Admissions Straight Talk

Are you considering a PhD, either in the United States or abroad? [Show summary]

Dr. Eva Lantsoght, a professor of civil engineering who has lived and studied all over the globe, shares her insights on applying to PhD programs in STEM fields.

What to expect when applying to domestic and international PhD programs. [Show notes]

Would you like to attend a US or UK master’s or PhD program in a STEM field? Are you concerned about the process of both applying to and completing the degree?

Dr. Eva Lantsoght is a citizen of the world, professor of civil engineering, blogger, and podcast host. Dr. Lantsoght was born in Belgium and earned her bachelor's in civil engineering in Brussels and her master's in structural engineering at Georgia Tech, with a full ride scholarship and a scholarship from the Belgian-American Educational Foundation. She earned her PhD at TU Delft, where she has been a researcher since earning her PhD in 2013 and recently received tenure. Since 2013 she has also been an assistant professor at USFQ in Quito, Ecuador, where she also has tenure.

Officially, you're a professor of civil engineering with a focus on concrete. However, you've been blogging and podcasting about something not so “concrete”: how to get into and complete PhD programs. How did you get interested in this process? [2:14]

I started blogging in the first year of my PhD, and at that time, it was just documenting my experience in the laboratory. I wanted a place where I could write about what didn't work in the lab or the processes behind what we do in the lab, like how to keep lab notes, how to organize all that information, things that don't get into a journal publication. So I started to use my blog as a space for documenting those things. As I progressed through my career, I started to write about other topics related to PhD research and PhD education, and then came questions from students thinking about doing a PhD. “What is it like? What should I consider? How do I select a school? How do I select an advisor? What is different about a PhD in the Netherlands versus the United States?” I started to write about all of these topics.

I think there's a lot of information out there, but I found that, especially in my niche of engineering and civil engineering, there may not be that many professor bloggers or PhD student bloggers out there. I stepped up to the lack that was there and started to address those. From those questions came my interest in looking at what PhD programs are like at different universities and why there are these differences and how that then impacts the career of researchers after going through a more research-oriented or more a coursework-and-research-oriented PhD program.

What is the typical process for earning a PhD in a STEM field? [4:24]

It also really depends on the country, but mostly I've worked in the Netherlands. What I see is that typically, if it's full-time, it will be a three- to four-year endeavor. If you do it part-time, of course, it takes at least five years. There will always be a time of reading, familiarizing yourself with the literature, defining what is really going to be your research question, the topic that you really want to address.

Need-to-know information about MIT Sloan [Show summary]

Dawna Levenson, Assistant Dean of Admissions at MIT Sloan School of Management, shares the latest from the school’s full-time MBA program, including why it’s chosen to go test-optional and how the pandemic is shaping the classroom experience.

Do you see yourself at MIT Sloan? Read on for the inside admissions scoop. [Show notes]

This is one of the most competitive MBA application cycles in memory. Today, I'm interviewing the Assistant Dean of Admissions at one of the most competitive MBA programs, MIT Sloan.

Dawna Levenson is Assistant Dean at MIT Sloan School of Management. Dawna earned her bachelor's and master's in Management Science at MIT Sloan, became a partner at Accenture, and then returned to MIT Sloan in 2007 as Associate Director of Academic Programs. She moved into admissions in 2012 and became Director of Admissions in 2013, and Assistant Dean in 2018.

Can you give an overview of MIT Sloan's full-time MBA program for those listeners who aren't that familiar with it? [1:52]

We have a two-year MBA, we have a one-semester core, and then three semesters to really shape the curriculum to meet your interests. We have three tracks. We have one in finance, one in entrepreneurship and innovation, and a third in enterprise management. Think of those as templates or maps for particular areas of concentration. We also have three certificates: one in business analytics, one in healthcare, and a third in sustainability. These have been designed so that people are able to actually do one of each, if they're interested. You could imagine that you may do the finance track, but then want to apply it to healthcare.

