Harvard Business School MBA News
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HBS Alumnus Gives Largest Gift in University’s History to School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
An alumnus of the Harvard Business School (HBS) today made the largest gift in Harvard University’s history—a $400 million endowment that will support the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). The gift, from billionaire hedge fund manager John A. Paulson (MBA ’80), will help fund SEAS’s planned expansion across the river from Cambridge to Allston, where its scientists and engineers will occupy research and teaching facilities adjacent to HBS and the Harvard Innovation Lab (i-lab).
“John Paulson’s extraordinary gift will enable the growth and ensure the strength of engineering and applied sciences at Harvard for the benefit of generations to come,” Harvard University President Drew Faust said in a statement. “His appreciation of the importance of SEAS to faculty, students, and schools across the university has motivated a historic act of generosity that will change Harvard and enhance our impact on the world beyond.”
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Sustainability Takes Center Stage at Harvard Business School Commencement
Leah Ricci (left) and Allison Webster (right) stand ready to help HBS Commencement attendees dispose of materials properly
Forget crimson. The stoles and tassels worn by Harvard Business School (HBS) graduates today may have been deep red, but the school was going for green in its commencement exercises this year. As part of the day’s events—as well as those of Class Day yesterday and Reunion tomorrow—HBS graduates, alumni and guests will take part in a coordinated composting effort unlike any in the school’s history.
For the first time ever, the back-to-back celebrations this week at HBS will feature completely compostable lunch containers and utensils, which attendees will sort into designated bins for recycling, composting and trash. And because it can sometimes be hard to determine which items go into which bins—especially for novice environmentalists—HBS Green Team volunteers will staff each of the 20 sorting stations to help people know what’s what.
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Harvard Business School Aims to Become “Go-To Place” on Gender Issues
Harvard Business School (HBS) wants to help the world understand gender-related matters as never before—so today it launched a brand-new Gender Initiative designed to promote gender equity in the business world and society as a whole.
“Harvard Business School and its faculty have been leaders in defining the roles and functions of business, as well as effective business practice," Dean Nitin Nohria said in a statement. "With the launch of this initiative, we want to have a similar and lasting impact on the way the world understands and acts upon gender-related matters."
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Published: April 29, 2015
Harvard Business School Wants Its Business Fundamentals Course to Be Law of the Land
Harvard Business School (HBS) today announced that the online business fundamentals course it launched last year will now be available to entering students at Harvard Law School. Today’s announcement follows on the heels of an announcement yesterday that HBS would likewise make its signature online business fundamentals course, known as HBX Credential of Readiness (CORe), available to undergraduate students at nearby Amherst College, with plans in place to roll it out to additional undergraduate institutions in the future. HBX CORe has been available to Harvard College undergraduates since last year.
CORe, says HBS, uses the HBS signature case-based method to teach participants the key concepts of business. As in an HBS classroom, CORe classes require active participation and social learning. Three individual courses make up the HBX CORe core offering: Business Analytics, Economics for Managers, and Financial Accounting.
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Published: April 27, 2015
HBS Inks Agreement with Amherst Making Online Business Fundamentals Course More Accessible
Undergraduates at Amherst College will have increased access to HBX, Harvard Business School’s online business fundamentals course, thanks to a new agreement announced this week between the two schools. Similar agreements with other colleges and universities are expected to follow, according to HBS.
The agreement with Amherst is designed to increase access to the HBX Credential of Readiness (CORe) program, an 11-week online course on the fundamentals of business designed by HBS faculty. First offered last summer, HBX CORe has now been offered to four cohorts of students. The next program will begin on June 3rd.
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Published: April 21, 2015
Leading Business Schools Commemorate Earth Day
From Philadelphia to Los Angeles, business schools and their students are endeavoring to combat climate change at both the campus and the corporate level through innovation, conservation and awareness raising.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, for its part, is hosting the 8th Annual Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL) Conference. This year’s theme, “Business Takes the Lead,” will examine how business innovation holds promise for helping the world both mitigate and adapt to climate change.
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Published: April 14, 2015
HBS Rolls Out New Recruiting Program Targeting Students at Women-Only Colleges
Harvard Business School (HBS) last week announced a new recruiting program designed to help increase the pipeline of qualified female applicants to its MBA program. The program, called Peek Weekend, invites juniors, seniors and recent graduates from women’s colleges for a June weekend of case studies, presentations and other activities designed to serve as an introduction to HBS and the MBA degree.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, HBS Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold explained that the school hopes through the program to give women a fuller sense of what an MBA can lead to. Calling the MBA “a misunderstood degree,” she noted that there is a perception among many that pursuing one “must mean you want to go work in a bank forever and sit in a cubicle and wear a suit.”
