A group of Wharton students has established the First Wharton Latin America Private Equity Competition, to be held this Saturday.  With the Private Equity Conference taking place tomorrow, the students wanted “to put a Latin spin on an existing activity,” bringing together Wharton MBA hopefuls and PE funds in Latin America.  The judges will be private equity professionals from key U.S. cities and Wharton’s network in Latin America.  Teams from Booth, MIT Sloan, Kellogg, Columba, Stanford, London Business School and Harvard Business School will be competing with Wharton students in a two-stage competition: The winner will receive $2,000 and the second place finalist $1,000.

In the Entrepreneur’s Corner, the Journal interviewed Vivian Weng, the co-founder of FashionStake.  FashionStake was acquired by Fab.com on January 13.  FashionStake’s online platform puts the spotlight on independent fashion designers and allows its members to exchange thoughts and votes on the pieces.  Weng met her now business partner while pursuing her MBA through the Harvard Business School.

Germantown, PA received some support from Wharton’s rugby teams during a recent Habitat for Humanity project.  The Wharton Wharthogs and Wildebeests contributed to rebuilding an abandoned home through the Habitat Philadelphia ReStore.  The ReStore collects the donated materials that supplement Habitat’s efforts to restore and furnish a home for a very low price to disadvantaged families.  Two Wharton Non-Profit Board Leadership Program Fellows co-organized this event.

New this year, the Tweet Meet will feature panelists rating ads live in four key categories – creative excellence, business impact, societal impact and word of mouth, which is to say how likely the public is to love a given ad and talk about it online and offline.

Panelists this year include Scott Goodson, Strawberryfrog founder and chairman (@scottfrog); Brandon Berger, Ogilvy & Mather chief digital officer (@brandonberger); Faith Popcorn, BrainReserve founder and CEO (@FaithPopcorn); Regan Ebert, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group marketing vice president (@ReganEbert); Jennifer Rooney, CMO Network Editor, Forbes (@jenny_rooney) and Wharton Marketing Professor David J. Reibstein. The panel will begin Tweeting their responses to Sunday’s game ads at 7:30 p.m. ET at www.myfoa.net and #whartonfoa.

“Our inaugural Tweet Meet last year was phenomenally successful and we expect an even greater response this year,” Catharine Findiesen Hays, managing director of the Wharton FoA Program, said in a statement. “This initiative is part of our year-long efforts to bring together Wharton scholarship, advertising agencies, media and corporate marketers for creative dialogue.”

Results of the judging will be posted at www.myfoa.net Monday, February 6th.

To follow the Wharton Future of Advertising Super Bowl Tweet Meet, click here.

HBS came in at number two, followed by Wharton at number three. London Business School, meanwhile, fell from joint first to fourth, mirroring a general trend in which U.S. schools fared marginally better than their European counterparts. Falling salaries among alumni from European schools – an impact of the recent economic turmoil in Europe – account in part for this trend, the FT reports.

The FT ranking is calculated using data gathered from participating schools and alumni from the class that graduates three years before the survey. Stanford 2008 graduates had the highest sector-weighted average salary in this year’s rankings – $192,179 per year – a designation the California school has snagged eight times in the ranking’s 14-year history. Stanford also shot up this year in the ranking’s measurement of alumni career progress and “aims achieved,” helping it take the number one spot for the first time.

The top ten schools in this year’s ranking are as follow:

Stanford GSB (1)
Harvard Business School (2)
Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (3)
London Business School(4)
Columbia Business School (5)
INSEAD (6)
MIT Sloan School of Management (7)
IE Business School (8)
IESE Business School (9)
Hong Kong UST Business School (10)

For the full FT 2012 Global MBA rankings, click here.

While The Harbus features letters from several students spending time abroad as part of their FIELD programs, one student admits that he was a “Field 2 Skeptic.” Jehan deFonseka ’12 confesses that he was unconvinced that he would gain an in-depth understanding of the businesses or culture of a country in a week, among other concerns.  However, deFonseka’s week spent in Mumbai made him realize that these issues didn’t “[come] to matter much” and that the experience of being on the ground in Mumbai, not simply learning about it, made the opportunities of the market exciting and palpable.  Despite having spent six years at Goldman Sachs before HBS and hearing much about growth markets, deFonseka wrote that his time abroad “sure [felt] like it was a life-changing experience” and thanked those HBS administrators and faculty who had created this opportunity.

Meanwhile, a first-year MBA student at London Business School details the experience of describing the diverse elements of his first LBS term to his family.  Hamdi ’13 writes on the London Business School student views blog that his family at first “[suspected he] had joined the circus” after he mentioned a teamwork training event from his LBS Away Day.  The lesson on teamwork learned that day entailed both wire balancing and leaping off 15-meter pole with an ex-navy pilot.  Soon though, the coursework, leadership workshops, and club involvements he described were enough to convince his audience that LBS did offer a very solid education as well.  Hamdi concluded with his excitement for the next term (and some sleep), given that he “already [feels like he’s] learned a whole program’s worth of information” in just his first term.

Finally, an interviewer from The Wharton Journal offers readers a picture of classmate Jason Lin ’12’s journey to the Wharton MBA.  A Taiwan native growing up in California, Lin worked with Arthur Anderson and Walt Disney before entering the film industry.  Lin was part of the first film that brought both Jackie Chan and Jet Li together on screen, and the Wharton student was the facilitator of the production deal that gave each star an equal stake in the process.  He also helped Li found the nonprofit ONE Foundation in China among other entrepreneurial ventures.  All of these experiences contributed to his vision to enable Chinese media companies to access the global market after obtaining his Wharton MBA.

