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
Essay Tip of the Month
Resume 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

Coming Soon to Accepted.com

Accepted.com is redesigning its Web site to serve you better and will add the following features, plus much more...

Resume Section

The resume tip feature that Odd 'N Ends launched last month is just the tip of the iceberg. Accepted.com will add a complete resume/cover letter section to its Web site by summer's end. ETA: September

College Section

We have had many requests for a section devoted to high school students applying to college. So if you have younger siblings and cousins or simply know someone applying soon to college, please send them to Accepted.com for advise on writing their college application essay. ETA: September

Press Section

Short, succinct nuggets and background information — just for journalists.
ETA: September

Online Billing System

Many of you have been surprised that you could not purchase Accepted.com services online. Well, soon you will be able to do so. One more way to serve you better. ETA: August.

Essay Tip of the Month

The Essential Laser
Last month's tip dealt with information gathering for your essay(s). If you answered all the questions in that article, you should have far more material than you can use. How do you sift through it all? How do you ensure that your essay is a tight coherent whole and not a mish-mash of unrelated events, reflections, and activities?

Use the "writer's laser." No, this instrument is not some high-tech device out of a Steven Spielberg movie; it is a clearly defined theme that you relentlessly stick to. The theme is the main point of each essay, and when sharply focused and followed, it almost guarantees a cogent essay.

So what comprises a good theme? Insightful reflection about seminal events, people, achievements, and challenges that distinguish you from your competition.

Don't do a survey of EVERY experience. For each essay, choose the one to three critical influences/events/experiences — depending on the question and the subject's importance — that really stand out and best support that essay's theme.

Focus a thin beam on what really counts. Like a laser.

Resume Tip of the Month

In Resume Writing, First and Foremost, Quantify
Imagine. You are reviewing resumes to fill a position, and three of them discuss cycle time reduction using the following language:

Reduced cycle time significantly.
Reduced cycle time by 10%.
Reduced cycle time by 10% in one year.

Which of the above statements gives you the greatest confidence? Of course, the third. The second works too. By comparison, the first statement seems meaningless, flimsy. Imagine a whole resume of such empty statements!

A resume without any quantified achievements rings hollow. No matter what your line of work or type of experience, your resume must contain at least some numbers-oriented achievements to make a strong impression. You don't have to be in finance to have quantifiable achievements. In fact, there are many more ways to quantify than might seem obvious at first. Here are some tips and examples of ways to present experience in quantified achievements:

• Responsibility for money. "Responsible for department's travel budget of $100K/year."
• Size of deals. "Departmental representative on international deal team for $10.5 million acquisition. "
• Improvement. "Managed training program that reduced errors 5%" — and if you can say "in six months" all the better!
• Time (or cycle time) reductions. This isn't just for manufacturing, either: "Reduced customer response time by 10%"; "reduced average contract negotiation from two weeks to one week."
• Staff size. "Managed six engineers and ten support staff."
• Success rates. "95% of students passed course." Even better if you can add, "compared with national standard of 85%."
• Content of job. "Developed 10 to 15 book manuscripts per year."

The numbers don't have to be humongous — presenting reasonable, credible figures gives your resume the requisite professional patina.

So examine every aspect of your experience and ask yourself how you can quantify each. In fact, that is the easy part! Much trickier, as you'll learn here next month, is capturing those qualitative achievements.

Grad Admission News You Can Use

Graduate Science Enrollment Drops

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the National Science Board is concerned that declining enrollment in graduate programs in science and engineering may exacerbate a shortage of advanced skilled workers in those fields.

The report cited a 6.5 percent drop from 1993 to 1997 in graduate enrollment in science and engineering — from 435,886 in 1997 to 407,644 in 1997. Furthermore the report says that a sharp drop in foreign-born students entering these programs contributed to the drop — along with the hot economy and a lack of faculty positions.

While the NSB is concerned about the decline's long-term economic impact, the numbers mean one thing for graduate science and engineering applicants when they apply and when they graduate: opportunity.

Faculty Survey

The College and University Personnel Association (CUPA) reports that faculty salaries at 501 surveyed, private, four-year institutions averaged $56,308. Among the 428 institutions that also participated in the annual survey in 1998-99, salaries overall increased 3.2%.

