MBA News
A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.
Published: September 5, 2013
Wharton Start-Up Expands to Lend to MBA Students at 20 Top Schools
A company launched last fall by students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School experienced success in its pilot phase, during which it served as a lender to Wharton MBA students and recent graduates, and so this fall will launch nationally to lend to MBA students at 20 top MBA programs in the United States, the Financial Times reports.
Wharton student David Klien is chief executive and co-founder of CommonBond, which last year lent $2.5 million to 40 MBA students and recent graduates from Wharton using funds raised primarily through crowdsourcing. Now, the start-up has raised more than $100 million through debt financing and selling equity. It will expand to offer low-interest loans to MBA students at business schools throughout the country, including Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, Columbia Business School and others.
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Published: September 3, 2013
U Michigan Alumnus Gives an Additional $200 Million to Ross School of Business, Athletics
Real estate developer and alumnus Stephen M. Ross will give $100 million to the University of Michigan business school that already bears his name and another $100 million to U-M Athletics, the university announced today. His most recent gift is the largest in the university’s history from a single donor. With lifetime giving of $313 million, he is the third-largest donor to a United States business school.
Ross, who earned his bachelor of business administration in accounting from the University of Michigan School of Business, as well as two subsequent law degrees elsewhere, made an earlier gift of $100 million in 2004 toward construction of a new building and endowed operations for the business school. That building, which was named in Ross’s honor, was completed in 2009.
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Published: September 2, 2013
UNC Kenan-Flagler School of Business Appoints Former Dean to Serve Third Interim Dean Role
Jim Dean, former dean of UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, was appointed in May to become UNC executive vice chancellor and provost, leaving the business school in need of a leader. Dean turned to Jack Evans (pictured), asking if he would serve as interim dean.
With more than 40 years of experience at Kenan-Flagler, Evans came out of retirement to answer Dean’s call. In addition to holding the Kenan-Flagler deanship from 1979 to 1987, he served two subsequent terms as interim dean. He first came to Kenan-Flagler in 1970, as a professor of operations.
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Published: August 25, 2013
Columbia Business School Hosts Two Fall Series for Prospective Applicants
Columbia Business School will launch two on-campus event series this fall for prospective MBA applicants looking to learn more about what CBS has to offer. The first series – “Why an MBA?” – will feature a panel of CBS alumni and students sharing what led them to pursue either a full-time or executive MBA. The second “Spotlight On:” series will convene professors, alumni and current students to provide a view of CBS and its opportunities in several different areas of study. The events, which will take place on CBS’s Morningside Heights campus, are free to all, but RSVP is required.
Two “Why an MBA?” panels will be held as part of that series, each on Tuesday evenings at 6:30 p.m. in CBS’s Uris Hall. The first will be held on September 17th and the second on September 24th.
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Published: August 22, 2013
MBA Graduates from U.S. Business Schools See Rise in Wall Street Job Offers
MBA graduates from U.S. business schools this summer are landing more interviews and more job offers from Wall Street firms – particularly investment banks – than in recent years, according to the newest survey by a company that provides corporate training to Wall Street firms and business schools.
As part of its latest annual MBA Employment Survey, Training the Street (TTS) interviewed 200 students over the past few months, discovering that 19 percent of students had more than 10 first-round interviews. Another 12 percent of surveyed students had more than eight interviews in the first round, 40 percent had between four and seven interviews and 23 percent had between one and three, according to the TTS survey.
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Published: August 20, 2013
New Online Education Company Offers Free Stanford GSB Courses for Entrepreneurs
A new online education company founded by a Stanford University professor has launched a suite of entrepreneurial-focused courses from a range of U.S. business schools – many available for free – including several from Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), the Financial Times reports.
Founded by Stanford professor of management and engineering Amin Saberi, NovoEd launched in April 2013, based on an innovative platform that supports both massive open online courses (Moocs) and collaborative, small group teaching. Between 70 and 80 percent of NovoEd’s courses are available free of charge, with the remainder offered at fees ranging from $150 to $1000.
