For many potential MBA students, taking two years off to attend a full-time program is not ideal. In which case, consider one of the accelerated MBA programs offered by Columbia, Kellogg, Cornell, or Emory.

The Columbia Accelerated MBA takes four consecutive terms to complete. For the coming year, students would begin in Jan 2008 and complete the program in May 2009. The program is a good choice for students who do not need to complete a summer internship. Thsi would include entrepreneurs, individuals returning to a family business, students sponsored by employers, and students who want to remain in their chosen field or who already have a strong network in their chosen field.

Columbia Business School uses rolling admissions for all of their programs. They began accepting applications for the Jan 2008 accelerated MBA on April 25 and will continue to accept applications until October 10. Applicants receive notification within 10 weeks of submitting their application. Columbia encourages interested students to apply sooner rather than later.

Next Monday we’ll look at the Kellogg accelerated MBA program which has some eligibility requirements.

In an effort to help you distinguish between the offerings of top schools, over the past few weeks we have highlighted different joint or concurrent degree opportunities. We covered the joint MBA-JD at Kellogg as well as the joint MBA/MPP with the Kennedy School at HBS and Wharton.

Stanford recently announced two new joint degrees in Environmental Resources and Public Policy.. The environmental master’s is an interdisciplinary program with faculty from the schools of Business, Law, Engineering, Humanities, and Science. The joint MBA-MPP will take students three years to complete. Both degrees require that the students be admitted to the GSB first before applying for a joint degree. Stanford already offers joint degrees in law and education.

If you have been reading our posts recently, you hopefully have picked up on the fact that we really encourage you to do your homework and thoroughly research target schools. Too many people make the mistake of relying on rumors or even rankings, and applying to schools that may not be a good fit. College Toolkit is a website that can help you with your research, as you can conduct a school search based on various criteria. It’s a site that has been around for a while helping college applicants, and they just recently launched their MBA section.

They also offer a career section, some nifty calculators to help calculate your costs (scary!) and have a section with useful articles. You may even notice a familiar face on some of the articles!

I hope you find this resource useful.

Business Week recently reported that the MBA Bull Market Has Legs. According to the article, recruiters plan to increase hiring of MBAs by 18%. This is the second consecutive year of rising MBA hiring rates. Of course, with increased competition for MBAs, comes increased salaries. Business Week reports that recruiters will offer “base salaries that are 28% higher than what they will offer to candidates with other types of graduate degrees.” MBAs earn 84% more than individuals with just an undergraduate degree. The rise in demand for MBAs comes from employers seeking individuals with managerial and team experience.

You can get a sense of how recruitment works at your schools of interest by visiting their websites. HBS career services page gives information on their job search tools and workshops. Columbia shares a list of select recruiters. Stern has a very comprehensive career services page on their website as well. Reading through the career services section of school websites can provide you with inspiration for your future, and subsequently help you articulate your career vision in application essays.

As we wrote on April 5 you have many options when doing research on business schools such as school websites, school visits, information sessions.

If it is difficult for you to find the time for school visits or multiple information sessions in your area, considering attending the MBA World Tour. The MBA World Tour is held throughout the spring, summer, and fall and travels to Asia, the US, India Canada, and Europe.

At the MBA World Tour you can:
* Participate in interactive panels
* Speak with business school representatives
* Learn what makes each school unique
* Gain an understanding of the difference between general and specialized MBA programs

Visit the MBA World Tour website to get more details (including a search on which schools will be attending) and register.

One way to get a sense of the community at different business schools is to read blogs posted by MBA students. I ran across the Berkeley MBA Student blogs which featured an entry on the Napa Valley Triatholon. In addition to describing the Napa event, the writer talks about the Haas Triathlon Team, a group of fifteen students who have been training together all year.

Other recent posts on the Haas site include:
Wine and Solar Energy – Students visit to wineries investing in solar energy
Ghana Calling – students heading off to Ghana
Go Gold – students going out for a night at a karaoke bar

While it’s helpful to read about school clubs on the official school website, you can get a real feel for the students involved by reading a blog. If you see great blogs from other schools, please let us know and we’ll share them.