Such rankings allow schools that don’t always make it to the top 10 for overall marks to finally see what it feels like to be on top regarding specific impressive elements of their program.

Top 10 U.S. MBA Programs – Accounting

1. Chicago Booth

1. Texas-Austin McCombs

3. Rochester Simon

3. Boston College Carroll

5. U. of Washington Foster

5. Vanderbilt Owen

5. Babson Olin

5. Arizona State Carey

9. Harvard Business School

10. Wharton

Top 10 U.S. MBA Programs – Finance

1. Wharton

2. Chicago Booth

3. Columbia

4. Northeastern

5. Boston College Carroll

5. Case Western Weatherhead

7. Harvard Business School

8. Minnesota Carlson

8. Wisconsin-Madison

8. George Washington

Top 10 U.S. MBA Programs – Most Innovative Curriculums

1. Stanford

2. Chicago Booth

3. Indiana Kelley

4. Yale

4. USC Marshall

4. Texas A&M Mays

4. Tulane Freeman

8. Boston University

8. Rochester Simon

8. George Washington

Top 10 U.S. MBA Programs – Most Improved

1. Georgia Tech

1. Boston University

1. Northeastern

4. Indiana Kelley

5. Wake Forest

5. Arizona State Carey

7. Dartmouth Tuck

7. Brigham Young Marriott

7. Texas A&M Mays

7. Pittsburgh Katz

For rankings based on global competition, general management, communication skills, teamwork, or operations, as well as for an analysis on how the rankings were determined, please see the BW article. There is also a section there on global MBA programs ranked by specialty.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Although I am presenting our conversation in interview format. Peter’s responses are not verbatim quotes. They are based on my notes.

Is the experience requirement similar to that of the MBA? Do you require experience for the MiF?

Yes, we have a required minimum of two years of full-time work experience in the financial field but we strongly prefer three or more years. Candidates who will only have two year’s experience at the start of the programme will typically be of a fast-track program with a top financial institution.

Our average amount of work experience is six years, with the part-time program being slightly higher. Also the upper end of work experience for our students tends to be higher than the MBA and may overlap the Sloan Fellows program, as the programme can also be a good fit for people in more senior management roles.

The absolute experience requirement is finance. The MiF Is not for career changers. It is for finance career advancers and enhancers.

What are the typical educational and professional backgrounds of participants in MiF?

They have to be bright enough to do well is a quantitatively rigorous program, and they have to be able to show us that brightness.

We also want to see a real commitment and passion for finance. We want to see that they will be able to contribute. Do they have the technical skills?

Is the CFA viewed as evidence of those technical skills and of that passion?

Yes. It is a recognized credential.

What about the GRE?

We say that the GRE can provide evidence that you will do well or poorly on the GMAT, but we still require the GMAT.

Is London Business School’s MiF experiencing stable, increasing, or declining demand as evidenced by application volume?

Application volume for the full time program is steady; there has been a very substantial increase for the weekend-format program. We have noted an increase in the percentage of very strong candidates in the applicant pool.

What percentage of MiF participants is sponsored at this point in time?

Approximately 50% in the part-time program and around 10% of our full-time applicants. It can also vary by geographic region. For example, students from Japan and Korea are almost always sponsored.

Do MiF students have access to the career services even if sponsored?

Yes. They have access to all career services’ events and services. Our career services provide an opportunity to network even if someone is returning to a previous employer. They teach valuable resume and interview skills, which a student may use at a future time in his or her career or may use as an employer seeking to hire staff.

What does the MiF offer those interested in entrepreneurship.

We have some entrepreneurs amongst our alumni, but the program isn’t really geared to them. Our entrepreneurs are usually those who a few years after earning their MiF tire of investment banking or whatever they’re doing and then follow the entrepreneurial muse within them. It’s a small percentage of our alums, but we do have them, and they say the MiF helped them structure their business and get the funding for it.

What is the purpose of the Pre-program and orientation? Are they required?

Both are required and the MiF pre-program is in residence. The MiF program includes a thorough introduction to London Business School’s leadership style and completion of our questionnaire on leadership.

We also do a comprehensive review of basics that our students may not have studied since college if ever, specifically accounting, statistics for business, and decision tools. Students can waive these classes if they have the background.

