Posted by Clear Admit on December 13, 2007, at 4:30 pm
Posted in:  General , MBA News , School: Cambridge , Uncategorized The University of Cambridge’s Judge School of Business announced last week the creation of a new Master of Finance (MFin) degree, to debut in autumn 2008. The degree comes as part of an ongoing effort by the school to elevate the level of its finance teaching and research.
The new one-year finance program is designed for people with at least two years’ experience in the finance and banking world who wish to accelerate their careers. It will round out the school’s other offerings, which include both a respected pre-experience, research-oriented Finance MPhil and a post-experience MBA.
Significant industry research helped guide the creation of the new program. Dr. Simon Taylor, who will serve as the program’s director, together with Judge Business School Director Arnoud De Meyer, spent the spring and summer of 2007 meeting with senior staff at investment banks, hedge funds and private equity firms to gather input regarding the new program’s syllabus, structure and goals.
“One consistent message emerging from this consultation process was that there is a shortage of people who can combine a thorough technical foundation in finance and financial products with a good understanding of the business context of finance,” Dr. Simon said in a release announcing the new program.
Many candidates have either good technical skills or a good set of communication and business skills, but too few have both, Simon continued. “It is becoming evident that you need both to reach the highest levels in a financial career,” he said.
The program will combine intensive academic instruction with a high level of practical content from professionals in the finance world. Students will have the opportunity to apply their new skills through a range of projects and internships.
Additionally, following the recommendations made by several banks, the program will also include short, focused reviews of related subjects designed specifically to provide context for the use of finance in business organizations. Among the topics to be explored in these mini-courses are corporate strategy, marketing, oranizational behavior and business ethics.
The new degree has received endorsements from several leading financial institutions as well as seed funding in the form of gifts exceeding £2.5 million.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 13, 2007, at 7:41 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips Essay content you’ve polished for one school often serves as a great starting point for the next application, but as we’ve often said, customizing this text for the school in question is key. One particular challenge we see applicants struggle with each year is effectively expanding a short essay they’ve written for one program (such as Harvard’s 400 word “career vision” document or Kellogg’s two-page, double-spaced essay about one’s career to date, goals and interest in their MBA) in responding to a question on the same topic but with a longer limit (like Stanford’s topics and Chicago’s 1500 word goals/why MBA essay). With this in mind, we’d like to offer some pointers on converting condensed comments to more extensive remarks.
1) Expand in proportion. When taking an existing response as a starting point for crafting a longer document, one good rule of thumb is to build upon each subject to more or less the same extent. While elaborating on your work to date might involve less time and work than the more research-intensive ‘why School X’ discussion, it’s generally prudent to maintain balance among subjects and provide all of the major pieces information a school requests in equal measure.
2) Maintain focus. One frequent issue with long essays is that they sometimes lack a clear sense of direction. To ensure that the reader is able to understand the relevance of your remarks and follow the connections among the various ideas, it’s a good idea to include transition sentences at the beginning of each paragraph that tie the subsequent remarks and examples to the topic of the essay and clearly state how certain statements relate to the question. This exercise also serves as a check for the applicant in making sure that all of the details in the essay are related to the subject.
3) Finish when you’re finished. While it’s important to take advantage of the opportunity that each essay presents to share information about your candidacy, you shouldn’t feel obligated to reach the upper end of a suggested page limit if you feel that you’ve already addressed the question and presented a full picture of your interests and background.
Good luck to everyone composing essays with an eye to R2 submission! For more tailored guidance on essays in particular or the application process in general, feel free to contact us at info@clearadmit.com.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 12, 2007, at 12:36 pm
Posted in: General , MBA News , Uncategorized In an effort to make military officers and senior enlisted personnel aware of the impact pursuing a graduate business education can have on their careers, the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) and Military.com joined forces in late November to launch an initiative called Operation MBA.
Working together, GMAC, which owns the GMAT admissions exam, and Military.com, a division of Monster Worldwide and the world’s largest military and veteran member organization, make a case for why members of the military are particularly well suited for business education and then provide a range of resources to help guide them through the admissions process.
