Archive : MBA Admissions Deadlines

As we round out our coverage of the admissions essays and deadlines at the world’s top business schools, today we dig into the Fuqua School of Business’ application. There are very few changes this year, so our advice remains mostly the same. Let’s dig in:

Duke (Fuqua) Admissions Deadlines
Early Action: September 29, 2011
Round 1: November 1, 2011
Round 2: January 4, 2012
Round 3: March 8, 2012

These deadlines are virtually the same as last year’s. Note that, while most schools use the term “Early Action” to indicate that the decision is non-binding, Fuqua considers it to be binding. So, we only recommend applying in this round if you’re 100% certain that you want to attend Fuqua. If you’re waiting to hear back from some other schools before applying to Fuqua in Round 2, you’ll need to at least get the ball rolling on your Fuqua application before you know your fate at those other schools, since you won’t have a lot of time between mid-December and Duke’s January 4 deadline. Duke’s Round 3 deadline is the same as it was last year.

The Yale School of Management has released its MBA application essays and deadlines for the Class of 2014. Yale has made some tweaks this year, and we’ll dig into each of them below. Here are the school’s deadlines and essays for the coming year, followed by our comments in italics:

Yale SOM Application Deadlines
Round 1: October 6, 2011
Round 2: January 5, 2012
Round 3: April 12, 2012

Yale’s Round 1 and Round 2 deadlines are virtually unchanged, but Yale has pushed back its Round 3 deadline by almost a month this year. Perhaps the school recognizes that very few North American MBA programs have deadlines past late March, and wants to keep its doors open for as long as possible so that strong candidates don’t have to turn to European programs (which tend to have later or different deadline cycles than U.S. programs). We still advise that you aim for Round 1 or Round 2, but this is a subtle signal that Yale truly does consider applications that come in after Round 2.

NYU’s Stern School of Business has released its MBA admissions essays and deadlines for the Class of 2014. Here they are, followed by our comments in italics:

NYU Stern Admissions Deadlines
Round 1: November 15, 2011
Round 2: January 15, 2012
Round 3: March 15, 2012

These deadlines are identical to last year’s. Note that, unlike many other top business schools, Stern has kept its Round 1 admissions deadline firmly in the middle of November. The good news for you is that, if you’re applying to Stern along with a few other schools in Round 1, this gives you a chance to get those ones done in October, catch your breath, and then give your Stern application your undivided attention. The downside is that Stern won’t notify Round 1 applicants until as late as February 15, 2011, so you will have to make choices about your Round 2 applications (which mostly have January deadlines) before you receive your final decision from Stern.

UCLA’s Anderson School of Management recently released its admissions essays and deadlines for the Class of 2012. At first glance, there are not a lot of changes this, but what’s most interesting with Anderson’s essays this years is something that’s not included. Let’s dig into the school’s deadlines and essays, followed by our comments in italics:

UCLA Anderson Admissions Deadlines
Round 1: October 26, 2011
Round 2: January 11, 2012
Round 3: April 18, 2012

All three of Anderson’s admissions rounds have been pushed back by close to a week. Keep in mind that, if you apply to Anderson in Round 1, you may not receive your final decision until late January, meaning that you won’t know where you stand with Anderson before most other top business schools’ Round 2 deadlines come and go.

The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business recently released its application deadlines and essays for the Class of 2014. After making big changes to its essays last year, Ross has only made small tweaks this time around. We’ll dig into the school’s essays and deadlines below, followed by our comments, in italics:

Michigan (Ross) Application Deadlines
Round 1: October 10, 2011
Round 2: January 4, 2012
Round 3: March 1, 2012

Darmouth’s Tuck School of Business recently published its application deadlines and admissions essay topics for the Class of 2014. You may notice that Tuck’s questions have changed very little since last year, suggesting that the school’s current batch of essay topics works well for the admissions committee. By “works well,” we mean that the essays help admissions officers get to know applicants better, and helps them separate out the great candidates from the merely good ones.

Also, note that Tuck does not have hard word limits for its essays, but the school does provide some rough guidance: “Although there is no formal restriction on the length of your response, most applicants use, on average, 500 words for each essay and you should work hard to try to keep your answers around that length.”

