MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
MBA Admissions Brief: UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School
For our next installment of MBA Admissions Brief, which brings you advice and insights directly from leading business schools' admissions, we head to North Carolina. Kenan-Flagler Business School is housed within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The school is well-regarded for its emphasis on team-based learning, its numerous international study programs and the variety of careers its graduates enter.
Danielle Richie, Senior Associate Director of MBA Admissions & Student Recruitment, UNC Kenan-Flagler / alexjonesphoto.com
Danielle Richie is Senior Associate Director of MBA Admissions & Student Recruitment at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. She has over 11 years of experience within higher education admissions with a focus on MBA recruitment. She has a Master’s of Science in Communication and Advertising from Syracuse University and a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Public Relations from the State University of New York at Oswego.
Read on for her advice on how to make the most of your time applying for an MBA in the coming year.
What would you say to someone who’s applying next fall and just getting started in the MBA application process now?
Kudos to you for starting your application early and getting the documents together now in advance of the early action application deadline. I recommend taking the next few months to visit the schools that you plan to applying to and immerse yourself into the MBA culture of each school. Ask yourself: Can I see myself here for two years? Do I feel as if the school, city and students match what I am looking for?
Visiting a school brings all of your research to life. You’ve read about it online but now is the time to experience it before you apply and, more importantly, before you receive your admissions decision. By carving out time now, you will find it easier to finalize your decision and pay your deposit instead of rushing your experience. Find out whether the school has open interview season. If so, take advantage of it now.
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MBA Admissions Brief: Cambridge Judge
Margaret O’Neill, Head of MBA Admissions, Marketing and Careers In this edition of MBA Admissions Brief, in which leading business schools provide guidance for your application and insight into their program, we hear from Cambridge Judge Business School. Highlights of Judge’s MBA program include its condensed timeline of just one year, its dedication to international diversity, and its unique curriculum that gives students additional learning opportunities in the form of seminars, consulting projects and workshops. Read on for tips and info from Margaret O’Neill, Head of MBA Admissions, Marketing and Careers
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MBA Admissions Brief: Michigan / Ross
In this installment of MBA Admissions Brief, we bring you tips and advice from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Soojin Kwon, Managing Director for Full-time MBA Admissions and Student Experience
Soojin Kwon is the Managing Director for Full-time MBA Admissions and Student Experience at Ross. She is also an adjunct lecturer in Ross’ Business Communications department. Soojin joined Ross in 2004 and has led the Admissions Office since 2006. Before joining Ross, Soojin was a Manager in Deloitte’s Strategy and Operations practice, focusing on consumer business clients. Prior to consulting, she was selected as a Presidential Management Fellow and worked in Washington, D.C. for the Senate Budget Committee, House Appropriations Committee, and Department of Commerce.
Soojin holds an MBA from Ross, an MPP from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Yale. She has served on the boards of the Forte Foundation, Greenhills School and ETS’ Business School Advisory Council. She has also served as an alumni interviewer for Yale.
Read on for her advice about the Ross application process, choosing recommenders and what you may have to look forward to in Ann Arbor!
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MBA Admissions Brief: Harvard Business School
Moving right along in our new series, MBA Admissions Brief, we hear from Chad Losee (HBS MBA 2013), the Managing Director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at Harvard Business School.
HBS Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Chad Losee
Losee knows what it’s like to be on the applicant side of the process, having gone through it himself not too long ago. Moreover, he has a storied history with the school and passion for education that shines through his professional choices. After a couple of years at the management consulting firm Bain & Company, he headed to HBS— inspired by MBAs from Bain & Co, drawn to the case study method. While on campus, he volunteered as an admissions ambassador and spent the summer between his first and second MBA years working as an associate in the office of former HBS Dean Kim Clark. Upon graduating HBS, he spent a year working as a fellow for HBS Dean Nitin Nohria. The latter post was initially intended to be a few months, but stretched into a full year as a leadership fellow and later assistant director of HBX (now known as Harvard Business School Online). He also sat on the HBS Board of Admissions during that time, providing an up-close look at what became his every day in May of 2016.
Over the past three years heading up admissions at HBS, he’s helped shaped the exceptional classes, overseen a shift to two admissions rounds, welcomed an inaugural cohort of MS/MBA students and taken the time to talk to Clear Admit about interviews, financial aid and more—to mention just a few.
Read on for Losee's insights into HBS, their admissions and what actions applicants can start taking now.
