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Forté Foundation Launches “Forté Career Gal Road Trip” Interactive Online Game

Forté Foundation Launches “Forté Career Gal Road Trip” Interactive Online Game

New Game Allows Young Women to Explore Different Majors, Career Paths, and to Hear Women Business Leaders’ Stories about their Road to Success

Austin, TX (March 23, 2010) – The Forté Foundation, a consortium of major corporations, business schools and non-profit organizations that directs talented women towards leadership roles in business, today announced the launch of the Forté Career Gal Road Trip. This innovative and interactive online game is designed for college women and recent college graduates who may be undecided in their career goals as well as those already considering a business major in college.

The Forté Career Gal Road Trip, available at http://virtualcampus.fortefoundation.org/roadtrip, will allow users to test drive and explore different careers and experience the many, varied paths to success taken by others. Road Trippers will have the opportunity to make virtual work/life decisions including: leaving the workforce to pursue an MBA, starting a family, entering various fields of business based on different college majors, and much more. Each decision will ultimately lead to a video segment of a successful woman in business that has made a similar life choice at the same stage in her career. The outcomes will make it clear that a business major is a helpful but not required element for a successful career. Additional profiles and career paths will be added in the coming weeks.

“Our research of Forté members found that an overwhelming majority would have been interested in pursuing a career in business if they were aware of the options during college,” says Elissa Ellis Sangster, executive director of the Forté Foundation. “We created this site to help increase the odds that young women will be exposed to career opportunities in business, educated about the many paths to a successful career, and provided with access to role models to help them visualize their future.”

"When Forté approached us with their idea of creating a virtual "game of life" for young college women, we were very excited about the opportunity to help bring their vision to life,” says Elisha Moore, Director of Strategic Planning, Sibley/Peteet Design Austin. “Together we came up with the idea of a road trip as a fun metaphor for the many, varied paths to success available to women today -- a fun way to see where the road of life may lead."

The introduction of the Forté Career Gal Road Trip comes at a time when it’s especially important to ensure young women have early exposure to information and resources about career opportunities in business. New research of 37 Forté member schools has shown that women make up an average of just 31.7% of business school enrollment for the 2009-2010 class, a slight dip from last year, but an increase from when Forté first began tracking this in 2005.

The Forté Career Gal Road Trip, which is available for free to all Forté members, will be useful for students, undergraduate career services counselors and advisors, high school guidance counselors and parents. It builds on the Forté Career Lab Virtual Campus microsite, launched in October 2008, which is a hub for insights into various companies and industries as well overall career choices. The site delivers customizable, interactive content including videos and podcasts featuring women currently working in industries such as consulting, marketing and human resources among many others. It also covers topics such as considerations for pursuing an MBA, choosing (or even switching) a career path and positioning yourself for success. In addition, the site includes a discussion forum for undergraduate women to ask questions and share viewpoints on career search topics, step-by-step guides on resume writing and interviewing, and links to helpful articles, blogs and a job database.

The Forté Career Gal Road Trip and the Forté Career Lab Virtual Campus are online companions to Forté’s successful on-campus Career Lab events, which introduce college women to the full range of business careers, female role models and the benefits of an MBA. Students interested in attending a live Career Lab networking event should visit www.fortefoundation.org/careerlab for dates and locations across the U.S.

The Forté Career Gal Road Trip is sponsored by Forté sponsor companies and business schools, with special underwriting support provided by Eli Lilly and Company, Ernst & Young LLP, and the Graduate Management Admission Council. The Forté Career Gal Road Trip was created in conjunction with Sibley/Peteet Design Austin, a design consultancy with expertise in brand strategy and identity development that helps organizations, big and small, envision, enable and engage their greatest brand potential.

About Forté Foundation

Forté Foundation is a consortium of leading multinational corporations, top business schools in the U.S. and abroad, and the Graduate Management Admission Council. Forté is the leading organization that provides a national infrastructure for women at all stages of the career continuum to access the information, scholarship support and networking connections they need to succeed in business careers. Additional information about the Forté Foundation is available online at www.fortefoundation.org.

The INSEAD MBA: A Top Ranked 10-Month MBA Program

This past week MBA Podcaster attended INSEAD’s MBA Admission Information Session at the swanky SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. Among champagne and brunch, INSEAD delivered a thorough overview of their MBA program, a session with alumni and time for Q&A. INSEAD did a fantastic job of covering all aspects of their program. Their info sessions are must-attend events for applicants potentially interested in an INSEAD MBA.

Cassandra Pittman, Assistant Director of Marketing for INSEAD’s North American Office, kicked off the morning with an introduction to INSEAD's admission criteria and how each criteria weighs in your application. According to Cassandra there are 4 admission criteria and each counts approximately 25%.

1. Academic Capacity

§         GMAT Score and a balance percentile between Verbal and Quant section

§         Bachelor's degree and the competitiveness of the academic institution you attended

2. Leadership Potential and Professional Experience

§         Promotions at work and management experience are important attributes. You don’t want to hold a position for 6 years with no promotion, although this could vary from country to country.

