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CATEGORY - SCHOOL: STANFORD

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Interview Insights from Stanford GSB, Chicago Booth Admissions Directors

In a post to the Stanford Graduate School of Business Admissions blog last week, Director of Admissions Derrick Bolton shed some light on the timing of interview invitations. “Please be assured that your likelihood of admission bears no relationship to when you receive your interview invitation,” he wrote. “The timing of your invitation simply depends on when we review your file.”

And as for the order in which Stanford GSB reviews applications, there is no pattern, Bolton said. Interviews for Round 1 applicants start as soon as possible after the application deadline, which is typically early November, and continue through mid-January.

“We expect to send Round 1 interview invitations pretty regularly, every business day or so, through mid December,” he said. During the school’s winter shutdown, December 22nd through January 5th, the admissions committee is still reading applications “feverishly,” but invites get bundled and go out every few days instead of every day. 

According to Bolton, he hopes to send almost all Round 1 invitations out by mid-January, but some will likely go out later. And some applicants may be asked to join the waitlist without an interview, he added. But the timing of your invite does not have any bearing on your likelihood of admission, he repeated. “No matter when you receive your invitation to interview, you have the same chance of admission as any other candidate.”

In a blog post of her own, Rose Martinelli of the Chicago Booth School of Business shared a little about interviews at that school. Not a lot of detail here – her post was devoted primarily to the school’s new name and its generous benefactor – but she did reveal that more than 250 applicants were headed to campus this week to interview and that she has been enjoying meeting them all.

That’s all we have for today, but we’ll keep the updates coming as often as we can. And don’t forget, you can share your own interview experiences with fellow anxious applicants on the Clear Admit Wiki and read what others have to say about theirs as well.

Friday, November 07, 2008

Chicago GSB Renamed Chicago Booth School of Business in Recognition of $300 Million Alumni Gift

The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business announced yesterday that alumnus David G. Booth (MBA ’71) recently donated $300 million to the school, the largest donation in the university’s history and the largest gift ever to a business school. In recognition of his generosity, the school will be renamed the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Booth, the founder and chief executive of investment firm Dimensional Fund Advisors, built his firm and his fortune on the finance principles he learned at Chicago. His first course there, taught by Professor Eugene Fama, was life-changing, he said. Fama is the founder of the efficient market hypothesis, which states that investors do best by buying and holding widely diversified portfolios, the basic thinking behind index funds.

“I remember Professor Fama standing up the first day of class and saying ‘This is the most practical course you will ever take,’ and it turned out to be true,” Booth said in a statement announcing the historic gift. “We built Dimensional Fund Advisors around his set of ideas. I am hoping that others will join me in giving back to this amazing business school,” he continued.

The gift, which includes an upfront payment, an income stream from shares in Dimensional Fund Advisors’ parent company and equity interest, will help fund several new initiatives, including an aggressive push to attract and retain star faculty.

The school also will consider adding new faculty groups in academic areas not normally associated with business schools, expanding existing research centers and exploring ways to more ambitiously leverage the school’s intellectual capital. The school’s international presence, too, could grow beyond its existing campuses in London and Singapore.

School officials expressed tremendous gratitude to Booth and lauded the decision to rename the school in his honor. “Given the profile of our school and its role in the world, it is imperative that the person who names the school embodies its values and, moreover, is a person who is of great integrity and who commands respect,” Edward Snyder, dean of the business school, said in a statement. “In David Booth, we have a person who exceeds all the relevant criteria.”

Booth’s gift is almost triple the amount given to Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 2006. That $105 million gift, made by Nike founder and chairman Philip H. Knight, had been the largest ever to a business school. Other notable gifts to business schools include $100 million to the University of Michigan in 2004 from Stephen M. Ross, $85 million to the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2007 from a combined partnership of 13 alumni and $60 million to the Darden School at the University of Virginia from Frank Batten Sr., retired chairman and chief executive of Landmark Communications.

To read more about Booth’s $300 million donation to the University Chicago, click here.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

New Stanford GSB Scholarship for Bangladeshi Students; HBS Loans for International Students Without Co-Signer

Today we are pleased to report a variety of good news for international MBA applicants.

