A FIELD GUIDE TO ADCOMS
 
MILDY ANNOYING NYT ARTICLE ABOUT BOTH THE BACKGROUNDS AND REQUIRED TALENTS FOR BEING A COLLEGE  ADCOM. REMARKS BY NONDORF AT RPI ARE PARTICULARY INSIPID. TED O’NEILL AT CHICAGO IS HONEST AND ACCURATE.
FOR MY TAKE DOWN OF DRAMA QUEEN MARILEE JONES AT MIT, WHO SELF-DESTRUCTED RECENTLY, SEE PRIOR POSTS. SHE WAS IN THE FOREFRONT OF THE “JUST CHILL, GETTING IN TO COLLEGE IS SOOOOOOO UNIMPORTANT MOVEMENT” AND THE AUTHOR OF SEEMING “FUN” MIT APPLICATION ESSAY QUESTIONS THAT MUST HAVE CAUSED MORE HEARTACHE AND CONFUSION AMONG TYPE-A PARENTS IN ASIA AND AMONG US BORN ASIANS THAN A TSUNAMI.
 
WHAT YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW, MBA TYPES, IS NOT WHO THE HEAD DUDE/ETTE  IS, BUT WHO ARE THE FIELD SOLDIERS WHO OFTEN MAKE IMPORTANT DECISIONS AS FIRST READERS ETC. OF YOUR APP./INTERVIEWERS,  THAT IS MY GUESS WHERE MOST ADCOM ‘ERRORS’ HAPPEN.  ONCE YOU PASS THE FIRST COUPLA FITLERS, AND ACTUALLY GET CONSIDERED BY THE DIRECTOR OR THE SMALL VOTING GROUP, NORMATIVE RULES SET IN [ALTHO, SURE,  THOSE CAN SCREW YOU, BUT HEY, YOU GOT SCREWED FAIR AND SQUARE].  THOSE FOOT SOLDIERS AT WHARTON ARE 2ND YEARS WHO ARE TRAINED FOR ABOUT 6 HOURS AND LEARN ON THE JOB, AT H AND S, THEY ARE LARGELY YOUNG ADULT FEMALES–LIBERAL ARTS GRADS, PSYCH, ETC. SOMETIMES STUDENT SPOUSES, FAC SPOUSES, MBA SPOUSES W. MBA’S THEMSELVES ETC– OF IMPECCABLE MANNERS, SENSIBLE AND COMELY  SKIRTS, AND BUDGET-BREAKING SHOES AND SCARVES  [NECESSARY LUXURIES– HEY IT IS TUFF BEING THE MIDWIVE BETWEEN A LOT OF SCHMUCKY AND CALLOW BUT HIGHLY  ACCOMPLISHED BAIN KIDS AND THE DORKY FACULTY. I MEAN, WHAT ABOUT THEIR OWN   NEED FOR SELF-PRESENTATION AND RESPECT?] ALSO, H/S/W HAVE AN OFFICER CORPS OF ‘CAREER’ TYPE ADCOMS, FREQUENTLY TERRIFICALLY PRESERVED VARIANTS OF THE FOOT-SOLDIERS. THOSE GALS ARE, MY GUESS,  FRQUENT FLYERS AT HOTEL GYMS WHEN TRAVELLING,AND HEALTHY [YOGURT] + HAPPY [PBS AND ONE GLASS OF WINE=HEAVEN] TYPES WHEN AT HOME.   

The Gatekeepers’ Gate

By VICTORIA GOLDMAN
Published: July 29, 2007

MARILEE JONES, former dean of admissions at M.I.T., claimed three phantom degrees when applying for an entry-level job there 28 years ago, a disclosure that led to her messy departure last semester. Actually, the bachelor’s she did have was all she needed to get a foot in the door at most admissions offices. It’s those in the top jobs - officers and deans who read and decide on applications - who require advanced degrees. And most get them as they work their way up.
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P.C. Vey

Education Life

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“It’s typically an industry that is young,” says Ted O’Neill, dean of admissions at the University of Chicago. “There aren’t too many 60-year-olds doing this. If you last five or six years, you make it your career.”
Potentially discouraging is the schedule: 60-hour workweeks from Nov. 1 to April 1. Another downside: having to listen to relentless admissions stories from seatmates on airplanes. (”Never identify yourself if you don’t have to,” says Bruce Poch of Pomona College in Claremont, Calif.) The upside: “the kids,” of course.

