General
News items that we think are relevant and potentially of interest to MBA applicants and anyone interested in business school.
Published: March 12, 2017
MBA DecisionWire Spotlight: Berkeley / Haas, Dartmouth / Tuck, Duke / Fuqua, NYU / Stern or Yale SOM for Finance
In this edition of MBA DecisionWire Spotlight, which highlights the admissions results of students and alumni posted to Clear Admit’s DecisionWire, we take a closer look at a candidate with a handful of options. This week, a candidate with acceptances to Berkeley / Haas, Dartmouth / Tuck, Duke / Fuqua, NYU / Stern, and Yale SOM asked for advice on where to head for investment banking, and potentially private equity.Before we get into the constructive feedback, let’s get what many people are likely thinking out of the way:Initial
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Published: February 26, 2017
Johnson Women in Tech to Host Upcoming NYC Conference
Later this week, students from Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business will host a conference in New York City aimed at bringing more women into the tech industry. Johnson Women in Technology (JWiT) co-chairs and second-year MBA students Tejaswini (TJ) Marathe and Kathryn Ruth Bartlett led the organization of the JWiT Conference, which will take place on Friday, March 3rd, at the Microsoft Technology Center in midtown Manhattan. “Our theme, ‘Tech Together,’ is a call to action for men and women to support women’s success in the tech industry through partnership and mentorship,” the duo said in a press release about the event.
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Published: February 20, 2017
Grads Praise MBA for Helping Land Jobs, Increase Pay, Expand Horizons
In a survey this past fall of 1,000 business school graduates from the Class of 2016, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which owns and administers the GMAT, found that the vast majority is highly satisfied with the decision to seek an MBA. For starters, more than one in four graduates surveyed (28 percent) told GMAC they joined an industry completely different from the one they considered prior to starting business school. This data point, argues GMAC, serves to highlight how a graduate management education can expand graduates’ career horizons. Reports of rising salaries and high levels of
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Published: February 15, 2017
Major Companies Call Out Trump On Immigration Ban
Days after the Ninth Circuit Court of the United States halted President Donald Trump’s temporary ban of immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, the aftereffects are still echoing. The executive order, the legality of which could still be decided by the Supreme Court, created a wave of protests across the United States. Alongside several universities, many of the more prominent voices in the dissent came from the country’s largest major companies, including Apple and Google. Shortly after the order was initially announced Apple CEO Tim Cook said, ”Apple would not exist without immigration,
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Published: February 6, 2017
Suggestive Mr. Clean Earns Kellogg Super Bowl Ad Review Top Honors
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick may have taken home the most coveted awards after Super Bowl LI, but Mr. Clean was also one of the night’s biggest winners. The slightly suggestive commercial for the Procter & Gamble cleaning company beat out Bai, Febreze and Skittles in the 13th annual “Super Bowl Ad Review” at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. Lumber 84 and American Petroleum earned the lowest honors on the list for advertisements that were potentially confusing and overly long. While most of this year’s headline-grabbing advertisements were a bit more poignant, tackling themes of
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Published: February 5, 2017
Darden Couple Finds Business in Sweat
It began as a joke. “It started out as a complete prank,” recalls Matt Loftus, speaking with UVA Today staff writer Caroline Newman. Just before joining the University of Virginia Darden School of Business in 2014, Loftus and his fiancé Kristina Zambelli had a running joke. A friend of theirs had ordered a pair of bright orange pants, which they had begun to pass around for fun photo opportunities. “To beat the joke to death, we even started an Instagram account called the Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants,” Loftus, who graduated from Darden in May 2016,
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Published: January 29, 2017
Johnson $150 M Gift Renames Cornell College of Business
Celebrating a relationship that spans four generations, SC Johnson Chairman and CEO Fisk Johnson has endowed $150 million to the Cornell University College of Business network of schools. By far the largest gift in the school's history, it is indeed among the largest gifts ever to a leading business school. Stanford Graduate School of Business received an equivalent $150 million gift in 2011, and David Booth's 2008 naming gift to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business currently holds the record at $300 million. Although Stephen Ross, for whom the University of Michigan Ross School of Business is named, gave $200 million, it was spread across two different donations in 2004 and 2013.
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Published: January 25, 2017
Inside the Revamped Ross Admissions Process
As you navigate the MBA application process, do you ever feel like the websites, brochures and talking points for top MBA programs have blended together? Indeed, it has become more important than ever for schools to rely on innovative ways to differentiate themselves.
At the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, the carefully curated process of admissions is ever evolving. Director of Admissions Soojin Kwon is known for putting a particularly personal fingerprint on the process, posting videos and written messages to a behind-the-scenes blog throughout the year.
