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As the world's largest privately-owned GMAT Prep and admissions consulting provider, Veritas Prep maintains a large network of instructors, consultants, and students. Our blog is a way of opening up this community to new visitors and sharing our knowledge about standardized testing, graduate school admissions, and the business world itself. |
Of course you do... business school is expensive! While I'm not going to be the one to give you any, I would like to help you secure some of your own. One great way to get some money to help pay for school is through a grant. The link below takes you to a post with lots of information on grants for business school, and how you can go about securing them. So check it out!
Business School Grants
Business school applications are all about laying out how you have exhibited the qualities of a leader. After all, this is the quality that b-schools, in general, desire the most in their applicants. A lot of my admissions consulting clients struggle with a succinct definition of leadership. That is, one that they as the applicant can use as a succinct model. To this point, my clients and prospective MBA students ask me what my definition of leadership is. I believe Stephen Covey covers it well in this article. http://www.stephencovey.com/blog/?p=6
This is important as a lot of b-school applications ask for the applicant to provide meaning leadership experience and examples in their essay. Follow Covey’s pillars of leadership and you should have a good start to your essay. The trick is to not only discuss how well you fit this definition but also how you have displayed this style of leadership during your management responsibilities. Take your essays a step further by showing how you have sought to “pay it forward” and instill these values in those you have led.
How does one go about choosing a business school? There are lots of factors, and you could spend a long time trying to come up with them on your own. Or, you can just check out this article from Economic Times, which covers the decision process nicely.
Enjoy!
Harvard has recently announced plans to launch executive education programs in India, and now Darden is following suit. Darden plans to establish a partnership with India, including offering executive classes and establishing a research center. Read all about it here.
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BusinessWeek has a really nice article detailing ten tips to make the most of your first semester (back) at school. I've summarized them below, but feel free to check out the entire article here.
(1) Get reacclimated to being a student: Most business school students have been out of school at least three years; some for much longer. Making the transition back to being a student can be tough, so take a week or two and focus only on schoolwork, so you can accurately gauge the time commitment.
(2) Don't overcommit: There's always the desire to join lots of clubs and activities, but trying to balance a ton of clubs and activities and your work is just asking to get burnt out. Focus your time on just a few things that you really enjoy, and maybe work your way up to leadership positions in them.
(3) Avoid the herd mentality: With all the recruiting events that go on, it's easy to lose sight of your original goals. Many times, people will begin to consider career paths they'd never considered before, simply because their classmates choose to go that route.
(4) Be a team player: Teamwork is a key aspect in many business school projects. Make sure you don't dominate the team, but also make sure you contribute. Be open to giving and receiving feedback from your team members.
(5) Sit in the front row, or an aisle seat: This one is all about first impressions. You want to be noticed (in a good way, of course), and the front row is the best place for this (with aisle seats being a good alternative). Also be sure to come to class prepared and ready to contribute.
(6) Get to know your professors and TAs: Take advantage of office hours. This is beneficial in two ways: first, getting face time with your professors and TAs builds relationships, which can be very beneficial to you in the long run. Second, these are the most knowledgeable people in regards to your classes, and they're the ones that will help you succeed.
(7) Strategize early for career events: Talk with career services. Attend workshops. Do what you can to better prepare yourself for these events, because that will allow you to stand out. And in the business world, that's a good thing.
(8) Take some time to breathe: Seriously. Even if you have to schedule it in, make sure you take time away from schoolwork & club activities, and just hang out. Go to dinner. Catch a movie. Go for a walk. Just don't burn yourself out.
(9) Don't be afraid to ask for help: Again, take advantage of office hours. Ask questions. Get tutoring. Nobody said you have to go it alone. You have resources, so make the most of them. After all, that's just good business sense!
(10) Don't be a perfectionist: While it's understandable that you want every assignment you turn in to be perfect, you need to realize that there isn't always time to do that. Obviously, you should put your best effort into everything you do, but just make sure the time you spend "perfecting" one thing doesn't prevent you from completing another.
