Clear Admit, Author at Clear Admit

Published: December 30, 2014

With all industries now requiring not only finance and corporate strategy skills, but also digital prowess, business schools are adapting their course offerings to help train MBA students in skills like rapid prototyping and data-driven decision making, according to a recent article in the New York Times. Cornell Tech in New York City has launched an innovative one-year program bringing MBA candidates and computer science grad students together. The school hopes to enroll 2,000 graduate students by 2034, but in this, the inaugural year for the MBA program, 39 business graduate students share a third of their curriculum with 34 graduate students in computer science, according to the Times. They work together on projects, frequently designing and writing software programs for businesses ranging from banks an hedge funds to technology companies and startups. Read more

Published: December 29, 2014

Yale SOM Student Semiconductor Startup Wins $150,000 Government Grant

A startup founded by a group of MBA students and faculty from the Yale School of Management (SOM) and based on research by a Yale engineering professor was recently awarded a $150,000 grant from the federal government. Founded by James Lin MBA’15, Alacrity Semiconductors used research by Professor T.P. Ma to develop a product that enables electronic devices to be smaller, run faster and use less power. Specifically, Alacrity is designing a superior dynamic random access memory (DRAM) architecture. “We want people to enjoy the benefits of smaller, faster, cheaper and ultra-low power storage,” Lin said in an article Read more

Published: December 28, 2014

London Business School Scores High in Terms of Research Quality

London Business School (LBS) received the highest rating ever achieved by any department of business and management for the quality of its research output, according to the UK-wide Research Excellence Framework (REF) published earlier this month. The report revealed that 55.3 percent of LBS research output received the top 4* rating, which stands for world-leading. The other ratings are 3* (internationally excellent), 2* (internationally recognized), 1* (nationally recognized) or 0 (unclassified). Read more

Published: December 25, 2014

NYU Stern School of Business Volatility Institute Opens Extension at NYU Shanghai

A new extension of the Volatility Institute at New York University Stern School of Business is now open at NYU Shanghai, in the heart of Liujiazui, Shanghai’s financial center. Operating in close partnership with Stern’s Volatility Institute, the Volatility Institute at NYU Shanghai (VINS) is designed to provide opportunities for researchers focused on Chinese markets specifically, as well as financial markets around the world. Part of its aim is to facilitate collaboration and community-building between market participants and academic researchers within the region and beyond. The NYU Stern Volatility Institute—established in 2009 by Stern Professor Robert Engle, a Nobel Laureate and volatility expert—was created to drive research on risks in global financial markets. Engle will also direct the VINS, with generous support from the Pudong Institute of Finance. Read more

Published: December 23, 2014

Harvard Business School Names 16 New Entrepreneurs-in-Residence

MBA students at Harvard Business School (HBS) now have access to a whole new pool of entrepreneurial talent through the school’s Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EiR) program, the school announced earlier this month. HBS has named 16 entrepreneurs to take part in the program for 2014-15, 14 of whom are HBS graduates. Sponsored by the school's Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, the Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program is now in its ninth year. Participating entrepreneurs come to campus to advise MBA students who are interested in starting their own companies. They also work with HBS faculty on research and course development. Read more

Published: December 22, 2014

Poets&Quants Spotlights “Best of” Advice from Clear Admit’s Jon Fuller

In a sequel to a piece that ran in May, Poets&Quants last week highlighted some of the best advice Clear Admit Admissions Counselor Jon Fuller has offered in response to its readers’ questions. Fuller joined Clear Admit in 2013 from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where he was the senior associate director of admissions for four years. Since March of this year, he’s also been fielding questions as Poets&Quants’ resident expert. The most recent “Best of Jon” compilation, which ran on Poets&Quants on December 18th, features Fuller’s responses to readers’ questions tackling a wide range of topics, from how to overcome mediocre undergraduate grades to how applicants who are over 30 can best position themselves to the admissions committee. Read more

Published: December 21, 2014

White House Director of Social Innovation Named Senior Fellow at UPenn’s Wharton School

