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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

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Monday, December 01, 2008

Mumbai Terrorist Attacks Impact Planned MBA Admissions Events in India

As the world reels in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last week, the MBA admissions community is feeling ripples as well, with admissions events and applicant interviews scheduled there and elsewhere in India canceled or postponed by several schools.

QS Quacquarelli Symonds, a leading career and education network, has canceled each of the four stops planned this month in India as part of its 2008 World MBA Tour, which brings admissions officers from top MBA programs around the globe face to face with prospective applicants in their native countries. This year’s QS India Tour, which was slated to include fairs in New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, will be rescheduled for sometime in January 2009, according to the QS website.

Top schools whose admissions officers were scheduled to visit India as part of the QS MBA World Tour included London Business School, Emory University’s Gozieta Business School and UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School, among others.

QS will provide additional information about events as they are rescheduled on its website later this month. Candidates for these events are encouraged to register online now in order to receive email notification of the new dates. “We hope that peace and order will be restored quickly,” read the QS website. “Our thoughts are with those affected by the terrorist attacks.”

According to blog posts by hopeful MBA applicants, some schools also have canceled applicant interviews in New Delhi and Mumbai as a result of the terrorist attacks.

“As I had expected last night, Emory mailed to inform that their trip stands canceled, although this information has gone out only to applicants interviewing in Delhi and Mumbai so far,” wrote blogger ahembeea on his blog, B School Bound, on November 27th. “My one chance to interview in person with the adcom now stands squashed,” he continued.

INSEAD, too, has postponed an EMBA Information Session scheduled for New Dehli until sometime in January.

Obviously, our thoughts here at Clear Admit go out first and foremost to the families of those directly affected by the terrorist attacks. But we also certainly understand the frustrations felt by prospective MBA applicants whose opportunities to meet in person with school representatives will be impacted as a result and will do our best to keep our readers informed of any additional canceled or postponed events as we become aware of them.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Fridays From the Frontlines

Hello and welcome to another chapter in Clear Admit’s on-going Fridays From the Frontlines series. Our look into the times, tastes and tribulations of b-schoolers continues this week with continued excitement and disappointment as many second years wrap up their recruiting season and aspirants get closer and closer to interview dates and begin to consider round two applications.

In positive news, fishee chimed in to share the news of his recent interview invitation from Wharton. Ahembeea vented his own Wharton interview frustrations with a letter and shared his Ross interview experience. Samantha was also feeling a little bummed about Wharton and wished that b-schools were more like law school. D.G. had a mixed week, the lack of an interview invitation from HBS being somewhat softened by the invitation to interview at Wharton, but not so much so that he didn’t start thinking about round two schools. Theincarnated also felt the sting of not hearing from HBS and began to doubt his ‘the best or nothing’ approach. The Coronet had a little more luck, with interviews at Ross and Cornell. TienyChesney is one of the lucky few with all of that behind him, but with a whole slew of new considerations on which to get a grip.

Thos already in school are getting used to the shorter days but don’t lack school spirit. Darden ‘10 JulyDream, for example,  shared a very upbeat Darden video. McCombs ‘10 Metal, came back to life and had a lot to say about the beginning of his b-school experience.  Darden ‘10 Oren also discussed the concept of black November. Second years could feel each day pass, McDonough ‘09 Hairtwirler found herself 5/8th of the way done with her MBA and with a surprising interest in marketing. Ross ‘09  gltnfrpnshmt shared a few thoughts on the election and the recruiting system. Chicago ‘09 MaybeMBA was also considering her future moves.

And this concludes this rendition of the news for Fridays From the Frontline. The days, at least in some parts of the world, are getting darker and colder but that can’t stop the brave hopefuls from keeping their eyes, ears and hearts on the prize. Until next week, good luck and keep on keepin’ on!

Friday, October 31, 2008

Fridays From the Frontline (Halloween Edition!)

