MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
Michigan Ross Adcom Shares New Twists in 2018 MBA Application
The Michigan Ross School of Business MBA application for fall 2018 is now live! MBA candidates can start applying ASAP, and for the most part, it’s the same as last year. However, there are a few notable changes and things that applicants should be aware of before they start the application process. Soojin Kwon, managing director full-time MBA admissions and program, outlined the changes and a few other general tips in a post on the Ross MBA Admissions blog earlier this week. Here’s what you need to know.
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HBS Adcom Director Launches Application Tips Blog Series
Clear Admit had the pleasure of sitting down with Harvard Business School (HBS) Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Chad Losee a few weeks ago when we were in Boston for the annual Graduate Management Admission Council conference. Losee shared then his plans to launch an Application Tips series on his blog. True to his word, he kicked things off earlier this month. HBS Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Chad Losee “When July hits, I know from personal experience that applying starts to feel ‘real’ when you are planning to apply to HBS in Round
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Summer Reading: 10 Not-to-Miss Biographies of Great Business Leaders
For successful admits in the most recent MBA admissions cycle, the date to arrive on campus at business school is fast approaching. If you’re looking for ways to spend your remaining summer leisure time, check out this list of not-to-miss business tycoon biographies. From tech titans like Elon Musk and the late Steve Jobs to the Oracle of Omaha and cosmetics empire entrepreneur Mary Kay Ash, the titles below promise to provide inspiring insights for soon-to-be MBA students of every stripe. 10 Not-to-Miss Biographies of Great Business Leaders Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator
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Michigan Ross Student Podcast Makes Business Accessible
In 2012, when Michigan Ross MBA/MPP student Jack Kramer (’19) launched the daily podcast MarketSnacks with his co-founder Nick Martell, the duo's goal was simple enough: make business news more accessible to the masses. Six years later, MarketSnacks is one of the most successful podcasts around, having attracted attention from CNNMoney, Business Insider, and Fortune. This groundswell of interest from the business press even helped Kramer and Martell secure spots on Forbes “30 Under 30” list in 2018.
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Kathleen Hagerty Named Interim Northwestern Kellogg Dean
Following last year’s surprising announcement that Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management dean Sally Blount will step down from her role, provost Jonathan Holloway has announced that Kathleen Hagerty will serve as the interim dean while the school continues its search for a long-term replacement. Blount, one of the only female deans to ever lead an M7 business school, has left behind an extraordinary legacy of fundraising and academic development. Her replacement certainly has big shoes to fill. Holloway believes that Hagerty will do an excellent job in her new position as interim dean.
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Global Tuck ‘Tails Celebrates Dartmouth Tuck Network Worldwide
The annual Global Tuck 'Tails event gathers hundreds of Dartmouth Tuck first-year MBA students and alumni to celebrate the “most loyal alumni network of any business school on the planet." This year's edition—the sixth and most high-profile thus far—will take place throughout July in cities all across the globe.
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How This Stanford GSB Prof Hopes to Get the VC Industry to Spill Its Secrets
To many outside the business world, venture capitalism (VC) is shrouded in mystery. The general public occasionally gets fleeting glimpses behind the curtain through podcasts like The Pitch, but sometimes these microscopic views only serve to generate more confusion. Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Ilya Strebulaev founded the Stanford Venture Capital Initiative (SVCI) to help provide some clarity. Given that VC makes up a substantial part of the business and research and development worlds, the fact that so little is known about the industry’s internal mechanisms is disconcerting. The goal of the SVCI is to make
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Veteran Chicago Booth Admissions Dean Moves into New Role
Kurt Ahlm
Since 2011, Kurt Ahlm has served as the associate dean of full-time MBA admissions and the executive director of marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Within his roles, Ahlm has been in charge of everything from candidate evaluation to marketing, operations, and communications. Due to his exceptional work in these roles, he has been promoted to a new role as the chief marketing and communications officer (CMCO) for the school.
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Forté Announces New MBAExplore Program for Pre-MBA Women
Deciding whether or not you want to go to business school to earn your MBA is not usually a spur-of-the-moment decision. There are a lot of questions you need to answer first. Is an MBA the right degree for you? How will it impact your career? Does it make sense financially? To help women who may be considering these and other questions, the Forté Foundation recently launched its new MBAExplore program. The deadline to apply is July 8th.
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Our Latest Podcast: Admissions Director Q&A with MIT Sloan’s Dawna Levenson
After a brief hiatus, we are delighted to resume the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast series with a terrific interview with Dawna Levenson, who was just promoted to assistant dean of admissions at MIT Sloan School of Management. Describing herself as a “true, blue Bostonian,” Levenson holds both undergraduate and graduate degrees from MIT. (Her advanced degree is not an MBA, but that’s only because the school didn’t yet offer one when she was a student.) She has worked full time in admissions at Sloan for the past six years and read applications on a part-time
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Cornell Johnson Women Turn Out in Droves at Forté Conference
Each year, the Forté Foundation hosts the two-day MBA Women’s Leadership Conference. This year's event was held in Atlanta at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business, and a record number of women MBA students from Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Business attended. Not only did Johnson have its most impressive conference showing to date, but it also had the second-highest number of representatives in attendance.
