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CATEGORY - SCHOOL: UNC / KENAN FLAGLER

Friday, October 24, 2008

UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Creates New Leadership Center

Cementing its commitment to instilling leadership skills in its graduates, the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this month announced that it will create a new center to support leadership education.

Named in honor of the late North Carolina governor, the Luther H. Hodges Leadership Center will support and expand on the activities and programming associated with the Kenan-Flagler Leadership Initiative, an experience-based program launched in 2005 to foster leadership skills development among business school students.

“Luther Hodges is widely recognized as a North Carolina statesman and ethical leader whose life had global impact,” said James W. Dean Jr., UNC Kenan-Flagler dean, in a statement announcing the new center’s creation.

Hodges, a UNC alumnus, served as governor of North Carolina from 1952 to 1960 and as U.S. Secretary of Commerce in the Kennedy Administration. He also helped create Research Triangle Park, which has become a model of economic development and scientific advancement worldwide. The Hodges family has supported leadership education at Kenan-Flagler since the mid-1970s.

As part of the new Hodges Leadership Center, the Leadership Initiative will continue to pursue the mission set for it when it was established, namely, “developing MBA students as exceptional leaders who positively impact the organizations they lead and the communities they serve.”

The program introduces students to leadership principles both inside and outside the classroom and then gives them the opportunity to practice the principles in real-world situations and simulations – with feedback, reflection and replay.

According to Mindy Storrie, Kenan-Flagler director of leadership, the new center and the Hodges’ continuing support will bring enhanced leadership education to the entire UNC community.

“We will expand our leadership activities in the undergraduate BSBA, Master of Accounting and MBA for Executives Programs so that we can further develop the leadership capabilities of all UNC Kenan-Flagler graduates,” she said.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Wall Street Journal Releases First EMBA Ranking

Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management snagged the top spot, followed by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania as number two in the Wall Street Journal’s first survey of executive MBA programs, released yesterday.

Partnering with the Management Research Group of Portland, Maine, and tapping the expertise of Journal editor Jennifer Merritt, who formerly headed up BusinessWeek’s business school rankings, the Journal has officially entered the EMBA ranking game.

The result of extensive surveys with current students, recent grads, and human-resources and executive-development managers at companies across 23 industries, the ranking reveals the top 25 schools around the globe that provide “the rigor needed to build tomorrow’s corporate leaders and C-suite executives,” according to the Journal.

Rounding out the top five programs were the Thunderbird School of Global Management at number three, the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business at number four; and the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School at number five.

To reach its conclusions, the Journal took into account survey scores from students and corporations of 73 EMBA programs at 53 business schools across nine countries. In addition to the student and corporate scores, the rankings also measured what employers wanted out of programs and how well students felt their programs developed those skills.

To compile the final rankings, student and corporate ratings were weighted 40 percent each, and the skills ratings were weighted 20 percent. 

Kellogg and Wharton have among the largest EMBA programs, with 843 candidates currently enrolled in the seven Kellogg programs and with 406 students currently enrolled in Wharton’s two programs. Both schools’ programs got high marks from companies – nearly double their closest competitors – which put them squarely in the lead despite lower scores from students.

That’s because corporate scores varied the most – the two leaders far outpaced those in the middle of the pack. In contrast, student scores were closer in range. So even though Wharton came in at number 15 in terms of student ratings, it was still within striking distance of the leading schools’ scores.

That said, for the number one school in the student ranking, the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, a particularly strong student score is what guaranteed it a place in the top five.

In addition to determining how the various schools measured up to one another, the Journal rankings also revealed interesting information about what students are looking for in EMBA programs overall. Among the key findings:

• School reputation is the top consideration for students choosing which program to attend, as noted by 51 percent of student respondents.
• Quality faculty is a key factor, with 78 percent of students reporting that they considered their school because of its distinguished faculty.
• Students are drawn to EMBA programs because they offer a way to develop leadership skills without losing more than a few days a month in the office and because what they learn in school can be immediately applied on the job. “Learn on Friday and Saturday, apply on Monday,” is how one respondent put it.
• Cost was relatively unimportant whether or not companies helped pay the bill. Program tuition ranged from $65,000 to $160,000; nearly 34 percent of students said they paid their own way, 30 percent said their employers paid the entire bill, and 13 percent said their companies paid at least half. (Average out-of-pocket expense among respondents was $45,000.)
• Distance is not a deterrent for the right program. While the majority of students (64 percent) traveled less than 50 miles one way, 7 percent commuted up to 200 miles and nearly 9 percent schlepped a whopping 1,000 miles or more one way.
• With an EMBA comes a bonus or promotion or both. Of those surveyed, 24 percent report having been given both a raise and promotion since they started classes and another 30 percent expect both in the next year.

