How Indians Score On The GMAT - Poets&Quants

2017 was a good year for GMAT test takers in India. They achieved the highest average in the past five years, a 583 on the grueling test, up from 577 a year earlier.

The exam was taken 32,514 in testing year 2017, which ended on June 30th, down from 33,123 in 2016.

When it came to sending scores to business schools to get into an MBA program, the average Indian score was slightly higher than the overall average at 625, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council, the administrator of the GMAT..

How well do Indians fare on the test compared to other nations? The latest Indian average is 39 points lower than No. 1 Luxembourg, whose test takers averaged a 622 in 2017, and 37 points below GMAT exam sitters in Australia, where the average was 612. On the other hand, the Indian average beats the worldwide mean of 564 for the test by 19 points and scores a hefty 30 points above the U.S. average.

DON’T MISS: RANKING THE BEST U.S. MBA PROGRAMS or RANKING THE BEST INTERNATIONAL MBA PROGRAMS

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What Europeans Score On The GMAT - Poets&Quants

Brits and Spaniards do pretty well on the GMAT exam, posting average scores that are among the highest in all of Europe. But when it comes to completely beating the GMAT, test takers in Luxembourg outdid everyone in Europe, averaging a score of 622. That is 58 points higher than the worldwide average and 69 points above the U.S. mean.

GMAT test takers in the United Kingdom were right behind, with an average GMAT score of 607, followed by Spain with 595.

In testing year 2017, which ended June 30th of that year, 18,575 GMAT tests were taken in Western Europe and 4,441 were sat for in Eastern Europe. The average score for all of Western Europe in 2017 was 571 vs. 567 in Eastern Europe.

DON’T MISS: RANKING THE BEST U.S. MBA PROGRAMS or RANKING THE BEST INTERNATIONAL MBA PROGRAMS

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What East & Southeast Asians Score On The GMAT - Poets&Quants

Which country’s citizens rack up the highest GMAT scores in East and Southeast Asia? Surprisingly, it’s not China.

When it comes to beating the GMAT, Singapore takes top honors in this region of the world, scoring an average 614. That’s 50 points above the worldwide mean for the test, 61 points higher than test takers in the U.S., and 33 points higher than the average in East and Southeast Asia. In 2017, some 86,213 GMAT exams were taken in the region, more than any other part of the world, including the U.S. where the test was taken 79,862 times.

After Singapore, South Koreans averaged the next highest score with a 590, while China was third with 585. In 2017, the test was taken 68,905 times, down from 70,744 a year earlier.

DON’T MISS: RANKING THE BEST U.S. MBA PROGRAMS or RANKING THE BEST INTERNATIONAL MBA PROGRAMS

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The Glass Ceiling For Asian Americans - Poets&Quants

Students talking to Casey Winters after moderating the growth panel. Jerry Lu photo

The Glass Ceiling For Asian Americans

Asian American white-collar professionals are the least likely group to be promoted into roles of management, a new report finds.

Buck Gee and Denise Peck of the Harvard Business Review recently analyzed data from the national EEOC workforce and found that while Asian Americans are the most successful US demographic in terms of education and median income, they rarely are promoted into positions of management.

HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL, YET WIDELY IGNORED

The underrepresentation of Asian Americans managers spans from industries like tech to law to finance.

A report by the Yale Law School and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association found that while Asian Americans make up more than 10% of the graduates of the top 30 law schools, they “have the highest attrition rates and lowest ratio of partners to associates among all [racial] groups.”

At finance banks, such as Goldman Sachs, Asian Americans make up 27% of the US workforce. Yet, only 11% of US executives and senior managers are Asian-Americans. Among those who are executive officers? Zero.

Asian Americans are 12% of the professional workforce in America while making up only 5.6% of the US population, according to the EEOC.

“This fact underlies the potential blind spot for many companies: Because Asian Americans are not considered an underrepresented minority, they are given little priority or attention in diversity programs,” Gee and Peck argue.

HOW TO CLOSE THE GAP

Gee and Peck argue that while the numbers are striking, there are ways that many companies are working to close the gap.

They cite a global energy company that introduced an internal task force responsible for reviewing the status of women and minorities who transition into leadership positions.

“Reporting to the executive staff, the task force found insufficient gender and racial diversity in the pipeline, including Asian diversity, and recommended specific actions,” Gee and Peck write. “With strong CEO and executive support, the company quickly moved to identify potential leaders and significantly increase its spending for leadership training for women and minorities.”

The company then partnered with Stanford Graduate School of Business in hopes of integrating culturally specific training into its leadership development program for Asian American managers.

In 2014, Microsoft announced Satya Nadella as its new CEO. For many, it was a step towards breaking the glass ceiling for Asian-Americans. But, for many, it’s just the start.

“I think with Satya Nadella becoming the CEO of Microsoft and immigrant companies becoming super successful, I think that balance will change,” Karan Chaudhry, an Indian-born Stanford grad, tells NPR. “But it will not happen overnight.”

Sources: Harvard Business Review, EEOC, Yale Law School/National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, Goldman Sachs, Stanford Graduate School of Business, NPR

Students at the University of Virginia-Darden. Courtesy photo

What MBA Experts Have To Say About Work Experience

You have the stellar grades. The top-notch exam scores. And the right recs.

But having the right work experience is becoming ever more important in MBA admissions. Business school officials say having the right kind of work experience is crucial to making an application stand out.

Ilana Kowarski, a reporter at US News, recently discussed what kind of work experience admissions officers look for and how much work experience is enough.

THREE TO FIVE YEARS IS IDEAL

MBA admissions officers understand that MBA applicants are still at the early leg of their careers. The point of an MBA, for many, is to level up in their industry. Thus, it isn’t so important to have high-level executive positions on your resume.

“You are starting as a junior and you might have limited supervisory roles, but you are probably working in a specialized area, and you are trying to either advance in that area or gather other skills,” Nikhil Varaiya, director of graduate programs at the San Diego State University’s Fowler College of Business, tells US News.

Varaiya suggests applicants have anywhere from three to five years of work experience under their belt when applying.

