Dec 28, 2011

NYU Sterns offers Technology Entrepreneurship - Another push for Tech in NYC


What may have prompted Stern to offer an MBA course in Technology Entrepreneurship  (MGMT-GB.3337.30)?

1. Presence of serial entrepreneurs in NYC who are willing to invest their time and capital in startups.
2. Many top engineering and technology students graduating from schools in NY region prefer to stay in NYC rather than moving to Silicon Valley.
3. With bonuses down and salaries of Wall Street employees under scanner, technology offers an alternative career path to finance jobs in NYC.
4. A positive change towards entrepreneurial activities, most recently observed by Mayor Bloomberg's initiative to establish NYC as world capital of tech startups.
5. Hypothesis that there are quite a few entrepreneurially minded MBA students at Stern.



Dec 27, 2011

Inside University of California Berkeley Haas's Admissions Office

This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.

 

What happens once applications are submitted?

Stephanie Fujii, Director of Admissions at Berkeley Haas, Excerpts - Once the applicants submit their applications on the online platform,they immediately get a confirmation and response from the school saying “Thank you for submitting your application.” Next, we put together the application to make sure that all the required pieces of the application are in order, including the application form itself, the essays, the letters of recommendations, resume and now the applicants can also submit the official transcripts while submitting the rest of the application.

After putting together all the components of an application together and verifying that the application is complete in all aspects, we send it for its first read. All of our applications from specific regions or country are assigned to readers based on the country of applicant. Moreover, every application is given atleast two reads by our admissions team, by different readers. Once the second reader completes the evaluation, the reader decides whether to send an interview invite to the applicant, deny or waitlist. In case of any disagreement between the two readers, the application will go for a third review. Also, some applications may go to a third reader's inputs even when there is an agreement, just to get an additional perspective.

Dec 21, 2011

Inside London Business School's Admissions Office

This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.

What happens once applications are submitted?

David Simpson, LBS associate director of marketing and admissions - Similar to many other business schools, we also follows a staged admissions application process, however, our process runs over a fairly long season. Our Round One deadline is in the month of October, and we made offers in December. Our final round deadline is towards the end of April, and these offers are made in July. Although we do expect applicants to do a lot of research about the school, which takes time  as well as effort (and often included a campus visit at some stage of this process), we also recognize that candidates' professional and personal circumstances can change quickly, thus affecting their application submission time. 

Once the applications are submitted through our online platform, they are downloaded after the admission deadline, printed out and additional documentations are added. They will go to admissions team members who will then read the application and decide if the applicant should be invited for an interview or not. Nobody joins the LBS MBA program without having been interviewed, face-to-face, with an alumnus. These alumni interviews offer us a consistently high standard of detailed feedback from the perspective of someone who has gone through the program themselves.  The admissions interviews also offer applicants we considered to be “borderline” for one or the other reason an opportunity to shine. After all, even from the perspective of attaining post-MBA employment, it is an applicant's all-round package of knowledge, experience, intellect, personality and charisma that will get them a job in this market. Because these admissions interviews are carried out in locations all over the world, usually wherever the candidates are based, these interviews add the benefit of local market/cultural knowledge.

Inside MIT Sloan's Admissions Office

This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.

 

What happens once applications are submitted?

Rod Garcia, Director of Admissions MIT Sloan - After the application deadline for a particular round is over,, the first thing we do with the submitted applications is to import the application data into our own database. And since we have a paperless application process, this year we’ve made our application evaluation process sustainable by downloading the applications to our  admissions readers’ iPads rather than printing them out. The first person to see the submitted application is me. I review each of these applications online and then distribute it to a member of the admissions committee for reading. By the way, applications are distributed randomly. The application reviewers are all our internal admissions staff along with some contract readers – controlled by us – and we don’t use students or alumni as application readers.

So initially the applications are downloaded to iPads in batchs of 20, 25, or 40  depending on how quickly our reviewers can read them. Then, a week later, we all meet to calibrate the scores and then upload these scores to our database.

Yes, that’s right. We score the applications. Although we don’t have a global rating, we score applicants on a set of attributes. There are about nine attributes that we broadly look at, ranging from GMAT to GPA to work success to all the other attributes, such as leadership attributes. Essentially there are two broad groups attributes – demonstrated success (as indicated by indicators such as GMAT, GPA, work success) and leadership attributes. We then sum up the two scores, and based on these two scores I will then decide the 18 percent applicants who we will send invite for interviews.

Dec 16, 2011

Inside Carnegie Mellon (CMU) Tepper's Admissions Office

This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.


What happens once applications are submitted?

James Frick, MBA director of admissions CMU Tepper - At CMU Tepper, we have an oustanding support staff, and it is going to take control as soon as applicants click that “submit” button. It will coordinate the applications, get it organized and ensure that all of the required and supplemental information is in. The team does a great job of being in touch with the applicants and in general we are very proactive and thoughtful about reaching out and saying, “Here is your status, and here’s what we need from your side.” Many a time the message is just to say that it’s hard to read a transcript that you’ve uploaded at the time of submission, can you send another copy?

