But many business-school officials don’t agree. Many M.B.A. programs require students to work for a few years first before starting their studies. This way, say officials, students get more out of the program and have more to offer other participants.

So which approach is better? Brian Poger, a student at Northwestern University’s J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, believes the answer is clear. Mr. Poger worked for seven years at Eli Lilly and Co., an Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company, before enrolling in business school.

Having full-time work experience has been essential to his gaining the maximum from the Kellogg program, he says. “I would recommend [you] get the best experience you can whenever you have an opportunity,” he says. “In most cases, that means working, learning how to interact in a business environment and developing your personal skill set.”

Getting the Most Out of B-School

Many career experts agree. Without full-time work experience, students have a more difficult time with business-school coursework and with job interviews, says Ann Browning, associate director of the career-management center at Kellogg.

Without working first, “I don’t think you get as much out of the classes,” says Kevin Nall, associate director for M.B.A. services at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

Kellogg students have an average of five years of work experience. This gives them the background to “make what we teach here more relevant,” says Ms. Browning. They also have a better sense of what they want to do professionally. “It helps with career focus,” she says. “I’m not so sure that [someone without experience] would be 100% certain an M.B.A. is what they want to do in the long run.”

Mr. Nall notes that starting salaries are lower for students who lack work experience. He cites a Baylor survey indicating that the average starting salary for M.B.A. graduates with experience is 15% to 25% higher than for those who lack experience. “You do hurt your market value,” he says.

Aiming for a Top-Ranked School

Mr. Poger graduated from Washington University in St. Louis and could have gone straight into that school’s M.B.A. program. But he set his sights on attending a school with high marks in the published rankings — and this required experience.

At Eli Lilly, he transferred around to gain as much experience in different functions as he could. “The first two years [I spent] as an information-systems analyst, the next three as a project manager and the last two in a sales and marketing organization,” he says.

Moving from technology to project management to sales allowed him to develop different skills. “Those were self-selected moves,” says Mr. Poger. “I was consistently interested in business, and I felt like sales and marketing was the type of experience you need throughout life and would be good experience to get prior to going back to business school.”

Besides working first, Mr. Poger advises prospective M.B.A. students to enroll in “the very best business school that you can.” He says that the quality of business schools that require work experience is likely to be superior because about a third of the learning occurs by interaction.

Mr. Poger says he chose Kellogg because of its excellent academic reputation and because he would be “surrounded by peers I could really learn from.”

“Kellogg and many other schools work and meet in groups, which is very important, just as it is in the business world,” he says. “The more you develop those group skills in business, the better off you’re going to be and the more you’re going to learn from the people around you when you go back to school.”

The school’s strong student organization and government also was a factor in his decision, says Mr. Poger, who is president of the Graduate Management Association, Kellogg’s student government.

He spent last summer in London on a strategy-consulting internship with McKinsey & Co., an international consulting firm based in New York. Eventually, he may opt for a consulting career. “In all likelihood, if I don’t go into consulting, I’d probably be joining some sort of technology company,” he says.

Going to B-School at Night

David Carpe, an evening M.B.A. student at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., says the importance of having experience before starting graduate business studies is “huge.”

Mr. Carpe, 29 years old, worked in the capital-markets division of Fidelity Investments, a Boston mutual-fund company, then became an executive recruiter for Fidelity. Next, he founded an executive-recruiting firm, Thorn & Graves, in Boston. He started his M.B.A. at night in the fall of 1997 while working during the day as a search executive.

Having prior business experience isn’t as critical when taking courses like statistics and managerial accounting, says Mr. Carpe. “Those you can do right out of undergrad,” he says. But experience is key to getting the most from classes dealing with management, strategy, finance and organizational behavior, he says. “It’s when you actually [get] the real meat of an M.B.A. program,” he says.

A 1993 fine-arts graduate who studied sculpture at George Washington University, Mr. Carpe initially was concerned that the M.B.A. program’s math-related courses would be too difficult. “I feared courses like management accounting and linear programming,” he says. “Nothing I’d studied in undergrad had any value other than teaching you how to think and how to do critical research.”

But he soon learned that those courses weren’t as difficult as he’d imagined. Moreover, the core M.B.A. courses have been useful to his day work.

“The courses that were particularly helpful were really the business management-type courses like finance, marketing — real fundamental stuff that I didn’t take as an undergrad,” he says.

Further, graduate students who work full time relate to business-school professors as equals, not as teachers, and may learn more because of this, says Mr. Carpe. They “learn a lot from them as people, not just academicians,” he says.

On the other hand, students who don’t work often “just show up for class, complete their homework and leave,” he says. “They don’t necessarily get as much out of the coursework.”

Mr. Carpe says he met with several professors for advice when developing a business plan for an Internet firm he’s starting called everpath [sic], which will focus on the business needs of religious organizations. Meeting with the professors “was extremely helpful, like the ultimate sounding board,” he says.

Starting the new company has caused him to delay his M.B.A. graduation. “Since February I’ve been working 90 hours a week,” says Mr. Carpe.

Assume the interviewer will be evaluating you and prepare by heeding these suggestions:

“Know thyself.” Review your resume and ask yourself, “Why have I chosen to do the things I’ve done?” says Ms. Lannin.

Asking yourself “why?” about each professional move may be the best way to prepare. Be able to articulate your impact on various employers or academic institutions. For example, you should be able to say why you chose to attend your undergraduate school, what you gained from the experience and what contributions you made.

