MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
AIGAC Releases 2013 MBA Applicant Survey Results
The average applicant to business school spends between 90 and 140 hours on the MBA application process, according to findings from the 2013 Applicant Survey conducted by the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC). Excluding GMAT prep, applicants report that they spend between 70 and 110 hours on the application itself.
AIGAC released the applicant survey results as part of its annual conference, which took place this week in Philadelphia. The association was founded in 2006 to promote high ethical standards and professional development among graduate admissions consultants. It conducts an online survey of MBA applicants each year to help its member graduate management admissions consultants and admissions committees at top business schools better understand prospective MBA students’ goals and needs.
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Top Business Schools Help Students Who Head into Lower Paying Fields
Taking on debt to finance an MBA program only to take a job at a low-paying nonprofit organization after business school doesn’t add up to graduates being able to repay their loans. Fortunately, many top business schools have created programs to help ease the financial burden for those who go into nonprofit or other low-paying fields, according to a recent report in Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
In addition to Harvard Business School, which this year gave 19 students grants of $50,000 to supplement their first-year salaries, schools including Columbia Business School (CBS), Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, UMichigan’s Ross School of Business, Stanford Graduate School of Business and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School all also offer financial assistance in one form or another to help graduates repay student loans, Bloomberg BW reports. And while many business school students don’t seem to know about these programs, they should: The benefits can extend for multiple years adding up to as much as $100,000 for some, Bloomberg BW adds.
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UC Berkeley’s Haas School Awards New Hansoo Lee Fellowships to Two MBA Students
The Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley has awarded two inaugural $5,000 prizes as part of the Hansoo Lee Fellowship for Entrepreneurs, a new fund established to honor entrepreneur and alumnus Hansoo Lee, MBA ’10, who died in March of lung cancer.
Romi Elan and Charlie Hughes, MBA students in the Class of 2014, were selected from 10 applicants for the fellowship for a photo app they designed to help friends connect around shared interests and hobbies. Called “Goalzy,” the app is intended to help small groups of friends encourage one another through pictures to pursue personal goals. Seeing pictures of their friends’ latest harvest, for example, could spur other friends to get their own hands in the dirt at the community garden. ““We wanted to help people keep true to their promises to themselves,” Elan said in a statement.
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Admissions Office Offers Tips on Summer Visits to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
The Winter Garden at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business will feel empty this summer to those used to its bustle during the school year, Booth Senior Associate Director of Admissions Eddie Pulliam warned. But prospective applicants will still find events and activities going on there during the summer months to help them get to know the school and the admissions process.
“If you are in Chicago this summer, we would love to have you visit us on campus,” Pullman wrote in a recent post to the Booth Insider blog. Because there aren’t students on campus or student courses taking place, the Campus Visit program does feature an abbreviated schedule for guests between June 10th and October 4th, he noted. Admissions directors will host information sessions for prospective applicants on Mondays and Fridays from 10:30 to 11 a.m. Following those, from 11 to 11:30 a.m., visitors can take a guided tour of the school’s Harper Center, including its renowned art collection. Prospective applicants are asked to register in advance for these information sessions, but Chicago Booth notes that campus visits will have no bearing on an applicant’s admissions decision.
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Yale SOM Admissions Director Updates Clear Admit on Video Interviews, Other Application Elements
The Yale School of Management (SOM) will formally incorporate a brief video interview as part of its application process in upcoming admission seasons, Assistant Dean and Director of MBA Admissions Bruce DelMonico shared with the Clear Admit team recently. He also provided more detail about the tests Yale SOM has been using to assess the emotional intelligence of its applicants and shared that his team will eliminate the English-language test requirement that has until now been required of some applicants.
Some Round 3 applicants to Yale SOM in the most recent application season reported that they were asked to respond to an interview question via video. In an effort to learn more about this development, we reached out to DelMonico directly, who shared the following details with us.
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Columbia Business School Expands Effort to Support Student Entrepreneurs
Columbia Business School (CBS) has created a new cooperative working space open to all Columbia students who hope to launch entrepreneurial ventures, the school’s Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center announced yesterday. The new Columbia Entrepreneurs Lab (CEL), modeled after the successful Columbia Business Lab, will provide participants who are accepted into the program with free access to resources and mentorship opportunities to get their ventures up and running.
