"With a more mature age comes leadership roles"

German business school Gisma has filed for bankruptcy due to ongoing financial difficulties. US-partner university Purdue also published the news on its website, but stated that they were not informed directly by Gisma despite their close relationship.

Several key findings could be deducted from this year’s QS TopMBA.com applicant survey that researched the expectations, requirements and wishes of 4100 applicants across the world. According to the new study MBA applicants are becoming more realistic in their salary expectations.

Norway’s business school BI Norwegian has undertaken more changes than most business schools in recent years according to a profile in the Financial Times. The Scandinavian b-school has consolidated in its home country Norway and now focuses on overseas expansion.

Job-hopping may not be a wise decision after graduating at a business school according to University of Virginia Darden School of Business Dean Robert Bruner. Bruner talked about commitment to an employer during his commencement address to the class of 2013 and posted his opinions later in his blog.

More recruiters plan to hire in 2013 and the pay is also on the rise, surveys by the Graduate Management Admission Council find. Employer hiring is up four per cent for the class of 2013 business school graduates.

Reims Management School, which is known for its focus on the champagne business, and Rouen Business School have announced their official merger. The schools already operate degree programmes and an executive education campus in Paris together.

The percentage of military students in MBA programmes has experienced a steep increase in the past two years. Enrolments from military personnel almost doubled from 4.41 per cent in 2010 to 8.1 per cent in 2012. These numbers stem from a survey that polled 22,300 military and traditional students across more than 50 U.S. degree programmes.

A number of business schools are beginning to experiment with incorporating the liberal arts – literature, history, science, and philosophy – into their business curriculum, the “BusinessWeek” reports.

York University’s Schulich School of Business in Canada has conducted its first MBA class in global mining management. The programme was set up after the Canadian Institute of Mining (CIM), a trade group representing companies such as Kinross Gold (KGC) and BHP Billiton (BHP), approached the school with the request to tailor MBA courses for the mining sector.

Audencia Nantes School of Management in France announced that at least 10 per cent of its MBA coursework will deal with corporate social responsibility and sustainability by the end of 2013. The school has also changed the name of its degree to “MBA in Responsible Management”.

The demand in the market for MBAs is shifting away from the classic MBA towards classes for younger, less experienced students. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council, which administers the GMAT, 53 per cent of western European test-takers in 2012 were younger than 25 - up from 40 per cent in 2008.

Some people may argue that you can’t learn how to be an entrepreneur or an innovator in a classroom. Surely enough people like Richard Branson, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs didn’t attend an MBA programme. But while the spirit to innovate and create might indeed be in your genes at birth, the methods, strategies and basics of business and management are not. And some other tricks and can certainly be learnt as well

The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is the entrance exam that most business schools ask you to attend, when you apply for a place. It is administered by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) at test centres across the world.

Melbourne has taken an important step to strengthen its position in business education in the Asia Pacific by announcing a collaboration between the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Business and Economics and Melbourne Business School.

Last year’s winners in the Financial Times ranking for open and customised executive education programmes clambered back onto the top spot: IMD in the open category and Duke Corporate Education in the customised table.

Business school Insead, which hosts campuses in France, Singapore and Abu Dhabi, launched its new Master in Finance degree at the beginning of April. The new programme is designed for experienced financial industry professionals and its curriculum aims to provide a global experience with students coming from all over the world.

Cass Business School at London’s City University will offer an MSc in Leadership from September onwards. The leadership Masters programme will be taught together with the Inspirational Development Group (IDG), a training company, and the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst.

Germany with its 82 million people is Europe’s powerhouse. The country is the largest national economy in Europe and the world’s second largest exporter. Exports account for more than one-third of the national output and Germany is home to world-renowned companies such as BMW, Allianz or Siemens.

What do you do if you have no time for an MBA, not even if it’s taught as a part-time class, but you still need to brush up your Shakespeare when it comes to management knowledge? What if you are already in a senior management position with no need for a full MBA programme, but you are still interested in better leadership skills? For many people the answer to these questions is still business school – but rather in the form of an executive education course than a full-blown MBA programme.

The Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan is the second school to try team-based interviews as part of its MBA admissions process for 2014. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School has launched the method last year.

The Kelley School of Business at Indiana University is launching a Business of Medicine MBA to help physicians meet the increasing demand for business knowledge in their profession. The first class starts in September 2013.

The Graduate Management Admission Council has published an updated version of the GMATPrep software. GMATPrep is a free preparation programme for the GMAT exam that is used in graduate business and management programmes around the world.

Before applying to business school, you need to get as much information about a school as possible. Websites and information packs, b-school fairs and chats with alumni will help you make up your mind.

The American publication US News is true to its name: Its MBA ranking focuses only on business schools in the United States. According to the latest for 2013, Harvard, Stanford and Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania lead the pack.

With more than 35,000 alumni, Henley Business School has one of the largest alumni networks worldwide. It is ranked number 1 worldwide in terms of “Potential to network” according to a study from the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2012. Armin Rau, head of Henley’s alumni organisation in Germany, feels that for Henley’s alumni “brand and pride” are very important.