For years I’ve been impressed with how popular you were around town, only to find out that your shine lacks luster beyond the local domain. You’ve told me time and time again that no one could give me what you can; yet, the data says otherwise. And as a recovering numbers whore, I still have a hard time turning my back on a nice set of empiricals looking me right in the face. Plus, I can’t enter a long term relationship on uncertain terms; doing so would forever haunt me as to whether I made the right choice.

Still, I’ve held on, unwilling to let go–partially out of fear that my dream picks might think of me as “over the hill”; and, well…I’ve heard you like older guys. In fact, your name has gotten around quite a bit for that. Call me a nontraditional applicant, but I really liked that smutty little fact about you. What can I say, it’s hot. You’re hot; but hot’s just not enough for me to stake my future on.

You must believe me when I tell you that I really, really wanted this to work–I mean, you’re SO darn attractive; but I’m way too experienced and mature to ignore what I know are red flags. This simply isn’t going to pan out. Therefore, I must bid you farewell, my intriguing, sexy safety school–USC Marshall. Though we were not meant to be, I will always remember you fondly.

Warmest Regards,

mbaover30

P.S. Please don’t try to stop me. I’m deleting your web page soon after publishing this post; and I won’t look back.

LEARNING TO LET GO

I’ve thought long and hard about this; and it hasn’t been easy, since I’m such a big fan of this school on many levels. I’m definitely a fan of their football team (which is second only to my Miami Hurricanes, whom the NCAA just won’t give a break on those violations; mostly because they want to ensure that non Florida schools get more chances to divvy up world-class Florida football talent); but there’s a larger, broader mystique to USC that extends far beyond the gridiron.

Maybe you have to be familiar with Southern California’s culture to know what I am talking about. You see, in socal, you could almost compare USC’s alumni network to the mafia. It wields an unseen hand that is deeply felt in every nook, crack and cranny of the public and private sectors.

Not only does the mere mention of the name lend instant credibility, but the actual alumni share a Stanford GSB/Dartmouth Tuck-like bond that prompts them to literally bend over backwards to extend opportunities and assistance to a fellow alum. It’s an amazing thing to watch; and can be a frustrating experience should you find yourself outside the fold. Even with a degree from powerhouses like Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech and UCLA (all considered to have ivy league-comparable educations) it can be a challenge to penetrate a professional or civic network brimming with Trojans.

WHY I HAD TO END IT

My decision to break ties with this great institution was a function of goals and fit. Both my long and short term goals are tied into entrepreneurship. I first had thoughts about the possibility of an MBA from USC Marshall years ago when a close friend (and Trojan, of course) mentioned that the school was ranked #1 for entrepreneurship; I checked online to find that her assertion was true. In a general sense, I was sold on the concept.

At the time, however, I had absolutely no intention of making a move toward an MBA; I was working hard on my first internet business and thought, “who has time to take a class about business when they could be building one?” I filed the data point that she had presented in the back of my head didn’t think much about it for quite some time.

As I learned and grew over the years I discovered that an MBA would actually be an excellent next step to help me build the kind of company that I began to envision. This new vision was markedly different from previous models that I had built both in size and scope. When that time came, USC was the FIRST institution that popped into my mind based on what I had come to know about it.

THE STRAWS THAT BROKE THE APPLICANT’S BACK

As I began to embark on more serious research about nine (9) months ago I started to see weaknesses in the bond between my goals/needs and Marshall’s offering. They boiled down to:

Entrepreneurial Ecosystem – One of the things that I believe contributed to USC being recognized as an entrepreneurial leader in the first place was that they saw a need to teach entrepreneurship before it became the “fad” that it seems to have become in recent years. This isn’t a surprise at all coming from a California-based school. California institutions in general tend to be trendsetters for all things nontraditional.

However, fad or no fad, perennial “suit and tie” stalwarts like Wharton, Harvard, Booth, Columbia and Tuck have all “stepped their game up” tremendously within the last decade. They are obviously intent–individually and collectively–on not allowing usual suspects like Stanford, MIT and Berkeley to get away with “owning” entrepreneurship.

Consider that the “b-school rock star” of today is characterized more often by a start-up founder than a rising corporate tycoon. My personal opinion is that this growing trend is owed to the intersection of the “do it my way” millennial generation coming of age and the return of flush venture capital reserves (when I was 25, the country was still reeling from both the dot com bust and the September 11th attacks; few VC’s were willing to touch an unproven internet venture with a 50-ft pole, and I went to work for a brick-and-mortar behemoth to dodge the economic firestorm).

I think it’s safe to say that the prestige of any program that does not have a strong presence within the entrepreneurial realm can be expected to steadily erode over the next decade or so. If there has ever been a reason for top business schools to jump on a bandwagon, the rise of the legitimacy of entrepreneurship is it (top b-schools used to look at entrepreneurial types as semi-delusional dreamers with a loose grip on reality–not that we aren’t, it’s just considered cool now).

That being said, the schools that I’ve just mentioned have all poured tremendous resources into fostering entrepreneurship in their programs in recent years. Then, of course the death blow was John Byrne’s LinkedIn study that didn’t even show USC as being on the map in a comparative sample of actual entrepreneurs who have started businesses within the past 10 years or so.

Alumni Network Strength Outside of Socal – The fact that I am originally from the south means that I may eventually want or need to move back there to be closer to family and/or take care of my parents. Another possibility is that I may decide that after b-school I’d prefer to live somewhere on the east coast. While returning to California is a strong probability, I’d like my degree (and network) to carry sufficient weight regardless of where I choose to land.

As an entrepreneur (or anyone, for that matter) what you actually accomplish is infinitely more important than where you graduated from–or if you graduated at all; however, your alumni network can be critical to helping you pivot into key networks and/or opportunities where you may not already have friends.

My friend J.J. from undergrad who has a Sloan MBA and a Harvard M.A. claims to have gotten a meeting with a Silicon Valley VC–sight unseen–based on his grad school email address alone–while living in Washington State; now THAT’S what the hell I”m talking about. Besides, if I’m going to invest $150k in a damn piece of paper, it needs to open the right doors from coast to coast–end of story; just keeping it real.

Graduate School Environment – During my hilariously problematic school visit, there was something that really bothered me beyond the chaos of The Kids Choice Awards. I didn’t feel like I was in an environment that had been sufficiently distilled from the undergraduate population.

I’ve already experienced undergrad and have no interest in revisiting it. While on USC’s campus I felt that Marshall was engulfed in a post-pubescent undergrad playpen (The Kids Choice Awards notwithstanding); not sexy. I found the experience to be a sharp contrast to Stanford, which sequesters its MBA students in an enclosed Pantheon of GSB life, and even UCLA, while part of a large campus of some 40,000 undergrads still manages to pull off its own little business school-focused world somehow.

Grant it, there are other schools on my list who I’ve heard have a similar environment. And to be honest, I could probably stomach this for a school that had nearly everything else that I wanted; but not with so many other sub optimal characteristics added to the mix.

Likelihood of Transformation – One of the things that I wrestle with–even with Anderson–is the fact that I truly am looking for an experience that causes a transformation in that way that I think about and move within the space of business. I’m not so sure that I can accomplish that in such familiar surroundings.

