Earlier this week, USC business professors Warren Bennis and James O’Toole published a very controversial article in the Harvard Business Review criticizing the approach to teaching that American business schools have adopted. Here’s a summary of the problem from the article’s abstract:

“Instead of measuring themselves in terms of the competence of their graduates, or by how well their faculty members understand important drivers of business performance, they assess themselves almost solely by the rigor of their scientific research. This scientific model is predicated on the faulty assumption that business is an academic discipline like chemistry or geology when, in fact, business is a profession and business schools are professional schools–or should be.”

Alarmed by the disconnect between the methodology that is . . . → Continue Reading

As a complement to yesterday’s post offering pointers to those who have been rejected and are gearing up to reapply, we wanted to share some feedback from clients who’ve received more favorable news. Here are a handful of testimonials recently submitted by clients who applied to several top MBA programs using our services:

“No matter how bright you may be, considering the level of competition among candidates for the top MBA programs, educational consulting is definitely a must-have and among educational consulting firms, CLEAR ADMIT is THE best you can choose from. I have been able to compare with other MBA consulting firms; Clear Admit really makes a difference. For my essays, I was literally stunned by the quality and intelligence . . . → Continue Reading

In an interesting complement to last week’s comments about increased recruiting at MBA programs and improved job prospects in the for-profit arena, an article has recently come out describing increased interest in the nonprofit sector among business school students. Focusing to an extent on students at ESADE, which offers a specialty public sector degree, the article describes not only the reasons behind students’ interest in making a shift, but also the culture shock that could potentially result from moving into a nonprofit organization after years of for-profit experience.
The full text of the article is available here.

In other news,
The Kellogg School of Management announced this weekend that it has received approval from the state of Florida to launch an Executive . . . → Continue Reading

The Boston Business Journal published an article last week reporting a dramatic improvement in job prospects for MBA graduates in the area. Area business schools have reported an increase in both the number of firms actively recruiting their graduates as well as job offers being made. This trend applies not only to top ranked institutions in the Boston area such as Harvard and MIT, but also to MBA programs offered by local schools. This upturn is certainly great news for students currently enrolled in business school, and should also be encouraging for those planning on applying in the coming months.

The full text of the article can be found . . . → Continue Reading

After much anticipation, the Clear Admit team is pleased to announce the results of our first ever Best of Blogging ranking! For those of you who are tuning in a bit late, the twofold aim of this ranking is to highlight the best MBA applicant blogs from the Class of 2007 and to identify valuable sources of information for the next wave of applicants.

We’ve arrived at these results after careful in-house evaluation of the eligible blogs and consideration of input from the nominated bloggers and celebrity judges Alex Brown, Brad Garrison (a.k.a. Hella) and Mica (Schneider) Bevington. Below is the listing of the top ten blogs overall that we’ve compiled based on this feedback, as well as the . . . → Continue Reading

In addition to our in-house votes and the peer-review ballots collected from the nominated bloggers, two celebrity judges have helped the Clear Admit staff with this year’s Best of Blogging rankings (due out tomorrow).

For those of you keeping score, here’s the biographical information on the two external judges:

Alex Brown
Alex served on the Wharton MBA Admissions Committee for seven years (most recently as the Senior Associate Director of Admissions), introduced the first blog launched by an MBA admissions office, and is known in the MBA and blogging communities for his unwavering dedication to the use of technology in b-school admissions. Alex also helped launch Wharton’s discussion forums (student-2-student) and student diaries, and participates regularly in GMAC training . . . → Continue Reading

Just two days until the release of our Best of Blogging 2004-2005 rankings!

At present, we’re busily reviewing the ballots that have come in from the nominated bloggers. We’ll be combining this peer-rankings data with the ballots from the Clear Admit admissions counselors in order to determine the top 10 MBA applicant blogs as well as a handful of winners in several sub-categories. Results will be published Wednesday morning.

For a list of the nominees and ranking categories, click . . . → Continue Reading

On April 17th, Clear Admit’s Graham Richmond was a special guest for one of Manhattan GMAT‘s free online seminars. During the seminar, Richmond (a Wharton MBA graduate and former Wharton admissions counselor) answered questions about the overall role of the test in the MBA admissions process. Topics covered included the impact of retaking the exam, the treatment of cancellations, the relationship between one’s GPA and GMAT results and much more.

