Kellogg School of Management will host a premiere women’s leadership event the weekend of April 16-17, 2010, designed to increase the number of qualified women who apply to business school.

As a joint initiative between the Women’s Business Association (WBA) and the Kellogg Admissions Office, the 2010 Women’s Leadership Workshop serves as an introduction for high-potential women early in their career as to how an MBA contributes to accelerated leadership development and broadens career options.

The event targets women in industries and functions where an MBA may not be considered part of the traditional career path. Nonetheless, these women could have the background and skills to succeed at a top MBA program and could greatly benefit from the toolkit that an MBA provides.

For more information about this event, the schedule of activities, and how to register, click here.

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Does Round Three (R3) deserve its somewhat bum rap? In an blog update Wednesday, Rose Martinelli, associate dean for student recruitment and admissions at Chicago Booth School of Business, makes some great points that help burnish the reputation of this upcoming round.

Martinelli concedes that R3 is more competitive simply because the majority of applications and acceptances occur in Rounds 1 and 2, but that doesn’t mean the final round is a throw-away, last-ditch shot at admission!

A significant portion of the class will come from R3, and Martinelli adds that a good number of R3s will be placed on Booth’s summer waitlist to help manage class size this summer.

Here are a few points Martinelli makes to dispel the gloom and doom surrounding this round of applications:

• Great applicants and great applications are valued in every round in order to create the best class possible.
• However, a strong, well-thought out application is critical in this round due to high demand in the MBA market.
• International applicants are accepted in R3. The program begins in September and R3 decisions are released in mid-May, leaving international students plenty of time to process their visa during the summer months.
• Consider letting admissions know why you’re applying in R3, if it’s relevant. Martinelli says it can ease the reader’s questions about your intentions.

If you have more questions about applying in this round, join Martinelli next Tuesday, March 2nd at 11 a.m. CST, for a live chat about the Booth admissions process and the 2010 application in time for the Round 3 deadline.

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If you are feeling stumped by your application essays and need some additional guidance, check out our NEW series of essay guides for MBA applications. Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton available now. They are seriously terrific and we are proud to say that almost every person who has ordered one has come back for more!

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To all applicants interested in UCLA Anderson School of Management, take heed of admissions director Mae Jennifer Shores‘ newest post on The MBA Insider Blog: Top Ten MBA Applicant Myths.

Below you’ll find clarity direct from Shores in the hopes of  demystifying 10 of the most common myths about the admissions process:

It is better to apply in Round 1 or 2 than Round 3. While this is true for some top MBA programs, it is not true for all, including UCLA Anderson. The chances of admission are comparable in all rounds. We welcome all Round 3 applicants.

UCLA Anderson looks for a set profile of candidate. UCLA seeks a diversity of academic, professional, geographic and personal backgrounds. We accept many students who have neither studied business nor worked in consulting or investment banking.

There are minimums or cut-off scores for the GPA and GMAT. Both measures are evaluated jointly, along with measures of ability to handle quantitative coursework. The distribution of GPA and GMAT scores among admitted students is broad.

Work experience is a pre-requisite for admission. Candidates are evaluated on both demonstrated and potential leadership and management skills.

Candidates are assessed on their number and/or type of extra-curricular activities and community service. We seek well-balanced students who possess a broad perspective on life. Candidates may have less formal commitments that exhibit this balance.

Applications are pre-screened. All applications are read in their entirety. Admissions decisions are made across multiple criteria; it is the rare candidate who is denied based on one area of an application.

Applicants are evaluated relative to others with the same professional or geographic background. Applicants are evaluated relative to the entire pool. There are simply too many ways to disaggregate and assess candidate profiles.

I have a better chance of being admitted if I visit or interview on-campus. We are committed to fairness and equity and recognize that there are applicants who are unable to visit us for monetary and/or personal reasons.

Foreign students are not eligible for fellowships. International and domestic students, alike, are considered for merit-based fellowships. International students are also considered for need-based grants.

UCLA Anderson is primarily an entrepreneurial or media & entertainment school. The school is widely recognized for its breadth and depth of curriculum across disciplines, including finance, marketing, accounting, general management, etc.

