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

JonFrank

Hi Jon,

Can I ask some questions about reapplicant?

I plan to apply for same schools as I did last year. Is it better to maintain my career goal or to have new career goal? If I have new career goal, do I need to explain it in the essay of reapplicant?

For essays,  if the school does not change the essays, is it better to write new story or just use the same one as last year?

For recommendation letters, do I need to find new recommender to put something new?

In general, I am not clear about how school evaluate reapplicant? Does school compare application package of last year with that of this year?

Thanks a lot.

-- by 会员 lostkid123 (2012/8/22 10:27:25)

Very good questions here my friend! Let’s see what we can do to help you out…

So first, regarding your goals, you totally CAN change your goals, and if you had inappropriate ones last year, you might want to. If you do, though you for sure gotta explain the logic as to why… otherwise some folks might be scratching their heads…

If the school does not change essays, usually it’s a better idea to find a new story (if you have to answer the questions), because otherwise it may look like laziness… and of course we don’t want that! So do your best to use your imagination!

Finally, for the recommendation letters, I’d suggest using at least ONE new recommender. No need to use two… but one new one is good, because it brings fresh air into the application.

In general, schools will evaluate you first of all in comparison with your peers, and secondly, they will check to see how much you have progressed from last year, so SHOWING concrete progress is the KEY to getting in this year!

So go get ‘em!

Jon Frank

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

-- by 会员 m1nt (2012/8/19 18:44:44)

Hahaha, NEEEEVER my friend

-- by 会员 JonFrank (2012/8/20 18:41:15)

well, my "friend" i knew you got my email, you just didnt wanna reply
should have known that, and sorry, i dont think it is nice

deardee

Hey Jon, thanks for your insightful opinion!

One question regarding the recommendation letter. My supervisor wrote a fair and strong letter for me to apply all the schools. However this letter does not cover all the questions nor not in the right format required by some schools. After communication, he insisted not make any changes to the letter.

Should I find other supervisors who will provide less strong recommendation letter but follow all the school instructions?

Thanks!

JonFrank

Hey Jon, thanks for your insightful opinion!

One question regarding the recommendation letter. My supervisor wrote a fair and strong letter for me to apply all the schools. However this letter does not cover all the questions nor not in the right format required by some schools. After communication, he insisted not make any changes to the letter.

Should I find other supervisors who will provide less strong recommendation letter but follow all the school instructions?

Thanks!

-- by 会员 deardee (2012/8/25 8:37:17)

Hey, actually the content in recommendation letters is not all that vital. Meaning, it’s totally okay if the school asks one question and your recommender answers something totally on the side. The important thing is that it be a good, strong, excited, recommendation. And if that’s the case, then you don’t need to change recommenders. Hope this helps man, feel free to reach out it there is more i could help with



Jon Frank

darkdoug

Hi Jon,This is Doug. First I would like to thank you a lot for your tremendous contributions in this post. It takes me 4-5 hours to go through them (and also your other post) and find them greatly beneficial.


I would like to ask for some evaluations for my profile and some suggestions to my application strategy. I put it here rather than email you personally just because of my "non-typical" background, which I think may be also helpful for other students with similar profiles. In short, I think my profile is "non-typical" mainly for 3 reasons: Age, Degree and Working-experiences.

• Basic
  
  • Male, 33 years old --nontypical #1
    
• Education:
  
  • GPA, 3.1 or so, normal 211 university in China (not top10 overall but the best in my major)
    
  • Ph. D. degree in Engineering -- nontypical #2
    
• G/T
  
  • GMAT: 740, considering retake for top10 schools.
    
  • TOEFL: not taken yet, estimated around 110.
    
• Working experiences
  
  • 7 years in the headquarter of a dominating state-owned company, a titan with huge scale but maybe not well-known out of China.-- nontypical #3
    
  • 4 years in technology R&D department, work on technical strategies, roadmaps and specifications. Promoted as team manager with 8 members. International experiences in 4 years regular global standardization works and a regular corporate project with a foreign giant company.
    
  • 3 years in planning department, work on company investment planning and strategies, involving billions dollars per year.
    
• Career Goal: (actually not determined yet...)
  
  • Hi-tech Corp.: General Management, Planning and Strategy...
    
  • PE/VC in high-tech areas in China
    
  • Consulting.
    
• Target
  
  • Tier1: Chicago, Kellogg, INSEAD
    
  • Tier2: Ross, Duke, UCLA, Cornell
    
  • Tier3: 20-30 schools, no research yet.
    

So, I am eager for your advice especially on the following questions:

1. About my Ph.D degree. Is it an advantage or a flaw in my application? How should take this as an advantage in my application? Which kind of school like students with such backgrounds (older age and Ph. D degree in engineering)?  I guess Chicago maybe because it represents high quantitative skills. Also Cornell 's 1 year program suit for Ph.D. students.
2. About my company. It is a household name in China and absolute Fortune 500 or ** 100 in the world. But will it be unfamiliar to American B schools? I'm really worried about it. Any suggestion to make it up during application?
3. About career goal. Which career goal above fit me the most and will be most convincing for B-schools?  I guess it will be better to fit my degree and age.
4. From your point of view, is that possible for me to reach my Tire1 target schools? Do you have any other suggesting  schools which I may have a better chance?


