Posts by Kelly Vo

Registration is open for the 2019 Forté MBA Forums.  Designed for women considering an MBA, the Forums provide an ideal opportunity to learn more about the value of an MBA from admissions reps, alumnae, and current students at top business schools. Open to all women—career changers, college students planning the future, or career professionals looking to go to the next level—the events provide a distinct MBA advantage. About the Forté MBA Forums The MBA Forums are FREE and held in 11 cities across the U.S. and Europe. The events are a chance for women to build their peer support network and meet other successful businesswomen from a diverse range of industries. The MBA Forums offers exclusive insights into the MBA admissions process. Read more

If you’re looking for professional development opportunities and ways to make an impact, serving on a nonprofit board might be the perfect outlet. At least that’s what many Columbia Business School students are discovering. The latest trend at CBS is joining a junior board of directors for nonprofit governance. Read more

Every MBA student shares at least one experience—the application process.  It can feel like you're setting out to climb a mountain in the early stages—figuring out target schools, tracking deadlines, brainstorming essays, securing recommenders and more.  To help current MBA hopefuls, Yale SOM MBA students gathered their top advice for applying to b-school based on their experiences from less than a year ago. Here’s what they had to say. 1. Research. Research. Research. According to Rayan Mansour (’20), the best thing you can do is gather as much data as possible on as many business schools as possible. He also explains that each MBA program is unique and will have various interests or characteristics that make it stand out. The more you know, the better. Research online, get on the phone with current students, go to presentations, visit the campus, and connect with admissions. Read more

Each week, we collect all the MBA news that’s fit to print and provide a quick overview of the latest updates from top business schools around the world. Here’s your MBA News You Need digest for the week of July 15, 2019. London Business School Announces New Full-Time MBA Scholarships Basant Kumar Birla, eponym of the BK Birla Scholars Program Kumar Mangalam Birla, Aditya Birla Group chairman and London Business School alumnus, has gifted his alma mater with a £15 million endowment, the largest endowed scholarship gift to a European business school. The program recognizes high-achieving MBAs who demonstrate leadership potential and honors the legacy of celebrated industrialist, philanthropist, and pioneer Basant Kumar (BK) Birla (1921–2019), who viewed higher education as a fundamental right for everyone.  The eponymous BK Birla Scholars Program will fund 10 full scholarships for five full-time MBA students from India and five from the rest of the world.  To be eligible, students must rank in the top five percent of the class, beginning with the cohort starting in the Fall of 2019. “It is an incredible gift to be able to honor B.K. Birla’s memory with this prestigious scholars program,” said François Ortalo-Magné, Dean of LBS. Read more

As the world increasingly moves toward the digital, why is it essential to invest in physical spaces? HBS Dean Nitin Nohria Last fall Harvard Business School opened its newest building Klarman Hall. It’s a gigantic space that joins several recently opened facilities, including Tata Hall and the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center. These three buildings constituted a significant upgrade for the HBS physical campus, but was it necessary? According to HBS Dean Nitin Nohria, the answer is unequivocally yes. “I believe the buildings that make up our campus are more than just physical structures,” she Read more

There is a ray of hope shining through the recent clouds of uncertainty of post-MBA residency (and access to work visas) in the U.S. The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on lifting the per-country cap on issuing green cards. Known as the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act (HR 1044), the bill would increase the per-country cap for family-based immigrant visas from seven percent to 15 percent. It would also eliminate the seven percent cap for employment-based immigrant visas and a prior block on visas for the Chinese. Read more

Each week, we collect all the MBA news that’s fit to print and provide a quick overview of the latest updates from top business schools around the world. Here’s your MBA News You Need digest for the week of July 8, 2019. Read more

When Ashley Fox and DeAndrea Staes were MBA students at UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business, they both served in various leadership capacities within The Consortium. As students, they intentionally worked to advance diversity and inclusion across the campus, in line with the mission of The Consortium.  Their efforts culminated in a new annual event, the Elevate: Diversity and Inclusion Conference, which they plan to continue supporting although they graduated in May. Read more

In May, INSEAD, along with Cartier and McKinsey & Company, announced the seven laureates for the 2019 Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards. The winners were recognized at an annual awards ceremony in San Francisco. This year’s theme was titled, “The Ripple Effect” and focused on highlighting entrepreneurs who have served as “catalysts for change and growth within their communities and the broader society.” Read more

