Clear Admit, Author at Clear Admit

Published: October 10, 2013

University of Chicago Booth School of Business Holds Top Spot in Economist MBA Rankings

The Economist’s annual ranking of full-time MBA programs is out, and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business has taken the top spot again, a position it’s held three of the last four years. Unlike the Forbes ranking released earlier this week, which ranks U.S. schools and international schools separately, the Economist compares MBA programs from around the globe. U.S. programs snagged the top four spots, and 16 of the top 25. To compile its rankings, published for the 11th time this year, the Economist surveys MBA students about why they decided to pursue the degree and weights the data collected as follows: opening new career opportunities (35 percent), personal development/educational experience (35 percent); increasing salary (20 percent); and the potential to network (10 percent). Read more

Published: October 10, 2013

Fridays From The Frontline

Hello and welcome to Fridays From The Frontline, Clear Admit's diligent dive into the doings of b-school bloggers. This week many applicants were wrapping up their applications and recounting campus visits while current students caught up their readers on the ways they've spent the last few months on campus. HammO visited Tuck during Dartmouth's alumni weekend, which led to an extra special campus experience. Ellie experienced GMAT ennui. Domotron also visited Tuck and determined it was "awesome." MBA Reapplicant submitted two out of his four applications and wished those still finishing up R1 applications the best of luck. MBAGirlJourney did not envy those applying to programs with video essay components, but welcomed thoughts or details about the process nonetheless. Sarah found herself sick as a dog in Africa, and very grateful for an English speaking pharmacist. TimBob attended a Haas information session hosted by Stephanie Fujii and presented his takeaways for his readers. Read more

Published: October 9, 2013

Long-Time UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Professor Nominated to Head Federal Reserve

President Barack Obama’s nomination of Janet Yellen yesterday to head the Federal Reserve Board of Governors sparked celebration at the University of California’s Haas School of Business, where she was a member of the faculty for 26 years. If confirmed, Yellen will succeed current Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, who will step down in January 2014. Yellen taught macroeconomics at Haas from 1980 to 2006 and was named a Berkeley Fellow earlier this year for her contributions to the school. While at Haas, Yellen’s research focused on unemployment and labor markets, monetary and fiscal policies and international trade and investment policy. In addition to her decades on the Haas faculty, Yellen has served as vice chair of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors since 2010, was president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco from 2004 through 2010 and also chaired President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1997 to 1999. Read more

Published: October 9, 2013

Career Services Director Q&A: Gary Fraser of USC’s Marshall School of Business

Gary Fraser joined the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business as assistant dean and executive director of the Keenan MBA Career Services Center in the summer of 2012, culminating a comprehensive national search to fill the role. Fraser came to Marshall from New York University’s Stern School of Business, where he spent 12 years as dean of students and associate dean of MBA student affairs. During his tenure at NYU Stern, he oversaw the Office of Student Activities and the Office of Career Development and launched and directed the Career Center for Working Professionals. Before joining NYU Stern, he held several positions in brand management, including at Sara Lee, Cadbury Beverages and Kraft/Nabisco. As Fraser shares in the interview that follows, students at Marshall benefit from a full month of self-assessment and individual career development before employers arrive on campus since the MBA program begins in late July. Read on to learn more about some of the other things that make career services at Marshall unique, including the school’s small student body and its strong alumni base, the “Trojan Network.” Read more

Published: October 8, 2013

Stanford Graduate School of Business Returns to Number One Spot in Forbes 2013 MBA Rankings

Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) reclaimed the top spot in the Forbes 2013 biennial ranking of MBA programs, released today. The University of Chicago Booth School of Business took second, bumping Harvard Business School (HBS), which topped the list in 2011, to third place. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School followed up the lead in fourth. Forbes, which ranks full-time MBA programs every two years based on return on investment, found that at the top 25 programs in the United States, the degree still pays off, although it takes longer to do so. For the Class of 2008, the class surveyed for this year’s ranking, the average payback period was 3.7 years, as compared to 2.7 years a decade ago, Forbes reports. Read more

Published: October 7, 2013

Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: R1 / Video Interview

For my Yale SOM video interview, I was asked the following questions – What accomplishment are you most proud of? Difficult professional decision and how you overcame it? As business becomes more global, culture becomes less important… Agree or disagree Read more

Published: October 7, 2013

Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: R1 / Video Interview

My Yale video interview consisted of the following questions: Einstein quote on knowledge vs imagination. Do you agree? Challenging work experience How would friends or coworkers describe you? Read more

