Reform Business School? The Class of 2018 Has Some Ideas - Poets&Quants

Class in the NYU Stern School of Business – Ethan Baron photo

What do CEOs fear most? Economic downturns? Disruptive innovations? New taxes and regulations? Cyberterrorists? You can bet each of these has left top brass with wide eyes and boiling bellies at 3:00 a.m. However, there is one nagging fear that tops them all: Their customers aren’t sharing what they truly want – or they’re just “satisfied” with the experience.

In business school, you can swap “customer” with “student” or “alumni.” Their value extends far beyond their tuition. On campus, the happy ones engage, volunteer, and champion; they embody their school’s ideals and elevate the experience for their peers. After hanging their diplomas, they are the ones who refer prospective students or hire recent graduates. They act as role models, mentors, champions, and patrons. They understand that the value of their MBA ultimately comes down to the exuberance of their community.

GRADUATES GET TO PLAY “DEAN FOR A DAY”

To say this year’s Best & Brightest MBAs were bullish on their b-schools would be an understatement. They were the standard bearers who ran the clubs, organized class trips, shared their experiences, and tutored their peers. Often, they were the go-to members of their classes, the voices with the courage to speak out and the conviction to follow through. These virtues also made them the perfect group to ask how business schools could be better.

Dartmouth Tuck’s Alen Amini

This year, as part of the Best & Brightest nomination process, we asked 2018 graduates to answer this question: “If you were dean for a day, what one thing would you change about the MBA experience?” Sure enough, the class brought plenty of insight into the fallacies and gaps dogging full-time MBA education.

That starts with the recruiting processes, which often commences while students are still wrestling with the nuances of capital markets and cross-functional integration models. To help students focus on core courses, Dartmouth Tuck’s Alen Amini urges schools to adopt a “moratorium on recruiting activities” early on – a sentiment shared by the University of Chicago Booth’s Rodrigo Studart.

RECRUITERS HIT CAMPUS TOO EARLY

“I feel like students miss a great part of their MBA experience because they are absolutely desperate about finding a job,” he explains. “I know recruiting is important, but most of us are going to change our jobs in a few years. The MBA is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and the learning and development part outside recruiting are what makes business school one of the best experiences of our lives.”

What would the Best & Brightest encourage administrators to adopt instead? Studart, for one, would start the first year earlier or make more career resources available before recruiting opens. Hosanna Odhner believes one alternative is implementing what she calls a “self-discovery week” before recruiters hit campus. “Two years go by so quickly, and especially in the first semester, trains start leaving the station so quickly, it’s hard to find time to stop and ask yourself which train it is you really want to be on,” says Yale SOM grad.

NYU Stern’s Mahum Yunus takes a longer view, which is why she would tack a “Dream Career” planning session with the career office onto the end of the program. “While the MBA program is great for getting students up for their dream job right out of school, I would make sure each student has a clear idea of what they would want to do 15 or 20 years out, and what is needed to get there,” she says. “Hopefully, this can encourage us to think about the long-term journey, and make sure we continue to seek learning.”

ARE ‘TACTICS’ UNDERVALUED BY FACULTY?

Inside the classroom, the Best & Brightest also identified several opportunities to enrich the MBA experience. At the University of Michigan Ross, Kristen Steagall, a tech maven slated for McKinsey, would require every student to author a business plan. She calls it an “illuminating process” – even for peers who have no intention of ever starting a business. In contrast, Ariana Almas, Steagall’s classmate and an aspiring entrepreneur, calls for greater attention to intrapreneurship.

“A majority of students will be joining big corporations or organizations, at least in the immediate short-term,” she observes. “I believe strongly that there are multiple ways to make an impact, and we need just as many individuals to challenge the status quo in existing institutions as there are individuals who are out there forging new ground. We must empower students with the knowledge, tools, and resources needed to make that change as future business leaders in all contexts.”

The entrepreneur-intrapreneur divide wasn’t the only gap that the Best & Brightest witnessed in their programs. Northwestern Kellogg’s Carr Lanphier hails business schools for excelling in teaching frameworks and strategy. However, he points to one area where he believes they fall short: Tactics. “Sun Tzu said, “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” The future’s top MBA programs will be those that teach students a faster route to victory through hands-on application of tactics.”

