MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
UCLA Anderson Receives Record $100 Million Gift from Namesake’s Widow
The UCLA Anderson School of Management yesterday announced the biggest financial gift in the school’s history. The $100 million gift comes from Marion Anderson, the widow of the management school’s namesake, billionaire businessman and UCLA alumnus John Anderson. $60 million of the gift will go toward establishing an endowment for financial aid, faculty stipends and research. The remaining $40 million will go toward covering almost half of the cost for a new building projected to be built next to the current complex. In addition to being the largest gift for the business school to date, it is also
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Wharton Commencement Speaker to Share How the MBA Could Save His Life
David Fajgenbaum, MD, MSc, has been working toward his MBA as if his life depends on it. Because it does. On Sunday, in his commencement address to his classmates at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, he will share just why he believes a graduate management education can be the difference between life and death.
Fajgenbaum was diagnosed with idiopathic Multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD) in 2010, a rare and poorly understood hematologic disorder in which the immune system becomes activated and causes cells to release inflammatory proteins that ultimately shut down the body’s organs. At the time of his diagnosis, he was in his third year of medical school at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. He took a year’s leave and underwent aggressive chemotherapy, which initially was unsuccessful. Over a six-month period, he was hospitalized for four and a half months and even read his last rites. But ultimately the chemo helped put the disease into remission, and Fajgenbaum returned to complete his MD. He then proceeded straight into the MBA program at Wharton.
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Morgan Stanley Donates $2.5 Million to Columbia Business School’s New Facilities
Pop quiz: How many Columbia Business School (CBS) alumni work for Morgan Stanley? Graduates of the New York City business school make up 245 of the investment banking giant’s current employees, CBS reports, including Chairman and CEO James Gorman ’87 and Brad Evans ‘70, managing director and vice president of the firm’s investment banking department. Gorman and Evans, together with CBS Professor Meyer Feldberg ’65, also are members of the school’s Board of Overseers.
Ties between the school and the firm grew even stronger earlier this spring when Morgan Stanley donated $5.25 million toward CBS’s new Manhattanville facilities. The “transformative gift,” as a press release last week called it, will create two Morgan Stanley Suites, one in each of the new buildings now under construction. It represents the largest corporate contribution to the Manhattanville Campus to date.
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HEC Paris Hosts 25th Annual MBA Tournament
Teams from 16 of the leading business schools in Europe convened last week to compete in 25 different sports as part of the 25th annual MBA Tournament (MBAT), hosted by HEC Paris. More than 1,500 MBA student athletes battled each other in everything from badminton and basketball to petanque and salsa dancing while also creating valuable new friendships and networking opportunities.
“MBAT is the meeting ground for MBA students across Europe, and new friendships and networking opportunities are at the heart of the tournament,” Bernard Garrette, HEC Paris MBA associate dean, said in a statement. “The MBAT provides the chance for students to put what they have learned in the classroom to the test on the field, creating and leading strong teams.”
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Mothers at Booth Prove That Being a Mom, Getting an MBA Can Go Hand in Hand
What’s harder than juggling the frenetic pace of classes, clubs, recruiting and studying that fills the two years of an MBA program at a top-tier school like the University of Chicago Booth School of Business? Doing it as a single mom. And yet, there are moms who do just that, and do it well.
Sofía Vargas and Natalie Wilson are co-chairs of Mothers at Booth, a student club whose name says it all. Vargas, 25, has a three-year-old daughter named Gabriela. Natalie, 28, has a five-year-old daughter Gabrielle. The two Gabbys play together often as their moms hit the books.
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University of Illinois College of Business Launches New $20,000 MOOC-Based MBA
The University of Illinois College of Business this week announced the launch of an online-only MBA degree program designed to democratize access to graduate management education, according to U. of I. College of Business Dean Larry DeBrock. Called the iMBA, it will be the first complete online graduate business degree offered in partnership with Silicon Valley educational technology company Coursera, which offers courses from many other leading MBA programs through its platform of massive open online courses (MOOCs).
The College of Business is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and development of this new program was designed to mark the occasion, according to DeBrock. “We’re entering the online MBA field motivated in part to find new ways to return to the tradition of great public universities making an elite education available to all,” he said in a statement.
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Published: April 30, 2015
Business School Students Join Forces to Send Relief to Nepal
Yesterday, a student at Oxford’s Saïd Business School challenged her fellow students to donate to a fundraising campaign for victims of the Nepal earthquake, pledging to personally match every dollar raised in the next seven days, up to $20,000. Today, the school is already 24 percent toward its goal, having raised $4,875.
