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Harvard Now Asking MBA Applicants For Just One Essay

Last year, Harvard Business School announced the most significant changes to its MBA admission policies in 10 years when among other things it cut in half the number of required essays for applicants to its full-time MBA program.
Harvard is shaking it up again.
The school said it now will ask MBA applicants for only one essay, down from two, only two recommenders, down from three, and also set its earliest round one application deadline ever—September 16.

Even more astonishingly, Harvard left open the possibility that an applicant wouldn’t have to even write a single essay if he or she believed the rest of the application fully reflected their candidacy.
Dee Leopold, managing director of MBA admissions and financial aid, announced the changes for admission to Harvard’s Class of 2016 in a blog post on the school’s website. The new open-ended essay prompt:

You’re applying to Harvard Business School. We can see your resume, school transcripts, extra-curricular activities, awards, post-MBA career goals, test scores and what your recommenders have to say about you. What else would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy?”

Only two years ago, Harvard required applicants to write four separate essays for a total of 2,000 words. Last year, it fell to two essays of 400 words each for a word limit of 800 words. This year’s single question has no word limit at all.

“That’s it,” writes Leopold. “No word limit. Use your own judgment as to how much you tell us. We have neither a ‘right answer’ nor a ‘correct length’ in mind. We will review all the elements of the written application to decide who moves forward to the interview stage of our process.”
Harvard’s changes last year kicked off a round of alterations by many other business schools, which tended to follow Leopold’s lead. Stanford’s Graduate School of Business dropped an essay requirement, going from four essays to just three. MIT Sloan scrapped one of three required essays for this year. And only last week, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management cut by nearly a third the total word limit on its essays to 1,525 words from 2,200 last year. With this latest change, Harvard is inching ever closer to the admissions world of law schools which generally require a personal statement — and little else.

Typically, the posting of the new application by Harvard Business School signals the unofficial start to the new MBA application season. It's the time of the year that the next generation of MBA applicants begins to prepare for admission by prepping for the GMAT, researching business schools, possibly hiring an admissions consultant, and mapping out a strategy for what will turn out to be a campaign to get into a selective school. Most schools have yet to issue their new questions, though Stanford Graduate School of Business, Columbia Business School, and the University of Michigan's Ross School have only recently done so.

For our exclusive interview with Dee Leopold and our analysis, see PoetsandQuants.com:

Originally posted on: Linked In By: John A. Byrne

Getting Things Done > Grade Point Average

WOW! Based on the response, I've TeeSpring'd it - let your torso show everyone the way to awesomeness.

We're a generation in debt. I had a world-class education at the University of Virginia. I met my reddit co-founder Steve Huffman there on move-in day. That chance encounter changed both of our lives. I had some awesome professors. There was the fortuitous trip to Waffle House that convinced me I wanted to be an entrepreneur, not a lawyer. I've written the book about internet entrepreneurship I wish I had back then. But my kids won't have the same education I did. And that's a good thing.

A year ago I sat on a panel at the White House* for a room full of deans from universities across the country. We were tasked to talk about entrepreneurship and how to better prepare our nation's undergraduates for an uncertain job market. "A critical skill I see in great entrepreneurs and employees alike is resourcefulness. Resourcefulness doesn't come from case-studies, it comes from doing things." This turned out to be quite the applause line.

Paul Graham says the best founders are "relentlessly resourceful."

I've been thinking about that day in D.C. ever since.

Getting Things Done > Grade Point Average

I'm an employer and I don't really care where you went to school or what your GPA was -- I want to know what you've done. Paid off student loan debt by tutoring computer science in New York? Rock on. Raised $20,000 on kickstarter for a daft punk tribute album? Awesome! Started the 'dear photograph' meme? Splendid! Blogged years worth of eating across the world and now creating food-tour-guides? Now we're cooking with bacon.

This will not be on your course syllabus 

What are you passionate about?

Writing code? Awesome. Start launching stuff. Tell your friends, see if any of them are willing to use it. If yes, then you're on to something, if no, figure out why your own friends aren't using it. Or maybe they're just not into doing things, that's cool, but Drew Houston taught me a great quote about that: "You are the average of your 5 closest friends."

