MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
MIT Sloan to Host Women’s Week, August 4th – 7th
The MIT Sloan School of Management is gearing up for a week filled with events designed to increase awareness about the school among women who are considering a graduate management degree. MIT Sloan Women’s Week, which will take place from August 4th through 7th, will include a webinar open to prospective applicants anywhere in the world, as well as three alumnae panels in cities around the country.
“There are so many opportunities for women to contribute while they are here on campus as well as after they graduate and become part of our alumni network,” Sloan Admissions Director Dawna Levenson said as part of an article about the week’s events. “MIT Sloan women are making an impact in the world, and these panels will showcase just that,” she added.
Read more
Stanford Graduate School of Business to Break Ground on New $75 Million Residential Building
First-year Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) MBA students will live in a brand new residential building by 2016, the school reports. Design concepts for the new $75 million project were approved by the Stanford Board of Trustees last month, and the school plans to break ground on the new facility in fall 2014.
The four-story, 146,000-square-foot residential building will be adjacent to the school’s state-of-the-art Knight Management Center, which opened in 2011. The new facility will include 200 single-living units. The addition of this new housing to the existing 280 units in the school’s Schwab Residential Center will enable Stanford for the first time to offer on-campus housing to its full first-year class. It will also provide space for up to 80 visiting executive education participants.
Read more
Wharton Social Impact Initiative to Pay Down Student Loans for MBAs Who Pursue Nonprofit, Public Sector Careers
For MBAs who pursue careers in the nonprofit and public sectors, paying back staggering student loans they took out to finance their degree can be incredibly challenging. At the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, a social impact‒focused fund managed by the Wharton Social Impact Initiative comes to the rescue.
The John M. Bendheim Loan Forgiveness Fund for Public Service was created in 2005 by a 1940 graduate of the school, John Bendheim, and his son Tom, WG/Lauder ’90. The fund will grant up to $20,000 per year to pay down selected candidates’ student loans.
Read more
IESE Launches Corporate Finance MOOC
IESE, like many other leading business schools, is embracing technology to offer Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and has just launched its latest, called Corporate Finance Essentials. Designed for executives anywhere in the world who want to understand key financial issues related to companies, investors and their interaction with capital markets, the new course will be taught by IESE Javier Estrada.
Over the course of a series of six lectures lasting between 45 and 60 minutes each, Estrada will help participants increase their financial literacy and gain a better understanding of what is written in the financial press. Recommended readings will complement the lectures.
Read more
Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business Hosts 17 Ventures in Summer Startup Incubator
Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business this summer is hosting 17 entrepreneurial ventures as part of its startup incubator program, the school reports.
Called the “Startup Hoyas Summer Launch Program,” the incubator was designed specifically for current Georgetown students and recent graduates who want to launch a new venture. Participating students enjoy a range of benefits, including dedicated support from Georgetown faculty, mentors and experienced entrepreneurs.
Read more
Tuck School of Business Alumni Set Record with Annual Gift
Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business has long been known for the generosity of its alumni, and this year total funds raised broke all previous records, the school reports. Tuck Annual Giving (TAG) raised $6.35 million in the last fiscal year and drew the participation of 70.9 percent of alumni, more than ever before at Tuck or any other business school for that matter.
This year marks the fourth in a row that more than 70 percent of Tuck graduates have contributed to the TAG campaign, which is more than double the average giving rate of other business schools, the school notes.
Read more
Yale School of Management Implements Sliding Scale Application Fee Structure
Yale School of Management (SOM) yesterday announced that its 2014-2015 MBA application is now live. While the application itself features no major changes from last year’s, the school is implementing a new sliding scale application fee structure designed to increase access for applicants from lower-wage regions and industries or who are still in school or at the beginning of their careers. Most applicants will pay the standard $225 application fee, but applicants whose total compensation is less than $20,000 a year will pay $175, and those with a total compensation of less than $10,000 will pay $125. Compensation information
Read more
Yale School of Management to Host First Global Network Week for Faculty
Yale School of Management (SOM) next week will welcome faculty members from the 27 business schools that are members of the Global Network for Advanced Management as part of a four-day program designed to foster collaboration around issues of sustainability.
The program, organized by the Yale Center for Business and the Environment, will begin on July 21st. The faculty event is an outgrowth of the network’s successful Global Network Weeks, which drew together students from the various member schools for weeklong courses with colleagues from peer schools.
Read more
Coding Finds Its Way Into Top Business School Curriculums
Harvard Business School (HBS) plans to offer a computer programming elective within the next couple of years, and other top business schools may be moving in the same direction as more companies seek MBAs with strong technical skills, according to a recent report in Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Paul Gompers, who chairs the MBA elective curriculum at HBS, notes that MBA students there have formed coding clubs or head across to Harvard’s Cambridge campus to take introductory computer science, but that a course specifically tailored to business students is needed at the school.