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Choosing an MBA Program Based on Where You Want to Work
With some lucky applicants now having been accepted to multiple top-tier business schools, a new challenge faces them: choosing where to go. A New York Times article decided to look at that question in an interesting way, offering suggestions for what school to attend based on the specific company you hope to work for upon graduation.
According to the Times analysis, the best school to choose if you want to land at Amazon is the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Amazon last year hired 27 Ross MBAs, displacing the school’s historical No. 1 recruiter, Deloitte, according to the Times. Another 37 Ross grads headed to the e-commerce giant in the two years before that.
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Published: March 23, 2015
Round 2 Decision Day at UPenn’s Wharton School, Harvard, Stanford
The fate of many hopeful MBA applicants hangs in the balance, with the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School scheduled to release Round 2 decisions today and Harvard Business School (HBS) and Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) scheduled to release Round 2 decisions tomorrow. We know from the Clear Admit LiveWire that lots of applicants have already gotten the good word from Wharton and Stanford via phone today, so a hearty congrats to those of you who fall into this category!
Don’t expect early calls from HBS, says Admissions Director Dee Leopold. “While we love to give happy news, we don't want to create an anxiety zone where you are watching your phone constantly,” she wrote in a post to her Director’s Blog today. All notifications from HBS will go out via email at 12 noon Boston time tomorrow. “We know you've been out-of-control throughout much of this process - we can give you the control of where you are and with whom when decisions go out,” Leopold added.
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Published: March 15, 2015
SXSW Conference Spotlights Business School Students’ Embrace of Design
Student-led design clubs can be found at 70 percent of the top-ranked MBA programs both in the United States and globally, an indicator that MBA students are embracing design wholeheartedly as part of their general management education, according to a presentation yesterday at the SXSW Conference in Austin. The presentation, entitled “Design in Tech,” was delivered by John Maeda, former president of the Rhode Island School of Design who last year joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) as its first “Design Partner.”
As part of the presentation, Maeda provided a data-driven examination of the intersection of design and technology. Reporting on the findings of his inaugural “Design and Technology Trends Report,” Maeda highlighted the rising importance of design in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, noting the acquisition of design firms by tech companies like Facebook and Google, as well as the trend toward venture capitalists funding startups that have designers as co-founders.
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Published: March 10, 2015
Stanford GSB Edges Out HBS, Wharton in 2016 U.S. News & World Report Rankings
Stanford’s Graduate School of Business took the number one spot in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of the nation’s best MBA programs, released yesterday, knocking Harvard Business School (HBS) to second and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School to third. Last year, the three powerhouse schools tied for first place, but slight differences on core metrics caused HBS and Wharton to slip this year.
U.S. News uses multiple core measurements to compile its rankings, with the greatest weight given to quality assessments by deans and MBA directors at peer schools and corporate recruiter survey scores. Wharton’s scores slipped in both these regards, as well as in average pay for its MBA graduates, precipitating its drop this year in the rankings.
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Harvard Business School Names New Innovation Lab Director
If Harvard Business School (HBS) is in your cross hairs, and if innovation and entrepreneurial pursuits are what rev you up, you may be interested to learn that Harvard’s innovation lab will soon have a new commander in chief. Jodi Goldstein, a long-time investor and entrepreneur, will become Harvard i-lab’s new Evans Family Foundation Managing Director beginning this June, responsible for leading the university-wide facility that brings students, faculty, alumni and the community together for team-based and other entrepreneurial activities.
Goldstein, who replaces outgoing Managing Director Gordon Jones, is no stranger the i-lab, Indeed, she’s been part of its management team since the lab’s 2011 launch, coming up with and implementing much of the top programming and resources it’s been able to offer. Just last year she spearheaded the Launch Lab, a business incubator for Harvard alumni, which is putting Allston, MA—where the i-lab is located—on the map as a solutions-centered hub swirling with interdisciplinary collaboration.
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Published: February 10, 2015
Which Business School’s Alumni Network Reigns Supreme?
Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business can claim top honors for the strength of its alumni network, according to a recent Economist ranking, in which current MBA students were asked to rate their school’s network. Nine of the top 10 strongest alumni networks are affiliated with U.S. schools, the Economist notes. “They, after all, have the biggest incentive, being the world leaders at tapping into their alumni networks to secure huge financial gifts. Such schools spend a lot of resources on maintaining relations with ex-students,” read the Economist’s analysis.