First, the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) has announced a new, one-time scholarship program that will cover all expenses for promising Bangladeshi students who demonstrate financial need. 

The Grameen Fellows program, made possible by a generous gift, is designed to help develop a new generation of leaders in Bangladesh who are committed to human and socio-economic progress in their native country.

As part of scholarship eligibility, recipients must commit to returning to Bangladesh within two years of graduation from the Stanford GSB program for at least two years of employment in the public or private sector.

Stanford will award up to two Grameen Fellowships, which will cover tuition, living expenses, and application and examination fees. In this way, the program allows Stanford to extend its outreach within Bangladesh to include the strongest MBA candidates, regardless of financial situation.

To learn more about Grameen Fellowship requirements and application details, as well as other fellowship opportunities at Stanford GSB, click here.

Reassurance for International Students Regarding Loans at HBS

Second, Harvard Business School (HBS) last week announced that international students there will continue to have access to need-based loans without having to find a U.S. co-signer. No other details about the specific loan program were shared, just the reassurance that students will have continued accessibility.

In her post about international loans, HBS Admissions Director Dee Leopold also reminded prospective applicants – both international and U.S. citizens – that HBS also will award $22 million in need-based fellowships – that is, money you don’t have to pay back – at an average of $25,000 per recipient per year. To learn more about HBS fellowships, click here.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Fed Chair Bernanke to Speak at Haas School of Business Symposium Today

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will speak today as part of a two-day symposium at the Haas School of Business focused on the economy, the mortgage crisis and the government’s rescue plan.

The event, entitled “The Mortgage Meltdown, the Economy, and Public Policy,” is being co-hosted by UC Berkeley and UCLA. Bernanke, who will appear via satellite, will be joined by Janet Yellen, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; California State Senator Darrell Steinberg; and best-selling economist Robert Shiller, author of the Subprime Solution and Irrational Exuberance.

The symposium also will feature several panel discussions moderated by faculty from Haas, UCLA and Stanford. Panel discussion topics include the crisis in finance markets, the demography and geography of foreclosures and the future of the housing finance system.

Haas is investigating options for making the program available via the Internet. For details, click here.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Advisers to McCain, Obama Square off at Stanford GSB

The winner of next week’s presidential election stands to inherit responsibility for one of the greatest economic crises the United States has faced. Is it any wonder, then, that both candidates have turned to experts at the nation’s top business schools to serve as their advisers?

Late last month, two such advisers came together in a debate hosted by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Peter Henry, a Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) professor and Obama adviser, faced off against Kevin Hassett, an American Enterprise Institute director who is advising McCain.

But for all the hard-hitting jabs exchanged by the candidates themselves as election day draws near, the advisers keep things fairly friendly.

“Those of you coming to see red meat will be disappointed,” Henry warned the audience at the outset of the discussion. Indeed, both advisers repeatedly stressed that a bipartisan approach will be critical to fixing the current crisis.

That said, each adviser did take the opportunity to draw distinctions between the candidates – and their proposed economic policies.

McCain’s economic proposals, argued Henry, are an extension of the Bush administration’s policies that ran up deficits by cutting takes for big business and the wealthy. “After eight years, it’s not been a great success,” he said, adding that Obama’s plan would cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans while also reducing the federal deficit. 

Hassett was quick to strike back, arguing that McCain’s proposal would deliver a balanced budget by 2013 and that, by cutting the corporate tax rate, it promised to stimulate job growth. He also defended his candidate against assertions that he had been against regulation that might have circumvented the financial crisis.

“The key regulatory moment in the last eight years was that Fannie and Freddie bill that was opposed by the Democrats and never got to the floor because of it,” Hassett said. “And one of the sponsors was John McCain. So don’t you tell me that he doesn’t regulate.”

To read more about the Stanford debate between Henry and Hassett, click here. We’ll have continuing coverage of election politics as they play out on business school campuses in upcoming posts, so check back!

