Chicago Booth School of Business offers More full tuition scholarships

University of Chicago Booth School of Business recently announced creation of the Barclays Global Retail and Commercial Bank Fellowship Program. This program will provide full-tuition scholarships each year to four incoming MBA students from Africa, South Asia and countries with emerging economies.

According to the school: Preference for the merit-based, two-year scholarships will be given to students who intend to pursue careers in the financial services sector and demonstrate a commitment to the development of emerging markets

Rosemaria Martinelli, associate dean of student recruitment and admissions at Chicago Booth said,"While the Barclays Fellowships will be awarded based on merit, it should be noted that, in general, MBA candidates coming from regions of the world such as Africa are in great need of financial assistance. Often these candidates earn low annual salaries in their countries by U.S. standards, and scholarships drive the choice of schools for these students".

Stacey Kole, deputy dean for the full-time MBA program said," The introduction of a fellowship program for these students as opposed to a scholarship program is significant, because it presents the opportunity for mentoring and enhanced professional development"

"Mentors provide students with added insights about career opportunities in the banking industry and also provide fellows with advisors whom they can tap in parallel to the MBA experience", said Kole, who also is a clinical professor of economics. She further added,"Mentors will be assigned by Barclays. In addition to mentoring, summer internships will also be available".

“Investing in an individual’s education is not just about donating money,” said Frits Seegers, chief executive of Barclays Global Retail and Commercial Bank and a 1989 MBA graduate of Chicago Booth. “It’s also about investing the time of our staff and passing on our experience and skills to help others. At the same time, Barclays gets the benefit of talented people with superior education to increase our global footprint and capabilities.”

Details: http://www.chicagogsb.edu/newsmedia/releases/2008-12-02_barclays.aspx

Penn Grad to Offer Dual Degree

The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and School of Arts and Sciences have launched a joint MBA/master of environmental studies (MES) degree

Details: http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/article.php?id=1493

B-Schools address common Application concerns in their blogs!

Avoiding 10 common mistakes on your application: Stanford MBA Admission Blog
http://www.stanford.edu/group/mba/blog/2008/12/avoiding_10_common_mistakes_on.html

Reading Applications: Tuck School of Business Blog
http://tuckschool.blogspot.com/2008/11/reading-applications-part-1.html

The GMAT - Myths and Reality: Tuck School of Business Blog
http://tuckschool.blogspot.com/2008/12/gmat-myths-and-reality.html

Stanford's take on the relation between the interview invitation and the chance of admission

In his post on Stanford Admissions Blog, Director of Admissions Derrick Bolton answers the question that has been bothering many aspirants - whether there is a relationship between the timing of your interview invitation and your chance of admission?
He states, " Please be assured that your likelihood of admission bears no relationship to when you receive your interview invitation; the timing of your invitation simply depends on when we review your file--and there is no pattern to application review."
He further says, "No matter when you receive your invitation to interview, you have the same chance of admission as any other candidate"

Regarding the interview invites for Round 1 the Director wrote, " Interviews for Round 1 applicants start as soon as possible after the application deadline-- typically early November--and last through mid January. We expect to send Round 1 interview invitations pretty regularly, every business day or so, through mid December. Even during Stanford's winter shutdown (22 December 2008 through 5 January 2009) we continue to read feverishly but tend to bundle invitations and send them every few days. (One reason for the bundling is that our building is unheated for the entire shutdown and we are thin-blooded Californians!)

We hope to send almost all Round 1 interview invitations by mid-January 2009, though some will go out later. We also may ask some of you to join the waitlist without an interview"

Links:

Does an early interview invitation translate into a higher chance of admission?

Interviews

New ISB Campus to come up at Knowledge City, Mohali

The Government of Punjab together with Indian School of Business (ISB) and four Indian Business Leaders will set up a second ISB campus at Knowledge City, Mohali

Analjit Singh Chairman & Managing Director of Max India Limited, Rakesh Bharti Mittal Vice-Chairman & Managing Director of Bharti Enterprises Limited, Sunil Kant Munjal Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of Hero Corporate Service Limited & Atul Punj Chairman, Punj Lloyd Group, jointly commit funding of Rs. 200 crores, with individual contribution of a sum of Rs. 50 crores each.

