For those of you who have an interest in working in the UK after earning your MBA, we now have all the details on the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) and the MBA Provision. As we mentioned in this blog several weeks ago, students of the top 50 business schools now have the right to work in the UK for 12 months on completion of their MBA.

The program is launching in April of 2005, and this site has all of the details:
http://www.workpermit.com/uk/hsmp/mba_provision

What is perhaps most interesting about this program is that it has forced the government of the United Kingdom to generate a global MBA ranking (see the list below). Here is a brief note about how this list was . . . → Continue Reading

US News has issued their annual ranking of MBA programs. The special edition magazine is available in bookstores and on newsstands now. The rankings will also be available online as of this Friday, but you’ll need to subscribe in order to get anything beyond the basic listings.

The top 15 for 2006 are as follows:
1. Harvard
2. Stanford
2. Wharton
4. MIT Sloan
4. Kellogg
6. Tuck
6. Haas
8. Chicago
9. Columbia
10. Michigan
11. Fuqua
11. UCLA
13. NYU Stern
14. Darden
15. Cornell
15. Yale SOM

Key items of note:
1) More ties in the top 10
Wharton moves up into a tie with Stanford for second place, Kellogg ties MIT for 4th place, Tuck (Dartmouth) and Haas (Berkeley) tie for 6th place. This creates a tiering within the top 10 schools, with HBS at . . . → Continue Reading

Stirring the “Melting Pot”?
Along the lines of yesterday’s post on diversity at business schools, there is an interesting article in BusinessWeek today. It highlights the challenges that business schools face in attracting and competing for diverse applicants. The article makes the argument that schools already make an effort to attract applicants of many backgrounds, but that many schools are, in fact, competing for the attention of a relatively small group of individuals:

“Deciding between enrolling in the full-time MBA program at Stanford Graduate School of Business or Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business is hardly the worst predicament you could face — especially if you thought you would never fit the business school mold at all. Just ask Shaquita Murphy, an African-American . . . → Continue Reading

A recent study by GMAC (the Graduate Management Admission Council) indicates that financial aid is one of the tools that business schools have at their disposal to attract minority and international students. The article suggests that “full-time MBA programs can improve their ability to attract students by strengthening and increasing promotion of their financial assistance programs.”

For the full text of the article, please see GMAC’s website.

Along similar lines, the World MBA Tour has found that increasing numbers of women are seeking MBAs. The article notes, “For women in business, the ‘glass ceiling’ remains a major problem, but, according to new figures, the number of women aiming to use an MBA as a way to break through is on the rise. . . . → Continue Reading

The India Times has an interesting article on the United Kingdom’s new policy towards MBA graduates. As of April 1st, MBA graduates from the top 50 global business schools will automatically be awarded the minimum number of points to qualify for the UK’s Highly Skilled Migrants Program. In this case, the top 50 is an internal ranking that the UK government has developed, including many of the usual suspects in the United States, UK, Canada and Europe.

For the full text of the article:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1048055,curpg-1.cms

Finally, today’s blog entry from Power Yogi offers a number of interesting links and angles to follow on the HBS . . . → Continue Reading

Wharton received roughly 600 applications in R3, bringing their season’s total to 5,670 applications – just 1% below last year’s total. This is the first time in nearly three years that application volume has held relatively constant at Wharton (it had been slipping for the last two seasons at most top schools). Combining this bit of information with current GMAT volume (up 4.8% in January), it seems like the lean years of 2002-2004 are potentially a thing of the past. Of course, we’ll have to see what sort of volume the other schools report for this season before we can draw any broad conclusions.

Discussion rages on about the Harvard “119“. In addition to an AP article that offers a slightly . . . → Continue Reading

Yesterday’s New York Times featured a fascinating article about teamwork and group performance – using the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox as case studies. The story focuses on whether or not decentralized groups perform better than strongly connected ones.

For anyone with an interest in group dynamics and teamwork (or a love of baseball) this article is a must read. Here are a couple of excerpts:

…social scientists who have studied group performance under pressure say that often it is decentralized groups (like the Yankees) that prove more resilient than strongly connected ones (like the Red Sox); they are better able to weather outside criticism and internal quarrels.

…winning is more likely to create team unity than vice versa, Torre . . . → Continue Reading