bskewl

bskewl.blogspot.com ==> www.bskewl.com

2005-08-04T16:22:00.000-07:00

Google isn't picking up my new URL. This is an attempt to fix that. I'm updating regularly at bskewl.com.

Bskewl's new home is www.bskewl.com.

Goodbye Blogspot, Hello bskewl.com

2005-06-04T23:14:00.000-07:00

I have moved myself and my crappy-assed blog to bskewl.com.

Take this job and shove it

2005-05-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning I give notice. I believe they'll run me ragged for at least two more weeks but I expect to have lots more time to spend creating crappy blog entries in the near future. Looking forward to a return soon.

Why Do We Overcommit?

2005-03-27T19:30:00.000-08:00

No time to do a full post as I'm rather overcommitted at the moment.

I found the following article describing my old friend, Overcommitment, and felt the immediate need to share it with you, my Overachieving (and frequently overcommitting) old friends.

If your appointment book runneth over, it could mean one of two things: Either you are enviably popular or you make the same faulty assumptions about the future as everyone else. Psychological research points to the latter explanation. Research by two business-school professors reveals that people over-commit because we expect to have more time in the future than we have in the present. Of course, when tomorrow turns into today, we discover that we are too busy to do everything we promised. (source)

Busted--Lying on Application [Edit 1]

2005-03-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

Many applicants to graduate schools of business lie to improve their chances of admission. They stretch dates of employment to cover embarrassing gaps. They lie about how much they make. They lie about what they do. And irony of ironies, they even lie about the time they had to deal with an ethical dilemma (who'd have thought that merely asking applicants to describe an ethical dilemma would itself generate more ethical breaches?). They do it all to gain an edge in the hyper-competitive business school admissions race.

Until recently, however, there were no systematic means of either deterring or catching dishonest applicants.

Wharton is leading the change. The school's S2S discussion forum features a thread entitled "Busted--Lying on Application" in which a Wharton student (presumably class of 2002) encourages applicants to be truthful lest they end up like one of his classmates who was kicked out of the school just months before he would have graduated. His crime? Lying on his Wharton application.

As a result of that fiasco, Wharton instituted background checks for all matriculating students. These checks are conducted by Kroll, the company whose forensic prowess uncovered millions of dollars that Saddam Hussein had siphoned from his country and stashed throughout the world. Kroll has also helped crack cases involving international kidnapping, Enron, and the Texas A&M University Bonfire Tragedy, which is to say that they'd likely have no difficulty verifying a few facts on a business school application.

As a result of Wharton's policy change, some interesting behavioral changes are occuring in the applicant population as evinced by S2S forum traffic. Wharton's mere publication of the fact that all applicants receive a background check seems to be sufficient to cow most liars into honesty. I get the sense that oft-fabricated details (like dates of employment and salary history) are now being recorded accurately by would-be liars scared into compliance by Wharton wielding the Kroll club.

Occasionally, though, some poor, unethical bastard doesn't learn about the existence of these background checks until after he has submitted his application. He panics and makes a public fool of himself. Thus I bring you this gem of a post made to S2S at 8.13 AM this morning [edit: post has since been deleted, this is the only record of it now]:

Dear Alex,
I put down on my resume that I started at my current company 6 month prior than the correct date. I was terminated at my previous job and I was a little worried about having to talk about that. I had 2 other personal failures in my life (average GPA and droping out of grad school) that I expalined in my essay and I guess I was worried about having to talk about a 3rd one. I learned from these mistakes and done well since then. I got a master degree from a great school with great GPA. I did really well at my new company and was promoted a few times. The only explanation I have for my action is fear. I now really see how I could really have talked aobut what I learned from getting fired. I received a request for an interview and think that I need to come clean. I feel terrible about this. What would be the best approach for me here? I fear that I have no chance at getting into school. I would really appreciate any advice on this matter.
Thanks
Rich

S2S has become a cyber-confessional! Ethically challenged applicants are reading the thread, freaking out about their fibs, and then confessing right out there on the internets! This is pretty fabulous stuff. I doubt it ever happened prior to the Kroll verification requirement. (And you can bet that for every confession on Wharton's public forums there are five applicants coming clean in private missives to the admissions committee.)

Though they probably hate that they have to do these checks, Wharton's policy pays big benefits. By verifying every application, and by changing the depth of the background check every year, Wharton keeps applicants guessing. The class of 2006 needed to verify the employment information they provided on their most recent three jobs. In addition, I believe that 100% of their recommendations were verified. Wharton's class of 2007 is having the most recent two employers verified, and only a random sample of the class is having its recommendations verified. Wharton's class of 2008 will likely undergo a different version of the verification. By changing verification details every year, and by being vague and evasive when answering repeated questions about what information is going to be verified, Wharton makes honesty the only viable application strategy. That's how it should be.

Here are some examples of typical question-and-response patterns from the S2S forums on the topic of verification:

Q: Dude, Alex, the verifications are only $65 bux. LOL! What kind of verification can $65 buy anyway? I'm in like Flynn.
A: $65 is only the amount we charge matriculating students. Some of the cost is borne by Wharton. Cheers. [Whether this is true or a lie is unimportant. Seeds of doubt are sewn, and that's all that counts.]
Q: Alex, can you please tell me exactly how many years of employment history will be verified? Which extra curriculars will you verify? Will you review my tax returns? Will you also check claims made in my essays themselves? Your clear explanation of the line between "verified" and "not verified" would be most appreciated as this will allow me to lie with impunity. Thanks in advance.
A: The verification details change from year to year. If you tell the truth on your application, you will have nothing to worry about. Cheers.
Q: I worked for a multi-billion dollar startup that I founded but which has unfortunately since disappeared without a trace as my partners and I were too busy making money hand over fist to do anything like set up an office, hire employees, or--in fact--do any business whatsoever. Should I submit a safety application to a school that won't check these facts?
A: You won't be the first applicant who has worked for a company that has since gone out of business. You need not worry, unless the company never existed? Cheers.

I'll conclude with another confession I enjoyed tremendously, also from the same thread:

Dear Alex Brown,
I am writing you to clarify a few particular elements of my application that, while not fraudulent or misleading in any way, may be a little ambiguous. In my efforts to portray myself in the truest light possible, I felt a letter clarifying the ambiguous elements in my application was in order.
In my work history, where I list my experience as a Fighter Pilot for the United States Navy, what I really meant to say was that I was an avid "Afterburner" player as a child. I feel this experience of "Virtual Combat in an F-14 Tomcat" instilled in me all of the same attributes and qualities of courage, leadership and teamwork that I conveyed in my essays.
Secondly, when I discuss my experience as a all-star player for the NBA, I am referring to my time in the Norwalk (CT) Basketball Association. This was the name of my YMCA league team, where I was a short, fat and slow shooting guard who wore Converse All-Star sneakers, and in no way should be confused with playing in the National Basketball Association at an All-Star level. Again, my essays about competition and teamwork still apply Also intact is my plan to give back to the Wharton community by discussing my basketball exploits with the inner city youths of Philadelphia, where I will teach them to say no to drugs and stay in school while they stare in awe at the prowess of my two-handed set shot.
Again, my apologies if there was any confusion as to these areas of my application. They were clearly not "material misrepresentations" and my intent is merely to clarify somewhat ambiguous areas of the application. I look forward to receiving your acceptance letter soon.
Sincerely,
Bretes. (source)

Edit 1: Bunches of small edits. No real content difference.

Disobedient Barber Triggers Quarter-Life Crisis [Edit 2]

2005-03-16T07:27:00.000-08:00

While traveling through the outback of Ohio on business, I stopped into a small-town barbershop to have some of the jungle atop my head trimmed back, just a little. First mistake.

My thrice-repeated instructions to "leave the length alone, just even it out" apparently never registered with the geriatric who wielded the clippers. Before I could stop him, he cut a swath right through the middle of my manly mane. I yelped, but he didn't even turn off the clippers as I voiced my displeasure in words that would make a Brooklyn cabbie blush. Second mistake.

Let me tell you something I learned: no matter how much swearing you do, you will not look tough when you've got a gown around you and a big patch of scalp showing through on one side of your head. Should you ever find yourself in this situation, just let it go. Let it go, or the old men and rednecks who tend to hang in and around barber shops will have a very merry chuckle at your expense.

I guess he thought I was some kind of sissy and that he was doing me a favor by imposing an extreme buzz cut on me. He probably believed he was saving me from a life of faggoting and gallivanting about in my Sodom to the Northeast.

What does this have to do with business school? I could spin this into a parable about the customer always being right (except when he's wrong). I could talk about educators who—like the barber—believe they know what's best for us and who sometimes impose their will on us to our detriment.

But what this really represents is a loss of youth and an important transition. My hair was a visible "fuck you" to the business establishment because it wasn't the norm. It was my rebel signature. Now, however, I look like every other cookie-cutter corporate sonofabitch when I put on my suit and tie for work.

Unsavory choices from here. Do I attempt to wear my identity on my sleeve via some other visual (Tattoos? Versace? Nose piercing?) Or do I just let it go, and acknowledge the fact that I've inched that much closer to the demographic that people my age were once warned never to trust?

Next thing you know, I'll propose to a girl. Or turn 30! Or both. All of this on top of a corporate job and an MBA from Wharton might be too much for my rebellious heart to take. I feel like I've fallen asleep on a moving conveyor belt that's steadily bringing me closer and closer to violent, malevolently glinting machines that will chop me up, melt me down and pour me out into a Wharton-shaped mold. The conveyor belt will then carry me past Dean Harker's station and he'll pop me out of the mold, brush me off, slap an "inspected by PTH" sticker on my ass, and shove me out the door. I won't be a new man. I'll be a new old man.

Edit 1: redid last paragraph to make it less sucky
Edit 2: minor words added and removed

Lauder: $22,000 for a Useless Degree?

2005-03-08T08:55:00.000-08:00

Part of my take on Winter Welcome Weekend 2005

I have to get this one out of the way because the title worried a few people. Just to set those of you who emailed me at ease: no, the Lauder program's MA in International Studies is definitely and emphatically not a useless degree (but I find your lack of faith unnerving). There are number of uses for this degree, including (but not limited to):

"Footwear has been one of the most popular uses for sheepskin" (source)
Build very sturdy paper airplanes.
Frame and hang on office wall, where it will add to the aura of gentility and erudition that emanates from your workspace--the aura that the common man generally refers to as "eau de stuck-up, overeducated prick who's got his head so far up his ass he needs a glass navel to see where he's going."
Bud too wet? Spark it up with some hot-burning sheepskin so you don't have to respark it every hit. (Or so they say.)
Dinner placemat.

Of course I'm being facetious. I got the title for this post verbatim from a PowerPoint slide that displayed on the big screen at the Follies show during the Winter Welcome Weekend event. It said, "Lauder: $22,000 for a Useless Degree?" I'm not going to try to answer that question now, but I do have some opinions formed of the program.

Lauder is for people who speak a foreign language better than the average American (not saying much) but not well enough to use it in business. It's not that a MA in International studies unlocks more lucrative careers, it merely grants the bearer better access to more internationally-flavored jobs. This is important because it lifts the Lauder graduate above the average American MBA student when it comes to competing for these sorts of jobs. Less competition for similar jobs should mean more job offers for Lauder students.

I don't know if the data bear this out. Does Wharton publish statistics on the placement rates for Lauder program participants versus the rest of the MBA program population?

One final note: it's been suggested a few times on the forums where the general rabble carry on that applying Lauder affords one a better chance of admission at Wharton (the same advantage, they say, that applicants who declare intent to major in Healthcare Management get). I don't know if that's true, but I'd imagine that it does help differentiate an applicant versus the rest of the pool. I've certainly seen no qualitative difference between the general MBA admits and the Lauder admits. (But what do I know? As the class admissions mistake, I'm in no position to assess.)

Question: Is it pronounced "louder, please, I can't hear you!" or "lawder"?

Best MBA-Related Reads for the Week ending 2005.03.04 [Edit 1]

2005-03-04T09:05:00.000-08:00

(Note: This will actually cover several weeks of MBA content as I've been too busy hacking away at HBS's application system to do much blogging.)

The Apply Yourself Fiasco - This is the biggest news the community has seen in a while, which says something about how hard-up we are for anything the least bit juicy in the first place. There are so many takes on it that I'll have to point you to Clear Admit's most excellent wrap-up with myriad links to various takes on the issue. (source)
Avoid These Mistakes On Financial-Aid Forms - As much as I enjoy saying "Fuck the FAFSA" for its beautiful alliterative qualities, it's time to act like an adult for a minute and start filling out all of these damned forms if I'm ever going to actually attend Wharton. That's why I found this sampling of common mistakes so helpful. Here are my favorites including some fake text to keep you awake:
- Leaving a field blank. If the answer to an asset or income question is zero, then put in a "0." This of course means that you're a loser and should probably consider offing yourself.
- Attachments. Do not include anything with the form when you mail it. Leave all attachments at home when you go to business school because you know you'll be slutting around with the best of them.
- Income. Do not use your W-2 to report income. Wear your income. Broadcast your income. It's all about the bling, baby.
- Filing Online. If using the online version of FAFSA, do not attempt to hack the online form to determine your FAFSA award early.
(source)
Another List That Will Never Get Done - How many of us make lists that look just like chanakya's list of things to do before fall? How much of it will get done? I'm tellin' ya, the siren song of the blank slate draws business school students in droves to the rocky shore. (source)
Is the MBA responsible for moral turpitude at the top? - The question's been asked a number of times... but the Economist manages to find a fresh twist. Killer quote: "The real problem arises when students, or their new employers, believe that an MBA is, somehow, a qualification for business leadership." (source)
Sound Advice for Entering First-Years - Though the original post is over a year old now, a link to it was posted this week by CalGrad. The advice ranges from "No shit, Sherlock"-obvious to actually valuable. (source)
Another B-School Blogger Calls It Quits - Well, that was sure a short run by what looked to be a very promising blog. I'm sorry to see this author close up shop after such a brilliant run at blogging.(source)
Cizzo-Workas "I'm not saying never. I'm just saying, until your job title is something like, 'Snoop's entourage member #6', you can't call them your cizzo-workas." --An exasperated guy talking on a cell phone at Andronico's. (source)
Broken Career Center at Marshall? Writes one Marshall student, "the career center ... at this point is just occupying valuable space that could be used for, say, napping or yoga or full-contact origami." (source)
Student Association (of Idiocy) Never, ever stand between a business school student and free beer. To do so is to risk his blogging ire. JDMBA lets loose. (source)

Edit 1: Erroneously stated that LBS's career center might be broken when, in fact, the linked-to blog was complaining about USC Marshall's career center. Oops.

Bskewl Must Be Punished!

2005-02-25T07:43:00.000-08:00

Just a quickie before I post my Friday wrap-up. I got a kick out of this comment. I'm feeling the love, but I'm a little worried about my identity being exposed. How did this person know I'm a masochist? There's nothing more I enjoy than being tied down and kicked in delicate places.

BSKewl needs to be tied near the huntsman gate, and kicked in the ribs by every passerby.. for luck of course!! Also, he can also be used as spit-can by tobbaco chewers!! (source)

This comment was made after a certain blogger wrote "I don't give a rat's tail what other's think of my blog" after spending 335 words reacting to what others think of his blog. It's a relief that he doesn't care, or we might have been treated to somewhat more than 335 words, right? Whew. Looks like I dodged a bullet there, huh?

Either way, I'm not trying to be l'enfant terrible of the b-school blogging world, but it's inevitable that more than a little of what I'll write here (or elsewhere) will rub someone, somewhere, the wrong way. This is inevitable: "To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." (Elbert Hubbard)

Huntsman Hall: The Rat Race Starts with a Maze [Edit 1]

2005-02-23T10:25:00.000-08:00

"Architecture is the art of how to waste space." --Philip Johnson quoted in the New York Times

The Wharton MBA rat race begins and ends in the maze that students call Hunstman Hall. I call it a maze because the layout of this building confuses new visitors. I imagine that the architects return to Huntsman Hall every fall to giggle themselves silly as gaggle after gaggle of new students attempts, in vain, to go where it's supposed to be going. The place is less amazing than it is a maze.