Elsewhere around the country and the world, business school students are likewise putting their money where their mouths are. Still others are pitching in with person power and organizing know-how, helping bring much needed relief to a nation devastated by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake feared to have affected some 8 million people or more.
April Chapman, who pledged to match funds raised by the students in Saïd’s Diploma in Strategy and Innovation program, said that social media posts and emails began to fly as soon as the news broke, and her cohort immediately decided that raising an immediate financial gift would be the best way to make a difference. Chapman serves as co-chair of the World Vision Innovation Fund, a faith-based humanitarian development and relief organization serving the poor in more than 100 countries. World Vision’s staff in Nepal, along with staff mobilized from other countries, are delivering temporary shelters, food, hygiene kits, water, emergency health and protection for children, according to a release from the organization.
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Published: April 29, 2015
Harvard Business School Wants Its Business Fundamentals Course to Be Law of the Land
Harvard Business School (HBS) today announced that the online business fundamentals course it launched last year will now be available to entering students at Harvard Law School. Today’s announcement follows on the heels of an announcement yesterday that HBS would likewise make its signature online business fundamentals course, known as HBX Credential of Readiness (CORe), available to undergraduate students at nearby Amherst College, with plans in place to roll it out to additional undergraduate institutions in the future. HBX CORe has been available to Harvard College undergraduates since last year.
CORe, says HBS, uses the HBS signature case-based method to teach participants the key concepts of business. As in an HBS classroom, CORe classes require active participation and social learning. Three individual courses make up the HBX CORe core offering: Business Analytics, Economics for Managers, and Financial Accounting.
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Published: April 28, 2015
UNC Kenan-Flagler Launches New Institute to Study Private Capital
If you don’t fully understand the role of private capital markets in the global economy, you are not alone. The University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School has launched a new Institute for Private Capital (IPC) designed to help change that.
“The institute will come to define how private capital is taught and learned in every business school,” said Kenan-Flagler Dean Douglas A. Shackelford. He announced the new institute at the school’s eighth annual Alternative Investments Conference on April 24th to an assembled crowd of more than 150 business and academic leaders and business school students.
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Published: April 26, 2015
UCLA Professors Donate $10 Million to Launch New Marketing Center at Anderson
A $10 million gift from two UCLA professors will create a new marketing center at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, the school announced earlier this month. The gift, from UCLA Anderson Professor Emeritus Donald Morrison and his wife, Sherie Morrison, UCLA distinguished professor of microbiology, immunology, & molecular genetics, will establish the Morrison Family Center for Marketing Studies and Data Analytics. The generous gift is the largest ever from a UCLA Anderson faculty member.
The new Morrison Family Center will enable academics and practitioners to use data and analytical tools to better understand consumer markets and behaviors, enhancing Anderson’s existing marketing curriculum and academic research.
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Published: April 23, 2015
Potential Leaders in Global Real Estate Should Have McDonough in Their B-School Sights
Benefactors of McDonough's new Steers Global Real Estate Center
The new Steers Center for Global Real Estate at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, launched yesterday, promises to redefine the educational experience received by both undergraduate and graduate students preparing for leadership roles in global real estate, the school reports. Formerly known as the school’s Real Estate Finance Initiative, the Steers Center will offer students one-on-one career planning with professors and mentors, as well as experiential learning opportunities through the Real Estate Clinic and Real Estate Laboratory. Consulting projects and career treks will further expand the global nature of real estate opportunities at McDonough.
McDonough Dean David A. Thomas asserts that the new Steers Center will offer students “a transformative program that provides an opportunity to engage the world of real estate through a very practical approach.” He also expects the Steers Center to propel McDonough toward its goal of becoming the premier destination for global business education, he said in a statement.
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Published: April 22, 2015
Spain’s IE Business School Debuts Redesigned International MBA Program
IE Business School in Spain launched its redesigned International MBA (IMBA) program last week with a special event held in the innovative MadridDome tech space. The new one-year MBA program begins this month, with an inaugural cohort made up of 90 percent international students from 65 different countries.
Speakers at the kick-off event on April 13th and 14th included Netflix co-founder Marc Randolf and astronaut Michael López-Alegría, who shared why they view innovative leadership and the entrepreneurial mindset as integral to business management. López-Alegría, the former commandant of the International Space Station, underscored the importance of innovation and creativity when it comes to launching new business ventures, citing private space tourism initiatives as an example. Netflix’s Randolf stressed that the most important thing for entrepreneurs is not to have a good idea, but to put it into practice—and that learning from mistakes along the way is an essential part of the process. Business schools can and should help foster this, he said.