“In general, I say that because I think that if they have worked for three to five years, they have a better sense of what a graduate degree is going to do for them, so they would be better prepared,” he says.

WHAT KINDS OF JOBS?

Having stellar work experience can help to compensate for low GRE or GMAT scores. Especially if that work experience is in a field related to your studies.

Amada Karr is executive director of student enrollment services at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management.

Karr tells US News that business-related work experience in industries like finance or tech tend to impress admissions officers. Having experience in quantitative analysis is also a plus, she says.

While working for a big-name company is likely to help your application, it isn’t the deciding factor, experts say.

“For top business schools such as Wharton and Harvard, students working for big names such as McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group or Google stand out in an already competitive pool,” according to Top MBA. “Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that working for less-well-known companies isn’t valuable; all work experience will strengthen an MBA application.”

April Klimkiewicz is a career coach and owner of Bliss Evolution. She tells US News that what’s most important is gaining managerial experience – regardless if at a big company or small.

“Experience managing is a plus,” she tells US News. “If you’ve managed a coffee shop, or even informally managed a team or project, you are displaying the ability to manage.”

Sources: US News, Top MBA

Millennials Are The Least Entrepreneurial Generation

Millennials, who are often associated with startups, are the least entrepreneurial generation in recent history.

The reason? Student debt is through the roof.

David Jolley, a contributor at Quartz, recently discussed how student debt is killing entrepreneurship.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP HAS FALLEN AT STAGGERING RATES

According to The Atlantic, the percentage of people under 30 who own their own business has fallen by 65% since the 1990s.

In 2015, according to Financial Times, 22% of MBA students surveyed by FT started a business within three years of graduating. This year, only 16% did the same.

While 60% of millennials call themselves “entrepreneurs,” fewer than 2% are actually self-employed

60% percent of millennials consider themselves entrepreneurs, even if few of them are. One poll found a majority of millennials would like to own a business someday but fewer than 2% are self-employed, according to the US Small Business Administration.

Student Debt At All Time High

Jolley argues that one of the main reasons behind staggering entrepreneurship rates is the climbing debt millennials are carrying.

Over the past decade, student debt has grown nearly 150%, according to CNBC.

Total student loans increased from around $510 billion in 2007 to more than $1.3 trillion today, according to a New York Times report.

While it’s become easier than ever to start a business, Jolley argues that student debt places a huge obstacle amongst millennials.

“Even if the barriers to entry of starting a new business today can be low—it’s much easier to outsource everything from payroll or get scalable office space—it’s still harder to do if you have to manage a huge student debt loan payment each month,” he writes.

Sources: Quartz, The Atlantic, Financial Times, US Small Business Administration, CNBC, New York Times

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3 Steps for Applying to Business School with a Low Undergraduate GPA - Poets&Quants

If your college GPA is low, then you need to provide evidence that even though you may have faltered back then, now you’re ready to bring your A-game and are capable of academic excellence.

But how can you demonstrate that you’re b-school material, even with your low stats?

Accepted advise their clients to take these 3 steps when overcoming a low GPA. Doing so will help you present a solid case to the admissions board that shows you mean academic business.

Step #1: Identify the cause of your low GPA.

Is it low because you partied a little too hard your first two semesters, but then buckled down after that and worked to pull up your low freshman GPA? Or did you start out high and then get really lazy and bored with school your senior year and let things spiral out of control? Or is it possible that your low GPA is truly an indication that your workload was too challenging and that you’re just not school material? Or perhaps you were dealing with a serious illness or family problems? Or maybe back then you just weren’t motivated to succeed?

Once you understand why you have a less-than-impressive GPA, you’ll have an easier time figuring out what to do next (Step #2) and how to explain the situation (Step #3).

Step #2: Address the issue.

Once you determine that you are motivated this time around and are capable and competent academically, then it’s time to take action to improve your profile (It’s also possible that after deep introspection you decide that school is just not for you, and if so, consider yourself lucky that you figured that out now and not after you’ve paid $100,000+ on even more schooling – and yes, sometimes this is exactly how we advise our clients.)

Obviously, you can’t go back and raise your undergraduate GPA, but there are things you CAN do to show the adcom that your undergrad GPA doesn’t define your current academic abilities:

• Take a few business-related college-level courses and earn A’s in them.
• Ace the GMAT.

Step #3: Explain the context of your low GPA.

There are three places in your MBA application where you may want to address a low GPA: (1) the optional essay; (2) the required portions of the application; and (3) your letters of recommendation.

In the optional essay, and in a non-whiny, non-defensive tone, you can clearly and straightforwardly explain why your GPA is lower than it should be. Perhaps there was a death in the family one semester or maybe you had emergency surgery that left you on bed rest for three weeks mid-semester. Or maybe you just didn’t realize the importance of grades until halfway through your sophomore year, and by then your GPA had taken a serious hit. Or maybe you worked thirty hours a week to support yourself. Let the reader know the context of your grades. Write honestly and write well.

In other parts of the application, show the skills that your transcript hides without drawing attention to the grades. For example, if you did not do well in Econ 101 or college math classes, but are now doing some really heavy lifting in terms of financial modeling, then either in your resume or in a required essay write about a quantitative challenge that you handled with élan.

Regarding letters of recommendation – getting a supervisor to vouch for your maturity and abilities is probably one of the best things you can do to bolster your case. Again, if you had poor grades in classes requiring a lot of writing, ask your boss if they can comment positively on your communications skills. If you had poor quant grades, ask if they can praise your quantitative analysis of a complex project. In either case, your boss doesn’t have to reference the negative you are trying to overcome – just the positives you want to bring out.

Through Identifying the cause of your low GPA, Addressing the issue, and Explaining the context of your low GPA, you’ll be better positioned for an acceptance to b-school despite – or even in spite of – your less-than-ideal GPA.

And you don’t need to navigate this process on your own. Get the individual guidance you need to create an application that shines – one that shows you at your very best and convinces the adcom you have what it takes to succeed. Check out Accepted’s MBA Admissions Consulting Services and get ACCEPTED!