For example, there's a subterranean 4,000-square-foot conversation/lounge pit (the Patty and Jay H. Baker Forum) that's protected from the large, sloping Walnut Street entrance ramp by a curving, floor-to-ceiling red stone wall that forces entering traffic to veer left or right. The wall encloses and protects the sanctity of the pit and renders it cozy by serving as a baffle. Groups entering from Walnut Street hit the wall, divide, and gradually sift into the pit. This is good. But the baffle function that works so well for entering traffic serves to confuse exiting traffic. From my vantage point in the pit, I saw a number of newly admitted members of the class of 2007 wedge themselves between the curved wall and the staircase that it hides in an attempt to get to the entrance ramp.

The architects attempted to create a building that serves both graduate MBA students and undergraduate business students by separating the traffic flow of these two populations, but what they ended up with is a building that suffers from annoying traffic flow problems and that ultimately serves each population less well. For example: MBA students who use the despicable commercial-cafe-that-must-not-be-named can only get to the MBA lounge by a long, circuitous loop out into the hallway and around to the MBA lounge entry on the mezzanine above the Walnut Street entrance. MBA students don't have much patience for these architectural shenanigans so they use a silly little door behind the cafe's cashier to move between the two spaces. Whose brilliant idea was that?

In truth, it doesn't appear that anybody had any brilliant ideas when it came to traffic flow. The high-traffic areas feel cramped during the busier times of the day, the elevators are slow, and the escalators are not wide enough for students in a rush to pass the fatasses who can't be arsed to walk up stairs that move.

And the masses of people! Huntsman Hall is packed full of people on a normal class day. There are just too many people in the damned place, which leads me to believe that it may be functioning as a swing space for business-like classes as other areas around campus undergo renovation.

So much for traffic. How about the rest of the building?

It's not that erecting showy, state-of-the-art buildings guarantees more or better students; rather, schools have acknowledged that the new facilities are required to keep attracting any students at all. (source)

The building was designed to be showy. It accomplishes that task marvelously and (thankfully) quite a bit more tastefully than if it had been named Trump Hall. Its wooden, brick and glass interiors scream "modern capitalists are being minted here!"

And so we come full circle: Hunstman Hall is itself Wharton's latest weapon in the rat race between schools to hook and land a higher percentage of their admitted applicants. The maze is both a means and an end.

Edit 1: Rewrote first two paragraphs to render them less unintelligible.

Brief Apology

2005-02-22T07:14:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the lack of blog frequency -- had a close friend die recently and have been staffed on a project that has me cooped up in the office having to actually do some work (the nerve! just wait until they find out that I'm leaving this summer). I still aspire to blog with regularity that would put a Raisin Bran taste tester to shame.

Wharton Concert Rules [Edit 1]

2005-02-17T09:13:00.000-08:00

What are "concert rules," and why are they both reviled and ignored by students? During the Wharton Follies event, one skit in particular dealt with "concert rules" in a way that leads me to believe the Wharton students dislike these rules.

In the skit, a professor attempts to teach class to a bunch of unruly students. Some arrive late. Some yakk on their phones the entire time. Some fall asleep. One orders pizza (to class). One pees in a cup (kicking off a hilarious number called "Piss Cup"). The uptight accounting professor gets so cheesed off that he leaves the classroom in the hands of one of his students.

Though I've never seen a complete list of the concert rules, here are some of them, two of which I've invented just to keep you on your toes:

Students are to sit according to a seating chart and name tents are required.
Class starts and ends on time.
Rock out with your cock out whenever possible.
Late entry to class is not permitted.
All cell phones must be turned off.
Laptops are only permitted for taking notes for the class in session.
Students must bathe regularly.

In the classes I saw over the Winter Welcome, students don't follow these rules. Some students did not have name cards. Quite a few came to class late. One class started about a minute late. Why are students not following concert rules? Why do the rules exist?

The Internet chimes in with an answer:

The stakeholder survey shows student apathy. The symptoms: lower attendance, more tardiness, less class preparation. The school's response, including the imposition of "concert rules", increased weight of class participation and more grading of punctuality and attendance, essentially target the symptoms of the apathy, not the root causes. (Wharton Journal)

I don't know if it's just because this was the week after DIP or if this is how Wharton MBAs always behave, but I found the lack of classroom discipline discouraging. Is student apathy (where it exists) unique to Wharton or is it a symptom of a larger problem, specifically, that classroom performance generally has nothing to do with success finding a job and making lots of money (which is what everybody's really after)? Do students find it hard to respect their studies because the MBA degree has become a credential and not a tool for superior performance at a future employer? Are students even meaningfully rewarded for being studious? I'd guess not based on the low-energy classrooms I observed at the Winter Welcome Weekend.

Now I know it's not fair to judge based on just a few classroom experiences, but I also know that the Winter Welcome was essentially a sales weekend for people who were admitted to multiple schools in round one and who had not yet decided which of those schools they wanted to attend. These people will (and probably did) judge Wharton based on what they saw in the classrooms last week. If I were them, I would have come away disappointed with the classroom experience. (Note that I'm not saying the entire experience sucked, just that the classroom experience alone did not live up to my expectations.)

Yes, I know the mock class received rave reviews, but that wasn't everyday Wharton. That's a bunch of high-energy admits in a classroom with an amazing professor. So my question is this: Is what I saw last week the real deal or just an unrepresentative sample? Or am I finally coming down to earth after developing unrealistically high expectations? I won't know for sure until this fall.

I'll certainly be revisiting this topic as my Wharton experience evolves.

Edit 1: Fixed clumsy wording in first paragraph.

Wharton Winter Welcome Weekend Feb 2005 [Edit 3]

2005-02-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

I've got so much to write on the subject of the events I attended at Wharton last week that I've been overwhelmed and don't know where to start. It's a rich, deep culture that can't be described in a single blog entry, so instead of trying to write everything all at once, I'll just do a series of posts, this post being a mere table of contents. The rest will come and will be linked here as they are written.

Wharton's Concert Rules: What are "concert rules," and why are they both reviled and ignored by students?
Wharton Women = Whoa
Lauder: $22,000 for a Useless Degree?
Follies: Jock, Geek, Hot, Techie, Euro, Dipshit!
We're Not Selling Wharton to You, No Really We're Not! (Or: Yield Managers Protest Too Much)
Wedgies for Wharton Nerds (Or: Wharton's anti-intellectual culture is a sad attempt at masking the fact that everyone present is, in fact, a nerd)
Wharton Undergraduates: 4000 Strong and Annoying as All Fuck
Huntsman Hall: The Rat Race Starts with a Maze
My Winter Welcome Feedback
Winter Welcome Wrap-Up

Edit 1: Added Concert Rules post
Edit 2: Added Huntsman Hall post
Edit 3: Added Lauder post

Reader Mailbag / WHARTON #1 in New Business School Rankings! / etc.

2005-02-08T19:48:00.000-08:00

The comments on my post about Darden's infamous anti-gay applicant are still soiling the blog like so many flakes of dandruff on a black cashmere jacket. This one's a lay-up. If you've been holding back on commenting before now, go ahead, drop this ball into the basket for an easy two.

[Bskewl,] You moron, the author of that particular blog is not saying that homosexuals should not go to business school or that their sexual preferences should be held against them by Ad Com. He is simply saying that we should not take a relationship made up of two men or one made up of two women, and place that relationship on the same level as a man married to a woman. Let me ask you question, I happen to love TJ. TJ and I live together, we sleep together, I have seen TJ naked, and vice versa. Should TJ and I be allowed to participate in the "Partner's Club" at Darden? Oh .. PS: TJ is my cat.

This next one comes from a fellow New Yorker. I thought, "oh great, another bullshit ranking" but then I remembered the lesson from the Superbowl and I said to my self, "Self, don't judge too quickly." And so I followed the link, read the text, and learned that this ranking is not just on the up-and-up, it's also correct, factual, unbiased, and absolutely, positively the only ranking that applicants to business school should ever pay any attention to. Quote: "The top-ranked business schools on both the North American and worldwide lists are identical, with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in first place, followed in order by the Harvard Business School...." See? Now that's fair and accurate reporting! The mail:

Bskewl,
I am not a big fan of rankings but University of Texas has just released a interesting study of the business schools that provides an insight into ACADEMIC side of the MBA programs. Schools are ranked according to research productivity of faculty. More information is available [here] and the ranking is available at http://citm.utdallas.edu/utdrankings/
Perhaps it could make a good addition to your blog?

And finally, I may blog in drips and drabs over the next several days. I've been sent on a dangerous assignment to a foreign land. When such things happen, the women-folk of the city wail louder than the sirens of passing ambulances:

[2005.02.08 - 21.42] sushisay: congrats to moving to the ghetto of philly
[2005.02.08 - 21.42] sushisay: now i'll never see u :'(
[2005.02.08 - 21.42] sushisay: hahahaha
[2005.02.08 - 21.42] bskewl: hahaha
[2005.02.08 - 21.43] sushisay: they've got the worst sports fans in the world
[2005.02.08 - 21.43] sushisay: but good cheesesteakwiches
[2005.02.08 - 21.44] bskewl: mmmmm cheesesteak!
[2005.02.08 - 21.44] bskewl: gonna have several this week, but mustn't lose the six-pack
[2005.02.08 - 21.46] sushisay: there goes your hawt bod
[2005.02.08 - 21.49] sushisay: that's kewl tho
[2005.02.08 - 21.49] sushisay: i was gonna think of something for u to buy for me at philly
[2005.02.08 - 21.49] sushisay: but don't want anything from there

Well. There goes my brilliant idea to bring her a dozen cheesesteaks for V-day. I'll have buy something more romantic. Any ideas?

Where Are You Going to School this Fall?

2005-02-08T06:37:00.000-08:00

I have trouble answering a very simple question. When people ask me where I'm going to be going to school this fall, which of the following is an appropriate answer?

Look down bashfully and toe the carpet, "Going to study business in Philly" (This is an attempt to be self effacing in front of people who have a bug up their asses about all things Ivy and would prefer not to have their inferiority complexes tweaked.)
With nose held high in air say through clenched teeth, "I'm going to Whahhhhhton." I tend not to make this response unless I'm dealing with someone who loves drawing out the syllables when they explain that they've gone to or are going to Haahhvahd Business School.
"Wharton." A simple response, but not an appropriate one for all occasions.

CASE ONE: As discussed ad nauseum on the Business Week forums, the average deli counter worker with three days' stubble doesn't necessarily understand that this name is huge. Wharton is not a name you drop in order to impress waitresses or pool boys. Why I've got the inexplicable urge to impress these people is fodder for another attempt at amateur psychoanalysis. What do I want? Do I really want the shoe-shine man to stop whisking his rag in surprise, emit a low whistle, and look up at me with a wink and a "you gonna make lots of money den, heh heh" response? Why do I crave respect from service personnel? Why is that important to me (and to most of the credentalist dogs that I run with?)
CASE TWO: The interrogator responds, "Good school, congrats. What major?" This is the response I'd prefer to hear all the time because it embarrasses me least. It doesn't require me to explain what Wharton is. It doesn't require me to brush aside the idea that I'm only in it for the money. It doesn't require me to make a lame joke about being the admission's mistake. It doesn't require me to respond that I think NYU part time is a great program too; and that I'm not going to learn anything you yourself won't learn at NYU; and that yes, I do think that the admissions game is just a big old crapshoot; and no, I don't know if those Wharton adcom GMAT whores rejected you because of your GMAT score; and no, I hadn't heard that story about Philly's drug scene; and oh, I think I've got a meeting to run to but good talking with you.
CASE THREE: My partner in conversation stares back blankly and blinks a few times.
"What's Wharton?"
"It's UPenn's business school," I say, and still getting no response, continue, "for my MBA."
"What's an MBA good for?"
"Good question."
CASE FOUR: Squeals of delight, then, "Upenn's my alma mater! Let's be best friends!"

Hangovers End, Dings Linger [Edit 1]

2005-02-07T09:42:00.000-08:00

I love Bridgette Lumpkins today (but only for today) for she has posted a wonderful rant to the Wharton Diaries site. The best part:

Oh, the Ding. Ding Ding Ding. Ding Dong.
When you get dinged, you can ask for feedback. They can say no. But many banks will provide it. I am asking for feedback. They'll probably be like: "You suck". I think that's the feedback I'm going to get: "We regret that we were unable to extend you an offer because you totally suck. But thank you for your interest in our firm, and we wish you the best in your future endeavors." Signed, The Person Who Holds the Key to Your Future.

A ding does last forever. Rejection shapes a psyche (and a sometimes, a psychosis). I still remember being picked last for kickball in third grade. How many machinations I machinated as a result of that ding in an effort to avoid being picked last ever! How many snacks from my lunchbox I gave up, asses I kissed, laughs I faked, pushups I did!

Let's dissect the ding. There are two components. The first being the ego hit that Bridgette describes so well. I can't top that. Well, I can, but it'd require dredging up some painful memories.

The second component of a ding is the distaste that one develops for the entity that dealt the dastardly ding. Let's spend a moment on this second component.

Sour Grapes

One thing that always puzzled me about acquaintances that went to Yale undergrad: they tend to diss Harvard more than Harvard disses them. It appears to be the cultural norm for Yalies. It's something that some of my coworkers still do whenever we go out to a bar for drinks after work. I've heard the conversation a handful of times, "Yeah, well [idiot manager] went to Harvard, what did you expect?" A degree from Harvard explains lots of things, according to these comrades, including (but not limited to) inability to keep a woman, workplace flatulence, obesity, extreme willingness to kiss ass, bad breath, and (my favorite) ungroomed armpits on females.

Something tells me that they do this not just because the two schools are long, fast rivals but also because (in general) Harvard tends to reject more applicants than Yale (though in 2004 Yale rejected 90.1% percent of applicants while Harvard rejected 89.7% of applicants). Yalies, in a sense, define themselves not just through their affiliation to Yale (which appears to be fanatical at times), but also (secretly) through their rejection from Harvard.

Hey, wait a minute, Yale sounds a lot like Wharton! But do Wharton students sound a lot like Yale students when discussing their rivalry with the snooty, generalist bastards up north? (See how easily I slip into disparaging remarks about HBS? It comes natural after a ding, trust me.) I really don't know how much of this I'll find at Wharton.

I think I'd feel dirty giving voice to my distaste for HBS. I was raised by the Brothers Grimm who taught me that the fox who disliked the grapes he could never taste was not a very admirable fellow at all and (this blog excluded) I want to take this blank-slate opportunity to fashion myself as the admirable sort of guy that would make Dale Carnegie proud. Sour grapes just won't do!

Ain't it funny how we remember our successes least and our failures best? There may be something to the idea that the happiest people on earth are those who aspire to nothing.

New b-school motto: I'm ambitious, therefore I'm unhappy.

Edit 1: Replaced a missing parenthesis.

Wharton Glossary [Edit 1]

2005-02-06T08:18:00.000-08:00

This is an attempt to create a glossary of acronyms, abbreviations and slang used by the Wharton community. If something's missing, please let me know by leaving a comment.