Los Angeles is a city that I have lived, breathed and literally become one with for over 10 years. And though I feel that I will always be able to come back to it with a hometown-like familiarity that I’ll probably never lose, I wonder if I need to be completely ripped out of my current environment to be that much more open to new ideas, new paradigms, and most importantly, new networks and associations. For these and the reasons laid out in the previous 1630 words, I know that I know that I am making the right decision in removing this great institution from my target list.

MBAOver30 offers the perspective of a 30-something, California-based entrepreneur who is applying to Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Northwestern, Berkeley, UCLA and the University of Southern California. He hopes to gain acceptance to the Class of 2015 and blogs at MBAOver30.

Previous posts on Poets&Quants:

How I Totally Overestimated The MBA Admissions Process

Musings on MBA Failophobia

Co-author Paul Danos is dean of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College

There was a time when a student could graduate from business school with the basic MBA tool kit and knowledge about a single industry or job function and be reasonably confident that he or she was well positioned to launch a career. But now, with the constant stream of data, news and opinions that needs to be sorted through, having a depth of knowledge is no longer enough. Today, mastery of business requires the ability to filter and synthesize information from multiple sources in order to make effective business decisions.

In the mid-1990′s, when use of the Internet was growing by leaps and bounds at colleges, many business school faculty noticed a shift in the way information was being gathered and processed. Students, for the first time, had access to high-speed Internet connections and a wealth of information that made the computer lab an extension of the library. Textbooks, which for generations served as the definitive study reference, became just one of a vast array of information sources.

In hindsight, we can now see that a large-scale adaptation was taking place. When faced with information overload, students—and businesses—became more nimble at sourcing, sorting, analyzing and applying data to solve problems. Eventually, business schools caught on, in large part because the market (employers) told them that their graduates needed to come equipped with more agile information integration skills. Our schools, The Tuck School at Dartmouth and the University of San Diego’s School of Business, are among many programs that revised curricula and innovated to address these issues.

Business schools also recognize that their screening of candidates needs to adapt to reflect these changes.  It is no longer enough just to test for quantitative, verbal, and writing skills; schools realize that they also need to understand how well applicants synthesize information to solve problems.

Co-author David A. Pyke is dean of the University of San Diego's School of Business

We are pleased to see that the Graduate Management Admissions Council has worked with business schools to change the way these new skills are measured. The Council surveyed 740 business school faculty members and identified specific questions that reveal how well students can use different data sources to analyze information and identify relationships to solve interrelated problems.

The result: On June 5, graduate business schools will welcome the Next Generation Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) with a new section called Integrated Reasoning. The older version of the test, which includes two 75-minute sections—one quantitative and one verbal, had two separately scored 30-minute essay questions. One of these essays will be replaced by the Integrated Reasoning section. The Graduate Management Admissions Council will report Integrated Reasoning scores separately on a one-to-eight scale that, like the essay question, will not be included in the total GMAT score.

Schools, like students and businesses, are constantly adapting to the proliferation of information. When considering a large number of applicants for a limited number of seats, we too must sort through mounds of data to try to determine which candidates are the best fit. We look at academic transcripts, letters of recommendation, career advancement, application essays, candidate interviews, and test scores. Now, with the inclusion of the Integrated Reasoning section, we have another tool to more effectively understand the strengths and needs of those vying for a place in the incoming class.

We recognize that the Integrated Reasoning section adds a new area of uncertainty for test-takers preparing for the GMAT. There are some prospective graduate business school students who, under the current format, choose to put something less than their best effort into the essay questions, since they know that those writing samples do not count toward the total GMAT score. And there is no doubt that some people will be tempted to underestimate the value of the Integrated Reasoning section of the Next Generation GMAT for the same reason. However, we would counsel candidates to take the additional sections seriously and send a strong positive signal that you understand how important verbal and integrated reasoning skills are for business leaders.

We believe that this new section on integrated reasoning is a very positive step in improving graduate business education.

Paul Danos is Dean of the Tuck School of Business and the Laurence F. Whittemore Professor of Business Administration.

David A. Pyke is Dean of the University of San Diego School of Business Administration

DON’T MISS: TIMELY ADVICE FROM THE GURU OF THE GMAT or WHICH TEST: GMAT OR GRE

GMAC said such slight declines are not uncommon in post-recession years, though it brings median salaries back to their 2008 level. Indeed, in four of of the five last years, median starting salary has been exactly $90,000.  Even so, GMAC said that salary data reported by full-time two-year MBA graduates in 2012 with job offers showed an 81% increase in salary in 2012 compared with their pre-degree jobs.

GMAC attempted to spin the decline in a positive light, noting that employers continue to offer MBA new hires a significantly higher median salary when compared with new hires with bachelor’s degrees. “This premium has remained in the $40,000 range for the last five years of available data, the study found.

These figures exclude signing and performance bonuses that companies offer in addition to base salaries. In the United States, where 46% of companies offer their starting MBA hires a signing bonus, the median signing bonus for those candidates is $15,000, which matches the signing bonus offered to MBA hires in 2011.

Expected Median Starting Salary for Newly Hired MBAs At U.S. Companies

Source: GMAC 2012 Corporate Recruiter Survey

In 2012, 48% of survey respondents plan to increase MBA starting salaries in comparison to last year; a closer look reveals some nuanced results, however. The 2012 Corporate Recruiters Survey asked respondents to estimate the direction of change in base salaries for recent business hires, taking inflation into account. Globally, 13 percent of companies plan to increase MBA starting salaries above the rate of inflation and 35 percent plan to increase pay at the rate of inflation. But half (50%) of participating companies plan to keep MBA starting salaries at 2011 levels without adjusting for inflation. Similar findings are seen across all degree types and geographic regions.

While these companies are not reducing the base salaries they offer new hires, the net result of stable salaries is slightly weakened purchasing power. These results are not surprising given the sluggish nature of the current economic recovery: Many countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, report that wages are struggling to keep up with inflation for most employees.

Expected Median Starting Salaries For MBAs By World Region

GMAC said U.S. MBAs tended to receive the highest starting salaries. In Latin America, for example, recruiters expect to pay median starting pay to MBAs of just $44,616, while in Asia-Pacific they plan to pay just $25,929. “The 75th percentile salary range for both the Asia-Pacific and Latin American regions falls below the 25th percentile for salary reported in the United States. These differences tend to reflect disparities in cost of living and local demand for graduate area of expertise,” said GMAC.

A few notable differences emerge in analysis by geographic region:
 While median MBA starting salaries in the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America are below those of the United States, the report found that more Asia-Pacific and Latin American companies are increasing their starting salaries in 2012.
 Nearly a quarter (23%) of Asia-Pacific companies plan to raise their MBA hire starting salaries above the rate of inflation, and an additional third (33%) plans to increase salaries at the rate of inflation in 2012.
 Sixteen percent of Latin American companies will raise starting salaries above the rate of inflation in 2012 and 57% will be increasing salaries at the rate of inflation.
 The majority of European companies (64%) will offer starting salaries at the same level as 2011, without adjusting for inflation.

In addition to salary, GMAC reported that companies expect to offer a wide range of benefits to new business hires in 2012. In the United States, Europe, and Latin America, the most commonly offered benefit is that of a benefits package, which typically consists of health benefits and a retirement plan. Among Asia-Pacific, African, and Middle Eastern companies, GMAC said performance-based bonuses will be the most common benefit—a benefit which could serve to offset the lower starting salaries offered to new hires in those regions.

