Accepted.com Odds 'N Ends

Proofing Your Prose: 5 Errors That Ding

I'm going to tell you trade secrets in this article: the errors Accepted.com editors look for first when we review your essay. This month let's focus on what I call macro editing - substantive, content issues. Next month I'll provide a brief intro to editing on the micro level.

These are the 5 biggest mistakes that we watch for when we review your essays:

1) Evading the question. You're not running for governor of California or any other political office with this essay. Make sure your essays answer all parts of a question.

2) Meandering. Having essays that wander through the pathways and byways of your mind or life might work if you are James Joyce, but fail miserably if you are not. Make sure that each essay has a point and a theme. Then stick to it.

3) The gray flannel generality. Sweeping declarative statements that any applicant can make. Platitudes about the preciousness of life, the universality of man, the centrality of family, the importance of vision and buy-in in leadership . They're a dime-a-dozen in personal statements and application essays. Now don't get me wrong. Those ideals resonate with me, and with most adcom members. However, unless you demonstrate that you uphold them by using specifics, details and anecdotes to prove your point and distinguish you from the masses of applicants, you will write a bland, boring essay. Detail and show-me specifics reveal your values, distinguish you from your competition, and add interest to your essays.

4) Superficiality. Closely related to the gray flannel generality, superficiality means that when asked why you want to pursue a particular goal, you answer, "Because I want to help people." That's nice. It's also necessary, but insufficient. You could become a plumber and help people. Why do you want to help people as a doctor, lawyer (yes, they say they want to help people, too.), psychologist, or even businessperson? Why do you want to attend a particular program? If your answer applies to all the schools you are applying to, it is shallow and you have not done your homework. If you are just cutting and pasting essays to answer different schools' essay questions, you are being lazy. Give the process the time, attention, and thought it requires if you want to get accepted. Superficiality and laziness will not land the fat envelope in your mailbox.

5) Writing what you think they want to hear. This is mistake #1 according to many adcom members. To paraphrase JFK, write what you want them to know; don't write what you think they want to read.

When you proof your prose, look for these fatal errors, and do what we do: get rid of them.

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Proofreading Your Resume

Thank goodness that's over! Writing your resume is almost always harder than you anticipate. After all the time and energy you've invested in preparing your resume, don't skimp on the last step, proofreading. A minor error may go unnoticed - or it may signify to the reader a lack of professionalism and attention to detail. Moreover, because resumes contain varied formatting elements, different types of numbers, and unique spellings, they are especially challenging to perfect.
 

Here are some tips for effective proofreading of resumes.

• Complete all the editing first. Do not proofread while you're "finishing up" the last few changes. Make sure all the content is completely set. Then start the proofreading as a separate task, and give it your full attention.
  
  
• Try to leave some time between the last edit and proofreading. It is too easy to "see" words, punctuation, and graphic elements as you had previously envisioned them if you have just recently worked on the editing.



• Do not rely on you spellchecker; read every word carefully.



• Do not just look for errors. Check for consistency. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation are not like mathematical formulas. You make many choices in writing, e.g., "gray" or "grey," "11-03" or "11/03," "10%" or "10 percent," "PhD" or Ph.D." These are all correct, but if they are not consistent in the resume they will be incorrect. There are choices in other areas such as capitalization, use of commas in a sequence, different kinds of dashes. A resume is more likely to have inconsistencies than actual errors (e.g., a word missing).



• Formatting is an important factor in resumes. In proofreading, also examine the graphic elements for consistency and correctness. These elements include bullet points, rules, boxes, line spacing, margins, fonts, bold, and italics.



• If you are customizing your resume, proofread the whole resume, not just the changes, because it's easy to change a document in unintended ways on the computer.

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

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Michigan, NYU, Chicago, and UT .. Oh My!

Yep. It's an outstanding line-up of chats this month.

Michigan on October 2 with Kris Nebel, Michigan's Director of MBA Admissions; Al Cotrone, UMBS' Director Career Development; and two UMBS students.

NYU on October 8 with Julia Min, Asst. Dean, MBA Admissions, Isser Gallogly, Dir, MBA Full-Time Admissions and NYU Stern students.

Chicago on October 20 with Go Yoshida, Chicago's Assoc. Dir., Admissions; Kurt Ahlm, Senior Assoc. Director of Admissions; Julie Morton, Associate Dean, MBA Career Services; and two Chicago students.

UT on October 27 with Dr. Matt Turner, UT's Director of International Admissions, Elissa Ellis, UT's Assistant Dean, MBA Program, Jamie Belinne, Associate Director, Career Center; and a UT student.

All these chats will be held in the Accepted.com Chat Room at 6:00 PM PST/ 7:00 PM Mountain Time/ 8:00 PM Central Time/ 9:00 PM EST on the date indicated. If you are outside the US, you can determine the time in your locale by visiting http://www.timeanddate.com . For more information, please visit our Chat Schedule Page . We look forward to chatting with you.