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Podcast Episode 11 Replay: Clear Admit’s 12-Step Program for Early Bird MBA Applicants
Looking to get an early start on your MBA applications for the 2019-2020 application season? Clear Admit’s Co-Founder Graham Richmond outlines a 12-step program for early bird MBA applicants in this podcast. By getting the ball rolling this far in advance, you’re already setting yourself up for success. Richmond’s suggested steps can help ensure that you stay on track and take full advantage of your great head start. Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast Episode 11 Replay: Clear Admit's 12-Step Program for Early Bird MBA Applicants Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds
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MBA Admissions Brief: The Wharton School
We are excited to launch a new series, MBA Admissions Brief, in which leading business schools provide guidance for your application and insight into their program. Whether you are already lining up recommenders or just beginning to think about an MBA, the adcoms will be sharing tips and info with you in this new Q&A feature.
Maryellen Reilly, Deputy Vice Dean of the Wharton MBA Program
To kick things off, we hear from the Wharton School's Maryellen Reilly, the Deputy Vice Dean of the MBA Program, who oversees Wharton MBA Admissions, Financial Aid, Career Management and Student Life. Before coming to Wharton 12 years ago, Maryellen spent over 15 years in finance in both the US and Europe at firms including Capital Group and JP Morgan. Additionally, Maryellen sits on the investment committee of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania, and is a member of the Forum of Executive Women.
In her role as Deputy Vice Dean, Maryellen leads the student experience outside the classroom, including Career Management, Admissions & Financial Aid and Student Life in identifying and providing services and support to enhance the student experience from admission to graduation and beyond.
Read on for her advice about the Wharton application process, choosing recommenders and what you may have to look forward to at Wharton!
What would you say to someone who’s applying next fall and just getting started in the MBA application process now?
Start by thinking deeply about what your goals are and what do you hope to gain from an MBA, both professionally and personally. That’s a big part of the decision process: getting to know yourself. Once you know what you want and what you hope to get out of business school, then you can then set your sights on researching programs and finding the place that best fits you. Every school is really excited to show you everything we offer, but it’s important that you really take this opportunity to see if the school you’re thinking of is the place for you.
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Inside the Cornell Johnson Welcome Weekend for Two-Year MBA Students
Each year, business schools host "Welcome Weekends," during which new MBA admits go to campus for a preview of life to come as full-time residents and students. In April, Cornell Johnson hosted their version of a welcome weekend, known as Destination Johnson (DJ). The school welcomed 140 new full-time MBA students to learn more about the school’s available resources as well as the many academic and co-curricular opportunities.
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Alumnus Gift Funds Chicago Booth Marketing Professorship and More
In recognition of the many ways that Chicago Booth has impacted his career, Jim Kilts (Booth MBA '74) recently make a $4.25 million donation to create the Kilts Family Professorship and the Kilts Faculty Research Prize for Excellence in Marketing. His gift will also go toward providing additional support for the James M. Kilts Center for Marketing. This is just a small piece of the more than $12.5 million that Kilts has donated to the school’s marketing efforts over the last 20 years.
Through his gifts, Kilts hopes that Chicago Booth will remain on the cutting edge of marketing education. He already believes it’s the best marketing school in the world, and he credits the exceptional faculty, data resources, and multi-disciplined approach with making that possible. Another piece of that success is the Kilts Center, which has a long-standing relationship with Nielsen; this allows them to distribute data sets to more than 1,000 researchers from 130 academic institutions.
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Published: April 25, 2019
Cornell Johnson Commits to Teaching Corporate Sustainability
While Cornell Johnson has been committed to corporate sustainability for decades, the urgency to engage in its practices and principles feels like it has been ramping up lately. As Mark Milstein, clinical professor of management and director of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Johnson says, “Politically, you can choose to believe in climate change, or you can choose to reject it. But scientifically—it’s there. Whether or not you want to believe in it, it’s going to affect everything from transportation to the sourcing of materials to supply chains.” So, what have students been doing at Johnson to prepare for such challenges?
Johnson’s Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise
One of the best examples of Cornell Johnson’s commitment to sustainability can be found in the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise. Opened in 2003, the center helps businesses tackle social and environmental challenges through entrepreneurship, innovation, and market development. It does this by engaging companies at the core of what they do. When you view social and environmental problems as business opportunities, then you can solve the problem and earn revenue at the same time.
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Published: April 24, 2019
HBS Announces New Venture Competition Finalists in Social Entrepreneurship Track
Each year, the Harvard Business School New Venture Competition brings together the best and the brightest to compete for $300,000 in cash prizes. Designed for both HBS students and alumni, the competition offers two tracks: the Business Track and the Social Enterprise Track. Both tracks require teams to present a new venture idea that will have a substantial impact on their respective market. Winners have the opportunity to go ahead and implement their proposal using the provided seed money.
