If the school you were seeking a nod from was not on this list, you can expect a 50-50 chance of getting accepted. While that may seem low to you, it does not beat the extremely low acceptance rates that Stanford University, Harvard University, and UC-Berkley are known for. Manhattan Review’s founder, Prof Dr. Joern Meissner, received his Ph.D in Management Science from Columbia University, which currently boasts an acceptance rate of 15.9%. With this in mind, you can use years of knowledge and prep expertise collected by him and his staff to assist you in preparing for the business world.

Much of the information above can be found in the original U.S. News article here.
For more information on a Free admissions consultation and GMAT preparation, contact Manhattan Review today.

Most of us think that getting a management education simultaneously means earning an MBA and accumulating a large amount of debt in student loans. Inspired by a recent article from BusinessWeek which challenged this notion with a report on full-tuition fellowships, we performed extensive research and data collection on our own and summarized our findings in three segments.

Today, we will present key data of full-tuition fellowships from many of the top US management programs including Berkeley’s Haas, Columbia, and University of Chicago. In the next two articles, we will cover major non-US schools.

During your application process, do not overlook these fellowships. Many schools usually require one extra essay or interview to be eligible for a two-year, full-tuition fellowship. The list of fellowships at the schools below may surprise you.

University of Chicago

Number of fellowships awarded to 2008 entering class: 11

Average class size for full-time MBA program:  550

How to apply: Most admitted applicants are automatically considered at the time of the application, but many have additional required interviews as part of the final selection process. All of the fellowships have a mentoring component.

Columbia

Number of fellowships awarded to 2008 entering class: About 25

Average class size: 1,196

How to apply: Automatically considered with application

Harvard

Number of fellowships awarded to 2008 entering class: 25

Average class size: 918

How to apply: Scholarships are awarded based on financial need. To apply, complete and submit a financial aid application upon admission

California Berkeley Haas

Number of fellowships awarded to 2008 entering class: 14

Average class size: 250

How to apply: For most of the fellowships, students automatically quality with application. For one particular fellowship, an additional essay is required.

MIT Sloan

Number of fellowships awarded to 2008 entering class: 10-12

Average class size: 375

How to apply: Automatic consideration with application

Pennsylvania Wharton

Number of fellowships awarded to 2008 entering class: 10

Average class size: 825

How to apply: Selection is based on the a number of criteria such as personal background, leadership, and integrity. Students who fit the criteria must complete a separate financial aid form.

Virginia Darden

Number of fellowships awarded to 2008 entering class: 61

Average class size: 632

How to apply: All admitted applicants are considered. For one fellowship, a separate application is required

Yale

Number of fellowships awarded to 2008 entering class: 11

Average class size: 180

How to apply: All applicants are considered for merit scholarships

The bottom line is that it is definitely worthwhile to perhaps write an extra essay if it means earning a savings of $200,000 for your education. For many of the fellowships, all admitted applicants qualify.

For a list of more business schools that offer full-tuition fellowships, please refer to this insightful article in BusinessWeek.

In an analysis of a b-school application, it is certain that some traits are going to be viewed positively by business schools across the board, for example, high GMAT scores or a high undergraduate GPA. However, certain schools such as MIT Sloan are looking for more particular characteristics in those they accept.

MIT Sloan seeks applicants with a background in Economics or Accounting. This may provide additional insight into the type of students that attend Sloan. In a similar vein, Sloan sees the Quantitative score on the GMAT as being particularly important in their evaluation. Certainly, if you do not see these parts of your application as being particularly strong and have your heart set on applying to Sloan, these facts alone should not deter you. Sloan also prefers a student body made up of people who have engaged in a range of professional sectors and have unique personal interests too.

Overall, it’s good to keep in mind that Sloan is about more than technology; it’s about creativity as well. So show in your application an ability to creatively reflect on who you are and if you are invited to interview, be prepared to respond spontaneously to an interviewer’s unconventional approach.

On the radar today:

MIT Sloan

Stanford Graduate School of Business

MIT Sloan Gains Fresh Perspective

MIT Sloan is actively attempting to raise its profile and become a more recognizable institution. During his recent interview with Business Week Online, Sloan’s Dean David Schmittlein discussed various unique opportunities to make the program more recognizable and to develop a tighter connection with world business leaders.

Some of the changes the school plans to make include the following:

• Customize the curriculum to the needs of learners
• Make the program more relevant to medium term career goals
• Add a number of new degree programs

Similar to many top Business Schools, Sloan is working hard to develop new engagements around the world. Sloan anticipates many announcements to surface about their updated relationships with global business leader within the next six months

Maintaining a Competitive Edge

MIT wants to become a more competitive program in the face of rising challenges and rising interest from students worldwide in getting an MBA. MIT is striving to increase its value on the “B-School Market”, with a number of key points that they believe separate them from the rest of elite B-Schools:

• Management education is not only about the MBA
• Advances in strategy and consulting
• Building on the strength of entrepreneurship and innovation
• Family based institutions

Stanford Seeks to Go Green and Turn Socially Conscious

Stanford has also launched a new curriculum. An interesting aspect of this curriculum is a new class called Critical Analytical Thinking:

• Designed to develop the student’s ability to construct a strong argument
• Learn how to take a tough topic and make an argument about it in a very short period of time.
• Done in a small group; students are instructed to mutually critique each other’s work
• The student’s teacher becomes the student’s personal advisor

New Campus, Same Values

The new campus for Stanford’s Graduate School of Business will be exclusively green and provide the comfort of California style architecture, integrating indoor and outdoor environments. The new campus will reflect the new changes within curriculum. The campus and building will also provide the students with flexibility in learning as more seminar rooms are built which facilitate working in small teams. According to the school’s website, $100,000,000 USD of Nike CEO Phil Knight’s donation will be put towards the new $275,000,000 USD campus. The project, called the Knight Management Center, breaks ground this year and the new campus will replace the old business school’s outdated infrastructure. The campus will be shared with other schools in the university via the innovative multi-disciplinary courses that Stanford Graduate School of Business are introducing into their curriculum.

These requirements for flexibility and collaborative learning come together in a course called “Innovations in Bio-Design.” The student make-up for that course, according to the dean, is 1/3 Business, 1/3 Medical School, and 1/3 engineering. The course is based on developing a Bio-Design idea and creating a business model for it. Thus, the students must work together due to the disparate nature of the disciplines involved.

Such a course reflects Stanford’s focus on business “not existing in a vacuum,” according to Dean Rovert Joss: Stanford’s new business curriculum takes social, environmental and other non-market situations seriously and considers its institution to be a center for social innovation. Stanford’s curriculum embodies the idea that business and social awareness are not mutually exclusive.

Changing Faces and Strong Values

MIT Sloan and Stanford’s updated MBA programs both reflect similar ideas about how business education fit with culture and the environment. Both programs embody the idea that business must coexist within the environment and the global landscape while business education must reflect that coexistence. Additionally, the way that an MBA fits with a student’s future must be accounted for within the education itself.

Lastly, the schools discussed both today and yesterday are making their curricula more student-focused. These programs are striving to strengthen the value of an MBA degree by exposing students to how business operates in the real world and most of all, helping students to be prepared (and employed) when graduation finally comes around.