32-Part Tariff: to come
Concert Rules: A set of rules Wharton MBA students are expected obey. Perhaps observed more in the breach?
CPG: to come
Dedicated Interview Period: to come
DIP: see Dedicated Interview Period
EIS: see Employer Information Sessions
Employer Information Sessions: to come
Etalk: A discussion forum for newly admitted Wharton MBA students and Wharton students. Each class of admitted students is given a URL to their own discussion forum where they can get to know each other prior to the official start of the MBA program. Frequent topics of discussion include housing, class selection, and events and meetups in various cities across the country.
GIP: see Global Immersion Program
Global Immersion Program: Wharton's Global Immersion Program (ugly homepage circa 1995 warning!) is an elective course for first-year students consisting of spring-semester classes followed by four-week study tours abroad. Research papers on the experience are due in the fall semester of students' second year.
H/S/W: to come
Huntsman: Jon M. Huntsman Hall, the home of Penn's Wharton programs, is located at the corner of Walnut Street and 38th Street in Philadelphia. The Wharton community is clearly proud of this 300,000-square-foot facility, which opened in 2002 at a cost of $140 million. It's even got its own website. Here's a map.
M/B/B: to come
PE: to come
Pub: to come
OPIM: Pronounced "Ahhp-uhm" or "Ahhp-im" (short "i"). Operations and Information Management (the rest of the world calls it MIS).
S2S: See "Student-2-Student"
SIM: to come
Student-2-Student: Wharton's Student-2-Student discussion forums are filled with posts from applicants, current students, and school administrators. According to the blurb:
On [S2S] you can ask questions about the admissions process and life at Wharton; meet other prospective and current students; and get a glimpse of the kind of debates that go on everyday in the Wharton community. Student-2-Student works with the MBA Admissions Blog which we hope develops into a resource useful to all MBA applicants looking for answers to application questions, as well as links to a variety of useful MBA resources.
WGA: to come
Wharthogs: to come
Wharton Journal: to come
WJ: see Wharton Journal

Edit 1: Added definitions for concert rules and OPIM.

Author's Note

2005-02-06T06:49:00.000-08:00

While this blog is not a work of fiction, the characters discussed within it (self included) are not actual people. These characters are comprised of a cross section of attributes, opinions, and adventures representing a range of Wharton School of Business experiences and viewpoints. To the extent that real persons are depicted in any detail in the blog, their names have been altered. Excepted from this is a small group of individuals whose highly visible administrative posts or academic reputations have made them public persons. (Stolen shamelessly and almost verbatim from the Author's Note prefacing Year One: An Intimate Look Inside Harvard Business School, Source of the Most Coveted Advanced Degree in the World by Robert Reid.)

Best MBA-Related Reads for the Week ending 2005.02.04 [Edit 1]

2005-02-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

Wharton Appoints New Director of Career Management Office - Does this mean stronger CPG placements at Wharton? "Christopher has been the senior associate director of MBA Career Management since August 2003. He came to Wharton after two-and-a-half years as marketing manager at Campbell Soup Co." (Found at Wharton Journal)
Crazy Tucker Tattoos Self - MBA student Desmond Duncker shows off his tattoo of the Tuck School of Business logo.
(Found at Dave for MBA)
Reality Blog Rankings - Happy Ending's latest venture... let's hope that he doesn't switch it to a treatise on vaginas after I deign to link to him (like he did last week, that bastard!) At any rate, this is a modified version of an idea that was initially a tad too harsh. Go nominate bloggers that are doing a good job. You don't have to diss anyone. (Found at mbablogss.blogspot.com)
UCLA Admits Beware - UCLA's marketing literature would never include the little details like this, but they have a big effect on quality-of-life for students. Commute-time is a major component of happiness. (Found at MargaritaLuvr (blog))
Quote of the Week? - "Business schools train people to sit in their offices and look for case studies. The more Harvard succeeds, the more business fails." -- Henry Mintzberg (Found at 54monkeys.com)
Top Ten signs that your interviewer is not putting you through to the Second Round - "10. While he agrees that both your t-shirt and AC~DC totally rock, he claims his bank has a "more traditional" definition of business attire." (Found at Wharton Journal)
Awesome Quotes about Business - "So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work." -- Peter Drucker (Found at Career Journal)
Growing pains: waking up one morning...old? - "I guess what it comes down to is that Wharton is a big journey of double standards for all of us. While it may be about finance, strategy, dark suits, ties and getting the highest paying job at the best firm so that you can bring up the school salary average, it is also about a second chance (and notice I said second...not last) to relive, or for some of us, live, the life of less responsibility. Sure we have to work in teams, hand in projects, do problem sets, and interview, but we also get to dress up in 'Studio 54' gear and stroll down the street in our underwear...and it is all acceptable." (Found at Wharton Journal)
XM Adroitly Retires Expensive Debt - XM Satellite Radio does a little WACC rebalancing and saves "tens of millions of dollars" -- That's why we MBAs get paid the big bucks. (Found at Digitalradio.weblogsinc via Business 2.0 Blog)
Another Johnson Lopped Off - Oldman blogged about his experiences at Cornell's Johnson school of business, but alas, he did not stay anonymous. Thus, when he posted something mildy controversial, he got beat down. The mystery remains, though. Who discouraged him from blogging? The school administration? Other students? Anonymous cowards? That makes three bloggers this week alone who have decided to stop covering the riveting world of MBA admissions and classes. Here's the post that got him into hot water (thanks again, RSS!)
The following rant is based on observations only, and may be way off base. However, it is the belief of the author that all statements are, in all material aspects, correct. Now, I'm not normally one to complain about the system. I'm really not. I generally take things better than most, but in this particular case, I have to point out a simple observation. This is bound to cause some controversy, but keep in mind, it certainly isn't intended to take away from anyone's accomplishments . I am only pointing this out because my girlfriend is going to file a lawsuit on my behalf (totally kidding. Or am I?) Let me frame this in the form of a question: Assumptions: -260 kids in the class, 2/3 are male -higher percentage of women in marketing than other disciplines, say 60:40 in favor of women (I actually think it is less) -International students make up approx. 20% of the class In this scenario, what are the chances that ZERO caucasian US citizens, that were born in the united states, received an offer? (as of today, of course) In other words, what are the chances that all offers went to women, or to intl/not born in the US people, within the CPG Marketing field? I'm no statistics whiz, but... Anyways. Like I said, the non-white males born outside the US that received these offers are all great candidates, no question. This wasn't intended to start a big scene, but seriously...it needs to be discussed so at least people are aware of the numbers...I'll let you decide--power to the people, yo. And, of course, this is a snapshot at one point in time, and doesn't necessarily reflect the final outcome. Anyways, yell at me, tell me I'm a pig, tell me I'm bitter, say whatever you like. It is the price I pay for KEEPIN IT REAL!!!!!!!! (BTW, before you yell though, remember that I never said these people gots jobs because they were female, intl, or otherwise. I simply said that us crackers aren't faring very well so far).
(Found at oldman2011.blogspot.com See also: Aregon23)

Edit 1: Inserted photo!

Ali G Interviews Head of SBS (Selective Business School)

2005-02-02T16:05:00.000-08:00

Ali: Booyakasha. Now 'ear dis! Me is in da house wiv da directa of admissions fa sbs, Docta 'erbert. [Presses bejeweled fist to Dr. Herbert's fist.]

Dr. Herbert: Thank you Ali, I'm honored to be on your show.

Ali: Now doc, dey say dat business schools is only fa white, rich bruvers. Is dat be true?

Dr. Herbert: We at SBS are committed to creating a diverse class and we subscribe to the broadest possible definition of diversity. The class of 2005 includes students from 90 countries. Approximately 40% of these students are female, and 50% of them are --

Ali: Hold up, doc. Let's natta more about da wimin fa a second. 'ow batty is dey, and do dey dig to get jiggy?

Dr. Herbert: Ali, our students are ambitious leaders interested in obtaining the best possible business education in the country. These are career-minded individuals. I can't speak to their social proclivities, though SBS does boast over 100 student clubs and over 300 electives. Our students often describe the SBS experience as akin to drinking fine champagne from a fire hose.

Ali: Free shampane? Dat is well good! Does you also import chronic by da truck load?

Dr. Herbert: [Becoming aggravated] It's a figure of speech, we don't actually serve champagne via firehose to students, though we do sponsor a social event called "Wonderful Wednesdays" in which students gather to unwind after classes. Beer and pizza are typically served, and some of our many Nobel prize-winning teaching faculty are known to drop in on occasion.

Ali: Yous geezers can win a prize fa drinkin beer!? Doc, me has ta arxe: 'ow does me git into da SBS? I knows accountin' already: one, two, free, four, ... I could go on! [Throws up gang signs, pumps fist.]

Dr. Herbert: Applicants are evaluated on several factors: demonstrated leadership potential, intellectual vitality, and diversity. Imagine putting together a jigsaw puzzle without having a picture on the box to guide you --

Ali: Ok, ok. Dat is well borin'. I bet you got really hairy balls!

Dr. Herbert: Yes, it's a veritable forest down there. Bye bye. This interview is over. Security!

Ali: [As he's being dragged out.] Wot? Is you ending dis early becoz I'm black? Dat's well racialist, innit?

Bloggers Beware: Adcom's Watching You [Edit 1]

2005-02-02T08:01:00.000-08:00

As suggested in my post on how to write an MBA blog, I believe that the admissions committees and alumni interviewers of various schools are reading our blogs. Not only reading! Judging, perhaps. Weighing the merits of. Jotting notes on applications because of.

What evidence have I? Well, the secret society of MBA Bloggers were sitting in the tomb the other day and sharing some information about their logfiles when one of them looked up from the Indian skull he was drinking from and noted the following (small details changed to protect privacy):

i clicked on my stats counter to check out where my hits were coming from etc, .... it was sheer luck of timing but i saw that there was one access from [Selective Business School (SBS)] this morning. But, what was interesting is where exactly it was from. the 'sent from' link says that the hit came from [Top Dawg's] exchange server inbox! [Top Dawg] is the admissions top gun at [SBS]. The link also had part of the subject of the email and it reads: "Fw: [items of interest]".

That's pretty good evidence right there. Remember too that Alex Brown (Wharton adcom) is known to leave comments on many of the blogs, so it's no secret that he certainly reads them.

Therefore, I share the following thoughts with those who would blog about their MBA admissions experiences:

Admissions committee members at schools that you are applying to can and will read your blog at some point.
If you give enough detail (a GMAT score, your sex, your geographic location, and perhaps your alma mater) your identity can be discovered. (This is not to say that they're out there trying to actively figure out who the bloggers are, merely that it would not take much effort to do so.)
Readers will take a favorable or unfavorable opinion of you based on what you write.
Combine the second and third items above and it's feasible that admissions committee members (or alumni interviewers) might allow their judgment to be influenced by something you wrote in your blog. This can be good or bad. If you apply ED to Columbia and write in your blog, "LOLZ Columbia's my safety school. I applied ED just to have security going into my Harvard app" I can imagine that Columbia--as concerned as they reputedly are about yield--might be particularly motivated to figure out who you are and ding you.
Your blog's edit button will not save you. For example, one blogger wrote an emotional response to her Stanford interview that made her sound (frankly) like an entitled bitch rather than the overconfident but harmless 20-something she really is. Here are some quotes from the initial post (dated December 12th) prior to her edits. You won't find these quotes anywhere in the post-edit version, yet I still have them thanks to the wonders of RSS.
I expected great things from a Stanford person. I expected him to be warm, friendly, charming, intelligent of course, but I expected more of a fuzzy, comforting feeling from Stanford people.
The blogger implies that her interviewer was not warm, friendly, charming or intelligent when really all she meant to say was that the person was not warm.
[The interviewer] made me drive to his office rather than meet me at a location I suggested which would have been much more convenient for me.
The blogger implies that she was put out by having to come to the interviewer--the nerve of that guy to request that SHE drive to HIM! The horror! There's more where that came from, but the point should be obvious now: once you click "publish" you must assume it's out there for good and that the target of your blogging affections will read it in the worst possible light.
Conceal your identity. For many of the current crop of bloggers, it's too late (unless you want to scuttle your blogs and re-emerge under a new identity). To get personal for a moment: I may or may not actually live in NYC (though I know enough of the city to write about it). I may or may not even be male. I'm blogging as an everyman where only a few things are certain: (1) I'm a R1 Wharton admit, (2) I'm going to be at Wharton this fall, (3) I'm desperately horny. (I'll make a separate post on "how to remain anonymous as an MBA Blogger".)

In sum, I'd suggest that if you want to share interesting observations on your MBA life as it happens, you need to be specific and honest. If you want to be specific and honest, you need to be anonymous. If you want to be anonymous, you need to be paranoid. Therefore, interesting = paranoid. Q.E.D.

Comedians, critics, pundits and shock jocks are exempt from this rule because they (unlike you and I) are not lowly peons to be crushed when a Person in Power takes umbrage at something they say or write.

And though I hate to write disclaimers, I should say that I believe most adcoms would respond to this along these lines, "In order to give every applicant a fair chance, we evaluate only the materials submitted via the official application. We cannot allow ourselves to be biased by other materials, and we certainly do not Google applicants to learn about them. Your application will be judged on the merits of what you submit and nothing more." However, I guarantee that if your name were splashed across the front page of the WSJ tomorrow, they'd take note of it and it would influence your application one way or the other.

Edit 1: Minor grammatical fixes

Gaming the System

2005-02-01T06:21:00.000-08:00

The Tribune Company publishes a crappy but free newspaper called "amNewYork" aimed at Manhattan's commuting classes. According to the WSJ, amNewYork's circulation is 325,000, most of it achieved through pushy paper hawkers who thrust the free rag into the hands of uncaffeinated commuters who are still too groggy to have the sense to refuse it.

Though the company attempts to select hawkers who will do a good job, they're clearly compensated in a way that encourages mischevious behavior. At seven this morning I found myself walking behind one hawker who jammed a fistful of amNewYork papers (perhaps 10 at a time) deep into each trash can he passed. I followed him for several blocks as I really got a kick out of watching him distribute the paper in this way.

I was going to compare this behavior to the way business school applicants tend to focus on just a few important metrics (sometimes to the detriment of their overall careers) but realized too late that it's just not all that interesting. I've typed too much to stop now, so instead, I'll make a list of unconnected things!

LBS Whomps HBS Ass at SEO - Google the term "Business School" (with quotes and without quotes) in Google. London Business School has clearly invested in search engine optimization. What else explains these results? Wharton ranks third in both searches.
HBS Annual Report - Dave for MBA has pulled out some highlights of the just-released HBS annual report. Did you know that HBS's primary source of revenue is publishing? In a future post, I'd love to compare the data in this report to comparable data from other schools. And as for those complaints that the HBS administration is unresponsive to student feedback? Maybe there's something to them, as evinced by the following quote from the report:
By leaving vacant positions unfilled and postponing new hires, the School reduced its administrative staff full-time equivalent positions (FTEs) by a total of 49 from last year, partially offsetting the increased benefits expense. Over the past two years, the School’s staff level has declined by 100 FTEs, or 9.0 percent. (source)
A list with just two substantive items? For shame. Maybe tomorrow I'll do better. I only got three hours of sleep last night. No, that's not an excuse. If I'm going to continue this effort for the next two years I'll need to learn to write regardless of how much sleep I've had, right?

How to Write an MBA Blog [Edit 1]

2005-01-31T06:56:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Tony Pierce's award-winning post on how to blog (read it!) I've decided to actually dispense some of my own advice, which is, as usual, going to be quite awful. Brace yourselves.

