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Published: April 1, 2014
April Campus Visit Dates Available at Yale School of Management
Yale School of Management (SOM) welcomes prospective applicants to come visit its New Haven campus this spring as part of its Campus Visit Program, according to a recent Admissions Corner blog post by Associate Director Kristen Shockley. “Our globe-trotting students have just returned to campus from their International Experience trips and Global Network Weeks and our campus visit program is poised to host visitors from near and far in their search for the right business school,” she writes. Read more
Published: April 1, 2014
Conducting a Career Self-Assessment – for New MBA Admits (Part 1 of 3)
MBAs are often told that a new job search should begin with a process of introspection known as “self-assessment,” yet that advice is not always accompanied by a prescriptive guide for what that process should entail … the words themselves are deemed sufficiently self-explanatory. At the same time, a good career self-assessment is not rocket science. It involves focusing on three time periods – past, present, and future – and it can benefit from use of a small handful of exercises and instruments, the most prevalent (and useful) of which are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), whose intellectual antecedent is the philosophy of Carl Jung, and the CareerLeader assessment, developed by Drs. Tim Butler and Jim Waldroop at Harvard Business School. For a rising MBA, the need to conduct a critical self-assessment is acute because the cost of having to reverse course or of simply “getting it wrong” – for example, by chasing after “your roommate’s dream job” rather than your own, or by discovering that your dream career path lies in private wealth management one week after deadlines for private wealth management internships have passed – is high. Read more
Published: March 31, 2014
Columbia Business School Students to Volunteer as Part of Inaugural Day of Impact
Hundreds of MBA students, faculty and staff at Columbia Business School (CBS) will fan out into the communities surrounding the school this Friday for an inaugural student-led volunteering initiative called Day of Impact. As part of the day-long event, members of the CBS community will give back to their larger community by beautifying city parks, delivering meals to home-ridden residents, preparing food for a food bank, caring for animals in need and more. “Making an impact on society — however large or small — is a huge part of who we are at Columbia Business School,” Sheila Lalani ’14, vice president of community service for the school’s Graduate Business Association, said in a statement. “The idea behind Day of Impact is to demonstrate our community’s commitment to not only bettering the business world once we graduate, but also working to improve the community in which we live.” Read more
Published: March 30, 2014
NYU Stern School of Business Appoints Alumnus as New Dean of MBA Students
Conor Grennan, an alumnus of New York University’s Stern School of Business, will become the school’s dean of students for the MBA program effective tomorrow, the school announced today. In his new role, Grennan will serve as a liaison between the Stern’s administration and its more than 2,500 full-time and Langone MBA students. Before attending Stern’s full-time MBA program, Grennan founded non-governmental organization (NGO) Next Generation Nepal, which has rescued approximately 500 trafficked children in post-war Nepal and reconnected them with their families. While at Stern, he wrote Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal, a New York Times best-selling book chronicling motivations for and experiences with his NGO. Grennan earned his MBA from Stern in 2010 and served as president of the student body during his second year there. Read more
Published: March 27, 2014
UC Berkeley Draws Record Number of Entrants to Startup Competition
More than 200 teams from UC Berkeley and UCSF have entered this year’s startup competition, including 18-Haas affiliated teams, competing for $60,000 in prizes. The contest, previously known as Bplan, sports a new name this year, LAUNCH, which is intended to reflect the continued move away from long-form business plans to the one-page business model canvas and 10-slide presentation used by today’s startups. “We thought about what this competition is really trying to do: It’s now much more about catapulting and launching companies from ideas to viable businesses over the course of the competition,” says Moses Lo, MBA ’15, one of the co-chairs of the competition. “LAUNCH exactly describes our aim.” Read more
Published: March 27, 2014
Fridays from the Frontline
Hello and welcome to Fridays from the Frontline, Clear Admit’s weekly confabulation with correspondents in the b-school blogosphere.  Our 2016 applicants continue to receive status updates from schools, while current students are taking the opportunity afforded by spring break to travel and update their blogs. Domotron finally heard from Kellogg, with news of a ding that confirmed a Class of 2017 matriculation at Tuck. CoffeeBeansandTeaLeaves also received a ding from Kellogg, and updates readers with a final tally of dings from this year's application season. Although the season ends with an offer to join the Ross weekend MBA program, Ellie  is taking advantage of this time to do some self-reflection and prepare for next year's challenges. We wish her all the best! Finally a bit of good news from MBA Reapplicant, who posted a detailed and glowing account of visiting Darden and the interview process. Read more
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

MBA Livewire

December 17, 2024 3:47am ET
Accepted to USC / Marshall
Round: Round 1
Received via email on December 14, 2024
GPA: 8.52/10
GMAT: 715
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Finance
Application Location: India
Note:

Admitted with $$
December 16, 2024 9:52pm ET
Accepted to NYU Stern
Round: Round 1
Received via phone on December 05, 2024
Program Type: One Year Program
Note:

9/6 - Applied
10/21 - Interview Invite
11/11 - Interview
12/6 - got a call but missed it, email and portal updated by end of day.
No scholarship but beyond excited!

Wishing you all the best!
December 16, 2024 9:50pm ET
Accepted to USC / Marshall
Round: Round 1
Received via email December 16, 2024
GPA: 3.6
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Target Career: Consulting
Application Location: Bay Area
Note:

While the deadline was yesterday, I received email about admission today! Granted full-tuition scholarship via Consortium. Hold on to hope for the folks awaiting decisions!
December 16, 2024 9:45pm ET
Waitlisted at Dartmouth / Tuck
Round: Round 1
Received via portal
GPA: 4.0
GMAT: 655
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Application Location: Houston
December 16, 2024 9:43pm ET
Accepted to Northwestern / Kellogg
Round: Round 1
Received via portal
GPA: 4.0
GMAT: 655
Program Type: Traditional Two-Year
Application Location: Houston
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