MBA360.. formerly Journey to my MBA

Integrated Reasoning section of the GMAT makes debut

2011-12-04T23:38:00.000-08:00

Anxious business-school applicants have something to add to their to-do list: preparation for the new "integrated reasoning" section of the GMAT.

Although the new section was initially announced a year and a half ago, the Graduate Management Admission Council has offered scant details about what questions will look like and how they will be scored. With registration for the new test starting this month, many students are wringing their hands. Some test-prep experts say they may even see a rush of applicants wanting to take the test in the next few months just to avoid the new section, which won't appear on the exam until June.

The idea behind the "integrated reasoning" unit—which will be added to the existing verbal, quantitative and analytical writing sections—is to gauge how well applicants can extract and analyze complex data. The change comes as schools fall under increasing pressure from corporate recruiters to introduce more data-driven courses to better prepare students for the challenges they'll face after graduation.

"You're much more likely to have to analyze an integrated set of data than you are to do a geometry problem" in business school, says Andrew Mitchell, director of pre-business programs at Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan Test Prep. Geometry will still be covered within the GMAT's existing quantitative section.

So far, the council has published just four sample integrated-reasoning questions. One shows a table of data regarding flight traffic at various airports and asks the test-taker to determine relative passenger volume, flight landings and takeoffs at specific locations. Another question shows a scatter plot of ocean and air temperatures taken at a fixed location over the past year and asks test-takers to determine relationships between the two.

Many schools say GMAT scores, along with academic transcripts, are helpful predictors of how students will perform once they arrive on campus, but they are hopeful that the new section will provide an even more relevant data point.

"It's a step in the right direction," says Peter Zemsky, deputy dean of degree programs at INSEAD. Zemsky says that given the speed with which complicated decisions must be made in the business world, it's important to test applicants for such skills.

Still, admissions officers say they'll need at least a year before they know how to read results from the new section, as they see how test-takers progress through their first classes.

The test is still just a part of the total application package, which also includes interviews, references, essays and undergraduate transcripts.

Many admissions officers lament that students put too much emphasis on their GMAT scores, at the expense of other parts of their applications. "It doesn't matter what we say, applicants are going to stress out about the GMAT because it's (a) controllable, and (b) comparable," says Derrick Bolton, assistant dean and director of M.B.A. admissions at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Data reflect that attitude: Admissions-consulting firm Veritas Prep found in a client survey that applicants already spend 71 hours preparing for the GMAT, but just 28 hours writing their essays and nine hours preparing for interviews.

The figure for test-prep likely will increase once the new version launches, say testing experts.

ROSS EMBA coming to LA

2011-12-04T23:37:00.001-08:00

link

This past week, the Ross School of Business announced that it will offer its 20-month MBA Program in Los Angeles beginning in August, 2012. Following up on this announcement, the MSJ had a chance to sit down with Professor BillLanen, the Associate Dean and Head of Global Initiatives at Ross, and discuss this exciting initiative.

The 20-month program will offer the same curriculum as the current EMBA program, with classes offered once-a-month that offer a blend of action-based learning and leadership development initiatives. Michigan faculty will fly to LA once a month, adding authenticity to the program which should help to maintain the value proposition of a Ross MBA. The intent is to leverage the current Michigan alumni-base, with a worldwide network of approximately 500,000 members, to help build and expand the brand on the West Coast. Ross graduates will help to recommend candidates, sponsor employees, and recruit graduates. Currently, the EMBA program primarily appeals to business professionals in the Midwest and East Coast. This expansion offers an opportunity to expand the Michigan brand to a key market, and offer a unique opportunity to West Coast business professionals that could not otherwise participate due to travel restraints. According to Dean Alison Davis-Blake, "this West Coast expansion allows us to respond to a market need and replicate a model of delivery to future markets across the US and beyond."

One challenge that we raised to professor Lanen was how to maintain the Michigan / Ross culture in LA? He acknowledged that some connection will need to happen, but this challenge is not unique, and has been successfully addressed in other programs that Ross has rolled out. For instance, in the Brazil Global MBA program, students reside in Ann Arbor for two months, which helps to acclimate students to Michigan and permeate the Ross culture. Moreover, in the Global MBA program, where students complete the core curriculum in Osaka, Seoul, and Beijing, students get to enjoy a global learning environment, then return to Ann Arbor to complete the second year. One step that has already been taken to ensure the Ross culture in maintained is a student orientation in Ann Arbor, where students will get to come to campus and learn the "Ross way" on the ground.

After a very informative discussion, we closed with a pretty direct question…..can this work? Professor Lanen stressed the importance of the student base that is selected, and the impact that they eventually have on the local region. As with any MBA program, the ultimate success is typically predicated on the quality of the student base. Given Michigan's track record, expansive alumni network, and global brand, I am willing to bet that "Go Blue" chants in LA executive circles will be expanding for many years to come!

UCLA Anderson charts its worldwide impact with new online, interactive global map

2011-12-01T23:55:00.000-08:00

bragging or tuberous. you decide...

article link

During its 75 years of "business beyond usual," theUCLA Anderson School of Management has educated tens of thousands of students and served as home to hundreds of distinguished faculty members whose work and research have had a tremendous impact throughout the world.

But how to keep track of all those accomplishments?

In an effort to highlight these significant accomplishments, the school has launched its Global Impact Map, the first-ever interactive microsite designed to chart the achievements and advances the UCLA Anderson community has made throughout the world.

The site, AndersonImpactMap.com, was developed to encourage social interaction between current students, faculty and alumni, as well as to offer an ever-expanding look at the contributions they have made to corporations, organizations and various communities through their work, studies, research and discoveries, both during and since their involvement with the school.

"This is an exciting innovation of UCLA Anderson, introducing an interactive tool that tracks the extraordinary accomplishments of our students, alumni and faculty," said Judy Olian, dean of UCLA Anderson. "It's most impressive and heartening to observe the depth and breadth of our community's leadership and societal accomplishments."

The impact that students, alumni and faculty have had ranges from effective international business leadership and new business development to community service projects, including the promotion of children's literacy in Guatemala, research in Japan that has affected education in the U.S., and efforts to eradicate poverty.

To encourage interactive participation, the Global Impact Map allows users to document their own accomplishments, review those of others and nominate members of the UCLA Anderson community to be included in the map.

For more information and to interact with UCLA Anderson, visit www.AndersonImpactMap.com.

Field of dreams Harvard Business School reinvents its MBA course

2011-12-01T23:53:00.001-08:00

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YOUNG mums shopping in the Copley Mall in downtown Boston last month found themselves being questioned about their use of soap by students from Harvard Business School. The students were not doing odd jobs to earn beer money. They were preparing to help a firm in Brazil launch an antibacterial cleanser.

Fieldwork—ie, going out and talking to people—is a big change for HBS. Its students used to sit in a classroom and discuss case studies written by professors. Now they may also work in a developing country and launch a start-up. “Learning by doing” will become the norm, if a radical overhaul of the MBA curriculum succeeds.

The 900 students arriving in Boston this summer for their two-year course were told they would be guinea pigs. The new practical addition to HBS’s curriculum is known as “FIELD” (Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development). Not all the staff and students are overjoyed to be experimented on. But the man responsible, Nitin Nohria, who became dean of HBS in July 2010, says that “if it works, the FIELD method could become an equal partner to the case method.”

Long before he became dean, Mr Nohria lamented the failure of business schools to fulfil their mission of turning management into a profession similar to law or medicine. Asked what should be expected from someone with an MBA, he replies that “obviously, they should master a body of knowledge. But we should also expect them to apply that knowledge with some measure of judgment.” MBA students have long been sent on summer internships with prospective employers, but HBS, like most business schools, did little else to help them with the practical application of management studies.

What happens in the second year of the new course is still being worked out. But the first year has three elements. First, team-building exercises. Students take turns to lead a group engaged in a project such as designing an “eco-friendly sculpture”. They learn to collaborate and to give and take feedback. These exercises are loosely based on ones used in the US army.

Second, students will be sent to work for a week with one of more than 140 firms in 11 countries. Already the new intake have had conference calls with these companies, ranging from the Brazilian soapmaker to a Chinese property firm, and gone off-campus to conduct product-development “dashes” like the one in Copley Mall. This sort of structured learning-by-doing is a world away from HBS’s traditional encouragement of students to “go on an adventure” outside of classes.

