I would like to invite all 2009 MBA applicants to sign up for the second 2009 MBA Admissions Telethon on Tuesday, May 13th between 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM PT (1:30 PM ET - 3:30 PM ET; 6:00 PM GMT - 8:00 PM GMT). What is the MBA Admissions Telethon?

Two hours when 6 MBA admissions experts will be available to answer your individual questions via telephone. Prior to calling in, you will receive a brief, 6-question questionnaire and submit it along with your resume to a designated email address. (No essays, please.) When you call in, your consultant will review the information you provide, and you will have 15 minutes to discuss with him or her your most pressing MBA admissions questions.

Oh, by the way, the 2009 MBA Admission Telethon is free.

You can learn more details and sign up at 2009 MBA Admissions Telethon.

It’s May. The 2009 AMCAS application will be available soon and the MCAT is looming. Have you chosen your schools yet? Even if you have, consider the following:

• Applying to medical school is expensive. The MCAT registration fee is $210. The AMCAS fee to apply to ten schools is $430. Add the school application fees of at least $50 (some are as high as $125) payable at the secondary stage. Your grand total is now $1140, not including the cost of a prep course for the MCAT or travel to interviews. (There’s a fee assistance program for AMCAS and the MCAT, but it’s very difficult to qualify for it.)
• State residency plays a greater role in medical school admissions than in college admissions. Public schools are required by state regulation to give some degree of preference to legal residents of the state. A few simply don’t accept non-residents. The non-resident tuition at some is so high as to be beyond the means of most candidates. Many don’t accept non-residents in significant numbers, and those accepted usually have considerably higher grades and MCAT scores than their in-state counterparts.
• The highest-ranked medical schools want the highest grades and the highest MCAT scores. If you aren’t in the top group in both categories, don’t spend your money on the “big guns.”

What all this means is that every candidate needs a “core group” of wisely-chosen schools. The number might be 10 or 20, depending on how many public schools there are in your state and the strength of your academic record and test scores. It rarely makes sense, financially or in terms of improving your odds, to apply to more than 20. If your list is lengthy, start re-evaluating now.

We just added two great GMAT articles from Manhattan GMAT to our GMAT resources:

• GMAT Strategies for the Math-Challenged
• Strategies for the GMAT’s Verbal Section

Reminder: If you are planning to take a GMAT test prep course either in a traditional classroom setting or online or even with a personal tutor, you can receive 10% off Manhattan GMAT's regular prices. Read these articles to find out how you can take advantage of this offer for Acceptees.

April 30 is the last day to:

• Take advantage of Accepted's MBA-Pre-season Special. In addition to saving you money, starting now gets you advice when you can actually do something to improve your profile. That improvement is worth more than the actual dollar savings, but we let you save money too.
• Save 20% on Create a Better Sequel: How to Reapply Right to B-School, the ebook for MBA reapplicants. Whatever you did last time didn't work. Don't repeat the same mistakes. Learn how to evaluate what went wrong and then improve so that your sequel will be better than the original.
• Submit your photos to the Beautiful B-School Photo Contest. Yes it ends on Wednesday. We have received lovely photos in the last several days and would like to have more. So if you are visiting or have visited or are enrolled at any of the schools listed in the B-School Zones, share your favorite spot or view with the world and posterity . Submit your entries by Wednesday. Winners can receive an Amazon gift certificate worth up to $200.

 

According to an article in US Today, which cites two recent studies, the writing section of the SAT introduced in 2006 does a better job of prediction freshman performance than the older math and verbal sections of the exam.

"The College Board, which administers the SAT, studied test scores from 150,000 freshmen entering 110 colleges in 2006 and then looked at their GPAs at the end of their freshmen year, says Wayne Camara, vice president of research.

'Our study suggests that the writing test is the best single predictor' of freshman grades, he says. The study won't be finalized until summer, he says."

The article also pointed to a UC study which looked at 2006 UC entering students, their writing scores, and their freshman grades and came to similar conclusions.

The UC study concludes, however, that high school GPA still remains the best predictor of college performance. 

Look for more schools to require the writing portion of the SAT as part of their application requirements. 

The Harvard Record provides a window (probably rose-tinted) into Harvard's LLM program in "Congratulations LL.M. Class of 2008: We Are Almost There," written by a member of the HLS LLM Class of '08.

Whether the author is gazing through rose-colored or perfectly clear glass, if you are interested in Harvard's LLM program, take a peek.