MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
Published: October 29, 2014
Dean’s Speaker Series Draws Janet Napolitano, Biz Stone to UC Berkeley’s Haas School
Two big names will visit the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley next week to address MBA students as part of the school’s Dean’s Speaker Series. Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California system and the former United States Secretary of Homeland Security, will share leadership lessons on November 4th, and Biz Stone, co-founder and CEO of Jelly Industries and co-founder of Twitter, will talk about his experiences on November 6th.
Speaking on Election Day, Napolitano is scheduled to answer questions about the political climate in both California and the nation as a whole. She will also address the challenge of getting more young people involved in politics and public service, as well as her own leadership approach, her experiences as a female in leadership and more.
Read more
Published: October 28, 2014
Stanford Graduate School of Business Launches New International Policy and Business Dual-Degree Program
The Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) has partnered with the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences to offer a new dual MA/MBA program for students who wish to study international policy and business, the schools announced this week. Interested candidates may apply to the new program beginning this fall.
Students who complete the three-year program will be awarded two degrees, an MBA from Stanford GSB and an MA from the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies (IPS) at the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences.
Read more
Published: October 23, 2014
UPenn’s Wharton School to Send Round 1 Interview Invitations October 31st
The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School will send invitations to interview out to Round 1 applicants on Friday, October 31st, according to a recent post on the school’s MBA Admissions Blog. Applicants who snag one of these coveted interview spots will have an opportunity to take part in Wharton’s Team-Based Discussion interviews in a range locations around the globe.
For Round 1, off-campus interviews will be held in Dubai, London, Mumbai, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo. Candidates can also, of course, choose to interview on campus in Philadelphia. “All invited candidates are encouraged to interview on-campus or in the off-campus location that is most convenient for you,” the MBA Admissions Team wrote on its blog.
Read more
Published: October 22, 2014
U.S. News & World Report Ranks Business Schools by Graduates’ Indebtedness
Rankings of graduate management education programs abound, each with their own particular criteria for assessing which business schools ultimately come out on top. Separate from its overall business school rankings, U.S. News & World Report recently used data collected from schools to determine the top 10 programs from which MBA students graduate with the most debt.
The number one spot goes to Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, where full-time MBA students from the 2013 class who borrowed for business school had an average indebtedness of $108,186. Fuqua’s full-time MBA students had more debt than any of the other 86 ranked institutions, according to data submitted to U.S. News.
Read more
Published: October 21, 2014
Majority of Business Schools Now Accept GRE, But More Applicants Stick with GMAT
A whopping 85 percent of U.S. business schools now accept the GRE as an admissions test alternative to the GMAT, according to a 2014 survey by Kaplan Test Prep. That’s up from only 24 percent of business schools who said they accepted the GRE in 2009, when Kaplan first began tracking the issue. GRE acceptance by business schools has been growing steadily year over year, Kaplan reports.
But even as more schools report accepting scores from the GRE, most MBA applicants are still choosing to submit scores from the more traditional GMAT. More than half of the admissions officers surveyed by Kaplan this year reported that only one in 10 or fewer applicants chose to submit GRE scores instead of GMAT scores, representing a slight increase from Kaplan’s past surveys.
Read more
Published: October 20, 2014
New Light Installation Commissioned for MIT Sloan School of Management Main Building
When Building E52, the main facility for the MIT Sloan School of Management, reopens after extensive renovations in January 2016, it will feature a new light installation by artist Leo Villareal, the school announced recently.
Villareal, who last year created The Bay Lights on the San Francisco Bay Bridge West Span, was recently awarded an MIT Percent-for-Art commission to create a light installation for MIT’s Building E52. His plans for E52 include a light sculpture in the north vestibule of the building as part of a new, glass-enclosed entrance. The sculpture will feature 240 hanging LED rods – each approximately 9 feet tall with 72 individual LEDs – arranged from the ceiling in rows. As part of the work, Villareal will create a software code programming the LEDs to cycle through a randomly generated series of combinations.