Top Five Benefits Companies Plan to Offer Business Graduate Hires in 2012, by World Region

Source: GMAC 2012 Corporate Recruiter Survey

GMAC found that company size can influence the types of benefits to be offered as well. “Larger companies are more likely to offer a moving allowance, signing or starting bonus, stock purchase plan, parental leave, and volunteer opportunities,” reported GMAC. “Smaller companies are more likely to offer commissions.”

DON’T MISS: FIRMS EXPECT TO HIRE MORE MBAS THIS YEAR

Two new studies–of the latest graduating class of B-school students and of the corporate recruiters who hire them–show that renewed optimism among employers is leading to more job offers for MBAs. The only disappointing news was that median starting salaries were slightly down–$90,000 in the U.S. vs. $92,000 in 2011. The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which conducted the studies, said such slight declines are not uncommon in post-recession years.

GMAC reported today (May 21) that 62% of newly minted MBAs and other management education grads said they have job offers, up from 54% a year earlier. No less impressive, some 79% of companies surveyed by GMAC said they plan to hire MBAs this year, up from 72% in 2011. Moreover, the average number of planned new hires per employer increased to slightly over 17 in 2012 from 13 last year. GMAC said that hiring expectations were greater the larger the company. On average, those with fewer than 1,000 employees plan to hire 6.1 MBA candidates, compared with 24.2 MBA hires for large companies.

At the low point of the MBA job market in 2009, employers had originally told GMAC they expected to hire no more than 5.8 MBAs so the latest data reflects a three-fold increase from those dark recessionary days (see table below). “Given that companies have consistently underestimated their expected number of new MBA hires for the past few years, the employment opportunities for class of 2012 graduates could be greater,” GMAC said.

The survey results also showed that while companies intend to employ more MBAs, they also plan to hire fewer bachelor degree graduates and fewer experienced hires. GMAC said the companies surveyed reported that they would hire 52.5 undergraduates this year, down from 59.8 in 2011, and 79 experienced professionals, down from 134.5.

All across the board, the news on the MBA job front was extremely positive–the best since the Great Recession crashed the MBA employment market in 2009. Nearly four in five companies plan to hire at least one MBA candidate in 2012, according to GMAC. This is up from 72% in 2011 and 50% in 2009. Employer reasons for hiring are also encouraging. Sixty percent of survey respondents report they continually seek new graduate business school talent and more than a third expect to hire to replace staff (37%). Furthermore, among those hiring in 2012, 36% will be hiring because of an increased workload and 14% because an increase in profits will allow them to hire more staff.

Average Number of New MBA Hires Expected to Hit 17.4 This Year

These companies, with fewer than 1,000 employees each, accounted for the largest proportional increase in demand for graduate management hires among the 1,096 global companies surveyed.

Typically, students in the Class of 2012 who had already received a job offer when responding to GMAC’s survey said they submitted about nine resumes, had four interviews, and received an average of two offers of employment. GMAC said the data suggests  “they expended less effort and achieved a higher job offer yield than Class of 2011 graduates with job offers, who submitted an average of 16 resumes, landed six interviews, and received the same number of job offers. Students graduating in 2012 who still were seeking employment at the time of this survey submitted an average of 13 resumes and landed half as many interviews (2) as their peers with job offers.

Employers in some parts of the world expressed greater confidence than firms based elsewhere, reflecting the unevenness that characterizes the global economy. On average, companies in the Asia-Pacific region and the United States expect continued growth in hiring in 2012 for all management graduates, whereas European companies project that hiring levels in 2012 will be similar to what they saw in 2011.

Across the board, leadership and management skills topped the list of skills employers want in their new management graduate hires. Employers also want new hires that are able to organize and combine information from multiple sources to solve complex problems and make sound judgments. These data analysis and high-level integrated reasoning skills were noted as particularly important to companies looking to hire graduate management students.

Salaries

Employers in the U.S. expect to pay MBA graduates substantially more in 2012 than new hires with only a bachelor’s degree. This translates into annual earnings for new MBAs that are $40,000 higher, on average, than the salaries bachelor’s degree-holders can expect, the data show.

Among students who had at least one job offer at the time the survey of graduates was conducted in February and March, full-time MBAs saw the largest gains between pre-MBA and post-MBA salaries (81 percent). This is up eight points from last year.

Jobs Report

On the student side, the most popular industries in which class of 2012 graduates looked for jobs were products and services, consulting and finance/accounting, according to the Global Management Education Graduate Survey. The products and services sector yielded the fewest job offers for this year’s graduates, but also saw the highest increase in salary from pre-degree to post-degree earnings (75 percent).

Percentage of Firms That Hired Or Plan To Hire New Employees–By Candidate Type

Lesser comes to the job with impressive credentials. Before being named regional chairman for the Americas in 2009, he had served as head of the New York Metro office system since 2000 and on the firm’s Executive Committee since 2006. His client work has focused on innovation, strategy, and large-scale transformation in the health care and consumer sectors. In 2009, Consulting magazine named him one of the industry’s most influential consultants.

Prior to joining BCG in 1988, Lesser worked in product development at Procter & Gamble. He earned an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar, and a BSE in chemical engineering summa cum laude from the University of Michigan. He is married with three children.

Lesser succeeds Hans-Paul Bürkner, 59, who will become Chairman next year after completing nine years as President and CEO. Under Bürkner’s leadership, the firm has nearly tripled its revenues to $3.55 billion and nearly doubled its staff to 8,400. It has opened 17 new offices worldwide and established itself as a full-service management consultancy with global reach.

“BCG has been steadily gaining share on its competitors and is extremely well positioned to continue its growth trajectory,” said Bürkner, who as CEO is based in Frankfurt and New York, in a statement. “I have absolutely no doubt that with his inspiring leadership, Rich will bring many new ideas and take BCG to the next level.”

When German-born Bürkner, a Rhodes Scholar and former global leader of the firm’s Financial Institutions practice, took the reins in 2004, he became BCG’s first non-U.S.-born CEO. In 2003, the year of his election, Consulting magazine ranked him the industry’s number-one most influential consultant.

BCG’s partner group, numbering more than 700, elected Lesser in a multiround selection process that is unusually democratic. Unlike the process at the firm’s main competitors, each BCG partner, regardless of seniority, has one vote in the CEO election, as well as in other major management decisions. It is a reflection of BCG’s collaborative, nonhierarchical culture.

BCG was founded in 1963 by the late Bruce Henderson, who led the firm until 1980, when he became Chairman of the Board and was succeeded by Alan Zakon. Zakon was followed by John Clarkeson, who was CEO from 1986 to 1997 and later Chairman, and then by Carl Stern, who was CEO from 1998 to 2003 and later Chairman.

Lesser will be taking over as BCG prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. He will face a challenging economic climate but also many new opportunities stemming from the firm’s geographic expansion, breadth of industry knowledge, and depth of functional expertise. BCG differentiates itself through its highly customized and innovative solutions, mobilization of the client organization at all levels, and development of client capabilities.

“I am honored and humbled to be elected as BCG’s next CEO,” said Lesser in a statement. “Hans-Paul Bürkner has created a superb platform on which to build. Working with him and the rest of the partner group, I look forward to broadening and deepening our expertise, strengthening our client relationships globally, and expanding opportunities for our people—all the while maintaining our unique culture, heritage of thought leadership, and stellar reputation as a best place to work.”