Once it is verified that an application is complete, it goes to our reviewers for reading. All of the admissions reviewers are part of the professional admissions team, made up of myself and my colleagues. All the applications are read a minimum of two times and usually three or four.

Dec 12, 2011

Are you ready for the new GMAT?


If you want to ace GMAT - the key to the world's best B-schools - it's time you start honing your visual interpretation, too. The Graduate Management Admission Council announced the components of the new format which will debut in the June 2012 NextGen GMAT.

The new section, named Integrated Reasoning, will have four basic formats. Graphic interpretation will be a multiple-choice question based on images. Multiple-source reasoning will have questions from the same data. Table analysis will be based on tables which can be sorted in various ways. Also, for the first time, GMAT will provide candidates an on-screen calculator. This will be only for the fourth format called two-part analysis.

The new section will be for 30 minutes and consist of 12 questions. However, the time for the exam will remain the same (3 hours, 30 minutes) and so will the total scores. The new section will be incorporated by dropping an essay from the analytical writing assessment. So far, students had to write an essay and analyse an argument. The latter has been retained. The length of the two other sections - verbal and quantitative sections - stays as it is.

GMAC is changing the test format after 17 years. It was done after a survey of B-schools in which they asked new skills be measured. "GMAC always believed in evolving the exam according to needs. Many schools felt that a higher order of integrated reasoning should be included. Data analysis is a key point in business now. Most B-schools have case studies in their syllabi. The new section will test the candidate's ability to interpret visual images, convert data from verbal and graphical representations to understand relationships from graphs, and integrate data from various sources," Ashok Sarathy, vice-president, GMAT operations, told TOI.

Sample questions are available on the GMAC website. The test prep materials will be available from April. GMAT is becoming popular among Indian students. There has been a 10% increase in the students appearing for the test in the past year. The number of schools accepting the score in India has increased by 200% over the past four years.

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TimesofIndia

Inside MIT Sloan's Admissions Office


This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.

 

What happens once applications are submitted?

Rod Garcia, Director of Admissions MIT Sloan - After the application deadline for a particular round is over,, the first thing we do with the submitted applications is to import the application data into our own database. And since we have a paperless application process, this year we’ve made our application evaluation process sustainable by downloading the applications to our admissions readers’ iPads rather than printing them out. The first person to see the submitted application is me. I review each of these applications online and then distribute it to a member of the admissions committee for reading. By the way, applications are distributed randomly. The application reviewers are all our internal admissions staff along with some contract readers – controlled by us – and we don’t use students or alumni as application readers.

So initially the applications are downloaded to iPads in batchs of 20, 25, or 40 depending on how quickly our reviewers can read them. Then, a week later, we all meet to calibrate the scores and then upload these scores to our database.

Dec 9, 2011

QS Top MBA Ranking - By Region and by Specialization


The QS Global 200 Business Schools Report provides an alternative to traditional MBA rankings by highlighting the value of MBA programs around the world according to the qualification’s end consumer—the MBA employer. Over 2,000 responses were received from 42 countries, making this the largest survey of its kind.

Methodology - MBA employers were asked to identify the business schools from which they prefer to recruit. Respondents also identified business schools they deem to produce excellent hires in ten areas of elective specialization: finance; strategy; marketing; entrepreneurship; corporate social responsibility; information management; innovation and international management.

If you’re considering pursuing an MBA, the QS Global 200 Business Schools Report can help in your research process by identifying which business schools are meeting the needs of international employers and revealing some of the newer programs that are gaining in reputation.

Top Three Business Schools, by Region  -

Which business schools do the most satisfied MBA graduates go to ?


Getting an M.B.A. from a top tier school is always an expensive affair. An MBA degree from Harvard Business School, for instance, can dig a deep hole in your pocket (approx. $290,000 on average for tuition and two years of foregone salary).

Many of the readers might be aware of the fact that Forbes, the magazine, ranks business schools every two years based on the return on investment of their alumni. A reccent article from Forbes highlights the "satisfaction" rank of these business schools based on the information collected during the survey. However, just like with any other MBA ranking, it is important to know how this ranking works. Forbe's MBA Ranking is based on ROI along with responses from alumni on their level of satisfaction in three areas: M.B.A. education, current job and preparedness relative to other b-school grads. The three satisfaction ratings are then averaged to come out with the list of the most satisfied MBA graduates. Any school that did not respond from at least 25 graduates is excluded from the list.

So how the ranking for the schools sending most satisfied MBA graduates look like? Check out the surprise school at No. 9!

Dec 4, 2011

Inside Yale SOM's Admissions Office


This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.


What happens once applications are submitted?

Yale School of Management (SOM) Admissions Director Bruce DelMonico - Once applicants submit applications on our online application platform, we ensure that the applications are complete by adding to them any supplemental information or materials that were submitted by the applicants separately. Once an application is verfied to be complete, we send it out to reads. Most of the applications receive two independent  reviews by different members of our Admissions Committee.