TEACHING THE TEACHER

It isn’t just what students are taught that might need some tweaking, but how they’re taught as well. Prior to business school, Babson College’s David James taught for Teach for America before launching an academy that ranked as the State of Massachusetts’ fastest-improving middle school in just its second year. If James were a business school dean, he would foster a culture where teachers regularly offer feedback to each other on their teaching – a practice that fueled the success of his middle school.

“I would require business school faculty to observe at least three other faculty members per semester and engage in some type of debrief after the observation,” he asserts. “I would also hire instructional coaches to observe classes, provide instructional recommendations, and act as an instructional thought-partner for professors.”

The biggest need in MBA programs, according to the Best & Brightest, involved issues surrounding diversity, be it gender, race, equity, or inclusion. In fact, U.C.-Berkeley Haas’ Liz Koenig considers these subjects to be so central to business that she’d build them into a core course called “Leading Across Lines of Difference.”

VALUE OF NAVIGATING DIVERSITY RISING

MIT Sloan’s Faye Cheng

“We are stepping into an increasingly diverse and global workforce,” she observes. “Our ability to operate and communicate across lines of difference – whether it be gender, race, country or origin, etc. – is critical to creating high-potential companies and organizations that reflect and meet the needs of a diverse customer base.”

Similarly, MIT Sloan’s Faye Cheng, who starts with Bain & Company this summer, would embed more opportunities for greater discussion on gender parity and unconscious bias into the core curriculum. Doing so, she believes, would send an unambiguous message to students. “Gender issues are human issues. Bias issues are human issues,” she declares. “If the mission of MIT Sloan is to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world, our curriculum must put a stake in the ground declaring these as management priorities that every leader must tackle head-on.”

This learning doesn’t always have to come through the faculty, however. At the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Tomer Meir believes MBAs bring a “wealth of knowledge” and “incredible experiences” that programs can better tap “in a more structured way.” He cites his experience teaching scuba diving to the disabled as an example.

“I have learned very valuable lessons on the power of persistence and perseverance in face of great challenges,” he reminisces. “I would love to have a school-wide platform to share my experience with my classmates and learn from their stories as well. Every semester I would create a week-long curriculum taught completely by students, for students.

Georgetown University’s Erika Studt

GO GLOBAL OR GO HOME

The Best & Brightest wouldn’t just promote diversity inside the classroom. If Georgetown University’s Erika Studt replaced Dean Paul Almeida for day, she’d make a week-long international trek mandatory – noting that “nothing bonds people better than travel.” The University of Minnesota’s Ashley Ver Burg Soukup has even cooked up an idea so every class member could enjoy a global experience: Create a scholarship fund

“I traveled to the UAE and Oman for a two-week course and spent a partial semester as an exchange student at the Stockholm School of Economics. In today’s world, all business is global business. There’s no way to understand this better than studying outside of your home country.”

Scholarships aren’t the only solutions, says the University of Illinois’ Brandon Byers. As dean, this Best & Brightest would focus on boosting the numbers of African Americans in business schools. To do this, he would forge partnerships with institutions like historically black colleges and universities. “This program would be similar to our early admit program, where college seniors receive early admission based on the condition that they work for two or more years, achieve a certain GPA, and have a competitive GMAT score. Reaching this students early on will guarantee a strong African American population for our MBA student body.”

Byers’ plan may attract students, but Ivey’s Jay Kiew would be looking to make life easier for his classmates – namely international students and their families – once they arrive. His big idea is beefing up support for this vulnerable population so they can focus on being students instead of completing paperwork. “We had some classmates who went eight months without seeing their young children, which I imagine is really tough as a parent,” he admits. “Having an immigration consultant on standby for a month or two would really help decrease stress as international students settle down in a new country.”

INCLUDE THE REST OF CAMPUS INTO THE EXPERIENCE

How else would the Class of 2018 improve their MBA programs? The University of Maryland’s Erin Moore believes she gained the most valuable skills through case competitions. That’s why she champions every student being required to compete in one. “Through my experience in case competitions,” she stresses, “I enhanced my presentation and storytelling skills so that I am confident in my presence and thoughts in front of a variety of audiences. I learned how to navigate difficult conversations and conflict within teams to achieve outcomes and recommendations that everyone can support. I built my analytical skills to solve business problems with strategy and creativity. These are all skills that successful MBAs need on the job and in life.”

