closeEvents & Promotions
| Last visit was: 27 Apr 2024, 09:59 |
It is currently 27 Apr 2024, 09:59 |
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
12:00 PM EDT
-11:59 PM EDT
03:00 PM IST
-04:00 PM IST
07:00 PM PDT
-08:00 PM PDT
08:00 AM EDT
-09:00 AM EDT
10:00 AM PDT
-12:00 PM PDT
10:00 AM EDT
-10:30 AM EDT
12:00 PM EDT
-01:00 PM EDT
24 Jan 2014, 13:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Friday Factoid: Career Assessment at HBS |
|
With the job market mixed for new MBAs these days, Harvard Business School (HBS) has put together an arsenal of resources to help students in their job search. Students begin by completing an online self-assessment program before they even arrive on campus. The CareerLeader tool, developed by a member of the HBS faculty, helps incoming students identify their life interests, professional skills and “work/reward” values. When they arrive on campus, first-year students participate in a class that helps them interpret their CareerLeader results while discussing cases on the careers of HBS alumni. Later in the semester, but before official recruiting begins, students can attend Industry Weeks, which are on-campus programs and panels that provide overviews of a variety of industries and address how to plan a successful industry-specific job search. These are taught by career coaches, alumni, Career Services staff members and company representatives. First years can also join Career Teams, which are small groups of first-year students who use exercises—facilitated by trained second-year leaders—to help identify and advance their professional goals. Students may also arrange to meet with one of 35 career coaches for one-on-one guidance or take advantage of one of the many student clubs that help prepare their members for interviews. Clearly, HBS is committed to helping its students not just find jobs, but find the “right” jobs. For more information on other defining characteristics of the MBA program at HBS or one of 15 other top business schools, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. If you are applying, our HBS Interview Guide can help you put your best foot forward. |
24 Jan 2014, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: Balancing Love and B-School |
|
Career-driven couples are often forced to accept certain trade-offs. While business schools typically offer clubs, social activities and other helpful resources dedicated to partners of MBA students, maintaining a healthy relationship alongside of one’s professional goals can entail just as many challenges as completing the MBA curriculum itself. Understandably, some careerists avoid committed relationships altogether. However, The Wall Street Journaloffers another perspective in an article this week, sharing the story of one professional couple’s attempt to balance romance with each of their graduate school prospects. Lydia Fayal, now a student at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and Morgan Blake, a recent MIT Sloan alumnus, opted to incorporate some long-term planning strategies into their love life. “Regardless of geography, we each wanted the other to go to the right place,” Blake says. The couple ultimately endured the temporary strain of a long-distance relationship and is now “relishing the payoff for sticking to their plans.” Despite the physical distance, they have collaborated on such projects as IdeaStorm, an entrepreneurial brainstorming program co-founded by Blake. Similarly, in working on her own entrepreneurial endeavor, called AdmitSee, Fayal turned to Blake for business advice. “We really bonded over building that company,” Fayal says, suggesting that business and romantic commitments are not always at odds. |
27 Jan 2014, 09:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Monday Morning Essay Tip: Captivate with Experience, Not Extreme Descriptions |
|
This week we offer an oxymoron of sorts: extreme humility. We suppose that one candidate could be more humble than the next, but one could never refer to oneself as “extremely humble,” because doing so would undermine the very claim to humility. Our philosophy at mbaMission is that candidates should let their experiences—not just their word choices—captivate the admissions committees. Sometimes we find that candidates attempt to emphasize their actions with “extreme” adjectives and adverbs, and this is an approach we strongly discourage. Example: “As others withdrew their support, I remained remarkably dedicated to our crucial fundraising efforts. I dramatically increased my participation in our strategic planning meetings and insisted that we push forward with a wildly creative guerrilla marketing plan, which brought forth tremendous results—$1M in ‘instant’ proceeds.” In these two sentences, the writer uses the descriptors remarkably, dramatically, wildly and tremendous to make his impression. We find that a more effective approach is to eliminate these “extreme” descriptions and let the experiences do the “talking.” Example: “As others withdrew their support, I remained dedicated to our fundraising efforts. I increased my participation in our strategic planning meetings and insisted that we push forward with a guerrilla marketing plan that brought $1M in ‘instant’ proceeds.” In this second example, we do not need to be told that the results were “tremendous,” because the $1M speaks for itself; we do not need to be told that the marketing campaign was “wildly creative,” because this is implied in the nature of guerrilla marketing. In addition to truly showing a level of humility on the part of the candidate, this approach is also less wordy. Although the eight words saved in the latter example may seem inconsequential, we removed them from only two sentences. If we can remove four words from each and every sentence, we would be able to significantly (but of course humbly) augment your essay with other compelling ideas. |
