Clear Admit, Author at Clear Admit

Published: May 13, 2013

NYU Stern School of Business Dean Bowls, Publishes

In the midst of leading one of the top MBA programs in the world, Dean Peter Blair Henry of New York University (NYU) Stern School of Business somehow also finds time both to publish and to unwind with students. A recent tweet from the school (#Stern2013) leads to photos of Henry just after he’s released a bowling ball down the lane. While scores aren’t revealed, he has the look of a cranker with a smooth delivery. Let’s just say, he didn’t throw a powder puff. Besides offering up an opportunity to show off their bowling lingo, MBA Bowling Night 2013 also gave Stern students a chance to unwind and celebrate the final weeks before graduation with both Dean Henry and Stern President John Sexton. Check out the slideshow for yourself. Read more

Published: May 13, 2013

Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 3 / Video interview

Last week, I did the video interview. Here are the questions as I remember them: What would your colleagues and friends say are your strengths and weaknesses? Please describe a creative solution that you have come up with for a problem. With businesses becoming more global, does the importance of local culture decrease or increase? Read more

Published: May 12, 2013

Top Business Schools Report Healthy Application Volume Increases

When GMAT test-taking volume jumped by 11 percent for the year ending last June, those watching the MBA admissions space had reason to suspect that application volume at top schools might follow suit. Recent articles from Bloomberg BusinessWeek and Poets & Quants reveal exactly that, with Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, the University of Virginia’s Darden School and the University of Chicago’s Booth School all reporting double-digit increases in the number of students applying to their two-year, full-time MBA programs. Bloomberg BW last week surveyed its top-10 ranked business schools, discovering that half were reporting significant increases in application volume, ending a three-year decline. Johnson led the pack, with an increase of 12 percent, followed by Darden, at 11 percent, and Chicago Booth, at 10 percent. P&Q reports that Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business blew even those numbers out of the water: Applications to that school’s two-year MBA program swelled by 25 percent after it moved up the Bloomberg BW rankings four places, to 15th, last year. Read more

Published: May 9, 2013

University of Chicago Booth School of Business Shares Waitlist Admissions Updates

Round three interviews wrapped up last week at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, which means the Admissions Committee is now busy making final decisions about recent interviewees, as well as about candidates who remain on the waitlist from earlier rounds. May 23rd is decision day. “For all candidates, we know that the waiting period is difficult, and for those on the waitlist, there may also be some questions about what happens between now and the decision deadline,” wrote Associate Director of Admissions Carrie Lydon in a recent post on the Booth Insider Blog. She and her team will be reviewing waitlisted candidates’ applications, as well as any additional materials they may have submitted since originally applying. Candidates are also still welcome to submit additional updates through the Booth admissions application system. “However, since we are in the final review process, we unfortunately cannot guarantee that they will be received in time to be included,” Lydon cautioned. Read more

Published: May 9, 2013

Fridays From The Frontline

Hello and welcome to Fridays From The Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly blog posting focused on the ups and downs of the b-school blogging world. While last week was rather quiet on the applicant front and far more busy as far as student postings, this week saw a resurgence of applicants checking in to share their campus visits or their preparations for transitioning to student status. On the heels of our recent BoB nominees announcement, we're glad to see a few of our nominees in the mix. HammO expanded on his last post, which focused on financing the MBA. Sassafrass thoroughly enjoyed meeting up with future classmates and getting even more of a sense of what it means to be a Yale SOM student during a weekend visit to New Haven. The Poetic Quant outlined his plans to address concerns the adcom might have about his undergraduate GPA, which included enrolling in summer courses. Unclearadmit discussed the possibility of his MBA being sponsored, had his last day at work, improved his golf swing, and praised the Tuck approach to international loans. PPandey visited the HBS campus and sat in on a class, praised the student who led his campus tour, and valued certain insights he gained from attending an information session. Read more

Published: May 8, 2013

Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management Sees Application Volume Rebound

