UVA / Darden MBA News
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Published: January 26, 2014
Harvard Business School Again Tops Financial Times Global MBA Ranking
Harvard Business School (HBS) appeared at the top of the Financial Times Global MBA annual ranking, released yesterday. It was HBS’ second consecutive claim to the number-one spot and its fifth time topping the rankings since they debuted in 1999. Stanford Graduate School of Business also remained steady this year, reclaiming the number-two spot it held last year. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania slipped to fourth as London Business School stepped into the number-three spot. Columbia Business School and INSEAD tied for fifth.
The FT compiles its annual global MBA rankings based on two surveys of the business schools and their alumni. (For this year rankings, alumni who graduated in 2010 were surveyed.) Based on the responses to these surveys, the MBA programs are measured according to the career progression of their alumni, the school’s idea generation and the diversity of students and faculty.
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Published: October 8, 2013
Stanford Graduate School of Business Returns to Number One Spot in Forbes 2013 MBA Rankings
Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) reclaimed the top spot in the Forbes 2013 biennial ranking of MBA programs, released today. The University of Chicago Booth School of Business took second, bumping Harvard Business School (HBS), which topped the list in 2011, to third place. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School followed up the lead in fourth.
Forbes, which ranks full-time MBA programs every two years based on return on investment, found that at the top 25 programs in the United States, the degree still pays off, although it takes longer to do so. For the Class of 2008, the class surveyed for this year’s ranking, the average payback period was 3.7 years, as compared to 2.7 years a decade ago, Forbes reports.
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Published: September 30, 2013
Clear Admit Chats with Dean Bob Bruner of UVA’s Darden School of Business
When Bob Bruner, dean of the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia, casually mentioned getting together over a cup of tea in Philadelphia last month, Clear Admit jumped at the chance. It’s not every day that the dean of a top-ranked MBA program proposes meeting up – in our own city no less. It would turn out to be just a part of what makes Bruner unlike some other deans.
A member of the Darden faculty since 1982 and its dean since 2005, Bruner has long promoted Darden’s commitment to high-engagement teaching and to fostering a collaborative community-oriented ethic among its students. His efforts have won him multiple leading teaching awards at the University of Virginia and within the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as designation as 2012 “Dean of the Year” by Forbes/CNN Money and PoetsandQuants.
Bruner has long set himself apart as a dean who blogs and tweets regularly, hoping to share his unique perspectives with a wider audience. “There are few deans that blog about their own work or the world around them or higher education,” he told us. “I think that’s a shame. I think deans have a lot to say that could inform the way all the stakeholders at business schools engage their schools and shape expectations about the schools.”
For more on what Bruner has to say – on topics ranging from gender equity and the MBA to growth in massive open online courses (MOOCs) to the ways graduate management education must adapt to and embrace globalization – read on.
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Published: August 21, 2013
Career Services Director Q&A: Jack Oakes of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business
~ A CLEAR ADMIT EXCLUSIVE ~
Our continuing series of interviews with MBA career service directors takes us this week to Charlottesville, Virginia, where Jack Oakes of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business generously made time to speak with us. Oakes has been assistant dean and director of career management at Darden’s Career Development Center (CDC) since September 2010, leading all of the center’s activities, including developing strategy, managing a global portfolio of recruiting companies and coaching students.
Oakes first joined the CDC in February 2005, but his connection to Darden dates back further, to his own time there as a student. He graduated with an MBA/MA in East Asian Studies in 1989, having come in as a career switcher looking to shift from finance to marketing. Upon graduation, he worked in a range of marketing roles, including in consumer goods at Procter and Gamble, before coming back to Darden and the CDC. “This is really just another version of marketing,” he explained, “because we help students market themselves to prospective employers, we help companies market themselves to students and we help Darden market itself to the world.”
In the interview that follows, he encourages students to come to Darden having taken a close look at their own skills, characteristics and abilities so that they can take advantage right away of the resources the CDC provides to determine the right career path for them. He also gives some advice to prospective applicants preparing to approach the Darden application. “Here at Darden, what is most important is not what a student will learn but what a student will teach other students,” he says. “In the case method students are learning as much from each other as from a faculty member, so show how you will make Darden stronger.”
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U.S. News Ranks 10 Full-Time MBA Programs That Lead to Highest Student Debt
As part of its Short List series, U.S. News & World Report today took a closer look at the student debt load incurred by full-time MBA students graduating from top business school programs. According to data provided by schools as part of its annual ranking, U.S. News found that full-time MBA graduates in 2012 emerged with an average of $49,619 in debt. At the 10 schools where graduates incurred the most student debt, the average per student was $97,154.
Graduates of New York University’s Stern School of Business top the list in terms of average debt. There, the average graduate has a debt load of $105,782. Six figure debt is also the norm for graduates from the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, U.S. News reports.
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Top Business Schools Report Healthy Application Volume Increases
When GMAT test-taking volume jumped by 11 percent for the year ending last June, those watching the MBA admissions space had reason to suspect that application volume at top schools might follow suit. Recent articles from Bloomberg BusinessWeek and Poets & Quants reveal exactly that, with Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, the University of Virginia’s Darden School and the University of Chicago’s Booth School all reporting double-digit increases in the number of students applying to their two-year, full-time MBA programs.
Bloomberg BW last week surveyed its top-10 ranked business schools, discovering that half were reporting significant increases in application volume, ending a three-year decline. Johnson led the pack, with an increase of 12 percent, followed by Darden, at 11 percent, and Chicago Booth, at 10 percent.
P&Q reports that Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business blew even those numbers out of the water: Applications to that school’s two-year MBA program swelled by 25 percent after it moved up the Bloomberg BW rankings four places, to 15th, last year.
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