Each week we collect all the MBA news that’s fit to print and provide a quick overview of the latest trending topics from top schools around the world.
Here’s your quick MBA News You Need digest for the week of April 25, 2018.
Two Future HBS Students Receive Soros Fellowships for New Americans
As notoriously pricey as a Harvard Business School (HBS) education can be, two students’ wallets just got $90,000 lighter. The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans honors exceptional immigrants and children of immigrants with a $90,000 grant to attend graduate school in the United States. HBS MBA student Seul (Kathy) Ku and HBS PhD student Angela Tian Ma were two of this year’s recipients. Soros Fellows are an elite class of scholar—only 30 were selected from an initial pool of 1,766 applicants.
The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans program was designed to support individuals who have the potential to make significant contributions to society. In 2018, all fellows were children of immigrants, DACA recipients, green card holders, or naturalized citizens. Ku was born in Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated to the U.S. when she was three. Ma was born in Madison, Wisconsin, to Chinese immigrants. Learn more about Ku and Ma in this HBS press release.
Ignoring the Ban, Columbia Continues to Offer Scholarships to Syrians
Despite—or perhaps in spite of—concerns that President Trump will block Syrian students from attending school in the United States, Columbia University has continued to offer scholarships to Syrian students displaced by civil war. The scholarship program has already accepted a handful of students and is currently seeking a second round of Syrian applications. 230 students have already applied with more expected as Columbia’s enrollment period remains open.
Columbia officials hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will loosen visa restrictions on Syrian nationals when it’s scheduled to hear arguments and challenges to the Trump travel ban later this month. There is currently no timeline on a decision, but in the interim Columbia will continue to move forward with Syrian student applications.
“What we do is educate people. If we find that certain applicants are unable to attend … hopefully, they’ll eventually be able to get a visa,” said Professor Bruce Usher at Columbia Business School. (New York Times)
Michigan Ross Awards $10K in Prizes to Winners of Inaugural Data Analytics Competition
More than 100 Michigan Ross students attended the first-ever Datathon, an event organized by the Center for Value Chain Innovation in partnership with Correlation One, a talent solutions technology company, to test students’ problem-solving skills. The daunting prompt presented to participants: Here’s a ton of data. You tell us the problem to solve. In the end, three teams composed of BBA and MBA students were awarded first, second, and third places and $10,000 in total prizes.
“This was very successful,” Sanjeev Kumar, a Ross Technology and Operations faculty member, said. “Students tackled a wide variety of problems ranging from flight delays to oil price hedging to impact of events on flight operations to predicting impact on airline stock prices.” (Michigan Ross News)
Teams of Entrepreneurs Vie for Five $25,000 Prizes in Startup Yale Competition
Startup Yale put together a robust all-day competition in which several teams of entrepreneurs pitched their business ideas to a panel of Yale SOM judges with the hope they might take home one of five $25,000 prizes:
- Rothberg Prize
- Miller Prize
- Sabin Sustainable Venture Prize
- Thorne Prize for Social Innovation in Health or Education and
- The Aetna Foundation Prize for Health Equity Innovation
Each team had 10 minutes to present its idea and 10 minutes to field questions before the judges made their final decision.
This year’s winners included an app that provides discounts to local restaurants, a nonprofit social venture, an aquaponic system, a web-based tool, and a financial technology company. To learn more about the winning pitches, head on over to the Yale news website.
Haas Shares 16 Benefits of the MBA Degree
Why should you get an MBA? It’s a deceptively simple question that Assistant Dean of Admissions for Berkeley Haas MBA Programs Marjorie DeGraca attempted to answer in her latest blog. She came up with 16 discrete benefits to the degree that extend beyond mere career aspirations into an MBA student’s everyday life.
Many of the benefits that DeGraca unpacked were harder-to-quantify skills such as improved self-confidence, a higher degree of self-discipline, better communication skills, and the ability to think strategically. Other benefits related to the broader lens through which MBA students view the world post-graduation. A few of DeGraca’s benefits just might surprise you. (Berkeley Haas Blog)
Wharton Gears Up to Host Second Annual Entrepreneurship Startup Showcase
The second annual Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship Startup Showcase will feature many top student entrepreneurs from across the university. The event is open to the public and will take place at the Wharton School’s Jon M. Huntsman Hall on Friday, April 27th.
During the event, 30 semifinalists will participate in demonstrations, elevator pitches, and more. Attendees will have the opportunity to choose their favorite student venture alongside the official judges. In the end, eight finalists will compete for more than $135,000 in cash and other prizes. Participants will engage in closed-door pitch sessions to a panel of entrepreneurs and investors, including c-level executives from King Circle Capital, Karlin Asset Management, Golden Seeds, Monetate, ExamWorks Group, and OraSure. (Wharton News)