Please excuse my lame attempt to integrate internet memes with my business school postings. I just couldn't help myself, considering the content of today's post.
The two leading candidates for succeeding Vladimir Putin also happen to be involved in two of Russia's leading business schools. Click below to read about the two schools.
Source: Russia's Business School Battle
I'm sure everybody knows how it happens. A donor makes a very large contribution to a school, and in return, the school gets named after that donor. Standard operating procedure. In fact, that kind of thing happened not too long ago with the University of Washington.
However, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is experiencing something a bit different. A group of alumni all chipped in to donate $85 million to the business school with the caveat that the school would NOT be named after any entity for the next 20 years.
What I find so cool about this is how it changes the game a bit. Normally, after such a large donation to a school results in a name change, that name is going to stick. Schools aren't going to be changing the name of their business school every 20 years, after all. But in Wisconsin, they have this $85 million donation, and in 20 years, there will be an incentive for people to donate more, because the school could still be named. Or, even better, they could make another similar donation, and prevent naming for another 20 years.
Genius!
Source: Wisconsin Business Alumni
As an MBA admissions consultant I often have to take a step back with my clients. Over the years I have learned a lot from my clients and have come to realize that the definitions of proper interview dress or attire varies by region, country and even culture.
This is the deal, and I dissuade anyone from thinking anything to the contrary:
The Economist Business School rankings for 2007 have been released. The Economist rankings are determined by a combination of four factors: recent alumni, increase in salary/networking potential, new career opportunities, and personal development/educational opportunities. What's really cool though is that they have an interactive list on their site (link below), which allows you to sort the schools by various categories and/or regions.
For example, which American school will provide you with the highest final salary? A quick selection from the drop-down menu will provide you with the result (it's Stanford, for those interested).
Economist Top 20 Business Schools
1. University of Chicago
2. Stanford
3. IESE Business School
4. Dartmouth (Tuck)
5. IMD
6. Berkeley (Haas)
7. University of Cambridge (Judge)
8. NYU (Stern)
9. IE Business School
10. Henley Management College
11. Cranfield School of Management
12. University of Michigan (Ross)
13. Harvard Business School
14. Northwestern (Kellogg)
15. London Business School
16. MIT (Sloan)
17. INSEAD
18. Columbia Business School
19. Ashridge
20. Hong Kong University: School of Business and Management
Note: For some reason, UCLA: Anderson was not included in the rankings at all. There were other schools not included, but since Anderson is a consistent Top 20, I feel it's worth mentioning.
Source: Economist Rankings
In the interest of being environmentally aware, both Harvard and Yale have announced new plans for LEED-certified buildings. Harvard has been working with a German company to develop a new science center that will be gold-certified and twice as clean in regards to greenhouse gases as other similar research facilities. Yale has been working with a London-based company, developing a new building for their School of Management, which will triple the size of their business school.
Perhaps some environmentally-savvy businesspeople were behind this?
Source: Harvard & Yale Go Green
The Wall Street Journal released their business school rankings last night. The WSJ rankings are always interesting, because they are solely the result of recruiters' opinions. Nevertheless, people like to see how schools rank, so here you go! I've listed only the top North American "National" schools, as these are the schools you are likely to see in the other rankings.
Top National Schools (North America)
1. Dartmouth College (Tuck)
2. Berkeley (Haas)
3. Columbia
4. MIT (Sloan)
5. Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
6. UNC, Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)
7. Michigan (Ross)
8. Yale
9. University of Chicago
10. University of Virginia (Darden)
11. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
12. Northwestern (Kellogg)
13. Duke (Fuqua)
14. Harvard Business School
15. UCLA (Anderson)
16. Cornell (Johnson)
17. NYU (Stern)
18. University of Southern California (Marshall)
19. Stanford
Source: 2007 WSJ Rankings
We wanted to bring your attention to the new deferred-admission program launched at Harvard, called the HBS 2+2 Program. The program is designed to reach out to high achieving college juniors, who can get guaranteed admission to Harvard Business School, after graduating college and accruing two years of approved work experience. It seems like a great idea, and will most likely be beneficial to both the targeted students and to HBS.