Companies, meanwhile, have their own set of expectations. Quick return on investment topped the list, with 26 percent of companies saying they expect to see management and leadership skills put to use immediately, and an equal percentage expect them to be put to use within a year of graduation. Human-resource-development managers – 64 percent of them – view EMBA programs as a means of holding onto talent. And 55 percent of company respondents called the EMBA a critical business investment.

Despite the high marks for many programs, the rankings suggest that there’s still room for improvement. Companies sometimes complain that students return from EMBA programs seeking to solve business problems like academic exercises – without practical sense. Students complained about programs that rely too heavily on distance technology that doesn’t always work well or enhance the learning process.

Finally, more flexibility was called for by many students, for whom program scheduling can prove too difficult work into an existing work routine or for whom the 15 hours or more of study per week is too much to carry.

To view the complete rankings, click here. To read more about the methodology the Journal employed to compile its rankings, click here.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

UNC / Kenan Flagler Essay Topics 2008-2009

The UNC/Kenan Flagler essay topics for the 2008-2009 have recently been formally announced, as the school’s application has gone live as of today. The essay questions for this year’s application are as follows:

Essay 1 (required): What are the 2 or 3 strengths or characteristics that have driven your career success thus far? Do you have other strengths that you would like to leverage in the future? (500 words)

Essay 2 (required): Briefly describe the career path you intend to pursue immediately after b-school. Explain why this career option appeals to you and why an MBA is appropriate at this time. (500 words)

Essay 3 (required): What personal qualities or life experiences distinguish you from other applicants? How do these qualities or experiences equip you to contribute to Kenan-Flagler? (500 words)

Essay 4 (required): What do you expect from your MBA program? How and when will you measure the return on your investment in the MBA? (500 words)

Essay 5 (optional): If your GMAT quantitative score is low, or if you have not had coursework in calculus, microeconomics, statistics and financial accounting, please tell us how you plan to prepare yourself for the quantitative MBA curriculum. (300 words)

Essay 6 (optional): Is there anything else you think the Admissions Committee should know about you in order to evaluate your candidacy? (300 words)

To view the live application and learn more about the UNC/Kenan Flagler essay topics, interested applicants should view the school’s application site.

Monday, July 21, 2008

UNC Kenan-Flagler Names Organizational Behavior Professor as New Dean

The University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business has named its own James W. Dean, Jr. to serve as the next dean of the school. Dean’s appointment is expected to be approved at a meeting of the university’s Board of Trustees later this week.

Pending approval at the July 24th board meeting, Dean will succeed Steve Jones, who completes his term at the end of this month. Dean’s appointment is scheduled to take effect beginning August 1st.

Dean’s recommendation follows a national search led by a committee comprised of faculty, staff, alumni and business leaders. Barbara Rimer, dean of the School of Public Health, chaired the committee and communicated its recommendations to Bernadette Gray-Little, executive vice chancellor and provost, and then-Chancellor James Moeser.

Dean, a professor of organizational behavior and strategy, has been a member of the UNC Kenan-Flagler faculty since 1997. His research, teaching and consulting have focused on the areas of leadership, organizational change, strategic decision making, international management and organizational performance improvement.

In addition to his teaching and research, Dean also has held several leadership positions during his tenure at Kenan-Flagler. He served as the senior associate dean for academic affairs for the past year. Prior to that he served as the associate dean of executive development from 2002 through 2007 and as the associate dean of the MBA program from 1998 through 2002.

In these roles, he increased the number and global reach of UNC’s non-degree program and led an innovative curriculum redesign of the MBA program. He also led the creation of corporate advisory boards for the MBA program and developed a strong professional team to guide its admissions, student services and career services.

Monday, June 09, 2008

UNC / Kenan-Flagler Deadlines 2008-2009

The deadlines for UNC / Kenan-Flagler’s 2008-2009 admissions season have been posted. While the application deadlines nearly match last year’s, the school has allowed more time for interviews throughout the season.