When examining your professional experience, an interviewer might ask why you chose to leave one company for another and the impact you had on these organizations. You won’t be asked, “Where did you go after you left company A?” because that’s on your resume, says Ms. Lannin. “Instead, you’ll be asked, ‘Why did you make the decision to go to Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. after Donaldson, Lufkin, & Jenrette?’ ” she says.

At Iowa, applicants might be asked to “give an example of when you thought you played a successful leadership role,” says Ms. Spreen. Working as part of a team is also an important theme at Iowa, and questions in that arena should be expected.

“Sometimes I ask them what accomplishments they’re most proud of and what characteristics they feel a good leader would have,” Ms. Spreen says.

Be informed about the school and its M.B.A. program and why it appeals to you. You might want to tour the school, attend a class or sit in on a group information session to learn about life at the school and why it might be right for you.

“We strongly encourage all of our prospective students to visit campus,” says Michelle Jacobson, director of graduate programs at Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business. “We want applicants to really feel good about what they might be getting into should they be accepted.”

When visiting Ohio State, candidates tour the facility and sit in on a class before interviewing separately with a student ambassador and a staff member, then lunching with a group of students.

Review the essay questions on your application so you don’t make conflicting statements during the meeting. It’s common for schools to ask actual essay questions during interviews. Each school uses different essay questions. Stanford asks, “What matters most to you, and why?” while Harvard uses, “Describe your three most substantial accomplishments and explain why you view them as such” on its application. Other schools ask, “Why are you interested in getting a graduate degree in business?”

Ms. Spreen says she usually asks open-ended questions that are targeted to key themes. “I usually start off with an easy one like, “Please expand on your interest in an M.B.A. and your choice of Iowa,” she says. “Then I tend to ask pretty open-ended questions like, ‘Who do you admire as a leader and why?’ ”

Practice answering questions related to your essay and other potential interview questions out loud. It’s helpful to actually hear your answers, not just imagine mentally what you’d say, says Ms. Lannin.

MBA Strategies gives clients a list of actual queries from various schools to practice with. One applicant told Ms. Lannin that rehearsing the answers in advance was key to surviving an interview and being accepted at Kellogg.

Ask schools in advance what questions they’ll use during the interview. This information isn’t secret and schools usually want applicants to think about their answers in advance, says Ms. Spreen. “If they can’t find [that information] anyplace else, they can call us and ask,” she says. “We want them to be prepared, so we expect them to have thought about it.”

Dress appropriately. Wearing business attire is a must when interviewing at a business school.

Silence Isn’t Golden

Some interviews run short because applicants have little to say. This shows a lack of preparedness, says Ms. Spreen. When applicants don’t prepare, they have insufficient or poor questions. After 10 minutes, there’s nothing to say, she says.

An impressive candidate is one who comes armed with an array of intelligent questions. One recent applicant asked questions on topics ranging from job placement based on regions and types of companies to average GMAT scores to the names of the top five employers who recruit from the school. “He clearly knew what he was looking for and had thought out the questions for the areas he was most interested in,” says Ms. Spreen.

“This is very helpful to us in the interview so we know what that particular person is interested in and how we can best provide them with the information they need,” she says. “[It lets us] expand on the areas they’re interested in.”

Ms. Jacobson also encourages interviewees to ask a lot of questions. Ask questions that relate to something unique to that school, such as workload and curriculum issues or recent improvements. Don’t ask about obvious subjects that you could learn by reading the catalog or Web site, such as “What are your core courses?”

“The interview isn’t an opportunity to get smarter on the school,” says Ms. Lannin. “It’s an opportunity to show what you know and express why the school is uniquely positioned to meet your educational objectives.”

Remember that everyone you meet at a school is a potential evaluator. One applicant was eliminated after telling an inappropriate joke to a female student who was taking him to lunch on campus. “I wouldn’t recommend that,” says Ms. Spreen, “Everybody you talk to, if it’s a campus visit, is going to give feedback to the admission committee.”

Some schools try to gauge what interviewees will be like in two years and how on-campus recruiters will perceive them. If your answers don’t impress school interviewers, they won’t impress recruiters, says Ms. Lannin.

“The interview is a really great chance to assess whether this person is going to be of interest to the recruiters,” she says. “It’s basically a preliminary job interview.”

Typically, these sessions last 30 minutes to an hour and are designed to assess qualities that aren’t easily detected on your written application. “We’re using the interview to get a better feel for some of the more subjective elements of the applicants that are pretty difficult to get just by looking at the paper application,” says Mary Spreen, director of M.B.A. admissions and financial aid at the University of Iowa’s Henry B. Tippie College of Business.

Each school handles the interview process differently. “It varies dramatically from school to school,” says Sally P. Lannin, president of MBA Strategies, a consulting firm in Edina, Minn., that coaches aspiring M.B.A.s who want to get into top schools. At Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, for example, interviews are practically nonexistent, while at Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, every applicant is interviewed. Between these extremes, b-schools have a raft of different interviewing policies, styles and techniques. Even at the same school, interview tactics may vary depending on whom you meet.

The weight of the interview in admissions decisions varies from school to school as well. Because of these variables, the best way to make a good impression is to plan ahead, prepare thoroughly and abide by some common-sense do’s and don’ts.

While most interviews are face-to-face either on campus or in your home city, you might also be interviewed by phone. “Many people aren’t able to visit campus,” says Ms. Spreen. “In those cases, we generally screen the resume and application and if we feel that they meet the minimum objective criteria, then we would hold an interview either off-site or by telephone.”

Three Types of Interviewers

Start by learning with whom you’ll meet in advance of the interview and know their role. Interviewers usually wear one or more of three possible hats, says Ms. Lannin. The most important hat is that of “evaluator,” someone who recommends whether or not you should be accepted.