You can read all about it here.
The University of Washington's business school now has a name: the Michael G. Foster School of Business. The Foster Foundation has a 25 year history of donating to the University of Washington, and has a total lifetime donation of $50 million.
You can read more about this here.
Congratulations to the Yale School of Management, for winning CNBC's "Fast Money MBA Challenge". The four Yale contestants beat out the team from Texas in the finals, and are now a (combined) $200,000 richer.
For those who missed the show (it was only 4 episodes long), here's how it went down:
Source: CNBC
It’s a rather well-known fact that sports do wonders for increasing a school’s national visibility. However, athletic events are tied to the main campus; they don’t ever really get tied the business schools. Enter CNBC and their “Fast Money MBA Challenge” game show.
This show will pit teams from eight business schools across the country against each other in a variety of rounds. As the teams answer questions correctly, they’ll get more money in their team’s “portfolio”. This virtual money is then “invested” (wagered) in subsequent rounds, with the most successful team being the overall winners. The winning team gets $200,000 to split amongst themselves, to pay for education costs.
When: Tonight @ 9:00pm
Participating Schools: UCLA, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, MIT, NYU, Chicago, and Texas
Source: 'Fast Money Challenge'
The University of Chicago does! In fact, they now require it as part of their business school admissions process.
There are a few potential benefits to this new change. First and foremost, it shows that prospective students are technologically savvy enough to create four pages of PowerPoint slides. Because such presentations are so ubiquitous in the business world, this is crucial knowledge for any prospective business student to have.
Secondly, this provides a more "free-form" aspect to the application. This provides applicants a way to compensate for less-than-ideal test scores by showing off their creativity. Rose Martinelli, Chicago’s associate dean for student recruitment and admissions, points out that this also serves as “a free-form space for students to be able to say what they think is important, not always having the school run that dialogue."
Personally, I hope this leads to some far more exciting PowerPoint presentations than what one might normally sit through...
If you are interested in seeing more interesting ways to tackle admissions essays, take a look at these sample MBA essays.
Two months ago, BusinessWeek hosted a live chat with the director of admissions at Harvard. Now, they're hosting another one next Wednesday, with David Simpson, the acting associate dean for the MBA program at London Business School. If you've ever thought about attending school in London, check it out. You can read more about Simpson, as well as register for the chat, by going here.
Read More >>
Whether you're interviewing for B-school or for a job afterwards, there are a few basic rules to follow for interview etiquette. Over the years I've had the chance to interview hundreds of potential employees and I've seen every interview misstep there is. Everyone knows there are plenty of ways to go wrong once you're in the interview room, but few people pay attention to the ways your interview can go south before you even take a seat in that conference room or office. Here are three ways I've personally seen candidates hurt their chances before the interview even got started:
Earlier this year, we posted a message from Wharton regarding the departure of Dean Patrick Harper. Dean Harper will assume his new position in Delaware on August 1, and we now know who will take his place at Wharton: Thomas Robertson.
Robertson is currently a professor at Goizueta, and used to be a dean there as well. He is also a former professor of schools such as UCLA's Anderson School, Harvard Business School, and conveniently enough, Wharton.
More information can be found here.
Harvard is consistently one of, if not THE top ranked business programs in the world. So it is to be expected that not everybody who applies will get in. If you're in that group, however, don't be disappointed. You are definitely not alone. In fact, here's an entire list of successful people who were also denied admission to Harvard.
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Today, I was looking at an MIT article on language genetics and it had me thinking about some important aspects of how we deal with language. I've spent a lot of time going through language structure, as I actively study Japanese as a second language. This has lead me to come to some interesting conclusions about "structured language".
