Coincidentally a year after Lehman Brothers has collapsed, INSEAD, one of the worldwide leading business schools, INSEAD celebrates its 50th anniversary and it is using the occasion to demonstrate to the world that its curriculum and the alumni it has produced, have indeed been a blessing to the business world rather than a curse.

Taking an MBA in the current climate isn’t just about taking shelter from the storm. It may also be the most intellectually exciting thing you have ever done. Is this the most exciting time ever to do an MBA? David Williams investigates.

Nunzio Quacquarelli, Editor of QS TopMBA.com speaks to Admissions Officers of Business Schools in the U.S., on how the economic crisis has affected their admissions in 2009 and the outlook for the future.

Over the past 30 years, management education has been one of the fastest growing segments of the higher education market. Although the current economic crisis and ethical lapses of some major business leaders have tarnished the MBA, B-schools have done extraordinarily well in the past few decades, increasing in number, stature and influence within the business community.  And, within B-schools, the Executive MBA (EMBA) has been one of the fastest growing and most dynamic programmes.

The Queen of the U.K. said back in November 2008 that the financial crisis was awful and then asked the economists “If these things were so large, how come everyone missed them?”  Some commentators went a step further than the Queen and described the current financial crisis as the bankruptcy of the intellectual capital of Wall Street.

How does the global financial crisis impact MBAs? And does it affect women differently than men? These questions motivated a new study by New York non-profit research group Catalyst, focusing on issues involving females in the workplace.

In a tight labour market, business school admission departments are taking a closer look at how easily candidates will be able to land a job after graduation. That’s good news for candidates with polished interview skills, a killer résumé and a workable career plan, reports U.S. magazine “BusinessWeek”.

Those were the days: MBA students did an internship and returned to campus for their second year with a neat full-time job in their pocket. Those days are definitely over. Numbers of recruiters who are visiting business schools have dropped significantly. And those who still come have less jobs on offer. Business schools are starting new partnership – on the internet, where else?

Dan Muzyka, Dean of of the Sauder school in Canada, on the challenges facing management education, the role of business schools and why teaching business history to MBAs might just have averted the economic crisis.

For the last 25 years the most controversial and analysed topic in business schools has been leadership. Hundreds of books and articles, of varying significance, have been written on the subject. Nothing “sells” more than leadership. Almost all business schools base their advertising and marketing strategy on offering to form leaders. As if by magic students enter a school, follow courses and seminars, and graduate as “leaders” - seminars, workshops, discussions and conferences are offered to organisations and individuals promising a great achievement: they will end up as leaders.

In the US, business schools report as much as a fifty per cent drop in financial sector hiring, due to the global financial crisis and to the disappearance of institutions such as Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. North of the Canadian border, though, the financial sector’s job market did not falter like it did in the US.

MBA & Company, a London based start-up working since May 2009, is a handy resource for companies in search of MBA trained talent for outsourced project based work. The database of the service firm contains a “couple of thousand” experienced candidates from the world’s leading business schools, claims Daniel Callaghan, founder and Managing Director of MBA & Company.

MBA Students at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business can now improve their analysis of a wide range of economic, social, ethical and environmental dilemmas with a handful of new courses to be offered during the 2009/10 academic year.

Although it says quite clearly on the Wharton MBA’s website, that no admission test is delivering comparable results to the GMAT yet, Wharton School has decided to accept the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) for future admission to Wharton’s MBA program, according to the US Magazine BusinessWeek.

The GMAT – short for the Graduate Management Admissions Test – is tough, even for the best test-takers. And, like it or not, the GMAT is required by nearly every graduate business school. A number of very good test-prep companies offer materials, classes and/or one-on-one coaching. I strongly urge you to take advantage of their offerings, and I have great news for you: As the potential client, you are in the driver’s seat.

Online education has a long and winding history. Initially regarded by many institutions as a very interesting possibility to lower costs and offer students a way to learn themselves with interactive materials, it evolved into something that could be described as “education on steroids”.

Large private business schools in the US are currently struggling with a double whammy: already hit by much-reduced valuations in their endowment funds, their revenue is also suffering from a decline in applications from overseas. International students are thinking twice about handing over their recession-hit cash for an education at an albeit prestigious Western school, reports “The Economist“.

Thanks to a 12 million dollar donation from Jack Welch – the legendary former boss of General Electric – the brand new Jack Welch Management Institute at the Chancellor University in Ohio offers a new MBA program.