Sorry to make it long ( I am also surprised for that...). Looking forward to see your analysis and suggestions. More or less will be appreciated!!!

JonFrank

Hi Jon,This is Doug. First I would like to thank you a lot for your tremendous contributions in this post. It takes me 4-5 hours to go through them (and also your other post) and find them greatly beneficial.


I would like to ask for some evaluations for my profile and some suggestions to my application strategy. I put it here rather than email you personally just because of my "non-typical" background, which I think may be also helpful for other students with similar profiles. In short, I think my profile is "non-typical" mainly for 3 reasons: Age, Degree and Working-experiences.

Basic

Male, 33 years old --nontypical #1

Education:

GPA, 3.1 or so, normal 211 university in China (not top10 overall but the best in my major)
Ph. D. degree in Engineering -- nontypical #2

G/T

GMAT: 740, considering retake for top10 schools.
TOEFL: not taken yet, estimated around 110.

Working experiences

7 years in the headquarter of a dominating state-owned company, a titan with huge scale but maybe not well-known out of China.-- nontypical #3
4 years in technology R&D department, work on technical strategies, roadmaps and specifications. Promoted as team manager with 8 members. International experiences in 4 years regular global standardization works and a regular corporate project with a foreign giant company.
3 years in planning department, work on company investment planning and strategies, involving billions dollars per year.

Career Goal: (actually not determined yet...)

Hi-tech Corp.: General Management, Planning and Strategy...
PE/VC in high-tech areas in China
Consulting.

Target

Tier1: Chicago, Kellogg, INSEAD
Tier2: Ross, Duke, UCLA, Cornell
Tier3: 20-30 schools, no research yet.

So, I am eager for your advice especially on the following questions:

1. About my Ph.D degree. Is it an advantage or a flaw in my application? How should take this as an advantage in my application? Which kind of school like students with such backgrounds (older age and Ph. D degree in engineering)?  I guess Chicago maybe because it represents high quantitative skills. Also Cornell 's 1 year program suit for Ph.D. students.
2. About my company. It is a household name in China and absolute Fortune 500 or ** 100 in the world. But will it be unfamiliar to American B schools? I'm really worried about it. Any suggestion to make it up during application?
3. About career goal. Which career goal above fit me the most and will be most convincing for B-schools?  I guess it will be better to fit my degree and age.
4. From your point of view, is that possible for me to reach my Tire1 target schools? Do you have any other suggesting  schools which I may have a better chance?


Sorry to make it long ( I am also surprised for that...). Looking forward to see your analysis and suggestions. More or less will be appreciated!!!

-- by 会员 darkdoug (2012/8/28 17:41:35)

Hey there Doug, thanks for writing us!
Well, looks like you have a lot of stuff going on in your post, and I’m gonna try and address every single one of your questions, and maybe even get a little more for ya ;)

So the first thing to think about is your age and experience. Let’s be straight here: For a regular MBA program in the US, you are a bit on the old side. Now, you aren't soooooo old to make it impossible (every class in every MBA has a few folks in the 32-36 range), but it does make it a bit tougher. Second thought, and I am mentioning this because you have listed INSEAD is to consider European programs. There are plenty of great ones out there, and they tend to take older candidates (and may be better for you because many are one year programs too). Also, as you have mentioned, you have accelerated programs such as Cornell’s which might fit in better for you. And finally, you have EMBA programs. I don’t know if you have looked into these, but they may be good for you. Of course you don't have to limit yourself to only one type of program. You can apply to some regular 2-year MBAs, some AMBAs, some EMBAs, a few in Europe etc…. they should just meet your goals.

So, next. You have a PhD. Great! You have a LOT more specialized knowledge than anyone out there? How can that be bad???! Lots of folks who succeed are EXPERTS in what they do, so use your PhD to your ADVANTAGE. Show how your PhD prepares you better than other candidates. And it can be a PLUS for you,

About your state-sponsored company. Okay, so maybe the AdCom doesn't know about it. Okay… we can deal with that! You need to TELL them. Focusing on universally recognized facts and statistics that will SHOW us how important the company is! For example is your firm “China’s largest manufacturer of consumer electronics? The WORLD LEADER in sales?” WOW!!! SHOW them what they don't yet know to make your company impressive.
For your career goal: In my eyes the ONLY one that will work for you is general management in High Tech. I mean you have YEARS of experience, a PhD in Engineering and management experience in your industry! All that is awesome! Why throw it all away to try for a VC goal which you likely won’t reach anyhow, cause you lack the experience and cause there are few places, and cause it’s crazy competitive!? Use what you have!
As for schools, I think with your list above you can make it in (including Tier 2 schools). A few more schools you may want to look into: Anderson, IMD, Tepper, Haas…
So, I hope this is helpful for you and all our other friends here on CD,
And best of luck to ya!


