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The Recommended readings site for the lost and totally confused

You have been online for the past 24 hours. You have been to corners of the web that nobody knows about. You have searched far and wide, across all derivatives of the words MBA, students, and BSchool and across all search engines. You are sick of irrelevant search results, you are sick of the net, you are sick of the sick characters floating on your sick monitor. You are sick of the word sick .... Your kingdom for an old fashion book.

Sure, just make the check payable to me and pick up any of the following gems. Most of them are available at

1. Background Reading
2. GMAT Prep
3. Applications
4. Non-MBA Readings

5. The MBA Course of Readings
6. Amazon.com Top 100 books
7. Amazon.com Top 100 CD's
8. Amazon.com Top 25 DVD's

Background Reading

1. Year One, by Robert Reid
2. Snapshots from hell, by Peter Robinson
3. Resumes for Dummies, by Joyce Lain Kennedy
4. Insiders Guide to Top Ten MBA programs

GMAT Preparation

5. Cracking the Gmat Cat, by Geoff Martz
6. ETS official GMAT guide
7. ETS official GMAT CAT test
8. Kaplan GMAT Preparation Guide
9. GMAT for Dummies, by Suzie Vlk

Application

10. Marketing Yourself to the top Business Schools, by Phil Carpenter, Carol Carpenter (Contributor), Philip Carpenter

You have heard of these but they are not on my list

11. Which MBA? A critical guide
12. The Business Week Guide to MBA program

Before you go ahead and do something foolish that you may regret later (like actually buying any of the books above) checkout the following

1. Amazon.com shipping options

2. Amazon.com online secure shopping guarantees

3. Amazon.com customer service options including online order tracking.

1. Year One by Robert Reid.
Paperback Reprint edition (September 1995)
Avon Books (Pap Trd); ISBN: 0380725592 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.97 x 8.01 x 5.25

Review of the first year at Harvard Business School. If you don't know what an MBA is all about read it. If you don't know what HBS is all about read it. Even if you think you know what HBS is all about I still recommend it. The book that made me think twice about applying to HBS. Infact one of the key reasons why I didn't apply to HBS was Robert Reid. The second reason was the continuos bad press that HBS received in 1998 that confirmed that the HBS of 1999 would not be that different from the HBS of 1991.
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2. Resumes for Dummies (For Dummies) by Joyce Lain Kennedy
Paperback - 310 pages 2nd edition (May 1998)
IDG Books Worldwide; ISBN: 0764551132 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.83 x 9.24 x 7.38

What is this doing in this section, you wonder. The best thing that you can do as a pre req for your BSchool application is to prepare a professional resume. Nowadays some schools ask you to submit one as part of your final application. Its a great book to understand who you are, what you have done and how to lay it all out in less than 250 words.
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3. Snapshots from hell by Peter Robinson
Paperback Reprint edition (August 1995)
Warner Books; ISBN: 0446671177 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.80 x 7.96 x 5.20

Does for Stanford Business School for Year One did for HBS. Although this was the inspiration for Year One and was written before it, I prefer Year One over the Snapshots. For the trivia fans One-L by Scott Turow was the mother of all 'I hate it here but I can't help it, tell all about my school' books.
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4. The Insider's guide to the top ten MBA programs

Mid sized reviews written by ex business school students at Harvard, Wharton, MIT, Chicago, Columbia, Tuck, Kellog, Stanford, Tuck (Darthmouth) and Darden (UVA). Review cover admission strategies, life before, in and after school. Two essays by admission directors. I liked it but I am not sure if every body would get the same value. Your call. I have forgotten the name of the authors and I couldn't locate search for it at Amazon, but you can give it a shot.
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5. Cracking the Gmat Cat With Sample Tests on Cd-Rom : 1999 (Book and Disk) by Geoff Martz
Paperback - 448 pages Bk&Cd-Rom edition (July 1998)
Princeton Review; ISBN: 0375751726 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.18 x 10.96 x 8.49