The second role is that of the “marketer,” someone who’s primarily trying to try to sell you on the M.B.A. program, school, placement office, city or region.

“Originally, when schools first started interviewing, that was primarily the role the interviewer played,” says Ms. Lannin. “Kellogg and the Wharton School were really in the forefront there.”

The third role is that of “counselor,” someone who primarily provides information about the program, school and application process.

Depending on the school, an interviewer could be an admissions officer, current student, recent alumni or an “alumni of stature,” someone who’s at the peak of his or her career.

“This is the type of person Harvard uses,” says Ms. Lannin. Students, alumni and alumni of stature usually are trained by the admissions office in how to conduct interviews, so you aren’t off the hook when meeting one of these folks.

How Answers Are Evaluated

At Iowa, “the basic qualities we’re trying to assess are related to communication skills,” Ms. Spreen says. “So, for example, when we ask people to talk about their career vision, we’re looking for evidence that they’ve thought about this significantly and that they can articulate that vision — recognizing that that may change once they’re here.”

At Ohio State, interviewers are interested in how much preparation and research applicants have done, as well as the clarity of their answers. They might be asked why they’re specifically attracted to the Fisher School of Management and why they want to earn an M.B.A., says Ms. Jacobson. Vague answers are perceived poorly.

“If they say things about our small class size, cohorts, team building, mentoring program and faculty, [it's] something specific about why it’s a good fit for them,” says Ms. Jacobson. “We’d know that they’ve done their research.”

Answers or questions that zero in on the Fisher School’s team-building approach are important. “Because we have an emphasis on team building, they would know that about us, and they might talk about situations they’ve been in that involve team building,” says Ms. Jacobson. The school also emphasizes leadership, so questions about it are a plus.

Examine “what in your past shows your team leadership, your ability to work with others or your ability to resolve conflict, [and] be prepared to either ask questions or talk about what you’ve done,” she says.

If you lack much work experience, discuss transferable contributions you could make based on volunteer or co-op assignments or organizational roles.

Mr. Burden opted not to work full time and began looking for a business school that would waive the work-experience requirement and allow him to enroll directly from college. He found it at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad Graduate School of Management in East Lansing. Mr. Burden enrolled in the program and graduated at the age of 23.

“I’ve always been the type of person who likes to get things done the first time and not put them off,” he says. “In a sense, taking a break between undergrad and graduate school fell in the category of putting off my education.”

Most top graduate business programs require students to work full time for several years before enrolling in M.B.A programs. The idea is that by working first, students can see how business-school theory can be applied to the real world. And, since much of M.B.A. learning comes from interaction between students, students with a few years of work under their belts are believed to contribute more during classroom discussions.

But some business schools bend the work-experience rule occasionally. A few even have programs that allow students to move from their undergraduate studies directly into the graduate business school with little or no work experience.

A List of Advantages

This, of course, raises the question: Is having full-time work experience critical to getting a sound education in an M.B.A. program? Students who have gone directly to business school say it isn’t. And some administrators cite advantages to completing graduate business school without working first.

Mr. Burden had just completed a double major in marketing and management from Loyola University in New Orleans before he started business school. He’s sure his lack of work experience wasn’t a liability at Michigan State. “To be honest with you, it totally wasn’t an issue for me,” he says.

He also thinks that coming directly from an undergraduate business school allowed him to make an important contribution. “I was coming straight out of an undergraduate business program, and in a sense, that gave me a lot to add for those who hadn’t been in the classroom recently,” he says. “It kind of balances all out. I didn’t at all feel disadvantaged.”

Kevin Nall, associate director of M.B.A. career services at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, says there are advantages to going directly to graduate business school. For instance, students complete their education by 23 or 24. At this point, they have few responsibilities and paying back student loans often is easier than it is later in life, says Mr. Nall.

Having already earned an M.B.A. also can be beneficial when seeking a new job because employers know you won’t be leaving in a few years to return to school. “Certain employers are going to value that you won’t have to interrupt your job service,” says Mr. Nall.

Making a Rare Exception

Michigan State has a two-year work requirement for M.B.A. applicants, say officials, but the school made an exception for Mr. Burden. He had good grades, leadership experience, two undergraduate business internships and a high score on the Graduate Management Admissions Test.

“I was told that they may make an exception every now and then, and it’s very rare,” says Mr. Burden. “If you desire to get into an M.B.A. program straight out of school, the odds are against you, but it can happen.”

Mr. Burden concedes that having full-time work experience is probably preferable to not having it while in business school. However, his two undergraduate internships gave him experience that allowed him to contribute during class discussions.

At first, he was concerned he might not fit in with students who had worked in business for several years. “I went in thinking I’m going to be with people who have worked some 10 and 20 years, and how am I going to relate?” he recalls.

But he decided that everyone has something to offer in a classroom environment. “The key is that we all got in for a certain reason, we were all qualified and we all had something to add,” says Mr. Burden.

Enrolling in a small, more intimate M.B.A. program also was a sound decision for Mr. Burden. “I really liked the program because it’s small compared to the University of Michigan and other schools,” he says. “My class took in only about 100. I like that personalized attention. [It] was all I needed to see” during a scouting visit.

Mr. Burden is now an assistant product manager in the Chicago office of Hormel Foods Corp., an Austin, Minn., food-products company, a position he landed through the on-campus recruiting process.

“I’m working with the sales force in Chicago to learn the products,” he says. “Within a year, I’ll be transferred to the corporate office in Minnesota to begin product-management responsibilities.”