It may be noted that the applications are read in random order and, as a result, candidates can be invited to interview at any time in a particular round. Candidates can also be invited to interview at any point in the admissions process – whether early in the round after a preliminary review of the file or later in the round after a first or second reviews (or, in some cases, after coming to the Admissions Committee).

Dec 1, 2011

Inside NYU Stern's Admissions Office


This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.


What happens once applications are submitted?

Isser Gallogly, Executive director of MBA admissions at NYU Stern - At NYU Stern, we have three admissions deadlines, however, we use a rolling notification process, which makes us unlike some other schools that have round systems. We do provide any initial notification deadlines as to when can applicants expect us to get back to them, but usually that’s the latest possible date and we try to get out our initial notifications as soon as we have them ready. We recognize the fact that this is an anxious process for all the applicants, and we  do not make people wait unnecessarily.

Our admissions process is holistic as well as individualist. Every application gets reviewed by the Admissions Committee and is reviewed more than once, so it’s not just a single individual’s decision. In some cases, the admisisons committee will debate considerably. In every case we try to make sure that every application gets a full and complete review from us and is seen from more than one vantage point.

One aspect that I think is unique about our admissions process has to do with who’s reading and reviewing the applications. In many other schools, students, part-time help or alumni are involved in the admisisons process. But at NYU Stern, all the applications are reviewed by trained admissions professionals who are part of our full-time admissions team. Occasionally we will bring in some help, however, even in such cases these are the people who have been a part of our admissions team.

Nov 29, 2011

Where do MBA graduates from top business schools go to work?




"Which top business school sends the highest percentage of its MBA grads into consulting?"

Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Some 35% of its Class of 2011 headed into the consulting business, more than any other top B-school, including Dartmouth College’s Tuck School (33%) and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (30%).

"Which school sent the most grads into financial services and banking? "

Not Wharton. Columbia Business School, where 51% of this year’s graduating class went into finance, followed by New York University’s Stern School (46%), and the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business (41%).

"You might think that Stanford’s Graduate School of Business would have the tech business locked up?"

Not so. As a percentage of its Class of 2011, Berkeley’s Haas School sends more than twice as many grads into the technology industry–32% versus 13%–than Stanford.

Did you know that the school sending the highest percentage of its MBAs into media and entertainment is UCLA’s Anderson School? Or that the school with the highest percentage of MBAs in energy is the University of Texas at Austin? It makes sense given the location of both UCLA in Los Angeles and Texas in Austin and shows the important role geography plays in where MBAs go.

And while it may be no surprise that Yale’s School of Management sends the highest percentage of its MBAs into non-profit and public sector jobs it will surprise many to know as the No. 2 school in this arena is MIT Sloan.

So let's take a look at where do MBAs from these top schools go to work -

Nov 28, 2011

Inside Michigan Ross's Admissions Office

This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.

File:Michigan Ross School of Business Entrance.jpg

What happens once applications are submitted?

Soojin Kwon Koh, Director of admissions and financial aid at Ross - At Ross, once we first receive applications, we review and evealuate candidate's academic (i.e., institution, major, undergrad GPA, and course rigor; GMAT/GRE score; and, TOEFL / IELTS test score for non-native English speakers) as well as an professional work experience. The logic for first looking at these two elements is that we want to have a high degree of confidence and certainity that the candidate can be academically successful in the rigorous MBA program that we have at Ross and will have the required experience and knowledge to contribute to discussions in the class and team projects.

At Ross, the initial review, as described above, drives our preliminary invites for interview list. Some  candidates may be put on the invite list early on in the process while others may get added later during the process. The timing when a candidate is placed on the interview invitation list doesn’t impact the timing of the interview invitation or the final decision nor is it an indicator of an candidate's likelihood of being denied or admitted. This year, interview invitations will be extended in two blocks of Rounds One and Two rather than on a rolling basis, as we’ve done in the previous years.

Nov 26, 2011

Inside UNC Kenan Flagler's Admissions Office

This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.


What happens once applications are submitted?

UNC Kenan-Flagler's Director of MBA Admissions Sherry Wallace - I am someone who strongly believes in demystifying the application process for prospective candidates. There is no advantage in our selection process if applicants feel like they are in the dark. We want you to know how that work is put to use. We even did a video tour of the admissions office on YouTube. Applicants also seem to respect the admissions process more when they know how diverse the admissions committee is. We have representation from administration, finance, consulting, retail and more who are part of the review team.

Locations of top US business schools on the US Map




That's some information, eh? Let's get back to business.

A lot of times many applicants, especially international applicants applying to the top US Business Schools, have questions about the exact location of these schools on a US map. So we thought why not to lay 'em all on one map? Check out the map below to understand which part of the US the top business schools belong to.

Nov 25, 2011

Inside Kellogg's Admissions Office


This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.


What happens once applications are submitted?

Beth Flye, assistant dean and director of admissions at Kellogg - AT Kellogg, once applicants submit their applications on our online portal, our application processing team downloads those applications and collects all of the other suppliment and required information and material to verify the file as complete. After this step, the application files go into the evaluation pool for reviews.

