It's been an exciting year for Accepted.com. Many initiatives. Enhancements.  A couple of disappointments. Let's review:

• Accepted.com continued its series of MBA chats and added a few medical chats.
• We added the B-School zones section to the site to aggregate content on Accepted.com related to specific top business schools.
• We added our School-Specific Comprehensive Packages to our MBA services.
• We published 3 new ebooks this year:
• Don't Let Writing The College Application Essay Drive You And Your Family Crazy
  
• MBA BlastOff: 45 Terrific Tips to Launch Your MBA Application to Acceptance,
  
• Write Your Way to a Fellowship Match
• We updated the MBA Interview Feedback Database to improve filtering and information quality.
• I participated in a panel at the GMAC Conference last June entitled "Admissions Consultants: Love 'em, Hate 'em, Use 'em."
• We added three new, excellent editors to our staff: Joan Davis, Inge Miller, and Sachin Waikar
• We launched the Beautiful B-School Photo Contest. Frankly, the response has been disappointing, but that means opportunity for all of  you.  Your chances of winning any of the 3 Amazon gift certificates (up to $200) are excellent at this moment.
• More initiatives are in the works for next year. Stay tuned.
  

It all adds up to the best year ever for Accepted.com. Thank you first and foremost to our clients and customers for your patronage. Thanks also to all the Acceptees, who use and participate at Accepted.com, making it one of the most valuable admissions sites on the web.

Wishing you all a Happy and Healthy New Year! 

Congratulations! You have two or more acceptances. You have options. You have choice. You have a decision to make.

 A major – and wonderful -- decision: Where to spend two years and roughly $100,000 while earning your MBA, accelerating your career progression, and hooking into a professional network that will last a lifetime. How should you choose? What criteria should guide you?

Since the MBA is a professional degree, first look at career opportunities and recruiting. How is recruiting in your area of interest at the accepting schools? What percentage of graduates entered the field that you want to go into? How strong are the schools’ ties to the region you would like to live in, if you have a geographic preference? Do the companies you would like to work for recruit at these schools? Is the student body happy with the Career Services Center? What do recruiters think of your school? Study the schools’ web sites, attend admit weekends, and contact students and recent alumni to obtain answers to these questions.

Secondly look at the curriculum. Is it relatively structured or flexible? If your business background is weak, you may prefer a structured program that will give you a good foundation in business fundamentals. If you have a strong business background, you may prefer a program that allows you to pass out of basic courses. If you goal is more general, flexibility may not be that important to you. If you have a specific, somewhat non-traditional goal, you may value the ability to tailor your MBA studies to your particular needs.

What is the focus and methodology of the program? Is it a program that relies on you to connect the dots between business functions or is it a program that provides a general management perspective that forces you to examine and re-examine business situations from multiple perspectives. Do you want a case-method program like Darden or Harvard? Do you prefer schools that are project oriented like Michigan? Are professors at the school researching the latest and greatest in something that grabs you?

Last but not least, consider personal preferences. For some, personal factors will play a major role; for others, they will take a back seat, but they are something all should consider: Where do you want to live? Do you want to live in a big city or small college town? What region do you want to live in? Do you prefer a big university or a small college? Urban or rural? Warm climate or cold? Liberal or conservative?

Savor your acceptances and use the above criteria to make your choice.

With warm wishes to all our readers for a Happy Holiday and New Year!

Items of interest to MBA applicants:

• Insead Admissions Chat Transcript Although connectivity issues plagued this chat, we did have a good conversation with Johanna Hellborg and Caroline Diarte Edwards who answered questions for those who managed to attend. We will host another Insead chat on January 18 at 9:00 AM PT/12:00 PM ET/5:00 PM GMT . Please join us then. In the meantime, an excerpt:

CarolineDiarteEdwardsINSEAD (Dec 7, 2006 11:22:18 AM)
Linda: we are seeing a growth in application volume.

Linda Abraham (Dec 7, 2006 11:24:15 AM)
Any tips for applicants aiming for your next round deadline in January?

johannaHellborgINSEAD (Dec 7, 2006 11:25:42 AM)
Linda : don't rush into your application...........try to find something unique about you.................make sure you talk about your personal life too not only the professional one.....be honest !;-)

• Cornell Admissions Chat Transcript. Ann Richards and Lisa Pastrick answered questions during this informative chat. An excerpt:

AnnRichardsCornell (Dec 14, 2006 12:17:24 PM)
Linda, our applications are up this year. The volume has been robust! Our first round applications were up 55%, round two applications were up by about 15% over last year.

 BTW, all schools that I have asked are reporting higher application volume.

• PaGalGuy interview with Darden's Sara Neher, Director of Admission. Although the article has an Indian slant, natural considering PaGalGuy's market, every Darden applicant should read it.  An excerpt:

How much do you value work experience and what kind of work experience is best suited for a Darden admit, especially in the Indian context?

In all applicants not just Indian applicants, we are most concerned with the depth of work experience a candidate offers – both quality and range. Ideally we would see cross-functional experience with opportunities to manage people, budgets, and teams, plus international work experience. The goal is to find leaders and we do that by evaluating the experience and the leadership shown.

• The Harvard Crimson asks "Can Younger MBAs Measure Up?" in this article about HBS' courting of early-career candidate, a move imitated by an increasing number of top schools despite some concerns about recruiter acceptance. While a lot of attention is given to ECCs, their numbers are actually quite small. "Today, fewer than 20 college seniors a year are admitted directly to HBS, Leopold says. Last spring, she says, another 20 were offered admission to the school, but were asked to defer for two years before starting in the fall of 2008." Harvard's entering MBA class has well over 800 members.
  

My inbox over the last couple of weeks has brought news of client acceptances! Here are excerpts from a couple of the emails I have received:

"... I'd like to  thank [you] on behalf of all your clients for making sure that some of us live our dream ( We only live once (as far as we know) and you make  sure that this one precious time is really worth it! ...

"Congratulations for having consultants like Tanis in your firm. She  exceeded the strict professional boundaries and became also a friend in this long and stressful procedure." -- Accepted to Columbia Business School

And from another client:

"Jennifer was a pleasure to work with, and I believe, she played a key role in my acceptance at Chicago, and also now at LBS (I just found out). She was very professional, and her knowledge of what each of the schools look at specifically was very helpful

 As I told Jennifer, I will be recommending your services, and Jennifer in particular, to anyone I know who is considering an MBA"