MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
Published: January 28, 2015
Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business Names New Dean to Succeed Paul Danos
Photo by Laura DeCapua
In case you missed it, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business last week named an insider to become its 10th dean, replacing outgoing Dean Paul Danos, who steps down in June. Tuck Professor of Management and Associate Dean for Faculty Matthew Slaughter will step into the role vacated by Danos, who announced in March that he would not seek reappointment at the end of his fifth term as the school’s dean.
An expert in globalization and a scholar of international economics,Slaughter joined the Tuck faculty in 2002 and has held several key leadership roles since then. In addition to his current role as associate dean for faculty, Slaughter was also the founding faculty director of Tuck’s Center for Global Business and Government and previouly served as associate dean for the MBA program. He also served on the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President of the United States from 2005 to 2007.
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Published: January 27, 2015
Columbia Business School Launches New Center for Social Enterprise
The big news out of Columbia Business School (CBS) today is the creation of a new center devoted to social enterprise. A generous endowment gift from Sandra and Tony Tamer will establish the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise, which will be devoted to developing leaders focused on impacting society and the environment through management. The new center will also serve as a hub for all future social entrepreneurship activities at Columbia.
The Tamers’ gift expands CBS’s existing Social Enterprise Program, establishing the Tamer Fund for Social Ventures, which will provide seed grants of up to $25,000 to select nonprofit, for-profit or hybrid early-stage social ventures centered on social innovation and impact. It also allows for expansion of the existing Loan Assistance program, which helps alleviate the burden of repaying educational loans for MBA graduates who pursue careers in the public, nonprofit and social entrepreneurial sectors. The Tamers’ gift will expand this program, increasing the number of alumni it helps as well as the duration of the loan assistance from a maximum of five years to 10 years.
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Published: January 26, 2015
Harvard Business School to Send Out Round 2 Interview Invitations Beginning Tomorrow
As applicants to Harvard Business School (HBS) are probably well aware, Admissions Director Dee Leopold and her team are scheduled to send out the first of its Round 2 interview invitations tomorrow, Wednesday, January 28th. What about the blizzard that’s blanketing the northeastern portion of the United States, you wonder? As of yesterday, Leopold expected that invites will still go out as planned, at noon Boston time. “If we need to delay, we will let you know via this blog, a general announcement on the admissions website and also with a voicemail recording on our general phone line,” she wrote in a post to her Director’s Blog, but as of this writing, no updates.
So, some details about HBS interview invites. They will go out in two waves, one tomorrow, and a second on February 4th. Historically, HBS has sent out the bulk of its invites in the first wave. Leopold offered that her best guess is that roughly 600 applicants will receive invitations tomorrow, with another 200 or so receiving invitations next week. “I've said this before, but please don't speculate or develop theories or algorithms about first vs. second,” she urged. “It doesn't work that way. And it has nothing to do with when you submitted, where you live, or the first letter of your last name.”
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Published: January 22, 2015
MBA Entrepreneurial Grads Report Significant Payoffs
MBA entrepreneurial grads—specifically those who launched startups during or soon after business school— can expect to make as much as their peers who follow more traditional career paths not long out of school, according to survey data collected as part of the Financial Times’ 2015 business school rankings research.
Of the 7,800 MBA graduates from the world’s top 100 business schools who responded to the FT, 22 percent had launched a start-up. Within three years of graduation, the average annual income of these entrepreneurs was $134,000, compared to $132,000 across the entire sample, the FT reports.
A mere 5 percent of startup founders reported an annual salary of zero three years out, though the FT points out that survey respondents did have an option to not reveal their income level, so the data may not fully reflect the financial risk taking faced by entrepreneurial grads. That said, of the companies launched by survey participants, 84 percent did report still operating a full three years later.
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Published: January 21, 2015
Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business Innovates Its Approach to Admissions
Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business wants applicants to the school to walk away feeling good about their experience, regardless of whether they gain acceptance or ultimately enroll. To this end, the school’s admissions team, led by Associate Dean of MBA Admissions Shari Hubert, launched an innovative initiative last spring to understand the applicant’s entire journey through the admissions process—from the moment they begin to research schools right up to their arrival on campus (for those who are admitted and enroll). Their findings have already begun to reshape the Georgetown McDonough admissions process—for the better, Hubert hopes.
