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Published: March 26, 2014
Columbia Business School to Host Annual Odyssey Global MBA Competition
Columbia Business School (CBS) is preparing to welcome top MBA students from around the world beginning tomorrow as part of the sixth annual Odyssey Global MBA Competition and Symposium. The two-day, student-organized event will feature a three-part management competition in which students from leading global business schools will compete in pitching, case presentation and negotiation skills before a panel of industry leaders. This year’s event will also include a symposium in which industry leaders will address the theme “Disrupt or Be Disrupted,” speaking to the need for companies to remain agile in the face of disruptive forces and manage innovation to stay ahead of any accompanying challenges. Keynote speakers include Frank Eliason, director of global social media at Citi; Neal Goldman, founder and CEO of Relationship Science; David Kidder, co-founder and CEO of Bionic; Bruce Greenwald, CBS Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management; and Craig Hatkoff, founder of Victor Capital Group and co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival and the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards. Read more
Published: March 25, 2014
Long-Standing Tuck School of Business Dean to Step Down Next Year
Paul Danos, who has led Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business for the past 19 years, will not seek reappointment for a sixth term and will instead step down in June 2015 when his current term ends, the school announced this week. Danos, Tuck’s ninth dean, has served for longer than any other in the school’s history and is one of the longest-serving deans in management education. When he steps down, almost half of Tuck’s 10,000-plus living alumni will have graduated under his deanship, the school notes. Read more
Published: March 24, 2014
Clear Admit Bullish on New Wharton Dean
As we reported last week, Geoffrey Garrett has been named to replace outgoing Dean Tom Robertson and will take the helm on July 1st. So what’s Clear Admit’s take on this new dean? We welcome what we believe to be a strong candidate and wish him well in his new role. A political economist with a Pacific Rim orientation but clear U.S. interests as well, we think Garrett will make a good fit for Wharton on several levels. He brings an understanding of the intersection between business and politics that will lend itself well to Wharton’s focus on globalization and on preparing its graduates to understand how business is done internationally. Read more
Published: March 23, 2014
Fewer Grads from European MBA Programs Are Heading Into Finance
Far fewer MBA students from Europe’s top business schools are choosing careers in finance than they have in the past, opting instead for jobs at Facebook, Amazon and other tech firms, according to a recent report in the Financial News. London Business School (LBS), Cambridge’s Judge Business School, Oxford’s Saïd Business School, INSEAD and HEC Paris all report significant drops in the number of MBAs who have accepted full-time roles and internships at finance firms as the heaviest portion of the annual recruiting season comes to an end. Read more
Published: March 20, 2014
Online Here We Come, Says Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School (HBS) today announced that it is joining some of its peer business schools in launching an online learning program. Called HBX, the online initiative is one the school hopes will successfully convey its signature case method digitally. HBX’s initial offering, called CORe (Credentials of Readiness), will provide participants with a primer on the fundamentals of business. “The HBX launch marks an important milestone in our ongoing efforts to educate leaders who make a difference in the world,” HBS Dean Nitin Nohria said in a statement. The program embodies the school’s hallmark highly engaged, interactive learning and will provide an important means of engaging with new and wider audiences, he added. Read more
Published: March 20, 2014
Fridays From the Frontline
Hello and welcome to Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit’s weekly summation of the musings of the b-school applicant and student blogosphere.  With most of our 2016 blogging applicants having gone through the R1 or R2 process, this week has been a time to dwell on the experience and give a fuller account of their impressions, whether positive or negative.  Current MBA students have also taken some time to share their impressions of classes, travel experience, or life as an MBA mom. MBAtheNonprofitWay has continued a streak of good news with an admit to Ross and a waitlist at Fuqua. However, Johnson still remains the best option, out of a successful application process. Nevertheless, MBAtheNonprofitWay takes some time to review the Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda of the experience.  SarahsMBAJourney expands on her impressions of Boston, rating everything from burgers to the HBS Case Method, from her recent journey across the Pond to the USA.   Read more
Published: March 19, 2014
MBA Tuition Increases Planned at Many Top Business Schools
Numerous top business schools have approved tuition hikes averaging around 4 percent for the class of 2016, increases that come on top of a 37 percent rise in the degree’s cost over the past six years, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports. The increases, which range from 2.7 percent at Harvard Business School to 4.9 percent at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, bring the average cost for a year of tuition and fees to roughly $60,000 and the total cost of the degree to as much as $150,000, including living expenses and other add-ons. Six of Bloomberg BW’s 10 top-ranked MBA programs recently approved tuition increases, and the remaining top schools are set to make decisions closer to the fall, according to the report. Read more