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Published: January 24, 2017
HBS Round 2 Interviews Are Almost Here
As 12 p.m. Eastern time steadily approaches, the waning moments of anxiety and anticipation for Round Two interview invites to Harvard Business School are reaching a boiling point. Earlier this week, HBS Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Chad Losee sent out a reminder to all applicants over at the HBS ‘Direct from the Director‘ blog. While nerves may certainly be on high for a host of applicants, Losee reminds everyone not to worry too much if you don’t receive an invite just yet. “Remember,” he writes, “this is only a portion of the interview invites;
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Published: January 10, 2017
Fuqua Professor Campbell Harvey on the “January Barometer” Myth
More than 40 years since its incarnation, the so-called “January Barometer”—a theory that the direction stocks take in January predicts how their entire year will play out—is still going strong in some camps. But it’s not without its vocal detractors. In a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled “Sorry, the ‘January Barometer’ Is a Market Myth,” Fuqua School of Business Finance Professor Cambell Harvey weighs in—in opposition. Citing the Stock Trader’s Almanac, the Journal article credits the January Barometer, also sometimes called the January Indicator, as being devised by market guru Yale Hirsch in 1972. And its proponents, including Hirsch’s son,
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Published: October 12, 2016
Stanford GSB to Open State-of-the-Art Highland Hall for First-Year Students
Arching in the skyline of Serra Street overlooking the Knight Management Center complex, students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) will be hard-pressed to miss the soon-to-be-completed Highland Hall. With its stark purple finish shimmering brightly in the California sun, the state-of-the-art building is a striking, modern accent to the campus. However, the most striking feature about it may not be the captivating exterior but rather its intended use: as a residency for first-year MBA students. Units have private entrances and baths, as well as a shared kitchen. Photo credit: Elena Zhukova The $75 million project is
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Published: October 11, 2016
MIT Sloan, Harvard Professors Share Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
For more than 40 years, MIT Sloan Economist Bengt Holmström has laid a foundation of formative work in contract theory. Now, finally, his work on the subject—along with that of Harvard Professor Oliver Hart—has been recognized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, earning the pair a Nobel Prize.
Holmström, 67, is the fifth to win the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences while serving as a member of the MIT faculty, joining Paul A. Samuelson (1970), Franco Modigliani (1985), Robert M. Solow (1987) and Peter Diamond (2010). Holmström joined the MIT faculty in 1994.
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Published: October 11, 2016
MBA Admissions Mashup: Round 1 Next Steps
Every Wednesday, we share a round-up of the latest news from MBA admissions blogs at the top business schools. MBA applicants around the world have hit submit on their Round 1 applications or are planning ahead for Round 2. Several of you have already heard back from the likes of HBS, Chicago Booth, LBS, Yale, and more. This week we’re devoting the mashup to those of you that are anxiously waiting on some news — may it be good or bad (because closure). In a week and a half
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Published: October 9, 2016
Harvard Life Lab to Open on Allston Innovation Corridor in November
Building on the successes of the Harvard Innovation Lab (i-Lab), established in 2011, and the Harvard Launch Lab, a start-up incubator that welcomed its first ventures in 2014, Harvard University will add another facility to the growing innovation corridor along Allston's Western Avenue with the forthcoming Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab, scheduled to open next month.
The new facility will provide a space for students, faculty, alumni and postdoctoral scholars from schools across the university, including Harvard Business School (HBS), to incubate high-potential startups in biotech and future-minded life sciences. It will also provide the necessary equipment needed for these often costly science-focused startups to scale.
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Published: October 5, 2016
Wharton Students Gather for “Judgement Free” Discussion on Race
A week after Wharton students gathered in the wake of police shootings of Terence Crutcher and Keith Scott in Oklahoma City and Charlotte, it felt like the time for an open discussion on race open to the entire MBA community had arrived. Students joined together for an event organized by the Return on Equality (ROE) student coalition and the Wharton African American MBA Association (AAMBAA) in Wharton’s Huntsman Hall for two hours last Thursday. As part of a “judgment free” open discussion, they together
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Published: October 4, 2016
Haas Professor and “Power Poses” Co-Author Backtracks from Own Study
Six years ago, researchers at Columbia and Harvard quickly gained recognition in the psychological science community with research they published suggesting that power poses—particular body stances and positioning held for limited periods of time—could lend themselves to increased feelings of power and tolerance for risk.
The 2010 report, “Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance,” was co-authored by Dana Carney and Andy Yap, then at Columbia, and Amy Cuddy (pictured above, right) at Harvard Business School. The three wrote, “results of this study confirmed our prediction that posing in high-power nonverbal displays (as opposed to low-power nonverbal displays) would cause neuroendocrine and behavioral changes for both male and female participants: High-power posers experienced elevations in testosterone, decreases in cortisol, and increased feelings of power and tolerance for risk; low-power posers exhibited the opposite pattern.”