After a 7 percent drop in applications to its two-year, full-time MBA program last year, Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management saw double-digit application volume increases this year to all of its MBA programs, according to a recent article in Poets&Quants. Interest in the school’s one-year MBA program for undergraduate business majors was especially great, with 30 percent more applicants this year over last, Kellogg Dean Sally Blount told P&Q. Blount bragged about the school’s waitlist, calling it “awfully beautiful” and noting that it is filled with candidates with GMAT scores of 720 and higher. She credited the school’s new senior leadership team – as well as its strategy to build enrollment in its one-year program while shrinking its traditional two-year program – for the application volume growth. Kellogg last year increased the size of its one-year program by 15 percent, to 100 students. Read more

Published: May 7, 2013

Interest in Social Entrepreneurship Rises Among MBAs, Creating Some Challenges for Business Schools

As interest in social entrepreneurship has swelled among MBA students in recent years, top business schools have responded by developing new programs, centers and scholarships for students pursuing a field that was relatively unheard of a few decades ago. But as the Financial Times reported in a recent article, the trend toward social entrepreneurship, as well as shifts in the structure of organizations social entrepreneurs seek to join upon graduation, presents a new set of challenges for top MBA programs. “In the 1980s there was almost no talk at all in business schools about anything that we might now call social entrepreneurship,” Peter Tufano, dean of Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, told the FT. “I think we’ve seen an explosive growth in demand for social entrepreneurship in the last 10 years,” he added. Read more

Published: May 6, 2013

Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management Wins Top Accolades for Diversity

The Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management got an A+ for diversity in recruitment practices as part of a recent benchmark study conducted by Diversity MBA Prep, an online community offering resources to women and minorities considering an MBA. Of 50 top MBA programs included in the study, only Johnson received the top grade. As part of the MBA Advantage: Diversity Outreach Benchmarking Report, schools were evaluated based on the diversity of perspectives provided to candidates via their Web and social media presence, the range of activities and outreach directed toward candidates of diverse backgrounds, diversity at the school leadership level and the effectiveness of diversity recruitment initiatives. Read more

Published: May 5, 2013

Inaugural Class Graduates from University of Michigan’s Master’s Degree Program in Entrepreneurship

The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, together with its College of Engineering, awarded its first master’s degrees in entrepreneurship last week, the university announced. Degrees were conferred upon 17 students as part of the joint program, which draws upon the strengths of both schools to help students transform business ideas into market-ready ventures within 12 months. "The University of Michigan is ideally positioned to deliver such a program," Ross Dean Alison Davis-Blake said in a statement. "Our top-ranked business and engineering schools have a long history of successful collaborative ventures,” she continued. Read more

Published: May 2, 2013

Harvard University Receives $50 Million to Increase Collaboration between Life Sciences and Harvard Business School

A family foundation headed by a Harvard Business School alumnus has donated $50 million to launch an initiative designed to speed the development of early-stage scientific discoveries into patient therapies and cures for diseases, Harvard announced earlier this week. The gift also will fund a new fellowship in life sciences entrepreneurship. The Blavatnik Family Foundation, headed by Len Blavatnik (HBS MBA ’89), provided the generous gift, which will establish the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator and the Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Science Entrepreneurship Program at HBS. Read more

Published: May 2, 2013

Fridays From The Frontline

Hello and welcome to Fridays From The Frontline, Clear Admit's weekly dive into the highs and lows of the b-school applicant and student experience. With Round 3 deadlines in our rear view mirrors, the applicant blogger community was rather quiet while current students had more to day about everything from exciting trips to the financial realities of b-school. HammO delved deep into the question of financing an MBA, which involved a fair amount of research and copious tabs on an Excel spreadsheet. Tuck '14 The Senator was the first to admit that he'd been a bit MIA as far as his blog was concerned, but made up for it by sharing the experience of applying for a fellowship at his summer internship employer while also commenting on delays at the airport and the weight of taking on too many leadership positions on campus. MBA Manchester '14 happily announced that he secured a summer internship at Google's London and Manchester locations. LBS '14 Gayathrisai compared the weather of her hometown - Chennai - with London meteorology, with one prevailing lesson: check the weather hourly. Read more

Published: May 1, 2013

Landmark $100 Million Gift to Columbia Business School Will Create Second New Building on Manhattanville Campus