Joe Jackson is graduating from Harvard Business School with his MBA next week. But he turned down a chance to work with Facebook that would have easily made him a multi-millionaire at the age of 28. This photo is from his Facebook page.

When Harvard Business School holds its Class Day commencement celebration on Wednesday, May 23, there will be one MBA graduate in the audience who will have to wonder if he had made the biggest mistake of his life.

He had the chance to get in early at Facebook and accept what turned out to be among the most lucrative startup equity ever granted.

The upshot: Jackson blew his chance to win big in tomorrow’s expected massive initial public offering for Facebook which will value the company at more than $100 billion.

“I completely missed the boat,” Joe Jackson, 28, recently conceded to a BloombergBusinessWeek reporter.

MBA WHO BLEW HIS CHANCE TO BE A FACEBOOK MULTI-MILLIONAIRE WILL LISTEN TO FACEBOOK COO GIVE HARVARD’S CLASS DAY ADDRESS

Ironically, Jackson will be among his graduating classmates listening to Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg give the school’s Class Day address. Her stake in the company is valued at nearly $90 million, not including restricted stock that when vested will bring her total stake to $1.8 billion.

How did Jackson, smart and accomplished enough to get into Harvard Business School, blow his chance to become a multi-millionaire?

The brainy and handsome MBA had been a computer science major at Harvard College in the early 2000s when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his pals started Thefacebook. But when his friend and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin asked him to move to California for the summer to write code for the site, he decided to stick with his internship with JPMorgan Chase.

TOOK A A SUMMER INTERNSHIP WITH J.P. MORGAN INSTEAD OF GOING TO FACEBOOK

“I wasn’t thinking about it as ‘This could be my chance to be rich and famous,’” Jackson told BloombergBusinessWeek.  “It was more like, ‘This is going to Palo Alto and living in a house with a bunch of kids and programming for a startup that may not go anywhere.’”

After his J.P. Morgan internship during the summer of 2004, Jackson came back to Harvard to finish his undergraduate degree and graduate in 2005. He then went to work as a management associate for International Data Group, a job he held for nearly two years. Then, Jackson moved on to become a business development manager at Double Fusion, a game advertising firm headquartered in Los Angeles.

Some 14 months later, in April of 2008, he ended up as an analyst at San Francisco-based venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson—all fairly humdrum pre-MBA jobs before getting into HBS two years ago.

Jackson declined comment to Poets&Quants. “I’m reluctant to seek much publicity about my involvement with Facebook, simply because it’s a relatively small piece of my story and happened a long time ago,” he told Poets&Quants in an email.  ”Hopefully I’ll have a more interesting tale in the future!”

A GRADUATING KELLOGG MBA WILL WALK TO GET HIS DIPLOMA WITH MILLIONS THANKS TO FACEBOOK

On the other hand, an MBA graduating from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management on June 15^th can tell a different story. Divya Narendra was the Harvard student who asked Zuckerberg for help on a rival social network called the HarvardConnection that was thought up by brothers and fellow Harvard students Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

According to reports, Narendra gained a stake in Facebook as a result of a legal settlement between Zuckerberg and the Winklevosses that is worth nearly $19 million. Narendra will earn his Northwestern MBA along with a law degree from Northwestern because he has been a dual-degree graduate student.

DON’T MISS: THE SOCIAL NETWORK: FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN or MY STORY: FROM A DOT-COM BUST TO HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL

Kelley Dean Dan Smith is the latest business school dean to take up Twitter

To tweet or not to tweet?

That was the question Dan Smith, dean of Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, had been asking himself for a couple of years.

Urged by Kelley students to take up Twitter, Smith finally succumbed last week, becoming the latest business school dean to tweet his whereabouts, thoughts, and other tidbits. He joins nearly a dozen other Twittering deans from such prominent business schools as Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, and the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler School (see “B-School Deans Worth Following on Twitter.”)

THE KELLEY DEAN BEGAN TWEETING WITH THE SCHOOL’S 1,000TH FACEBOOK LIKE

Smith began with a fair amount of promotional fanfare befitting his academic specialty in brand management and strategic marketing. To promote both its Facebook and Twitter audiences, the Kelley School advertised a countdown to Smith’s first tweet: Dean Smith would begin tweeting once the Kelley School reached 1,000 Facebook likes, a goal reached May 10. To raise awareness, the school began designing and selling t-shirts, complete with the Dean’s signature glasses and bow-tie.

It also created a #DeanDanFan hashtag and encouraged students to snap and upload pictures of themselves rocking their Dean Dan shirts – several of which were taken on Kelley sponsored Spring Break trips around the world. And finally, the school gave away t-shirts via a scavenger hunt of sorts: students who found #DeanDanFan tokens scattered in the Kelley building received a t-shirt and were then entered into a contest drawing to have coffee with Dean Smith.

As Smith, now dean of the Kelley School for eight years, tells Poets&Quants, “A number of students over the last couple of years have asked me to consider tweeting, I would tell them, ‘Certainly you must get a lot of information coming across in text messages, emails and Facebook posts. Do you really want one more?’ And they said, ‘Yes. We’d like to know what your thoughts are and what you do in a typical week.”

THE DEAN’S WIFE HAD NO OBJECTIONS BUT WONDERED IF ANYONE WOULD FOLLOW HER HUSBAND

Smith checked with his wife, who had no objections about the potential distraction. “I talked to my wife a little bit and she was indifferent about it,” says Smith. “She said, ‘Aren’t we already in an over-communicated society? Will anyone follow this stuff?’”

Smith thinks so. Besides, as he jokes, “It sounds like this new technology is going to be with us for awhile.”

So starting on May 10, Smith began his virtual life on Twitter as @DeanDanSmith. His first tweet, accompanied by a Twitpic of himself with a Kelley was sent from New York City: “With our 1,000th Facebook fan, Olivia Goodman, at a Kelley Alumni event in NYC. So great to see everyone!”

PLANS TO TWEET ONCE A DAY WHICH WOULD HAVE HIM SURPASS HARVARD DEAN IN A FEW MONTHS

Smith says he plans to tweet from his Blackberry, iPad and office desktop, though for now he’s writing out his tweets and sending them to an official at the school who Tweets out the messages on his behalf. His goal: “I am going to try to tweet once a day, depending on where I am and what I am doing,” he says. If Smith can make good on his objective, he’ll quickly beat Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria who had only tweeted 97 times since joining Twitter in April of 2009. Nohria hasn’t tweeted since Feb. 28th, nearly three months ago, yet as the most followers of any B-school dean with 4,987, about 400 more than Stanford’s Garth Saloner at 4,584.

In his first seven days, Smith tapped out nine tweets, followed 57 other Tweeters and attracted 331 followers. He has a long way to go to catch up to the Twittering dean he most admires, Robert Bruner of the Darden School. Bruner has 1,766 tweets, more than any other business school dean, and 2,586 followers. “I like Bob’s mix of sending out notes to students and alums on what he’s doing and occasional articles and books he is reading along with inspirational quotes,” adds Smith.