One other distinction I want to make is that, while the tracks are very specific to our two-year MBAs, the certificates are actually open to not only our MBAs and the entire Sloan community, but actually the entire MIT community. We are, in fact, MIT School of Management. That can mean as much as you want it to mean. As an MBA student, you are able to get involved in classes and clubs and conferences throughout the Institute to really help compliment your MBA experience. You can take some of your electives throughout the Institute. You can actually, also, take classes at several of the Harvard schools as well.

What’s new at MIT Sloan, other than a lockdown and a pandemic? [3:18]

It's hard to ignore the pandemic, and we absolutely should not. What I think has come out of that is lots of really interesting conversations in the classroom, as well as lots of very interesting projects. Many of our courses, which are, in fact, project-based, have taken the opportunity to refocus on different aspects of the pandemic and COVID-19. Whether it be from a healthcare standpoint or whether it be infrastructure and the impact there, or if you just think about it from a global perspective, so many things have been impacted. This has really, I think, shifted the conversation an awful lot. And again, at MIT and MIT Sloan, we're really all about identifying and solving the world's biggest problems. There were those who said we've been built for this time. I think we're trying to do everything we can to really make a difference.

A tale of med school reapplication success [Show summary]

After getting rejected from medical schools the first time around, Nicole Stephens bounced back and reapplied. Now happily anticipating the start of med school, she shares her advice for fellow reapplicants.

How to apply stronger the second time around [Show notes]

Were you rejected from this year's med school cycle? Is the deafening silence from medical schools causing you to fear rejection? Are you starting to think about reapplication?

Our guest today, Nicole Stephens, reapplied successfully and is happily anticipating the start of medical school. She earned her bachelor's in neuroscience from UT Austin in May 2019, and she is currently pursuing an MS in biomedical science from MD Anderson UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Science in Houston. 

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and where you grew up? [1:56]

I grew up moving around the country with my brother and my parents, and both my parents served in the military. Every few years we would pack up and move to a new location. Not only did this inspire my future career, but it taught me a lot and shaped me a lot as a person, teaching me things like integrity and discipline and showing me the diversity across the whole country. We finally did settle in Central Texas where we really fell in love with the area. I decided to stay to do my undergrad in Austin at the University of Texas. Then, I stayed in Texas for my graduate program here in Houston and will be attending medical school here in Texas as well. I'm not from Texas, but I'm now a Texan at heart.

How did you decide to pursue a career in medicine? [3:01]

I decided around when I was in middle school and early in high school from observing and learning about the injuries of returning soldiers. Being from military communities, many of the members would deploy overseas and return with injuries like post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain injury. I saw somewhere in my community that I would be able to help. That's what inspired me to go into medicine.

Did you volunteer with some of the veterans and soldiers that came back injured? [3:29]

I was able to volunteer at the military hospital at Fort Hood, Texas in the ICU there. My mom, she's an artist. She did some art with some veterans, and I was able to volunteer with her for that. This was when I was 14 or 15. I wasn't able to do much as a volunteer, being so young, but I was able to observe a lot. I think being in that environment at a young age, I was able to see that that is what I want to pursue in the future.

Why did you decide to pursue the master's in biomedical science? [4:09]

I knew that there would be some time between my time as an undergrad and medical school, and I wanted to do something that would challenge myself, but also show medical schools that I was dedicated to continuing my education and show them that I was able to continue to increase my GPA. That's why I decided to do a program. The reason I chose my particular program is because I had the opportunity to continue my ...

What makes the Cambridge Judge MBA experience unique? [Show summary]

Charlotte Russell-Green, Head of MBA Recruitment and Admissions at Cambridge Judge Business School, explores the one-of-a-kind experience students can expect from the full-time MBA program at Cambridge Judge’s historic campus.

What Cambridge Judge is looking for... and what it can offer YOU [Show notes]

Are you intrigued by the innovative and venerated Cambridge Judge Business School? Interested in an immersive one-year MBA in the UK? The Cambridge Judge Head of MBA Recruitment and Admissions is our guest today.