A leading national expert on social innovation and shared value will serve as the next Senior Fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the school announced late last week. Jonathan Greenblatt, who currently serves as Special Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, will become a Wharton Senior Fellow beginning in January, where he will work with the Wharton Social Impact Initiative and lecture on campus for the remainder of the 2014-2015 academic year. Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett expressed his excitement that Greenblatt would soon be on campus working with students and faculty. “He brings a unique perspective on innovation and leadership, enriched by a rare combination of experiences at the highest level of government, business and the nonprofit world,” he said in a statement. Read more

Published: December 18, 2014

Tuck School of Business Professor Releases Annual Picks for Best and Worst CEOs

‘Tis the season to reflect on the year’s best and worst CEOs. Tuck School of Business Professor of Management Sydney Finkelstein has been making a list and checking it twice since 2010, sharing with the public his picks for which CEOs have excelled in the prior year and which have tanked. This year’s losers include the CEOs of Twitter, Sears Holding, Tesco, American Apparel and Banco Espírito Santo. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is not helping the company fulfill its potential, Finkelstein says, noting that shares have dropped by 42 percent and monthly active users have slowed. Sears Holdings CEO Eddie Lampert made the list for the second year running, for what Finkelstein deemed failed strategy, arrogant leadership and Sears’ rapidly dropping stock price. Read more

Published: December 17, 2014

ESADE Partners with Barcelona Digital Tech Cluster

Spain’s ESADE will become the business school partner of Ecommerce & Tech Barcelona, an initiative bringing together leading digital companies in and around Barcelona, the school announced today. The new agreement, signed yesterday by ESADE Director General Eugenia Bieto, strengthens the school's ties to the digital business community and its support for the digital entrepreneurial ecosystem. ESADE is dedicated to “guiding digital entrepreneurs throughout the growth process and strengthening their executive and leadership skills,” Bieto said in a statement. The alliance between the business school and the Ecommerce & Tech cluster will facilitate both a study of the impact of the digital entrepreneurial initiative in Spain and the development of academic case studies featuring projects undertaken by the cluster’s entrepreneurs. Read more

Published: December 16, 2014

HEC Paris to Launch Second MOOC Series in 2015

Pleased with the success of its first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which debuted on Coursera in January 2014, HEC Paris plans to release a second series of online courses in 2015, the school announced yesterday. These new MOOCs will address topics related to organizations, social entrepreneurship an technology-based startups. HEC Paris Dean Bernard Ramanantsoa views the school’s partnership with Coursera as an opportunity to open its courses to students who might not otherwise have access to higher education due to practical or economic constraints. “Sharing our faculty’s expertise with the general public at no cost is a truly exciting and meaningful challenge," he said in a statement. Read more

Published: December 15, 2014

$3.8 Million Donation Will Help Fund New INSEAD Leadership Development Center in Singapore

A leading Indonesian family has donated approximately $3.8 million USD ($5 million SGD) to help fund INSEAD’s new Leadership Development Center, which is scheduled to open on INSEAD’s Singapore campus in January 2015. The new building will be home to the “William and Lily Soeryadjaya Amphitheater,” in honor of the gift from the Soeryadjaya family. The opening of the new Leadership Development Center next month marks “Phase Three” in INSEAD’s Asia expansion, which is designed to significantly increase the number of students, executives, leading scholars and practitioners who will be on site in Singapore. INSEAD also features campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and Abu Dhabi. Read more

Published: December 14, 2014

How to Choose the Right MBA Program

Perhaps you’re at the beginning stage of the important process to identify which MBA programs you’ll apply to. Maybe, with multiple acceptances in hand, you have the exciting and life-altering task of deciding where you ultimately want to enroll. In either case, Ann Richards, interim director of admissions at Cornell University’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, has valuable insight to help you make the most informed decision possible. “There are a handful of key elements that are essential when trying to choose the right MBA program for you,” Richards says. “Research, visit and conduct a self-assessment to understand what’s important to you,” she advises. Read more

Published: December 11, 2014

Kellogg Admissions Director Shares How School Assesses Candidates’ Interpersonal Skills