Round 1 (Early Action)
Application Deadline: October 24th, 2008
Interview Completed by: November 7th, 2008
Decision Release Date: December 15th, 2008

Round 2
Application Deadline: December 5th, 2008
Interview Completed by: December 19th, 2008
Decision Release Date: February 9th, 2009

Round 3
Application Deadline: January 9th, 2009
Interview Completed by: February 27th, 2009
Decision Release Date: March 23rd, 2009

Round 4
Application Deadline: March 13th, 2009
Interview Completed by: March 27th, 2009
Decision Release Date: May 4th, 2009

The adcom has stated that UNC’s Early Action is for those who are certain they want to attend Kenan-Flagler; accepted applicants must secure their spot with an enrollment deposit by January 2nd, 2009. Application materials must be received by midnight EST on the day of the deadline. Decisions are posted online by 5 p.m. on the decision mailing dates.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Top Bush Education Official Leaves to Lead Business School Consortium

According to a report yesterday in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Education Department’s assistant secretary for postsecondary education plans to leave her post, just one year after her appointment by President Bush, to lead the Washington Campus, a consortium of university business schools.

Diane Auer Jones was appointed the nation’s top higher-education official by Bush in May 2007, replacing Sally Stroup, who stepped down. According to the Chronicle report, Jones had hoped to remain at the Department of Education through the end of the Bush administration in January 2009 but couldn’t pass up the chance to replace the Washington Campus’s president, who is retiring. It was a case of “the perfect job coming at not the perfect time,” she told the Chronicle.

The Washington Campus is a consortium of 16 major university business schools founded in 1978 to help educate business school students and corporate executives on the process of U.S. policy making. Among its member universities are the University of California at Berkeley’s Hass School of Business, UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and Michigan’s Ross School of Business. 

Founded on the principle that “understanding government is indispensable knowledge for all business leaders,” the Washington Campus provided customized executive education programs for corporations and associations, open-enrollment programs for business executives and graduate-level courses for MBA students within the consortium.

According to the Chronicle, Jones feels she is leaving the Education Department at an appropriate time in its calendar even though the Bush administration still has eight months remaining. Several critical regulatory processes have been finished, and all of the department’s major grant competitions have been completed.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Sustainable Business Incubator Debuts at UNC Kenan-Flagler

The Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last week launched a business accelerator geared toward speeding the growth of firms pledged toward meeting environmental and social objectives. The business incubator is believed to be the first of its kind.

The UNC Business Accelerator for Sustainable Entrepreneurship (BASE), created by Kenan-Flagler’s Center for Sustainable Enterprise (CSE), is designed to help bring entrepreneurs together with resources – ranging from industry experts to capital – that are focused on sustainability and can help turn their ideas into viable businesses. 

“BASE will benefit entrepreneurs, UNC and the wider community alike,” Katie Kross, CSE executive director, said in a statement announcing the incubator’s launch.

The incubator will help minimize costs and inject expertise in the startup phase, increasing entrepreneurs’ chances of long-term success, according to Kross. UNC students, meanwhile, will benefit from interdisciplinary experiential learning focused on integrating environmental and social considerations into all aspects of business. In these and other ways, BASE will raise the visibility of sustainable issues, benefiting society as a whole, she continued.

Currently in its pilot phase, BASE is working with seven early-stage sustainable businesses based in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Triangle. They include

• CaraGreen, a distributor of environmentally sustainable building materials
• Counter Culture Coffee, a fair trade micro-roasting coffee company
• North Carolina Choices, a provider of sustainably and locally produced meat and poultry
• PVee, a provider of large-scale turnkey solar energy solutions
• Trinity Design/Build, a provider of sustainable architectural design, building and preservation services
• WaterPLUS, a developer of a water purification device for use in the developing world
• Zebra Crossings, an online fair trade wedding boutique

The entrepreneurs involved in these businesses will have BASE advisory board members as their mentors. They also will participate in networking events, training and workshops; join a network of other sustainable entrepreneurs; and gain access to funding opportunities and other resources. 

The pilot phase will run through September 2008, at which point BASE will enter its full-scale phase. This phase will include a physical incubator with room for 10 businesses.

