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.

Index

What's New at Accepted.com
Tip of the Month
Grad Admission News You Can Use
Law Admission News You Can Use
MBA Admission News You Can Use
Medical Admission News You Can Use
Our Services

What's New at Accepted.com

Upcoming Chats

Ace the AMCAS Essay
The June 1 date for submitting your AMCAS application is approaching fast. Find out how you should approach this critical essay, what you should include, and how you can write a distinctive, revealing AMCAS essay or personal statement for non-AMCAS schools. Bring your questions and discuss with other pre-meds and me (Linda Abraham) how you can ace the AMCAS on May 2, 2000 at 7:00 PM Pacific Time (8:00 PM Mountain Time; 9:00 PM Central Time, 10:00 PM Eastern Time).

Before the chat, please print out the following pages:

• Medical: The Runner
• Medical: The Story Teller
• Medical: Don't write like this!

These pages contain essays that we will refer to during the chat.

Medical School Admissions with Dr. Cynthia Lewis
On May 9 at 7:00 PM Pacific Time (8:00 PM Mountain Time; 9:00 PM Central Time and 10:00 PM Eastern Time). Dr. Cynthia Lewis of Lewis Associates, a leading medical school admissions consulting firm, will be our guest at a chat for pre-meds. Bring your questions on medical school admissions strategies and gain from Dr. Lewis' informative answers.

Accepted.com Editor Publishes Book

Accepted.com editor, Sheila Bender has just written a new book, A Year in the Life: Journaling for Self Discovery, published by Writer's Digest books. If you keep a journal or would like to do so, check out Sheila's book at Amazon.com.

UTBooks and Accepted.com Form Strategic Alliance

UTBooks, a leading online textbook seller, and Accepted.com share a commitment to providing quality service at a reasonable price to current and aspiring college and graduate students. We have established an alliance to better serve our clients. As a result, all Accepted.com clients who let us know of their acceptances will receive a UTBooks coupon worth $15 off one order of $100 or more.

Please visit our Acceptances Survey page to let us know how you fared.

If you have already informed us of your acceptances, please fill out the very short survey form at send an e-mail to coupon@accepted.com. We will be happy to send you the UTBooks coupon code.

NOTE: This promotion expired on December 20, 2000.

Acceptances

Please let us know about your application results by filling out a short survey form. Doing so will entitle you to a valuable congratulatory coupon at UTBooks. Congratulations!!!

NOTE: This promotion expired on December 20, 2000.

Coming Soon...

Accepted.com will soon add a resume section to the Web site and to "Odds 'N Ends". So if you have benefited from our valuable tips and news while applying to grad school, stay tuned. Accepted.com's astute articles will help you as you pursue that plum summer job or permanent position.

Starting in June: Resume Tip Of The Month in Odds 'N Ends.

Tip of the Month

Too Many Editors Spoil...
Should you show your essay far and wide to so you can receive as much feedback as possible?

Only if you want to go crazy.

Can your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, professors, roommates, and former and current significant others have something valuable to offer after reading your personal statement?

Maybe.

But if you ask ALL of them, you will be guaranteed a mass of conflicting opinions from people who may not be qualified to give valid criticism.

Should you ask third parties to review your essay before submitting it?

Absolutely!!!

I recommend you choose 2-5 people and ask them to critique your essay. Choose people who have good writing skills and/or know you well. Knowledge of the admissions process helps, but far more important is the ability to say whether the essay reflects you as a distinctive individual and personality.

After you receive the feedback, weigh the comments. If the professor who barely knows you makes suggestions, is he adding to the uniqueness of the essay or trying to force a square peg into a round hole. And while using clich�s, are your friends trying to make you sound like one? Will their recommendations blend you into the gray mass of applicants? Is a relative for whom English is a second language missing errors commonly made by non-native English speakers?

Don't just willy-nilly start revising the essay in accordance with your critics' comments. Accepted.com editors cringe when clients insert writing errors and weaken content in response to friends' suggestions. The editors then have to undo the damage and re-edit the mess.

Make sure the suggestions you receive improve your essay. Evaluate them critically.

Grad Admission News You Can Use

Professor Salaries

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) announced the results of its annual survey of faculty salaries. The good news: From 1998-99 to 1999-2000, average faculty salaries increased 3.7% and the salaries of continuing faculty increased 4.8%. Average salary levels varied by type of institutions from a high of $66,991 at doctoral universities to a low of $43,278 for colleges without ranks. The report shows that the differences among the different types of schools and between "super-star" and typical faculty are all increasing.

The bad news: Academia continues to lag significantly behind other professions requiring a higher education. By 1997, faculty could expect to earn approximately 24% LESS than other highly educated professionals according to the AAUP report. This figure is slightly less than double the disparity reported in 1985.