0 Two Degrees in Five Years

Some schools have accelerated programs that encourage students to earn their M.B.A.s without working first. For instance, Jason Ludeke majored in engineering at Tulane University in New Orleans and was one of five students to move directly into the graduate school of business as part of a five-year program to earn undergraduate and master’s degrees.

He, too, says that not having previous business experience before starting graduate business school hasn’t hampered his learning. “I would say it hasn’t hindered me,” says Mr. Ludeke, a Houston native.

But like Mr. Burden, he says that working first might have been helpful at times. “It could help in a course in which the job provided thorough exposure to the course material,” he says. “For example, a person with accounting experience might have an easier time with external or managerial accounting.”

As a “start-from-scratch” approach that assumes incoming students have no prior business experience, the M.B.A. program at Tulane’s A. B. Freeman School of Business accommodates Mr. Ludeke’s lack of work experience, says the 22-year-old. “That’s why you’re not really at a disadvantage coming from a different background.”

He chose to complete his M.B.A. without working full time first because he plans to make a career change. “I wanted to move out of engineering,” he says. “I didn’t want to be in the field long term.”

In about 10 years, he may start his own business, but he wants to gain experience first. “It’s [not] really realistic to want to own your own business right away,” says Mr. Ludeke, who will be 23 when he graduates. “I have to start working for a company and learn as much as I can as quickly as I can so that eventually I can work for myself.”

Mr. Ludeke has been interning in the corporate-development department at corporate offices of WorldCom Inc., a telecommunications giant in Clinton, Miss., and had a prior internship with another telecommunications firm’s corporate-development group.

Given this experience, he may seek a full-time job in the telecommunications industry after graduating. “What exact job role I’ll be looking for I’m not exactly sure,” he says.

That, in a nutshell, is what Don Martin sees as his biggest obstacle to attracting more women to the M.B.A. program at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, where he is associate dean for enrollment management.

With women accounting for only a quarter of full-time enrollment, Chicago lags behind most major business schools. The trouble is, Mr. Martin says, some women feel insecure about their math skills at a school renowned for its quantitative approach and worry about crime in the school’s Hyde Park neighborhood. “We’re a full-menu school offering 13 concentrations including general management and entrepreneurship,” he says, “but people think only quant jocks come here.”

Chicago is just one of many business schools — including Harvard, Michigan and Columbia — scrambling to break the glass ceiling on female enrollment, which typically hovers around 30%. Certainly that percentage is a big jump from the mid-70s, when only 11% of full-time M.B.A. students at Harvard, for instance, were women. Still, the continued disparity between the genders has spurred schools to action.

Chicago now holds receptions for prospective women students in seven cities, and the school recently created the publication “Why Women Choose Chicago,” which profiles graduates in marketing and e-business — not just finance. The school also is taking the offensive in its application kit, citing police statistics that show Hyde Park is safer than many areas of the city. There’s a long way to go: This fall the percentage of full-time women M.B.A students there is expected to drop to 23% from 27% in 1990.

Meantime, the Goizueta Business School at Emory University made a point of featuring a woman prominently on the cover of both its full-time and executive M.B.A. catalogs — the men are blurry images in the background. And to send the message that it is female-friendly, the University of Notre Dame is mailing a letter to prospective women students not from the business school dean but rather from Muffet McGraw, coach of its No. 1-ranked women’s basketball team.

Snagging more women has been a maddening seesaw experience for many schools. While business schools at Harvard University, Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania expect more women in this fall’s class, Duke University and Dartmouth College are bracing for a decline. “We work on it all the time but just can’t get our arms around it,” says Marcia Armstrong, associate dean of masters programs at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business. After having achieved a 36% share of full-time women last year, SMU’s incoming M.B.A. class is only 28% female. Similarly, Stanford University jumped to 41% last year from 29% in 1999 but expects to drop back to 38% this fall.

The reasons why are complex. For one thing, students typically are about 28 years old when they enroll for their M.B.A. degree, creating what one business-school official calls “a biological collision.” As they near 30, many women are focusing on marriage and children and are reluctant to begin a demanding M.B.A. program. Medical and law schools attract more women, in part because they tend to begin right after college, while most business schools seek applicants with at least four or five years of work experience.

“I knew I wanted to have a baby and wasn’t going to enroll in business school,” says Christine Pierroz, a 35-year-old student at York University’s Schulich School of Business in Toronto. “But after scoping out programs, I discovered York was surprisingly accommodating.” When Ms. Pierroz gave birth to her first child this summer, she took maternity leave from her job in pharmaceutical marketing — and from her M.B.A. program. Upon returning to York, she will be able to tailor her class schedule to suit her work and family needs. York credits such flexibility for its above-average 41% share of women M.B.A. students.

New policies at a few major schools may help resolve the timing problem. While they are not targeting only women, Harvard and Stanford recently began encouraging people to consider applying to business school soon after college. Harvard’s “early career” brochure declares “no minimum age or experience required” and features an eclectic list of young achievers such as Mozart, Bobby Fischer, Jane Austen and Steve Jobs.

“A side benefit of our early career initiative should be a good percentage of strong women in the pool of applicants,” says Eileen Chang, associate director of admissions at Harvard Business School.

Some schools are going beyond marketing and are creating courses with a female perspective. The University of Michigan offered an entrepreneurship course this year taught by a group of women business owners. At Harvard, more case studies include women protagonists, such as Jeanne Lewis of Staples Inc. and Donna Dubinsky of Handspring Inc.