Does the MiF program allow students to finish in a shorter period of time that the typical ten months for the full-time program or 22 months for the part-time program?

We will occasionally allow an enrolled student to finish early, but we don’t want them to start with that idea.

I realize that London Business School attracts students and professors from around the globe, but is it “global” in any other ways?

We don’t have a study trip, but international cases predominate and because both the faculty and the student body come from the four corners of the globe, classroom discussion and club events have a distinctly international flavor.

Please join Peter and other members of the London Business School team on Thursday December 9 at 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/ 6:00 PM GMT for Learning about London, an MBA admissions Q&A devoted to London Business School’s MBA and MiF programs, or as they would say, “programmes.”

By Linda Abraham, President and Founder of Accepted.com.

Accepted.com: What’s new at MIT Sloan? Is there anything new in MIT admissions?

RG: We offer a relatively new specialized Masters in Finance, which is now in its second year. It started out with 25 students; this year that number has more than doubled with 59 matriculated students. The program has attracted star faculty members, including Nobel Prize winner Bob Merton, who recently retired from Harvard Business School.

This year MIT Sloan also offers a new EMBA program. Jonathan Lehrich is heading up the program, and he’s already received over 200 applications. There are currently no other top players in this region in the EMBA market, and we are filling a real need in this area.

Another recent development is our new building. The goal is to bring the entire faculty into one place, though it will also have some classrooms. Furthermore, the building was designed to accommodate interaction, so it will become the locus of activity at Sloan. Officially, the building will have a soft opening September 16th, but the real inauguration will be next year during the 150th anniversary of MIT.

Accepted.com: What do you anticipate in terms of application volume this year and in terms of hiring for the Class of 2011? How is your crystal ball looking?

RG: I have been saying for several years that application volume should decline, and fortunately I’ve been wrong. Application volume at MIT Sloan has increased cumulatively 57% over the last three years. It was up last year too. I told the deputy dean not to expect increases this year, and that we’ve already seen the high water mark.

We received just under 5000 applications last year. I’ve been at MIT for 22 years and have never seen anything like it. I do still think that the number of applications will start to decline for all schools.

Regarding hiring: This year was better than last year, and I anticipate continued improvement. Now people know what’s ahead. There are no false illusions of MBAs making hundreds of thousands upon graduation. I think the financial crisis acted as a reset button, resetting expectations of MBA applicants. Not bad at all.

Right after ‘87’s steep stock drop, we still saw people applying for degrees in finance. Then, and now, it’s the people who REALLY want the field and the industry. They’re not just going for it because it’s “sexy” or because they are dazzled by visions of large salaries. The last two years saw a similar resetting of expectations and weeding out of the peripherally interested.

And the students now know they have to work harder for their jobs. They know they need to do their share. Days of easy, multiple offers and big signing bonuses are over. People need to be (and are) much more realistic.

Accepted.com: MIT’s Sloan Fellows program and its new EMBA program are both geared toward middle managers who want to move into senior management, usually people with more than 10 years of work experience. Does MIT Sloan prefer that candidates with more than 10 years of full-time work experience apply to one of these programs and not to the full-time program?

RG: Not necessarily. We do have people with 10+ years of experience apply to the full-time MBA program. One difference between the Fellows program and the full-time program is that many Fellows are sponsored. The Sloan Fellows program has a relationship with companies/sponsors who still frequently sponsor students.

Accepted.com: What if you have a 35-year-old who is not sponsored, where should he or she apply?

RG: An MBA is better for career switchers. The Fellows program doesn’t have the same career services. If they want a broader, longer program, then they should apply for an MBA. If they want an intensive program with peers, then the Fellows program is more appropriate.

Accepted.com: In an interview with MBA Podcaster you emphasized the importance of above-average career progression relative to one’s peers. How can an applicant show career progression when in a flat organization or self-employed?

RG: Through the essays and recommendations. When we evaluate work experience, we look at work success relative to peers. Are you ahead or behind the curve? We want ahead of the curve. A good resume should show progression through increased responsibilities.

Recommendations show it too and are important. The application is not just what a candidate is asserting; we need assertions to be backed up by recommendations.  We want to see growth and ideally a comparison to peers, like “In top 2% of peers” or a similar comment.