(Wish you could write code? Sign up for a CS class -- this is the single-most valuable class you can take. Don't wait for the semester to start, sign up for Codecademy).

Love cats? I do too! What do you know about cats no one else does? Can you start turning that into content? Is it a blog you start with cats that look like Ron Swanson? (OK, nevermind, that's been done). Are you contributing to the discussions on /r/cats?

Fired up about writing? Write about whatever moves you. Does your school newspaper suck? Start your own: Tumblr, Wordpress, Posthaven. It's happening right now.

We need more people - especially my fellow Millennials - doing things, learning things.

Don't wait for permission to be awesome.

Follow me on twitter @AlexisOhanian and let me know how you're being awesome.

*It was at this moment I realized I could've also called this post "From Waffle House to White House." Ah well, so it goes.

Originally posted on: Linked In by:Alexis Ohanian

Bridges from School to College to Career (and How Best to Cross Them)

In life there are those key make-or-break moments that, if bridged correctly, take us to the next important phase in life. The transition from primary school to secondary school is one such moment. And from secondary school to higher learning is another. Then there’s arguably the most important one of all, the bridge from post-secondary to career.
At any point along this journey, if any one of these bridges is not crossed properly (or at all), the ramifications for the remainder of a person’s life are staggering given the realities of life in the 21st Century.

And yet very little is done to prepare or assist the vast majority of Americans who make these transitions. A student is given a certificate or a diploma, the appropriate paperwork is filled out, and she is off to the next phase of her life.

Despite advances in technology, very little about what is known about a student follows that person through each transition. While transcripts will move with a student across each bridge, very little else will. Examples of student work, insights into the ways in which any given student learns best, and important measures of how students engage or work collaboratively or solve problems simply are not passed from teacher to teacher, institution to institution, or institution to employer.

This is a huge disservice, not only to students themselves but to faculty, institutions and employers. Insight into how a student scores on tests is simply not enough information – at least not any more. Whether a student tests well or not is increasingly irrelevant to how a student uses what she or he has learned in real-world situations. The degree to which students are able to demonstrate an ability to deconstruct problems, source necessary information, and put that information to practical use is of far greater importance in our 21st Century world. As is evidence of critical thinking, collaboration, entrepreneurialism and inventiveness.

All of this is an argument for portfolios—as part of the learning process and as a way for students to cross each critical bridge in their lives, bringing with them all the diverse, holistic evidence of their readiness for the next big set of challenges.

Portfolios used in classroom settings enable a new pedagogy that is focused on blended learning; the use of multimedia in instruction and student work; flipped classroom constructs; and project-based learning. Portfolios also encourage reflection, collaboration, iteration, and engagement with faculty and fellow students.

At Pathbrite, we’ve invented a way for teachers to create 21st Century ways to move standard lesson plans and syllabi into a construct we call Learning Maps. A course can be composed of a series of Learning Maps, each of which have their own set of activities. Maps and activities can be associated with a standard set of rubrics or learning outcome statements.

As students navigate these learning maps and complete each activity, they’re applying what they’re learning in the real world and bringing the application of that learning back in the form of digital artifacts. As activities are completed, the student’s course portfolio is being built out.
Feedback on individual artifacts or a whole portfolio is provided by faculty and / or fellow students in real time. Faculty also score artifacts and the entire portfolio along the way. At the end of an academic term, both the student and the institution have a powerful set of evidence about what that student learned and accomplished in the course, which goes well beyond a bubble test.

As students then begin to prepare to cross that last bridge from post-secondary education to career, they are able to curate from among all their curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, in addition to work experience they may have gained, to create customized portfolios for use in applying to internships or jobs. Employers are then better able to evaluate job readiness and an individual’s fit to available opportunities based on a whole set of variables that are most relevant to their needs (i.e., not grades).

We must arm our students with the right resources to cross each of life’s critical bridges. Moreover, faculty, institutions and employers must have the fullest possible picture of the human being they will be working with in order to set up the best possible conditions for success. Portfolios for classrooms and careers do just that.

