The Touch MBA Admissions Podcast

Get an inside look at how top business schools assess candidates. Interviews with Admissions Directors & students from the world's top ranked MBA programs. Strategies and tips on how to craft a successful application. Straight talk on how to find and get into your target MBA programs.

Rank #1: #106 The GMAT Episode.
How do top business schools use the GMAT to evaluate you? What exactly are they looking for? What do you need to score and on which sections? When should you retake the GMAT? Do schools prefer the GMAT or GRE? Darren asks Admissions Directors from 3 top schools - Michigan Ross (USA), IESE (Spain) and HKUST (Hong Kong) - tough questions about the GMAT. Listen on to get your GMAT questions answered! Son Nguyen from Michigan Ross MBA (4:46) Anjaney Borwankar from IESE MBA (20:30) Gary Lo from HKUST MBA (33:55) GMAT Lessons Learned (50:44) Episode summary, links and more at: http://touchmba.com/gmat Episode Sponsor Save up to thirteen thousand dollars with a low-interest MBA loan from CommonBond. CommonBond has funded over a billion dollars in student loans, and their easy online application only takes minutes.   To learn more, visit http://commonbond.co/TouchMBA CommonBond Lending LLC, NMLS number 1175900.

Rank #2: #83 MBA Essays that Work - Candid Thoughts on Essays, Authenticity and Being Yourself.
With MBA programs shortening their applications and asking for less essays, how can applicants still tell their story? How should applicants approach these MBA essays and what should they write? Darren speaks with Yale SOM MBA Admissions Director Bruce DelMonico, MBA Admissions Consultant and Author Paul Bodine, and successful graduate school applicant John Kaaiohelo to get 3 different perspectives on this common applicant challenge. At the end of the episode, Darren shares his reflections after helping an Admissions Edge member with his 1 Harvard essay. Show Notes #75 Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview with Bruce DelMonico – “Educating Leaders for Business & Society” #47 Great Applications for Business School with Paul Bodine #32 How to Tell Your Best Story with John Kaaiohelo This episode of Touch MBA is brought to you be Prodigy Finance – the leader in education loans for international postgraduate students. Visit prodigyfinance.com to learn more.

GMAT Tuesdays with Kevin

Plan on taking the GMAT? Curious about the test? Then join us for weekly tips on how to improve your skills and prepare for business school!

Rank #1: GMAT Tuesdays: How Long to Study to Increase Your Score.
The question of the week: How much time should you study for the GMAT? The answer: It depends on how much you want to increase your score.

Rank #2: GMAT Tuesdays - How to Prepare for GMAT Verbal.
Today, we are going to talk about how to study for the Verbal Section of the GMAT!

GMAT Prep Now

GMAT Prep Now combines hundreds of high-quality videos with a step-by-step learning guide to make your GMAT preparation as effortless as possible.

Rank #1: Reading Comprehension 10 - Miscellaneous Tips.
Learn additional tips that were not discussed in earlier lessons, and review important tips from earlier lessons.

Rank #2: Data Sufficiency 11 - Avoiding Common Mistakes - Part II.
In this video, you will learn how to avoid more common mistakes that students often make when they begin tackling data sufficiency questions.

Everyday MBA

Entrepreneur and business success techniques and tips that you don't learn in business school.

Rank #1: 2: Create Distinction, Scott McKain.
Best-selling author Scott McKain on creating distinction and his book 7 Tenets of Taxi Terry. Scott tells the story of an epiphanal taxi ride he took with a driver named Terry, and how businesses and entrepreneurs can create success using simple principles to create distinction. Host Kevin Craine. Everyday-MBA.com

Rank #2: 42: How To Work A Room with Susan RoAne.
Episode 42 - Susan RoAne "The Mingling Maven" discusses her classic book How to Work a Room and techniques for better business networking. Susan's Secrets of Savvy Networking is also a best-seller. She was named by Forbes as one of the networking gurus of 2015 and she's sold over 1.2 million books in 13 countries worldwide. Stay tuned after the interview for five action items to take advantage of the ideas and advice in this interview, and hear some bonus comments from Susan in the second half. Host, Kevin Craine@Everyday_MBA

The Business

The Business is a Harvard Business School podcast. Twice a month, host Brian Kenny will bring you a new take on the business world. Through unexpected stories, and conversations with business leaders, entrepreneurs and faculty members, our goal is to inspire listeners to think more broadly about the word business. Thanks for listening!

