For info on the Cutts Program, please start here

4 Year PreMBA Planner

Click Links for directions for tasks

If you are coming to this planner for the first time with two years or less until Business School, Click Here for the Two Year Accelerated Planner

Two Year Accelerated Planner

Use this if you are coming into this planning system after your Sophomore year, or with about two years or less till your admissions date.

It contains all the same elements as the 4 year plan, but you have to get them done more quickly.

Keeping your GPA up.

How can you keep your GPA strong? I don't want to suggest that you only take easy classes. That wouldn't be fun or interesting. However, if you find yourself in a class that you aren't going to get at least a strong B in, you might consider dropping it.

If you are having trouble in a class, talk to the instructor right away. Don't wait till the middle of the semester. Ask what kind of help is available. Ask what you can do to make up for poor work so far. Teachers certainly respect someone asking for help.

Rearrange your schedule. If you need to drop one class to do well in the others, do it. It may mean taking an extra semester or two to graduate, but it will be well worth it if you can maintain a GMATat GPA and earn academic honors. If you have to work while you are in school at it is affecting your grades, rethink your financial plan. There should be enough financial aid available to you so that you can concentrate on your education. There is no point getting through college only having learned half of what you could have. Go to the financial aid office to ask for information.

Keep an eye out for any problems you are having academically.

Deal with any problems as soon as possible. Don't wait until the middle of the semester.

How do you deal with problems? Here you are on a big campus where everything may seem overwhelming. Start somewhere, even if it's asking a friend to help you figure out what to do. There is strength in numbers. You can help them out too. For many problems you may need to talk with your advisor. Admittedly they can be overwhelmed too at the beginning of the semester but be persistent. Talk with your instructors outside of class. They probably can't spend too much time before and after class with you, so ask to meet them in their office. Older students can maybe give you some good advice. Ask them for help. It will make them feel important! Check with the preMBA advisor. Don't let problems back up!!

Adjust your class load if you need to. Ask for help if you need it. You may need to drop outside activities, including work hours.

Let's talk about that. If you are working a lot and it's affecting your grades, and perhaps how much you are learning, that's not good. Well, you say, I have to make money. Consider what might happen if the admissions committee asked why your GPA is low and why your performance on the GMAT seemed shaky. What will they say if you tell them that the reason is that you had to work to earn money?

They might say, "Well, wow, you did pretty well, considering." Or they might say, "Why didn't you do some financial planning so that you could focus on what is important - your school work? Would you want to hire a CEO who got C's because they were working through school?"

They have a point. You are in school to learn. Poor school performance may hold up your law school acceptance by a year or prevent you from being accepted at all. In addition, your being too busy will cause you to miss out on much information that you will need as a business person.

If your family is not able to support you, what are the options? No one likes to be in debt, but the fact is that going to both undergraduate and business school is about accumulating a huge debt. There is no way around it. The sooner you get through the process, the sooner you will be earning a professional salary to pay it back. In some ways it doesn't make sense to try to chip away at that debt at $7 an hour when you will be making 10 times that later.

Where do you borrow from? Make an appointment with the financial aid office and go over all of your options. How much of a loan do you need so that you don't have to work at all? If there is not enough available so that you don't have to work, make an appointment with your financial institution. As a student, you are eligible to join the NM Educators Federal Credit Union. This is a member owned organization that, unlike a bank, is on your side.

If you are still short, there are two more options. First, consider some serious lifestyle changes. Sell that brand new sports car and get a bicycle. Look for shared housing or move back in with the folks. Second, if you really need to work, cut back on your school load. This will probably mean taking an extra year. Again, is this worth it for a $7 an your job? But if it's your only option, at least you will be able to do well on the classes that you do take.

Finally, if you just barely have enough money to get by, you will be limiting yourself. You may need to travel to various MBA schools to see which ones you are interested in. You may want to go abroad to get professional experience in other countries. You will need money for some special events, for good clothes for interviews, for the application process itself and for good GMAT preparation. If you are always short, you will not be able to do a good job. Work toward having a reserve. Being short on money - and as a result not being able to submit a strong application - is one of the main causes of having to reapply a second year.

Choosing preMBA Classes:

Your department has specific classes that you need in order to graduate. Find out now what those are and when they are offered. Make sure you can get them in on time.

You will also have room to take other classes in your major, as well as classes in related areas or in other interests that may not be related. Do some research now to identify the classes in your major that you might like to take and to identify other classes that would interest you or boost your professional skills. You may also be able to arrange one or two independent study classes that would allow you to do specific projects, such as some professional level research that would make you a stronger MBA school candidate, or even doing an overview of career opportunities in your field.

