Sonia Michaels

Now THAT's a celebration!

2012-02-09T16:59:00.000-08:00

What a cool idea... to launch your acceptance letter into near-space! I am unreasonably overjoyed that this kid got admitted to MIT--the class of 2016 is lucky to have her. :) Really, the whole article just makes me happy and optimistic about the next generation.

How Non-Traditional MBA Essays Can Help Applicants Shine

2012-02-07T17:02:00.000-08:00

Now more than ever, as BusinessWeek reports, well-written non-traditional personal essays can tip an MBA application over the edge from "just OK" to "we really need to admit this person!"

They're also some of the toughest essays to put together... applicants need to consider exactly how their personal stories will affect the reader's perception of them, as well as figuring out how to create prose that is lively and engaging, never confusing or boring!

If you're ready to create strong, compelling essays to support your MBA application, I can help! Please contact me for further details.

Vassar "placeholder" error leads to confusion, disappointment...

2012-02-05T11:37:00.000-08:00

What an awful disappointment for these poor applicants--how sad to find out that you were accepted to your dream school and then learn that you were rejected after all. :(http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/education/vassar-applicants-are-mistakenly-told-they-are-accepted.html

INSEAD news!

2012-01-24T11:25:00.000-08:00

So, Insead is launching an EMBA program in Singapore... and they've come up with their own entrance exam to replace the GMAT! Verrrry interesting. From the Financial Times article: "The new Insead test will retain the relevant questions on quantitative and verbal reasoning skills found in the GMAT, but discard some of the more complex and esoteric mathematical and language questions. In addition there will be a mini-case analysis and a test of verbal communications. The test will be administered on each campus, and combined with a personal interview."

NY Times reports on this year's developing admissions trends...

2012-01-23T21:25:00.000-08:00

Over at "The Choice," colleges are starting to share this year's application statistics. Some interesting developments! Berkeley is still one of the "hot" colleges--no surprise there. But other, less famous schools are also attracting interest from more applicants. Definitely worth taking a look if you're a high-school junior (or the parent of one!).

Another admissions season... nearly over!

2012-01-18T23:11:00.000-08:00

If you're still trying to finish up your MBA or EMBA applications, I can help. Just drop me a line at sonia.michaels@gmail.com or call 206-395-8866 between 9 am and 6 pm (Pacific time) to find out how I can help you earn admission to your dream school, even this late in the season!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

2010-08-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

It's August 1, and there are massive changes happening in my professional life!

As of the end of this month, I'll no longer be working with Accepted.com, because I've signed on for a full-time teaching gig at Digipen Institute of Technology. I get to do what I love--teach writing and communications--AND I get to talk about video games all day... clearly, I've won the "dream job" lottery!

That said, I'd like to thank Linda at Accepted.com for ten amazing years. I'm honored to have learned how to be an admissions consultant from the absolute best in the business, and so glad to have had the chance to work alongside such a talented group of colleagues over the years.

That's all for now... wish me luck!

Teachers are important...

2008-09-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

Teachers ARE important. A good teacher can transform lives; a bad teacher can stamp out enthusiasm and destroy the urge to learn. Fortunately, I've had a lot of great teachers! This morning, someone posted a wonderful--and really simple--question on the LinkedIn network: Who was your favorite teacher or professor and why? The responses (including mine) are here.

http://www.linkedin.com/answers/career-education/mentoring/CAR_MEN/318207-86405

Digital Literacy

2008-08-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

Over the past little while, the issue of "digital literacy" has been much on my mind. It started when I read Nicholas Carr's article in The Atlantic Monthly: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" and intensified about a week ago when the New York Times published "Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?"

I read the articles. I discussed them with my students. I discussed them with my family. I looked at my living room full of bookcases, upon which the books are stacked three deep. I asked myself--well, the New York Times asked me--if reading online held anywhere near the same value as reading books. I think what resonated with me most was this passage from the end of Carr's piece: "In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. ... If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture."

I'm in a strange position, really. I was a nerd long before it was quasi-fashionable to be one (yes, I even waited all night outside the Apple store for my new iPhone a few weeks ago). I'm also a (library) card carrying bibliophile (how could an English Literature major NOT be one?). So I'm torn, really, between my enthusiasm for technology--the exhilaration of surfing through the rabbit hole into the wondrous digital world--and my yearning for that quiet space, the joy and inspiration of getting lost in a good book.

Can there really be a happy medium between these two extremes? Honestly, I think there can be. But how do we make it happen for our kids and ourselves--not just serendipitously, but deliberately, mindfully? How do we embrace the new without tossing out the old?

My mom, always creative and thoughtful when it came to discipline and boundaries, used to say "I don't understand why people threaten their kids with missing dessert if they don't eat their dinner. It's setting them up to believe that dessert is somehow BETTER than dinner, and that can't be healthy!"

Perhaps technology is like dessert. Perhaps, rather than telling our kids "No video games until you've read three chapters of that book!" we should present the book and the PC or gaming console as objects of equivalent value, spending less time and energy regulating the media, and more time and energy examining the messages. I have fantastic discussions about books with my daughter--I try to read just about everything she reads, so we can talk about it (it helps that I love children's/young adult literature!). We can also spend a three-hour car ride talking about the way groups and communities work, illustrating our discussion with well-chosen examples from the MMORPG we play together.

I hope that I'm right. I hope that, ten years from now, when my daughter turns 21, she will still live a life that's fairly well balanced between digital literacy and the old-fashioned kind. I'll do my best to help that happen.

Getting your MBA application process organized!

2008-08-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

A new MBA season is upon us! (Why does the word "season" always make me think of Elmer Fudd exclaiming "It's Wabbit Season!"?)

Anyway, assuming that you're applying to more than one school this year (and I certainly hope you are!), the absolute best thing you can be doing right now (roughly two months before the earliest first-round deadlines) is NOT actually writing--it's PRE-WRITING. Here's what your pre-writing process should involve:

Make yourself a new calendar (I like Google Calendar) that you will use ONLY for application-related stuff. Add the deadlines and notification dates, and then start setting some tentative deadlines for yourself to complete the various elements of your application.
Create a spreadsheet or Word document that you will use to organize all the essay questions for all the schools. Color code the different essay TYPES, so that you can see how many unique essays you'll actually have to write from scratch, and how many you may be able to re-work, at least in part, from other documents.
Get yourself a journal or create a Word file dedicated to brainstorming, journaling about important/relevant memories (and even some that may not be all that relevant--anything to get the creative flow going!), and making notes about the stories you might want to tell in your essays. While it's much easier to do this in Word than in longhand, I often find that simply having a beautiful journal encourages people to write!
Start making outlines for each of the required essays. I understand that many people think of outlining as an optional--and even irritating--element of the writing process, but I strongly encourage everyone I work with to use outlines. It is much easier to come up with a clear, strong shape for an essay before you actually put the words in there--structure before drafting, rather than drafting and then trying to impose a structure!

This pre-writing process can be frustrating if you're eager to just crank the essays out, but if you do it right, it will actually speed up your drafting, revising and editing process thereafter. And of course, if you get stuck along the way, my colleagues and I at Accepted.com are always ready to help out!