MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
Georgetown McDonough Announces New Flex MBA Program
In response to market research and student requests, Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business is adding greater flexibility to its part-time MBA program. The updates include technological innovations for the inclusion of hybrid courses, new course delivery options, and a more adjustable program duration. The idea behind the new Georgetown Flex MBA is to ensure that working professionals can better balance their career commitments with their personal commitments.
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Top Business Schools Respond to Trump Administration’s Repeal of Affirmative Action Guidelines
Potential future diversity on college and graduate school campuses may be impacted by the Trump administration's decision earlier this month to withdraw guidance that higher education institutions use affirmative action in their admissions processes. The move was announced on July 3rd when the Departments of Justice and Education retracted several letters and memos that encouraged schools to consider race in admissions and other decisions to promote diversity.
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Dartmouth Tuck Admissions Director Talks Admissions Events and Application Updates
Luke Anthony Peña, admissions director at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, returned to the Tuck 360 MBA blog this month to bring readers up to speed on the latest developments in admissions. In his July post, he offered advice on attending business school events as well as additional details on the recent updates to Tuck’s application process and assessment criteria. His words prove particularly timely given that Tuck’s application went live last week. Below we’ve pulled out the highlights from Peña’s latest post. Admissions Events Summer is a busy time for an MBA admissions team. At Tuck, the team has been
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The Inside Scoop on Cornell Johnson’s New “Back of the Resume” Essay
If you’re considering Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Business or have already begun thinking about crafting your application, you may already know that the school has swapped out one of its long-standing essay prompts in favor of something new. The 2018-19 Johnson MBA application is slated to go live on August 1st. For years, applicants to Johnson have been invited to imagine themselves as the author of their Life Story and submit a corresponding Table of Contents. “The ToC was a beloved essay prompt that predates my time joining the team back in 2015,”
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Our Latest Podcast: Admissions Director Q&A With Tuck’s Luke Anthony Peña, Part I
In this wide-ranging interview on the admissions process at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, Luke Anthony Peña shares a little about his transition to Tuck from Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB). Peña came to Tuck just over a year ago, after working for several years in admissions at Stanford, where he also obtained his own MBA. With Tuck’s application for the Class of 2021 live as of this morning, Peña’s interview comes at just the right time, providing valuable insight into the school, its culture, and its recently revamped admissions process. For one, he
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Babson Olin Appoints Keith Rollag as New Dean
Earlier this month, the Babson College F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business named its new dean: Keith Rollag. A management professor with more than 17 years of experience teaching entrepreneurial leadership at Babson, Rollag was chosen for his campus leadership and vision for the graduate school’s future.
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GMAT Score, International Students Both Up for NYU Stern Class of 2020
NYU Stern School of Business last week shared a preliminary profile of its incoming class of full-time, two-year MBA students, the Class of 2020. Even amid some declines, the school showed gains in the diversity of its class and added a few points to the average GMAT score for incoming students. This year saw 3,781 applicants—down from 3,927 for the Class of 2019. Of this year’s applicants, 876 applicants were admitted (23 percent) and 375 enrolled. Last year, 822 applicants were admitted (21 percent), yielding 402 enrolled students. Although the percentage of women dropped slightly year
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Inside the McCombs MBA Class of 2020
After its exhaustive evaluation of more than 2,000 applications from around the world, UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business just released a first look at the profile of its Full-Time MBA Class of 2020. This coming year, the admissions committee chose a diverse and highly driven cross-section of MBAs-to-be. Meet the McCombs Full-Time MBA Class of 2020 The McCombs admissions team thoughtfully considered the class by connecting with applicants through a variety of outlets including MBA events, the online application, and applicant visits to campus. Here are a few of statistical highlights McCombs wants to
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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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