MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
Published: September 19, 2013
UPenn’s Wharton School Teams with Sirius XM to Launch New Business Channel
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has partnered with Sirius XM Radio to launch a new full-time radio channel focused on business and management, the school announced earlier this week. “Business Radio Powered by the Wharton School,” as the new channel is called, will feature around-the-clock programming on a wide range of business topics, as well as a live, call-in format giving millions of listeners access to Wharton faculty, alumni and expert guests.
Expected to launch in early 2014, Business Radio will broadcast from the Wharton campus and Silicon Valley via satellite on Sirius XM channel 111, through the Sirius XM Internet Radio App on smartphones and other devices and online at siriusxm.com. Programming – targeting business owners, entrepreneurs, executives and would-be entrepreneurs – will feature Wharton professors and alumni as regular weekly hosts, as well as an array of special guests, including executives, entrepreneurs, innovators and other experts.
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Published: September 17, 2013
NYU Stern School of Business Launches New Event Series for Prospective Applicants
New York University’s Stern School of Business this month will launch a new series of events designed to connect prospective MBA applicants with Stern faculty and provide a glimpse of the Stern MBA experience.
“The Future of Business” event series will kick off on Saturday, September 28th, at 10 a.m. with a panel discussion on financial services and real estate. Three Stern professors – former investment banker Charles Murphy, Stern Center for Real Estate Finance Research Director Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, and Robert Whitelaw, chair of Stern’s finance department – will speak in a TED-talk format, after which participants will have a chance to mingle with admissions officers and students from Stern’s full-time MBA, Langone MBA for Working Professionals and Executive MBA programs.
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Published: September 16, 2013
Harvard Business School Admissions Continues Transparency Trend with Note to Round 1 Applicants
Applicants who submitted an application earlier this week as part of Harvard Business School (HBS)’s Round 1 received a prompt confirmation email direct from Dee Leopold, HBS director of admissions and financial aid. In it, Leopold continued HBS’s increasing trend toward transparency in the admissions process by spelling out in clear, down-to-earth terms just want applicants should expect from this point forward.
A senior team will begin reviewing submitted applications within a day or so of the September 16th Round 1 deadline, Leopold wrote, and this team will make decisions about who moves forward and who doesn’t.
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Published: September 15, 2013
UPenn’s Wharton School Offers Free MBA Foundation Series Classes Online
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has added a new series of massive open online courses (MOOCs) covering many of the fundamentals of business and management that students in Wharton’s full-time MBA program learn, taught by the same professors. The first of the Wharton MBA Foundation Series, “An Introduction to Financial Accounting,” begins today.
Three other courses make up the new series – introductory courses in operations management, marketing and corporate finance – and all are available via the free online platform Coursera. The new series complements five elective courses already on offer from Wharton via Coursera, including courses on sports business and healthcare. All nine are expected to draw students from around the world, and more than 695,000 students have so far enrolled in a Wharton course, Coursera reports.
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Published: September 12, 2013
Harvard Business School Startup HourlyNerd Raises $750,000 in Seed Funding
A startup founded by Harvard Business School (HBS) students as part of a required first-year class secured $750,000 in seed funding earlier this week, including $450,000 from angel investor and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, the Boston Business Journal reports. HourlyNerd, co-founded by Rob Biederman, Peter Maglathlin, David Connolly, Patrick Petitti and Joe Miller, is an online platform designed to connect small and mid-sized businesses with MBAs from top schools willing to provide freelance and part-time work.
The idea was born as part of HBS Professor Clayton Rose’s Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development (FIELD) course, an experiential learning course added as a first-year requirement as part of HBS’s recent curriculum redesign. Through the HourlyNerd platform, businesses can post descriptions of the projects they need help with, and MBAs within the network can bid on work they are interested in by indicating the hourly rate they would charge and the milestones they intend to hit. Within its database, the startup boasts roughly 900 current MBA students and recent graduates from top programs including Stanford, Tuck and Wharton.