Make promises you can't keep. (For instance, promise to "start writing again" but then fail to deliver on that promise. Another successful tactic is to promise to deliver the straight dope but then delete your blog.)
The world is lucky that you deign to acknowledge it. Please, bless us with your unvarnished pearls of wisdom, as nobody has ever written anything on the subject of MBA admissions ever, and it's about time someone wrote the definitive guide to the Stanford, Wharton and Harvard interview process. You! You are the Ron Jeremy of the B-school blog world. You fill a gaping hole in the community.
Call your interviewers at Morgan Stanley "a bunch of guidos." This not only reflects well on your school, but also increases the chance that your interviewers will read your blog and decide to give you "big ups" for not kowtowing and kissing their asses like every other applicant out there. Booyakasha.
One oft-used tactic requires you to create the mother of all butt-kissing blogs and fill it with nothing but praise for your target school and how much you'd love to attend it. Now here's the key that will allow the adcom to connect the dots: post your GMAT scores, your background, and a few other personal details so that they'll not only read your blog, but connect it to your application profile and therefore be cajoled into rendering a favorable decision. And finally, stop blogging after you're in, as the blog has served its purpose.
If you'd prefer to attend a school with no homos in it, make it clear from the get-go. Don't let the blog world's bleeding-heart namby-pambies dissuade you from expressing yourself. PC is just another abbreviation for "communism."
Use your "blogs I'm reading" link list as a carrot and stick. If someone says something you don't like, you'll continue to read them of course, you just won't put them on your list. That'll teach 'em! Of course, anybody that kisses your ass in comments totally goes on the list, even though they be boring pedants.
Claim to reject every school that accepts you because, after all, you're just too highly remunerated and business school would be a waste of time. Your virtual cock has grown longer!
If you decide to attend HBS, stop posting anything interesting or insightful and just focus on pumping the brand. Why spend the effort? As HBS's only blogger, people will read you anyway.
If you decide to attend Stanford, emulate the lone Harvard blogger. People will read you anyway.
If you decide to blog at Wharton, you'll need to combat the perception that you're blogging on behalf of the marketing office. The best way to do this is to post pictures of busty playmates with Alex Brown's head photoshopped onto them. That'll show the world that you have journalistic integrity. (A thousand sighs of disappointment that my link didn't deliver the goods. Maybe next time.)

Edit 1: Minor improvements here and there.

Best MBA-Related Reads for the Week ending 2005.01.28 [Edit 4]

2005-01-28T07:54:00.000-08:00

FT 2005 MBA Rankings - Harvard moves up one to tie Wharton for first place. Columbia, Stanford, LBS, Chicago, Tuck, Insead, NYU Stern, and Yale round out the top 10 (in that order). (Found at FT.com)
Wharton Career Services Guru Peter Degnan Changes Jobs - An excellent historical account of Peter Degnan's impact on the Wharton Career Management Office since 2002. Students are understandably concerned about what this departure means for the full-time MBA program. In an opinion piece one student from the class of 2006 uses the news as an opportunity to complain about how much Wharton spends on the Executive MBA program relative to its brand importance and financial benefit. (Found at Wharton Journal)
Wharton Professors Embarrassed by Class-Skipping Students - Now Future MBA Girl (aka Alli Myatt) could have just said something bland and generic in her post like, "everyone's stressed about DIP" and then wrapped it up with a few clichés about how business school is truly very like drinking champagne from a fire hydrant, but instead she gets specific about how that stress manifests itself. I love her description of sheepish professors who are "grateful that SOMEONE showed up to class." Scandalous. (Found at FutureMBAGirl.blogspot.com)
Peter Drucker Defines the American CEO - "CEOs have ultimate responsibility for the work of everybody else in their institution. But they also have work of their own -- and the study of management has so far paid little attention to it." (Found at CareerJournal)
Product Naming Case Study: Choczels - I never thought that one of my favorite blogs in the world would ever write something that I could share with the MBA audience, but Todd Levin has surprised me again. You know there's some overachieving schmuck out there already drafting his class of 2008 application essays about his experience "leading" the Choczels team. (Found at Tremble.com)
MBA graduates weather economic downturn - "At the core of the FT rankings is a survey of the salaries MBA graduates earn three years after graduation. It shows that some one who went to one of the top 10 US business schools in 2001 today earns an average salary of $144,492." (Found at FT.com)
Majority of Workers Believe Their Bosses Lack Integrity and Fairness - "More than half of American workers question the basic morality of their organizations' top leaders and say that their managers do not treat them fairly...." I'd be interested to know whether managers with MBAs are any better or worse than their non-MBA peers.(Found at Worthwhile Magazine)
Probability Is a Myth - The next time some wannabe posts, "Hie, I have 780 GMAT, 3.9 UG, 4 yrs W/E IT, IIT Madras what are my chances at H/S/W?" just post a link to this essay in response. Cliff's Notes version: "My probability of getting into Stanford GSB is not really 10%. In fact, there may be no one whose chance of getting into Stanford GSB is 10% or even near 10%. It may be that one-tenth of the applicants have a 100% chance and the rest have a 0% chance. It's more likely that there's some kind of a double-humped distribution in which some select few have an 80-95% chance and the masses have a 0-5% chance." (Found at BusinessBoy.blogspot.com)
Your MBA Plans Will Not Remain Secret - A cautionary tale that serves to remind us all that it's only a matter of time before the entire company learns of our plans to leave in pursuit of an MBA. (Found at MargaritaLuvr.blogspot.com)
Top Tier MBA Required for Job - How often do you see a help-wanted advertisement that actually specifies the need for an MBA from a "top tier school"? Here's one (an interesting career-oriented website, to boot):
-> Opening: Director of Brand Marketing, TheLadders.com, NYC
Seeking world-class Director to develop & execute brand strategy to drive business & build brand. Have a profound impact on the future at a defining moment in our evolution. The ideal candidate has MBA in Marketing from a top tier school; 5+ yrs brand marketing exper.; strong working knowledge of industry marketing channels; excellent interpersonal & communication skills. Resume, cover letter; Email: careers@theladders.com
(Found at Marketing Sherpa)
Infamous MBAs from Top Schools - Writes a poster in the business week forum, "We all know the famous ones such as Bush for H and Donald for W etc. Token boys on their school's website. I am trying to compile a list of those infamous one that all M7 trying to forget. Anyone wants to add to this list?" This is fun; help compile the list. (Found at Business Week)
The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business - Most of the list is available to Business 2.0 subscribers only, but at least the top 10 is available online. It includes the tale of the Bank of Ireland CEO who was busted for downloading porn at work. (Found at Business 2.0 Blog
Wharton sees wave of profs fresh out of school - Wharton hired 23 new faculty members his academic year. Thirteen of them came straight out of Ph.D. programs. "Consequently, younger professors are teaching a large range of courses -- from small MBA courses to high-enrollment introductory courses," says the article. Though the article focuses on reactions (mostly from Wharton undergraduates), it piques my interest in the extent to which Wharton's MBA students are satisfied with these younger professors. Given their youth, many of these new faculty members are going to be the same age as the incoming MBA class. They're also going to lack much practical business experience. Are age and experience even necessary for business school faculty (Found at The Daily Pennsylvanian)
Consulting and Banking Career Discussion - Every once in a while the forum regulars that hang out in the monkey cages at Business Week stop flinging poo at each other just long enough to have an intelligent discussion. Here's one that ballooned to 154 replies since Monday of this week. It begins with a question about pay ranges for consultants, but evolves into a more meaningful analysis of what the job is really about. (Found at Business Week MBA Forums)
New Blogs Added to My Feed this Week - I had trouble picking just one. First, there's the humorist with the leaden GMAT score and the golden keyboard (dinged by NYU? Ouch! Should have taken the GMAT Retakerinator Survey) [Warning - this blogger has a problem staying "on topic" and may not be a safe-for-work read], then there's the Michigan MBA student who dropped not just one but two comments in response to yesterday's post. How can I not show some love for that sort of dedication? Plus, anybody with the guts to call his interviewers at Morgan Stanley "a bunch of guidos" wins my respect (he won't be winning any jobs, though, if the MS boys ever read that).
New Series of B-School Comics - Words won't do this one justice, so I will steal some of the other Zach's bandwidth to showcase this great work. I hope he keeps it up.
MBA-NFL Draft Idea - Writes PandaCH, "Think about what the term "Ivy League" did for a bunch of antiquated institutions with lazy gardeners... We need something like that for b-schools too." Columbia invented the M7. Isn't that good enough for you? Well, the rest of the post has some interesting ideas too. A fun exercise in lateral thinking. (Found at PandaCH.blogspot.com)

Edit 1: How could I fail to leave out the wonderful new comics being done by Zachary Emig? Also provided the missing link to Business 2.0 story.

Edit 2: Modified an adjective... ;) Those of you who download your feeds regularly can hunt for it and you'll learn that I'm really a nice guy who feels occasional pangs of guilt.

Edit 3: Inserted a warning about one of the links above...

Edit 4: Edited the link to MBAHoing.

Who Posts Short Shorts? I Post Short Shorts! [Edit 1]

2005-01-27T07:22:00.000-08:00

My fingers ache to tap out so much craptacular stuff that I'm presented with a dilemma: I'll either have to axe topics, post more times per day, or limit the amount of time I spend per topic. I do know that the majority of visitors to this site flee in under five seconds (Logfiles are humbling things.) I also know enough to trust the reaction of a friend (I do have some!) who saw the blog for the first time today and wrote, "Whoa. A lot of text. Mebbe I'll read it after the semester's over. Hehe."

Hehe indeed. These short shorts are for my internet friends with the short attention spans:

One cure for the textual overload might be to insert some photos like my new hero Happy Ending. Reading Happy Ending's blog was like reading a funnier version of myself. He's the man with the golden keyboard and leaden GMAT score. Still, any blog named after the massage world's seedy euphemism [link may not be work safe] for an orgasmic finish wins my vote. Ha! Seedy euphemism. Get it? Ha Ha!
Another cure for the textual overload might be to express myself more succinctly. Business Boy rightly lampoons me for beating about the bush (there's that onanism entendre again!) with all of my disingenuous posts that have so far only obliquely hinted at the unexpressed love that burns a slow but hot fire inside of me (in the area below my belly button to be specific). It is true, I have a scarlet M on my chest. I dare not get my hopes up, however, because we all know that the object of my affections is herself obsessed with the conceited but mocha-eyed playboy with the spikey eyelashes who graces the second seat in the fourth row in Ms. Spangler's homeroom. She'd never dig a Wharton nerd like me, but I long for the day when he mistreats her and I can confront him in the parking lot with a line I've rehearsed many times, "Hey you! Get your damn hands off her!"
And finally, I've been asked why I don't spend more time enlightening the world with just a fraction of my obvious surfeit of knowledge about the admissions process. "Dearest Bskewl," my adoring, GMAT-worshipping fans from Hyderabad and Shanghai plead, "why do you not spend more time giving us your unvarnished pearls of wisdom about the admissions process?" To them I offer these two unvarnished (and I do mean Unvarnished) pearls of wisdom: (1) Google it, you lazy fucks, it's not like these goddamned schools haven't been around for a hundred years or more. Does the world really need another high-on-himself recent admit unleashing noblesse oblige? (2) Surely you can scrape together $16.32 to purchase the bible on MBA admissions? Is there anything new under the sun to be written on this topic? Is there still a heartbeat in this horse?

I blogged this to: Hooverphonic's "2-Wicky" and "Wardrope."

Edit 1: Someone already emailed me about the first unvarnished pearl of wisdom. He was offended and would have preferred a little varnish after all. Sorry. No varnish here. We're fresh out of varnish. Another reader wrote to remind me that I left out an important fact and for that I apologize: the URL for Google is http://www.google.com. Try the search terms "MBA" or (if you want to get really fancy) "MBA Admissions" (with quotes). Also, please read my response in the comments below for another disclaimer.

Why Wharton Will Always Be #2

2005-01-26T07:33:00.000-08:00

I've come to the unfortunate realization that Wharton will always be number two to Harvard Business School's number one. This may be disconcerting to those of you who care deeply about the whole rankings thing, but get used to it. The situation is sure to continue in the very long term.

Why? Because of Alphabetization Bias (my coinage). Alphabetization bias means that all else equal, two equally-ranked entities will tend to be referred to in alphabetical order. Examples of this bias in action are plentiful. Whenever Yale ties Harvard in the undergraduate rankings, Harvard is listed first because one of the two schools must be listed first and because nobody can really argue with alphabetical order. Similarly, whenever Harvard ties Wharton for first place, Harvard is listed first in printed rankings because simple alphabetical order dictates that it must be so.

The result is a subliminal reinforcement of the Harvard name above the names of Yale, Stanford, Wharton and other schools unfortunate enough to have a letter low in the alphabet. In conversations referring to just-released rankings people will tend to repeat the list as it is printed (or displayed on a website). Thus, no matter who ties with Harvard, Harvard's name will tend to be said first. Do not underestimate the stickiness of such repetition! We can't say "Ebert and Siskel," "Clyde and Bonnie" or even "Johnson & Johnson" without sounding stilted. It just doesn't sound right on the ears, and therefore the alphabetical phrases "Harvard/Wharton" and "Harvard/Yale" become common parlance. They become phrases that cannot be rearranged.

There are some people who acknowledge the inherent unfairness of this and are doing something about it. Me for one. The Financial Times for another. IN the FT's latest rankings, ~~Harvard and Wharton~~ Wharton and Harvard are tied for first place. The Financial Times invested time and money so that the online version of the Global MBA rankings 2005 displays either Harvard or Wharton first, randomly. They've also done this for the three schools ranked at #13. This is certainly an admirable attempt to maintain balance in the high-stakes school rankings game, but alas, I doubt that they printed several different versions of their paper in order to maintain that balance throughout.

Let's summarize the reasons Wharton will always be #2: alphabetical orderings of equally-ranked entities tend to calcify upon repetition into phrases and common idiom. When publications go to print, it is cost prohibitive to produce several different versions of the same paper in order to list one school or another. And there are years of printed material now in which the iron hand of alphabetization has further cemented Harvard's mindspace lead over Wharton.

There are of course reasons why the two schools are very different and why Harvard's yield (the ultimate measure of the applicant pool's desire to attend an institution) and subsequent selectivity are higher than Wharton's. Those are topics for another post (or series of posts). I simply wanted to introduce and discuss the concept of Alphabetization Bias.

One final takeaway in the form of a recommendation to officers of the as-yet unnamed Yale School of Management: offer alumni with last names beginning with the first three letters of the alphabet a lower hurdle (say 80 million?) to have the school named in their honor. It will pay off in the long run, because you will be tied with many schools on your way to the top five. If you count a rich "Mr. Aamen" among your alumni, court him hard.

Putting the Horse Before the Cart [Edit 2]

2005-01-25T07:57:00.000-08:00

ONE: For one of the companies that unwittingly pays me to write this crap, dysfunction is an operating principle. I just got out of a meeting in which a divisional head wagged her finger at the assembled vice presidents of marketing and business development and admonished, "Let's be careful that we're not putting the horse before the cart." Of course she meant exactly the opposite of what she said, but nobody at the table winced, giggled, or or even noticed the malapropism. Perhaps I'm the odd man out. Perhaps I'm wrong to think that horses should precede carts, that ducks should form orderly lines, that early birds are fed well, that monkey business is necessarily bad business. But what do I know? This company was perverting sound business principles before I was even a tail-lasher in a spoonful of briney seminal fluid.

TWO: Wharton's Graduate Association Store brags that "last year over 85% of Wharton students joined Pub!" That's admirable, but the real question is this: who are these people? What is the overlap of the group of people who opt out of pub to the group of people who study hard enough to make the "Director's List" (top 10% of class based on their GPA)? Are 15% of my classmates asocial losers? (To be fair, friends at top business schools across the country tell me that there are some classmates they never see at social functions.) The idea that all MBA seekers are equally enthusiastic about socializing is as stupid as the idea that all graduates of a certain program are obligated to be effervescent, personable kissers of pimpled applicant ass.

THREE: Who are you people that are coming here because someone emailed you my URL? Please drop me a line (either email or comment) and let me know what someone found compelling (or horrific) enough to warrant an email to approximately 50 of his closest friends. The email was sent on Sunday, but clickthroughs are still happening today. Who are you? Why do you come here? And while I'm talking about logs, I'd like to say hello to frequent visitors from Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, University of Chicago, Palo Alto, Columbia U., Delhi, Yongsan, Dallas, Phoenix, Memphis, Boston, Yahoo, Google, and the federal penitentiary in Alderson, West Virginia (Martha, is that you?). Just so you don't think I'm bragging: 50% of my site traffic views these pages for less than five seconds.