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Linda Abraham is the founder of Accepted, the premier admissions consultancy. She has coached MBA applicants to acceptance for over 20 years. The Wall Street Journal, US News, and Poets & Quants are among the media outlets that seek her admissions expertise.

 

MORE FROM LINDA: Short- and Long-Term Goals, and Everything in Between, A Recipe For Rejection: Rasons MBA Applications Are Rejected, Your Past Shouldn’t Veto Your MBA Dreams

 

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Venture Advising in Budapest: MBA students pushed outside their comfort zone - Olin BlogOlin Blog

It was a more meaningful experience than any of us would have had as usual tourists passing through Budapest because we got to know the people.

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What Africans Score On The GMAT Test - Poets&Quants

Ask MBA talent scouts what new countries in the world are they now targeting for their business schools and nearly everyone has Africa on the list. MBA program recruiters now routinely visit Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos and Accra for prospective students and like what they are finding.

Their interest reflects both the present and the future, the belief that an MBA can transform a life in Africa in ways that would be unimaginable in other parts of the world. But it’s also a bet on the region’s future economic prosperity and growing importance in the world.

One thing you don’t go to Africa for are high GMAT scores, though like in any country there is a wide range. This year, for example, one Nigerian with a 750 GMAT scored a big scholarship to go to Yale University’s School of Management. But in only one African country–Mauritania–where just eight tests were taken in 2017 was the average GMAT score higher than the mean of the 250,884 tests taken in testing year 2017 ended on June 30th.

‘AFRICA LACKS A TEST-TAKING CULTURE AND MANY WALK COLD INTO THE EXAM’

Last year, the average GMAT score for Africans taking the grueling test was 469, with a low of 288 in Liberia (see chart below).

Sangeet Chowfla, CEO of the Graduate Management Admission Council, which administers the GMAT exam, believes a couple of reasons play into the lower scores, from the lack of a test taking culture to flaws in Africa’s educational system. “Many are just walking cold into a GMAT exam with no practice,” says Chowfla. “We tell them you have to practice to do well.”

Even so, business school talent scouts, who routinely roam the world recruiting MBA students for their schools’ programs, have taken a big liking to the candidates they are finding in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, the region’s most populous nation where the most GMAT tests are taken. In 2017, 1,267 GMAT tests were sat for in Nigeria, nearly double the 677 in South Africa, the second most GMAT exam taking country in Africa. All told, African’s prospective business school students took 4,727 GMAT tests in 2017, down from 5,268 a year earlier.

DON’T MISS: RANKING THE BEST U.S. MBA PROGRAMS or RANKING THE BEST INTERNATIONAL MBA PROGRAMS

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Solving The MBA’s ‘Amazon Cart’ Problem - Poets&Quants

GMAC CEO Sangeet Chowfla

As president and CEO of the Graduate Management Admission Council, Sangeet Chowfla believes that the malaise in the U.S. MBA market could be thought of as the Amazon shopping cart challenge.

He estimates that as many as 1.2 million candidates are stuck between “active engagement” and “active application.” In other words, they are researching programs and schools, attending info sessions and MBA fairs, maybe even prepping for the GMAT exam, but they are not applying to business school. If the 1.2 million estimate is right, it would be more than four times the roughly 250,000 people in the world believed to be currently enrolled in MBA programs.

“It’s not all that different from the person who likes something, puts it in their Amazon cart, but doesn’t buy it,” he says in an interview with Poets&Quants. “We believe there is a large population globally that is in the cart, more than one million people, with a large number in the U.S. In fact, the number in the U.S. is larger than the total number of applicants to U.S. schools last year. How do we get people who are sitting on the fence to decide to go to business school?”

‘WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER WITH SCHOOLS TO GET PEOPLE OFF THE FENCE’

Probably, the same way that Amazon does it, muses Chowfla, by smartly segmenting the fence sitters and then contacting them with more relevant messaging. If a prospective student is stuck in the cart because he or she just received a promotion at work, for example, it may mean sending the person information on flexible MBA programs that can be earned without quitting one’s job, he suggests. If a person just had a baby, it could mean holding off on connecting again with the candidate for six months.

“There are a lot of different reasons: a new job, a promotion, the application process could be seen as too daunting. We need to work together with schools to reduce the decision-making friction and get people off the fence,” he says. “We need to stay engaged with these candidates to make sure they come back.”

Chowfla is in Boston this week for GMAC’s annual conference, an event that has drawn more than 700 business school deans and administrators from all over the world (next year the conference returns to Denver, Colorado). He says two themes have dominated this year’s conversations: Concern about the pipeline for MBA students in the U.S. and concern that too many new products are coming out of graduate management education and that employers don’t understand all of them.

‘THE MBA IS NOT DEAD & REPORTS OF ITS DEMISE ARE PREMATURE’

In the nearly five years that he has been CEO, he has not yet entered a testing center to take  the GMAT exam. When he took the test in the mid-1970s, before getting his MBA from the University of Delhi in India, Chowfla scored in the 95th percentile, about 720 to 730. Long out of test taking practice, he does not believe he could score that well today (though he has taken GMAC’s relatively new Executive Assessment test now being used by 31 schools for their Executive MBA programs and made the 90th percentile).

One thing seems certain. While the global market for graduate management education remains strong, the flagship program—the MBA degree—seems in decline, especially in the U.S. “”The MBA is not dead, and reports of its demise are premature,” he says. “But there is a malise out there.”

He rattles off a number of schools and countries that are either starting new MBA programs, growing enrollment in them or investing in new buildings to vastly expand their graduate management offerings, in Europe, India, Japan, Germany and China.

‘YOU CAN’T TAKE OHIO STATE AND MOVE IT TO PHOENIX’

Chowfla, a former tech industry executive who became head of GMAC in January of 2014, agrees that there is a combination of factors that explain why there are fewer MBA applicants in the pipeline.

