Ask Jon Frank- P69-Q&A:WHY MBA? 7 OVERLOOKED REASONS TO GET AN MBA

JonFrank

Thanks lot Jon!
Will try may best to get the highest GMAT score I can. BTW, assume my GMAT is 730, may I ask your advice on my scholl chossing?

-- by 会员 tanht (2012/8/7 17:42:01)

Sure! But that’s what I meant about waiting until you get your GMAT! If you do get a 730 then your school list is pretty good (I would suggest though adding one more school that is in the lower half of the Top 20, to cover yourself). If you get less than a 730, then we can reevaluate. Good luck!



Jon Frank

JonFrank

Question:

I’m working on my application essays, and I feel like the word limit is often pretty tight. Should I describe one thing very specifically, or touch on many attributes but with less detail?

Answer:

This is an easy one, my friend. You always need to write GOOD essays. And this involves SHOWING, and not just TELLING. What’s that mean? Well, here’s two examples to compare:

“I built a big boat, put my family and some animals inside, and survived a big flood.”
“I singlehandedly built the largest wooden boat ever made, loaded it with two of every animal from the land and air, and saved life on earth from a cataclysmic flood that wiped out everyone else on the planet.”
They’re both TELLING us the same story, but only one of them is SHOWING us what happened. So what does “showing” really mean? Details. Context. Accomplishment. Perspective. Scale. These are the things that give the reader insight into the situation and a sense of the results in light of the details.

So given the choice, if you can cover 3-4 topics by only briefly touching on them, versus 1-2 topics but really DIGGING INTO them, you should 100% dig deeper.  Fewer topics covered well are MUCH more valuable than more topics covered poorly. Imagine two stacks of cash. One has 100 one-dollar bills. The other has only 10 bills, but they’re $100 bills. You’d want the shorter stack. Why? Because it’s got WAY more value. Your essay topics work the same way. Fewer topics with more depth will ALWAYS be more valuable.

Worried you might not mention all the topics you want to? Don’t worry. After all, your resume will cover everything you’ve ever done.  So in the essays, focus on the few things that are worth digging into…and dig DEEP!

Make sense?

– Jon Frank

sbjqb

JonFrank! 你真是太牛逼了！

m1nt

hello, dude, i sent you 2 emails, not sure if you get, or you are not using the gmail account? how can i contact with you?

JonFrank

To m1nt :Hey there, feel free to send me e-mail at jfrank@mba2005.hbs.edu , looking forward to it man

m1nt

To m1nt :Hey there, feel free to send me e-mail at jfrank@mba2005.hbs.edu , looking forward to it man

-- by 会员 JonFrank (2012/8/13 21:41:13)

oh, ok
thought i was on your black name list, lol

JonFrank

To m1nt :Hey there, feel free to send me e-mail at jfrank@mba2005.hbs.edu , looking forward to it man

-- by 会员 JonFrank (2012/8/13 21:41:13)

oh, ok
thought i was on your black name list, lol

-- by 会员 m1nt (2012/8/19 18:44:44)

Hahaha, NEEEEVER my friend

JonFrank

Question:

For post-MBA goal, should Chinese applicants avoid saying that they’re immediately going back to China, because Admission Officers prefer to have applicants contribute to U.S. economy? Is bridging the U.S. and China “overused” in application essays?

Answer:

Solid question, buddy. This is a question that we get all the time, so let’s dig into it now, shall we? That is, “Is it good or bad for Chinese applicants to say they want to go right back to China, in their immediate post-MBA goals?” The answer, sadly, is that “it depends.” But as this is a yes-or-no question, you will fall into one or the other camp. So, for YOU, there will be one clear answer.

Confused yet? Hope not, but let me explain. Where you say you want to end up (US or China) will depend on the plan itself, particularly depending on the job market in your field in either country. If you have laid out a very hard-to-achieve goal in the US, like Private Equity etc., then it may be VERY tough for you to get that job in the US. In that case, especially if you don’t have a GREAT background in US private equity, say you’ll go to China. That’s your best chance to get a J-O-B, for sure.

But if you have a good background, say in marketing, and you DO have some international experience, it IS reasonable to assume that you may get a job at a BIG marketing firm in the US. Why? Well, once you get trained, they’d looooove to send you back to China, of course, to help them open up the market there. Also, they simply hire more people than PE firms do. Same with consulting, by the way–they hire a bunch of peeps out of US schools every year, they sponsor loads of international kids, etc. To say you want to get one of THOSE jobs? Very reasonable.

But to say you want to get one of the super hard-to-get ones, one that involves, for example, a ton of networking, leaps of faith, etc etc., forget it. Get THAT job back in China. That’s your only good chance, really.

– Jon Frank

deardee

Hi Frank!  I have a question regarding the CBS essay 2: Describe a personal experience and how it has influenced who you are today. This essay should have a personal rather than a professional focus. (Maximum 500 words)

Should this experience only from the recent years, say 5 years ?  do you think any formative experiences from childhood can be used here?

Thanks a lot!

妄以帷

Hi Jon,

This is Vera. First of all many thanks for being here on CD and offering advises.

Here I have some trouble in defining my target schools, and below are some brief info. of mine:

- GMAT 700
(just… almost there, I know, however it has been hard, to squeeze time from frequent OT work to practice, to apply any annual leave to be well prepared before the test, and to keep it as a secret from all colleagues around...)

- TOEFL 107
(expired score in 2008, will attend a new round soon)

- GPA appx. 3.2
(hmmmm, also not quite good... if it helps, my U - one of the 211 - should list on the top in fields of finance/accounting/economics in China)

- Working Experience 3+ yr ( i am 25 now)
1 year auditor in one of the big 4 accounting firms
2+ year financial analyst in a F500 European company - costing, budgeting, transfer pricing
( Candidate for CICPA, CIA, plan to obtain AICPA in during MBA )

- Extra curriculum
3 yr NGO (a global student organization) experience during university, including a 2-month volunteer oversea for non-priviledge kids, sensitive to multiple culture environment, helped establish new committee in L2 cities of China
Keen business sense, ranked top in a few national-wide case competitions, traineeship in HK
Expertise on one of the Chinese traditional music instrument
Out-going and competitive, used to be tennis champion of my U and the company
Now sponsoring the education of a kid in inner-Mongolia

- Career plan
Corporate finance in short term
NGO/Charity in the long run


Given that none of my academic statistics stands out, is it still reasonable that I choose below B-schools as target (would 9 be too much?), what is the possibility of me getting there, and is there any other comment/recommendation? Thanks!


University of Virginia (Darden)
Cornell University (Johnson)

Emory University (Goizueta)

University of Southern California (Marshall)
University of California--Los Angeles (Anderson)

Boston College (Carroll)
Boston University

University of Rochester (Simon)
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey--New Brunswick and Newark