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Metaphors
Let's take a few tips to discuss techniques that will spice up your writing. This month: metaphors.

Metaphors -- and their close cousins, similes -- concretize abstractions by relating those ideas to common experience. This month I had a tragic occasion to see metaphors in action. A young man we know passed away after an intermittent, eight-year battle with cancer and the after-effects of intensive chemotherapy.

At the memorial service, three teachers, both grandfathers, and his father and mother eulogized him. The teachers presented him as brilliant student, a role model and inspiration, a truly righteous human being. The aging grandfathers both spoke of their pain at burying a grandchild.

However, the young man's mother and in particular his father went far beyond the narrow, albeit admirable, images presented by the prior speakers. The father, a screenwriter, sketched a far fuller picture of a young man with broad interests and wit, a young man who hated what illness had wrought, but accepted his fate without complaint and with profound faith.

How did the father humanize his son? Through metaphors. He spoke about the Snoopy book on the end table and the Bronte DVD that was on top of it. He spoke about the oxygen equipment that his son needed to breathe during the last year of his life. He spoke about how his son hated looking in the mirror because medication had bloated and distorted his features, robbing him of his good looks. He spoke of the religious texts and tapes that his son loved to study and discuss with the steady stream of visitors who came to see him.

Through items specific and yet ordinary, common but revealing, he created a picture of his son that the others, frankly more gifted speakers, had not succeeded in painting. My children did not know the young man, but they both commented, as did many others, on the father's success in humanizing his son and making him a real person.

Use images, common objects, and ordinary experiences metaphorically in your essay to concretize abstractions, demonstrate qualities, reveal values, and humanize yourself. Using metaphors in a personal statement or application essay can make your essay more compelling and transform you into a multi-dimensional human being. It is also a far happier use than my tragic example.
 

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Add Polish to Your Resume with the Right Approach to "Education"
You work for days on the "Professional Experience" section of your resume, selecting substantive anecdotes and quantifying where possible. You write a lively "Summary of Qualifications" to entice the reader to look seriously at your experience. After all that effort, the "Education" section is a routine formula, right? Yes and no. It rarely is the "clincher" that will move a reader to call you for an interview. But done right, it can strengthen a positive impression and add polish to your presentation.

There are some "Education" section basics that apply to all resumes:

. Note degrees in reverse chronological order.
. Provide the full name of the university or school, followed by the city and state (or city and country if overseas), and note the year.
. Be consistent in how you designate the degrees, i.e., if you abbreviate one, do so for all.

Those few rules leave a lot open to judgment.

Where to place the "Education" section? Most of the time, it will follow the "Professional Experience" section. However, if you are a recent graduate (within the past two to three years) and the degree is a qualification for the position, it should come first, after any introductory sections such as "Objective" or "Summary of Qualifications."

What information should the "Education" section contain? For a recent grad, it should contain your major (and any minors and/or certificates) and any honors. Then there are "optionals" you can add: GPA (overall and/or departmental, when it is in the 3.3+ range), senior thesis, coursework, research and teaching assistantships, overseas study, etc. However, this section is not the place to delineate your extra-curricular activities. If you graduated over five years ago, the section should state your degree and your major. If you earned honors such as cum laude, it may follow the degree. If you want to de-emphasize your major, just note the school, degree, and date earned.

What about non-degree learning? The items listed in "Education" should refer to formal academic education, even if it does not lead to a degree. So if you took courses in social work at Hunter College as a non-matriculated student, you would add that item under "Education" if relevant to the position. If you have had non-academic training that you would like to highlight, add a section "Other Training" or "Professional Training" and list the courses there.

You spent a lot of time and effort getting your education. Now put your education to work for you by creating an appropriate, informative "Education" section in your resume.

Cindy Tokumitsu
Senior Editor, Accepted.com
Member, Professional Association of Resume Writers

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Applications!!!
Harvard and Wharton's questions for 2004 are out. Most other schools' questions, if not published already, will be up this month. First deadlines are in October and November. Don't wait to get started on your essays. Contact us ASAP to get an early start when all editors are available.

Visit our catalog for information about our MBA services or sign up at our registration page.
 

Just how appealing is an MBA nowadays?
Businessweek Online reports that applications for this fall's MBA class of 2005 have fallen by as much as 30% at some top schools compared with last year. Schools blame the decline on the economy -- fewer would-be applicants can afford to forgo their salaries or pay annual tuition of $30,000-plus. Additionally, new visa restrictions create obstacles for international applicants. Yet the major reason that many 20-somethings hang on to their jobs, however unrewarding, is that the once-coveted MBA no longer comes with the implicit guarantee of a big-bucks job offer upon graduation.