For a part of the applications, the initial review will be conducted by a student member of our Admissions Committee. After that evaluation, one of  our admissions officers will again review the file, and then the application will come to me for a final review.

Nov 24, 2011

How much does an MBA cost in top tier business schools? Let the $ speak!

by Poets & Quants

The bottom line first: What an MBA now spends to get the degree has increased more than four times the starting compensation in the past ten years. It’s yet another look at the diminishing returns of the degree. It’s not merely costs that has far outpaced the rise in inflation. It’s also a stagnant economy that has kept both pre-MBA and post-MBA compensation down.

So how much does an MBA cost, inclusive of everything?

Over $300K! The highest total cost is for an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business where students are typically leaving jobs that already pay them more than $88,000 a year. If you tack two years of forgone earnings to the school’s recommended two-year budget of $174,162 for a Stanford student, the total cost of getting an MBA is now a whopping $351,662. Stanford is hardly alone. There are eight U.S. schools where the cost of getting an MBA now exceeds $300,000.

Nov 23, 2011

How much do MBA Interns of top business schools earn?


First, the surprise - Stanford at 17th?  Well, a high percentage (~18%)of its class goes to internet/dot coms/e commerce companies (compared to just ~ 4% in Columbia's case) that pays lot less to interns than traditional industries such as finance and consulting. The interns pay is more a function of the industry they choose to work in than a reflection of school's attractiveness in pulling high paying recruiters. In reality, the internship wages is nothing but just a small change in the grand scheme of things.

Now, the good news - Most of the schools, in fact , 21 of the 25 schools reported increases in the median weekly pay over previous year! Cornell's a whooping ~17% increase!!!

Nov 22, 2011

Inside Texas-Austin McComb's Admissions Office


This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.


What happens once applications are submitted?

Rodrigo Malta, Director of admissions at McCombs - At McCombs, the first thing that I tell candidates is that irrespective of what their GMAT score is, or how many years of professional experience they may have – their application will be touched and read by someone here. That is the advantage of being a small business program. Each and every application that is submitted at McCombs gets reviewed by a live hand. The application itself will be read probably by more than one person who may be members of our admissions staff or a trained first or second year student who also help us read these applications.

Inside Columbia Business School's Admissions Office


This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.


What happens once applications are submitted?

Mary Miller, Assistant dean of admissions CBS - After candidates submit their application to Columbia Business School, their applications go for a review by our first reader. Because we strongly feel that every application be read and evaluated by a qualified reviewer, we have very few outside readers in admissions role, and those who are are typically former employees of the our admissions department.

Candidates can be invited to interview with us at any point in the application process and getting an interview invite is a very positive signal to the candidate; the interview invitation is really, really important. During the evealuation process, the first reader can nominate a candidate for an interview invitation, at which point applicants are sent a list of alumni in their local area who have volunteered and been trained to conduct the interview with these invited candidates. The  candidates may choose whom they want to interview with and then they arrange the interview. For the interviews, we send an interview format to our alumni interviewers. They conduct the interviews blind – all they get while conducting interview is a resume – following our interview format and return their feedback to us.

Nov 20, 2011

Podcast - Ace that MBA Interview!


The personal interview is a very important step in your efforts to get admission to your dream business school and should not be taken any lighter than the rest of your application; none of the top MBA programs will accept an applicant without having an interview. The motivation is :

a) to analyse and assess your overall "marketability"
b) to aggressively find the best applicants and sometimes, to keep them away from other competitive schools
c) to pitch their own MBA programs

Inside Duke Fuqua's Admissions Office

This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.


What happens once applications are submitted?

Liz Riley Hargrove, Associate dean of admissions, Duke Fuqua - Duke Fuqua’s admissions application process is completely online. Once applicants submit their applications, our operations team makes sure that all of the required information and supplimentary materials have been received.

Application files are then organized via our online system and distributed to an admissions team member for in-depth evaluations. Each application gets a complete read,independently by at least two admissions committee members and is then presented to the admissions committee for discussion and final decision. 

Nov 19, 2011

Inside Chicago Booth's Admissions Office

This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools. Like our facebook page to get fan specials or visit our website to know what makes us different than other top admissions consultants. 


What happens once applications are submitted?

Kurt Ahlm, Associate Dean of Student Recruitment and Admissions - Chicago Booth - When applicants hit the submit button on our online application system, essentially what happens is that from the backend we have a team that compiles the applications and verifies that these applications are complete. Once that is been verified, the applications are put into the reads cycle, which starts with a second-year students team that goes through a pretty extensive training on reading and evaluating applications. These students, or the Admissions Fellows, conduct an initial evaluation of the applications and come out with a recommendation of whether to interview a candidate or not.

Each of these Admissions Fellows reports up to an admissions director who does his or her own read of the application, independently, after which he or she also votes whether or not to interview. If there is a a match, the candidate is invited to interview, otherwise the application will then come to me for a third review.

