MBA News

A collection of news items from MBA programs and about the business school admissions process.

Published: April 30, 2013

UPenn’s Wharton School Awards $100,000 Social Impact Prize to Rural Education and Development Program in South Asia

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania awarded its second annual Barry & Marie Lipman Family Prize last week to an international non-profit dedicated to creating lasting change in rural South Asia by providing education, enterprise and community development through libraries, the school announced. READ (Rural Education and Development) Global was chosen from more than 115 organizations worldwide to receive the Lipman Family Prize, a $100,000 annual award established last year to recognize initiatives that help create sustainable solutions for social and economic challenges. READ is based on the idea that a critical component of alleviating global poverty involves empowering rural communities. To do so, READ partners with rural villages in Bhutan, India and Nepal to build community library and resource centers that provide educational and economic opportunities to impoverished villagers. For-profit enterprises are paired with the READ Centers to generate revenue that can support the center over time. To date, there are 67 READ Centers supported by 98 for-profit enterprises – providing access to 1.95 million rural villagers. Read more

Published: April 29, 2013

Tuck Associate Dean Leaves to Lead Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management

The associate dean for the MBA program at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business has been named the new dean of the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, Tuck announced last week. M. Eric Johnson, a fixture in the Tuck community for the past 14 years, will assume his new post in Nashville on July 1st pending approval by Vanderbilt’s Board of Trust. “During his time at Tuck Eric was truly an academic leader at the school and an outstanding teacher,” Tuck Dean Paul Danos said in a statement. “He has been much beloved by students for his flair in the classroom and dedication to their personal transformation and by faculty and staff for his collegiality and wisdom," Danos continued. Read more

Published: April 28, 2013

Tepper School of Business FlexMBA Online Offering Draws Interest from Prospective Applicants Nationwide

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)’s Tepper School of Business will debut a new online MBA offering next fall, and prospective applicants from across the United States – as well as Europe and Asia – have shown interest and/or submitted applications, the school reports. FlexMBA – a new online MBA offering that will offer the same curriculum, faculty and access to services to online students that they would receive on campus as part of the traditional MBA program – differs from the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) model by creating small class sections of roughly 20 students and maximizing interaction between students and faculty, Tepper notes. Students will take part in weekly live online classes with Tepper professors and attend approximately five “access weekends” each year in which all FlexMBA students will travel to a CMU campus for intense classwork and professional development programs. Read more

Published: April 25, 2013

Stanford Graduate School of Business Announces New Africa MBA Fellowship Program

Citizens of African countries who are admitted to the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) MBA program and can demonstrate financial need are now eligible for a new $140,000 fellowship, the school announced earlier this month. The Stanford Africa MBA Fellowship Program is part of an effort by the school to contribute to Africa’s human and economic development by educating leaders who are committed to making an impact on the continent, according to a recent post on the Stanford MBA Admissions blog. “This fellowship program is a critical step toward removing any financial barrier,” wrote admissions blogger Victoria Hendel de la O. Read more

Published: April 23, 2013

Columbia Business School Hosts Annual Columbia Forever Week

Earlier this month, Columbia Business School hosted a weeklong series of events as part of an annual initiative designed to connect second-year MBA students with the school’s alumni community and encourage the current students’ future participation as alumni themselves. Columbia Forever Week 2013 took place from April 8th through 11th and included a range of events and activities spotlighting alumni. Student clubs hosted events with young alumni, giving current students an opportunity to learn more about life after graduation. CBS Matters, a recurring forum that usually features current students speaking to their classmates about what’s most important to them and why, instead featured alumni answering those questions for the first time. Alumni Richard Paul Richman ’73, namesake of the school’s Richman Center and a member of the Real Estate Forum and the Board of Overseers, and Coleman Skeeter ’12, cofounder of Urbavour and a participant in the Columbia Business Lab, both spoke. Read more

Published: April 21, 2013

Alternative Lenders Could Offer New Options for Foreign Students at U.S. Business Schools