Another exciting week has flown by since we last checked in with b-school bloggers. Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit’s regular study of the trials and tribulations of MBA applicants and students, is back yet again. While tonight may find many American youngsters going around neighborhoods asking for treats and threatening tricks, many b-school applicants have been putting on their own ‘costumes’ for a few weeks now. The goal of these meetings, of course, is not a pillowcase stuffed with candy nor a tree covered in toilet paper. No, these interviews’ stakes are much higher- acceptance or zaps- and the blog entries of aspirants reflects this truth. Currently enrolled students are not without their pressures, from cold calls to recruiting, life certainly doesn’t slow down once one learns their b-school fate.

Interviews were the most talked about topic of this week’s aspiring b-schoolers. Ahembeea celebrated Diwali and received interview invitations from ISB and Ross. Samantha felt drained after her Kellogg interview and went on a trip to somewhere warm. D.G. was more upbeat about his Kellogg interview, though embarrassed when his questioner asked if he was wearing a ‘Harvard red’ tie. Soni received word of his interview from Chicago promptly on the 29th. Charu scheduled his Owen interview and shared his full day’s itinerary for visiting the Vanderbilt campus. V2B-School managed to submit his Sloan application in time and was pleased to be contacted for an interview by Tepper. There was a continued flurry of application submissions throughout the aspirant pool. MBADreamer submitted his Stanford application with an exact essay word count of 1,800. MissionMBA completed his Duke and Darden submissions, while Omne gathered materials for McDonough and struggled with his UCLA recommender. In proper Halloween spirit, Earlybird planned to dress as Rick James and compared Lauder to the ‘ultra hot girl in the corner‘.

It was a quiet week for first year MBA bloggers, only Darden ‘10 JulyDream checked in to discuss the benefits of peer encouragement. ‘09ers had a little more to say. Darden ‘09 Anand considered materialism and Chuck Palahnuik, while fellow classmate Mandy went to a show alone and was perfectly comfortable. Another Darden blogger, SquareMethod, shared his recruiting experience of 11 interviews in one week. Ross ‘09 M@ was bound and determined not to spend his spring break on a beach. Chicago ‘09 MaybeMBA saw a relative bright spot in the slower recruiting season.

And that’s the news for this week. We can’t wait to see photographs of the creative costumes many b-schoolers most probably have put together for tonight’s revelries. Be safe, and stay warm!

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Haas Adds New Electives to MBA Class Offerings This Fall

Students at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley will get to examine topics ranging from entrepreneurship in wireless services to the dynamics of running a family business thanks to the addition of several new electives to the school’s course offerings this fall.

You may not have thought of business school as a place to learn how to handle sibling rivalry, but that’s one of the thorny issues covered in a new class called Family Business Management, taught by Kenneth Preston, a clinical professor of entrepreneurship and family business at NYU’s Stern School of Business for the past ten years. In fact, with family businesses accounting for a staggering 85 percent of the world’s businesses, the subject matter has far-reaching applications. Open to Haas full-time MBA students, the class also will address topics such as succession and retaining family talent through case studies and visiting guest speakers from the fields of psychology and family therapy.

Metrics of Sustainability, another new elective added to the full-time MBA curriculum this fall, will teach the theories and frameworks for measuring sustainability – including carbon accounting and how to calculate and incorporate supplier sustainability – which students will then get to apply through work with real companies outside the classroom. This course is taught by Tony Kingsbury, an executive-in-residence who joined the Center for Responsible Business in 2007 to launch a new interdisciplinary program at UC Berkeley on sustainable products and innovations.

Full-time MBA students can also take part in a new speaker series called Enterprising Solutions: Market-Based Approached for Reducing Poverty, that will include guest speakers from Good Capital, FSG Social Impact Advisors, and Salesforce Foundation addressing how to use market-based mechanisms from both the nonprofit and corporate sectors to reduce poverties. Accompanying lectures and case discussions will be led by instructors Jocelyn Wyatt, head of IDEO’s newly formed Social Impact and Business Factors division, and David Lehr, senior advisor for Social Innovations at Mercy Corps.

New electives also have been added to the course selections for the evening and weekend MBA programs. The first, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Wireless Services, will look closely at both success stories and failures in the wireless sector. The second, Improvisation and Leadership, will help students become better leaders by enhancing their interpersonal intuition and confidence.