27 Jan 2014, 15:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: Kenan-Flagler Announces New Dean |
|
On February 1, Meade H. Willis Distinguished Professor of Taxation Douglas Shackelford will take over as UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s new dean. Shackelford will replace John P. Evans, who has served as interim dean of the school since July 2013—when Kenan-Flagler’s former dean, James Dean Jr., was appointed as provost. “Doug is uniquely qualified to serve as the next dean of UNC Kenan-Flagler,” stated the school’s provost in a press release from the school, adding, “He is a seasoned academic leader and an internationally recognized scholar and business educator.” Shackelford has served as associate dean of the school’s online program, MBA@UNC, since 2010, and previously as senior associate dean for academic affairs from 2003-2007 and associate dean of the Master of Accounting Program from 1998 to 2002. He is also the director and founder of the UNC Tax Center and a research associate in public economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research. |
28 Jan 2014, 11:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: HBS Venture Capitalist Compares Progressivism to Nazism |
|
Last Friday, HBS MBA and legendary VC investor, Tom Perkins, of the partially eponymously named, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, wrote a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal that has caused quite a stir– likely bringing additional negative sentiment to the very group he was trying to defend – the 1%. In his letter, Perkins attempted to “call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany (and) its war on its ‘one percent,’ namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the ‘rich.’” Perkins directly links the perpetrators of Kristallnacht to a “descendent ‘progressive’ radicalism,” making a rather incredible leap in logic by likening progressive taxation of the wealthiest Americans to Jewish persecution and genocide under the Third Reich. Kleiner Perkins has distanced itself from the remarks, tweeting on Saturday: “Tom Perkins has not been involved in KPCB in years. We were shocked by his views expressed today in the WSJ and do not agree.” Slate also offered an apt retort, stating that Perkins’s letter “certainly proves you can get rich without being very thoughtful, perceptive, or intelligent.” History is not a subject typically emphasized in the MBA curriculum, but that does not explain how Perkins muddled through all those HBS case studies without at least retaining some critical thinking skills. That said, Perkins graduated from HBS in 1957, so it is safe to assume there were few classes that offered media training. |
28 Jan 2014, 15:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Mission Admission: Deciding on a Safety School |
|
Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. For many candidates, Round 3 is a time to sit back, relax and wait for the MBA admissions committees to make their decisions. However, for others, this round is a time to be conservative and apply to a safety school. But what constitutes a safety school? Although determining exactly what a safety school is can be difficult (given that many variables are involved and the definition can shift depending on each candidate), a good place to start is with scores. If a candidate’s GMAT score and GPA are significantly higher than the target school’s averages, then the school is—at first glance, at least—a “safe” choice. So, for example, if you have a 750 GMAT and a 3.8 GPA and you are applying to Emory’s Goizueta School (GMAT middle 80% range 620–730 and GPA 3.4 for the Class of 2015), you are off to a promising start. Next, you might consider your work experience relative to the target program. For example, many Goldman Sachs investment banking “alums” apply to and are admitted to the so-called M7 schools (Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg, Chicago, Columbia and MIT). So if you happen to be such a candidate, choosing a school outside this tier would certainly make you more competitive (keeping in mind scores, community service and recommendations as well). Finally, you might consider the general selectivity of the program. If you consider yourself a competitive candidate at Columbia Business School, which accepts 18% of applicants, applying to Texas, which in recent years has accepted closer to 30%, may be a safe option. Before you start applying to any safety schools, however, you should ask yourself this relatively simple question: “Would I go if I got in?” Spending time applying to an MBA program that you would not be willing to actually attend is pointless. If you choose to apply to such a school (as some do), anyway, you will, rather ironically, find yourself with no “safety” net at all. To explore potential safety schools typically ranked outside of the top 15, check out our Diamonds in the Rough blog series. |
28 Jan 2014, 19:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: What I Learned at… London Business School, Part 4 |
|
