Much is happening on Accepted and in the MBA admissions world  these days. Here goes:

• Birthday Ebook Sale. May 9-13  In honor of my birthday, I am giving you all 50% off all MBA admissions ebooks including:

Best Practices for MBA Admissions: Take advantage of the super advice captured in this transcript of a one-of-a-kind teleseminar.  Find out what are the 4 Pillars of a Successful Application, and most importantly, discover the concrete steps you can take to strengthen your pillars.

MBA BlastOff: 45 Terrific Tips to Launch Your MBA Application to Acceptance: Learn how to create a winning MBA application package including advice on writing your application, crafting your resume, working with recommenders, and preparing for your interview. 

The Consultant's Guide to MBA Admissions: Invest in the one resource written for YOU. Transform yourself from "just another consultant" into a distinctive, exciting prospect. Learn to mine your experiences and project the qualities schools value. This ebook has sample HBS essays.

The Finance Professional's Guide to MBA Admissions: If you are in investment banking, corporate finance, venture capital, or any financially related field that sends oodles of applicatants to top business schools, this ebook can teach you how to distinguish yourself from your competition and improve your chances of admissions. 

The Techie's Guide to MBA Admissions: Attention Techies: Are you afraid of being just another IT applicant. If so, The Techie's Guide to MBA Admissions is for you! Learn how to highlight your individuality and unique qualifications to create a distinct, exciting MBA application. 

MBA I.V.: Mainline to Top MBA Programs -- MBA Interview Questions and Tips: Invest in an ebook that provides the questions that have been frequently asked during recent MBA admission interviews at the top business schools as well as the advice you need to prepare for your interview. Exactly the information you need to ace your interview.

The Nine Mistakes You Don't Want to Make on an MBA Waitlist: Discover how to avoid the mistakes that doom so many on an MBA waitlist and make the right moves that increase your chances of acceptance. 

Create a Better Sequel: Reapply Right to B-School: Determine what went wrong and how to change the outcome. Get the information you need to navigate the MBA admissions maze and transform those thin rejections into fat acceptances. Buy this 28-page ebook today to propel your reapplication.  

• MBA Admissions Telethon on Tuesday May 13 at  10:00 AM – 12:00 PM PT/1:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET (5:00 PM – 7:00 PM GMT). Sign up for FREE 15-minute consultations. Ask your most important MBA application questions.
• IMD admission chat with Janet Shaner, IMD's Director of MBA Marketing, and with an IMD participant. They will participate in this online chat where you can learn more about IMD's outstanding, international MBA program.
  
• Chicago GSB's monthly admissions newsletter has two timely articles: "Stay Engaged this Summer," on using the summer months to prepare for fall applications, and "Getting the Most Out of Your Campus Visit." For more on these topics, please see "Visiting Schools: Myths and Reality" and Best Practices for MBA Admission.
• MBAPodcaster's last two segments are winners. Check out "One Year MBA Programs," which focuses on Cornell's, Kellogg's,  and USC IBEAR's one-year MBA programs, and "Business School Admission's Panel: Top Schools Answer Your Application Questions," which presents admissions directors from  Columbia, NYU Stern, and Wharton discussing their respective admissions processes. If you are interested in any of these programs, you owe it to yourself to either listen to the podcast or read the transcript. 
  

Those lucky ones among you holding multiple acceptances to medical school have decisions to make. May 15 is around the corner.  In "Medical School X vs. Medical School Y" on the Medical Student Musings blog, the author, a current medical student opines on the factors that she believes should influence this decision. She makes some excellent points about the qualitative factors to explore as well as the academic elements that will make for a more pleasant and educational medical school experience. Please note: the word "rankings" doesn't appear in her post.

Accepted editors were recently debating the full-time versus part-time MBA options. I thought the brief discussion was quite interesting and am excerpting  the comments of Cindy Tokumitsu and Sachin Waikar.  Cindy has worked with many, many successful applicants to part-time and full-time MBA programs since she started with Accepted ten years ago.  Sachin, a former McKinsey consultant who has a Ph.D. in psychology, has received rave reviews from clients during the two years he has been part of the Accepted staff. Both Cindy and Sachin draw on both their broad professional experience and specific illustrative personal anecdotes.

They were responding to these questions:

• What is your overall feeling about the value of the part-time MBA?
  
• Does the networking/brand pay off reasonably well? Is the quality of education  well considered?
  
• Do participants really have the chance to build their skills?
  

