Paid Leave Endorsed by Business School Faculty

Business school professors are backing a national paid leave policy.

From Stanford GSB graduates staying in Silicon Valley, to business school faculty arguing paid leave is good for business, to HBS essay insights—check out what’s happening on the MBA admissions landscape.

Professors push paid leave

According to business school deans from many top MBA programs across the United States, treating your employees well makes for good business practice. More than 200 business school faculty members have signed a letter of support for the Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act, which would mandate paid leave policy. The letter calls for businesses offering its workers 12 weeks of partially paid leave funded by the payroll tax. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only a fraction of the U.S. workforce has access to paid family leave, while just 60% have access to the Family and Medical Leave Act. (The Washington Post)

Stanford GSB still shines

As faithful blog readers will recall, there’s a huge kerfuffle at the Stanford Graduate School of Business involving the departing dean and a professor—the two were caught having an affair. And to make the matter even stickier, the professor was married to another fellow Stanford faculty member. Prospective students, however, seem unruffled by the drama. As one MBA admissions expert notes, “The scandal at the GSB will have absolutely no impact on application volumes. The GSB brand has been built over decades and has surged along with Silicon Valley… I would be far more concerned with a VC funding bubble collapsing over the next few years.” (Poets & Quants)

Must-know MBA admissions tips

Whether you started business school a few weeks ago or are thinking about starting the application process now to enroll in 2016, you should heed this advice from one MBA admissions consultant: 1) Don’t let your classmates intimidate you. You’re all “good enough.” You all got into the same MBA program. Take this as an opportunity to learn from other members of this incredibly diverse and accomplished group. 2) Learn how to properly engage people during networking events. Seek out valuable contacts. Respect their position, but don’t be in awe of it. 3) It’s what happens outside the classroom that matters most. Yes, while lectures and projects in class are important and will shape you, the MBA experience is also about your social network. 4) Don’t be afraid to fail, but avoid making the same mistakes. You often learn by trial and error. Don’t be afraid to try and not get it quite right the first time. (U.S. News & World Report)

Silicon Valley beckons to business school grads

With more and more business school graduates founding their own companies, and with more current students yearning to intern at start-ups instead of blue chip companies, locations like London and San Francisco are increasingly attracting new MBAs. Consider this: Last year more than half the students who graduated from the Stanford GSB stayed in the Bay Area—either to work at tech businesses or launch their own ventures. “Within the MBA program the number of students choosing to become entrepreneurs has grown,” says a dean at the school. (BusinessBecause)

Successful HBS essays

While not nearly as important as your score on the GMAT (or GRE) or undergraduate GPA, submitting well-written and compelling personal essays can go a long way in helping you get into your top business school of choice. On the flip-side, bad essays can certainly keep you from getting in. Check out the essays written by these successful applicants to Harvard Business School. What you’ll see is that none follow the cookie-cutter approach. Dare to be different. (Poets & Quants)

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