Emory University’s JP Ortiz

Such competitions also introduced Moore to new people in the full-time program – and beyond. That “beyond” is what many Best & Brightest MBAs are seeking in building a deep and powerful network. For Emory Goizueta’s JP Ortiz, that would mean greater interaction between full-time MBAs and the school’s 1-year, evening, and executive MBAs (and even undergraduate business majors). To do this, IESE’s Jieqiong Xu suggests a regular channel where the whole business school community could come together to “exchange ideas and potentially business and job opportunities.”

Some would even expand this beyond the business school confines. In the never-ending searching for finding peers who can bring fresh ideas and serve as mentors, some 2018 Best & Brightest members reached out to the entire university community. One way to foster that across the board, says Duke Fuqua’s Page Swofford, would be to require MBAs to take a class outside the business school.

“As a dual degree student, I’ve benefitted from having the opportunity to take classes at other graduate schools within Duke,” she says. “It has expanded my appreciation for how interdisciplinary perspectives challenge and expand your way of thinking and approaching problems.”

ENGAGE WITH THE COMMUNITY

For some, even the university itself was too small. At the University of Oxford, Elly Brown calls for experiential learning to step back from the flashy projects with big name companies and high level executives. In their place, she urges MBA candidates to step forward in their adopted communities and engage with people from all walks of life.

University of Oxford’s Elly Brown

“One of my biggest concerns about my generation is that we don’t spend enough time out in the community, meeting and working with people from different organisational levels and backgrounds,” she explains. “With the decline in membership of churches, unions, and community groups, so many of us are now more segregated by class and job type than ever. We are in danger of detaching from the reality of how people live, work, and what they want. Graduate schools have a real opportunity to connect their students with worlds they may have drifted away from, or may not have explored yet. They also have an obligation to remind their students that leadership should never be divorced from the community one aims to lead.”

To better immerse MBAs in their communities, the University of Wisconsin’s Linda Liu suggests that schools sponsor more volunteer opportunities for students. “I would take one full day at the end of the MBA experience for students to volunteer,” Liu says. “We do this at the start of the experience, during orientation, but I would like to add one at the end, to bookend our time here and as one final act of gratitude to the community that has been our home for two years.”

BRINGING FIDO TO FINANCE

Alas, some Best & Brightest posed suggestions that some might consider heretical (or hysterical). Exhibit A: Northwestern Kellogg’s Kathryn Bernell. Her game-changing concept? No classes starting before 10:30 a.m. Before dismissing her as a late night slacker, consider the method behind her supposed madness.

“I am surprisingly a relentless morning person,” she stresses. “I wake up most days at 5:30, workout, eat breakfast, read the news, and then dive deep into the work ahead of me. My mornings are my most productive time of day and I really dislike having to cut short this window with class if I can avoid it!”

Think 10:30 is a stretch? Just wait until you hear from Georgia Tech’s Declan Nishiyama. “I would allow dogs on campus,” he proposes (apparently mistaking Georgia for Google). “After the initial distraction of them going around sniffing everyone, I imagine that dogs would help relax us from the long days of classes, group meetings, and presentations.”

Notre Dame’s Kyle Verash

While Lassie lazing in the lecture hall is probably a non-starter, Kyle Verash makes a pitch that’d stand a great shot at sticking at Notre Dame…since it’d probably attract a new crop of MBAs. “Although the program does a great job of including the spouses and significant others of students in extracurricular activities, I would expand the outreach by allowing spouses to audit classes.”

A THREE YEAR MBA? BANKERS APPROVE!

Of course, some ideas might be anathema to students themselves. Think 21 months is a long time for an MBA? Well, the University of Virginia’s Catherine Aranda would extend it to three years. Sadistic? Maybe, but her reasoning is hardly an excuse to pore over another 200 Harvard cases. “[Another year would offer] the flexibility to interweave core academic classes with more inspiring, self-selected elective seminars,” she outlines. “The third year will feature an experiential learning component that enables all students to develop consulting skills within a start-up company. The 10-week summer internship will be replaced with a mandatory global business immersion experience. Also, every student will have a thoughtfully assigned academic advisor and career mentor.”

Sound overwhelming? Well, the two-year and one-year programs can be pretty nerve-wracking too. That’s why Indiana University’s Gregory Toupalik helped to launch a Resilience Week to spotlight mental health issues related to eating healthy, reducing stress, staying in shape, and keeping perspective. If Toupalik were dean, this is the area where he’d devote greater resources. Make no mistake: he wasn’t alone in viewing this as opportunity for improvement among business schools.