Private student lending shrank sharply during the financial crisis, and though traditional lenders have cautiously returned to making loans to U.S. citizens, non-Americans looking to attend business school in the United States often are hard-pressed to find financing options that don’t require a U.S. co-signer. But according to a recent article in the Financial Times, peer-to-peer lenders and crowdfunding start-ups could present new opportunities for foreign students. One peer-to-peer lender, SoFi, which hopes to lend $1 billion this year, has been in discussions with several U.S. business schools about extending loans to foreign students that would be funded by alumni from their home country, the FT reports. Meanwhile, Pave, a crowdfunding start-up that lets students raise money from backers in exchange for a share of future income, is also considering expanding to other countries, the FT adds. Read more

Published: April 18, 2013

Boston Manhunt Closes Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Cancels Sloan AdMIT Weekend

As a search for the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings continues, area business schools have closed and are urging students to “shelter in place” – that is, remain wherever they are – as instructed by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick early this morning. Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management both have cancelled classes, and MIT Sloan has also cancelled its AdMIT weekend for accepted students, according to websites and Twitter accounts from each school. Read more

Published: April 16, 2013

Dean of UPenn’s Wharton School to Step Down in June 2014

The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania becomes the latest top business school to embark upon a search for a new dean, the school announced today. Dean Thomas S. Robertson, who has led the school since August 2007, will step down as of June 30, 2014. In a letter to the Wharton community, Robertson shared that he will not seek reappointment next year when his term expires but will instead return to the marketing faculty to teach and pursue his research interests. Read more

Published: April 16, 2013

Demand for Full-Time, Two-Year MBA Increases Slightly Among Prospective Applicants, GMAC Survey Finds

After several years of declining application volumes to full-time, two-year MBA programs, prospective applicants are showing a slight increase in interest in these more traditional offerings, according to the results of a recent survey from the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC). Overall, graduate management education programs are attracting a wider range of applicants, with prospective students more likely to gravitate toward either an MBA or a non-MBA master’s degree, rather than expressing interest in both programs, GMAC reports. Read more

Published: April 15, 2013

Indian School of Business Celebrates First Graduation under “One School, Two Campus” Model

The Indian School of Business (ISB) hosted consecutive graduation ceremonies last week on different campuses for the first time since beginning to deliver its Post Graduate Program in Management (PGP) concurrently in both Hyderabad and Mohali, the school announced. ISB began delivering its PGP concurrently at two locations in April 2012 after establishing its second campus in Mohali in 2007. The school credited the Class of 2013 with helping to fulfill the philosophy of “One School, Two Campuses,” noting that students from both campuses worked actively to help integrate activities and foster intercampus exchange through virtual learning and other new initiatives. Read more

Published: April 14, 2013

Round 3 Interview Update from Harvard Business School Admissions

Decision day is approaching for Round 3 applicants to Harvard Business School (HBS), and Dean of Admissions Dee Leopold outlined what to expect in a recent post to her Director’s Blog. “On Monday, April 22nd, probably at noon Boston time, every Round 3 applicant will get an email from us," she wrote. The email will contain either an invitation to interview or a “Sorry, we can’t offer you a place in the class,” notification, she continued. Read more

Published: April 11, 2013

UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business Spotlights Student Startups

An MBA student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business made the case for why business school can be an ideal place for entrepreneurs to get startups off the ground as part of an article in Forbes this week. At the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley many students have the same idea, and in acknowledgement the school has launched a new series to spotlight student ventures. Andre Marquis, executive director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, underscored how valuable time at Haas can be for budding entrepreneurs. “The best way to create entrepreneurial leaders is to give them the experience of building startups while they are here,” he said in the latest issue of BerkeleyHaas magazine. Read more

Published: April 9, 2013

Current Chicago Booth Student Touts Value of MBA for Entrepreneurs

An MBA student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business this week shared her perspective in Forbes on why an MBA makes sense for entrepreneurs. Stella Fayman, who is concurrently launching a startup while pursuing an MBA at Booth, wrote in part in response to an op-ed earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal advising startups not to hire MBAs. Rattling off 12 successful companies all started by MBAs from top business schools – Angie’s List, GrubHub, Warby Parker and Yelp, just to name a few – Fayman offers three main arguments in favor of the MBA: They attract top talent, they can be a "sandbox" for starting a company and they provide structured support. Read more