Hubert joined Georgetown McDonough in December 2012, coming from a career in campus recruiting for the Peace Corps, Citigroup and General Electric. “I saw a need for us as an admissions office to be more connected to our customers—prospective applicants—to understand what they were going through and how they experience us as they apply to business school,” Hubert says. An MBA applicant herself once (she holds a degree from Harvard Business School), she remembers how daunting the experience can be. “I wanted to engender goodwill no matter what the outcome,” she says. “I wanted them to walk away saying Georgetown is a wonderful institution that lives its [Jesuit] values.” Of course, she also hoped that by creating a more positive experience for applicants, the school would increase its yield.
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Published: January 20, 2015
ESADE Business School Partners with Finnish University to Offer Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programs
Spain’s ESADE Business School has formed a new international alliance with Finland’s Aalto University, a leader in the field of innovation, to expand its offerings for entrepreneurs, ESADE announced today. Aalto University President Tuula Teeri and ESADE Director General Eugenia Bieto signed an agreement outlining the new partnership this morning at ESADECREAPOLIS, the innovation center located on ESADE’s Barcelona campus.
One of Europe’s newest universities, Aalto was created in 2010 by the merger of Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki University of Technology and the University of Art and Design Helsinki and has received widespread attention for its innovative blend of management, technology and design.
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Published: January 19, 2015
Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management Enhances Focus on Family Business
The Johnson Graduate School of Management is now home to the new Smith Family Business Initiative, which was endowed earlier this year by at $10 million gift from alumnus John Smith, MBA’ 74, and his wife, Dyan Smith. In September, Daniel Garrett Van Der Vliet joined as the new initiative’s director. Van Der Vliet seems the ideal person for the job, coming to Johnson from the University of Vermont, where he spent 14 years building a highly regarded family business program from the ground up.
The Small Family Business Initiative at Johnson will combine family business-focused courses, case competitions for both MBA and undergraduate students across Cornell and executive education non-degree courses and workshops for those involved in running family enterprises.
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Published: January 18, 2015
Global Network for Advanced Management to Offer Three Courses This Semester
The Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM), an organization of member schools from around the world devoted to facilitating interaction and collaboration in the study of graduate management education, will offer three courses this semester to students throughout its member schools, GNAM announced. This year’s Global Network courses include two new offerings, one on disruption for leaders working in humanitarian crisis, and another on international management. A third course, on the risks and opportunities in global resource systems, originally taught last year, will be offered again this coming semester.
Global Network courses take advantage of web-based technology to connect students from schools around the globe for both class sessions and team-based project work. The set-up allows students to access the expertise of faculty while also developing key cross-cultural collaboration skills as part of their work in virtual teams. Unlike MOOCs—massive open online courses—the Global Network classes are based on a SNOC—small network online course—model and are therefore only open to students from the top business schools that are members of the GNAM.
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Published: January 13, 2015
London Business School Partners with AQR to Launch Asset Management Institute
London Business School (LBS) has partnered with global investment management firm AQR to launch a new institute to advance research surrounding global asset management, the school announced today. Called the AQR Institute of Asset Management, it will fund and generate research in asset management to help individuals and organizations preserve and generate long-term wealth.
Four LBS academic members will lead the AQR Institute: Professors of Finance Francisco Gomes, Ralph Koijen, and Narayan Naik and Professor of Economics Hélène Rey. An advisory council made up of leaders in academia and the asset management industry will also contribute to the institute’s initiatives and growth.
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Published: January 12, 2015
University of Chicago Booth School of Business Welcomes New Associate Director of Admissions
Last month, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business welcomed a new associate director of admissions. Megan Stiphany now leads MBA recruitment and evaluation. She also will oversee Booth’s many on-campus events, including the Campus Visit Program, Booth Live, First Day and the Summer Business Scholars Program.
Stiphany comes to Booth from the University of Notre Dame, where she served for five years as the director of student services for graduate business programs. In this role, she was responsible for Notre Dame’s full-time MBA program, as well as its Master of Science in Accountancy and Master of Science in Management.
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Published: January 11, 2015
UVA’s Darden School of Business Appoints New Dean
A senior partner who leads learning and leadership development for consulting firm McKinsey & Company will serve as the next dean of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, the school announced last week. Scott C. Beardsley will assume the role as the business school’s ninth dean beginning August 1st and will also hold the Charles C. Abbott Professorship in Business Administration, as is tradition for the dean.
Beardsley has advised some of the world’s leading companies in his 26 years with McKinsey. From 2011 to 2014, he was an elected member of the firm’s global board of directors, and he has been based for most of his career in McKinsey’s Brussels, Belgium office.
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Published: January 8, 2015
IE Business School’s Global Corporation Center Outlines Future Research Focus
The Global Corporation Center, launched last spring by Spain’s IE Business School and EY (formerly Ernst & Young), will focus its research on three main issues: the valuation of intangible assets, corporate diplomacy and digital transformation, IE announced last month.