The ISB, with the support of existing associate schools, Wharton School and Kellogg School of Management, will set-up and run the Mohali campus, just like its Hyderabad campus. The Mohali campus will have the following four specialist Institutes, termed as Centres of Excellence, for promoting research and offering additional specialisations in the Post Graduate Programme:

-- Max India Institute of Healthcare Management
-- Bharti Institute of Public Policy
-- BML Munjal Institute of Manufacturing and Operation Excellence
-- Punj Lloyd Institute of Physical Infrastructure Management

The ISB campus at Mohali proposes to have 280 seats in its Post Graduate Programme. It will also have several short duration Executive Education Programmes where approximately 750 professionals will be able to participate.

For more read here: Press Release

Best Schools by Specialty: Business Week

Best Schools by Specialty: Finance

Schools with Top Finance Programs (Listed in alphabetical order, not ranked)

University of Chicago
Columbia University
Duke University
Harvard University
University of Michigan
New York University
Northwestern University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Texas-Austin

Also consider:
University of VirginiaMassachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Rochester
Stanford University

Best Schools by Specialty: Management

Top Schools for Management (Listed in alphabetical order, not ranked)

University of Chicago
Columbia University
Duke University
Harvard University
University of Michigan
Northwestern University
University of Pennsylvania
Stanford University
University of Texas-Austin
University of Virginia

Also consider:
Dartmouth College
Yale University
Indiana University

Best Schools by Specialty: Entrepreneurship

Best Schools for Entrepreneurship (List in alphabetical order, not ranked)

Babson College
University of California-Berkeley
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Pennsylvania
Stanford University

Also consider:
Columbia University
University of California-Los Angeles
Dartmouth College
Harvard University

Best Schools by Specialty: Marketing

Schools With Top Marketing Programs (In alphabetical order, not ranked)

University of California-Berkeley
Duke University
Harvard University
Indiana University
University of Michigan
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Pennsylvania
Northwestern University
University of Texas-Austin
University of Virginia

Also consider:
Dartmouth College
New York University
University of Rochester

Link: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/mbainsider/schools_by_specialty.html

B - School Ranking 2008 - Business Week

# 1 University of Chicago
# 2 Harvard University
# 3 Northwestern University (Kellogg)
# 4 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
# 5 University of Michigan (Ross)
# 6 Stanford University
# 7 Columbia University
# 8 Duke University (Fuqua)
# 9 MIT (Sloan)
# 10 UC Berkeley (Haas)
# 11 Cornell University (Johnson)
# 12 Dartmouth (Tuck)
# 13 NYU (Stern)
# 14 UCLA (Anderson)
# 15 Indiana University (Kelley)
# 16 University of Virginia (Darden)
# 17 UNC - Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)
# 18 Southern Methodist (Cox)
# 19 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
# 20 University of Notre Dame (Mendoza)
# 21 Texas - Austin
# 22 Brigham Young (Marriott)
# 23 Emory University (Goizueta)
# 24 Yale University
# 25 University of Southern California (Marshall)
# 26 University of Maryland (Smith)
# 27 University of Washington (Foster)
# 28 Washington University (Olin)
# 29 Georgia Tech
# 30 Vanderbilt University (Owen)

Link: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/

Tuck School of Business at Darmouth launches its Admissions Blog

The Tuck admissions blog gives you the chance to percieve the Tuck experience through the eyes of students and partners. Bloggers come from a variety of professional, geographic , and life experience backgrounds. Furthermore, an admissions officer (and occasional guest bloggers) share thoughts and advice on applying to B-school

Blog Address: http://tuckschool.blogspot.com/

Link: http://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/admissions/connect/blog.html

HBS sends out Round One Interview Invitations

HBS Director of Admissions and Financial Aid, Dee Leopold informed in her blogpost on November 11 that HBS has sent 750 Round 1 Interview invitations and ultimately will send 100 more by the notification date, January 21.

Read here: http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/blog.html#post-2008-11-11_2

Chicago GSB renamed as the Booth School of Business in recognition of largest gift by alumnus David Booth in the University’s history

Alumnus David Booth gives $300 million to University of Chicago business school; Largest gift in the University’s history. School to be renamed in his honor.

An entrepreneur and visionary marketer who built his successful investment firm on finance principles he learned at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business has returned the favor by making the largest donation in the University’s history and the largest gift to any business school in the world, the school announced today (Thursday, November 6).