What courses will help you get into MBA school? This of course varies from field to field. Start talking to professors and advisors now about this. You can also contact MBA schools and ask them what they look for.

In general we can say that you will need coursework that gives you a solid undergraduate level background in your field and you will need coursework that will make you look well prepared for entering into a more specifically focused graduate study. This may include skills in related areas that make you a more effective professional. Depending on your area these could include public speaking, professional writing, law classes, foreign languages, education classes, economics, counselling or many others.

Be sure to ask you professors and advisors to help you map out the classes you might need to be a good MBA school candidate. Review this with them each semester, as your interests may change.

Making preMBA contacts.

Make preMBA contacts. Find out who the advisors are for your major and make an appointment to meet them. You don't have to have anything in particular to discuss, just a chance to introduce yourself and find out what they have to offer.

Check out preMBA and other professional business organizations. You don't necessarily need to join but at least find out what they are doing. This is a good place to get some leadership credentials by becoming an officer and/or organizing projects.

Meet other preMBA students in your classes and talk over plans and ideas together. Keep an eye out for preMBA events on campus.

Research Career Options in Your Field.

This is your big project for the year. You already have a sense of the field that you are interested. You may even have a specific idea of what you'd like to do. Even if you do, and most certainly if you don't, you will need to do deeper research into what a person with an MBA in your concentration can do.

Why? Three reasons. First, when you apply to MBA school, you need to show that you have a realistic sense of what your field is about, what the issues are in that field and how you fit in. You may have some ideas now but the only way to know if your ideas are realistic is to do the research. Second, you will need to get some practical experience in your area of interest. You will start doing that next summer and in your sophomore year. So you need to have a clear and, again, realistic sense of what you are interested in and what you would hope to in that specialty. Third, for your own sake, it is important to find out, even if you already have an idea, what the people in your area do, what the working conditions are like, what job opportunities there are. And of course if you don't have a specific area of interest yet, this is the time to start looking into the options. You don't have to know exactly what your career will be when you apply to MBA school but applicants with a well researched and realistic focus have a much better chance.

How do You Start Researching Career Options? One of the best strategies is to find professionals who are working in the specialty area that you are most interested in. Make an appointment to sit down with them and find out what the field is like. (Obviously you are looking for someone who will do this for free.) You are trying to find out:

What is the daily work like?
What are the personalities of people working in this area?
What are the issues that professionals in this field work on?
What kind of things can you hope to accmomplish in this field?
Are there jobs available in this field in places you would want to live?
What are the salary ranges?
What kind of organizations would a professional in this field work for?
Are there challenges that you would enjoy or is the work routine?

These are just some of the questions involved in a career choice. If you want to put some extra effort into doing this well from the beginning, you might want to work with a professional career counselor.

For this month, you can start thinking about what you are looking for in a succcessful career. What are your personal goals? You can brainstorm with a friend. This is an excellent first step. If there is a course offered in career research or career decision, that would be good to take next semester.

You will also want to talk with professors teaching in those areas. However, when you do this, remember that these professors maybe be on the admissions committee when you apply. In fact, any contact you make may have repercussions later in your career. Any professional you talk to could be a future potential employer or colleague. So when you make these contacts, you need to be fairly professional, well mannered and to follow up with a thank you note.

In doing your research you might find organizations, either private, non profit or governmental that are doing interesting work in your area.

Whoever you talk to, you need not limit yourself to one geographical area. Find the best, the most interesting, the most innovative. That way you can get a good picture of the whole field.

WHAT'S UP WITH THE GMAT ??

Some students can prepare for the GMAT on their own. You need to find out what scores you would need to be competitive and then to take a diagnostic GMAT using a real GMAT test. If you are scoring a bit above where you'd like, you may be able to do fine by prepping on your own with several months practice.

If you are only right at or just under where you'd like to be, you will probably need at least a little outside help to make sure you get a strong score. If you are more than a few points below your target, you will probably need significant help.

What are your options for help? In New Mexico you have two options for live help - the Cutts program, which I have designed and deepened over the past 14 plus years, and the Kaplan program. Kaplan is a large commercial test prep company.

The two programs are very different in almost every important way. To help you compare, I have put together a comprehensive comparison guide. See the link below.. Hopefully this will give you a sense of the difference between these two options.

Most MBA schools require you to take the GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test). Whether you are even considered or not depends largely on a combination of your GPA and your GMAT score. Of course there are many other factors to getting accepted as well, but a low GPA and GMAT score may keep them from even looking at you. For some schools, admission rests almost solely on the GMAT. If you get below a certain score, you won't be accepted. If you get above, you most likely will be. Of course, it helps to have a decent GPA, Personal Statement, Letters of Recommendation and practical experience.