§         Ability to demonstrate your potential as a leader

§         Quality of your accomplishments

3. International Outlook

§         Cross-cultural sensitivity and an international outlook

4. Ability to Contribute to the INSEAD Experience

§         You need to be clear about your passions and how they have influenced your work and life.

§         INSEAD is looking for people with diversity; unique people with different backgrounds and interests 

Cassandra also explained how the INSEAD 10-month MBA program works. The program is divided into 5 periods of roughly 2 months each. For the first 2 periods you will be divided to groups of approx 5 students, from 5 completely different professional backgrounds, and 5 completely different parts of the world. According Cassandra they will never have more than one person of the same nationality, and never more than 2 people with the same native language in any study group. The groups work together throughout the core curriculum to produce work as a group, which is graded as a group.

Cassandra went on to discuss student life on campus and living in Fontainebleau. A group of alumni then took over and moderated a panel and Q&A session. What stood out to me among the various dialogues was the description of student life in Fontainebleau. In your 10 months on campus you are involved in all kinds of team activities, projects and social events. It is period of intense work and intense socialization/networking. You should expect to put 70 to 80 hrs of work for your course work and maybe more if your quantitative skills are rusty but at the same time you are socializing with your classmates and building relationships that will last you a lifetime.

Our take-away: INSEAD is a great choice for applicants looking for a top-ranked MBA program, a 1 year curriculum and an active student body.

PS: Take a look at these videos to get a taste for life at INSEAD: http://mba.insead.edu/video_vault/

Last Minute Applicants: One Successful Applicant's Story

Maybe you’ve been busy at work.  Maybe you’ve been busy at home. Or maybe you had an epiphany and decided to go to business school the day before the Round 3 application deadline. I’ve been working on an upcoming MBA Podcaster show titled “Last Minute Applicants: How to Submit a Successful Late Round Three Application.”  In the podcast, we’ll explore some of the different attitudes schools have toward round three as well as give advice on how to navigate the waters and complete your application on time. And we hear from Jedd Gold, the late applicant who after an epiphany at work was successfully admitted to (and graduated) UCLA’s Anderson School of Business.

Jedd says honest is the best policy when first approaching about being late, whether in Round 3 or just plain late.

“When I called the admissions office that afternoon knowing that the applications were due the next morning and I hadn’t started it, I took a really sort of candid, humorous approach to it, figuring there was going to be no way to really justify the fact that I was applying so late and hadn’t even started the admissions process.  So I introduced myself and said that I was probably going to make one of the more stranger requests they’d heard in a while, but that I was interested in attended UCLA, I recognized that the applications were due the next day, but there was no way that I would be able to get my application in because I had just decided that afternoon to actually apply.  I sort of waited for the pause-slash-laugh on the other end.”

 And you have to convince them that you are serious about attending the program.  

“There was sort of a befuddled silence on the other end actually until I commented on the fact that this is not coming off as the most responsible candidate in the world.  Then all of a sudden I got a very sympathetic approach from them which was ‘Don’t worry about it. We understand.’ They inquired immediately what I was doing for work and what I was hoping to get out of the program.... Clearly they wanted to get a sense how serious I was and if I was going to actually bring something to the program because at the end of the day these schools are very much looking to put together a diverse group of  people who bring different things to their programs.”

 Learn more of what Jedd did to get into UCLA and what the other guests have to say about round three applications in our upcoming show. Other guests on the show include:

• Kofi Kankam, Co-founder & Director, Admit Advantage;
• Soojin Kwon Koh, Director of Admissions for the Ross School at the University of Michigan;
• Graham Richmond, Co-founder and Director, Clear Admit;
• Alex Sevilla  Assistant Dean & Director,  Hough Graduate School of Busienss and Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida; and
• Robert Wagner, Interim Director Graduate Admissions Babson College, F.W. Olin School of Business

Making Your Online Job Search Efficient

We recently received another question from a listener about finding internships in the US. It can be hard for international students to do so, especially because networking in-person is part of the job search strategy for those in the US.

Luckily, there are several online job boards that many top companies in the US use to post internship opportunities. As a first-year MBA student, I've explored many of these sites and can tell you what's worked for me.

Indeed.com: This site allows you to search for internships by location and keyword. You can also set up email alerts so you'll be the first to know when a new job is posted that meets your search criteria.

Simplyhired.com: This site is just like Indeed.com. I usually got alerts about jobs first from Indeed - Simply Hired seemed to be a bit slower to alert me. However, Simply Hired does send a nice e-newsletter every once in a while with some good job search tips, trends and articles.

Vault.com: Vault has a lot of good job search tools on it. Not only can you browse open positions, but it also has good company profiles, salary trends and interview tips.

Lastly, I also wanted to mention Doostang.com as another place to look. There is a monthly fee to use the site, but visit mbapodcaster.doostang.com for a great discount. It starts at only $9.95/month. Not bad!