Inside Wharton's Admissions Office

This is the first in series of upcoming posts trying to decipher the processes that happens behind the close doors of admissions committee's office when you click that "submit" button. As told by the admissions directors themselves! *While adcom directors response and school information are collected from various internet sources such as clearadmit, Poets & Quants, etc and may be from previous years, the admission process does not change frequently and the information presented should very closely represent the actual process*

Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of top business schools. Next is Chicago Booth.


What happens once applications are submitted?

Ankur Kumar, deputy director of MBA admissions at Wharton - To start with, I'd like to say that our evaluation process is very holistic. We ask a lot of information about candidates – we want to know about their academic achievements, the way they think about the world, how they present themselves, their professional development, etc

In terms of the life cycle of an application, it is a very iterative process. Our aim is to get multiple points of view on every applicant. We have six full time admission officers who focus on the full time MBA program. We also have some contract readers, ranging  from half a dozen to a dozen people, who help us as well in the admissions process and many of them are Wharton alums. We do not specialize or focus. What I value is a generalist mentality. Our population is global. They come from all different industries, many of which weren’t even around ten years ago. We all need to understand all of those things. We don’t have a sorting system that puts all the apps from one part of the world to one person.

Nov 18, 2011

Inside Cornell Johnson's Admissions Office

This post is one in a series of posts trying to decipher what happens once you click that "submit" button in the application portal of the top business schools. As told by the admissions directors themselves! Follow us on twitter and facebook to keep yourself updated with the next set of schools.


What happens once applications are submitted?

* Please note that the answers are given by Randall Sawyer, the then director of admissions who has since taken a new position outside the Johnson school. Currently, the position is being held by Christine Sneva. Although this is an old interview, there are no indications that the process has changed at the Johnson, as confirmed with one of our consulant who previously served on Johnson Admissions Group *

 

We take the admissions process very, very seriously. We look at every application twice – regardless of GMAT, GPA, TOEFL, work experience. There is nothing in an application file that indicates that it won’t get read twice, except for incomplete files.

One an applicant hits that submit button, we take his/her $200 and it gets deposited. When my admissions team comes in the morning, it prints out the applications and put them on the shelf. We wait for your other required or supplimentary materials – we go online and get an official copy of the GMAT scores, put the recommendations letters in the files, etc.

Admission Tips from Stanford GSB's Director of Admissions

[StanfordGSB]

Admissions Tips from Derrick Bolton, Assistant dean and director of M.B.A. admissions at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business -

1. Recommendations: "They [canditates] often think about it from the perspective of, 'I need to pick three references who show different aspects of my personality,' not from the perspective of, 'I need to pick three people who are going to be my strongest advocates.'"

2. Positioning - "Don't try to stand out. We'll see 50 people writing about a time in Machu Picchu, situations that seem very dramatic. There was a while when almost every military essay that we saw started out with a vivid recollection of a battle."

Nov 17, 2011

Shooting at Berkeley Haas business school - Dean writes to MBA students


Photo: Students and faculty sitting outside of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. Credit: Jeff Chiu / Associated Press
Courtsey: LA Times: Investigators are trying to figure out what changed for a University of California, Berkeley's student who appeared to have turned his life around before he pointed a pistol at campus police and an officer fatally shot him, authorities say.






Letter from the Haas's Dean

Dear XYZ,

We are sad to inform you that there was a tragedy at the Haas School on Tuesday which involved the shooting by University Police of a student carrying a gun. Nobody else at Berkeley-Haas was hurt.

In our business school’s 113-year history, we have never experienced an event like this, nor do we expect another occurrence—all evidence points to this being an isolated incident. Still, we are taking every precaution to make certain our students, staff, and faculty are as safe as possible. Safety is of paramount importance to our community and an essential precondition for what we are all doing here together at Berkeley-Haas.

We are grateful for the vigilance of our staff members and police officers who responded so quickly to keep others in our community safe. As is typical at Berkeley-Haas, our community is pulling together to support one another during this trying time.

For additional information, visit
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/11/ ... of-nov-15/.

To read about the incident from a student’s perspective, visit
http://berkeleymbastudents.wordpress.co ... eley-haas/

Sincerely,
Rich Lyons, Dean
Haas School, UC Berkeley
Twitter: @richlyons

Stephanie Fujii
Executive Director of Full-time MBA Admissions
Haas School, UC Berkeley            

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What Happened?

LA Times - A student shot by UC Berkeley police as he brandished a gun in a computer lab at the Haas School of Business has died of his wounds, officials said.Berkeley officials said the man, Christopher Travis, 32, who died Tuesday evening, was a senior at the business school and had transferred to UC Berkeley.

He entered the business school Tuesday afternoon and walked into an elevator with a female employee of the school, said UC Police Chief Mitch Celaya.He pressed the button for the third floor and the woman for the fifth floor, Celaya said. The student then looked at the woman, pulled out what appeared to be a gun from a backpack and then put it back, police said. After leaving the elevator, the staff member told her supervisor and both went to the computer lab. They saw the student there and called police.