The stepped-up campaign to woo women comes partly in response to a study last year by Catalyst Inc., a New York research group, and the University of Michigan. The survey of M.B.A. graduates was a wake-up call to some schools. It identified key reasons women avoid business school — the small number of female mentors and role models, concern about balancing work and home life in the corporate world, and little encouragement from employers to secure an M.B.A. “Women tend to go into fields where M.B.A.s aren’t so necessary to advance, like publishing, marketing and fashion,” says Ms. Chang of Harvard.

Because of the Catalyst/Michigan study, the Working Group on M.B.A. Women expects to form a nonprofit organization this year that will offer scholarships to women and promote business education in undergraduate colleges, high schools and possibly even to Girl Scout and Junior Achievement groups. Participating schools include Columbia University, Michigan, the University of Texas, the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth. The corporate members: Dell Computer Corp., Deloitte Consulting, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Procter & Gamble Co. and the Kraft Foods unit of Philip Morris Cos.

The goal is to reach people like Pamela Mayer, vice president of business development at Interactive Video Technologies Inc. in New York. When she decided to seek an advanced degree, she recalls, “Business school wasn’t even on my radar screen. I just was never exposed much to business because my father was a surgeon and my mother had her doctorate in education.” So she went to law school and finally decided to get an M.B.A. five years later.

The Catalyst/Michigan survey also found that among married respondents, women faced much more resistance than men when they asked spouses to relocate for business school. “Even in the year 2009, it’s hard for women to get their husbands to follow them to Bloomington, Ind.,” says Dan Smith, former head of Indiana University’s M.B.A. program, where only about 20% of full-time students are women.

One standout is Columbia Business School, which has gradually boosted its female M.B.A. enrollment to 37% from less than 30% in 1992. Columbia promotes the fact that about 40% of the school’s senior managers are now women, and women are president of many of its student clubs and editor of its Bottom Line newspaper. “This is something that doesn’t take care of itself,” says Meyer Feldberg, dean of Columbia Business School. “You have to be constantly vigilant.”

Admissions interviews are recommended but not required at Fuqua. But Rossmiller’s experience was so positive that she decided to focus on studying at the respected b-school. She’s now a second-year student and a student interviewer at Fuqua.

At many top business schools, admissions interviews are optional. But realistically, you’ll probably participate in an interview, either at your request or the school’s. B-schools take different approaches to interviewing. For instance, interviews can be held pre- or post-application at the student’s or school’s request and may be conducted by an alumnus, student or school professional. Here’s a sample of different policies:

• At Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management in Evanston, Ill., candidates are “required to request an interview.” They meet with an alumnus, admissions professional or student interviewer. All 617 students in Kellogg’s fall 2000 incoming class were interviewed.
• The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia doesn’t require candidates to interview. However, it recommends that applicants request and complete an interview prior to applying. Wharton received 7,382 applications for the 784 openings in its fall 2000 entering class. About 90% of the applicants were interviewed by an alumni graduate on site or in their home city in the U.S. or overseas.
• The Columbia Business School in New York offers “invitation-only” interviews after candidates have applied.
• At the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis, interviews aren’t required, but applicants can request them. The meetings are held with a member of the admissions staff. There were 1,400 applications for 150 openings at Olin for the fall 2000 class. Of these applicants, about 500 were interviewed.
• At McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas – Austin, interviews are called “admission visits” and are optional. Applicants who request them meet with alumni, students or admissions staff. There were 2,800 applications for McComb’s fall class of 400. Of these 400 students, 200 were interviewed.

Make the Process Work for You

Since competition for openings at top b-schools is tough, applicants should know how schools treat interviews so they can take advantage of the process.

In most cases, admissions interviews are designed to ensure that students will fit into the culture of a school. Applicants want to find out if they’ll be happy in a particular setting, while b-schools want to see whether candidates have the “right stuff.”

“We feel that the interview gives us an opportunity to evaluate their interpersonal skills, professional paths, reasons why they want an M.B.A. and their values,” says Rose Martinelli, Wharton’s director of admissions. “We want to know what brings them to this particular place in life. We believe that the interview is a complement to the overall application.”

Pete Sather, a first-year student at UCLA’s Anderson School, was so impressed with the school’s interviewing process that he decided to reapply after being rejected the year before. At other schools, the application process seemed like “just take a number,” he says, but at Anderson, “there was a genuineness and caring that was far superior.”

Sather had attended the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., and remained in active service. He lacked career focus when he first applied to Anderson. After being rejected by the school, he joined the Chesapeake Bay Organizational Development Network in Washington, D.C., to learn about organizational development. When Sather reapplied to Anderson and was reinterviewed, he felt more focused about his career goals.

“Other people going into the interviews know exactly what they want so you have to know, too, to be competitive,” he says.

An interview can help applicants decide against attending a school. Scott Bloomberg, a first-year student at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, investigated two other schools. At one, he interviewed with an alumnus who had graduated many years earlier. The alum was so uninformative that to Bloomberg, the meeting was a waste of time.

“I didn’t learn anything about the school,” says Bloomberg. “He was a high-level executive. It didn’t seem like he had much time or was listening. I tried asking him some questions about the program and he said, ‘I can’t answer that.’ ”

B-School Interviews vs. Job Interviews

Interviewing with b-school officials can be challenging after working professionally for a few years. Your last interview may have been for a job, and M.B.A. admissions interviews are distinctly different. In a job interview, you must stress the ‘”how” of what you’ve done. B-schools are looking at the “why” as well.

“An M.B.A. school [interview] is harder because you actually have to get across your ability,” says Rossmiller. “You have to articulate your motivations and goals.”