Published: October 7, 2013

UPenn’s Wharton School Sees Uptick in Round One Applicant Volume

The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School saw an increase this year in the number of applications submitted by its Round One deadline last week, according to the deputy vice dean for admissions, financial aid and career management. “If you believe that application volume is an indicator of the relevance of an MBA program, then I am pleased to announce that our Round One numbers are up,” wrote Deputy Vice Dean Maryellen Lamb in a post to the Wharton MBA Admissions blog yesterday. She did not disclose how much Round One application volume increased. Lamb’s comment referred to a Wall Street Journal article last week that questioned whether four years of declining application volume to the Philadelphia school might be an indicator that it had fallen from its long-held position as one of the most elite MBA programs in the world. Wharton’s Director of Admissions Ankur Kumar also announced last week that she was leaving her position to pursue other opportunities effective October 4th. Lamb, who was promoted earlier this year from her position as director of MBA Career Management to the role of deputy vice dean overseeing admissions, financial aid and career management, will lead the admissions department following Kumar’s departure. Read more

Published: October 7, 2013

Career Services Director Q&A: Karen Siegfried of the Cambridge Judge Business School

Our continuing series of interviews with career services directors took us most recently to Cambridge University’s Judge Business School, where we caught up with Karen Siegfried. Siegfried is currently serving as interim head of career services, resuming a role she first held in 2010. Her permanent role, though, is as MBA executive director for Judge, with oversight for a team responsible for not only careers but also marketing, admissions, program and projects. Below she describes the MBA Career Services team, including the addition this year of several sector-specific career consultants. She also explains how her team encourages students to remain flexible in the short term – with regard to their first post-MBA job, for example – as a means of reaching their long-term goals. She also shares more about the several ways Judge alumni take an active role in the recruiting process, and she provides some valuable advice for prospective applicants in terms of what they can do now to be better prepared for a successful job search when they arrive at Judge. So read on… Read more

Published: October 6, 2013

Duke’s Fuqua School of Business Unveils New Energy Finance Concentration, Sustainability Courses

The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University last month announced its launch of a new concentration in energy finance, as well as two new courses focused on sustainability. The new energy finance concentration, which comes as an addition to the school’s existing concentration in energy and environment, will allow MBA students to explore issues like project finance, markets and trading, corporate finance and risk management in greater depth, while also providing them with the fundamentals of global energy markets. With its launch, Fuqua has become the only MBA program in the BusinessWeek 10 top-ranked schools to offer such an energy finance focus. Read more

Published: October 3, 2013

INSEAD Appoints Interim Dean Ilian Mihov to Permanent Role

Leading international business school INSEAD this week appointed Professor Ilian Mihov as its official dean. Mihov, who is currently interim dean of the school, will be INSEAD’s first dean to be based in Asia, though he will travel frequently between INSEAD’s three campuses in Fontainebleau, France; Singapore and Abu Dhabi to engage the school’s entire global community. A newly appointed deputy dean and full academic and administrative team will ensure that INSEAD’s presence in Europe – its home for the past 53 years – will remain strong. “We are fortunate that our predecessors foresaw the rise of globalization and established a school destined to be the pioneer in the internationalization of business and education,” Mihov said in a statement. He pledged in his new role to uphold the values of the school’s founders, nurture its intellectual environment, support innovation in teaching and increase the school’s reputation. Read more

Published: October 3, 2013

Fridays From The Frontline

Hello and welcome to Fridays From The Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly blog post featuring the latest news from the b-school blogosphere. This week the crescendo of R1 deadlines resulted in a number of applicant bloggers celebrating the successful submission of their applications. Meanwhile current students recounted their on-campus experiences. MBA My Way expressed displeasure with her performance on the video element of her Yale application, but did provide a few points of advice for those yet to undertake it. HammO submitted his applications to Johnson, Ross and Wharton and planned on putting the finishing touches on his Tuck, Darden and Fuqua materials over the next few weeks. TimBob was on the verge of submitting his Wharton application, though held off until he was certain his recommenders completed their portions. MBAGirlJourney described how her MBA goals had changed or grown over the application process and happily announced that all three of her R1 applications were now submitted. Domotron waved goodbye to his Booth application and turned his attentions to his Tuck interview. Read more

Published: October 2, 2013

MIT Sloan Launches New Healthcare Certificate Program

With dissension over the Affordable Care Act fueling a government shutdown, MIT Sloan School of Management has chosen an apropos time to launch a new certificate program addressing U.S. healthcare challenges. Of course, the concerns that led to the program’s creation – including the fact that the nation’s healthcare spending is escalating at a rate far exceeding inflation even as access to care lags behind most other developed nations – aren’t new. The Healthcare Certificate program, launched October 1st, will help formalize a range of activities around healthcare and health management already taking place at the school. Students pursuing the certificate will take core courses on healthcare delivery in the United States, the economics of healthcare and general medical science. After completing these required courses, they can select from several elective courses. Participating students will also all be required to enroll in an action learning lab, such as the school’s new Healthcare Lab (H-Lab), an intensive, team-based project course that includes on-site work at a U.S. health organization. Read more

