Let’s take look at a couple of the newest reports before digging into contest details.  A Round 2 candidate for Northwestern / Kellogg shared the following questions from an interview with an alumna:

1. Tell me about your passion(s) outside of the professional or education realms (e.g., extracurricular pursuit).
2. What was your single greatest professional accomplishment?
3. What do you do for fun?
4. Tell me about a time when your communication with a colleague was a catalyst to achieve a team goal.
5. What are the 3 most important attributes of a successful leader? How do you rate yourself in each of these attributes?
6. Who do you admire as a leader?
7. What is the most challenging part of your job (current or previous)?

A Round 2 applicant to Wharton shared the following questions, as posed by an alumnus:

1. Which other schools have you applied to?
2. Tell me some leadership experience.
3. Tell me a time when things did not work out in a project.
4. Tell me a time when you were not in the leadership role.

Thank you to everyone who has shared their interview experiences this season and helped fellow applicants!  If you’re eager to contribute, we’ll be awarding a $10 Amazon gift certificate to applicants that submit interview reports for Columbia Business School, Cornell / Johnson, Harvard Business School or Stanford GSB through next Tuesday, March 23rd!  All you have to do is send us your interview field report for the selected schools for inclusion in the Wiki and we’ll send you a $10 Amazon gift certificate.   You must send your interview report to wiki@clearadmit.com to be eligible; we’ll post it to the Wiki and notify the winners by e-mail (Limit: one gift card per person).

The most helpful and informative reports usually include the following information:

1. Date/Admissions Round
2. Description of visit and/or interview atmosphere
3. Type of interview (alum vs. adcom, blind vs. application-based)
4. List of interview questions
5. Commentary (What did you think of the interview? What surprised you? What didn’t surprise you? What might you conclude about the school based on this experience?)

Applicants who would like to supplement the information available on the Wiki can check out our Clear Admit Interview Guides, which provide school-specific insight about admissions interviews.  Best of luck to those wrapping up the admissions season with interviews!

Today we turn our attention to options for studying healthcare in business school, with a particular emphasis on Wharton’s Health Care Management Major and Duke’s Health Sector Management Program, the two oldest and best known healthcare programs among U.S. business schools.

Wharton’s major draws its faculty from the business, medical and nursing schools, as well as from practicing healthcare professionals, ensuring an interdisciplinary approach to the issues in the field. The Health Care Management major differs from other majors at Wharton in that students must choose the major in their initial application to the school instead of in their second year. Health Care Management further differs in that it aggressively integrates professional development and field work into the major.

For instance, all Health Care majors are required to complete a Field Application Project (FAP). In the FAP, teams of students spend a semester working with an industry partner to solve real world problems in the healthcare field. Given the amount of time these projects can take, students must work carefully to balance classes around the demands of their projects.

At Fuqua, students enter the HSM program from a variety of backgrounds; though the program does not require prior health sector experience, it does look for a strong commitment to the healthcare field among all participants. As with Wharton’s Health Care Management major, application to Fuqua’s HSM program is through the MBA admissions process, with HSM applicants asked to indicate their interest in pursuing the HSM Certificate in a special section of the application.

Once enrolled, Duke HSM students spend the first year completing the standard core curriculum before beginning the coursework that leads to the HSM Certificate. To earn the Certificate, HSM students take three HSM core courses and three healthcare electives. All six HSM courses count as elective credits towards the MBA degree requirements. This is a slightly heavier courseload than required by Wharton’s healthcare program, which asks students to complete two foundations courses and three healthcare electives.

Despite the prominence of the Wharton and Duke programs, they are far from the only option for MBA applicants seeking a career in healthcare. For instance, Columbia now offers the Health Care and Pharmaceutical Management program, Kellogg offers a major in Health Industry Management, and HBS hosts the Healthcare Initiative. Those business schools that do not offer formal healthcare concentrations tend to have a student club and/or a student-organized conference dedicated to supporting interest in the field, so regardless of the program, healthcare minded applicants should find plenty of resources.

For more on healthcare options, majors, student clubs or conferences, be sure to check out the Clear Admit School Guides.