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Published: April 21, 2015
Leading Business Schools Commemorate Earth Day
From Philadelphia to Los Angeles, business schools and their students are endeavoring to combat climate change at both the campus and the corporate level through innovation, conservation and awareness raising.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, for its part, is hosting the 8th Annual Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL) Conference. This year’s theme, “Business Takes the Lead,” will examine how business innovation holds promise for helping the world both mitigate and adapt to climate change.
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Published: April 20, 2015
Partnership Between Darden School of Business, UVA Law School Offers Entrepreneurs Pro Bono Legal Assistance
Ventures taking part in the Darden Business Incubator at UVA’s Darden School of Business i.Lab have the added advantage of pro bono legal counsel thanks to an innovative partnership with the University of Virginia School of Law, the Law School reported yesterday.
As part of the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic, entrepreneurs taking part in Darden’s Incubator work directly with law students to create legal plans and handle necessary paperwork for their new ventures. In this win-win arrangement, the law students benefit from practical, hands-on training on how to advise startup companies and draft basic corporate documentation.
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Published: April 19, 2015
Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business to Host 2015 Forté Foundation MBA Women’s Leadership Conference
The 2015 Forté Foundation MBA Women’s Leadership Conference, scheduled to take place in June at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, will welcome current female MBA students and alumni for two jam-packed days of sessions devoted to exploring the nature of power, presence and workplace politics. The annual conference, hosted by a different sponsor business school each year, is put on by the Forté Foundation as part of its mission to help women succeed in business careers through increased access to business education, opportunities and a community of successful women.
With the theme “Let’s Power Up!” this year’s conference is scheduled for June 19th and 20th in Washington, DC, on the campus of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. The event will feature more than 100 speakers and presenters, as well as 50+ workshops on topics ranging from money management to communications strategies to help make your voice heard in the classroom and beyond.
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Published: April 16, 2015
Haas School of Business Forms New Partnership to Understand Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding – the process of crowds of people investing relatively small amounts of money online to fund new ventures and individuals – promises to reshape the future of finance, and researchers at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business want to understand how. The school this week announced a new partnership with the Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership to do just that.
Coined CrowdBerkeley, the new partnership will equip Berkeley-Haas finance and social enterprise faculty and researchers to study databases aggregated by Fund Institute engineers from global crowdfunding platforms. The researchers will use the data to examine and understand how crowdfunding is transforming traditional financial models as well as the opportunities it presents for innovation and new ventures.
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Published: April 15, 2015
Darden Annouces Next Cohort of Ventures for Its i.Lab Incubator
Ventures focused on developing an educational technology to improve spoken English instruction to children in China, products to support healing among orthopedic patients and tools to help small businesses automate processes were among those selected to take part in the 2105 i.Lab Incubator program at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, the school announced this week. Operated by Darden’s Batten Institute of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the i.Lab and incubator will host 25 new ventures in the coming year along with eight ventures from the class of 2014.
“This year we saw a particularly experienced group of applicants,” Philippe Sommer, director of Darden’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, said in a statement. “It will be an incredible asset to have entrepreneurs in the incubator with deep expertise in fields such as engineering, biomedicine and education.”
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Published: April 14, 2015
HBS Rolls Out New Recruiting Program Targeting Students at Women-Only Colleges
Harvard Business School (HBS) last week announced a new recruiting program designed to help increase the pipeline of qualified female applicants to its MBA program. The program, called Peek Weekend, invites juniors, seniors and recent graduates from women’s colleges for a June weekend of case studies, presentations and other activities designed to serve as an introduction to HBS and the MBA degree.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, HBS Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold explained that the school hopes through the program to give women a fuller sense of what an MBA can lead to. Calling the MBA “a misunderstood degree,” she noted that there is a perception among many that pursuing one “must mean you want to go work in a bank forever and sit in a cubicle and wear a suit.”
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Published: April 13, 2015
Georgetown McDonough Survey Reveals Interesting Tax Refund Spending Trends
Do you think of your tax refund as a nice spring bonus or money the government owes you? Your answer likely influences the way you’ll spend the funds in question, according to new research from the Georgetown Institute for Consumer Research at the McDonough School of Business. The 2015 Tax Refund Consumer Spending Survey, sponsored by KPMG, was conducted during the last two weeks of March to examine consumer spending around Tax Day.
“Apparently all dollars are not created equal in the minds of consumers,” Kurt Carlson, director of the Georgetown Institute for Consumer Research, said in a statement. Indeed, 53 percent of consumers who think of their refund in terms of a bonus plan to spend it on something in the near term, the survey found. Furthermore, they are more likely to spend it at stores where they rarely shop throughout the year.