Rank #1: The Revival of a Salesman: The Importance of Sales and Strategy to Business.
Professor Frank Cespedes sits down to talk to Brian Kenny about his new book “Aligning Strategy and Sales: The Choices, Systems, and Behaviors that Drive Effective Selling” and why sales and strategy are so important to business.

Rank #2: Not Your Basic Business Books.
What books would guests on The Business give as holiday gifts? Listen for what Mitch Weiss, Dan Koh, Nancy Koehn, Max Bazerman, Frank Cespedes, and host Brian Kenny would recommend for the bookworm in your life.

GMAT Preparation

GMAT Preparation

Rank #1: GMAT: Data Sufficiency 3.

Rank #2: GMAT: Data Sufficiency 5.

Admissions Straight Talk

Advice on applying to business, grad, law, and medical school.

Rank #1: Med School Admissions Veteran Shares Her Experience: How to Get In.
Accepted admissions consultant Cydney Foote sheds light on the medical school application process [Show Summary]Are you not quite ready to submit your AMCAS application? Don’t panic. We’ve got the advice you need to polish off your personal statement, MMEs, and activity descriptions. Listen to the podcast for answers to “How many schools should you apply to?” “How should you choose where to apply?” “What’s the difference between the personal statement, the most meaningful experiences, and the activity descriptions.” Plus we’ll give you some tips on how to manage a deluge of secondaries and even your residency personal statement.Cydney Foote shares her tips for applying successfully to medical school [Show Notes]Our guest today, Cydney Foote, has been a medical school admissions consultant since she started at Accepted in 2001. Needless to say, she’s helped hundreds of happy clients get accepted to allopathic and osteopathic medical schools as well as residency programs. During this podcast she’ll address some of the most common questions we get and also some of the most common myths out there about med school admissions.When this show airs it will be June 4. The first day to submit the AMCAS this year was May 31. If applicants haven’t submitted already, are they “late?” Have they missed the boat and is their application already doomed to the reject pile? [2:30]That is a really good question, and people panic about this every year. To be honest it is one of the biggest myths out there that you need to get your application in on the first day. From recent years I know that even those who submitted on June 7th had their information sent the same time as those who submitted the first day. A week or two later than the first submission date is not late, but if you are getting into July and August that is not the ideal time to apply. I’ll also say, though, that it is really important for you to apply when you are ready. If you are a week away from getting what you need, it is far better to submit a week or two into June than start rushing.How do you advise applicants to select the schools they are applying to? [3:55]I look at the stats first – what’s the lowest accepted value of MCAT and cumulative GPA. If it is in the range, then I look at acceptance rates. Are they looking to apply someplace that only accepts a very small percentage of out-of-state applicants, or do they have an overall low acceptance rate? If so, those may not be the top picks. You want to choose a mix of schools where you are competitive, but also a few reach schools. I think a lot of people overweight their reach schools – while they might reach the lowest accepted value, they are not near the mean. Once the quant factors are set, then it is digging into the schools themselves – looking at position statements, or specialties you are interested in. You have to make the connection with what the applicant wants. In-state vs. out-of-state matters, too.Linda: Accepted has the Med School Selectivity Index of almost all allopathic and osteopathic schools, and also tools that show acceptance rates in-state and out-of-state.How many schools do you recommend they apply to or does that vary by client? [7:30]It really varies. Some people just apply to a handful for whatever reason – the fewer you apply to, the more you need the higher stats and connections. I have some who only apply to 3-4 schools because they had done research at the particular schools or have other connections. I think most people who have more average stats apply to 20-25 schools and some to as many as 30 schools. Some apply to a lot of allopathic and osteopathic schools. Keep in mind that you will have secondaries for a lot of those schools and you don’t want to overburden yourself. You can actually stagger your secondaries so they don’t come all at the same time, which is often a good strategy - you only need to select one school for your AMCAS application to be verified.