For busy career professionals who can’t afford to take time off of work or who travel or live away from a world-class university, an Online MBA program is a viable option. The latest programs offer incredible flexibility, rigorous curriculum, and a very comparable experience to an in-person MBA. So, it should be no surprise that the online MBA is growing in popularity exponentially. To better understand the landscape of the online MBA and to follow up on our first piece, The Online MBA: Which Programs Matter?, we reached back out to USC Marshall, UNC Kenan-Flagler, Michigan Ross, Indiana Kelley, and CMU Tepper. They allowed us to pick their collective brains even further to unravel the mystery around the online MBA. Read more

Renee Cherubin is the new senior director of Northwestern Kellogg’s Full-Time MBA admissions. In her role, she’ll be responsible for driving applications, leading the admissions team, and bringing insight to the entire process. Cherubin’s goal is to evolve Kellogg’s Full-Time admissions work and to bring a new perspective to the Kellogg experience. Read more

Each week, we collect all the MBA news that’s fit to print and provide a quick overview of the latest updates from top business schools around the world. Here’s your MBA News You Need digest for the week of June 24, 2019. Read more

Every year, the Executive Leadership Council (ELC) National Business Case Competition challenges students from the top graduate schools in the nation to offer a solution to an oil and gas industry challenge. Sponsored and hosted by Exxon Mobil, the competition offers a $35,000 cash award to the winner and an invitation to The Executive Leadership Council’s Annual Recognition Gala. This year, the challenge focused on attracting and retaining millennial and Generation Z employees. And on April 9, 2019, a Wharton team—Mino Consultants—composed of four first-year MBA students took home first place. When asked about their win, Angie Gonzalez, Kaila Squires, Mallory Smith,  and team captain Oluwayimika (Yinka) Taiwo-Peters, said it was due to teamwork and resources from Wharton. Read more

What’s summer like at Yale SOM? Bruce DelMonico, the assistant dean of admissions, offers suggestions and opportunities for students to learn more about the school and New Haven over the summer. Read more

Each week, we collect all the MBA news that’s fit to print and provide a quick overview of the latest updates from top business schools around the world Here’s your MBA News You Need digest for the week of June 17, 2019. Read more

Why do you want to earn an MBA? Are you looking to change careers, gain more skills and knowledge, or do you have another reason entirely? The value of an MBA is different for everyone, but there’s no doubt that graduates want to get something out of their MBA program. Most often, it has to do with their career. According to a 2019 Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC) survey of nearly 1,000 MBA applicants: The number one reason most applicants (63 percent) apply to an MBA program is to “acquire new information, skills, and/or knowledge.” After that, 57 percent of MBA applicants want “access to job prospects (change career).” So, when applying to MBA programs, post-graduation outcomes should be an essential—if not the most essential—consideration. And that’s the case for Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business various MBA programs. Based on a 2018 Bloomberg Businessweek recruiter/employer ranking of full-time MBA programs, Georgetown McDonough scores first in the world for having the best-trained graduates. In fact, the school ranked in the top seven for all six categories: 1st in the world for having the best-trained graduates, 3rd in the world for having the most creative graduates, 3rd in the world for showing exceptional entrepreneurial skills, 4th in the world for the value of the school’s brand, 4th in the world for the school’s reputation for entrepreneurship, and 7th in the world for the diversity of the recruitment pool. To gain more insight into what Georgetown McDonough does to rank so well with recruiters, we interviewed Prashant Malaviya, the senior associate dean of MBA programs. Read on for his in-depth overview of how McDonough prepares their MBA students to be leaders and problem solvers in an ever-changing business world. Read more