"The Entrepreneurship Lab is a collaboration between multiple schools across campus and an important milestone in Columbia University's efforts to prioritize the importance of entrepreneurship programming for all Columbia entrepreneurs," professor Murray Low, director of the Lang Center, said in a statement announcing the launch.
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More Women than Ever to Attend Harvard Business School in the Fall
Harvard Business School (HBS) expects women to make up a record 41 percent of its incoming MBA class, according to preliminary data released earlier this week. Up from 40 percent last year and 35 percent ten years ago, it reflects continuing efforts the school has been making to bolster female enrollment.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School has been a leader among top business schools with regard to female enrollment, with women making up 42 percent of its incoming class last year. The Philadelphia school has not yet released its enrollment figures for the upcoming fall. Stanford Graduate School of Business, which enrolled 35 percent women last year, also has not yet released fall enrollment figures.
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UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business Hires Two New Permanent Finance Professors
Two visiting finance professors have joined the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley as permanent faculty members, one from Kellogg and another from Chicago Booth, Haas announced last week.
Professor Annette Vissing-Jørgensen, formerly a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and Assistant ProfessorAdair Morse, formerly an associate professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, have been visiting faculty members at Haas since July 2012. Both are known for their insightful research and award-winning teaching, the school notes.
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Clear Admit’s Graham Richmond Weighs in on Harvard Business School Application Changes
The business education media has been abuzz following the announcement yesterday that Harvard Business School (HBS) will change its application requirements in the year ahead. Bloomberg BusinessWeek, PoetsandQuants, the Financial Times and others all featured articles conveying the news and reactions to it. Both Bloomberg BW and P&Q consulted Clear Admit co-founder Graham Richmond to get his take on what the changes mean. Most notable, Richmond says, is HBS’s decision to make the essay an optional portion of the application, which sets it apart from virtually every other
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Harvard Business School Reduces Number of Application Essays, Recommendations
Prospective applicants to Harvard Business School (HBS), take note: Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold shared a lot of interesting information in her Director’s Blog today. Topline news: Applicants for fall 2014 will only answer one essay (with no word limit) and will only need to submit two letters of recommendation (down from three).
The single essay question asks simply what else the Ad Com should consider about an applicant’s candidacy in addition to the other elements submitted as part of the application (resume, school transcripts, extra-curricular activities, awards, post-MBA career goals, test scores).
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UMichigan’s Ross School of Business Revises Essay Portion of Application
In a post yesterday to the Ross Admissions Blog, Director of Admissions Soojin Kwon shared the school’s planned changes to the essay portion of the application and the rationale behind them. Applicants for fall 2014 will find that one of the essays from last year has been adjusted, one has been eliminated and the others have remained the same. They will also find that they have 450 words fewer overall with which to answer the essays.
“Before we jump into the next admissions cycle, our team takes some time to reflect on how our application process worked for the past year and where we can make improvements,” Kwon wrote, noting that the process includes gathering feedback from application readers, student and alumni interviewers and even admitted students who decide to enroll elsewhere. Kwon’s team also confers with colleagues in Career Services, Academic Services and the MBA program itself to make sure the application is designed to best identify potential star students.
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UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Dean Appointed School Provost
The University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School will soon need to begin a search for a new dean. That's because its current dean, Jim Dean, has been appointed executive vice chancellor and provost for the university, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported last week. Dean, who has served as dean at Kenan-Flagler since 2008, will transition to his new role effective July 1st, at which point he will be Dean Dean no more.
UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp and Chancellor-Elect Carol Folt shared news of Dean’s appointment in a May 23rd email to the UNC community. The University’s board voted on the appointment earlier that day.
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GMAC Corporate Recruiters Survey Shows Employer Hiring Up 4 Percent for MBAs
More corporate recruiters have hired or plan to hire MBAs this year than last, according to the 2013 Corporate Recruiters Survey by the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC). Globally, 75 percent of employers surveyed plan to hire MBAs, up from 71 percent last year, GMAC reports. Not only that, the average number of MBAs each company expects to hire is also up, from 11.4 per company in 2012 to a projected 14.6 this year.
More employers also report plans to hire graduates of specialized business master’s programs this year than last, GMAC found. The percentage of employers planning to hire graduates with master’s degrees in management, accounting, finance and other specialized business degrees all rose as well, by between one and five percentage points over 2012.