Rank #2: The Interviewer Becomes the Interviewee.
Accepted Founder Linda Abraham Provides an Inside Look at the World of Admissions [Show Summary]For 299 episodes, Linda Abraham, founder of Accepted, has interviewed school deans, admissions directors, students, and more. Today we learn about her!The Interviewer Becomes the Interviewee [Show Notes]Linda Abraham: This is our 300th episode and since those round numbers seem to beg for special treatment, I decided to do something that members of my staff for several years have asked me to do: Be the interviewee.Jen Weld, Accepted admissions consultant and former assistant/associate director of admissions at Cornell Johnson’s EMBA program is going to be the interviewer. I’m going to turn the mic over to her and climb into the hot seat.Jen Weld: Our “guest” today, Linda Abraham, attended UCLA for both her bachelors in Political Science and her MBA. She started Accepted in 1994 as Linda Abraham & Associates. After putting up Accepted’s first web site in 1996, the company was incorporated as Accepted.com in 1997. Linda is also the co-founder of the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants and the co-author of MBA Admissions for Smarties. She has been sought by the media, including CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, Poets & Quants, Bloomberg Businessweek, and others for her admissions expertise.Linda, welcome to AST!Can you tell us a bit about your background and why you decided to start Accepted? [2:48]When I was a senior in college there was a lot of concern about declining writing abilities based on the “nefarious influence” of television in the 1960s. UCLA, where I was a student, was increasing writing requirements for Poli Sci 1, and I was asked to be a tutor for that course. I was a Poli Sci major but also had taken a lot of English courses for a non-English major. I loved the tutoring and editing work - helping individuals clarify their ideas and get them down on paper was really rewarding to me - but I didn’t think I could make a living at it.I am a child of immigrants, which meant that I needed a defined profession – a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, for example. My parents weren’t very happy when I graduated and I didn’t know what direction I wanted to go in, so they were relieved when I decided to go for an MBA. About halfway through the program I got married, and shortly after graduation in 1979 my husband and I started our family. In the early 90s my husband and I needed some more money to make ends meet. I had gotten my real estate license but was no longer enjoying the work, and I wanted to work from home to be more available for our six children, who at the time ranged in age from 3-12. I decided to go back to editing which I loved, and advertised in UCLA’s paper, the Daily Bruin, and got work. I was frequently asked to edit personal statements and application essays, and I’ve always loved biographies, personal stories, and historical fiction - a lot more fun than research papers! I also experimented with writing experience pieces and studied journalistic techniques. I realized that if applicants applied journalistic techniques to their personal statements and application essays, those pieces would be much more effective.The other major development coming on to the commercial scene at the time was the internet, which removed all geographic boundaries. Initially I was able to work with people maybe 30 minutes away, and suddenly I could work with people in Hong Kong, India, anywhere! Initially we would be faxing applications back and forth. When I started applications were all paper-based, then it was disc-based, and then web-based. Similarly, the way the Accepted team and I communicated with clients evolved over time, from phone/fax to email, Skype, video conferencing, etc.How has admissions evolved? [6:34]One of the biggest differences is that most information about the programs was provided by the schools in the beginning.

University of Chicago Booth School of Business Podcast Series

We're pleased to bring you leading business figures sharing their thoughts and insights into current topics affecting companies and organizations around the globe.

Rank #1: Chicago Booth Podcast - Fireside chat with Mark Leavitt and Danny Meyer.
Mark Leavitt,’83, CIO, Union Square Hospitality and Danny Meyer, CEO, Union Square Hospitality Group and Founder of Shake Shack, share their experiences as part of the Fireside chat series hosted by Alumni relations office. The chat is moderated by Dean Stacey Kole.

Rank #2: Chicago Booth Podcast - Finding meaning in our work: Barry Rowan.
CFO of Coolplanet and former EVP and CFO of Vonage and Nextel, Barry Rowan discusses his experiences as part of Navigating the grey speaker series. He is joined by Linda Rowan, his wife, who is a CPA with experience in public and industry accounting and has served on numerous non-profit boards and committees. The session is chaired by Dean Stacey Kole.