Already ranked #1 by the U.S. News & World Report, the IU Kelley Direct Online MBA has revamped its program for a more customizable experience. Now, their online program is even more robust while still offering the same flexibility and strengths that have made Kelley Direct a long-time business leader. As always, the same faculty that teach in the IU Kelley on-campus programs also teach in the Kelley Online program. The Kelley Direct Online program also still includes live case studies within every in-residence week, offers global and domestic immersions, and focuses on quality student experiences. The purpose of the revamp wasn’t to take away any of the elements that made the online MBA so great in the first place. Instead, the goal was to enhance the curriculum and offer more customization to make the program even stronger. The Kelley Direct Online MBA now offers students 50 percent electives, seven majors, and a signature integrated core experience focused on business fundamentals. It’s the next evolution of the online MBA, which goes far beyond what people typically think of for online MBAs. “The primary motivation for the redesigned online MBA was not to focus on a new market segment, but to update our product and create a significant differentiator from other competitors in the marketplace,” explains Ramesh Venkataraman, chair of the Kelley Direct Online MBA and MS programs. More Electives for a More Customized Student Experience A quick glance at the current marketplace tells you that a candidate with specialized knowledge is more valuable than a general management MBA candidate. So, it made sense for the Kelley Online MBA program to update its curriculum to match what employers want, and they did this by drastically increasing the number of electives offered. “In general, online MBA programs tend to be more core-heavy with less potential for electives,” Ramesh says. “But why should our online MBA not have as many electives as any other product? Specialized knowledge is what the marketplace wants, and our new electives allow students to gain that knowledge and use it as a launching pad in their careers.” The newly revamped online MBA, which launches this fall, requires students to complete 27 credit hours of core coursework and 27 credit hours of electives—a 50/50 split. It’s a significant change from the previous format, which allowed for just 12 elective credits. The increase—with at least ten different electives in each of seven disciplines—results in a far more customizable student experience that’s aligned with both student and employer expectations. Read more

In May, the University of Virginia Darden School of Business received the largest gift in the school’s 64-year history. Frank M. Sands Sr. (MBA ’63), the founder of Sands Capital Management, gave a donation of $68 million to create a new institute for lifelong learning, to support faculty, and to improve campus facilities. Read more

Each week, we collect all the MBA news that’s fit to print and provide a quick overview of the latest updates from top business schools around the world. Here’s your MBA News You Need digest for the week of June 10, 2019. Read more

This fall marks the tenth anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis, a milestone which sparked an inaugural series of discussions at Dartmouth Tuck all about rising economic inequality: the Inequality Speaker Series. Led by Class of 2019 MBA Fellows in the Center for Business, Government & Society, the series explored a range of topics and issues related to rising economic inequality after the financial collapse. It engaged the broader Tuck community within the discussions to talk about lessons learned over the past decade, the risk of repeating history, and more. Read more

Each week, we collect all the MBA news that’s fit to print and provide a quick overview of the latest updates from top business schools around the world. Here’s your MBA News You Need digest for the week of June 3, 2019. UCLA Anderson Names Antonio Bernardo New Dean Courtesy Antonio Bernardo UCLA Anderson School of Management has just named its new dean, Antonio Bernardo, an award-winning teacher and respected scholar who has taught at UCLA for the last 25 years and currently holds the Joel Fried Chair in Applied Finance. Since 1994, Bernardo has had a long and distinguished career at the school. He previously held the Robert D. Beyer Term Chair in Management; he was department chair and senior associate dean for academic affairs from 2006-2009; and he held the finance chair from 2013-2015, and again in 2019. “Chancellor Block and I are confident that the UCLA Anderson School of Management will continue to thrive under Tony’s capable leadership,” said Scott Waugh, executive vice chancellor and provost. “Please join me in congratulating him and welcoming him to this new role.” Bernardo's tenure begins July 1. Read the full announcement here. INSEAD Launches Master in Management Program The new Master in Management program at INSEAD is a 10-month accelerated program for young graduates interested in pursuing a career with an international focus. Read more

More and more Stanford GSB students are taking social impact and innovation classes throughout their education. According to the university, this year, more than 90 percent of the 488 MBA and MSx students took a course related to social innovation and social impact—95 percent of the MBA Class of 2019 and 81 percent of the MSx Class of 2019. Read more

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to earn your MBA online? We wanted to take an in-depth look at the advantages of an Online MBA program and what it looks like to complete your graduate business education online—how long it will take, what activities will be available to you, and how it will enhance your career. To that effect, we interviewed the admissions staff at some of the top brick and mortar business schools with leading Online MBA programs: CMU Tepper, Indiana Kelley, Michigan Ross, UNC Kenan-Flagler, and USC Marshall. Here’s what we learned. Read more

Harvard Business School has named four members of the MBA Class of 2019 as recipients of the School’s Dean’s Award: Neel Ghose, Lindsey Morrow, Amanda Tyson, and Megan Williams. A graduating doctoral student in organizational behavior was also named: Alexandra Feldberg. The prestigious awards are given to extraordinary graduating students who have made a positive impact on Harvard and its broader communities. This year’s recipients were recognized during Commencement Week for contributing to the “well-being of society through exceptional acts of leadership.” Read on for more about these exceptional graduates. Read more

Each week, we collect all the MBA news that’s fit to print and provide a quick overview of the latest updates from top business schools around the world. Here’s your MBA News You Need digest for the week of May 27, 2019. Read more