“This is the changing nature of the workforce, and this is what our graduates are going on to be doing in the next five to 10 to 20 years,” Gompers told Bloomberg BW.
Read more
MBA Students from Leading Global Business Schools to Help Child Cancer Charity
A United Kingdom charity focused on helping children with cancer in developing countries will receive an infusion of expertise and energy this summer as more than 40 students from top business schools in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas develop plans to tackle business problems faced by the organization.
The students, working in teams as part of the Financial Times MBA Challenge, will assist the FT’s seasonal appeal partner, which this year is World Child Cancer (WCC). Seven teams of students – who hail from schools including Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Oxford Saïd Business School, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, London Business School, ESADE and IE Business School, among others – will each be partnered with a mentor and required to submit a business plan in September on a set topic.
Read more
New Johnson Graduate School of Management Application Permits LinkedIn Submissions
Applicants to Cornell University’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management can now incorporate their LinkedIn profiles as part of the school’s redesigned application.
Johnson is using LinkedIn’s open platform to allow MBA applicants to pre-fill employment history, educational background and other parts of their application with information from their LinkedIn profiles. Candidates who submit information in this way are asked to grant the school access to their full LinkedIn profiles as part of the application process.
Read more
Alumni Gift to Fund Construction of New Conference Center at Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School (HBS) last month announced plans to build a new center on its Boston campus that will serve as a place for students, faculty, alumni and business leaders to convene and share ideas. Called Klarman Hall in recognition of a generous alumni gift, the new building will feature a large conference center, a performance space and a community gathering space and is expected to open in 2018.
A gift from Seth Klarman (MBA 1982) and his wife Beth will make the construction of the new facility possible. Klarman is president and CEO of Boston-based investment management firm the Baupost Group, his wife is president of the Klarman Family Foundation and both serve as members of HBS’s Board of Dean’s Advisors.
Read more
The MBA Tour Summer 2014 Events
If you’re considering pursuing an MBA, attending an MBA fair is a great place to start. The MBA Tour is hosting nine events across the U.S. this July, starting in Chicago on July 16.
What are the benefits of attending an MBA Tour conference? Hear from students who have attended here!
COLLECT INFORMATION AND EASILY COMPARE PROGRAMS
MBA Panel Presentations cover valuable business school admissions topics and answer a wide range of MBA applicant questions. The panels are hosted by professionals with expertise spanning several topics, including: Preparing Your MBA Application, Financing Your MBA, and GMAT Strategy.
School Presentations highlight unique program features in a 30-minute session given by admission representatives. These presentations are ideal for candidates to learn detailed information, compare different programs, and prepare for speaking with representatives during the MeetUp Sessions or MBA Fair.
Read more
UCLA’s Anderson School of Management Becomes Self-Supporting
Beginning today, the University of California at Los Angeles’s Anderson School of Management will give up state funding and instead become self-supporting, the school announced. Anderson’s dean last week signed a three-year deal with the university provost through which the school’s full-time MBA program will turn down state subsidies in exchange for greater control over faculty recruitment and salary levels and the ability to determine its own tuition, among other things. Anderson hopes to make up for the loss in state funding through donations and likely higher tuitions, reports Inside Higher Ed. In recent years, only about 18
Read more
McDonough School of Business Admissions Director Reveals New Essay Question to Clear Admit
The Fall 2015 MBA application for Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business will feature only one required essay, Clear Admit learned today as part of an interview for our Admissions Director Q&A Series.
Though the new application has not yet gone live – it will be available to applicants early next month – McDonough Associate Dean of MBA Admissions Shari Hubert shared that her team has decided to reduce the number of required essays to just one. The question will be as follows:
Read more
Some Business Schools Adopt Tracking Software in a Bid to Increase Yield
A number of top-tier business schools have begun to use software to track prospective applicants’ interactions with their school in an effort to gauge how interested they are in attending, according to a recent article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The data points – which can include whether a student has emailed admissions staff, how many admissions events they’ve attended and whether they requested program information – are now included in candidate profiles alongside test scores and essay responses, Bloomberg BW adds.
Most schools report that student interest isn’t a main factor in admissions decisions, but the fact that increasing numbers of schools are using the tracking programs suggest that the data gathered counts for something.
Read more
A Glimpse Inside the Lives of Nine Stanford Graduate School of Business MBAs
You can learn what it’s like to be an MBA student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) straight from students themselves thanks to a cool feature earlier this month on the school’s MBA Blog.
Called, aptly, “A Week in the Life,” the feature includes nine profiles of students from the Class of 2015 sharing their day-to-day experiences over the course of a normal week at business school. The group includes four men and five women who came from around the country and the globe to pursue their MBA at Stanford. More than half of the students profiled are international, hailing from Brazil, Zimbabwe, China, India, South Korea and Argentina.