(See following page for B-School Deans Worth Following on Twitter)

B-School Deans Worth Following On Twitter

Who’s worth following on Twitter? Among the B-school crowd, the following deans are definitely worth a look. The most prolific of the bunch are Darden’s Robert Bruner, Haas’ Rich Lyons, Kenan-Flagler’s Jim Dean, and Stanford’s Garth Saloner.

DON’T MISS: B-SCHOOL DEANS WHO TWEET ON AND OFF THE JOB or B-SCHOOL DEANS WORTH FOLLOWING ON TWITER

After a three-year stint as an equities trader, this 27-year-old recently won a promotion out of the analyst pool at a venture bank. He’s worried that his 2.76 GPA at a public Ivy university will keep him out of a world class MBA program.

A software developer for an Android maker, his only extracurricular involvement is his time in a gym. This 23-year-old works out six to seven days a week. But he has a 750 GMAT and a 3.8 GPA in computer engineering, and he wants an MBA degree in two years to transition into operations management.

Sandy Kreisberg, HBS Guru, in Harvard Square

What these would-be MBA candidates share in common is the goal to get into one of the world’s best business schools. Do they have the raw stats and experience to get in? Or will they get dinged by their dream schools?

Sanford “Sandy” Kreisberg, founder of MBA admissions consulting firm HBSGuru.com, is back again to analyze these and a few other profiles of actual MBA applicants who have shared their vital statistics with Poets&Quants.

As usual, Kreisberg handicaps each potential applicant’s odds of getting into a top-ranked business school. If you include your own stats and characteristics in the comments, we’ll pick a few more and have Kreisberg assess your chances in a follow-up feature.

(Please add your age and be clear on the sequence of your jobs in relaying work experience. Make sure you let us know your current job.)

Sandy’s assessment:

Ms. Blue Chip Tech

• 710 GMAT (Q85%, V83%)
• 3.47 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in economics and Asian studies from a top-tier University of California school
• Work experience consists of two years at a blue-chip tech company (not Google, Facebook, Apple or Microsoft) in marketing operations and B2B marketing; fastest amongst peers to receive promotion, with a second promotion expected in my third year
• Extracurricular involvement in leading a student account planning team and presenting advertising campaigns; guest lecturing once or twice a year at a local, private university on real-world marketing topics; avid Yelp Elite reviewer; 5K and half-marathon runner;
• “I plan lots of social group events and cook a lot of food”
• Goal: To understand different parts of the business to become a more effective marketer, focused on strategy, and eventually in a management role in the tech industry
• “Should I wait an additional year to beef up my work experience? Or apply now?”
• Southeast Asian-American female; first in family to graduate from college

Odds of Success:

Stanford: 10% to 20%
Wharton: 30% to 40%
Northwestern: 50+%
Chicago: 50+%
Berkeley: 50+%
Harvard: 30% to 40%
MIT: 35% to 50%

Sandy’s Analysis: This is a case of lots of silver and probably not enough gold to get you into Stanford. A 3.47 GPA, from what I assume is not Berkeley, but some other U Cal school (top tier in your words) is solid but not outstanding. A 710 GMAT with 80+ plus on both sides is good substantively but not a finalist in a GMAT beauty contest, which is often what the GMAT is (although good enough for all schools if there were other golden elements).

You’re in B2B at a Blue Chip tech company, but not an iconic one. That is again impressive but not as impressive to schools as working for Google or Apple. Great career advancement over two years is solid and will help your recommendations (that is gold, but a lot of how it will be interpreted will be the name of the actual company and how experienced your recommenders are, although, sure, great). Extras are all industry/school-related and not helping lepers, which again is OK, but not gold.

Being an elite Yelp reviewer? Phew, that could cut two ways. Why would any normal person with a full-time job, and what seems like a lot of 3-D friends, do that? Well, you have a reason: You are a social media wonk, and that is part of your story, so it works for you. It might be interpreted differently for other applicants, especially for those on geek alert.

On the plus side, your entire bio, work, hobbies, extras and goals are all tightly bound, which is good, but again, for Stanford, maybe too good. They prefer more out of the box accomplishments for the non-elite (in terms of schooling, favorite feeder firms and stats) applicants like you. First generation college, Asian female are all pluses — but not to beat a dead horse, that is “silver” minority status and not gold (Native American or Black).

I like you a lot, and so will most business schools. I am just not seeing this as Stanford. Any chance you work for Caribou Coffee (see Top Feeder Companies to Stanford)?

You might try HBS, although you did not ask. HBS is bigger, more diverse in terms of firms it is willing to consider, and you seem their “spark-plug” type. And my guess is, Dee Leopold spends more time on Yelp than Stanford’s Derrick Bolton.

At other schools you note—Booth, Kellogg, Wharton, Haas—you are totally in range, on all counts, and it just a matter of luck, execution, getting your rec writers to perform, and convincing them you want to come. MIT/Sloan might go for someone like you as well, since you are well rounded, “soft-techy,” interesting, smart-enough and female.

LAST WEEK’S COLUMN:  What Are Your Chances of Getting In

Mr. Venture Bank

• 760 GMAT (Q71%, V99%)
• 2.76 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in economics and geography from a public Ivy (UNC/UVA)
• Work experience includes three years as a proprietary equities trader during the crash and two years as an analyst at a venture bank with two promotions, including one out of the analyst pool
• “Since I’ve been here I’ve known three people who applied to B-school; the first attended Kelley, the second Columbia, and the third will attend Booth in the fall.”
• Extracurricular involvement includes serving as vice president of a college fraternity, teaching English in a Costa Rican school in the summer of 2009; an annual MS walk; judge business plans for a statewide high school competition
• “Clearly, my GPA will be a major barrier for me, and I don’t have a great excuse. I worked through college, up to three jobs at once, but my GPA is more related to a lack of direction and maturity.”
• Goal: To parlay my experience to raise a fund that partners with VC and PE firms to provide credit to companies in developing economies where access to credit through traditional avenues is a challenge, particularly for growing companies that might not be throwing off enough free cash flow to meet traditional debt service.”
• 27-year-old white male

Odds of Success:

Columbia: 30% to 40% (if early decision)
Chicago: 30% to 40%
Duke: 40+%
Michigan: 40+%
Cornell: 50+%
Virginia: 40+%

Sandy’s Analysis: Long story short—the fact that two out of three kids from your current “venture bank” went to top 10 schools (Columbia and Booth) and a 3rd kid went to Kelley is predictive. My guess is, your 760 GMAT (even with 70 pct Q) was better than theirs, and there is lots of evidence for schools like Columbia and Booth to wink at your GPA.

To wit, it was a long-ish time ago. You have a straight-line history of working in finance, your extras, while not knock-outs, are interesting enough, and working three jobs in college is a small mitigating factor, well, if they are predisposed to wink in the first place. I would try Columbia Early Decision, and really “rush them” by going to forums and visiting. They might have a hard time swallowing the 2.76 GPA, but I’d say you got a 30% to 40% chance there.

Similarly, Booth often winks at one weak point in an application if the rest is tight, as yours is. You next best chances for (sorta) Top 10 are Duke and Michigan. Cornell and UVA (~15 rankings) take guys like you because you seem deeply employable, given goals and history. That would help at other schools as well.