Length of experience doesn’t make someone more competitive if that person has stagnated.

How can early career applicants show that kind of progress?

Early career applicants are encouraged to apply. MIT Sloan has admitted a handful of applicants straight from college. Really outstanding applicants. We look at internships, community service, and activities at school. You can see the path. They have sought opportunities and internships. They have been really involved, sometimes entrepreneurial. They are academically outstanding and also outstanding in the opportunities they have sought.

Accepted.com: How do you read an MBA application? What do you look at first and then how do you go through it?

RG: There’s no hard rule for this. Some do a quick scan of hard numbers: GMAT, grades, work, the resume. Some like to start with the recommendations. Some like to start with the cover letter. Some read resumes from the bottom.

I personally do a quick scan to get an idea of who the person is. Then I like to read the recommendations because it gives me an idea of the candidate before he gets to paint his or her own portrayal.

Sometimes it’s frustrating when a recommender does a great job of describing the candidate and then the applicant does a poor job of describing himself or herself. After reading the recommendation, I have a level of expectation and it’s disappointing when they fall flat. After the recommendations, I read the cover letter, resume, and essays.

Message: Don’t take things for granted. An application has to be consistently good. You don’t know what the adcoms are going to pick up first or what they’ll end with.

Also, coach your recommenders. Educate them as to why you are applying so they can do a better job.

Accepted.com: What makes an applicant come alive for you through his or her application?

RG: We had one international applicant who had graduated from a liberal arts U.S. college and was working as an analyst for a large corporation. He left his job and went back to his under-developed home country to work in a social enterprise entity. That entity combined his hobby, his passion for helping the poor make a living, and his knowledge of business. Then he applied to Sloan, and he stood out by virtue of his initiative and entrepreneurship, and willingness to take a well-analyzed risk, pursue his hobby, do something he loves, and help the poor. His passion, energy, and commitment really stood out.

People need to follow their passion. This guy did, and got in.

Accepted.com: What is a real turn-off in an application or in applicant behavior?

RG: Turn-off in applications: People recycling essays from other schools, especially when they haven’t proofed their essays and you see other schools’ names. It’s just laziness.

Also, a lot of people don’t know how to write letters—no date, no address, no closing. They don’t know how to use a professional format. Career development folks say such details still count.

Turn-off in behavior: Some applicants are very rude on the phone or they’re discourteous to secretaries or receptionists. That is unacceptable behavior. They don’t seem to be aware.

Accepted.com: What is the one program at MIT that you wish more people knew about?

RG: I wish they knew more about the work we’re doing in distributed leadership, especially the work of Deborah Ancona. She’s the head of MIT’s Leadership Center. For example, today we hosted 30 students from Norway, part of a BU program. Someone asked about teams—what kinds of people should you seek on a team? Deborah Ancona teaches that there are four key areas of leadership: visioning, relating, sense making, and inventing. If you are strong in one area, you want team members who are strong in the areas that you are weak in. Distributed leadership implies that leadership is important at all levels, not just for the person on top. In fact, the success of the person on top is built on the successes of people on the bottom and everywhere in between.

People load up on courses in finance, econ, and strategy while pursuing the MBA. They leave and move up the corporate ladder. Then they realize they didn’t take any soft courses. I hear constantly from the alumni who wish they had taken the soft management courses like leadership, negotiation, etc.

Accepted.com: What is the one attribute of the MIT Sloan community that people tend to appreciate only after they arrive?

RG: The down–to-earth nature of the student body, the faculty, and the deans. People are really surprised by that when they come here. People are generally a little intimidated by MIT, but it is really a very friendly place. I remember walking down the street, and saw someone ask a faculty member for directions. If only the asker had known that the person he had stopped was a Nobel Prize winner…. People at MIT take the time to help. I know that once someone visits, they will choose to attend if accepted.

Interested in more information about MIT Sloan, check out Accepted’s MIT Sloan Bschool Zone.

By Linda Abraham, President and Founder of Accepted.com.

In short, Dean Henry is attempting to remove Stern’s reputation as a “finance school” and instead transform the school (and its reputation) into a more diverse program that doesn’t just churn out students for careers in finance, but for a wide range of other career fields as well.

In 2007, 44% of Stern graduates entered investment banking. In 2008 that number was down to 37%. In 2009, only 32% entered that same field.