If you don't have any of PR's guides then its a good 'what you need to know before you take the GMAT' guide. Its definitely better and more focused than the stuff produced by Arco, Barron and Peterson but I am not sure how PR compares with Kaplan. Kaplan is slightly on the harder and higher side. They would rather have you underscore on their tests than over score. Which is a good strategy in the long run. PR over the years built up a great brand name for test preparation guides and then blew it all with its 1998 edition of GMAT CAT. The 1998 edition went to distributors with a problem CD ROM that only had one valid test on it while the book advertised seven tests. I was one of the unfortunate victims of that edition. Among others Kaplan sued them for misrepresentation. PR did too little too late. The second problem with their version of the CAT was the sense of false security. Candidates scored higher on the PR CAT and scored upto 40-50 points lower on the actual GMAT CAT. With an unforgiving crowd like potential MBA students, PR never recovered on the GMAT side. On a year to year basis the book doesn't change much but if you have never heard of PR its still worth a shot.
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6. ETS official GMAT guide.
Paperback 9th edition (October 1997)
Warner Books; ISBN: 0446396389 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.90 x 10.90 x 8.33

Take any issue. Its the practice tests and questions that counts. Newer and older editions normally have a high percentage of common questions and test. Even if you buy all the 11 editions you would won't get thirty three unique tests and five thousand original questions.
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7. ETS official GMAT CAT tests.

You need this. Just to make sure that you are on the right track. The software comes with two tests and a number of practice questions. The paper and pencil test is fine but if you are not a techie or a geek, the practice would be worth it. Its not that expensive and it might even give you a good idea of what your ultimate score would be like. The software may be available at some book stores but is generally sold via ETS's website.
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8. Kaplan GMAT CAT 1998 with CD-ROM by Kaplan
Paperback - 400 pages Book & CD-ROM edition (September 1997)
Kaplan; ISBN: 0684845806 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.18 x 10.91 x 8.41

I tried the non CAT tests and they were defnitely very good. In 1997 what they were offering in terms of testing software was leaps and bounds ahead of PR. Scores err slightly on the conservative side. So if you break seven hundred on a KAPLAN test you will break seven hundred on the actual CAT. The book wasn't available till recently on Amazon but you can now order it online.
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9. The Gmat for Dummies (3rd Ed) by Suzee Vlk
Paperback - 384 pages 3rd edition (February 1998)
IDG Books Worldwide; ISBN: 0764550829 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.94 x 10.83 x 8.29

There are two sections in this book. The first is an overview of the material ETS uses for GMAT testing. This section is definitely recommended. Its presented in a very readable fashion and Suzee hands out some really neat tricks. The second section consists of two tests. They have zero correlation with the actual GMAT test but are used to reinforce the principles covered in section one. If you have time to prepare and if you wish to cover the basics this is a very comprehensive guide.

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10. Marketing Yourself to the Top Business Schools by Phil Carpenter, Carol Carpenter (Contributor), Philip Carpenter
Paperback - 224 pages (August 1995)
John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471118176 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.58 x 8.98 x 5.98

There are two types of how to get into business schools books. The first types starts from your early childhood and tracks all significant events till your retirement. You can recognize these books from a distance. They are big, heavy, bulky and slightly on the expensive side. The Carpenter's on the other hand came up with something which initially shocks you by it sheer size. Less than half an inch thick, which is unbelievable for the only book that you may need to do a great job on your application. Definitely recommended.
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The Books that you should not buy. Unless and until you have money to burn. In that case please contact me and I will appreciate your contribution towards my tuition bill. Which is big (by the way), if you haven't noticed as yet.

11. Which MBA? A critical Guide
Paperback - 544 pages 10th edition (January 1999)
Pitman Pub Ltd; ISBN: 027363710X ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.14 x 9.63 x 6.78

Two things that put me completely off this book. First was the long list of adds. You feel that you have been overcharged when the book could have come for free. The adds would have more than easily paid for it. The next (and much more serious) problem was that the so called guide to each school is a one page summary of each school's catalog. You would be better off by ordering the catalogs directly for free. The only good thing may be the first few introductory chapters about what an MBA is about and the differences between US and European schools. Which is also available in some of the other books and quite a few of the web sites listed above.

There is only one reason why you should buy this book. If you are looking for information about schools in Europe. Well let me tell you. The two really big schools in Europe are INSEAD and LBS. Some add IMD and a few other schools across Europe. That is round about it. All of these schools have their websites which you can easily locate on the Businessweek site. There is nothing in this book that you won't find on a school's website or catalogs.

If you wish to find all of this for yourself, go ahead and click on

12. The Business Week Guide to the MBA program. Never bought the book. But if the profiles at the Business Week site are any indication of the depth of the book you would be better off by printing the profiles online.