There has been a lot of talk about the sudden dearth of financing options for international students who would like to attend American MBA programs. Some applicants are questioning whether to apply if they will have no way of paying for the degree. I decided to research the situation and find out just how bad it is.

Several schools have made it clear that they will still be offering no-cosigner loans to international students. For instance, HBS's MBA Admissions Director, Deirdre Leopold, stated outright on her Director's Blog that "International students at HBS will continue to have access to need-based loans without needing to find a US co-signer."

Rose Martinelli, Admissions Director at Chicago Booth, also stated unequivocally in her response (similar to her own blog post): "Chicago Booth is committed to providing financing options for our international students who do not have a US cosigner. I can assure our international students that we will have a new loan program in place by the time students enroll." International applicants considering HBS and Chicago can press onward with renewed optimism.

Rod Garcia, MIT Sloan's Admissions Director, made it clear that Sloan is committed to geographic and economic diversity in the class. Interestingly, Sloan was actually already in talks with other private lenders before Citi ended its Global Assist no-cosigner loan program, putting Sloan ahead of other MBA programs that didn’t anticipate the loan's demise. He expects that the details will be solidified and public by the end of January and that the new arrangements may even be better than the previous ones.

On the other hand, other schools are keeping their cards close to their chests; Stanford and Wharton both would only refer me to their websites. Stanford's site: "Loans offered to international students typically do not need a US co-signer" makes no mention of the sweeping changes in the US credit markets to reassure international applicants. Similarly, Wharton, in its reply to my inquiry, simply states that the school "is exploring a variety of options for making loans available to international students."

Some schools shared particularly appealing information with me. For instance, Tuck will be continuing with its own loan programs – one, DELC, allows a guarantor from outside of the US to guarantee the loan and another, The Tuck 5% loan, requires no co-signer at all. Beth Flye of Kellogg confirmed that Kellogg's no-cosigner loan (Option B of the NU International Loan Program), which it offers to international applicants from the University's own funds, will continue to be offered to all international students who demonstrate the need for it. In contrast, CMU Tepper told me that they haven't offered a no-cosigner loan for years.

In addition to the reassurances that these schools are providing, some schools are increasing the volume of aid they will be offering. Haas notified me that they will be distributing $3.2 million – an increased amount – in aid this year. Tuck has actually doubled the volume of aid they've provided since 2005 and Tepper has doubled the amount of aid it offers over the past five years.

All of the respondents encouraged international MBA applicants to pursue funding and scholarships from within their own countries – from private foundations (for instance, Brazil's Fundacao Estudar and Ling Foundation, Spain's Fundacion Rafael del Pino, La Caixa Scholarship, and Fundacion Ramon Areces, and Mexico's Brockmann Foundation) plus government-sponsored programs that provide loans and financial assistance to students attending graduate programs outside of their home countries.

My research is ongoing, and I hope other programs will provide more information in the coming days and weeks. In the meantime applicants considering applying to HBS, Chicago, Kellogg, Tuck, and MIT can rest assured that their loan options remain open. Applicants to Haas may have a higher chance of receiving a grant  covering a good portion of their educations and not requiring repayment, and Tepper applicants are no worse off than they were last year!

If there's one thing that became clear from my research, it's this: the top MBA programs will do whatever necessary to keep a high percentage of international students in their classrooms. As one admissions director told me, "This is keeping the deans awake at night!" Astute international applicants will take advantage of that determination and submit their applications this year while others wait for the smoke to clear.

Jennifer Bloom has been helping Accepted's international clients earn admission to the top MBA programs for the past 10 years. She is available to help you with your MBA application too.

BusinessWeek released its much awaited biannual, full-time MBA rankings. The rankings showed slight movement: Columbia went from #10 in 06 to #7 in 08. Wharton went from #2 to #4. Kelley climbed from #18 to #15.

Frankly, don't pay too much attention to the absolute ranking or even slight movement. Take advantage of BW's rich, informative database and fantastic resources for applicants. Then choose what's important to you and do your own ranking.

Top 30 U.S. Programs
1 University of Chicago
2 Harvard University
3 Northwestern University (Kellogg)
4 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
5 University of Michigan (Ross)
6 Stanford University
7 Columbia University
8 Duke University (Fuqua)
9 MIT (Sloan)
10 UC Berkeley (Haas)
11 Cornell University (Johnson)
12 Dartmouth (Tuck)
13 NYU (Stern)
14 UCLA (Anderson)
15 Indiana University (Kelley)
16 University of Virginia (Darden)
17 UNC - Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)
18 Southern Methodist (Cox)
19 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
20 University of Notre Dame (Mendoza)
21 Texas - Austin
22 Brigham Young (Marriott)
23 Emory University (Goizueta)
24 Yale University
25 University of Southern California (Marshall)
26 University of Maryland (Smith)
27 University of Washington (Foster)
28 Washington University (Olin)
29 Georgia Tech
30 Vanderbilt University (Owen)

Top 10 Non-U.S. MBA Programs
1 Queens University
2 IE Business School
3 INSEAD
4 Western Ontario (Ivey)
5 London Business School
6 ESADE
7 IMD
8 Toronto (Rotman)
9 IESE
10 Oxford (Saîd)

BW bases its rankings on employer and student surveys as well as school research output or "intellectual capital."  This year for the first time, in a nod to the economic crisis, it is also including a ranking based on ROI and years to recoup the MBA investment. Not surprisingly, European schools, which tend to be one-year programs, are at the top of the chart. More surprising: HBS ranks 50 out of 50 in this chart. I guess assumptions matter.

It is with great pleasure that I welcome Natalie Grinblatt to Accepted's staff. Natalie previously served as:

• Assistant Dean at Arizona State University's W P Carey School of Management.
• Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Cornell's Johnson School
• Director of MBA Student Affairs and Enrollment Management at the University of Michigan (where she also earned her MBA).

