The Indian government is considering liberalization of higher education in the country, a move that would allow foreign universities to establish campuses in India. Check out this story from Monday’s Financial Times for more on the proposed changes. One angle that story misses: How the proposed reforms could help local schools. Consider one problem faced by the Indian School of Business, the B-school based in Hyderabad that is partners with Wharton and Kellogg and has just announced an alliance with Sloan. (For more on ISB, look at my story about the school in the current issue of Bloomberg Businessweek here.) Since ISB isn’t affiliated with a university, it can’t give MBAs to its graduates. Indian students don’t mind: Most of the other top B-schools in India can’t give MBAs either, and everybody knows that the piece of paper you get from ISB is an MBA in everything but name. Read the rest of this entry »

The admissions interview is one of the most important parts of the business school application process, because it’s the only time that the admissions office get a chance to meet the real, live you. Business schools rarely employ the “stress interview” technique, trying to make you squirm and seeing how you perform under pressure. The process is stressful enough, and they’re more interested in getting answers to their questions and getting to know the real you, than in seeing how well you can stand up to stress.
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There are 62 MBA programs in California, according to Find MBA.com. Top MBA programs in California include

• University of Southern California (USC) – Marshall School of Business,
• University of San Diego (USD) School of Business Administration ,
• UCLA University of California, Los Angeles – Anderson School of Management,
• University of California, Berkeley – Haas School of Business and
• Stanford Graduate School of Business (Stanford GSB)

For the full list of the 62 MBA programs in California, please visit All MBA Programs in California.

Which Schools Offer Online MBA Degree Programs and Require No GMAT for Admission?

Many colleges and universities require students to take the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) before accepting them into a Master of Business Administration (MBA) program. There are some schools, however, that do not require the GMAT for admission. In some cases, MBA programs that do not require the GMAT, administer entrance exams of their own. Below are 5 schools that offer online programs. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past three years, the number of graduates of part-time MBA programs has shot up 14.5% — to 22,210 in the 1999-2000 academic year. And half of Business Week’s top 30 full-time MBA programs now offer part-time degrees. That’s because a large segment of the pre-MBA universe — an older and increasingly diverse segment — wants the advantages an MBA confers in terms of prestige and money without having to go back to school and sacrifice two years of income — plus, possibly, their existing careers.

HARDER RECRUITMENT. Now, the leaders in part-time MBA education are trying to take their programs to the next level. They’re putting more emphasis on relevance and innovation in their course offerings, and they’re adding such enhancements as Web-enabled courses and more electives. Others are working to improve the image and success of part-timers. At New York University’s Stern School of Business, a new career-resources adviser works with part-timers to develop job opportunities. And the career-services office at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management now sends representatives to advise part-timers at their downtown Chicago campus during evening classes.

Still, for all of the growth of such programs, many B-schools are struggling to keep the good times rolling. When unemployment is low and the economy sizzles, most business schools find it harder to recruit students away from good careers. Kim Corfman, academic director of the part-time program at New York University’s Stern School, has noticed a drop in applications this year (the school accepted 60% of its applicants in 1999).

KEEPING ‘EM HAPPY. Another goal for the schools is to simply hold on to what they have, as jobs become more demanding — and mobile. Halfway through a part-time program, an employer can transfer a student across country and out of reach, for example. These dropouts take their toll. At Wayne State University in Detroit, for instance, 150 to 200 students drop out each year. That costs the school “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” and hampers it from adding new courses, says the school’s Dean, Harvey Kahalas.

This realization has schools such as Stern lavishing resources on their part-timers. Stern’s program now has its own administrative offices and a community-building orientation program for new students. “We wondered if they wanted a sense a sense of community, and they’re loving it,” says Corfman. The school is also incorporating distance learning.

Such schools are also reacting to complaints from part-time students. Indeed, a recent survey of 5,000 part-time MBAs by the AACSB and New Jersey-based Educational Benchmarking found that the students rated their overall satisfaction with the career services offices at their schools 3.79 on a scale of 7.0.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST. In fact, recruiters are generally enthusiastic about part-time MBAs. Portia Smith, manager for the staff associates program for Sprint, says her company is starting to eyeball part-timers. “The biggest hurdle is getting past the schools, since the students’ employers are often paying the tuition and fees for the students,” she says. For now, she’s noticing more part-time MBA students at her on-campus briefings. “They say that they’re interested and ask how they can be interviewed.” Smith particularly likes the fact that part-timers tend to have more work experience, she says.