As for what helped Tuck secure the very top spot, here’s what the Economist hypothesized: “Its fierce collegiate spirit is famous, perhaps fostered by its setting in the small, sleepy town of Hanover, New Hampshire, which means that students have little else to do but bond.”
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Published: January 26, 2015
Harvard Business School to Send Out Round 2 Interview Invitations Beginning Tomorrow
As applicants to Harvard Business School (HBS) are probably well aware, Admissions Director Dee Leopold and her team are scheduled to send out the first of its Round 2 interview invitations tomorrow, Wednesday, January 28th. What about the blizzard that’s blanketing the northeastern portion of the United States, you wonder? As of yesterday, Leopold expected that invites will still go out as planned, at noon Boston time. “If we need to delay, we will let you know via this blog, a general announcement on the admissions website and also with a voicemail recording on our general phone line,” she wrote in a post to her Director’s Blog, but as of this writing, no updates.
So, some details about HBS interview invites. They will go out in two waves, one tomorrow, and a second on February 4th. Historically, HBS has sent out the bulk of its invites in the first wave. Leopold offered that her best guess is that roughly 600 applicants will receive invitations tomorrow, with another 200 or so receiving invitations next week. “I've said this before, but please don't speculate or develop theories or algorithms about first vs. second,” she urged. “It doesn't work that way. And it has nothing to do with when you submitted, where you live, or the first letter of your last name.”
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Published: December 23, 2014
Harvard Business School Names 16 New Entrepreneurs-in-Residence
MBA students at Harvard Business School (HBS) now have access to a whole new pool of entrepreneurial talent through the school’s Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EiR) program, the school announced earlier this month. HBS has named 16 entrepreneurs to take part in the program for 2014-15, 14 of whom are HBS graduates.
Sponsored by the school's Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, the Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program is now in its ninth year. Participating entrepreneurs come to campus to advise MBA students who are interested in starting their own companies. They also work with HBS faculty on research and course development.
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Published: December 2, 2014
Harvard Business School Study Attributes Leadership Gender Gap to Corporate Structures
A recent study by two professors from Harvard Business School (HBS) and a third from Hunter College examined the career ambitions of 25,000 HBS alumni to help understand the gender gap that exists in senior management positions. They found that despite similar ambitions upon joining the workforce, male respondents were much more likely than their female counterpoints to feel like their goals were met. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the survey’s results showed that this disparity had more to do with corporate structures than with women “opting out” to have families.
The study, “Rethink What You ‘Know’ About High-Achieving Women,” was conducted by HBS Professor Robin J. Ely, Pamela Stone of Hunter College and HBS Gender Initiative Assistant Director Colleen C. Ammerman and published this month in Harvard Business Review. Instead of finding that women’s careers were sidetracked because they chose to prioritize family over work, the researchers discovered that the women who left their jobs after having children did so because “they find themselves in unfulfilling roles with dim prospects for advancement” or facing other career limitations. “It simply isn’t true that a large proportion of Harvard alumnae have ‘opted out’ to care for children,” they continued.
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Published: November 11, 2014
Demystifying the Mysterious World of Business School Rankings
It’s not every day that MBA rankings end up trending on Facebook, and yet yesterday that’s exactly what happened. When Bloomberg BusinessWeek released its biennial ranking of full-time MBA programs, the results shocked many and created quite a buzz. According to Bloomberg BW’s most recent calculations, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business has stolen the number one spot, knocking Harvard Business School out of the top five for the first time in history.
Just how did Bloomberg BW decide which programs rose to the top and which fell from grace? As it turns out, the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University just a few weeks ago released an infographic that provides a clear and concise overview showcasing the rankings methodologies employed by five major publications: Bloomberg BW, along with U.S. News & World Report, the Financial Times, the Economist and Forbes.
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Published: November 10, 2014
Duke’s Fuqua School of Business Tops Latest Bloomberg BusinessWeek Ranking
Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business shot to the top of Bloomberg Businessweek’s biennial ranking of full-time MBA programs, released today, up from No. 6 two years ago. In the process, the North Carolina school unseated the reigning University of Chicago Booth School of Business and pushed Harvard Business School (HBS) out of the top five for the first time in the history of the rankings.
The formula Bloomberg BW employs to arrive at its rankings is as follows: 45 percent of the score is based on how recruiters rate MBA hires from the school, another 45 percent is determined by how graduating MBAs judge their program and the remaining 10 percent is based on faculty productivity, as measured by a tally of research published in leading journals.