You often heear people referring to "That's not proper grammar", or citing some rule about sentence structure. Where does this so-called "proper grammar" come from? Most would point to school, where teachers instill the foundations of "proper grammar". However, do we really get our day-to-day grammar from educational institutions?
It's my opinion that language is actually circumstance based. This is how slang tends to travel so fast. People here it from someone and think it's cool to say, then another person thinks the same, etc. Finally, enough people start to use it in certain situations, to where it becomes a defacto standard to use this word/phrase in that situation.
I think it's this sort of situational learning that establishes how language ends up being structured. How else would the word Google end up in a dictionary? People used "Google it" enough that it was decided it was the best word to use in such situations.
This theory, is in my opinion, a good way to approach languages. In fact, a lot of language books that I went through for learning Japanese, the ones that stood out where the ones that used this approach. You can also see it in various "Situational (Language)" series books. I really wonder what would happen if teachers didn't just teach grammar, but actually had their students use it frequently in class, and at home.
BusinessWeek is hosting a live chat next week with Deirdre Leopold, the executive director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at Harvard. You can check out the link here, and read more about Leopold, as well as register to participate in the chat.
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Dual degrees are always intriguing, but NYU may have just upped the ante on other schools with their new dual program, allowing students to earn both an MBA and an MFA. This combination brings together top faculty from both schools to develop an intriguing mix. Because of the way in which movie production is handled, there is an inherent link between film making and business. Students will spend the first of three years at Stern, and their second at Kanbar (NYU's film & theater school). The third and final year of the program will be split between the schools. Scholarships are also available, courtesy of an anonymous donor.
Source: NYU Press Release
Wharton recently announced a new dual-degree with the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) at Harvard. The announcement came on their MBA Blog, and it's interesting to see them add yet another dual/joint-degree to their program, as they offer plenty already. Unfortunately, the announcement did not offer too many details, but I would encourage interested applicants to do some more research, and maybe contact the school itself, and see if this is a program worth applying to.
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There are many opportunities that arise for you once you get your MBA, but here’s one you may not have been familiar with: environmental advocate. Many people are beginning to see just how they can channel their MBA experience into environmental activism, and some schools (such as the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute) even offer “dual-degree” programs that focus on these lines. Demand for this kind of dual-focus is present in both non-profit organizations and for-profit companies. Non-profit organizations can channel the business skills into securing coveted government grant money, while the companies channel the environmental focus to put themselves in a better business position. Either way you want to go, your dual-skills will be an asset.
So go out there, get your MBA, and protect the environment!
Source: US News: Do-Gooders Flock to Business School
Second Life has really taken off as of late, and this new world, complete with its own economy, is of interest to some in the business world. Many businesses make use of Second Life to promote products, and it provides an interesting subject of study for those in business education. But when it comes to Second Life, no business school is making better use of it than INSEAD.
INSEAD is currently developing a virtual school, complete with lecture halls, research labs, and lounge areas, designed to supplement their real-world program. The idea is for students to be able to better interact with instructors, fellow students, and even potential employers.
It's not clear just how well this will pan out for INSEAD, but it'll be interesting to see if other schools follow suit, and just how effective it becomes.
Source: Second Life B-School Student.
The Indian School of Business has a kind of "tie-up" with The Indus Entrepreneurs, helping to facilitate interactions between venture capitalists and up-and-coming entrepreneurs. You can read more about it here.
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US News just released its business school rankings for next year, with little change from last year. Within the Top 20, there was some movement (most notably UCLA's drop from 10 to 16), but there's nothing absolutely unexpected in the list. It should be noted that because of the data used to compute these rankings, drastic changes aren't extremely common. This does, however, attest to the consistency of school's on the list.