For more on these and other course offerings at Haas, click here.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Kellogg International Students Get Primer in American Life

Last week, incoming international students at the Kellogg School of Management took turns stepping up to the podium to practice mock business presentations. No, the academic year doesn’t begin at Kellogg until September. But the American Culture and English for International Business Students Program (ACE) was already well underway.

ACE, an immersive four-week experience, was designed in conjunction with Northwestern University’s School of Continuing Studies to help students with limited exposure to English as a primary language acclimate themselves to American culture before the rest of their classmates arrive.

This year’s ACE program, which took place from July 28th through August 22nd, featured workshops on business writing, cultural communications and classroom dynamics. Working together as teams, students presented projects to their fellow classmates, completed case studies, and attended lectures by Kellogg faculty.

But that’s not all. They also navigated Chicago’s public transit system, visited local parks and museums and made new friends, all while fine-tuning their English skills.
 
“ACE has been a wonderful addition to our pre-term programming,” said Fran Langewisch, the Kellogg School’s assistant dean for student affairs.

Kellogg is not the only business school to feature international student orientation and English-language programs, but Langewisch believes that ACE offers a unique blend of components from both types of programs. “And because ACE is just for Kellogg students, participants are able to get settled in Evanston, learn their way around campus and begin to build a friendship network before orientation officially begins,” she added. 

To learn more about the ACE program at Kellogg, click here.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

NYU Stern Student Group Wins Net Impact Green Challenge for Campus Sustainability

Launched just over a year ago, the Stern Campus Greening Initiative (SCGI) at New York University (NYU) is already winning recognition for its efforts to make a positive environmental impact on its urban campus. Earlier this month, SCGI took “green” at the national Net Impact Green Challenge, in which top business schools compete against each other to drive awareness of sustainability issues among members of their schools’ communities.

“We’ve been able to do a lot over the past year, from a more aggressive recycling program to energy and water conservation efforts, to creating and implementing environmental initiatives for the entire Stern community,” Jake Berlin (MBA ‘09), head of SCGI, said in a statement. “It is exciting that we’ve been recognized for our hard work,” he continued.

SCGI and competing teams at other schools were asked to explain the outcomes of their efforts on campus to a group of environmental industry judges. Judges also took into consideration the degree to which teams effectively engaged outside stakeholders, as well as how scalable their solutions might be to other schools.

Among SCGI’s achievements in the past year were a 75 percent reduction in paper consumption at Stern, the creation of a comprehensive recycling program and the implementation of energy efficiency measures in facilities and IT. The team also created a proposal for a 6,500-square-foot extensive green roof with its own renewable energy system above Stern’s main building, the Kaufman Management Center, and the graduating Class of 2008 raised $530,000 as its legacy gift to support the green roof’s creation.  

At the conclusion of the presentations, SCGI emerged victorious, claiming a cash prize of $500, $500 in 2008 Net Impact conference scholarships, a $100 gift certificate for green products from TheGreenOffice.com, and 8,000 pounds in CO2 offset from TerraPass.

“A tour de force,” said David Yarnold, executive director of the Environmental Defense Fund and one of the competition’s judges, of SCGI’s efforts. “Imaginative, far-reaching, highly effective,” he continued.

The success of the team’s project also will be featured on Net Impact’s webpage, at the 2008 North American Net Impact conference and in Net Impact’s newsletter publications.

“The SGCI accomplishments in the past year have been truly impressive and they continue to lead our school-wide sustainability effort,” said Kim Corfman, vice dean for MBA programs at Stern and an SCGI member. SCGI was the first group at NYU to champion sustainability, but its message has reached students and faculty throughout the university’s many divisions. “We are proud of the SCGI for their win and look forward to working with them to achieve the ambitious goals they have set for the next year,” Corfman continued.

Some upcoming green projects spearheaded by SCGI include the creation of , water-bottle refilling stations through the Kaufman Center to encourage students and faculy to reuse bottles, and a range of IT initiatives to reduce energy and paper consumption, such as automatic shutdown on public computers and televisions after a period of inactivity and printing limits and standard double-sided priting policies throughout the school.