The GMAT does not test any factual information from your undergraduate coursework, other than some basic math.. It is supposed to be a test of certain skills or aptitudes. There are two sections - Verbal and Quantitative (Math). There is also an essay, which typically is not a critical part of the application.

The test is scored on a scale of 200 to 800. 500 is about an average score and it is difficult to be competitive with anything lower than a 500. More competitive schools may require scores in the 600's or higher.

It is a little difficult to do a GMAT diagnostic test. They do offer a free CD with computer based tests on the GMAT website at www.gmac.org but I don't recommend this as a diagnostic for a couple reasons. You should only use actual GMAT questions for a diagnostic and these are only available in the Official Guide to GMAT Review. However, the book does not tell you which questions to do to take a diagnostic. If you call me, I can give you the directions. If you get a strong score right off the bat, you probably only need to do a few months of practice using actual GMAT exams. A "strong score" means you are scoring about 20 or 30 points above where you would ideally like to score to be assured of acceptance.

WHAT IF I NEED TO IMPROVE? If the GMAT were actually a true aptitude test, there would not be any way to improve. They would simply be measuring your inherent ability. But the GMAT is indeed learnable. There are many hidden patterns built into the test and with good guidance you can learn to spot these.

The Cutts Graduate Reviews has been preparing students to succeed on the GMAT since 1990. To give you an idea of how our course works, I have a link below to our complete information package. You can review a comprehensive guide to what the Cutts Graduate Reviews GMAT program does that a Kaplan course cannot at the other link below.

WORKING ON YOUR OWN ON THE GMAT

Some students can prepare for the GMAT on their own. You need to find out what scores you would need to be competitive and then to take a diagnostic GMAT using a real GMAT test. If you are scoring a bit above where you'd like, you may be able to do fine prepping on your own with several months practice.

If you are only right at or just under where you'd like to be, you will probably need at least a little outside help to make sure you get a strong score. The Cutts GMAT Review four week program is designed to give you this help at an affordable price, with unlimited personal attention during the four weeks. If you do take our 4 week program, it is most effective to take it at the beginning of your studying, so that you have several months to apply what you've learned.

If you are more than a few points below your target, you will probably need significant help. The Cutts GMAT Review unlimited program allows you to work with us for as many months as you need, including unlimited one on one help.

You can take the GMAT more than once but it is rather expensive. It is not a good idea to take the test officially "to see how you'll do". You can take an unofficial paper test for that. Save the real test until you are fully ready.

If you aren't sure whether you will need professional coaching to get your best score, be sure to take your diagnostic right away. You will need all of the time between now and your deadlines to improve. If you think you may be able to make enough improvement on your own, work very hard for the next month and retest. If you are not scoring a little above where you'd like to be, it is probably unlikely that you will do so on your own.

For a full review of the Cutts GMAT prep program, click here.

How the Cutts Program is different from Kaplan - click to compare

PLANNING FOR REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE.

Real world experience in your area of interest will make you a stronger candidate. It will also help you understand more about your field, help you refine your interests and give you some possible future job contacts.

What is the best kind of experience? Many people get a chance to do a little work in an office. This is ok but is maybe not the best kind of experience. I suggest a two pronged attack. The first prong is to get a very broad and comprehensive exposure to many of the kinds of things that go on in your area of specialty. If you take a part time job in your area of interest for a few months, you may well learn everything new that you are going to learn in the first week. After that, you may just be doing and seeing the same old things.

On the other hand, if you do a series of two week volunteer stints, you can get some valuable experience in about 7 very different kinds of settings in the same few months. Let's say you were interested in rural business development. Here are seven different kinds of places you could get experience: a state agency project in rural New Mexico developing agricultural products, the Small Business Administration national headquarters, a UN agency in South America, a business development project with Native American tribes developing wind power, Exxon, a women's cooperative in Botswana, the Supreme Court.

Or you could make coffee in your uncle's business downtown all summer.

The second prong (remember the first one was broad exposure) is to be able to make a serious contribution, to do something noteworthy. This may be harder to arrange but you will also be accomplishing the same thing in the special project we will talk about later.

How and when will you get this experience? Start looking for agencies, companies, organizations, non-profits, court jurisdictions, etc., that would make up the broadest possible exposure. This summer and next summer would be great times to do this. The following summer will be devoted to GMAT prep.