US News Top 20
1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
4. MIT (Sloan)
5. Northwestern University (Kellogg)
5. University of Chicago
7. Dartmouth (Tuck)
8. Berkeley (Haas)
9. Columbia University
10. NYU (Stern)
11. Michigan (Ross)
12. Duke (Fuqua)
12. University of Virginia (Darden)
14. Cornell (Johnson)
14. Yale
16. UCLA (Anderson)
17. Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
18. UNC, Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)
18. University of Texas (McCombs)
20. Emory University (Goizueta)
Check out the rest of the list here.
ROI. Return on Investment. We've all probably heard the term at some point in our lives, especially if we're coming from a business background, and it's the single most important thing that comes into play when making business decisions.
Every time a business wants to make a sound decision or put a value on the effectiveness of a marketing campaign, they refer to the ROI.
Not just businesses go through this process. Individuals do it too. "Should I buy the extended warranty for $2000 more or just take my chances with American manufacturing?" Economists have a term for it: marginal cost/benefits analysis. Am I, the average consumer, making a decision that's going to make me better off or am I just needlessly throwing money away?
The basic idea is just a matter of input and output. What you get out should be more than you put in. It gets a bit more complicated when you're dealing with things like discounted cashflow, opportunity costs, sunk costs and weighted cost capital but the basic concept still holds.
So let's go through a thought exercise on the ROI of a GMAT course. They all require a considerable up-front cash investment. If you're using a reputable GMAT prep company with high standards and a track record of success, most courses are over $1000 and possibly more if you're dealing with private tutoring. So is all that cash really worth it?
Let's consider the following:
According to the US News Ranking: America's Best Graduate Schools 2008, the student body of the top 20 MBA programs achieved an average GMAT score of 697. When you look at the 20 MBA programs ranked from 41st-60th, the average GMAT score falls to 642. That's a difference of 55 points. But now, let's look at how much those 55 points are worth. The average starting salary of 2007 MBA graduates from the top 20 programs was $113,061. Graduates from the programs ranked between 41 and 60, that average starting salary drops down to $78,088. That's a difference of $34,973 dollars each year, every year! Not to mention the fact that the 5 year figures become even more divergent. That translates into roughly $6,359 for every 10 point improvement on the GMAT.
Now let's take a look at the GMAT Prep class side. The Veritas Prep Full Course costs $1500 historically, students have improved their score from a previous GMAT between 90 and 110 points. For the sake of this exercise, we'll just be less optimistic and assume that we missed a couple of classes and didn't get as dramatic of a score increase and only improved 55 points. We still improve our score enough to get into a top 20 program though, based on the ranking data.
We'll go ahead and do a discount cashflow calculation over a 5 year period with the beginning of year 1 being the first $1500 outlay of cash for the course. Then, towards the end of year 1, we get our acceptance letter to a top 20 program and at start the MBA program the beginning of year 2. We graduate and start working in years 4 and 5 and realize marginal cashflows of $34,973 at the end of year 4 and year 5 (sorry, no annual raise or bonuses). So our cashflows look something like:
Year Cashflow
0 -$1500
1 0
2 0
3 0
4 $34,973
5 $34,973
Now we have to adjust for the time value of money, since money now is worth more than money 4 years from now. Small firms typically have a weighted cost of capital of around 12% while it's lower for larger firms. We'll use a discount rate of 15% since MBA students are usually in the beginning stages of their careers, like a small, growing company. So once we discount those two marginal salary cashflows back to year 0, they are only worth $19,996 and $17,391, respectively. So for an investment of $1500, we've gotten back a return of $37,387. What's that, a 2392% return? That beats the stock market any day.
This type of ROI analysis is basic stuff, but is frequently used in every business decision and is definitely something you'll be going over in one of your MBA classes. You can take this same model and repeat it to value other decisions. A good one is to calculate the ROI on an actual MBA Program. Is it worth it to give up your current job and salary to get an MBA? You'll have to consider: 1. How much am I making now and could make over the next 3 years staying at my job (what am I giving up). 2. How much is this MBA going to cost me in tuitions, fees, books and room & board? 3. What's my expected post-graduation salary? 4. Will I have to borrow money and pay interest to fund my tuition?