“An MBA comes with the intensity of classes, recruiting, and extracurriculars,” adds Dartmouth Tuck’s Sravya Yeleswarapu. “Often times, we as students, forgot to take care of ourselves in the midst of this intensity—I know I am definitely guilty of that. I think every MBA experience in some way should help promote better personal living as part of the program.”

How would you improve the business school experience? We welcome your insights in the comments section below.

DON’T MISS:

BEST & BRIGHTEST MBAS: CLASS OF 2018

BIGGEST REGRETS OF THE CLASS OF 2018

MBA BUSTERS: MBAS DISPEL THEIR SCHOOLS’ WORST STEREOTYPES

 

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 2.2 GPA!!!
NO-NAME EMPLOYEER
SANDY TELLS THIS GUY HOW TO  GET INTO UVA, DUKE, AND CARNEGIE-MELLON.
WILL THESE TIPS WORK FOR YOU?

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Can You Be Too Young For Harvard Business School? - Poets&Quants

Graphic from the forthcoming graphic novel about the MBA admissions process by David White and Alice Van Harten of Menlo Coaching

Is it possible to be a little on the green side to get into Harvard Business School? Absolutely.

The stats clearly show that if you have less than two years of work experience, you are at a significant disadvantage in applying to Harvard’s prestige MBA program, or for that matter, the full-time MBA program at any highly selective business school.

The major reason for this is pretty straightforward: A critical part of the learning process in a quality MBA program comes from student interaction and class discussion. If you haven’t been in the work world all that much, you will have little to say and even less to add to a robust and engaging debate. That’s even more true at Harvard, a case study school where half of your grade depends on class participation. And by class participation, we don’t mean making comments in class. We mean contributing valuable insights.

WALKING ON WATER

“Students must have interesting experiences to share in classroom discussions,” explains David White of Menlo Coaching, a top MBA admissions consulting firm. “They must have enough experience and transferable skills to appeal to employers. And it’s easier to absorb the leadership lessons if you have some leadership experience yourself.”

So it’s hardly a surprise that a candidate pretty much has to walk on water to get into Harvard’s MBA program with just a year or two of post-undergraduate work experience.

These days, it’s a little hard to know exactly how daunting the stats are because the school does not reveal the range of ages of students admitted into its MBA program. The average age of an MBA applicant who is admitted to the Harvard Business School is 27, with 54 months of work experience. Averages, however, often disguise wide ranges in data and can easily distort a large or small set of numbers.

THE ODDS ARE SEVERELY STACKED AGAINST CANDIDATES WITH ONLY A YEAR OR TWO OF WORK EXPERIENCE

Yet, in the recent past HBS would routinely publish a “histogram” that showed rather clearly the range of work experience and likely ages of HBS admits. The chart broke down each entering class by their years from college graduation. The last time one of these charts was made public was back in 2015 for the Class of 2017 (see below). While there were slight shifts in age over the years for the readers of tea leaves at HBS, the numbers pretty much stayed the same. So it is a good bet that the Class of 2017 data provides a good portrait of how age impacts admissions today.

The bad news for applicants just a year or two removed from their undergraduate studies? The odds are severely against you. In Harvard’s Class of 2017, only one student had a year or less of post-undergraduate work experience (the HBS numbers are for years out of undergrad and not exactly years of work experience). That is one out of 935 incoming MBA students.

It wasn’t much better over the previous five years worth of HBS classes. In 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2012, successful applicants with just a year of post-undergrad work experience numbered four a year. In 2013, there were just three. That’s less than half a percent of the past six classes for which data is available

ONLY 41 OF 935 STUDENTS IN THE CLASS OF 2017 ENTERED HBS WITH TWO YEARS OF POST-UNDERGRAD EXPERIENCE

What about students with two years of post-undergrad work experience? It’s a wee bit better, but not very. In the Class of 2017, there were 41 students out of the 935, or 4.4%, who had just two years of work experience.

More notably, the trend is against younger candidates. The 41 students in the Class of 2017 represented the low mark over a six-year period. The largest group in this category graduated from HBS in 2013 with 113 students having entered the MBA program with about two years of post-undergrad work experience. That is nearly three times the number enrolled in the Class of 2017.

Who gets through this tight filter? The answer could be even more deflating for mainstream students who want to attend HBS after a year or two of working in the real world. “One explanation is that they did not do college in four straight years,but dropped out, worked for two years, and re-enrolled,” says Sandy Kreisberg, founder of HBSGuru.com, who closely reads the tea leaves of HBS admissions.