IE and EY partnered to launch the new center last April, which will offer workshops, publish research reports and look at challenges, key trends and strategies for 21st century business organizations. “Globalization is influencing countries as well as people and businesses,” said Francisco Navarro, vice dean of IE Business School, who serves as the center’s director. “The Global Corporation Center will examine the impact of this new scenario on corporate strategy.”
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Published: January 5, 2015
GMAC Employers’ Poll Projects Strong 2015 Hiring for MBAs
Nine out of 10 employers planning to hire business school graduates in 2015 expect to hire as many or more than they did in 2014, according to a year-end survey of employers by the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC). GMAC’s 2014 Year-End Poll of Employers, released today, also revealed that more than half of all employers polled plan to increase starting salaries for MBAs in 2015, and the majority (55 percent) will offer internship opportunities to graduate management students.
“The solid job prospects for b-school talent seen over the past several years and again reflected in this poll, gives prospective students good reason to consider pursuing these degrees as part of a strategy to drive their career goals,” Rebecca Estrada Worthington, GMAC’s Survey Research Manager, told India’s Business Standard.
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Published: January 4, 2015
MIT Sloan School of Management Announces New LGBT MBA Fellowship
As part of its commitment to fostering a diverse MBA class, MIT Sloan School of Management will award a new fellowship for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students to one or more members of the class of 2017, the school announced last week. The new Reaching Out LGBT MBA Fellowship will be worth at least $10,000 per year.
“This is the first year that MIT Sloan will award this specific fellowship,” Jeff Carbone, associate director of admissions, said in an article on the MIT Sloan website. He added that the decision to offer the fellowship was a simple one, “because we look for diversity in all forms.”
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Published: January 1, 2015
Columbia Business School Welcomes New Assistant Dean and Dean of Students
On Monday, January 5th, Zelon Crawford will become the new assistant dean and dean of students for the full-time MBA program at Columbia Business School, the school announced last month. Crawford comes to CBS from Villanova School of Business, where she served as director of graduate business programs and recruitment.
At Villanova, Crawford led the MBA and MS program review of academic content, student services, admissions standards and communication and processes to enhance the student experience. She also worked extensively with academic and corporate partners to deliver programs on Villanova’s two campuses and online. In all, she brings more than 15 years of experience at top business schools and companies, having also worked at Temple University’s Fox School of Business, New York University’s Stern School of Business, American Express and Accenture.
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Published: December 30, 2014
Business Schools Adapt to Digital World
With all industries now requiring not only finance and corporate strategy skills, but also digital prowess, business schools are adapting their course offerings to help train MBA students in skills like rapid prototyping and data-driven decision making, according to a recent article in the New York Times.
Cornell Tech in New York City has launched an innovative one-year program bringing MBA candidates and computer science grad students together. The school hopes to enroll 2,000 graduate students by 2034, but in this, the inaugural year for the MBA program, 39 business graduate students share a third of their curriculum with 34 graduate students in computer science, according to the Times. They work together on projects, frequently designing and writing software programs for businesses ranging from banks an hedge funds to technology companies and startups.
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Published: December 29, 2014
Yale SOM Student Semiconductor Startup Wins $150,000 Government Grant
A startup founded by a group of MBA students and faculty from the Yale School of Management (SOM) and based on research by a Yale engineering professor was recently awarded a $150,000 grant from the federal government. Founded by James Lin MBA’15, Alacrity Semiconductors used research by Professor T.P. Ma to develop a product that enables electronic devices to be smaller, run faster and use less power. Specifically, Alacrity is designing a superior dynamic random access memory (DRAM) architecture. “We want people to enjoy the benefits of smaller, faster, cheaper and ultra-low power storage,” Lin said in an article
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Published: December 28, 2014
London Business School Scores High in Terms of Research Quality
London Business School (LBS) received the highest rating ever achieved by any department of business and management for the quality of its research output, according to the UK-wide Research Excellence Framework (REF) published earlier this month.
The report revealed that 55.3 percent of LBS research output received the top 4* rating, which stands for world-leading. The other ratings are 3* (internationally excellent), 2* (internationally recognized), 1* (nationally recognized) or 0 (unclassified).