In the third novel part of the course, students will be given eight weeks, and seed money of $3,000 each, to launch a small company. The most successful, as voted by their fellow students, will get more funding. It remains to be seen if this amounts to much more than a souped-up business-plan competition, though Mr Nohria says he hopes some real businesses will be created. (If only HBS had thought of this when Bill Gates was thinking of starting Microsoft, or Mark Zuckerberg was creating Facebook—perhaps the school would have received shares in those firms.)

It is unclear how much the one-week working assignments will achieve. Pankaj Ghemawat, a management guru, says “the literature suggests that an immersion experience needs to be at least 2-3 weeks and be backed up with time in the classroom.” The HBS students’ classroom preparation will have to be pretty thorough, then, to make up for the brevity of their field trips. Moreover, some of the HBS alumni who have agreed to offer work experience at their firms say they are unsure what meaningful work they can offer the students.

Privately, some faculty members are sceptical that all this change will be worthwhile. In January, the vote in favour of trying the field method was “as enthusiastic as you could get from a faculty,” says Mr Nohria, wryly. He wisely ensured that ownership of the idea was widely spread by delegating design of the new curriculum to several faculty committees. The vote gave the go-ahead to run a “delicate experiment for 3-5 years to see if we can move the needle”, he says, compared with the 13 years it took to develop the case method into more or less what it is today.

The experiment does not come cheap, adding 10-15% to the course’s cost (students pay at least $84,000 a year), which HBS will bear while it figures out what works. A lot is at stake. For where Harvard leads, other universities may follow.

MBA costs soar. Salaries? Not so much.

2011-11-18T21:39:00.001-08:00

The total cost of a Stanford MBA is now more than $350,000. And salaries have not kept pace. Yet another look at the diminishing returns of the degree.

By John A. Byrne, contributor

(Poets&Quants) -- Getting an MBA degree from a top-tier business school in the U.S. now costs more than a third of a million dollars. That's the unmistakable conclusion of a new analysis by Poets&Quants that takes into account the opportunity costs of quitting a job to attend graduate school for two years.

The highest total cost comes from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where students typically leave jobs that already pay them more than $88,000 a year. If you tack two years of forgone earnings to the school's recommended student budget, the total cost of getting an MBA is now a whopping $351,662.

Stanford is hardly alone. There are eight U.S. business schools where the cost of earning an MBA now exceeds $300,000. They include Harvard ($348,800), Wharton ($326,400), Columbia ($322,590), Dartmouth ($316,200), Chicago ($315,608), MIT ($313,264), and Northwestern ($310,378).

Even MBAs from the best public universities barely lighten the load. The total cost of a two-year MBA from the University of Virginia's Darden School is now $279,650, while the University of Michigan MBA costs $271,448. The only relative bargain on this list of top 25 schools comes by way of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The total MBA price tag: $195,380, the only school below $200,000.

Plenty of income left behind

The cost of earning an MBA has escalated as many students' pre-MBA salaries are quite high. Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management says that students who enrolled at the school this fall left jobs that paid them an average of $73,960 a year. At Berkeley's Haas School of Business, the school said its students had earned $66,345 annually before enrolling in its MBA program this year. And at Duke's Fuqua, the school said its newest MBA candidates had been making $64,087 a year.

In some cases, the "average" figures fall below the median numbers reported by the schools. At the Haas School, for example, the median is $68,000 a year, versus a $66,345 average.

Many of the top business schools recently reported these figures to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, along with their recommended student budgets. A student budget includes tuition, required fees, books and case study materials, as well as room and board. In some cases, schools declined to provide data on the forgone pay of their latest students. Poets&Quants estimated their numbers based on previously disclosed pre-MBA salary data.

Harvard MBAs leave most on the table

Harvard Business School MBA students had earned the most money before heading off to Cambridge, Mass.: an estimated $90,400 a year. Of the top 25 U.S. business schools, 23 have students who earned in excess of $50,000 a year before enrolling in their full-time MBA programs.

It's relatively rare to see the forgone pay numbers of MBA students, but those numbers also are an important measure of the quality of students at a business school. The larger the salary, the more likely it is that the candidate left a meaningful job in a demanding environment. In any case, applicants to the top MBA programs have to give up a lot when they decide to go to an elite graduate school.

How have these numbers changed over the years? Some 10 years ago, an MBA student at Kellogg left a job that paid $65,000 a year versus today's average of $73,960. Back then, the two-year recommended budget for the degree came to $105,066, compared to $162,458 today. The total bill for a Kellogg MBA was $235,066 10 years ago. Today, it's $310,378.

And the reward? Kellogg MBAs graduating in 2001 pulled down median starting salaries of $90,000 and median starting bonuses of $25,000 each. MBAs in Kellogg's class of 2011 reported median salaries of $110,000 and signing bonuses of $20,000 each. So over the past 10 years, the total cost of getting a Kellogg MBA has risen by 32%, while the starting salary and bonus has increased by 13%.

The comparison looks even less enticing against the 54% rise in the recommended student budget over the past 10 years. The bottom line: What an MBA now spends to get the degree has increased more than four times the post-degree starting salary in the past 10 years. It's yet another look at the diminishing returns of the degree.

It's not merely the fact that the costs of an MBA have far outpaced inflation. A stagnant economy has also kept both pre-MBA and post-MBA compensation down.

$1.4 Million Grant Gives Boost to UCLA Anderson Program New funding will bring health literacy to more low-income families

2011-11-18T21:38:00.000-08:00

Article

LOS ANGELES, Nov 18, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Amid reports that an increasing number of Americans are living below the poverty level, UCLA/Johnson & Johnson Health Care Institute (HCI) is expanding its efforts to help low-income families.

The HCI, in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), along with several other partners, was chosen by the Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to establish a center of excellence for Head Start to serve the nation. HCI will receive $1.4 million dollars out of the $12 million grant over four years for its role in the Office of Head Start National Center for Health.

HCI plans to expand its work in health literacy, educating teachers, parents and children on a range of health care topics. These activities will include live training sessions, customized simplified multi-lingual handouts for families on topics ranging from prenatal education for a healthy pregnancy, management of common childhood illnesses, good oral health practices, accident prevention in the home, and nutrition, training manuals for staff and teachers, and technical assistance to Head Start agencies to help them meet low literacy needs for health promotion for the vulnerable populations they serve.

"These funds come at a time when our nation still seeks ways to improve health literacy and control health care costs," says UCLA Anderson Senior Associate Dean Alfred E. Osborne. "This will provide more families with the appropriate tools and skills to empower them in their health decision making, and the net benefits will follow -- not just for common childhood ailments, but also in nutrition to fight childhood obesity and diabetes, improved oral health status and prenatal health education."

This health literacy program was developed by Dr. Ariella Herman, UCLA Anderson senior lecturer and HCI research director, and the HCI team. Together they created a series of low-literacy learning materials, manuals and protocols supporting this education process to enhance the fundamental skills of health literacy.

"People often do not recognize the importance of health literacy, which makes a coalition like this so important," says Herman. "The combination of renowned partners in the medical field with management expertise from the Anderson School brings extraordinary opportunity to improve the health of children and families in Head Start, with implementation of strong health education and prevention programs.

"Just knowing the appropriate response for concerns arising during pregnancy, when a child is sick, or how to provide one's family with a healthy diet on a limited budget can be powerful; this low-cost dose of prevention is important for improving health and is what the new legislation of the Affordable Care Act calls for," she adds.

The 2010 HHS National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy recognized the significance of health literacy in the nation's health agenda. "It is the currency for everything we do," said Howard K. Koh, MD, MPH, Assistant Secretary for Health for the US Department of Health and Human Services in the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy, Forward 2010.

To date, Herman estimates 50,000 families in the U.S. have benefited from HCI's work over the past decade. With this new grant, HCI is preparing to double that number nationally in the next four years.

"Health knowledge and awareness is one thing, but the successful implementation of behavioral change in Head Start agencies and families is quite another," says Conrad Person, Johnson & Johnson's director of corporate contribution. "J&J is delighted with the impact and influence of Dr. Herman's research and is pleased to see this effort continued on a larger scale with the establishment of a National Center for Health."