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Published: September 10, 2013
UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business Opens New Innovation Lab
The Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley is home to a new 2,700-square-foot Innovation Lab where students can participate in more team-based and experiential learning, primarily as part of the school’s innovative leader curriculum. The new I-Lab, located inside Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium, was made possible thanks to a gift from alumnus Michael Gallagher, BS ‘67, MBA ‘68, former Haas Board chairman and retired CEO of Playtex Products. Haas Lecturer Clark Kellogg and Senior Lecturer Sara Beckman, who teach the school’s “Problem Finding Problem Solving” course, taught the first class in the new labratory space on
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Published: September 9, 2013
Shifts in Global Healthcare Increase Intersection between Medicine and the MBA
Entrepreneurship, innovation and cost cutting are increasingly important amid shifts in global healthcare systems, presenting important opportunities for business schools offering healthcare-focused MBA programs, the Financial Times reports.
“The healthcare system is about much more than just treating patients,” Steve Chick, head of INSEAD’s Healthcare Management Initiative, told the FT. “The coordination of care is critical and that’s where business schools can play a big role.”
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Published: September 8, 2013
Harvard Business School Tackles Entrenched Issues of Gender Inequity
Harvard Business School (HBS) Dean Nitin Nohria has, for the past two years, been leading a school-wide effort to foster greater success among female MBA students by making changes to the school’s curriculum, rules and social rituals, according to a recent front-page story in the New York Times.
HBS for years has seen women enter the school with the same test scores and grades as their male counterparts, only to quickly fall behind. The school has also struggled to attract and retain female professors. So in 2010, the Times reports, Harvard’ first female president, Drew Gilpin Faust, appointed Dean Nohria, who pledged to address the gender relations issue head on. Two years in, the school reports remarkable gains among women, though some of the changes implemented by the administration have met with opposition and hostility.
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Published: September 5, 2013
Wharton Start-Up Expands to Lend to MBA Students at 20 Top Schools
A company launched last fall by students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School experienced success in its pilot phase, during which it served as a lender to Wharton MBA students and recent graduates, and so this fall will launch nationally to lend to MBA students at 20 top MBA programs in the United States, the Financial Times reports.
Wharton student David Klien is chief executive and co-founder of CommonBond, which last year lent $2.5 million to 40 MBA students and recent graduates from Wharton using funds raised primarily through crowdsourcing. Now, the start-up has raised more than $100 million through debt financing and selling equity. It will expand to offer low-interest loans to MBA students at business schools throughout the country, including Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, Columbia Business School and others.
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Published: September 3, 2013
U Michigan Alumnus Gives an Additional $200 Million to Ross School of Business, Athletics
Real estate developer and alumnus Stephen M. Ross will give $100 million to the University of Michigan business school that already bears his name and another $100 million to U-M Athletics, the university announced today. His most recent gift is the largest in the university’s history from a single donor. With lifetime giving of $313 million, he is the third-largest donor to a United States business school.
Ross, who earned his bachelor of business administration in accounting from the University of Michigan School of Business, as well as two subsequent law degrees elsewhere, made an earlier gift of $100 million in 2004 toward construction of a new building and endowed operations for the business school. That building, which was named in Ross’s honor, was completed in 2009.
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Published: September 2, 2013
UNC Kenan-Flagler School of Business Appoints Former Dean to Serve Third Interim Dean Role
Jim Dean, former dean of UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, was appointed in May to become UNC executive vice chancellor and provost, leaving the business school in need of a leader. Dean turned to Jack Evans (pictured), asking if he would serve as interim dean.
With more than 40 years of experience at Kenan-Flagler, Evans came out of retirement to answer Dean’s call. In addition to holding the Kenan-Flagler deanship from 1979 to 1987, he served two subsequent terms as interim dean. He first came to Kenan-Flagler in 1970, as a professor of operations.
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Published: August 25, 2013
Columbia Business School Hosts Two Fall Series for Prospective Applicants
Columbia Business School will launch two on-campus event series this fall for prospective MBA applicants looking to learn more about what CBS has to offer. The first series – “Why an MBA?” – will feature a panel of CBS alumni and students sharing what led them to pursue either a full-time or executive MBA. The second “Spotlight On:” series will convene professors, alumni and current students to provide a view of CBS and its opportunities in several different areas of study. The events, which will take place on CBS’s Morningside Heights campus, are free to all, but RSVP is required.
Two “Why an MBA?” panels will be held as part of that series, each on Tuesday evenings at 6:30 p.m. in CBS’s Uris Hall. The first will be held on September 17th and the second on September 24th.