In our “What I Learned at…” series, MBAs discuss the tools and skills their business schools provided as they launched their careers. Nitzan Yudan is the CEO and co-founder of FlatClub, a United Kingdom–based online marketplace for short term rentals that connects verified members of exclusive alumni, employment and organizational networks. In the final part of this four-part series, Nitzan reflects on the influence LBS has had on his career. My journey from banker to entrepreneur has been a complete roller coaster, with many ups and downs. Entrepreneurial problem solving is now something that I never stop thinking about. My son was born around the same time that the business was born, and when he and I play with LEGOs, the first thing I think about is how I would “publish” the house we built on the FlatClub site. My advice is that if you like problem solving, become a consultant. If you like problem solving with no resources, become an entrepreneur. When I think about how LBS has influenced my career, specific entrepreneurial skills come to mind. In particular, my education gave me important insights into thinking about how venture capitalists make decisions to invest. The course “Financing the Entrepreneurial Business,” for example, really helped me understand how to pitch ideas. Conversely, the prospect of pitching an actual business idea made class much more interesting and engaging. Beyond imparting these very powerful tools, the LBS network provided the necessary connections and opportunities for starting a business. Many alumni in the United States that we spoke to were eager to help, and one even reached out to invest. FlatClub would not exist without LBS—that I know for sure. |
29 Jan 2014, 11:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: Billionaire Darden Alum Rebuilds Brooklyn |
|
Not often do real estate developers have the liberty to create an entire neighborhood from scratch in one of the most densely populated cities in the country. University of Virginia Darden School of Business alumnus David Walentas (‘64), featured in Forbes this month, seized on just such an opportunity in the late 1970s by transforming a dilapidated industrial landing under the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges into what is now one of the most high-end neighborhoods in New York City—Dumbo. After earning an MBA and making his first foray onto the NYC real estate scene, Walentas borrowed $12M to build up a neighborhood that is now listing individual penthouse suites for $15M. Dumbo’s name has since become synonymous with luxury lofts, art galleries, artisanal shops and boutique retailers, in addition to serving as a hub of tech and start-up ventures. While Manhattan has given birth to plenty of real estate moguls, Forbes points out, “Walentas is the first billionaire to ever make his money almost entirely in New York’s coolest borough.” In a profile this month, Forbes discusses Walentas’ next big move in Manhattan real estate. |
29 Jan 2014, 14:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Professor Profiles: Richard Honack, Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management |
Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they choose a business school to attend, but the educational experience is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Each Wednesday, we profile a standout professor as identified by students. Today, we focus on Richard Honack from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Richard Honack (“Service Marketing and Management” and “Sports Marketing and Management”) is known for integrating alumni and speakers into his popular “Service Marketing and Management” class, which focuses on how one can deliver excellent customer service. Students we interviewed raved about the class’s practicality and about the way Honack unifies theory and real-world application. Further, students reported that they appreciate Honack’s warm personality. One second year told mbaMission that Honack is “interested in each student’s life,” adding, “He wanted to know what your goals were and what students wanted to get out of his class. He made connections for students and wanted to enrich their overall experience at Kellogg.” Students chose Honack as one of five recipients of the school’s Faculty Impact Award in June 2010. For more information about Kellogg and 15 other top-ranked business schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
30 Jan 2014, 12:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Diamonds in the Rough: Simon Graduate School of Business |
|
MBA applicants can get carried away with rankings. In this series, we profile amazing programs at business schools that are typically ranked outside the top 15. The full-time MBA program at the University of Rochester’s Simon Graduate School of Business offers a broadly finance-oriented general management curriculum featuring particular strengths in analytics and accounting. With the option of either the traditional two-year MBA or an accelerated 18-month program, all Simon students begin with a management core rooted in three foundational skill sets: Frame, Analyze and Communicate (known collectively as FACt). The core curriculum encompasses two different required course sequences—“Framing and Analyzing Business Problems” and “Communicating Business Decisions”—in addition to such courses as “Managerial Economics,” “Capital Budgeting and Corporate Objectives” and “Economic Theory of Organizations.” Students complete their core with an assigned study team from their cohort before exploring more specialized professional interests. The school’s elective courses represent a wide variety of industries and functions, such as entrepreneurship, consulting and real estate. Students may choose between 15 optional career concentrations, ranging from Competitive and Organizational Strategy (which includes a more specialized Pricing track) and Marketing (which includes both a Brand Management and a Pricing track), to such analysis-heavy fields as Business Systems Consulting and Computers and Information Systems. Simon’s Center for Entrepreneurship, Center for Information Intensive Services and Center for Pricing offer curricular and research support to supplement the specific career concentrations. Simon is also home to more than 20 professional and social student-run organizations aimed at coordinating networking events and professional development resources to assist students in advancing their careers. |