A new website, www.mba.com/military, established as part of the initiative, ticks off the reasons members of the military should consider an MBA. “You have a jump on the competition,” the website reads. “You know leadership. You understand responsibility. You possess strategic skills.”
The website includes a range of resources for military personnel. The first, the MBA Planner, is a 16-page brochure developed specifically for members of the armed forces considering an MBA. Included in the brochure are an overview of the various types of graduate business degrees, profiles of real-life military personnel who have pursued MBAs and frequently asked questions about financial aid, admissions requirements and how to gauge the quality of a particular school’s programs.
The brochure also provides a two-year timeline intended to guide prospective applicants from the earliest stages of the application process (assessing whether an MBA is right for them, making contact with their base Educational Service Office) through the final details (understanding financial aid packages, drawing on established mentor and other networks). And sprinkled throughout are valuable tips for applicants. For instance, DANTES (the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support) will reimburse GMAT exam fees for active military members.
In addition to the MBA Planner, the website also includes a list of military-friendly business schools. From Arizona State to Yale, the list includes more than 70 schools, each of which provides financial aid to qualified military personnel who have transitioned from the service in the two years prior to enrollment and will grant a one-year deferment if a student’s plans are delayed by his or her service branch. In addition, when allowed by state and university regulations, the schools on this list will waive the application fee for anyone who has been on active duty within three years of applying.
“Creating access to quality graduate business education is our mission, and we are always seeking new and more effective ways to help people connect with the information they need about the MBA,” said Susan Motz, vice president of client services at GMAC, in a statement announcing the initiative. “We are excited about this partnership and about opportunities to serve military personnel by helping them find a graduate business program that meets their educational and professional needs through Operation MBA,” she continued.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 12, 2007, at 7:09 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips , Interview Guides , Interview Tips , School: Harvard , Wiki Wednesdays Welcome back to Wiki Wednesdays, where we take a peek at particularly poignant posts to the Clear Admit Wiki! With Harvard in the midst of of conducting Round 1 interviews and releasing additional invitations through January 16th, we thought we’d put the Wiki Wednesday spotlight on that school this week.
Whereas most schools conduct blind interviews, Harvard’s interviewers are very familiar with one’s entire file, and will often have specific questions prepared in light of their review of the essays and other materials.
Let’s set the stage by taking a look at the list of questions that one interviewee described as “straightforward:”
- 1. Tell me your past, present and future.
- 2. What’s your career goal? What would you do if it doesn’t work out?
- 3. What’s the most common misconception about you?
- 4. What’s the biggest challenge you might be facing at HBS?
The first question is rather expansive, and certainly offers an opportunity to highlight a range of experiences and subjects that might not have made their way into the written application. In the face of such open-ended inquiries, though, it’s important to think strategically. As another Wiki contributor writes of his HBS experience:
- “…they WILL press you [on] anything you say…so don’t bring up extraneous topics or examples unless you’re willing to go in-depth on them.”
As our opening report also indicates, the concept of one’s career vision is also of interest to the HBS adcom. Other recent HBS interview reports further support this with the inquiries “What industry do you NOT see yourself in?” and “What is your dream job?,” spurring applicants to provide a few possibilities – and exclusions – for the future.
Meanwhile, the request to identify a “common misconception” about oneself illustrates that the adcom carries the themes of self-assessment and self-awareness through the entire application process, complementing the program’s essay questions about a past mistake and a leadership experience that illuminated a weakness. Finally, the question about a pending challenge at HBS looks to the applicant’s preparedness for and fit with the Harvard Business School experience. Additional interviewees reported related questions, such as “How do you want your HBS classmates to remember you?” and “Why do people accept your leadership?,” cueing applicants to discuss their potential impact.
As you can probably see, mental preparation is an important element of a successful HBS interview experience. Visiting the Clear Admit Wiki for further firsthand insight into Harvard’s process is a great starting point! Meanwhile, the Clear Admit Interview Guide to HBS offers detailed analysis and advice for candidates who are preparing for an interview.