One thing I think we can all agree on is that in terms of the MBA application process, additional GMAT points are worth a lot of money in the long run and paying for those points is a solid investment.
As a former management consultant, I used to fly a plane about twice a week and thus, have to go through airport security twice a week. Regardless of our feelings about the TSA, it’s something we have to live with in this day. Well, I have learned a few tips that make the TSA security screener’s life easier and thus my life easier. These tips should serve you well as you journey out to visit your prospective business schools for class visits, information sessions or the interview.
1. Wear slippers, flip-flops or slip-on shoes when going through screening. That’s right leave the hiking boots at home. With simple slip-ons or flip flops you have an easier time taking them on and off, you don’t block everyone else around you and your shoes aren’t subject to further scrutiny from the screener.
2. Make sure your liquid toiletries are in containers that are no bigger than 3 oz and can fit in ONE standard sized ziplock bag. There are not exceptions to this. Also, I always put my toiletries in my laptop bag. It’s easier to get to and I grab it when I take out my laptop.
3. When advancing through the screening line and before you get to the tables where you place everything in bins, start upzipping your laptop bag so you have easier access to you laptop bag. As soon as you get to the table, grab two bins. One is for electronics and valuables. The other is for coats, shoes, etc. Make sure you have your boarding pass in your hand as you walk through. When I print out my boarding pass at the self check-in kiosk, I always put it in my back right pocket.
4. Get hooked into a frequent flier program that allows you to go through an abbreviated line. I love United’s program. This saves about 15-30 minutes and has saved my life in some hurries. See Bryan's post here on loyalty programs.
5. Always send your carry on bags through first, then bins with your clothes, shoes, then the bin with your valuables (watch, money clip, laptop) last. If you don’t and someone ahead of you gets held up, your valuables are sitting there for anyone to grab.
By being organized and thinking ahead, I have never had a problem going through security. Please, don't be the person who holds up the line.
I found this awesome post the other day, which has links to podcast collections from many different MBA programs, including Stanford, Yale, Harvard, and London Business School. I can't comment on the quality of the information in the podcasts, but I would expect them to be pretty good.
Give it a look, and let me know what you think!
Business School Podcast Collection
When it comes to business schools, the top schools are all large, well-known campuses, in large cities. And that makes sense from a business standpoint; Los Angeles is a far more conducive environment for business than, say, the suburban town I grew up in. However, while there are tons of benefits you can come up with for big city schools, there are a few other benefits that you won't find in LA, but you could find in, for example, Ithica, NY.
Among these benefits are the stronger sense of community, and the stronger bonds that result from it. You can read more about these benefits on BusinessWeek.
Financial Times has released their 2007 Global MBA Rankings; based primarily on alumni successes, intellectual capital held by the program, and the international focus of the program. It's interesting to see the different criteria used to judge international programs versus US business schools.
1. University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
2. Columbia Business School
3. Harvard Business School
3. Stanford University GSB
5. London Business School
6. University of Chicago GSB
7. INSEAD
8. New York University: Stern
9. Dartmouth College: Tuck
10. Yale School of Management
11. Ceibs (China)
11. Instituto de Empresa
13. IMD
14. MIT: Sloan
15. University of Cambridge: Judge
16. IESE Business School
17. UCLA: Anderson
18. HEC Paris
19. Northwestern University: Kellogg
19. University of Michigan: Ross
19. University of Oxford: Said
Thought this was pretty cool:
Wharton and the University of Utah have a collaborative effort called the University Venture Fund, that aims to introduce students to the venture capital industry via hands-on experiences. The students are responsible for securing capital and making deals & investments. The University Venture Fund was started in 2003 at the University of Utah, and Wharton jumped on board in 2005.
More information can be found here.
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