If you would like to be added to our chat announcement list, please click here.

Advice on Haas and Darden MBA Admissions

We had two not-to-be-missed chats last month with Haas and Darden. If you are applying to those schools, be sure to review the transcripts. Lots of tips and advice on applying, interviews, school life, post-MBA employment, and much, much more:

Haas Transcript with Pete Johnson, Abby Scott, and students.
Darden Transcript with Dawna Clarke, Everette Fortner, and students.

Current GMAT volume

139,571 GMAT tests have been taken through the first eight months of this year, a 13.43% decrease compared to the number of tests taken during the same time period last year, but relatively similar to the figure for the first eight months of 2001. To view a complete table of four year test-taking trends, both in the US and worldwide, click on the link below.

http://www.gmac.com/gmac/TheGMAT/Tools/YeartoDateGMATVolume.htm

MBA Interview Feedback Database

One of Accepted.com's most valuable resources is its MBA Interview Feedback Database . After completing their interviews, hundreds of MBA applicants to dozens of schools in the U.S., Canada, and Europe have filled out feedback questionnaires. Before you interview, find out what you can expect. And after you interview, please contribute to this valuable resource.

WSJ Rates the B-Schools

The Wall Street Journal has released its annual WSJ/Harris Interactive rankings of corporate recruiters' favorite M.B.A. programs. The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School claimed the top ranking, largely on the strength of its students' financial and analytical skills. Private universities, as usual, dominated the rankings, but public business schools, led by the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, represented 40% of the top 50. Also making the top 50 were six of the top ten international schools.

The top ten schools are listed below.

1. University of Pennsylvania
2. Dartmouth College
3. University of Michigan
4. Northwestern University
5. University of Chicago
6. Carnegie Mellon University
7. Columbia University
8. Harvard University
9. Yale University
10. Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Social Venture Competition Expands Globally

Haas NewsWire reports that the National Social Venture Competition, one of the nation's fastest-growing business plan competitions is expanding globally with a new partner from the United Kingdom. The newly renamed Global Social Venture Competition, a partnership between the Haas School of Business, Columbia Business School and The Goldman Sachs Foundation, is being joined by the London Business School.

Founded by five Berkeley MBA students in 1998, the competition spurs its participants to apply their business acumen to provide solutions to societal and environmental issues. The 2003-04 competition finals will be hosted by the London Business School in London in April, 2004.

For more information please visit: www.socialvc.net

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Johns Hopkins Residency Program to Lose Accreditation

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, the body in charge of policing medical schools' treatment of residents, has told Johns Hopkins University that it plans to strip the internal-medicine residency program at the university's hospital of its accreditation, a decision that would affect 110 residents. In making its statement, the council cited alleged violations of rules about how long residents can work.

David Nichols, vice dean for education at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said he is confident the issue can be resolved without shutting down the program. A Johns Hopkins spokesman, Gary Stephenson, said the university may formally ask the council to reconsider or it may submit a new application to be accredited.

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Law School Admissions Chat

On Tuesday October 21, 2003 at 6:00 PM PST (-7:00 GMT)/7:00 PM Mountain Time/ 8:00 PM Central Time/9:00 PM ET) Accepted.com will host a law school admissions chat. Our special guest will be Accepted.com editor and former Duke Law adcom member, Catherine Cook. Please bring your law school admissions questions. With her extensive experience both at Duke and at Accepted.com, Catherine will be able to provide you with solid answers.

We look forward to chatting with you in the Accepted.com Chat Room on Tuesday October 21.

If you would like to be added to our Law School Admissions Chat announcement list, please click here.

In Search of Diversity on Law Reviews

Should being appointed to the board of a law review be an honor bestowed on students who have the highest grades, or should it be an educational experience reflecting the diversity of students at the law school?

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, this question currently confounds the editors of numerous law journals around the country. While on one hand they want to increase the number of minority students on their staffs, they also do not want to compromise their journals' academic standards.

Although some law reviews that place extraordinary value on ethnic diversity have adopted affirmative-action plans, most law reviews select new members exclusively based on a combination of students' grades and performance in a writing and editing competition held at the end of their first year.

School administrators have yet to intervene regarding this issue, but most, like Vanderbilt law school's dean, Kent D. Syverud, consider it to be "one of the biggest challenges" currently facing their schools.

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NACAC Temporarily Halting Enforcement of Early Action Rule

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) has decided to temporarily stop enforcing its two-year-old rule about early-acceptance admissions programs. A few selective colleges had defied the rule, and many others had contested it. Since 2001, NACAC had required members to allow students who apply under early-action (a nonbinding program at many colleges under which students can apply and receive an early decision from a college but do not pledge to attend if accepted) programs to apply to other colleges' early admission programs as well.

At least three institutions, Harvard, Stanford and Yale, have recently adopted rules that forbid early applicants from applying early elsewhere, despite the fact that NACAC can theoretically expel them for defying NACAC's guidelines. No action has been taken against the three universities.

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