The director of admissions at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management has devoted a series of recent blog posts to demystifying the admissions process at the school. Her most recent post shares what she and her team are looking for as they assess candidates’ interpersonal skills. How well a candidate fits with the school’s MBA program is a significant consideration for the Kellogg admissions team, as it is at many top programs. “Our community values collaboration, involvement and giving back, and we look for that in our applicants as well,” wrote Admissions Director Beth Tidmarsh in a blog post earlier this week. Candidates who thrive in team-based environments will fit in well at the school, she continued. Read more

Published: December 10, 2014

London Business School Awards Two £30,000 Scholarships to Female Business Execs

London Business School (LBS) has awarded two female business executives £30,000 scholarships for the school’s Senior Executive Program, concluding an initiative launched in August with the 30% Club, an organization devoted to increasing female representation in the C-suite of leading corporations. Andreea Moldova, general manager (Czech Republic and Slovakia) at Avon Cosmetics, and Yasmin Becker, assistant director at the Nursing and Midwifery Council, so impressed the judging panel that LBS increased its commitment and provided two scholarships, though the completion was originally intended to have a single winner. Read more

Published: December 9, 2014

Construction Begins on $60 Million Student Building at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business

A magnificent new building devoted entirely to student learning and interaction is now under construction at the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, scheduled to open in fall 2016, Berkeley Dean Rich Lyons announced last week. Called the North Academic Building, the six-story, 80,000-square-foot structure will cost $60 million, funded with private donations from alumni and friends of the school. Designed to serve as a “learning laboratory,” the new building will feature state-of-the art technology, flexible spaces, many group study areas and a large event space with views of the San Francisco Bay. The student-centric facility will hold no administrative offices. Read more

Published: December 8, 2014

Darden School of Business MBA Students Host Events to Discuss Sexual Assault

Amid controversy stemming from a Rolling Stone article describing the alleged sexual assault of a University of Virginia (UVA) undergraduate student at a campus fraternity party, students at UVA’s Darden School of Business have chosen to host special events to educate the Darden community on the school’s sexual assault policy. The Darden School Association (DSA) organized a “Not on Our Grounds” First Coffee – using the informal community gathering that takes place in Darden’s PepsiCo Forum each morning after the first class of the day as an opportunity to discuss the case in the news as well as the Not on Our Grounds campus initiative to end sexual violence. Read more

Published: December 4, 2014

McDonough School of Business MBA Student Shares Career Search Experience

What does the career search process really look like when you’re an MBA student? Vanessa Dumonet, a second-year MBA student at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, generously took time out of her Thanksgiving break to share just how things unfolded for her. Dumonet entered Georgetown having worked for five years in marketing and business development for a large international law firm. Drawing on a range of resources at McDonough – including career coaches, career-focused student groups, peer advising and the alumni network – Dumonet has already received multiple full-time offers for next fall and is looking forward to beginning her post-MBA career at luxury beauty company Estée Lauder. In the interview that follows, you’ll hear from Dumonet herself about which resources proved most valuable in landing her dream job. She’s also got some great advice for prospective applicants on how to jump-start a career search even before arriving on campus, so take note! Read more

Published: December 3, 2014

Tepper School of Business MBAs, IEEE Seek Standards to Support Evolving Robotics Industry

With robotic applications promising breakthroughs in fields ranging from healthcare and energy to defense and agriculture, MBA students at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business are working with experts to analyze and identify standards, best practices and ways to share knowledge that could help advance the robotics industry. Engineers, designers and entrepreneurs face both opportunities and challenges in the burgeoning field of robotics. As part of a graduate level course in marketing, Tepper MBA students are working with CMU’s Robotics Institute as well as experts from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and other industry stakeholders to understand how standardization might help the industry as a whole. Read more

Published: December 2, 2014

Harvard Business School Study Attributes Leadership Gender Gap to Corporate Structures