Cindy Tokumitsu wrote :

It's hard to answer those questions in the abstract -- for a person who really wants a regular MBA, [part-time] might not be a great option, for various reasons.  For such people, it's a compromise they make because they can't get into a top school's full-time program (and they'd rather have the name than a lesser ranked full-time degree) or because their life just doesn't allow them to take off 2 years.  For some people, on the other hand, it's the exact right fit for their needs -- often these are people working in a company or industry they want to stay involved in and who would benefit from being able to apply classroom lessons "as they go."  Such people also often are on the cusp of advancement into business manager role, and the MBA studies boost their credibility/profile internally.

This anecdote may be relevant: my daughter's good friend (and a Princeton grad) is completing the top-ranked NYU part-time program; he values the actual education  but is disappointed that he does not have access to the recruiting he'd hoped for -- not so much that NYU prevents it but that top finance companies simply aren't recruiting from the part-time program (and he's atop student in his class and also serves in leadership roles).

Overall I think the quality of education varies depending on the part-time program -- for some it is equal to that of the full-time MBA; for others it may be less rigorous.

Also anecdotally, from clients/former clients I've heard that (a) it's harder to handle the school + work than they expected, (b) it's really interesting to apply the concepts/learning on the job, and (c) it's stimulating to interact with classmates engaged in all kinds of interesting work while frustrating to lack the time to really interact as much as they'd like.

Not a black-and-white picture -- but hopefully it helps!

Sachin Waikar responded:

Cindy raises a lot of good points, especially the recruiting challenges that part-timers face. For example, a ton of people enter McKinsey, BCG, and other consulting firms from Kellogg's full-time program, but those in the part-time have to really fight/network their way to such opportunities. Banking is probably even tougher.

Full-time is more immersive, not surprisingly, so students get to know each other better and leave with a more cohesive network. My wife's best friend started in Kellogg's part-time program and then transferred to full-time, so through her we got to see both. The cultures, diversity, and recruiting opportunities were the biggest differences. You have people from all over the world in the full-time program, and people from all over the world who now live and work in the Chicago area in the part-time program (though I know more people are commuting to it now, especially the Saturday program). The full-time program was more like a second set of college years, with late-20-somethings partying their way through late-night team sessions (and ill-fated romances; though some get married!), while the part-time program was more serious, with late-20-somethings struggling to even make it to class and team sessions between work and family obligations.

Bottom line seems to be that career-changers are best served (by far) with the full-time program, and those looking to advance within their general career track benefiting from the part-time, especially the financial aspects (no lost income; work sponsorship, etc.). There are always exceptions (e.g., the part-time student who ends up at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey), but as I always say to clients, "Why aim to be one of those?"

From my base in the Middle East, I work with many applicants throughout Asia who have excellent English but use a few phrases in ways that depart from the strictly correct. In this, my first blog post, I aim to help applicants improve their use of these phrases.

There are two words in particular that applicants frequently employ using an incorrect preposition: leverage and comprise. "Leverage" is most often used to indicate that you made use of one thing to obtain another. Most applicants understand what leverage is; the mistake only comes in how they phrase it. The correct way is without a preposition, for example: "I leveraged my knowledge of marketing to champion my idea throughout the department." Remember, you can leverage credibility, loyalty, and even debt, but the key is to do it alone, don't use a preposition (like the frequent error "leverage on").

The other word that frequently trips up my clients is "comprise." Everyone knows this word, but for many people for whom English is a second language – even those who spent their entire lives studying in English in school -- this term comes with another prepositional complication. "Comprised" can be used in two ways:

1) A team can be "comprised of" certain members, or

2) Certain members can "comprise" the team.

Every year many of my applicants mistakenly use the preposition "of" when it isn't needed and drop it when it is necessary. So remember, when team members comprise a team, they do it alone – without a preposition. Feel free to write those two sample sentences out on a sticky note to put on your computer screen. These words come up all the time, especially in the plethora of leadership and teamwork MBA admission essays.

So when you want your essays, personal statements, and statements of purpose to present your skills, knowledge, and individuality well, remember: you don't have to do it alone.  Professional writers have editors for a reason. Contact an Accepted.com editor to guide you through these and other subtle English issues and make sure that your qualifications are not buried under prepositions!

The AAMC announced last week:

An annual survey on medical school expansion, conducted by the AAMC, indicates that first-year enrollment in U.S. medical schools is estimated to grow 21 percent (3,400 students per year) by 2012 to 19,900 students.

According to survey results, more than 86 percent of existing schools have already expanded the number of first-year students or plan to do so within the next five years. In addition, nine new medical schools are under development or discussion, according to the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical education programs leading to an M.D. degree. The AAMC estimates that almost 800 first-year students will attend these new schools in the academic year 2012-13, based on future enrollment figures. The results of this survey were presented on Thursday at the opening of the 2008 AAMC Physician Workforce Research Conference.  The latest issue of AAMC Analysis in Brief also examines some of the results from this survey: