MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
Published: August 26, 2015
Social Media in the MBA Admissions Process: How Careful Should You Be?
While presidential candidate Donald Trump has shown that decorum on social media is not necessarily a prerequisite for running for the highest office in the land, admissions directors at leading MBA programs suggest that prospective applicants might do well to show a little more caution when it comes to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
Just what is the role of social media in the MBA admissions process, you ask? We wondered that, too. To get a clearer picture, we checked in with some of our sources in the admissions offices at leading business schools. We discovered that different schools take different approaches when it comes to checking out a candidate’s social media presence—and protocols are still evolving.
Read more
Published: August 25, 2015
Incoming Ross First-Years Help Detroit’s Brightmoor Community Rebound
What better way to get to know your business school classmates than by working together to make an impact on a local community? At the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, first-year MBA students are doing just that as part of the school’s annual Impact Challenge. The unique, immersive leadership development program, organized by the Sanger Leadership Center, brings together the entire class of incoming Ross first-years for a week-long, intense business challenge designed to make a difference in Detroit’s Brightmoor community.
As part of the 2015 Impact Challenge, incoming Ross first-years will work together with close to 60 local high schools students, helping them develop business plans and products for the brand-new Brightmoor Maker Space—a community workshop and incubator where ideas generated by teens and community residents will come to life. The Ross MBA students will also organize a Maker Faire and pitch competition for the teens.
Read more
Published: August 24, 2015
HBS Draws More Women, Adds Six Points to GMAT Median
When it released its preliminary class profile in June, Harvard Business School (HBS) was expecting its incoming class to be 41 percent female, a record for the school. In August, with students preparing to move in on campus, things look even better.
HBS DRAWS MORE WOMEN THAN PRELIMINARY PROFILE SUGGESTED
Dee Leopold, HBS managing director of admissions and financial aid, posted the final Class of 2017 profile on her Direct from the Director blog today, revealing that women will in fact make up 42 percent of the class, a two point increase over last year. While this still trails Kellogg and Wharton—each reported earlier this month that 43 percent of their incoming classes will be women—it puts HBS ahead of last year’s leader of the pack, UC Berkeley’s Haas School, which this year slipped to 41 percent, from a high of 43 last year.
Read more
Published: August 24, 2015
MBA Interview Jitters? Don’t Miss Clear Admit’s Latest Interview Guides
We know. The interview can be one of the most nerve-wracking components of the entire MBA application process. But it doesn’t have to be. Clear Admit’s in-depth Interview Guide Series provides expert advice and insider tips on what to expect and how to prepare—helping you quash the MBA interview jitters and ace the interview.
A sample page from one of the guides.
With interview invites already rolling out at schools like Columbia Business School and Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, now’s the time to check out these valuable guides. Five in the series have just been updated for the 2015-16 application season: CBS, Tuck, INSEAD, HBS and Fuqua.
Read more
Published: August 23, 2015
Chicago Booth Re-Ups with Dean Sunil Kumar
Just as business schools like Tuck and Darden bid adieu to long-time deans, Chicago Booth is saying “Play it again, Sunil.” University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer and Provost Eric D. Isaacs announced last week that Dean Sunil Kumar has been appointed to a second five-year term at the school’s helm.
Zimmer and Issacs praised Kumar’s commitment to the success of Booth’s faculty, students and alumni in Chicago and around the globe in a message to the Chicago Booth community. “We look forward to working with Sunil in the years ahead to ensure that Booth remains a preeminent destination for business education and scholarship,” they wrote.
Read more
Published: August 20, 2015
Percentage of Female MBA Students at Haas Dips Slightly, but Total Number of Women in Program Reaches New High
The Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley last year made headlines when it enrolled a record-setting 43 percent women in its incoming class, besting all other leading business schools and representing a 14-point gain over the year before, when female MBA students at Haas made up just 29 percent of the class. This year, Haas saw a slight decline in women in its incoming class—to 41 percent. But combined with the women in last year’s class, the program as a whole now counts more total women than ever before, the school points out.
Overall, the full-time MBA program still hovers at almost 43 percent female, making it a frontrunner for top MBA programs. “School and student leaders say the class composition both reflects and builds on their push for gender equity,” read a recent article on the Haas website.