For 2019, 48 teams from across Harvard University applied for the Social Enterprise Track. Then, sixteen semifinalists were chosen to present their ideas to a panel of expert judges in their fields. Finally, four finalists were selected. Here’s who they are.
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Published: April 18, 2019
Berkeley Haas MBA Students Fight the Gender Pay Gap
The gender pay gap is still alive and well in business, particularly in the tech industry. At least that’s what Christina Chavez, a ’19 Berkeley Haas MBA student, discovered when she logged into an online compensation board named Blind while working at Microsoft a few years ago. There was a shocking difference between what male and female colleagues were getting paid. So, when Chavez was accepted into the Haas MBA program, she put pay equity and transparency as one of her top goals.
Last fall, Chavez’s goal came to fruition with the help of her classmate Jack Anderson, a fellow member of the Hass Gender Equity Initiative. Together, they set up a spreadsheet where classmates could share details about their compensation packages. Then, using salary data and research provided by Professor Laura Kay, they created a Haas Wage Gap Infographic.
“We earned 96 cents to the dollar in the last MBA class, and people were like ‘yeah we’re approaching equity,’ but this gap grows over time,” Chavez said.
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Published: April 15, 2019
Podcast Episode 9 Replay: How to Decide Between Business Schools as an Admitted Student
For some prospective MBA applicants turned admitted students, the choice of where to attend business school is a no-brainer. If you applied and were accepted to your first-choice school, it may be as easy as breaking out the bubbly and sending in your deposit; or perhaps you got accepted at two schools, one on your reach list and another on your safety list. Many applicants in that situation are going to lean toward the reach school. But very often, admitted students find themselves deciding between schools amid circumstances that aren’t equal. Maybe a lower-ranked school offers you a phenomenal scholarship
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Published: April 10, 2019
INSEAD Hosts Women at Work Conference, Addresses the Gender Wage Gap
According to the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap Report, there is a 41.9 percent “economic participation and opportunity gap” between men and women globally. Even in developed economies, women continue to receive just $0.80 for every dollar a man earns. Women of color earn even less.
The question is, “What can be done about the gap?” That’s what INSEAD professor Natalia Karelaia set out to discover during the Women at Work conference held on INSEAD’s Singapore campus in March. She led a lively discussion that integrated research into the next steps organizations could take.
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One Year Later: MBA Program Gender Parity at USC Marshall
Last fall, USC Marshall became the first top-tier MBA program to reach gender parity with the full-time MBA Class of 2020 having as many women as men. It was a massive 20-point percentage increase from the previous year when women made up just 32 percent of the class.
Now that almost a year has gone by, we wanted to reach back out to USC Marshall to see how reaching gender parity has affected this year’s class, the new recruiting season, the business marketplace, and more.
To gain insight into what’s happening at the school, we spoke with Evan Bouffides, assistant dean and director of MBA admissions, as well as Mark J. Brostoff, the assistant dean and director of graduate career services. They both offered unique perspectives on the impact of gender parity on USC Marshall.
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Forté Foundation Study: Gender Inequality Impacts Almost Half of All MBAs in the Workplace
While the Forté Foundation's last study covered the impact of the MBA for women and minorities, the latest digs into gender inequality in the workplace and how MBA programs are working to address it. It would be nice to think that an MBA degree eliminates gender inequality in the workplace, but that’s not the case. Unfortunately, according to research conducted by the Forté Foundation and led by Michelle Wieser, Ph.D. and interim dean of St. Catherine University’s School of Business, work still needs to be done.
A survey of 900 male and female MBA alumni found that nearly six in 10 MBAs (59 percent) have said that they’ve “personally experienced” or “heard of” gender inequality in a past organization. In their current organization, that number drops to four in 10 (46 percent), but it’s still too much.
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Published: March 28, 2019
U.S. News Highlights 5 Hot Jobs for MBA Graduates
2019 is shaping up to be an excellent year for recent and upcoming MBA graduates. From a strong economy to a wide range of technology industry practices and corporations requiring data analysis, “companies are really hungry to hire MBAs,” says Stephen Pidgeon, the executive director of career services at Dartmouth Tuck.
However, not all jobs for MBA graduates are created equal. Here are the five hot jobs for MBA graduates in 2019.