Police received a 911 call at 2:17 p.m., and three officers responded two minutes later. The student then "pulled a firearm out of his backpack and displayed it in a threatening manner," Celaya said.
He said the officers told the student to drop his weapon, and when he didn't, one of the officers fired. Police would not say how many shots were fired.

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GMAC's focuses on Indian and African GMAT aspirants

The Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which owns the GMAT, this month announced that it has launched new websites for potential graduate management students in India and Africa.

The India site, www.mba.com/India, features details about business schools and MBA programs in India and abroad as well as information about how to finance an MBA program. Through video, Indian students share their experiences of preparing for the GMAT and navigating the MBA admissions process.

GMAC’s decision to launch a site for Indian applicants reflects the dramatic growth the council has seen in the number of candidates from the region expressing interest in business school over the past several years, according to Ashish Bhardwaj, GMAC regional director for South Asia. “Also with significant growth in acceptance of the GMAT at Indian business schools, these candidates have more choice,” Bhardwaj added. “This new site will help them navigate the path to a quality graduate management degree with content designed specifically for this market.”

The Africa site, www.mba.com/africa, is similar to the India site in that it provides an array of information about the GMAT and graduate management education in general intended to help students in Africa who are interested in studying management on the African continent or abroad. Video elements on this site, too, feature students as well as school professionals discussing GMAT preparation and the overall MBA admissions process.

by clearadmit.com

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Early glimpse - Consumer Marketing'11: Where are top firms recruiting?

Most B-schools do not yet have their 2011 employment reports on their websites so this is an early glimpse of the most important employers of the top MBAs. This data was recently reported by the schools to Bloomberg BusinessWeek which asked schools to list their top hirers for the Class of 2011 (see tables below for the results).

*BizSchoolPrep's Comment: Do consider the class size of the schools while looking at these numbers*
Consumer Marketing & Other Hirers Of 2011 MBAS From Top B-Schools
CompanyWharton   Chicago   Columbia   Kellogg   Tuck   Duke   Michigan   Haas   Darden
Procter & Gamble667
Johnson & Johnson6115
General Mills37
Danaher6
PepsiCo6
Eli Lilly7
Cummins8
PG&E6
McKesson3
A blank space in the table means that data is not currently available on their hires from the school because they fall below the top ten hirers on that campus.

Source: Poets and Quants.

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Early glimpse - Technology'11: Where are top firms recruiting?


Most B-schools do not yet have their 2011 employment reports on their websites so this is an early glimpse of the most important employers of the top MBAs. This data was recently reported by the schools to Bloomberg BusinessWeek which asked schools to list their top hirers for the Class of 2011 (see tables below for the results).

Among the big tech firms, Amazon continued its MBA hiring binge. The e-commerce giant hired 17 MBAs from the Univeristy of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and 15 from Wharton. Google employed 11 MBAs from Wharton, 10 from MIT Sloan, eight from Berkeley’s Haas School, and five from Kellogg. Apple hired seven from Duke’s Fuqua School and six from Kellogg. Microsoft employed 16 Wharton MBAs this year, 10 Darden MBAs, seven Sloan grads, and five from the Haas School.

*BizSchoolPrep's Comment: Do consider the class size of the schools while looking at these numbers*
Technology Firm Hires Of 2011 MBAS From Top B-Schools

CompanyWharton   MIT   Columbia   Kellogg   Tuck   Duke   Michigan   Haas   Darden
Amazon157551758
Google111058
Microsoft167510
IBM855
Samsung456
Apple67
Intel6
Genentech6
Applied Materials3

A blank space in the table means that data is not currently available on their hires from the school because they fall below the top ten hirers on that campus.

Source: Poets and Quants.

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Early glimpse - Finance '11: Where are top firms recruiting ?

 
Most B-schools do not yet have their 2011 employment reports on their websites so this is an early glimpse of the most important employers of the top MBAs. This data was recently reported by the schools to Bloomberg BusinessWeek which asked schools to list their top hirers for the Class of 2011 (see tables below for the results).

Among the big prestige finance players, Goldman Sachs seemed to heavily favor Wharton and Columbia. Goldman hired 24 MBAs from Wharton this year and 18 from Columbia, far eclipsing its hires from other business schools. Goldman, for example, hired six from Chicago, five from Duke, and four from Dartmouth’s Tuck School. J.P. Morgan Chase found lots of talent at Wharton, too, hiring 14 from the school, its highest number of hires among the schools reporting this data. Every other school was in single digits: Columbia (9), Chicago (8), Michigan (7), Tuck (5), Duke (5), and Virginia’s Darden School (5).


*BizSchoolPrep's Comment: Do consider the class size of the schools while looking at these numbers*

Financial Firm Hires Of 2011 MBAS From Top B-Schools

CompanyWharton  Chicago  Columbia  Kellogg  Tuck  Duke  Michigan  Haas  Darden
J.P. Morgan Chase14895575
Citigroup7169825
Goldman Sachs2461845
Bank of America/Merrill Lynch7810910
Barclays Capital11666
Morgan Stanley141584
Deutsche Bank1311136
Credit Suisse161112
American Express10117
PIMCO106
Harris Williams & Co.4
UBS4
Wells Fargo5

A blank space in the table means that data is not currently available on their hires from the school because they fall below the top ten hirers on that campus.