He points to a strong economy, the dampening impact on international applications to U.S. schools by Trump and the difficulty in obtaining visas, the dramatic increase in other viable options, such as online MBAs and specialty master’s degrees in business, and the rising cost of the degree (see Four Reasons Why There Are Fewer MBA Applicants In The Pipeline).

But he also strongly believes that demographic trends are playing out to lessen demand for the degree, particularly the increase in the Hispanic population in the U.S. “Most Americans believe that going away to college is a part of coming of age,” he says. “Hispanica are more deeply rooted and invested in their families. They don’t want to leave home, and there is a concentration of them in the south when many business schools are concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest. You can’t take Ohio State and move it to Phoenix.”

WILL MORE STUDENTS IN THE WORLD STAY HOME?

A recent analysis by GMAC found that if the U.S. population mix had stayed the same as it was in the year 2000, GMAT test taking volume—now roughly185,000 people taking 250,000 tests per year—would be five percent higher than current levels. “Due to more Hispanics in the U.S. population in the years ahead, that will only exacerbate. The fundamental case for business education in the U.S. is compromised at this point.”

Besides U.S. trends, of course, there are other factors elsewhere in the world that are putting downward pressure on the U.S. market. “About 20 years ago, the emerging seven nations had a GDP that was half that of the G7 countries. Now, it is equal to the G7. By the year 2035, the E7 countries will have double the GDP of the G7.”

The increase in the middle class in these countries, reasons Chowfla, will create new opportunities for business. Many of the players in those economies are likely to stay at home for their educational needs because they will want to work in those growing home economies.

USING THE AUTOMOBILE BUSINESS AS A METAPHOR FOR MANAGEMENT EDUCATION

These trends foretell a shifting mix of products in graduate management education not unlike what occurred during the evolution of the automobile business, he says. “At first, you had the Model-T and then you had cars for every purpose from station wagons to convertibles and sports cars, to minivans, SUVs and trucks. That focus does not mean that the automobile category is in trouble. The auto companies just made sure there was differentiation among the products.”

He sees the same thing playing out in the market for graduate management education, with alternatives to the full-time MBA programs in the form of blended online MBA options, pure online MBAs, week night and weekend programs, along with the proliferation of specialty master’s in business in more than 20 fields.

Some regions of the world may be better suited for such programs than others. Pre-experience master’s in management programs, are highly popular in Europe and Asia largely because of the “structure of education” in those regions, he says. There is a greater expectation in both Europe and Asia that young people go to school, get their education and then go to work. “The U.S. is used to the idea that you go back to school after work,” he says. “In Europe, it’s an aberration.

“Only 10% of Chinese students who apply to study abroad want to go to work abroad. Ninety percent want to go back to Beijing or Shanghai to work. But about 60% of Indians want to build global careers. They are willing to work four or five years in Indian and then go to school. So Europeans and Asians like master’s in management. Indians and Americans don’t. The satisfaction and net promoter scores for full-time MBA programs are very strong.”

DON’T MISS: FOUR REASONS WHY THERE ARE FEWER MBA APPLICANTS IN THE PIPELINE

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MAHCET MBA Entrance Exam – All You Need to Know - Jagran Josh

MAHCET or the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test is a state level MBA entrance exam conducted by Directorate of Technical Education, Maharashtra. The test enables candidates to seek admission to over 400+ B-school in Maharashtra for MBA and PDGM programmes. Get all the information about MAHCET MBA entrance exam including the syllabus, exam schedule, eligibility criteria and exam pattern here.

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How To Find The Right B-School Fit - Poets&Quants

The concept of school fit is an elusive one to many MBA applicants. When the school websites all seem to focus on the same things, the rankings are hard to ignore, and the MBA forums are full of conflicting advice, how do you know which program is the right one for you and why? And just as importantly, how do you effectively and uniquely convey fit for a school in your application? To help you answer these questions for yourself, Vantage Point MBA Admissions has used an analogy most of us are all-too-familiar with: shoes.

If the Shoe Fits

The year was 1999, and Nick Swinmurn was walking around a mall in San Francisco, looking for a pair of shoes. With Y2K looming, Sam Goody still grooving, and a mall packed full of patrons seeking retail therapy, Nick was searching for his own remedy. The prescription in particular? A pair of brown Airwalk Classics – it was 1999 after all. After scouring every shoe store, skate shop, and department store in the mall for over an hour, Nick finally went home empty-handed and frustrated…*

In shopping for shoes and in shopping for schools, the ultimate determination of happiness is decided by the multi-faceted concept of fit. Fit is much more than simply a size, shape, brand, or color. Fit is how you feel.  And that feeling becomes evident throughout applications. Just like a pair of shoes, picking out the school that “fits” is a multi-step process. And remember that the operative word in all of this is that second-person personal pronoun “you.”

The Importance of Brand

It may seem counterintuitive to jump immediately to the brand of shoe (or school). However, the brand often serves as an efficient rule-of-thumb to point you in the right direction. A common fallacy is to select a school based on brand alone. However, much of what you hear, see, read or feel from a particular school is an indication of the values and brand of that school. It is important to reflect on the values of a school and determine if they align with your own.

Another common misconception when thinking about a school’s brand is that the brand is equivalent to the ranking. Highly ranked schools are proud of their ranking and do incorporate rank into their brand. But it is important to consider what sets highly ranked schools apart from one another.  What makes them unique? Let’s explore…

Geographical factors run far deeper than climate or proximity to your current location. While these are important considerations, you may want to think about the effect the location of school has on its values and its brand. For example, many west coast schools have connections to the tech industry and Silicon Valley. However, they also have a strong Asian influence on their student body, culture, and connections to Asian universities and firms.

Directly related to this factor of location is the factor of discipline or concentration. Due in part to the historical foundations and financing of the school, location or award winning  faculty, a school’s brand may evolve to become known for a particular discipline such as finance, marketing, or management. While the designation to a school may seem obvious, consider what this means for you and your future plans. If choosing a school specializing in your expected field of focus, consider the top talent being selected and your daily interactions. Or to the contrary, would you prefer to be a trailblazer, building and shaping a department which is less well-known at another school?