Published: October 2, 2013

QS World MBA Tour October, November Event Dates

With Round 1 in full swing and Round 2 on the horizon, there is no better time to make contact with admissions officers and alumni from your target MBA programs. Designed by MBA graduates, the QS World MBA Tour features free workshops led by admissions experts and alumni to help prospective applicants improve their application strategy and stand the best chance of getting into the MBA programs of their choice. During each event, attendees have the chance to meet face-to-face with admissions directors from top business schools around the world. Additional features of the QS World MBA Read more

Published: October 2, 2013

Clear Admit Career Services Director Q&A: Stephen Rakas of the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University

Stephen Rakas has been in career services with the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon for the past 10 years and in his current role as executive director of the Career Opportunities Center (COC) since 2011. His previous experience includes four years in career services with the University of Pittsburgh and an additional decade of experience in general management and sales in industries ranging from healthcare to high-end retail. “I discovered earlier in my career that serving as a conduit between the academic and business environments was a strong match with my skills and interests,” he told us. “I’m passionate about higher education, and the opportunity to help students transition their academic achievements into the world of work is very rewarding.” Check out the interview below, in which he describes the comprehensive Base Camp Orientation all Tepper students undergo before classes even begin, explains why all the members of the COC team devote time both to counseling students and to maintaining relationships with employers and more. Read more

Published: October 1, 2013

Admissions Director Ankur Kumar Resigns from UPenn’s Wharton School

The admissions director at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School will leave her post this Friday, October 4th, according to an email sent by Wharton Dean Tom Robertson to the school’s faculty and staff this morning. The Wall Street Journal also reported the news, noting that the school had declined its requests for comment but that according to several sources Kumar informed her staff of her decision last week. A Wharton alumna, Kumar has been a member of the admissions team for the past four years, serving since 2011 as director of admissions and financial aid. In his email announcing her departure, Dean Robertson praised Kumar for helping the school reach unprecedented female enrollment (women now number more than 40% of the student body) as well as for introducing several innovations in admissions, including the “Team Based Discussion,” a group interview format launched last year. Read more

Published: September 30, 2013

Clear Admit Chats with Dean Bob Bruner of UVA’s Darden School of Business

When Bob Bruner, dean of the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia, casually mentioned getting together over a cup of tea in Philadelphia last month, Clear Admit jumped at the chance. It’s not every day that the dean of a top-ranked MBA program proposes meeting up – in our own city no less. It would turn out to be just a part of what makes Bruner unlike some other deans. A member of the Darden faculty since 1982 and its dean since 2005, Bruner has long promoted Darden’s commitment to high-engagement teaching and to fostering a collaborative community-oriented ethic among its students. His efforts have won him multiple leading teaching awards at the University of Virginia and within the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as designation as 2012 “Dean of the Year” by Forbes/CNN Money and PoetsandQuants. Bruner has long set himself apart as a dean who blogs and tweets regularly, hoping to share his unique perspectives with a wider audience. “There are few deans that blog about their own work or the world around them or higher education,” he told us. “I think that’s a shame. I think deans have a lot to say that could inform the way all the stakeholders at business schools engage their schools and shape expectations about the schools.” For more on what Bruner has to say – on topics ranging from gender equity and the MBA to growth in massive open online courses (MOOCs) to the ways graduate management education must adapt to and embrace globalization – read on. Read more

Published: September 30, 2013

Career Services Director Q&A: Javier Muñoz of IESE

Our interview series with career services directors at top business schools takes us this week to Barcelona’s IESE, where we spoke with Javier Muñoz, assistant dean and director of career management. Muñoz knows IESE from many angles. He began there in 2001 as an MBA student himself, completing his degree in 2003. Upon completion, rather than return to banking, which had been his career path before business school, he accepted a position in the IESE admissions department. “The offer [to join the admissions team] was very surprising at the beginning, but IESE is famous for bringing in MBAs [to its administration] every year,” he told us. After eight years in admissions, including five as head of the department, IESE offered Muñoz an opportunity to lead a different department – career services. He accepted and took over as assistant dean and director in 2011. Muñoz had no idea when he came to IESE for an MBA that he would find himself working there for the next decade plus. “The only thing that I knew was that I wanted to explore different options apart from finance,” he says. He got several other offers, but when IESE came calling he answered. “I fell in love with the school, the MBA was such a great experience for me, they offered me a great position and I went for it,” he says. Read more