HOW REALLY SMART KIDS MAY BE ABLE TO OFFSET THEIR LACK OF WORK EXPERIENCE AT HBS

“So if you are guessing work experience by graduation date, those two years do not show up. Another explanation is that some of these students are military who then went to college after their service. And finally another explanation is just some really smart kids.”

In fact, applying to HBS with only a year or two of work experience is not all that dissimilar to applying to the school as a college senior through the school’s 2+2 deferred admissions program which admits applicants who then must go on to get two years of work experience before showing up on campus (see 2+2: A No-Risk Way To Apply To HBS?). “You really work with what you got,” adds Kreisberg. “Of course the 2+2 kids will also have MORE experience by the time they matriculate, but the application is similar.”

How to shift those formidable odds in your favor? “For #1, the person would have to have incredible pre-MBA experiences in order to be equally interesting as someone with longer experience,” adds White. “For #2, it could help to be sponsored, which guarantees one good job offer.  Otherwise, providing evidence that you’ll get a great job would help.  Applicants are only doing themselves a disservice if they find a way to sneak in, but have work experience that’s out of sync with what their target employers want, since they might then get poor recruiting outcomes as their more experienced classmates take the best jobs. For #3, people who have other leadership experiences through extracurriculars, entrepreneurial ventures, student government would pass this filter.”

Your best bet of gaining an admit as a younger applicant? Apply to the 2+2 program where the competition is tough but the acceptance rate of 11% equals the school’s overall admit rate for candidates.

Source: Harvard Business School

DON’T MISS: 2+2: A No-RISK WAY TO GET INTO HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL? or IS YOUR WORK EXPERIENCE GOOD ENOUGH?

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From GMAC, A Note Of Caution On MBA Job Market - Poets&Quants

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The job market for MBAs continues to be strong — but there are few signs that it may be weakening. The Graduate Management Admission Council’s 2018 Corporate Recruiters Survey, released today (June 22), shows that jobs are there for the earning, with 81% of more than 1,000 responding companies saying they plan to hire MBA graduates in 2018 and more than half — 52% — saying they plan to increase MBA starting base salaries this year. But those numbers are down slightly from the high-water mark of last year.

The data reflect a slight decline in projected hiring among U.S. and European employers compared to 2017’s hiring plans: 85% of responding U.S. companies and 81% of companies overall plan to hire recent MBA graduates in 2018; last year, 90% of both U.S. and Asia-Pacific companies and 86% of companies globally planned to hire MBAs. This year demand for MBA talent is strongest in Asia-Pacific, where, once again, 90% of responding employers plan to make MBA hires.

Relevant to the general decline, a key area that has seen softening is U.S. and others’ employers’ intent to hire international business school graduates. Forty-seven percent of U.S. companies said this year they plan to, or are willing to, hire international talent in 2018, down from 55% in 2017. In comparison, about the same percentage of European employers plan to or are willing to hire international talent in 2018 (65%) as 2017 (64%) — however, Asia-Pacific employers are pulling back (58% from 67%), as are Latin-American employers (68% from 72%).

“Over the past several years we have tracked positive trends in hiring of MBA and business master’s graduates,” Sangeet Chowfla, GMAC president and CEO, says in an announcement of the findings. “Graduates are commanding compensation premiums and companies are increasing starting salaries. The softening in the intent-to-hire numbers for the U.S. and Europe reflects the global economic growth numbers we are seeing, and the prevailing political and student mobility issues. In the Asia-Pacific region, hiring projections have remained strong. From the overall analysis, we see that MBA hiring overall is strong, but we are seeing the mix shift geographically.”

A SLIGHT DOWNTURN IN INTENT-TO-HIRE — BUT WHY?

GMAC CEO Sangeet Chowfla

Why the (slight) downturn? “This dip in stated intent by U.S. employers to hire international graduates is potentially a response to the changes — or potential changes — to visa and immigration regulations,” Chowfla says. “Even though H1-B visa rules haven’t yet changed, there is a perception that they might change in the near future, and some employers may be waiting to see what will happen.

“The jobs market in the U.S. right now is robust, and companies are constantly having to evaluate their prospects and how best to fill their available roles with strong talent.”