Columbia Business School (CBS) announced big news today: The Ronald O. Perelman Center for Business Innovation will rise on the school’s Manhattanville campus, opposite the Henry R. Kravis Building. Perelman, a longtime member of the CBS Board of Overseers and chairman and CEO of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc., has pledged $100 million to create the new facility, which will be named in his honor. Perelman’s gift matches the largest gift in the school’s history, which CBS alumnus Henry Kravis, the namesake of the Manhattanville campus’s other building, made in 2010. “The Perelman Center will allow Columbia Business School to continue pioneering breakthroughs in management education, such as moving beyond functional expertise or siloed learning and ensuring a more integrated curriculum for our students,” CBS Dean Glenn Hubbard said in a statement. “It will help us create the classrooms of tomorrow and foster an even greater collaborative spirit among recruiters, students, alumni and faculty members, paving the way for a stronger network and more meaningful outcomes for our community,” he continued. Read more

Published: April 30, 2013

Apply to the Practice MBA Summer Forum by May 10

For our readers who are matriculating to business school this fall, we wanted to let you know about a new two-week pre-MBA bootcamp. The Summer Forum offered by Practice MBA is specifically designed to place non-traditional MBA students on an equal footing with their more experienced peers in the incoming class and to bridge the language and culture gap for international students. The two-week program was created to give you a competitive edge in three areas: Career Development – Develop strategies to navigate the MBA recruiting process and secure a competitive summer internship after your first year and convert it to a full-time offer. Academic Preparation – Get the foundational business skills to achieve strong academic results in your first semester, even if you have minimal prior commercial experience or exposure to fundamental business concepts. Language & Culture Orientation – Learn tips for successfully transitioning into a new linguistic and cultural environment. Arrive on campus knowing how you conduct yourself in a new professional, academic, and social setting. Beyond what you learn in the classroom, you will have the chance to network with students going to other leading business schools. Read more

Published: April 30, 2013

UPenn’s Wharton School Awards $100,000 Social Impact Prize to Rural Education and Development Program in South Asia

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania awarded its second annual Barry & Marie Lipman Family Prize last week to an international non-profit dedicated to creating lasting change in rural South Asia by providing education, enterprise and community development through libraries, the school announced. READ (Rural Education and Development) Global was chosen from more than 115 organizations worldwide to receive the Lipman Family Prize, a $100,000 annual award established last year to recognize initiatives that help create sustainable solutions for social and economic challenges. READ is based on the idea that a critical component of alleviating global poverty involves empowering rural communities. To do so, READ partners with rural villages in Bhutan, India and Nepal to build community library and resource centers that provide educational and economic opportunities to impoverished villagers. For-profit enterprises are paired with the READ Centers to generate revenue that can support the center over time. To date, there are 67 READ Centers supported by 98 for-profit enterprises – providing access to 1.95 million rural villagers. Read more

Published: April 29, 2013

Tuck Associate Dean Leaves to Lead Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management

The associate dean for the MBA program at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business has been named the new dean of the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, Tuck announced last week. M. Eric Johnson, a fixture in the Tuck community for the past 14 years, will assume his new post in Nashville on July 1st pending approval by Vanderbilt’s Board of Trust. “During his time at Tuck Eric was truly an academic leader at the school and an outstanding teacher,” Tuck Dean Paul Danos said in a statement. “He has been much beloved by students for his flair in the classroom and dedication to their personal transformation and by faculty and staff for his collegiality and wisdom," Danos continued. Read more

Published: April 29, 2013

Access MBA to Host One-to-One Event in New York City

Created ten years ago, the renowned Access MBA Tour travels to 65 cities every year with a hundred international business schools. Access MBA gives selected candidates the chance to meet individually with admissions directors of top-tier MBA programs. MBA candidates have twenty minutes to convince admissions representatives of their strengths as a candidate as well as to determine which MBA program is the best for them. Representatives of full-time, part-time and distance learning programs will be present at the sixth annual New York City One-to-One event taking place Wednesday, May 22nd 2013 from 4pm to 9:30pm at the Warwick New York Hotel. Read more