For those who are interested in pursuing a career in healthcare and want to learn more about the different programs and opportunities available at each school, check out the Clear Admit Career Guide: Healthcare.

She then ticked off a list of interesting reasons why it might make sense. For starters, successful applicants will gain deferred admission, which means they will have a guaranteed spot in the class of 2014 after completing two years in the workforce. Second, HBS does not have a target or cap on the number of deferred admit spots it offers. “Last year 43 college seniors were offered deferred admission,” Leopold wrote.

From a purely pragmatic standpoint, there are also a couple of additional reasons for college seniors to consider applying in Round 3, Leopold added. One is a cheaper application fee. Currently enrolled college seniors enjoy a reduced application fee of $100. It also might make sense to take the GMAT/GRE while you’re in college and still in test-taking mode, Leopold offered. GMAT/GRE scores are good for five years, after all.

According to Leopold, there is “no downside” to applying in Round 3 if you are college senior thinking of HBS for a future date. “If you aren’t admitted, apply again in a couple of years – lots of denied college seniors are successful in the future,” she advised.

The Round 3 application deadline for HBS is April 8, 2010. For more information, click here.

Before getting into contest details, let’s take look at a couple of the newest reports.  An accepted applicant to INSEAD shared the following questions from an alumnus:

1. Why entrepreneurship?  Do you think INSEAD will make an entrepreneur out of you?
2. Is [your] wife ready to move from US to France?
3. Why did [you] join [your] current company? Why US, Singapore and India?
4. [Describe your] proposed venture – its business model, how to raise capital, its market segment, how much energy, what kind of source for energy.
5. Why INSEAD? Why not some other school, like MIT or Kennedy School if [you] want to work in alternate energy?

A Round 2 applicant to London Business School shared the following questions, as posed by an alumnus:

1. Imagine the world without an MBA. What would you do?
2. If you can achieve your goals without an MBA why do you want to get an MBA?
3. How would you contribute to your study group at LBS from a professional point of view?
4. What will be your personal development after arriving at LBS?
5. Imagine that some people in your study group are not contributing enough and your talk to them didn’t help. What would you do next? How would you handle it? How would you feel?

Thank you to everyone who has shared their interview experiences this season and helped fellow applicants!  If you’re eager to contribute, we’ll be awarding a $10 Amazon gift certificate to applicants that submit interview reports for Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, INSEAD, NYU / Stern or Wharton through next Tuesday, March 16th!  In other words, all you have to do is send us your interview field report for the selected schools for inclusion in the Wiki and we’ll send you a $10 Amazon gift certificate.   You must send your interview report to wiki@clearadmit.com to be eligible; we’ll post it to the Wiki and notify the winners by e-mail (Limit: one gift card per person).

The most helpful and informative reports usually include the following information:

1. Date/Admissions Round
2. Description of visit and/or interview atmosphere
3. Type of interview (alum vs. adcom, blind vs. application-based)
4. List of interview questions
5. Commentary (What did you think of the interview? What surprised you? What didn’t surprise you? What might you conclude about the school based on this experience?)

Applicants who would like to supplement the information available on the Wiki can check out our Clear Admit Interview Guides, which provide school-specific insight about admissions interviews.  Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Clear Admit Wiki and helped fellow applicants prepare for MBA admissions interviews this season!

“Before we get to being creative and tinkering with them, we decided to have three years of the same questions so we can do a little bit of longitudinal analysis about the responses,” Leopold wrote. 

For those who aren’t familiar with it, HBS’s 2+2 Program debuted in 2008 and is designed to target promising college students for whom the more traditional timeline of business school – which often involves five or more years of work before applying – might be a deterrent. Candidates for the 2+2 Program apply in their junior year of college. If admitted, they then complete two years of approved work experience before enrolling in the two-year HBS MBA program, where a slot will have been reserved for them.

The essay questions for the upcoming application season are as follow:

Required Questions
• What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit)
• What would you like us to know about your undergraduate academic experience? (400-word limit)
• What have you learned from a mistake? (400-word limit)

Please also respond to one of the following (400-word limit each):
1. Discuss how you have engaged with a community or organization.
2. What area of the world are you most curious about and why?
3. What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you?

