The past year was a charged one in the U.S. Donald Trump moved into the White House and a heap of controversial executive orders, legislative actions, and tweets followed. Tragedies — both natural and human-inflicted — abounded. But it was also a year for hope. Women, once silent, began to speak out against sexual harassment and assault. Social justice movements emerged, grew, and persisted. And economies continue to grow inside and outside the U.S.
To be sure, B-schools do not exist in a vacuum. While having their own unique quarks, they are very much a part of the world. They are affected by natural and human-inflicted disasters. They’ve been altered by white nationalism and travel bans. And they’ve played their role in social justice movements.
This year we covered all of that. In the world of rankings, acceptance emails, and grueling admissions process, it’s easy to forget that B-schools exist as a cog in the greater business world and society. We’ve decided to dig through our 2017 archives and pull out some of our favorite articles we wrote that highlight just that. Some of the articles received tens of thousands of views and dozens of heated comments. Others received little fanfare. But they all played an important piece of capturing the B-school pulse for 2017.
MBA students at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business during a recent Black Out Day
At Top B-Schools, MBAs Open Up
During the fall of 2016, MBA students across the nation joined in the protests of the police killings of Terence Crutcher and Keith Scott by wearing black and standing or sitting in front of their B-schools. This past February, Tiffany Smith, who graduated from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management last spring, decided to take the momentum built in 2016 to action in 2017. Smith took the hashtag that united the photos from various campuses — #MBAsOpenUp — and created a coalition called MBAsOpenUp to unite other MBA students “who are passionate about diversity and inclusion, and more specifically racial equality on a systemic level – and who think that’s an important part of who we are as business leaders and people.”
The story is a microcosm of a greater movement of MBA students and faculty becoming more and more involved in campus social movements. As the article, which was written by two Dartmouth Tuck MBA Class of 2017 graduates, points out, Andy King, a strategy professor at Tuck created a petition in late 2016 for faculty and staff to voice concerns about upcoming immigration policies. At Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School, an open letter from Lilian Ngobi-Pryor, another 2017 MBA graduate, created an influx of inclusion efforts at the Tepper School.
The letter reads: “We are here not only to get this amazing management education and get these great jobs but we are also here because we are indebted to our society and indebted to ensure the sustainability and goodness in our future.”
Houston residents after Hurricane Harvey. Courtesy photo
Hurricane Harvey Tests Rice’s Resolve
Hurricane Harvey was the first of a wave of three massive Atlantic hurricanes. It was the beginning of the end of one of the worst hurricane seasons the Atlantic has seen in modern history. On August 25th — right as many MBAs were moving onto campuses around the country — Harvey slammed into the Texas coast with 130 mile per hour winds, unleashing more than 60 inches of rain in certain points in Texas and Louisiana in about a week’s time.
Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business was in the thick of it. Knowing the storm would make landfall nearby — and that it was a storm of epic proportions — the business school took a page from the playbook it teaches. They opened a live action communication line between staff and students working out any logistics necessary to keep students safe and help them find dry housing if necessary. Students, faculty, and staff that were safe were recruited to remain in contact with assigned lists of students that were not as fortunate.
Our coverage of the event explores the selflessness and ingenuity of Jones faculty, students, and staff — and everything from Dean Peter Rodriguez’s efforts to personally pickup and drive students and their spouses to safety to a Jones faculty member getting in a canoe and paddling the floodwaters to help other Houston residents.
Students at the University of Virginia retake the hallowed Lawn on Wednesday night at a candlelight vigil. Courtesy photo
Tragedy Strikes Charlottesville and How Darden Is Putting Charlottesville’s Protests Behind It
Two weeks before Harvey impacted Houston, white supremacists and neo-Nazis besieged the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, which is home to the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. Normally a sleep college city with less than 50,000 permanent residents, the streets were ignited with mainly white men marching with lit torches, spewing hate. Meanwhile, about 20 incoming MBAs — all students of color — gathered at university housing for what was supposed to be a simple meet and great and get-together.