"UCLA is known for its public mission and service to communities," says UCLA Anderson Dean Judy Olian. "Dr. Herman's application of management principles to health education achieves powerful impact by addressing societal challenges through business theory and advanced practices. That's what we do at UCLA Anderson."

About UCLA Anderson School of Management

Celebrating 75 years of Business Beyond Usual, UCLA Anderson School of Management is among the leading business schools in the world. UCLA Anderson faculty members are globally renowned for their teaching excellence and research in advancing management thinking. Each year, UCLA Anderson provides a distinctive approach to management education to more than 1,800 students enrolled in its MBA, Fully-Employed MBA, Executive MBA, Global Executive MBA for Asia Pacific, Global Executive MBA for the Americas, Master of Financial Engineering, doctoral and executive education programs. Combining selective admissions, varied and innovative learning programs, and a world-wide network of 37,000 alumni, UCLA Anderson develops and prepares global leaders.

SOURCE: UCLA Anderson School of Management

Top Part-Time MBA Programs of 2011

2011-11-10T20:22:00.000-08:00

Regional Competition Heats Up

By Louis Lavelle

In the two years since Bloomberg Businessweek last ranked the nation's top part-time MBA programs, it would appear there's been little change in the established order. In five of the six regions, the No. 1 school remains the same, with only the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business becoming a new No. 1 in the Midwest, ousting the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

But just below the No. 1 schools, a transformation is under way. Villanova surged from No. 9 to No. 2 in the Mid-Atlantic region, putting it within a hair's breadth of No. 1 Carnegie Mellon. Chicago Booth moved up two spots in the Midwest, while Georgia State did the same in the South. Babson, unranked in 2009 because of a low rate of response to our ranking survey, made a startling debut at No. 2 in the Northeast. In the Southwest, the University of Denver advanced to No. 5 from No. 8. And in the West, the University of Nevada, Reno, is now at No. 2, moving up three spots and nipping at the heels of No. 1 UCLA.

In the slides that follow, we list the top five schools in each region. To see the complete list for each region, use our interactive graphic. To learn more about individual programs, check out their online profiles, use our comparator tool, or take a virtual school tour. And for a detailed explanation of our methodology, read our FAQ.

GMAT scores, work experience, class size and completion rates are self-reported by schools. Grads reporting salary increase, average salary increase, and information on career goals are based on students responding to the ranking survey and do not represent the entire class. NA=not available. NR=not ranked.

Join the discussion on the Bloomberg Businessweek Business School Forums, visit us onFacebook, and follow @BWbschools on Twitter.

MBA Applications Down says BusinessWeek

2011-11-07T19:47:00.001-08:00

MBA Applications Down

By Alison Damast

The gangbuster growth of business school applications during the recession appears to be a thing of the past for two-year full-time MBA programs. This year, application volume was down at 21 of the top 30 full-time MBA programs, according to data collected by Bloomberg Businessweek. The decline in applications is a trend that appears to be accelerating, with eight additional schools reporting declines in application volume this year over 2010. Applications were down at seven of the top 10 business schools, including the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, Harvard Business School, and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

Stanford saw the biggest dip in application volume of the top 10 schools, with 586 fewer applications this year, an 8 percent decline from 2010. Still, some of the top 30 schools managed to buck the downward trend. Dartmouth University's Tuck School of Business, University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and University of California, Los Angeles'Anderson School of Management, reported substantial increases in applications, with each school receiving more than 200 applications over last year's total.

The downward spiral in application volume at the top 30 schools is mirrored in the business school world at large: 67 percent of two-year full-time MBA programs surveyed by the Graduate Management Admission Counil (GMAC) reported a decrease in applications this year, up from 47 percent in 2010. A skittish economy, coupled with candidates unwilling to leave their jobs, may be causing some to hold off applying to business school, GMAC noted in its latest survey of application trends. "The impact of economic uncertainty on admissions trends for full-time MBA programs may still be underway," GMAC said in the report.

The smaller pipeline of MBA applications this year meant that getting into some of the top business schools has become easier. Two-thirds of the top 30 business schools admitted a larger percentage of applicants this year, up from one-third the year before. The University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management had the biggest slip in selectivity of the top 30 schools, admitting nearly 41 percent of students, up from 30 percent in 2010. More typical were the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business and Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Management, both of which saw selectivity slip five percentage points. Even Stanford, the most selective of the top 30 business schools, became slightly easier to get into, accepting 7 percent of all applicants, up one percentage point from 2010.

The following list provides a more comprehensive picture of how application trends shook out at each of the top 30 schools, with a breakdown of application volume, selectivity, and yield or the percentage of accepted applicants who ultimately enroll. The University of Pennsylvania'sWharton School, where applications fell more than 5 percent this year, to 6,442, declined to supply selectivity and yield figures and is not included in this slide show. The schools are listed from least selective to most selective.

Tuck apps rise

2011-11-07T19:42:00.001-08:00

I never went here, but if I had a choice.... I would have gone to Tuck.

Tuck apps rise despite nat’l drop

By Noah Reichblum

Published on Monday, October 24, 2011

In a year that saw the volume of applications to full-time MBA programs decrease by nearly 10 percent nationwide, the Tuck School of Business bucked the trend, and was instead one of three top-10 MBA programs to experience an increase in the number of applications, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

Over two-thirds of MBA programs nationwide surveyed by the Graduate Management Admission Council reported a decrease in the number of applications they received in the 2011 admissions cycle, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. This is a dramatic change from 2010, when only 47 percent of full-time MBA programs saw a drop in their application numbers. Tuck received over 200 more applications this fall compared to last year, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Tuck received 2,528 applications for the current freshman class, 20 percent of whom were accepted, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Tuck Dean Paul Danos said the increase in applications is due to the school’s world-class reputation, high job placement rate for graduates and the natural cycle of application numbers.

Tuck continues to attract prospective students due to “a reputation for having a very good placement track record and a learning experience that some people really like,” Danos said, citing the fact that 97 percent of alumni in last year’s graduating class are currently employed.

After seeing other schools’ statistics, Danos said he was surprised that the application numbers for Tuck — a small school of roughly 500 students — increased.

“I was expecting to have pretty much a steady state,” he said. “These things cycle. One year we might get less applications and sometimes we’ll do better than most.”

The increase in applications also comes during tough economic times, a sign that students believe a Tuck education is worth both the financial and time investments, Danos said.

Danos said there is always a need for “highly talented” people who have an MBA degree, even when the economy is suffering. Internationally-focused schools like Tuck, which “have a portfolio of places [graduates] can go to,” continue to place students in jobs abroad regardless of the state of the national economy, Danos said. The Economist recently ranked Tuck the number one full-time MBA program in an international assessment of business schools.

Even though Tuck’s application and admissions numbers remained unscathed this year, Danos said that admission numbers could decrease next year as a result of the continued stagnant economy.

“If economic times continue, I think over time it’s going to affect everything — all programs, including Tuck,” he said.

Vibhuti Nayar Tu’12 said the strength of Tuck’s community makes it such a popular program. After interacting with various community members throughout the application process, Nayar realized that Tuck was her number one choice, she said.

“Tuck offered one of the strongest skill sets,” she said. “When I spoke to current students, I got a sense that the school is warm and people look out for you.”

Kate Head Tu’13 said she applied to business school after working at a non-profit for three years in order to ease the career transition. After applying to three MBA programs, she chose to attend Tuck after discussions with admissions officers convinced her that Tuck alumni are “value-added.” Head said the strong Tuck alumni network is important in a business job market that is often “about who you know.”

Nayar and Head agreed that the small size of Tuck was one of the school’s most appealing aspects. The tight-knit community encourages students to work closely together in study groups, a skill that recruiters look for in MBA graduates, she said.

The national decrease in applications has raised the admission rates for many graduate programs, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Of the top 30 business schools, 21 have seen higher admission rates than last year, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

Danos said that while extremely selective schools can afford to receive fewer applications, less competitive graduate programs are hurt by a smaller pool of applicants.

Despite current admissions numbers and worrisome prospects for future admissions rates, Tuck will continue to focus primarily on providing a high-quality education, Danos said.

“Over time, we’ve pushed to have a higher quality of experience, a high quality student body and a larger and deeper faculty,” he said. “We have to stick to this high quality of education, regardless of the application numbers.”

