Stacy Blackman was quoted in the Forbes.com article entitled, “Tips for Getting into a Top Business School”.  The article highlighted a few basic tips mentioned in our new book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

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For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

Stacy Blackman’s Weekly Roundup of B-School Intelligence

Columbia Business School will unveil its redesigned core curriculum this fall with the entering class of 2010, introducing a streamlined set of foundational courses, newly built-in flexibility and a corporate governance module during orientation for first year students.

Across top-tier U.S. business schools, a small but growing number of students are skipping traditional winter on-campus recruitment and its seemingly surefire jobs, says Business News Blog’s recent post: Alternative Routes to and from the Traditional MBA. Instead, they are logging long hours conducting their own searches and networking furiously to get onto the career path they want.

The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the Robert H. Smith School of Business has increased its resources in biotechnology and technology transfer with the addition of Steven Roth and Karen Olson as entrepreneurs-in-residence. They will join an already-established roster of six prominent investors and entrepreneurs who donate their time to work in a senior advisory capacity to the emerging firms that the center serves.

In response to the market, London Business School has extended their Executive Education program portfolio by creating Executive Workouts, a series of new two-day programs that address critical business issues concisely yet intensively. This series starts in December 2008 with Coaching for Performance. Find out more on www.londonworkouts.com.

Some international MBA students are already hitting the books in Kellogg’s American Culture and English for International Business Students Program (also known as ACE). Designed in conjunction with Northwestern University’s School of Continuing Studies for incoming MMM and Two-Year MBA Program students with limited exposure to English as a primary language, the four-week ACE Program gives international students a chance to acclimate themselves to American culture before the rest of their classmates arrive.

For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

Stacy Blackman’s Weekly Roundup of B-School Intelligence

The typical MBA track runs a collision course with many young women’s plans to start a family, the Wall Street Journal reports. To break this pattern graduate business schools are recruiting students at younger ages, creating new programs to attract women and launching part-time “morning MBAs” to bend the rigid MBA track.

The Kellogg School of Management’s new executive education program in partnership with the NBA aims at providing pro athletes with business tools for life after the hardwood court. The program’s objective is to provide players with a comprehensive tool kit to help them thrive in the business world while emphasizing the importance of lifelong learning as a means to pursue a sustainable career.

INSEAD, the leading international business school, announced it has named Professor Jake Cohen as the new dean of the school’s MBA program. Cohen has been with INSEAD for more than five years as Professor of Accounting and Control and Business Law, and Director of the INSEAD-PricewaterhouseCoopers research initiative on high performance organisations, overseeing the school’s largest research center.

At many MBA programs, what used to be a brief meet-and-greet period is now an education in itself, says BusinessWeek. Administrators now use the orientation period to accomplish a host of weighty goals–from instilling a sense of ethical responsibility in students to helping them catch up on essential math skills and prepare for an ever-earlier recruiting schedule.

On October 11, Syracuse University’s sixth “Start-Up: Syracuse Entrepreneur’s Bootcamp” program begins. Led by the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship in the Whitman School of Management, the program helps entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs develop the skills necessary to take their idea or existing venture to the next level. Tuition for the six-week program is $650, with a limited number of $200 scholarships available to qualified applicants.

For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

This week’s GMAT challenge from PrepForTests.com is a problem solving question.

Have a go at answering this and then review your answer.

For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

This week, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business announced a guaranteed loan program for international students that covers the full cost of tuition, housing and related expenses. According to a statement released by the school, all international students in the MBA and PhD programs qualify for the loan program and no U.S. cosigner is required.

The new program replaces one that ended abruptly in July when the Illinois Designated Account Purchase Program (IDAPP) failed to renew its line of credit due to disruptions in the capital markets. Administered by Citibank, the Chicago GSB International Loan Program is available to returning students as well as new students entering the school in September.

“In order to obtain the best terms for our students, the school is contributing funding to the new program,” says Rosemaria Martinelli, associate dean for student recruitment and admissions, adding that compared with the previous loan program, the new rates and terms are more favorable to students.

The school is committed to ensuring that all students, regardless of citizenship, have access to funds by the start of classes on September 25, Martinelli explains. An online application will be used to simplify the process for applying for a loan. Students will be able to borrow up to $150,000 and have 20 years to repay. Payments can be deferred to begin six months after graduation.

The University’s arrangement with Citibank is for one year. Beginning next year, Martinelli says Chicago GSB expects to offer international students a choice of several loan programs from multiple lenders.

What’s on the minds of Chicago GSB students? Read these blogs to find out.

http://i4iday.blogspot.com/

http://run-forrest.blogspot.com/

http://the-dirty-canuck.blogspot.com/

http://tombaornot.blogspot.com/

For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

Read on for real stories from MBA applicants and students…

MaybeMBA shares some gripes as she deals with the frustrations of crafting a meaningful courseload at Chicago GSB and an internship experience that has made her question her career choice.

On the Kenan-Flagler blog, Susanna Schick posts about lessons learned by she and her classmates as they wrap up their summer internships.

Leonidas poses an interesting question about essay writing style, asking whether fellow bloggers use an inductive or deductive approach.

StairwaytoMBA is looking forward to a ten-day trip to Boston and New York this week, with plans to visit Wharton and hopes of visiting HBS. Also, things are moving slowly, painfully, yet steadily on the application and recommendations fronts.

Soni is feeling mighty fine now that he’s submitted his first application…ahead of schedule! Stay tuned for an update from Soni after he attends the MBADiversity’s Annual Symposium in Cambridge, Mass., next weekend.

HappyBunny is singing the blues after receiving peer feedback on her essays. Reviewers say either her team failure is too minor, or she’s trying to play hero. Should she really regret not having made huge mistakes in life so far, knock on wood?

July Dream is gearing up for the start of classes today at Darden while still trying to find some time for herself in the midst of several pleasant, but exhausting, gatherings. Read her blog to learn whether she found last week’s Personal Career Assessment Program and Career Discovery Forum worthwhile.

TinyDancer has a call to action for all bloggers to speak on the subject of poverty on October 15. This Wharton student hopes many b-school bloggers will join her in sharing their thoughts on the issue.

Tryst With MBA shares a link to the Flesch-Kincaid readability ease test for your essays. After pasting his essays into the readability index calculator, the results were a mixed bag. But try it out…it looks very interesting.

For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.