Edit 1: Minor edits to make it more better. Updated last number in last paragraph to reflect that fact that more individuals have decided to linger on this site for a full six seconds before returning to the porn that they were surfing previously.

Edit 2: Corrected some dumb redundancy in first paragraph.

Tabula Rasa: B-School Students Remake Themselves

2005-01-24T08:45:00.000-08:00

How many times in life are we given an opportunity to start with a blank slate, to completely remake ourselves in the image of who we want to be? Rarely. It happens when we go to college. It happens (to a lesser extent) when we start a new job. It also happens when we embark on a new graduate education program, especially one as geared towards helping career switchers find new and exciting work.

Here are a couple of quotes that summarize the idea:

"It's a unique moment in life when you can create your new destiny," [a college administor] says. "Nobody's going to say, 'You're ridiculous, you're not that way.' Everyone's going to believe and accept it."
"'It's a time when you can say anything you want about yourself and nobody knows if you're telling the truth or not,' [a student] says. 'That's where the ethical part comes into it. I think you have to be true to yourself.'"
(Source: Christian Science Monitor, "Frosh find ways to remake themselves" August 2003)

To what extent to business school students take advantage of this opportunity to reinvent not just our careers, but our physical and social selves? How successful are we at these reinventions? Two anecdotes:

I have one friend who regularly wails about her academic underperformance as an undergraduate. She graduated with a 2.9 GPA and it was only that high because she was able to take introductory language classes in her native tongue. She'll be attending Stanford this fall and says she intends to rock the academics because it's important to her sense of self-worth to see herself as academically superior. I don't think I've ever seen her wearing glasses, but she just purchased a pair that screams "I study hard." She's also planning to grow out her party-girl hair highlights and she made a New Year's resolution to stop using her breasts quite so much to get what she wants. (This resolution is observed more in the breach, much to my pleasure.)

I know of some students at Columbia Business School who are sometimes referred to as "The Heathers." In the movie, The Heathers are a four-girl group (three named Heather, one named Veronica) of ultra-popular, uber-cliqueish High School bitches who are in love with their own desirability and superiority. At Columbia Business School, the Heathers don't play croquet, but they do manage to carry themselves with all of the hoity-toity bitchiness you'd expect from cardigan-wearing, gum-smacking, teenage princesses. But judging by the sniggering that goes on behind their backs, these women have failed to reinvent themselves in the likeness of the popular sorority sisters they never were.

Some of us are so desparate for a new image that we'll do it by scalpel, if necessary. How many business school students use the convenient break before the official start of school to purchase for themselves new noses, chins, and breasts? I know a male student at HBS who's had a gastric bypass. I doubt he's the only one. I know two women my age who've already had liposuction. One's already got her MBA, the other is thinking of applying for the class of 2008.

I don't mean to judge these reinventors (except perhaps when the reformulated version of the person is worse than the old version of the person), but rather to simply note it as a phenomenon.

At the commencement ceremonies this fall, look to your left. Look to your right. One of these people is method acting and will soon become the character he or she is pretending to be.

Best MBA-Related Reads for the Week ending 2005.01.21 [Edit 1]

2005-01-21T07:25:00.000-08:00

Why big corporations are hiring fewer Ivy Leaguers. - "A coveted undergraduate admission to an Ivy League college is a ticket to success, right? But a recent paper by Peter Cappelli and Monika Hamori, both of the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that the prestigious degrees aren't as valuable at America's largest corporations as they were a generation ago. If you want to run GE, you might be better off attending the University of Connecticut than Yale." (Found at Slate)
What DOES happen to a dream deferred? - FutureMBAGirl writes to let us all know that there's no end to the anxiety: "This weekend has not lead to major boosts of my self esteem. One of the banks at the top of my list decided I was not worthy of an interview. The rejection has lead my anxiety to rise to levels unseen since my business school application." (Found at futurembagirl.blogspot.com)
How Long Before Yoav Gets Beat Down? - Yoav Shapira writes about his frustration with people who are talking in class just to hear the sound of their own voices. How long will it be before his classmates find the blog and pressure him to stop posting this stuff? Yoav's got more guts than I do, assuming that Yoav's no pseudonym and that picture he posted is real. Kudos and keep it coming! And I'd be surprised if this post isn't true of every business school in the country. I've attended a dozen classes at various business schools and saw plenty of it. (Found at Yoavs.blogspot.com)
Are Job Seekers Entitled To a Formal Response? - "Over the last eight years I've heard from many people complaining about how corporations are like black holes when you are looking for a job. No matter how many times you try to contact them, you often can't even find out if they've received your job application. .... Do you agree with [this] position that corporations are rude and not fulfilling their end of the bargain in relation to people who apply for work from them? I'd love to hear your thoughts." Sound familiar? Sound off! He's asking for reader comments, so send him your thoughts. (Found at Career Journal)
B-School Naming Rights Prices Keep Climbing - "Big-time wealth offers the chance to buy a Learjet, an island, an NBA basketball franchise or, these days, a more enduring and worthy bauble: a big-time business school with your name on the gates. In the case of the most prestigious U.S. business schools, the price of immortality -- or something akin to it -- has been going up." (Found at The Detroit News)
Elite Schools Get Asses Kicked by IU Kelley MBAs - Indiana University's Kelley School of Business earned the Global Prize title in A.T. Kearney's Global Prize Case Competition, beating nine other teams from schools including HBS, Kellogg, MIT Sloan, Wharton, Columbia, and Chicago. (Found at Indiana U)
FT 2005 Business School Rankings - "While the Financial Times 2005 MBA rankings aren't due out until this Monday, the listing was available for a brief time period on the publication's web site yesterday. We're not sure if this was inadvertent or purposeful - but the rankings are no longer visible today. Luckily, a post in the Business Week discussion forums listed the full rankings before the FT site pulled them away..." (Found at Clear Admit & Business Week Forums)
Performance vs. Credentials on The Apprentice - A review of the second season of The Apprentice is the last place I'd expect to find this discussion, but it happens nonetheless, down in the 12th paragraph. Quote, "These questions have come up repeatedly on the show: Which serves people better in the business world, education or experience? What's the correct balance? How much should a Harvard MBA "count"? Trump thinks it counts for a lot; he's always favored Apprentices with name-brand diplomas, at times to the point of fetishizing them. Andy had his moments, but the crust of graduation had barely cooled on him, and it showed; still, Trump's fascination with Andy's Harvard degree (and national debate title) kept him in the running longer than he'd have lasted otherwise." I'd say that's a fair assessment of most of America's take on high-falutin' degrees. We're often so bowled over by them we fail to fairly assess an individual's performance. (Found at MSNBC)
Where Are They Now? Harvard MBA Opens High-End Veterinary Practice - Collins Anderson became a vet after finishing his Harvard MBA. Before that he was an investment banker in NYC. Do you suppose he wrote his career essays about becoming a doggy doctor? I doubt it. Takeaways: (1) Some people do have the guts to break free of the Naficy-prescribed fast track; (2) pet medicine is going the way of human medicine and it's going to be a big business in all of the country's wealthier areas (and no HMO involvement either!); (3) You may still need another degree beyond your MBA to do what you want to do. (Found at My San Antonio.com)
Recruiters Speak on Prestige MBA Degrees Vs. Local Programs - Surprise Surprise! Recruiters judge recruits differently depending on where they obtained their degrees. "Most recruiters say the prestige issue is far less important when gauging MBAs from regional business schools. More important typically are factors like experience and character." Lots of interesting takes on name-brand MBAs from the people who do the hiring. (Found at The Kansas City Star)
Goldman Sachs CEO Speaks at Huntsman Hall - I'm less interested in the fact that he spoke, than this description: "The chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs addressed more than 400 students in the Huntsman Hall auditorium. So many students attended that some were forced to watch a closed-circuit broadcast of the lecture in an adjacent room due to the turnout." Takeaways: (1) It sucks that facilities are insufficient to fit everyone in that wanted in; (2) Huntsman's proximity to undergradutes probably meant that some undergraduates were sitting in seats that MBA students would have wanted (had they been on time!); (3) That Wharton could handle the overflow with video hookups indicates not only a high level of technical sophistication but also experience with having had to do this before, which begs the next question: how often does this overflow situation happen? One more interesting nugget: "Paulson also discussed the strong relationship [Goldman Sachs] has with Penn, saying that more people were hired from the University to work at Goldman Sachs in 2004 than from any other school in the country." (Found at The Daily Pennsylvanian)
Forehead ad auction hits $30,000 - Andrew Fischer, from Omaha, Nebraska, has pledged to have a non-permanent logo or brand name of the winning bid tattooed on his head for 30 days. "The way I see it I'm selling something I already own; after 30 days I get it back," he told the BBC Today programme. (Found at AttaGirl)
Wharton's MBA Admissions Blog! - Lessons For Marketers - The Wharton MBA Admissions Blog gets kudos from a marketing blog, mostly for being very content-rich. (Found at Diva Marketing)
Best New Blog Added to My Feeds This Week: Business Boy - I'm reluctant to link to anyone that just has three posts under his belt, but the writing's good (he describes himself as "an essayist by nature") and so I'm adding this link, in part to pressure him to stay regular. (Found at Businessboy.blogspot.com)

Edit 1: Added story about Wharton Adcom Blog found at Diva Marketing

Business School vs. Panhandling, an Analysis

2005-01-20T08:15:00.000-08:00

Now that most of the big first round decisions have been delivered, everyone's checking the damage and assessing their options. Some people conduct their post-mortems in private, but some post them publicly so that we may all benefit from their thought processes. Here's a particularly brilliant analysis that I've decided to steal wholesale because I believe it to be particularly well-reasoned:

Let's ask the really hard hitting question here:
Should I go to Business School or become a panhandler in my hometown of Los Angeles?
Panhandling Pros:

Expected income of ~500USD/day, 125k per annum (two weeks off per year, no working weekends)

Southern California weather

no student loans, significant tax advantage

heavy emphasis on experiental learning (No case study, no lecture, no learning teams, no class)

Panhandling Cons:

Punk highschoolers beaning you with eggs after Homecoming/Prom

negative externalities (curbside orange salesmen, po-po, Governator) threaten access to customer base

weak brand

Business School Pros

showers

internet access

drinking on the job

undergraduates

Business School Cons

NPV: -120k USD

240k POC (panhandling opportunity cost)

If you don't go to HBS, YOU HAVE NO HOPE TO GET A JOB OR GAIN RESPECT FROM ANYONE. EVER. PERIOD. END OF DISCUSSION. LOSER.

(Source: Business Week Forums)

A Ding Dong Ditty (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the... ) [Edit 1]

2005-01-19T06:48:00.000-08:00

It's the season for acceptances, yes, but for the majority of us it's the season for dingage. In the spirit of all things that go ding, I'd like to introduce you to a very special song. Stop me if you've already heard this one. I'll be humming it in my head all day:

When I was a little bitty boy
My grandmother bought me a cute little toy.
Silver bells hanging on a string,
She told me it was my ding a ling a ling.
(Source: "My Ding-a-Ling" by Chuck Berry)

This is perhaps the greatest of all of the songs written about the ding-a-ling. What's this got to do with MBA admissions? Nothing, perhaps, except to demonstrate that not all dingage is bad and that it is our duty as rejected applicants to go on living and enjoying dings whenever appropriate. Not convinced? Do yourself a favor and go listen to it. I searched for a full version, but couldn't find one.

Edit 1: Waitlisted at HBS. My search is now over. I'm sending in my Wharton matriculation agreement and I'm never looking back. My lessons learned to follow (perhaps tomorrow).

Congratulations, Bskewl!

2005-01-18T13:13:00.000-08:00

I logged in to the Stanford site today to discover the following text: Congratulations, Bskewl! Your application has been successfully submitted.

Wait. Wait a minute. That's not what I was looking for. Hit back a few times. Ahhh, there it is:

Dear Bskewl: Thank you for applying to the Stanford Graduate School of Business. We have completed the review of applicants to the Master of Business Administration Program, and I am sorry that we cannot offer you admission to the MBA Class of 2007."

Well at least they didn't "deny" or "reject" me. They were simply incapable of making an offer. Stanford's fault, not mine (though you'd think that with a Stanford MBA Mr. Bolton can do anything). Guess not! Onward Ho!

I Want You to Want Me Too

2005-01-18T07:17:00.000-08:00

The Stanford decisions have started to roll in. I have not received a call yet, but I'm already fabricating excuses.

Honestly, I don't particularly want to go to Stanford anymore (not after the love and money that Wharton has shown me), but I still badly want to be accepted just so that some of my fears of inadequacy can be put to rest. Who doesn't crave the ego boost of acceptance? If Wharton is the only one of my dream schools to accept me, I'd begin to wonder anew whether I was just a borderline case that somehow managed to end up in the wrong pile when the admissions officer carrying an armload of applications to the recycling room collided with the admissions officer carrying the load of accepted applications to the dean's office.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to tell everyone that I turned down Harvard for Stanford? Stanford for Wharton? Wharton for Harvard? Being accepted everywhere would allow me to reject the others and maintain some of the facade that masks deep-seated fears of inferiority. This I will never admit in public.

But just for fun, let's make the wild and crazy assumption that I'm rejected at Harvard and Stanford. Which of the following lies do I select for my cocktail chatter?

Har-what? I'm not sure I've heard of that school, nevermind applied to it. Do you mean Thunderbird?
Stanford and Harvard just didn't give me enough money. The Wharton offer was more attractive.
My parole officer said I need to stay within 150 miles of NYC.
Sure I've got ho's in different area codes, but none in California. I'm not willing to build a new booty-call rolodex. That's a lot of work.
Well I visited Stamford and thought it was lame. Plus, I don't like Connecticut at all.
I was waitlisted at both HBS and Stanford. I'm not gonna sit around and wait for them to make a decision. Wharton it is!
I had lots of sun damage as a child. My dermatologist told me to avoid the sun. Stanford would have been hazardous to my health, perhaps even cancerous.
When I discovered that my Stanford alumni interviewer was really a cold fish it just, like, completely changed my view of the school. It was then that I knew I could not attend Stanford ever.

PS: Want a real scare? Log in to the Stanford Application and click on the "Application for Admission" link right above the "Submission Status" text in the center of the page. I'll let you discover the surprise.

Best MBA-Related Reads for the Week ending 2005.01.14

2005-01-14T15:57:00.000-08:00

Here's the best MBA-related reading from the week ending January 14, 2005. Did I miss something? Please note it in the comments.

