MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
Published: March 29, 2015
Columbia Business School Admissions Gears Up for J-Term Applications
While Columbia Business School (CBS) admissions is still busy reviewing applications for students hoping to secure a spot for fall 2015, it is also preparing for applicants to the January Accelerated (J-Term) program, which provides an innovative opportunity for candidates whose career goals don’t require a summer internship.
Columbia’s J-Term condenses the entire academic program of the two-year MBA into 16 months. Beginning in January, candidates study straight through the summer, foregoing the summer internship that is part of the traditional two-year MBA. For those who can achieve their career goals without a summer internship—entrepreneurs or those who plan to return to a family business, for example—the J-Term’s condensed schedule presents a significantly lower opportunity cost than the two-year MBA.
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Published: March 26, 2015
Leading Admissions Consultants Converge in France, England for AIGAC Annual Conference
Leading graduate management admissions consultants are gathering this week in Europe for the eighth annual Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC) members’ conference, where they will share best practices and speak directly with admissions officers from many of the world’s top business school.
Almost 30 attendees representing admissions consultancies from 12 different countries are scheduled to attend the seven-day conference, which takes places at London Business School (LBS) and includes visits to INSEAD, HEC Paris and Cambridge Judge Business School.
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Published: March 25, 2015
Economist, GMAT Tutor Launch $25,000 Scholarship Competition for MBA, EMBA Applicants
The Economist and test prep firm GMAT Tutor have once again partnered to offer a $25,000 scholarship to the prospective MBA or EMBA student who scores highest on a simulated GMAT exam. Called the Brightest Minds MBA Scholarship Contest, the competition is open to prospective MBA or EMBA students anywhere in the world. The first competition ran in 2014, drawing more than 4,500 entrants, The Economist reported.
To take part in the contest, applicants simply complete The Economist GMAT Tutor simulation test, which uses adaptive technology similar to the real GMAT so that the difficulty level adjusts according to the test-taker’s ability. The simulation test requires the completion of a 75-minute Verbal section and a 75-minute Quant section. Participants should have the available time to complete the test in a single sitting and will not be able to pause once they begin.
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Published: March 22, 2015
UVA’s Darden School of Business Launches New Asia Initiative
The University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business earlier this month announced its strategic Asia Initiative at Darden, part of the school’s continuing investment in globalization.
One of the initiative’s main objectives will be to advance the understanding of the dynamics of Asian markets as a critical component of business education. Through its expanded engagement in Asia, the school also hopes to enhance its expertise and resources in the region, facilitate greater collaboration and new partnerships and improve communication between faculty, students and alumni from Darden with business leaders and policymakers in Asia.
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Published: March 19, 2015
Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management Welcomes New Admissions Director
The S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management has named a new executive director of admissions and financial aid and further strengthened the admissions office with several other new hires, the school announced this week. The reinvigorated admissions team complements a recent re-launch of the school’s two-year MBA curriculum, Johnson reports.
Judi Byers, formerly admissions director at American University’s Kogod School of Business in Washington, DC, brings more than 10 years of admissions experience to her new role at Johnson. She joined Kogod, where she received her undergraduate degree in business, in 2004 as a marketing admissions coordinator, advancing to lead the admissions team by 2013.
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Published: March 16, 2015
UPenn’s Wharton School Announces New Partnership for Student-Led Impact Investing
Students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School will have new opportunities to gain hands-on experience with impact investment thanks to a innovative partnership with an online crowdfunding platform and an investment firm founded by Wharton MBAs, the school announced earlier this month.
The Wharton Social Impact Initiative (WSII), which coordinates the school’s social impact activities, research and opportunities, has partnered with equity-based online crowdfunding platform OurCrowd and investment firm Locust Walk Impact Partners to create what the school touts as the “largest and most active student-run impact investing fund in the world.” The new collaboration greatly expands the student-run Wharton Social Venture Fund (WSVF), which is operated under the WSII.
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Published: March 15, 2015
SXSW Conference Spotlights Business School Students’ Embrace of Design
Student-led design clubs can be found at 70 percent of the top-ranked MBA programs both in the United States and globally, an indicator that MBA students are embracing design wholeheartedly as part of their general management education, according to a presentation yesterday at the SXSW Conference in Austin. The presentation, entitled “Design in Tech,” was delivered by John Maeda, former president of the Rhode Island School of Design who last year joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) as its first “Design Partner.”