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Published: October 30, 2014
Stanford Graduate School of Business Calls It Quits for MBA Admission Blog
Don’t look for future posts on the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) MBA Admissions Blog. In a final entry earlier this week, the school announced that it was saying goodbye to its blog. All prior blog content will remain accessible through mid-December, after which prospective applicants will need to keep up with news and developments regarding Stanford MBA admissions via other means.
“Our blog has begun to resemble a Tesla at a gas station,” wrote admissions staffer Victoria Hendel De La O as part of a final post on October 29th. She attributed the decline of the blog to the school’s increasing reliance on other forms of social media to communicate updates. Indeed, posts to the Stanford MBA Admissions blog have grown increasingly infrequent over the past year – with the last post going up back in June.
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Published: October 6, 2014
Harvard Business School Professor Launches U.S. Cluster Mapping Tool
Renowned Harvard Business School (HBS) Professor Michael Porter has launched a new tool that provides data on the presence of “clusters” – regional groupings of related industries – and regional economies throughout the United States. By providing a view of economic development through the lens of clusters rather than specific types of companies, industries or sectors, the new U.S. Cluster Mapping tool can help identify important links and potential synergies between technology, skills and information.
Porter launched the new tool, based on his path-breaking research, as part of a two-day conference called Mapping the Midwest’s Future, held late last month at the University of Minnesota. The conference drew business leaders, policymakers, economic development officials and academics from multiple Midwest states and Canadian provinces.
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Published: October 5, 2014
New Loan Program Launches for International MBA Students at U.S. Schools
A new pilot loan program will provide expanded options for international MBA students at a number of top programs in the United States, according to a recent report in Poestandquants. The program, offered by Prodigy Finance, will extend to international students and U.S. residents with non-permanent status who are studying at 16 top schools, including Harvard Business School, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and MIT Sloan School of Management.
Especially in recent years, banks have been reluctant to lend to students who are studying internationally. Prodigy Finance seeks to fill this need using a “community finance” model. Basically, alumni from participating schools fund loans for current students, banking on the value of a degree from their alma mater and the likelihood that future alums will repay. Interest rates on the loans vary between 6 and 12 percent, depending on the school, the individual borrower’s profile and current rates.
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Published: September 24, 2014
Reaching Out to Host LGBT MBA Conference Next Week in San Francisco
Nonprofit organization Reaching Out will host a conference for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) business school students and prospective applicants next week in San Francisco. The Reaching Out LGBT MBA Conference expects to draw more than 1,400 students, business leaders and recruiters for three days of events, including a full afternoon of programming for prospective LGBT MBA applicants. This year’s conference will take place from October 2nd through 4th.
Now in its 16th year, the Reaching Out MBA Conference was established to provides future lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender leaders from around the world the opportunity to network, learn and improve their skills and advance in the business world. From its beginnings in 1999 as a student-run conference organized by students at Harvard Business School and Yale School of Management, Reaching Out has grown into a year-round operating organization “dedicated to educating, inspiring and connecting business students to impact change in the classroom and workplace.”
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Published: September 14, 2014
Interview Updates from Harvard Business School Admissions Director
As anyone applying to Harvard Business School (HBS) knows only too well, Round 1 applications were due last Tuesday. As the HBS Admissions Committee has settled into reading applicants’ files, an antsy set of applicants has settled into wait. HBS Dean of Admissions Dee Leopold devoted a post on her Admissions Director blog on Friday to letting the expectant candidates know how the next stage of the process will unfold. Leopold’s team will send out invitations to candidates advancing to the interview stage in two batches next month, one on October 8th and a
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Published: September 8, 2014
MBA@UNC Infographic Demonstrates ROI of MBA
MBA@UNC, the online MBA program at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, has created an in-depth infographic to help demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of the MBA degree generally – as well as some specific benefits offered by online programs.
The infographic notes that 96 percent of MBA graduates rate the value of their degree as outstanding, excellent or good and would recommend a graduate management education to others, citing data from the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Three out of four of those surveyed by GMAC said they could not have obtained their current job without their degree.
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Published: August 26, 2014
Harvard Business School Admissions Director on GMAT vs. GRE
Harvard Business School (HBS) has stated publicly for some time that it accepts both the GMAT and the GRE and does not prefer one over the other. In a bid to be even more transparent on the issue, HBS Admissions Director Dee Leopold devoted a recent post on her Director’s Blog to the matter.
To substantiate the claim that the school is agnostic in terms of a preference between the two tests, Leopold chose to reveal exactly how many applicants submitted each type of test score, along with how many of those applicants were ultimately admitted and matriculated. While the vast majority of applicants opted to submit GMAT scores, the percentage of matriculating admits as compared to total applicants broken out by test were within close range.
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