“BASE is the right idea at the right time,” said advisory board member John Hardin, deputy director and chief policy analyst for the N.C. Department of Commerce’s Office of Science and Technology, in a statement. “By drawing on the expertise of its advisory board and aggregating and connecting key resources, BASE gives businesses the support they need to address the triple bottom line” of financial profitability, social equity and environmental sustainability, he continued.

To learn more about BASE, click here.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Continued Shake Up at the Top: High B-School Dean Turnover Attributed to Increased Fundraising Pressure

The Wall Street Journal yesterday re-ran a story originally published four years earlier – but somehow the subject matter remains current. The search for b-school deans is on around the country, as the pressure to fundraise continues to increase, longstanding deans retire and business schools look outside of academia for leaders with real-world experience.

“All deans face harder challenges today,” Lloyd Armstrong Jr., provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at University of Southern California (USC), told the Journal in 2004. “In addition to the enormous pressure to raise money, the curriculum is changing as ethics and global business become more important. At the same time, many schools are ramping up their executive-education and executive M.B.A. programs,” he said.

During a two-year search, USC looked at both business executives and academics to fill its top post, ultimately turning outside its ranks to recruit Yash Gupta from his post as dean of the University of Washington Business School. “We preferred someone with a strong scholarly background who understands the academic world,” Armstrong told the Journal.
It was a choice that seems to have paid off. According to USC, Gupta has boosted fundraising by 400 percent, the Journal reported.

Columbia Business School (CBS), too, went with an academic – naming its own finance and economics professor Glenn Hubbard, who also had served as chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, to replace Meyer Feldberg, who had held the helm at CBS for 15 years.

But other schools are opting for business executives and even government officials and politicians to take the lead, in the hopes that they may bring greater strategic planning, marketing and fundraising experience, the Journal reported.

For example, the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley named Tom Campbell, a former U.S. congressman and law professor, as its dean in 2002.

“Tom Campbell’s previous experience as a congressman is a good fit because he has done fundraising and worked with many different constituencies, [and he] understands a political environment,” John Fernandes, then-president and chief executive officer of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International, the premier accrediting body for business education programs, told the Journal in 2004. But he warned then that the jury was still out on business executives.

“Some corporate managers find the academic atmosphere difficult to handle because it’s harder to make changes,” he told the Journal. “They have been used to saying this is going to happen — and it does. But faculty members are very strong-willed and independent and won’t respect that approach. Deans from the corporate world have to be well aware that gaining champions on the faculty is critical to their success.”

Prescient, perhaps, given that Campbell announced in August that he will step down this summer, and Haas has now launched a search for a new dean.

Another dean drawn from the business world, UNC Kenan-Flagler’s Steve Jones, seemed to see both the advantages of his previous experience and the challenges he would face in his new role. “Practitioners of business can make good deans because they have hired business-school graduates and understand what it takes to educate students to be successful at companies,” the former chief executive officer of Suncorp Metway Ltd. in Australia told the Journal in 2004.

But to truly make it work requires a strong senior associate dean drawn from the faculty who can help deal with professors and academic issues, he continued. “When I took this job, I knew I wanted strong academics who would be the day-to-day leaders of the faculty and the M.B.A. program,” he said.

Shorter tenure among b-school deans is becoming more the norm than the exception, according to some surveys. AASCB found that on average, deans have been in their positions only about five years and more than a quarter, for less than a year.

Frequent change-ups at the top aren’t all bad, though, say some. “It’s good for institutions and for people to change; I believe in the five-to-10-year rule for a dean,” Mark Zupan, dean at the Simon Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Rochester, told the Journal. Zupan was named Simon’s dean in 2003, having served as dean at the University of Arizona’s business school before that. “A friend once told me you don’t want to leave the same way you came in — fired with enthusiasm,” he said.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Real Estate Rallies at UNC Kenan-Flagler

The housing market may have slumped, but real estate is hot at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. In the past month alone, the school hosted its annual Real Estate Development Conference and MBA Competition and appointed a new executive director to head its real estate development center.

The UNC Kenan-Flagler Real Estate Development Conference and MBA Competition took place February 21st-22nd, drawing leaders from the world of real estate development as speakers and judges and 15 teams from top business schools as competitors.

The focus of this year’s conference – which had more than 300 attendees representing more than 100 companies – was the recent credit crisis and its impact on current and future real estate capital markets. Anthony Downs, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, delivered the keynote address, and Clint Myers, senior real estate economist at Property and Portfolio, provided an economic update.