The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley's student newspaper, sees the situation differently. It claims, based on the results of a nationwide survey administered by Kaplan Test Prep, that the dip in the economy has not tarnished the MBA's reputation for most prospective business school applicants, who still value the MBA degree.

Let's lift the veil of hyperbole and analyze the implications of a decline in application volume. If a top program in 2002 had an acceptance rate of 10% and that school's application volume were to drop by 50% -- a precipitously steep decline -- that school would now have a yield of 20%. And it would still be rejecting 4 out of every 5 applicants. Yes, any decline in the number of applicants will make it easier to gain acceptance, particularly if you are not applying to the elite schools, but if the school you want to attend is rejecting 80% of applicants, there is little cause to celebrate or kick back. The competition is still intense.

Let's also remember that the decline referred to in the BW article is from a record-breaking year. When I spoke to Julia Min of NYU in May, she did not view the decline in applications with even a hint of alarm. She just said matter-of-factly that applications were at 2001 levels. Not too shabby from the school's perspective. The sky is not falling on b-school admissions offices around the land.

On the other hand, if you are a competitive applicant applying to 4-6 schools, your chances of being shut out of all of them are fewer when application volume is down. Furthermore, our economy is cyclical so there is a good possibility that in 2-3 years, hiring will be up. I'm no economist, but it could just be that this year's applicants will have a slightly higher chance of admission at good and great schools and graduate when recruiting and hiring are on the upswing. The sun may be shining on this year's b-school applicants.

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Secondary Essay Editing Help
There's more to your medical school application than the AMCAS. Your secondary essays count too. Give them the care and attention they demand. Obtain the assistance of an experienced admissions professional and seasoned wordsmith. Contact your editor or register today. For information about Accepted.com's essay editing services, please visit our catalog.

Multiple MCATs
Lewis Associates Success Stories had a short piece on how med schools use multiple MCAT scores.

AAMC recently completed a survey of med schools. The schools responded as indicated to the following question: For applicants who have taken the MCAT more than once, which set of MCAT scores does your admissions committee consider?

Most recent ----- 30 ---- 37%
Average --------- 14 ---- 17%
Highest ---------- 17 ---- 21%
All ----------------- 20 ---- 25%
No Response ---- 5

AAMC is following up on this survey to determine which approach is most predictive of success in medical school.

These results show that 42% of the schools that responded will consider, in one form or another, ALL your MCAT scores. Only 21% use the highest exclusively.

Until AAMC completes its follow-up, it is clear that you want to give your first MCAT administration your best shot, not even considering the expense, time, pressure, and sheer torture involved in taking that test. Obviously if you have a bad day and do poorly, you will have to retake. But the MCAT is an exam that requires intensive preparation and deserves your best efforts -- the first time around.

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Law School Forums: Coming soon to a major city near you
New York, NY September 6th & 7th
Atlanta, GA September 19th & 20th
Chicago, IL October 10th & 11th
Boston, MA October 25th
Houston, TX November 8th
San Francisco, CA November 10th
Los Angeles, CA November 14th & 15th

For a more detailed listing of times and locations, please visit LSAC.
 

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Fewer foreign students enroll in U.S. programs this summer
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that a survey conducted by the American Association of Intensive English Programs has found that far fewer foreign students plan to attend intensive English-language programs at colleges in the U.S. this summer. Some officials fear that this is a harbinger of falling foreign enrollments in other programs because of tightened U.S. visa restrictions. While enrollment by foreign students in other college programs remains strong for the time being, nonprofit and for-profit educational institutions reported a 30.5% drop in expected enrollments by foreign students in their summer English-language programs this year.

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US News Dropping Yield From Ranking Calculations
The Washington Post reports that, after years of being blamed for colleges' feverish and sometimes rushed competition to sign up their best applicants, the editors of U.S. News & World Report have decided to stop counting the success of such campaigns in their influential "America's Best Colleges" rankings. U.S. News executive editor Brian Kelly said the new rankings, due in early September, will no longer include a measure called "yield" -- the percentage of students who accept each college's offers of admission.

Since yield "seems to be a figure that schools have tried to manipulate, we figured we might as well just drop it," said Sara Sklaroff, U.S. News education and culture editor. She said an analysis showed that eliminating yield would have little effect on the rankings and buttressed the argument to just drop it from the list of factors.

Given the influence of the U.S. News rankings, which have led some parents to refuse even to visit lower-ranked schools, college admissions experts say the decision may defuse on the debate over early admission programs.

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