MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
Published: February 11, 2016
Tops for Tech: The Best Business Schools for Careers in Technology
Here’s a fact you may not have known: Several of today’s leading technology innovators share one thing in common—a Montessori education. Yep, Google’s Larry Page and Sergei Brin, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and SimCity creator Will Wright were all educated as children using the self-directed, hands-on, collaborative teaching model developed by Italian doctor and educator Maria Montessori. Alas, though, not a single one has an MBA—so perhaps not a very useful factoid when you’re trying to determine the best business schools for a career in technology.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Apple’s Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Biz Stone of Twitter—none of them has an MBA either. And Facebook second-in-command Sheryl Sandberg, who does have an MBA from Harvard Business School, is famously on record recently saying the degree isn’t necessary for success in tech. Nevertheless, a growing tide of students are looking to use business school as their launch pad to successful careers in tech—and the top tech firms, including those founded by non-MBAs, are snapping them up.
Read more
Published: February 10, 2016
Business School Deposit Deadlines: Decisions? Dilemmas? Do Tell!
The time has come for many Round 1 applicants to make a decision about where they will attend business school in the fall. Monday was the Round 1 deposit deadline at Harvard Business School (HBS), and tomorrow deposits are due at Chicago Booth, Duke’s Fuqua School, Northwestern’s Kellogg School, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Yale School of Management.
For many, plunking down the cash to indicate to a school that you can’t wait to join their MBA class is as straightforward as it can be. No doubt there are quite a few triumphant applicants to HBS who sent in their $1,000 payments on Monday—or before—with glee. If you were gunning for HBS all along, getting the news you’d been accepted was possibly one of the happiest days of your life, and making your first payment felt like an unequivocal investment in your future.
Read more
Published: February 9, 2016
Beyoncé, Red Lobster and Harvard Business School: Unlikely Bedfellows?
What do mega star Beyoncé, seafood chain Red Lobster and Harvard Business School (HBS) have in common? For a brief stint earlier today, a little more than usual. An enterprising reporter at Boston.com stumbled upon a quirky little tidbit of not-quite news—namely, that typing "Red Lobster Boston" into Google Maps returned a result suggesting that a branch of the chain restaurant glorified in Bey’s latest song could be found on the HBS campus.
It’s not true. “I had no knowledge of this and don’t understand how it could happen, because there’s no Red Lobster on this campus,” Jim Aisner, HBS director of media and public relations, told the Boston.com reporter with a laugh—reportedly after typing the search term into the map tool himself and seeing the business school pop up.
Read more
Published: February 9, 2016
Approaching the MBA Team-Based Discussion or Group Interview: Advice for Wharton & Ross Interviewees
Did you receive an invitation to interview as part of Round 2 at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School? Are you gearing up for an interview at the University of Michigan’s Ross School? In either or both cases, congratulations! Now, it’s time to prepare for the MBA team-based discussion (TBD) or group interview, as the schools refer to their unique group evaluations. What Is the Team-Based Discussion? A few years ago, the admissions office at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School partnered with the Wharton Innovation group to launch a new evaluation method,
Read more
Published: February 8, 2016
Kellogg Marketing Students Award Super Bowl Win to Toyota’s Prius
You may have heard that the Denver Broncos won the Super Bowl on Sunday—and even that the team’s star Peyton Manning became the winningest quarterback in National Football League (NFL) history. But according to marketing students at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, bragging rights go to Toyota for its ad promoting the Prius, which ran during the game.
Super Bowl advertising is big business. According to Ad Week, advertisers paid as much as $5 million per 30-second spot as part of Sunday’s game, which aired on CBS and drew 111.9 million viewers. The Prius commercial, entitled “The Longest Chase,” clocked in at one minute and 40 seconds—which based on the Ad Week figure would add up to more than $16 million in ad spend.
Read more
Published: February 8, 2016
MIT Sloan Alumnus and Partner Attempt First Round-the-World Solar Flight
This post has been republished in its entirety from its original source, metromba.com.
MIT Sloan alumnus André Borschberg and balloonist Bertrand Piccard are currently attempting the first round-the-world flight using only the power of the sun. Both men co-founded the solar flight project, named Solar Impulse, which is based in Switzerland.