Deans Tell All: What It Takes to Work in Admissions

JAMES G. NONDORF
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
HIS CREDENTIALS B.A., Yale; master?s in liberal studies/ethics, Valparaiso University, Indiana
“You must be a performer, prognosticator, a seer - have the understanding of all the things a school gives you, with balance and a high ethical standard; perhaps someone who could discover the cure for cancer.”

BRUCE POCH
Pomona College
HIS CREDENTIALS B.A., Oberlin; master’s in planning and social policy, Harvard
“The ability to conduct a good interview, a good public speaker, a close reader, possesses a real interest in possibilities, imaginative, a nonsmoker and have X-ray vision.”

TED O’NEILL
University of Chicago
HIS CREDENTIALS B.A., Michigan State; master’s in English literature, University of Chicago
“We hire lots of people who are young, lively and interesting creative types, a lot of theater people.”

MITCHELL L. LIPTON
Cooper Union
HIS CREDENTIALS B.A., Binghamton University (SUNY); master?s in public administration, New York University
“A decent-looking wardrobe, nice smile, good grooming habits, honesty, accept parents’ role in admissions, embrace technology, relate to kids, empathy, a driver’s license plus AAA membership card, and the ability to eat at the local Applebee’s when it’s the best game in town.”

Making a Hard-Life Story Open a Door to College

Inspiring story in NY TIMES about how a black kid in a college prep course was able, over 5 drafts, to hone a college essay about his dreams and core experiences, into a powrful story.

The “Jungian” method (my take on it ) of just listing key concepts and then building out details about them works if you have one or two strong ideas, and is worth reading about, it could help anyone think about the essay writing process. 

THE FOURTH SECTOR–A SORT OF UPDATED SOCIAL ENTERPRISE MODEL.  IF YOU ARE ARE PLANNING A GOAL STATEMENT THAT INCLUDES A ‘FOR BENEFIT (VS. FOR PROFIT) MODEL, BELOW COULD BE HELPFUL STARTING PLACE IN RESEARCH TO MAKE YOU SOUND SERIOUS. JUST GOOGLE SOME OF THE KEY PROPER NOUNS, AND YOU WILL BE EN ROUTE TO A GREAT 2-HOUR JOURNEY IN SELF EDUCATION.

TO WIT

http://www.fourthsector.net/

PS, AMAZINGLY NOT IN WIKIPEDIA, SOMEONE W. MORE TECH SAVVY THAN ME, PLEASE START A STUB.

WILLIAM SHUTKIN

The new, evolved capitalism

By William Shutkin  |  July 27, 2007

 In the past several years, the line between for-profit business and nonprofit mission has started to erode. A new breed of social entrepreneurs has challenged traditional philanthropy and what they perceive as its limitations in effecting large-scale reforms. On one side, foundations such as Google and Omidyar, as well as nonprofits like the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, have begun to invest in for-profit businesses with a strong social mission — software companies providing basic services to the poor, for example, or businesses that preserve good-paying jobs in struggling rural areas.

Meanwhile, private, money-making enterprises are incorporating social and environmental concerns directly into their business models. Honda and General Electric have recently launched bold environmental initiatives aimed at dramatically reducing carbon and other air pollutants from their products. Altrushare Securities, a for-profit brokerage firm, works to help economically distressed communities like Bridgeport, Conn., where it’s based. And the list is growing.

These social enterprises are transcending the boundaries separating government, business, and nonprofits and forging a new meta-sector, what some are calling the “fourth sector.” In the process, they are beginning to refashion American capitalism, long the nemesis of many reformers, into a, if not the, principal agent of social change.

Like carbon offsets, American philanthropy can be understood as an interim step in a larger process of transformation. Just as the solution to global warming ultimately requires each of us to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions ourselves rather than paying others to do it for us, we’ve come to understand that lasting, penetrating social change demands that our economic system, and the firms operating within it, integrate social needs directly into their business models instead of relying on charitable interventions after the fact.

In the fusion of commerce and the common good we are witnessing the birth of a new species of capitalism. For-benefit is starting to compete with for-profit as the dominant MO of a growing corps of capitalists not content with simply reaping financial rewards.

But we are also witnessing something else, something equally profound. The emergence of fourth-sector firms demonstrates what is perhaps capitalism’s greatest asset — its essential dynamism and capacity to change, to renew itself over time, however incrementally or begrudgingly, in response to new social conditions and markets.William Shutkin is a former foundation CEO and a trustee of Echoing Green, a funder of social entrepreneurs.  