In 2008 only 8% of Stern graduates did not receive a job offer three months after graduating. In 2009 that number jumped up to 18%.

Relying on investment banking is just not as wise as it once was.

The challenge of transforming the Stern class profile is a twofold challenge: First, restructuring the career services department—this will require the addition of many new resources as new recruiting relationships need to be forged in new industries. The second challenge is more difficult—the restructuring of the academic program itself. These changes will require getting new faculty members and shifting around management duties, in addition to the actual changes that need to be made in the curriculum.

Students for the most part are welcoming these changes with open arms. Stern graduates are somewhat notorious for taking jobs in North America alone and perhaps look forward to the program’s forthcoming global footprint expansion.

The new dean makes it clear that despite his ambitious plans to expand Stern’s program and diversity, one should not conclude that he plans on severing relationships with Wall Street. In fact, Henry says “he will continue to strengthen relationships with Wall Street and the finance sector in general.”

Thomas Cooley, Professor of Economics and former Stern dean reflects on Stern’s past and present situation. He explains that this is not the first time that Stern was faced with such a challenge. In the last decade, he explains, when everyone was turning towards the dot-coms, Goldman Sachs actually had trouble recruiting.

Cooley ends by making two final points: First, he says, “[w]hatever you think the world is right now, hold on because it can change very quickly. And second, “Stern will always tilt slightly toward Wall Street, but then again most business schools do.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Fortunately, assuming the FT is correct in its allegations, top MBA programs are addressing these criticisms and are cleaning up their acts. B-schools are tweaking their curriculums—with some changes as major as adding new classes—to transmit to their students lessons of the financial crisis. Classes on ethics and the history of financial crises are some of the new offerings at now conscientious b-schools.

Jake Cohen, dean of the MBA program at Insead explains how the economic crisis is achieving a goal otherwise overlooked in the past: the bridging of private and public sectors. Teaching MBA students about the impact of the public sector and its relationship with the private sector is now an integral learning point for current MBAs.

Harvard Business School is an example of an institution that is taking specific measures to educate its MBA students about the impact of the financial crisis. HBS has added new courses, including “The Evolution of the US Financial System” and “Managing the Modern Financial Firm.” Risk management, until now, has been a relatively undervalued focus in an MBA course of study.

Anderson School of Management at UCLA is also making significant changes to its syllabi. A first-year finance class that used to focus on stocks and bonds now includes discussions on credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and mortgage-backed securities.

Kenan Flagler’s Dean James Dean is taking a more conservative approach. He explains:

“We don’t want to make knee-jerk changes, we want to be thoughtful about it. It would be a bad mistake to throw out some of the fundamentals for something that looks important now but will not be as important three or four years from now.”

I think we can all agree with Dean in hoping that these crisis-related objectives will be irrelevant in a few years.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

You will find in the special report articles on:

• Applying while or after a layoff.
• The series “MBA in Finance: Forget It?”
• The disappearance and reappearance of financial aid options.
• The wisdom of applying during times of financial uncertainly.

Please feel free to download and share Applying to Business School in Times of Crisis.

Please also use the comments to share your thoughts on the topics discussed in this special report.

“Responding to a request from the Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC®), a leading international bank has joined with experienced service providers in student financial aid to create a new pilot lending program for international students who attend graduate business schools around the world.

“The pilot is prepared to provide at least $500 million in loans to students in about 40 business schools in the United States and Europe, beginning with the 2009-10 academic year.

“International students, who comprise a high percentage of all U.S. graduate business school enrollment, have been especially hard-hit by the financial crisis. They are not eligible for federal loans and several major lenders have terminated the “no-cosigner” student loan programs that were widely used by this group.

“The new lending structure is designed to be school-centric and school-controlled and is not dependent on any particular bank or group of banks. Students who borrow under the program will not be required to secure co-signers. Schools involved in the program will not own loans, incur up-front costs, or have liability for individual loan defaults.

“A key participant in the project is Kevin Moehn of Moehn Management, Inc., a new company established to bring lending organizations together to facilitate student loans through a program that “delivers a sustainable and dependable structure for business schools to finance international students.’” Emphasis added.

The press release did not indicate which 40 schools will participate in the program.