She is a wonderful addition to our already excellent staff.

If you would like to work with Natalie on your application, please register and request her in the comments box.

Every MBA candidate expects to write a goals essay. Everyone expects to tell a leadership story. These are the "flagship" pieces of any application--the essays that will help the admissions committee figure out what you've achieved and how you approach your professional life. But then, there are the "wild card" questions--these are almost always very personal, and they generally require very brief responses. "If you could be a character in a book, who would it be, and why?" "What's your most precious tangible possession? Intangible possession?" "What are you most passionate about?" "If you could spend a day anywhere... if you could invite anyone to dinner, living or dead..." and so on.

Why do the admissions committees ask questions like these, and--as so many of my clients have asked me--WHAT do they want to hear in response? What are they digging for?

Not all schools ask questions like these on their applications, but many do. If you look for the "question behind the question," you'll find that it invariably has something to do with their desire to understand your value system, your priorities, and your overall character. They don't just want to know what you've achieved (they can find most of that on your resume) or what you want your next job to be, though that is certainly important--they want to know who you are, what you care about, and how you respond to the world around you.

Remember, they're putting together a class of actual human beings--not just a bunch of high achievers, but a group of individual, idiosyncratic people with an incredible variety of likes, dislikes, belief systems and cultural practices--and they need to know how you're going to fit into their particular academic and social environment.

There is clearly no single "right" answer here, but there are plenty of wrong ones. The least effective essays I ever see on these topics generally involve inviting Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, and/or Bill Gates to dinner, or explaining why a framed undergraduate degree is one's most precious possession. And of course, far too many people write that if they could spend a day anywhere, it would of course be in the same "world-class, cosmopolitan" city where the B-school in question is located. These answers are doomed on many levels. They're predictable, they're dull, and they often make the mistake of assuming that adcom members are likely to respond positively to empty flattery and generic responses!

The best essays that I've read on this topic, on the other hand, offer the reader a small--but very clear--window into the writer's character. The personal items they discuss aren't particularly grand or expensive, their dinner guests don't always have instantly-recognizable names, and the books they choose to leap into aren't always best-sellers, but their responses are clear, authentic and insightful.

I think that your first and most important task here is to be as honest as possible with yourself--and in the essay you write--even if what you want to write about doesn't feel terribly impressive. I once worked with someone who wrote a terrific "important tangible possession" essay about a tiny piece of folded paper that he had carried in his wallet since middle school--a piece of paper with some meaningful words on it, written by someone he cared about. That essay worked because the writer approached it honestly, from a very "micro" level, and didn't try to hammer his reader over the head with a grandiose conclusion about life, leadership, or anything else. He simply answered the question and explained his response. That's all--but that was perfect!

In those essays that ask you to imagine yourself in a fantasy context or circumstance, it's a good idea to keep things grounded by focusing on illustrating some of the specific personal qualities you want to highlight in your application. You can write a good essay about spending your "anywhere in the world" day  practically anywhere--at a monastery in Mykonos, an archaeological dig in Egypt, a homeless shelter in Chicago or a food festival in Milan--you just have to come up with some really compelling reasons WHY you would do this, and discuss not just where you would go, but how you would spend the time and with whom.  Naturally, you'll want to choose something that is a bit of a challenge--not just something you could step outside your front door and do this Thursday--but you don't have to go overboard. You can even have a little fun with these sorts of topics--don't be glib and silly just for the sake of it, but feel free to let your imagination go a little bit.

Finally--and perhaps most importantly--don't spend too much time second-guessing yourself. You don't have to prove that you're incredibly cultured or brilliant... you don't have to drop important names... you don't have to "boldly go where no one has gone before"--you just have to show them who YOU really are, and in doing so, hopefully get them to care about you enough to let you in!

By Sonia Michaels, who has years of experience helping successful clients write revealing, authentic essays.

School visits. They are time-consulting and expensive. And they contribute to global warming. 

Furthermore, Dee Leopold in The Director's Blog at HBS' web site makes clear that HBS does not weigh a visit as a factor in an admissions decision.  The Wharton adcom blog made a similar statement a few years ago. 

Is personally visiting the campuses of your target schools a waste of time and effort? Absolutely not.

I am not disputing Harvard's or Wharton's statements that they don't award brownie points for visiting. However,  whether or not  your target programs award brownie points, a visit does mean you will have a better chance of being admitted -- not because of imaginary points, but because you will be a better informed applicant. You will know more about the school and its culture. You will know more about why it appeals to you, why its style matches yours, and how it supports your goals.

As Dee suggestions in her post, to profit the most from your trip, visit when class is in session. Then take a tour, meet with students, participate in the info session, and attend a class. In short, take advantage of whatever is offered.

What if you simply can't visit your target schools?  If you live far away, don't worry about it. You still need to demonstrate a deep understanding of the school's culture and program, but the school won't hold your lack of visit against you. Even schools (e.g. Tuck and Darden ) that really value a visit as a sign of serious interest understand that international applicants can't necessarily come.  Other schools explicitly ask what you have done to learn about their program, for example Haas queries "What steps have you taken to learn about the Berkeley MBA program?"

What steps should you take on the road to an MBA acceptance?

• Scour the schools' web sites.
• Attend the many receptions and events held by the schools.
  
• Participate in MBA Tour events.
• Talk to current students and/or recent alumni.
• Read current student blogs to get a feel for campus life.

Here is a list of upcoming MBA Tour events in the US, but the Tour is international so check their website if you are outside the US.

September 2 : Chicago
September 4: Houston
September 6: New York
September 7: Washington, D.C.
September 9: Atlanta
September 11: Boston
September 13: San Francisco
September 14: Los Angeles