Originally posted on: Linked In By: Heather Hiles

Ten Essential Questions To Ask Before Doing An Online MBA Program

Not all online MBA programs are considered equal. So how do you know if you’re landing a quality degree or a dud? Even some stellar options may simply not be the right fit for you.

Poets&Quants's News & Feature Editor Lauren Everitt quizzed the deans and directors at several schools offering online programs to find out the essential questions you should be asking before signing up for an internet-based MBA. Here are their top 10:

1. Is the school AACSB accredited? This one should be a no-brainer. Any program that’s not accredited is likely a waste of your time and money. Employers don’t trust them, and nor should you. Needless to say, business executives won’t exactly be beating down your door to hire you or shower you with raises and promotions.

Some schools claim accreditation, but it’s often the wrong kind. The closest you can get to a stamp of approval is accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. You can check the status of your prospective institution on the AACSB website. This will effectively rule out the for-profit schools, and that makes sense. Why go to a no-name for-profit institution when you can go to a legitimate university with the accreditation that counts?

2. Are students awarded the same degree as full-time MBA graduates? Many institutions offer online degrees for students who either work full-time or have other commitments that prevent them from taking the more traditional bricks-and-mortar degree path. Ideally, the degree for the online program should be indistinguishable from a school’s full-time MBA credential.

Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business will award identical diplomas in their new online FlexMBA and their mainstream full-time MBA. Kenan-Flagler’s MBA@UNC and Arizona State University also grant online and full-time MBAs the same exact degree. You certainly don’t want to diminish your employment prospects by walking away with a newly minted degree that isn’t quite as good as the traditional MBA.

3. What are the outcomes for students who have completed the program? As an aspiring business student, you probably know that outcomes are key. The school should be able to provide you with stats on how many students have completed the program and their job placement rates. You’ll also want to find out job promotion rates and salary raises.

Indiana University reports that their online MBAs began the Kelley Direct program with an average salary of $76,750. By graduation they were pulling in an average of $104,160, an increase of 36%. Moreover, 66% of the students also earned a promotion by commencement. Babson College says its Fast Track MBA students averaged a 30% increase in pay by graduation. UNC’s Kenan-Flagler reports that nearly one-third of students in the online program for more than a year were promoted or landed a new job. While these numbers aren’t a guarantee, they give you a good idea of whether or not a program is effective.

4. What services are available? Students completing online programs don’t have the advantage of rubbing shoulders with on-campus recruiters during social events or dropping in to have their resumes reviewed at the career services center. You’ll want to find out what your potential program offers students who are off campus.

Most importantly, you’ll need to know about access to the career resources center. Can you sign up for interviews with on-campus recruiters, and will career services staff accommodate MBAs with nonstandard hours? Students enrolled in Tepper’s FlexMBA will have access to the full range of career resources, and the school is experimenting with new technology to enhance long-distance job interviews.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that for technology-based degrees you’re going to be using your computer – a lot. So if the software fails on a Saturday night, will their help desk be open and accessible to you? Given the hefty cost of most online MBA programs, you’ll also want to ask about financial aid services.


5. What type of technology does the school use? Online MBA programs rely heavily on digital communication. By and large, the majority of interactions with your professors and peers will be virtual, so you’ll want to be sure these exchanges are as seamless as possible. Many programs, such as those at Arizona State and Duke, have tech teams dedicated to building out and supporting online MBA platforms. Long gone are the days when professors walked into a recording studio, taped their lectures and posted them online. Quality programs will offer a variety of prerecorded lectures (for convenience), live programs where you can interact with professors and platforms where you can connect with peers. You should also expect to find interactive discussion boards where students can post questions and expect a timely answer from faculty.

You’ll also want to find out the ratio of asynchronous learning, or independent study, to synchronous learning, real-time classes. Asynchronous learning generally offers more flexibility since you can pull up prerecorded videos and lectures whenever your schedule permits. The drawback is that you loose the classroom experience of talking with your peers – a major value-add in the synchronous learning experience. Most programs blend the two together to varying degrees, so you’ll want to pick a program that matches your priorities.