Downs summed up the causes leading up to the credit crisis and what he termed the resulting “impasse of uncertainty” and offered some guidelines for what must be done to emerge from it. We must get rid of “perverse incentives” related to mortgage loans, charge higher interest rates to account appropriately for risk and enact stronger government regulations regarding home loans, he said.

An afternoon panel discussion, also focused on the credit crisis, featured speakers from Banc of America, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia.

The MBA Real Estate Case Competition was developed by UNC Kenan-Flagler in 2005 and demonstrates students’ strong interest in real estate. In this, the event’s fourth year, teams from Chicago, Columbia, Duke, Emory, Michigan, NYU, Northwestern, Rice, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas at Austin, UCLA, UNC, USC, Vanderbilt and the University of Virginia competed. Each team created a development plan, including financial analysis, a basic site plan and a project timeline.

Top prizes this year went to the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, UCLA and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern.

But even though they didn’t take home a prize, UNC Kenan-Flagler participants had glowing things to say. “UNC students, judges, and competitors came away happy to have had the chance to get to know one another and to really challenge themselves on their real estate knowledge and expertise,” said Alexandra Moravec (MBA ’09), incoming president of the MBA Real Estate club. “All in all, it was a rousing success, and can only help spread the word about the many strengths of the UNC Real Estate program, its students and faculty,” she said. 

New Real Estate Center Director Appointed
In other real estate news, Kenan-Flagler alumnus Stephen Cumbie (MBA ’73) was appointed on March 4th to serve as the new head of the Center for Real Estate Development, which provides education, research and outreach designed to help business leaders create and manage property in positive, sustainable ways.

Cumbie brings vast real estate development experience to the center. He is the chief executive officer of three companies — NVCommercial Incorporated, NVRetail and the Metro Realty Group – that together have projects totaling more than $500 million in real estate development, investment and services in the Washington, DC, and Denver, CO, metropolitan areas.

He also has held several leadership positions in key community, business and charitable organizations, including gubernatorial appointments to the Virginia Public Buildings Board and the Virginia Port Authority Board of Commissioners.

“Steve Cumbie is an extremely accomplished real estate professional with the vision, energy and commitment to further strengthen the real estate program and expand the work of the Center for Real Estate Development,” “Real estate development is a real strength of the school, and we are fortunate to have Steve in this role to help us develop the next generation of industry leaders,” said Dean Steve Jones in announcing Cumbie’s appointment.

Cumbie is happy to return to Kenan-Flagler and hopes to help make its strong real estate program even stronger. The only top-tier business school focused on development, Kenan-Flagler has offered a concentration in real estate development for MBA students since 1999. In addition to its annual real estate conference and competition, the school also features an active MBA Real Estate Club and a new student-managed investment fund. The Center for Real Estate Development, which Cumbie will head, was launched in 2001.

“I am excited to have the opportunity to expand our portfolio of programs and activities and assist in recruiting new faculty, while raising CRED’s national profile to attract more top students and employers,” he said.

Cumbie succeeds Thomas Harvey III, who continues to serve as an adjunct professor teaching in the area of real estate development.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Admissions Tip: Late Round Considerations

Nearing the end of a relatively sleepy February, March is just around the corner, bringing an extensive list of application deadlines and decision notification dates. Let’s take a look at the numerous Round 3 (or 4) deadlines spread over the next several months:

February 28: Wharton R3, UVA/Darden R3
February 29: LBS R3
March 1: Michigan/Ross R3
March 3: Duke/Fuqua R3, Columbia (international students)
March 7: Kellogg R3, UNC/Kenan-Flagler R4
March 10: CMU-Tepper R3
March 12: Berkeley/Haas R4, Chicago R3, HBS R3, Yale SOM R3
March 15: NYU Stern R3
March 19: Cornell/Johnson R4
March 21: Stanford GSB R3
April 1: UT Austin/McCombs (final)
April 2: Tuck April Round
April 3: INSEAD R4
April 4: Oxford/Said R3
April 16: Columbia (U.S. applicants)
April 23: UCLA/Anderson R4
April 25: Georgetown/McDonough Final Round
April 28: CMU-Tepper R4
May 2: LBS R4, Cambridge/Judge (final)
June 6: Oxford/Said R4

While it’s always best to apply as early as possible, the difference between applying in round one and applying in round two is, for most applicants, a marginal one. However, the later rounds are a very different game. Because most of the seats in the incoming class will have been given away by the time round two decisions are released, the acceptance rate in the third round is dramatically lower than that for the first two deadlines of the season.