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Renowned Economics Professor Laura Tyson to Serve as Berkeley Haas Interim Dean
Economics Professor Laura D’Andrea Tyson will serve as interim dean of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business starting July 1st, Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ announced yesterday. Tyson, who joined the Haas faculty in 1990, succeeds Dean Richard Lyons, who is stepping down after 11 years in the role. Tyson is no stranger to the role of dean, having served at Haas’s helm from 1998 to 2001 and as dean of London Business School from 2002 to 2006. She will serve as interim dean while the chancellor’s office continues to seek a permanent replacement for
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Dean Judy Olian Leaves UCLA Anderson
Dean Judy Olian conferred degrees upon graduating MBA students at UCLA Anderson School of Management earlier this month, marking the end of an era. Beginning July 1st, Olian will step into a new role as president of Quinnipiac University. Describing her time at UCLA Anderson as “a privilege and a joy,” Olian addressed the crowd of 800 graduates, family, and friends. “These last 12-plus years at UCLA have been the best years of my life,” she said. The Australian-born Olian studied psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and industrial relations at the University of Wisconsin before beginning her
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UVA Darden Announces New Early Action Round, Expanded Scholarships, and More
This week, the University of Virginia Darden School of Business announced the kick off of its 2018 application season for the full-time MBA Class of 2021. Along with this announcement, the school unveiled a new admissions calendar and several updates to the admissions process. There’s now a new early action round with an open interview process as well as additional opportunities to interact with the school.
Below are the updates that MBA applicants can expect for the 2018-2019 application season.
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MBA Applicants Hold High Expectations for Business School Admissions Process, Survey Finds
According to the 2018 MBA Applicant Survey conducted by the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC), MBA applicants expect a lot from business schools as they make their way through the admissions process. Not only do they want the schools themselves to be more transparent—including providing status updates, feedback, and earlier wait list decisions—they also want more consultant advice and interaction.
“More transparency in terms of the status of the application will be appreciated,” wrote one survey respondent. “Leading schools like [schools] were notoriously quiet about the application for more than 5 weeks..”
Even applicants whose bids for admission were unsuccessful want more from schools. "Feedback at some point would be fantastic," wrote one. "At least some indication of what portion of an application was below expectation would be helpful even just for personal development.”
The latest annual AIGAC survey drew almost 2,000 responses from applicants to more than two dozen leading business schools. Results were released as part of the admissions consultant group's annual conference, which took place last week at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.
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State-of-the-Art Marion Anderson Hall to Launch UCLA Anderson into the Future
Last fall, UCLA Anderson School of Management broke ground on Marion Anderson Hall, a new state-of-the-art facility designed as a “blueprint for the future” of the school. Developed in response to the dramatic expansion in programming, student body, and faculty that UCLA Anderson has experienced in the past 23 years, Marion Anderson Hall expands the existing cluster of five interconnected buildings that comprise the UCLA Anderson campus. As the new primary entrance to the UCLA Anderson campus, the building will serve as both a symbolic and functional gateway to the school. Its design seeks to complement the
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Kellogg Admissions Director Shares Insights on 2019 MBA Application
Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management is one of several leading business schools to release its 2019-2020 MBA application online within the last week. At Kellogg, deadlines for the upcoming admission season are as follow: September 19, 2018 January 9, 2019 April 10, 2019 To help you get started, Director of Admissions Melissa Rapp provided insight into the 2019 MBA application along with some great advice on how to prepare. We’ve shared some of the most pertinent details below. Written Essay Questions Remain Unchanged The Kellogg written essay questions remain the same this year as last. Applicants will need to
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Leading Business School Admissions Directors Share Pro Tips for Applicants in Unique May Events
Admissions directors from seven leading business schools convened last month for MBA admissions events in San Francisco and Washington, DC, giving prospective applicants an unusual opportunity to learn more about how to navigate the admissions process directly from the people who know best. Clear Admit Editor-in-Chief Jeanette Brown peppered representatives from Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, Duke’s Fuqua School, Michigan’s Ross School, NYU Stern School, UVA’s Darden School, and the Yale School of
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UPenn Collaborates with Ripple on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
To support academic research, technical development, and innovation in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and ledger technology, the University of Pennsylvania earlier this month announced the launch of the Ripple Project at Penn. The project is a new collaboration between the Wharton School, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Ripple, a blockchain-based global payments leader.
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These Four Attributes Will Help You Get into Tuck’s MBA Program
Nice guys finish last? Not so if you’re an applicant to the MBA program at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. Tuck’s admissions director yesterday outlined new, simplified criteria for evaluating MBA applicants—part of the school’s continuing commitment to being as open and transparent in its admissions process as possible. When it comes right down to it, Tuck wants students who are a combination of the following four attributes: nice, smart, accomplished, and aware. As part of a news story on the school’s website outlining the new evaluation criteria, Tuck Executive Director of Admissions and
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NYU Stern Reinstates November Deadline Amid Other Slight Shifts, Maintains Popular “Pick Six” Essay
NYU Stern School of Business today becomes the latest school to share its 2018-2019 MBA admissions deadlines and essay questions, including a few changes from last year. We caught up with Isser Gallogly, Stern associate dean, MBA admissions and program innovation, to get the latest. Here’s what we learned. For starters, Gallogly and his team have decided to reinstate the November deadline they eliminated last year for the full-time, two-year MBA program. This means a return to a four deadlines: October 15th, November 15th, January 15th, and March 15th. “Last year we gave it
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Wharton: New Essay, New MBA Admissions Director?
Late last week, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School revealed its essay questions for the 2018-19 MBA admissions season, including a change to the second prompt. Instead of the prompt it has used for the past several years—in which candidates are asked to describe how they will contribute to the collaborative Wharton community—Essay 2 this year is more specific. “Describe an impactful experience or accomplishment that is not reflected elsewhere in your application. How will you use what you learned through that experience to contribute to the Wharton community?” Clear Admit will soon release its
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