Charlotte Russell-Green earned her bachelor's in Drama and Theater Arts from the University of London. In only a couple of years, she was working in the MBA admissions world, first as a senior marketing executive for QS World MBA in North America and then in MBA admissions for Cambridge Judge. She became Head of Recruitment and Admissions for the MBA roughly five years ago. 

Can you give us an overview of the Cambridge Judge MBA program and focus on its more distinctive elements? [2:03]

The Cambridge MBA is a one-year full-time MBA program, run out of the University of Cambridge, which is in the UK, which is in Europe. The great thing about the Cambridge MBA is it really is experiential. The curriculum has been designed to take you on a micro to macro journey, but with each term, there is a key learning milestone: a practical project where you're working with a real life client. There are two live consulting projects that run alongside your studies, as well as the global consulting project, which is where you work with an international client on site as a consultant, as well as an internship opportunity in the summer. So it's really experiential, and it's really, really collaborative.

We have a class size of circa 200, which we find is optimal for us and the learning environment that we have, because you can build meaningful relationships with your classmates. It's broad enough and diverse enough to build a far-reaching network, but you're really going to get to know everyone in the class. You're also set amongst the University of Cambridge, so you are a member of one of the famous Cambridge colleges, and you get to have the Harry Potter-style dining experience. It's a fantastic opportunity and a great life experience.

Over the summer term, you can do an internship. We keep the summer term quite flexible because people can be at quite different journeys of their career path. Some people want to do an internship. Some people choose to do another consulting project, or some even choose to do a research paper.

Do the students have any difficulty changing career direction or returning to their home country if they aren't from the UK? I know most Cambridge Judge students are not. [4:02]

Usually around 90% of the class is international. A really good thing to look at, which perhaps we can link to later, is the employment report, which is a great way of seeing where our students go after the MBA.

How Blueprint Prep can help YOU crush the LSAT [Show summary]

Blueprint Prep’s Sena Maruflu, who aced the LSAT and now coaches aspiring law students, shares why and how the LSAT can be a learnable test for dedicated students of any background.

A stellar LSAT score can mean the difference between acceptance and rejection at top law schools. Learn how YOU can achieve the score of your dreams! [Show notes]

Are you prepping for the LSAT? Planning to apply to law school? Blueprint's Sena Maruflu, who aced the LSAT and now teaches the LSAT, shares her top LSAT tips.

Sena has a very unusual background. She speaks eight languages and is truly a citizen of the world. She moved to New York City to pursue a career in the arts, but somewhere along the way, she launched a career in international business as a sustainable coffee entrepreneur. She also considered law school, got bit by the LSAT bug (she earned a 178), and began to teach LSAT prep. She considers the LSAT like another language: completely teachable and completely learnable. 

How do you get involved with LSAT prep? [1:33]

I come from a career in the arts, primarily in dance. I moved to New York City at 17 to pursue that career, and I ended up getting injured and being unable to dance. I was looking to do pretty much anything else, and I explored quite a lot of things. The LSAT was that “anything else” and I ended up falling in love with it.

What do you think is the most important thing for prospective law school applicants to keep in mind when prepping for the LSAT? [2:07]

People frequently ask me this question because I don't really have the most robust academic experience. I never really went to elite, impressive institutions or anything. People always ask me how I earned such a high score, and I really think it's because I had such a positive and excited attitude throughout the whole thing. I think I always kept the end goal in mind. For me, the end goal wasn't earning a perfect score. It was because I genuinely wanted to go to law school, and I really wanted to take that next step in my academic career. For some people, it's being a certain kind of lawyer or solving a specific kind of issue that they really want to go to law school to solve. Keep that at the forefront of your mind as you're studying, not really worrying much about the little mishaps along the way, just acknowledging that they're going to happen. Lucky for me, I failed many times in my life, so it was nothing that was a shock to me. It never really brought me down too much. I always kept the end goal in mind.

What if an applicant knows that the schools they are applying to are accepting both the GRE and the LSAT? When should applicants take the LSAT, and when should they take the GRE? [4:36]

That's a really great question because accepting the GRE is a relatively new thing in law school admissions, and shockingly, there actually are cases where taking the GRE is an appropriate step. A couple of things on that: The first is acknowledging that if you want to apply to law school,

Applying the lessons of MBA school to the reality of COVID-19 [Show summary]

Al Dea, a tech product manager who earned his MBA from UNC, dives deep into what life is like after business school, including how the pandemic has impacted the post-MBA experience.