The Insightful Leader

Expert advice and cutting-edge discoveries from one of the world’s leading business schools.

Rank #1: Great Leaders Ask, "What Really Matters?".
Harry Kraemer was CEO of Baxter International in 2001, when the company’s products were linked to a string of deaths worldwide. How did he respond? Kraemer, now a clinical professor of strategy at Kellogg, discusses how to make hard choices that align with your internal compass.

Rank #2: Knock Your Next Business Presentation Out of the Park.
Tim Calkins, a clinical professor of marketing and author of "How to Wash a Chicken: Mastering the Business Presentation," shares five tips that will let you conquer the business presentation.

London Business School podcasts

A series of podcasts, sharing the latest in news and thought leadership from London Business School.

Rank #1: How lean startups can become investment ready.
Angel investor, Non Executive Director of UKTI and LBS alum Dale Murray (JEMBA2000) discusses with London Business School how the emergence of lean startups and crowdfunding have changed the role of angel investors.

Rank #2: Libor: How much did Josef Ackermann know?.
CNN's Richard Quest finds out from Josef Ackermann, Chairman of Zurich Insurance Group; Vice-Chairman of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum about what he knew of the Libor Scandal.

Wharton Business Radio Highlights

Podcasting the best business and management knowledge for your career success from Business Radio Power by the Wharton School on Sirius XM Channel 132. Follow "Wharton Business Radio Highlights" wherever you get your podcasts!

Rank #1: GM CEO Mary Barra Discusses Career, Management, and Diversity.
Women@Work brings you a special interview with Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, live from the Wharton People Analytics Conference 2018! Host Laura Zarrow and co-host Adam Grant talk with Mary about her career, (which started at GM as an 18 year old intern!), how GM uses data to help manage employees, and how she supports diversity in the workplace. Barra is one of three women that presented at this year’s Wharton People Analytics Conference.More info: https://wpa.wharton.upenn.edu/conference/https://www.gm.com/company/leadership/corporate-officers/mary-barra.html

Rank #2: The Future of Real Estate with the National Association of Realtors and Zillow.
Host Christian Terwiesch discusses current innovations and the potential future landscape in the Real Estate industry with Bob Goldberg, CEO of the National Association of Realtors, and Jeremy Wacksman, President of Zillow, on Work of Tomorrow.

Case Interview Preparation & Management Consulting | Strategy | Critical Thinking

Firmsconsulting maintains a 80% success rate at placing clients within McKinsey, BCG and Bain. This is the highest in the industry and the rate is higher if we include other firms. We achieve this rate because we only use former partners from McKinsey, BCG et al to develop our clients. This makes us unique. We never use analysts, associates, engagement managers or associate principals. We also carefully select and develop clients on their communication, image, technical and case interview skills. This podcast channel describes our lessons from training our clients.www.firmsconsulting.com www.strategytraining.com

Rank #1: 274 Interview: How to Become a Management Consultant.
Our managing partner Michael Boricki gave an interview at Accepted, a well known site for MBA admission.

Rank #2: 314: How Firms Judge Candidates During Case Interviews.
In this podcast we discuss how interviewers judge candidates during case interviews. Specifically we look at how they determine whom are the top candidates. SIGN UP FOR OUR EMAIL UPDATES HERE & RECEIVE FREE CASE INTERVIEW TRAINING KEEP IN TOUCH: Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn WANT TO LEARN FROM FORMER STRATEGY PARTNERS? REFER TO THE FIRMSCONSULTING ORIGINAL TRAINING PROGRAMS.