Lastly, one of the most valuable and discussed assets of the MBA experience is the professional network. This is comprised of both fellow classmates and alma mater of past and future. These networks and leaders continue to shape the brand of a school 20, 30, even 50 years after they have graduated through industry achievements or philanthropic endeavors.

Sole Support

Along with shaping and defining the brand of any one school, the professional network is also a critical source of support. Like any good pair of shoes, selecting the type and level of support is an important factor to fit. Professional networks’ geographic reach and involvement in one’s academic career (either during or post-grad) can be a key to long term value and success.

Beyond professional network’s longer term support, the culture and support from students and staff alike is crucial. Understand if you are looking for a collaborative, group learning environment. Or, are you looking to be pushed and challenged by those around you in a more competitive environment? Both have their merits but underestimate the importance of culture and support, and a competitive environment may feel cutthroat to some, and likewise, a collaborative culture claustrophobic to others.

Trying It On

Now that you have decided on what will fit you, it is time to find out what does fit you.

You almost certainly know what size shoe you wear. However, with just as much certainty, this size does not happen to be any one number. A 7 for running shoes but a 7 ½ in anything over a 2” heel. Size 10 in Nike, but 9 ½ in Adidas – everyone knows they “run big.”

So even as you know exactly the school you want, not all shoes that stack up the same have the same fit. Two top 10 schools within 20 miles of one another and with almost identical brands, versatility, support, and size can fit very differently.

As Nick Swinmurn left the mall that day in 1999, he took these concepts of fit and began one of the most successful companies of the e-commerce era, Zappos.com. The core principle and differentiator at Zappos, well ahead of its time and at considerable cost, was free shipping both ways. While price, selection, and brand were all recognized as critical for purchase, Swinmurn understood that his vision for customer service, and ultimately the success of his company would revolve around a single, simple requirement – trying on the shoe for fit.

Try it on. Whether that means talking to alumni, sitting in on a class, meeting with professors, or all of the above – lace it up, try it on, and run with your education and career!

Once you know which programs are a good fit for you and why, conveying that fit in your applications, namely the essays and later, the interview, will come naturally because you believe it. Your genuine passion and excitement will shine through in everything you write and say. Be specific, get personal, and don’t hold back!

*Adapted from “The Zappos Family Story” ‘

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Molly is a Booth MBA with experience in public accounting, corporate strategy and finance, and human resources. Molly is not only able to provide strong guidance to those interested in a career in Corporate America, but also those interested in leveraging an MBA to change career paths.

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Four Reasons Why There Are Fewer MBA Applicants In The Pipeline - Poets&Quants

Fewer applicants coming through the full-time MBA pipeline, especially at U.S. business schools

HIghly ranked U.S. business schools have seen MBA application volume rise in recent years just as second- and third-tier schools have experienced declines. No longer. This past year many of the most highly selective schools at the top of the rankings are seeing 4% to 5% drops in the number of people who have applied to their schools.

You can blame four things for the fact that there are fewer MBA applicants in the full-time pipeline:

1. The strong U.S. economy
2. The rising cost of MBA programs and the unwillingness of many millenials to go into debt to get the degree.
3. Donald Trump who has scared off thousands of international candidates who had been helping to offset a continual decline in domestic applicants for a number of years.
4. A greater number of shorter, cheaper alternatives to a two-year, full-time MBA program, from one-year and online options to specialty master’s degrees in such subjects as data analytics and entrepreneurship.

When the Graduate Management Admission Council, meeting in Boston this week for its annual conference, surveyed prospective students recently it found that employment—yes employment—has become a formidable alternative to going back to business school to get a graduate degree. The survey is based on 9,471 individuals who registered on GMAC’s website between February and December of 2017. The complete findings rely on responses from more than 126,000 prospective students from 2009 through the end of last year.

‘EMPLOYMENT IS THE BIGGEST COMPETITOR TO BUSINESS SCHOOL’

Let’s take the economy first. Since the 2008-2009 financial crisis that caused the onset of the Great Recession, the U.S. economy had growth in each of the past 96 months, now the third largest economic expansion in U.S. history. While many economists believe the risk of a recession is rising, it’s possible that this could become the longest expansion on record. Only the expansions from March 1991 to March 2001 [120 months] and from February 1961 to December 1969 [106 months] were longer.

Strong economies depress MBA application volume. With the U.S. near full employment, professionals have plenty of job opportunities without having to pursue a graduate degree.  And during economic downturns, when layoffs occur, many young professionals seek refuge in school.

Today, GMAC estimates that seven of every ten prospective students in North America are considering alternatives to business school to achieve their goals. In Asia-Pacific, it’s even worse. Some 74%, vs. the 70% in the U.S., see alternatives to business school.

“Employment is the biggest competitor to business school,” according to the first of a series of reports on GMAC’s Prospective Student Report published last month. “Sixty-one percent of prospective students are considering pursuing a new job and 43% are considering remaining in their current job as an alternative to business school (see chart below).

Source: 2018 GMAC Prospectuve Student Survey

The rising cost of a two-year MBA program is causing sticker shock

STICKER SHOCK CAUSING MANY POTENTIAL STUDENTS TO STAY AWAY

To paraphrase Clinton advisor James Carville, it is the economy, stupid. But in this case it’s not sluggish or declining economic prospects, it’s the strength of the U.S. economy—and the rise of other study options, from shorter non-degree certificates to MOOCs (massive open online courses) (see table at side).

And when millenials do look at MBA and other business graduate degrees, the sticker prices of these programs are causing second thoughts. “The cost of a graduate business degree and the need to take on student debt have the biggest potential impact and are the most likely to divert candidates from the B-school pipeline,” GMAC found.

So while more schools than ever are dangling more scholarship dollars in front of their their MBA candidates than ever before, those discounts are not evident to would-be applicants who only see rising cost of MBA tuition and fees and the loss of nearly two years of income they would have to give up to attend an on-campus program.