Trivia Tuesday: Supporting Entrepreneurship at Stanford

Welcome to another edition of Trivia Tuesday, our weekly examination of the distinguishing details of MBA programs. This week we turn our attention to the campus support - both formal and informal - for Stanford MBA students interested in creating their own ventures.

Stanford devotes considerable resources to the examination of entrepreneurship and support of students and graduates seeking to launch their own companies. The GSB’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES) was founded in 1996 and today supports ten associated faculty members in publishing articles in scholarly journals, composing cases for use in instruction, and designing courses to introduce students to entrepreneurial issues.

The Center also provides students with opportunities for practical experience. Through the Entrepreneurial Summer Program, students who are interested in spending the summer working in an entrepreneurial environment are matched with small companies seeking summer interns. These organizations can post their available jobs to the CES or Career Management Center, and students may also initiate contact with a company that meets the program’s criteria. Because fledgling companies are often unable to offer competitive internship salaries, the Center provides funding so that participants are able to earn close to the median for first-year interns across industries.

As part of the summer internship program, mentoring relationships are arranged between the student and an employee – or even the founder – of the sponsoring company, and this mentor and intern work together to understand the issues and challenges specific to a small organization. In addition to their basic summer responsibilities, the interns also complete a report on their experience, attend one or more CES-organized gatherings and events at various points in the summer, provide CES with feedback on the program, and participate in a conference during the first quarter of their second year.

No matter what their long-term goal or short-term destination, a high percentage of students attending Stanford GSB are interested in issues of entrepreneurship and take advantage of the MBA program’s resources and opportunities. With over 300 members – well over one-third of the student body – the student-run Entrepreneur Club is known for attracting top-notch speakers and organizes one of the most popular annual conferences on campus.

One element of Stanford’s program that students describe as remarkable is the extent to which classmates support and inspire one another. Because of the school’s noted strength in entrepreneurship, it is common for incoming students to matriculate with a business plan or idea for a company already in mind. Due to the program’s small size, students tend to become aware of each other’s plans and aspirations, and report that someone’s enthusiasm for and focus on a business idea can be infectious. This applies to their time on campus, when students might become so excited about a business plan formulated for a class exercise that they commit to pursuing it after graduation, as well as to the alumni years, when graduates keep track of, promote, celebrate and even invest in their peers’ endeavors.

For more on Stanford’s support for entrepreneurship, be sure to check out the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies website or the Clear Admit School Guide to Stanford!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Top Schools Remain Committed to Helping International MBA Applicants Find Student Loans

In a post earlier this month, we reported that Citibank has cancelled its CitiAssist student loan program with several top business schools as a result of the current economic crisis and shrinking credit markets, creating confusion and uncertainty for many international students about how to fund an MBA. 

So far, loans for domestic students pursuing an MBA program do not seem to have been impacted, but the cancellation of the CitiAssist program brought to an abrupt end loan programs for international students that don’t require a co-signer. Several schools have responded with assurances that they are focused on the problem and committed to providing access to financial aid to all students regardless of citizenship.

In a post yesterday on her newly launched blog, Rose Martinelli, director of admissions and financial aid at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, stressed that she and her team are committed to finding new loan sources for the upcoming year.

In fact, Chicago GSB went through this exact exercise not so many months ago. The school’s previous loan provider cancelled its program for international students in July, and Martinelli’s office scrambled to find a replacement program – with Citibank. Fortunately for this year’s entering class, loans for the current year were locked in and will be unaffected by the more recent CitiAssist cancellation.

But now Chicago GSB must again find a replacement loan program. “We were all taken by surprise and are actively engaged at the highest levels in the school/university in identifying potential new loan sources for the upcoming year,” Martinelli wrote.

In the meantime, she encouraged international students to look at the various financing opportunities available in their home countries. “Rates and terms will vary by location, but it makes sense for you to have this information available so that you can evaluate the terms schools are able to provide for similar loan types when that information becomes available,” she wrote.

