Are they overpaid or underpaid? Suffering indentured servants or plotters with a clearly defined exit strategy?

According to The American Lawyer, which has articles on associate recruiting and associate satisfaction at different firms, associates are generally satisfied with their lot, but not planning to stick around and become partner.  A few factoids from the article:

• "The average satisfaction score hit a record high this year: 3.81 on a five-point scale."
• Only 44.9% of the respondents predicted that they would remain with their firms for five years, and only 11.7% thought they would become partners.
• The article predicts an increasingly intense talent war among top firms for graduates of top schools.
  

UPDATE- THE TIPS FOR MICHIGAN'S ROSS 2009 MBA APPLICATION ARE NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE- PLEASE POST QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS TO THE NEW POST.

Michigan Ross 2008 MBA Deadline and Notification Dates.

Decision I:  November 1, 2007            January 15, 2008

Decision II:  January 3, 2008                  March 15, 2008

Decision III:  March 1, 2008                    May 15, 2008

International students are encouraged to apply in decision Period I or II.

Ross has substantially changed its application from last year, and it is going against the grain. While many programs have made their applications slightly shorter and more directed, Ross has added a short question and made the questions seemingly more generic. Don't be fooled. Ross does not want generic answers. Your answers need to connect to Ross' multi-disciplinary action projects and commitment to action-based learning. You need to show the admissions readers why you belong at Ross, not at Top B-School.

My comments are in red.

Michigan Ross 2008 MBA Essays 

Provide response to the following four essay questions, each on a separate page. At the top of each page, please include your full name and a complete statement of the question being answered.

 Use at least 11 point font and 1.5 line spacing.

Required questions 

You must answer the following four questions:

Long Answers: (500 word max)

1) Briefly describe your short-term and long-term career goals. Why is an MBA the best choice at this point in your career? What and/or who influenced your decision to apply to Ross?

2) Describe your most significant professional accomplishment. Elaborate on the leadership skills you displayed, the actions you took and the impact you had on your organization.

This is a pretty straight-forward question. Clearly your most significant professional accomplishment should reveal leadership and have had impact on your company. If you can, quantify the impact.

Short Answers: (300 word max)

 3)  If you were not pursuing the career goals you described in Question 1, what profession would you pursue instead? (for example, teacher, musician, athlete, architect, etc.) How will this alternate interest contribute to your effectiveness in solving multi-disciplinary problems?

Maybe you are someone who struggled with your career choices. You had a close second before you chose your current professional goal. Then you should have a relatively easy time answering this question.

If you always seemed pretty directed and haven't wavered since you decided against being a firefighter in first grade, then you may have a little more difficulty with this question. In the latter case, use the question to reveal another side of you. Perhaps you would be a professional basketball player and your team skills would be relevant at Ross. Or you would work as a serial entrepreneur and bring your entrepreneurial pizzazz to Ross.

4. Describe your experience during a challenging time in your life. Explain how you grew personally, either despite this challenge or because of it.

Challenge comes in so many shapes and sizes that it is very difficult to give general advice on this one. You have to be on the other side of the challenge to know how you grew as a result. You may have conquered the challenge. You may not have entirely overcome it, but you will be changed and usually strengthened by having faced it. Describe the challenge, how you handled it, and how you grew as a result.

For most applicants, this will be a non-professional essay. 

Optional Question:

Is there anything else you think the  Admissions Committee should know about you to evaluate your candidacy?

Do not use this essay like a storage room, my son's bedroom closet, or even a large salad: a place to put everything.  Focus on one facet of your life or experience that is important to you,  reveals the human being you are, and isn't described in other parts of the application. Write about it here.

You can of course also use this essay to "explain" a weakness, but I hate to end your application on that note if it can be avoided. So weigh your options. If you have something to explain, do so. If you can tuck the explanation somewhere else in the application, more power to you. If the  best place for the explanation is this last essay, so be it.

If you would like help with your Michigan Ross MBA application, please consider Accepted.com's MBA essay editing and admissions consulting or a Michigan Ross Comprehensive Package, a package of editing and consulting specific to Ross.

   

The 2008 Ross MBA essay questions are now online. I will provide tips next week.   

Are you going to grind your teeth or grin in anticipation when confronted with an off-beat essay question?

Alison Damast, Businessweek's B-School Reporter explores the topic thoroughly as it relates to MBA applicants in "Applying Oneself Creatively" and the accompanying slide show,  "MBA Hopefuls Get Creative." Although the article focuses on the optional "Creativity Challenge" from University of Colorado at Boulder Leeds School of Business, it also touches on Chicago's required PowerPoint slides and NYU's essay 3.

The slide show shows you how Leeds applicants responded to the Creativity Challenge, which is:

"Please send us a sample of your creativity. This could be (but should in no way be limited to) one of the following:

• a physical object (such as a design or a piece of art)
• a business idea
• a marketing campaign
• a creative solution to a problem
• a photo (or series of photos) that depict your creativity
• an essay that describes you at your most creative

"The only restrictions (for now) are that it cannot be larger than 2 cubic feet (1 ft x 1ft x 2ft), no heavier than 50 pounds, and, if you upload (or send) a written document, no longer than 1,500 words."

If you are facing a "creative question," be it for business school or any other program, read this article and view the slide show. Both will help unleash your creative juices. Also follow the advice I provide in the article:

"...look at the question in the context of the entire application, Abraham says. For instance, she will usually ask students a series of directed questions until they home in on an experience or project that can aptly convey their personality. "You have to look at the points you want to get across in the application as a whole and then you fit the puzzle together," she says."

In the article I noted that applicants are rarely neutral about these original questions. They either decide to have fun with them or they struggle with and suffer through them. It struck me as I viewed the slide show last night that many of the applicants with the outstanding slides revealed genuine enthusiasm both for the challenge and the topic they were presenting.  Embrace the challenge and your topic.

Finally, read all the way to the end of the article where Isser Gallogly, executive director of NYU's MBA admissions office, and Rose Martinelli, Chicago's director of admissions, comment on how they use the essays and why they include them.  In a nutshell, the creative essays are means to distinguish applicants from each other. I doubt if they come into play when application readers have doubts about an applicant's ability or basic competitiveness, but they are critical when admissions committees have more than enough qualified applicants and are trying to create a diverse class.  

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) and the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) Board announced the introduction of two new question types as of November.  The new question types can appear in the Verbal Reasoning or Quantitative Reasoning sections of the computer-based GRE General Test.

"The new Verbal question type is a text completion question that requires the test taker to fill in two or three blanks within a passage from separate multiple-choice lists. Currently, the Verbal section contains text completion questions that require test takers to fill in one blank within a passage from a single multiple-choice list. The new Quantitative question type will be a numeric entry question that requires test takers to type their answer as a number in a box, or as a fraction in two boxes. Test takers can review sample questions and additional information about the new question types on the GRE website."