And if you needed any more convincing that an MBA is right for you, the report confirms that the MBA is the highest paid postgraduate qualification worldwide. According to the article, the highest average MBA salary of any sector (EU and North America) is US$99,154, in consulting/professional services, whereas a candidate with four years of consulting experience without an MBA earns an average salary of US$72,129, or US$77,415 with a PhD. These salaries look unlikely to slacken off, Quacquarelli predicts, given the forecasted increases in demand for MBAs by consultants over the next few years.

The survey results show that, on average, an MBA joining a bank will earn US$93,515, compared to US$66,231 for a candidate with four years of banking experience but no MBA. And while banks and consulting firms compete for the same talent, banks may have the edge in MBA recruitments because of the larger bonuses they pay, (investment banks in particular), which provide the greatest compensation for the first year out of business school.

Overall, the research reveals that in many sectors the gap between salaries for new hires with MBAs and new hires without MBAs is widening year-on-year. The downside of such high MBA salaries and the growing salary differential to non-MBAs, Quacquarelli has found, is that some employers become disaffected with MBA hiring, creating a ceiling beyond which they will start to target non-MBAs. Andre Sieger of Hilti tells Quacquarelli that this “highly competitive market for MBAs drives compensation insane.”

Even the ‘big hitters’ have concerns, the article states. Mesha Mott, a recruiter at Mead Westvaco USA confirms that “depending upon the school/reputation and the skills sets required, salary requirements may be misaligned with what the candidates actually bring to the table.”

Such recruiters have reported greater success looking beyond the traditional pool of top-tier schools by targeting second-tier schools. These schools are increasingly attracting the high quality MBA candidates who, for reasons of budget, specialization, environment or disdain for rankings, have chosen to spurn the top-tier.

As a final piece of advice, Quacquarelli urges MBA graduates to consider the cost of living when comparing salary packages across regions: the real, versus the nominal wage a company and country offers. It’s much easier to stretch a dollar in Hungary or Mexico than in London or Tokyo.

source: QS Top MBA

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Here’s a taste of the lineup for this year’s MBA commencement keynotes (the links below will direct you to the commencement speaker announcement):

1.  HBS - Ann Moore, Chairman and CEO of Time Inc.

2.  Wharton - Utah Governor John M. Huntsman, Jr.

3.  UC Berkeley Haas - Mort Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report

4.  Kellogg School of Management - Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric

5. Tepper School of Business (Carnegie Mellon) - Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com

6.  McDonough School of Business (Georgetown) - Kenneth I. Chenault, Chairman and CEO of American Express.

Congratulations class of ‘08!

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In case you need some motivation, here are the prizes:

• First Prize ($7890 total value)
  • GMAT registration ($250 cash)
  • One 9-session ManhattanGMAT course
  • 4-School comprehensive consulting by Stacy Blackman Consulting
• Second Prize ($2130 total value)
  • GMAT registration ($250 cash)
  • One 9-session ManhattanGMAT course
  • 5000-word essay editing by Stacy Blackman Consulting
• Third Prize ($1960 total value)
  • GMAT registration ($250 cash)
  • One 9-session ManhattanGMAT course
  • 2500-word essay editing by Stacy Blackman Consulting
• Fourth Prize ($1540 total value)
  • GMAT registration subsidy ($150 cash)
  • One 9-session ManhattanGMAT course
• Fifth Prize ($1490 total value)
  • GMAT registration subsidy ($100 cash)
  • One 9-session ManhattanGMAT course

Visit the website for application details.

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The Naked MBA offers advice on whether you should do your MBA part-time, asking, will an MBA increase your salary and career prospects so much so that it merits a full-time investment, or will you be better off doing it part-time?

Now that she’s chosen Tuck, Sustained Agony experiences tution and housing sticker shock as she looks for a place to live around Hanover.

Happy Bunny took a ride on the emotion roller coaster last week when her boss told her she’d been promoted, only to tell her days later, sorry…. there’s been a mix up.

ESMT student Bacchanalian Life muses on the ironies of doing an MBA in a city that was once the heart of socialist communist pride.

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Work out which of the statements 1 and 2 are required to answer the question.

Have a go at answering this and then review your answer.

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According to their press release, the agreement, signed April 20, marks the first time that this INSEAD Masters of Entrepreneurial Leadership has been launched anywhere in the world. Beginning in October, as many as 25 participants will start 14 weeks of modular work spread over roughly 18 months. The Masters of Entrepreneurial Leadership will be delivered at INSEAD’s Centre for Executive Education and Research in Abu Dhabi, as well as on the school’s Asia and Europe campuses.