6. Who will be teaching the program? Ideally you’ll see the same faculty names across a school’s online and full-time MBA programs. You should know whether adjunct and associate professors will be leading your classes, or if you’ll have the opportunity to learn from the school’s cream-of-the-crop tenured professors. If a school is not committing top faculty members to their online MBA program, a red flag should go up. You don’t want to end up taking courses from the faculty dumping ground.
Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business rotates the standard B-school faculty through its blended Global Executive MBA program. Kenan-Flagler also uses the same faculty across its online and full-time MBA degree paths.

7. How many hours per week should you expect to devote to the program? Most institutions insist on the same graduation requirements and core curriculum courses across all of their MBA programs (they should, anyway). However, this information is packaged differently. Depending on your current life and work schedule, you’ll most certainly want to know how the courses are structured, and if you can manage the most hectic periods.

MBA@UNC tells applicants that, in addition to the weekly synchronous class sessions, they should expect to dedicate approximately 10 hours per week per class to studying, class preparation and asynchronous sessions.

Babson College sets different expectations for its Fast Track online MBA program, advising applicants that online learning averages 20 hours per week and reflects readings, case preparation, contributing to asynchronous and real-time discussions, and active participation in team-based exercises and projects. Those hours are in addition to on-campus sessions.

Online MBA programs similar to those at the University of Florida and George Washington University require students to attend multiple on-campus residencies. Students enrolled in Carnegie Mellon’s FlexMBA should expect to attend 15 “Access Weekends” at one of the school’s campuses in Pittsburgh, New York or Silicon Valley.

8. What are the networking opportunities? Bundled into that hefty MBA price tag is the opportunity to bond with key contacts you’ll hopefully run into later in life. Say you’re wanting to expand into South America – what about your B-school buddy from Brazil? For many MBAs the networking supersedes the classroom learning experience in terms of the program’s value 10 to 20 years down the road.

The internet changes things a bit. You’re generally not going to see your peers face-to-face every day or meet them for beers after a long week of exams. That’s why it’s imperative to find out just how many opportunities you’ll have for face-to-face interaction and team-based projects. Ideally, you’ll have at least one in-person meet-up.

You’ll also want to know how the teams are chosen and whether you’ll be with the same team throughout the whole program. Preferably, the program will have a mix of long-term team projects and short-term networking experiences. In Arizona State’s online MBA program, students are assigned to teams at the beginning and travel through the core curriculum with those same teammates. After completing their main requirements, students are free to create their own teams.
Kenan-Flagler groups students into virtual teams, then pairs each group with a faculty adviser for consulting projects with real-world companies. For one global business project for a large multinational corporation, they pulled in students from other business schools. The project will culminate with two-week visits and presentations in Brazil, China and India.

9. What options does the online MBA program offer for specialization? If you’re eyeing a career in financial accounting, you’ll want to make sure you can attend advanced courses in the field. If you dig entrepreneurship and aim to start your own company one day, you’ll want to select a program that will help you stay afloat in the shark tank. Check your online MBA program for potential areas of specialization.

Carnegie Mellon will offer four concentrations in its new program: entrepreneurship, finance, marketing and operations management. MBA@UNC offers concentrations in corporate finance, entrepreneurship, global supply chain management, investment management, marketing and sustainable enterprise. Even when you might not want to target a specific field of study, it’s important to make sure there elective options that appeal to your interests. For instance, students enrolled in the University of Indiana’s Kelley Direct program can choose 12 credit hours from some 60 courses to customize their B-school experience.

10. MBAs offer several pathways to the same degree. If you discover that the online experience just isn’t working out, it’s worth knowing whether or not you can join the school’s weekend or full-time MBA programs. The soon-to-be launched FlexMBA at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business allows students to switch into a full-time or part-time degree path after the first year.

A school’s willingness to allow online MBA students into its other programs sends a clear message that the institution isn’t concerned about the caliber of its cyber students.