Business School Career Cube - See, I knew I picked a winner last week when I called PandaCH's blog the best "new" blog added to my RSS reader that week. He's outdone himself this week, by posting this wonderful image. (Found at PandaCh.blogspot.com)
Personification of Business Schools - Megami transmogrifies Wharton, Stanford and Harvard into three guys that you'd really like to punch in the nose. Repulsive yet fascinating.(Found at megami77.blogspot.com)
B-School Students with a Cause: Social Responsibility in MBA programs - Business Week says that "A growing emphasis on social responsibility and ethics among MBAs is having a positive impact in the classroom and the real world." How real a trend is this? The article fails to back up its claims that business students are becoming any more caring. Anecdotes do not make a trend. I say it's bullshit, but it's at least hopeful bullshit. (Found at Business Week)
The CEO-English Phrase Book - Writes Slate, "when CEOs speak what sounds like English, they're actually talking in an entirely different language." They picked it up at business schools. (Found at Slate)
Ding Letters with Style - Any post that starts with "shits and giggles" and then actually delivers on that dangerous combination wins my vote. Read the comments too. (Found at WakeChick.blogspot.com)
Portable Power - "Portable power, however, goes with you wherever you go. It becomes "intrinsic to the person you are" and thus is more valuable in the long run. The people who survive and thrive after a layoff or other unexpected turn of events, for example, can often fall back on their portable power as a resource." (Found at Worthwhile)
Intolerant Bozo of the Week - It was a tough call between Prince Harry and TreeSuit2BusinessSuit, but ultimately Harry's just an inbred idiot while TreeSuit is a genuine ex-Marine bible-perverting jerkface. (Found at TreeSuit2BusinessSuit)
B-Schools Encourage Spiritual Exploration - "While graduate-business programs certainly aren't trying to inculcate religious beliefs, more schools are offering courses dealing with spirituality and personal fulfillment. Will the trend help future leaders remain true to their convictions?" Have you actually read the course description for "Creativity and Personal Mastery"? It's amazing, as is the student feedback.(Found at WSJ Career Journal)
Rough HBS Interview with Reactions - I've learned to stop trusting Business Week's overzealous thread-deleters, so I'll quote the entire post here:
Just to add my two cents, I'm also anxiously awaiting next tues/wed. I had a disasterous interview with HBS, though. I felt like the guy was working through his marital problems in my interview (i.e. asking me if I'd feel I wasted my education at HBS if I chose to be a stay-at-home mom, asking me tons of other questions relating to having children, etc.). I mean, freaking A, I'm not even married or anywhere close. Not to mention he asked me "what would your ideal engagement ring look like." He asked me later if I thought his wife was wasting her education since she went to HBS and is now a stay-at-home-mom. I was really stunned after the interview. None of the questions asked could really gauge what I could contribute to a program. Anyways, he did ask me what book I read recently. I don' t know if it was rote formality, but he didn't seem to care much about any of my answers. He cut off almost every single one of my replies, interrupted me several times, and didn't let me finish a thought. Hopefully it was some 'battle of wills' and 'testing of how you'll respond' rather than just a mean, nasty angry interviewer. And for that other poster that keeps rattling on about 'lesser schools," my interviewer actually said, "not to be pompous, BUT it IS Harvard." I'm hoping for Stanford. My interview there went WAY better, and if the alumni are any indication of the population at large, Stanford all the way! Please!
(Found at Business Week Forums)

Homos Have no Place in Business School [Edit 1]

2005-01-13T09:21:00.000-08:00

Props to Classy n Fun for spotting and calling out what too many people were all too happy to gloss over.

The issue: ex-Marine and business school applicant for the class of 2007 discusses his fit at Darden. Are you sitting down? Get this -- they allow the "partners" of faggots and lezbos to join the Partners Club at Darden. Is that sick or what? Why is there not more outcry in the wider business school community at Darden's overly permissive partners policies? Why, in this day and age of "values" are we just sitting here and letting these people live in sin under the guise of respectability? Why are we even allowing homos access to our bastions of prestige? Stupid lawyers meddling in God's business, that's why!

No, really: because (slowly, very slowly, too slowly) we're beginning to open our minds to people who are different than we are. It took us a while to start letting black men vote, took longer for us to let women vote, and even now, we still discriminate against these and other groups. While I appreciate FMGirl's attempt to find something agreeable in everyone, I think she's gone too far with the following:

One thing I've learned at school - some really cool people can say (IMO) some really intolerant things. But that doesn't stop them from being cool. I'm learning that people are more dimensional than their political/moral viewpoints. Sometimes its hard to be open-minded when you perceive someone is close-minded, but finding that place, I think, makes you a bigger person. (source)

Being permissive of intolerance, hatred, or racism does NOT make you a bigger person. It makes you an accomplice. If you witness unethical, illegal or just plain wrong behavior going on and do not dissociate yourself from it, you become part of it. This isn't just me writing: most ethical codes encapsulate the basic idea that if you see something wrong and fail to speak out against it you become party to it.

I want to quote Mr. Lorence in full so that it's preserved for all time as a testament to his bigotry and intolerance:

Erica and I are really excited about Darden. I have basically written off HBS since they have not given me an interview invite. I could get one in January though. The deadline for rejection is Jan 19, 2005. Yes, my ego is bruised, but life goes on. Anyway, Darden seems like an awesome fit. The more we learn, the better it seems. There are lots of clubs that you can join to include the "Partners" Club. I must admit the name rubs me the wrong way since society, to include business school, has now conformed to the accepted method of “cohabitation.” Hence, unmarried “partners” come to Darden who live together. I guess that includes gay people. I don’t have the time to go off on that tangent…See the link above for the clubs. We are committed to paying for the cost to live as close to Darden as we can. We learned the benefit of living on a Marine Corps base and having access to the facilities, being around other families, etc. We want to replicate that in the business school experience. I got a call from Cheryl Jones, the Assistant Director of Admissions. It looks like Erica, Anna Grace, and I will be going to Darden for Darden Days during 8-10 April. This is when many admits go. We have invited our parents to come so that they can see Anna Grace and take her while Erica and I go look for a place to live. If anyone out there reading this lives within walking distance or a short drive to Darden, please email me. If not, please email me anyways. From the ticker counter, I see there are actually people reading this thing. Unbelievable! (source)

It seems as if my views have garnered a sizeable amount of discord amongst the liberal bloggers. My beliefs and values are based on Biblical principles and teaching. Period, end of story. If one chooses to label that as close mindedness, then I certainly deserve and relish such a moniker. Since I’ve lost the desire to spend much time on this blog anymore, I’m not going to post a large amount of text to give further insight. I wish no ill will toward anyone, even those of different beliefs. Just don’t ask me to accept the liberal, “progressive” ideals as they are, in many ways, contradictory to Biblical principles. I’m sure this will spark even more furry, but that is certainly not my goal. I wish you all well in your pursuit of admissions. (source)

On a lighter note, have you taken the Bible Slavery Quiz? Test your knowledge of scripture!

I suppose this is a wake-up call for me as well. I've been hearing for years the stories from friends who have been travelling through Law School and Medical School and who run into racists, gay-haters, misogynists and other anachronisms. I had no right to expect the business school population to be free of such taint, but still, I'm dismayed.

Edit 1: Appended Harry the Nazi image. Intolerance is all fun and games until your mug's splashed on the front page of a tabloid. Why didn't his friends tell dumb Harry that it simply wasn't funny? They were too concerned with kissing his royal ass in the name of networking, is why. Sound familiar?

You're Just Too Damn Vain for Me, Girl [Edit 1]

2005-01-12T23:04:00.000-08:00

Thanks to MargaritaLuvr for turning me on to The Streets.

Fit But You Know It (A Side), Fit But You Know It (Remix).

I sing these songs to you, HBS:

See I'd reckon you're about an 8 or a 9, Maybe even 9 and a half in four beers time. [Nearly Perfect. Check.]
But there's just one little thing that's really, really, really, really annoying me about you, you see: yeah, yeah, like I said you are really fit, but my gosh don't you just know it? [Knows it. Check.]
For a while there I was thinkin - yeah but what if? [Who doesn't dream of Harvard, if only for a moment?]
I did fancy you a bit though (yeah I must say) I would rather I hadn't mugged myself on display. [I grovelled in my applications. Check.]
You're just too damn vain for me girl; playing in a different league from me girl. [Check.]

Edit 1: Found the blog that linked "Fit" for me.

The Horror. The Horror.

2005-01-11T15:05:00.000-08:00

I have never seen Wharton, Stanford and Harvard painted in a more horrific light. Megami scores high marks for originality--I'd never have thought to personify these schools in the style of trashy grocery-store erotica--but low marks for taste. Putting walnuts and Gummi Bears on pizza: similarly original, similarly nasty.

I'm revolted! I'm disgusted. I'm also looking forward to the next installment, where Stanford kicks sand in the face of nerdy Wharton and steals the superficial idiot bimbo with a pickup line that means "You don't need nerds like him, I've got a dime-bag, a case of Corona, two-dozen condoms, a gallon of Astroglide, and 24 hours; all I need is you for the perfect party" but which actually comes out (in the flowery way of porn for women) as "Vanessa, let us absquatulate to my cabin in the Poconos where I shall first bat my mocha-creme eyes at you with such force that the wind generated from my spiky eyelashes shall rend your lacy bodice and send it flying hither and thither but mostly to the floor--the marble floor afforded by my great wealth--in shreds. I, like a tiger, shall lap at your body as I would a dish of fresh, non-GMO, organic, full-cream milk, and then we shall enjoy the sinful pleasures of each other on a bed of rose petals as I recount to you in my deep and manly voice how I scored a 780 on my GMAT."

It just doesn't work. It scares me. But I reckon it'd be interesting to count amongst my classmates a half-blind writer of bad porn. Rock on. There's your diversity, Derrick.

Own Brothels, Casinos [Edit 1]

2005-01-10T16:44:00.000-08:00

(All answers by "Wharton" are formed from an anagram of "Wharton Business Schoool".)

BSKEWL: What are Philly winters like? What do you recommend students wear?
WHARTON: Brutal. Chinos, snowshoes.

BSKEWL: I'm goin to be an entrepreneur. What businesses industries do you suggest?
WHARTON: Own brothels, casinos.

BSKEWL: What are the classrooms like at Wharton?
WHARTON: Oh... two cushionless barns.

BSKEWL: I've been meaning to visit Wharton, but have not been able to. Can you describe what students are like at Pub Night?
WHARTON: Hah. Boisterous Clowns.

BSKEWL: If I don't liquidate my ROTH IRA to pay for school I may have to beg for money in Philly! What do you think?
WHARTON: Business loans chow ROTH? Cashless hobos ruin town!

PS: It took me several hours to write this post. Anagrams are tough.

Edit 1: Added post script, gave it a racier title.

I think I'm turning Japanese. I really think so. [Edit 11]

2005-01-09T19:05:00.000-08:00

Nobody seems to have noticed that 17 (out of approximately 60) current student blogs listed at mbaleague.blogspot.com are in Japanese. I clicked on a few of them and here's a pretty typical quote:

Strategy?????????????? MBA?????????? Strategy??????????? Stanford???????????(source)

"Hah!" I thought. This person's got as many questions as I do about the MBA program at Stanford! On thinking about this puzzling post more, I decided to try to install Japanese characters on my computer and try again. That didn't help much -- it changed all of the question marks to squiggly Japanese lines! And so I tried Babelfish, with these results:

Strategy true to its name handles the analysis plan of the enterprise strategy, so far the first, "MBA ? it is and" subject (personal opinion) is. Because subject of Strategy type large number being prepared even with selective subject, is one of the reasons where I choose Stanford, it had enjoyed very, but collating the diversification strategy of the enterprise which was really handled with first class in the basic strategy of that company, the process and the like which it keeps appraising, being very clear, it is funny. In combination also with the text to this course, because it is written, we agree to the contents of proper class, there is also reading answer.

That didn't help much. The first version--before all of this translation--may be the most clear. Still, I can't help but think that there must be something on all of these Japanese-language blogs that's interesting to read. Are there any unique opinions? I fished a few more paragraphs from different Japanese blogs and came up with some interesting translation attempts. Here they are, presented as an interactive quiz. First read the quote, then select the translation that best fits it!

"Very first, the professor quickly and it was visible unreliablly, but while class advances, the air is attached to manner of the steering wheel of class discussion being exquisite." (source)

The professor is sometimes invisible, the better to fly through the air with his magical steering wheel.
It became clear after a while that the professor steered the class discussion very well.
Someone farted in the carpool on the way to class. I think I shall have to buy a new steering wheel.

"Now schedule of term in the afternoon of the month ? wood Strategy (the strategy) with the finance, with is 4 subjects which are said during morning of marketing and operation and the fire ? gold. Physical Education (physical education) with we had decided to take the lesson of golf which is offered in substituting. (Note: It does not become the unit)." (source)

In wood shop today we learned to inlay golden ornamentation into kiln-fired redwood trees. I think I may substitute P.E. for wood shop, but then I wouldn't get credit for it.
I write this blog in Japanese so that nobody will find out that we golf all day (we call this class "Marketing" on our resumes).
I got a golden penis piercing this afternoon, but my girlfriend said "It does not become the unit" by which I think she meant it was unbecoming or ugly, so I shall remove the hoop at my earliest possible opportunity.

"Today of Wednesday there is no class, there was a new happiness event of the club activity, however Club Day. The student group arranging the desk completely in the open space before the library, those which induce new student. The group every of area such as sport system and Asia, Europe and Latin America such as skiing and golf, it is wide to those which are conscious of the employment of consulting and the venture capital etc. from the volunteer circle. If also year fee free ones it is, 45 dollars it raises relatively and there is also a thing. Temporarily turning in a general way, to write all names to any which have interest, after other than whether you are admitted formally afterwards, those which probably will enter without fail, deciding we had decided to pay fee. With the circle of part preparing the novelty of the T shirt and the magnet, etc. it had and started and moved aside. Me the magnet of Marketing Club and the drink bottle of Alumni Association Get." (source)

Today was Club Day. We ventured to an island off the coast of San Francisco and clubbed baby seals. I used a Marketing Club while others used Skiing and Golf Clubs.
Me Tarzan. You 2nd-Year student want Tarzan join club. Me the magnet of Marketing Club and the drink bottle of Alumni Association get.
I put my name down on every club list so that I could get free sports bottles, magnets, pens and other tchochkes. When those clubs start asking me for dues, I'll pretend I didn't understand the sign-up process and made a mistake in putting my name down! Cha-ching, free sports bottle!

Edit 1: Fixed formatting issue
Edit 2: Inserted number of student blogs
Edit 3 through 10: Fighting with formatting

Edit 11: Minor grammatical fixes

Best MBA-Related Reads for the Week ending 2005.01.07 [Edit 3]

2005-01-07T13:52:00.000-08:00

Flaunt the Rules of Grammer, But Don't Flout Them (Prospect Magazine via ALDaily.com) - The beat-down is laid upon an obfuscating writer. MBA students would do well good to take this to heart. My favorite quote: "We might wonder why she [the author being lambasted] has found it so difficult to say something so simple. But that surely is the answer: it is because the proposition is so simple that the expression is so muddled. If it had been put straightforwardly, we would have seen at once that it was hardly worth making. One of the reasons that this is bad prose is that it is dishonest prose: in each of these passages the writer is trying to hide the fact that she has very little to say."
What Do Women Really Want? (The Public Interest Magazine) - Compares the effects of various family-friendly policies on women with various goals: from traditional (nuclear family) to postmodern (DINC for life). The nut quote: "The case for rethinking what we mean by "family-friendly" policies is put forth not to advance one pattern of motherhood and employment over another, but to give equal consideration to the diverse values that influence how women respond to the conflicting demands of work and family life." All the women chasing MBAs are surely struggling with this.
The Coddling Crisis: Why Americans Think Adulthood Begins at Age 26 (WSJ) - MBA applicants are generally ambitious 20-somethings. Compare and contrast to these folks: "Ages 18 and 21 are no longer the true entry points into American adult hood, as more young people today take soul-searching breaks after college or put off starting their "grown-up" lives. A 2003 poll by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center found that most Americans think adulthood begins at about age 26."
Student Loan Scares (WSJ) - The following quote summarizes it nicely: "'Student-loan debt collectors have power that would make a mobster envious,' says Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor and bankruptcy specialist."
New Blog Worth Reading: Panda CH (Blog: PandaCH) - A consultant and business school applicant (what's new?) who (I promise) was selected for this column before he linked to me. Honest. What makes it good is the custom lists. Making such lists requires creativity and I always appreciate that over another "Studied GMAT for 12 hours today. Bleh. Think I'll go do some more SCs before hitting the sack"-type blog.
Peter Drucker's Essential Tips for Managers in 2005 (CareerJournal) - Writes Drucker, "the following excerpt is a sampling of "The Daily Drucker," a collection of key statements from my writings, followed by explanation and comments, also from my work, on topics ranging across a great many fields: management, business and the world economy; a changing society; innovation and entrepreneurship; decision making; the changing work force; the nonprofits and their management; and so on.
Students Rank Recruiters (Stanford GSB Career Services Office) - More a press release and a bunch of butt-kissing from the Stanford GSB to recruiters and back again than anything really substantive, but still fun to think about it in the way that the Clear Admit blog put it: "the Stanford GSB students have potentially turned the rankings system inside-out by developing their own ranking of recruiters." If only! A ranking necessarily implies that someone's listed last. They'd never do that, but still fun to think about.
Stanford Director's Corner: Diverse Perspectives (Stanford MBA Admissions Newsletter) - Always required reading when it's published, and always well written. I love the quote Derrick selects for his riff on diversity:
A great deal of learning occurs informally. It occurs through interactions among students of both sexes; of different races, religions, and backgrounds; who come from cities and rural areas, from various states and countries; who have a wide variety of interests, talents, and perspectives; and who are able, directly and indirectly, to learn from their differences and to stimulate one another to reexamine even their most deeply held assumptions about themselves and their world. As a wise graduate of ours once noted, ‘People do not learn very much when they are surrounded only by the likes of themselves.’ -- William Bowen, president of Princeton University from 1972-1988
That is the essence of why I got annoyed at one applicant's suggestion that everyone in a school should have the same chipper personality or even necessarily get along. This is a basic tenet of every quality admissions process, but people need to keep being reminded of it.
Clear Admit Sucks (Business Week Discussion Forums) - A pretty thorough discussion of the dangers of relying too much on admissions consultants, and some good tips for how to deal with them if you've got more money than sense and do hire one. [Edit: This thread has now been deleted from the Business Week forums. Some suggest that it was deleted because Clear Admit is an advertiser on Business Week's website. I have not confirmed that they are, but would not be suprised. The thread was actually full of excellent discussion, and the applicant community is poorer for its deletion. Did Clear Admit ask Business Week to delete the thread? Judging from recent traffic analysis, someone out there is clearly concerned about Clear Admit's brand image: I had about four visitors click into this blog when they Googled "Clear Admit sucks."]

