Accepted.com Odds 'N Ends

We have decided to publish this newsletter as a service to our clients and others who register for it on our web site. Accepted.com's Odds'N Ends will bring you our tip of the month, admissions information for grad, law, MBA, and medical school applicants, and news about Accepted.com.

We also welcome contributions from readers. If you have comments, questions, or perhaps an article idea, please e-mail our editor. We cannot publish everything we receive, but we will try to respond to everyone. And as always, we appreciate feedback.

What's new at Accepted.com

Accepted.com Makes Business Week

In looking at Business Week's biannual ranking edition, MBA hopefuls found Wharton, Kellogg, Chicago... and Accepted.com. Business Week included Accepted.com in its article on admissions consultants entitled "Is a Helping Hand Really Helpful?"

MBA Interview Database — It's a Ten!

We are happy to announce a new contest at Accepted.com's MBA Interview Resource: It's a 10!

Our database program automatically assigns every completed interview feedback questionnaire a number. If you complete one of our MBA interview questionnaires before December 31, 1998 and your questionnaire has a number that is a multiple of 10, then you have won Accepted.com's "It's a 10!" contest. You will receive a $10 gift certificate from Amazon.com or a $10 credit on your next bill from Accepted.com. The choice is yours.

Tip of the Month — Don't Write a Resume in
Prose (Part 2)

How to Add Color to Your Writing by Judy Gruen

"It was a dark and stormy night ..." Doesn't that opening grab you a lot more than if Poe had written, "It rained that evening"?

In fact, the details of description enhance your writing and add the color that will help you distinguish your essay from the competition. Let's look at some flatly presented information and see how we can jazz it up.

"In my tenure at Sutro & Co., I enhanced my management skills and deepened my skill set of financial abilities." This kind of writing is rampant among applicants, but doesn't really tell us HOW the applicant's skills were strengthened. It is vague and colorless. The same experience could be written like this: "In my three years at Sutro & Co., I went from a neophyte analyst with a lot of energy but not a lot of experience to a management-track trainee responsible for the analysis of a twenty-million dollar acquisition of a leading software distributorship. In the process, I learned how to gather pertinent research data from numerous departments within the company, prepare an effective oral presentation to the company's executives, and anticipate questions they would have about the expected profits resulting from the acquisition."

Now, the improved example is surely longer, but it gives loads of specific information about the applicant's work experience and skills — in less than one paragraph! "Three years" is more specific than "tenure", and the list of learned skills tells us a lot more than the generic "skill set."

Let's look at one more "before" and "after":

"My deep desire to help the community has convinced me that medicine is the only career for me." Now, as we always tell clients who write something like this, plumbers also help the community. So do crossing guards and supermarket cashiers.

Let's see how we can add color and dimension to this idea.

"My volunteer work with the Red Cross over the past four years has been more satisfying than any other paid work I have done to date. It has deepened my commitment to carve out a career that blends medicine with community service." This rewrite explains where the applicant's desire came from and expresses a deeply held conviction.

Remember, if you want your writing to be terrific, BE SPECIFIC!

Judy Gruen, who joined Accepted.com in 1996, has helped clients obtain admission to top medical, law, business, and graduate programs including Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and Wharton. Her own writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, and dozens of other publications. Before joining Accepted.com, Judy worked in corporate communications for a Fortune 500 health care company and did freelance writing and editing for university and corporate clients.

Grad Admission News You Can Use

Great Web Site! — Getting In
http://mail.h-net.msu.edu/~burrell/guide0.html

Grad student, Dave Burrell, has authored a guide to grad school admission, Getting In: An Applicant's Guide to Graduate School Admissions. Based on his failed and successful attempts to enter a Ph.D. program, along with much research, Getting In provides valuable insight into the graduate school admissions process, with a distinctive bias towards the more academic, non-professional programs. You can sample chapters at the URL above and purchase the guide from this Web site.

Law Admissions News You Can Use

Minority Admissions up at Boalt

The Los Angeles Times recently reported that minority enrollment jumped for the class of 2001 from the previous year's "wipe out." In September 1997, no African-Americans and only 14 Latinos enrolled at Boalt during the first year following UC's ban on affirmative action. In September 1998, Dean Herma Hill Kay announced that nine African-American and twenty-four Latino students showed up for the first day of class. Dean Kay attributed the increase to reconfigured admissions policies that give extra weight to candidates whose "voice" may add something special to classroom discussion and to aggressive recruitment of minority applicants admitted to Boalt.

MBA Admissions News You Can Use

From Our Mailbox

A student at Kellogg provides the following advice for applicants:

1. Demonstrate success working with TEAMS
2. Demonstrate initiative, especially as a student
3. Find your unique gem — don't focus on typical b-school stuff if you have a unique aspect in your experience, personality, skills

Rankings

Don't skip this assuming you have already read BW's rankings. These are for women...

The October edition of Working Women ranked the "Best Business Schools for Women 1998"

1. Columbia
2. University of Michigan
3. University of California at Berkeley (Haas)
4. Northwestern University (Kellogg)
5. University of Virginia (Darden)
6. Stanford University
7. Duke University (Fuqua)
8. University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flager)
9. Ohio State University (Fisher College of Business)
10. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)

Criteria included reputation, percentage of women students, percentage of female faculty members, number of classes dealing with women's issues, alumnae network, women's student groups, part-time MBA programs, number of women over 40.

Med Admissions News You Can Use

From Our Mailbox

"The sample essays are creative and fun to read. However, they seem to be much longer than your allotted space for the personal statement. Is this true? Also, I am currently working on my own personal statement. And to tell you the truth, I am afraid it is very much like the "don't do" sample essay. I personally feel that the "don't do" essay was a pretty good one, albeit not as creative as the others, but nevertheless still someone's story. Will my essay not work because it is not as creative the ones shown? Please comment or give any suggestions. I'd greatly appreciate it."

Well there are a few questions here. First the sample essays on our Web site do not fit in AMCAS-E, which is roughly 800 words. The authors of those essays insisted, however, that they fit in the paper version of the AMCAS application, which provides space for 1000 words comfortably and more if you squeeze.

The main difference between the "don't do" essay and the others is not quality of writing or even creativity; it is distinctiveness. Most pre-meds could write an essay that sounds very similar to the "don't do," and all too many do. They blend into the crowd, fail to distinguish themselves from the competition, and waste an outstanding opportunity to portray themselves as something other than numbers, grades, and statistics. Writing an AMCAS essay that reflects YOUR unique accomplishments, individuality, and personality will add to your application and increase your chances of admission.

Our Services

Writing a personal statement is a tough challenge. A former client, an NBC journalist with over twenty years of experience in the field, once said that his personal statement "was the toughest thing I ever had to write." He sought our help. Shouldn't you?

Accepted.com's editors are here to help you write your best essays — eloquent, compelling essays that distinguish you from the competition and transform you from a transcript and test score into a competitive applicant and unique individual.

Check us out. Complete information on our services, including prices, testimonials, and information about our top-notch professional staff, can be found at Essay Help. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at info@accepted.com or 310-392-1734.

We look forward to serving you.