Published: April 7, 2013

INSEAD Expands International Reach with New Abu Dhabi Module

INSEAD, with campuses in France and Singapore, boasted a global MBA program well before many other top business schools began to establish satellites for their programs in regions around the world. Having now added a new Abu Dhabi module to its core MBA program, INSEAD is expanding its international reach even farther. The Abu Dhabi location got its start as a research center in 2007 and grew into a full-fledged campus in 2010, offering executive education and executive MBA programs. As part of the new module rolled out this year, students can now spend a week in January, a week in February and a concluding weekend in March as part of the core MBA program, enjoying lectures, guest speakers, field trips to and group projects with local companies, alumni networking and visits to recruiters. Read more

Published: April 4, 2013

University of Chicago Booth School of Business Dean Reminds MBA Students the Internship Isn’t Everything

Sunil Kumar, dean of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, is quick to remind his students not to shortchange their actual academic experience during the first year of their MBA program in furious pursuit of a summer internship, according to a recent Economist article. Acknowledging that competition is fierce and that successful internships are among the most important stepping stones to securing a job upon graduation, they are still just a “low cost experiment” for firms and students to feel the other out, Kumar told the Economist. “The truth is that a lot of people don’t stay in their first job very long but go on to have great careers,” he said. Read more

Published: April 3, 2013

Harvard Business School Celebrates Fifty Years of Women with the W50 Summit

Today and tomorrow, April 4th and 5th, Harvard Business School (HBS) is hosting a summit designed to help accelerate the advancement of women leaders who make a difference in the world. Called the W50 Summit, the two-day event is part of a year-long celebration marking the 50th anniversary of women being admitted to the two-year MBA program. Read more

Published: March 31, 2013

Carnegie Mellon University Establishes New Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)’s Tepper School of Business and School of Computer Science will partner to establish a new, joint Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) in an effort to help transform university research and projects into commercial enterprises, the university announced last month. The new CIE will combine Tepper’s Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship and the School of Computer Science’s Project Olympus, continuing the successful programs of each while also growing an extensive network of alumni entrepreneurs. Read more

Published: March 25, 2013

Clear Admit Co-Founders Quoted in National, Local Press on Group Interviews for MBA Admissions

Clear Admit co-founders Graham Richmond and Eliot Ingram contributed to articles this week in both the national and local press, sharing their expertise in the MBA space and advising prospective applicants on how to prepare for the group interview component that some top schools are choosing to include as part of the admissions process. Richmond’s comments appeared in a Bloomberg BusinessWeek article entitled, “How to Stand Out in an MBA Group Interview.” The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business is the latest top MBA program to require applicants to work as a group as part of the application process, joining Switzerland’s IMD and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Bloomberg BW notes. Though the schools are taking this step in an effort to elicit more off-the-cuff responses from applicants, there are still ways to prepare for these new exercises. Read more

Published: March 11, 2013

Admission into Harvard Business School with a 570 GMAT Score? Clear Admit’s Graham Richmond Shares How It Might Happen

Harvard Business School (HBS), which publicly discloses the range of GMAT scores by enrolled students every year, got folks in the MBA admissions world talking when it revealed that a student with a score of 570 will be part of next year’s class. How could someone who scored 160 points below the class median on a test considered by many to forecast business school success possibly still get in? To HBS, of all places, where only 13 percent of the close to 9,000 eager applicants this year secured a spot? PoetsandQuants (P&Q) posed the question to the HBS admissions staff, which declined to shed any light on the successful candidate. So P&Q then turned to MBA admissions consultants, Clear Admit’s Graham Richmond among them, to guess about just what might be going on in the offices of HBS MBA Dean of Admissions Dee Leopold. Read more

Published: March 11, 2013

Clear Admit’s Kevin Chen Gives Advice to Asian MBA Applicants Targeting Top Business Schools

Navigating the MBA admissions process in the United States and Europe is a tricky task, even for applicants familiar with the expectations of the Western academic and corporate cultures. However, the process presents special challenges for East Asian applicants, who often possess cultural assumptions that can work to their disadvantage. Clear Admit admissions counselor Kevin Chen has nearly a decade of MBA admissions consulting expertise, and has worked extensively with Asian applicants to help them overcome these cultural hurdles and gain admission to top MBA programs including Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, Wharton, Chicago Booth, INSEAD and London Business School. Chen, who is fluent in English, Chinese and Taiwanese, has been a successful applicant himself: he holds master’s degrees from both Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He also has a wealth of relevant professional experience, as a consultant, marketing professional and writer for firms including McKinsey & Company, the National Basketball Association and Reuters, the largest global news agency. Last week, Clear Admit spoke with Chen about the common missteps and trends he observes in Asian MBA applicants. Read more