INSEAD Dean J. Frank Brown explained the significance of the agreement by saying “This unique partnership with the Department of Civil Service features an intensive learning experience led by our world class faculty with a Middle East focus, to promote the skills, capabilities and entrepreneurial acumen for Abu Dhabi and, eventually we hope, the rest of the Arab world.”

The integrated curriculum pulls together the key pillars to success, including modules focusing on entrepreneurship, leadership and business skills. INSEAD inaugurated its Centre in Abu Dhabi last September and is already offering executive education programs including both open-enrollment and customized company-specific programs to a number of local and regional companies across the Middle East.

To see INSEAD’s student blogs, check out these links:

Bluey Road to MBA-INSEAD

Le blog hog @ INSEAD

Power Leveling at INSEAD

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HBS 12th Annual BPC - First Prize ($10K cash + $10K in-kind services) went to teams EyeViewDigital.com and Diagnostics-For-All. EyeViewDigital “enables communication between businesses and customers through cutting-edge video technology,” while Diagnostics-For-All “provides health care agencies and commercial organizations with a new generation of point-of-care tools to address the diagnostic and clinical management needs of the global medical community.”

NYU Stern 9th Annual BPC - Traditional track first prize ($50K cash + $10K in-kind services) went to team Social Bomb, “a game development company which taps into the large amounts of existing social networking data to provide entertainment and reveal unexpected value for players and advertisers.” The social entrepreneurship track first prize ($100K + 10K in-kind support) went to team Naya Jeevan For Kids, “dedicated to providing socioeconomically disadvantaged children in the developing world with affordable access to catastrophic health care,” and The Red Island, which imports and manufactures specialty food products from Madagascar, focusing on importing finished versus raw materials.

Rice BPC - Grand prize valued at over $325K (!!) was awarded to qcue, “a dynamic pricing solution for concert promoters, sports teams, and venues. Its software application transforms existing box offices into electronic markets by implementing elements of airline pricing and NASDAQ trading to provide dynamic pricing based on market conditions, while hosting a secondary market which is seamlessly integrated with the primary market.”

Duke Start-Up Challenge - First place overall and healthtrack winner ($30K) went to Cerene Biomedics, dedicated to developing an “implantable device which delivers localized cooling to the surface of the brain to prevent epileptic seizures.”

Wharton BPC - Grand prize ($20K + $10K in-kind services) was awarded to Solixia, “an early stage radiopharmaceutial company developing products that allow doctors to target radiation specifically to solid tumors.”

Keep an eye out for the results of the MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition, which is scheduled to conclude on May 14th.

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When not catching up on past seasons of Lost and Heroes, Gltnforpnshmnt thinks one of the best ways to occupy your time this summer before B-school is to update your professional network.

GSBsutras offers an in-depth exploration of the changing face of the part-time MBA at Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Poised to graduate from Columbia Business School, J-Term-Johnny cannot believe the the depths of stupidity reached within the multiple-choice student loan exit interview.

B-School Diva celebrates her journey to business school the third time around with an official welcome from Chicago GSB.

July Dream admits to having a problem being a passenger, literally and figuratively. With her last day at work looming, it’s time to start stepping out of the driver’s seat and let her replacement take the wheel.

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Now that’s a spectacular plunge from glory.

These days, business school professors pay Pavlo in the neighborhood of $2,500 to speak to their students about corporate crime. B-schools rushed to create courses dealing with ethics and corporate morality in the wake of the Enron-era scandals, and BW reports that recently some, including New York University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Purdue, have made the conversation less academic by inviting those with practical experience into the classroom.

Pavlo, who was released from jail in 2003, is one of the busiest convicted felons on the B-school speaking circuit. “Here’s a real person telling students what happened to his life. I don’t think there is any substitute for that,” says Linda K. Trevino, a professor of organizational behavior and ethics at Penn State Smeal College of Business, where Pavlo has appeared several times. He doesn’t just speak at universities, though; companies and conferences also pay to witness the transformation of someone who has learned the error of their ways.

Not everyone thinks it’s a good idea to pay ex-cons to share their stories, BW has found. “I’m disturbed that so many professors seem to be willing to invite Pavlo and other convicted felons into the classroom without verifying that the stories are true,” says John C. Knapp, director of the Center for Ethics & Corporate Responsibility at Georgia State University. “Paying the ex-cons is rewarding them for committing a crime.”