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Published: December 25, 2014
NYU Stern School of Business Volatility Institute Opens Extension at NYU Shanghai
A new extension of the Volatility Institute at New York University Stern School of Business is now open at NYU Shanghai, in the heart of Liujiazui, Shanghai’s financial center. Operating in close partnership with Stern’s Volatility Institute, the Volatility Institute at NYU Shanghai (VINS) is designed to provide opportunities for researchers focused on Chinese markets specifically, as well as financial markets around the world. Part of its aim is to facilitate collaboration and community-building between market participants and academic researchers within the region and beyond.
The NYU Stern Volatility Institute—established in 2009 by Stern Professor Robert Engle, a Nobel Laureate and volatility expert—was created to drive research on risks in global financial markets. Engle will also direct the VINS, with generous support from the Pudong Institute of Finance.
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Published: December 23, 2014
Harvard Business School Names 16 New Entrepreneurs-in-Residence
MBA students at Harvard Business School (HBS) now have access to a whole new pool of entrepreneurial talent through the school’s Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EiR) program, the school announced earlier this month. HBS has named 16 entrepreneurs to take part in the program for 2014-15, 14 of whom are HBS graduates.
Sponsored by the school's Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, the Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program is now in its ninth year. Participating entrepreneurs come to campus to advise MBA students who are interested in starting their own companies. They also work with HBS faculty on research and course development.
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Published: December 22, 2014
Poets&Quants Spotlights “Best of” Advice from Clear Admit’s Jon Fuller
In a sequel to a piece that ran in May, Poets&Quants last week highlighted some of the best advice Clear Admit Admissions Counselor Jon Fuller has offered in response to its readers’ questions. Fuller joined Clear Admit in 2013 from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where he was the senior associate director of admissions for four years. Since March of this year, he’s also been fielding questions as Poets&Quants’ resident expert.
The most recent “Best of Jon” compilation, which ran on Poets&Quants on December 18th, features Fuller’s responses to readers’ questions tackling a wide range of topics, from how to overcome mediocre undergraduate grades to how applicants who are over 30 can best position themselves to the admissions committee.
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Published: December 21, 2014
White House Director of Social Innovation Named Senior Fellow at UPenn’s Wharton School
A leading national expert on social innovation and shared value will serve as the next Senior Fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the school announced late last week. Jonathan Greenblatt, who currently serves as Special Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, will become a Wharton Senior Fellow beginning in January, where he will work with the Wharton Social Impact Initiative and lecture on campus for the remainder of the 2014-2015 academic year.
Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett expressed his excitement that Greenblatt would soon be on campus working with students and faculty. “He brings a unique perspective on innovation and leadership, enriched by a rare combination of experiences at the highest level of government, business and the nonprofit world,” he said in a statement.
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Published: December 17, 2014
ESADE Partners with Barcelona Digital Tech Cluster
Spain’s ESADE will become the business school partner of Ecommerce & Tech Barcelona, an initiative bringing together leading digital companies in and around Barcelona, the school announced today. The new agreement, signed yesterday by ESADE Director General Eugenia Bieto, strengthens the school's ties to the digital business community and its support for the digital entrepreneurial ecosystem.
ESADE is dedicated to “guiding digital entrepreneurs throughout the growth process and strengthening their executive and leadership skills,” Bieto said in a statement. The alliance between the business school and the Ecommerce & Tech cluster will facilitate both a study of the impact of the digital entrepreneurial initiative in Spain and the development of academic case studies featuring projects undertaken by the cluster’s entrepreneurs.
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Published: December 16, 2014
HEC Paris to Launch Second MOOC Series in 2015
Pleased with the success of its first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which debuted on Coursera in January 2014, HEC Paris plans to release a second series of online courses in 2015, the school announced yesterday. These new MOOCs will address topics related to organizations, social entrepreneurship an technology-based startups.
HEC Paris Dean Bernard Ramanantsoa views the school’s partnership with Coursera as an opportunity to open its courses to students who might not otherwise have access to higher education due to practical or economic constraints. “Sharing our faculty’s expertise with the general public at no cost is a truly exciting and meaningful challenge," he said in a statement.
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Published: December 15, 2014
$3.8 Million Donation Will Help Fund New INSEAD Leadership Development Center in Singapore
A leading Indonesian family has donated approximately $3.8 million USD ($5 million SGD) to help fund INSEAD’s new Leadership Development Center, which is scheduled to open on INSEAD’s Singapore campus in January 2015. The new building will be home to the “William and Lily Soeryadjaya Amphitheater,” in honor of the gift from the Soeryadjaya family.
The opening of the new Leadership Development Center next month marks “Phase Three” in INSEAD’s Asia expansion, which is designed to significantly increase the number of students, executives, leading scholars and practitioners who will be on site in Singapore. INSEAD also features campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and Abu Dhabi.
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