Edit 2: Fixed the link to the Stanford Director's Corner letter.
Edit 3: The "Clear Admit sucks" thread was deleted from the business week forums. I updated the last paragraph to note this.

Admitted Students' Theme Song [Edit 4]

2005-01-07T06:48:00.000-08:00

Ever since being admitted to Wharton I've been struggling in my search for the words to express my joy and happiness. I finally admit defeat because two men have expressed it in song and dance far better than I could ever hope to express it.

These two links I am about to share with you are the victory dances that I longed to do on December 21 but did not have the guts, imagination or physical vocabulary to do. These videos express my heart on that day, and upon seeing them both, I instantly recognized them as what my soul sings. I suppose this will out me as the energetic sort that loves fruity dance music, and so I must come clean: I'm the one that friends always thank for "breaking the ice" at their weddings. I make such a fool of myself on the dance floor, that nobody ever feels ashamed to dance near me, though they sometimes get smacked by my flailing. That is the second reason I love these guys. We're cut from the same cloth. Linkage ensues:

Victory Dance 1 The tune you hear is "Mirage" by Paps and Skar. By the glow of the monitor... realization dawns that our hero is entering a joyous new chapter of life. Thumbs up! Alas, this video is far too short. On to the next.
Victory Dance 2 (alt link) The Romanian dance song is "Mai Ai Hee (Dragostea Din Tei)" by O-Zone. Do you see that look of anguish on the applicant's face at the beginning of the video? How he moans and worries about his chances at admission? And then... he refreshes his status page and... SUCCESS!

Is there a name for videos of people dancing with earphones on in front of computer monitors? This is a powerful genre of music video. "Chair Dance Vids" is descriptive, but clumsy. On days like this I love everyone and nothing can get me down.

PS: Friday's "best of" post is still in production.

Jingoism Ate My Baby

2005-01-05T08:58:00.000-08:00

Another Zach stopped by to ask me a few questions about my previous post. That such questions were asked indicates that I'm either talking about an entirely alien concept or I'm not communicating well or (most likely) both.

He asked, "[The reasons for not publishing anything negative about a school are,] As you mentioned, the emotional investment in the school, and the hope for improved ratings. Why cheer against the home team?" Flip the question. When did it become the responsibility of every student at a school to do PR for that school? School spirit is understandable, but when it blinds you to real problems it becomes a problem. As the Patriot Act and other freedom-limiting legislation so amply demonstrates, there's such a thing as too much spirit. It doesn't matter if you love your country, your religion, your business school or your own mother, nothing is beyond reproach and a critical eye never hurt anyone.
Zachary also noted that "many students rely upon alumni for job leads, and many alumni would frown upon someone dissing the school." I think there's a difference between unsubstantiated complaints or rants and well-written accounts of one person's experience with a school. I think also that if I were to expose some atrocity (e.g., that Huntsman Hall were warmed in winter by a large pig farm deep within its cellars and that these pigs were maltreated) that alumni would join me in calling for reform. Why should Business Week be the only publication that can effect change on business schools? It took a dismal review of Wharton's career services to spur the institution into hiring Peter Degnan to reform it. What if one of the students prior to Degnan's arrival had been a vociferous critic? Might this reform have happened sooner? Might more students have benefitted from it?
He asked me to explain "the productive benefit of rabble rousing" as well. I think that I've miscommunicated. I'm not interested in stirring the shit just to see how it smells. I'm not malicious. I'm going to try to be fair. But I completely disagree with Zachary that "99% of the MBA experience" is going to be pleasant, no matter where you go. No school has it 99% right, and any school that thinks it's got things nearly perfect is in danger of one of the worst crimes that an individual or institution can commit: complacency.
I was asked, "If no other bloggers are writing bad things about their schools, would you want to be the first one to do so?" Yes! What's the point of being a yes-man? Of saying things that only others say? Of being bland? Of carefully navigating life afraid of offending anyone in the slightest? Of silencing your reservations and opinions just so you don't stick out? I'm the guy wearing a sparkly miniskirt, garter belt, lipstick, and nipple clamps on Halloween. I'm the guy that will contradict you in case discussion if I think what you just said makes no sense. I celebrate diversity of opinion and am driven mad by the lack of it in our blogosphere. Look at the fledgling lawyers! Now they know how to argue and have diverse opinions. There's no reason why business school students (of all people) have to look, talk, walk and sound the same from sea to shining sea.
Finally, writing with balance is just a helluva lot more interesting. There's a reason why PR Newswire puts limbs to sleep while the Economist, WSJ and New York Times have won the respect of readers all over the world for their attempt to report in a fair and balanced way. I suppose I consider myself a reporter, with a duty to my reader (and to myself) to accurately portray reality as I perceive it. Snapshots from Hell wouldn't be widely read had it been titled Snapshots from Just Another Business School Where Everything Is Peachy Keen and Where Conflict Is Never Discussed.

Wharts and All [Edit 1]

2005-01-04T14:28:00.000-08:00

Harvard's got Year One. Stanford's got Snapshots from Hell. What's Wharton got? I'm almost of a mind to attend the school just so that I can publish my own observations on life at Wharton. I'd call it Wharts and All. As the title implies I'd need to do my best to create an objective, balanced record of life before, during and immediately after Wharton.

Boosterism threatens to confound my authorly ambitions, though. The moment a person is accepted to a school his own interests are suddenly realigned in a way that supresses his desire to write anything that might tarnish the institution. Few students or graduates dare write anything that might draw heat or controversy because they want to perpetuate the brand glow that separates these schools from the rest. Meanwhile, graduates of less elite programs hope that if they only squeeze their eyes shut and wish hard enough and never say a mean thing (ever) then they'll be rewarded with the fame and fortune that accompany a rise in the business school rankings.

Thankfulness also conspires against honesty: I already feel incredible personal allegience to Alex Brown simply because he is the face of the admissions committee that chose to baptise the next chapter of my life with an admittance from the big W. I feel obliged to return the favor. I found myself wondering whether I should add my own voice to the ranks of student diarists, thinking that I could help Alex market the school to applicants. I'm not alone in these feelings judging from the tenor of posts that gush about all things positive at Wharton but remain mum on anything that's truly critical. This form of bias also applies to bloggers at other schools. Stanford's lone truthful blogger shut her blog down just a month into the start of the program when a negative post about a classmate's cheating got her into hot water with others at the school. And Mark reads like a Harvard infomercial at times.

The result is that there are very few honest opinions being published from the inside of any of these schools. Wharton comes the closest to actually giving the outside world a real feel for what it's like on the inside (much to Wharton's credit!). Even though the Wharton bloggers who have their mundane day-in-the-life vignettes touted all over the Wharton website are volunteers, they're publishing (and are publicised) on the Wharton admissions site. Surely this comes with either implicit or explicit understanding of what's appropriate and what isn't? (I don't know if they are given guidelines or not.) How likely is it that one of them will level a serious criticism at the school when their supervisor and sponsor in these blogging endeavors is on the school staff? Not likely.

Where are the William F. Buckleys of the MBA programs? Where are the cantankerous rabblerousers who circulate flyers on campus, pen letters of protest, and chain their naked bodies to bicycle racks in order to protest cruelty against something or another? They're all too scared!

They're scared for naught. No single voice is going to change perceived reputation of the Stanford, Wharton or Harvard brands. Most MBA types have an inflated sense of the impact of their own opinions. Did Stanford beef up the quality of its instruction in response to Peter Robinson's complaints? Doubtful. Did Stanford take a dive in the rankings as a result of the book? No. Is the book even that relevant to Stanford today? Doubtful.

And so I really doubt that this piddly little blog and the eventual mega book deal--we're talking four figures easy--that comes with being a faithful and interesting blogger will do much to alter anyone's opinion of Wharton. Confident in my own insignificance, I hereby pledge to to squelch bland boosterism and tell it like it really is.

Check back with me in a year and tell me if I've kept this promise or if I've wussed out.

PS: My, how time flew today! The length of this post is inversely proportional to the amount of work I accomplished today. Luckily, I've trained my secretary to do about 90% of my job.

PPS: For the record, I don't really think there's all that much difference in quality between any of the top business programs. (There are major differences in focus, in student culture, in student and faculty attitude, however.) I mentioned Harvard, Stanford and Wharton here because these schools have managed their brands and massaged their places in the rankings game particularly well. They're top by fiat.

Edit 2: I had incorrectly stated that Wharton's student diarists are selected by the school's staff. This has been corrected.

Fears of My Life

2005-01-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

TAKING THE GMAT: Fear of taking the GMAT. Fear of not taking the GMAT. Fear that I will oversleep on the day of the test and miss it. Fear that I will not be able to sleep at all on the day of the test and bomb it. Fear of not studying enough for the GMAT. Fear of scoring poorly. Fear of spending too long on a single, thorny sentence correction problem. Fear of spending so little time on difficult problems that I breeze through the test and arrive at the end with half an hour left and no back button, the terrible realization dawning that I completely misread each question in a fundamental way and that I am doomed to attend NYU. Fear of the clock ticking far too rapidly. Fear of noises in the room distracting me and lowering my score. Fear of clicking that button that irrevocably records the score for all posterity. Fear that my score is not high enough. Fear that I may have to retake the test again. Fear upon reading the Business Week Message boards that everybody in the world scored a good forty points higher than I did. Fear that I'm actually a dumb person for not having done better on the GMAT. Fear that I have wiped a good 342 million memory cells that allowed me to maintain a somewhat tenuous grip upon the mathematics that I'll need once I'm in an MBA program. Fear that I may have to give up even social drinking if I wish to halt what appears to be a rapid descent into mathematical illiteracy. Fear that even if I do manage to become an admissions mistake my GMAT score will be requested by potential employers and will be used to screen me for jobs that I'd love to have, but, alas, I'm completely incapable of handling thanks to my GMAT score.

THE APPLICATION: Fear that my essays, while spellchecked, actually contain a number of errors that I'm just too tired to catch at four in the morning on the day they're due to be submitted. Fear that I made a mistake in waiving my rights to review what my recommenders wrote about me -- fear that my recommenders are evil and have been friendly for years now only so that they could sink the single-most important project of my life to date. Fear that my boss in particular will live up to his reputation for being a spiteful bastard and will slip in the most damning praise that has ever graced an application: "Zach's enthusiasm for work is evident to everyone that works with him. He often takes on so many projects that he sleeps in the office and has sacrificed his personal health and relationships for work. He is an inspiration to us all." Fear, the crippling sort, immediately after submitting the application, that I forgot to find all instances of "Kellogg" and replace them with "Stanford", or worse, that I did replace each and every instance of "Kellogg" with "Stanford" but I submitted the application to Wharton. Fear that somewhere in Palo Alto right now Derrick Bolton is getting shitfaced with all eight of his staff as they pass around first a bong and then my application, each reading a quote from one of my essays that is met first with three beats of stony silence, and then, rapid, percussive, snot-spraying giggle explosions. Fear that one of my horrid phrases will inspire such bladder-loosening, asthma-inducing laughter that one of their number will be both soiled and hospitalized and that he will angrily shred my application in retribution the day after he is released from the hospital.

ACCEPTANCE AFTERMATH: Fear that the people that Wharton hires to investigate me will discover some careless mistake or another in my application and pull the rug out from under my hopes, dreams and aspirations only after I have announced my plans to coworkers, friends, and family and only after I have quit my job and that I shall have to live in ignominy thenceforth. Fear I am not an admissions mistake but an admissions experiment that began with someone double-dog daring Alex Brown to admit a real fuck-up just because everyone knows that Alex never turns down a double-dog dare. Fear that I will be called onto a stage in front of an auditorium full of admits at the Winter Welcome Weekend and presented with a special runners-up plaque that acknowledges certain "charms" in my application but which regretfully rescinds the offer of admission and would I please use stage left to exit so that they can get on with the program? Fear of lame-duck-itis that will cause my coworkers to remember me not at all fondly. Fear that this stroke of luck has upset some karmic balance somewhere and that I will be flattened by the M3 uptown bus or diagnosed with elephantiasis or that a condom will silently and secretly fail vaulting my debt burden easily over the $140,000 mark.

There are of course the fears that will come with MATRICULATING, THE JOB HUNT and with MY FIRST JOB OUT OF SCHOOL, but I'll enumerate those fears when I have a little more experience with them.

I had hoped to start with my hopes for the new year, but I was inspired by developmentally disabled author Michael Bernard Loggins, who, in Fears of Your Life lists 138 of his fears, small: "#53 Fear of Bats" and big: "#85 Fear that if you put too much toilet paper in the toilet bowl it will run over and get all over the floor and on you and on someone else too, it would leak from upstairs to the next floor below." Listen to Act II at minute 33:40 for an audio rendition of it.

Breakfast, Resolutions, and Pretty Girls

2004-12-30T09:30:00.000-08:00

I'm breaking my blogging fast with this, my first post in just over a week. Of course, what I'm really doing is getting off of my lazy ass, but by pretending to be fasting I give my lapse an air of excusability and respectability. Right.