Published: April 28, 2013

Tepper School of Business FlexMBA Online Offering Draws Interest from Prospective Applicants Nationwide

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)’s Tepper School of Business will debut a new online MBA offering next fall, and prospective applicants from across the United States – as well as Europe and Asia – have shown interest and/or submitted applications, the school reports. FlexMBA – a new online MBA offering that will offer the same curriculum, faculty and access to services to online students that they would receive on campus as part of the traditional MBA program – differs from the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) model by creating small class sections of roughly 20 students and maximizing interaction between students and faculty, Tepper notes. Students will take part in weekly live online classes with Tepper professors and attend approximately five “access weekends” each year in which all FlexMBA students will travel to a CMU campus for intense classwork and professional development programs. Read more

Published: April 25, 2013

Stanford Graduate School of Business Announces New Africa MBA Fellowship Program

Citizens of African countries who are admitted to the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) MBA program and can demonstrate financial need are now eligible for a new $140,000 fellowship, the school announced earlier this month. The Stanford Africa MBA Fellowship Program is part of an effort by the school to contribute to Africa’s human and economic development by educating leaders who are committed to making an impact on the continent, according to a recent post on the Stanford MBA Admissions blog. “This fellowship program is a critical step toward removing any financial barrier,” wrote admissions blogger Victoria Hendel de la O. Read more

Published: April 25, 2013

Fridays From The Frontline

Welcome to Fridays From The Frontline, Clear Admit's ongoing chronicle of the b-school blogosphere, from those just starting their application process on through second year students enjoying their last months or weeks of school. This week the applicants were a relatively quiet bunch while first and second year students had more to report and reflect upon as the days left of their school year began to dwindle. HammO visited Ross campus and enjoyed walking around campus, getting a sense of the student body and sitting in on a class. Sanket once again turned his attentions to studying for the GMAT and was loving it. Chicago Booth '14 Cheetarah took on a number of common assumptions about the program that she thought were more like myths, including the kind of community vibe the school provides, as well as where the majority of students lived. McCombs '14 Curtis returned from a week-long trip to Southeast Asia and described some of the career management tools available to students at the Dallas/Fort Worth campus. INSEAD '13D learned valuable lessons about how to juggle responsibilities and commitments as her second period at INSEAD drew to a close. McCombs '14 Shelby asked her friends for possible topics for her blog post, but decided that recounting the looming departure of the second years was too sad, choosing instead to elaborate on other more upbeat events and activities. Read more

Published: April 23, 2013

Campus Chronicles: The Monroe Street Journal

Welcome back to Campus Chronicles, Clear Admit’s weekly peek inside the news at top business programs. This week we bring you a hard-copy special feature highlighting the Monroe Street Journal, printed by students at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Ross’s Black Business Students Association (BBSA) recently hosted the annual BBSA Alfred L. Edward Conference, focused on the theme “On the Shoulders of Giants: Leaving a Lasting and Impactful Legacy.” The keynote speaker for the event was distinguished Columbia University Professor Marc Lamont Hill, whose address focused on the responsibility MBA students have towards the less fortunate. This year’s conference also featured panels on the role of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in business, the impact of President Barack Obama on business leaders, and entrepreneurship. The conference’s namesake, Dr. Alfred Edwards, was a Professor at Ross for over 40 years and a champion of the school’s participation in the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, a nonprofit that aims to correct the underrepresentation of African American, Hispanic, and Native American students at business schools across the country. Read more

Published: April 23, 2013

Columbia Business School Hosts Annual Columbia Forever Week

Earlier this month, Columbia Business School hosted a weeklong series of events as part of an annual initiative designed to connect second-year MBA students with the school’s alumni community and encourage the current students’ future participation as alumni themselves. Columbia Forever Week 2013 took place from April 8th through 11th and included a range of events and activities spotlighting alumni. Student clubs hosted events with young alumni, giving current students an opportunity to learn more about life after graduation. CBS Matters, a recurring forum that usually features current students speaking to their classmates about what’s most important to them and why, instead featured alumni answering those questions for the first time. Alumni Richard Paul Richman ’73, namesake of the school’s Richman Center and a member of the Real Estate Forum and the Board of Overseers, and Coleman Skeeter ’12, cofounder of Urbavour and a participant in the Columbia Business Lab, both spoke. Read more

