Ross Admissions Director Blog

The Bane of Admissions Officers

I wanted to pass on a link that one of my staff happened upon. It's an essay service that offers to review your essays for $19.95 or edit them for an additional $20. They provide sample responses for many b-school's essays, including our own.

http://mbaessayguru.com/sample-essays/michigan-ross-essay-1

I hope you haven't used this site to model your own essays after, or worse, paid for their services. I've shared this link with our small team of readers so their antennae are up for similar essays. We purposely maintain a small cadre of readers so that readers can better calibrate their evaluations across a larger pool of applications, and also, to better detect similar essays (like last year's hit parade essay, "If I were a fruit, I'd be a ...).

Years ago, MBA2s used to be involved in the application evaluation process but we discontinued that because reading 3 - 5 applications per week didn't lend itself to developing the insights needed to make comparative evaluations. That's a critical component of the admissions process - the comparative view, not just a view of an applicant's admissibility on its own. That's why some applicants that are admissible are not admitted. This leads me to another cautionary tale. One of our students alerted me to a posting by an indignant applicant who claims that s/he was rejected by us and admitted by HBS despite having a stellar academic record from MIT and a near perfect GMAT score. This is the flaw with online forums - participants can claim whatever they want, even if it's not true. For the record, we did not have an applicant with that profile apply here. And if we did, such an applicant would have been rejected if that kind of attitude had come through in the application or interview. Everyone involved in the evaluation process cares too much about our community to let that happen.

Interview updates and happenings around the school

As promised, Wave 1 interview invitations went out yesterday. The next two waves of interview invitations will go out by end of day on Friday, February 3 and Friday, February 10. The first wave of Consortium interview invites will go out by end of day tomorrow, and the next set will go out with the second wave on February 3.

In case you missed one of my earlier posts explaining the wave process, here's the deal: the wave in which you are invited to interview has no correlation to: (a) when you submitted your application; (b) the strength of your application; or, (c) the likelihood of your admission. We do it in waves so that we can smooth the interview load over a longer period of time. If we released them all on one date, we wouldn't be able to do it until much later in the process, and the window of time for interviews to be conducted would be extremely limited. The wave process enables us to do more thorough and thoughtful reviews with a limited staff.

Regarding the interview day that's being planned in collaboration with the Michigan Business Women student club - yes, it's open to all interview invitees. The thing to note is that the agenda will be focused on the Michigan Ross experience from our women students' perspectives, and the panelists will be members of the Michigan Business Women student club.

To give you a glimpse of what's happening around the school, on Monday (Martin Luther King, Jr. day in the U.S.), the school hosted a lunch and lecture with former Washington, D.C. Mayor, Adrian Fenty, who led significant reforms in the DC public school system. He gave a frank talk about the challenges he faced in implementing changes that led to rising graduation rates and enrollment there. Also this week, the Dean held town halls with MBA1s. (She held sessions with MBA2s before the holidays). She was joined by associate deans and senior administrators to update students on some of the school's current priorities: globalization, entrepreneurship, defining what the next generation of action-based learning will look like, and expanding our already-broad array of inter-disciplinary (i.e., cross-campus) initiatives. The Dean is planning to release a strategic plan for the school by late summer. You can read more about these and other initiatives on the Dean's blog.

Tomorrow evening, I will be joining our MBA students for the second annual Revitalization and Business Conference in downtown Detroit. The conference will feature prominent industry and city leaders and entrepreneurial change agents who will share their perspectives on how business issues contribute to Detroit’s progress and transformation. Last spring, I met with the students who organized the inaugural conference and was struck by their commitment to not just make an impact "out there" or in emerging countries, but also in making an impact in and around our community, and they weren't even Michigan-born and bred. Another way in which our students impact our community is by serving on the boards of local nonprofit organizations. During a conversation with one of our newly admitted students from New York last March, he commented that many schools had social impact initiatives, but few were as focused on the local community as Michigan Ross is. He told me that this was one of the deciding factors for him to join our community this fall.  

Notification update

Happy new year! It's sunny, 41 degrees, and snow-free in Ann Arbor as I write. MBA students have returned from their winter breaks and the school is buzzing once again. Of course, the Admissions Office was buzzing even without students around last week as we wrapped up Round 1 decisions and began processing Round 2 apps for the Committee's review.

Judging from the visits to my blog today, I'm guessing that many of you are anxious to hear about notification dates for Round 1 decisions and Round 2 interview invitations. Here's the scoop. All Round 1 decisions will be released this Friday, January 13 at noon EST. We'll begin making admit calls beginning Wednesday morning (EST). If we can't reach you by phone, we'll email you.