For more information about the Stern Campus Greening Initiative, visit www.stern.nyu.edu/green

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Chicago Graduate School of Business Unveils New Loan Program for International Students

Fulfilling a promise made earlier this summer, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (GSB)announced yesterday that it has established a new guaranteed loan program for international students.

All international students in both the MBA and PhD programs qualify for the program, which covers the full cost of tuition, housing and related expenses. Like Chicago’s past international loan program, no U.S. cosigner is required.

The new program, administered by Citibank, replaces one that ended abruptly in July when former administrator the Illinois Designated Account Purchase Program (IDAPP) was unable to renew its line of credit due to disruptions in the capital markets. Both returning students and new students entering Chicago in September can take advantage of the new Chicago GSB International Loan Program.

In fact, the new loans feature more favorable rates and terms for students than those they replace, according to Rosemaria Martinelli, associate dean for student recruitment and admissions. “In order to obtain the best terms for our students, the school is contributing funding to the new program,” she explained in a statement. The new program also features an online application that will simplify the process for applying for a loan.

Chicago GSB is committed to ensuring that all students, both international and domestic, have access to the funds they need by the start of classes on September 25th, Martinelli pledged. Under the new international loan program, students will be able to borrow up to $150,000 and have 20 years to repay. Students also can defer the start of payments until six months after graduation.

The new international loan arrangement with Citibank is for one year. According to Martinelli, Chicago GSB expects to be able to offer its international students a choice between several loan programs from multiple lenders beginning next year.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Forte Foundation New, Returning Board Members Include Administrators from NYU Stern, MIT Sloan, CMU Tepper, UT-Austin McCombs, Kellogg and UVA Darden

The Forté Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping women assume leadership roles in business and enabling corporations to more effectively reach and retain top female talent, announced the election of new and returning board members this month.

This year’s roster includes administrators from several of the nation’s top business schools, as well as representatives from some of the world’s leading multinational corporations.

Forté, a consortium of 27 leading multinational corporations, 37 top business schools in the U.S. and abroad and the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), provides a national infrastructure for women at all stages of their careers to access the  information, scholarship support and networking connections they need to succeed in business.

Joining Forte’s board this year from the academic side is Anika Davis-Pratt, assistant dean of MBA admissions and financial aid for New York University’ Stern School of Business. Davis-Pratt joins several representatives from other top-tier business schools who are returning this year as board officers. They include

• Cindy Benton, director of student services at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business;
• Colleen McMullen Smith, director of diversity strategies and programs atCarnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business;
• Julie Strong, senior associate director of MBA admissions at MIT’s Sloan School of Management;
• Roxanne Hori, assistant dean and director of career management, Kellogg School of Management;
• Stacy Poindexter Owen, director of admissions, Wake Forest University, and
• Wendy Huber, assistant director, admissions, University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration.

From the corporate side, representatives from Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers and Avon joined the board as newly elected officers this year. Returning corporate officers this year include representatives from Deloitte and Touche, Citi, the Ernst & Young Foundation and Eli Lilly and Company.

To learn more about the Forté Foundation, visit www.fortefoundation.org. 

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Examining the Business of Education at Yale School of Management, Haas School of Business

The business of education – and specifically, education leadership – will be the focus of events planned at both the Yale School of Management and Berkeley’s Haas School of Business next week.

“Education is an area where MBA students can add so much value,” says Joe Harrington, Haas MBA 08. Harrington is co-chair of the Educational Leadership Case Competition, now in its second year, which will feature 13 teams from top U.S. MBA programs competing against one another as part of a two-day event on February 14th and 15th. In addition to Haas, which will have two teams competing, participating schools include Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, among others.

“When outsiders think of education, they usually think of teachers,” continues Harrington. “They may not think of other critical factors such as the management structure needed within districts, sustainable school finance and market-based approaches to education.” These and other topics will be prime areas of focus for the competing teams as they address this year’s competition’s challenge: rebuilding the New Orleans public school system post-Katrina.

To ensure that the teams address the most pressing challenges to the hurricane-ravaged school system, a competition organizing committee made up of Haas students traveled to New Orleans to observe the system first hand and meet and talk with stakeholders.