“These students were terrorized, fearful and deeply distraught,” Martin Davidson, a veteran leadership professor and the school’s chief diversity officer told us last August. “This was their very first weekend in Charlottesville. Now they were questioning coming here in the first place. They were full out scared to death.”
It was truly a weekend of terror. On the evening of Friday, August 11, the torchlit mob marched onto the UVA campus. The next Saturday, things got worse. Violent protests broke out at Emancipation Park. And later in the day James Alex Fields Jr. allegedly drove his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of protesters, injuring many and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
“Often times, I think our white colleagues may have not clearly understood the gravity of the situation and still don’t appreciate the impact on people of color,” Davidson told us at the time. “Some of that has to do with the natural divides we have about race and culture. But the symbolic impact of this was profound. Young white men marching through the streets with torches equates to fear and death for black people.”
Months after our coverage of the protests and the impact on Darden, we followed up with Darden and Dean Scott Beardsley on his plan to not only tend to the fears and pain from current students, but continue to make sure Darden is portrayed as a school in a community of progressive values where MBA students from anywhere can come and study and grow safely.
A student looks up at the crowd during Stanford GSB’s Class of 2017 commencement. Photo by Nathan Allen
When is enough going to be enough? Year-after-year, as schools continue to release incoming class profiles, GMAT scores continue to rocket. This year the first to disclose scores — albeit perhaps unintentionally — was Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. During the Poets&Quants CentreCourt MBA Festival in San Francisco on June 24th, Kristen Moss, then-newly named Stanford GSB assistant dean and director of MBA admissions and financial aid, disclosed a whopping incoming average score of 740. The score, which is out of a perfect 800 score was an 11-point increase over five years at the GSB and a three-point increase from the previous year’s incoming class.
“Our score this year will be hovering in the class profile at 740 and that is hard for me honestly because I don’t want to send a message that you have to have a 740 in order to apply,” Moss said. “But let’s face it. we are taking 5% (of applicants). So if you have time to practice for this test and you really want to go to Stanford and think you are one of those people who have made an impact in their community and is a leader, go take the test again because it will help. It’s one data point, (but) it is important.”
Only about 3% of GMAT test takes score a 740 or higher. Numerous other schools, including Kellogg and Wharton, also reported record GMAT average scores this year. Out of this year’s incoming class, eight schools reported GMAT averages of 720 or higher. Some 14 schools reported GMAT scores in the 91st percentile or higher this fall. As GMAT scores continue to sky rocket, the question now becomes when will GMAT scores hit a peak?
Christopher Aleman, the associate director of MBA admissions at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management meets with participants. Photo by Nathan Allen
Apply like it’s 2002? Despite major five-year application growth for numerous top MBA programs, 2004 remains the peak of MBA applications for many schools. This begs the question, have MBA applications hit a peak for the foreseeable future? We explored the topic this year. While schools like Yale’s School of Management, MIT Sloan, Stanford GSB, Duke Fuqua, Rice Jones, and a few others saw their highest application numbers for the incoming fall class of 2017, many more schools have not seen the same numbers that they saw for the fall of 2002.
Two major things happened in 2001 that led to 2002 being such a massive year. The Internet bubble burst and terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001 that led to some extreme market fluctuations. When the economy hits a downturn, MBA applications go up. The Great Recession set off another round of increased MBA applicants, but so far, has not had the same effect of what took place in 2001.
We, of course, took an in-depth look into the data and what it all means moving forward for MBA applicants.
Yale University’s School of Management
How Yale SOM Crashed The M7 Party
Nothing sets off a firestorm of comments on Poets&Quants than saying an outsider deserves a spot within the M7, the term used to describe the “magnificent 7” business schools in the world. There’s something in particular about the Yale School of Management that seems to strike a chord — both positive and negative — with our readers. Earlier this year, we argued why Yale’s SOM is poised to crash the M7, and it garnered quite the discussion.
