What makes Berkeley-Haas the right MBA program for you?

Speaking to prospective students, I am often asked what makes our program unique. I could speak for hours on this—just take a look at our program, our students, and our alumni!

Instead, I like to ask applicants this: What brings out the best in you? Where will you thrive?  The kind of community, learning, and living environment that enables you to excel professionally and personally is the right one for you.

In evaluating if we are the best fit for you, consider the following:
Culture—Our mission and guiding principles are reflected in our students, faculty, staff, and alumni. How would you thrive in our community? Do you challenge the status quo, go beyond yourself, have confidence without attitude, and strive to be students always?

Location—The San Francisco Bay Area gives our students access to a multitude of industries, and has the highest density of venture capital firms in the world.  Do you want to be part of a world-renown institution in proximity to one of the most progressive and innovative places in the world?

Teaching methods—We use a combination of teaching methods – experiential learning, case study, and lecture – so you will be intellectually engaged in a variety of ways and with multiple approaches. How do you learn most effectively? Do you want real-world, hands-on experience as part of your curriculum?

As you begin to answer these questions, you will know if what makes Berkeley-Haas unique is the right program for you. So know yourself!  Self-reflection is critical in order to identify the best environment for you. And get to know us better. Do your research and clearly understand what our program has to offer. Dig into our website—mba.haas.berkeley.edu/whyberkeley. Check out our podcasts and chats and other online forums. Get to know members of the community—reach out to our student ambassadors, meet us on the road, or meet us on campus. You can learn more about these opportunities on our homepage under Meet us.

Good luck!
-Erin

Submitting your Strongest Application

I just returned from a few recruitment events in Europe and met some amazing prospective students.  This is the time of year when most prospective students are seeking application advice so here are some of the tips I like to share:

Apply as early as possible, but make sure your application is the strongest it can be before applying.  For example, if your application would be stronger in Round 2, don’t rush to submit in Round 1.  Your best application is better than a rushed application!   Keep in mind that most of our offers of admission are made out of Rounds 1, 2, and 3, although even Round 3 is becoming increasingly more competitive from year to year.

Get to know Berkeley-Haas.  We want to know why Berkeley-Haas is a good fit for you both personally and professionally.  Genuinely knowing our program, our community, and our culture’s 4 Defining Principles with help you craft a stronger application.

Take your time with the essays.  We want to get to know you through your essays so be sure to be honest, genuine, and share examples that will really represent you.  Remember to answer the questions, don’t just write what you think we want to hear   and give yourself enough time for multiple essay revisions.  Seek feedback on your essays from close friends, family, and colleagues.  Ask them if your essays really represent you.

Pick recommenders who know you well.  We usually see stronger and more compelling examples when a recommender has worked closely with you.  Take some time to meet with your recommenders to discuss your professional accomplishments and why you’re pursuing an MBA.  And, just as you want to give yourself enough time to write strong essays, give your recommenders enough time to write strong recommendation letters.

Of course the best advice is to enjoy the self-reflection process!

We look forward to reading your application and meeting you at one of our upcoming events or on campus!

- Kara

LGBT Workshop this Saturday!

On Saturday, October 1st, Haas will be holding its first of three diversity workshops, the LGBT Workshop. This event will take place from 10am-4pm on campus and is open to the public. The LGBT Workshop is geared toward any individual who is planning to pursue or thinking about pursuing an MBA at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.  Attendees will have an opportunity to learn more about graduate studies in business management in all three Berkeley MBA programs: Full-Time, Evening & Weekend, and Berkeley-Columbia Executive.

This year the theme for the diversity workshops is “The Journey toward an MBA”.  The workshops will equip you with a framework to evaluate if, why, and when an MBA is the right path for you.

Saturday’s workshop will be run primarily by one of our student clubs, Q@Haas. Jeff Denby, MBA ‘08, will be the keynote speaker.  Jeff is the Chief Creative Officer & Founder at PACT Apparel.  We are excited to have Jeff back on campus for the day!

We hope you’re able to join us this Saturday for the LGBT Workshop, or for our Women’s Workshop or Diversity Workshop later this fall.

-Jessica

UC Berkeley is Named a Military Friendly School

Berkeley-Haas strives to attract and enroll a diverse student body, so we were thrilled to learn that the University of California at Berkeley was recently named a military friendly school by G.I. Jobs, ranking in the top 15% of over 7,000 schools surveyed.  According to G.I. Jobs, U.C. Berkeley offers veterans “the best education, value, and welcome” among U.S. colleges and universities.  Haas is also proud to support the Yellow Ribbon Program and Post-9/11 GI Bill providing financial assistance to U.S. Veterans.  Prospective veteran applicants are encouraged to connect with the Haas Veterans Club to learn more or view a profile of a recent vet graduate Bernie Murphy, MBA 2011.  We appreciate your service and invite you to explore the value of the Berkeley MBA.

- Morgan

Meet Us on the Road or Online

We have a busy travel schedule this year with information sessions and fairs around the world. Since we try to reach as many prospective students as possible, but are not able to get to every location, we just hosted several virtual information sessions for prospective students in locations where our travels won’t take us.  The admissions team was joined by alumni and students for interactive sessions, similar to our in-person information sessions.  As always, the students and alums are amazing! I am continually impressed by our Berkeley-Haas community in every corner of the world.

This online presence is certainly growing!  Things such as chats, blogs, podcasts, and social media platforms give us such a broad reach. We hope more prospective students will choose to leverage these resources.  Of course, we’d love to meet you in person too! See you on the road or online!