As always, we extend our gratitude to those who have already published their reports to the wiki (the latest reports were from Kellogg and HBS). We also encourage additional content contributions from applicants either by creating an account or sending your reports to wiki@clearadmit.com. That wraps up this week’s edition of Wiki Wednesdays. We’ll be back next week with further highlights from the wiki!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 11, 2007, at 4:02 pm
Posted in: General Over our 4+ years of blogging, applicants have turned to the Clear Admit blog as a source of reliable information and valuable advice on the MBA admissions process. Because we want to ensure that we are providing content that is as relevant as possible, we are conducting a survey to help us better understand our readers’ goals and needs. We’d like to invite all of our readers to share their school selection priorities and views on the leading MBA programs.
This online survey should take just 10 minutes to complete. We would love to receive as many responses as possible before the closing date of Friday, December 21st – and will be giving away an iPod Touch and four iPod Nanos as a token of our appreciation!
Simply click here to begin. Thanks in advance for your participation!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 11, 2007, at 1:01 pm
Posted in: MBA News , School: Michigan / Ross , School: Stanford Build a better shopping cart and the world will beat a path to your door. Oh, and your grade depends on it.
That’s the concept behind the Integrated Product Design (IDP) course at the University of Michigan, which brings together students from the Ross School of Business, the School of Art and Design and the School of Engineering to work in teams developing and marketing a new consumer product. This year, the challenge was to create an eco-friendly urban carrying device that can be used to transport heavy objects long distances without a car.
As the final component in the semester-long course, the IDP Trade Show was held late last month on the University of Michigan campus. Here, seven teams displayed their take on the urban transport pod. All had to be built to meet certain specifications. They had to be collapsible, lightweight and carry up to 30 pounds – even up stairs – and be constructed using 100 percent sustainable materials.
The similarities ended there, though, as each team then brought its own unique combination of cross-disciplinary talents to the fore to create wildly different contraptions made of fabric, metal and plastic, all with differing levels of sophistication and functionality.
But concept creation – informed by market research – was just the beginning. Teams were also responsible for technical development, production process design, pricing, inventory stocking and advertising.
“Students compete in a real market with real products, and the result is a course that has surprising chemistry, unleashing strong passions, allegiances and great energy among students and faculty alike,” William Lovejoy, the Raymond T. Perring Family Professor of Business at the Ross School of Business, told Michigan in the News. Lovejoy teaches the class jointly with Shaun Jackson, associate professor at the School of Art and Design and Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.
The on-campus trade show follows an initial online trade show, in which more than 1,800 votes were gathered this year. The online voting results provided teams with valuable feedback that they could then use to refine their sales pitches and re-evaluate their inventories for round two.
Armed with this initial customer response information, teams tried out creative marketing strategies on customers at the campus trade show. Meanwhile, the customers themselves tested out the actual products by loading them up with canned goods, sacks of potatoes and other perishable items.
According to Lovejoy, who developed the IDP concept 17 years ago with colleagues from Stanford, the fact that students produce fully functional prototypes and face real-world economic challenges makes the class unique.
Indeed, both the winner of the competition and the students’ grades for the course are determined by profit rankings, based on hypothetical cart sales, both online and in person, with actual budgets and costs factored in.
In terms of market share, Team Folio led in web sales, and Team On y va dominated at the in-person trade show. But Team Velocity, which promoted its cart as being built to withstand extreme weather conditions and carry heavy loads, was the overall winner once costs and margins were taken into account. Its profits were almost $5 million, with Folio and On y va coming in at $2.4 and $2.3 million respectively. Inventory stock-outs also played a role in the final outcome.
Winners and losers alike saw value in the experience. “I believe that this experience is the best one I’ve had in terms of simulating the process of starting a business from the ground up,” said MBA candidate Amar Ravi, whose De Kar team came in fourth. “From the tactical, strategic process to the execution of the design, it was amazing,” he said.
Now the question is will he be as satisfied with his grade?
To view complete results of the IDP challenge, click here.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 11, 2007, at 4:11 am
Posted in: School: Harvard , School: Northwestern / Kellogg , School: Yale , Trivia Tuesday The structure of the first-year class tends to shape the MBA experience, affecting the friends students make, the teamwork skills they learn, and the peer support they receive. In past Trivia Tuesday columns we’ve considered the ways in which Harvard and Kellogg structure their first year classes; this week we turn our attention to the class structure at the Yale SOM.