MBA Admissions 2.0: Technology Makes Inroads

2011-11-07T19:38:00.000-08:00

Finally, they are getting it! Yes! - David

Business schools are turning to technology to get a better read on applicants. Paper still has a place, but so do video, PowerPoint, and Twitter

By Francesca Di Meglio

Business school applications are going high tech. Slowly, the 2.0 version of MBA admissions is arriving. Utilizing everything from social media to video, business schools are seeking new ways to get to know applicants. The goal, say admissions committee members, is to discover the true personality of the people they are considering for their classes.

Members of the admissions committees at top business schools were getting tired of reading the same old traditional essays, which had become perfunctory and overly edited, according to an e-mail written by Kurt Ahlm, associate dean of student recruitment and admissions, at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, one of the first schools to bring technology into the application by requiring a PowerPoint presentation since 2007.

“Traditional essays were too familiar, and applicants had access to hundreds of essay-writing books, websites, and consultants. We wanted to get at something that was more authentic, get an answer that was thoughtful, strategic, and added some depth,” he writes. “Our culture embraces the challenge of making sense out of the unfamiliar, and we wanted to introduce an exercise that would capture that.”

Booth asks applicants to answer an open-ended question that encourages them to share something other than what they have already mentioned about themselves elsewhere in the application, and to do so in no more than four pages on a PowerPoint presentation. Although there are guidelines, applicants are limited only by their creativity in what they churn out.

“The choices applicants make to create meaningful content in this exercise are as revealing as the content itself,” writes Ahlm. “We learn how a person thinks, what he values, and how he perceives his fit with Booth.” He adds that the exercise is “as much about strategic decision-making as it is about graphics and prose.”

BEYOND POWERPOINT

The use of technology at Booth and elsewhere is part of a broader rethink of the application process that’s taking place at such schools as the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Columbia Business School, and the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. At all three schools, changes to the traditional application essay or other aspects of the application process are giving admissions teams new insights into the personalities and qualifications of applicants and effectively diminishing the role of admissions consultants, who have become increasingly influential in business school admissions.

Other business schools are looking for similar results with their technology-driven additions to the application. In 2010, New York University’s Stern School of Business began having applicants submit one of the application essays—asking candidates to share something about themselves in a creative way—using a USB drive, DVD, or CD. Musically inclined applicants sent CDs that included a selection of their songs, others created short movies in the form of documentaries and parodies, and still others created virtual photo albums that took viewers through their life with music or narration. The school was so pleased with the applicants’ creativity that it plans to continue with these electronic submissions, says Isser Gallogly, assistant dean of MBA admissions at Stern.

“It gives them a chance to show us how they’re unique and different and how they’ll fit into the community,” says Gallogly, who adds that these submissions serve as a nice talking point in the admissions interview as well.

TWITTER-LENGTH ESSAYS

While traditional essays had applicants writing at length and with much detail, less is more with these high-tech enhancements. The University of Iowa’s Tippie School of Management recently had applicants answer one essay question in the form it would take as a tweet on Twitter. Although they did not have to broadcast their response on Twitter, it had to be 140 characters or less. Because this was a pilot program, they could still opt to write a traditional essay instead.

Whoever sent in the best Twitter-like response would win a full-tuition financial award package, valued at more than $37,000. The question was, “What makes you an exceptional Tippie Full-Time MBA candidate and future MBA hire? Creativity Encouraged.” The school received 58 entries, and a 33-year-old Texas applicant won the free ride. Delighted with how this first attempt at using social media went, the school plans to integrate it into the application and award two full scholarships next year—one each for the best Twitter-like response from a domestic and an international student, says Lydia Fine, associate director of recruiting and admissions at Tippie.

Despite the brevity, the admissions committee could learn a lot from the applicants’ tweets, says Fine. “It helps them boil down their main selling points,” she adds. And MBA candidates could add links to separate Web pages, videos, and blogs that would inform the school even more about the person’s personality, interests, and creativity, adds Colleen Downie, senior assistant dean of Tippie.

The use of social media is not the only way schools are seeking to acquaint themselves better with applicants. Video is another way to understand students beyond their written words. Mycollegei, a company that facilitates videotaping and screening for admissions committees, has several business schools as clients, including the USC Marshall School of Business and Penn State’s Smeal College of Business.

Schools send applicants an e-mail requesting them to answer additional questions using this video service, and the applicants then tape their responses. The service archives the videos for viewing only by the admissions committee. Although some schools use these videos for any applicant who wants to add another dimension to his or her application, the majority reserve the service for those who cannot participate in a face-to-face admissions interview, says Bill Barnett, president and chief executive of mycollegei in Los Angeles. “The videos can show who candidates are above and beyond a piece of paper,” he adds.

REVIVING “PERSONALITY”

High-tech additions, says Barnett, are a part of the natural evolution of today’s applications. “Technology is becoming more popular in admissions, not just because it is more practical and convenient, but also because students were raised with it,” he says.

Still, not everyone has had success including technology in business school applications. For instance, 2008-09 applicants to the UCLA Anderson School of Management had the choice of answering essays in either a written or an audio form. After prospective students around the world indicated that they experienced difficulties with the audio technology, the school decided to revert to traditional written essays in 2011, writes Robert Weiler, assistant dean of career initiatives at Anderson, in an e-mail.

Although business schools might face stumbling blocks when first incorporating technology into the application, they seem to be embracing the possibilities. In fact, Tippie’s Fine says it’s inevitable. “There’s a trend toward bringing personality back into the application,” she says. “You have to go beyond the résumé, because that’s what employers are doing.”

Join the discussion on the Bloomberg Businessweek Business School Forum, visit us on Facebook, and follow @BWbschools on Twitter.

Di Meglio is a reporter for Businessweek.com in Fort Lee, N.J.

GMAC Quant 12th Edition released

2009-04-29T00:51:00.000-07:00

I was just browsing around Amazon ordering some headphones and noticed this 12th edition had been released March 23. It's a good book and the starting point any GMAT taker should be using. The last version didn't quite get to the difficulty of the actual GMAT. I felt that it fell short from the 630 range on up. I hope this ones more comprehensive.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470449748/ref=s9_newr_co_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=left-2&pf_rd_r=0KFT6322C6JZR2SN4PR7&pf_rd_t=3201&pf_rd_p=471804691&pf_rd_i=typ01

UCLA Anderson now asking for audio MBA Apps for essays

2009-04-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

A word in your ear
By Della Bradshaw

Published: April 26 2009 22:24 | Last updated: April 26 2009 22:24

Intense competition to get into the best business schools has meant that many applicants now resort to essay-writing agencies in order to hoodwink admissions directors into letting them in. It is a practice that most admissions folk abhor, but few have had any idea about how to get genuine submissions.

At the Anderson school at UCLA, applicants this year were asked to submit their essays in audio format. Although the scheme was voluntary, some 70 per cent of applicants for the class of 2011 chose to record their essays rather than submit them in a text format, says Mae Jennifer Shores, admissions director. Perhaps surprisingly, the submissions were “ethnic, gender and country neutral”, she says, with international applicants just as eager to submit audio clips as their US peers.

The audio clips have been useful on a number of fronts, says Ms Shores: they show how well the applicants can communicate, how well they have grasped the use of English and how they perform under pressure. Also they demonstrate how creative students can be: some added music – either commercially produced or self-generated.

It also enabled some students to demonstrate a sense of humour. “It was a joy for us,” says Ms Shores.

The questions the applicants addressed were the same for the written essay or the audio version. The most popular question for applicants related to what the term “entrepreneurial spirit” meant to them, followed by a question on the most troubling global issues.