MIT Sloan has released its admissions essays and deadlines for the Class of 2014. (You can view the essays once you create an online account to access Sloan’s application.) There are some small changes to the essays this year, although not many, and Sloan’s famous cover letter returns. This cover letter is still unique among other top MBA programs’ application essays; apparently its still works well enough that Sloan wants to keep it around.

Here are MIT Sloan’s deadlines and essays for the coming year, followed by our comments in italics:

Chicago Booth has released its admissions essays and deadlines for the 2011-2012 applications season. Last year the Booth admissions office made a lot of changes to the school’s application. While the change look less dramatic this year, there’s still plenty to dig our teeth into, so let’s begin.

Here ate Chicago Booth’s MBA admissions deadlines and essays, followed by our comments in italics:

UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business has released its MBA application essays and deadlines for the Class of 2014. Haas made some big changes to its essays (lots of short ones!) this year’s so let’s dig in. Here are the school’s application deadlines and essays, followed by our comments in italics:

Berkeley (Haas) Application Deadlines
Round 1: October 12, 2011
Round 2: December 1, 2011
Round 3: January 18, 2012
Round 4: March 7, 2012

Continuing the trickle of new essays and deadlines coming from top schools for the 2011-2012 admissions season, Columbia Business School has released its deadlines for the new application season. Remember that Columbia is somewhat unique in that it not only has a September intake, but also a January one. This “J-Term” is really a 16-month program most suitable for someone who doesn’t need the benefit of an MBA summer internship. Columbia is also different in that it has a rolling admissions process without three discrete rounds, as is typical at most MBA programs.

It must be spring, because Harvard Business School has just released its application essays and deadlines for the 2011-2012 admissions season. Note that these are for Harvard’s traditional MBA program; we covered the HBS 2+2 Program application a couple of weeks ago, although the two applications have become very similar to one another.

Here are the new essays and deadlines, taken from Harvard’s site. Our comments follow in italics:

Continuing our “Admissions 101″ series, today we explore the question of whether you should apply to business school in Round 1 or Round 2, and whether this decision really matters at all. Every year we get a lot of questions from applicants in late September and early October along the lines of, “Here’s where my application stands today. Does it make sense to apply now, or [insert some way of improving one's application here] and apply in Round 2 instead?”

Today we look at London Business School’s deadlines for the 2010-2011 admissions season.

Here are the deadlines, followed by our comments in italics:

While we most often write about U.S.-based business schools in this space, INSEAD is one of the more popular programs among our clients. That’s why it’s one of the MBA programs we cover in our Annual Reports, our free guides to 15 of the world’s top MBA programs.

UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business has published its MBA admissions deadlines for the coming year. We’ll dig into the school’s admissions essays shortly, but first, here are the Haas deadlines, followed by our comments in italics:

NYU’s Stern School of Business has published its MBA admissions deadlines for the coming year. Here they are, followed by our comments in italics:

The University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business recently published its application deadlines for the coming admissions season. Here they are, followed by our comments in italics:

Chicago Booth’s online application is now available for the 2010-2011 season. In a few days we’ll dig into the school’s significantly revamped essays for the coming year, but first we wanted to share Booth’s admissions deadlines for the Class of 2013.

A few weeks after announcing its admissions essays for the coming year, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business has announced its application deadlines for 2010-2011 (click on the “When to Apply” tab on the Fuqua site). Here they are, followed by our comments in italics:

Continuing the wave of new deadlines and questions from top business schools, UCLA’s Anderson School of Management recently released its application deadlines for the coming admissions season. Here they are, followed by our comments:

UCLA Anderson Application Deadlines
Round 1: October 20, 2010
Round 2: January 5, 2011
Round 3: April 13, 2011

The University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School recently released its application deadlines for the coming admissions season. Here they are, followed by our comments in italics:

Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business recently released its application deadlines for the coming admissions season. Here they are, followed by our comments in italics:

Tuck MBA Admissions Deadlines
Early Action Round: 10/13/10
November Round: 11/10/10
January Round: 1/3/11
April Round: 4/1/11