Just like you don’t want your first job interview to be with your first-choice employer, your first b-school interview shouldn’t be with your preferred program. “I wouldn’t recommend making your top choice your first interview,” says Bloomberg. “You need to get back into the swing of things.”

Camie Costa earned an M.B.A. in 2000 from Kellogg, where she was one of 25 student interviewers. She’s now a marketing manager at General Mills in Minneapolis. To succeed with interviewers, applicants should be able to avoid “why” pitfalls, Costa says.

“Some [interviewees] seem unprepared to answer basic questions such as: ‘Why am I a good fit at this school?’ ‘Why do I believe I’ll continue to succeed upon graduation?’ and ‘Why would the school want me to be an alumna?’ ” says Costa. “It goes back to, ‘What have you accomplished so far?’ ”

To be able to answer these questions, b-school candidates should ask themselves the following:

Have I completed my self-analysis? To interview competently, do some self-searching and know why you want to earn an M.B.A. “You aren’t going to get into a top M.B.A. school if you say: ‘I need that rubber stamp on my resume,’ ” says Rossmiller. “That’s not good enough.”

Jonathan Dabora, a first-year student at Anderson, advises candidates to examine their motivations and interests. They should be able to answer the question, “What am I passionate about?” he says.

Don’t expect interviewers to help you out. Rossmiller asked one candidate why he wanted to go to Fuqua. After a lackluster response, he then asked her, “So what should I have answered to that question?”

Have I done my homework? Research the school by attending forums and receptions it sponsors and talking with students and alumni, Martinelli recommends. If possible, visit the school. “The M.B.A. process is very collaborative. We’re looking for people who have something to add to the educational process,” says Martinelli.

Hillary Beard, a second-year student at Columbia, interviewed with officials and spent time visiting the campus to “see what the tone of the school was and understand its culture,” she says. She recommends talking to current students because they “have the best pulse of the school right now.”

Dabora has a Ph.D. in molecular biology, but he wanted a graduate business degree so he could become a venture capitalist or start a business. He, too, was rejected from Anderson because he didn’t demonstrate enough knowledge about his desired fields. Before reapplying, he cold-called venture capitalists and was able to interview about 10% of them. His efforts taught him about the field and allowed him to discuss his career goals more concretely.

Am I flexible? Be prepared to be interviewed by phone or in person. Regardless of how the meeting is held, your preparation should be thorough. Also be flexible when scheduling your interview. Most schools will adjust to your schedule. “We interview where they live and we’ll accommodate them. We may have to do a phone interview,” says Linda Meehan, Columbia’s director of admissions. “If they’re unable to satisfy this, it sends a message.”

Have I rehearsed? Practice answering typical b-school interview questions until you appear focused, yet relaxed. Try to rehearse with someone who’s been through the process, not just with friends and family. “Don’t underestimate the competitiveness of the situation. You need to communicate,” says Costa.

Have I prepared questions for the interviewer? After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy and spending five years on active duty, Jack Benecke applied to Olin. He had leadership experience but needed strong core business courses. He asked about this aspect of the program and how the school’s career center would help him prepare a resume and interview with employers as he neared graduation.

How am I presenting myself? Marketing yourself includes your attire, resume, follow-up tactics and attitude. You must be able to state what you stand for and your benefits to a potential employer, says Costa. Dabora says one Anderson official says the school seeks applicants who are “confident but not arrogant.”

Am I positive? Candidates can project negativity without realizing it. Subtle ways include commenting about other schools or appearing overly self-involved.

Be sure to ask the interviewer questions about him or herself, such as their educational background and connection to the school. If the interviewer is a current or former student, ask about any challenges he or she experienced in completing the program.

Showing ignorance about the process — for instance, taking it too seriously or not seriously enough — also may transmit poorly. “You have to know yourself well enough to relax,” says Martinelli. “You have to know why you’re at the table.”

Do I fit in? You and the school must answer this question together. The school seeks candidates who will add an extra dimension to the mix of students, contribute to the program and succeed following graduation.

Your answer may be more complex. By taking a break in your career, you’re making an investment of both money and time. Will you earn an adequate return on your investment? Are you ready to make needed sacrifices and can you handle the change in lifestyle?

Consider whether you’ll be happy in the location, be able to work on teams with classmates, be comfortable in the environment and if the students and faculty will enhance your learning and enjoyment.

Am I ready? Ask yourself if you’re psychologically, academically and emotionally ready for the rigors of an M.B.A. program. If so, the interview will likely be a smooth component of the process.

Most graduate programs–and many job opportunities–require letters of recommendation. Think it’s easy to get them? Don’t underestimate their importance. Even though your transcripts, test scores, and personal pleas are vital to getting into the top school or company, a glowing letter of recommendation can make up for years of below-par performance.

A recommendation provides information that isn’t found elsewhere on some gargantuan application. The best letters, written by a faculty member or one of your former superiors, attest to the personal qualities, accomplishments, and experiences that make you perfect for the program or job to which you’ve applied.

Who to Ask?

You may have to provide at least two letters of recommendation, but some places have been known to ask for three or more. Choosing your letter writers is often a difficult process. Consider faculty members, administrators, internship supervisors, and current and former employers. Those asked to write your letters should…

• Know you well enough to write with authority
• Know your work
• Describe your work positively
• Have a high opinion of you
• Know where you are applying
• Know your educational or career goals
• Be able to favorably compare you with your peers
• Be able to write a good letter

Of course, no one person is going to satisfy all of these criteria. Go for a set of letters that cover the wide range of your academic and scholastic skills, research abilities and experiences, and applied experiences (cooperative education, internships, and related work experiences).

