MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
Published: October 8, 2017
Chicago Booth Professor Awarded Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics
For his contributions to behavioral economics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Richard H. Thaler with the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2017. Thaler is a professor of behavioral science and economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
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Published: October 8, 2017
Real Humans of the Michigan Ross MBA Class of 2019
The 422 students who make up the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business Class of 2019 are a record-setting bunch. For starters, their average GMAT score was 716, an eight-point jump over last year’s, which was itself a record. But they also set records for their diversity. Forty-three percent of the class is female—3 percent more than last year. And 23 percent are underrepresented minorities. This is a 14-year high for the school and a staggering 13 percent increase over last year, though we should note that this figure includes Asian Americans for the first time. International enrollment, too,
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Published: October 8, 2017
LBS Alumni Gather for Worldwide Alumni Celebration in London
On September 28th, the same week that London Business School (LBS) officially opened its new Sammy Ofer Centre, LBS alumni from around the world gathered together for a Worldwide Alumni Celebration (WAC) event. This was just one of approximately 85 WAC events that take place around the globe in locations such as Madrid, Melbourne, Jakarta, Lima, and Los Angeles. The recent London WAC drew 300 alumni from multiple industries to discuss innovation in a new world environment. The London WAC event was covered in a university press release, which discussed the three main speakers who kicked it off.
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Published: October 5, 2017
Fridays from the Frontline: A Veteran and Family Man Chose Wharton—Here’s Why
Today’s Fridays from the Frontline comes to us from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and features a recent alumnus, George Dutile, who graduated last spring and now works in private wealth management for Goldman Sachs in New York. Dutile came to Wharton from the military with the goal of making a career transition. Check. He also came to strengthen his family, which he’d live apart from over the course of many overseas deployments with the Marine Corps Special Operations unit. Check. Read on to learn how Wharton was the place for him to achieve both
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Published: October 4, 2017
Social Media Dos and Don’ts MBA Applicants Need to Know
Social media can be an impossibly powerful tool. It is the president’s favorite method of communication, after all. Social media can also determine the future for MBA applicants and candidates. For better or for worse. U.S. News & World Report found that 35 percent of admissions officers interviewed do check out applicants’ social media accounts. What they find can increase a person’s chance of getting in—or diminish it. Social media sometimes says a lot about a person that may not be clear in an essay or recommendation letter. So it’s no wonder some schools opt to check it out. “To
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Published: October 4, 2017
Decision Day, Take Two, at Harvard Business School
Today is decision day for many still-hopeful Round 1 applicants to Harvard Business School (HBS). A first batch of interview invitations went out on Monday, and a second and final batch is due to go out today at noon ET. “For those invited to interview, the sign-ups will be immediately available,” wrote HBS Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid in a post to his Direct from the Director’s Blog this morning. “And don’t worry, we have managed the interview slots so there are plenty of options available today,” he assured. Availability in hub cities—Shanghai,
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Published: October 3, 2017
Fuqua Snaps Up Georgetown McDonough Admissions Dean Shari Hubert
Let the musical chairs continue. Last week, it was long-time Tuck School of Business Admissions Director Dawna Clarke taking over at the University of Virginia’s Darden School. This week, Shari Hubert, who has been associate dean for admissions at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business since 2013, will take the reins at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.
“Shari stood out in an incredibly talented and competitive pool of candidates,” Russ Morgan, Fuqua senior associate dean for full-time programs, said in a statement. “Shari is a terrific fit within our culture. She is a demonstrated collaborative leader with a track record of making the people around her better. Her former colleagues at Georgetown describe her as a perennial optimist.”
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Published: October 3, 2017
Chicago Booth Lovebirds Give $75 Million to Their Alma Mater
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business’s coffers just grew—and its top scholars will be called by a new name—thanks to a $75 million alumni gift announced today. In recognition of the gift, students who earn highest academic honors while at Booth will be known as the Amy and Richard F. Wallman Scholars, after donors Amy Wallman, MBA’75, and Richard Wallman, MBA’74. The Wallmans’ gift will be used to support several initiatives, including scholarships for students in the full-time, evening, weekend, and executive MBA programs, as well as enhanced co-curricular programming, faculty research, and emerging priorities.
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Published: October 3, 2017
Oxford Saïd Launches New Virtual Hub
The Oxford Hub for International Virtual Education (HIVE) is the first of its kind in the United Kingdom and the second of its kind in the world. Located at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School, the new virtual classroom will use technology to connect students, faculty, and participants from around the world. It’s the latest development in the school’s digital agenda.