I’m thinking about writing the HBS essays first and then morphing them into Stanford essays.  Will HBS essays highlighting leadership, consistent excellence, and reflectiveness help me any at Stanford or will the two sets of essays need to be completely different?  What kind of tweaks do I need for Stanford?

but that essay will prob. only suck in two HBS essays, and you will need more ligaments, etc. etc. The essays dont need to be completly diff in terms of content, but they turnout pretty diff. Some kids say they “just” pasted H answers in to S, but that is often sloppy talking or bragging or outright BS, it aint no e-z process.

Quick Takes: Applications May Lose Significance

Story above notes,

this, to some degree, must also be true in B school context, altho less so without the common app. and schools insistence on individual recs. It is a good caveat, however, to fact that probably more b school applicants are applying to more schools, and thus increase in number of applicants does not necessarily mean increase in selectivity, yield seems to be critical number here.

below is an account of HBS adcom head Dee Dee (Deirdre Leopold) talk in Paris a couple of years ago to prospective HBS applicants. This blog tracks HBS Forum reports, and you can gain $100 off any HBSGURU product by sending me a Forum report similar to this one, we will aslo offer comments.

HER GREAT TAKE-AWAT  Advice:  get someone who knows you well and someone who doesn’t to read your essays

Harvard came to Paris on September 26th, 2005.  The forum was very
well attended:  standing room only for latecomers.  There were
probably about 100 attendees.  Almost all were European.

The adcom rep who led the forum was the same rep who led an info
session in August in Boston that I attended.  Compared to Boston, I
think there was an emphasis on not only demonstrating the value of HBS
but the value of a U.S. two-year MBA in general.  In France, once
people start working, they seldom go back to school.  Also, tuition
here is about $500 a year, so the cost of an American MBA seems
staggering to French people.  There was a lot of talk about the return
on investment from an MBA in general and an HBS MBA specifically.
Financing an MBA was a huge topic, they actually handed all of us
sheets when we walked detailing the loan packages French students
could get from French banks.  Incidentally, these were all arranged by
the HBS Club of France, which is supposedly the most cohesive one in
Europe.  Adcom rep also said they don’t see as many applicants from
France as they would like.

There was also an alumni panel at the end.  Alums talked a lot about
the HBS network and how accessible other alums were, and how it helped
their careers (this is a pretty foreign concept in France).  Also a
discussion about how going to HBS taught them to break away from the
French mentality that working for a mega corporation is the way to
succeed and showed them value of entrepreneurship and encouraged them
to take intelligent risks.  There was also a lot of chat about
visas/difficulty of working in the U.S., but apparently the economy
here is so bad right now that it’s easier for a French HBS grad to get
a job in the States than in France right now.

So here goes:
?       Introduction
o       HBS is different from other schools
o       Focus is on developing young leaders
o       Made distinction that HBS wants to develop leaders, not create them,
hence the focus on finding individuals who have already demonstrated
leadership potential
o       The general management focus is a key part of the HBS experience and
creates business leaders who are trained for a broad variety of roles
and situations

?       Curriculum
o       Everyone takes required curriculum first year, electives second year
o       Explained concept of the Section at HBS and how it helps “ease”
students into the environment
o       Case method allows students to debate approaches
o       Trains leaders to make decisions
o       Cases are over a wide range of disciplines
o       Faculty has “passion for teaching”/ profs are accessible, and
focused on students

?       Demographics
o       38% women
o       22% minority
o       33% international
o       Business undergrads are only 23% of entrants
o       Student body is diverse, and brought closer by residential campus
o       Classes, dining, gym:  all are on campus
o       High degree of student involvement/school very responsive to students

?       Alumni network
o       70,000 alums worldwide
o       Alumni-based career coaching is common, helpful
o       ? of alums are Alumni Advisors, meaning they have designated
themselves as available to answer questions from students