Yale’s first-year class is divided into three cohorts, referred to as Blue, Silver and Green. Students report that the bond within these groups is usually strong, and since students take all of their core courses with their cohort, inside jokes and camaraderie tend to develop throughout the year. In addition to classroom and group work, cohorts band together for good-natured extracurricular competition. For instance, in the fall of 2006, first-year cohorts participated in a very successful fund-raising drive for SOM’s non-profit internship fund, and in a less constructive but equally competitive keg war.
Within Yale’s cohorts, students are assigned to seven-person learning teams. As is the case at most business schools that break their student bodies into smaller units, both these teams and the larger cohorts are constructed with an eye to capturing the diversity of the class and ensuring that students are introduced to others with varying backgrounds and areas of expertise.
Two points of divergence with the approach of other business schools are the relatively large size of Yale’s teams – most schools cap their Learning Teams at 5 or 6 students – and the minimal scope of their formal role. The only official role of Yale’s learning teams is in the first-semester course Interpersonal Dynamics, in which students work with their groups on role plays and class projects. This is something of a contrast to the role of Learning Teams at leading schools such as Tuck or Wharton, which require that students collaborate with their assigned teams in each core course. Instead, Yale students tend to work in smaller, self-selected study groups in most of the core courses. Though the cohorts spend significant time together in and outside of the classroom during the first year, students report that cohort culture does not continue into the second year. By this point, students’ coursework consists entirely of electives, and new social networks form around shared professional and academic interests.
For more information on Yale’s first-year experience or the class structure of other leading business schools, be sure to check out the schools’ websites or the Academics section of the Clear Admit School Guides!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 10, 2007, at 12:37 pm
Posted in: MBA News , School: MIT / Sloan Granted, your biggest concern right now may be getting in to business school, but employment prospects once you graduate are also an important consideration. Put another way: Is all this work and worry really worth it?
MIT Sloan School of Business recently released its MBA Employment Report, providing a revealing glimpse of the full-time positions its 2007 graduates accepted and the summer positions its class of 2008 held.
Calling it an “outstanding recruiting year” for Sloan MBAs, Career Development Office Director Jacqueline Wilbur reports that 97 percent of the class of 2007 had a job offer within three months of graduation. Service industries – specifically financial services and consulting – continue to attract the vast majority of Sloan graduates for both full-time and summer positions.
Increasingly, though, Sloanies also are gravitating toward the manufacturing sector. Nineteen percent of 2007 graduates took jobs in related fields, including computers and electronics, biotechnology and aerospace. And 22 percent of the class of 2008 took summer positions within manufacturing.
“We also continue to see a growing interest in sustainability, with more students choosing to accept full-time opportunities in areas such as energy and nonprofit work than in prior years,” writes Wilbur.
Consulting firm McKinsey & Company was the overwhelming leader in terms of employers hiring Sloan students. Of the 2007 class, 27 took jobs with McKinsey upon graduation. Summer interns, meanwhile, numbered 23. Other top employers include Bain & Company, BCG, Google and Goldman Sachs. The mean base salary for 2007 graduates was $107,990, and summer interns from the class of 2008 earned an average of $7,136 per month.
To view the entire report in PDF form, click here.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 10, 2007, at 3:14 am
Posted in: Campus Chronicles , School: MIT / Sloan , School: NYU Stern With the Thanksgiving break a fading memory on U.S. business school campuses, students are racing towards the winter break that marks the end of the first term. Let’s check in on what students at MIT Sloan and NYU Stern have been doing recently, as reported in the schools’ campus papers.
At MIT Sloan, success was this week’s theme, with the Fifteen offering several stories of recent campus triumphs. To start, the MIT Energy Club’s annual Energy Night was a rousing success, bringing 40 campus presenters to the MIT Museum to share their work with nearly 1,200 attendees. The event is a wonderful opportunity for students, faculty, and members of industry to share exciting new ideas and network over appetizers and drinks. Another, much newer event also went off with a bang recently, as the MIT Sales Club hosted the first graduate division contest of the National Collegiate Sales Competition. Over 20 MBA students from leading business schools competed in the event, with students from Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan garnering the top three prizes. Based on feedback from participants, judges, and sponsor Microsoft, the MIT Sales Club hopes to make the competition an annual event. MIT Sloan students took part in yet another big event recently – the 2007 Play Digital Media Case Competition, hosted by UC-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business as part of the annual Play Conference. As defending champions, expectations for the MIT team were high going into the competition, and Team Delta lived up to them, taking home the $10,000 grand prize. Team members credit the “pragmatic” lessons learned in Sloan classes for their success, and drew on theories from their regular courses as well as their SIP (Sloan Innovation Period) courses in designing the winning strategy.