“The 2nd year student that interviewed me was very friendly and made me feel comfortable. She described the process and told me she would be taking notes, which she would submit to the AdCom.

Her questions were:

1. Name a time that you had to manage upward/someone above you.
2. Describe a time you had to work with a team to accomplish something.
3. Describe a time you convinced someone on your team of something.

I then asked her about her experiences as a female in an MBA program that has the highest % of admitted women and she gave me a very thorough answer. I didn’t have time for any other questions.

I felt the interview went very well, as I was prepared, and had a good rapport with the interviewer. I heard back and got on the waitlist. Wish it had been a yes.”

For more MBA admissions interview reports, be sure to check out the Clear Admit Wiki – a free resource with hundreds of real, documented interview experiences from b-school applicants.  Also, if you’d like to help your fellow applicants by adding your experiences, please send us your interview field report and we’ll post it to the wiki.  Finally, if you’d like even more helpful hints and detailed analysis on how to ace your interview, check out our line of Interview Guides, which demystify the most common questions asked by the leading programs and offer step-by-step guidance for a successful interview.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Clear Admit Wiki and best of luck to anyone still undergoing admissions interviews!

A not-yet-alumnus of Wharton discussed his startup: Lokalty.  Balu Chandrasekaran ’12 gave an interview about this loyalty program that serves small businesses in the Philadelphia area.  Lokalty launched near the end of 2011 in Center City, Philadelphia and is continuing to expand throughout the city.  Chandrasekaran also gave advice to readers seeking to begin their own ventures.

Next on the list is the article about the founder of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk ’97.  Tesla Motors seeks to make electric vehicles attractive to consumers of traditional internal combustion engine cars.  The author of the piece lays out the options facing Musk as a CEO in an unpredictable industry, not making light of the fact that the electric vehicles could likely claim anywhere from between 3 and 15 percent of 2020’s total car sales.  Tesla plans to begin shipping its second EV model this year.

Another interview featured sometime Harvard MBA student Sarah Paiji, founder of Snapette.  Snapette is an app for the iPhone that makes sharing of fashion experiences easy.  Paiji discussed her time at such large firms as McKinsey and Berkshire Partners in light of her new startup experience.  She also cites startup accelerator programs as a great help to those interested in turning their ideas into enterprises.

Special Announcement: If you like our Write Like an Expert videos, don’t forget to check out our Navigating the MBA Admissions Process video course!

“Interviewer jumped straight into behavioral questions without any background, resume or the three why questions. She used the remaining time for me to ask questions, which I used to piggy back on her responses to include my “whys.” Interview lasted about 35 minutes or so.

The questions that I got were (paraphrasing):

1. Tell me about a time you were managing a team and you perceived the outcome to be a failure.
2. Tell me about a time you managed someone who was much more senior to you. (The answer I gave was an example that had gone smoothly, so she asked if there was ever a situation with conflict).
3. Tell me about a time you participated in a negotiation.”

To see more MBA admissions interview reports, check out the Clear Admit Wiki – a free resource with hundreds of real, documented interview experiences from b-school applicants. Also, if you’d like to help your fellow applicants by adding your experiences, please send us your interview field report and we’ll post it to the wiki. Finally, if you’d like even more helpful hints and detailed analysis on how to ace your interview, check out our line of Interview Guides, which demystify the most common questions asked by the leading programs and offer step-by-step guidance for a successful interview.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Clear Admit Wiki and best of luck to those undergoing admissions interviews!

Journal interviewers spoke last week with Maryellen Lamb, Wharton’s new head of MBA Career Management.  Lamb discussed changes in the recruiting landscape over the last decade, which has necessitated Wharton’s broader focus on more than just mature companies.  She noted how Wharton was advantageously positioned among MBA programs within the challenging bank recruiting landscape.  Lamb also noted that risk tolerance is often the first factor to consider when advising students on a career path.

The online ElectNext was the focus of this issue’s Entrepreneur’s Corner.  The site aims to “match you to your candidates” by taking voters through the confusion caused by the U.S. ballot system.  Founder and CEO Keya J. Dannenbaum discussed her choice to take leave from her Wharton MBA and how the idea was born.  She attributed ElectNext’s success to its timing during this political year.

Wharton’s men’s rugby team earned second place at the University of Texas Fall Brawl in November.  The team competed against squads from other MBA programs including Stanford, Kellogg, and Harvard.  First place was ultimately won by HBS’s team.  The tournament concludes the men’s fall season.

“2 Traditional Questions:

1. What do you do in your current job / resume walk through.
2. Why now?

4 Behavioral Questions (with a lot of follow on questions for each):

1. Tell me about a time when you had to manage someone much more senior than you.
2. Tell me about a time when someone convinced you to change your opinion.
3. Tell me about a time when someone did not agree with you initially and you convinced them of your idea/opinion.
4. Tell me about a time when you were unsuccessful at managing a team. What would you do differently now.

At the end:

1. Do you have any questions for me?”

To see more MBA admissions interview reports, check out the Clear Admit Wiki – a free resource with hundreds of real, documented interview experiences from b-school applicants. Also, if you’d like to help your fellow applicants by adding your experiences, please send us your interview field report and we’ll post it to the wiki. Finally, if you’d like even more helpful hints and detailed analysis on how to ace your interview, check out our line of Interview Guides, which demystify the most common questions asked by the leading programs and offer step-by-step guidance for a successful interview.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Clear Admit Wiki and best of luck to those undergoing admissions interviews!