Best of all for recruiters, the conflict of interest that B-schools face when finding new jobs for part-timers whose education is financed by their current employer is that fewer and fewer of them are funded by their companies. “Companies see it as a cost savings, and employees are less loyal to companies now,” says Arthur Centonze, dean of the Lubin School af Pace University.

That news may prompt schools such as Michigan State to reconsider their policies on part-time MBA recruiting. Currently, Dean James Henry says, “after the [weekend MBA students] finish the program, if they’re leaving their company, we’ll support them. But in the weekend MBA program, it’s made clear from the beginning that [placement] service won’t be provided for them.”

FASTER TRACK. Schools have also gotten the message that part-time students don’t relish going to night school forever and that they want a wider variety of course work. Thus, Michigan State recently revamped its part-time program to shorten the curriculum to 18 months — vs. two years for the school’s full-time program. Baruch College, which is part of New York’s state university system, has also added an accelerated part-time MBA program that takes just 24 months, vs. the normal four years.

The ultimate draw for students may be that it’s much easier to land a spot as a part-time MBA-er than as a full-timer. Lyons says Kellogg selects 35% of applicants for admission to its part-time program, while the school’s full-time program sorts through more than 5,000 applications to choose a lucky 18%. The University of Michigan reports that 63% of its part-time students are accepted — vs. 21% for its full-time program.

Once they’re admitted, however, students say the workload is equal.

MORE BETTER WIDGETS. Part-timers do pay a price. At many schools, especially those with vibrant day programs, special guests such as CEOs, entrepreneurs, and dignitaries make their lecture rounds before part-time students come to class. “We’re on the mailing lists that announce when good speakers arrive on campus,” says Venugopala of Bentley, “but we can’t go. [Those events] are the biggest things that part-time students miss out on.” Lyons agrees: “Evening students don’t get the networking or extracurricular [activities] that the full-timers do.”

Ultimately, many employers see an MBA as an MBA, no matter how it’s earned. It shouldn’t take business schools long to do the calculation: If the product — the student with a part-time MBA — is both popular and highly profitable, then you want to turn out plenty of good ones.

Part-Time Students Are Getting Full-Time Attention: Enrollment is at record highs. And since part-timers are so profitable, schools are going out of their way to attract and keep them –Written by Mica Schneider from BusinessWeek.

In her first week as an MBA student at the Spanish B-school ESADE, Elizabeth Caswell and her classmates were each asked to prepare a presentation on a company they felt would be a good place to work. Caswell selected KB Home, the $9.4 billion Los Angeles homebuilder. When it was her turn, the Massachusetts native got up and shared her findings, complete with company financials and stock prices. When she finished, her classmates politely applauded her efforts.

What Caswell found at ESADE is what many potential MBAs are looking for, a program that offers a strong dose of management theory–and a global perspective. Because few U.S. MBA programs can match the diversity and international flavor of a school like ESADE, where 74% of students are from outside of Spain, more and more students are heading to schools in Europe and Canada. According to the Graduate Management Admissions Council, the number of American students attending MBA programs in countries like Spain, France, and England has risen from about 2,100 in 2000 to 3,550 in 2005.

This is good news for the top 10 schools in BusinessWeek’s 2006 ranking of the best non-U.S. MBA programs. While the programs differ, each manages–through program design and classroom diversity–to expose students to a world of cultural differences. On average, 64% of the students hail from abroad, compared with 35% at the top 10 U.S. schools. With such breadth, students learn as much from their classmates as from their professors, not just about marketing and finance, but also about how management styles differ in various parts of the world. And this becomes more important as business becomes an increasingly global affair. “Students are beginning to understand that they have to learn to deal with specific problems they will face if they operate in Russia, or China, or Brazil,” says Jordi Canals, dean of the Barcelona-based IESE Business School.

For this year’s ranking of non-U.S. MBA programs, BusinessWeek surveyed more than 2,000 students from 25 of the world’s most competitive programs, as well as the recruiters who hire them, using the same methodology as the U.S. ranking. For the first time since the launch of the international ranking in 2000, three Canadian schools top the list, led again by Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. In a year marked by a battle for differentiation among top international schools, Queen’s took top honors with an unusual approach that treats students less like students and more like employees.