Ms Shores says the Anderson school may choose to make the audio clips compulsory next year, or alternatively it may consider using video clips instead.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

US News & World Report release 2009 Business School Overall and Categorical rankings

2009-04-27T08:57:00.001-07:00

Overall Business School 2009 Ranking
Rank 1 Harvard University Boston, MA 1,801 Full-time: $43,800 per year
Rank 2 Stanford University Stanford, CA 740 Full-time: $48,921 per year
Rank 3 Northwestern University (Kellogg) Evanston, IL Full-time:1,254 $46,791
Rank 3 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA Full-time: 1,611 $44,480
Rank 5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) Cambridge, MA Full-time:788 $46,784
Rank 5 University of Chicago (Booth) Chicago, IL Full-time: 1,144 $47,260 per year
Rank 7 University of California--Berkeley (Haas) Berkeley, CA full-time:500 $30,925 per year
Rank 8 Dartmouth College (Tuck) Hanover, NH Full-time: 506 $45,600 per year
Rank 9 Columbia University New York, NY Full-time: 1,234 $46,476 per year
Rank 10 Yale University New Haven, CT Full-time: 382 $43,700 per year
Rank 11 New York University (Stern) New York, NY Full-time: 841 $41,800 per year
Rank 12 Duke University (Fuqua) Durham, NC Full-time: 875 $44,100 per year
Rank 13 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross) Ann Arbor, MI full-time:843 $40,250
Rank 14 University of California--Los Angeles (Anderson) LA, CA full-time:731 $33,295
Rank 15 Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) Pittsburgh, PA Full-time:392 $47,800
Rank 15 University of Virginia (Darden) Charlottesville, VA full-time:644 $40,398 per year
Rank 17 Cornell University (Johnson) Ithaca, NY Full-time:593 $44,950
Rank 18 University of Texas--Austin (McCombs) Austin, TX full-time:540 $24,200
Rank 19 Georgetown University (McDonough) Washington, DC Full-time:522 $39,984
Rank 20 University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler) Chapel Hill, NC full-time: 562 $19,525
Rank 20 University of Southern California (Marshall) LA, CA Full-time:426 $41,248
Rank 22 Emory University (Goizueta) Atlanta, GA Full-time:373 $41,013
Rank 22 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA full-time:154 $7,724
Rank 22 Indiana University--Bloomington (Kelley) Bloomington, IN full-time:474 $18,978
Rank 22 Washington University in St. Louis (Olin) St. Louis, MO full-time: 294 $40,500

Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: Accounting
1 University of Texas--Austin (McCombs) Austin, TX
2 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA
3 University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL
4 University of Chicago (Booth) Chicago, IL
5 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross) Ann Arbor, MI
6 University of Southern California (Marshall) Los Angeles, CA
7 Stanford University Stanford, CA
8 Brigham Young University (Marriott) Provo, UT
9 New York University (Stern) New York, NY
10 Indiana University--Bloomington (Kelley) Bloomington, IN

Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: Information Systems
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) Cambridge, MA
2 Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) Pittsburgh, PA
3 University of Texas--Austin (McCombs) Austin, TX
4 University of Arizona (Eller) Tucson, AZ
4 University of Minnesota--Twin Cities (Carlson) Minneapolis, MN
6 University of Maryland--College Park (Smith) College Park, MD
7 New York University (Stern) New York, NY
8 Stanford University Stanford, CA
9 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA
10 Georgia State University (Robinson) Atlanta, GA

Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: Management
1 Harvard University Boston, MA
2 Stanford University Stanford, CA
3 Northwestern University (Kellogg) Evanston, IL
4 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross) Ann Arbor, MI
5 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA
6 Dartmouth College (Tuck) Hanover, NH
7 Duke University (Fuqua) Durham, NC
8 University of Virginia (Darden) Charlottesville, VA
9 University of California--Berkeley (Haas) Berkeley, CA
10 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) Cambridge, MA

Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: Nonprofit
1 Yale University New Haven, CT
2 Stanford University Stanford, CA
3 University of California--Berkeley (Haas) Berkeley, CA
4 Northwestern University (Kellogg) Evanston, IL
5 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross) Ann Arbor, MI
6 Duke University (Fuqua) Durham, NC
7 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA
8 Columbia University New York, NY
9 New York University (Stern) New York, NY

Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: Production / Operations
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) Cambridge, MA
2 Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) Pittsburgh, PA
3 Stanford University Stanford, CA
3 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA
5 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross) Ann Arbor, MI
6 Purdue University--West Lafayette (Krannert) West Lafayette, IN
7 Northwestern University (Kellogg) Evanston, IL
8 Harvard University Boston, MA
9 Columbia University New York, NY
10 University of California--Los Angeles (Anderson) Los Angeles, CA

Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: Entrepreneurship
1 Babson College (Olin) Babson Park, MA
2 Stanford University Stanford, CA
3 Harvard University Boston, MA
3 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) Cambridge, MA
6 University of Southern California (Marshall) Los Angeles, CA
7 University of California--Berkeley (Haas) Berkeley, CA
8 Indiana University--Bloomington (Kelley) Bloomington, IN
8 University of Texas--Austin (McCombs) Austin, TX
10 University of Arizona (Eller) Tucson, AZ

Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: Finance
1 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA
2 University of Chicago (Booth) Chicago, IL
3 New York University (Stern) New York, NY
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) Cambridge, MA
5 Stanford University Stanford, CA
6 Columbia University New York, NY
7 University of California--Los Angeles (Anderson) Los Angeles, CA
8 University of California--Berkeley (Haas) Berkeley, CA
9 Harvard University Boston, MA
10 Northwestern University (Kellogg) Evanston, IL

Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: Executive MBA
1 Northwestern University (Kellogg) Evanston, IL
2 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA
3 University of Chicago (Booth) Chicago, IL
4 Duke University (Fuqua) Durham, NC
5 Columbia University New York, NY
6 University of California--Berkeley (Haas) Berkeley, CA
7 New York University (Stern) New York, NY
8 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross) Ann Arbor, MI
9 University of California--Los Angeles (Anderson) Los Angeles, CA
10 University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler) Chapel Hill, NC

Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: International
1 Thunderbird School of Global Management Glendale, AZ
2 University of South Carolina (Moore) Columbia, SC
3 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA
4 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross) Ann Arbor, MI
5 Columbia University New York, NY
6 Duke University (Fuqua) Durham, NC
6 New York University (Stern) New York, NY
8 Harvard University Boston, MA
9 University of Southern California (Marshall) Los Angeles, CA
10 University of California--Berkeley (Haas) Berkeley, CA

Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: Marketing
1 Northwestern University (Kellogg) Evanston, IL
2 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA
3 Duke University (Fuqua) Durham, NC
4 Stanford University Stanford, CA
5 Harvard University Boston, MA
6 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross) Ann Arbor, MI
7 University of Chicago (Booth) Chicago, IL
8 Columbia University New York, NY
9 University of California--Berkeley (Haas) Berkeley, CA
10 University of Texas--Austin (McCombs) Austin, TX

Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: Part-time MBA
1 New York University (Stern) New York, NY
2 University of Chicago (Booth) Chicago, IL
3 Northwestern University (Kellogg) Evanston, IL
4 University of California--Los Angeles (Anderson) Los Angeles, CA
5 University of Southern California (Marshall) Los Angeles, CA
6 University of California--Berkeley (Haas) Berkeley, CA
7 Georgia State University (Robinson) Atlanta, GA
8 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross) Ann Arbor, MI
9 DePaul University (Kellstadt) Chicago, IL
10 Santa Clara University (Leavey) Santa Clara, CA

Best Business Schools Specialty Rankings: Supply Chain / Logistics
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) Cambridge, MA
2 Michigan State University (Broad) East Lansing, MI
3 Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) Pittsburgh, PA
4 Stanford University Stanford, CA
5 Arizona State University (Carey) Tempe, AZ
6 Pennsylvania State University--University Park (Smeal) University Park, PA
7 Ohio State University (Fisher) Columbus, OH
8 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA
9 University of Tennessee--Knoxville Knoxville, TN
10 Northwestern University (Kellogg) Evanston, IL
10 Purdue University--West Lafayette (Krannert) West Lafayette, IN

Economist MBA News - GMAT Changing

2009-04-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

Testing times

The GMAT—the contentious entrance exam required by most important business schools—is set for an upgrade. Dubbed the “Next Generation GMAT”, the test's administrator, the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), says it is responding to changes in the business school market, such as an increase in specialised masters programmes and more variations on the traditional MBA. Few firm details of what the new exam will look like are yet available—the GMAC is set to go through a lengthy consultation process with schools, with the new test to be launched in 2013—but it may look to address some of the criticisms that are often levelled at it.

Despite being the de facto entrance exam for business schools across the world, the GMAT is only available in (American) English and has often been accused of a cultural bias towards Western students. Furthermore, breaches of security, such as last year's cheating scandal (see article) and the problem of professional test-takers sitting the exam for prospective students, are also sure to feature in the GMAC's deliberations.