At NYU Stern, the fall’s events are in full swing, and the Stern Opportunity is there to cover them. Several campus groups recently spent time reaching out to groups under-represented in business, with AHBBS members hosting ninth-graders from Hostos Lincoln Academy, a specialized high school in the Bronx, and SWIB and MBA Admissions hosting the annual Opening Doors for Women program. While on campus, the Hostos students participated in brainstorming and problem-solving sessions, talked with Stern students about challenges that may arise in college, and toured the school’s dorms, library and gym. Meanwhile, participants in Opening Doors took advantage of the event to learn about Stern’s admissions process and student culture, while also having the opportunity to hear Sheila Wellington, a favorite Stern professor, discuss the “glass ceiling” woman may face in the business world. As in years past, both prospective and current students who participated reported leaving the event more excited about both Stern and their own career aspirations. In addition to these energetic outreach events, NYU Stern students have taken on several challenges and competitions this fall. A Stern team reached the finals of the Chicago GSB’s National IPO Challenge, participated in the National MBA Real Estate Case Challenge in Austin, and came in second in the 4th Annual Hispanic American Business Leaders Association case challenge. Congratulations to them all!
It’s clear from both of these papers that business school students have far more than classwork and recruiting to keep them busy. For more information on challenges, competitions and events highlighted this week, be sure to check out the full articles!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 7, 2007, at 2:07 pm
Posted in: MBA News , School: INSEAD , School: London Business School From Africa to China to the Middle East, business education is gaining ground around the globe as the reputations of newer MBA programs in regions not as long associated with business education grow, and as established schools in Europe and North America expand their reach through satellite campuses and fellowship programs.
BusinessWeek this week devoted an article to the rise of Chinese business schools, reporting that graduates from these schools are being hired in greater numbers and at higher salaries than ever before. According to a survey of recruiters from companies hiring graduates from schools in China – conducted this year for the third time in a row by BusinessWeek China – 34 percent of respondents characterized the supply of high-quality talent from these MBA programs as “excellent” or “good,” up from 19 percent last year. The quality of MBAs “is becoming better and better,” Mike Wang, human resources manager at Morgan Stanley in Beijing, told BusinessWeek.
A country where nine universities began accepting students to business school programs just 16 years ago now boasts 96 universities offering 230 MBA and executive MBA programs, BusinessWeek reports. Next year, the Chinese government plans to increase MBA enrollment by 24 percent and accredit an additional 30 programs.
Curricula at these schools are evolving as well. Increasingly, Chinese students are focusing on case studies about Chinese businesses as often and in some instances more often than on case studies about European or U.S. businesses, as was more the norm in the past. As the studies become more relevant, and as the schools’ reputations grow, more Chinese students are opting to stay home rather than go abroad for an MBA, according to BusinessWeek’s report.
African Faculty Fellowship Program Launched at INSEAD
In an effort to increase the establishment of African business schools and bring about greater awareness of African business issues, INSEAD last week announced the creation of the INSEAD African Faculty Fellowship. The fellowship is open to two faculty members of the Global Business School Network’s African member schools.
These fellows will spend two months as “visiting scholars” during the 2008/9 academic year at either of the school’s two campuses in Fontainebleau, France, or Singapore. Part of the INSEAD African Initiative, the fellowship will enable visiting faculty to attend workshops and seminars and be eligible for grant money to fund research and case writing projects with INSEAD faculty. The fellows also will contribute to INSEAD classes as guest speakers.
“As the business school of the world, we want to play an active role in helping with the capacity building of Sub-Saharan African business schools,” Frank Brown, dean of INSEAD, said in a statement announcing the fellowship. The program is designed to be both professionally rewarding to the participating fellows and enriching to the INSEAD campus as a whole, he continued. INSEAD expects the program to raise the school’s visibility in Africa and increase the flow of African applicants to its programs.