“TREAT IT LIKE A JOB”

How does Queen’s do it? For starters, it divides students into groups of five or six “participants,” with each group consisting of several different personality types and nationalities so that conflict is almost guaranteed. Unlike most B-schools, where new teams form for each class, Queen’s students belong to a single team for the whole program, much as they would on the job. Each team is assigned to a 15-by-20-foot “office” where each student has a cubicle and is expected to keep office-like hours. It’s here that students spend a majority of their non-class time, discussing projects and working on assignments. And it’s here where much of the magic happens. Students learn how to work as part of a team–resolving differences and solving problems–in a way that can’t be taught in the classroom. “Students are treated like professionals, and they’re expected to treat it like a job,” says Alan Ridgeway, a 2006 Queen’s grad.

This experiment in reality learning has students and recruiters singing the school’s praises. But administrators aren’t easing up. In late September, Dean David Saunders announced plans for a curriculum redesign that will allow students to customize their course loads based on their experience and career goals. For Saunders, the decision to make the change was simply a question of listening to the market. “We talked to employers and alumni and built off of their feedback,” Saunders says.

Indeed, if there’s one lesson that international B-school administrators have learned this year, it’s that the needs of recruiters matter just as much as those of prospective students. To deliver the kinds of grads who can hit the ground running, the University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business last year cut the length of what had been a two-year program in half and revamped the curriculum. The school now requires students to examine case studies from numerous viewpoints, in essence grouping together various disciplines–finance, marketing, operations, and so on–that would ordinarily be chopped up into individual courses. “We’re thinking about it as learning from an issues perspective as opposed to a functions perspective,” says Ivey Dean Carol Stephenson. The changes seem to be working: Western Ontario rocketed up four spots, to No. 2, and was the top choice of recruiters, who say Ivey grads are quickly able to adapt to the workplace with little additional training.

SOLUTIONS TO THE HIRING PUZZLE

As impressive as that sounds, Ivey’s improvement in the ranking was modest compared with that of the University of Toronto’s Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, which leapt six spots, to No. 3, the biggest jump in the ranking. In 2004, Rotman grads said it was hard to find jobs even at the Canadian companies making an annual pilgrimage to campus. In response, the school designed new courses on everything from presentation skills to networking and brought corporate leaders and alumni into the classroom. Sean Bartman, a senior manager of recruiting at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, is one of a handful of recruiters who visit Rotman to hold mock interviews and training sessions. According to Bartman, who helped implement the sessions, these are important pieces of the hiring puzzle. “You can’t just go into an interview cold and expect to do well,” he says. Judging from the hiring numbers at Rotman, the work is paying off. For the class of 2006, 94% had a job offer within three months of graduating, the school’s best job placement performance in years. The only real complaint from students at Rotman is that they would like to see a few more companies from outside of Canada visiting campus.

With Canadian schools dominating the upper end of the list, several highly ranked European schools found themselves slipping to the middle of the pack this year. The International Institution for Management Development (IMD) fell to No. 4, from No. 2, despite receiving the highest possible ranking in the student survey. The Lausanne (Switzerland) B-school, where students average seven years of work experience–far more than any of the other schools in our ranking–is the destination of choice for those in search of highly experienced classmates, and who might otherwise choose an executive MBA program. That was the choice that confronted Laurent Collier before he chose IMD. “I was already a manager with a good salary,” Collier says. “I wanted to be working with people that had the same [level of] experience as me.” What Collier found in the 11-month IMDMBA was an intense, boot-camp-like experience that provided the career bump he was looking for. “Getting only five hours of sleep a night was worth it,” he says. But the experience comes at a price. Some recruiters skip IMD because its grads are looking for positions at a higher level than companies can offer.

For many European schools, the most troubling problem this year was a perennial one: attracting international recruiters. With so many foreign students looking to return home to work after earning their MBA, schools that fail to attract recruiters from those countries are at a big disadvantage. This is, no doubt, one reason why No. 6-ranked INSEAD hired J. Frank Brown, a retired executive at PricewaterhouseCoopers, as its new dean–to attract more international companies to the school’s Fontainebleau (France) and Singapore campuses.

It doesn’t help that many smaller, regional recruiters aren’t able to pay the high salaries that are a top priority for most students. Patricia Ferrando, a recruiter at Barcelona-based EuroPraxis Consulting, which hires at INSEAD, ESADE, and IESE, says it’s becoming more difficult to get MBAs from those schools in the door. “It’s hard to compete for top talent,” she says.

European and other international schools sometimes complain that poor name recognition puts them at a disadvantage when competing against Harvard, Wharton, and other top U.S. schools. But if they continue to succeed in producing graduates who can thrive in the global marketplace, that may change.

The Best Global MBA Programs：International B-Schools add an automatic credit in worldliness to the curriculum from BusinessWeek

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