Your long-term goal statement, as you suggest (in original note) is too much of a business plan and also a reach. You say, “I would like to parlay that experience to raise a fund that partners with VC and PE firms to provide credit to companies in developing economies where access to credit through traditional avenues is a challenge, particularly for growing companies that might not be throwing off enough free cash flow to meet traditional debt service.”

Phew, a strong aspect of your story is how down-to-earth you are. The above idea sounds a bit spacey and unsupported by your history, even the summer you spent helping out in Costa Rica. Keep it simple and traditional. Hard-headedness and hire-ability are your strong suits, don’t go all fuzzy and aspirational.

Mr. Disruption

• 720 – 740 GMAT (projected, have not yet taken)
• 3.3 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in industrial engineering from North Carolina State University
• Work experience includes three years as a technology consultant with Deloitte after internships with Accenture and a state Senator who is now state treasurer; profiled on Deloitte’s Facebook page
• Extracurricular involvement as vice president of engineering council in college, a student senator, creator and organizer of a local soccer team for two-plus years; member of an influential educational non-profit (most members are CEOs, superintendents, principals,
and general counsels)
• “Extensive outreach as NCSU alum, working with engineering dean,
the entrepreneurship provost, career services, and various organizations; networked with the founder of
HowStuffWorks.com, a senior director at WNYC, a former director of Manhattan GMAT turned entrepreneur, a prominent civil rights lawyer and an author featured on the Colbert Report, Obama’s former Special Adviser on Green Jobs”
• Goal: To
attend Stanford to round out my knowledge of business
• “During enrollment, launch a disruptive tech startup; if it fails,
I plan to return to the firm to focus on disruptive mobile technologies and possibly try
again in a few years. In 5-10 years, I want to leverage my business success to become
involved in politics either as a politician or in an executive position at a
policy oriented NGO”
• 26-year-old white male

Odds of Success:

Stanford: 20%
Berkeley: 40+%
Harvard: 30% to 40%
MIT: 40%

Sandy’s Analysis: As with last guy, long story even shorter. As to Stanford, if you know the Deloitte guys who get kids into Stanford, and you seem to know a lot of people, or anyone else who gets kids into Stanford, and they are willing to go to bat for you, well, you may get in. Try to get that projected score of 720 on the GMAT. As a rule, white guys from with a 3.3 from NCSU who work at Deloitte do NOT get into Stanford, but you seem to be a star, and a very active networker and schmoozer, with a lot of tangible leadership accomplishments. So who knows?

Let me make one thing super clear when it comes to networking and B-school admissions: it is rifle shot, not a shotgun spray. Knowing 20 people, as you seem to, is fine. But the deal closes, and only closes, when one of them is willing to spend social capital on your case. So you need to figure out, especially at Stanford, who is the one. As to goals, and launching a disruptive start-up while you are there, blah, blah, dunno. That is just hot air. Got any history of doing anything like that? Anyway, as I have often noted, goals separated from tangible accomplishments supporting those goals, are nice, but they never have as much impact as their poetic creators hope.

Going back to your firm, as you also suggest, is more down-to-earth, and something you have done before, but it helps to generalize that, viz., “interested in using technology consulting as a gateway to discover exciting ways of linking my interest 1 and 2, etc . . .”

Schools don’t like to think of themselves as taking kids from Firm A and returning them to Firm A two years later and $250k poorer. Schools like to delude themselves into thinking you will get some ‘transformational mojo’ for the $250k. As to your starry goals of think tanks, NGOs, politics. Hmmmmm, sure but you need to have that story emerge more tightly and precisely from your projected consulting gateway, your interests, and your actual accomplishments so far.

From the looks of how many “A-/B+ list” friends you have, that could be a business plan. Friendster Elite or TED Jr.–a gathering place for late blooming low GPA guys who are trying to crash into the majors. Just kidding but you get the idea.

Oddly, you may have as good a chance at Stanford or HBS –if any of your wide circle of friends has real pull there — than you have at Berkeley and MIT. I think a strong recommendation from Deloitte should get you into Berkeley. MIT is always idiosyncratic, and they got lots of guys like you, and you don’t seem a natural fit.

In light of the GPA, make it easy on your mentors, and get that 720 GMAT. I think your long list of pals includes a director of Manhattan GMAT. Ask him if he has any tips or can you get you a super tutor.

Mr. Corporate Finance

• 710 GMAT (Q48, V37)
• 3.8 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in business from a relatively well-known university
• (Enrolled for Advanced Stats & Business Math as alternative transcript classes)
• Work experience includes two years in a corporate finance role for a textile manufacturer; two years at the ministry of the second largest city in Japan/South Korea in administrative planning; also did two internships in finance and consulting
• Extracurricular involvement as president of a global college Christian mission organization, led annual conference for 1,500 people; volunteer teaching English to low-income children
• Re-applicant who applied for class of 2013 with 690 GMAT and two years of experience; got dinged without interview by Columbia, Cornell, and UCLA; received interview invites from UT-Austin, Indiana, and waitlisted at USC)”
• Goal: To consult at the intersection of the public sector and manufacturing to help organization, and countries become better managed
• Fluent in Japanese, English, and Korean
• Lived in the Middle East, Japan, Korea, and the U.S.
• 27-year-old East Asian male

Odds of Success:

Northwestern: 30%
Dartmouth: 20%
Duke: 30+%
Cornell: 40+%
Carnegie Mellon: 50%

Sandy’s Analysis: Dunno, this year (versus dings from year before last year you note) you will have a 710 GMAT vs. 690 GMAT and two additional courses as an alternative transcript– or was that part of your story last time (the profile you sent was not crystal clear, which could be part of your problem).

Anyway, the issue here is what difference that GMAT score will have on adcoms at Kellogg, Tuck, Duke, Cornell and Tepper versus results year before last (for class of 2013) which were, as per your account, “dings at Columbia, Cornell, UCLA, received interview invites from UT Austin, Indiana, waitlisted at USC).”

Your experience now is in a “corporate finance role at a textile/clothing manufacturer (major supplier to famous clothing companies)” whereas when you applied last time you had only had your alternative military service experience at the “ministry of administrative planning at second largest city.” (Is that second largest city in Korea? Sounds like you are Korean given language fluency and fact that you passed Japanese language tests.)

I think one reason you may have been dinged is execution. Your profile is hard to understand, but, hey, that won’t stop me. But it may stop you, if you cannot explain yourself.

Let’s put those dings aside and face this head on: you are a 28-year-old East Asian male (at matriculation) working in some corporate finance role at some big but no-name company. You got a 710 GMAT, lousy grades, an alternative transcript with good grades (two courses), some wonderful leadership extras with church-based organizations in Asia, and also with NGOs. You want to be a consultant. You speak at a lot of languages.

Well, there’s lots to like and lots of problems. Working for a no-name company and bad grades (despite alternative transcript of two courses) is usually a HUGE roadblock at places like Kellogg, Tuck and Duke. You need to cook up some powerful story, which captures all your extras, your solid accomplishments at no-name but large company, your language skills, your alternative service, and focus on working in East Asia, where you have contacts.

If you do, you could call Kellogg a reach, Tuck a far reach (because it is smaller and you don’t fit their ‘average’ profile) and Duke a small reach. Duke runs older, has a 30% admit rate vs. 16% at Tuck and 19% at Kellogg and is just easier. Not sure what they will make of your story, but there are enough core strengths, solid accomplishments, and a 710 GMAT to help you out. I think Cornell and Tepper are in-line, although you might have a hard time explaining why you want to go to Cornell. It is isolated and I am not sure how many top consulting companies visit, although maybe some reader can help me out.

