Average starting salaries are up at one top business school.
One top business school reports record-breaking compensation for its graduates, another MBA rankings list lands, and applicants look to change the world through social entrepreneurship. Here’s what’s trending on the business school landscape.
MBA rankings are here!
Bloomberg Businessweek just published its 2016 MBA rankings, showcasing the top business schools in the United States. The publication has been producing its own rankings since 1988, focusing more and more on how individual MBA programs prepare graduate for the workforce. Here’s how it works: 35% of a program’s ranking is based upon a survey of employers who have hired MBAs; 30% is determined by surveying schools’ alumni; 15% is determined by a survey of current students; 10% is based on job placement rates: and another 10% is based on starting salaries.
Topping the list is Harvard Business School, followed by Stanford Graduate School of Business. Our advice about the MBA rankings remains constant: While most lists are good aggregates of important pieces of data, you can’t solely base your decision on where to attend on them. No one MBA rankings list is an adequate substitute for your doing own research. (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Stanford SOM reports record average starting salary
Top-ranked Stanford Graduate School School of Business has a lot to crow about this month… and so do its recent graduates. The Northern California-based MBA program reports that average starting salaries and bonuses for its 2016 graduating class hit $179,346, up 4.2% from $172,196 last year. The school’s close proximity to Apple and Google headquarters were again a boon to its students, with the tech industry picking up the largest share of Stanford talent.
Keep in mind that the above starting salary figures are just average. Individual students received much more lucrative packages. One graduate who snagged a job in investment banking won a $75,000 signing bonus, while another graduate who landed a job with a software firm earned a $65,000 sign-on bonus. The bottom line: It’s a great time to attend a top-ranked business school if you are looking to earn big bucks. (Poets & Quants)
Searching for social entrepreneurship
The MBA is one the most versatile degrees out there. While many graduates go on to use their business school know-how to excel in the finance and tech sectors, others are looking to use their skills to change the world in the nonprofit and philanthropic worlds. If you are someone who’s looking to enter the world of social entrepreneurship, it’s a good idea to make sure that the business schools you are interested in can prepare you for that track. As one student who chose the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business said, “How much do students mean it when they talk about social impact? Do these students really jump in and make a difference?”
Some things to look for: 1) Make sure the school actually offers courses on social entrepreneurship in addition to the more basic MBA courses that will be necessary to succeed in the business world. 2) Find out what recent graduates are doing. 3) See if the faculty is diverse. (U.S. News & World Report)
Whither the Russian two-year MBA?
Two-year, full-time MBA programs worldwide have suffered application drops over the past few years as aspiring business students instead choose to enroll in programs where they can work at the same time or pursue accelerated programs where they can finish quicker. Russia has suffered from this trend more than most. A couple of reasons why: Although the Cold War is over and Russia is no longer a Stalinist state anymore, it isn’t exactly a free market economy either. Plus, MBA programs are a relatively new thing—cropping up only since the 1990s or so. The business schools that do exist have also had a hard time attracting non-Russian students.
But not everyone is so negative. “No matter what the Western press write about corruption and the absence of possibilities to make business in Russia, I don’t see any reason why the development we’ve seen in business education will decline,” says Zaitsev Michael, EMBA director at the Institute of Business Studies Moscow.
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