Published: February 18, 2013

Clear Admit’s Stacey Oyler Sheds Light On MBA Summer Internship Hiring Process At Top Firms Like McKinsey

It’s first-year internship recruiting season at business schools across the United States. As students scramble to line up interviews with potential employers, they confront a complex process made even more complicated by the demands of their first-year core coursework and other campus commitments. Last week, Clear Admit spoke with Stacey Oyler, a Clear Admit admissions consultant and former McKinsey & Co. MBA recruiter, to shed light on this process. After joining McKinsey, Oyler initiated a formal recruiting process for the firm on the campus of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. Her familiarity with the school—she worked previously as the Assistant Director of Admissions at Tuck—and its approach to the recruiting process allowed her great insight into how McKinsey could approach potential new-hires. For example, “one unique thing about Tuck is that they have a bid list,” said Oyler. “You [as a student] are given a certain number of points that you can use towards bidding on interviews.” Oyler said about 50% of McKinsey’s total number of interview slots were reserved for bid students. “Of the remaining 50% we got to choose who we wanted to see.” Read more

Published: November 6, 2012

Clear Admit’s Graham Richmond Weighs in on CEIBS in Wall Street Journal Article

The Wall Street Journal devoted a recent feature to the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), turning to Clear Admit co-founder Graham Richmond for his view on how well the Shanghai school has managed to raise its global profile. CEIBS, which opened 18 years ago, stepped up its efforts last year to secure a spot among the top-tier business schools around the globe. It brought in John Quelch, a former administrator at Harvard Business School and a former dean at London Business School, to lead the charge. According to the WSJ report, Quelch has been trying to draw big-name faculty members from elite schools with large salaries and generous perks, believing that outstanding faculty will draw outstanding students, which in turn will attract recruiters and establish a successful alumni body. Read more

Published: September 25, 2012

Clear Admit Co-Founder Graham Richmond Contributes to Wall Street Journal Article on MIT Sloan’s Oversubscribed Incoming Class

The Wall Street Journal consulted Clear Admit co-founder Graham Richmond as part of an article today about the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Sloan School of Management, which has given scholarships to a handful of students scheduled to enter this fall in exchange for their agreeing to defer for a year. Sloan found itself oversubscribed by an unusually high number of students this year, and rather than expand the class size, it sought volunteers willing to wait a year to enroll. When it didn’t get enough takers, Sloan sweetened the deal to include a $15,000 scholarship to be applied to next year's tuition, the WSJ reports. Still not getting the response it hoped for, Sloan upped its offer to $20,000. In the end, four students took the offer, and the scholarship, and will begin next year instead. This brings Sloan’s class size to 413 this year, up from 404 last. Read more

Published: September 24, 2012

Clear Admit’s Stacey Oyler Featured in Article on Harvard Business School’s Application Changes

Marking yesterday’s round one application deadline at Harvard Business School (HBS), Poets&Quants today ran an article asking admissions consultants how the applicants they worked with on this year’s application to HBS felt about the school’s move to reduce its required essays from four to two. According to the P&Q report, between 30 and 50 percent of candidates to Harvard are estimated to work with a consultant during their application process, making consultants a good gauge of market reaction to the changes. The majority of admissions consultants polled by P&Q reported frustration on the part of their clients about the new application format, in which applicants have a total of just 800 words to answer two direct questions, namely, “tell us something you’ve done well” and “tell us something you wish you had done better.” According to several consultants, applicants felt like the change didn’t allow them the opportunity to fully tell their story or “fan out all their feathers” as one put it. Clear Admit Senior Admissions Counselor Stacey Oyler had a different view. “I think that the clients took the changes in stride,” she told P&Q. “After the initial surprise, they focused on sharpening their message and telling their stories with the two essays and their resume. It took some fine tuning, but I think most are happy with the applications they crafted.” Read more