Read more
Published: October 19, 2014
UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business Awards Scholarships to Half of Full-time MBA Class
The Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley set a new record this year, awarding scholarships to a full half of its entering full-time MBA class, the school announced earlier this month. In all, Haas will provide almost $6 million in scholarship aid to students across its three MBA programs, with an average award of $26,000 for students in the full-time MBA program.
“It’s a real tipping point, and we plan to continue the trend of providing the highest level of financial support possible to help our students achieve their academic goals,” Daniel Roddick, Haas director of financial aid, said in a statement.
Read more
Published: October 16, 2014
Bloomberg Businessweek Unveils Social Media Campaign #WhyMBA
Yesterday, Bloomberg Businessweek launched #WhyMBA, a social media campaign designed to get MBA hopefuls, students, alumni, and business leaders talking about the value of a graduate education in business. The #WhyMBA campaign is part of the run-up to the release of Bloomberg Businessweek’s full-time MBA program rankings on Tuesday, November 11. Every day until the release, Bloomberg will post daily questions on Twitter with the hashtag #WhyMBA, and track the ensuing conversation on the campaign’s website. The Business Education Editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, Francesca Levy, explains that Businessweek created the social media campaign to prompt a wider look at business education.
Read more
Published: October 15, 2014
UNC Kenan-Flagler Publishes New MBA Application Guide for Prospective Applicants
MBA@UNC, the online MBA program at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, has just released a new MBA application guide designed to aid prospective applicants in the admissions process. Though produced by Kenan-Flagler, the guide was designed to serve as a resource for students applying to any business school.
Through a series of online articles, MBA@UNC has compiled best practices along with tips and advice for preparing the strongest possible MBA application. Articles in the series delve into topics ranging from choosing between the GMAT and the GRE to how to secure strong letters of recommendation. You’ll also find posts devoted to strengthening your resume, writing compelling essays and acing the interview.
Read more
Published: October 14, 2014
Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business Announces Semi-Finalists in Inaugural Rural Entrepreneurship Challenge
Entrepreneurship has certainly become a buzz word at business schools, but “rural entrepreneurship” is a term you don’t hear quite as often. Unless you’re at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, where rural entrepreneurship is currently front and center.
McDonough yesterday hosted the National Summit on Rural Entrepreneurship, which included the announcement of 10 national semi-finalists in the first-ever Rural Entrepreneurship Challenge. The challenge – a joint venture between the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), McDonough’s Global Social Enterprise Initiative (GSEI) and the Georgetown Entrepreneurship Initiative’s Startup Hoyas – is an opportunity for individuals to showcase innovation taking place in rural regions of the United States.
Read more
Published: October 13, 2014
Chicago Booth Releases Interview Notification Timeline
Did you apply to the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business Round One this year? Tyler Smith, an Assistant Director of Admissions at Booth, has written a post titled “Behind the Scenes of Round One,” where he provides crucial details of Booth’s admissions process for Round One applicants, including Booth’s timeline for Round One interview notifications. The Admissions Committee at Booth is currently reviewing Round One applications. Applications are read in random order and interview decisions will be made on a rolling basis. Booth will notify candidates whether they have been invited back
Read more
Published: October 8, 2014
Yale School of Management to Host Online Career Panels for Prospective Applicants
The Yale School of Management (SOM) admissions team will kick off a new series of online events later this month designed to showcase for prospective applicants the many MBA career paths the school’s students choose to follow. The live events will each focus on a different industry and will feature relationship managers from the Career Development Office joined by current SOM students.
Read more
Published: October 7, 2014
LinkedIn Launches New University Rankings Tool Charting Career Placement Success
LinkedIn has launched an innovative new rankings system that analyzes career and education data shared by its more than 300 million users to rank undergraduate institutions according to where their graduates land jobs. Violà! You can now use LinkedIn not only to network for jobs following graduation, but also to assess which schools will best position you for the jobs you want before you even reach the job search phase.
Using its vast troves of employment data, LinkedIn analyzes the patterns of individual career choices to define the most desirable jobs, the most desirable companies within professions and the most relevant graduates for those jobs. It then uses these data points to rank universities based on the percentage of relevant graduates who have obtained desirable jobs.