“Overall, about one in four of prospective students say that having to take on large debts and requiring more money than is available may prevent their plans to pursue graduate management. Another big reservation is fear of what the economy may be like when candidates graduate and how it may impact their job outlook. Additionally, others have reservations about having to delay attractive job opportunities (see table below).”

Source: GMAC 2018 Student Prospectives Survey

THE TRUMP EFFECT: SCARING AWAY INTERNATIONALS

And then there is Donald Trump. All the anti-immigrant talk in the U.S. and widespread concern about getting visas to work in the country after gaining an MBA has caused the international applicant pool to shrink. “Trump is scaring off internationals from considering an MBA in the U.S.,” says Jeremy Shinewald, founder and CEO of mbaMission, a leading MBA admissions firms.

Shinewald’s firm has seen the number of free consultations given to potential Indian applicants fall by half in the past year. One U.S. school recently held an infomation session for its MBA program in Paris and drew only three people, down from a more typical 30-person crowd, Shinewald notes. Admission directors from several schools say their international apps are down again this year, including some dramatic declines.

For the first time ever, fewer than half the prospective students for a full-time MBA program now want to study in the U.S. The GMAC report found that 47% have a preference for the U.S. now, down nine percentage points from 56% in 2016. Meantime, Western Europe has become singificantly more popular. Today, 33% of would-be, full-time MBA students prefer to study in Western Europe, up seven percentage points from last year’s 26%. In a single year, the European schools have closed the gap between them and the U.S. by an astounding 16 percentage points.

INCREASING OPTIONS, RISING INTEREST IN MASTER’S IN DATA ANALYTICS, ENTREPRENEURSHIP

It’s also true that young professionals have a much larger portfolio of options today than at any other time, from online MBA programs to a wild proliferation of specialty master’s in business. One intriguing finding in the latest GMAC report is that students who are most likely to prefer a graduate degree in business tend to have no work experience which does not make them eligible for the better full-time MBA programs. “They begin considering business school a median of 10 months before completing their undergraduate education,” GMAC found.

In fact, 46% of prospective graduate students told GMAC that they now are considering both the MBA and business master’s degrees, more than those that merely consider an MBA which came to 34% of the total. Some 19% of the respondents are set on a graduate business program that is not an MBA (see chart below).

Source: GMAC 2018 Prospective Student Survey

The master of data analytics—the fastest growing business master’s program—is drawing substantially more attention. Today, a record 17% of prospective students are considering the degree, more than double the number only five years ago when only 7% had an analytics degree in sight.

But would-be student interest is up in a wide variety of these specialized masters in the past five years, including finance, marketing, entrepreneurship, health administration, supply chain management, project management, and information technology.

Ultimately, however, there is a bottom line to all this: If business school deans want to stem the decline and see further growth in their full-time MBA programs, they should be hoping for a good, solid recession.

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Many Elite Schools Bow Out Of New WSJ Ranking - Poets&Quants

Times Higher Education of Britain has teamed up with The Wall Street Journal for a new MBA ranking

The forthcoming MBA ranking from the Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education isn’t going all that well. When it makes its debut in November, in fact, the list will have little to no credibilty largely because so many elite schools are opting out of the game.

Poets&Quants has learned that Harvard Business School, London Business School, MIT Sloan, Northwestern Kellogg, Columbia Business School, UCLA’s Anderson School and UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School are among just some of the prestige players who have decided not to participate in the ranking. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School also has not yet agreed to cooperate with the list, though a spokesperson says Wharton hasn’t completely made up its mind.

The absence of business schools that typically dominate the top of most MBA rankings will make the first list less of a splash and more of a thud. Afterall, who would take seriously a ranking that might very well include only one M7 school in the U.S. Just Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business has confirmed to P&Q that it will be in the ranking.

DELAYS IN RANKING PARTLY CAUSED BY RELUCTANCE OF SCHOOLS TO GO ALONG

This was not the way it was supposed to turn out. Over a year ago this month, Times Higher Educaiton first announced it would team up with the Wall Street Journal to publish yet another set of rankings on MBA programs and specialty master’s programs in finance and management. The hope was to produce the first lists this spring, but as more and more schools declined to cooperate with the project, the debut ranking became further and further delayed. The debut of the list  has since been pushed out to November of this year.

In some cases, according to sources, a few business schools that initially agreed to cooperate have gotten cold feet. “Booth signed up quickly and then they were spooked at how many M7 schools were not doing it so they then pulled out,” says one person knowledgeable with the ranking. Several attempts by P&Q to confirm Booth’s decision have not been answered. Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management have confirmed their participation, however.

Oddly, the refusal of many of the most prestigious schools could very well invite the participation of a group of other rivals. “You could see schools ranked eighth through 20 biting their fingernails saying if the big guns don’t come in and we get coverage that could only be good for us,” adds one insider. A typical response from several highly ranked schools: “Until we’ve seen this ranking play out and we understand it, you are asking us to leave a lot of blood on the table. If our school doesn’t perform well, why would we want to be in there? We are sitting pretty enough with the other rankings.”

WHY MEDIA OUTLETS LOVE RANKINGS

The WSJ declined comment on its problematic venture into the rankings. “We cannot comment on reporting that has not yet been published,” says Steve Severinghaus, senior director of communications for the WSJ. “I am happy to speak further once our reporting is published this fall.”

Media outlets, of course, like rankings because they attract large numbers of clicks on websites and also can be used to gain advertising from business schools. But they often require a good deal of management time and attention. Many schools already participate in more than a dozen different rankings and some partake in more than 20. Most of the schools that have declined to particpate either believe that there already are too many MBA rankings in the market and they don’t want to devote still more time to yet another one. Some hold outs have issues with the methodology employed by THE and the Wall Street Journal.

This new ranking comes at a time when more business school deans and research faculty are taking issue with the controversial lists. Academics often argue that rankings are misleading and disingenuous. Times Higher Education, moreover, is entering the business school market 31 years after Businessweek published its first MBA ranking and 20 years after the debut of the global MBA ranking from The Financial Times. The proliferation of rankings, fueled by consumer interest in them, has largely diminished the influence any one ranking has on the market. But the WSJ has an average paid print circulation of 2.2 million which will give the new list widespread exposure.