A new year is coming and I've thought it would be nice to post my resolutions vis-a-vis this blog. Here they are:

I will post an average of five times per week. Whether there will be enough fiber to feed such regularity remains a question, as junk food is all too common.
I will call out whiney bullshit when I see it. It's a target-rich environment.
I will not start another list like this without having several good bullet points to put into it. I'm having a very hard time coming up with resolutions for the new year.
I will have fun. I'm not blogging for my health. If I'm going to sit here and inflame my tendons with repetitive stress injuries, I'm going to have fun doing it.
I will strive to remain humble. This is very hard for me to do, given my considerable natural talents (I got straight As in physical education and spelling throughout primary school), but if Jesus could do it, then by golly I can certainly give it a shot too.
I will not be a blogroll whore, though the temptation is great. Know this: I'm not linking to you because I'm lazy and do not want to bother updating an entire list of links to blogs that I read on a regular basis. The fact is, Newsgator allows me to (and I do) subscribe to every blog with an RSS feed that's listed at mbaleague.blogspot.com. I'm reading *all* of you, and I'm liking some of you. But I will not link to you in the hopes that you'll link back to me.
I will not use my celebrity blog status to impress the girls at business school. Since this is a New Year's resolution, and since there's no taboo on breaking resolutions while we're still in an old year, I will hereby proclaim the following. Girls, please remember this for all of 2005: I am (currently) single and very available. That will be my first and only plea on the subject. I'm not in this to make friends of any sort, be they nice-smelling, young, pretty, well-dressed, smart, and stomach-fluttering or not.
I will portray events accurately where any school or individual's reputation is at stake.
I will studiously avoid using the cliche, "Business School is like drinking fine champagne from a fire hydrant." I cringed when I read that in the welcome packet from Wharton. If I never hear anyone describe any situation as drinking from a fire hydrant again, I'll be happy. Similarly, I will not blog about being "so busy" or about my terrible lack of sleep or about how I've learned to juggle so many more tasks than I ever thought possible. Bo-ring!
I will figure out a way to post pictures to this blog because even the grainiest photo taken with a camera phone is worth several thousand of my poorly chosen words.
I will move this blog off of blogspot. Blogspot is slow and despicable.
I will seek out the humor and the tragedy in this whole pre-MBA/MBA/post-MBA scene and blog it. I will blog the summits and the nadirs, the pathos and the bathos, the good and the bad.
I will end this list now, and get some lunch.

Wharton Admit

2004-12-21T07:07:00.000-08:00

Wharton loves me. I'm in.

The Armful

2004-12-20T07:26:00.000-08:00

For every parcel I stoop down to seize
I lose some other off my arms and knees,
And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns --
Extremes too hard to comprehend at once,
Yet nothing I should care to leave behind.
With all I have to hold with hand and mind
And heart, if need be, I will do my best
To keep their building balanced at my breast.
I crouch down to prevent them as they fall;
Then sit down in the middle of them all.
I had to drop the armful in the road
And try to stack them in a better load.

-- Robert Frost

I stumbled across this poem over the weekend. It's a great metaphor for life (as are any Frost poems that take place on a "road"). This poem captures many essences of the MBA experience: the juggling of all of the different applications and processes; the frustration of rejection that makes you feel like all of your carefully constructed applications have tumbled from your arms into a mess on the road; the frustration that overwhelms us, causing us to park our asses in the middle of a thoroughfare and try to take stock of it all; the way winners eventually manage to pick up all of the pieces and continue on; the overload of a first-year MBA student; the drive to improve and to manage the burden that is so close to the heart.

Good stuff dedicated to all Wharton applicants who, like me, are waiting to hear whether we've managed to walk another mile with our awkward armfuls. That our fates have already been keyed into the Wharton application system and merely wait for some electronic curtain to be lifted at 9 tomorrow morning sets the air ajangle with both promise and dread. I'll either walk or crawl into my 9 am meeting tomorrow morning.

Best MBA-Related Reads for the Week ending 2004.12.17

2004-12-17T22:08:00.000-08:00

An Unbiased Way to Rank Schools (Blog: Clear Admit) - I'd seen the original research upon which this story was written about a month ago, but that was before Knowledge @ Wharton picked it up, and that was before I started up this blog, so I forgot all about it until my newsreader picked up the above-linked analysis of the research. Though Clear Admit doesn't come out and name schools, we all know that Columbia's school of business uses Early Decision as a way to manipulate its standings in the rankings and to achieve much, much higher yield numbers than it would have naturally. This is no knock on Columbia--people and institutions should be expected to manipulate any rankings system that is so easily manipulable--but rather a weakness in the construction of the "popular" ranking systems.

Scary HBS Rumors (Wharton S2S) - A business school applicant wrote, "I've heard several scary things about HBS and I wonder whether they are really true." An HBS student (who blogs--a real rarity) quickly jumped to defend the school with a comprehensive, myth busting rebuttal. (And another HBS blogger jumps to the rescue as well.

For and Against Zero Work Experience B-School Students (MBA Game Plan.com) - The principals of MBAGamePlan.com take up an issue and debate the pros and cons of the issue. Most recently, they choose to debate whether the trend of encouraging undergraduates to apply to business school is a good thing.

Lessons Learned in Business School (Blog: Dan Rosenberg) - Finally, a student gives us something other than the tired and cliched line that has become all too common on the blogs of hopefuls and students. You won't find any "Woe is me, I am so busy, I have 14 finals and 23 recruiting sessions to go to and I'm not getting enough sleep" junk on Dan Rosenberg's blog. Instead, he writes about some real lessons that he's learning as a student at HBS.

Colleges Tell Applicants Fate on the Spot (AP) - How long will it be before business schools start offering this sort of service? Quote from the article: "Credit card and mortgage companies promise customers an answer "while you wait" on loan applications. Now, more and more colleges are doing the same -- visiting high schools and letting applicants know their admissions fate right on the spot."

Married and Applying to Business School (Wharton S2S) - Some applicants and Wharton students share their thoughts on what it means to be married as a Wharton applicant and student. Quality discussion. Quote: "Sometimes trying to explain the benefits of going to Wharton is more difficult that it may seem to most of us - while I see the potential and want to leap at the opportunities, she sees the comfort of our current situation and asks why I'm not happy to just join a part-time MBA program such as Temple or Drexel's."

Looks in the Post-MBA World (Business Week Forums) - A poster asks whether looking good matters for post-business school success. Business Week forum readers respond "yes" showing that there really is no chink in the armor of their superficiality. Alex Chu, a Wharton MBA graduate and admissions consultant, does manage to bring a new angle to the discussion by noting that, "weight matters much more than raw beauty. Carrying a few pounds is one thing, but being obese can be a huge (no pun intended) challenge in the workplace. Consciously or unconciously, discrimination against the obese is common."

Take This Job and Shove It! (Wharton S2S) - A perennial favorite topic of successful business school students everywhere: what to do after getting in? Continue to slave away at a job you dislike in order to help take the edge off of the substantial debt you're about to incur, or travel the world? One applicant gripes, "I cannot work here any longer. I need a break! And when else will I be able to take a few months off work?" What are your plans?

Education of an Applicant (Business Week Forums) - Avaricious Asian-American asks the Business Week forums for advice on his situation and is deservedly ridiculed. Quote: "I have a question. I recently took my GMATs and scored a 730. I am an Asian male that worked in a boutique consulting firm for a year and a half and then worked at a startup for 6-7 months. I will be working for another consulting firm starting in 2005. I am looking to apply to UPenn - Wharton, Stanford, Chicago, and Columbia for MBA for Fall 2006. I graduated undergrad from Columbia with a 3.5 GPA. Should I retake my GMATs to increase my chances of getting accepted?"

PS: Comments on ... just in case I missed anything. Please post links to great MBA-related reads from the week ending today.

I Was Gonna Go to School, But Then I Got High.

2004-12-15T13:10:00.000-08:00

So I've decided to ditch my applications and just work on perfecting my physique. This means it's your lucky day, Stanford_Applicant_03, because I've got an essay that you can use. When I apply next year, I'll probably just write about how I'm most passionate about fitting a 40,000-watt stereo system into my newly rebuilt IROC. But I digress.

Without further ado, here's your essay!

A few years ago, you wouldn't have labeled me as a Stanford MBA, and I know this. I was born with some physical disabilities. The doctors prohibited me from lifting until I turned 17, and by then I felt behind the 8-ball. I didn't think I ever would be able to chisel my chest like my friends. I grew up in Woodstown, so I didn't have much exposure to the Seaside Heights scene, until I turned 16, and I went on my first trip to the shore with my older brother. A few of my brother's frat buddies from Rutgers were having a reunion at their shore house, and he invited me to come with. My brother and his friends were always jacked, bronzed, and loaded with hot ladies on each arm, and I idolized them for it. I was a skinny little 16 year old Guido without the looks. My friends were into hunting and riding 4X4s, which was cool, but it just didn't feel right. When I would go to the mall, I never had fun with my friends, as they were in the Electronic Boutique checking out the new Nintendo or Sega or whatever, while my eyes were fixed across the way at the massive canister of Weight Gainer 5000 at the GNC. I'd always noticed guys that looked like my brother and his friends going in and out of that store, and ladies adoring them and I wanted to be like them. That is also the time that my great transformation occurred. I had asked a Guido honey to my junior prom, thinking that for sure, her knowing that I am a full blooded Guido, and her knowing who my brother is, that she would accept. Well, she didn't, and when I asked her why, she just pointed at my abs, pointed at my pecks, and then taught me one of the most important lessons I have ever learned: Work on your body before you work on a date! I wrote that piece of advice on a piece of laminated poster board, and have hanging on the mirror in the bathroom, reminding me my purpose every time I step out of the shower. That was it! I got smart. I got a part time job at the GNC, and decided to put my Guido smarts to work. I learned about amino acids, creatine, and other body enhancing supplements. With the money I saved with my 30% discount to GNC, I purchased a multi-visit pass to Sun-Looks tanning salon. My friend Anthony, the only other Guido from my class, worked at Sal & Bros. Meat Shoppe (town) and regularly hooked me up with chicken cutlets by the pound. Now I’m 6’1", 245, with virtually no body fat, and thick, tanned, muscles. I have the biggest arms of anyone who works out at the Golds in my town. I saw the girl who turned me down to the junior prom all those years ago, and she was salivating at my body, and admitted that she had made a big mistake back in high school. I didn’t phase me, her comments helped me get my priorities straight, and now I have the best body of all my friends, and my brother’s friends! The payoff is apparent every week. I was at Tempts the weekend of August 9, and I could hardly make time for all of the ladies that were all over me. I plan to get a house next summer and party hard weekend after weekend no doubt. Long live the NJ Guidos out there, and I’m out.

PS: Shamelessly stolen from the writing section of NJ Guido.com.

Automatic GMAT Retakerinator Survey.

2004-12-14T09:27:00.000-08:00

Wondering If You Should Retake the GMAT? Take this Survey!

It's a common enough question on the message boards throughout the pre-MBA world. Whether it's GMATClub.com, Wharton's S2S, or the Business Week forums, the question varies little: "Hi, I scored X on my GMAT. Should I retake it?"

Here's an easy-to-use, easy-to-print survey that will help all present and future applicants answer this question.

1. Compare your GMAT score to your target school's average score. Is it within 10 points of the average score? If so, go to question 4.

2. Subtract your GMAT score from 800. Take the square root of this difference from the standard deviation of your scores on Kaplan, PowerPrep, CrackGMAT800, and any other testing software you used. If the resulting number is negative, proceed to step 4. Else, go to step 5.

3. Are you sure that you could do better? If so, retake the GMAT. If not, see step 5.

4. Is your score under 800? Retake the GMAT.

5. See step 4.

PS: Essays are unimportant. Focus on the GMAT.

Imma Get Curmudgeonly on Yo' Ass

2004-12-13T11:45:00.000-08:00

In comments posted to the blog of b-school applicant Megami77, Aregon23 writes:

I agree, interviews for BSchools are meant to be stress free. Whether you make the cut or not, the interviewer is duty bound to make it a pleasant experience for the interviee. Think about this, for most people this is probably the first intimate experience with the school. When the admit invitations go out, it is these impressions, good or bad, that help convince people to attend or skip a particular school. Too many of these cold interviews, people will leave Stanford in droves. Reputation can only take you so far. After that it is all about fit. Someone who can get into Stanford can usually pull it off in most of the other top 3 schools.

This is an interview. You are being evaluated. It is not the job of the interviewer to "sell" you on the school or to like you or to even make sure that you leave an interview feeling happy and pleased with your performance.

Let's assume for a moment that the Stanford alumnus in question here is in fact a class A, certifiable cold fish with no personality. So what? Where on Stanford's website is it suggested that they only admit effervescent personalities who exude happiness and emotion? In constructing a class of 350 students it would be strange indeed if the admissions committee of Stanford selected people who fit just one personality type. There are introverts and extroverts and a diverse business school necessarily selects both types.

What really annoys me about Aregon23's comments (and about Megami77's gripes) is that both seem to be oblivious to the fact of class diversity and they expect everyone to like and sell them on the school. Some words of advice:

YOU WILL NOT LIKE EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN YOUR BUSINESS SCHOOL CLASS. Get over that dream now or be disappointed once you get to school. As I believe some admissions person or dean remarked to a bunch of Stanford admits (this is a paraphrase), "You'll spend the first few months of school marvelling at what your classmates have done and wondering whether you are an admissions mistake. Then you'll spend the following few months thinking your learning team members are admissions mistakes." In other words, at some point, the luster and newness fades and you are left with the realization that these people--your classmates--have faults too. Some of them you just won't like.

BUSINESS SCHOOLS ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO FILL THEIR CLASSES WITH 300 OR 800 PEOPLE JUST LIKE YOU. There are other communications styles in this world and successful communicators and leaders need to know how to deal with the full range personalities be they cold and stoical or warm and annoying as all fuck.

IT'S POOR TASTE TO JUDGE AN ENTIRE POPULATION BY ONE REPRESENTATIVE. Just like I wouldn't appreciate being called an naive 27-year-old with an overgrown sense of entitlement because someone judged ME based on YOUR actions, so too would the 20,000 other alumni of Stanford resent the implication that they're all carbon copies of the man you interviewed with on Sunday. Stereotyping gets us nowhere. I respect the statement, "I thought all Stanford people were warm, friendly and outgoing, so boy was I surprised to run into an alumnus who was not!" That's fine. It's a loss of innocence and an epiphany that reveals something about the way that you think. But to say that one hour with one person represents and entire school that's been around for 80-something years is just silly.

At any rate, I think I'll make friends with this post, so I'm going to leave comments on. Bombs away!

Best MBA-Related Reads for the Week ending 2004.12.10

2004-12-10T09:11:00.000-08:00

Here's the best business-school related reading from the week ending December 10, 2004. Did I miss something? Please note it in the comments.

M.B.A. Diary: B-School Stresses Importance Of Setting Ethical Boundaries (WSJ) - This is the second installment in a series of essays offering a first-person perspective on the business-school experience. Emily Harrold is a first-year student at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.

More Proof that Essays are Just Essays (Blog: DaRaverLA) - I still have a long way to go before I indeed become the person I portrayed myself as in my Wharton essays. With all the fucking BS I wrote on my Wharton essays about how "a great leader" I am, how "a willing team player" I have been, and all those other fucking self-moralizing propaganda I put down on my essays, I just, outright, self-contradicted myself in this situation.

Job Market Improving(AScribe) - The job market is improving for MBA students, according to a new survey of 57 business schools conducted by the MBA Career Services Council (MBA CSC), the association for MBA career services professionals.

The best will be drawn to the US (Times UK) - Some Europeans think that it is time to look away from the US for MBA inspiration. Harvard's John Quelch disagrees.

The Lighter Side

Microsoft Helps Track Down Criminals Who Awarded MBA Degree to a Cat (Seattle Post Intelligencer) - Some sleuthing by software giant Microsoft Corp. helped track down two brothers who authorities say sold bogus college degrees over the Internet, including an MBA that was issued to a housecat.

Trump to Wharton Business School Graduate: You're Fired (Black America Web) - Last night’s loser was boyishly cute Kevin Allen, a Wharton School of Business graduate who ditched law school for a chance to compete on Trump’s popular reality show.

Santa-Clad MBA Students Celebrate Year End in London Pub Tour (Bloomberg) - In a tradition dating from 1995, London Business School MBA students will tour London pubs tonight dressed in Santa suits to celebrate completing their exams.