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Published: April 12, 2015
Financial Times Data Suggest MBA ROI Is Greater for Younger Students
Parsing through data from its 2015 Global MBA rankings, the Financial Times has come to the conclusion that the earlier you get your MBA degree, the more you stand to boost your salary, both in percentage and absolute terms. Combining survey responses from the MBA class of 2011 with analyses of their career progress and salaries, the latest FT rankings data reveal a more significant jump in pay for younger graduates in the three years after graduation than for their older classmates.
According to the FT analysis, participants aged 24 and under when they began their degree enjoyed salary increases of nearly $69,000 three years out from graduation, a 145 percent increase over their pre-MBA salary. Those who were 27 to 28 when they began their degree program reported an average pay increase of $67,000, to nearly double their pre-MBA salary. The oldest members of the class, those aged 31 or above, had an average pay increase of $56,000, representing a roughly 70 percent bump over their pre-MBA salaries. This pattern was observed in all industry sectors and countries, regardless of whether graduates worked overseas or changed industries, according to the FT.
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Choosing an MBA Program Based on Where You Want to Work
With some lucky applicants now having been accepted to multiple top-tier business schools, a new challenge faces them: choosing where to go. A New York Times article decided to look at that question in an interesting way, offering suggestions for what school to attend based on the specific company you hope to work for upon graduation.
According to the Times analysis, the best school to choose if you want to land at Amazon is the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Amazon last year hired 27 Ross MBAs, displacing the school’s historical No. 1 recruiter, Deloitte, according to the Times. Another 37 Ross grads headed to the e-commerce giant in the two years before that.
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U.S., European Business Schools’ Expansion to China Continues with New IE Collaboration
Late last month, IE Business School signed a collaboration agreement with Chinese business school Antai College of Economics and Management to offer dual degrees to students from the two institutions, IE announced recently. Antai College, a leading business school in China and part of Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University, hold accreditation from each EQUIS, AMBA and AACSB. Antai College Dean Lin Zhou joined IE Dean Santiago Íñiguez de Onzoño for a signing ceremony at IE’s campus in Madrid on March 26th.
As part of the new agreement, students in IE Business School’s International MBA program can take a dual degree program with the Antai College of Economics and Management and vice versa. A dual-degree program is also available students in IE’s Master in Management and Antai’s Master in International Business program. In either instance, students will be able to complete both degree titles in two years, instead of the three years it would take to complete the degrees separately.
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MIT Sloan to Host May Workshop for Prospective MBA Students Interested in Finance
If you are considering how an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management could help advance your career in finance, an upcoming workshop was made for you. The MIT Sloan Admissions Office has collaborated with several other offices and groups to organize a jam-packed day full of activities next month, all geared toward highlighting MIT Sloan’s strengths in finance for prospective MBA applicants.
The MIT Sloan Focus on Finance Symposium will take place on campus on Saturday, May 9th. The event is a joint effort between the Admissions Office, the MBA and Master of Science in Management Studies program office and the MIT Sloan Finance Group. The day-long workshop will include two sessions taught by finance professors Nittai Bergman and Rajkamal Iyer, including a case study in which participants will get to work together addressing questions of capital structure and financial distress.
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MIT Sloan Gears Up for April Ambassadors Days
MIT Sloan School of Management features its interactive, customizable Ambassadors Program each fall and spring for prospective students, hosted by current students. The Ambassadors Program runs on Mondays and Thursdays throughout MIT Sloan’s spring semester, giving visiting prospective students the chance to choose from a range of options to design the visit that best fits their schedule and interests.
A full Ambassadors day beings with registration, followed by coffee with current students, attendance in a class, an information session with an Admissions representative, a second opportunity to attend a class, and then two campus tour options. Those who register are invited to pick and choose from the available sessions as they like. (Note, visitors are asked to attend only one class, but are given two time slots for ease of scheduling. Classes available to visitors change each day, and visitors may select the time of their class visit, but not the specific class.)
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Published: March 30, 2015
One in Four HEC Paris Graduates Sets Out to Launch a Startup
Entrepreneurship is big and growing at HEC Paris, according to a recent survey of more than 8,500 graduates. The inaugural HEC Entrepreneurship Barometer, published last week, reveals that almost 25 percent of HEC graduates today are entrepreneurs, up from just 10 percent a decade ago.
HEC Paris has been increasingly promoting entrepreneurship over the past 30 years, through teaching, research, mentoring and resources like the HEC Incubator. To measure the impact of these initiatives, HEC Paris devised its new Entrepreneurship Barometer, which surveyed a representative panel of 8,500 alumni from the past decade from across HEC’s various programs.
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