LSB Opens Dubai Center
London Business School (LSB), too, has expanded its footprint to other parts of the globe, officially opening its Dubai Centre at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) last week.
The center’s inaugural ceremony was led by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and ruler of Dubai. Other distinguished guests included HE Mohammed Al Gergawi, minister of state for cabinet affairs and chairman of the executive office in Dubai; HE Abdul Rahman Mohammed Nassir Al Owais, minister of culture, youth and community development; HE Dr. Omar Bin Sulaiman, governor of the DIFC; and HRH Prince Faisal Al-Hussein. LSB Dean Robin Buchanan also attended, as did several other members of the LSB faculty and administration.
“We are delighted to be the home of the Dubai Centre of London Business School,” Dr. Bin Sulaiman said at the event. “The Dubai-London Executive MBA is a valued addition to the region, particularly the United Arab Emirates.”
In fact, the LSB inaugural Dubai-London EMBA program got underway in early September, welcoming a class of 78 students representing 30 different nationalities.
Professor Zeger Degraeve, faculty director of the new Dubai center, is thrilled by the level of interest in the new program. “We recognise that the learning experience in Dubai – an international economic center – is a natural fit with the experience provided to our students in London,” Degraeve said. “We are pleased to be the first leading business school to offer a program of this kind in the region.”
LSB hopes to expand the program in the future, including adding an executive education component to serve employees at businesses in the region.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 7, 2007, at 9:30 am
Posted in: Fridays from the Frontline Welcome back to Fridays from the Frontline, our weekly whirl through the MBA blogging world. Caught in limbo between Round One and Round Two this week, applicants managed interviews, applications and expectations, aligned notifications with aspirations and variously awaited Christmas vacations. With finals and formals to attend, current students found their plates full as well. Let’s check in with our bloggers for a sampling…
According to Bschool Diva, Chicago applicants will have reason to relive the eager anticipation of childhood Christmases this year, although it appears the big day has been moved up to December 19th … Wannabe’s sure hoping for a gift from the GSB under his tree, deciding that a renewed focus on quality, not quantity, however, is the best strategy toward receiving one. Meanwhile, B-School Bound is surprised by the news that Kellogg has begun to render Round One admits; Mbabound08 is living proof of that – he rode the relief line all the way from JFK to Washington Heights after receiving a much anticipated phone call from admissions.
By the way, anyone know what the difference is between Wharton and Haas? According to Mbabound08, it adds up to about $45 k over two years. Despite the drawback, Vidiviceni hopes to count himself among the Wharton camp, although it’s just setting in that with that and four other top-flight apps due in the next 30 days, the pressure is on! Bsch00l4sp!rant has been feeling more than just pressure lately, representing the varied emotional tolls the application process has exacted upon him in a graph fit for a king… or at least a consultant…
The first-years seem a bit more practically-oriented at this juncture. Necromonger offered up advice relevant to applicants and fellow students alike: don’t underestimate the effort it takes to craft a winning CV! In fact, his consumed 20 hours. Neither is MaybeMBA scared of a little hard work; she’s even welcoming finals week at Chicago, which she reasons can’t be too stressful compared to the week she just had. With the first snowfall at Georgetown, HairTwirler’s thoughts are far from exams, though; she feels more than a flurry of nostalgia for Boston as she recalls trudging through the Common in the snow. Speaking of being all dressed up in white, Christof posts some snazzy pics of Darden’s Winter Formal, accompanied with a some heartfelt musings on married life.
Second-year Angie and friends also got dressed to the nines – with Santa hats on heads and beers in hand, as a part of LBS’ annual Santa Claus Pub Crawl. Meanwhile, La Laudiaria found her own reason to celebrate, after some intense job searching and some difficult soul searching, she was kindly rewarded with a job offer at Apple, no less. Way to go! Returning from an extended, but by no means idle absence, Ed Starr summarizes the three memorable months of his LBS-to-Kellogg exchange, while John swears that not everyone at CBS is an entrepreneur, although you’d be hard pressed to find evidence of that on his blog. Finally, Fran meditated on the clash between advertising and strategizing over a colorful English breakfast.