Still, the numbers are convincing. Since 2009, Yale’s SOM has seen an increase in number of applicants by more than 30% — four times more than any of the other so-called M7 schools. All the while, the school has also significantly increased average GMAT scores, average GPAs, and the percentage of women and underrepresented minorities, representing a more competitive and well-rounded class of MBA students. But, of course, it goes much beyond the numbers. And this long-form piece that was published at the beginning of May does some deep reporting on what exactly is going on at Yale’s SOM.
“We’ve always attracted top candidates to Yale SOM, but what has struck me over the past several years is the depth of the applicant pool, which means that there really is no ‘tail’ to the class anymore,” Bruce DelMonico, director of MBA admissions told us at the time. “Deciding who to admit among this deep pool of candidates has been an increasingly difficult task, but it is certainly a good problem to have and one we take very seriously.”
Iowa’s Tippie School And The Potential Tipping Point Of The MBA
This past August, the first of two major full-time MBA programs closed its doors. Sort of. The University of Iowa’s Tippie School announced the close of its MBA program. While not a top-ranked Big Ten program, it was still a major Big Ten program and was enough to send shockwaves through the rest of the community. Earlier moves by the likes Wake Forest University and Virginia Tech to discontinue their residential MBA programs didn’t help calm nerves. Over at fellow Big Ten school, Ohio State University, Dean Anil K. Makhija told us he considered shutting down the full-time MBA before ultimately deciding on a curriculum revamp that debuted this fall.
“What I noticed is that the data on GMAT test takers was declining,” Makhija told us. “Iowa is moving away from the full-time market. It makes you think what is going on in this sector? Has the product kept in touch with all the change in the business market? This is an industry ready for disruption. There is going to be a shakeout. I don’t want Fisher to be a victim but rather a survivor.”
A couple months after Iowa’s announcement, something odd happened at the University of Wisconsin School of Business. At the end of October, Wisconsin Dean Anne Massey announced the school would shut down the full-time MBA program. Then a few days later reneged on the plan. Our Editor-In-Chief then ran a fairly scathing editorial about Wisconsin’s money-sucking Ph.D. program, setting off dozens of comments and some thorough discussion.
Yijing Chen, right, an MBA student at Pepperdine University, and her mother, Hongfen Shen, were struck by a truck in June 2016. Shen was killed, but the driver was sentenced recently to just one year in jail. Courtesy photo
Pepperdine MBA Seeks Justice After Tragic Accident
On June 5, 2016, tragedy struck for a Chinese student in Pepperdine University’s full-time MBA program. Yijing Chen was crossing the street with her mother in Calabasas, California, just north of the Santa Monica Mountains from the Malibu-based Pepperdine campus when both were struck by a pickup truck. Both survived the initial hit, but her mother, Hongfen Shen, would later pass away at the hospital.
What unfolded after the tragic incident can only be described as frustrating and unjust. According to Chen, the driver of the pickup truck yelled at her and her mom for being in the street and offered no help in calling for emergency help. The driver was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol but was on her cell phone. Despite that, police concluded the driver was distracted by a dog in the truck. Nicole Herschel of Malibu, the driver of the truck reportedly parked the vehicle on the side of the road and instead of calling for any sort of help, dragged Shen’s inert body from the middle of the street to the sidewalk. When authorities did arrive, Herschel said she was a witness and the driver drove off.
Later investigations led police to conclude Herschel was indeed the driver, but there was not enough evidence to convict with anymore than a misdemeanor for vehicular manslaughter. Chen is currently petitioning the White House and working on a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to pursue further justice.
What I Learned In An MBA Relationship
Being a partner to a B-schooler can be tough. But it can also be an invigorating growth opportunity. Mona Bijjani, an author based in Singapore and candidate for an MBA from INSEAD, wrote a how-to guide for partners supporting their MBA-bound significant others. Her three broad strokes of advice: Anything is possible, keep a seesaw balance, and communication is everything.
The post 2017 P&Q Editor’s Picks Of Our Favorite Stories appeared first on Poets&Quants.
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