Published: March 19, 2014
Embarking on Business School with an Entrepreneurial Vision (Part 2 of 2)
Amidst the debate of whether business school represents a worthwhile undertaking for students planning to pursue entrepreneurship, there is scant attention paid to how to go about creating a new venture, once one has made the decision to go to business school. Much has changed in the past 5-7 years – entrepreneurship in business school has morphed from being a very small fraction of MBA job-search activity relative to the mainstream MBA recruiting efforts of professional services firms and Fortune 500 companies, to becoming one of the core economic objectives that validates the educational process itself. Yet the curricular shape of most MBA programs (core courses first followed by electives) hews to a traditional model that tends to work less well for entrepreneurs than it does for those pursuing the traditional two-step process of MBA summer internship recruiting followed by MBA full-time recruiting. In many respects, the traditional business school model of having the first year serve to provide a broad, general foundation across the academic verticals – core course offerings in Finance, Marketing, Accounting, etc. – followed  by a second year in which there is relatively more room for students to explore electives, independent study projects, and experiential learning programs that lend themselves better to new venture initiation – leaves MBA entrepreneurs as a whole with too little time, in my opinion, to sufficiently test their ideas and to have a chance to fail and try again before they graduate. Read more
Published: March 19, 2014
Indian School of Business MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Adcom / On-Campus
My interview went well. Many questions were asked, but a few that I remember were: 1. Why I chose to apply to the school? 2. What I look forward to achieve through attending? 3. Where do I see myself in 4 years? The interview went pretty much as I expected. I had done my research prior so nothing was of shock to me. It lasted for about 30 minutes. Read more
Published: March 19, 2014
IE Business School MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Alumnus / Off-Campus
My interview for IEBS (Innovation & Entrepreneurship Business School) happened in a coffee shop. It was a blind interview as the interviewer didn’t know anything about me and hadn’t read my resume or application. The interview went very well and felt a bit like a conversation. Some of the questions asked were: Walk me through your resume. What are your hobbies? Why MBA? What you can contribute to IEBS? Moment of failure It was a great experience. Read more
Published: March 18, 2014
Today’s MBA Graduates Follow Quicker Path to Entrepreneurship, GMAC Alumni Survey Finds
Entrepreneurial MBAs are starting their own businesses sooner after graduation than ever before, according to a worldwide survey of business school alumni released this week by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). Of alumni entrepreneurs from the classes of 2010-2013, 45 percent started businesses at graduation, as compared with just 7 percent of alumni entrepreneurs who graduated before 1990. The average time from graduation to self-employment has grown shorter with each passing decade, from 20 years for graduates before 1980 to just three years for graduates between 2000-2009. Despite this accelerating pace, business school alumni are still more likely to be self-employed the longer they have been out of business school, the 2014 Alumni Perspectives Survey finds. Just 5 percent of the classes of 2010-2013 report being currently self-employed, compared with 23 percent of those who graduated before 1990. Overall, 1 in 10 business school alumni is self-employed today. Read more
Published: March 17, 2014
New Program Qualifies GMAT Test Takers for Interest Rate Reduction for New MBA Loans
Photo credit: zingbot The Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which owns and administers the GMAT exam, has partnered with Discover Student Loans to introduce a new program designed to qualify GMAT test takers for an interest rate reduction on eligible new MBA loans. The Discover MBA Loan with GMAT Test-Taker Reward, launched last month, offers graduate business students who take the GMAT exam the opportunity to receive a 0.25 percent interest rate reduction on new MBA Loans from Discover Student Loans. Read more
Published: March 16, 2014
New Dean to Lead Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania will have a new dean beginning this summer, the school announced today. Geoffrey Garrett, a distinguished political economist and former faculty member in Wharton’s management department, will take the reins on July 1st, succeeding outgoing Dean Thomas Robertson, who has led the school since 2007. Garrett is currently dean and professor of business in the Australian School of Business at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where he has contributed significantly to business research and education for the Asia Pacific region. In this role, he has overseen more than 350 faculty and researchers, eight academic departments, nine research centers and a student body of more than 12,000. Read more
Published: March 13, 2014
ESADE Rolls out New Spanish-Only Full-Time MBA Program Targeting Latin American Applicants
Beginning in September 2014, students at Spain’s ESADE Business School will now be able to take all classes to complete a full-time MBA program in Spanish. The new program is aimed primarily at prospective applicants from Latin America, the school reports. The Spanish section of the ESADE full-time program features the same MBA curriculum as the school’s English section, just with more opportunities geared specifically toward Spanish speakers. Students in the Spanish section will have expanded opportunities to specialize by taking optional subjects from both the MBA and Executive Education programs. They can also take part in business labs providing for specialization in finance, entrepreneurship and innovation, family business or marketing. Read more