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Published: August 19, 2013
Growing Number of Doctors Pursue Health-Focused MBA Degree at Fuqua School of Business
The number of doctors applying to the MBA Health Sector Management program at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business is on the rise, in part a reaction to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the school reports.
An average of 21 doctors has applied to the school’s fulltime healthcare-focused MBA program each year between 2010 and 2013, up from 13 per year, on average, in the six years before that. The number of doctors applying to the Executive MBA program has also increased, to an average of 25 per year between 2010 and 2013, compared to 17 per year between 2004 and 2009.
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Published: August 18, 2013
UPenn’s Wharton School Unveils New MBA Website
Earlier this month, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania launched a redesigned MBA website, featuring a new look, streamlined content and greater interactivity designed to enhance the experience for prospective applicants. Included among the new features are updated student profiles, a new events calendar and student discussion forums.
“We hope that our new website provides you with clearer understanding of the Wharton Difference and how our program may be a good fit for you,” Wharton Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Ankur Kumar wrote in a post to her Notes from the Director blog.
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Published: August 15, 2013
Students from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business Return from Summer Work around the Globe
More than 150 Haas MBA students will return to campus this fall having traveled the globe over the summer putting their business school skills to work addressing real-world challenges. China, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Kenya and Israel are just a handful of the countries that played host to Haas students as part of the school’s summer international business offerings.
As part of the school’s global management consulting course, International Business Development (IDB), almost 100 students in the full-time MBA program traveled overseas. Full-time students spent three weeks working in-country with 25 different clients. Projects ranged from examining potential funding models for the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund to creating a strategy for an innovation lab in Nairobi to helping a Silicon Valley tech firm develop team performance and fan engagement solutions for football leagues in England and Germany.
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Published: August 8, 2013
UCLA Anderson School of Management Hosts Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and Leaders
UCLA Anderson School of Management last month hosted 50 top students from historically black and Hispanic-serving colleges and universities as part of a program designed to expose prospective future business school students to the principles of business development, entrepreneurship and management. The University of California Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and Leaders (UC SIEML) program rotates across six UC business schools, and participating students attend classes, workshops and networking events for two consecutive summers.
Beyond the benefits provided to the students, the program also helps participating business schools connect with undergraduates before they graduate and head off in other directions. . “Take a look of other graduate degree programs,” says Linda Baldwin, Anderson assistant dean of diversity and 2013 UC SIEML director. “They have a pipeline from their undergraduate departments,” she said. “With the MBA program, there’s typically a break. The students get scattered.”
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Published: August 7, 2013
GMAC Commissions New Book on Challenges Facing Business Education
The Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which owns and administers the GMAT exam, has commissioned a new book examining challenges confronting graduate management education, from technological advancements and globalization to how to measure program quality other than through rankings.
Disrupt or Be Disrupted: A Blueprint for Change in Management Education, out this month, contains contributions from leading academics and thinkers such as Harvard Business School Professor Rakesh Khurana and Former INSEAD Dean Dipak Jain on how to reimagine curriculum content and delivery, student engagement, faculty development and more.
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Published: August 5, 2013
IE Business School Enters New Collaboration with Top Seeds Lab Startup Accelerator
Spain’s IE Business School last month inked an agreement with Top Seeds Lab, a Madrid startup accelerator supported by a range of top-tier technology corporations. As part of the new collaboration, IE entrepreneurial students working on projects through the school’s Venture Lab will be eligible to receive an additional boost from Top Seeds to help spur their ventures toward success.
Under the terms of the new agreement, IE’s Venture Lab will be able to include up to two teams in the third edition of Top Seeds Lab’s Startup Acceleration Program, which will run from October 28, 2013, through February 28, 2014. Top Seeds Lab will also include a fast track for one or two IE student projects in future editions of its acceleration program.
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Published: August 4, 2013
At Duke’s Fuqua School of Business Many Roads Lead to Consulting
Consulting firms make up six of the 10 top employers of graduates from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and almost a full third (32 percent) of the 2013 class accepted consulting jobs this past year, the school announced recently.
For three years in a row, Deloitte has hired more Duke MBAs than any other employer, hiring 26 graduates from the most recent class. Other consulting firms hiring multiple Duke MBAs include Bain and Company, McKinsey and Company, Boston Consulting Group, Accenture LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, according to data gathered by Fuqua's Career Management Center (CMC.)
