New MBA Website Launched By MBAPrepAdvantage
We went live with our new MBA website a little more than a week ago. In creating the MBA website, I tried to balance providing information about our MBAPrepAdvantage Admissions Consulting services with resources on business schools, MBA-related careers, business school rankings and our MBA Admissions blog. Even on the services pages of our new MBA website, there are sidebar widgets to help you tackle different parts of the overall application process. I hope these resources help you realize your dreams!
I have tried to make the MBA website as easy to navigate as possible by including a top-bar menu, a fat footer with site-wide navigation and a search bar. Throughout the MBA website, breadcrumbs, accordions, toggles and tabs will aid you and present you with the information you desire.
Redesigned MBA Website
Our Difference
The MBA Admissions Consulting Difference page presents some of MBAPrepAdvantage’s differentiators in the marketplace including our client results and testimonials along with our MBA admissions consulting expertise and industry knowledge. In the MBA website sidebar, you can see publications that have featured MBAPrepAdvantage, the industry professional association — AIGAC (Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants) — of which I am a Board of Director and a list of conferences that I have attended worldwide. Towards the bottom, I affirm MBAPrepAdvantage’s deep commitment to you, our clients, and intense passion with which we approach every engagement. Your dreams are our dreams!
Admissions Consulting Services
Services and Fees
The main Admissions Consulting Services and Fees page of the MBA website has description and pricing information about MBAPrepAdvantage’s a la carte and school packages for MBA and other graduate business school degrees. In the upper right sidebar you can purchase these services directly online or call our offices at 305-604-8178. Scrolling towards the bottom of the MBA website page, you will see our methodology. In the MBA website sidebar, you will see Featured In and Board Director widgets along with a Client Testimonial widget containing individual testimonials for you to browse. Previous clients of MBAPrepAdvantage had posted these MBA admissions consulting reviews on admissions411, a 3rd party MBA website.
Application Consultation
The Application Consultation page has information on the initial 2-3 hour session. The MBA website sidebar widgets include an overview of how the session will help you along with the client requirements for the application consultation.
Ding Analysis
The Ding Analysis page covers our ding analysis offering that includes an analysis of your competitiveness as a candidate, previous application mistakes and ways to improve. The MBA website sidebar widgets include evaluation criteria used by MBA admissions committees in assessing your candidacy and Top 10 Application Mistakes found in a Ding Analysis.
Early Application Planning
The Early Application Planning page has excellent resources even if you are planning to apply this MBA admissions cycle. The MBA website sidebar widget will help you with all application phases including researching and shortlisting graduate business schools and programs; engaging students, faculty, and program directors, administrators and alumni; planning your post-MBA career, recommendation letter strategy and aptitude and English test preparation as well as enhancing your academic competitiveness, professional profile and community citizenship.
Essay Editing
The Essay Editing page details the process by which MBAPrepAdvantage edits your essays, from the level of the editing (whether oral feedback, extensive commenting or line-by-line edits) to the types of questions asked in analyzing the content and language. The MBA website sidebar widgets contain a checklist on essay structure and business language; grammar tips; and links to different business writing resources not found on many MBA websites.
Interview Preparation
The Interview Preparation page offers insight into how MBAPrepAdvantage will prepare you for different types of interviewers, formats and questions. We assist you with both the content of your answers and your delivery. There is a comparison of different interview policies, procedures and guidelines among a select group of business schools. The MBA website sidebar widgets include a handy checklist and sample questions from real business school interviews.
Reapplicant Assistance
The Reapplicant Assistance page discusses our process for helping you develop and implement a successful reapplicant strategy. Towards the bottom is an analysis of different reapplicant policies. The sidebar widget lists Top 8 Ways To Improve as an MBA Reapplicant.
Recommendation Strategy
The Recommendation Strategy page delves into our selection and guidance process. The MBA website sidebar widgets includes insight into different recommendation types (professional, community and academic), selection criteria when choosing recommenders and tips for your recommenders.
Resume Editing
The Resume Editing page describes the MBAPrepAdvantage methodology for helping you to produce an impactful MBA resume. You will better grasp the underlying goal and components of a resume in order to optimally structure the entire document and prioritize and quantify your accomplishments. The MBA website sidebar widgets contain a checklist for distinguishing yourself from your peers and a sample work history.
Waitlist Response
The Waitlist Response page details how MBAPrepAdvantage can help you “Get Off The Waitlist” which starts with gaining an understanding of how MBA waitlist policies differ among business schools. Towards the bottom is a comparison table of these different policies. MBAPrepAdvantage helps you develop a tailored optimized strategy for the specific program to which you are trying to gain admittance. The MBA website sidebar widgets include an audio of my interview with Janet Nakano of MBAPodcaster, a checklist for waitlist applicants and a sample MBA waitlist letter.
MBA Resources
Our Resources page comprises MBAPrepAdvantage social feeds and helpful business school-related web links that lead to a variety of different MBA website resources including organizations, career and test prep links. There are also icons to navigate to the MBAPrepAdvantage Schools, Careers, Rankings and Blog sections.
Business Schools
Our Business Schools page has MBA Application Deadlines that you can sort by round. You can use this as a MBA website tool to select, export or print the set of business schools to which you are applying. Eventually, I will add more business schools and different program types. For now, there are 42 to schools. The Business Schools page also has a Twitter and YouTube social media wall with the hash tags: #bschool, #bschools, #MBA and #MBAAdmissions.
