MBA Directory

Typically, business students enter graduate school with a first degree and about five years of work experience, meaning they are generally in their late 20s –an age where change is still part of the lifestyle. People in their 40s and older on the other hand are rather settled in their careers and work at a level where additional skills don’t necessarily guarantee substantial plus on the payback.

Full-time MBA programmes are still the most popular choice for students, but part-time, online, executive and distance-learning MBAs are catching up fast according to the QS TopMBA.com Applicant Survey 2011.

Yet another media publication has ranked business schools. U.S. News focuses solely on the U.S. and only surveys American business schools. Nevertheless, the main results still resemble most of the other major rankings. The U.S.News Business School Ranking 2012 places Harvard and Stanford as the top business schools.

Gone are the days, where there were only a handful of good business schools to choose from. Today, there is a plethora of B-schools on the international market, offering everything from full time, part time, online, distance, accelerated and executive programmes.

The Indian Institute of Management in Shillong, or IIM-S has launched a one-year executive postgraduate programme (also known as PGPEx) in international business in cooperation with the Ocean University of China in Qingdao. The goal is to develop truly international leaders with an emphasis on working with multicultural teams. The focus of the programme is on emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

B-school trends come and go, but one that seems to prevail is the creation of specialized MBA programmes. The schools seem to find them useful for attracting students and cementing their brand identities at a time when competition among schools for the best students is intense. But the growing popularity of specialized master’s programmes has not diminished interest in general MBA programmes, reports the Graduate Management Admission Council.

New MBA specialization: Digital Marketing
NYU Stern announced a new MBA specialization in Digital Marketing. The new programme aims to educate students about guiding organizations in a digital world. Students can focus their studies on a mix of marketing and information systems (IS) courses.

E-learning is on the rise. Online universities constantly strive to perfect their e-learning content by supporting it with current examples, analogies, case studies or problem analysis. Virtual learning, however, takes completely new turns by intern-ships turning to the internet as well.

The excited buzz is almost tangible at an information session given by London Busi-ness School (LBS) in Sydney. About 70 potential students – mostly from Australia, New Zealand and Asia - share the room with 25 alumni from all over the world who just happen to be in Sydney on this hot summer night in the southern hemisphere. The potential students came to this conference room in the Four Seasons Hotel “to check out options” or to “learn how to compare different schools” and because “in the current economic situation an MBA seems to be the best step for me”. The alumni have shown up to share their own experience at LBS with their potential successors in the classroom and to help promote the school they once attended.

Last month we reported on the recent business school ranking from the Financial Times. The ranking showed that U.S. schools still fare a bit better than European schools and also continue to outshine Asian schools.

So you’ve decided that you want to take the next step in your business career and pursue an MBA. It’s a big step, and not one to be taken lightly. Outside of deciding what program works best for you, you should also consider the merits of earning your MBA online. If you’ve done your research, you’ll find that students who enroll in online degree programs are among the fast-est growing demographic in higher education. And it’s not just undergraduates who are complet-ing their degrees online. A great deal of highly ranked MBA programs across the United States is offering online options, including Notre Dame, Penn State, and Purdue. Also more and more schools are offering blended learning approach to MBAs, where students can take a combination of online courses and classroom courses to get the best of both experiences.

According to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) test takers of their exam changed considerably in their demographics. The GMAT test is the entry exam to most business schools and a high test result increases chances of admis-sion.

New programmes, new deans and a focus on Chinese economy are the schools’ highlights of the last month:

Amidst renewed talks of a financial crisis, employees all over the world are more reluctant to give up their positions and go back to school for one or two years. This might be one of the reasons why the Executive Masters in Business Administration (EMBA) is so successful these days.

“We are small, but great” - The Leipzig Graduate School of Management wants to grow, but with consideration for quality and a sense of proportion. Bachelor degrees will not be offered but a family-friendly part-time MBA, more personable service and new scholarships. Rector Andreas Pinkwart spoke about his plans to MBA-Channel.com.

The age-old fight in business education in regard to the case method has now been won, argues Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management in the “Financial Times” - only to render the battle over the case study as a tool in business research more vitriolic than ever.