General

In U.S. graduate management education, the M7 business schools are considered to be the seven best in the space. They offer elite MBA programs and are known for their highly selective admissions processes—it’s no wonder the “M” stands for “magnificent.” Which Business Schools Comprise the M7? The schools that make up the M7 include: Columbia Business School (CBS) Harvard Business School (HBS) MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan) Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern Kellogg) Stanford University Graduate School of Business (Stanford GSB) Read more

We’d like to offer hearty congratulations to all who gained admission to their top choices and encourage you to share which business school you plan to attend in 2022. MBA DecisionWire was designed to let MBA applicants, students and alumni share more information with their peers—specifically about where they decide to attend business school based on where they applied and were accepted. DecisionWire provides profile and school selection information updates in real time from your peers as they make the all-important decision of where to actually pursue their MBA. Users can filter others’ submissions by the schools Read more

Let’s pumpkin spice things up! As Halloween approaches, we wanted to take a look at some of the most chilling nightmares that adcom members can face when evaluating MBA applicants. So, what are the scariest mistakes an MBA applicant can make? Clear Admit co-founder Graham Richmond shares his insights below so you can avoid admissions missteps like the houses that hand out raisins for Halloween treats. 1. Don’t Wear an Icarus Costume One of the scariest things for an admissions office is to encounter an applicant with a Read more

It’s never too early to start thinking about recruiting…or is it? We spoke with Keith Bevans, Global Head of Consultant Recruiting at Bain & Co., and Lauren Birnie, Vice President, Head of Firmwide MBA Recruiting at J.P. Morgan to discuss just that. Clear Admit and the MBA recruiting reps from Bain and J.P. Morgan came together on April 28, 2021 to discuss what these sought-after employers look for, and what their hiring processes entail. Topics covered include: How does your MBA recruiting process work? What will the impact of COVID mean for hiring this year? What tips/advice do you have Read more

Sponsored Content In 2012, Jean-Marc Peyrat left his role in science and technology development at Siemens to team up with a colleague and start a company. This was no idle pursuit: Peyrat holds two separate master’s degrees in engineering and biomedical engineering, as well as a PhD in computer science. The venture lasted just a few months, but this brief foray into entrepreneurship whet Peyrat’s appetite for more. Peyrat hit the books again in 2016 when he started the MBA program at HEC Paris. Today, he is the co-founder and CEO of Read more

Sponsored Content  Two women very familiar with what it takes to be successful in MBA admissions, particularly at HEC Paris, offer advice on each stage of the admissions process at the leading program. The HEC Paris MBA Director of Marketing, Sara Vanos, and a star MBA applicant, Kendra Bills, share their experiences in this special feature. Sara Vanos (left) & Kendra Bills (right) Sara Vanos joined HEC Paris in 2014, following her roles in MBA recruiting at Toronto Rotman. Sara currently serves as the Director of Marketing, Recruitment and Sales across the MBA programs at Read more

Welcome to Friday Refresh, a weekly roundup of admissions advice and updates on the Clear Admit site. In this edition, we’re catching up with essay tips, deadlines, admissions news and recommendation questions from the month of July. Essay Tips Drafting your application essays? See the latest of our experts’ advice in our Essay Topic Analysis. The following schools recently released their essays—click for our advice: Berkeley / Haas U. Chicago / Booth Dartmouth / Tuck Northwestern / Kellogg Read more

If you’ve been spending time on our school profile pages lately, you might have noticed new video content! Clear Admit is excited to announce a special partnership with MBATUBE, the official video portal for MBA education. to increase the breadth of our MBA admissions related content and share in MBATUBE’s mission to help you in your decision making process. Watching b-school videos can help you experience what your future MBA life could be, helping you evaluate your options and make your final decision about where to attend with confidence. Just under the FAQ Read more

We know these may be uncertain times for everyone, but that hasn’t changed Bain & Company’s commitment to connecting with the best and brightest MBA talent from around the world. This summer, Bain is launching a fully virtual ExperienceBain to help you put your best foot forward at school and in your future career, no matter where your post-MBA path may take you. You’ll leave with new skills, experiences and connections with our people, our affinity groups and your future classmates. “ExperienceBain was my first opportunity to see not only what consultants do, but how they Read more

As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases reaches over 80,000 globally, mounting concerns have disrupted normal operations of MBA admissions testing, interviews and events. Entrance Exam Sessions Suspended GMAT, GRE, IELTS, and TOEFL testing in mainland China has been pushed back further to the end of March. On its official website, the Graduate Management Admissions Council, which owns and administers the GMAT and Executive Assessment, states the following: “In the interest of the health and safety of our candidates, all testing in Mainland China has been Read more

Erika H. James will begin her tenure as the newest dean of The Wharton School on July 1, 2020.  She is the first woman and person of color to lead the school in its 139-year history.  James, former dean of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, succeeds Geoff Garrett, who plans to head to USC Marshall School of Business this summer. Erika H. James succeeds Geoff Garrett as dean of The Wharton School this summer. Penn President Amy Gutmann remarked in the official announcement, Read more