The Strategy Skills Podcast: Management Consulting | Strategy, Operations & Implementation | Critical Thinking

The Strategy Skills Podcast is the channel where strategy partners teach you the tools and techniques to solve mankind’s greatest problems. Learn all the skills of McKinsey and BCG consultants without having to work at a consulting firm. The podcast teaches both technical analyses and soft skills like communication.Each week we discuss concepts to help listeners advance their strategy, operations and implementation skills, enhance their critical thinking ability and build their executive presence. We also dissect individual consulting studies in great detail so you can replicate them with confidence. www.firmsconsulting.com www.strategytraining.com

Rank #1: 1: Bill Matassoni on Competitive and Comparative Advantage, Why Strategy is Less Analytic than it Seems and how McKinsey Really Makes Decisions.
One of the great privileges of our unique network is that we have access to some of the most eminent former partners like Kevin Coyne and Bill Matassoni. We adopt their insights when designing our case training and strategy training programs. Our goal at Firmsconsulting is to allow our members access to the partners from whom we seek advise.  This is an exclusive interview that Bill Matassoni recently had with Firmsconsulting where he shared some counter-intuitive concepts you will not hear anywhere else. Bill Matassoni was the partner who was involved in developing and implementing the McKinsey philosophy that helped the firm pull ahead of BCG in the 1980s and 1990s. He was thereafter the partner who led BCG's efforts to overtake McKinsey. This insightful, inspiring and counter intuitive podcast explains the steps McKinsey took in the 1980s to reposition the firm. Planning is meaningless unless you know what to plan. You need a point of differentiation and you need to consistently drive that difference. Competitive advantage is wrong to pursue. You need to look for comparative advantage.  See if you can extract those lessons from this podcast. Bill Matassoni started his career in management consulting in 1980 when he joined McKinsey & Company. He was a partner there for almost 20 years, focusing on the branding of professional services. He was responsible for building McKinsey’s reputation and protecting its brand, which included publishing the McKinsey Quarterly. In doing so he worked closely with many of his colleagues worldwide including Tom Peters, Jon Katzenbach, Kenichi Ohmai, John Sawhill, John Stucky, and John Hagel. He was also responsible for much of McKinsey’s internal communications. This included the creation of McKinsey’s systems to manage and disseminate its practice knowledge. These efforts are described in an HBR case study. He left McKinsey to join Mitchell Madison Group, a strategy consulting firm he helped to take public through its sale to USWeb/CKS in 1999. He then joined The Boston Consulting Group, where he headed for over five years a group responsible for innovation, marketing and communications. As at McKinsey, Bill Matassoni worked closely with several of BCG’s thought leaders — George Stalk, Michael Silverstein, Philip Evans, Yves Morieux, Hal Sirkin and others — to develop their ideas and turn them into consulting assignments. Bill Matassoni retired from BCG a few years ago and founded The Glass House Group, a consulting firm that helps professional service firms with branding and marketing issues. At one of his clients, Tapestry Networks, Bill has become a senior advisor.  Bill Matassoni is a graduate of Phillips Andover (1964), Harvard College (B.A. Literature, 1968) and Harvard Business School (M.B.A., 1975). For many years Bill Matassoni was on the board of trustees of United Way of America and United Way International. He is now on the board of trustees of First Book and a senior advisor to Ashoka, an organization that invests in social entrepreneurs. He is also on the Board of Advisors of The Demand Institute, a non-profit funded by The Conference Board and Nielsen. He remains interested in the management and marketing of professional services firms, social marketing and healthcare reform. If you have never had the opportunity to meet Marvin Bower, and that would apply to most of McKinsey's current partners, Bill's thinking is the second best thing to have access to. In this wide ranging interview, Bill Matassoni and I discuss the following about the strategy, culture, values, mistakes and problems of McKinsey and BCG:  McKinsey & Co. How a partner's background shapes his or her viewpoint The old influence of HBR on a consulting brand's position Bill's unconventional path into McKinsey and BCG Managing versus inspiring other senior partners Working with senior partners from McKinsey like Ron Daniels, Fred Gluck, Herb Ensinger, Kenichi Ohmae, Tom Peters, Bob Waterman, Lowell Bryan, Tom Steiner and Marvin Bower Insightful new anecdotes and stories not published before How to get partners to build a firm's position and knowledge Competitive advantage in management consulting The problem with trying to position a firm as a consulting firm McKinsey problems in recent times and lack of differentiation Why strategy is less analytic than it seems WSJ vs. The Economist vs. HBR for eminence The Fortune Magazine story that changed McKinsey's profile What is McKinsey's point of differentiation - it is not analytics or strategy How to build a leadership factory Why all the books about McKinsey, like "The Firm", completely miss the mark Anecdotes about Marvin Bower Using actions to build principles versus using principles to build actions The problem with marketing in consulting How McKinsey really makes decisions and tests them aka how to know when you are junior How to bring about change in traditional businesses with deep histories BCG The difference between BCG and McKinsey BCG's strengths and weaknesses What is BCG's culture How positioning drives operational decisions Managing practice meetings And much, much more. If you found this piece interesting, please post comments and questions. We will be interviewing other very senior ex-partners of McKinsey and BCG, and will use these comments as an input for future interviews. We also use comments and social shares to determine if a series should be pursued. If you would like us to interview another BCG or McKinsey ex-partner, corporate executive or renowned athlete please let us know. Hope you enjoyed it.  Michael