Approaching Your Victim

When you approach people to write a letter of recommendation, ask them if they think they know you well enough to write something meaningful. Pay attention to their demeanor and body language. If you sense reluctance, don’t press the issue–ask someone else.

Provide Information

You can ensure your letters cover all bases by providing writers with all the necessary information. Don’t assume that they will remember every last thing about you. Make an appointment to speak with them and leave plenty of time to complete the assignment–three to four weeks at minimum. You might want to provide a file with your vital stats, including…

• Transcript or resume
• Admissions essays
• Coursework or classes you’ve taken with them
• Research experiences
• Internships and other applied experiences
• Honor societies to which you belong
• Awards you’ve won
• Work experience
• Professional goals
• Due date for the application
• Clean copies of the recommendation forms

And check back frequently with the people who are writing your letters of recommendation. Make sure that they will be done on time, but don’t nag them about it. If you learn one thing from this process, it’s to never burn your bridges!

Why sit in a classroom when you can boot up your PC in the comfort of your home and participate in anything from a single course to a full degree-bound academic program?

Michael Fortier will attest to that. Fortier, 38, has been enrolled in online degree programs since 1999 via Champlain College‘s Online Program. The Burlington, VT-based college has been offering online courses since 1993.

By day, Fortier is a sales/cost-estimating manager at Meriden Manufacturing, a jet engine parts manufacturer in Connecticut. But nights and weekends, he’s hunched over his computer working toward his second online associate’s degree. Fortier puts in 20-40 hours a week working for his degree.

Is it worth the effort? “You bet it is,” says Fortier. He doesn’t have the time or financial resources to take a full curriculum at a traditional brick-and-mortar school. With a demanding job, he needs the flexibility to set his own learning schedule.

Invisibly Educated
Fortier is part of a growing body of students enrolled in online degree programs. According to the United States Distance Learning Association, 2.2 million students are taking online courses now compared to 1 million five years ago. And, the number of online learning institutions has jumped from 800 to 1,700 in the same period. At Champlain College alone, the number of students enrolled in online courses catapulted from 15 to 3,500 this year. Meanwhile, blue chip schools like Columbia, Stanford, the University of Chicago, New York University, and Temple are among those offering online degree programs.

Online courses’ delivery methods continue to improve. Initially, an online degree program consisted of a series of CD-ROM discs. Students downloaded lectures and notes and e-mailed tests and reports back to the instructor.

The Dog Deleted My Homework
The newest technology is more interactive and lectures are even presented in real time. Students log into the class and watch and hear teachers deliver lectures. “Each online program works differently,” says Fortier. Champlain’s program varies from day to day. “Some time is spent in chat and other times in ‘live’ forums,” Fortier explains. “Occasionally, a professor gives a class and we interact with him via phone or e-mail. Other times, assignments or lectures are posted. We do the assignment and post our thoughts to the discussion forum, reply to others’ comments, and upload homework by the assigned due date and time. When distance education first became popular a decade ago, many employers had doubts about hiring candidates with online degrees. Many institutions were not accredited, teachers were barely qualified, the quality of teaching was second rate, and often anyone who could pay for the program could get a degree. There were also online diploma mills that sold degrees as fast as they could print them.

But that’s changed. Although some shady operations still exist, most online degrees are being offered by reputable institutions. And, most employers see no difference between a virtual degree program and a traditional one.

Bob Lambert, managing director of technology and new ventures practice at executive search firm Christian & Timbers in Irvine, CA, says he’d be more impressed with a candidate with an online degree than a candidate with a traditional degree. “Most of the people I’ve met who are working toward an online degree are working at full-time jobs, which tells me the candidates are highly motivated, resourceful and determined,” he says. “These are all highly desirable traits.”

On the other hand, Franklin Loew, president of Becker College in Wooster, MA, and former dean at Tufts University in Boston, has concerns about the lack of human contact in online degree programs. He would have concerns about hiring someone with an online degree. “I know that’s unfair, but I question the quality of the educational experience,” he says. Other educators also agree with Loew, but they’re in the minority.

Is Online Education for You?
Nonetheless, online education is here to stay. More educational institutions will be launching new programs, which makes the selection process harder. Before you pick a program, get answers to these questions:

• What is the reputation of the institution, especially a lesser-known school?
• How will your skills and knowledge be evaluated? The testing process should be as rigorous as that of a traditional college.
• What are faculty members’ credentials?
• Is the school accredited by one of the accepted accrediting associations (Middle States, New England, North Central, Northwest, Southern and Western)?

Finally, ask yourself if you have the personality and work habits to study online. The answers to the following questions will tell you whether you’re a good fit.

• Are you motivated enough to work on your own?
• Are you self-directed?
• Do you have the necessary technology and are you comfortable
  with it?

If the answers to all of the above questions are not affirmative, I’d think twice about enrolling in an online degree program.

Vocational technical training is specialized training that prepares a person for a career in a specialized field requiring knowledge of special equipment, tasks, and procedures. Normally requiring one to two full years of study, a person can earn certificates, diplomas, and Associates of Applied Technology degrees. Subjects most commonly associated with tech education include:

• Business: Office administration, office equipment operation, specific accounting and bookkeeping tasks, etc.
• Computers: Building, programming, repair, installation, and networking
  Planning a non-profit career path is like planning a career in the profit-earning sector.
  
• Health: Nursing, dental and surgical technicians, medical assistants, and health information coding specialists
• Industrial: Welding, electronics, electrical training, drafting, and HVAC
• Automotive: Auto repair, tractor trailer operation

These are just some of the areas that have been offered by technical schools for many years. With the surge in popularity of these programs, however, programs have become more well-rounded, offering the psychology, English, and math components more commonly associated with liberal arts colleges.