Check out our ranking of America's Top Online MBA Programs, the only credible ranking of online graduate business programs.

Originally posted on: Linked In By:John A. Byrne

College Tuition In The US Isn’t Climbing As Fast As You Think

Maybe the US is a little too bearish about the cost of education. (Statue of the Bruin Bear at UCLA) David McNew / Getty

It’s no secret that the cost of going to college in the US has been rising—and fast. From 1982 to 2007, tuition climbed 439% while median family income only rose 147%. In the past five years it’s continued apace.

The situation is bad. But it isn’t quite as bad as many media reports portend, because grants, scholarships, and financial aid, which reduce the advertised tuition fees, are also growing fast. Just last month, the National Association of College and University Business Officers reported that colleges in the US are awarding grants and scholarships in the highest volumes ever, enough to make the average cost of school 45% less than the sticker price (paywall). The chart below shows how college costs—both advertised and actual—have changed since 2007, compared to inflation.

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But why would schools offer more scholarships instead of simply hiking their prices less? According to Ronald Ehrenberg, an American labor economist, one of the reasons that tution keeps going up is that schools simply aren’t attempting to cut costs (pdf):

With long lines of high quality applicants flocking to their doors, top institutions have chosen to maintain and increase quality largely by spending more, not by increasing efficiency, reducing costs, or reallocating funds…alumni also tend to discourage institutions from cutting almost anything by threatening to withhold contributions.

Perhaps it’s easier for a school to increase its scholarship fund than it is to re-jigger the budget and keep tuition flat.

In any event, the situation is still not good. The actual cost of tuition has still been rising, even as median household income has sunk and public funding for state schools has fallen—by 7% in fiscal year 2012. And, unfortunately, the financial aid that is available often isn’t going to the poorest students who really need it, but instead to those who only need a little extra to cover their tuition, since that way the school can fund more students with the same amount of aid.

Originally Posted on: Quartz By: Ritchie King

The Value of a College Degree, Around the Globe

 

Last week's U.S. jobs report was about as expected, with employers adding 175,000 jobs in May, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. And again, one group stood out: college graduates.

Amid the debate about college costs and the value of a university degree, in May, 7.4% of high school graduates were unemployed, while just 3.8% of university graduates were without a job, according to seasonally adjusted data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That trend — of almost double the unemployment rate for high school grads compared with college grads — has largely held steady even amid the U.S. recession. Those with no high school degree were the worst off, with an unemployment rate of 11.1%.

Kathleen Kingsbury writes for BBC Capital that the trend isn't one limited to only American workers. Workers with a university degree are more likely to be employed in many countries across the globe, she writes in "How crucial is a degree around the world?"
 

"A university education, for instance, offers Europeans a significant boost. In 2012, the 27 countries in the Euro zone had a total unemployment rate of about 10%, according to data from Eurostat, the EU agency that tracks statistical data for member states located in Luxembourg. Yet for college graduates, unemployment was about one-third lower, at 6%," Kingsbury writes. 

Even in a country like Spain, where unemployment is expected to stay above 25% through 2016, university graduates have an advantage, with a jobless rate of 17%.

There are exceptions to the overall utility of a college degree when it comes to joblessness — for instance, when an economy is booming or when high school prepares people better for jobs. In these cases — like in Germany or in Japan — university graduates barely get an edge.

And there are some stark contrasts between younger graduates and more experienced university degree-holders. For instance, back in Spain, "45% of university graduates aged 16 to 24 are unemployed, according to the country’s national statistical office, far higher than the overall unemployment rate for university graduates," Kingsbury writes. The BBC took a deep dive into the plight of the young and jobless at the end of 2012 — including a look at various measures around the world to help young people find work.

But the story points to evidence that even for those young grads, the degree is worth it down the road. Read more here. 

What do you think? Even with the current state of unemployment among young degree holders, particularly in Europe, does this bigger picture of employment of college grads versus high school grads, impact your perception of the value of a degree?

(Photo: Getty Images)
Originally Posted on: Linked In by: Jennifer Merritt