Competition winners will receive a $3,000 cash prize as well as a $2,000 “donors choose” award, which they can use to support a specific classroom project of their choice.

Yale Conference to Draw Education Luminaries
Meanwhile, across the country, business solutions to issues confronting education will also take center stage. The Yale School of Management will bring together prominent scholars, entrepreneurs and policymakers to discuss innovations in education at the K-12 level as part of its second annual Education Leadership Conference on Friday, February 15th.

The student-run conference will take a look at the impact innovation is having within the K-12 industry across several areas, including human capital, technology, funding, political action and student engagement. The conference’s topic, its organizers hope, will be particularly relevant against the backdrop of national elections. It also comes amid increasing school reform initiatives and a heightened emphasis on market-basted efforts to improve student and school performance.

Top speakers lined up for the event include Steve Barr, founder and CEO, Green Dot Public Schools; Clayton Christensen, professor, Harvard Business School; Mary Cullinane, director, Microsoft’s U.S. Partners in Learning Program, and Marc Lampkin, executive director, Ed in ’08. Additional participants will share perspectives from New Haven–based Achievement First, High Tech High, Teach for America, Scholastic, and many other organizations. For a full list of conference speakers, click here.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

A Tale of Two Admissions Tests: GMAT vs. GRE

According to reports this week in both BusinessWeek and the Chronicle of Higher Education, there are tiny fissures in the once watertight monopoly wielded by the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) over the business school admissions process.

Albeit with little fanfare, top business schools – including Stanford and MIT Sloan – have begun to allow applicants to submit results from the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) in place of GMAT scores, long the golden standard for business school admission.

What’s the story? According to the Chronicle, it all began back in 2003, when the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which owns the GMAT, shocked the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which it had for decades contracted to produced and managed the test, by contracting instead with another testing service. (The new contract, with ACT-Pearson, took effect in 2006.)

Its nose out of joint, ETS has started lobbying business schools to accept its GRE test scores from applicants in an attempt to break into the annual $80 million GMAT market. Having formerly run the GMAT, ETS knows that the two tests, in fact, share much in common. Both test verbal, math, and writing skills, and though the GRE doesn’t pose questions about the finer points of accounting or how to interpret Sarbanes-Oxley, the GMAT doesn’t do much of that either.

In fact, the GRE poses several advantages to business schools and applicants alike, ETS argues. ETS has far more testing centers worldwide, making the GRE more accessible than the GMAT. The test itself is cheaper – $140 compared to the GMAT’s $250 fee – which test takers certainly won’t object to. But perhaps most significant, because the GRE is the standard test required for most other graduate programs, business schools stand to widen their applicant pool by attracting candidates that might not otherwise have considered business school as an option.

“Once they realize that they don’t have to take another test to apply to business school, they are going to hedge their bets and explore both opportunities,” David Payne, head of the GRE program for ETS, told BusinessWeek.

According to Derrick Bolton, Stanford’s director of MBA admissions, ETS’s lobbying did not influence the school’s decision to begin accepting GRE scores. “We were talking with faculty about whether we were attracting the most intellectually curious students, about whether MBA programs were attracting students with a genuine intellectual curiosity with the subject matter,” he told the Chronicle.

Stanford Business School has always used the GRE for admission to its doctoral program. “Someone said, ‘Why do we require the GMAT for the MBA?’” Bolton recalls. “It’s just one of those things that you accept as gospel until someone asks you the question.”

According to the Chronicle, about 3 percent of the Stanford MBA class that enrolled in the fall of 2007 – the first year Stanford loosened its admissions test requirements – submitted GRE scores in place of GMAT scores. While a small percentage, the GRE test takers widened the pool in significant ways, Bolton told the Chronicle. GRE test takers, he said, are more likely to be women and younger applicants – undergrads or students just a year or two out of college. “If we are able to fish in both of those pools, how can that hurt us?” he asked.

Defending the GMAT’s position as the standard test for business schools, GMAC President David Wilson questions the value of expanding the pool. “If time were limitless, then the larger the sample, the better. But if time is a constraint, then you want to be sure you are fishing in a pond where there are fish you can eat,” Wilson told BusinessWeek. “Are some schools fishing in the GRE pond? Sure. We haven’t seen results. We still believe we offer a stronger, better test.”