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Published: August 22, 2013
MBA Graduates from U.S. Business Schools See Rise in Wall Street Job Offers
MBA graduates from U.S. business schools this summer are landing more interviews and more job offers from Wall Street firms – particularly investment banks – than in recent years, according to the newest survey by a company that provides corporate training to Wall Street firms and business schools.
As part of its latest annual MBA Employment Survey, Training the Street (TTS) interviewed 200 students over the past few months, discovering that 19 percent of students had more than 10 first-round interviews. Another 12 percent of surveyed students had more than eight interviews in the first round, 40 percent had between four and seven interviews and 23 percent had between one and three, according to the TTS survey.
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Published: August 20, 2013
New Online Education Company Offers Free Stanford GSB Courses for Entrepreneurs
A new online education company founded by a Stanford University professor has launched a suite of entrepreneurial-focused courses from a range of U.S. business schools – many available for free – including several from Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), the Financial Times reports.
Founded by Stanford professor of management and engineering Amin Saberi, NovoEd launched in April 2013, based on an innovative platform that supports both massive open online courses (Moocs) and collaborative, small group teaching. Between 70 and 80 percent of NovoEd’s courses are available free of charge, with the remainder offered at fees ranging from $150 to $1000.
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Published: August 19, 2013
Growing Number of Doctors Pursue Health-Focused MBA Degree at Fuqua School of Business
The number of doctors applying to the MBA Health Sector Management program at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business is on the rise, in part a reaction to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the school reports.
An average of 21 doctors has applied to the school’s fulltime healthcare-focused MBA program each year between 2010 and 2013, up from 13 per year, on average, in the six years before that. The number of doctors applying to the Executive MBA program has also increased, to an average of 25 per year between 2010 and 2013, compared to 17 per year between 2004 and 2009.
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Published: August 18, 2013
UPenn’s Wharton School Unveils New MBA Website
Earlier this month, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania launched a redesigned MBA website, featuring a new look, streamlined content and greater interactivity designed to enhance the experience for prospective applicants. Included among the new features are updated student profiles, a new events calendar and student discussion forums.
“We hope that our new website provides you with clearer understanding of the Wharton Difference and how our program may be a good fit for you,” Wharton Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Ankur Kumar wrote in a post to her Notes from the Director blog.
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Published: August 15, 2013
Students from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business Return from Summer Work around the Globe
More than 150 Haas MBA students will return to campus this fall having traveled the globe over the summer putting their business school skills to work addressing real-world challenges. China, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Kenya and Israel are just a handful of the countries that played host to Haas students as part of the school’s summer international business offerings.
As part of the school’s global management consulting course, International Business Development (IDB), almost 100 students in the full-time MBA program traveled overseas. Full-time students spent three weeks working in-country with 25 different clients. Projects ranged from examining potential funding models for the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund to creating a strategy for an innovation lab in Nairobi to helping a Silicon Valley tech firm develop team performance and fan engagement solutions for football leagues in England and Germany.
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Published: August 8, 2013
UCLA Anderson School of Management Hosts Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and Leaders
UCLA Anderson School of Management last month hosted 50 top students from historically black and Hispanic-serving colleges and universities as part of a program designed to expose prospective future business school students to the principles of business development, entrepreneurship and management. The University of California Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and Leaders (UC SIEML) program rotates across six UC business schools, and participating students attend classes, workshops and networking events for two consecutive summers.
Beyond the benefits provided to the students, the program also helps participating business schools connect with undergraduates before they graduate and head off in other directions. . “Take a look of other graduate degree programs,” says Linda Baldwin, Anderson assistant dean of diversity and 2013 UC SIEML director. “They have a pipeline from their undergraduate departments,” she said. “With the MBA program, there’s typically a break. The students get scattered.”
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Published: August 7, 2013
GMAC Commissions New Book on Challenges Facing Business Education
The Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which owns and administers the GMAT exam, has commissioned a new book examining challenges confronting graduate management education, from technological advancements and globalization to how to measure program quality other than through rankings.
Disrupt or Be Disrupted: A Blueprint for Change in Management Education, out this month, contains contributions from leading academics and thinkers such as Harvard Business School Professor Rakesh Khurana and Former INSEAD Dean Dipak Jain on how to reimagine curriculum content and delivery, student engagement, faculty development and more.