As part of the presentation, Maeda provided a data-driven examination of the intersection of design and technology. Reporting on the findings of his inaugural “Design and Technology Trends Report,” Maeda highlighted the rising importance of design in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, noting the acquisition of design firms by tech companies like Facebook and Google, as well as the trend toward venture capitalists funding startups that have designers as co-founders.
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Published: March 12, 2015
Yale School of Management Announces New LGBT Scholarship
Class of 2017 students at the Yale School of Management who demonstrate both strong academic skills and a capacity for leadership within the lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender and queer (LBGT) community will now be eligible for a new scholarship opportunity, the school announced this week. Through its partnership with Reaching Out MBA, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering LBGT MBA students, Yale SOM will award two Reaching Out LGBT MBA Fellowships to incoming Yale SOM students.
Recipients of the fellowships will receive a minimum of $10,000 in scholarship aid for each academic year, as well as access to a range of Reaching Out programming, mentoring and leadership opportunities, including some developed especially for the Fellows.
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Published: March 10, 2015
Stanford GSB Edges Out HBS, Wharton in 2016 U.S. News & World Report Rankings
Stanford’s Graduate School of Business took the number one spot in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of the nation’s best MBA programs, released yesterday, knocking Harvard Business School (HBS) to second and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School to third. Last year, the three powerhouse schools tied for first place, but slight differences on core metrics caused HBS and Wharton to slip this year.
U.S. News uses multiple core measurements to compile its rankings, with the greatest weight given to quality assessments by deans and MBA directors at peer schools and corporate recruiter survey scores. Wharton’s scores slipped in both these regards, as well as in average pay for its MBA graduates, precipitating its drop this year in the rankings.
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UPenn’s Wharton School Names Insider as New Director of MBA Admissions
The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School has named a new director of admissions, the school announced to students last week. Frank DeVecchis will work closely with existing Deputy Vice Dean of Wharton MBA Admissions, Financial Aid and Career Services Maryellen Reilly Lamb to oversee the entire application process, from recruitment through matriculation.
DeVecchis knows the Wharton MBA program like few others. He joins the Admissions team from Wharton’s MBA Program Office, where he served most recently as director of MBA Academic Operations. In this role, he led all operations and daily management of the MBA program, including successfully implementing Wharton’s new Course Match course registration program. He also advised more than 800 students during his tenure as the senior member of the MBA academic advising team and helped plan and implement Wharton’s three-week orientation for incoming students.
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Who Makes a Good Applicant to Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management?
With the Round 3 deadline for applications to the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University just a few days away, are you busy putting the finishing touches on your application? Maybe you are just beginning to consider applying in the year ahead. In either case, if Johnson at Cornell is on your radar, read on to learn more about just what the school is looking for in its applicants.
We recently spoke with Eddie Asbie, Associate Director of Admissions and Financial Aid, who joined Johnson in 2013 to help develop the Two-year MBA in Ithaca class. In our interview, Asbie took time to share some of what makes a good applicant in the eyes of the Johnson Admissions Committee, beyond the obvious solid entrance exam scores and strong academics that are par for the course with a top-tier Ivy League school.
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IESE Becomes Latest Business School to Ink Deal with Prodigy Finance for International MBA Loans
Spain’s IESE Business School has reached an agreement with U.K.‒based Prodigy Finance that will enable it to offer a new loan to international MBA and Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) students to help them finance their studies, the school announced this week. In other words, financing an IESE education just became much easier for students who live outside of Spain.
The new deal expands IESE’s existing loans and scholarships, which help students cover tuition fees and living costs. International students, though, have faced hurdles because existing loan programs offered by IESE have required co-signers.
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Consulting Projects Take Tuck School of Business Students around the Globe
MBA students at the Tuck School of Business have been putting what they learn in the classroom to work in the field as part of a global onsite consulting program that debuted in 1997. To date, they have completed more than 194 projects in more than 50 countries, the school reports.
The program, called Tuck OnSite Global Consulting, or OnSite for short, is available as an elective to second-year MBA students. As part of the experiential learning opportunity, MBAs hone their skills by providing professional quality consulting services to worldwide clients. The clients benefit, too – OnSite provides a cost-effective solution for corporations, nonprofits and governments for which time, money or manpower is in short supply.