Published: September 29, 2013

Wharton Needs to Better Showcase What’s Right with Wharton

Swirling debate picked up this week in the realm of top MBA programs, fueled by a Wall Street Journal article on Friday entitled, “What’s Wrong with Wharton?” The Journal piece hinged on a notable 12 percent drop in applications to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School over the past four years. Against a backdrop of gains in application volume by several other top schools in the same time period, Wharton’s drop did seem to beg the question of what’s wrong. The Journal article suggests that behind the falling application volume is the fact that Wharton – with its indisputable strength in finance – didn’t shift quickly enough or significantly enough in the wake of the financial crisis to attract students more drawn to post-MBA careers in fields like technology and entrepreneurship. The Journal also called attention to Wharton’s slide in several top MBA rankings: The Philadelphia school has for the past several years consistently finished behind the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Harvard Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business rather than holding steady as one of the top three business schools in the world. Read more

Published: September 27, 2013

Tuck MBA Admissions Interview Questions: EA / Second-year student / On-Campus

The following questions were asked: Walk me through your resume? Why Tuck? Why you for Tuck? Why do you want to pursue an MBA now? Challenging team experience and how did you overcome it? What are 3 strengths that your teammates would say you have? What are a couple of weaknesses that your teammates would say you have? Talk about a passion that might not be on your resume? And then she gave me about 5-10 minutes to ask her questions…. Read more

Published: September 26, 2013

London Business School Receives $40 Million Gift, Hopes to Reach $160 Million in Five Years

Billionaire Israeli industrialist Idan Ofer has given $40 million to his alma mater, London Business School (LBS), to help fund the transformation of a historic London building into a new state-of-the-art educational facility, the school announced yesterday. The gift, made through the Batia and Idan Ofer Family Foundation, is the largest in the school’s history and kicks off a fundraising campaign LBS hopes will raise $160 million over the next five years. Ofer’s gift will help transform Old Marylebone Town Hall, acquired by LBS last year, and fund construction of a new three-story building featuring six Read more

Published: September 26, 2013

Fridays From The Frontline

Hello and welcome to Fridays From The Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly wander through the hallowed digital halls of the b-school blogosphere. This week applicants continued to track their R1 application progress while students experienced a range of experiences and shared some advice to those who may one day follow them. Ellie compared her intended b-school application schedule to what has actually transpired thus far. MBAMyWay planned to apply to seven schools and explained why. Domotron submitted his Wharton essay and praised Clear Admit's compilation of interview questions. ExpectingMBAMILF recounted what she did and did not tell her extended family about her MBA aspirations and relocation. MBAGirlJourney submitted her Wharton application well in advance of its deadline and began to think about interview preparation. Sanket reported his experience taking part in a Stanford webinar information session. Ppandey turned his attentions to different strategies one can employ when transitioning into consulting. Read more

Published: September 25, 2013

UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School Debuts New MBA App for Prospective Applicants

Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina this week released a new app for iPad and iPhone designed to help prospective applicants to business school evaluate whether, when and where to pursue an MBA degree. The MBA App, available for free download in the Apple App Store, was designed to help prospective applicants navigate key “pain points” surrounding the decision to pursue an MBA, Kenan-Flagler Admissions Director Sherry Wallace said in a statement. “Our admissions team listened to the issues that prospective students pondered, and then developed useful information that helps them address those questions and provides valuable information about the process,” she continued. Read more

Published: September 25, 2013

Career Services Director Q&A: Fred Staudmyer of Cornell’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management

Assistant Dean of Career Management Fred Staudmyer has been leading the Career Management Center at Cornell’s Johnson School since September 2009, and he brought decades of executive recruitment and human resources experience with him to the role. Just prior to joining Johnson he led the Garrett Sayer Group, an executive search firm focused on the technology, financial services and consulting industries, and he held a range of other senior positions focused on human resources and recruitment before that. In our interview, Staudmeyer shares his most important objectives as head of Johnson’s Career Management Center, his plans to expand his team of career advisors – including to support a new MBA program in New York City as part of the Cornell Tech Campus – and the book he recommends all Johnson students read to best structure their independent job searches. Read more

Published: September 24, 2013

Applicant Volume for Full-Time MBA Programs on the Rise

A majority of U.S. business schools reported year-over-year growth in full-time MBA applicant volume for the first time since 2009, according to new data from the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC). For the class that started this year, the median number of applications for full-time, two-year MBA programs rose by nearly 12 percent worldwide, GMAC reports. GMAC, which administers the GMAT entrance exam, surveyed 683 graduate programs at 328 schools worldwide for its latest Application Trends Survey, the results of which were released yesterday. Application volume increased at 50 percent of two-year programs responding to the survey, up from 43 percent a year ago. Interest in one-year MBA programs also climbed, with 49 percent of programs surveyed reporting a rise in applicant volume this year over last, as compared to 47 percent last year. Read more

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