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Published: October 2, 2017
Real Humans of the MIT Sloan MBA Class of 2019
Moving right along in our Real Humans student series, today we get to meet a handful of students in the MIT Sloan Class of 2019. But first a little about the class as a whole. By the numbers: the incoming class of 404 students boasts an average GMAT score of 722 and an average undergraduate GPA of 3.49. Both represent a tiny backslide from the prior year, when they were 724 and 3.5 respectively. International students make up a third of the class, which is also a decrease from 39 percent in
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Published: October 2, 2017
UVA Darden Opens New Facilities Overlooking Washington, D.C.
The top two floors of a 31-story building overlooking the Washington, D.C., capital region will be a new home away from home for the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. This 4,000-square-foot space—comprised of classrooms, offices, and event rooms—will afford new opportunities for the Darden School to expand its offerings in the area. Already, the school offers its Executive MBA and executive education programs in Washington, D.C., and has several staff members in the area working in admissions, executive education, and alumni career services.
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Published: October 1, 2017
False Report of Active Shooter Prompts USC Marshall School of Business Campus Lockdown
Reports of an active shooter prompted a midday lockdown of the USC Marshall School of Business campus on Monday, the day after the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history left at least 59 dead and more than 500 injured at a Las Vegas country music festival. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) responded in force to an emergency call from the Marshall School but quickly determined that the report was false. The LAPD received a 12:17 p.m. 911 call reporting a possible active shooter, and the university issued a ‘police activity/shelter in place’ alert minutes later on its
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Published: October 1, 2017
Admissions Director Q&A: Pascal Michels of IESE Business School
We got to know Pascal Michels, who started in his new role as head of admissions at IESE Business School this summer, as part of our Real Humans of MBA Admissions series earlier this month. Now we’re excited to feature a more in-depth interview that delves into the admissions process and team he oversees. Michels is new to admissions, but far from new at IESE. A 2010 graduate of the MBA program himself, he headed from business school to Citigroup in London, where he worked in financial management for three years. But
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Published: October 1, 2017
Harvard Business School R1 Interview Invites Poised to Go Out
As some of you are no doubt only too aware, Harvard Business School (HBS) is slated to begin issuing invitations to interview to Round 1 applicants within the hour. Chad Losee, HBS managing director of admissions and financial aid, told applicants in a recent post to his Direct from the Director’s Blog that interview invites will go out in two batches, the first today, October 2nd, and the second Thursday, October 5th. “We do it in two batches to spread out the traffic on the interview sign-up pages,” he wrote. Today, some applicants will
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Published: September 27, 2017
Real Humans of the NYU Stern MBA Class of 2019
New York University’s Stern School of Business got the party started this summer as the first leading business school to share a profile for its incoming Class of 2019. That profile, published in late July, revealed a 4 percent uptick in application volume over the prior year. At the same time, the school admitted significantly fewer students—822 this year as compared to 871 last year—which means that those who got in did so against greater odds. This increased selectivity may have contributed to the rising GMAT scores among those who got the
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Published: September 27, 2017
Fridays from the Frontline: 7 Lessons from My Time at HBS
As Round 1 applicants to Harvard Business School (HBS) know only too well, next week is a big one, with invitations to interview scheduled to go out in two batches on Monday (October 2nd) and Thursday (October 5th). Since we know some of you have HBS on the mind, we thought you might appreciate hearing from recent HBS alumnus Marco De Curtis on what he learned while there. In the following post, he offers seven tips for work and life that he learned while an HBS MBA student. And for anyone who doesn’t get an interview invitation
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Published: September 27, 2017
LBS Opens New Sammy Ofer Centre Expanding Its Teaching Space by 70 Percent
On September 26th, the London Business School opened its new, state-of-the-art teaching hub: the Sammy Ofer Centre. Located in Old Marylebone Town Hall, the new center will increase teaching space at LBS by 70 percent. It includes 37 seminar rooms, six new lecture theaters, a new library, and multiple breakout areas. The center also features a mix of classical 1920s structure with the latest in architectural design for a beautiful aesthetic.
