2018-2019 MBA Applications Deadlines

It’s that time again! Come January 4th, your 2nd round application will be due at Harvard, Columbia, and Emory Goizueta. Next week, the deadlines for Northwestern Kellogg, Stanford, Dartmouth Tuck, and Michigan Ross hit home as well.

Of course, you probably already knew that – especially if you’ve been tapping into our annual deadlines listing. Boasting over 40 schools, this story is the market’s one-stop source for deadlines covering every round, not to mention interview and acceptance notification dates (and links to application requirements). If you’re considering applying in the third round, you may want to bookmark this story. These deadlines are coming up in March!

You’d Never Believe These MBA Applicants Were Just Rejected By Harvard Business School

Didn’t get into your dream school? Don’t feel bad. Neither did the South African financier with the perfect 780 GMAT. How about the pro soccer player with a 770 GMAT? Not even an interview. Surely, a McKinsey consultant with a 750 GMAT and a perfect quant score got in, right? Not a chance.

Yes, HBS is America’s largest MBA program, receiving more applications than anywhere else. Still, candidates only have a 1-in-10 shot of getting an acceptance letter. That means a slew of valedictorians, class presidents, and corporate HiPos are going to fall short – maybe for the first time in their lives.

What went wrong for these applicants? That’s where Sandy Kreisberg comes into play. The self-proclaimed “HBS Guru,” Kreisberg delivers the goods, placing hundreds of clients in programs like Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, and Booth. For those who believe feedback is a gift, Kreisberg is a Godsend, delivering his critiques in a no-nonsense, no-holds-barred manner that leaves little room for interpretation.

No, Kreisberg doesn’t hedge or hold back. He doesn’t shy away from sharing what candidates get right…and where they’ve gone oh-so-wrong, either. At the same time, he is brimming ideas on what candidates can do to improve their positioning – or which programs might be better-suited for their talents.

Wondering what red flags or gaps that an adcom might see in your applicant profile? Just take a look at how Kreisberg picks apart the applications of 11 of the most impressive MBA candidates around.

Handicapping Your Elite MBA Odds: A Hedge Fund Analyst

Speaking of Kreisberg, another installment of his handicapping series just missed P&Q’s 10 Most-Read. As expected, this column features Kreisberg at his salty best. Here is a sampling of his advice to prospective applicants:

“At Harvard, you’re competing with people who go to schools like Michigan and schools that are better than Michigan. You also are competing with people who also have 760 GMATs and may have a cleaner work history. Their first job could be with Goldman Sachs and then a second job at a premium feeder private equity firm. The question is how many of those candidates are there and are there enough of them who are better than you? Harvard could say, ‘No thanks, we have our 30 guys like you and they are more interesting and better.’”

“Let me make this real clear: to an adcom someone with real, real solid academic and work experiences in Life Science is more attractive than someone with no retail experience who wants to, out of the blue, work in “disrupting the retail landscape (think Warby Parker/Harry’s Grooming/AWAY).”

The adcom will not be thinking “Harry’s Grooming/AWAY.”

The adcom will be thinking WTF????”

The 40 Best Business Professors Under 40

P&Q readers love to learn about the culture carriers at their favorite MBA programs. That includes faculty too. First run in 2012, ’40 Under 40’ has emerged as a P&Q staple, celebrating teaching excellence and research prowess from up-and-coming faculty members with a penchant for bringing out the best in their students.

As inspiring as they are compelling, the 40 Under 40 are nominated by students and evaluated by P&Q staff. How popular has the feature become? This year, P&Q received a record 800 nominations, nearly double the total from the year before. Overall, 91 professors were nominated, with Imperial College Business School’s Ileana Stigliani receiving 135 nominations alone! It is also a diverse list; a quarter of the 40 Under 40 was comprised of women, with another 40% of the faculty hailing from MBA programs overseas. While the list is peppered with the usual teaching schools – Virginia Darden, Dartmouth Tuck, and Northwestern Kellogg come to mind – it also features promising professors from lesser-known programs like Rutgers, Miami, and Kellstadt.

Want to know what students can do to truly impress faculty? Wondering how the business school of tomorrow could look? Curious as to how the top business minds would reform business? Those are just a few of the topics addressed by our 40 Under 40 faculty in their profiles. They’re a great read!

DON’T MISS: MEET THE CLASS OF 2020: THE COMPLETE SERIES

2018 BUSINESS SCHOOL RANKINGS: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

THE MBA STATS THAT MATTER: P&Q’S COMPLETE COLLECTION OF 2018 DATA