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Published: March 27, 2019
Oxford Saïd: Two African MBA Scholarships and an African Business Forum
Coinciding with this year’s Oxford Business Forum Africa: Single Market, Global Outcomes, Oxford University Saïd Business School announced developments regarding scholarship opportunities for talented African MBA students. The Oxford Grace Lake Scholarship, which offers partial funding to an MBA candidate from Africa, has been extended three years. The Adara Foundation Scholarship launched a full scholarship for an exceptional female MBA candidate from Africa.
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Published: March 25, 2019
Yale SOM Innovates MBA Admissions Process with New Behavioral Assessment
Laurel Grodman, Managing Director of Admissions, Analytics and Evaluation, and Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean for Admissions at Yale SOM
Have you applied to the Yale School of Management or are you planning to apply? You may be wondering about that something extra in your Yale SOM application checklist—the Behavioral Assessment. The admissions team implemented this new, innovative tool to help them bring together a strong MBA class. To get the skinny on what the Behavioral Assessment is and how it’s being used in the Yale SOM admissions process, we caught up with Laurel Grodman, managing director of admissions, analytics and evaluation, and Bruce DelMonico, assistant dean for admissions. Read on for in-depth insights from Laurel and Bruce regarding how this tool plays a part in your MBA admissions experience.
Could you start by explaining what the Behavioral Assessment is and how it now fits into the Yale School of Management MBA admissions process?
The Behavioral Assessment is an online admissions tool that measures a set of interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies associated with business school success. It’s administered by the research division of ETS, and takes about 20 to 25 minutes for an applicant to complete. The test itself is a forced-choice module, in which you are given 120 pairs of statements and you have to choose the statement that is more like your own behavior. You don’t need to do anything in advance to prepare for the assessment, nor does it require any specialized knowledge or information.
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Published: March 17, 2019
Rochester Simon School of Business Leads the Way with STEM-Designated MBA Program
As international applications at U.S. business schools drop, there’s more demand than ever for science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines in MBA curriculum.
Why? The new STEM designation program.
Created by the federal government to help with the shortage of qualified workers in the STEM fields, the program makes H1b visas far more attractive. If a student attends a STEM-designated education program and gains a STEM job after graduation, they gain an additional 24 months of optional practical training (OPT) time. This lengthens their stay in the U.S. from one to three years, which is very attractive to candidates and a solid reason for schools to consider the STEM designation. And many have.
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Published: March 11, 2019
Wharton Tops the U.S. News 2020 MBA Ranking And More
As reported here this morning, the Wharton School has claimed the number one spot—for the first time on its own—of the U.S. News and World Report 2020 rankings of full-time MBA programs.
Before we get to other noteworthy shifts and positions, here’s a quick rundown of this year’s top 10, in order of their 2020 rank (2019 rank in parentheses):
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U.S. and China Trade Agreement: Wharton Podcast Talks About What’s Going On
The U.S. and China trade war has been a concern for a while. It’s been costing the economy and businesses millions in imports and exports. When, in February, the U.S. decided to postpone plans to implement a stiff import tariff indefinitely, many people thought a resolution was on the horizon.
Unfortunately, trade negotiations between the two countries go beyond tariffs. Other sticking points include U.S. concerns over the protection of intellectual property rights and cultural disconnect between the rights of businesses in both countries. According to experts at the Wharton School and Fordham University, there’s a long way to go before a trade agreement can be reached.
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Published: February 28, 2019
London Business School on Gaining and Using Power
Power shapes every interaction. Powerful people get their way often, we’re generally nicer to them, and we listen to them. So how do you get power and use it? Power is a zero-sum game and complicated to discuss. However, for London Business School Associate Professor Ena Inesi, that’s what makes it so appealing to study.
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Published: February 27, 2019
And the Award Goes to…Wharton Talks About the Financial Benefit of Winning an Oscar
Nearly 30 million people tuned into the 91st Academy Awards ceremony this past Sunday, rooting for Roma, listening for Lady Gaga, or just joyfully discovering Olivia Colman. Fanfare and speeches aside, there’s no doubt that winning an Academy Award is a great honor. Whether it’s a film, actor, director, or those working behind the camera, an Oscar is validation for a lot of hard work. But what is the actual benefit of winning an Oscar beyond a gold statue? Is there any financial award? That’s what a recent Knowledge@Wharton podcast set out to discover.
The podcast, which interviewed Wharton’s Jehoshua Eliashberg and S. Abraham Ravid, talks about the benefits of being nominated and winning an Oscar.
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Published: February 26, 2019