Acknowledging how uncomfortable the uncertainty must feel, Martinelli encouraged prospective applicants to remain positive and focus on the fact that an MBA is a long-term investment that will pay dividends over a lifetime regardless of market cycles.

San Francisco Bay–area schools, too, recently also offered reassurance to prospective international students as well as some practical advice. A post last week on the Stanford MBA Admissions Blog featured the following quote from Jack Edwards, director of financial aid:

“International students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business will not be impacted by Citibank’s decision. The GSB Financial Aid Office has a close working relationship with Stanford Federal Credit Union and for the past two years we have made arrangements exclusively through SFCU to provide international students at Stanford the ability to take out private loans without a U.S. co-signer.” Edwards also confirmed that Citibank’s loan program for domestic borrowers had not been affected.

At the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, meanwhile, Director of Admissions Peter Johnson confirmed Citibank’s discontinuation of international student loans without a co-signer. “I’m guessing that no-co-signer loans will be hard to find until the financial services mess is sorted out,” he wrote in an email.

Johnson encouraged prospect Haas applicants to explore alternative financial assistance available through the school. “We  provide $3.2 million dollars in financial assistance, including merit scholarships providing up to full tuition and fees for both years; fellowships for students pursuing careers in financial services, and smaller programs for specific discipline areas,” he wrote. To learn more about Haas’s other financial assistance programs, click here.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Business Schools Brace for Record Round One Application Volumes

As round one application deadlines approach, business schools both here and abroad are bracing for a surge in application volume. Recent reports in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Asia Inc reveal what we’ve long known to be true: When business goes south, business school looks like a better and better idea.

“It’s a very predictable and reliable pattern,” Stacey Kole, deputy dean for the full-time MBA program at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, told the Times. “When there’s a go-go economy, fewer people decide to go back to school. When things go south, the opportunity cost of leaving work is lower.” And for workers who find themselves laid off, the decision is made easier still.

Official application tallies aren’t yet available since deadlines for the first round of admissions still loom at many schools. But early reports indicate that final numbers will be high.

According to the Journal report, New York University’s Stern School of Business has seen a 20 percent increase in attendance at off-site information sessions this year, Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management is reporting a 22 percent increase in applications so far, and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business has seen campus visits by prospective students double.

As always, registration volume for the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) provides an early indicator of application volume as well. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council, which administers the test, registrations for the test through the end of September were 11.6 percent higher than in the comparable period of 2007.

In Europe, the same trends are playing out. “Actually, applications to MBA programmes at IE Business school this year have grown over 15 percent and diversity – the number of countries represented – has also increased,” Santiago Iniguez, dean of Instituto de Empresa Business School in Madrid, told Asia Inc last month. “In fact, the number of U.S. students expected for IE’s MBA programme starting this fall will increase over 20 percent,” he continued.

Still, not everyone sees a direct correlation between a sagging economy and a surge in application volume. Others rightly point out that uncertainty about what the job market will look like upon graduation could deter some from applying. And for some students, the credit crisis may make getting loans to cover the cost of business school more difficult.

Derrick Bolton, director of MBA admissions at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, told the Times that he sees very little correlation between a Wall Street bust and an application boom. According to Bolton, application numbers at his school remained “pretty standard” even after some of Wall Street’s greatest declines, such as the market crash of 1987.

For those in good jobs now, meanwhile, the risk of leaving to go to school may seem too great, according to Peter Johnson, executive director of admissions for the full-time MBA program at the University of California Berkeley’s Hass School of Business. “If you are in a good position and you are not confident of how the picture is going to look two years from now, you may stay in that position,” he told the Journal.

And then there’s the issue of student loans, which have become harder to get due to the widespread credit crunch. According to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, 144 education lenders have suspended private and federal loans. But Kantrowitz says business school students should not be impacted as greatly.
“Graduate student loans are the most profitable [for lenders] because the loan balances are the highest,” he told the Journal.

Stefan Szymanski, associate dean of MBA programs at London’s Cass Business School said much the same thing in an article on topmba.com. “Banks are consistently willing to lend to MBAs because they know they’ll get their money back,” he writes. “And yes, even though the banks have stopped lending to almost everybody else, they seem happy to maintain their loan schemes right now – and they wouldn’t be doing that unless they saw an MBA as a sure-fire economic proposition.”

