Part-Time/EMBA News

A new executive education program at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business will provide entrepreneurs from minority and underrepresented communities with tools and training to implement digital technologies to grow their businesses, the school announced last week. The inaugural Digital Excellence Program for Minority Entrepreneurs, developed by Tuck and sponsored by Google, will take place at Google’s Cambridge, MA, office June 8th through 10th. Led by Tuck Strategy Professor Alva Taylor, the three-day program will include sessions covering how to construct a digital strategy, how to market businesses online and how to manage a digital community. It will also feature intensive sessions on analytics and presentations by Google experts on topics including website design, search engine optimization and successful digital business models.  Read more

The Economist and test prep firm GMAT Tutor have once again partnered to offer a $25,000 scholarship to the prospective MBA or EMBA student who scores highest on a simulated GMAT exam. Called the Brightest Minds MBA Scholarship Contest, the competition is open to prospective MBA or EMBA students anywhere in the world. The first competition ran in 2014, drawing more than 4,500 entrants, The Economist reported. To take part in the contest, applicants simply complete The Economist GMAT Tutor simulation test, which uses adaptive technology similar to the real GMAT so that the difficulty level adjusts according to the test-taker’s ability. The simulation test requires the completion of a 75-minute Verbal section and a 75-minute Quant section. Participants should have the available time to complete the test in a single sitting and will not be able to pause once they begin. Read more

Spain’s IESE Business School has reached an agreement with U.K.‒based Prodigy Finance that will enable it to offer a new loan to international MBA and Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) students to help them finance their studies, the school announced this week. In other words, financing an IESE education just became much easier for students who live outside of Spain. The new deal expands IESE’s existing loans and scholarships, which help students cover tuition fees and living costs. International students, though, have faced hurdles because existing loan programs offered by IESE have required co-signers. Read more

Spain’s IESE Business School has partnered with the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) to launch a new joint program targeting senior business leaders whose work crosses international borders. Called the World Executive MBA, the program launched in January and is designed to help participants hone their leadership skills with a particular emphasis on the challenges faced as part of managing businesses in different parts of the world. The new program will feature modules on CEIBS and IESE campuses across five continents. Specifically, modules are scheduled to take place in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Barcelona, New York, Munich, Silicon Valley, Sao Paulo and in strategic locations in India and Africa. Participants selected for the program will be chosen strategically, in part to have the group as a whole represent a broad diversity of geographies, backgrounds, roles and sectors. Read more

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business hopes to renovate Hong Kong’s historic Mount Davis site, once an artillery base, into a new intellectual hub to serve as home to the school’s Executive MBA Program in Asia, the school announced recently. “The center will allow us to engage even more effectively with the business and academic communities in Hong Kong,” Chicago Booth Dean Sunil Kumar said in a statement. “It will be a testament to our lasting commitment to educating leaders in the region.” Read more

Leading business schools from the United States, Spain and Italy have united to launch a new program designed to prepare senior executives to meet the demands of organizations doing business in today’s incredibly global world. Called the Global Advanced Management Program (GAMP), the initiative brings together Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, Madrid’s ESADE and Milan’s SDA Bocconi of Management for an innovative executive education offering that will take participants to three different continents. GAMP participants will meet for three one-week modules held every two months. Read more

Recent research has shown that school leadership has a dramatic impact on student achievement, so Stanford has launched an innovative program designed to help district school leaders strengthen their strategic thinking, problem-solving skills and leadership ability as a means of boosting achievement among all students. Stanford’s Graduate School of Business  (GSB) has partnered with its Graduate School of Education (GSE) to develop the new program, which is called the Executive Program for Education Leaders (EPEL). EPEL, which targets superintendents and two to three members from their central office, will focus exclusively on leaders from California school districts in its first year. EPEL will span an entire year, involving participants in both on-campus and distance-learning sessions taught by Stanford faculty, as well as leaders in the field who will speak to the class. Read more

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. Read more

Students at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business are now entering their second semester as part of the school’s innovative Master of Science in Social Entrepreneurship program, the first of its kind at a U.S. business school. Students in this first cohort include a professionally trained ballerina, a former Wall Street executive turned stay-at-home mom and a property management director. Their future plans are as varied as their backgrounds, but they share a commitment to address social issues, including poverty, equal access to education and affordable healthcare. The MSSE program is based in Marshall’s Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab, led by founding director Adlai Wertman, professor of clinical entrepreneurship. Its curriculum offers students a solid business foundation focused on social enterprise and practice, including courses in feasibility analysis, impact investing, cause-related marketing, environmental sustainability and global social impact. Read more