Read more
Published: February 8, 2016
Wharton Round 2 Interview Invitations Roll Out Today
With the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania scheduled to send out Round 2 interview invitations today, we know many of you are probably anxiously awaiting word. We’re sending you all good luck. According to school representatives, all invitations will go out at once—at 12 p.m. EST—and applicants will receive an email alerting them to check their online account.
To help you bide the time as you wait, we thought we’d share some of what LiveWire data told us about Wharton’s Round 1 applicants. In Round 1, 30 percent of applicants who shared their results via LiveWire were accepted to the Class of 2018. Another 66 percent were rejected, and the remaining 4 percent were placed on the waitlist. Of those who got accepted in Round 1, the average GMAT score was 731 and the average GPA was 3.6.
Read more
Published: February 7, 2016
Executives with an MBA: 5 Success Stories
This story has been republished in its entirety from its original source, metromba.com.
Recently, MBA programs have received a lot of criticism. Many business leaders and experts have claimed that the necessity of an MBA to achieve success is a myth. However, while there are examples of successful people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, who didn’t complete university, there are also many examples of compelling executives with an MBA.
Read more
Published: February 4, 2016
Fridays from the Frontline: Kellogg MBAs Gear Up for Super Bowl Ad Review
It’s time for the Super Bowl—and at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, that means it’s also time for the Super Bowl Ad Review. Brands spend more than $2 billion each year to advertise their products through Super Bowl commercials, some more effectively than others. For the 12th year running, Kellogg marketing students will apply their unique framework for evaluating an ad’s brand-building potential as part of the 2016 Kellogg Super Bowl Ad Review.
As the players take the field on Sunday, more than 50 Kellogg MBA students will team up with marketing professors Tim Calkins and Derek Rucker to determine the winners and the losers in the battle of the brands. They’ll us the ADPLAN framework to evaluate each ad according to six critical criteria: Attention, Distinction, Positioning, Linkage, Amplifications and Net Equity.
Read more
Published: February 4, 2016
Published: February 3, 2016
LiveWire Analysis Reveals Strength of Rejected HBS Round 2 Applicants
Harvard Business School (HBS) sent out the second and final wave of interview invites for Round 2 candidates yesterday. A quick analysis of the status updates received on MBA LiveWire in the past 24 hours suggests that the rejected HBS applicants are incredibly impressive. Of the 114 candidates who shared a status of rejection, the average GMAT was 722 and the average GPA was 3.51. Of course, lessons from the MBA LiveWire data in Round 1 tell us that those making the cut for interviews and ultimately admission do not look terribly different where the raw statistics
Read more
Published: February 2, 2016
It’s D Day at Harvard Business School for Round 2 Applicants
Today’s the day that Round 2 applicants at Harvard Business School who haven’t already received an interview invitation will learn their fate. With just minutes to go until the scheduled 12 noon notification, we know anxiety is high!
HBS Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold is on record saying that the timing of an interview invitation—whether as part of last week’s first wave or today’s second wave—is not a reflection of your candidacy. That said, she didn’t address applicant speculation about the significance of interview invite timing head on this year.
Read more
Published: February 1, 2016
Tuck Students Attend December’s Paris COP21, Bring Climate Talks Back to Campus
Four MBA students from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business sat front and center for the climate talks in Paris (COP 21) that grabbed the world’s attention in December. Now those students are back on campus sharing what they learned with their classmates.
In fact, students from Tuck have attended five of the past seven climate summits—in Copenhagen, Cancún, Doha and Warsaw in addition to Paris’s COP21—with Professor Anant Sundaram. “Honestly, it continues to surprise me that more schools don’t do this,” he says. But to his knowledge, Tuck is alone in having MBA students attend. He suspects part of it is inertia—the United Nations doesn’t make it easy to take part, requiring that those who want to attend formally apply for non-governmental organization (NGO) observer status. Additionally, only a handful of slots are awarded to each NGO, and he suspects that they have gone to students outside of the business schools at places like Harvard, Columbia or Yale.