Round 2 interview invitations will go out in 3 waves. The first wave will go out next Monday or Tuesday. Some of the folks on our Round 1 waitlist will be invited to interview with this wave.

Note to Consortium applicants: you may not get the first wave invitation on the same day as we haven't received all of the Consortium apps from the Consortium yet. We'll try to get the invites out as soon as we can. We will be hosting a Consortium interview event in mid-February in conjunction with our Black Business Students Association conference on February 18. We'll confirm the details in the interview invitation.

To Round 2 applicants - if the Admissions Committee needs any additional documents or information from you, we will contact you via email. Good luck to all and we look forward to reviewing your applications.

Review process in full swing

Here's where we are with Round 1: the team has reviewed all the files from their regions and made preliminary recommendations. Now I get to do the fun part of building the class. This will take a few days as I review individual files and interview reports, and keep on top of the impact each decision will have on the composition of the class. After I'm done with my review, I'll submit the recommendations to the Associate Dean for her review over the holidays. (Please keep in mind that we'll be closed from the afternoon of Dec. 23 until Jan. 3). If you want additional insights into the process, check out my interview with John Byrne on the Poets & Quants site.

I know many of you are anxious and wonder why we can't get decisions out before the holidays. The answer is that we want to make sure we give full consideration to each and every applicant, and not just use stats and numbers to make decisions. It took a lot of time to prepare your apps; we want to give it the proper time for review as well.

Here's the way I view the decisions - each and every person who submitted an app is motivated, ambitious, and hard-working. I know this because that's what it takes to prepare an app for b-school. By virtue of this, all of you possess qualities that can help you succeed in any environment; don't lose sight of that. 

On that note, on to building the Ross Class of 2014. Happy holidays all!  

Touching Base on Round 1

We will be wrapping up Round 1 interviews this week. As a reminder, if you didn't get an invitation to interview in this round, it is possible that you may be invited to interview in Round 2.

Following completion of the interviews, AdCom members will be reviewing files in concert with interview reports and making preliminary decisions. Each region will be reviewed by the region manager to make decisions on candidates from their region. At this stage, class composition isn't the focus, but rather, identifying the best candidates from every part of the world. Next, I will review all of the decisions with an eye towards crafting a class with a robust mix of achievements, experiences, perspectives, talents, and career goals. My goal is to assemble the best mix of 500 students for next year's class. I will then send the decision recommendations to the Dean's Office for review and approval over the holidays, and decisions will go out in mid-January. Please note that the Admissions Office will be closed for the holidays beginning the afternoon of December 23 through Monday, January 2.

We wish everyone a happy holiday!

Round 1 Update

As I stated in an earlier blog post, we extend our interview invitations in two batches. The first batch went out on October 24 and the second batch went out on November 14. If you have not received an interview invitation (be sure to double-check your spam folders!), you should not automatically assume that you will be “rejected” at the end of this round; you may be waitlisted and invited to interview at a later date.

All Round 1 admissions decisions will be posted on January 13th. You will receive an email from our office about a week prior to that date with instructions on how to access your decision.

Ross Admissions wishes you a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday. Our students got an early start on holiday festivities - take a look at the Ross Ambassador blog to see some pictures from the Section 6 Thanksgiving Potluck!

Early Reviews from our Readers

Early last week I touched base with our application evaluation team to get their sense of the quality of the Round 1 apps. There was consensus that this year's apps are better than last year's (don't tell last year's Round 1 admits). They said the essays really came to life and left them eager to meet the applicants they were getting to know through their apps. I'll have a chance to "meet" applicants a little later in the process.  

Last Friday, I welcomed a group of prospective students to another on-campus Preview Day. One of the things I shared with the group is how I review apps. By the time an application gets to me, several AdCom members have already weighed in on an applicant's admissibility and fit. They are not given an allotment of admit/waitlist/deny decisions that they can make. Rather, they thoroughly review each application and make decisions on their individual merits. When the decisions come to me, I focus on building the class and giving each student 499 peer-teachers who have diverse experiences and points of view. I view Admissions' role not as that of "gatekeepers," but rather "community builders." We could fill the class several times over with students who could do well academically and have prior work experience that would make them attractive to recruiters. But we're doing something more than screening for smarts and potential placement success. We're using the limited information we have about you to make educated bets on who will help sustain and build on the extremely positive energy we have in our community.

