The GMAT Club Blog

Tuck and Its Terrific Alumni

One of those MBA admissions truisms that isn't necessarily true: larger MBA programs provide better networks by virtue of their size. Critics of this bit of wisdom question whether the size of the alumni network counts more than the quality of connections among alumni and between alumni and the school.

Tuck, with its fiercely loyal alumni network and small size, firmly resides in the quality over quantity camp. Furthermore, Tuck argues that its alumni's generosity reflects a significantly higher level of student satisfaction with their MBA experience. This particular debate will continue to rage, but for now let's look at a recent proud press release from the folks in Hanover, New Hampshire:

Tuck surpassed its own alumni giving record this year, both in terms of funds raised and the alumni participation rate in the 2008 Tuck Annual Giving (TAG) campaign.

In 2007-08, 67.5 percent of all Tuck alumni made a financial contribution to the school. This exceeds last year's record by more than a full percentage point. In addition, the total amount of money TAG raised reached $5.9 million, up 18 percent from the previous year.

"This extraordinary support is a testament to the real value that our alumni continue to see in their Tuck education, throughout their entire lives," said Tuck Dean Paul Danos. "You'd be hard-pressed to find a better way of measuring alumni satisfaction with the education they received than by the percentage of alumni who financially contribute to their school. On this metric I'm proud to say that Tuck scores off the charts."

According to BusinessWeek, Tuck is the only business school whose alumni giving rate exceeds 50 percent, with the majority of schools falling below 20 percent. On average, Tuck's alumni participation rate of more than 67 percent tops its peer schools by 30 percentage points.

MBA Education as a Bargain

The MBA Tour sent out an interesting announcement yesterday:

Both the euro and the Chinese Yuan have appreciated vs. the U.S. dollar over the past 3 years; the euro by 30% and the Yuan by 17%.

“ An American 2-year MBA is very attractive to European students now because it’s not all that more expensive than many one-year programs there,” Craig Hubbell, Associate Director of MBA Admissions, UCLA Anderson School of Management.

UCLA Anderson reports a 50% increase in MBA applications from Europe this year, and currency exchange rate is one of the top factors, says Hubbell.

Tuition fees rise slightly year to year but no where near the amount the U.S. dollar has dropped. Today a $38,000.00 U.S. tuition fee will cost the European student approximately 24,200.00 euros. 5 years ago that same tuition fee cost 33,000 euros, and 10 years ago, 35,000.00.

Students from China and India are also taking advantage of this less expensive opportunity to study in the U.S. The Chinese Yuan and Indian Rupee continue to rise and American b-schools are seeing an increase in applications from these countries.

The MBA Tour travels with U.S. schools to major cities in Asia and India and is seeing substantial growth in registration over the last 3 years in Beijing, Shanghai, Delhi, and Mumbai conferences.

“As these economies grow, more wealth is created and therefore more affordability of education. This means you’ll see more people taking the GMAT, and attendance at our events in China and India will continue to grow,” says Peter von Loesecke, CEO The MBA Tour. “Our attendance in Shanghai has increased by 62% and we have also witnessed about a 40% increase in attendance in Beijing. In order to handle attendance at our Bangalore event we added an additional city to the tour and attendance in India is up 28% overall.”

Beautiful B-School Photo Contest Judges Announced

We have asked those MBA bloggers on Clear Admit's Best of Blogging nominee list for both applicants and students to be judges for the Beautiful B-School Photo contest, provided we could find contact information for them and they accepted our invitation to judge.

The judges are: 

1. Graham Richmond – Co-Founder and CEO of Clear Admit; Co-founder of AIGAC
2. Iday (Chicago) - Author of etc, etc. and currently an MBA student at the University of Chicago.
3. Necromonger  Author of Let me wear a Suit. Please! and an MBA student at INSEAD. 
4. Achilles - Author of Experiences- My Life and an MBA applicant. 
5. MBA Runner Girl - Author of MBA Runner Girl and  an MBA applicant joining Columbia's class of '08.
6. Christof Meyer - Author of Square Method Design and an MBA student at Darden

All the students and applicant judges were winners or nominees in Clear Admit's 07-08 Best of Blogging contest. Congratulations to you all and thanks for volunteering to judge the photo contest.

We will announce the winners as soon as the Accepted staff  receives the responses and tallies them. Stay tuned.

Citigroup loses $10B in final quarter of 2007

http://gmatclub.com/forum/103-t58520

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080115/ap_ ... tigroup_35

Citigroup Inc. lost almost $10 billion in last year's final three months, the largest quarterly deficit in its 196-year history, and slashed its dividend and 4,200 jobs as it recorded a mammoth write-down for bad bets on the mortgage industry.

Talent Seekers Speak: Why We Value an MBA

Please mark your calendars and reserve the time for our first ever chat (co-hosted with the Michigan Ross School of Business) with MBA corporate recruiters: Talent Seekers Speak: Why We Value an MBA.

This event will take place on September 21 starting at 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/6:00 PM GMT. It is divided into 4 half-hour chats. Each one consists of a 10-minute panel discussion followed by a moderated question and answer session between applicants and recruiters. As far as I know, this is the first interactive event between MBA recruiters and applicants. Please join Michigan Ross and Accepted.com for this premiere event.