?       Job placement
o       Class of 2004 by industry
?       Finance:  38%
?       Consulting:  23%
?       Tech/Telecom:  9%
o       By geography:
?       U.S. Northeast:  46%
?       Europe:  8% (This stat caused a lot of concern here.  HBS said they
realize int’l job placement is a problem and they are working on it by
sending career placement officials abroad to lobby companies to hire
HBS grads)
?       Admissions
o       Evaluating academic ability, leadership, and personal qualities
o       Leadership most important.  Want to see evidence of it in college,
extracurricular activities, and at work
o       Also assessing whether applicant’s personality is suited to the case method
o       Essays are most important aspect of application
o       GMAT:  not “terribly important”.  Advice was “focus on other areas
of the application that are much more important”
o       Spend lots of time and energy on the essays.  “Tell us who you are”
o       After reading a set of essays, reader should say “I know who this
person is and I should meet him”
o       Advice:  get someone who knows you well and someone who doesn’t to
read your essays
?       There should be no “missing pieces” of your story/personality
o       Get someone who will work really hard on your rec and knows you
well.  Not important if rec comes from alum or not, job title of
recommender also not important
o       ”Do not apply in Round 3″ if you are an international applicant
o       Interviews:
?       Must be interviewed to get admitted
?       Interview types
?       Campus
?       Phone
?       City
?       Alum
?       Can switch type of interview, but will delay your decision date a couple weeks

?       Financial Aid
o       Huge concern for Europeans
o       70% of students get financial aid
o       Even int’ls can get Citibank loan without a U.S. co-signer
==================================

(more…)

Hi Sandy,

I have really appreciated your frank analysis.  Given alleged bias of H/S against older applicants, I am wondering if I am wasting time and money applying to those schools.  I am 34, married with 2 children, but I do come from an atypical background.  I am a board-certified ophthalmologist and can make a good case for why I want an MBA.  I had an UG GPA from Duke of 3.7, went to an Ivy League medical school and just got a 780 on the GMAT.  Ironically, I feel young in medical circles but feel like Methuzala in this forum.  Other schools I like are Tuck (my favorite), Wharton, and Ross.  I’m hoping a good GMAT will offset my AARP status, but this may be irrational optimism.  Thanks for the naked truth.
=====================

hmmmmm, MD cohort @ HBS is its own outlier, usually 10 a year, often dudes fr. H or Yale med school, who are focused on managed care, hosp. admin, or on occassion, PE or VC in pharma/med. devices/managed care buyouts, etc.  Knew a surgeon at HBS who actually continued to practice during B school, and went back to that, but they told him others were not like him, and I am not sure why they took him, but dont count on them doing it again, he had gold plated resume to boot. 

hbs working knowledge story below is typical bloggorhea by Heskett, who in his lazy way, points you to valuable resources;  the comments, mosly by leadership coaches and HR types are worth a quick look, not much of this will overtly help you fill in your HBS app, but all you need to get is one solid idea, not a comprehensive definition of leadership.

What Do You Think? How Much of Leadership Is About Control, Delegation, or Theater?

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5718.html
 It may be important for us to believe that our leaders have control over performance, whether or not it is true, particularly in times of turmoil or concern about the future, says Jim Heskett. So to what degree should leaders become thespians, creating an impression that fits expectations? What do you think?

COLLEGE GOP WORK A NEGATIVE TO LIBERAL ADCOMS????

Ha, ha most adcoms would be SHOCKED, SHOCKED to even think that whether you were GOP or Dem in your extra curris would make a dif, and they would then point to many GOP super-stars who have made it through their bi-partisan admission policies, including famous ‘body’ man to Geoge Bush who got accepted to both H and S. See http://hbsguru.com/media_econ.html for Economist story on Blake Gottesman the president’s 26-year-old personal aide, responsible for carrying his breath mints, logging his telephone calls and dog-sitting his Scottish terrier.  Sure, when the White House writes your recs, and you got a powerful story about shepparding Big Shots on 9/11, schools will welcome you with open arms and turn you into Poster Boy for “blind” admissions process.

BUT!!!! With regular folks, the question of pzzble prejudice is worth revisiting: given Liberal bias in press, adcoms, academics in general, it would be no surprise if in close cases an application could be colored by political bias, a lot would depend on what you had done, what you say, and how you are coming across. If there is a wiff of GOP stereotype behavior in apps, e.g. a lack of bleeding heart awareness of impact of economic policies on communities, a rah-rah pro business attitude, and any pixel of race, gender, etc. bias, the added X factor of working for GOP orgs could “crystalize” a lot of incohate bad vibes in your app, and do some real damage. To be honest, if you were coming off as a flake, dreamer, and doper-head, and you had standard liberal extras, most adcoms would look that over, and  shake their head as well, and say, “that figures” altho they may quicker on the draw on the GOP side. 