Read more
Published: February 1, 2016
Innovative Fund Gives Columbia Business School MBA Students Hands-On Value Investing Experience
Where should you go to business school if you want to pursue value investing? A new student-led fund at Columbia Business School (CBS)—established with a $1.25 million donation by investment guru Thomas Russo—makes the New York City MBA program a good bet.
Value investing—the philosophy favored by Warren Buffett, among others, of buying undervalued assets and then exercising patience as their long-term fundamentals reveal greater value—can be hard for MBA students to grasp in a tangible way in the two short years they spend in business school. Indeed, most academic research suggests that value investing works best over the long run.
Russo, a student of Buffett’s, wants to help groom the next generation of value investors, and so he’s created the 5x5x5 Student Value Investment Fund to give MBA students the real-world experience he believes is required.
Read more
Published: January 31, 2016
UCLA Anderson School of Management Launches Venture Accelerator
This post has been republished in its entirety from its original source, metromba.com.
On Monday, January 25th, the UCLA Anderson School of Management made a great stride in entrepreneurship education through its launch of the Anderson Venture Accelerator Program.
The program will provide a venue for collaboration between students and professionals, and it will serve as an incubator for innovation not only at the university, but in the global marketplace as well.
Read more
Published: January 29, 2016
UCI Merage School of Business Alumna Offers Pledge for Growing Campus
The Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine (UCI Merage School of Business) recently announced a $1.5 million dollar pledge from Kristen S. Monson, an alumna of the college. Monson’s gift will go toward naming the Grand Terrace in the Merage School’s new building. Dean Eric Spangenberg said, “Kristen’s significant investment is exciting for all of us in the Merage School… Her gift represents the single largest philanthropic commitment to date toward our new building; it is particularly noteworthy to come from a member of the strong alumni network established by the
Read more
Published: January 28, 2016
Consulting Career Prep at NYU’s Stern School of Business
This post has been republished in its entirety from its original source, metromba.com.
If you want to earn an MBA with the end goal of pursuing a consulting career, New York University’s Stern School of Business should be on your radar. Stern had 28 percent of its 2015 graduates accept jobs in the consulting field. Furthermore, eight prominent consulting firms hired three or more graduates from the Stern School each in 2014. Consulting employers include the Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Company and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Read more
Published: January 28, 2016
Fridays from the Frontline: Yale SOM MBA Student Tests His Mettle on Shark Tank
This week in Fridays from the Frontline we’re featuring an exclusive interview with Shaan Patel, a 26-year-old, second-year MBA student at Yale School of Management (SOM) who tonight will appear on ABC’s Shark Tank. Patel, who is taking a two-year leave of absence from medical school to get his MBA, also runs a company on the side that helps high school students prepare for the SAT and ACT college entrance exams. The Las Vegas native launched the company—called 2400 Expert SAT Prep—to teach others the strategies that helped him achieve his own perfect 2400 SAT score.
In the interview that follows, he shares how business school prepared him for Shark Tank and why he thinks the MBA is a valuable path for entrepreneurs. He also offers tips for business school students who want to try their hand at getting on the show. (Even thought he had to wait in line for nine hours for the casting call—missing a pitch competition taking place back on campus as a result—he thinks it was worth it.)
Read more
Published: January 27, 2016
$10 Million Alumni Gift to Expand, Rename Wharton Leadership Program
Believing firmly that leadership can be both taught and learned, Wharton alumna Anne Welsh McNulty (MBA ’79) has pledged $10 million to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to expand its efforts to train leaders who impact the world. In recognition of this generous gift, the Wharton Leadership Program, launched 20 years ago, will be renamed the Anne and John McNulty Leadership Program.
McNulty met her late husband John (MBA ’79) well before they were classmates at Wharton. They both grew up in Philadelphia and were sweethearts at Cardinal O'Hara High School. But it was Wharton that would train them to become leaders. Before his sudden death of a heart attack in 2005, John rose through the ranks at Goldman Sachs to become partner, then co-head of the asset management division and ultimately to lead the creation of its investment management division. Anne, previously a managing director at Goldman and a senior executive of its hedge fund strategies group, today is the co-founder and managing partner of JBK Partners, an investment management firm and private philanthropic foundation.