Using a PowerPoint presentation, Pavlo confesses how the chance to make easy money seduced him. “All you need to know to cook the books you learn in your first semester of accounting,” Pavlo tells the students. Except that he got caught by his manager before a year was out, the article reveals. “Thinking about the pressures of the workplace, particularly in a not-so-great economy, you see what people might be capable of,” says Wayne Shyy, a student who heard Pavlo at Purdue.

What do BW readers think about using ex-cons as case studies? Here’s a sampling of their reactions:

And how else is Walt supposed to feed himself and his family? Is this not the best use of his experience? If you want to make a point with students, there is no better way to do so. Talk about “scared straight.” If you meet Walt and/or read his book, you don’t need to do much verification on his history. -Rich

I’ve heard Walter Pavlo speak of his experiences in my ethics class. He isn’t perfect and no one is, he is trying to make the best of his situation and we can all learn from his mistake. He provides a service and he should be compensated for it.–Simond

Too bad they don’t pay $2500 to honest people who never embezzled a penny to tell students that they shouldn’t be crooks. –In Colorado

If we are serious about reducing or stomping out this kind of corruption then we need to focus more on rewarding employees for the good things they do. Our system is the problem.–Michelle

source: businessweek.com

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Pique your curiosity? This and more is available on the Columbia Ideas at Work site, which purports to serve as a bridge between business research and practice. Check it out. Staying in tune with cutting edge research is a good way to stimulate creative business thinking, learn more about current trends in business, and stay up to date on the work being done by faculty at your school (or the school you are applying to!).

For comparable sites at other schools, visit:

HBS Research Publications

Stanford GSB Knowledgebase

Knowledge@Wharton

MIT Sloan Faculty Research Spotlight

Kellogg Insight

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Miss Curly Bee has come up with a 20-point To Do List after getting admitted into B-school.

With the B-school blogging community’s help, B-School Bound has thought up some great gift options for recommenders.

Le blog hog @ INSEAD bids a nostalgic goodbye P4 from Singapore, urging all future students to take advantage of both campuses because he can’t imagine missing this opportunity.

One Columbia J-termer’s B-school Odyessy has just left the last class of his business school career and is waiting for the emotion to kick in. In the meantime…it’s off to the CBS Follies!

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According to a press release, campers learn about several key areas including marketing, finance, and research. While at the camp, the young women interact closely with current MBA students, professors, alumni, and local businesspeople to foster the campers’ capabilities in leadership and teamwork.

Five female MBA students (all class of 2008) are involved in all aspects of the camp, from coordinating leadership activities to planning the camp’s promotional materials, and working alongside campers as mentors and counselors. Each student plans to leverage her own business expertise and experiences to teach and empower the young women to become successful business leaders. A group of Johnson School students brought the Camp $tart-Up program to Cornell in 2002.

Camp $tart-Up is an important initiative to the Johnson School and its Office of Diversity and Inclusion, aimed to combat the relatively low enrollment of women in graduate business programs. Throughout most MBA programs, including the Johnson School, approximately 30 percent of students enrolled are women. The most effective way to increase the pool of qualified women for business education, and in business itself, the school says, is to reach out to them at a younger age and to teach them fundamental business and leadership skills.

During the eight day camp, girls will work in teams to develop a business idea and create a business plan to present at the end of the week. When the experience culminates, they will have learned the business, research and networking skills, as well as gained the self-confidence needed to plan their business together. For more information about this empowering venture, visit the Camp $tart-Up website.

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The survey titled “Where Will They Lead? MBA Student Attitudes About Business and Society (2008)”, conducted in fall 2007, probed the thoughts of 1,943 students at 15 business schools around the world, from Wharton to the London Business School to the University of California, Berkeley. The questionaire addressed a variety of issues, including business ethics, business school coursework and the corporate recruitment process. The previous survey was conducted in 2002.

Through these surveys, the Aspen CBE has discovered that MBA programs definitely influence the way students think about the role of business and its relationship to society once they become managers and leaders.

“In a broader sense, the most important finding is that students seem to be taking a more holistic view of the role of business in society,” says Nancy McGaw, deputy director of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, in a press release announcing the results. “But the findings also suggest that while students may have these values, many of them sense those beliefs are not valued by employers or linked to career opportunities.”

For example, only half of the respondants felt that recruiters placed a high value on personal integrity, and a mere seven percent beleive recruiters place a premium on their understanding of sociopolitical issues. The survey also found that while more of today’s students say they want a job that has a positive impact on society (25 percent, compared to just 15 percent in 2002), this priority decreases in importance for men as they move through their MBA program.