You need to clarify your story, focus on how you do consulting-type work in your current job (and LOVE it), and stress how your language skills and contacts in East Asia will give you a leg-up in doing public sector consulting. You are too stuck in the prior dings and confusing story: You’re a guy with a solid job, real language skills, lots of extras, a 710 GMAT, and an alternative transcript to beef up your lousy grades from a long time ago. That ain’t bad—forget about those dings from two years ago. You got a lot to like, just focus on the positives and make it clear.

Mr. Android

• 750 GMAT (Q48, V44)
• 3.8 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in computer engineering from San Diego State
• Work experience includes half a year at a large database company developing customer-facing software and two and one-half years as a software developer on device security at a major Android manufacturer
• Extracurricular involvement is mainly a devotion to physical fitness
• “I plan on looking for some extracurriculars related to business that I find interesting.”
• Goal: To move into operations management
• 23-year-old white male (will apply in two years when 25)

Odds of Success:

Stanford: 20% to 25%
Berkeley: 50+%
UCLA: 50+%
Columbia: 30% to 50%
MIT: 40+%

Sandy’s Analysis: You would be a solid applicant at Berkeley and MIT because they are not brand sluts the way Stanford is. They are stats sluts, so you are slutty in the right way: 750-3.8 is quite the va-va-voom figure for those boys. UCLA should take you on stats alone if you can convince them you want to go. Columbia is also a stats happy hooker, although why you want to go there is a mystery.

As for Stanford, your stats are still impressive even there, but you are on the wrong side of tracks (especially for a white boy), you need to develop a champion who can pull a string there, or else you just become another white guy from a boring, no-name company, with big stats. Boring work? Well, device security is boring to them.

Sure we all need it, but locksmiths aren’t getting in to Stanford either, unless they are female locksmiths who have invented devices to keep out male chauvinists –digital chastity belts? And your lack of even more mundane extras ain’t helping there.

“I plan on looking for some extra-curriculars related to business that I find interesting.”

Dude, you got that one backwards. You need to find some extracurrics that are NOT related to business. Stanford likes your full-time job to be Blue Chip and your extra-curriculars to be granola — if not kelp. You seem like a smart and sweet young guy. You need to find someone out there in Silicon Valley who can open the Stanford door for you. Look at it as a reverse-engineering security problem.

LAST WEEK’S COLUMN:  What Are Your Chances of Getting In

Handicapping Your MBA Odds–The Entire Series

Part I: Handicapping Your Shot At a Top Business School

Part II: Your Chances of Getting In

Part III: Your Chances of Getting In

Part IV: Handicapping Your Odds of Getting In

Part V: Can You Get Into HBS, Stanford or Wharton?

Part VI: Handicapping Your Dream School Odds

Part VII: Handicapping Your MBA Odds

Part VIII: Getting Through The Elite B-School Screen

Part IX: Handicapping Your B-School Chances

Part X: What Are Your Odds of Getting In?

Part XI: Breaking Through the Elite B-School Screen

Part XII: Handicapping Your B-School Odds

Part XIII: Predicting Your Odds of Getting In

Part XIV: Handicapping Your MBA Odds

Part XV: Assessing Your Odds of Getting In

Part XVI: Handicapping Your Odds of Getting In

Part XVII: What Are Your Odds of Getting In

Part XVIII: Assessing Your Odds of Getting In

Part XIX: Handicapping Your MBA Odds

Part XX: What Are Your Odds Of Getting In

Part XXI: Handicapping Your Odds of Acceptance

Part XXII: Handicapping Your Shot At A Top MBA

Part XXIII: Predicting Your Odds of Getting In

Part XXIV: Do You Have The Right Stuff To Get In

Part XXV: Your Odds of Getting Into A Top MBA Program

Part XXVI: Calculating Your Odds of Getting In

Part XXVII: Breaking Through The Elite MBA Screen

Part XXVIII: Handicapping Your Shot At A Top School

Part XXIX: Can You Get Into A Great B-School

Part XXX: Handicapping Your Odds of Getting In

Part XXXI: Calculating Your Odds of Admission

Part XXXII: Handicapping Your Elite MBA Chances

Part XXXIII: Getting Into Your Dream School

Part XXXIV: Handicapping Your Shot At A Top School

Part XXXV: Calculating Your Odds of Getting In

Part XXXVI: What Are Your Chances Of Getting In

I know—it’s easier said than done. The following tips will help you prepare for your interview so you enter on the big day feeling confident, optimistic, and ready to let your top choice MBA program know that you’re ready for business!

MBA Interview Tip #1: Relax

Anxiety will only trip you up, bust your confidence, and possibly make for an awkward, uncomfortable interview. To ease tense nerves, try learning some deep breathing exercises or visualizations to calm you down just before entering your interview, and even during it. Also, being well prepared is a sure way to build confidence and cut back on anxiety.

MBA Interview Tip #2: Know Thyself

Be able to answer the following crucial questions in a heartbeat: What are your short-term goals? What are your long-term goals? What do you hope to gain from attending this program? What will you contribute to your peers? To society? Which examples will you provide if asked about a leadership experience, a time when you failed, or your response to criticism?

MBA Interview Tip #3: Be Prepared to Answer Questions about Your Past

Knowing your resume, work accomplishments, and personal achievements is a good place to start, but you’re going to have to do more than simply reel off lists at your interview. Question the major turning points in your life that have brought you to this point. What did you gain from this particular job? From an influential experience? What if you hadn’t accepted that position?

MBA Interview Tip #4: Have Examples Ready

Your interviewer will probably ask you questions about your leadership experience, your goals, your strengths, and your weaknesses. A bland answer of “I’m good at motivating others” won’t cut it; instead, offer an example of a time in which your strength or leadership quality really carried you (and others) through a difficult situation.

MBA Interview Tip #5: Do Your School Research Beforehand

An interview isn’t just one-sided; you’ll be given a chance to ask questions too. Make sure that you’ve done your school research in advance—browsed the website, spoken to alumni and current students, etc.—so that you don’t end up asking a question whose answer you should already know. Furthermore, knowing about your target school’s mission, goals, and atmosphere will help you prove to your interviewer not only that you want to attend this school, but that you belong there.

Be prepared for your MBA interview. Review feedback from those who preceded you in the hot seat in the MBA Interview Feedback Database.

Linda Abraham is the CEO and founder of Accepted.com, a leading MBA admissions consultancy, and co-author of the new book, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools.  Linda has been helping MBA applicants gain acceptance to top MBA programs since 1994.

Our Series on the Essentials of an Awesome MBA Application

Part I: The GMAT

Part II: Grade Point Average

Part III: Extracurricular Experience

Part IV: Work Experience

Part V: Leadership

Part VI: MBA Goals

Part VII: The MBA Resume

Part VIII: Getting Killer Recommendation Letters

I call “it” MBA failophobia (n): the fear of not getting into any of your top choice business schools;. However, “fears” might be a more accurate description of this phobia since it is characterized not only by the classic “fear of failure”, but is an aggregate of many; it is, in fact, a sum of fears:

THE FEAR OF NOT CUTTING IT.