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Kellogg School of Management Adds Video Essay, Alters Admissions Deadlines
Earlier this week, the Kellogg School of Management said that it will begin requiring a video essay as part of its 2013/2014 MBA application. The school will also revert to a one-part application, with a single set of deadlines, rather than the two-part process it has used in recent years. These and other changes were first reported Monday by PoetsandQuants.
As part of the new video essay, students will be directed from the application to a landing page on a Skype-like platform where they will be asked a short question, according to a subsequent report in Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Applicants will have one to two minutes to collect their thoughts and one to two minutes to record an answer. They can replay their answer and start over up to two times is they are dissatisfied, receiving a new question on each subsequent try.
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Yale School of Management Debuts Two New SPOCS for Global Network Schools
The Yale School of Management (SOM) last week announced that it will offer two new virtual courses to its students as well as to students from the 22 other schools within the Global Network for Advanced Management. The courses, one in competition law and another in mobile banking opportunities, are an example of the growth of small online private courses (SPOCs), which some schools are beginning to offer instead of or in addition to massive open online courses (MOOCs).
Yale SOM faculty will teach the two new digital courses, and their lectures will be streamed via the web. Participating students will collaborate on virtual project work as part of teams with students from other schools around the globe. Madrid’s IE Business School, a member of the Global Network, will provide and manage the technology platform to support the courses.
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Two Columbia Business School Alumni Pledge $40 Million Toward New Manhattanville Campus
Two 1967 graduates of Columbia Business School (CBS) have pledged a combined $40 million toward the school’s new Manhattanville facilities, the school announced this afternoon. Alumni Arthur J. Samberg and Mario J. Gabelli, both members of the school’s Board of Overseers, have pledged $25 million and $15 million, respectively, citing their desire to help provide others with the educational opportunities they had. Their gifts continue a trend of multi-million dollar pledges to support construction of the school's new facilities.
Samberg, who is the manager of Hawkes Financial Services LLC and a member of Acadia Woods Partners LLC, and Gabelli, who is chairman and chief executive officer of GAMCO Investors Inc., both credit their success to the education they received at CBS. Through their gifts they hope to support the completion of the school’s new facilities and, in so doing, expand the opportunities available to future students.
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UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Dean Reappointed to Second Term
Rich Lyons, dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley since 2008, was reappointed last month for a second term by UC Berkeley’s provost and executive vice chancellor. Following his reappointment, which became effective July 1st, Lyons shared his vision for Haas’s future, specifically with regard to technology in education and the school’s work environment and global profile.
Lyons wants Haas to be a “definer of what’s next at the confluence of technology and management education.” More than simply translating existing courses into digital format, he wants Haas to change the courses themselves and the way it thinks about pedagogy. "It’s about things like 'game-ifying' content to engage students even more fully, having courses that adapt in real time to individual students’ needs, and letting students 'test again' until they have truly mastered material,” he said in a statement.
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Stanford Graduate School of Business Webinar Offers Tips for Applicants to New MS Computer Science/MBA Joint Degree
The Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) announced this past spring that it will offer a new MS Computer Science (MSCS)/MBA joint degree program, and a recent webinar provides tips for prospective applicants looking to learn more about the program and its application requirements.
The webinar begins with Mary Oleksy, who oversees the joint and dual degree programs for the GSB, outlining some basics. “The purpose of this degree program is going to be to provide an opportunity for computer scientists to develop necessary skills to be managers and entrepreneurs, and for technologically inclined business students to gain a solid background in Computer Science by combining these two degrees into a really focused and intentional approach,” she says.
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U.S. News Ranks 10 Full-Time MBA Programs That Lead to Highest Student Debt
As part of its Short List series, U.S. News & World Report today took a closer look at the student debt load incurred by full-time MBA students graduating from top business school programs. According to data provided by schools as part of its annual ranking, U.S. News found that full-time MBA graduates in 2012 emerged with an average of $49,619 in debt. At the 10 schools where graduates incurred the most student debt, the average per student was $97,154.