This kind of education helps people who, for lifestyle, financial, or other reasons, have felt locked out of the pursuit of an advanced degree. It’s an opportunity to develop skills that can be translated into demanding, rewarding, and often lucrative careers.

Success Stories
Patricia Davies’ dream was a career in medicine. However, raising two small children on her cashier’s salary made medical school unlikely. Then she enrolled in a technical college in her small California town, in the surgical technology program. They offered her tuition, transportation, and childcare assistance, and required her to attend some life skills workshops to help her plan a new future.

With a little rearranging of her work schedule, Patricia was able to complete the program in less than two years. She has now graduated from $6.85 per hour as a night cashier to $15.75 per hour as a professional surgical technician. And her dreams of medical school have not only stayed alive, but are now within her reach.

Salaries like the one Patricia commands now only scratch the surface of what people with technical training can earn. In today’s booming computer technology field, people who complete training programs as short as nine months long are earning salaries from the low 30′s to the high 70′s and beyond for building, programming, networking, and repairing the computers the world uses to travel the information highway.

Back to the Head of the Class
The same can be said for many of the majors offered at adult technical education schools. The opportunity to increase one’s salary and advance more rapidly is driving many people who already hold advanced degrees back to school for technical training. Many employees, who earned their degrees prior to intranets and the Internet, have found that they now need more training to be competitive in a field they have worked in for several years. Knowledge of bits and bytes has taken its place at the head of the class, where seniority was once all someone needed to be first in line.

This revelation, causing masses of employed people to return to school, sparked another phenomenon-the rise of the average incoming freshman’s age. Technical schools welcome the non-traditional student, where the average freshman is 26-45, and likely married with one to three kids.

Number Crunching
Technical schools are seeing a rise in the number of new applicants with each semester; naturally, the number of technical schools also continues to grow. According to the U.S. Office of Educational Research and Improvement, there are currently 11 million secondary and postsecondary technical education institutions in operation, most government-funded.

Programs like those offered at technical trade schools and colleges have carved a place for a new segment of the workforce, the technically-trained professionals. A person wishing to pursue a new career path, or advance in their own career, can do research by inquiring at any local technical college admissions office or website, or by visiting the Association for Career and Technical Education for more information. Taking on technical training should prove fruitful, as most technical colleges report an average of 90% of their graduating seniors gainfully employed in their field of study six months after graduation.

Not bad numbers, technically speaking.

What’s the safest investment for today’s twenty- and thirty-somethings? Probably education. But make no mistake, expanding one’s brainpower is a costly enterprise. Now the tight economy has made career prospects especially lucrative–and the number of applicants at many top business schools has reportedly dropped off.

Take the time to examine your yearning for higher learning. Are you looking to up your income? Influence corporate strategy? Learn how to start your own business? Work internationally? Before re-entering academia, you should have confidence that both the tangible and intangible benefits are still worthwhile.

Just the Facts
At many top-ranked B-schools today, tuition prices will set you back at least 50 grand. Almost $60,000 for two years at NYU’s Stern School of Business, to be precise. But don’t be discouraged. The average starting salary for this year’s new MBA grads, according to a study conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, was $63,110. Once you add the average sign-on bonus of $11,197 and other “negotiables” like tuition reimbursement, stock options, health club membership, and (believe it or not) dry cleaning–the compensation package offered by some employers is pretty sweet indeed.

You can save some money by pursuing your MBA dreams at a state school. The University of Texas MBA program, for example, charges just $7,268 per year for in-state residents. The University of Pittsburgh offers a one-year program, which splits two-year costs in half. There are also a plethora of online MBA programs available.

Kay Bonyak is the president of MBA Network, an employment Web site for grads and current MBA students. “For people who don’t live near a major university,” she says, “or who can’t afford to quit their jobs to attend school full-time, it is much easier now to get an MBA today through an accredited online program.”

Though distance learning may be cheaper, one obvious disadvantage is the loss of real-time, one-on-one, classroom interaction. The good news is that the use of interactive technology in online education is improving, according to Bonyak. “I got my MBA online, and at that time there was not a lot of chat-room discussion that took place,” says Bonyak, “but now there is. And I felt I had better access to my professors than when I was an undergraduate. I’d e-mail my questions and receive prompt answers.”

Diversity in Action
There’s no doubt that an MBA helps to level the playing field for women and minority groups in today’s market. Lester McNair is manager of chapter relations and membership services for the National Black MBA Association. His organization represents over 5,000 African-American MBAs worldwide and aims to create economic and intellectual wealth for the black community. “The specific training an MBA entails,” he claims, “enables our community to increase their earning power, affords them flexibility in their career and a wider access of job opportunities.”

Membership in the NBMBAA has tripled over the last decade, which is reflective of certain educational and business trends, according to McNair. “There are increasing numbers of graduating minorities with an MBA today,” he asserts, and corporate America has recognized the advantages of hiring such talent, specifically when it comes to their bottom line. “Too many companies market a product or service generically. There’s one message for everybody.”

The strength and success of the NBMBAA mission can be credited to its strategic corporate partnerships (350 to date), scholarship programs, annual conferences and career fairs, a multi-tiered recruitment and employment network, and the dedication of its members to give something back to the community. “We have one program where our members target marginal high school students and try to turn these kids around in terms of their school performance,” said McNair. “We show them specific ways to improve their work habits and expose them to people like themselves who are successful role models.”