According to the press release, these findings indicate that the tension between financial compensation and pursuing a job that aligns with personal values is becoming even more pervasive as the so-called Millenials enter business schools, and that recruiters ignore these growing concerns at their own peril if they wish to attract top talent.

Click here for an executive summary with detailed findings of the MBA Student Attitudes Survey.

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In Riding the College-to-Business School Express, Kumar opens with a recitation of the staggering statistic that roughly 8,500 applications were submitted to HBS this year during its three round process. What admissions criteria are used to distinguish the cream of the crop from the bottom of the barrel? At least one important factor is the sense of “organizational context” that a student can offer. Specifically, the admissions committee looks at the organizations an applicant has been a part of, and how long they have been involved.

Of course, strong academic performance is highly valued, perhaps even more than one’s GMAT score. For older applicants, exceptional experience may make up for a weak area elsewhere in the application. And, as always, admissions committees are interested in an applicant with diverse interests.

In A Shrewd Undergraduate’s Guide to HBS admissions, Kumar lists six suggestions for building a strong application:

1. high GPA

2. high GMAT

3. Be strategic about extracurriculars: try to be a leader.

4. Be a “work in progress”.  Demonstrate that HBS can help to transform you.  If you are already sculpted, why would you need to be a part of their program?

5. For the “2+2” program, which is new, it is better to pretend to be ‘out of it’ about business than someone who has been obsessed with business ever since your grandfather gave you 100 shares of General Electric for your 10th birthday.

6. In your essays, show what makes you tick; the essays are not brag sheets.  Show HOW you accomplished X, not just that you accomplished X.

For more details on these points, refer to the articles.

Of course, for many applicants, certain aspects of their application are already fixed (i.e. GPA) and cannot be changed. However, the value of Kumar’s articles is that they give us an idea of how we should be framing or presenting ourselves to the admissions folks. 

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Sustained Agony applied to eight business schools this season and is in the home stretch as she examines where her Chicago/Tuck head is at.

First-year Darden blogger The Sunny Days enlightens prospective and admitted students eager to know about the case study method by explaining what a “case” looks like.

One Columbia J-termer’s B-School Odyessy is surprised and amused to learn that the CIA will be recruiting at CBS this week.

Bee to B-School shares her ideal application timeline…were she not a procrastinator, she would have followed it herself!

In this week’s post, INSEAD Blog by Zanat0s offers a change of pace with his airport reviews.

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Work out which of the statements 1 and 2 are required to answer the question.

Have a go at answering this and then review your answer.

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Compressed programs, such as the one-year MBA pioneered by INSEAD 50 years ago, leave little chance to catch up if you fall behind. Classes start at 8:30 a.m. and finish at 7 p.m., even on public holidays. As FT points out, in this format, core courses are largely dispatched in a four-month sprint at the start of the year. Engineers and business graduates certainly have the upper hand with subjects such as statistics or accounting; those without either a quantitative background or business education will have a tough row to hoe.

When it comes to class composition, one-year courses may have more sponsored students who may be older and have more workplace experience. These seasoned students may find discussions of leadership frustrating in classes where few have ever managed other workers.

In terms of what happens in the classroom, the differences are clear, says FT. A one-year program might squeeze a course of 10 three-hour sessions into 16 90-minute slots. Two-year MBAs, such as that at IESE Business School in Spain, thus have time to stick to the Harvard model where every class revolves around a discussion of a business case. This means shorter MBAs do not waste time rehearsing material students can find in textbooks.

According to FT, the critical difference between the two modes of study is off campus. At the heart of the two-year program, in the long summer break between first and second years, is an internship. This summer job on steroids allows students to subsidize their study and try a different career for 12 weeks.

Ask yourself, how crystalized are your professional goals? This can help the decision-making process, as those with a definite goal may appreciate the efficacy of a one-year progam. Conversely, anyone still contemplating several career avenues would probably enjoy the flexibility of a two-year program and the increased opportunities internships provide.

The indecisive might consider the latest intermediate options. London Business School has offered students a 15-month course since 2005. FT points out that this option is popular for would-be entrepreneurs who have found a promising project. Columbia Business School offers a 16-month variation, whereby those who do not want an internship can begin the course in January and study through the summer, beginning the second year in sync with the September intake.

So which program is best? No one can say for sure as nobody takes both paths. However, if you’re looking for Fridays off and a semblance of work-life balance, definitely steer clear of Europe.

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