Adds Jamie Belinne, assistant dean at Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston and president of the board of directors of the MBA Career Services and Employer Alliance (MBA CSEA), which partners with GMAC on the Corporate Recruiters Survey: “The GMAC survey reflects MBA CSEA’s recent Recruiting Trends Survey, where 68% of schools indicated a decline in hiring for international full-time MBA students compared to the same time last year. As a result, many schools are more actively promoting a global job search as well as creating connections with employers in students’ home countries.”

International students themselves are paying attention. GMAC’s own data from last year suggest they themselves may be looking away from the U.S. amid escalating anti-immigration rhetoric.

U.S. IS WHERE THE BEST MBA MONEY IS

GMAC has compiled its annual report since 2011. It offers an overview of current employer hiring demand for MBA and business master’s graduates and breaks down hiring practices and trends by industry and world region. This year’s survey was conducted in February and March 2018 in association with career services offices at 96 graduate B-schools worldwide. The survey responses were received from 1,066 employers in 42 countries worldwide who work directly with participating business schools. In July, GMAC will publish a companion report regarding skills sought by employers.

Among the key findings of the just-released report: MBA money, as Chowfla alludes to, continues to be good. Grads around the world are commanding a salary premium compared to their direct-from-industry and bachelor’s degree counterparts, but the difference is most pronounced in the U.S., where recent MBA grads earn a projected median base starting salary $105,000 in 2018, compared with $85,000 for direct-from-industry new hires and $65,000 for bachelor’s degree new hires. However, the difference between starting pay across regions can be dramatic: European companies will offer a median starting base salary of US$65,000 to MBA hires and US$25,000 to Master in Management hires, while Asia-Pacific companies will offer a median starting base salary of US$35,000 to MBA hires and US$35,000 to MiM hires.

In signing bonuses, too, the U.S. is the place to be. Most U.S. companies (56%) will offer signing bonuses to new business school hires in 2018 (median $10,500), while signing bonuses are less common among non-U.S. employers: Thirty-six percent of Asia-Pacific companies, 30% of Latin American companies, and 20% of European companies will offer signing bonuses. The median bonuses will be US$3,500, US$3,000, and US$9,500, respectively.

Source: GMAC

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MORE FINDINGS: ANALYTICS GRADS IN HIGH DEMAND

It may not be news, exactly, but GMAC’s 2018 recruiter survey shows that data analytics degree holders are, in fact, highly sought after. Overall, 71% of responding employers say they plan to place recent B-school graduates into data analytics roles in 2018, which puts data analytics among the top job functions employers will place new grads into this year, alongside business development (74%), marketing (70%), and finance (69%).

For the first time this year, GMAC’s survey collected trending data for Master of Data Analytics hiring and found that about half of responding companies (52%) plan to hire Master of Data Analytics grads in 2018, compared with 35% that hired them in 2017. The survey found that hiring demand for data analytics grads is strongest among Asia-Pacific employers, among whom 62% plan to hire in 2018. About half of employers in Europe (50%) and Latin America (47%) plan to make similar hires.

“As is the case with other program types, larger companies are more likely than smaller companies to have plans to hire Master of Data Analytics talent in 2018,” reads the GMAC report, written by Gregg Schoenfeld, senior director of research. “A majority of Fortune Global 100, 500, and publicly traded companies have 2018 Master of Data Analytics hiring plans. Hiring demand for recent Master of Data Analytics graduates is strongest among employers in the technology (70%), health care (61%), manufacturing (55%), and consulting (54%) industries.”

EMPLOYER EDUCATION ASSISTANCE ON THE RISE

Source: GMAC

In other survey findings, most U.S. companies (61%) offer financial assistance for employee education and talent development. Among those companies, 2 in 3 (66%) have increased their budgets for employee education and talent development compared with five years ago. 

A new benefit asked about in this year’s survey is student loan repayment assistance — deemed the “hottest employee benefit of 2017” by Forbes. Repayment assistance is seen by employers as an effective way to attract and retain top millennial talent. The survey found that 9% of U.S. companies currently offer it as a part of their overall benefits package. 

Internships meanwhile, are increasingly seen as paths to jobs: GMAC’s survey finds that most employers plan to bring on MBA interns in 2018. MBA internships are most prevalent in Asia-Pacific and the U.S., where 65% and 62% of employers plan to offer them, respectively. “Internships continue to be an avenue to jobs for many business school graduates,” Schoenfeld writes. “Internships provide a way to understand a company, the culture and expectations and remain a good opportunity to obtain permanent positions.”