Read more
Published: October 5, 2014
New Loan Program Launches for International MBA Students at U.S. Schools
A new pilot loan program will provide expanded options for international MBA students at a number of top programs in the United States, according to a recent report in Poestandquants. The program, offered by Prodigy Finance, will extend to international students and U.S. residents with non-permanent status who are studying at 16 top schools, including Harvard Business School, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and MIT Sloan School of Management.
Especially in recent years, banks have been reluctant to lend to students who are studying internationally. Prodigy Finance seeks to fill this need using a “community finance” model. Basically, alumni from participating schools fund loans for current students, banking on the value of a degree from their alma mater and the likelihood that future alums will repay. Interest rates on the loans vary between 6 and 12 percent, depending on the school, the individual borrower’s profile and current rates.
Read more
Published: October 5, 2014
Admissions Director Q&A: Itziar de Ros of IESE
Itziar de Ros has been leading the charge since 2011 as MBA admissions director and president of the MBA Admissions Committee at IESE in Barcelona, Spain. She is responsible for global marketing, student selection and administration of scholarships for the IESE MBA class of 280 students.
No stranger to the school, de Ros herself obtained an IESE MBA in 2006. She worked as a marketing and sales consultant at DuPont before returning to IESE in 2007, where she held roles in admissions, marketing and communications and development before stepping into her current role.
Read more
Published: October 1, 2014
Kellogg School of Management Launches New “Inspiring Growth” Brand Strategy
The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University wants to be known for educating leaders who inspire growth, and it’s rolling out a new brand strategy with this in mind, the school announced earlier this month. Part of a larger strategic plan launched four years ago, the new “inspiring growth” theme is intended to capture both what the school has achieved since the overarching Envision Kellogg plan was first implemented and what’s still ahead.
Kellogg Dean Sally Blount noted in a statement that while growth is a challenge faced by every organization, bigger is not always better. "Sometimes growth means pulling back to attain greater clarity and focus,” she said. Kellogg’s new brand strategy – “brave leaders inspire growth in people, organizations and markets” – is intended to spotlight this focus on developing growth-minded leaders, which Kellogg believes sets it apart from its peers.
Read more
Published: September 30, 2014
GMAC Reports Application Volume Growth for Full-Time Two-Year MBA Programs
The number of people applying to full-time two-year MBA programs increased for the third consecutive year, according to recent data from the Graduate Management Admissions Council. GMAC’s 2014 Application Trends Survey, released earlier this week, showed that as two-year programs enjoyed application volume gains, other graduate management programs saw flattening or decreasing numbers of applicants.
The survey also revealed an increasingly global applicant pool, with GMAT testing trends showing that more students are seeking to study outside their country of citizenship. According to GMAC, these candidates make up a sizeable portion of the applicant pool for many MBA and non-MBA graduate management programs.
Read more
Published: September 29, 2014
UPenn’s Wharton School Welcomes Exceptionally Entrepreneurial Class
Students entering the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School this fall bring with them record levels of entrepreneurial experience and aspirations, according to a recent blog post by Nadine Kavanaugh, associate director of Wharton Entrepreneurship.
“We’re especially excited because the Class of 2016 is already incredibly entrepreneurial,” wrote Kavanaugh. “We can’t wait to see what amazing startups they’ll start.”
Read more
Published: September 28, 2014
Johnson’s Career Management Dean Shares How to Accelerate Your Job Search Before Business School
Fred Staudmyer, assistant dean for career management at Cornell University’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, has more than 25 years of experience in executive recruitment, human resources, human capital consulting and entrepreneurship. Before joining Johnson in 2009, he led the Garrett Sayer Group, an executive search and specialty staffing firm focused on technology, financial services and consulting industries. Prior to that, Staudmyer held a range of other senior positions including human resources officer for Ziff Communications focused on human resources and recruitment and head of worldwide talent management for Chase Manhattan Bank. He also happens to be a “dual Cornellian,” having obtained both his undergraduate and MBA degrees from the university.