Jon Frank

darkdoug

Many many thanks, Jon!!! Your responses are very clear and helpful and, more importantly, encourage me greatly to apply. You are so kind really.

Just one more question to clarify: about choosing the target schools. I do have variety of possible schools to look at, but how to narrow down the list? I know research work is necessary and I do attend as many info sessions as I can. But it is still hard to feel the "culture" of different schools. For example, I know I am a team player and I should choose a team-work school, but you will find actually near 70% (or more) B-Schools marked themselves as "team-work"......So do you have any suggestion how to distinguish them each?  And as for my case, I noticed you recommended schools like Hass and Tepper, whose university have strong engineering background. Do you mean those kind of school will prefer engineering guys like me more than traditional finance schools do?

JonFrank

Many many thanks, Jon!!! Your responses are very clear and helpful and, more importantly, encourage me greatly to apply. You are so kind really.

Just one more question to clarify: about choosing the target schools. I do have variety of possible schools to look at, but how to narrow down the list? I know research work is necessary and I do attend as many info sessions as I can. But it is still hard to feel the "culture" of different schools. For example, I know I am a team player and I should choose a team-work school, but you will find actually near 70% (or more) B-Schools marked themselves as "team-work"......So do you have any suggestion how to distinguish them each?  And as for my case, I noticed you recommended schools like Hass and Tepper, whose university have strong engineering background. Do you mean those kind of school will prefer engineering guys like me more than traditional finance schools do?

-- by 会员 darkdoug (2012/8/29 17:23:22)

You are welcome, dude! Well, of course you gotta start it off with research. Looking how the school’s program is arranged, what opportunities it gives you in special programs etc. Getting a “feel” for the school is much harder, I agree. Especially since it’s totally subjective. Some people will say “HBS is the most team-oriented school in the universe” and others will say that HBS is “full of killer-sharks” J Depends on your prospective. And the BEST way to get your idea straight here is to VISIT. Of course that isn’t always possible. But talking to alumni and students and emailing them usually is. So you can start by doing that to start to get an idea.

As for my suggestions, of course I did suggest Haas, Tepper and Anderson because of their strengths in Tech. What this means is a few things: 1. They are usually connected with strong tech programs, so you can find partners, and even take some classes if you want 2. They will have a lot of resources (most importantly connections) for you. 3. They are located in the right place (California) 4. They tend to be more willing to take a larger majority of their student body with Tech backgrounds. Sooo, since all of these things will work in your favor, it makes sense to me!

Of course, ultimately, there is no substitute for you doing your own research, but hopefully these first few thoughts will start you off well.

Jon Frank

yokoleilei

Hi，Frank

I've been thinking about whether I should ask for help or not, cause it seems that all those fellows here are all qualified to top 20s and everyone seems to be genus with excellent background, haha. well ,My case is quite different, maybe.

I got my bachelor degree though self-learning program, a full-time campus study program and equivalent to the common full-time diploma. How about those top 50s ? Do they have some special criteria? I mean do they accept my bachelor degree?

Working experience :6 years in education(seems not so hot, CEO now,)

I am confused now. expecting your advice!

anyway,thanks a lot

darkdoug

Very good suggestions Jon! You always tell people not only how & what to do, but also why to do so, which I think is more important. To be honest, I can hardly believe that I have got so many great suggestions just by free, which I think deserve a big meal at least. So I owe you one. Please keep my words and feel free to take it anytime if you like. Thanks again man!!!

You are welcome, dude! Well, of course you gotta start it off with research. Looking how the school’s program is arranged, what opportunities it gives you in special programs etc. Getting a “feel” for the school is much harder, I agree. Especially since it’s totally subjective. Some people will say “HBS is the most team-oriented school in the universe” and others will say that HBS is “full of killer-sharks” J Depends on your prospective. And the BEST way to get your idea straight here is to VISIT. Of course that isn’t always possible. But talking to alumni and students and emailing them usually is. So you can start by doing that to start to get an idea.

As for my suggestions, of course I did suggest Haas, Tepper and Anderson because of their strengths in Tech. What this means is a few things: 1. They are usually connected with strong tech programs, so you can find partners, and even take some classes if you want 2. They will have a lot of resources (most importantly connections) for you. 3. They are located in the right place (California) 4. They tend to be more willing to take a larger majority of their student body with Tech backgrounds. Sooo, since all of these things will work in your favor, it makes sense to me!

Of course, ultimately, there is no substitute for you doing your own research, but hopefully these first few thoughts will start you off well.

Jon Frank

-- by 会员 JonFrank (2012/8/29 18:18:35)