The deadline for submitting applications to HBS’s 2+2 Program is June 15, 2010, and candidates will be notified of their admissions status in September. To learn more, click here.

Harvard’s first “J-Term” ran from January 4 to January 22, giving HBS students the choice to enroll in an intensive seminar, join an Immersion Experience Program (IXP) trip, or take on an “independent opportunity,” an academic-based project or trip designed by an individual student.  One student took a “winternship,” i.e. a winter internship, at RRE Ventures, an emerging New York venture capital firm focused on technology.  During the course of his three weeks at RRE, this student had the chance to observe pitches, evaluate deals, meet with portfolio companies, and represent RRE at industry events.

The IXP offers first- and second-year students a chance to gain field-based learning experiences in one of three domestic locations – New Orleans, Silicon Valley, and Boston – or six international destinations – China, India, Peru, Rwanda, UAE/Bahrain and Vietnam.  Approximately 400 HBS students enrolled in the IXP during J-Term 2010.

The IXP in New Orleans focused on re-building homes in parts of New Orleans where people are still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.  Meanwhile, students worked with mission Schools International in Rwanda and consulted with 12 start-ups in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.  The IXP in UAE/Bahrain included a visit to Mubadala, Abu Dhabi’s strategic investment company, and consulting with local entrepreneurs on a variety of issues, while the IXP in Peru offered students the chance to learn about Lima’s industries, conduct a field study on local businesses in Cusco, and experience Machu Picchu and the Peruvian rainforests.  Students who took the IXP in China offered trips to Google China and Chinese flagship companies, such as Lenovo, SMIC, and Wanxiang Auto Parts, as well as JWT, a global marketing communications agency.

What IXP at HBS would you want to take?  Feel free to share your thoughts below!

“Harvard offers students an array of opportunities to study entrepreneurship. In addition to analyzing cases on start-up enterprises across the RC curriculum, all RC students take the Entrepreneurial Manager course. In their second year, students may choose from the 18 courses and field study opportunities offered on the topic.

Over 30 of the school’s faculty members are part of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit, and more than 40 other faculty members conduct research in the area. Harvard launched the California Research Center in Menlo Park in 1997 to serve as a resource for faculty members investigating business issues in Silicon Valley.  Research conducted from this base has resulted in the composition of over 150 cases on technology and the management of and investment in start-ups.

In 2003, HBS launched the Arthur Rock Center of Entrepreneurship with the support of a $25M gift from an alumnus working in venture capital in Silicon Valley. The center oversees and supports many of the ongoing initiatives in entrepreneurship at HBS and also provides two summer fellowships to subsidize students who wish to pursue a summer internship at a small, entrepreneurial company.

HBS students can also put their classroom learning on entrepreneurship to use in the annual Business Plan Contest. Founded in 1997, the program features Traditional and Social Enterprise tracks and allows teams of students a chance to work with a faculty advisor to formulate a viable business plan proposal. Over $60,000 in cash and in-kind services are distributed among the winning team, three runners-up, and one specialty plan award winner.”

To continue reading about the Entrepreneurship Initiative at Harvard Business School, take a look at the Clear Admit School Guide to Harvard Business School.  For those who are interested in pursuing a career in entrepreneurship and want to learn more about the different programs and opportunities available at each school, check out the Clear Admit Career Guide: Entrepreneurship.

All Clear Admit publications are available for immediate purchase and download on the Clear Admit shop.

Let’s take a look at a few of the options for students seeking a Master’s degree in conjunction with their MBA, as well as the admissions requirements governing these degrees.

Like most leading MBA programs, Columbia Business School offers dual degree programs through which students earn another degree concurrently with their MBA (e.g., Master’s in International and Public Affairs, Master’s in Social Services). Applicants are required to apply to and receive admission to both programs and may apply to both programs simultaneously or to the second program if they are less than halfway through their studies at the first school.