My other piece of advice would not be to solely rely on these job boards. Some companies choose not to post their openings on external job boards and will only announce them on their company's career page. So if you have some dream companies you'd like to work for, visit their web site and look for the careers page.

Good luck!

Last Minute Applicants: To Be or Not To Be?

Round one and two deadlines have past and round three deadlines are creeping up fast. You’re trying to decide whether you should apply in round three or wait until next year. I’ve been working on an upcoming MBA Podcaster show titled “Last Minute Applicants: How to Submit a Successful Late Round Three Application.” In the podcast, we’ll explore some of the different attitudes schools have toward round three as well as give advice on how to navigate the waters and complete your application on time. I’ll be keeping you posted along the way with blog updates.

Should you or shouldn’t you? Should you apply or should you wait? Graham Richmond is the Co-founder and Director of Clear Admit. He is somewhat of a traditionalist when it comes to giving advice about applying in round three.

“First piece of advice is apply early. The second piece of advice is if you’re at the point where all that’s left is the last round for the school, I think you should seriously consider about applying early the next cycle. Literally wait a year, wait six months to apply but wait a year to start your education essentially, because again, your odds of getting in are so slim if we’re dealing with top programs that often it makes sense to really reassess that a round three or round four app is what you really want to do.”

Given steep odds and the advice that people give against applying late, Richmond recognizes that there are legitimate reasons for applying late and says that you need to consider the perspective of the admissions directors.

“They’re assembling a class and they probably have people from different backgrounds already in that class and so you need to show them how you’re going to meet some unmet need. What is it about your candidacy that will help them complete the puzzle which is their class.”

Learn more of what Richmond and the other guests have to say about round three applications in our upcoming show that will be in a couple of weeks. Other guests on the show include:

• Jedd Gold, a late applicant who successfully was admitted to (and graduated) UCLA’s Anderson School of Business;
• Kofi Kankam, Co-founder & Director, Admit Advantage;
• Soojin Kwon Koh, Director of Admissions for the Ross School at the University of Michigan;
• Alex Sevilla Assistant Dean & Director, Hough Graduate School of Busienss and Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida; and
• Robert Wagner, Interim Director Graduate Admissions Babson College, F.W. Olin School of Business.

Last Minute Applicants: What the Admissions Directors Say

Maybe you’ve been busy at work. Maybe you’ve been busy at home. For whatever reason, you’ve missed the round one and two deadlines at the business schools that you’ve been considering. You’re trying to decide whether you should apply in round three or wait until next year. I’ve been working on an upcoming MBA Podcaster show titled “Last Minute Applicants: How to Submit a Successful Late Round Three Application.” In the podcast, we’ll explore some of the different attitudes schools have toward round three as well as give advice on how to navigate the waters and complete your application on time. I’ll be keeping you posted along the way with blog updates.

The common element between schools is that they all accept applicants in round three. But every school is different in their approach to round three applications. The spectrum runs the gamut from rolling admissions (no deadline) to very competitive as in very few spaces are available to round three applicants. I recently spoke to three admissions directors and start with the later.

Soojin Kwon Koh is the Director of Admissions for the Ross School at the University of Michigan. She warns that at Ross, round three is very competitive.

"Round three is a really small round and it is for those people who realize at the last minute ‘you know maybe I do want to go to school this fall’ and so it’s a really small percentage of apps that come in that round. We don’t reserve a certain number or percentage of slots for round three applicants, but by the time we’re reviewing round three apps, our class is pretty much, um, substantially full."

At the University of Florida’s full-time MBA programs, it’s always a good time to apply. Alex Sevilla, is the Assistant Dean & Director say they never close out a class as it relates to size.

"What that means for us is that deadlines are important, they are especially important as it relates to scholarship consideration. The earlier somebody applies, it is far more likely they will be considered for some type of scholarship funding, but our philosophy is we’re looking for the absolute best candidates and when those candidates apply, if they meet all of those criteria, then we’re willing to look at them.... If very highly qualified candidates apply late, then it’s in our best interest and it certainly makes sense for the rest of the cohorts to bring in the individuals and we have the space to do that."

Also it worth to note that full-time programs are different from Executive MBA programs or part-time programs. Robert Wagner, the Interim Director Graduate Admissions Babson College, F.W. Olin School of Business, says it is very common for working professionals to apply late.

"It’s certainly a lot different than the full-time application process. We work with candidates almost as close as we can get to the enrollment stage. Sometimes they’re applying late because they have so many things going on in their lives. Again, if they’re a good quality candidate, that’s not going to be an issue. We do want to make sure that the timing is right so they are going to get off on the right foot and hit the ground running when the program starts."

Learn more of what our admissions directors and the other guests have to say about round three applications in our upcoming show that will be in a couple of weeks. Other guests on the show include:

• Jedd Gold, a late applicant who successfully was admitted to (and graduated) UCLA’s Anderson School of Business;
• Kofi Kankam, Co-founder & Director, Admit Advantage; and
• Graham Richmond, Co-founder and Director, Clear Admit.