Rank #2: 83: Netflix's strategy. Discussion with Bill Matassoni (former McKinsey and BCG senior partner).
PLEASE KINDLY NOTE: The sound was not very clear at times but we decided to still release this free podcast so those interested can have an opportunity to hear this discussion. Every now and then, someone comes along and makes the subject of #management both fun and insightful. That’s what Bill Matassoni has done in his memoir—a combination of compelling stories and contrarian substance—that covers his forty-year career selling what he calls “ephemeral things.” In addition to the memoir, Bill plays host to a series of videos and podcasts that are entertaining, irreverent, and filled with his conviction that #marketing is the primary driver of progress in both commercial and social #markets. We released Bill Matassoni's memoir and documentary series, as well as number of free podcasts. If you would like to read a bonus chapter from Bill's memoir, view advance content and receive other exclusive strategy material prepared by former partners from major consulting firms, you can sign up for email updates. Strategy Skills iTunes channel is ranked among top 5-10 in many countries around the world for #careers. https://www.firmsconsulting.com

strategy+business/Knowledge@Wharton Podcasts

strategy+business Media, a unit of the global strategy and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, publishes a quarterly magazine, Web site (www.strategy-business.com), books, and, in conjunction with Knowledge@Wharton, this series of podcasts. The s+b/K@W podcasts draw on the insights of experts at Booz Allen and the Wharton School to bridge the gap between theory and practice in contemporary global business.

Rank #1: Business in the Middle East.
Despite the ongoing global recession, the Middle East "is still one of the better places to be," according to Joe Saddi, chairman of Booz & Company and managing director of the firm's Middle East business. In an interview with Knowledge@Wharton conducted during the recent Wharton Global Alumni Forum in Dubai, Saddi noted that although sectors such as real estate and tourism have been hit hard, the region's underlying growth fundamentals remain positive. And although Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) companies will need to be prudent and maintain enough cash to weather the current storm, now is the perfect time for them to "go on the offensive" and "take advantage of the recession to acquire or stake out a stronger strategic position."

Rank #2: High-Leverage Innovation, Part Three.
Money isn't the key to successful innovation. In fact, many companies spend far less than their competitors on R&D to achieve far better performance. To learn why that's the case, strategy+business and Knowledge@Wharton spoke with Kevin Dehoff, a partner at Booz & Company, and Karl Ulrich, Wharton professor of operations and information management. In this final part of a three-part series, Dehoff and Ulrich talk about innovation in the auto industry -- what constitutes it, why some manufacturers, like Toyota, are more innovative than others, and the role that customers play in innovative product development.

Knowledge@Wharton

Audio interviews with industry leaders and senior faculty with exclusive insights on current topics brought to you by Knowledge@Wharton and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Rank #1: What’s Really Behind China’s Falling GDP.
China’s second-quarter economic growth hit a 27-year low. But it’s not because of the trade war, say experts from Wharton and Stanford.

Rank #2: Machine Programming: What Lies Ahead?.
Machine programming -- software that creates its own software -- is at an inflection point. It may redefine many industries, says Intel’s Justin Gottschlich.