Source: Poets and Quants.

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Early glimpse - Consulting'11: Where are top firms recruiting?

Most B-schools do not yet have their 2011 employment reports on their websites so this is an early glimpse of the most important employers of the top MBAs. This data was recently reported by the schools to Bloomberg BusinessWeek which asked schools to list their top hirers for the Class of 2011 (see tables below for the results).

McKinsey & Co., the largest single recruiter of MBAs from top schools, significantly expanded its hires this year at Chicago Booth, Duke Fuqua, Michigan Ross and Berkeley’s Haas School. The global consulting firm’s got its largest supply of recently minted MBAs from Chicago Booth and Columbia Business School where it brought 39 MBAs from each school aboard, according to an analysis by Poets&Quants.

Rivals Bain & Co. and Boston Consulting Group, meantime, found Northwestern University’s Kellogg School an attractive hunting ground. Bain hired 24 Kellogg MBAs, up from 17 last year, while BCG brought aboard 30 Kellogg MBAs this year, the highest number for any top reporting business school. Bain also hired 18 MBAs each from both Wharton and Chicago Booth and a dozen from Columbia.


*BizSchoolPrep's Comment: Do consider the class size of the schools while looking at these numbers*
Consulting Firm Hires Of 2011 MBAS From Top B-Schools

CompanyWharton Booth Columbia   Kellogg Tuck Duke Ross Haas Darden MIT
McKinsey & Co.  38 39 393414151916727
BCG  29 19 9301014134616
Bain & Co.  18 18 1224783712
Deloitte Consulting    89352012
Accenture    7 97127
Booz & Co.   16 874
A. T. Kearney  8 66
L.E.K. Consulting 653
PriceWaterhouse68
Parthenon Group4
Cambridge3

A blank space in the table means that data is not currently available on their hires from the school because they fall below the top ten hirers on that campus.

Source: Poets and Quants

Business Week's Top Executive and Part Time MBA Program - 2011


Executive MBA Programs

The latest Bloomberg Businessweek ranking of the world's top executive MBA programs features a shakeup at the very top. The University of Chicago's Booth School of Business has captured the No. 1 spot for the first time since the ranking began 20 years ago, ousting Chicago-area rival Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, which until now was the only No. 1 school in the ranking's history.

Top Five Executive MBA Programs are -

  1. Chicago Booth School of Business
  2. Columbia Business School
  3. Kellogg School of Management
  4. IE Business School
  5. UCLA Anderson School of Management
For the complete list, click here

Part-Time MBA Programs

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.

Top Five Part-Time MBA Programs are -
  1. Elon University’s Love School of Business
  2. UCLA Anderson School of Management
  3. Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business
  4. University of Nevada, Reno
  5. UC Berkeley Haas School of Business
 For the complete list, click here.


BW's Ranking methodology for EMBA and Part time MBA

The methodologies used by Bloomberg Businessweek to rank part-time MBA and executive MBA share one thing: a focus on the end-users’ satisfaction, whether they are students who attend the programs or companies that enroll employees.

The EMBA ranking is based on two surveys—one of EMBA graduates and a poll of EMBA directors, where each of them rank the school. BW contacts the graduates and ask them to complete a survey on teaching quality, career services, curriculum, and other aspects of their experience. The results of the 2011 survey are then combined with those from two previous surveys (2009 and 2007) for a student survey score that contributes 65 percent of the final ranking. The director of each program participating in the ranking is asked for his or her top-10. We assign 10 points for every No. 1 ranking, 9 points for each No. 2 rating, and so on. The point totals for each program contribute the remaining 35 percent of the final ranking.

BW's newest ranking—of part-time MBA programs—is by far the most complex. The student survey contributes 40 percent of the final ranking, with academic quality and post-MBA outcomes contributing 30 percent each. To determine which programs are tops in academic quality, BW combines six equally weighted measures: average GMAT score, average student work experience, the percentage of teachers who are tenured, average class size in core business classes, the number of business electives available to part-timers, and the percentage of students who ultimately complete the program. To gauge post-graduation outcomes, BW determines the percentage of student survey respondents from each school who say their part-time MBA program was “completely” responsible for their having achieved career goals.

Nov 8, 2011

Essays these B schools should actually ask !

Harvard: Of which Fortune 1000 company are you going to become the CEO and why would you pick that company?

Wharton: Of which Fortune 1000 company are you going to become the CFO and why would you pick that company?

MIT: Draw an ASCII picture of your favorite Lord of the Rings character and describe three lessons that today's business leaders can learn from Lord Of The Rings.

Stanford: Why? (100,000 words recommended)

Chicago Booth: Provide a detailed statistical analysis of why Chicago-Booth is #1 in BWeek and never higher than #3 in USNews. Do the math in your head.