The donor is David G. Booth, founder and chief executive of Dimensional Fund Advisors, an investment firm, his wife Suzanne Booth and their family. David Booth received an M.B.A. from the school in 1971. The combination of an up-front payment, the income stream, and the equity interest provided by the Booth gift is valued at $300 million. In recognition of the gift, the school will be renamed the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

For more read: Press release

Stanford announces Grameen Fellows Program for Bangladeshi students

The Grameen Fellows program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business aims to support promising Bangladeshi students with financial need in obtaining an MBA at Stanford

The program will cover all financial costs related to tuition, living expenses, and application and examination fees associated wit the admissions process.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/mba/blog/
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/financial_aid/grameen.html

For Stanford Graduate School of Business Fellowships and Scholarships click here

HBS - Loans for International Students

October 31, 2008 - Harvard Business School is pleased to announce that Harvard MBA students will continue to have access to need-based loans, despite the pressures on loan availability for students in the current economic climate. This is true for U.S. students as well as international students, who will not be required to find a U.S. co-signer.

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/loans.html
http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/blog. ... 2008-10-30

Loans for International Students

Top schools are working and committed to find alternative funding for international students.

Stanford: Will the economy impact my ability to secure student loans?
http://www.stanford.edu/group/mba/blog/

GSB Admissions Blog: Loans for International Students
http://forums.prospero.com/n/blogs/blog.aspx?nav=main&webtag=GSBRoseBlog
https://sla.uchicago.edu/finaid/FAQs_LoanChange.html

Berkeley Haas: http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/mba/finaid/ScholarshipEnter.htm

Citibank had cancelled the CitiAssist loans to MIT Sloan

According to the N.Y. Times, an e-mail message was sent on Monday to students at the MIT Sloan School of Management:

Dear Sloan M.B.A. student,

As a result of the nationwide credit crisis we regret that we must now notify all Sloan Master’s students that late last week MIT was notified that Citibank has exercised its 30-day option to cancel the CitiAssist custom student loan program with MIT Sloan, effective Nov. 2, 2008.

Students who have already had their loans processed and approved by Citibank appear to be safe, but those who were still securing financing may be in trouble. The school is now helping students scramble to find alternate financing.

Clear Admit informs that program ended at Cornell's Johnson, and this would also impact other schools (HBS and Wharton) that offer CitiAssist loans to international students without a co-signer.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/ ... -students/
http://www.bus.umich.edu/admissions/fin ... rivate.htm

B-School Ranking - The Economist

Rank	School
1	IMD(Switzerland)
2	IESE(Spain)
3	Chicago
4	Stanford
5	Dartmouth(Tuck)
6	Berkeley(Haas)
7	Cambridge(Judge)(U.K.)
8	NYU(Stern)
9	LBS(U.K)
10	IE Business School(Spain)
11	HKUST Business School(Hong Kong)
12	Harvard
13	Cranfield School of Management(U.K)
14	Vlerick Leuven Gent(Belgium)
15	Schulich School of Business
16	Northwestern(Kellogg)
17	Penn(Wharton)
18	MIT(Sloan)
19	INSEAD(France;Singapore)
20	Henley Management College(U.K)
21	Columbia
22	Michigan(Ross)
23	Warwick Business School(U.K)
24	Ashridge(U.K)
25	UVA(Darden)

Link: http://mba.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=2008rankings

B-School Ranking - Financial Times

Rank	Financial Times 2008 Rankings
1	Penn(Wharton)
2	LBS(U.K)
3	Columbia
4	Stanford
5	Harvard
6	INSEAD(France;Singapore)
7	MIT(Sloan)
8	InstitutodeEmpresa(Spain)
9	Chicago
10	Cambridge(Judge)(U.K.)
11	CEIBS(China)
12	IESE(Spain)
13	NYU(Stern)
14	IMD(Switzerland)
15	Dartmouth(Tuck)
16	Yale
17	HKUST Business School
18	HECParis(France)
19	Oxford(Saïd)(U.K.)
20	ISB(India)
21	ESADE(Spain)
22	LUMS(U.K)
22	Manchester(U.K.)
24	Northwestern(Kellogg)
25	UCLA(Anderson)

Link: http://rankings.ft.com/global-mba-rankings