Meanwhile, the GMAC has announced that it has brokered a deal with “a leading international bank” to provide at least $500m in loans to international students. The organisation says that international students have been especially hard-hit by the financial crisis as they are not eligible for federal loans and some big lenders have become reluctant to advance credit. The loans will initially be open to students in about 40 business schools in America and Europe, beginning with the 2009-10 academic year.

On the cases

INSEAD and London Business School were winners at the annual European Case Awards in early March. The awards, which honour the best management case studies—a teaching technique pioneered by Harvard Business School—are bestowed by ecch, which describes itself as “a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting and facilitating case study based learning in management education and development.” The top honour went to four INSEAD professors—W. Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne, Ben Bensaou and Matt Williamson—for their study of Cirque du Soleil, a Canadian performing troupe.

All told, INSEAD picked up four awards, while London won in three categories. According to ecch, this year's cases concentrated on some of the areas hit hardest by the downturn, including the banking sector—cases of how not to do things, perhaps.

Concentrating minds

The University of Chicago's Booth Graduate School of Business has announced the addition of “concentrations” to its executive MBA curriculum. Students can now add a concentration in finance, marketing or strategy by adding a week of coursework (and paying an additional week of tuition) to the 21-month programme. The school is touting the concentrations as a way for students to signal to prospective employers that they have “in-depth knowledge” of a particular area. Although Booth offers its executive MBA programmes on three campuses—in Chicago, London, and Singapore—students would have to come to the Chicago campus for the concentration classes.

An emerging trend

In Spain, IESE at the University of Navarra has announced the creation of a new “Chair of Emerging Markets”, to be led by Alfredo Pastor, a professor of economics at the school. IESE said it was launching the chair in response to what it sees as poor understanding of such markets by European companies, and an overly-cautious response to them despite their potential. As such, the new chair aims to “foster research and encourage a constant and vivid exchange of knowledge and ideas about emerging markets for the benefit of companies and their managers.” It will do so via research, events and, eventually, the creation of courses on emerging markets.

Port of call

London Business School has some reason to feel grateful to off-the-beaten-path travellers. In early March, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, founders of the Lonely Planet series of travel guides, announced a gift to the school to endow a chair in entrepreneurship. Mr Wheeler received a master's degree from the school in 1972. LBS did not disclose the exact sum of the gift but described it as “multimillion pound.” Rajesh Chandy, who specialises in entrepreneurship and innovation in emerging markets, will be the first professor to hold the Wheeler Chair.

Executive stress

Heading south from Regent's Park, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has announced a foray into the once-lucrative world of executive education. Despite fears that corporate training budgets are being hit hard by the recession, LSE is banking that offering programmes dealing with today's gloomy business environment will buck the trend. Short courses, including “Banking in an Age of Turbulence” and “What’s Wrong With the EU and How to Fix It” are being offered as part of its “Executive Summer School”, which will run in June and July. The venture is further evidence that LSE is looking to compete head-to-head with traditional business schools. The school already offers an MBA in partnership with New York University’s Stern School of Business and HEC School of Management, Paris.

Barring the golden doors

The value of an American-earned MBA may be dropping for foreign students. In early March Bank of America confessed to having withdrawn job offers for MBA graduates who would need H1-B visas, reserved for highly-skilled workers, to work in finance jobs. The reason? Any institution wanting to receive money from the Troubled Assets Relief Programme cannot apply for H1-B visas if it has recently made workers redundant—two provisions that apply to a good many American banks. Glenn Hubbard, the dean of Columbia Business School, called the provision “absolutely terrible” in an address to students. One-third of Columbia's MBA class of 2009 came from abroad.

Credit where due?

Despite recent bad press, MBA degrees must still be a mark of prestige, if the actions of Dave Bing, a former basketball star and entrepreneur competing in Detroit's mayoral election, scheduled for May, are anything to go by. Mr Bing, who received the most votes in the mayoral primary in February, has been forced to admit he did not receive an MBA from Kettering University (previously known as the General Motors Institute), as he had claimed in a promotional video for the National Basketball Administration. “I felt I had an MBA for the work I had done in the industry I was in,” he told the Associated Press. Mr Bing does hold an economics degree from Syracuse University, but he also admitted he had received it in 1995, not 1966 as previously stated.

GMAC News for April 2009

2009-04-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

Across the United States, more than 1,500 MBA students, faculty, and supporters will participate in dozens of community service projects this month as part of TeamMBA Month.

> Read press release

> Go to TeamMBA Web site

European Business Schools Attract More GMAT Score Reports

The number of GMAT score reports sent by students from around the world to business schools in Europe is on the rise, according to GMAC's new European Geographic Trend Report. Schools in Europe are also attracting an expanding share of score reports sent by European citizens who take the GMAT.

> Listen to podcast (2:35):

> Download report (451 KB PDF)

India and China Lead the Way

As GMAT Volume Surges in Asia

Led by India and China, Asia accounts for a fast-growing share of GMAT testing activity around the world, according to the newly released GMAC Asian Geographic Trend Report. The region also is generating--and receiving--an increasing number of score reports from people who take the exam.

> Listen to podcast (3:00):

> Download report (716 KB PDF)

> More News

Websites Play Key Role When Prospective

MBAs Select Schools

> Read article in Graduate Management News

> Download report (355 KB PDF)

New Loan Program Helps International Students

> Read press release

Article from WSJ: With Jobs Tight, M.B.A.s Head for Home

2009-04-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

By ALINA DIZIK

After working in public accounting for three years, Joe Fusco, wanted to become an investment banker. So he invested more than $70,000 and two years into an M.B.A.

But as he prepares to graduate from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana next month, Mr. Fusco, 27 years old, hasn't had any luck landing a position in finance. The only solution he has is to go back to his accounting roots. "It's a tough pill to swallow, but I've come to the conclusion that I can't sit and wait and cross my fingers," he says.

The majority of students at top business schools attend the programs as a way to boost their skills to change careers. This year, making that happen has turned into a nearly impossible task. And that means a significant number of soon-to-be grads who entered school back in 2007 are being forced back to their pre-M.B.A. careers in the hopes of finding a job.

"Career switchers are getting hit the hardest," says Kristen Lynas, associate director of career management at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. Those looking to switch fields make up the majority of each incoming class at the school, she adds. "When the market is hot, employers are more willing to take the risk ... [now] employers tend to go with the safe choice."

Sean Kelly

Steve Canale, manager of recruiting and staffing services at General Electric Co., in Fairfield, Conn., says that with so many applicants, previous experience is getting a bigger emphasis when the company weeds out candidates. "That's the sweet spot -- people who have industry expertise in the industries that we're strong in," says Mr. Canale, who hires about 120 M.B.A. students each year for a sales and marketing program.

In past years, GE would have been more open to M.B.A.s who were less of a match. But applications for the program grew 30% this year and Mr. Canale was able to be more experience-selective, he says.

With firms like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns -- which used to bring on upward of 800 M.B.A.s combined every year -- now defunct, and fewer finance jobs around, more business-school graduates are leaning on their experience to get them in the door. For example, the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business has typically placed 50% of its M.B.A. alumni in finance, most at large investment banks. This year, students in all majors have been turning back to their previous fields to find work, says Char Bennington, Chicago's senior associate director of career management. Ms. Bennington says other industries, like consulting and marketing, are also hiring fewer people and looking for experience.

After Johnson & Johnson didn't extend an offer to Jareer Oweimrin, a second-year M.B.A. at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who worked as a strategic marketing intern with the company, Mr. Oweimrin is putting his plans to get a health-care marketing role on hold for the time being. He is now trying to capitalize on his background in pharmaceutical sales and is in talks about returning to a sales job at a former employer, a major drug maker. He hopes such a move will eventually help him move into marketing. "The motto here [at school] is 'take what you've got,'" says Mr. Oweimrin, who spent about $70,000 on his degree. "You can't be as picky as you want to be."

Even consulting firms -- known for hiring career switchers -- are looking for M.B.A.s with previous experience to hire.

Brianne Shally, 29, who graduates from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management this spring, says she feels safer going back to a consulting job in Chicago for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, her previous employer, rather than make a career change. "I have a proven track record, if it comes down to names on a board" for a layoff or hiring, says Ms. Shally. She says consulting jobs haven't been easy to land for fellow classmates, though. This year, she says, firms "were not willing to take a risk on students who did not have previous consulting experience."