We love seeing the lively community on Clear Admit, and are excited to highlight some new added features to MBA ApplyWire, MBA LiveWire and MBA DecisionWire to make these admissions tools more engaging and useful for top-tier MBA candidates. For anyone unfamiliar with the “Wires,” MBA hopefuls can share their target business schools on MBA ApplyWire for feedback and admissions advice from the broader community. Meanwhile, MBA LiveWire lets applicants share their real-time progress through the various stages of the Read more

Many 2020 presidential candidates have made student debt a major talking point—and for good reason. According to Forbes, 45 million Americans currently owe over $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. In the realm of business school, Bloomberg Businessweek notes that nearly 30 percent of MBA students at top MBA programs report taking on a minimum of $100,000 in debt. When one stops to consider that the median starting pay for MBAs from top schools ranges from $80,000 to $140,000, it doesn’t take much math to see what debt means for most graduates. If this predicament hits Read more

Sponsored Content Bain & Company is one of the most highly regarded firms in the management consulting industry. One of the “Big Three,” Bain provides services to organizations around the world and across the public, private, and non-profit sectors. With an annual revenue of $4.3 billion, Bain commands by far the largest market share of private equity consulting, employing 10,500 people in 2019, and operating from 61 locations around the world. There’s plenty of information floating around on the exploits of Bain & Company as a firm, but what about the people inside Bain? How did they make their own Read more

Each week we collect MBA news from leading business schools to give you a quick overview of the latest trending topics. In your MBA News You Need digest for the week of December 16th, INSEAD plans to open a San Francisco location in February 2020, Rice Jones hosts a Women in Leadership Conference in February 2020, Carnegie Mellon Tepper MBAs dish their application tips, Georgetown MBAs excelled in the National Real Estate Challenge, and UCLA Anderson rounded up international applicants most common questions. INSEAD Set to Open First North American Hub Slated for February 2020, INSEAD Read more

The Texas MBA program at the McCombs School of Business in Austin hosted 55 MBA students along with alumni and faculty for their annual Women's Weekend. The event seeks to support the empowerment of women in business, and as current student, Jessica Reese-White MBA '21, said, it really gives a sense of the supportive culture at McCombs: Read more

As reported in The Wall Street Journal last month, even the leading U.S. MBA programs are seeing a decrease in applications to their full-time MBA programs. Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and MIT Sloan all saw five percent to seven percent drops in their MBA application volume in 2018-2019. Other top programs have even posted double-digit percentage declines. Overall, U.S. business schools received 135,096 applications last admissions season, down 9.1 percent from last year. Add this to the 7 percent drop in applications in 2016-2017, and you get a somewhat dramatic decline in applications over the past two admissions seasons. These numbers have been cause for alarm (and news coverage) in many corners, but we’ve seen drop offs–and subsequent rebounds–in full-time MBA application volume before. Clear Admit Co-founder, Graham Richmond offered the following take: “It’s important to remember that MBA application volume always dips during a hot economy–as the opportunity cost to leave the workforce is high.  Volume then picks up during sluggish economic periods when jobs become scarce and young professionals seek shelter and insurance by pursuing an MBA.”  Richmond also reminds us that “the recent declines in application volume come on the heels of a period of multi-year growth, so it’s not as though we’re anywhere near all-time lows in application volume.” Big Picture Factors at Play A 13.7 percent decline in international candidates to U.S. institutions accounts for some of the decreasing application volume.  Sangeet Chowfla, chief executive of the Graduate Management Admission Council, tells The Wall Street Journal that “It’s not happening in a vacuum: It’s happening at a time when these global alternatives in other parts of the world are also emerging.” Indeed, and increasing number of Chinese and Indian institutions are offering MBAs, and business schools in Europe and Canada have seen increased application volume over the past several years, all of which suggests reluctance about studying in the U.S. is at play rather than disinterest in the MBA. Read more

Before taking on the dreaded GMAT, what are the most important tips you’ll need to remember? One of the world’s few owners of both a 99th percentile GMAT score and an NBA championship ring, Brian Galvin, Veritas Prep’s Director of Academic Programs, would gladly help Charles Barkley (but not Karl Malone) achieve either. Since earning a Master’s in Education from the University of Michigan, Brian has made the GMAT his full-time course of study since 2006. In addition to his amateur stand-up comedy career and status as a certified Ironman, Brian might very well be one of the foremost GMAT Read more

While finance, consulting and technology tend to dominate business school employment stats, the recruiting landscape can, in fact, support a variety of goals—real estate, energy, sports business, non-profit and more.  The MBA is a versatile degree, empowering business school students to blaze brighter professional trails. Current UCLA Anderson student Tim Maleski '20 opted to pursue an MBA to give himself a leg up in the lucrative, but unconventional, field of sports business. Maleski took to the Anderson blog to unpack how to find a job along the professional road less traveled. The following piece has been republished in its entirety from its original source, the UCLA Anderson Blog. Read more