Students in a dual degree program at Columbia register at one school per term and may take courses in either program in each term, as long as they meet each school’s course, residence, and sequencing requirements. CBS recommends that candidates complete the first two terms of the MBA program consecutively to maintain the integrity and full benefits of the cluster system.

Similar systems are in place at Chicago, which offers two joint MBA/MA programs, at HBS, which offers concurrent degrees with the Kennedy School of Government, and at Stanford, where there are joint MBA/MA options. A few business schools offer slightly different options for students interested in joint degree study. For instance, Kellogg does not offer a set list of MBA/MA programs, instead opting to allow students to create their own joint program through application to their two programs of interest. Meanwhile, although Tuck and Wharton offer dual degrees on their own campuses, each also teams up with other universities (including Tufts, the Kennedy School, and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies) to offer a more extensive list of dual degree programs.

While dual degree students make up a relatively small percentage of the overall MBA population, some admissions officers report that combination degrees are becoming increasingly popular as students seek to customize their educations and take advantage of the opportunity to earn two degrees in less time, and for less money, than if they pursued separate programs. For MBA applicants interested in applying their business education to fields such as public policy, education, social work, the environment, public health, international policy or another specialized field, a joint degree program can offer both the area expertise and business knowledge needed for a successful career.

To learn more about MBA/MA dual degree options, be sure to check out the Dual Degrees section of the Clear Admit School Guides!

Leopold shared this news in a post to her admissions director blog Friday morning, indicating that the invitations would be sent via email and would arrive before 5 p.m. EST. “We will make sure every invited candidate is contacted so don’t worry about missing our email,” she assured applicants.

The decision notification for HBS’s second round is still almost two months away – April 6th – and Leopold indicated that more interview invitations would follow in the weeks ahead. As to how many, she couldn’t provide specifics. “I don’t know for sure at this point – perhaps 50 or so,” she wrote.

As her team continues to review and re-review applications, they are also making some preliminary round-two waitlist decisions. So some applicants who don’t receive invitations to interview in this round still may be considered for spots on the waitlist. “I expect there will be approximately 100 round 2 candidates who will be invited to join the waitlist,” Leopold said.

Did you receive an HBS round-two interview invitation? If so, congratulations! Don’t forget to share your news on the Clear Admit Wiki. And check out our Clear Admit HBS Interview Guide for valuable information on what to expect from the interview process and how best to prepare.

And if you’re still waiting for an invite, keep up the faith! As Leopold indicated, there are still some invitations to go out. Good luck!

Aspen CBE is a division of the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering value-based leadership. Its partners in the Oath Project are the Association for Professional Business Managers, MBA Oath and the World Economic Forum for Young Global Leaders. Together, these four organizations have launched a website, TheOathProject.org, to communicate the initiative’s objectives and milestones.

The release from Aspen CBE announcing the new project’s launch noted that the idea of creating a business oath is not a new one. The creation of MBA programs in the United States grew in part out of a desire to “professionalize” the practice of management, and several schools have instituted their own oaths at various times.

Amid the recent economic crisis, management education has come under fire from some critics, and the idea of a global MBA oath has gained new life. Two Harvard professors suggested a draft oath in a November 2008 article in the Harvard Business Review, and World Economic Forum Executive Director Klaus Schwab devoted a special session during the January 2009 forum to begin the process of creating a global business oath.

Then, in May 2009, a grassroots movement led by students at Harvard Business School created the MBA Oath, which was signed by more than half of the HBS graduating class of 2009. According to the Aspen CBE release, 1,000 other business school students from MBA programs around the world also opted to take the oath last spring, and as many as a dozen other groups and individuals took their own modified or translated oath.

The Oath Project is rooted in the idea that for the project to succeed, MBA programs worldwide must come to consensus around a single oath for all to share. “We are currently at the ‘final draft’ stage of this oath, and are seeking feedback before we finalize the oath for 2010,” the Aspen CBE release stated.

To learn more about the Oath Project, click here.

What do you think? Should all MBA students take a common oath pledging to practice business ethically upon graduation? Share your comments here.