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Harvard Business School Names New Innovation Lab Director
If Harvard Business School (HBS) is in your cross hairs, and if innovation and entrepreneurial pursuits are what rev you up, you may be interested to learn that Harvard’s innovation lab will soon have a new commander in chief. Jodi Goldstein, a long-time investor and entrepreneur, will become Harvard i-lab’s new Evans Family Foundation Managing Director beginning this June, responsible for leading the university-wide facility that brings students, faculty, alumni and the community together for team-based and other entrepreneurial activities.
Goldstein, who replaces outgoing Managing Director Gordon Jones, is no stranger the i-lab, Indeed, she’s been part of its management team since the lab’s 2011 launch, coming up with and implementing much of the top programming and resources it’s been able to offer. Just last year she spearheaded the Launch Lab, a business incubator for Harvard alumni, which is putting Allston, MA—where the i-lab is located—on the map as a solutions-centered hub swirling with interdisciplinary collaboration.
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Published: February 24, 2015
New Director Reinvigorates UC Berkeley Business Startup Accelerator
A Haas alumna and entrepreneur who has led several startups of her own has taken over as executive director of SkyDeck, the startup accelerator at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, the school reported this month.
Caroline Winnett, MBA ’90, who served most recently as founder and CEO of a neuroscience-inspired marketing company called BrandNeuro, met with Dean Rich Lyons because she wanted to run an accelerator program at Berkeley-Haas. Voila. She got her wish, joining as executive director of SkyDeck in November 2014.
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Published: February 22, 2015
Association of MBAs (AMBA) Director Predicts Future MBA Trends
An article in today’s Independent provided a glimpse into the future of the MBA degree as the director of a global MBA accrediting body shared his picks for the top five MBA trends of 2015. Andrew Main Wilson is CEO of the Association of MBAs (AMBA), described as an international impartial authority on postgraduate management education. In this role, he pays close attention to the ever evolving MBA. In the near future, he tells us to look for alternative funding sources for MBA studies, a wider range of specializations, more growth in entrepreneurialism, curriculum changes and flexible delivery and learning.
Citing the AMBA 2012 Salary Survey, Wilson notes that corporate sponsorship of the MBA has been and continues to fall, which has led to the development of new funding sources, such as crowd funding and peer-to-peer lending. These, he says, “are likely to increase in popularity - and are certainly going to become a trend in 2015.”
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Published: February 18, 2015
150th Birthday Gift to Cornell’s Johnson School to Support Faculty Renewal, Strengthen Ties to College of Engineering
Cornell University turns 150 this year, and to mark the occasion, an alumnus of both the Johnson Graduate School of Management and the College of Engineering, together with his wife, have made a gift to help support faculty renewal and enhanced collaboration between the business and engineering schools, Cornell announced this month.
The Eiko and Sudi Mariappa Sesquicentennial Fellowship, named for benefactors Sudi Marippa—who earned his Johnson MBA in 1986 after graduating from the College of Engineering with a BS in chemical engineering in 1982—and his wife, is designed to draw talented academics to Cornell to serve as both teachers and mentors.
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Published: February 17, 2015
USC Marshall School of Business Draws Google, Amazon Studios to Annual Evolution of Entertainment Conference
A student-led club at the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business will draw executives from Google, Amazon Studios, Electronic Arts and others to its 7th annual Evolution of Entertainment (E2) Conference later this month, the school announced.
The conference, hosted by MBA student group Business of Entertainment Association, will take place on Friday, February 27th. This year’s topic, “Convergence: Mobile, Media and Technology,” will focus on the overlap of media, technology and entertainment across all platforms. Corporate sponsors this year include Entertainment Arts, OnPrem, Warner Bros., SanDisk and Deloitte Digital.
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Published: February 16, 2015
UPenn’s Wharton School Debuts New Online Business Foundations Series, Associated MBA Scholarship
The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School has expanded its online offerings of foundational MBA courses to now include a Business Foundations Specialization series that adds a capstone project in which participants can apply what they learn to help solve real-world business issues, the school announced last week. And in another new twist, Wharton will invite top performers in the online series to apply to one of the school’s graduate programs, waiving the application fee, and will award up to five $20,000 scholarships to applicants who are admitted.
