Dear MBA admittees, First of all, congratulations on getting into schools! This is definitely the time to enjoy yourselves and relax after the hard work you put into your applications has paid off! Several of my clients have told me that many admittees are starting to get anxious about the upcoming background checks. So, I want to take this opportunity to give you the basics of what a background check is, hopefully to relieve your anxiety. In short, the schools are not out to "get" you - in fact, they really have no incentive to rescind offers of admission because doing so actually would cause a lot of administrative headaches. Unless a discrepancy is egregious and is clearly a lie (which, unfortunately, does happen), there really is nothing to worry about. Many schools have hired an outside firm called Re Vera Services to conduct their background checks this year. Previously, many schools had used a larger firm called Kroll, but in this current down economic environment, even the admissions offices at top schools are trying to cut their expenditures, which is a main reason they are using Re Vera, a much smaller and cheaper firm than Kroll. So, the switch from Kroll to Re Vera is mainly a budget issue for the schools. In terms of what Re Vera (and other companies conducting background checks) will check for, the main items are: -employment history (titles, dates, and salaries) -rec letters (calls with recommenders to make sure that they really were your recommenders) -academic history (making sure that you really do have the degrees and transcripts that you claimed) -test scores While the academic and test score checks are fairly easy and straightforward, obviously it may not be as easy for a Re Vera to check your employment-related information in Taiwan. This is why many of you have been asked to provide contact information for people at the companies where you've worked. But, again, this is really no big deal - all Re Vera is trying to do is verify very standard information, and even if there is a discrepancy, you will be given plenty of opportunities to explain and/or provide supporting evidence. For example, one of my Wharton admittees last year was notified that her company's HR department reported a different salary than the one she stated in her Wharton application. So, she provided her tax return to show that she really did earn the money that she reported on her application, and this was enough to satisfy Wharton. It turns out it was just a case of her company having a different way of reporting her salaries (e.g., split between bonus and base compensation). Again, this example is to illustrate that, as long as you can show legitimate reasons for what you stated in your application, the schools are not going to pick on minor discrepancies. Even if you accidently misreported, say, your employment date or your salary by a little bit, the schools will not care, as they realize that minor, honest mistakes do happen all the time. Hope this helps! Again, please do not worry about background checks! Instead, enjoy your well-deserved time off and do something fun! Best, Kevin [email protected] -------------------------------------------------------------- Kevin Chen Partner/Senior Admissions counselor, Clear Admit LLC (www.clearadmit.com) Master degrees: Stanford Graduate School of Business; Harvard Kennedy School of Government Bachelor degree: Princeton University Previous work experiences: Reuters; McKinsey; NBA --

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