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Published: September 27, 2017
Tuck Welcomes New Director of Alumni Engagement
In an effort to engage and connect alumni in even more creative ways, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business welcomed a new director of alumni engagement: Renee Hirshberg. Hirshberg comes to Tuck from the MIT Sloan School of Management where she served as senior associate director of alumni relations for the school’s approximately 24,000 alumni. In her new role at Tuck, Hirshberg will be in charge of the 10,000-strong Tuck alumni network, which spans the globe.
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Published: September 26, 2017
Long-Time Tuck Admissions Director Returns to Darden
The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia will welcome Dawna Clarke, who led admissions at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business for more than a decade, as its new executive director of admissions and financial aid on October 15th, the school announced yesterday. It’s a return to Darden for Clarke, who worked there from 1990 to 2005 in a range of leadership roles, including five years as admissions director and as director of alumni relations. The offer to return to Darden drew Clarke away from her most recent position as chief MBA
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Published: September 26, 2017
UW Foster Welcomes Its Inaugural Hybrid MBA Class
Last week the UW Foster School of Business welcomed its inaugural Hybrid MBA class. During the kick-off week, 47 students from all over the United States came to campus for a three- to five-day, in-person immersion experience that included networking opportunities, diving into the first quarter’s curricula, and developing a study team.
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Published: September 25, 2017
Admissions Director Q&A: Luke Anthony Peña of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business
Luke Anthony Peña joined Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business this past summer from Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), where he’d worked as part of the admissions team for five years, since graduating with his own MBA from the Palo Alto school in 2012. In coming to Tuck, Peña fills the role of executive director of admissions and financial aid left vacant when Dawna Clarke, who had headed Tuck admissions for more than a decade, set out to establish her own admissions consulting firm last fall.
In fact, Peña’s admissions expertise dates back to before attending business school himself. Prior to enrolling at Stanford GSB, he also worked for four years as assistant director of admissions at the USC Annenberg School of Communication. But it’s not just his long career in higher education admissions that makes clear his passion for education. The internships he pursued while a business school student were also both education focused. Click here to learn more about Dartmouth Tuck's MBA Program.
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Published: September 24, 2017
Real Humans of the Berkeley Haas MBA Class of 2019
The Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley welcomed its largest ever class—284 students—into a brand-new facility that promises to be one of the greenest academic buildings in the country. Not only is the incoming class larger than any before it, it is also one of the strongest academically, according to Peter Johnson, assistant dean for the full-time MBA program and admissions. Average GMAT scores and GPAs have risen over each of the past three years. The average GMAT score this year was 725—a jump from last year’s 717—and the average GPA
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Published: September 24, 2017
UNC Kenan-Flagler Welcomes Seven New Professors
To kick off the 2017-2018 academic year, the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School welcomed seven new faculty members. Each new faculty member is known for his or her thought leadership, research, and excellence in teaching. Yunzhi Hu Finance Professor Yunzhi Hu studies financial intermediation, macro finance, and corporate finance. His research and work delves into economic recoveries patterns, particularly in regards to bank lending standards and entrepreneur entry. Hu earned his PhD in financial economics from Chicago Booth. Kristopher Keller Marketing Professor Kristopher Kelly has expertise in private label marketing, retailing, branding, marketing-mix effectiveness, and
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Published: September 21, 2017
Celebrating American Business Women’s Day with Gender Equity in the MBA
More women are heading to graduate business programs than ever, according to the latest research from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). Today, women represent 42 percent of all applicants to business school graduate programs participating in the Application Trends Survey Report 2017, a 5 percent increase from 2013. Among full-time MBA programs, female representation is even higher. In 2017, 49 percent of applicants were women, compared to 42 percent in 2013.
Women are also finding value in their business educations. Seventy percent of all female MBA graduates report improved job satisfaction, and 84 percent enjoy greater earning power.
In honor of American Business Women’s Day, September 22nd, we thought we’d take a look at what some of the leading MBA programs in the United States are doing to encourage gender equity.
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Published: September 21, 2017
Fridays from the Frontline: A Tuck Student Examines Evolving Media Landscape Through NPR Internship
Admittedly, the media and entertainment industry is not a primary destination for freshly minted MBAs. UCLA Anderson School of Management and NYU Stern School of Business sent more of their Class of 2016 grads into the field than any other leading schools, at just 6.5 and 4.3 percent respectively. And yet, the vastly evolving media landscape calls for innovative thinking, strategic new approaches, and reinvented business models as never before. Meghan McDavid, a student at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, spent her summer interning at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of National
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