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. Read more

London Business School (LBS) has awarded two female business executives £30,000 scholarships for the school’s Senior Executive Program, concluding an initiative launched in August with the 30% Club, an organization devoted to increasing female representation in the C-suite of leading corporations. Andreea Moldova, general manager (Czech Republic and Slovakia) at Avon Cosmetics, and Yasmin Becker, assistant director at the Nursing and Midwifery Council, so impressed the judging panel that LBS increased its commitment and provided two scholarships, though the completion was originally intended to have a single winner. Read more

Building on the success of a program launched 18 months ago on its London campus, London Business School (LBS) has expanded a mentoring program to benefit aspiring entrepreneurs to its Dubai Center, the school announced late last month. Called the “Entrepreneurship Mentor in Residence” program, the program will provide entrepreneurial students and alumni access to year-round mentorship from four successful business executives in the region. The Dubai program’s first mentor panel will include former alumni Genny Ghanimeh, Mohamed Nassar, Tommy Wakefield Smith and Aman Merchant. Students will now have direct access to these mentors for one-on-one consultations up to twice a month. Read more

Columbia Business School (CBS) has completed its Early Decision and J-term application review and will welcome approximately 200 new students as part of its January intake, the CBS Admission Committee announced earlier this week. Of those, roughly half come to CBS from international locations. After taking a week’s hiatus from reviewing Regular Decision applications, the Adcom will pick up where it left off after the Thanksgiving holiday and expects to release the first interview invitations during the first week of December. Read more

HEC Paris now offers a special global enrollment program designed to serve as an accelerator for business executives looking to spearhead socially responsible or sustainably focused projects or new business lines, the school announced earlier this month. Called ‘Inclusive Business and Value Creation,’ the program is taught by faculty of the HEC Paris Social Business Chair together with representatives from Ashoka, a global network of leading social entrepreneurs, and Hystra, a consultancy specialized in inclusive businesses. It is intended for senior management with at least 10 years’ experience who play a role in determining the strategic direction of their companies. Read more

USC Marshall School of Business is now accepting applications for a brand-new, one-year marketing degree program, the school announced late last week. The new Master of Science in Marketing program is designed to help students gain deep marketing expertise to complement a strong foundation in marketing management, strategy and business analytics. The program, open to working professionals with bachelor or advanced degrees and at least two years of experience, can be completed in one year of full-time study or in two years for part-time students.  In addition to marketing-focused business fundamentals, students will take other marketing courses including advertising and promotion management, branding strategy, consumer behavior, marketing and consumer research, marketing channels, new product development and pricing strategies. They can also select from an array of electives drawn from other business disciplines, ranging from data warehousing, business intelligence and data mining to technology commercialization. Read more

Switzerland’s IMD and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth earlier this month announced a new collaboration designed to help global organizations develop leadership skills among their management. The Transition to Business Leadership (TBL) executive education program, launched earlier this year by IMD, will be offered in two modules alternating between the two schools, beginning in spring 2015. The program is designed to help prepare experienced functional managers at leading global organizations develop necessary skills and expertise to shift into business leadership positions. Participating executives will examine the challenges and pitfalls that go hand in hand with transitioning into a leadership role. Read more

The number of people applying to full-time two-year MBA programs increased for the third consecutive year, according to recent data from the Graduate Management Admissions Council. GMAC’s 2014 Application Trends Survey, released earlier this week, showed that as two-year programs enjoyed application volume gains, other graduate management programs saw flattening or decreasing numbers of applicants. The survey also revealed an increasingly global applicant pool, with GMAT testing trends showing that more students are seeking to study outside their country of citizenship. According to GMAC, these candidates make up a sizeable portion of the applicant pool for many MBA and non-MBA graduate management programs. Read more

The Judge Business School at Cambridge University this summer becomes the latest in a growing list of business schools that are offering lifelong learning opportunities to some of its graduates. Judge recently announced that alumni of its Executive MBA (EMBA) program will now be eligible to return to campus to take free one elective per year. According to a report in PoetsandQuants, the offer, which had been available previously on an informal basis, is expected to attract roughly a third of the Judge EMBA program’s grads back to campus this fall. Read more

The governing body of Brown University voted earlier this month to begin issuing a master’s in business administration for the first time – to graduates of a collaborative 15-month executive MBA program the school has offered since 2011 with Madrid’s IE Business School, according to a report in Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Previously, graduates of the program received a degree only from the Spanish school. In conferring its own degree, Brown now leaves Princeton as the only school among the Ivy League to not issue an MBA degree of any sort. The Brown University Corporation, which governs the Rhode Island university, approved a proposal presented to the faculty earlier this year to beginning issues its own degree to students who complete the EMBA program, which Brown hopes will lead more students to apply to the program, according to the Bloomberg BW article. Read more

The Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley this week began a new program through which Berkeley-Haas faculty will present a Silicon Valley perspective on business, innovation and leadership topics to top Chinese leaders, the school announced. Called the Partnership for CELAP and Berkeley-Haas, the three-year pilot program between UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and the China Executive Leadership Academy Pudong (CELAP) in Shanghai kicked off with its first session on May 5th. CELAP is one of three preeminent Chinese government leadership academies, providing contemporary leadership development for China’s senior officials. Read more

Spain’s IE Business School and the Singapore Management University (SMU) earlier this month announced plans to launch a joint Executive MBA (EMBA) program in September that will focus on southeast Asia. “We really wanted to create a program for people looking for a part-time MBA in the southeast Asian market,” Martin Boehm, IE dean of programs, told the Financial Times. “We’re trying to reach out to Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines – places within three to five hour travelling time from Singapore.” Read more

Students in Yale School of Management (SOM)’s Executive MBA (EMBA) program will soon be able to select asset management or sustainability as a focus for their studies, the school announced yesterday. Yale SOM is now enrolling students interested in either of these specialties for fall 2014. The EMBA program at Yale launched in 2005, initially targeting students from the healthcare sector. The program is designed to provide students with a strong business foundation complemented by in-depth study of a particular industry or sector. Read more

Today’s GMAT article comes from Manhattan Review GMAT Prep UAE, a provider of GMAT Prep courses in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, among others. In this article, they reveal Manhattan Review’s six best points on the GMAT essay. The GMAT is an odd test. Unlike in the LSAT, the least important section, the essay, comes first, not last. However, though it's true that business schools don't pay as much attention to the essay score as to the overall verbal and quantitative score, this doesn't mean that the essay is of no importance at all. You need to take it seriously and write as good an essay as you can.  Here are six points to guide you: WHY THE ESSAY? It is important to keep in mind what the essay is and what it isn't. The essay isn't a newspaper Op-Ed. It isn't a definitive statement on a critical issue of the hour. It isn't even an essay that you write for your professor. Consider: You only have 30 minutes to think about, plan out, write and proof your essay. So there's a limit to what you can say and how effectively you can say it. The purpose of the essay is to enable the schools to verify that you really wrote the essays that you submitted with your application. If you sent in a beautifully crafted, eloquent essay but only managed an illiterate, ungrammatical and perfunctory essay in the GMAT the school will wonder whether someone other than you wrote your application essays. The GMAT essay does not have to astound anyone with its brilliance. It just has to be good enough to make sure that the school admissions officers don't start to entertain doubts as to your authenticity as a writer. Keep this in mind though: While a poorly written essay could harm your cause, a well-written, perhaps even outstanding one won't advance it very much. The score the business schools continue to be guided by is the main quantitative and verbal score. An adequate score for the essay will suffice. An inadequate score will hurt. AN ESSAY, NOT A GROCERY LIST This is an essay, not an office memorandum, an e-mail or a grocery list. It has to read like a narrative, like a logical progression of an argument. There can be no bullet points; numbered paragraphs; headings; underlined words; abbreviations such as w/out or b/c; colloquialisms; acronyms; Internet slang such as LOL, IMHO, P2P, B2B, FWIW and OTOH. All sentences must include at least one noun and one verb. Memorize words that allow you to transition from one paragraph to another such as "however," "on the one hand" and "on the other hand," "moreover," "furthermore," "in addition," “consequently,” and "it is possible." Avoid inserting yourself into the essay as much as possible. There is no need for such expressions as “I think” on “In my opinion,” or “I don't agree.” Such terms are redundant. You are the one writing the essay. The reader knows this; he or she doesn't need to be told. Read more

Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) held an inaugural certificate program in innovation and entrepreneurship for technical professionals earlier this year in India and was so pleased with the results that it is already accepting applications for a second session next spring. Applications for Stanford Ignite - Bangalore 2014 will be accepted through November 22, 2013. Classes will meet on extended weekends from April 4th thought June 8th. Exceptional, self-sponsored applicants who demonstrate need may be eligible for fellowships to cover the program’s cost. Read more

The Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley this week launched a new iPad-based mobile learning platform for students in its Berkeley MBA for Executives Program. Following a successful pilot program with technology partner EmpoweredU, Haas yesterday announced that it is rolling out the new mobile capabilities for all students in its EMBA program. “Our executive MBA program will be the first degree program to experience the benefits of this mobile learning experience,” Adam Berman, who heads the Haas School’s initiatives in learning technologies, said in a statement. “For senior professionals on the go, having this kind of technology means getting the most out of their MBA experience, using their time most efficiently and deepening their ties to their classmates.” Read more