As with the initial four courses in Wharton’s Foundation Series – Accounting, Finance, Marketing and Operations Management – the new Capstone Project component is available through online education platform Coursera. Wharton was one of the first leading business schools to present the building blocks of its MBA curriculum in online form to a world audience.
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Published: February 15, 2015
Prodigy Finance Offers No Co-Signer Loans, Helping Solve Funding Challenges Facing MBAs Studying Abroad
Studying outside of the country of your nationality or residence can present many benefits to prospective MBA applicants. See the world, improve language skills, expand horizons, learn first-hand how increasingly global the business world has become. And yet, one major hurdle can sometimes prevent ambitious, talented prospective MBA applicants from pursuing their education abroad. That pesky little detail of funding.
Traditional banks are reluctant to lend across borders because tracking and enforcement of those loans suddenly becomes more difficult. Many U.S. banks, for example, won’t lend to foreign students without a U.S. co-signer, someone local the banks can go after to recoup their debt if the borrower fails to repay.
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Published: February 9, 2015
Wharton Round 2 Applicants Await Interview Invitations
Tomorrow’s the day. If you applied to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School as part of Round 2, you will very likely be checking your email repeatedly in hopes that an invitation to interview lands in your inbox. Good luck!
Wharton uses the Team-Based Discussion (TBD) format for interviews, as it has for the past few years. In terms of logistics, those invited to interview tomorrow can choose from a range of locations around the globe, including Wharton’s campus in Philadelphia, as well as San Francisco, London, Dubai, Mumbai, Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo. Each TBD will include five or six applicants grouped by the order in which they sign up for various locations. And interviews will take place beginning in late February.
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Published: February 8, 2015
Johnson Graduate School of Management Upends Its Curriculum
As some leading business schools prepare to welcome new deans – Darden and Tuck spring to mind – others are choosing to revamp their MBA curriculum. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Harvard Business School and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management have all recast their core course offerings in recent years, and now the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University is getting in on the curriculum overhaul action.
Johnson recently went public with its redesigned curriculum, providing an overview of its main features as part of a press release earlier this month. Now in full roll-out mode to the Class of 2016, the changes are designed to place greater emphasis on collaboration, leadership and analytical skills, which the school hopes will better prepare students for today’s technology-driven global business world.
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Published: February 8, 2015
Take the 2015 MBA Applicant Survey For Your Chance to Win $500!
The Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC), of which Clear Admit is a member, has just released the 2015 MBA Applicant Survey. If you respond by the end of February, you will be eligible to enter a drawing for a $500 cash reward. The cash prize will be sent by PayPal. The survey takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete, and your responses will be kept confidential.
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Published: February 4, 2015
NYU Stern School of Business Woos Top College Seniors with Generous MBA Scholarship
Though many leading business schools prefer MBA applicants who have acquired at least a few years of work experience after college, NYU Stern School of Business features a special scholarship designed specifically for exceptional college seniors who seek to pursue a full-time MBA immediately after graduation.
The William R. Berkley Scholarship Program, established in 2013, covers the full two-year tuition and fees for NYU Stern’s full-time MBA program. It also provides a housing stipend of $18,000/year and an additional $10,000/year stipend for books and other expenses. Successful entrepreneur William R. Berkley (BS 1966) created the program that bears his name with a $10 million donation. He pursued his MBA at Harvard Business School immediately after graduating from Stern and wanted to provide similar opportunities for other aspiring young students like himself.
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Published: February 1, 2015
Kellogg School of Management Releases Super Bowl Advertising Review Results
With a game that was competitive until the final 20 seconds of play, last night’s Super Bowl kept football fans on the edge of their seats. But MBA students at Kellogg’s School of Management were focused on competition of another sort: the battle for best Super Bowl ad. With almost 70 Kellogg MBA students reviewing all of the spots, McDonald’s emerged the victor, the school reports.
McDonald’s spot, “Lovin’ Pays,” announced a new promotion the fast food chain will feature from now through Valentine’s Day, in which select customers will be invited to pay for their order not with money but with “lovin,’” including happy dances, calls to tell their mom they love her, etc. McDonald’s Super Bowl strategy also extended to Twitter, where the company gave away prizes to people who re-tweeted flattering messages it tweeted about fellow Super Bowl advertisers.
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