Above describes most cases, where political affiliation can be an explaining factor to other issues in application, and pzzbly a bad aggregator. There are, however, certain 3-rd Rail issues which adcoms would be really, really hard pressed to consider in neutral light: to wit. ANTI-CHOSE LEADERHIP POSITIONS, PR0-GUN LOBBY LEADERSHIP POSITIONS, PRO-FAMILY LEADERSHIP POSITIONS (E.G. YOU ORGANIZED PETITION IN YOUR STATE TO DEFINE MARRIAGE AS BETWEEN MAN AND WOMAN).  These, to the country at large are contentious issues over which folks split sorta 50-50, but adcoms DO NOT, and they would really have a hard time forgiving anyone who wrote powerful essay about, e.g. organizing Operation Rescue at Abortion Clinic to talk women out of abortions, and then using that as impact on group essay, to wit, MY IMPACT ON PREGNANT MOMS AND  THE UNBORN. Adcoms may  say they will read those essays just like essay about raising money for John Kerry, but I dont really think so.  There is a way, maybe, to thread the needle w. a hot button topic, but it starts w. realization that adcom will have her undies in a bunch right from first sentence.  I’d avoid stuff like that, or if it is really part of your leadership profile, I’d really be very careful about what I said.

Dee-Dee Droppings–more “WTF”??? from the official HBS adcom blog — or what the hell does this mean? Inside the box below is an excerpt from Dee-Dee The Adcom Lady’s latest official HBS blog entry http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/blog.html

folks, what does this mean, and how can it help you apply???

If you read Dee-Dee’s recent  interview in BW carefully, you sense her obsession with the HBS case method  where diverse opionons clang and clash to amp out some truth. She is loving those case discussions where some cat proposes something “completely wild —” at least to some other dude, or “protagonist” (her word for dude) who has another style of leadership.  Weeeeel, I will leave it to the testimony of actual HBS kids to verify if those “something wild” moments in class are not more often remarks by slackers, crackpots, or wise guys (you called) than anything that is both wild and useful, who cares??? the point is to get inside Dee Dee’s head and find out what she is looking for between the tea leaves as it were of  the above primary process screed about “leadership,” which quickly zig-zags  in its bloggy way, to her homeport, which is not leadership but case method.

What is  the take away for the applicant, trying quite legitimately to game the system for some actual useful info.  First, she recognizes dif. styles of leadership, and the cliche style, Teddy Roosevelt yelling “follow me” the Rough Riders as they charge San Juan Hill is not her fav, nor is it one that many applicants have exp. with, even in their exaggerated essays. More to her liking and experience are those more quiet leadership moments, entrepreneurial leaders, those that gravitate to positional authority in complex organizations, thought leaders and hands-on leaders who thrive with small teams. Leaving aside for a moment if this laundry list has 3 or 4 items, hey, call it four, and imagine there is 1. entrep leader, 2. positional leader, 3. thought leader and 4. hand’s-on leaders in small teams, DO NOT BE SO SILLY AS BEGIN ASKING YOURSELF WHICH TYPE ARE YOU. BECAUSE YOU ARE ALL OF THE ABOVE, DEPENDING ON CIRCUMSTANCES. Such a list is a useful corkscrew of buzz words that can extract some useful refinements in any essay, even one’s nominally not about leadership.  Like substantial accomplishment. They want to see a subtantial acomplishment, sure, but they also want to see how you accomplished it, how you exercised leadership, even the watered-down anything goes leadership of hand’s-on actions in small groups (not sure if hand’s-on is literal but doing small things in smal groups like sending out blast emails, putting up posters, calling the others, increasing morale, and overcoming depressions can quality as leadership, altho you dont need to call it such. Also it seems a GREAT BINGO ITEM is to describe in some essay how you responded to wild ideas of, ahem, another protagonist, whom you did not call out for being slacker, crackpot, etc. but actually respected and grew and learned from. You could do a prtty good MISTAKE essay by saying how you started out as FOLLOW ME leader on some project but in response to some WILD objections, you reigned yourself in, or did not, and shudda. All these gold is right there in the Dee-Dee dross if you know how to look.

and more, but like Dee Dee, I am a blogger too, and dont have to finish my thinking in some stinking powerpoint set of charts. “We dunneed your stinkin powerpoint ”