Published: September 13, 2012

Clear Admit’s Stacey Oyler Featured in Article on Business School Admissions Staffers Turned Admissions Consultants

Stacey Oyler, a senior admissions counselor here at Clear Admit who came to us from the admissions office at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, was recently featured prominently in a Poets&Quants article about that very topic – namely, former admissions committee members at top MBA programs who become admissions consultants to prospective MBA applicants. The article ran today on the P&Q website, as well as on the CNN Money and Fortune websites. As the article indicates, Oyler worked on the Tuck admissions committee for two years, from October 2003 to July 2005, participating in every admissions decision for two full classes as part of a process that involved reviewing applications in a locked room with seven colleagues until they reached unanimous decisions of whether to admit, deny or waitlist. Read more

MBA Applywire

December 20, 2024 5:17pm ET

Applying: Columbia, Duke / Fuqua, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Northwestern / Kellogg, Stanford GSB, U. Chicago Booth, UPenn / Wharton

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Healthcare

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting Companies: Bain , BCG

GRE: 332

GPA: 3.5

Years of Work Experience: 3

Location: Florida

Post MBA Location: Consulting

Notes:

25F, lgbtq, 3 years as a registered nurse. also have started working for an early stage VC in the past several months.

December 19, 2024 4:44pm ET

Applying: Berkeley / Haas, Stanford GSB

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Insurance

Post-MBA Target Industry: Entrepreneurship

GRE: 318

GPA: 3.59

Years of Work Experience: 3.5

Location: Georgia

Post MBA Location: Southeast

Notes:

Looking to launch a tech startup post MBA, without any background in tech. Come from a quant heavy background and undergraduate coursework. I regularly attended admissions events, in person and online at my schools. I hope that focusing energy on my few top schools and spending a lot of time on essays will help me overcome the less than average test score (164 quant 154 verbal) and GPA.

Serial entrepreneur with a history of profitable small businesses. Was promoted twice in 3.5 years. Involved in many extracurricular activities in and outside of work. My background is very centered around financial services/insurance, is this a red flag for a pivot to Tech Entrepreneurship?

Transferred between two state schools in the southeast. School I graduated from is a top 25 undergrad business program. Obtained a few professionals designations post grad.

December 18, 2024 11:38am ET

Applying: Michigan / Ross, UNC Kenan-Flagler, Vanderbilt / Owen

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Held various positions in Finance and Accounting in a healthcare institution

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Other Companies: BCG , Deloitte , Other

GPA: 3.0

Years of Work Experience: 11

Location: International

Notes:

I am passionate about healthcare enhancing patient quality care. So exploring in that field is what I would love. Got a 72k scholarship from Vandy and named Forte Fellow. UNC 50k. I'm having a hard time deciding though my heart is leaning towards Owen

December 18, 2024 10:23am ET

Applying: Arizona State / W.P. Carey, Indiana / Kelley, Ohio State / Fisher

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Facility management

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting

GRE: 309

GPA: 2.8

Years of Work Experience: 3

Notes:

Graduate GPA -3.869

December 18, 2024 2:57am ET

Applying: IESE, INSEAD, MIT Sloan, U. Chicago Booth

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Engineering

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Technology, Undecided Companies: Amazon

GMAT: 690

GPA: 3.26

Years of Work Experience: 4

Location: Chile

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MBA LiveWire

December 21, 2024 8:37am ET

Accepted to Duke / Fuqua

Round: Round 1

Received via phone on December 11, 2024

GMAT: 675

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Consulting

December 21, 2024 2:38am ET

Waitlisted at Duke / Fuqua

Round: Round 1

Received via phone on December 10, 2024

GPA: 3.27

GMAT: 760

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Finance

Application Location: CA

December 20, 2024 11:16pm ET

Accepted to Babson / Olin

Round: Round 1

Received via email on December 17, 2024

GPA: 3.9

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Consulting

Application Location: South Asia

December 20, 2024 7:50pm ET

Accepted to Columbia

Round: Round 1

Received via portal on December 10, 2024

GMAT: 750

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Application Location: India

Note:

$100k scholarship

December 20, 2024 3:21pm ET

Accepted to Yale SOM

Round: Round 1

Received via email December 20, 2024

GPA: 4.0

GMAT: 750

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Note:

100% scholarship

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