CONCERNED ABOUT THE IMPACT ON ALUMNI GETTING MULTIPLE SURVEYS

Times Higher Education was even unable to get the major business school player in its own backyard onboard: London Business School. “We won’t be participating in these rankings,” confirms David Simpson, director of admissions for the London Business School. “We will keep them under review and will consider our position once the first ranking is published. There are a lot of rankings out there and we are somewhat concerned at the impact on alumni in terms of asking them to respond to multiple surveys.”

UNC made its decision not to cooperate in November of last year. “There was a very short turnaround time to collect the data, pull the alumni lists and ensure their participation,” explains Allison Adams, a Kenan-Flagler spokesperson. “The methodology was unclear to us, and we typically don’t participate in the first year of a new ranking since the methodology is often unclear or still being developed.”

Though a detailed methodology has yet to be revealed, the outlines of the THE/WSJ approach The methodology for this new list will be based on surveys to both alumni and schools, with the possibility that THE and the Journal may survey employers and recruiters at another time. The surveys will inform a rather complicated methodology that includes 21 different metrics. The ranking is heavily dependent on the views of alumni, with 12 of the 21 data points informed by responses from alumni who are both two years and four years out of school.

RANKING WILL NOT ATTEMPT TO MEASURE STUDENT QUALITY

One surprise: The new ranking will not attempt to measure the quality of incoming students in a program, a significant part of the way U.S. News ranks MBA programs by using GMAT and GRE scores, grade-point-averages and acceptance rates. Not surprisingly, career outcomes loom large, accounting for 38% of the total ranking. The two metrics getting the most weight are the difference between pre-MBA and post-MBA salaries, which will be given a weight of 12%, and faculty-per-student ratios, which will account for 10% of the ranking.

According to two editors from the Wall Street Journal—Dave Pettit, editor of specialized news, and John Simons, deputy bureau chief for management and careers—the salary metric “will take account of salary differences related to the sector and country before and after the business degree to provide a real indication of the change.” Exactly how this adjusment to the data would be made was undisclosed. The two Journal staffers went on a roadshow in the spring to shore up support for the rankings project, hoping to get more schools to join the effort.

In general, the WSJ plans to rank programs under four categories: resources (with a weight of 25%), engagement (25%), outcomes (38%), and environment (12%), the latter attempting to measure “the social and human environment the students find themselves in and how well the school will prepare them for a global market.”

DON’T MISS: HOW THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTENDS TO RANK MBA PROGRAMS

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University of Hyderabad Recruitment 2018 for 13 Guest Faculty Post - Jagran Josh

School of Management Studies, University of Hyderabad invited applications for recruitment to the post of Guest Faculty in various subjects in MBA Departments of the University. The candidates eligible for the post can apply in the prescribed format on or before 10 July 2018

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Ready to rumble: MBA student leaders form strategic plan - Olin BlogOlin Blog

Together, member of the Graduate Business Student Association leadership established three goals to guide our decisions and efforts for the 2018-2019 academic year.

The post Ready to rumble: MBA student leaders form strategic plan appeared first on Olin Blog.

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How B-Schools Are Addressing Gender Inequality - Poets&Quants

How B-Schools Are Addressing Gender Inequality

Dogged by uneven female representation, business schools are putting forth initiatives and scholarships aimed at improving gender diversity in the business world.

Madison Marriage, a contributor at Financial Times, recently discussed the gender divide in business and how b-schools are addressing it.

Women Lag Substantially Behind Men in Leadership Positions

Among S&P 500 companies in the financial services industry, women make up 54% of the labor force, but are only 29% of executive and senior-level managers and merely 2% of CEOs, according to Catalyst, a global nonprofit.

Notably, the percentage of women running mutual funds fell in the past decade from 11% in 2008 to 10% by the end of 2017, according to Morningstar, a research firm. Among the 25 largest banks in the world, women account for less than a quarter of senior staff, according to data submitted to Financial Times.

Reasons Behind Gender Inequality

There are three main reasons, according to the Harvard Business Review, as to why advancement toward gender equality at work has slowed since the 1990s. Attitudes slowly became less egalitarian with gender. Gender integration flat-lined in many occupations. And the gender wage gap began decreasing at slower rates.

“These three trends underscore the paradox of the gender revolution broadly, and more specifically in management,” William Scarborough, the paper’s author, writes. “Yes, we’ve seen amazing progress in many measures of gender equality over the past several decades. Women have surpassed men in nearly all educational measures, and their gains in the workforce constitute one of the largest changes in the history of labor. These are huge advances that should be celebrated. But equal numbers do not always translate into equality itself.”

Rather, Scarborough argues that in order to achieve true gender equality, it’s crucial to recognize how pattern shifts disadvantage women over time and respond proactively.

B-Schools Take Proactive Steps Towards Equality

Among those responding proactively? Business schools.

A number of business schools across the world have introduced initiatives and scholarships aimed at improving gender diversity both within schools and, ultimately, in the business world.

The Lloyds Scholars MBA Scholarships for Women program has provided $47,000 towards course fees at the London Business School since 2014, according to Financial Times. It has also provided a full tuition scholarship offered by the 30% Club, a UK organization that campaigns for greater diversity on boards, at the Alliance Manchester Business School since 2017.

At the University of Maryland’s Robert H Smith School of Business, an ambitious plan to reach gender parity by 2020 was announced in 2015.

When the plan was announced, 36% of the school’s MBA population were women. Now, that number is at 39.5%, according to Financial Times. The school’s officials admit that “despite the progress, our intake of women across our MBA programs has not increased as rapidly as necessary.”

Yet, the University of Maryland is determined to continue building upon its work. Its plan follows a three-pronged approach, according to Financial Times: talks at secondary schools and universities, recruitment events for female professionals, and new course focusing on topics such as female entrepreneurship and confidence.

At Imperial College Business School, gender equality is one of the school’s 10 strategic priorities. According to Financial Times data, the number of female MBA students at Imperial is up from 29% in 2014 to 44% today.

