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Blog: Advice

My Executive Education Journey at INSEAD

Mar, 29, 2016


Last month I completed the modules for my Executive Masters in Consulting and Coaching for Change at INSEAD. I began the program in September 2014 and will graduate after writing my thesis (ongoing) in October 2016.  Regular readers of this blog perhaps noticed a reduced level of posting over the last year and a half. […]


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Short, Medium, and Long-term Planning for Graduate Admission

Jun, 17, 2015


In this post I discuss graduate degree planning. Whether you are applying for admission to programs with a start this year, next year, in a few years, or maybe in five years or more, having a plan in place increases your chances of success.  While I work mostly with MBA applicants (Clear enough from reviewing […]


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Why you were not offered admission: It is not just about you!

Dec, 11, 2014


In this post, I discuss why a reject is not always best understand as a problem with the application or the applicant.  For understanding some of the reasons why your application and/or interview might have been flawed or why you might have been selecting the wrong school(s) to apply to I suggestion seeing “A guide […]


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Interview with TOEFL and IELTS Expert Taichi Kono

May, 17, 2014


The highly experienced TOEFL, GMAT and IELTS instructor, Taichi Kono , author of  five English language textbooks including two on TOEFL , was kind enough to answer my questions on TOEFL and IELTS.  I previously posted Taichi’s Japanese language blog posts  on GMAT Sentence Correction (The whole series can be found on Taichi’s blog).  The […]


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Beating the Competition, Gaining MBA Admission: Averages & the 80% Range

May, 17, 2014


 This is the second post in a series. In the first post, I looked at competition from the macro-level of Acceptance Rates, Number of Applicants, Number of Enrolled, and Yield.   Given the global nature of my client base and my experience over the past twelve and half years, I am able to assess the competition […]


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TOEFL To Be Accepted for UK Student Visas Under Certain Conditions

May, 16, 2014


Update: TOEFL will be accepted in the UK under certain conditions. See Using TOEFL® Scores to Apply to U.K. Universities.  Except for this paragraph and the title, the rest of this post has not been updated.    If you have been preparing to take the TOEFL and plan to apply to graduate programs in the UK and […]


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GMAT or GRE? Both?

May, 11, 2014


While I have had very few clients apply to MBA programs with a GRE rather than a GMAT score,  as Poets & Quants’ John Byrne reports in “GRE Gaining Ground On The GMAT“, it is clear that is GRE becoming a real alternative to the GMAT. GRE is now important enough that US News & World […]


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Beating the Competition, Gaining MBA Admission: Macro-Numbers

May, 09, 2014


Clients frequently ask me to assess their chances for MBA admission.  They want to know how they compare with their competition. They want to know how to beat their competition.  This is an extremely reasonable request.  After all, admission to top MBA programs or other competitive graduate programs is a zero sum game: You get […]


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Advice for Family Business MBA Applicants

May, 07, 2014


Amongst the many different types of clients I work with, applicants whose careers and/or future goals are related to their family businesses have special advantages and challenges. My family business clients have come from very diverse backgrounds.  I have had applicants whose families controlled businesses that were quite small, $1 million or less in annual sales, […]


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School Selection Based on Reported Post-MBA Salary

Jan, 30, 2014


This post is a companion piece to Adam’s Global Top MBA Rankings 2014. To the extent that any sort of MBA ranking is valuable for purposes of school selection,  I have suggested some ways to make school selection decisions both for those who have been admitted to multiple programs  and those considering  which MBA programs to […]


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