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Published: October 3, 2016
Tuck’s New Mission Statement Looks Toward Future
“Wisdom encompasses the essential aptitudes of confident humility,” reads the introduction to the new mission statement for Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, defining a new vision for the future of the New Hampshire business school.
Speaking to the Tuck community, Dean Matthew J. Slaughter broke down the school’s newly refined outlook into a concise ten-word statement: “Tuck educates wise leaders to better the world of business.”
“It has been an invigorating and affirming process,” Slaughter said in a letter released last week, “the results of which I am excited to share with you today."
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Published: October 3, 2016
Columbia Business School Launches Inaugural Re-Orientation Program
While seldom the most important step in a student’s career, the value of orientation is nonetheless immeasurable for many. Often it creates a unique bond between the students and their new surroundings at an impossibly vital point during formative years. But after it’s over, it's over, right?
Not so fast, says Columbia Business School (CBS). Questioning why that special cohesion-building process should be reserved just for first-students, the school late last month held its first-ever orientation for second-year business students. Dubbed the “Re-Orientation,” it was led by the Columbia Leadership Lab.
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Published: October 2, 2016
Kellogg Receives $10 Million from Former Motorola CEO
With the completion of the state-of-the-art Global Hub, the brand new epicenter of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, slated for the very near future, the Evanston business school received even more good news in the form of a $10.25-million donation from the Christopher B. Galvin Family Foundation.
The foundation is run by former Motorola CEO Chris Galvin and his wife, Cynthia. With the donation, the first-floor design wing and conference center of the Global Hub will be named in their honor.
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Published: September 29, 2016
Kellogg’s Global Hub Enters Final Phases of Construction
Before the end of 2016, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University won’t just be culminating another successful year, it’ll be celebrating the opening of its immense new Global Hub.
The approximately 410,000-square-foot center, located on the edge of Lake Michigan in Chicago, will serve as Kellogg's new modern epicenter. Included in the enormous 103-foot complex designed by Toronto-based architecture firm KPMB Architects will be advanced, green-friendly classrooms, a 1,400-square-foot student lounge, an auditorium and a picturesque 2,000-square-foot terrace overlooking Lake Michigan.
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Published: September 27, 2016
Students, Faculty Stand in Unity at Ross Black Lives Matter Gathering
In silence, students, staff and faculty at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School Of Business spoke volumes. Standing together on the afternoon of Monday, September 26th, dressed in all black, the group unified behind signs of Black Lives Matter and #Ross4Change, sending a powerful, cohesive message. The moment was organized by the Black Business Student Association and the Student Government Association at Ross, which is also helping put together a Kickstarter campaign championing diversity. Perhaps most poignant were signs with hard, honest data about the number of
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Published: September 19, 2016
HBS U.S. Competitiveness Project Report: Political Divide Holding Economy Back
With the divisive national election launching an onslaught of emotionally-charged headlines against the backdrop of a continually bearish national economy, it may not be surprising to hear that some of Harvard Business School’s top minds are worried.
As part of the 2016 U.S. Competitiveness Project report, "Problems Unsolved and a Nation Divided," HBS Professors Michael E. Porter, Jan W. Rivkin and Mihir A. Desai, together with Program Director and Senior Researcher Manjari Raman, reveal their findings that the very vocal and public dysfunction of the political system is the key factor holding the U.S. economy back. The report contains five years of in-depth analysis of the country’s economic competitiveness with other global developing economies based on surveys of HBS alumni and the general public. It also offers what the researchers believe is the most prudent approach to solving the issue.
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Published: September 18, 2016
NYU Stern’s Center for Sustainable Business Makes Notable Progress in Just Six Months
Last February, New York University’s Stern School of Business launched the Center for Sustainable Business, aided by a $1 million investment from the Citi Foundation. And in just a few short months, the center has steadily made notable progress.
Since launching, the center also assembled its corporate advisory board, recruited a host of industry research scholars, hosted Unilever CEO Paul Polman on its campus and published the “How Corporate America Can Support the Paris Climate Deal” op-ed in Fortune on Earth Day, April 22, 2016. Each important move reflects the center’s overall theme of “A Better World through Better Business.”
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Published: September 15, 2016
Chicago’s McGowan Charitable Fund Announces 7th Class of Fellows
Since 2010, the William G. McGowan Charitable Fund has been naming 10 outstanding second-year MBA students as members of its annual class of McGowan Fellows. The fund was created and named in honor of William G. McGowan, an American business leader and founder of MCI Communications, following his passing in 1992.
The selected fellows join a prestigious group of alumni from some of the best business schools around the United States. One fellow is chosen annually from each of 10 partner business schools. Each receives full tuition for the second year of his or her MBA studies.
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