Read more
Published: August 17, 2015
Columbia Business School Centennial Celebration to Include 15 Months’ of Activities
Columbia Business School is turning 100! Yesterday marked the kickoff of a Columbia Business School centennial celebration designed to mark a century of developing leaders who impact both business and society. As part of the celebration of the century, the school has unveiled a new website that captures the achievements of the past 100 years through stories, photographs, a comprehensive timeline and more. CBS has also announced 15 months of events and programming and debuted a brand-new video series that showcases the school’s achievements while looking forward to its future impact.
“Since 1916, Columbia Business School has been shaping the landscape of the modern business world as a producer of cutting-edge research and ideas, innovator in the way education is delivered and developer of a global network of extraordinary influence,” CBS Dean Glenn Hubbard said in a statement. The school will call together that global network over this year and next to celebrate, he added. “Together, we will help usher in a new century of impact, innovation and community.”
Read more
Published: August 14, 2015
Record Alumni Giving at Tuck Raises More Funds than Any Prior Year
Record alumni giving at Tuck again? Yes, you read that right. Tuck alumni have outdone themselves once more this year as part of the annual Tuck Annual Giving (TAG) campaign, raising an all-time high of $6.4 million. For five years running, more than 70 percent of Tuck graduates have contributed to the campaign—a participation rate that dwarfs even the closest competitors among other business schools.
“Once again, our alumni have shown their satisfaction with and loyalty to Tuck as a truly special place like no other,” says John Torget T’00, director of Tuck Annual Giving. While Tuck did not publicly release an actual donor count, Torget says more alumni than ever before gave this year. Last year, 6,332 alumni took part, according to the school’s reports.
Read more
Published: August 13, 2015
Wharton Joins the 43 Percent Club, Average GMAT Score Soars
The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania will welcome a 43 percent female class this year, according to Class of 2017 profile statistics released this morning, placing it among the front runners of elite business schools. Just last week, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern shared class profile statistics, revealing that it, too, has an incoming class that is 43 percent women. Both schools this year match UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business female enrollment last year, when that school held the record.
Notably, Wharton did set a record itself in 2011, when women made up 44.7 percent of its entering class. But the school then backslid a little, to 42 percent in 2013 and 40 percent last year. It’s nice to see the Philadelphia school regain some ground.
Read more
Published: August 12, 2015
High-Touch Outreach by Current Students Helps Boost Kellogg’s Female Enrollment
The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University is very excited about its incoming class—and with good reason. A record 43 percent of the Class of 2017 is female—a five-point surge over last year—making Kellogg a frontrunner in a national race to increase female enrollment at business schools. Indeed, Kellogg’s class profile was released just a day before the Council of Economic Advisers and the Council on Women and Girls convened representatives from dozens of leading business schools at the White House to commit to a set of best practices developed to expand opportunities for women in business school and beyond.
But Kellogg's female enrollment wasn’t the only statistic to surge with its newest class. Kellogg’s average GMAT score also jumped, from 716 last year to an all-time high of 724 this year, effectively countering any misplaced concerns that admissions standards with regard to academic caliber might falter as part of a business school gender drive.
Read more
Published: August 9, 2015
UT McCombs Launches New LinkedIn Recommendation Option for MBA Applicants
Beginning this application season, the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin will let MBA applicants use recommendations from their LinkedIn profiles in lieu of traditional letters submitted by recommenders directly to the school. This new option, which went live with the McCombs’s 2015-16 full-time MBA application late last week, is a first among leading business schools.
Feedback from previous applicants and admissions consultants drove the change, says Rodrigo Malta, McCombs director of MBA admissions. “We gather input from applicants at the end of each season, and one of the main pain points we identified were letters of recommendation,” he says. Every school was doing it differently, requiring applicants to go to recommenders with multiple requests. “AIGAC (the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants) also gave us feedback about how painful the recommendation letter process was to both applicants and recommenders, even driving some applicants to draft and submit letters on behalf of their recommenders,” he continued.