What steps can businesses take to help employees thrive during COVID? How can MBA programs help students thrive during this time? [Show notes]

Our guest today is a tech product manager, member of the UNC MBA class of 2015, host of the MBASchooled podcast, and author of the book MBA Insider: How to Make the Most of Your MBA Experience. Al Dea earned his bachelor's in marketing and theology from Boston College in 2010. He then became a Deloitte analyst and consultant until starting his MBA at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. He earned his MBA from Kenan-Flagler in 2015 and returned to Deloitte for a couple of years, then started in product management for a leading high tech firm in 2017, and today is a senior manager in product marketing at that company. On the side, he launched his website, MBASchooled, in 2015. A year ago, he published his first book, MBA Insider: How to Make The Most of Your MBA Experience, and started the MBASchooled podcast.

It's been about a year since he was last on Admissions Straight Talk, and we discussed in that interview his application experience and MBA experience at UNC. We’re not going to cover those topics again, but if you would like to hear Al's perspective on the topics I typically discuss, check out the original interview, MBA Insider Shares His Secrets in New Book.

How did you adjust to remote work both personally and as a manager working in tech? [2:46]

I’m someone who works as a knowledge worker and for a tech company. Relatively speaking, we've all experienced challenges, but my experience making the transition was rather seamless. Many of the people on my team have worked remotely for varying degrees of time, and in some cases, many are only remote based off of where they are, geographically speaking. It wasn't so much that we hadn't done this before; we just all hadn't done it permanently before. It was really about refining and getting used to this being an everyday thing. That said, even though we did have incredible resources to make the transition, even though we had some kind of norms for knowing how to collaborate over Google Hangouts and Google Meet and the like, it definitely was still challenging. Anytime you get a shock to the system, or you have to make an adjustment, it takes the body a little bit of time to adapt and evolve.

For me, a couple of things stood out. Number one, the fundamentals in the ways of working. Fundamentals: these are the things that are critical to helping you be at your best and do your job effectively. If you think about a professional athlete, if I think about someone like LeBron James, LeBron James is amazing on the court because of all the things he does off the court in order for him to be at his best. That was something that I took to heart as I made the transition to working more remote and thought about for the folks on my team. What are those fundamentals that, in this new environment,

Understanding postbac programs, and how they can help YOU apply to medical school successfully [Show summary]

Accepted consultant Dr. Barry Rothman offers an overview of postbac programs to help prospective med school applicants discern if the postbac experience is the next best step for them, along with tips for postbac applicants.

How postbac programs help applicants apply at their best [Show notes]

Are you applying to medical school but concerned about your undergraduate record? Or, did the medical bug bite you when it was too late to take the med school prerequisites? Then you either are or should be considering a postbac program.

Our guest today is Dr. Barry Rothman, Accepted consultant. Dr. Rothman has been on the show several times. The first time was way back in 2013, before he joined Accepted. At the time, he was serving at San Francisco State University as a professor of biology, director of postbac programs, director of the SFSU health professionals advising committee, director of the pre-health professions certificate program, and director of the SFSU/University of Pacific Dental postbac program. He has since left SFSU and is now a much-loved consultant at Accepted.

How and when did you get involved in postbac programs? [2:11]

Around 2005. I was a professor at San Francisco State, and my Dean approached me and said, "We need a new health professions advisor." I thought, “I like working with students and I'm interested in molecular medicine. This sounds good. I get three units of release time, and it should be easy.” Well, it was a lot more work, and I loved it. I really fell in love with the area and especially the students, working with them closely, helping them find their way into the health profession. At the time, there was an informal postbac program that all the CSU campuses had, but there were no services. You could just take classes with undergrads.