“I’ve always been a career geek,” Staudmyer confessed in a recent interview with Clear Admit. Indeed, he knows a thing or two about helping people shape their careers. We caught up with him last week, when he generously shared some top tips for prospective MBA applicants to jump start the career search before arriving at business school. Read on and take note – you might even discover that some of Staudmyer’s advice will help you in the MBA admissions process, too.
Read more
Published: September 23, 2014
CEIBS Partners with Cornell to Launch Dual MBA-MMH Degree
The China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University will launch a new dual Master of Management in Hospitality (MMH) and MBA degree program, the schools announced earlier this week. The first cohort of students will begin classes in fall 2015.
The new program will give students the opportunity to complete both the MMH and the MBA over the course of two years. Students will earn their MMH from Cornell and their MBA from CEIBS. They will have the option of beginning at either school and completing the second year of the program at the alternate campus.
Read more
Published: September 22, 2014
Stanford Graduate School of Business Welcomes New Faculty, Lectures
Seven new tenure-line faculty have joined the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), and another 17 lecturers are scheduled to share their real-world experiences with students as well, the school announced earlier this month. In all, Stanford GSB has more than 250 professors, adjunct faculty, visiting faculty and lecturers teaching students in its MBA, PhD, Master of Science (MSx) and other business programs.
“Our new tenure-line faculty bring a diverse set of research interests to Stanford, which will enhance our ability to contribute to the growing body of knowledge about business, management and the global economy,” Stanford GSB Dean Garth Saloner said in a statement. The many lecturers, meanwhile, help the school pair academic rigor with best practices in the classroom, he added.
Read more
Published: September 21, 2014
ESADE Names New Dean and Other Top Management
Spain’s ESADE Business School today announced several new appointments among its top leadership team. Professor Josep Franch will be the school’s new dean, Professor Jonathan Wareham will serve as the new dean of faculty and research and Professor Francisco Longo will assume the newly created role of associate director general, the school announced.
Eugenio Bieto, who was recently re-appointed as ESADE’s director general, made the new appointments among the leadership team, saying that he hopes the shifts will position the school to continue to prioritize the excellence and quality of its programs.
Read more
Published: September 17, 2014
UPenn’s Wharton School Celebrates Opening of New SiriusXM Studio for Business Radio
The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania today hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of a new SiriusXM satellite radio broadcast studio. The new studio will broadcast Business Radio Powered by the Wharton School, which offers direct, exclusive access to some of the world’s top business leaders and educators.
Newly appointed Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett was joined by SiriusXM President and Chief Content Officer Scott Greenstein for today’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. Wharton first partnered with SiriusXM last fall to launch the full-time radio channel focused on business and management.
Read more
Published: September 14, 2014
Interview Updates from Harvard Business School Admissions Director
As anyone applying to Harvard Business School (HBS) knows only too well, Round 1 applications were due last Tuesday. As the HBS Admissions Committee has settled into reading applicants’ files, an antsy set of applicants has settled into wait. HBS Dean of Admissions Dee Leopold devoted a post on her Admissions Director blog on Friday to letting the expectant candidates know how the next stage of the process will unfold. Leopold’s team will send out invitations to candidates advancing to the interview stage in two batches next month, one on October 8th and a
Read more
Published: September 10, 2014
Yale School of Management Draws Together Top Business Leaders for Global Strategy Input
Led by Dean Edward Snyder, the Yale School of Management (SOM) is focused on developing and implementing a strategy that will help the school become the most distinctively global U.S. business school—one that educates its graduates to become truly effective global leaders. Earlier this week, Snyder hosted the first of a series of discussions scheduled this fall to assess the school’s progress toward this goal.
Top business leaders came to the Yale SOM campus on September 8th and 9th to examine the steps the school has taken so far and what remains to be done. Participants in this first discussion included PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi (SOM '80); Laszlo Bock (SOM '99), senior vice president of people operations at Google, Inc.; William Donaldson (YC '53), former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission; and International Monetary Fund Executive Director Rakesh Mohan (YC '71), among several others.
Read more