Read more
Published: January 26, 2016
HBS Launches New Competition to Improve Precision Medicine Clinical Trials
$1.5 billion and more than a decade of trials—that’s what it takes for a typical precision medical therapy to gain FDA approval. The Health Care Initiative at Harvard Business School (HBS), an alliance of MBA students, alumni, faculty and practitioners, is hoping to drastically reduce both the time and expense of getting innovative therapies to market with a new competition designed to reimagine the clinical trials process.
Precision medicine, a growing movement in patient care, allows scientists and physicians to use genomic and other information to understand diseases based on their biological mechanisms, enabling them to precisely diagnose and develop tailored treatments. The Precision Trials Challenge, announced today, invites ideas from the medical, science, business and patient communities for ways to reinvent the clinical trials process. The goals? More rapid innovation, better targeted medicine and more effective treatments.
Read more
Published: January 26, 2016
LiveWire Data Provides Insights into HBS Interview Invitation Results
With Round 2 interview invitations imminent at Harvard Business School (HBS), we decided to look back at what happened in Round 1 for a little perspective. Clear Admit LiveWire reports gave us the following insights:
Roughly one-third of Round 1 applicants to HBS who reported results on LiveWire shared that they received an invitation to interview. Among those, reported GPAs ranged from 3.0 to 3.8, with an average of 3.6. The GMAT score range was from 560 to 760, with an average score of 735. Notably, the ranges and averages were much the same for those who got a ding. (The GPA range was 3.09 to 4.4, with an average of 3.56, and the GMAT score range was 630 to 780, with an average of 735.)
Read more
Published: January 25, 2016
HBS Round 2 Interview Invitations to Begin Rolling Out
As most anyone who applied to Harvard Business School (HBS) in Round 2 is likely aware, the first wave of interview invitations is scheduled to go out tomorrow. HBS Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold took to her Direct from the Director blog yesterday to assure those anxiously awaiting word that things are on track.
“This post is, quite frankly, not a news flash, but more like a reminder of what we’ve said before,” she wrote, reiterating that interview invites will begin rolling out from Dillon House tomorrow at 12 noon Boston time.
Read more
Published: January 25, 2016
Choosing a Business School for Entrepreneurship
Typing “startups are hard” into Google returns approximately 32 million results—ranging from “Startups Are Hard in 100 Different Ways” to “15 Reasons Startups Are !@#$ing Hard.” Perhaps that has a little something to do with why more and more savvy entrepreneurs are choosing top business schools as their training ground.
With expanding entrepreneurship curricula, cool campus startup accelerators and ever increasing numbers of business plan competitions—to say nothing of the all-important access to powerful networks of potential investors—the MBA is becoming the preferred path for many would-be founders.
Read more
Published: January 24, 2016
INSEAD Knocks HBS from Top Spot in Financial Times 2016 Global MBA Rankings
INSEAD jumped three spots to claim No. 1 in the Financial Times 2016 Global MBA rankings, released today, knocking reigning Harvard Business School (HBS) to No. 2. The global business school—which features campuses in France, Singapore and Abu Dhabi—has been on an upward trajectory over the past few years, sidling from sixth to fifth to fourth, but this year marks the first time it has claimed the top spot. Incidentally, it’s also the first one-year MBA program to ever do so. HBS, for its part, held steady at No. 1 each of the past three years and has taken top honors six times since the FT’s rankings debuted in 1999.
HBS wasn’t the only school displaced by INSEAD’s upward climb. London Business School (LBS) was knocked back down to third from the second-place spot it claimed last year. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania also backslid a spot, to fourth. And Stanford Graduate School of Business, which shared fourth with INSEAD last year, fell to fifth.
Read more
Published: January 21, 2016
Fridays from the Frontline: Triumphant Reapplicant Gains Admission at UCLA Anderson
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Our Fridays from the Frontline contributor this week took these words to heart, reapplying in fall 2015 after an unsuccessful application process the year before. A young female Indian engineer, she had relatively strong scores and grades, but not a ton of experience under her belt. Read on to learn some of the steps she took to strengthen her application the second time around—gaining admission at UCLA Anderson.
While happy to share her story with the Clear Admit audience, she wants to remain anonymous until she actually matriculates. So until then, we’ll just refer to her as the Pull That MBA Trigger blogger.
Read more