And that pretty much sums up this week’s adventures! Come back and see us next Friday for a fresh crop of MBA highlights.
Posted by Clear Admit on December 6, 2007, at 12:36 pm
Posted in: MBA News , School: Duke / Fuqua , School: MIT / Sloan Baby, it’s cold outside. True in a meteorological sense for those of us in the northeastern United States today. True in a metaphorical sense for CFOs around the globe, as far as the outlook for the U.S. economy is concerned. This according to a survey conducted jointly by Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and CFO Magazine, the results of which were released yesterday.
Optimism among CFOs at a broad range of global public and private companies plunged to a record low this quarter, driven by concerns over weak consumer demand, high fuel and labor costs, and credit market turmoil, according to the year-end 2007 Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook survey. These pessimistic CFOs say they expect slow growth in earnings, hiring and capital spending as a result.
The survey has been conducted for the past 47 quarters consecutively. Starting six years ago, its results have been used to calculate a “CFO optimism index” that evaluates how CFOs’ outlooks for the future compare quarter to quarter. Results from the most recent survey, which concluded November 30th and generated responses from more than 1,200 CFOs around the world, show the lowest optimism index level on record. Pessimists outnumber optimists by an eight-to-one margin, with 72 percent of CFOs more pessimistic and only 9 percent more optimistic about the U.S. economy than they were last quarter.
CFOs Call for Fed to Act in Credit Crisis
According to CFO responses, credit conditions have directly hurt one-third of companies. Among these firms, 47.6 percent say they have experienced an increased cost of credit (median increase of 50 basis points) and 49 percent say credit has become less available.
“Most disturbingly, one-third will cut capital spending plans as a result of the conditions and one-quarter indicate that hiring plans will be scaled back,” said Duke international business professor Campbell Harvey, founding director of the survey. “These actions are detrimental to economic growth,” he continued.
The CFOs in the survey support – by a 2 to 1 margin – a cut of 25 basis points at the December 11th meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, though a significant number indicated that they worry about the potential negative impact on the dollar.
Impact on Employees, Capital Spending, Outsourcing
CFOs indicate that their employees are already being impacted by the current economic conditions. At nearly one in five companies, employees have increased hardship withdrawals from their 401(k) accounts, in many cases to make mortgage payments or ward off personal bankruptcy. Year-end bonuses, too, are expected to take a hit, by as much as 10 percent relative to last year.
Firms with more than a quarter of sales in foreign locations, meanwhile, are reacting to the depreciated U.S. dollar. Of these firms, more than 60 percent have expanded the range of their investments to reduce risk or changed the location of investments and outsourced employment.
Capital spending is only expected to increase by 4.1 percent, and domestic employment, by only 0.5 percent. Outsourced employment, though, could rise by 5.6 percent.
The CFO Crystal Ball
According to the survey’s director, understanding CFO optimism is akin to gazing into a crystal ball with regard to the future of the economy. “CFO optimism is spiraling downward, surpassing the record low for optimism set last quarter,” said John R. Graham, director of the survey and a finance professor at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. “This is dramatic because CFOs have a track record of accurately predicting future economic activity, and their predictions run one or two months ahead of other common economic indicators.”
Of CFOs surveyed, nearly 40 percent believe a recession will begin in 2008.
What This Means for Business Schools
Historically, in times of recession, business schools have offered a haven to professionals looking to ride out the rocky economic storm. BusinessWeek reported on this phenomenon in its September 2007 article, “Bad Times Can Be Good for B Schools.”
“We’ve seen trends that indicate that when there’s a downturn in the economy – especially if people are laid off – that people always consider that a good time to go back for more education,” Debbie Berechman, executive director of the MBA program at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, told BusinessWeek. As a case in point, business school applications surged as the tech bubble burst in the late 1990s and early 2000.
Current statistics from the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) – which owns the GMAT, the standardized test required of applicants to the vast majority of business schools worldwide – suggest that a similar surge is taking place now. In August, GMAC reported that applications to business schools had increased by 17 percent or more across all but PhD programs this year over last. Part-time MBA programs showed the greatest increase in applicant volume, 58 percent.
