Are You 30+? MBA Programs May Have 3 Concerns on Your Application

Average age of the class at HBS is 27 years. At Columbia, it’s 28. That’s usually the range for most U.S. B-schools: 27-28 years. Some schools, however, don’t provide average age of their class; instead they provide average work experience, which usually is 5 years (to name a few: Wharton, UCLA, and MIT – 5, Stern – 4.5, and Stanford, a relative outlier – 4). The average work experience too points toward a similar average age.

Though the average age of most programs is not too far from 30, B-schools do have some specific concerns about the candidature of applicants falling in 30+ age bracket, though very few air it openly. (There is nothing sacrosanct about 30; it’s just a metaphor for older applicants.)

Nov262017

How B-Schools Detect Plagiarism? And How You May Unknowingly Plagiarise?

Leave a comment Essay Anil

You’re working on essays of your target MBA programs for the last three weeks, often struggling for good, punchy lines. Sometimes, you face blank laptop screen, when you can barely write two sentences in thirty minutes. You struggle for words, impactful lines, and, sometimes, even ideas.

Then you come across a sample essay on the internet which has stuff similar to what you want to write. It has great, articulate lines too, and you think your essays will get a touch of class if you use a sentence or two from this essay.

Or it could be just a sentence or two from the school’s website itself.

Nov122017

Why Quant Is More Important than Verbal in GMAT, and How to Compensate for a Low Score?

How Accommodative Are MBA Programs of Your Sub-Par English in Essays?

Leave a comment Essay Anil

Does the quality of English in your essays matter?

That’s no-brainer. It does. Higher the quality, the better it is. After all it’s reflective of your communication skills.

But how accommodative are admission committees of your sub-par English – rule-based things (grammar, punctuation, and spelling) as well as style (structure, transition, variation in sentences, and so on).

Before getting into it, let’s first see some of the examples (source: Harbus Essay Guide, a compilation of essays of 16 students admitted to class of 2017 at HBS) where admits to HBS deviated from the canons of good English (comments in brackets):

Oct222017

How Will My GPA Be Viewed on a Scale Of 4.0?