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Student-Run Fund at Yale School of Management to Support 33 Nonprofit, Public Sector Summer Internships
Continuing a tradition dating back to the earliest years of the school, students at the Yale School of Management (SOM) have raised more than $88,000 this spring to provide stipends to students who pursue summer internships in the nonprofit and public sectors, which often pay little to no salary. The monies raised by the student-run Class of 2014 Internship Fund will support 33 students this year, the school announced.
This year’s fundraising campaign included several events centered around the theme of “All for SOM and SOM for All.” “We all worked together to support the fund and to create the community that is Yale SOM,” Bukky Olowude '14, co-chair of the campaign, said in a statement.
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New Online Magazine Focuses on the MBA
If you’ve been scanning Apple’s newsstand recently, a new title may have caught your eye. MBA Intelligence is an online magazine for current and prospective MBA students that debuted in December 2012. Currently available on the iPad, the new publication has been attracting most of its readers from the United States, the United Kingdom, China and other parts of Asia, according to publisher Redwood Apps.
The magazine features a mix of content, ranging from pieces geared toward prospective applicants on topics like preparing for the GMAT to articles written by current MBA students showcasing the analysis they have performed around current companies and issues as part of their work in actual business school classes.
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University of Chicago Booth School of Business Throws Annual PINK Party
Students at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business were seeing pink last week thanks to the annual school-wide PINK party, an initiative designed to raise awareness about the LGBTQ community at Booth. Sponsored by OUTreach, a Booth student organization for gay and lesbian members of the community and their allies, the PINK party took place this year at SPIN nightclub in downtown Chicago on Saturday, May 18th.
Booth students were encouraged to dress in pink and come out to support the LGBTQ community as part of what was billed as “the absolutely biggest Booth party of the year.” Wearing pink got you a free drink at the party; dressing in drag as part of the Drag Contest 2013 got you free admission and unlimited free drinks all night.
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USC Marshall School of Business Looks to Raise $400 Million for Scholarships, Capital Projects, Programming
The Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California (USC) last week launched a campaign to raise $400 million, funds that will support student scholarships, faculty research and teaching, capital projects and more, the school announced.
Marshall kicked off the initiative with a gala event on May 8th, drawing 300 donors, faculty, students and others to Warner Bros. Studio. Marshall’s mission is grand, USC Marshall Dean James Ellis told the assembled guests. “We are altering the business landscape across Southern California and beyond,” he said.
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NYU Stern School of Business Dean Bowls, Publishes
In the midst of leading one of the top MBA programs in the world, Dean Peter Blair Henry of New York University (NYU) Stern School of Business somehow also finds time both to publish and to unwind with students.
A recent tweet from the school (#Stern2013) leads to photos of Henry just after he’s released a bowling ball down the lane. While scores aren’t revealed, he has the look of a cranker with a smooth delivery. Let’s just say, he didn’t throw a powder puff. Besides offering up an opportunity to show off their bowling lingo, MBA Bowling Night 2013 also gave Stern students a chance to unwind and celebrate the final weeks before graduation with both Dean Henry and Stern President John Sexton. Check out the slideshow for yourself.
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Top Business Schools Report Healthy Application Volume Increases
When GMAT test-taking volume jumped by 11 percent for the year ending last June, those watching the MBA admissions space had reason to suspect that application volume at top schools might follow suit. Recent articles from Bloomberg BusinessWeek and Poets & Quants reveal exactly that, with Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, the University of Virginia’s Darden School and the University of Chicago’s Booth School all reporting double-digit increases in the number of students applying to their two-year, full-time MBA programs.
Bloomberg BW last week surveyed its top-10 ranked business schools, discovering that half were reporting significant increases in application volume, ending a three-year decline. Johnson led the pack, with an increase of 12 percent, followed by Darden, at 11 percent, and Chicago Booth, at 10 percent.
P&Q reports that Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business blew even those numbers out of the water: Applications to that school’s two-year MBA program swelled by 25 percent after it moved up the Bloomberg BW rankings four places, to 15th, last year.
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University of Chicago Booth School of Business Shares Waitlist Admissions Updates
Round three interviews wrapped up last week at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, which means the Admissions Committee is now busy making final decisions about recent interviewees, as well as about candidates who remain on the waitlist from earlier rounds. May 23rd is decision day.