Patricia Phillips, executive director of career management at University of Rochester's Simon Graduate School of Business, says students are beginning to recognize that these days, it could take two or three career moves to make a switch.

That's how Abhishek Sunkersett is approaching his first post-M.B.A. job. Instead of landing a job in strategy consulting or finance, Mr. Sunkersett, 28, a second-year student at the University of Texas-Austin McCombs School of Business, says his engineering background and technical experience working in the Mumbai office of Deloitte helped land him a position at the Chicago office of Infosys Technologies Ltd., an Indian information-technology services vendor. For now, Mr. Sunkersett says he'll focus on consulting projects involving technology, with hopes of pursuing more strategy-related projects in the firm. "My experience was a big advantage," says Mr. Sunkersett.

But the idea of returning to an old career has some soon-to-be grads questioning the value of their degrees. A traditional post-M.B.A. position increases a degree-holder's salary by 74% according to an annual survey from the Graduate Management Admissions Council.

Besides being unable to use his newly honed marketing skills, Mr. Oweimrin, says he is worried that he'll be earning the same as he did as a pharmaceutical rep -- about $60,000 -- instead of the $100,000 marketing job he expected to land after the M.B.A. program.

And Mr. Fusco says he is less certain his investment in the degree was worthwhile. Many of the auditing positions that he is finding don't require a graduate business degree. "These are positions that I was pretty qualified for even pre-M.B.A," he says.

Write to Alina Dizik at alina.dizik@dowjones.com

Kellogg looks at expansion in India

2009-04-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

Lauren Kelleher

Issue date: 4/22/09 Section: Campus

For Anita Suresh, an Indian MBA student in the Kellogg School of Management, India is more than just a place to call home.

Suresh and other Indian students in Kellogg are looking to their homeland's emergent industries and growing middle class of consumers as a fresh source of entrepreneurial opportunity, the second-year graduate student said.

"India is becoming more than just a body shop," she said. "It's more than just a place for raw skills, but for innovation."

Speakers at Saturday's 15th annual Kellogg India Business Conference, "Riding the Elephant: Sharing India's Success," addressed the potential for innovation in India's emerging markets, said Sayali Karanjkar, one of the event's co-chairs. About 500 Kellogg students, faculty and alumni attended the event, held at the Donald P. Jacobs Center.

The event also marked the launch of India@Kellogg, a publication featuring work and research from Kellogg students, faculty and alumni. The journal brings together the different perspectives of people in the Indian business world and provides networking opportunities for students and alumni, said Suresh, one of the journal's editors.

"There is such a strong representation (of Indian students) at Kellogg," she said. "It just made sense to gather insights in one place, be it research or visions they have for India."

According to Suresh, there are about 100 Indian students in her year at Kellogg, about 50 of which are international students. Last year, Kellogg increased admissions efforts to get Indian students to come to Northwestern, Suresh said.

However, it was far from Kellogg's first effort at outreach in the country.

Kellogg, along with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, serves as an associate school of the Indian School of Business. Kellogg Deans Dipak Jain and Donald Jacobs are on the board of ISB.

NU's efforts to establish an international presence became manifest when the university opened the doors of its Qatar campus in 2008. India could be the next country to which NU extends its global reach, President Henry Bienen told The Daily in a recent interview.

"I am excited by the idea of doing something in India and always have been," he said.

Bienen, who will be visiting India this month on his way back from a trip to Qatar, said he will be engaging in "conversations" during his stay. He added there is interest from the business and journalism programs in India to expand NU's presence.

Anant Garg, co-chair of the India Business Conference, said he would not be surprised to see the university explore its options for setting up another international campus in India.

"Kellogg is already present there," the second-year MBA student said. "Kellogg faculty goes there to teach - and not just Indian faculty. For Northwestern to develop a presence there is a logical next step."

But setting up satellite learning would be more cost-effective than building a physical center, said Garg, referencing one of the conference's keynote speakers, C.K. Prahalad.

"For India, the best option would be to take the power of the Northwestern brand and its professors and leverage it to an even wider audience," he said.

lkelleher@u.northwestern.edu

Article from NYTimes: Business Grads Look Beyond Wall Street

2009-04-22T01:12:00.000-07:00

Note: In the future, articles that I find will have full postings of original articles. I'm doing this because I fear that the sources I obtain articles from will be gone soon. I no longer have the confidence to assume that newspapers here today will be here next year. Every newspaper is in the midst of major cutbacks and many are closing down.

Posted: April 20, 2009, 6:39 am By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Riana Paige, an undergraduate senior at the Wharton School of Business, had a high-paying internship at JPMorgan Chase last summer and was disappointed when she did not receive an offer for a full-time job after graduation. Now she is pursuing a job teaching in Dubai, or working for a wine importer.

Daniel Miller, a Wharton senior who was an intern last summer at a boutique private equity firm in Manhattan, became so discouraged by his search for jobs in finance that he began thinking about becoming a rabbi.

Jessica Levy, also a senior at Wharton, the nation’s most prestigious undergraduate business program, was stunned when her supervisor at UBS told her that although she had done a terrific job as an intern, the bank could not offer her a job after graduation. Her dreams of investment banking quashed, she recently took the Foreign Service exam and is vying for a job at the State Department.

“A lot of my peers, we’re exploring things that we used to not even think of as an option,” Ms. Levy told The New York Times. “A finance major who was minoring in music was suddenly looking into opening a jazz club. All of a sudden, I saw that a lot of Wharton people were interesting.”

For the last decade, a job at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley or another investment bank has been considered the most coveted prize for many of the nation’s best and brightest college students. But the implosion of Wall Street — the vaporization of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the general humbling of investment banks — has not only shaken a generation’s ambitions, but also unleashed them, The Times’s Steven Greenhouse writes.

“There was a real herd mentality to get into investment banking,” Ms. Levy, noting that prestige, peer pressure and parents often channeled students to Wall Street, told The Times. But because of the crisis, “there was suddenly permission to pursue something you were interested in that your parents three years ago would have said absolutely no to.”

For many students at Wharton, part of the University of Pennsylvania, the Wall Street crisis has fostered a sense of relief. Some students now acknowledge that they were pursuing investment banking jobs largely to placate parents who, having invested nearly $200,000 in their children’s educations, were eager for them to earn top dollar — and some prestige too.

Of course, many students who coveted Wall Street jobs have landed them: the prestige firms that remain are doing plenty of hiring, although substantially less than in years past. And some finance majors shut out of Wall Street jobs have accepted back-up options, often lesser banks in smaller cities. But many who thirsted for big investment banking bonuses are looking at decidedly down-market alternatives, everything from Teach for America to computer engineering.

“It’s always been about the brass ring and it’s always been about the brand recognition, and for a lot of students that meant jobs at Goldman Sachs,” Emanuel Sturman, director of career services at Dartmouth College, told The Times. “It’s premature to say the bloom is off the rose totally, but I think students are starting to look at a wider array of brass rings.”

College officials say that the sweeping changes on Wall Street will affect not only finance-minded members of the class of ’09 but also tens of thousands of juniors, sophomores and freshmen, as well as future students, leading them to rethink their majors and their career goals.

After doing an internship at Goldman Sachs last summer and not being offered a full-time job there, Katie Shea, a senior at the Stern School of Business at New York University, is instead pursuing her dreams of entrepreneurship. She has founded a shoe company that designs and imports collapsible shoes that women can wear while walking to work and then stuff into their pocketbooks.

“For me, the Wall Street crisis was a blessing in disguise,” Ms. Shea told The Times.

Not everyone feels that way. For many undergraduates with their eyes on Wall Street, the financial sector crisis created panic — and confusion in their job searches. Ms. Levy says she interviewed at Lehman Brothers one day, and it filed for bankruptcy the next day.

“Over the past three years, you saw 10 to 12 kids from Wharton going to each of the top five banks,” Jeremy Cohn, a Wharton senior, told The Times. “This year there are probably zero to 2 or 3 students going to each of those banks.”

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other banks declined to discuss how much they have reduced job offers, The Times said. But college officials estimate the decline in financial sector job offers is 10 to 50 percent. And it is also affecting M.B.A. students.

Jana Kierstead, director of M.B.A. career services at Harvard Business School, said the number of job postings over all had declined 30 percent from last year, with a 40 percent drop among financial institutions.