Individual Business School Pages
Selecting any business school (for example Berkeley Haas) brings you to the individual business school website page. You will see several tabs with each tab representing a different graduate business school program type:
Full-Time MBA
One Year or Accelerated MBA
Future Leaders Programs
Part-Time MBA
Executive MBA
Global Executive MBA
Masters in Management
Masters in Finance
Masters in Financial Engineering
Sloan Fellows
Online MBA
Eventually, I will be adding more program types to the website, especially more business-related Masters Programs. Within each tab you will find admissions related information for each program, such as MBA application deadlines and application requirements along with the essay questions. Some schools will have other sections, such as class profiles and admissions events. Eventually, I will be adding additional sections, such as employment statistics, financial aid and much more. On the right side of the MBA website page, you will see a Social Media Stream for each school with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Flickr, RSS feeds, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram. Please provide feedback if this is information overload (I could include less hashtags and profiles or less social media properties).
MBA Careers
The MBA Careers section contains different career paths, industries and functions along with advice on building a career plan and analyzing business school employment information. Selecting one of the Investment Banking, Investment Management, Management Consulting, Research Analyst, Risk Management or Sales and Trading icons takes you to the specific page for that career path. Over time, we will be adding more career paths. The MBA Leadership Development Program page comprises different industries and functions. Clicking any of these icons takes you to an anchor link with different leadership development programs (LDPs) for that industry or function.
Within each page, you can learn about the industry and post-MBA roles and responsibilities for that career path and can browse links to leading companies and positions.
Business School Rankings
The Business School Rankings page is a collection of rankings for MBA and non-MBA programs. The sections are similarly divided as the Business School tabs (Full-Time MBA, EMBA / Executive MBA Rankings, Global EMBA / Global Executive MBA, Part Time MBA, Masters in Management (MiM), Masters in Finance (MiF), Masters in Financial Engineering (MFE), Executive Education, Online MBA and Additional Rankings). Within the Full-Time MBA rankings section, you can drill down by region, by specialization or by other criteria and within the MiF rankings section you can see rankings for pre-experience and post-experience programs. The Additional Rankings section includes rankings for top incubators, startups and startup investors.
MBAPrepAdvantage MBA Admissions Blog
The MBA Admissions blog contains information about various aspects of the admissions process and about graduate business school programs. Expect more posts now that MBAPrepAdvantage has launched the new MBA website. Feel free to comment about blog posts you would like to see or about any way in which we can improve the MBA website for you.
Admissions Consulting Reviews / Client Testimonials
The Testimonials page contains MBA Admissions Consulting Reviews from former MBAPrepAdvantage clients who had posted on admissions411, an independent 3rd party MBA website, about their experiences. These reviews include successful applicants to:
Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business
Chicago Booth School of Business
Columbia Business School
Columbia Business School Executive MBA Program
Cornell Johnson School of Management
Duke Fuqua School of Business
Harvard Business School
INSEAD
Michigan Ross School of Business
MIT Sloan School of Management
Northwestern Kellogg School of Management
Northwestern Kellogg School of Management Executive MBA Program
Northwestern Medill Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)
NYU Stern School of Business
NYU Stern School of Business Executive MBA Program
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth
UCLA Anderson School of Management
UC Berkeley Haas School of Business
Virginia Darden School of Business
The Wharton School
The Wharton School MBA for Executives
About the Founder
The About page of the MBA website provides some background on me, including references in publications, board seats and guest blogging information.
Free MBA Admissions Consultation Form
Finally, we would love to hear from you and give you a free MBA admissions consultation to help you realize your dream of joining a top business school. Complete this form on our MBA website to begin the process.
Acknowledgements
I would like to say thank you to the many people who have guided me in building this MBA website from scratch. At the beginning of this process, I did how to write one line of PhP, JavaScript or even CSS code. Without their themes, plug-ins and support this would not have been possible for a non-developer like me.
Maxx Duffy, of Maxx Associates, for pushing me to scrap my archaic MBA website.
Don Osborne, of Inquarta, for explaining managed WordPress Hosting and theme frameworks along with introducing me to Genesis.
Eric Hamm and his team, at CobaltApps, who helped guide me through my initial stages of development using the powerful Dynamik Genesis Child theme.
Team Flywheel at Flywheel Hosting who have answered a zillion questions of mine as I flipped the switch on to “go live” and afterwards as I integrated the MBA website with CloudFlare CDN. There is a reason Flywheel gets insanely positive reviews across the web – 96% favorable response for Flywheel Hosting at HostingReviews.io.
Various developers of WordPress plugins that have helped add functionality to my MBA website. I use more than the seven plugins below. But these plugin authors have all personally responded to my questions and have done an outstanding job in support of their great products.
Formidable Pro – Steph Wells and Jamie Whalin of Strategy 11
TablePress – Tobias Bäthge
Testimonials Showcase – Carlos Moreira
WordPress Social Stream – Lee Chestnutt of Design Chemical
Accordion Shortcodes – Phil Buchanan
Arconix Shortcodes – John Gardner
WP Menu Cart – Jeremiah Prummer and Ewout Fernhout
If I have forgotten anybody … thank you too.