NYU: How badly do you need a vacation from your ibanking job, and what makes you think you will be able to get back into ibanking upon graduation?

Yale SOM: Which nonprofit organization do you plan to run, and what about running a nonprofit makes you feel important?

Columbia: In your opinion, what is the best way to sabotage the Whartonian CFO of your company and become CFO?

UC Berkeley Haas: What makes a hippie like you think you can succeed in business? Use the words 'sustainable' and 'green' at least twice in your response.

Cornell Johnson: Describe how awesome being an Ivy Leaguer would make you feel.

UVA Darden: How badly do you want your ass to be kicked by our professors on a scale of 9 to 10?

Notre Dame: Describe how awesome Irish Football is, and list ten ways we can make our MBA program as well-known as our NFL training program.

London Business School: Answer NYU's essay and use the find/replace function to replace all 'NYU' with 'LBS', 'New York' with 'London' and 'program' with 'programme'.

Wash U Olin: How early are you willing to wake up to serve coffee to our medical students?

UNC Kenan-Flagler: See Notre Dame but replace Irish Football with Tar Heel basketball, and NFL with NBA.

U of Phx (pick 2 of 4): When your boss finds out you have enrolled here, how loudly will he/she laugh? Have you ever wasted a lot of money on something useless before? Would you be willing to appear on a billboard or would you rather keep your enrollment a secret? What is 5+8?

Tuck: Do you remember summer camp? How amazing was that!?!? Don't you wish you could go to camp for 21 months? Attach a letter you wrote to your parents in fifth grade summer camp explaining how awesome it was.

UMich Ross: What was the craziest thing you did while tailgating during undergrad, and are you prepared to tailgate like a pro again? In your essay, try to include the words moonshine, goat, and anus.

Kellogg: Explain why you think good quantitative skills are not required in business and discuss the importance of teamwork in situations in which no one is skilled enough to do the job by himself.

UCLA Anderson: Have you seen that show "The Hills?" Isn't it amazing? Discuss your strategies for getting into clubs to party with the cast of "The Hills" so you can feel important.

Duke Fuqua: What are your short-term and long-term career goals? Begin your essay with the sentence, "My career goal is to provide investment and business advice to the much more successful graduates of the Duke Law and Medical Schools."

Carnegie Mellon Tepper: Draw an ASCII picture of your favorite MIT student and list three things that business leaders can learn from MIT.

INSEAD: List the number of languages in which you are fluent, and explain how knowing a bunch of languages and studying in one of the world's slowest economies for ten months will make you an effective business leader.

CEIBS: Would you rather be upper middle class in the US, or rich in China? Pleeeeeeeease say rich in China!
- by http://money9111.blogspot.com

And few more on Indian B schools from one of our Indian client -  H.S., applying to top US B Schools in Fall 2011 -

ISB: Essay 1: Draw a comparison chart between our existing dean and Rajat Gupta / Rammohan Rao. (Note: We seek honest comparisons). Also write an essay on what practices can we adopt to choose an 'ethically best' dean?.
Essay 2: What are your career goals? Offer atleast two 'convincing' reasons on how ISB ( which is neither a general management program nor a marketing / finance program - "please help us discover what we are") fits into your goals

IIM A: Make us believe that you opted for engineering degree to only study engineering and not to prepare for CAT.
(Breaking news: the applications in the current year went down by 90%. Suddenly getting into IIM-A is now lot more easier)

IIM-B and IIM-C: Why were you rejected at IIM-A?

IIM K, L, R, etc, etc: Top 3 IIMs v/s others (limit of 10,000 words, please observe the word limit and do not ask our existing students  to share their opinions)

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Oct 22, 2011

Enterpreneurship and Carnegie Mellon - Tepper


Tepper’s aspiring entrepreneurs are invited to take advantage of the academic and extracurricular offerings of the Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship. The Entrepreneurship in Organizations MBA Track, the James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Leadership speaker series and the McGinnis Venture Competition are all products of this lively branch of the Tepper community. When the center was founded in 1972, it was one of the first institutions in the world to teach entrepreneurship in an academic setting. Since that time, it has dedicated itself to helping students learn the skills necessary to turn their business ideas into realities through courses on strategy, venture development and funding. Recently, the Jones Center has focused increasingly on the function of technology and the growing prevalence of new ventures in the life science industry.

Students who are especially interested in entrepreneurship can apply to become Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellows with the DJC. In addition to completing the Entrepreneurship in Organizations Track and gaining valuable practical experience while studying under accomplished entrepreneurs in the Entrepreneurship faculty, Swartz Fellows also organize the Swartz Leadership Lectures and run the McGinnis Venture Competition, both of which are eagerly anticipated annual events on campus. During the summer following their first year at Tepper, many Fellows opt to intern at an entrepreneurial venture in the Pittsburgh area; others take advantage of the Jones Center’s new DJC Accelerator pilot program to found their own companies over the summer.

- by Clear Admit