Read more
Published: August 5, 2015
LiveWire Data Offers Interesting Insights into Admissions Results
Clear Admit launched its MBA LiveWire feature in December 2014, giving applicants unique real-time insight into how their peers are faring in the admissions process at 33 leading MBA programs around the world. Perhaps most fun, LiveWire lets people share the good news when they are accepted to their target school. It also gives those still waiting to hear a heads up that decisions are rolling out. But more than that, seeing the self-reported GMAT scores and GPAs of other applicants also enables those who follow LiveWire to benchmark their own credentials against their peers.
Now, with almost eight months of collected data, LiveWire also provides a means of analyzing prior admissions cycles. In fact, we have just undertaken the first analysis of LiveWire responses, and the scatterplot here showcases what we’ve found.
Read more
Published: August 3, 2015
Leadership? At Kenan-Flagler, There’s an App for That
Leadership development is a primary focus at top business schools all over the world, with professors, core courses, initiatives and centers all devoted to shaping MBA students into the leaders of tomorrow. The Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is taking things to a new level with the launch of its Leadership App, a digital tool designed to deliver the school’s signature leadership development content directly to students on their iPads.
Kenan-Flagler launched its leadership initiative in 2005 to give its MBA students a competitive advantage in the job market, according to Mindy Storrie, director of leadership development at UNC Kenan-Flagler. In the ten years since, the school has customized the leadership content for all of its degree programs.
Read more
Wharton India Economic Forum to Take Place in Both India and Philadelphia
This post has been republished in its entirety from its original source, metromba.com.
The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania has announced that it will hold its annual India-focused conference next year in India for the first time. The Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF), which is marking its 20th anniversary, has historically been held on Wharton's Philadelphia campus. The 2016 conference will be held both in Mumbai and Philadelphia. The main goal of the conference is to bring together industry leaders, investors, government leaders and Wharton professors to discuss specific challenges facing the Indian economy and Indian businesses.
Read more
Haas-Accenture Partnership Creates New Big Data Curriculum
From financial services to retail to utilities, companies in an ever-increasing range of industries are exploring and implementing big data and analytics. To equip its MBAs with the tools they need to understand how data science stands to transform business, the Haas School at the University of California at Berkeley has forged a new partnership with global management consulting, technology and outsourcing company Accenture. Together, they have launched a multi-phase initiative designed to position big data squarely within the Haas curriculum.
“Today, every company is a technology company, every company is a software company, every company is a data company,” says Gregory La Blanc, a finance and technology lecturer at Haas. “To be successful, our students need to know how to navigate the strategic landscape in a world filled with all this data.”
Read more
CMU’s Tepper School Appoints New MBA Program Head
The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) recently appointed a new head of its MBA program, the school announced last week. Kathryn (Kate) Barraclough comes to Tepper from the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University, where she served as director of the school’s Masters in Finance program while also teaching a range of finance courses.
“Kate Barraclough brings an impressive and broad background, ranging from academia to financial services,” Tepper School Dean Robert Dammon said in a statement announcing her appointment. “Her achievements as a scholar, researcher and educational leader were fundamental qualities that led to her appointment.”
Read more
GMAC Debuts Interactive Post-MBA Salary Estimator
Especially given the price tag that accompanies obtaining an MBA from a leading business school, it would be foolhardy for prospective applicants not to give careful consideration to the degree’s return on investment (ROI). This, of course, will depend on the career you pursue after graduation and the salary you are able to command in that role.
Turns out you’re in luck. The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which administers the GMAT entrance exam, has created a new tool designed to help prospective applicants estimate the salary they can expect to earn after completing their degree. Prospective students enter their intended industry and job function, and the tool then parses data compiled by GMAC's surveys of thousands of MBA alumni to return a tailored salary estimate.
Read more
Darden’s Dean Is Bullish on School’s Future as He Prepares to Depart
We had the distinct pleasure of speaking recently with Bob Bruner, who for the past 10 years has served as dean of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. He will step down at the end of this month, when Scott Beardsley becomes the ninth dean of the school.
In the wide-ranging interview that follows, Dean Bruner reflects on his time at Darden, the strengths his successor will bring in his role as Darden's dean, the state of graduate management education and why he is optimistic about Darden’s future.