Applicants to top-rated schools in any field tend to be overachievers in general; thus you have a pool of  thousands of overachievers competing against thousands of other overachievers–globally; not fun. The fear of not making the cut is as real as it is debilitating in such a competitive landscape.

THE FEAR OF BEING OUT-CLASSED.

The nagging possibility that you just might be out of your league. This fear is fed with every headline or anecdote of another ex-navy seal, poker world champion, former Olympian, single mother who discovered the cure for leukemia on her part time consulting job while lifting burning vans off of small children in Haiti during a natural disaster as her community service extra. Seriously, who can compete with that shit?

THE FEAR OF BEING FOUND OUT AS A FRAUD.

If you end up not making the cut because you are outclassed, does that make you a fraud? It’s a chilling thought to consider how many perfectly smart and capable people will put a lifetime of achievement into question based on whether or not we gain admission into a top 10 or 15 MBA program.

THE FEAR OF REJECTION.

This fear isn’t just for dating. Its the concern that after basically allowing this process to take over your life for nearly a year (or better) that you will ultimately get a “thanks, but no thanks” from the object of your affections–your dream school.

THE FEAR OF THE LONG, SLOW DEATH.

The frightening possibility of being strung along on an admissions wait list, only to have your dreams deferrred in the end. Surely, there must be a method of rejection that is more civil, more humane, than this.

THE FEAR OF WASTED TIME (AND EFFORT).

This one is enough to just make you mad. I can take a loss, but wasted time? Let’s just say that its not what I get out of bed for every day.

THE FEAR OF (NONREFUNDABLE) WASTED MONEY.

There is a special (and familiar) sting that comes with investing large amounts of money and having nil to nothing to show for it in the end. Ironically, this fear is likely to inspire you to invest even more money hedging your bets: an extra school visit; one more application (to a safety school, no less); a ding analysis to prepare you to reapply next year (IF you’re under 30; at my age, its now or never).

THE FEAR OF MASSIVE DEBT AS A REWARD FOR SUCCESS.

One of my favorite political pundits is Randi Rhodes. She has this saying that I love because it really causes one to think: “If you win, what will you have won?“

Well, one of the things that successful MBA matriculation can win you is a mountain of debt that could have you end up in one or more of the following scenarios:

• Taking an 80-hour per week job you hate so you can pay back your loans.
• Selling all your possessions in a mad dash to eliminate debt.
• Going into a non-traditional field (like entrepreneurship) with a 4-figure loan bill each month and no guaranteed income to pay it with.
• Saddling your debt for the next 15 0r 20 years, paying 10′s of thousands of dollars in interest.

THE FEAR OF PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENT.

Failure may be a part of the journey of success, but failing publicly can be an awful experience; just ask O.J. Simpson–but at least he won some football games. The mere thought of putting in all this work and proclaiming your lofty top MBA goals to the world and then coming up with nothing can be enough to make you max your visa on the next admissions consultant with a website and a pulse.

Some Common Coping Tactics of MBA Failophobiacs

The following are a list of common tactics that I have observed (and in many cases, followed) as MBA applicants attempt to create an emotional air cushion as protection against a totaled ego in the event of an admissions ding (or multiple dings, which would be more like a pile up). Most applicants actually employ any number of these tactics simultaneously (a cocktail) as they formulate a larger failophobia coping strategy.

1. GMAT Obsession - locking oneself up in a quiet corner of your home to study for the GMAT exam ad nauseum; oscillating between periods of extreme focus, bouts of shame and procrastination (should I really be watching Game of Thrones, or should I be practicing combinatorics?) and the resultant guilt that comes naturally with the latter.
2. Taking a Vow of Silence – the practice of not revealing your top school choices–at least not as yourself (hence using pseudonyms like “mbaover30″ or refusing to say a word about any of this madness in polite company). The theory behind this is that while not getting into your choice program(s) would be a huge disappointment, you at least might get to save yourself the embarrassment of having that happen under the watchful eyes of other people who have watched you obsess about “getting in” for the past 6-18 months.
3. Periodic Ventilation – starting/commenting on blogs, joining online mba/gmat support communities, etc. as a way to vent concerns, frustrations and fears, all the while starving for the slightest sign or gesture of affirmation that things will turn out fine (like someone of a similar profile getting into your dream school; or someone getting dinged for a weakness that you know you don’t have).
4. Applying to Safety Schools - Applying to schools that you have NO INTENTION of going to just so you can avoid a wipeout scenario (not getting into ANY of your preferred programs); question is, would you even attend your safety school(s) if you didn’t get into your target(s)? Think about it.
5. Sour Grapes – Trolling MBA admissions forums, blogs and communities viciously attacking the credibility of programs that you’d like to go to, but don’t feel confident about your chances of getting into (or have already been dinged by). This idea crosses my mind every time I read  comments like “Wharton sucks. They’ve fallen from grace!” or “Stanford is soooooooo overrated; SANTA CLARA is really where it’s at!” or “My best friend’s roomate’s cousin’s neighbor said that her experience at HBS was the pits. How could anyone go to such a place!” REALLY?
6. Hiring Mercenaries/Buying Your Freedom - Throwing thousands of dollars at GMAT prep courses and/or MBA admissions consultants (genus chargus maximus); the more cost effective (read: shoe string budget) alternative to which seems to often be taking a sour grapes approach to both of the above, claiming that they don’t really work (despite hundreds of testimonials to the contrary). Personally, I’m agnostic as to whether or not to take this route; I say do what works for you. Though, its hilarious to sit back and watch how hard people who’ve chosen either path will fight and flame to justify and validate t heir choice either way.
7. Essay Regurgitation – Taking one comment from an adcom or piece of advice from a consultant and running with it in your essays. Says HBS’s Dee Leopold in her WSJ interview, “For a while, people were getting advice that when we asked for three accomplishments you had to give one professional, one personal and one community service. I don’t know where that came from. They got to be a little formulaic.“
8. Gluttony - can be a by product of both guilt and stress; also often attributed to refusing to cook (or clean; or bathe) while hopelessly chained to a Kellogg essay or GMAT study guide. What’s your poison of choice? Late night pizza? Haagen dazs?
9. Denial – putting everything off until the very last minute, hoping  that that taking a more zen,laissez-faire/”it’ll get done” attitude will make things better; it doesn’t. It just adds more stress at the end.
10. Self induced trauma – Purposefully putting more stress on  yourself at the every end, hoping that the adrenaline rush will help you to “perform under pressure”, resulting in moments of rare brilliance and perfect execution of your MBA apps at the buzzer. Good luck with that.
11. Self deprecation - repeatedly saying that a particular dream school of yours “is a long shot” (or speaking in uncertain terms like “IF I even get in…“) to save face in the event of a possible ding. The theory in action here is if you never allow yourself to be too gung-ho about it, then any disappointment will be mitigated. Unfortunately, this tactic may also prompt you to give  less than your best, which may be likely to result in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

P.S. Have you noted fears and coping tactics not list here? Feel free to add them below so that all may be forewarned.

MBAOver30 offers the perspective of a 30-something, California-based entrepreneur who is applying to Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Northwestern, Berkeley, UCLA and the University of Southern California. He hopes to gain acceptance to the Class of 2015 and blogs at MBAOver30.

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