Already ranked #1 by the U.S. News & World Report, the IU Kelley Direct Online MBA has revamped its program for a more customizable experience. Now, their online program is even more robust while still offering the same flexibility and strengths that have made Kelley Direct a long-time business leader. As always, the same faculty that teach in the IU Kelley on-campus programs also teach in the Kelley Online program. The Kelley Direct Online program also still includes live case studies within every in-residence week, offers global and domestic immersions, and focuses on quality student experiences. The purpose of the revamp wasn’t to take away any of the elements that made the online MBA so great in the first place. Instead, the goal was to enhance the curriculum and offer more customization to make the program even stronger. The Kelley Direct Online MBA now offers students 50 percent electives, seven majors, and a signature integrated core experience focused on business fundamentals. It’s the next evolution of the online MBA, which goes far beyond what people typically think of for online MBAs. “The primary motivation for the redesigned online MBA was not to focus on a new market segment, but to update our product and create a significant differentiator from other competitors in the marketplace,” explains Ramesh Venkataraman, chair of the Kelley Direct Online MBA and MS programs. More Electives for a More Customized Student Experience A quick glance at the current marketplace tells you that a candidate with specialized knowledge is more valuable than a general management MBA candidate. So, it made sense for the Kelley Online MBA program to update its curriculum to match what employers want, and they did this by drastically increasing the number of electives offered. “In general, online MBA programs tend to be more core-heavy with less potential for electives,” Ramesh says. “But why should our online MBA not have as many electives as any other product? Specialized knowledge is what the marketplace wants, and our new electives allow students to gain that knowledge and use it as a launching pad in their careers.” The newly revamped online MBA, which launches this fall, requires students to complete 27 credit hours of core coursework and 27 credit hours of electives—a 50/50 split. It’s a significant change from the previous format, which allowed for just 12 elective credits. The increase—with at least ten different electives in each of seven disciplines—results in a far more customizable student experience that’s aligned with both student and employer expectations. Read more

One of the major perks of an MBA is the opportunity to practice in an international business environment. On site, MBAs develop new strategies to adapt to distinct cultural norms and do business under very different sociopolitical circumstances than the ones to which they are accustomed. While most MBA programs offer optional study abroad components, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business stands out for its “travel requirement” that students must fulfill in order to graduate. First-year Tuck MBA student and New Zealand native Marianne Poh took to the Tuck Blog to discuss her collaboration with an Indian experiential learning program provider. The following piece has been republished in its entirety from its original source, the Tuck Blog. Read more

No doubt spurred by the growing conversation about climate change and corporate social responsibility (or lack thereof), one industry that has many in the MBA community buzzing is impact investing. Current Oxford Saïd MBA student Alma C. Gutierrez Toledano recently took to the Saïd blog to discuss how she has explored impact investing so she can produce positive impact while doing business.  Read on to learn more about impact investing and the plethora of related opportunities at Saïd—and how interest in impact investing spans the b-school network with related competitions. The following piece has been republished in its entirety from its original source, the Saïd Business School Blog. Read more

The MBA is a framework to explore what matters most to you. Much of the value of business school is in helping students define and refine their professional goals, and then equip them with the tools to excel in their desired field. As you might imagine, the sheer number of opportunities associated with elite programs like Chicago Booth can be overwhelming. Many first-year MBA students find themselves paralyzed by the options at their fingertips.  In light of this challenge, Booth’s Nakul Gupta took to the Booth Experience Blog to unpack how to navigate the plethora of choices at your disposal when you first arrive at business school.  The following piece has been republished in its entirety from its original source, the Booth Experience Blog. Read more

There has been much digital ink spilled on these pages about the value of MBA networks, post-graduation. However, one of the most crucial aspects of the business school experience has to do with peer networks that emerge during MBA programs. Peer mentorship relationships between first- and second-year students can make the first year of business school slightly less of a shock to the system for new MBA candidates. They can also help first-years lay the groundwork to get the most out of their business school experience. Second-year MBA student and Park Leadership Fellow Bryan Tannenbaum, who prior to business school served as Citi Community Capital’s Assistant VP, took to the Cornell / Johnson blog to discuss his experiences as both a mentor and mentee. The following piece has been republished in its entirety from its original source, the Cornell Johnson Business Feed. Read more

Bain & Company invites incoming MBA students to apply to ExperienceBain, a series of immersive workshops and events held at Bain & Company’s 57 offices around the world. ExperienceBain consists of five programs—outlined below—that give incoming MBA students exclusive access to Bain & Company before arriving on campus. We want to help you put your best foot forward at school and in your future career—no matter where your post-MBA path may take you. Selected applicants will develop the business toolkit of the future (e.g., design thinking, inspirational leadership), understand the latest challenges facing businesses, join discussions around workplace diversity and build Read more