There’s a great deal of news to report today, ranging from recent headlines to admissions results. We’ll start with a run-down of a few articles that are worth reading:
1) Getting Something Extra From an MBA Program. This article was published on the Wall Street Journal’s College Journal site (a free site) and covers the subject of experiential learning and networking in business school. Highlighting activities that range from Tech Treks at MIT/Sloan to corporate links between a pharmaceutical management concentration at Rutgers and local firms (Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb), the author focuses on how schools go beyond basic classroom learning when educating their students and helping them to build networks.
2) Internship Offers Are Too Early for MBAs. This article about MBA summer internships was published yesterday (also on the College Journal site). Author Ronald J. Alsop documents the growing battle that corporations are waging to get first dibs on first-year MBA students, by showing up earlier and earlier in the school year to wine and dine potential recruits. In fact, Harvard Business School was forced to instate a ‘do not disturb’ period that stretches from pre-term through mid-November so that students can settle in at school and not be distracted by constant recruiting events (other top schools now have similar rules). While the recruiting process can certainly be distracting, it’s certainly a nice problem for the schools to have!
3) MBAs Who Double Up. This BusinessWeek Online feature documents the growing popularity of dual-degree pursuits (JD/MBA, MBA/MHA, MBA/PhD, etc). The rationale coming from those students who have ‘doubled up’ is that doing so enables them to demonstrate more of a focus and drive. Of course, the downside to this practice is that students are often over-extended and heavily in debt. Clearly, the decision with regards to a dual-degree must be made on a case-by-case basis to ensure that it’s the right move for the applicant.
Live Chat with CMU
In other news, we wanted to call our reader’s attention to a Live Chat with Laurie Stewart, the executive admissions director at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. The live chat will be hosted by BusinessWeek Online and gets started today at 12 PM (EST). To sign into the chat, click here.
Decisions Update
Finally, we’d like to extend our hearty congratulations to our readers who received good news from Chicago GSB and Michigan/Ross this week! Both schools released several R1 admits a day ahead of schedule, opting to phone the lucky applicants to give them advance word.