What services did you feel were lacking? [3:03]

Mostly advising, letter writing. There was no organization. It was just free-floating. The postbacs who came to SF State could take classes, but that was it. Nobody took care of them. A group of them approached me and said, "We would be willing to pay extra money if we could get some advising." I said, "Okay, let's put our heads together." We wrote up a proposal, and my dean got on board. I had to take it to our Academic Senate, which was a learning experience in itself, having to learn how to navigate the political waters at San Francisco State, which are pretty calm, not turbulent, but still, I had to learn how to present my program to the Academic Senate and convince them that this was a good thing to do. It turned out great. Amazingly, it was in black ink from the very beginning.

I'm not directing the program anymore, but now the program’s into its 14th or 15th cohort. It's been quite successful. It was formulated on the idea of cooperation, although many health professions situations can have a competitive component to them. We really wanted to select people who wanted to be team players, and that has been very successful. A lot of folks don't want to be in a heavy competitive situation and want to be in a situation where people pull together and support each ...

How can you ace the GMAT, the EA or any test required at your dream school? [Show summary]

Mike Diamond of Apex GMAT shares his advice for acing the GMAT, prepping for graduate program tests of all kinds, and why empathy is central to Apex’s approach to test-coaching.

Mike Diamond, Director of Curriculum Development at Apex GMAT talks test prep [Show notes]

How can you ace the GMAT, the EA, or any tests that may be required at the school you have your heart set on? Today’s guest has your answer. Mike Diamond is Director of Curriculum Development at Apex GMAT, and also its Co-Founder. Mike earned his bachelor's at Brandeis in 2000 and has worked in finance, strategy advising, and political consulting. However, his passion is the GMAT.

How did you get involved in the test prep business? [1:55]

Entirely by accident. My passion is teaching and helping people, and I've always pursued that in all the various places that I've been in my career, and even going back to being a student. And like many, I was sort of the go-to guy for friends and family members, as a resource for people I knew, without paying attention to it as a potential career choice. I had spent some time working in a hedge fund, and then I was in the world of political consulting as you had mentioned. I loved it. I was helping people. I was doing really interesting work. But frankly, I was getting a little jaded, and this is well over a decade ago, and I know a lot more people are jaded these days. I was getting a little jaded, and I was having a burrito with my best friend's cousin. We're sitting in the Qdoba, and she's brilliant. She's actually an instructor at Manhattan Prep and she says to me, "Hey, I'm super passionate about Teach For America. I love teaching fourth grade science in North Philly, but I pay my mortgage teaching the GMAT." I said, "Oh really?" At the time, I only thought there were the bigger shops, the Kaplans and Princeton Reviews. And frankly, as an educator, and I certainly consider myself an educator, those never held much appeal for me as a place of employment. I said, "Oh wow, that's really fascinating." I had always had a proclivity towards psychometric standardized testing.

So about four days later, I went in, I did the GMAT, and then I began taking meetings with various GMAT firms. I was disappointed in what I saw, and there's plenty of great firms and great tutors out there. But once a GMAT business gets beyond a small scale, personalized attention really isn't a priority, and everything defaults to curriculum and having very bright instructors go through a prescriptive method for learning how to excel. There's two problems with that. One is that it only gets a candidate so far, and the other is that it's very one-size-fits-all, and yet one size does not fit all. Very quickly, everything else went into the rear view mirror. I began Apex with some like-minded instructors, and the rest, as they say, is history.

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What is Apex GMAT Prep? [4:54]

Apex is dedicated to helping people become better thinkers and bett...

Need help deciding if law school and a legal career are right for YOU? [Show summary]

Christopher Melcher, a celebrity family lawyer and teacher of law, offers an unvarnished look at a lawyer’s day-to-day and what a career in law can look like.

Considering law school? Read on to learn what a career as a lawyer can look like. [Show notes]

What's being a lawyer truly like? Our guest today, a divorce attorney to the stars, is going to tell us. Some of you may wonder, what does celebrity family law (which almost seems like an oxymoron) have to do with admissions? That's a very good question. Listeners considering a JD may want to learn what lawyers really do, what the career is really like.