To maximize your chances of a later round acceptance, demonstrating your interest in the school and submitting thoughtful and error-free written materials will be crucial. Just as applying in round one is generally taken as a sign of interest in a given program, applicants submitting their materials in a later round need to work extra hard to convince the adcom that they are genuinely interested in the school and are not simply applying as an afterthought because interview invitations didn’t come through in round two. Demonstrating that you would make a valuable contribution to the community and providing evidence that you have taken steps to engage current students and alumni will work to your advantage.

As always, we’d like to recommend the in-depth Clear Admit School Guides to those applicants who are targeting the later deadlines and just beginning to investigate certain programs, and to encourage those who’ve visited the campus and interviewed to share their experiences in the Clear Admit Wiki. Potential R3 or R4 applicants are also welcome to contact Clear Admit directly to discuss the strength of their later round candidacies and learn more about our one-on-one counseling services.

Friday, February 08, 2008

MBA Admissions Controversy: Conflict of Interest Accusations at Leading Programs (Part 3)

As follow up to posts earlier this week – one on the emerging conflict of interest story involving admissions officials at top U.S. universities advising a Japanese admissions consultant firm and a second stating Clear Admit’s position on the issue – we’ll share today some more recent developments related to the controversy.

According to a report yesterday in Inside Higher Ed, Donald Martin, associate dean at Columbia University’s Teachers College, resigned from the AGOS Japan advisory board upon learning that AGOS also helps non-MBA students. Martin initially defended his role as an advisor to AGOS on the MBA admissions process, arguing that there was not a conflict of interest because he does not currently work with MBA applicants. (Martin previously served as admissions official at the business school of the University of Chicago.)

Martin’s resignation followed Judith Hodara’s quitting the board earlier in the week. Hodara, associate director of MBA admissions at Wharton, was ordered by the university to cease all outside consulting work “to avoid even an appearance of conflict of interest,” according to a statement issued by Wharton. She has also discontinued her private admissions consulting business, IvyStone Educational Consultants, which she founded in 2004 to guide high school students and their parents through the process of applying to colleges.

The third and final U.S. university admissions officer to serve as an advisor on the AGOS board, Sherry Wallace of the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, had no plans to step down, according to the Inside Higher Ed report and statements issued earlier by officials at Kenan-Flagler. But Wallace indicated to Inside Higher Ed that she believed AGOS intended to disband the board.

Indeed, mention of the advisory board has been removed from the English-language portion of the AGOS site. Additionally, the Japanese portion of the site includes a statement that, upon translation, states that the firm has “decided to suspend operations” of the board given the controversy it has occasioned.

Monday, February 04, 2008

MBA Admissions Controversy: Conflict of Interest Accusations at Leading Programs (Part 1)

Thanks to a report last week in the journal Inside Higher Ed, the business school admissions world has been buzzing about potential conflicts of interest in the MBA admissions process.

Here’s the story in brief: Three admissions officers from top U.S. universities (Columbia University, the University of North Carolina and the University of Pennsylvania) accept positions on the advisory board of a Japanese consulting company that focuses on helping prospective applicants gain admission to MBA programs. An official involved in business recruiting in Japan sends an email to officials at the universities involved, as well as some journalistic organizations (Inside Higher Ed among them), crying foul. Isn’t there a conflict of interest, this emailer wonders, given that the Japanese management consultancy firm advises students who are considering MBA programs at the very schools some of the admissions officers represent?

The answer, it seems, depends in part on who you ask.  According to news stories on Friday in the Associated Press and the Philadelphia Inquirer, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business has decided that regardless of the answer, it wants to extricate itself from the controversy completely. Wharton has asked Judith Hodara, its associate director of MBA admissions, to end any outside consulting work.

“In order to avoid even an appearance of conflict of interest, Ms. Hodara has resigned from all outside consulting activities,” university spokesman Ron Ozio said in a statement Friday.