30 Jan 2014, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Beyond the MBA Classroom: Wordly Cuisine at Darden |
|
When you select an MBA program, you are not just choosing your learning environment, but are also committing to becoming part of a community. Each Thursday, we offer a window into life “beyond the MBA classroom” at a top business school. For the International Food Festival at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business Administration, sponsored by the International Business Society, students arrange themselves into teams according to their home country or culture. On the night of the festival, the teams set up tables with decorations representing their home countries and cultures and present home-cooked, authentic cuisine; in addition, the students often dress in their region or culture’s traditional clothing. A cultural showcase at the end of the evening allows participating groups to show off their region’s music and dancing. One alumna told mbaMission, “It is fascinating to see all of your classmates whipping up their own culinary decadence. Everyone makes a point to eat light the day before, and they gear up to taste foods from 30 different countries and regions—from Korea to Greece to Texas.” Most of the student body and their partners attend this event, as do many professors and alumni. For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at Darden and 15 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
31 Jan 2014, 12:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Friday Factoid: Recruiting While Tailgating at Ross |
|
College football is big in Ann Arbor, and Ross students appear to enjoy the season with real fervor. Tailgates precede nearly every game, and some tailgate parties are even sponsored by corporations and serve as mini recruiting events. At these sponsored tailgates, corporate representatives—who are usually Michigan alumni—network with Ross students. And generally, the more important the game, the more senior the executives representing the sponsor company! We should also mention “The Bus”—a literal school bus painted to look like a Michigan football helmet that is owned by roughly 50 Ross students and has been passed down from class to class each year since the early 2000s. Originally conceived as a way to centralize tailgating for the Ross community, “The Bus” is present at every home game as well as at least one away game each season, serving as home base for spirited tailgate parties. Even the dean has been known to visit tailgates at “The Bus”—which has its own Facebook page! A first year student with whom we spoke noted that “Bus tailgates at home football games” were not to be missed, saying they are “Lots of fun, and you get to hang out with the whole class.” For more information on Michigan Ross or 15 other leading MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
03 Feb 2014, 08:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Monday Morning Essay Tip: Answering the Ethical Dilemma Essay Question |
|
Dilemma: An argument presenting two or more equally conclusive alternatives against an opponent (according to Merriam-Webster) Over the years, we have found that one of the essay questions that gives candidates the most grief is the dreaded “ethical dilemma” question. Although most candidates clearly understand the difference between what is and is not ethical, the problem usually lies in the word “dilemma.” As you can tell from the definition provided, a dilemma occurs when two equally conclusive sides exist simultaneously—with an emphasis on “equally.” Here we offer two examples of responses to an “ethical dilemma” essay question. The first presents only one reasonable side, and the second offers two. Example 1: “While I was working at ABC firm, my boss asked me to book our second quarter revenue in advance so that we could create the appearance of a great first quarter. I firmly told him that this was unethical and refused.” In this example, the candidate is asked to do something that is clearly unethical. However, because the argument really has only one reasonable side—the reader would not want to hear the story if the candidate had agreed to book revenue ahead of schedule!—no ethical dilemma actually exists in this case. Example 2: “As the marketing manager for a small pharmaceutical company, I had to set the price for our breakthrough drug. I needed to consider that on the one hand, a rock-bottom price would mean that our life-saving drug would be available to all, but on the other hand, even though a high price would serve a smaller market, it would make the drug far more profitable and would ensure that we could continue to conduct valuable research into additional life-saving compounds.” In this second example, the candidate outlines a true dilemma. This applicant could be entirely comfortable telling the reader that he pursued either of the pricing strategies, as long as he walks the reader through his/her rationale. The test to determine whether the experience you are considering discussing in your essay involves a true dilemma is fairly simple. Ask yourself, “Could I comfortably discuss the alternative to the path I chose?” If the answer is “yes,” you are clearly on the right track. If the answer is “no,” try again. |
04 Feb 2014, 13:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Mission Admission: Start Advancing Your Personal Goals Now |
|
Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. We have noted before in our Mission Admission series that it is never too late to improve your business school candidacy by engaging in community activities. Today, we send a similar message with regard to personal leadership—you always have time to take steps to bolster your chances of admission. Many candidates completely ignore the personal side of their candidacy. But if you have completed a triathlon, learned a language, published an article or simply been an inordinately dedicated neighbor/sibling/mentor in an unofficial capacity (for example), these kinds of stories can provide interesting points of differentiation. So, if you have an activity or adventure in mind that you would otherwise complete later, pursue it now. We are not suggesting that you go out and start writing poetry tomorrow in hopes of getting something published, but if you are a dedicated poet and have poems that you have long intended to submit, do so now. If you can run 20 miles and have always planned to run a marathon, do it now. Your personal stories can set you apart. |
05 Feb 2014, 11:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Dean Profiles: Glenn Hubbard, Columbia Business School |
|
Business school deans are more than administrative figureheads. Their character and leadership is often reflective of an MBA program’s unique culture and sense of community. Each month, we will be profiling the dean of a top-ranking program. Today, we focus on Glenn Hubbard from Columbia Business School. Glenn Hubbard was appointed dean of CBS in 2004, having been at the school for nearly 20 years and having served as the Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics, the school’s senior vice dean, and codirector of the entrepreneurial program. He is also well known for having been an economic advisor to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012 and a leading designer of the 2003 Bush tax cuts, which he helped implement while chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers. After being criticized for his ties to the financial services industry in the 2010 documentary Inside Job, Hubbard has made a more concerted effort to bring professional responsibility to the fore of the CBS curriculum and to require faculty to fully disclose their professional activities outside of teaching. While many business schools responded to the recent financial crisis by adding standalone ethics courses to their curricula, Hubbard told the Wall Street Journal in 2011, “I don’t think students pay attention to [ethics] the way they do when it’s integrated into your marketing course, into your operations course, into your finance class.” With the launch of a new flexible curriculum in 2008 and further curricular changes set to begin in 2013, the school has reportedly worked to incorporate this integrated approach to teaching ethics directly into its core components. The new curriculum also engenders what Hubbard has promoted as the three most essential directives for business students: “analyze, decide, and lead.” From what we learned in our research, Hubbard is often the good-natured subject of student sketches in the CBS Follies comedy show and has been known to even make a personal appearance now and then. Videos from past Follies in which the dean has featured can be found on YouTube, including a musical parody of “Every Breath You Take”by The Police in which Hubbard covets Ben Bernanke’s 2006 appointment as chairman of the Federal Reserve. For more information about CBS and 15 other top-ranked business schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
05 Feb 2014, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: B-School Chart of the Week: When Did You Decide to Apply? |
|
Although quantifying a school’s profile certainly does not tell you everything, it can sometimes be helpful in simplifying the many differences between the various MBA programs. Each week, we bring you a chart to help you decide which of the schools’ strengths speak to you. We recently asked aspiring MBAs to answer a variety of survey questions about their business school prospects and perspectives. Now the results are in, and for those who are curious about their fellow applicants’ views on business school, we will be sharing some of the collected data in our B-School Chart of the Week blog series. Perhaps you have had business school on your radar for quite a while. Actually committing yourself to the admissions process, however, requires some definite foresight and planning. Understandably, then, when we asked, “When did you decide to apply to business school?,” the majority of respondents said that the timing of their decision occurred more than a year before the typical start of the application season in July—42% in aggregate. Such long-term planning appeared to be prevalent among international applicants in particular, 36% of whom indicated that they made the decision to apply more than a year in advance—while an additional 12% said that they had made the decision more than two years in advance. U.S. candidates’ most common response, on the other hand, was August to December of the previous year—six to 12 months before the beginning of application season. Still, some applicants seem to decide to pursue an MBA within a relatively narrow time frame. Of the U.S. candidates who responded to our survey, 14% noted they made the call in July, the same month application season began (compared with only 8% of international applicants), and 7% within the three months before that, between April and June (12% of international). Taken in aggregate, comparable percentages in each group decided to apply within the same calendar year as the application deadline (36% overall, 35% of U.S. applicants and 36% international). Although you can never really start too early or too late in preparing and optimizing your candidacy, remember that when you ultimately decide to apply to business school will determine which admissions round(s) you should target and how you will need to prioritize the various components of your application timeline. 