- Kara

 

Visit Berkeley-Haas

Come experience Berkeley-Haas for yourself and visit us on campus! Our information sessions start this week, and our lunch and class visit programs begin on September 12.  The fall 2011 class visit schedule should be posted by Friday, September 9, 2011 – so check it out!  The program is coordinated by our fabulous group of Haas Student Ambassadors (HSAs).  Learn more about the Haas Student Ambassadors (HSAs).

 - Cindy Jennings Millette

Fall 2012 Application Now Available

Our application is now available!

For those of you planning to apply, you may want to review our essay questions and start crafting your essays.  You’ll notice a greater focus on our Defining Principles: confidence without attitude, question the status quo, students always, and beyond yourself.

Here are a few tips to learn more about our culture and Defining Principles:

• Meet us at one of our admissions events around the world this fall.  Erin and I are headed to South America this weekend.  If you’re in Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Sao Paulo, or Rio, introduce yourself — we’d love to meet you!
• Visit us on campus.  Our information sessions start August 29, and our lunch and class visit programs start September 12.
• Join us for an online chat for prospective MBA students on August 24 at 9:00am Pacific Time
•  Connect with our students

Best wishes for a successful application!  We hope to meet you this fall as we travel around the world.

– Stephanie

Defining the Wait

As we have now completed our first two rounds, we are getting a lot of inquiries about our waitlist so I thought it might be helpful to offer some waitlist words of wisdom.

What being on the waitlist DOES mean:

You are in a great place—it’s true! If you are on the waitlist, you have impressed the admissions committee and are considered a strong candidate for admission. There may be some outstanding questions the committee has about your application or there may be some areas of your application that are weaker in comparison to the pool—we believe these questions and weaknesses can be addressed while on the waitlist.

You have a great opportunity to strengthen your candidacy so go for it—it’s true! There are several ways to do so—retake the GMAT or TOEFL; submit additional letters of recommendation; get involved, get promoted, get more responsibility!

You still have a good chance of being admitted—it’s true! We admit applicants from the waitlist every year.

What being on the waitlist DOES NOT mean:

You don’t have a chance of being admitted—it’s not true! We admit applicants from the waitlist every year.

You are eligible for feedback on your application now—it’s not true! You will be eligible for feedback on your application over the summer, however as a strict policy we do not offer specific feedback on any applications during the admissions process as we are still reviewing applications and simply don’t have the resources to do so.

You should contact the admissions office every day to communicate your interest in Haas—it’s not true! We do love to hear from you and it is entirely appropriate to let us know of any updates to your application and of your interest in Haas. However use solid judgment for how to best convey your updates and interest.

We really appreciate your patience! Good luck!

—Erin

Round 2 Update

We’re well into our Round 2 applicant review, and I wanted to take a moment to update you on our process.

Round 2 interview invitations started going out last month and will continue to go out through the end of this month. We know this is an anxious waiting period and we are pushing to make sure the majority of our interview invites go out by next week. It takes us time to thoroughly review each application, and in some cases, applicants may receive an invitation to interview close to our notification deadline (the earlier or later you are invited to interview is no indication of how strong an applicant you are). We carefully review each file, and each application is read by at least two members of our team. Given the volume of applications, it simply takes time to get through each one in a comprehensive manner. We greatly appreciate your patience throughout this process!

We’ve also moved up our first admit weekend, Days at Haas, by over a month. It will be held the first weekend in March… which, as all Round 2 applicants are aware, overlaps with our Round 2 notification deadline. Because of this, we will start notifying Round 2 admits on a rolling basis in hopes that some of our Round 2 admits can join us for Days at Haas. Ideally we would notify everyone at the same time, but we are still reviewing Round 2 applications and making decisions. I want to stress that the timing of your notification is in no particular order and we will do our best to reach you as soon as we can. Since we will not be able to reach everyone in time, we will also host a second Days at Haas in April for Round 2 and Round 3 admits. We still plan to release all remaining Round 2 applicant decisions on March 3rd.

So far we’re off to a great start this year and are excited for another impressive class. Thank you for your interest in the Berkeley MBA Program, and we wish you the best of luck in the application process!

—Stephanie Fujii

Dispelling Myths About Interview Invitations

Our office is busy preparing for our “Super Saturday” admissions interview day this weekend so I thought I’d take this opportunity to share with you some myths about our general interviewing process.

MYTH #1: Super Saturday interviews hold more weight than other interviews
FALSE – Candidates invited to Super Saturday are round 2 applicants who typically reside in the US, but outside the Bay Area. This gives them an opportunity to travel to campus for an interview during a weekend. Though we wish we could extend this opportunity to all of our candidates invited to interview, rest assured that a Super Saturday interview holds equal weight to an interview conducted with an alumnus in your local area or with a student on campus.

MYTH #2: All interview invitations for round 2 applicants have already been extended
FALSE – Our interview invitations are extended on a rolling basis all the way up to the notification deadline. So, for round 2 applicants who haven’t heard from us yet, don’t fret! We put a great deal of time and effort into reading your applications so interview invitations will continue to go out through the month of February. We appreciate your patience with us through this process!

MYTH #3: Receiving an interview invitations means I’m guaranteed an offer of admission
FALSE – To shed light on the number of interviews we conduct (and to perhaps quash the wild speculation running rampant on some other blogs), we have historically invited 20-30% of our applicant pool to interview. From there, we typically offer admission to 40-60% of candidates who have been interviewed. Receiving an offer of admission is a competitive process, but being invited to interview should certainly be viewed as an indication of the strength of your candidacy!

For more information, our Director of Admissions, Stephanie Fujii, offers some tips for successful interviewing. Best of luck!

—Corinne