Published: April 22, 2013

University of Chicago Booth School of Business to Host Women’s Week Events Around the Globe

For the ninth year running, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Office of Full-Time Admissions will partner with the Chicago Women in Business Alumnae Network (CWIBAN) to host events in cities around the world for female prospective and newly admitted students. Women’s Week 2013 will take place from May 4th through 22nd, featuring a range of events from Los Angeles to New York to London to Shanghai. The casual, informal events are designed to help female prospective applicants and newly admitted students learn from Chicago Booth current students and alumnae about what they have done to be successful at Booth and beyond. “Depending on your city, some events are intimate, while others are quite large,” wrote Associate Director of Admissions Joanne Legler in a recent post on the Booth Insider Blog. “No matter the size or location, CWIBAN and Admissions plan these events each year to give you a chance to speak to a group of women who have been there, done that, and thrived both as Booth students and in their careers,” she continued. Read more

Published: April 22, 2013

GMAT Tip: The Top 5 Strategies for GMAT Sentence Correction

Today’s GMAT tip comes from Professor Joern Meissner, PhD, founder and chairman of Manhattan Review GMAT Prep. In this article, he provides Manhattan Review’s five best strategies for GMAT Sentence Correction questions. Read on to see what he has to say! Here are Manhattan Review’s five top strategies for attacking Sentence Correction questions: Don’t expect the right answer to read like a sentence crafted by Henry James or Gustave Flaubert. The best sentence is often the best of a bad bunch—it’s the one with the least number of egregious errors. Therefore, don’t be put off if the sentence you choose sounds awkward. If the worst thing about it is that it sounds like something your boss might dash off in an office memo, don’t worry. More than half of the Sentence Correction exercises will involve at least one Subject-Verb agreement issue. Therefore, always make sure you’ve got all of your ducks in a row and that all of the subjects are properly aligned with their verbs. Remember, a subject has to agree with a verb, as a matter of number and as a matter of logic. Make sure your pronouns are lined up properly with their antecedents. If the antecedent is plural, the pronoun replacing it must be plural. This is a particularly important issue in long, convoluted sentences in which it is easy to forget a pronoun’s antecedent. Get your comparatives sorted out. “As” goes with “as”; “more,” “less” and “fewer” go with “than.” Never combine the two. Sentences such as “The girls fared as well or better than the boys.” It has to be one or the other: “The girls fared as well as the boys.” Or “The girls fared better than the boys.” Make life easy for yourself and narrow your choices down as quickly as possible. Spot the critical issue and eliminate the answer choices that obviously come down on the wrong side of it. Take a look at the following sentence from Manhattan Review’s course material as an example: Read more

Published: April 21, 2013

Alternative Lenders Could Offer New Options for Foreign Students at U.S. Business Schools

Private student lending shrank sharply during the financial crisis, and though traditional lenders have cautiously returned to making loans to U.S. citizens, non-Americans looking to attend business school in the United States often are hard-pressed to find financing options that don’t require a U.S. co-signer. But according to a recent article in the Financial Times, peer-to-peer lenders and crowdfunding start-ups could present new opportunities for foreign students. One peer-to-peer lender, SoFi, which hopes to lend $1 billion this year, has been in discussions with several U.S. business schools about extending loans to foreign students that would be funded by alumni from their home country, the FT reports. Meanwhile, Pave, a crowdfunding start-up that lets students raise money from backers in exchange for a share of future income, is also considering expanding to other countries, the FT adds. Read more

Published: April 19, 2013

QS World MBA Tour Announces Spring Tour Date in New York City

The QS World MBA Tour is scheduled to visit New York City this May. Designed by MBA graduates, the QS World Tour features free workshops led by experts and MBA alumni to help prospective applicants understand the differences among MBA programs and stand the best chance of getting into the business schools 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 Tour include: $1,200,000 (USD) of exclusive scholarships available for attendees, workshops designed Read more

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