Monday, September 29, 2008

Stanford GSB Dean Joss to Step Down

Robert Joss, dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), announced last week that he will resign from his post at the end of the current academic year.

Joss, who will have served as dean for 10 years when he steps down, can claim many accomplishments during his tenure. Under his leadership, Stanford GSB developed and introduced a new MBA curriculum in the fall of 2007, planned and begun construction on a new environmentally sustainable campus expected to be complete in 2011, and nearly tripled its endowment, increasing it from $387 million in 1999 to $1 billion in 2008.

“Back in 1999, I never could have imagined how much we would have accomplished through the creativity of our faculty, staff and alumni,” Joss said in a statement announcing his plans to step down. “When future generations look back on this first decade of the century, I hope they will see that we laid the foundation for teaching and learning for the increasingly fast-paced and integrated global economy and for the team-based, cross-cultural nature of management that will characterize the years ahead,” he continued.

Joss also led the creation of three new academic centers (the Center for Leadership Development and Research, the Center for Social Innovation and the Center for Global Business and the Economy), two new joint degrees (the MBA-MS Environment and Resources and MBA-MA Public Policy) and two new four-week summer programs (one for undergraduates and another for non-business graduate students).

He also significantly expanded Stanford’s executive education offerings and renewed and expanded efforts to recruit world-class research and teaching faculty through the addition of an associate dean for faculty recruiting and retention.

Of his decision to leave at the end of his second five-year term appointment, Joss quoted a former Stanford dean, Ernie Arbuckle, agreeing that it was “good for the individual and the institution to ‘re-pot’ every 10 years – allowing new leadership, energy, and innovation to emerge.”

A search for Joss’ replacement will begin later this fall.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Scoretop Saga Conclusion: With 84 Students’ Scores Cancelled, Some Fates Still Uncertain

As reported last week in BusinessWeek and the Wall Street Journal, the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) has cancelled the scores of several students shown to be involved in the Scoretop.com scandal that came to light earlier this year.

According to various reports, the ultimate fate of these students will depend on the level of participation they had with the Scoretop website, the schools to which they applied and their current student status. (Some students involved, in fact, have already graduated from business school.)

According to GMAC spokesperson Judy Phair, the admissions council has decided to cancel the scores of only those students “against whom we felt we have airtight cases.” In total, 84 students’ scores were cancelled.

Of those, 12 students were shown to have actually posted questions themselves on the Scoretop site. Those students will be barred from retaking the GMAT exam for at least three years. The other 72 students posted messages on Scoretop indicating that they had seen certain questions on their GMAT exam. Their scores cancelled, these students will be permitted to retake the exam again immediately.

In all 84 cases, the admissions council notified schools that students had improperly prepared for the exam, although what individual schools will do with that information remains to be seen.

According to the Journal, two of the students who acknowledged that they had seen certain test questions on the Scoretop site – but who had not posted actual questions themselves – are current students at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Chicago is considering action against the students, but “we haven’t decided anything,” Rose Martinelli, director of admissions, told the Journal.

Meanwhile at Stanford, 11 students’ scores were cancelled, according to the Journal report. Of those, 10 were denied admission, but one had already graduated, Admissions Director Derrick Bolton said in a statement.

Stanford plans to meet with the student who has graduated “to discuss this situation,” Bolton said. For students whose scores were cancelled and who plan to reapply, they will need – “at minimum” – to supply an explanation, Bolton continued, encouraging that they “might learn from the experience by reflecting on their actions and taking ownership for their errors, then sharing those explanations and insights with us.”

Other top business schools – including Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale – report that they had no students with tainted scores actually enroll. And a spokesman for the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania said in an email to the Journal that officials still “analyzing the situation are not yet prepared to discuss next steps.”

Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, for its part, will hold an “ethics fireside chat” this month on campus to discuss the Scoretop cheating scandal.

