While many of our readers follow this and other MBA-related blogs, we’d like to highlight two publications that are worth tracking along with some tips on how to maximize your blog-reading efforts:

HBS Working Knowledge This online publication follows trends in the business world and offers new articles on a weekly basis (many of which are culled from the Harvard Business Review). The latest issue includes articles on whether or not business management should be a licensed profession (Is Business Management a Profession?), retail (Zara’s Secret for Fast Fashion) and the surplus of VC funding (The VC Quandary: Too Much Money). web site: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/index.jhtml RSS feed: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/rss/rss.xml

Knowledge@Wharton As one of the first publications of it’s kind, this bi-weekly offering has set the bar for online business school publishing. The most recent issue includes an article about corporate social responsibility (Do Multinational Corporations Have an Ethical Obligation to Assist Those in Need?), advertising (The $2.4 Million Question: What is the ROI for Super Bowl Ads?) and investing (Can Fund Managers Pick Good Stocks? Yes, They Can, But…). web site: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/ RSS feed: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/knowledgefeed.xml

The best way to follow these publications (along with the Clear Admit blog) is to use Bloglines. Bloglines aggregates and organizes content from all of your favorite publications (as long as they have an RSS/XML feed). If you are looking to get set up in a hurry, check out the list of blogs we follow: http://www.bloglines.com/public/ClearAdmit.

The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) has just reported that the number of GMAT tests taken in January of 2005 is higher than the number of tests taken in January of 2004. This is the first up-tick in volume since the 2001-2002 timeframe. If this trend continues, one should expect increased application volume in the coming admissions cycle.

According to the report, overall GMAT volume in January increased by 4.8%, with a 5.5% increase in the US and a 3.5% increase outside of the US. India registered a 12% increase, while France was up 14% and Taiwan up 37%. For the details of the study as well as 4-year trends in test-taker volume, visit the GMAC site: http://www.gmac.com/gmac/ResearchandTrends/GMATStatistics/CurrentGMATVolume.htm

In related news, GMAC’s Graduate Management News publication is promoting a seminar aimed at GMAT test-prep instructors! Yes, that’s correct – the makers of the exam are reaching out to the test-prep community (Kaplan, Princeton Review, ManhattanGMAT, etc..) and inviting them to a free seminar to learn about the forthcoming changes to the GMAT. For details on this development, read the article in the January-February edition of the publication: http://www.gmac.com/gmac/VirtualLibrary/Publications/GMNews/2005/JanFeb/GMATTestPrepSummit.htm

Business Week has published an interesting article about the increased competition between European and American MBA programs, citing the rising popularity of several 1-year European MBA programs as well as the recent declines in international application volume seen at the top schools in the United States (particularly among Indian and Chinese applicants). Clear Admit’s Graham Richmond is quoted in the article: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/feb2005/bs20050211_8028_bs001.htm

While the Business Week piece tends to suggest substantial momentum on the European side, we’d like to caution our readers when it comes to comparing the two degrees. Here are a few reasons why:

1) Academics. From an academic standpoint, the 1-year MBA experience is quite different from the 2-year option. While 1-year programs often boast of nearly equal course hours in comparison to 2-year options, we’re not convinced that course hours are the only indicator. Simply put, the shorter programs often provide less opportunity for learning outside the classroom (via extensive student clubs, conferences and academic programs). Also, since much of the learning takes place as students informally share their diverse experiences during their spare time, a shorter program (with a more intense schedule) typically offers less opportunity for this type of exchange.

2) Career Transition. Since the 1-year options rarely include an internship, it is often more challenging for career-switchers to jump into a new field. In addition, the sheer speed of the 1-year option makes it harder for students to adjust their goals or explore opportunities that they may not have considered upon entering the program. [We'd also like to point out that the summer internship feature of the 2-year programs offers an excellent chance for students to put their core MBA coursework to use and gain additional perspective while preparing for elective classes in the second year.]

3) Network. Many of the 1-year options available in Europe are relatively new. This not only means that employers are less familiar with the schools, but it also means that their are fewer graduates out in the workforce. Schools like Wharton boast of over 34,000 MBA graduates in their alumni database – offering a valuable professional network to members of their community. By comparison, INSEAD, has about 14,000 living alumni, IMD has roughly 2,400 and Oxford 612.

We’re obviously quite pleased to see a number of high quality MBA offerings in Europe and across the globe. We also recognize the cost advantage of the shorter, 1-year MBA options and the strength that these programs typically have in their home markets. We just want to be sure that prospective students are carefully considering and comparing their options as they move forward in the MBA admissions process.

As many of our peers in the world of MBA blogging have noted, the University of Texas at Dallas has published a new ranking of MBA programs based on the number of publications a school’s faculty has produced for leading academic journals in recent years.

While we always recommend that rankings be taken with a grain of salt (particularly if they have a narrow focus), this is an interesting and almost refreshingly simple way to look at the academic strength of the leading programs. It is also a ranking that is seemingly devoid of opinion (student, recruiter or otherwise)…

Let’s take a look at two date ranges for the publication rankings:

MBA Rankings 2000-2005 University of Pennsylvania (The Wharton School) Harvard University (Harvard Business School) New York University (Leonard N. Stern School of Business) Columbia University (Columbia Graduate School of Business) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan School of Management) University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA Anderson School of Management) University of Chicago (Graduate School of Business) Stanford University (Graduate School of Business) Northwestern University (Kellogg School of Management) University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (Ross School of Business)

MBA Rankings 1990-2005 University of Pennsylvania (The Wharton School) New York University (Leonard N. Stern School of Business) University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (Ross School of Business) Columbia University (Columbia Graduate School of Business) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan School of Management) University of Chicago (Graduate School of Business) Harvard University (Harvard Business School) University of Texas at Austin (Red McCombs School of Business) University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA Anderson School of Management) Northwestern University (Kellogg School of Management)

What’s interesting about these two time periods is the rate at which HBS seems to have increased their number publications in recent years. In addition, if one looks at the numbers behind the ranking (see the UT Dallas site), it becomes very clear that Wharton is nearly doubling the publication output of their nearest peer. This is truly impressive.

Of course, it should be noted that larger schools (with greater numbers of professors) are presumably at an advantage in this survey. A publications per capita ranking might be worth exploring, of course, it depends what one is looking for in this sort of exercise. For example, Stanford may have a higher per capita publication rate than some of its peers, which would tell us that their professors are more inclined to publish on average – but that doesn’t necessarily help the Stanford brand if they simply have too few publications overall. In addition, I should remind our readers that quantity of publications may indicate ‘thought leadership’ in the academic community, but will not necessarily equate with quality of teaching skill in the MBA classroom.