You might also check with your advisor about the possibility of setting up an independent study that would allow you to do some or all of these activities and get credit for them.

SOME HINTS ABOUT YOUR PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE. When you find a place that you think would give you some good exposure, ideally you can arrange with them a 2 or 3 week volunteer period. During this time you are volunteering your efforts in exchange for them giving you time to see many aspects of what they are doing and to talk with a wide range of people at the organization. You are there to learn as much as possible. So when you contact an organization, be clear up front that you want to have this kind of opportunity while you are there. The danger is that some organization may be happy to put you to work 12 hours a day without you ever getting a chance to find out what's going on.

Researching Schools:

Let's talk about how to start researching schools that may be a good match for you. If you only want to, or only can, go to UNM, that's fine. It will save you some research time. However, in that case you should start researching the professors at UNM whose interests are similar to yours.

How do you research schools? There is a huge amount of info on the internet about MBA schools. Your first goal is to consider what you are looking for in a MBA school. If you intend to work in a certain geographical area, it might be good to go to MBA school in that area so that you can start to learn about what's happening in that state and to make connections there.

Would you be ok with a good general graduate degree or is there a school where you could get some specialized coursework in your area? Are there some really excellent professors who are exceptional in your area of interest somewhere?

Once you've identified your requirements, you can start finding possible schools on the internet. Remember to look for journal articles as well, to see who is publishing what in your area. Keep an eye out for special programs, such as internship possibiities, clinics, semesters abroad, that may be of particular interest to you.

When you've got some prospective schools, you will want to talk with the admissions director there to learn how you can find out more. You will also talk with current students, especially in your area of interest, and possibly with past students who are working (hopefully). Eventually you will talk with the professors there and, finally, you should visit all of your serious prospects.

A SPECIAL PROJECT - YOUR SECRET WEAPON:

It's time to start thinking about a special project. I mentioned before that this project takes an issue or problem that is at the forefront of your area of interest and accomplishes some small measure of progress in solving the problem or dealing with the issue.

This project does not need to be any more difficult that a project you would do for any class. What's different about it is that it actually works on important, real world issues on a very professional level.

Let's look at an example of how this would work. Suppose you were interested in social work with an emphasis on advocacy for people with disabilities. The very first step is to find out what the cutting edge issues and problems are in the field. Now, you can't make it up. You need to find out what social workers in the field see as the issues and also what social work professors teaching in the field see as issues, especially those professors at the schools you are applying to. It doesn't do any good to work on an issue that the professors at your schools think is not important.

Let's suppose that you talk with 10 or so different social workers and professors specializing in disability and you get a consensus that an important issue is that small companies in rural areas often don't have the money to accomodate disabled workers.

Your second step is to find out what these same social workers and professors think ought to be done. What are some possible solutions or what information would we need to figure out solutions? Let's say they tell you that there is federal money available but that the paperwork is so complicated that most small businesses can't get through it.

The third step is up to you. You have to find a creative way to address this issue. Suppose you ask your expert social workers and prof's why nothing has been done about this and they say they don't know. Ok, that's the cutting edge. So you design a project that can identify the reasons why no one is working on simplified forms. It may involve talking with different agencies, finding out that the forms are complex because some companies took advantage of certain loopholes, but that those were mostly very large companies. You can then submit this info to a Senator and suggest that the law could be changed so that companies under a certain size could use a simpler form.

Voila! You have done extremely professional level work. You have demonstrated an understanding of the actual issues in your field. You have demonstrated leadership and the ability to work independently. You have demonstrated the ability to design and carry out an effective research project. You have demonstrated the ability to communicate with professionals and you have gotten high level recognition for your work. What else could you want?

You may need some time to research, design and carry out this project. You can start thinking about it now. By the end of the summer, you will hopefully begin to put a plan together, so that you can carry it out over the following year.

Finding Professors at Your School Choices.

WHY AND HOW TO CONTACT PROFESSORS:

What's the deal with contacting professors? Why should you do this? Several good reasons. For each school you apply to, you will need to talk about why you want to go to that school. One of the best reasons to cite is that you are interested in the work of certain professors. This can't be BS. You need to know what the professors are doing and how that would be of interest to you.

So your first step is to identify the professors whose interests are similar to yours. You can simply call each business school, tell them what your interests in the field are and ask which professors might have similar interests. You can then use the internet or library to find out what these professors are publishing or what projects they are working on.

The next step is to actually contact the professor and arrange for a meeting. It is best if you can do this in person when you visit the school, but if you aren't going to be able to visit, or if your visit is a long way away, it is ok to arrange a phone meeting. While your research so far would be enough to be able to say, "I'm interested in Professor Jones' work with tax law for small businesses", a personal meeting has some important additional benefits.