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Published: August 5, 2013
IE Business School Enters New Collaboration with Top Seeds Lab Startup Accelerator
Spain’s IE Business School last month inked an agreement with Top Seeds Lab, a Madrid startup accelerator supported by a range of top-tier technology corporations. As part of the new collaboration, IE entrepreneurial students working on projects through the school’s Venture Lab will be eligible to receive an additional boost from Top Seeds to help spur their ventures toward success.
Under the terms of the new agreement, IE’s Venture Lab will be able to include up to two teams in the third edition of Top Seeds Lab’s Startup Acceleration Program, which will run from October 28, 2013, through February 28, 2014. Top Seeds Lab will also include a fast track for one or two IE student projects in future editions of its acceleration program.
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Published: August 4, 2013
At Duke’s Fuqua School of Business Many Roads Lead to Consulting
Consulting firms make up six of the 10 top employers of graduates from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and almost a full third (32 percent) of the 2013 class accepted consulting jobs this past year, the school announced recently.
For three years in a row, Deloitte has hired more Duke MBAs than any other employer, hiring 26 graduates from the most recent class. Other consulting firms hiring multiple Duke MBAs include Bain and Company, McKinsey and Company, Boston Consulting Group, Accenture LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, according to data gathered by Fuqua's Career Management Center (CMC.)
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Kellogg School of Management Adds Video Essay, Alters Admissions Deadlines
Earlier this week, the Kellogg School of Management said that it will begin requiring a video essay as part of its 2013/2014 MBA application. The school will also revert to a one-part application, with a single set of deadlines, rather than the two-part process it has used in recent years. These and other changes were first reported Monday by PoetsandQuants.
As part of the new video essay, students will be directed from the application to a landing page on a Skype-like platform where they will be asked a short question, according to a subsequent report in Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Applicants will have one to two minutes to collect their thoughts and one to two minutes to record an answer. They can replay their answer and start over up to two times is they are dissatisfied, receiving a new question on each subsequent try.
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Yale School of Management Debuts Two New SPOCS for Global Network Schools
The Yale School of Management (SOM) last week announced that it will offer two new virtual courses to its students as well as to students from the 22 other schools within the Global Network for Advanced Management. The courses, one in competition law and another in mobile banking opportunities, are an example of the growth of small online private courses (SPOCs), which some schools are beginning to offer instead of or in addition to massive open online courses (MOOCs).
Yale SOM faculty will teach the two new digital courses, and their lectures will be streamed via the web. Participating students will collaborate on virtual project work as part of teams with students from other schools around the globe. Madrid’s IE Business School, a member of the Global Network, will provide and manage the technology platform to support the courses.
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Two Columbia Business School Alumni Pledge $40 Million Toward New Manhattanville Campus
Two 1967 graduates of Columbia Business School (CBS) have pledged a combined $40 million toward the school’s new Manhattanville facilities, the school announced this afternoon. Alumni Arthur J. Samberg and Mario J. Gabelli, both members of the school’s Board of Overseers, have pledged $25 million and $15 million, respectively, citing their desire to help provide others with the educational opportunities they had. Their gifts continue a trend of multi-million dollar pledges to support construction of the school's new facilities.
Samberg, who is the manager of Hawkes Financial Services LLC and a member of Acadia Woods Partners LLC, and Gabelli, who is chairman and chief executive officer of GAMCO Investors Inc., both credit their success to the education they received at CBS. Through their gifts they hope to support the completion of the school’s new facilities and, in so doing, expand the opportunities available to future students.
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UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Dean Reappointed to Second Term
Rich Lyons, dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley since 2008, was reappointed last month for a second term by UC Berkeley’s provost and executive vice chancellor. Following his reappointment, which became effective July 1st, Lyons shared his vision for Haas’s future, specifically with regard to technology in education and the school’s work environment and global profile.
Lyons wants Haas to be a “definer of what’s next at the confluence of technology and management education.” More than simply translating existing courses into digital format, he wants Haas to change the courses themselves and the way it thinks about pedagogy. "It’s about things like 'game-ifying' content to engage students even more fully, having courses that adapt in real time to individual students’ needs, and letting students 'test again' until they have truly mastered material,” he said in a statement.
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