Law professors lead the ranks in earning power with an average annual salary of $102,513. Other top earners were:

Business Management and Administrative Services/ Financial Management and Services		$84,762
Health Professions and Related Sciences/Public Health		$84,018
Engineering/Chemical Engineering		$80,931
Business Management and Administrative Services/ Enterprise Management and Operation		$77,737

Unlike the salary survey that we discussed in May, the CUPA report breaks down salaries by discipline. For further details, please visit
http://www.cupahr.org/ftp/NFSSprex00.pdf.

Law Admissions News You Can Use

Summer Associates' Taxing Schedules

The Wall Street Journal had a cheery article recently on the tough demands placed on legal summer associates. The recruiting activities sponsored by top corporate law firms can really wear out a first or second year law school student working as a summer intern. Expensive lunches, lavish dinners, buttery breakfasts, elegant cocktail parties, jazz jamborees, theater events... The list goes on and on.

Of course the firms really have to exert themselves to attract top law graduates. After all they are paying $125,000 plus bonus per year to first year associates...and requiring them to work eighteen-hour days.

MBA Admissions News You Can Use

Starting Salaries for HBS MBAs

Businessweek reported that HBS members of the Class of 2000 are starting their new jobs with a median income of $140,000 per year.
(http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/bschnews.htm).

Lowering the Bar

Businessweek Online reports that leading business schools are going to change gears this year: After years of requiring at least three years of work experience, they have decided to start accepting applicants with as little as two years of work experience. The change represents a response to a leveling off in the number of American applicants and an attempt to attract a higher percentage of women.

For the complete article, please visit Businessweek.

Michigan Experimenting with GMAT Supplement

Disappointed with a GMAT that doesn't reflect your ability and leadership potential? Still hoping to attend a top b-school? Wait a couple of years. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the University of Michigan Business School is experimenting with another test, nicknamed the "common sense" test, which tests responses to actual business situations.

Michigan administered the test to all entering MBA students in Fall 1999 and will administer it again to all entering students in Fall 2000. It intends to see whether success on this new test correlates with grades and extracurricular leadership activities as well as job offers.

Strategic Alliance in MBA Education

The University of Michigan Business School, the Haas School at the University of California/Berkeley, and the University of Virginia's Darden School are collaborating on three e-business courses. In the best b-school, e-commerce tradition, the schools are leveraging the strengths of each institution in offering the courses simultaneously via video and "web classroom" on the three campuses.

Of course this arrangement, if it spreads and becomes more common among business schools, does raise interesting questions about the value of attending a particular school and about branding at the schools. For example, students rejected from Haas and accepted to Michigan could take classes at Haas, without leaving the snowy environs of Ann Arbor. I guess it still isn't quite the same... But this collaboration is opening interesting possibilities in MBA education.

Med Admissions News You Can Use

Residency Work Rules Draw Scrutiny

Yahoo News reports that physicians-in-training programs are frequently cited for not complying with work rules for residents. The Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) cited 53% of pediatric surgery programs, 36% of general surgery programs and 30% of internal medicine programs for violating work hour limits.

At a time when medical errors and associated fatalities are drawing increasing attention, violations of these work rules are also attracting their share of the spotlight, especially when the rules for some specialties, specifically internal medicine, create a generous work hour maximum of 80 hours per week.

NYU School of Medicine Launches Humanism in Medicine Program

Aided by a $2 million grant from the Pfizer Foundation, NYU School of Medicine announced the creation of the NYU School of Medicine Master Scholars Program. Outstanding physicians who are noted for their scholarship and are considered leaders in the field of humanistic medicine will lead the program, which will draw on NYU faculty and visiting faculty from other institutions.

The Master Scholars will develop/assess a four-year course called "The Physician, the Patient, and Society," which will integrate instruction in clinical medicine with a wide range of humanistic concerns. In addition, the scholars will establish Master Societies focused on specific themes in humanistic medicine and develop other courses.

Dr. Steven Abramson, Vice Dean for Medical Education at NYU, explains the program's goal, "Our plan is to integrate humanism into everything that medical students learn."

Chat Transcripts

During June Accepted.com hosted two excellent chats: one with Dr. Cynthia Lewis, president of a medical school admissions consultancy, and Dr. Mark Goldstein, author of the Definitive Guide to Medical School Admissions, MIT pre-med advisor, and Harvard Medical School faculty member.

ETA: July 15, 2000

For Your Enjoyment

Thanks for Sharing

From an Acceptee,

"I wish to share with you my happiness which you must know! I have been accepted for doctoral studies in the field of Pharmacy Administration at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. A teaching assistantship with tuition waiver is awarded to me.

"II have been reading Odds 'N Ends for more than a year and it has helped me so much!

Congratulations!

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