GMAC, meanwhile, has posted an extensive FAQ on the subject of score cancellations. It also announced that it plans to implement palm-vein scanning technology going forward to help reduce other types of fraud among test-takers, including “proxy” test taking, in which applicants hire high-scoring imposters to take the exam for them.

We’d love to hear what you think of the conclusion to the Scoretop scandal. For anyone who missed it last week, click here to participate in Clear Admit’s online poll about whether the punishment fits the crime.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Wharton School, Law School at University of Pennsylvania Launch Joint Three-Year JD/MBA Program

The Wharton School and Law School at the University of Pennsylvania yesterday announced the launch of an accelerated three-year joint JD/MBA degree program. The program, which will begin in September 2009, will target potential applicants with around two years of experience in either law or business-related fields.

“Business today operates in a complex legal and regulatory environment,” Thomas Robertson, dean of the Wharton School, said in a statement announcing the new program. “Success requires the ability to navigate through this landscape,” he continued.

Among elite schools, the University of Pennsylvania joins several others offering a combined JD/MBA program, including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and Yale. But far fewer schools allow students to complete both degrees in a mere three years, as the new U. Penn program does. Northwestern transitioned from a four-year to a three-year JD/MBA degree program several years ago, and the Kelley School of Business and the Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington together offer a three-year joint program as well. 

The structure of the new Penn program will be as follows: Students will spend their first year taking classes in the Law School, followed by a summer of four Law and Wharton courses designed specifically for the JD/MBA program. The second and third years will include both Law and Wharton courses, and in the summer between the two students will be expected to gain work experience in law, business, finance or the public sector.

To enroll in the three-year combined program, applicants must be admitted by both schools. Students in the joint program also must perform 70 hours of supervised pro-bono legal work as a requirement for graduation. The program is expected to enroll approximately 20 students each year.

To learn more about Penn’s new three-year JD/MBA program, click here. For a discussion of the pros and cons of an accelerated joint JD/MBA, click here.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Trivia Tuesday: Scheduling the Academic Year at Chicago, Kellogg, MIT Sloan, Stanford, Tuck, and Wharton

It’s time again for Trivia Tuesday, our weekly examination of the policies and programs that influence the student experience at the leading business schools. This week we turn our attention to an important yet often overlooked feature of MBA programs: the academic calendar. Though not a factor most applicants take into account, a school’s academic calendar can impact the number of classes students take, the timing of the recruiting season, and when students need to begin and end their summer internships – not to mention how much down-time students have during the school year.

Most schools use a version of either the semester or quarter system to organize the academic year. For instance, Wharton’s academic calendar is based on the traditional semester system, with fall semester classes running from early September to mid-December and spring semester classes taking place from mid- January through mid-May. In addition to the extended break between the fall and spring semesters, students also have off for several days in October and in March.

MIT Sloan’s academic calendar is also organized around a semester system, but the school makes several distinctive adjustments. For instance, MIT Sloan breaks up each thirteen-week semester in the following manner: six weeks of classes, a one week “innovation period” and then the remaining six weeks of classes. Moreover, an optional four-week January term between the fall and spring semesters provides an opportunity for students to participate in a variety of credit and non-credit activities.

Although the semester system is the norm at the majority of colleges and universities in the United States, many leading business schools have opted to use the quarter system instead. The quarter system is said to have been invented by William Rainey Harper, the first President of the University of Chicago, as a means of exposing students to more material than the traditional semester system allows. The quarter-based calendar is used by all schools at the University of Chicago, as well as business schools such as Kellogg, Stanford and Tuck.

Under a quarter system, the standard academic year takes place across the autumn, winter and spring terms; since most MBA students participate in an internship between their first and second years, enrollment in summer quarter courses is not typical.

As a result of the quarter system, the academic calendar at Chicago, Kellogg, Stanford, and Tuck differs from those of other leading business schools. Students in the quarter system tend to start classes later, often in mid-September, have more short breaks, and finish the academic year later than their peers in semester systems. Spring quarter exams typically conclude in early- or late-June under the quarter system, which is 2-4 weeks after the end of classes at schools such as Wharton or Harvard. The late end of the spring quarter can impact summer planning for first-year students, since many internships begin in mid-June.