Transcripts from the seminar are currently available free of charge. Just sign up for the GMATTERS series offered by Manhattan GMAT and you will receive them as a multi-part strategy newsletter.

Sign up here:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/newslettersignup.cfm

In the meantime, here’s a brief excerpt from the transcripts of the seminar:

Manhattan GMAT: Why do business . . . → Continue Reading

The latest issue of the Wharton Alumni Magazine has an excellent article on the history of marketing at Wharton, focusing on how the school’s unique approach to the discipline has revolutionized the way many businesses assess their marketing efforts.

For those of you looking at top marketing programs like Kellogg, Wharton and U. Michigan, this is a must read! Here’s an excerpt:

Marketing 100
By Nancy Moffitt

Frito Lay had a slew of popular munchies, from Doritos to Sun Chips, and lots of clever, award-winning television ads to peddle them. But the company had an all-too-common problem: it didn’t really know when or if the ads were working.

“When I would talk about this problem to marketing experts, they would tell me that advertising was an . . . → Continue Reading

On Wednesday, May 18th, this blog will publish our 2004-2005 “Best of Blogging” ranking – an assessment of the blogs authored by MBA applicants who documented the 2004-2005 admissions process. In compiling this ranking, we have the twofold aim of recognizing the cream of this year’s crop and identifying valuable sources of information for the next wave of applicants.

Narrowing the Field
Although we identified nearly 70 blogs that could have been eligible for our rankings process, the entries we’ve opted to consider each met requirements for the relevance and frequency of posts, as well as overall quality of posting and contribution to the space (see the listing of eligible blogs below). We’ll be compiling a ranking of the top ten blogs in . . . → Continue Reading

For many of the successful class of 2007 applicants who have sent in their deposits and finalized their business school destinations, the time has come to decide when and how to resign and deliver news of their departure to co-workers. While exciting for the MBA-bound individual, it’s sometimes hard to predict how others will react to this announcement – handling the situation quietly, graciously and professionally is always the best bet for an amicable parting of ways. To emphasize that you are not alone in this situation, we’d like to highlight a few MBA bloggers who’ve done a very nice job of describing their experience with and thoughts on this process.

IceMan07 provides a thoughtful account of the reactions of his . . . → Continue Reading

There’s an interesting article in today’s Daily Northwestern about the reasons that Kellogg does not offer an undergraduate business degree. While the beginning of the discussion focuses on the desire of Northwestern undergraduates to study management and the school’s justification for refusing them this opportunity, it eventually opens up into a broader discussion about the relative importance of an MBA applicant’s academic and professional preparation. Emphasizing the fact that a manager needs to be knowledgable and well-rounded, business school faculty and administrators attest that, far from being a prerequisite for MBA studies, an undergraduate degree in business might not serve a student as well as would a background in the liberal arts. Additionally, current MBA students are quoted as saying that . . . → Continue Reading

Business Week‘s Jeffrey Gangemi has just authored an interesting article on life in business school for female students with young children. The story highlights several top schools that have made adjustments to better accommodate moms in their programs, but it also scratches the surface of a larger issue that MBA programs face when it comes to attracting women in the first place.

As the article points out, female enrollment at the top b-schools remains in the 30-35% range, while law, medical and undergraduate programs typically post numbers closer to 50%. Many believe that this comes down to the timing of an MBA, which – unlike medical or law school – typically takes place several years post-undergraduate; at the exact time when . . . → Continue Reading

Yesterday’s New York Post, published an interesting article entitled B-school Boon. The story focused on the state of recruiting for top MBA graduates, citing a great deal of evidence that the class of 2005 was seeing some of the best employment offers in years. Given the paper’s New York City location, there was also a fair amount of commentary on the state of offers for jobs on Wall Street.

Here are a few excerpts from the article:

Newly sprung B-schoolers can expect to earn about $155,000 a year at top investment banks, which includes an average base salary of $80,000 plus bonuses. That’s about $10,000 more than last year’s graduating classes.

Local business schools are seeing a healthy bump as well. At New York . . . → Continue Reading