Orientation

Crisis? What crisis? Business schools are going to be busier than ever, if all the students who took the GMAT exam actually apply for an MBA programme. The Graduate Management Admission Council or GMAC - a non-profit education organisation of the world’s leading graduate business schools and owner of the GMAT exam, accepted by more than 5,400 graduate business and management programmes worldwide - has announced a total of 286,529 GMAT exams worldwide were taken.

Stanford Graduate School of Business started accepting the GRE revised General Test as an alternative to the GMAT in 2004 because school officials felt it was nonsensical to accept the GRE from candidates applying to their Ph.D. programmes but not from their MBA applicants. In the years since hundreds of business schools have followed suit. According to Educational Testing Services, which administers the GRE, about 1000 business schools accept the GRE today: “Graduate and business school programmes worldwide use GRE scores in their admissions and fellowship decisions for a variety of programmes, including master’s, MBA, specialised master’s degrees, and doctoral programmes.” 

European business schools dominated the Financial Times’ masters in management ranking for 2012. The University of St Gallen placed first followed by ESCP Europe, Cems, HEC Paris, Essec Business School, IE Business School, Esade Business School and Rotterdam School of Management.

The tremendous growth of the Chinese economy has created high demand for well-trained managers, causing many middle managers, executives, and business owners in China to go back to school to seek business education, writes Shu-Hsing Li, dean and professor of accounting from the College of Management at National Taiwan University in a recent essay. Due to the sheer size of China’s population this could mean a large number of students will be applying for part-time EMBA programmes in the near future.

From August onwards the MBA admissions deadline circus starts and depending on your schools’ deadlines you need to sort out your GMAT exam (Graduate Management Admission Test) beforehand. Official Score Reports are usually available within 20 days after the test date, but it is wise to take the exam well ahead of your deadline (just in case you need a second attempt, which is no shame!). Preparing for the GMAT usually takes at least three months. You can achieve between 200 and 800 points in the test. Everything from 600 points upwards increases your chances of a successful application at a top school. The GMAT tests your verbal, mathematical, statistical and logical abilities and since the beginning of June the exam also includes a special section relevant to today’s business world called Integrated Reasoning.

The official GMAT website says: “The skills being tested by the Integrated Reasoning section were identified in a survey of 740 management faculty worldwide as important for today’s incoming students. The Integrated Reasoning score will provide a new data point for schools to find the right candidates for their programs, and for you to stand out.” But what do students and business schools say? We’ve searched forums and talked to Rotterdam School of Management at the Erasmus University in the Netherlands.

Getting into your preferred business school might not be a picknick. But if you apply at the right time of your career (not when you’re bored but rather when you want to grab opportunities) and find the right school (e.g. a school where your preferred employers usually hire from… a school that offers a focus on your particular field of interest…), your application might be off to a good start. To make it a success we have assembled our top ten tips for your business school application.

If you’re invited to an interview at a business school, you need to prepare this as well as possible. Like the essay the interview can really make a difference. On one hand it can make you stand out from the crowd, on the other hand it can also ruin your application if you don’t take it seriously. A good idea is to talk to current students or alumni of the business school to see how interviews are conducted and to get a feeling for the questions that might be asked.

To round off this admission special MBA Channel has spoken to two leading business schools to get their insider tips for admission to their renowned halls. Sara Neher, the Uni-versity of Virginia Darden School of Business’ assistant dean of MBA admissions and Peter Manasantivongs, director of the full-time MBA programme at Melbourne Business School have answered our questions.

A university education is becoming less and less affordable for students in 40 countries around the world, according to the report “Global Changes in Tuition Fee Policies and Student Assistance” by the Canadian consulting group Higher Education Strategy Associates.

Lorraine Lucas is Business Engagement Manager – Careers, Alumni & External Relations at Bradford University School of Management. She supports MBA students in career planning before, during and after their studies. For MBA Channel she put together her five most important pieces of advice for MBA students.

“Some of them read from a prepared speech, some of them may have pat answers from what they anticipate are going to be the questions, some of them try to embellish their experience. What we’re looking for is the right fit for the individual, and the program”, says Joan White, Associated Dean of MBA Programs at the University of Alberta School of Business in Edmonton, Canada. So think twice if you have landed an interview at a business school and you think that means you are in. Experts say you have just reached another critical test.

It seems like a smart idea to get an employer to pay for your MBA tuition but there are a few responsibilities to keep in mind. Are you willing to stay with the employer for the number of years he might demand from you? Have you got the stamina to finish the MBA course and put in enough work to receive marks that will be considered good enough by your employer? And what happens with the tax?

It might not come as a surprise that each business school has its own strength. A school with an excellent marketing program might be much weaker in accounting and vice versa. The top schools fare pretty well overall but going down the list of excellence shows some astounding highlights.

The 2010 European Business School ranking by the Financial Times looks like the one from last year, at least in regard to the leading five institutions. They are France’s HEC, Great Britain’s London Business School, France’s Insead, Switzerland’s IMD and Spain’s IE Business School, in that order. Further down the list, though, are some surprises.