Schools Keep Quiet About Accepting GRE Scores
ETS doesn’t keep statistics on how many schools are fishing in the GRE pond. MIT Sloan, though, did begin accepting GRE scores as well as GMAT scores in 2006. But according to BusinessWeek, the Cambridge school has since modified the language on its website to deemphasize the GRE option.

Schools’ gravitation toward allowing GRE scores has been slow and quiet, in part because GMAC membership policy states that “requiring the GMAT exam as part of its admission process” is part of the minimum criteria for every GMAC member school. (Stanford and MIT are both members.)

Enforcement of this policy, though, is anything but absolute. “We are an association of schools committed to schools,” GMAC chief client officer Nicole Chestang told the Chronicle. “No school is in jeopardy of losing membership in GMAC for doing what they think is the right thing for their program,” she continued. According to Chestang, though, GMAC ended its contract with ETS because the ACT-Pearson proposal provided better security, better technology and more testing options. (This also justifies its greater expense, she says.) Besides, the GMAT was developed with business schools in mind.

This last argument is certainly true, but ETS is taking steps to change the GRE in ways it thinks will make it more relevant to business schools as well. ETS’s Payne told BusinessWeek that he plans to conduct focus groups with business schools about using the GRE.

In fact, some modifications to the test are already underway. Changes include replacing the antonyms and analogies section with more reading comprehension and including more data interpretation questions and real-world problems in the quantitative reasoning section. “People applying to business schools are really going to see the relevance there,” Payne told BusinessWeek.

In 2009, the GRE will also add a Personal Potential Index, BusinessWeek reports. The PPI, a six-part evaluation to be completed by outside references, will quantify an applicant’s soft skills – knowledge and creativity, communication skills, teamwork, resilience, planning and organizing, and ethics and integrity.

With business schools coming under fire of late for producing graduates with only status quo soft skills, this addition to testing criteria could prove to be of particular interest.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

New UNC Kenan-Flagler Program Helps International MBAs Hone English Skills

As if business school wasn’t hard enough, international MBAs often also face a language hurdle – both in the classroom and out in the business world. To address this challenge, the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has launched a new language program designed to level the playing field for international MBA students for whom English is a second (or third or fourth…) language.

The new program, Honing Executive English Language Skills (HEELS), assesses students’ command of English when they arrive on campus, providing constructive feedback and specially designed courses for improving language skills to those who need it. The courses, offered by the MBA Career Management Center in partnership with linguists from Raleigh-based language instruction firm the World Company, target international MBA students who hope to launch their careers in the United States when they graduate.

“HEELS helps students achieve a standard to which they can aspire to improve their skills if they want to work in a specific U.S. industry,” said David Hofmann, MBA Program associate dean, in a release announcing the program.

HEELS offers a test in August when international students arrive in Chapel Hill to gauge verbal and written English skills. Following the test, each student receives a report rating his or her proficiency along with comments on specific areas in need of improvement. Students with areas to work on can then enroll in specifically designed courses offered on the Kenan-Flagler campus.

The courses follow the World Company’s model for language instruction. Taught in small groups and designed to be highly interactive, the classes focus on helping students lose their accents and strengthen their English grammar and vocabulary skills. They also target non-verbal communication, helping students modify body language that might be misinterpreted by U.S. managers, coworkers or clients.

“We are pleased to provide the resources to help UNC’s international students improve their English-language skills,” Clodagh Lyons-Bastian, director of the World Company, said in a release about the new program. “Proficiency in English is paramount for these global students to embark on a successful career in the United States.”

The World Company designed and administers the language skills assessment test that new students take, which provides a nine-level proficiency rating scale. It also created customized language courses designed to develop language skills of particular importance in the business world.

Corporate recruiters also were called on to provide input into the development of the HEELS program. Working together, the MBA Career Management Center and the World Company created audio tapes reflecting varying levels of proficiency and accent, which they had recruiters listen to. These recruiters, from a range of industries, then indicated the minimum level of language skills acceptable of hires to their companies.