Published: March 13, 2014
Fridays From the Frontline
Hello and welcome to Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly traversal of the tenacious b-school applicant and student blogosphere.  This week, our 2016 applicants share decisions and status updates, while our  roster of current students continue to be immersed in  classroom and career experiences, with little time to share their experiences at the moment. MBAtheNonProfitWay is now officially part of the Johnson Class of 2016! While an exciting bit of news to impart, the decision between Cornell and UCLA was not easy.  Speaking of Anderson, MBAReApplicant had the fantastic news that, after two years of going through the application process, an admit came from Anderson, and yet another R2 interview invite, this time from Darden, for which our intrepid blogger is preparing by using the Clear Admit Darden Interview Guide. Read more
Published: March 12, 2014
UCLA Anderson’s School of Management Celebrates Diversity with International Food Festival
Students at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA enjoyed foods from around the world as part of its annual International Food Festival last week. Roughly 350 students, staff and faculty turned out for the event, which also featured Anderson Afternoon beverages, wine from the Anderson Wine Club and desserts provided by Out@Anderson. The cuisines of 14 countries were featured: Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, India, Philippines, Mexico, Thailand, Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Jamaica, Taiwan and Armenia. The traditional food options included Indian samosas, Filipino lumpia, Chinese dim sum and Mexican cactus salad, among others. In addition to the food and drinks, karaoke provided the evening’s entertainment. “When students were done with the food and wine, they sang their hearts out,” Ayushman Jain, president of the International Business Association, said in an article on the UCLA Anderson website. Read more
Published: March 11, 2014
Cornell’s Johnson School of Management Still Accepting Applications
Interested in the one- or two-year MBA program at Cornell’s Johnson School of Management in Ithaca? You still have until next month to apply to either program, Admission Director Christine Sneva urged in a recent post to her Admissions Blog. Johnson will be accepting applications to its two-year program until April 30th and to its one-year program until April 1st, Sneva wrote. “We will make decisions on all new applications on a rolling basis with time to apply for financial aid, secure housing and a student visa if necessary before classes start,” she added. Read more
Published: March 11, 2014
Wharton MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / Adcom / Off-Campus Hub
My interview was in London with a team of 5 others. I got there 45 minutes early and was the first to arrive. Gradually other team members arrived and we got along talking really well, laughing and getting to know each other. I noticed when the ADCOM member came in--I don’t think others did. She dressed casually and hung back from us for about 10 minutes, most likely eavesdropping on our conversation. I had met her twice on her trips to my country, but instead of going to introduce myself I rather focused on making sure my name came up a few times and was noticeably conversational. The TBD (Team Based Discussion) commenced, and it was quite obvious from the get-go how everyone had prepared for this. There were 3 guys and 2 ladies: 2 from investment banking, 2 from consulting and 1 from IT. The IT guy who is a project manager got off the block quickest and tried to ensure that we followed a structured approach to the discussion. We had nametags so didn't need to write names down. The first person didn’t really follow the 1-minute requirement, probably spoke for 3 minutes and her topic wasn’t clear either. After the first round, I felt my topic was the clearest and had the strongest base to be built up on but I didn’t overly push it. Instead as the discussion progressed, I reiterated why my topic was sound but Read more
Published: March 11, 2014
Embarking on Business School with an Entrepreneurial Vision (Part 1 of 2)
For Stanford GSB, the class of 2013 may represent a high-water mark in terms of MBA graduates pursuing full-time, post-MBA roles as entrepreneurs. A record 18% of Stanford’s graduated class is starting new ventures in “finance, internet services, media and entertainment, human resources, retail, healthcare, consumer products, education, energy / cleantech, and software.” And, yet, the relevance and value of going to business school in order to pursue an entrepreneurial career path remains hotly-debated. For every encouraging note – see Stella Fayman’s Forbes piece, Should Entrepreneurs Get an MBA? An Inside Perspective from an MBA Entrepreneur – there is a counter-point such as Naysawn Naderi’s Hey Entrepreneur – Please Don’t Get an MBA. And, while UVA Dean Robert Bruner and author Steve Blank weigh in, respectively, with Should Entrepreneurs Have MBAs? and Should I get an MBA? Entrepreneurial Finishing School, and management thinker Henry Mintzberg and Wharton Dean Thomas Robertson square off on the topic, with Is an MBA Still Necessary?, The Wall Street Journal’s Melissa Korn alights on the one seemingly stable variable: B-Schools Vie for Startup Crown. Yet, what if you’re already beyond the stage of pondering whether business school makes sense for entrepreneurship, and instead face the prospect of committing to business school with the knowledge and hope that pursuing an MBA might dovetail well with starting your own new venture? Read more