As always, he was thoughtful and engaging, with valuable insights for anyone considering business school, whether at Darden or elsewhere. We are so grateful to him for making the time to speak with us.
Read more
Citi CIO Debby Hopkins Named Haas’ Newest Executive Fellow
This post has been republished in its entirety from its original source metromba.com.
The Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley recently named Citi Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) Debby Hopkins as Haas’ newest executive fellow. Hopkins, who is also CEO of Citi Ventures, is returning to Haas in this new role after speaking as part of the Haas Dean’s Speaker Series in 2012.
“Debby is a trailblazer, continuing to question the status quo in her industry,” Haas Dean Rich Lyons said in a statement. “Her views on innovative leadership and social enterprise deeply resonate with our school's identity—we're thrilled to welcome her back.”
Read more
New Associate Dean to Spearhead Growing Entrepreneurship at Yale SOM
As a reflection of the growing importance of entrepreneurship at the Yale School of Management (SOM), the director of the school’s entrepreneurship initiatives has been appointed associate dean, the school announced earlier this month.
Kyle Jensen joined Yale SOM last year as the inaugural Shanna and Eric Bass ’05 Director of Entrepreneurship. Under his leadership, the school’s Program on Entrepreneurship added seven new entrepreneurship courses last year, drawing students from the entire university.
Read more
Admissions Director Offers Advice on Kellogg’s New Essay Questions
We caught up with Director of Admissions Beth Tidmarsh late last week to discuss the new essay questions posted by the Kellogg School of Mangement on July 8th. Though the wording and order of the questions has changed slightly this year, applicants are asked, like last year, to respond to two required prompts and given 900 words in which to provide their answers. As in past years, applicants also have the opportunity to respond to an additional optional essay with no word limit.
Leadership and collaboration once again factor prominently into Kellogg’s new essay questions this year, but Tidmarsh and her team hope the prompts provide applicants with a great deal of latitude in how they respond.
Read more
Entrepreneurship at Ross Gets Major Boost with $60 Million Alumni Gift
A generous new pledge from longstanding benefactors to the University of Michigan will supercharge entrepreneurship studies at the Ross School of Business, the school announced today. The $60 million gift, from the Zell Family Foundation, will provide endowed support for the Samuel Zell and Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies.
The institute was originally established in 1999 with a $10 million gift from the Zell Family Foundation and the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Family Foundation. This newest injection of cash will support continued development of entrepreneurship programs for students and alumni, including $10 million dedicated to a new fund that will invest in new student business ventures.
Read more
UCLA Anderson Entrepreneurship Bootcamp Helps Kick Start Vets
This post has been reproduced in its entirety from its original source metromba.com.
On Saturday, July 11th, a group of disabled veterans will use their military abilities of resilience, focus and leadership to learn the basics of business ownership at the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) at UCLA Anderson. The event, co-hosted by the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University (IVMF) and the Harold and Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at UCLA Anderson School of Management, helps post-9/11 veterans with service-connected disabilities develop skills and tools needed to launch, grow and lead successful businesses.
Read more
New HEC Paris Dean Appointed to Succeed Outgoing Bernard Ramanantsoa
Leading French business school HEC Paris yesterday announced a new dean to succeed Bernard Ramanantsoa, who steps down at the end of August after 20 years in the role. Respected researcher and professor Peter Todd will take Ramanantsoa’s place beginning September 1st, serving as the school’s first-ever non-French dean.
The Canadian-born Todd, an expert in the fields of innovation management and information technologies, also brings significant experience managing MBA programs. Until 2014, he served as dean of the Desautels School at Canada’s McGill University, where he himself obtained his undergraduate degree.
Read more
Harvard Business School Case Method Video Slated for Makeover
If you’ve looked at the new essay prompt for Harvard Business School (HBS) this year, you may have noticed that applicants are encouraged to view a video before starting to write. If you hadn’t noticed, you’re welcome.
HBS Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold is passionate about applicants watching this video, which brings to life the signature HBS case method. “I am a nut about that,” she confesses. “If I could require that applicants watch it, I would.”
Read more