Leila Guerra, associate dean of programs at Imperial, tells Financial Times that the school improved female representation by partnering with organizations to focus on gender equality and ensuring that its marketing materials were “gender neutral.”

The school next goal is to ensure that its faculty is more gender diverse. Women currently make up 30% of the faculty, a slightly higher representation when compared to the 28% average across the top 100 MBA programs ranked by Financial Times.

“We are not there yet,” Guerra tells Financial Times. “That is something that is a priority. I hope we will get there in the next five years.”

Sources: Financial Times, Catalyst, Morningstar, Harvard Business Review

How To Lower Student Debt

Student debt in America has reached staggering heights.

According to data recently published by the Federal Reserve Bank, more than 44 million Americans collectively hold nearly $1.5 trillion in student debt. One way to lower that debt? Volunteer work.

“Taking part in community service is one of the best ways to get help with student loan debt,” Michelle Argento, of Student Loan Hero, writes. “Many organizations offer student loan repayment assistance in exchange for volunteer work. As a result, you can make a difference in the lives of others while still chipping away at your student debt.”

Farran Powell, a reporter at US News, recently shared specific organizations that will help indebted students pay down their student debt through volunteer work.

A Platform That Connects Individuals To Social Causes

The Shared Harvest Fund is a platform where users can create a profile and list specific social causes they are passionate about. Participating non-profits can connect with users for volunteer work. Generally, users can expect to receive a monthly stipend between $250 and $1000, according to US News.

NanaEfua B.A.M. is the founder and CEO of the Shared Harvest Fund. B.A.M. tells US News that the organization refers to its volunteers as “debtfreelancers,” who use their skills to contribute to social causes while reducing their debt burdens.

Jan Overton, who took out a six figure amount in student loans to attend the University of Southern California, says she looks for work that’s conducive to her schedule, but also helps those in need.

“Even if it’s only an extra $250 – at least those hours I work are giving to someone else to help someone,” Overton tells US News. “If I could help other people at the same time while paying off my loans, not just for a job, but actually enriching my life, it’s such a better way to do it.”

Organizations That Offer Student Loan Repayment

A number of organizations offer student loan repayment in return for service work.

The National Health Service Corps offers a loan repayment program for health care professionals. Qualifying applicants give a two-year commitment of service in return for up to $50,000 in loan repayment, according to US News.

Teach for America is an option for those interested in education. Often, volunteers serve in underserved areas to “strengthen the movement for educational equity and excellence.”

Teach for America workers get paid a salary, typically between $33,000 and $58,000. Work in Teach for America also counts towards Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

AmeriCorps is another option for service work. The organization places volunteers in service positions from helping with relief efforts to working in conservation.

According to Student Loan Hero, AmeriCorps requires 12 months of full-time service and in return, volunteers can receive the maximum amount for the Pell Grant for the year. For 2017-18, that amount was $5,920. In addition, AmeriCorps volunteers can count time in AmeriCorps toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

“Since the program’s inception, the more than 1 million AmeriCorps members who have served have earned more than $3.3 billion in education awards to fund their education – more than $1 billion of which has been used to pay back student loan debt,” Samantha Jo Warfield, a spokesperson for the Corporation for National and Community Service, tells US News.

Sources: US News, Student Loan Hero, Federal Reserve Bank

B-Schools Quick To Teach Cryptocurrency

What is the latest institutions to dive into the cryptocurrency boom? Business schools.

Business schools are rushing to launch courses on cryptocurrencies and blockchain following increased demand from students, according to Financial Times.

“This is moving much faster than people expected,” David Yermack, professor of finance and business transformation at the New York University Stern School of Business, tells Financial Times. “Business schools will have no choice but to update curriculums.”

An Increase in Value and Student Demand

According to Financial Times, Bitcoin’s value doubled in a month to peak at about $20,000 in December. Last week, that value detracted to about $6,500.

Jens Martin, program director at the University of Amsterdam Business School, tells Financial Times that the technology behind cryptocurrency is what b-schools are interested in.

“The increase in value in the cryptos played a large part in the increase in public interest,” Martin tells Financial Times. “However, we feel that the finance industry is very interested in the technology itself and the possibilities it offers. We see many applications not only from people with a banking background, but a more diverse group who are interested in applying these concepts to finance.”

It’s not just students who are demanding skills and knowledge in the technology, but companies as well.

Robert Wardrop, director and co-founder of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, part of the university’s Judge Business School, tells Financial Times that a number of tech companies, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are demanding a workforce that is knowledgeable in the technology behind cryptocurrency.

“The core focus of interest is growing from non-financial firms,” he tells Financial Times. “[These insights] are essential to related projects that these businesses are working on.”

New Curriculums Bloom At B-Schools

Which MBA programs are offering courses in cryptocurrency?

Stanford Graduate School of Business, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business are among the big names, according to CNBC.

At Stanford, a new full-time course was introduced this May simply titled “Cryptocurrency.” The course was a grass-roots effort by students.

“Many of us will have to discuss blockchain at our jobs. It makes sense to teach it,” Itamar Orr, a second-year student leading the student demand for crypto, tells CNBC. “It gets you a competitive advantage; it’s an extra hammer in your toolbox.”

One of the first schools to introduce cryptocurrency in course selections was NYU’s Stern School of Business. Since then, schools such as Harvard Business School and UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School have followed suit.

But a number of these courses aren’t being taught to give students investment advice.

Susan Athey, professor of the economics of technology at Stanford Graduate School of Business, tells the Economist that the program at Stanford is intended to teach the technology behind cryptocurrencies and advise students on the implications for banking and financial services as a result of bitcoin. In addition, according to Athey, the program will also examine “smart contracts,” which utilize blockchain technology and national digital currencies.

John Jacobs, executive director at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, tells CNBC that blockchain technology is the newest skill set in high demand.

“Any world-class program is going to have to equip students in this field to compete,” Jacobs tells CNBC. “It’s everywhere we turn around.”

Sources: Financial Times, CNBC, Economist

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