Christopher Melcher got his JD in 1993 at Pepperdine Law, went initially into criminal law and personal injury litigation, and has been with the family law firm of Walzer & Melcher since 2002. He's also an adjunct professor at Pepperdine Law.

How did you decide that a career in law is for you? [1:55]

That was easy for me because my dad was a lawyer. He was a deputy district attorney in the early 1970s, and when I was really young, he would come home and talk to me about his cases. These were serious cases. I might've been six or seven years old when he started talking to me about his cases. He would explain what he was working on, and then he would ask me, "What do you think?" That got my legal mind started because he was genuinely interested in my opinion. I don't know what I had to share at that age, but we would have these conversations.

As I got older, they, I'm sure, got better, but I remembered that he really wanted to know what I thought. I had the feeling like he would maybe use some of that input for his cases and arguments and trials that he was in. That helped form this legal, analytical mind. As I got older, I got into some trouble in grade school, and I remember being in the principal's office and my buddy, Don, was there too for some unrelated offense. He would ask me like, "I got in trouble. What should I do?" I would give him advice. I was like a little jailhouse lawyer there as a kid, helping my buddies craft their stories for the principal. That's how it started in getting those legal juices going in my brain.

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Did you test that thesis as you got older? [3:38]

I wanted to be a lawyer from that early age, but I really didn't want to do the work. I wanted to grow up too fast, and that really was a mistake. I had a lot of fun, but I didn't want to put the work in, and that held me back. I think back then it was easier to slack in school and still survive. I don't know what I would do now. I feel the pressure on students now is so much greater than it was. I'm talking about in the 80s, for me, because I could get by as a C student without studying or reading or doing anything and somehow got into college and somehow got into law school. I had it easy because, I think, of the times.

Things really clicked for me probably in the second or third year of college when I decided, "Okay. I have to actually do this and take it seriously.

Can the lessons of 2020 help us forge a better 2021? [Show summary]

For Admissions Straight Talk’s 400th episode, Linda Abraham reflects on a turbulent year and identifies the most important trends in higher ed admissions to watch in 2021.

Applying to graduate school: A journey of self-improvement [Show notes]

We’ve reached Episode 400! I feel it's a milestone, and I've decided to do a little bit of a different kind of a show. I'm going to discuss two important developments of 2020 and their impact on applicants, their implications for you as you apply, and how you should deal with them. 

I also want to speak at the very end on a more personal and, hopefully, thoughtful perspective, a little bit higher level, more strategically, and share some thoughts as we are starting to see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. This is a brand new year. The other perspective that I'm going to share will reflect a little of what I've learned from Rabbi Lord Dr. Jonathan Sacks, a favorite writer, thinker, and teacher of mine, who sadly passed away in November. His writings have relevance to many people and many situations, but specifically to grad school applicants, and I'm dedicating this podcast in his memory.

The rising number of graduate program applicants [2:16]

The first development that folks need to be aware of, and I'm sure you are aware of, is the surge. And no, I don't mean the surge in COVID cases that we are tragically experiencing. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the surge in applicants to graduate programs across the board that is occurring this fall and winter.

What do I mean by that? Let's give some examples. In December, NPR reported that 18% more applicants applied via AAMC to medical school than did a year earlier. Some school-specific numbers: Stanford, which also went test-optional, reported a 50% increase in applications. Boston University reported a 27% increase in applications. And when I spoke with Paul White of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in October, for Admissions Straight Talk's 392nd episode which you can find at accepted.com/392, he reported at that point an increase of 25% in applications to Johns Hopkins.

Business schools are also experiencing a surge in applications. They were experiencing a decline in applications that seemed to end for most schools with round two of last year and the recession’s onset in March of 2020. They have also seen a surge in applications this cycle. The stats for last year revealed 67% of MBA programs reporting increased applications per GMAC. The stats for this year aren't out yet, but news reports, whether from The Wall Street Journal, Poets&Quants, or my conversations with admissions directors, all indicate increased application volume.

Law school applications have also soared. Through December 15th, LSAC reports a 38% increase in applicants (not applications, but applicants) year over year, a whopping 57.