A recent study by two professors from Harvard Business School (HBS) and a third from Hunter College examined the career ambitions of 25,000 HBS alumni to help understand the gender gap that exists in senior management positions. They found that despite similar ambitions upon joining the workforce, male respondents were much more likely than their female counterpoints to feel like their goals were met. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the survey’s results showed that this disparity had more to do with corporate structures than with women “opting out” to have families. The study, “Rethink What You ‘Know’ About High-Achieving Women,” was conducted by HBS Professor Robin J. Ely, Pamela Stone of Hunter College and HBS Gender Initiative Assistant Director Colleen C. Ammerman and published this month in Harvard Business Review. Instead of finding that women’s careers were sidetracked because they chose to prioritize family over work, the researchers discovered that the women who left their jobs after having children did so because “they find themselves in unfulfilling roles with dim prospects for advancement” or facing other career limitations. “It simply isn’t true that a large proportion of Harvard alumnae have ‘opted out’ to care for children,” they continued. Read more

Published: December 1, 2014

London Business School Expands Mentoring Program for Entrepreneurs from London to Dubai

Building on the success of a program launched 18 months ago on its London campus, London Business School (LBS) has expanded a mentoring program to benefit aspiring entrepreneurs to its Dubai Center, the school announced late last month. Called the “Entrepreneurship Mentor in Residence” program, the program will provide entrepreneurial students and alumni access to year-round mentorship from four successful business executives in the region. The Dubai program’s first mentor panel will include former alumni Genny Ghanimeh, Mohamed Nassar, Tommy Wakefield Smith and Aman Merchant. Students will now have direct access to these mentors for one-on-one consultations up to twice a month. Read more

Published: November 30, 2014

UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business Donors Break Record in One-Day Online Fundraiser

The University of California at Berkeley recently launched a single-day online fundraiser, and participating students from the Haas School of Business outnumbered those from any of the university’s other schools. The Big Give, UC Berkeley's first-ever 24-hour campus-wide online fundraiser, kicked off at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, November 19th. When it ended 24 hours later, Berkeley-Haas had raised about $561,000 from 651 donors, the school reports. Read more

Published: November 27, 2014

New Computerized Matching Process Replaces Course Auctions at UPenn’s Wharton School

Professors at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School have developed a new process for MBA course selection, one they think is more fair, less stressful and less time-consuming than traditional course auctions, the Financial Times reports. Called Course Match, the new system involves a single round of bidding by students, after which 10 high-powered servers spend 12 hours running algorithms to allocate courses. Wharton professors decided four or five years ago that the auction system then in place wasn’t working as they had intended it to. Some students (especially former financial traders) were fairing really well in the auction system, in which class seats were allocated like shares issues. But others were getting inferior schedules. The process was also stressful and time intensive, requiring students to predict the bidding strategies of their peers and go through eight rounds of bidding. Read more

Published: November 27, 2014

Fridays From the Frontline: A Quiet Holiday Week

Welcome back to Fridays from the Frontline, our weekly roundup of happenings in the business school blogosphere. This week has been a quiet week on the web, as US applicants have taken a break to spend some time with family over Thanksgiving (and/or to spend some time searching for the best Black Friday deals). Most applicants are relaxing before beginning their sprint to finish round 2 applications. Although it's been a quiet week, a few applicants have put in some time working on their round 1 applications and round 2 plans, and current students have described their business school experiences. Read more

Published: November 25, 2014

Columbia Business School Shares Updates on J-Term Admits, Regular Decision Interview Invites

Columbia Business School (CBS) has completed its Early Decision and J-term application review and will welcome approximately 200 new students as part of its January intake, the CBS Admission Committee announced earlier this week. Of those, roughly half come to CBS from international locations. After taking a week’s hiatus from reviewing Regular Decision applications, the Adcom will pick up where it left off after the Thanksgiving holiday and expects to release the first interview invitations during the first week of December. Read more

Published: November 24, 2014

Chicago Booth School of Business Partners with U of I College of Engineering

A new partnership between the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the University of Illinois (U of I) College of Engineering promises to spur entrepreneurship by allowing top MBA and engineering students to combine their talents and expertise on joint startup ventures, Crain’s Chicago Business reported last month. Previously, Chicago Booth MBA students hoping to pursue entrepreneurial ventures requiring engineering know-how were at a disadvantage because the University of Chicago Booth has no engineering school. U of I’s College of Engineering, located in Urbana-Champaign, is one of the 10 best engineering schools in the country – making the partnership with top-ranked Chicago Booth a natural fit. The collaboration is one the schools hope will prove mutually beneficial. Read more

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