell in love with it, so I will be interning here in the summer as well.

When someone asked me what I didn't like at UCLA Anderson, I could not come up with something on the spot, but now I know what it is - I don't like that the time here flies by so quickly.

XOXO,

Alena

Half-year MBA point

 I remember speaking to one of the Orientation Leaders back in September about how quickly time flies at Anderson and I didn't believe her words back then. I just realized that today is the last day of February (!) and I feel as if I just came to school literally yeasterday. But in the meantime, so many things happenned during the first half of the year at Anderson. I will highlight the most memorable things in this post.

• The busiest quarter ever. We had 5 core classes and a specific career related class which helped us in the career-related issues: resume and cover letter drafts, networking 101, company research and so many different things.  On top of it, first year students ran for Director positions for different clubs on campus to make the real change and have influence on the process. We bring a lot of changes to school everyday and I was amazed how open the administration is to students' feedback and ideas. Examples include the initiative with The Exchange, which saw life and gets more and more supporters, volunteers and fans every day, and the inclusion of VP of Diversity into the ASA which resulted from Jess Kimball's passion for the community and idea to bring more diversity to UCLA Anderson.

Anderson Exchange is back

In anticipation of my first Thanksgiving in the United States, I would like to write about leadership, initiative and team work at Anderson.

A bunch of my classmates have just started the project "Anderson Exchange" -they put together the first issue of the school's own newspaper. 

 

Actually, the history of this newspaper stretches back to 1970s, but it has been out of sight recently. I was wondering, how this idea of relaunching was born and I asked my friend and editor-in-chief Michael Hirshman about it.

For the MBA with a Significant Other...

Husband.  Wife.  Partner.  Significant Other.  Sig-O.  Better Half.  The list goes on...Before applying to UCLA, I was a little concerned about going back to school with a wife and new baby.  I had heard the misconception that most MBA students were single and that I would be the part of a very small minority of students with families or significant others.  I was worried that one of two things would happen--I would either end up diving too deep into the MBA social scene and lose out on "family time" or I would overcompensate for being gone so often that I would miss out on the MBA experience.  Fortunately, that isn't the case at UCLA Anderson.  

15 years ago, only about 25% of incoming MBA students had spouses/families.  Now, the number is reaching 40% or higher at some schools.  This makes sense, since the average pre-MBA work experience each student is around 5 years, making the average student age 27-28.  In response to this growing trend, UCLA Anderson, and many schools for that matter, have created well-organized programs/clubs aimed at the significant others of the MBA student.

At UCLA, we have the following resources to involve our families in the program.  Believe me, if they want to be busy and involved, there are plenty of activities to choose from!

My reasons to choose UCLA Anderson

    A question "what school to attend" comes to a great number of accepted applicants and the answer is always specific to your particular goals. See below my reasons for attending Anderson this fall and some thoughts and things to consider when you have to make a decision.

    1. Rankings. A lot of people consider school's placement in different rankings and I was also the one who googled Full time MBA rankings before I made my decision, so I could understand the inclination to just go with TOP-5 or TOP-10 school and be just fine. But then I made a consideration of other factors (that I will mention below) and decided just for myself that rankings is just one factor and not the decisive one. I even compared it with GMAT score during application process - it is good if it is withtin school's 80% range and is balanced, but not "the make or break". So, with ratings I decided that a school within TOP -20 in the US will be this "80% range" and I never turned to rankings again.

    2. Employment report or companies that recruit on campus.  I have talked to dozens of alums from different schools and the majority of them said to look closely to the employment reports first. The closer the school year is, the better I realize how right they were. For instance, if you dream to work for company X, you should look at the # of graduates and interns this company hired from the latest intake in the school. I made a close look at Anderson employment report, considered trends within several years and came to 2 conclusions:

• Tech companies have very good presence at Anderson and they hire about 1/5th of the class and as I look closely on technology sector, this school is very much for me!
• Anderson class is very diverse in terms of career paths people choose. There is no dominant industry and I like this fact from the learning environment point of view.