OUTLOOK MIXED FOR MIMs, MACCs & MFINs

Some key findings pertaining to non-MBA graduate business degrees:

• The majority of companies outside the U.S. plan to hire Master in Management (MiM) talent in 2018, including around 7 in 10 companies in Asia-Pacific (73%), Europe (72%), and Latin America (69%). Among U.S. companies, 39% plan to hire MiM graduates.

• Hiring projections for Master of Accounting have held steady among European employers, but projections among Asia-Pacific employers are notably down elsewhere in 2018: 44% of European companies, 43% of U.S. companies, 40% of Latin-American companies, and 37% of Asia-Pacific companies plan to hire recent Master of Accounting graduates in 2018. By world region, Latin-American companies have the largest increase between their 2017 actual hiring rate (25%) and 2018 projected hiring rate (40%).

• The hiring outlook for Master of Finance talent is “flat” among European employers compared with last year, and down slightly among Asia-Pacific and U.S. employers. “Two-thirds of Latin-American companies (67%) plan to hire Master of Finance talent — the greatest share of any world region,” Schoenfeld writes. “Most European companies also plan to hire Master of Finance graduates this year (57%).”

Source: GMAC

DON’T MISS MBA JOB OUTLOOK BETTER THAN EVER IN 2017 and GMAC SAYS TRUMP EFFECT IS REAL — AND GROWING 

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New Weston Career Center director named - Olin BlogOlin Blog

Jennifer Whitten will join Olin as associate dean and director of the Weston Career Center on July 9.

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Research MBA Programs :: RE: Profile evaluation - Research MBA Programs

Author: Donna@Stratus
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 8:20 am (GMT -8)

ronit_1987 wrote:

Hi
I am an Indian male IT engineer with 7 years of experience. I have a GMAT score of 690 ( Q44, V41). I don't have any extra curriculars. I am looking for schools in Canada, Singapore and Europe. Which schools shall I consider?

ronit_1987, I would say with a 690 GMAT from India that you will find some of your best options as you mention in canada, Singapore and Europe. For Canada, you should look at Rotman-- I just visited there and was extremely impressed with the options of the program including employers recruiting and special focus programs such as the Creative Distruction Lab and the Self Development Lab. I also think Schulich and Ivey are great options to apply there. For Europe, Top programs are INSEAD (also have program in Singapore)-- but not sure you will fare too well on that GMAT-- could also consider ie as well as ESADE and For Singapore-- NUS, NTU would be among the ones I'd look at first-- for more info on that you might look at this article: https://find-mba.com/schools/asia/singapore
But rather than just doing such a broad reach of locations I'd ask yourself where you most want to work post-MBA and then focus on that region. I also think I'd work on getting more extracurriculars as you will need a leadership profile regardless of where you seek the MBA. You may have more leadership at work that can be a proxy for community involvement if you spend most of your time working. If you are open to Canada, I think you may find the best opportunities there. I encourage you to sign up for our Stratus free newsletter to get more tips about all things MBA admissions. To sign up go to this link:https://ift.tt/2lid9Wj
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Berkeley’s New Optional Essay: Addressing Barriers Of Power & Privilege - Poets&Quants

Incoming full-time MBA students bonding over team-building games at Berkeley Haas Courtesy photo

At a glance, it looks like Berkeley Haas went from three required essays to two, keeping its poetic “six-word essay” prompt and distilling its question around post-MBA goals. But the remarkable addition is a unique and evocative series of optional essay prompts that, with exacting focus, seek to uncover the less visible forces that shape candidates’ lives, decisions, opportunities and character.

For quick context, the new prompts to optional essay #1 ask candidates to answer three questions by choosing from a list of options:

• What is the highest level of education completed by your parent(s) or guardian(s)? 
• If you were raised in one of the following household types, please indicate. (e.g. single parent; foster care; extended family member; and other options)
• If you have you ever been responsible for providing significant and continuing financial or supervisory support for someone else, please indicate.

Haas frames the essay questions by underscoring its commitment to diversity and its defining leadership principles, and cites a holistic approach to application review that “will consider achievements in the context of the opportunities available to a candidate.” It also gives applicants up to 300 words to elaborate on any of their responses, or the option to “expand on other hardships or unusual life circumstances that may help us understand the context of your opportunities, achievements, and impact.”