• Don’t forget finance and investment banking! It is critical to business. It may be down, but it’s not dead. It will resurrect itself in a new form, but it won’t disappear.
• Be prepared to discuss intelligently the challenges in the field.
• Have a realistic plan for achieving your goal.
• Most indicated that a Plan B, especially for career changers, is a good idea.

To further the last point, we received several detailed interview reports today in the MBA Interview Feedback Database, including one for NYU. As if on cue, this applicant wrote in response to “What was the most difficult question [in your interview]?”:

Given today’s economy, what is your Plan B if you can’t get the summer internship or job that you are interested in? Even though I was prepared to answer this question, my interviewer mentioned that a lot of prospective MBA students are so locked into their plan that it’s almost like tunnel vision and they haven’t giving much thought to a back-up plan.

My question:

Given the weakness in investment banking, hedge funds, and financial services in general, how do you react to applicants who say they want an MBA to enter IB, PE or a related field that has been devastated by the economic downturn? Is the reaction “What planet have you been on?” Or, are you willing to consider those applicants because you feel the market for these skills will come back in a couple of years?  Would you like to know that IB et.al. is the primary goal? Would you like to see a Plan B? Is your reaction different if the applicant is coming from IB or a related field as opposed to someone seeking the MBA to change careers?

Bruce DelMonico, Director of Admissions at Yale’s School of Management, responds:

Thanks so much for your email.  That’s a really good question.  Our reaction is definitely not “what planet have you been on.”  We understand that finance hiring is down right now, but i-banking, private equity, and finance generally are not going away, so we want to make sure we continue to train future leaders in these areas.  The same firms that came to campus to recruit last year are back this year (other than, of course, those like Lehman and Merrill that have morphed into Barclay’s and B of A).  They are still making offers and hiring our students, just not always as many as in the past, for obvious reasons.

What they and other companies who recruit here tell us that they learned from the last downturn, where they stopped hiring entirely and realized later that there was a gap in their talent pool.  So firms may be scaling back in their hiring given the current financial situation, but they realize that they still need to cultivate talent and promote a steady stream of employees through their ranks.  We’re taking the same attitude – finance may be down right now, but it’s not out, and we want to be there helping with the solution.  It may be easier and more natural to run away from the industry because it’s down, but I think the better – and bolder – move is to stay in when things are down and try to figure out how to make them better.  That’s what we hope our finance students will do.

That got a bit philosophical near the end.  But the bottom line is that we’re not trying to market-time things here – we want to bring in the strongest class possible.  Who knows what the economy will be like two years from now, when these students will graduate.  If they’re strong candidates and can articulate a compelling reason why they want to go to business school, we will give them a hard look.  In terms of people coming from i-banking versus those who are changing careers, for everyone we look for the same thing: are you willing to put in the effort to make your goals a reality?  It’s very tough to go straight into a hedge fund or PE firm from business school (although we do have, for example, a first year who beat out a lot of top candidates from other schools to land an internship this summer at Paulson & Co, so it is possible).  Students should be willing to take the steps necessary to position themselves for success.  So if they don’t have a finance background, they need to know that they’re not going to jump straight into PE.  They need to get more general finance exposure first, build their skill set, and work their way up.  The same with students who have a finance background but who want to move higher up in the finance food chain.  It’s a matter of being patient, having a plan, and then executing on it.  We’re looking for people who understand this and are willing to put in the effort.

My question:

Given the weakness in investment banking, hedge funds, and financial services in general, how do you react to applicants who say they want an MBA to enter IB, PE, or a related field that has been devastated by the economic downturn? Is the reaction “What planet have you been on?” Or, are you willing to consider those applicants because you feel the market for these skills will come back in a couple of years?  Would you like to know that IB et.al. is the primary goal? Would you like to see a Plan B? Is your reaction different if the applicant is coming from IB or a related field as opposed to someone seeking the MBA to change careers?

Rod Garcia, Director of MBA Admissions at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, responds:

On the contrary, we don’t react negatively to candidates who want to be in financial services. There are still jobs in finance; it’s just not in Wall Street anymore. I see this period much like October 87; the people who wanted to study finance are the ones who are serious about learning the fields rather than going to it because of bonuses. So, from MIT’s standpoint, we look at them kindly.