“For all candidates, we know that the waiting period is difficult, and for those on the waitlist, there may also be some questions about what happens between now and the decision deadline,” wrote Associate Director of Admissions Carrie Lydon in a recent post on the Booth Insider Blog. She and her team will be reviewing waitlisted candidates’ applications, as well as any additional materials they may have submitted since originally applying. Candidates are also still welcome to submit additional updates through the Booth admissions application system. “However, since we are in the final review process, we unfortunately cannot guarantee that they will be received in time to be included,” Lydon cautioned.
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Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management Sees Application Volume Rebound
After a 7 percent drop in applications to its two-year, full-time MBA program last year, Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management saw double-digit application volume increases this year to all of its MBA programs, according to a recent article in Poets&Quants. Interest in the school’s one-year MBA program for undergraduate business majors was especially great, with 30 percent more applicants this year over last, Kellogg Dean Sally Blount told P&Q.
Blount bragged about the school’s waitlist, calling it “awfully beautiful” and noting that it is filled with candidates with GMAT scores of 720 and higher. She credited the school’s new senior leadership team – as well as its strategy to build enrollment in its one-year program while shrinking its traditional two-year program – for the application volume growth. Kellogg last year increased the size of its one-year program by 15 percent, to 100 students.
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Interest in Social Entrepreneurship Rises Among MBAs, Creating Some Challenges for Business Schools
As interest in social entrepreneurship has swelled among MBA students in recent years, top business schools have responded by developing new programs, centers and scholarships for students pursuing a field that was relatively unheard of a few decades ago. But as the Financial Times reported in a recent article, the trend toward social entrepreneurship, as well as shifts in the structure of organizations social entrepreneurs seek to join upon graduation, presents a new set of challenges for top MBA programs.
“In the 1980s there was almost no talk at all in business schools about anything that we might now call social entrepreneurship,” Peter Tufano, dean of Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, told the FT. “I think we’ve seen an explosive growth in demand for social entrepreneurship in the last 10 years,” he added.
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Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management Wins Top Accolades for Diversity
The Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management got an A+ for diversity in recruitment practices as part of a recent benchmark study conducted by Diversity MBA Prep, an online community offering resources to women and minorities considering an MBA. Of 50 top MBA programs included in the study, only Johnson received the top grade.
As part of the MBA Advantage: Diversity Outreach Benchmarking Report, schools were evaluated based on the diversity of perspectives provided to candidates via their Web and social media presence, the range of activities and outreach directed toward candidates of diverse backgrounds, diversity at the school leadership level and the effectiveness of diversity recruitment initiatives.
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Harvard University Receives $50 Million to Increase Collaboration between Life Sciences and Harvard Business School
A family foundation headed by a Harvard Business School alumnus has donated $50 million to launch an initiative designed to speed the development of early-stage scientific discoveries into patient therapies and cures for diseases, Harvard announced earlier this week. The gift also will fund a new fellowship in life sciences entrepreneurship.
The Blavatnik Family Foundation, headed by Len Blavatnik (HBS MBA ’89), provided the generous gift, which will establish the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator and the Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Science Entrepreneurship Program at HBS.
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Landmark $100 Million Gift to Columbia Business School Will Create Second New Building on Manhattanville Campus
Columbia Business School (CBS) announced big news today: The Ronald O. Perelman Center for Business Innovation will rise on the school’s Manhattanville campus, opposite the Henry R. Kravis Building. Perelman, a longtime member of the CBS Board of Overseers and chairman and CEO of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc., has pledged $100 million to create the new facility, which will be named in his honor. Perelman’s gift matches the largest gift in the school’s history, which CBS alumnus Henry Kravis, the namesake of the Manhattanville campus’s other building, made in 2010.
“The Perelman Center will allow Columbia Business School to continue pioneering breakthroughs in management education, such as moving beyond functional expertise or siloed learning and ensuring a more integrated curriculum for our students,” CBS Dean Glenn Hubbard said in a statement. “It will help us create the classrooms of tomorrow and foster an even greater collaborative spirit among recruiters, students, alumni and faculty members, paving the way for a stronger network and more meaningful outcomes for our community,” he continued.
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