Students benefit directly from this component of the program. “They can learn from the recruiters’ valuable feedback and will no longer have to guess whether their language capability could hinder their ability to secure the types of jobs they want in the United States,” Hofmann says.

According to the Graduate Management Admissions Council, which owns the GMAT business school entry exam, the number of foreign students registering to take the exam continues to rise, suggesting that the market for language assistance programs such as Kenan-Flagler’s HEELS is strong and growing stronger.

In the past year, foreign test-takers accounted for significant increases in application volume for both flexible MBA and EMBA programs, representing 23 and 17 percent of registrants respectively. For online and full-time MBA programs, the number of foreign test takers is even greater – equaling and even surpassing U.S. registrant volume. Non-U.S. citizens accounted for 49 percent of online MBA applicants and 54 percent of full-time MBA applicants in 2007.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you and your family a wonderful holiday season!

-The Clear Admit Team

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Cambridge’s Judge School of Business Launches New Master of Finance Degree

The University of Cambridge’s Judge School of Business announced last week the creation of a new Master of Finance (MFin) degree, to debut in autumn 2008. The degree comes as part of an ongoing effort by the school to elevate the level of its finance teaching and research.

The new one-year finance program is designed for people with at least two years’ experience in the finance and banking world who wish to accelerate their careers. It will round out the school’s other offerings, which include both a respected pre-experience, research-oriented Finance MPhil and a post-experience MBA.

Significant industry research helped guide the creation of the new program. Dr. Simon Taylor, who will serve as the program’s director, together with Judge Business School Director Arnoud De Meyer, spent the spring and summer of 2007 meeting with senior staff at investment banks, hedge funds and private equity firms to gather input regarding the new program’s syllabus, structure and goals.

“One consistent message emerging from this consultation process was that there is a shortage of people who can combine a thorough technical foundation in finance and financial products with a good understanding of the business context of finance,” Dr. Simon said in a release announcing the new program.

Many candidates have either good technical skills or a good set of communication and business skills, but too few have both, Simon continued. “It is becoming evident that you need both to reach the highest levels in a financial career,” he said.

The program will combine intensive academic instruction with a high level of practical content from professionals in the finance world. Students will have the opportunity to apply their new skills through a range of projects and internships.

Additionally, following the recommendations made by several banks, the program will also include short, focused reviews of related subjects designed specifically to provide context for the use of finance in business organizations. Among the topics to be explored in these mini-courses are corporate strategy, marketing, oranizational behavior and business ethics.

The new degree has received endorsements from several leading financial institutions as well as seed funding in the form of gifts exceeding £2.5 million.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Recruiting the Recruits: GMAC, Military.com Launch “Operation MBA”

In an effort to make military officers and senior enlisted personnel aware of the impact pursuing a graduate business education can have on their careers, the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) and Military.com joined forces in late November to launch an initiative called Operation MBA.

Working together, GMAC, which owns the GMAT admissions exam, and Military.com, a division of Monster Worldwide and the world’s largest military and veteran member organization, make a case for why members of the military are particularly well suited for business education and then provide a range of resources to help guide them through the admissions process.

A new website, www.mba.com/military, established as part of the initiative, ticks off the reasons members of the military should consider an MBA. “You have a jump on the competition,” the website reads. “You know leadership. You understand responsibility. You possess strategic skills.”

The website includes a range of resources for military personnel. The first, the MBA Planner, is a 16-page brochure developed specifically for members of the armed forces considering an MBA. Included in the brochure are an overview of the various types of graduate business degrees, profiles of real-life military personnel who have pursued MBAs and frequently asked questions about financial aid, admissions requirements and how to gauge the quality of a particular school’s programs.

The brochure also provides a two-year timeline intended to guide prospective applicants from the earliest stages of the application process (assessing whether an MBA is right for them, making contact with their base Educational Service Office) through the final details (understanding financial aid packages, drawing on established mentor and other networks). And sprinkled throughout are valuable tips for applicants. For instance, DANTES (the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support) will reimburse GMAT exam fees for active military members.