More recent statistics regarding GMAT volume bear this out as well. Year-to-date test-taking volume as reported through the end of October was 188,856 worldwide, representing a 13.45 percent increase over the same period in 2006 and a greater volume than any year previously studied.
Just as seeking a business degree can begin to look more attractive to employees during an economic downturn, job applicants who already have one begin to look more attractive to employers faced with hiring cutbacks. See our November post on this.
The rub in all of this, of course, is that as more people apply to business schools and more employers seek business school grads, getting in gets that much more competitive…
Good luck with those interviews!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 6, 2007, at 9:41 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips , Interview Tips We’ve been offering a good deal of advice lately on how to conduct oneself and prepare responses to MBA interview questions; today, we’d like to highlight the importance of thinking about what you might ask. Virtually all business school interviewers conclude their discussion by offering the applicant a chance to ask some questions about the program. While it might be tempting to claim that you’ve already learned all you need to know about the school, this is actually a great opportunity to gain additional insight, show your enthusiasm about a specific element of the curriculum or community, and demonstrate that you appreciate the opportunity to learn from your interviewer’s experiences.
Here are a few simple guidelines to keep in mind while thinking about what you might ask:
1. Focus on the positive. Now is not the time to conduct due diligence or express skepticism about a school’s academic program or career resources. You’re still marketing yourself to the adcom at this stage of the process, so you’ll want to project enthusiasm and demonstrate a desire to become more familiar with a program’s merits and your potential fit.
2. Avoid the obvious and the obscure. Because this is an opportunity to tap the interviewer’s unique knowledge and point of view (and he or she will assume that you did your basic research before applying), it’s best to avoid asking questions that could be answered by perusing the school’s website or speaking with anyone you might happen to encounter on campus. On the other hand, you don’t want to ask something so obscure or specific that your interviewer might not have an answer. Seeking the interviewer’s opinion on or impression of some element of the program often makes for a discussion that both parties will find interesting and enjoyable.
3. Mind your audience. Remember that students, alumni and admissions staff will all have a different perspective on and level of familiarity with the program, and that it’s wise to pose inquiries tailored to his or her experience with the school. For instance, alumni interviewers generally feel strongly about their schools but might not have the most current information on the academic programs and campus culture, so a good question might focus on the classes they have found most useful in their post-graduation career.
We hope that these guidelines are helpful in thinking about how you might approach the end of your discussion, and wish everyone interviewing at business schools in the coming weeks the best of luck!
Posted by Clear Admit on December 5, 2007, at 12:32 pm
Posted in: MBA News , School: UNC / Kenan Flagler Bring more salespeople to the classroom. That’s the request alumnus
William G. Allen (BA ’71) made of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in late November as he signed a check for $2 million made out to the school.
Allen’s gift, intended to enhance both the undergraduate and graduate sales programs, will support hiring a new professor as well as an administrator to help manage and promote guest speakers and sales training.
“I believe that students will benefit from having very successful, real-world sales practitioners come into the classroom and give first-hand testimony as to what they are doing, how they are doing it, what is working and what is not working,” Allen said.
The success of Allen’s own company, Waterfront Development Services Inc., a Charlotte-based real estate developer of waterfront and resort property, can be attributed chiefly to sales, he says. The company, which Allen founded in 1994, has since experienced an annual growth of 36 percent, helping it become one of the most successful real estate development firms in the nation.
“In many ways it is the power of our dynamic sales approach and sales team that has made our company so successful,” Allen said.
Kenan-Flagler currently offers two courses focused on sales, which will serve as the foundation of a news sales curriculum. Marketing area chair J.B. Steenkamp and UNC Board of Trustees member Alston Gardner will guide its creation. Gardner, a partner in Fulcrum Ventures, an Atlanta-based private equity firm focused on funding emerging growth companies, currently teaches one of the two existing sales classes and also led efforts to build the FedEx Global Education Center on campus.
“Understanding the sales function and developing sales skills are critical for success in almost every business venture,” Gardner said. “With this gift, we will be able to expand our capability to meet high student demand and take a leadership role among the top-tier business schools.”
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