Overall, the semester system allows for a slightly longer winter break and an earlier start to summer, while maximizing the length of time students spend in each course. On the other hand, the quarter system generally allows for a later start to the school year and, by increasing the number of terms in the year, increases the number of courses a student can take. Although most students will be successful under either calendar system, some applicants may find one of the designs a better fit for their personality, goals or work habits. For more information on the organization of the academic year and its impact on students, be sure to check out the Clear Admit School Guides!

Monday, August 04, 2008

MBA Grads Will Sacrifice Salary for Corporate Social Responsibility, Stanford Survey Says

Graduates from top MBA programs place corporate social responsibility high on their list of considerations when seeking employment, so much so that they will accept lower salaries to work for an employer whose values are in line with their own, according to a recent survey conducted by a Stanford Graduate School of Business researcher.

Stanford marketing strategy professor David Montgomery, together with Catherine Ramus of the University of California at Santa Barbara, surveyed 759 graduating MBAs from 11 top business schools to better understand the tradeoffs students are willing to make when selecting an employer.

What they discovered surprised them. Intellectual challenge topped the list of desirable job attributes, with money and location, which tied for second, ranking only 80 percent as important. “Had money not been ranked high, I would have thought I’d made a mistake,” Montgomery said in a release.

Trailing for a close third was an employer’s reputation for ethical conduct and caring policies toward employees, which students ranked 95 percent as important as a job’s financial package (and 75 percent as important as intellectual challenge). Montgomery, who was surprised to discover that ethics and caring about employees ranked so high, is hopeful about what the findings may mean. “This augurs well for the character of the 21st century MBA,” he said.
 
Montgomery’s study of MBA job preferences actually began some 30 years ago, part of his work to demonstrate that conjoint analysis – a statistical technique used in market research to determine how people value different factors that make up a single product or service – could accurately predict behavior. Working with the late Yale School of Management Professor Dick Wittink, Montgomery first conducted interviews with MBA students in 1978 and used the results to make predictions about the types of jobs they would accept, results that proved accurate 68 percent of the time.

In this most recent research, Montgomery and Ramus used Sawtooth Software, a commercial product for conducting conjoint testing, to analysis how corporate social responsibility factors into MBA job choice. For the purposes of the survey, they broke corporate responsibility into four categories: caring about employees, caring for stakeholders (such as community residents), environmental sustainability and ethical business conduct. A fifth category was a model that shared all of the above characteristics.

According to their survey responses, 97.3 percent of students would be willing to make a financial sacrifice to work for a company that demonstrated all four characteristics of corporate responsibility. From a starting salary of $103,650 (the average amount students expected to earn in their first year), they said they would sacrifice an average of $14,902 a year, or 14.4 percent.

Going forward, Montgomery and Ramus plan to broaden their sample and begin looking at how gender and nationality figure into MBA job choices.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Clear Admit School Guides 2008-2009: Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, NYU Stern, Stanford and Wharton

We’re pleased to announce the release of the 2008-2009 versions of six of our 17 Clear Admit School Guides, our line of informative reports about the top business schools. For those who might be unfamiliar, the School Guides offer in-depth information on all elements of the student experience at a leading MBA program, and compare the schools side-by-side in areas such as student demographics, curricular structure and employment statistics. In the Guides, we distill the MBA programs’ marketing messages and delve into the facts to deliver an objective and comprehensive overview of what each school offers and what makes each unique.

We’ve received a great deal of positive feedback from applicants about the usefulness of the School Guides. Here’s one bit of praise that illustrates the mileage one can get out of the information the School Guides provide:

The Clear Admit School Guides have been a great help throughout the application process. I first referred to them when selecting the schools to which I wanted to apply, and have kept referring back to them while writing my essays and preparing for interviews. They have helped make a sometimes overwhelming process easier with their clear and concise summaries and analysis on the top MBA programs.