Here is the story in full: Hodara and two others – Sherry Wallace, MBA admissions dean at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Donald Martin, associate dean for enrollment and student services at Teachers College of Columbia University – recently joined the advisory committee of management admissions consultancy AGOS Japan. In exchange for adding their expertise – and their institutions’ clout – to the consultancy firm’s work, the admissions directors were offered trips to Japan.

Hodara and Martin both said their schools had vetted their participation on the advisory committee before they started, according to the AP. Hodara explained that she didn’t believe there was a conflict of interest because she would be advising AGOS, not its individual clients, and because she agreed to recuse herself from considering applications by any AGOS clients to Wharton. Wallace couldn’t be reached for comment about whether or not she had prior approval from UNC for her position on the AGOS board. 

According to Ozio, Penn only became aware of Hodara’s involvement with AGOS in the past week, the Inquirer reported. Wharton has since not only required that Hodara end her relationship with AGOS, but also that she discontinue her own college admissions business, IvyStone Educational Consultants, which she founded in 2004 to guide high school students and their parents through the process of applying to colleges. In an email to the Inquirer, Hodara wrote that IvyStone “is wholly unrelated to my position with MBA admissions and is compliant with university policy.” Nonetheless, its website is now shut down.

The University of North Carolina, in contrast, doesn’t seem to see a conflict of interest. It deemed Wallace’s participation on the AGOS board appropriate after conducting an investigation following an email complaint. According to UNC spokesperson Susan Houston, Wallace was not paid for her role on the board but would be reimbursed for one trip per year to Japan, the Inquirer reported. Wallace intends to maintain her advisory position with AGOS because it will help UNC “reach out to outstanding Japanese applicants,” Houston told the Inquirer.

At Columbia’s Teachers College, the answer to the question of whether there’s a conflict of issue at hand is a strong maybe. This from Martin, the associate dean for enrollment and student services at Teachers College, who continues in his position on AGOS’s advisory board. Martin, who previously served as an admissions official at the business school of the University of Chicago, doesn’t feel that he did anything wrong because he doesn’t currently work with MBA applicants. But when asked if he would have served on the AGOS board while still working in MBA admissions, he replied “probably not.”

“In that case, if I was still working for a graduate school of business, I might have felt it would have appeared that it was tied in with one particular organization in Japan when there are several that do this kind of work,” Martin told Inside Higher Ed.

Meanwhile, the debate around the potential conflict of interest continues in larger admissions circles – especially in the wake of last year’s student loan scandal, which revealed questionable relationships between universities and lending institutions.

“We have discussed and continue to discuss with our board and membership the seriousness of conflict of interest situations that arose last year,” David Hawkins, director of policy and research for the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), told Inside Higher Ed. “Particularly in this environment of heightened awareness and concern, we need to remain on our guard and do our best to be fair and to avoid conflicts or perceived conflicts.”

Though NACAC’s ethics code does not include language directly addressing the AGOS relationships, “this certainly presents a potential conflict,” Hawkins told the Inquirer.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Part-time and Executive MBA Programs

Part-time MBA programs offer sound alternatives to full-time options in terms of time and tuition. Usually lasting two to three years, part-time MBA programs allow students to keep their jobs while attending classes in the evenings or on weekends. This schedule allows students to minimize debt by maintaining their income and/or obtaining tuition reimbursements from their employer with the added benefit of immediately applying classroom lessons to their own careers.

Applicants with extensive work experience (a minimum of five years) and company sponsorship may find an Executive MBA program to be the best fit. These programs provide a solid framework in general management and prepare candidates for long-term senior level growth. EMBA classes usually take place on weekends, though some programs may require students to take 1-2 weeks of time off from work each year to attend intensive class sessions.

For those unable to attend a full-time MBA program, but seeking new skills to push their careers forward, be sure to take a look at the part-time and EMBA program deadlines below and to check out the schools’ websites for further details.