“The number of firms coming to campus was relatively the same, but the number of positions they’re recruiting for has been reduced,” she told The Times.

Ms. Kierstead said 78 percent of Harvard’s second-year M.B.A. students had job offers, down from 90 percent at this time last year.

At Wharton, the number of on-campus interviews for the school’s 600 undergraduates fell 20 percent, from 13,000 last year.

Last year, starting salaries for undergraduates going to top financial firms typically ran from $55,000 to $70,000, with an $8,000 signing bonus. And their annual bonus often equaled their starting salary. This year, starting salaries are roughly the same, with signing bonuses often falling to $4,000. As for expectations of fat bonuses, they have gone the way of Bear Stearns.

Some students have grown frustrated and suspended their job search. As a result, Patricia Rose, the University of Pennsylvania’s director of career services, recently sent out a message saying: “We are hearing from some students that they are discouraged, and have stopped applying for jobs because so many other candidates are competing with them, some undoubtedly more qualified. Resist this impulse! By not applying, you are rejecting yourself.”

She reminded them, “You are attending one of the world’s finest universities.”

“So hang in there,” she concluded. “And most importantly, believe in yourself.”

While some Wharton seniors are struggling, many have done well. Jeremy Cohn, for example, has been hired by Lazard Freres’ real estate group. Mickey Ashmore, a former Goldman Sachs intern, has accepted an offer with Microsoft’s finance division. Anthony Orlando and Nanxi Ling will work for Oliver Wyman, a Manhattan consulting firm that advises floundering banks.

But Oliver Wyman has asked them to push back their start date to January.

“We’re all young; we’ll all get a job,” Mr. Ashmore told The Times. “This isn’t going to last forever.”

A job offer can, of course, make all the difference.

Daniel Miller, the student who was contemplating rabbinical school, had suspended his job search, intent on savoring his last few weeks before graduation.

“I have the next 60 years of my life to worry about work,” he told The Times. “I’m fortunate I don’t have any college debt and have a very supportive family. I can’t imagine what it’s like for someone less fortunate than me.”

But last Thursday, a real estate investment firm outside Philadelphia offered him a job. Rabbinical school can wait.

New HBS TV Show

2008-12-15T15:46:00.000-08:00

It begins this Wednesday Dec 17th at 1am ET on CNBC. The website already has a bunch of videos. It's worth checking out. Very Cool.

MGM Mirage CEO Faked His MBA

2008-11-16T09:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday MGM Mirage's CEO of 13 years, Terrence Lanni came under fire after a Wall Street Journal investigation discovered that he never earned an MBA from the University of Southern California and abruptly "retired." Oops.

This is not what you want to find out about the man who is steering the world's largest casino-gaming company through a particularly rough patch in history. Especially as the hotel is on the brink of opening the extravagant MGM CityCenter.
According to USC, he completed some classes toward the MBA

According to USC, he completed some classes toward the MBA between 1965 and 1967 but never graduated. Lanni said he received an Honorary MBA in 1992, while USC says they have not awarded an honorary MBAs since 1933. Not only that, but Lanni's biographies prior to 1992 have all mentioned him holding an MBA.

The official word from MGM Mirage is that Lanni is retiring so he can be closer to his family who lives in California. There's also a thinly veiled reference to Lanni wanting to enjoy time with his family while he still can. The man is only 65 and has no illnesses to speak of. Anyways, questions about his MBA had "no bearing whatsoever" on his retirement. Riiiiight...

To help smooth the transition for the company, since it has some major issues to overcome like the economic downturn and completion of City Center, MGM is going to appoint Jim Murren, its current Chief Operating Officer effective November 30th.

Source

Kellogg offers a view of some recorded classes online

2008-11-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

This is a really great idea. The energy that flows from the Profs to the students really shows. Say what you will about school reputation, but I'm a HUGE fan of great teachers. Every school ought to do this. Especially for topics taught that resonate with the current times that prospective students can by energized by.

View a Class
Kellogg faculty are among the world’s finest researchers in a variety of fields, and their expertise is in high demand. Some of our professors are consultants for businesses and governments. All of them are excellent teachers. Turn off your cell phones and open your minds. Class is about to begin.

View the videos

Managerial Leadership

Professor Harry Kraemer lectures on values-based leadership and its impact on corporate success.

Technology Marketing

Professor Mohanbir Sawhney reviews the sale of IBM's PC division to the Lenovo Group Ltd. as a case study in his class. Prof. Sawhney is the McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology at Kellogg.

Entrepreneurial Finance

Professor Steven Rogers highlights a case study of Gannett Broadcasting's acquisition strategy as part of this Entrepreneurial Finance course. Prof. Rogers is also director of the Larry and Carol Levy Institute for Entrepreneurial Practice at Kellogg.

Financial Difficulties for MBA students as described in The Harbus

2008-11-14T10:29:00.000-08:00

The Credit Crisis at HBS
Financial Aid for International Students Takes a Hit
Nana Kankam (NF), Contributing Writer

As jarring and troubling as the news has been for all of us here at HBS, for international students, the perspective is peppered with shifting expectations, challenged perceptions of America, and personal worries as the tightening of the credit markets leave many students wondering how they'll finance the balance of their education. The unfolding of the current financial crisis has all of us glued to our televisions, blackberries and newspapers as we try to adjust our career choices, goals and lives in general. It seems as if every day there is more news accumulating: another firm down, another horrible day in the market, increasing talk of the global repercussions of America's mistakes.

See Full Article

John Hopkins expanding Carey Business School Part-Time to Full-Time

2008-11-14T10:28:00.000-08:00

Johns Hopkins University's Carey Business School plans to launch a full-time MBA program for graduate students in 2010. The Carey Business School, which was established last year after the School of Professional Students in Business and Education became two separate departments, currently offers most of its MBA programs on a part-time basis. "The only full-time MBA program right now is the MBA/MPH degree which is in conjunction with the Bloomberg School of Public Health," said Patrick Ercolano, the Communication Associate for the Carey Business School.

See Full Article

Time Magazine describes the road ahead for MBA's as bitter.

2008-11-14T10:26:00.000-08:00

First came the crash. Now come the ripples. At business schools around the country, 'tis the season for MBA recruiting. But for Wall Street wannabes who banked on school yielding a six-figure finance job, bitter reality is setting in. Offers from financial firms are slowing, as budgets get slashed and freezes take effect.

This year's recruiting season may feel longer, more competitive, and more painful for soon-to-be-minted MBAs than any in recent memory. Amid pervasive market uncertainty, admissions officers and students at business schools around the country say the recruiting climate has shifted noticeably, particularly in the financial sector. "Uncertainty is the buzzword," says Deanna M. Fuehne, Director of the Career Management Center at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Management. "Consulting firms and banks are worried that clients may pull projects and deals. Company recruiters are worried about staff reductions. So it's become a game of 'wait and see.'"

See Full Article

BusinessWeek releases long awaited 2008 B-School Rankings

2008-11-14T09:36:00.000-08:00

BusinessWeek releases their B-School ranking every two years. Usually released in October, this slightly delayed release has included some great articles that review the state of MBA applications and how recent MBA grads are having a crazy time in their pursuit of financial careers. See the rank.

Or perhaps you're interested in the International B-school 2008 rankings.

The lead article for the rankings titled, "Crisis Hits the Business Schools", is a dark description of just how bad the job situation is in the finance sector for MBA grads. For example, B-Schools job postings are down by as much as 10%. With MBA Applications drastrically spiking this year and the recruiting side dropping, the MBA appears to be a difficult sweet and sour dish to be eating right now.

This must have been a very difficult topic to report on. Listen to the behind the scenes audio podcast to find out just how difficult.

MIT's Business School Dean also chimes in on the MBA outlook. Check it out.

Comment on the rankings: It's important to remember that the focus of the BusinessWeek rankings was to survey students and corporate recruiters and measures intellectual capital.

There are a few eye openers in the rankings. The following schools made it into the 1st Tier rankings: Southern Methodist (Cox), Brigham Young (Marriott), U. of Washington (Foster) and Georgia Tech.

On the other hand, Georgetown (McDonough), Michigan State (Broad), Purdue (Krannert) and Rochester (Simon) fell down into the pool of 2nd Tiers losing all sense of overall ranking.