Becoming a prof may be rewarding and exactly what you want to do, but fulfilling your ambition comes with a certain price tag – above and beyond the tuition bill.

Law Admissions News You Can Use

Lawyer or Venture Capitalist?

The Industry Standard had a fascinating article in April on Silicon Valley legal firms blurring the line between financial adviser, owner, and transactional lawyer – and making a fortune. In addition to charging for their time, these leading firms, specifically Venture Law Group ("VLG"), invest in their clients, usually asking for and getting founders' equity. The firm also allows individual lawyers to invest personally.

Since these investments have proved phenomenally profitable, Venture Law is starting to "outplace" (i.e. cease to work for) old clients without the equity potential of the new ones.

You can read the details at the Industry Standard Web site.

By the way, the following week The Standard had a very different article: "The Vultures are Circling" about the opportunities for bankruptcy lawyers who feed off dot-com carcasses.

MBA Admissions News You Can Use

Class of 2003 — What You Should Do NOW

1. Prepare for and take the GMAT. The GMAT counts, although a high score does not guarantee admission. Even if you are Ms. Talented with great experience, extra-curriculars, and grades, you are better off applying with a high GMAT than a low one. Give it the time and preparation it deserves.
2. Research the schools so that you know which ones will best serve your needs. Read their brochures, go through their Web sites, talk to current students and alumni, visit the b-school section at Business Week. In August, the applications for the next application season should start to appear for downloading.
3. Reflect on your goals, accomplishments, and reasons for pursuing an MBA. Know thyself. Jot down some notes on your accomplishments, reasons, goals, etc.
4. Review the MBA material found in our MBA Section. Of particular interest at this point in the application process would be the transcript of the first chat with Maxx Duffy.
5. Approach your recommenders. Ask them if they are willing to write a positive letter of recommendation on your behalf. Tell them that you will need the letters by September or October.

Socially Conscious Business Plan Competition

Articles about greedy, money-grubbing, wannabe dot-com millionaires competing for that first round of funding usually emerge from business school competitions, but I read recently about a different competition: The Haas Social Venture Business Plan Competition for social and environmental ventures. (It figures that the competition takes place at Berkeley, doesn't it?)

Students from around the country competed for the $10,000 first prize. According to the Wall Street Journal, the businesses had to be "'mission- driven, self-sustaining and profitable'" and they had to show "quantifiable social or environmental return on investment." Now that's tough! They have to be profitable — novel concept for a new company — and do good.

The top three winners:

1. easyDiabetes, an Internet based diabetes management system.
2. Ripple Effects, develops interactive games for troubled youths.
3. Xtracycle, sells a utility bike with big cargo capacity to encourage people abandon their car in favor of an Xtracycle.

Now, on to the VCs...

Med Admissions News You Can Use

Finances Ail Med Schools

Odds 'N Ends has frequently covered the financial challenges facing different medical schools, including Stanford Medical School's flirtation with probationary status, but this year's US News & World Reports' graduate school ranking issue has an article that discusses financial problems at different med schools and the impact of those problems on medical students and residents attending them. The article also gives tips on how to choose a medical school with an eye towards its financial health.

Primary Care — Who Teaches it Best?

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who teaches primary care best of all?"

Two very different rankings of primary care medical schools appeared during the last month: AMSA's and US News'. AMSA ranks the schools based on the percent of medical students who become primary care physicians.

US News has a more complicated formula which includes the percentage of grads entering primary care, but also considers reputation, admissions statistics, faculty resources, etc.

AMSA Top Ten in Primary Care (Allopathic Schools only)

School % PC

1. Univ of Illinois – Rockford 74.1%
2. Morehouse School of Medicine 68.95
3. Einstein College 68.6
4. Meharry Medical College 67.8
5. SUNY – Stony Brook 67.0
6. Univ of Washington 64.0
7. Mercer Univ. 63.7
8. Univ of Missouri – Kansas 62.9
9. UCLA 62.7
10. Wright State 62.6

US News Top Ten in Primary Care

School:

1. Univ of Washington
2. Harvard
3. Oregon Health Sciences Univ
4. UCLA
5. Mayo Medical
6. Univ of Iowa
7. Univ of Massachusetts – Worcester
8. UNC – Chapel Hill
9. Johns Hopkins
10. Michigan State U College of Osteopathic Medicine
11. UCSF*

* 9,10,and 11 tied according to US News.

For Your Enjoyment

Barbara Rona forwarded a poem to me, and I excerpted the following verses from the complete version. It is by an unknown author, who obviously struggled to master the English language. You may identify with the author's frustration:

English Is Tough Stuff
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
...

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spiky?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough:
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!

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