In addition to the MBA Planner, the website also includes a list of military-friendly business schools. From Arizona State to Yale, the list includes more than 70 schools, each of which provides financial aid to qualified military personnel who have transitioned from the service in the two years prior to enrollment and will grant a one-year deferment if a student’s plans are delayed by his or her service branch. In addition, when allowed by state and university regulations, the schools on this list will waive the application fee for anyone who has been on active duty within three years of applying.

“Creating access to quality graduate business education is our mission, and we are always seeking new and more effective ways to help people connect with the information they need about the MBA,” said Susan Motz, vice president of client services at GMAC, in a statement announcing the initiative. “We are excited about this partnership and about opportunities to serve military personnel by helping them find a graduate business program that meets their educational and professional needs through Operation MBA,” she continued.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Pre-Matriculation Tip: Understanding Accounting & Accounting Fraud

Now that you’ve been accepted to b-school you’re probably thinking about things like getting a decent apartment and which exotic locale to visit before school starts, but you might also want to put some thought into your academic preparation. Will you have pre-term classes? Without them you might be jumping right into the deep end of the pool. Even with pre-term, you may often learn the mechanics without the context, especially when it comes to quantitative classes.

For example, when you take introductory accounting in business school you’ll learn how to do accounting, but it’s unlikely that you’ll get the bigger picture. Here’s a topic that gives you good insight into how accounting is applied: accounting fraud. There have been an unprecedented number of cases of accounting fraud in the last decade, with surprisingly few people actually understanding what went wrong. Understanding how fraud works will help you avoid committing it, avoid falling for it, and perhaps most importantly, will provide an even better understanding of how what you learn in class applies to the real world.

Here’s a little insight into a few recent cases of accounting fraud:

The top pursuit of almost any company is profit. We generally think of profit as what’s left over when we subtract costs from revenue. In accounting, though, profit is generally measured with more nuance than that (and rightly so, by the way). For example, a credit sale, in which a sale is agreed upon and a product (or service) may be delivered but payment has not yet been received, counts as revenue even though the company’s cash has not increased. So we might see a “profit” even though we actually have less cash than we did before. This may seem strange, but in the long run, doing things this way provides the best way to track a company’s performance, though it is important to pay attention to cash flow as well as profit.

So as you might expect, manipulating profit is a common theme in accounting fraud. Some very creative people have come up with a myriad of ways to falsely report revenue, thereby increasing profit, without the possibility of ever generating cash. Let’s start with something simple that Informix tried in the mid-nineties. In order to continue to show healthy revenue and profitability in the wake of competition from Oracle, they decided to offer extremely liberal return policies to their customers. So liberal, in fact, that it would be silly for anyone to say no, given that they would never have to pay if they were unsatisfied for the slightest reason. However, Informix counted virtually every dollar of those sales as revenue.

Another creative method for creating revenue where none actually exists is the bandwidth swap, used by companies such as Global Crossing, Qwest, and 360Networks in the late nineties and early 2000s, in which two companies set up sales of electronic bandwidth contracts to each other. Each company immediately booked the revenue from their sale, but considers their bandwidth purchase to be a cost that they can pay for over the life of the contract, which could be as long as 20 or 30 years. Lots of revenue now, a little cost on into the future, and no actual cash changing hands!

Lastly, there’s Enron. Among the many ways that Enron found to hide debt and costs and otherwise defraud investors was the way they handled futures contracts, which are basically rights to future energy at a predetermined price. Under the guise of “mark-to-market accounting,” they were able to “value” those rights based on Enron’s own estimate of their future value and book the difference between what Enron paid for those futures and Enron’s own estimates of their value as current revenue.

If you’d like to know more about good and evil in the application of accounting, and at the same prepare yourself for some of b-school’s most rigorous courses, you might be interested in checking out Telestrat’s Pre-MBA Prep Course in early June. The first of these four 2-hour online courses explains financial statements, and the second discusses accounting fraud and tools that you can use to quickly and easily evaluate a company’s performance. (SPECIAL NOTE: The company is running a special introductory offer and has reduced the cost of the courses for a limited time only.)