|
06 Feb 2014, 13:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Beyond the MBA Classroom: Tailgating at Haas |
|
When you select an MBA program, you are not just choosing your learning environment, but are also committing to becoming part of a community. Each Thursday, we offer a window into life “beyond the MBA classroom” at a top business school. Students at UC Berkeley Haas take advantage of life as part of a large public university not only academically, but athletically as well. On Saturdays when the UC Berkeley football team has a home game, Haas’s courtyard becomes the site of a large tailgate party, complete with cookouts, music and cheer competitions. A second-year student told mbaMission, “The business school is the best place to tailgate on campus.” For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at Haas and 15 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
06 Feb 2014, 16:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: MBA News: Fatherly Advice on Where Start-Ups Come From |
| A satirical piece by Marco Kaye in McSweeney’s this week gives some cautionary, paternal advice about rushing headlong into the “troubling and irresistible” world of start-up ventures. While dropping out of college to pursue your dream could position you as the next Mark Zuckerberg, it could also, as the author points out, result in risking $3B at age 23 or having an eventual breakdown over ad revenue. Business school, by contrast, might prepare you to more confidently navigate such entrepreneurial challenges—though it probably does not safeguard against the perils of late-night hackathons and tech buzzwords: “Before you know it—bang—you’re inside a horribly decorated start-up, Razor scootering from one cubicle to another.” |
07 Feb 2014, 12:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Friday Factoid: Earn a Sustainability Certificate at MIT Sloan |
|
Sustainability is at the heart of MIT Sloan’s nonprofit/social entrepreneurship curriculum. In 2007, the school launched the Initiative for Sustainable Business and Society, with its ultimate goal being, as stated in the Careers into Action roadmap, to “enable people, communities, businesses, organizations, and the planet to flourish while taking an in-depth, integrated look at existing structural models; and to redefine the notion of sustainability by incorporating social equity, economic development, and environmental restoration at all levels.” The initiative serves as an umbrella for the many components that fall under its purview, including, among others, a “Leading Sustainable Systems Lab” course and a “Sustainable Business Lab” course co-taught by eight faculty members, a speaker series, and an internship program. Examples of the more than a dozen sustainability-focused courses from which students can choose (as of 2012-2013) are “Leading Profound Innovations for a More Sustainable World,” “Enabling an Energy-Efficient Society,” and “Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations.” In February 2010, Sloan announced its third specialty certificate option, the Certificate in Sustainability. Open to any master’s level MIT student as an add-on to an existing degree program (e.g., Leaders for Global Operations [see the Operations Management section] and Sloan Fellows), the new certificate “views sustainability as a function of the interdependent dynamics of economic, societal, and environmental systems, where success overall is influenced by success across all areas and not upon a single factor” (quote from a February 2010 MIT Newsroom article). Required courses for the certificate program are “System Dynamics,” “Strategies for Sustainable Business,” “Sustainable Business Lab” (S-Lab), and a capstone course that launched in spring 2011. Students in the program also choose three electives from a list of nearly 40. In addition to receiving the certificate along with their MBA, students who pursue it will receive access to Summer Sustainability Internships and a special resume book for sustainability. Participating in the Certificate of Sustainability program does not preclude a student from also pursuing either of MIT Sloan’s two primary tracks (Finance and E&I). For more information on other defining characteristics of the MBA program at MIT Sloan or one of 15 other top business schools, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides. |
10 Feb 2014, 09:00
| FROM mbaMission Blog: Monday Morning Essay Tip: How Will You Contribute to the Program? |
|
Several business schools pose questions about the unique contributions you can make to their particular programs. Many candidates unwittingly make the mistake of thinking that a bland summary statement like “I will bring my leadership skills to XYZ School” is sufficient to express their intended contribution. One of the reasons we prefer to work with business school candidates “from start to finish” is so we can proactively prevent such problems. Simply relating a story about a past leadership experience and then repeating the main point does not demonstrate that you can or will make a meaningful contribution to the school. Ideally, you want to go further, explaining how you would apply and use your experience and skills while at the school in a way that would offer some benefit to others, thereby showing a true understanding of your fit with that particular program. Example 1: “My experience as a stand-up comedian will allow me to bring humor to the Kellogg environment.” With this statement, the MBA admissions committee is left asking, “How exactly will this applicant bring humor to the environment? Does he really know what our environment is about?” In contrast, consider the following: Example 2: “My experience as a stand-up comic will prove particularly useful at Kellogg, a dynamic environment where I will be constantly joining new and energetic study teams. I anticipate using my sense of humor to create more relaxed team environments, helping everyone feel comfortable contributing, though I will use my humor judiciously, such as to diffuse tense moments during late-night study sessions rather than as a distraction. I believe my skills and experience being funny on stage will also allow me to play an important role in the Kellogg Follies.” In Example 2, the writer has applied his personal experience and intended contribution to the Kellogg experience, and has thereby shown a clear connection with the school, proving that he has a true identification with it and an accurate understanding of its nature. |
|
|
||
Hi Generic [Bot],
Here are updates for you:
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Tuck at Dartmouth
AGSM at UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
 GMAT Club REWARDS
|