5 Application Fallacies

The original title of my blog post was going to be "5 Application Fallacies That I Straight Up Debunk Cuz That's How We Roll at Anderson", but the more conservative "me" took hold and I went with the plain vanilla title.  There is a latin phrase "res ipsa loquitur" which means "the thing speaks for itself."  This blog post hopefully does just that and helps all of you out there to approach your applications with correct expectations.

1.  If I don't get a 700 on the GMAT I have no chance and should lock myself in a dark, damp closet as punishment.

Have you ever seen those "Keep Calm and..." signs?  They should make one that says "Keep Calm and Be Happy with Your 690."  Let me qualify this.  If you have taken the GMAT multiple times and you max out in the 670-690 range, calm down and realize that the GMAT is but one of many measurements the admissions committee takes into consideration when evaluating your candidacy.  Here is some basic information about how the adcom looks at the GMAT.  The more balanced the score, the better.  If you have to be better off in one section, be better in quant.  Why?  They want to make sure you don't have a nervous breakdown when you dive into the very quantitative courseload.  If you only take the GMAT once and your high score is 670, take it again.  The adcom will appreciate that you attempted improving your score, even if it goes up a mere 10 points.  If your GMAT is a 590, you're in trouble.  However, each top business school admits someone with a very poor GMAT score, but that's probably because they had an AMAZING story to tell in their essays, work experience, or recommendation letters (i.e. you were a member of Seal Team Six, you made a career out of saving stray animals and turning them into trained acrobats, etc.).  Here's the bottom line--remember that the GMAT is but a piece in the puzzle.  Don't let it discourage you.

You are admitted! What's next?

        Everyone in the application process wants to get the admission letter, waits for it and counts the days till the decision date when he/she is done with apps and interviews. So, even if you are at the beginning of the application process right now, you can still be curious to unfold the veil of secrecy and look into the future period between getting the admission letter and enrolling in the program.

               First of all, you will be very happy and will celebrate the admission with your friends and family the week or two following your admission. Make sure to thank all the people who helped and supported you during the application process! (and at this moment you realize that the number of people is huge and it really takes you some time to count everyone and shoot a message/make a call to everyody).

               Secondly, when the euphoria comes down, you are beginning to realize what has happened and you begin to plan further steps. The question "how will I finance my studies?" arises immediately and you start to blame yourself for having saved that little! A close look at financing options brings you to the Earth; the Financial Aid office is eager to answer all your questions about financing your degree.

          Then you join Facebook group of your class, ask questions, get to know your future classmates. At the beginning of April you are invited to visit A-days at Anderson to feel the sense of community, explore the housing options and make sure the program is right for you! Unfortunately, I was not able to make it to A-days myself, but my classmates who were told me that these 3 days were marvelous: the organization was perfect, people were super friendly and supportive and the majority of questions was solved. I even noticed that several people have found a roommate from the class during A-days, and I regret not going to LA in April.

Buzz's Zone

You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into... the Twilight Zone  Buzz's Zone.  What is Buzz's Zone you ask?  Well, read on!

The decision to get an MBA is a difficult one.  There are costs/benefits, pros/cons, ups/downs, apps/GMAT (even mentioning that invokes the most righteous contempt).  For both admits and my beloved future applicant audience out there I wanted to explain my path to business school and, more particularly, why I chose UCLA Anderson.

It all started when I was in fifth grade and I...wait--just kidding!  You thought you were going to get this boring life story rife with cheesy sentimental anecdotes that culminated in me arriving at b-school.  Allow me to spare you the snooze story of my youth and jump right into what counts!

In my undergrad program at BYU one of my finance professors asked the class participants to raise their hands if they were planning on business school.  Probably 85% raised their hand.  He curtly stated, "about 10% of those that raised their hands will actually end up following through on that goal."  My pride was hurt and I thought to myself "wait until I get to b-school, then I'm going to send a look-at-me-now email to this professor to show him that I made it."  Well, I forgot which professor it was...so that's not going to happen.  BUT, he was right.  There were a few times after my undergrad where I vacillated and thought that b-school was either out of reach or not worth the investment.  If you have felt this way, you are NOT alone!  The GMAT is tough, applications are time-consuming, and interviews are nerve-wracking, but hey, say it with me now...I-CAN-DO-IT!