Read more
Ross School of Business MBAs Win Global Sustainability Challenge
A team of MBA students from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business defeated finalists from Yale School of Management and Rollins School of Business earlier this week to win the 2014 Nespresso Sustainability MBA Challenge, the school reports.
In total, 59 teams from business schools in 19 different countries took part in the challenge, in which Nespresso invited them to develop innovative solutions to issues surrounding its supply chain of high-quality coffee.
Read more
New MIT Sloan School of Management Essay Question Presents Challenging Opportunity to Applicants
MIT Sloan School of Management, like many top business schools, has recently released its essay questions for the upcoming application season, leaving prospective applicants and others in the admissions community buzzing about how this year’s prompts require more or less from applicants than in years past. Sloan put a new twist on things late last week when it revealed that its newest question invites applicants to write their own letters of recommendation.
Make no mistake. These essays are not intended to take the place of actual letters of recommendation, two of which will still be required of all applicants to Sloan. Instead, the new essay prompt is designed to encourage applicants to reflect on themselves in a new and different way. Specifically, they are asked to put themselves in their most recent supervisor’s shoes and – from that manager’s perspective – offer an assessment of how they themselves interact with others, stand out from others and what they would change about themselves.
Read more
Renovation Planned for USC’s Marshall School of Business Thanks to $15 Million Trustee Gift
A $15 million gift from a trustee of the University of Southern California (USC) will fund complete renovation of a building that will serve as a new center for the Marshall School of Business’s international efforts, the school announced yesterday.
The gift, from USC trustee Thomas J. Barrack Jr. and his family, will transform Bridge Hall, which served as the Marshall School’s first building when it was built in 1928. In recognition of the generous donation, it will be renamed Barrack Hall.
Read more
500 Harvard Business School Alumni Contribute to First Crowdsourced Article
Harvard Business Review recently published its first formally crowdsourced article, a piece entitled “The Capitalist’s Dilemma” that included contributions from almost 500 Harvard Business School (HBS) alumni. The experiment was designed to helped build on a theory put forth by renowned HBS Business Administration Professor Clayton Christensen about the flawed way that companies make investment decisions, which he first explored as part of a New York Times article in 2012. Lead authors Christensen, who is best known for his work on disruptive innovation, and Derek van Bever, a senior lecturer in entrepreneurial management at
Read more
Better Storytelling Leads to Soaring Application Volume at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School
The Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill saw the number of applicants to its MBA program increase 28 percent this year over last, growth the school attributes to better “storytelling” and branding, according to a report in Triangle Business Journal.
UNC as a whole has been working to increase brand recognition, and the increase in applicant volume at the business school is in part a result of these branding efforts, Sridhar Balasubramanian, associate dean for the MBA program, told the Triangle Business Journal.
Read more
UPenn Study of Wharton MOOCs Suggest They Don’t Threaten Traditional MBA Programs
A University of Pennsylvania study of massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by its Wharton School reveals the online courses present an opportunity for business schools to expand to under-served markets rather than a threat to their traditional business programs. The study findings were published today in the Harvard Business Review.
The study – led by researchers Ezekiel Emanuel, Penn’s vice provost for global initiatives; Gayle Christensen, executive director of Penn Global; and Brandon Alcorn, Penn Global project manager – is the first of its kind to focus specifically on MOOCs offered by a business school. The researchers surveyed more than 875,000 students enrolled in nine MOOCs offered by Wharton.
Read more
HEC Paris Inaugurates New e-Lab
Earlier this month, leading European business school HEC Paris launched its new e-Lab, a unique space designed to support entrepreneurship, creativity, teamwork and communication through by making high-tech technology available to its students.
“The ‘e’ in e-Lab signifies both ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘electronic,’ emphasizing the close link between the two,” read a release on the HEC Paris website announcing the May 20th inauguration of the new space. Designed for use by HEC Paris students interested in entrepreneurship, the e-Lab features video-conferencing capabilities, walls completely covered in "white board" paint, and portable equipment that can be moved easily to facilitate collaboration.
Read more
Columbia Business School Annual Dinner Rakes in $3.2 Million
A gala event held earlier this month helped raise more than $3 million to fund financial aid, faculty research and entrepreneurial outreach at Columbia Business School, the school reports. The school’s 38th Annual Dinner drew more than 800 people to New York City’s Waldorf Astoria on Monday, May 5th.
Setting a record, 60 new donors contributed 11 percent of the $3.2 million in total funds raised. There were 173 gifts in total, consistent with last year. Attendees included 120 current students from the full-time MBA, EMBA and EMBA-Global programs, as well as more than 40 alumni club leaders representing 30 regional alumni clubs, 13 countries, and two affinity clubs, the school reports.
Read more