Graduates of New York University’s Stern School of Business top the list in terms of average debt. There, the average graduate has a debt load of $105,782. Six figure debt is also the norm for graduates from the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, U.S. News reports.
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Cornell’s Johnson School to Offer New One-Year MBA Program in New York City
Cornell University’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management today announced that it will offer a one-year, full-time MBA program on a new Cornell NYC Tech campus on Manhattan’s Governors Island. The program’s first class will begin in May 2014.
“The MBA degree on the Cornell NYC Tech campus is a unique opportunity for us to continue an established history of innovating graduate business education, both in content and pedagogy,” Johnson Dean Soumitra Dutta said in a statement. “We’re creating a program that addresses the fact that technology has changed the way business is done. It’s not about adding technology courses to an existing MBA, but about developing a new education and learning experience for business leaders in the digital economy.”
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Tuition Climbs at UM’s Ross School of Business, Remains Flat in UC System
Last month, the Board of Regents at the University of Michigan approved a $1,100 increase per term for its full-time MBA program at the Ross School of Business. The tuition increase, which will take effect in the fall, represents a 4.4 percent rise for in-state students and a 4 percent rise for out-of-state students. Meanwhile, the Board of Regents for the University of California system earlier this week approved a proposal that rules out tuition hikes for that system’s graduate business schools, at least for this year.
As reported by Bloomberg BusinessWeek on June 21st, two members of the six-person board at the University of Michigan voted against the tuition hike. “The continued raising of tuition is not sustainable,” Regent Denise Ilitch said in a statement. “If we were as good at raising revenue streams as we are at raising tuition, our students would be far better off.”
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Tuck Alumni Give Record-Setting $6.3 Million in 2013
For the third year in a row, more than 70 percent of alumni contributed to the Tuck Annual Giving campaign at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, raising a record $6.3 million in the last fiscal year. The participation rate is nearly triple the average participation rate of nine peer business schools, Tuck reports. Achieving the 70 percent rate also triggered a $50,000 gift from an anonymous donor last month.
“The generosity of our alumni is unrivaled and enables us to provide a truly transformational experience to each and every one of our students,” Tuck Dean Paul Danos said in a statement. The funds raised provide about 8 percent of the school’s annual operating revenues and direct support for innovation, Tuck reports.
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Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management Adds New Courses on Big Data
Big data matters in today’s business world as never before. Recognizing this, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management is working to establish a strong reputation in data analytics. This fall, as part of its MBA curriculum, Kellogg will offer four new courses designed to help prepare students to interpret big data and put it to work for their organizations.
"We're moving into a world where managers have to be conversant in analytics and in information technology,” Kellogg marketing professor Florian Zettelmeyer says. In particular, he notes, executives need to get better at learning how to establish analytics competence across all areas of an organization.
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Wharton School Receives Large Gift to Permanently Endow Innovation Management Institute
How can decision-makers across industries best manage the risks and rewards of innovation? Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School have been studying that subject for years, and a recent major alumni gift will permanently endow an innovation management institute where that work will continue and expand, the school announced this week.
An earlier gift from Wharton alumnus William L. Mack, W’61, and his wife, Phyllis, established the Mack Center for Technological Innovation in 2001, and the couple’s 2013 gift has now transformed the center into the Mack Institute for Innovation Management, Wharton announced today. William Mack, a renowned global real estate and asset manager, was the founder and chairman of AREA Property Partners and today serves as chair of the Mack-Cali Realty Corporation board of directors and the Wharton Board of Overseers.
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McDonough School of Business, Georgetown Entrepreneurship Initiative Collaborate on Summer StartUp Program
For the second year in a row, the Georgetown Entrepreneurship Initiative and the McDonough School of Business are partnering to help teams of current students and alumni kick-start business plans over the summer. Called Summer StartUp, the program is designed to help entrepreneurial students and recent alumni do just that – to spend two months over the summer developing business plans and initiative their own businesses.
McDonough and the Georgetown Entrepreneurship Initiative collaborate to give participating students working space as well as great networking opportunities and exposure to potential business investors. This year, Summer StartUp will include 15 student ventures drawn from across the university.
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