Yesterday, I received an email from one of our MBA2s whose Marcel Gani internship at a VC firm in 2009 resulted in a 2-year contract with one of the portfolio companies. He wrote, "I keep in touch with a good number of my section mates from the Class of 2010, but it has been great getting to know some of the members of the Class of 2012. I just wanted to drop you a line to tell you I'm back and to congratulate you and the rest of your team on an excellent job - the caliber of the current class at Ross really blows me away." That's what the AdCom strives for - to bring you into a community that will inspire you and pave the way for new, and perhaps, unimagined opportunities.

Demystifying the Interview Invitation Process

In case you didn't read the comments to my last blog post, a reader ("Ross Hopeful") decried our interview process because of the 3-week wait between invitations going out. S/he commented that this wait "take(s) a toll not only on our psyche, but also on our work and to some extent our family."

I completely understand that feeling. I've been through many an application process myself, and that was back in the day when applicants were given no clue as to when an interview invitation would come, if at all. And the only other communication applicants received from the school was either a thick envelope or a thin envelope, depending on the admissions decision. So for months (not just 3 weeks), I lived in limbo until I got the interview invitations. It was tough, but I did my best to focus on the present and try to manage my anxiety. It's a useful skill to develop as you'll need to leverage it for so many other things in life.

As I explained in my response, one of the main goals for our interview process (which is in its second year running), was to minimize the anxiety by targeting two dates on which to release invitations. Previously, our process was similar that of some other schools whereby we released invitations on a rolling basis starting a couple weeks after the app deadline right up until the decision notification date in mid-January. So applicants had an extended period of stress and waiting - over two months, in some cases. We thought that this new process would be less stressful, and, allow us to make better decisions on whom to invite. We received very positive feedback from applicants on this process last year. They were glad to know that they didn't have to check their emails every day to see if an invitation would come through.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, when you submitted your application has no bearing on when you might get an interview invite. Similarly, your GMAT score is not a driver of when you might get an invite, nor is your location.

Waiting is never easy, whether it's for admission to b-school, a job offer, funding for a new venture, or the results of a health exam. Many things take time, so the people on the other end make well-informed decisions. It is very important to us not to rush through your applications. We know that you've poured a lot of your heart and soul into them and we want to handle them with care.

Tips for the interview (and essays)

For those of you who submitted your apps this past week, you're probably thinking ahead to the next part in the process - the interview. I've just finished updating our interviewer training materials (which I do each year based on learnings from the prior year). Our on-campus interviewers (MBA2s) will undergo training today and tomorrow. Here are the key things I will tell them:

• Ask the "why" question, and not just the "what." We want to understand what matters to you, how you think, what your key drivers are - stuff that is better gleaned through a conversation than a resume.
• Look for self-awareness. We want to know that you've taken the time to reflect on your experiences and learned something from them. The entire application process is an opportunity for self-reflection - from deciding to pursue an MBA to the topics you write about in your essays, and soon, the interview.
• Look for fit with our program and our culture. A lot of smart people apply to business school, but schools aren't just looking for smart, we're looking for fit. Each school defines fit slightly differently, which explains why some applicants get into some schools and not others. We're looking for fit between your goals and what we offer, as well as fit between your personality and ours. If you want to be successful in the Ross admissions process, do your homework on our program and our culture.

As for other tips - be prepared to talk about your career path, your goals, and how an MBA and Ross fit into your plans. The interview is intended to be a conversation to get to know you better and see if there's a mutual fit. As with the essays, don't strive for uniqueness. The uniqueness comes when you answer questions using your own experiences and your own points of view developed through your unique way of processing experiences. That's what makes getting to talk to MBA aspirants so fun.

36 Hours in Ann Arbor, Mich.

I love to travel. I love to experience new cultures, new people, new food (anyone who knows me knows that I run so that I can eat!). Fortunately, my work provides me with opportunities to travel around the United States and the world to meet with Ross alumni and prospective students AND to have many new experiences. That said, I’m always happy to come home to what is familiar, especially because of where home is – Ann Arbor.

The New York Times Travel section has a “36 Hours” column where they highlight things to do in a city over a – you guessed it – 36 hour period. Recently, they’ve covered Krakow, Poland, Perugia, Italy, and Quito, Switzerland. I was pleased to see that this week they focused on Ann Arbor!

I encourage you to take a look at the column to learn more about why the University of Michigan’s students, faculty, and staff love to call Ann Arbor home. Hopefully when you come visit us, you can check out my favorite local restaurant, Pacific Rim, mentioned in the 7 p.m. spot. Safe travels!