PART-TIME MBA PROGRAM DEADLINES:

Babson College / Olin
Evening MBA: May 1st, 2008, July 1st, 2008, or rolling admissions until August 15th
Fast-Track MBA: May 1st, 2008, July 1st, 2008, or rolling admissions until August 15th

Berkeley / Haas
Evening & Weekend: February 29th, 2008

UCLA Anderson
FEMBA: April 2nd, 2008

Carnegie Melon University / Tepper
Flex-Time MBA: March 10th, 2008, April 28th, 2008, April 28th, 2008 then rolling
Flex-Mode MBA: March 10th, 2008, April 28th, 2008, April 28th, 2008 then rolling

Chicago GSB
Weekend Program: June 6th, 2008
Evening Program: April 18th, 2008 (summer entry), July 11th, 2008 (fall entry)

DePaul University / Kellstadt
Weekend MBA: July 1st, 2008 then rolling (September entry)
Evening MBA Program: February 1st, 2008 (spring entry), April 1st, 2008 (summer entry), July 1st, 2008 (autumn entry), October 1st, 2008 (winter entry)

NYU / Stern
Langone Part-Time: May 15th, 2008

Northwestern / Kellogg
Evening Part-Time MBA: April 18th, 2008 (summer quarter), July 18th, 2008 (fall quarter)

University of Minnesota / Carlson
Part-Time MBA: May 1st, 2008 (fall semester), October 1st, 2008 (spring semester)

University of Southern California / Marshall
MBA.PM: Rolling until May 1st, 2008

EXECUTIVE MBA PROGRAM DEADLINES:

Berkeley / Haas
Executive MBA (Berkeley-Columbia): February 11th, 2008

UCLA Anderson
Executive MBA: April 1st, 2008, then rolling

Chicago GSB
Executive MBA: February 1st, 2008 or April 1st, 2008

Columbia Business School
NY-EMBA (September entry): June 1st, 2008
NY-EMBA (January entry): October 15th (early deadline) and December 3rd (deadline)
EMBA-Global: February 11th, 2008 (May 2008 entry)
Berkeley-Columbia: February 11th, 2008 (May 2008 entry)

Duke / Fuqua
Global Executive: February 18th, 2008 or March 17th, 2008 (May 2007 entry)
Cross Continent: March 17th, 2008 or April 14th, 2008 (July 2008 entry)
Weekend Executive: Not yet announced (first deadline last year was May 14th for March entry)

University of Michigan / Ross
EMBA (August entry): February 1st, 2008 March 15th, 2008, or May 1st, 2008
EMBA (January 2009 entry): June 1st, July 15th, September 1st, October 1st, November 1st or December 1st, 2008

NYU / Stern
EMBA: April 15, 2008 or June 15, 2008

UNC / Kenan-Flagler
EMBA Evening: January 21, 2008, March 17, 2008, May 5, 2008 (August entry)
EMBA Weekend: April 7, 2008, July 14, 2008, or October 1, 2008 (Jan. 2009 entry)
OneMBA Program: January 29, 2008, April 1, 2008, or June 10, 2008 (Sept. entry)

Northwestern / Kellogg
Executive MBA: February 1, 2008, April 1, 2008, June 1, 2008 (September start)

Wharton
WEMBA: February 1, 2008 (for Philadelphia or San Francisco location)

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Wiki Wednesdays: The Columbia Business School Interview

Welcome to this week’s edition of Wiki Wednesdays, where we take a closer look at interview reports posted in the Clear Admit Wiki, an MBA applicant-generated repository of experiences with the admissions process. As we rise to the second crest in the 2007-2008 admissions season Round Two deadlines this week, we’re directing our focus to the Columbia Business School interview.

Columbia admissions operates on a rolling basis, and the review of Regular Decision deadline applications begins today! Invitations to interview might be extended at any point during the application review period. Most Columbia interviews are conducted by alumni living in an applicant’s local area; if an alum is not available, a current student from Columbia’s Hermes Society will conduct the interview either in New York City or by phone. No matter the person or location, however, the interview itself will be ‘blind,’ with the interviewer having no prior knowledge of the candidate’s submitted application.

The Columbia interview incorporates some fairly standard MBA interview topics, including questions on career history, the timing and reasons behind one’s MBA pursuit as well as the candidate’s motivation for applying to Columbia. As the school breaks down first-year students into learning teams of 4-5 members, applicants may also not be surprised by the interviewers’ curiosity about teamwork capabilities. In the Clear Admit Wiki, Columbia candidates reported being asked, “How do you work in teams?” and “How would you describe yourself as a leader?”.

Of course, while the adcom seems concerned about a candidate’s ability to interact with and guide his or her classmates, they also want to know how candidates would contribute to the diversity of Columbia’s program, especially as they consider themselves “one of the most heterogeneous of leading business schools.” For instance, one Columbia applicant was a