MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
Published: August 1, 2012
One-Year MBA? Two-Year MBA? Pros and Cons
Preference for one-year MBA programs – common at European business schools, but traditionally less so at U.S. schools – is growing among prospective U.S. and Canadian applicants, according to an article this week in the Wall Street Journal. Lean economic times make the benefits of shorter programs, including lower tuition and less time and earnings lost while studying, appealing. But the WSJ article argues that these accelerated options may carry other costs that students considering them should bear in mind.
In 2009, 71 percent of U.S. and Canadian respondents to a survey by business-education research company QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd. preferred programs lasting 19 to 24 months, the WSJ reports. This year, that figure fell to 57 percent. Meanwhile, preference for programs lasting between 10 and 18 months rose, up to 29 percent of respondents from 21 percent in 2009. Some U.S. schools are responding to this increased demand, such as Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, which announced earlier this year that it plans to double the size of its one-year option. (Check out our Admissions Director Q&A with Kellogg’s Kate Smith for more on this.)
Read more
Clear Admit Featured in Financial Times Article on Changing MBA Admissions
Clear Admit’s own Graham Richmond was featured as part of an article this week in the Financial Times about changes taking place this admissions season at several top business schools. The article, entitled “The Creative Route to an MBA,” highlighted the shift at several top MBA programs toward requiring fewer essays from applicants, among other changes.
Several top schools, including Harvard Business School (HBS), Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, will require applicants to submit fewer essays as part of the application process than in years past. Clear Admit’s Richmond told the FT that he believes this is part of a trend by top programs to shift emphasis away from the essays and toward the interview portion of the application process.
Read more
MBA Admissions Staff Monitor for Plagiarism in Application Essays
Following the disclosure earlier this year by UCLA Anderson School of Management that it rejected 52 applicants to its MBA program under suspicion of plagiarism, more business schools are turning to paid services that can detect when prospective applicants try to pass off pre-canned work as part of their own application essays, a Financial Times article reports this week.
At UCLA Anderson, detecting plagiarism among applicants was an unanticipated result of going digital with its application process. Anderson’s admissions staff this year began reviewing all applications using iPads. “Once we went digital, all kinds of possibilities opened up, including the option to run admissions essays through Turnitin,” Andrew Ainslie, Anderson’s senior associate dean, told the FT.
Read more