The 2008-2009 versions of six of our School Guide titles - Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, NYU Stern, Stanford and Wharton - feature the most current information from the programs, and offer some insight into year-by-year trends. More information about the Guides’ contents and order information is available in the School Guides section of our website.

We plan to re-release the remaining 11 School Guides (Anderson, Chicago, Darden, Fuqua, Haas, Johnson, LBS, MIT Sloan, Ross, Tuck and Yale) over the course of this summer, so stay tuned to the blog for more details!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Trivia Tuesday: Stanford GSB’s September Seminars

It’s time again for Trivia Tuesday! This week we’ll take a look at September Seminars, a special academic opportunity offered to second-year MBA students at the Stanford GSB.

Before the start of Autumn Quarter classes, Stanford second-year students have the option of returning to campus early to participate in small, week-long seminars. Conducted at the same time as pre-term for first-year students, these two-credit September Seminars give students a chance to explore a focused topic with a faculty member and as few as four of their classmates. September Seminars cover a range of subjects that can be as specific as “Information in Markets and Markets of Information” and “Securities Lending: Markets Behave Strangely When Shorting Is Thwarted,” or as broad as dishonesty in the academic, athletic, professional and interpersonal realms in the offering “Understanding Cheating.”

These sessions are held for three to four hours daily, and center on a specific subject or inquiry for which there might not be enough material or sufficient interest to warrant a full elective course. Because they give faculty members a chance to share the details of their latest research or teach students about a subject that might fall outside of their area of expertise, these seminars are an opportunity for both students and instructors to stretch their knowledge of new topics.

In addition to the topics that are covered exclusively in the September Seminars, Stanford recently introduced a shortened version of Interpersonal Dynamics, which is an extremely popular second-year elective course. Also known as “Touchy-Feely,” this class prompts students to examine their own interactions with and impact on others, and often serves as a transformative experience for those enrolled. Though this version of the course only runs for two weeks, students who could not secure a spot in the full-term course have appreciated the opportunity to participate in the shortened version.

For more information on Stanford’s pre-term programs, elective courses, or other academic opportunities, be sure to check out the Stanford GSB website or the Academics section of the Clear Admit School Guide to Stanford!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Stanford GSB Essay Topic Analysis 2008-2009

As followers of the MBA admissions space know, Stanford GSB’s essays and application have been undergoing some changes of late. Whereas applicants to the GSB were once given up to 10 pages to write on the subjects of their career goals and what matters most to them, the school reduced the length of these essays last season and introduced two additional, shorter required responses detailing the applicant’s behavior in specific situations. As for changes this season, Stanford has implemented exact word count restraints instead of giving required page limits. Meanwhile, the school continues to fine-tune its new format, slightly adjusting the wording and focus of the four Essay C options.

In spite of these recent changes, however, the original two essays still constitute the heart of one’s application. Ideally, an applicant’s responses to Essays A and B would work together to provide the adcom a picture of the guiding force or principle behind his or her experiences to date (which can be covered in the first question) and objectives for the future (discussed in the second). While it’s possible that the thing that matters most to an applicant might be something completely removed from his or her professional objectives, it almost seems natural that the career goal discussion would be a slightly narrower continuation of the theme developed in Essay A.

Essay A: What matters most to you, and why? (750 words)
The open-ended and somewhat philosophical nature of this question can make it a challenging starting point. If a topic doesn’t immediately spring to mind, a constructive approach might be to think about your work experience, outside activities and general interests and look for some unifying theme among some or all of them. Because it’s always a good idea to introduce specific details and anecdotes to really tie the general ideas expressed in your essays to the key elements of your candidacy, it would be wise to select a topic that not only gives the adcom a sense of your values and priorities, but also allows to you discuss some of the ways you have translated these into action.

Essay B: What are your career aspirations? How will your education at Stanford help you achieve them? (450 words)
All told, this is a fairly standard career goals essay. In fact, Stanford has narrowed the scope of the question (last year’s wording simply asked ‘what are your aspirations’) to keep the focus on one’s professional objectives. Though Stanford leaves the question