The main purpose of a personal meeting is so that someone at the school actually knows you. You will be competing with students who did their undergraduate work at the school. When the committee reviews the applications, you may be among three or four candidates who all look equally good. How will the committee decide? If someone on the committee knows one of the students and has a favorable impression, while no one knows the other candidates, the known candidate probably has the best chance.

There are yet other benefits of meeting professors. First, it can help solidify your decision as to which schools would be the best. If you really like some professors and don't like others, this makes a difference. Secondly, the professor may give you some insights into what the school is looking for and who else you should talk to, as well as what the school really has to offer you.

Ok, that's the Why. Now, How do you do this? You will be asking the professor for maybe 15 minutes of their time. You can call or email to ask for an appointment. It is not unusual for professors to be very busy and a bit absent minded. If you don't get a response, don't take it as a rejection. They have most likely gotten overwhelmed or misplaced your message. It is fine to call back and ask when would be a good time to call them to arrange a meeting or phone appointment. If you really have trouble getting a good response, you might ask the school secretary to help you arrange a time.

Once you are actually there (or on the phone) meeting with the professor, your plan should be to ask them about their interests and what projects they are working on and to, basically, just listen and ask questions. They will probably ask you about yourself at some point. Be prepared to BRIEFLY summarize your interest. Then you can ask them what the school might have to offer you, ask if they have any advice for you on your career plans and on getting accepted, and ask who else you might talk to at the school.

Afterwards, be sure to write a thank you note. It is good to keep in touch with this person periodically, either asking about projects they are working on or talking about issues or questions relevant to your mutual areas of interest. Do NOT ask the professor to put in a good word for you. They will do this on their own if they are inclinded to. You can, when the application period has closed, contact the professor, let them know that you have completed your application and done your best, let them know that you are still very serious about the school and ask if there is anything else they would recommend you doing. This would be their cue to speak up on your behalf if they are inclined to.

If you do a special research project, you might let the professor know about it and ask if they have any suggestions.

You should meet at least one and if possible every professor at a school whose interests are similar to yours. You should do this for each school you are serious about.

Signing up for the Computer Test

If your deadlines are in December and your schools require the official score, you will need to take the test 4 weeks before the deadline. Make your appointment now, as testing time slots can fill up this time of year.

Once you've made an appointment, you will lose most of your registration fee if you have to cancel or reschedule. If you are not scoring well enough to be competitive, you may need to either postpone your application or get some serious help.

If your school will accept an unofficial test score, you will have at least three additional weeks to prepare. As soon as you have finished taking your computer test, you will receive a score (except for the essay). You can usually call the department and report this unofficial score IF they have said they will accept it. This means that you don't need to take your test until maybe a few days before the deadline, if necessary.

You are allowed to take the GMAT once each calendar month. Theoretically you could take the test November 30 and then the next day on Dec. 1. However, the test is rather expensive and retaking the test without very significant prep help will not likely give you a higher score.

About Retaking the Computer Exam

If you didn't do as well as you needed, you can retake the test and submit the score EVEN AFTER THE DEADLINE. As long as you have an official score on file by the deadline, your file is complete. Let's say the deadline is Dec. 15. If you took the test on Nov. 15, they will have received your scores on time and that will complete your file. However, chances are they will not even begin reviewing applications until the second week in January. If you retake the test on January 15 and submit the unofficial GMAT scores to them that day, they will add this to your file. Most likely they have reviewed very few applications by that time and will consider yours with the new score.

If you plan to do this, be sure to write them a letter to let them know. That way they will wait to review your application.

Looking Ahead to Your Sophomore Year

By next school year you should have completed careful career research and should have a good idea of what areas of specialty within your field you are interested in, where you fit into that area, what the important issues are in that area and what it is that you hope to contribute or accomplish. This is not easy research to do, so if you've been having trouble with it, please let me know.

During your sophomore year, then, you will focus on getting some practical experience in your area of interest. Remember that all of these plans are in order to make you a stronger candidate to MBA school. The side benefit is that you will be learning a lot and making helpful contacts.

Other goals for next year will be attending my Orientation to MBA school Admissions or my UNM Continuing Ed class How to Get Accepted to MBA school - A Take-Charge Approach. This course (the two are the same) covers all the aspects of planning your application and introduces the GMAT .

Next year you will also begin researching schools.

So this semester, keep trying to work on that career research. If it doesn't happen, plan to devote at least one or two months this summer to it.