The schedule is as follows:

Start Time                                                         Industry and Participants
  10:00 AM/PT/1:00 PM ET/6:00 PM GMT Financial Services with Bear, Stearns; Deutsche Bank; JP Morgan
  10:30 AM/PT/1:30 PM ET/6:30 PM GMT Consulting with Bain; Boston; Booz, Allen Hamilton; Deloitte
  11:00 AM PT/2:00 PM PT/7:00 PM GMT Marketing with Johnson & Johnson; General Mills; General Electric
  11:30 AM/PT/2:30 PM ET/7:30 PM GMT General Management with Alcoa, Dupont, and Walmart

A few questions I intend to ask the recruiters:     

• What do you value in MBA grads?
• What can MBA applicants do before and during their business school studies to make themselves more attractive to firms when they graduate?
• When evaluating a career changer, what do you look for?

And many more. Please join us.

Haas NewsWire - June 14, 2004

Haas NewsWire - June 14, 2004

The good news continues for MBA's. Although it still isn't quite as good as it was during the boom, it sure is a lot better than it was during the bust.

The Haas School of Business reports that 75% of the Class of 2004 graduated with jobs. Furthermore they were earning a median base salary of over $90,000, up from $85,000 during the past two years, and more were receiving signing bonuses.

The top employment fields for Haas graduates: technology, financial services, and consulting, with biotech, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals growing in importance.

The top 10 employers at Haas: McKinsey & Company, Gap, Wells Fargo Bank, IBM, Lehman Brothers, Boston Consulting Group, Blue Shield of California, SAP Labs, Deloitte, and Cisco Systems.

Business People Win when they apologise for their Mistakes, A new study says

From OSU's website.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Supposedly, love means never having to say you’re sorry – but a new study suggests that attitude won’t fly in the business world.

Researchers found that people who are wronged in a business transaction may be more likely to say they would reconcile if the offender offers a sincere apology – particularly if the offender takes personal blame for the misdeed.

While it seems common sense that apologies would help smooth a bruised business relationship, such messages of regret are not common enough, said Roy Lewicki, co-author of the study and professor of management and human resources at Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business.

Why tech should serve the poor

From the Red Herring Blog

Why should tech companies think about the poor?

There are three good reasons.

First, countries that don't have existing infrastructures, legacy systems, or extant markets leaders can adopt radically innovative technologies more quickly than advanced nations. In colonial America, constant labor shortages encouraged entrepreneurs to adopt technologies much more rapidly than their Europe counterparts. The result could be seen in 19th century high-tech centers (the Lowell cotton mills, for example), and in a broader view of technology as a source of strategic advantage.

More recently, cell phones have taken off in countries that had poorly-developed or slow-moving, government-run phone systems; some countries may leapfrog landline systems completely, and go straight from word-of-mouth to short messaging service (SMS). Many alternative energy technologies in the U.S. are sold as "premium power" solutions for small functional niches, and don't try to compete against well-established utilities. In countries with poor or nonexistent power grids, in contrast, small-scale power generation, and wind power, biomass, and solar power are serious players.

Second, the best products created for these markets can have global reach. Chinese appliance manufacturer Galantz, for example, has created a large market by developing kitchen products for middle-class Chinese, whose kitchens are cramped and can't handle the power requirements of bigger Japanese, European, and American appliances. Those products fit in kitchens all over the world – and Galantz now has a 35 percent share of the global microwave market.

Third, companies serving the poor are going to be the future's lean, mean multinationals. In the 1950s, Japanese companies like Honda and Sony were producing products for what was essentially a third world country – their own domestic markets, which were still rebuilding after being destroyed in World War II. The products these companies created were cheap and robust, and provided the means for establishing a place in European and North American markets: they could sell proven goods there for prices far lower than better-known local companies.

Today, the wheels continue to turn. Japanese companies still do well in advanced markets, but are facing severe challenges in developing countries like India and Brazil. Korean giants Samsung and LG, for example, have proved serious competitors to Sony in consumer electronics and cellular phones – in part because until recently Korea was itself a developing country

The nation's worst CEOs - Courtesy MSN Money

Execs grab headlines for soaring profits or sordid crimes, but rarely for wretched performance. Here are three who've run great companies into the ground.

By Jon D. Markman

In the late 1990s, investors deified corporate chief executives. In the first few years of the 2000s, CEOs were vilified. And now, it seems, they are pretty much ignored -- seldom appearing on financial television programs or news magazine covers anymore unless they’re in handcuffs. They are the forgotten souls of Wall Street’s remodeled machine.

But that doesn’t mean that the overpaid and underachieving heads of many public companies aren’t just as lame as ever. It simply means that we’ve gotten complacent about the hardships they cause shareholders when they pursue bad strategies, bad communications, bad hiring, bad products and bad marketing -- and then blame their problems on the weather, world politics or traders.

The Freedom Myth

From Dr. Jeffrey Cornwall's blog

Entrepreneurial ventures can remind us of babies. They seem to need constant care and attention, and even if they don't for short periods of time we still worry about them. Although physical time off is possible, many entrepreneurs find they cannot mentally take time off from their businesses.

A study in StartupJournal.com reported that of the entrepreneurs surveyed "22% want to forget it all for a while and won't check back with their company, but 33% will be calling in -- or checking by e-mail -- once a day, 22% several times a day, 17% every few days, and 4% weekly. For one small group, 2%, perhaps staying at work would be more relaxing -- they'll be calling in every hour." Another article at the same site offers advice from a consultant on how to take time off from his business. But, his advice seems to imply that even proper rest is simply a way to improve performance when we get back to work.