Published: March 10, 2014
Harvard, Stanford, Wharton Tie for First in U.S. News Business School Rankings
U.S. News & World Report released its annual rankings of the best graduate schools, and a familiar cast of characters topped the list of top business schools, though with a few minor shifts. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania sashayed up from third place up to tie for first with Harvard Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business. The University of Chicago Booth School of Business gained some ground as well, moving up from the No. 6 spot last year to No. 4 this year. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, meanwhile, dipped – sliding into the No. 6 spot vacated by Chicago Booth. MIT’s Sloan School of Management, which tied with Kellogg for fourth last year, also slipped, falling to fifth place. Read more
Published: March 9, 2014
Students from U Michigan’s Ross School of Business Fan the Globe for Action-Based Learning
First-year students from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business are setting out today toward 81 companies spread across 24 countries as part of the school’s Multidisciplinary Action Projects (MAPs). Every spring, the school’s 450 or so first-year MBAs take part in this core requirement, which the school touts as one of the most intensive action-based learning programs of its kind. The students are assigned to companies for seven-week stints, during which time they learn first hand as part of everything from new product launches to digital banking. Participating companies include Microsoft, Amazon and Sustainable Harvest, among many others. Read more
Published: March 6, 2014
Women in Leadership Conference to Tackle Design Thinking at UC Berkeley’s Haas School
Students at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business are gearing up to host the 18th annual Women in Leadership Conference next week, focused around the theme of “Design Your Future,” the school announced. Tech leaders from Synopsus, Lending Club and Kaiser Permanente will take part in the March 15th event, which is the longest-running, student-organized conference in the school’s history. This year’s co-chairs are Stephanie Curran, MBA 14, and Lauren Fernandez, also MBA 14. Read more
Published: March 6, 2014
Fridays From the Frontline
Hello and welcome to Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit’s weekly perusal of the peripatetic top business school blogs.  This week,  2016 applicants continue to reflect on the application and interview process, while current MBA students are taking some time to update on the semester and exciting school-based projects.  Tuck bound Domotron gives a great perspective on the elements of the application packet, and focuses particularly on how the GMAT score factors into the target school’s evaluation process.  Sarah’sMBAJourney debriefs her Duke interview at a Starbucks in London, while sharing that the Clear Admit Interview and Read more
Published: March 5, 2014
Stanford Graduate School of Business Revokes MBA Degree From Convicted Inside Trader
Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) yesterday confirmed that, for the first time ever, it has stripped a graduate of his MBA degree because he was admitted to the program under “false pretenses,” the Wall Street Journal reports. The graduate in question – former SAC Capital Advisors employee Mathew Martoma, who completed his MBA in 2003 – was convicted last month of insider trading charges. “Martoma does not have a Stanford MBA,” Stanford GSB spokesperson Barbara Buell confirmed in a separate report by PoetsandQuants. Read more
Published: March 4, 2014
Chicago Booth School of Business Promotes Its Chicago Business Fellows Program for Young Professionals
Through posts to its Evening and Weekend MBA Admissions Blog and Twitter, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business is getting the word out about its Chicago Business Fellows (CBF) program, designed for prospective applicants with limited work experience who want to earn an MBA while continuing to work. CBF, which debuted in 2005 as a subset of its Evening MBA and Weekend MBA programs, features a range of advantages for young professionals, including several sources of support throughout the program. CBF students in their first quarter take one or two academic courses, as well as one required professional skills development course. Students also receive peer coaching throughout the program and participate as part of a unique cohort system designed to provide further support.    Read more

MBA Livewire

November 17, 2024 2:39pm ET
Interview Invite to Duke / Fuqua
Round: Round 1
Received via email on November 11, 2024
GPA: 3.79
GRE: 321
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Finance
Application Location: Chicago
November 17, 2024 10:14am ET
Interview Invite to Stanford GSB
Round: Round 1
Received via email on November 14, 2024
GPA: 3.52
GRE: 322
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Technology
Note:

Consortium applicant applied round 1
November 17, 2024 12:58am ET
Rejected at Columbia
Round: Round 1
Received via portal on November 14, 2024
GPA: 3.49
GMAT: 740
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Consulting
Application Location: India
November 17, 2024 12:46am ET
Interview Invite to Duke / Fuqua
Round: Round 1
Received via email on November 12, 2024
GPA: 3.49
GMAT: 740
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Consulting
Application Location: India
November 16, 2024 12:19pm ET
Interview Invite to Northwestern / Kellogg
Round: Round 1
Received via email
GRE: 320
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Application Location: India
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