As former Associate Director of Admissions at Berkeley Haas, I’m not surprised by these prompts, nor the laser focus on distinctive characteristics that impact first generation students and others from less privileged households. It’s a powerful recognition that up and beyond your test scores, transcripts, and career achievements, prospective students come from very different backgrounds and life circumstances that shape both their character and decision-making in invisible ways.

In positioning its essay question in this way, Berkeley Haas signals its desire to hone in on the path that students walked to better understand who they’re reading. 

It’s also a way for the admissions committee to recognize the challenges certain applicants face to get to where they are – even when students themselves don’t see them as distinctive or noteworthy. For example, I worked extensively with first generation college students for my doctoral degree, and a common theme was that many don’t recognize how unique their stories are. A student may be aware of the power structures and dynamics of privilege, but not necessarily of the challenges she’s overcome – because it’s ‘just her life’ and she’s busy living it. To an outsider, sometimes there’s a wow factor to a circumstance or experience in a student’s background that they themselves are too ‘in it’ to recognize, and it speaks volumes to their tenacity, determination and resiliency.

Why does this matter to Berkeley Haas admissions? 

For one, it informs admissions reviewers of the other responsibilities candidates may be juggling outside academic endeavors, providing a window into a student’s socioeconomic history and other less visible factors that shape their choices, opportunities and achievements. Socioeconomic barriers, for example, can contribute to things that might be missing from an application but, in context, convey bigger picture understanding, such as, a student who wasn’t so involved in extra-curricular activities as an undergrad was working simultaneously to pay for college; or another who is repaying high undergrad loans didn’t take a GMAT more than once because of the fees.

Haas’s new questions are also deeply rooted in the history of the UC system, which was created to make higher education available to all California citizens. The UC system at large wants to create and cultivate a community that reflects the diversity of its population. At the undergrad level, two-thirds of the population must be California residents, yet those quotas don’t exist at the graduate level. At the undergraduate level, some 42% of UC students are first generation; compare this against 27% at other selective institutions or 18% at private universities – that’s significant. At the graduate level, Berkeley Haas recognizes that its pipeline now includes more students from a first-generation background. These questions also show a lot of compassion in terms of how Haas itself wants to do its holistic review. It gets to trying to create a level playing field for all MBA applicants.

It’s also deeply resonant with the Haas culture, and the defining principles that guide it (see this recent article, Where Culture Really Matters: Berkeley’s Haas School by John A. Byrne). Haas values attracting students with greater social awareness, and that goes to its defining principles of ‘beyond yourself,’ and challenging the status quo – and the status quo is that there’s a dominance of white men at board room tables; through this new set of questions, Berkeley Haas is at the forefront of addressing inclusivity in b-schools and beyond.

By no means should you be deterred if you’re someone from a privileged background. 

Please don’t be deterred by this set of questions or misread that someone from a background of relative privilege won’t have a shot at admission. Whether you’re someone with privilege or not, you can express your values, political engagement, awareness of social justice, and/or access to education in terms of social mobility – all of which are very important to Haas. Haas wants students who demonstrate self-awareness and community engagement, which is an invitation to recognize your privilege and convey a deep understanding of what that means to you.

For example, walking through the halls of Haas, and you’ll see stickers on staff and Faculty’s doors that read “Ally,” which signals this person is an ally to those with undocumented status, or LGBTQ individuals, or other marginalized communities. Berkeley really fosters that climate of inclusion, empathy and compassion. Even if you don’t identify as a member of a marginalized group, it can be valuable to show you are an ally.

What’s more, the essay prompt at the end of the optional series invites many types of possible responses. So even if you’re someone from a privileged background, you may also want to share a hardship, such as overcoming dyslexia; if the highest GMAT you ever achieved is a 660, that can be something you’re justifiably proud of given the reading difficulty you’re overcoming.

The new slate of essay questions really speaks to the type of class that the Berkeley Haas MBA strives to craft. It’s also in recognition of the huge range of students applying to business school, and a drive to support the admissions committee with a full and rich understanding of who each applicant truly is. Accept the challenge – and opportunity – to convey this level of introspection and purpose, and you increase your chances of admissions success.

Sharon Joyce is a director at MBA admissions coaching firm Fortuna Admissions and former Berkeley Haas Associate Director of Admissions. Fortuna is composed of former admissions directors and business school insiders from 13 of the top 15 business schools.

DON’T MISS: WHERE CULTURE REALLY MATTERS: BERKELEY HAAS or BERKELEY’S HAAS GATEKEEPER MORGAN BERNSTEIN

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