To learn more about admissions evaluation at UCLA Anderson, click here.

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If you are feeling stumped by your application essays and need some additional guidance, check out our NEW series of essay guides for MBA applications. Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton available now. They are seriously terrific and we are proud to say that almost every person who has ordered one has come back for more!

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After returning to Tuck School of Business for his 20-year reunion this past fall, Zdeněk Bakala decided to give back to the school that helped him achieve his professional success by donating $2.5 million to endow the Bakala Professor of Management faculty chair, Tuck announced Wednesday.

“The skills I learned at Tuck translated into success in entrepreneurship,” Bakala says. “The contacts I made are still important to me—they are people I speak to every day. I want to help make sure this experience continues for Tuck students.”

The gift supports Tuck’s continuing efforts to provide world-class business leadership education through a faculty of scholar teachers. Establishing this faculty chair advances one of the primary goals of the school’s Tuck 2012 initiative—to provide students with enhanced access to faculty experts.

Bakala is an established business figure in his native Czech Republic. In 1991, he established the Prague office of Credit Suisse First Boston, and in 1994 founded Patria Finance, one of the largest investment banking boutiques in the Czech Republic.

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If you are feeling stumped by your application essays and need some additional guidance, check out our NEW series of essay guides for MBA applications. Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton available now. They are seriously terrific and we are proud to say that almost every person who has ordered one has come back for more!

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With recruiter visits to campus down an estimated 20% in the last year, business schools have gotten creative when it comes to putting students in contact with potential employers.

In a piece published Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal‘s Diana Middleton looks at how B-schools today are doing everything from comping hotel rooms for recruiters, to building video-equipped studios on campus for remote interviews, to teaming up with other schools to fly students to meet hiring managers in order to help students land jobs.

Numerous schools have adopted video technology, which ranges from free Skype, which just requires a simple Web cam, to sophisticated teleconferencing equipment that costs upward of $6,000.

Chicago Booth School of Business and the Wharton School have gotten on board in an effort to get their students seen by as many recruiters as possible by subscribing to InterviewStream, a video-streaming firm that charges $2,500 to $4,000 a year for its service, Middleton reports.

The service allows recruiters to either interview candidates live or weed out applicants using pre-programmed screening questions candidates have to answer by video, among other things.

According to WSJ, InterviewStream counts more than 50 MBA programs as clients, and sales have increased more than 200% in the past year, says Randy Bitting, chief executive officer and co-founder. “With this technology, [recruiters] don’t have to stick to local schools,” says Bitting. “They can cherry-pick without worrying about travel costs or time-zone differences.”

Meanwhile, other schools are trying out recruiting road trips. Tuck School of Business will foot the bill for 50 students to travel to Boston and San Francisco to meet with companies. Students from Washington University traveled on “cross-country road shows” between semesters in January to different U.S. cities to meet with company recruiters.

No matter which strategies B-schools employ, it’s a win-win for both students and recruiters, who call it a great way to develop their talent pipeline with candidates they may not have gotten to see in person.

Read more about non-campus recruiting here.

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If you are feeling stumped by your application essays and need some additional guidance, check out our NEW series of essay guides for MBA applications. Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton available now. They are seriously terrific and we are proud to say that almost every person who has ordered one has come back for more!

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Andrew Michael Spence, a 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics, will join the faculty of New York University Stern School of Business as Professor of Economics effective September 1, 2010, the school announced Monday.

Spence, whose scholarship focuses on economic policy in emerging markets, the economics of information, and the impact of leadership on economic growth, is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus of Management at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where he also served as dean from 1990 to 1999.

Spence shared the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics with George Akerlof from the University of California, Berkeley, and Joseph Stiglitz, from Columbia University in New York. They received the award for their “analyses of markets with asymmetric information,” according to a statement from the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm.

“Mike, through his broad portfolio of activities, all performed at the highest level, and fundamentally propelled by deep academic expertise, embodies the kind of integrative thinking that NYU Stern continues to bring to bear on the complex problems of business in the 21^st century,” said Peter Henry, dean of NYU Stern.

“Our finance faculty have provided real-time analysis and remedies for the financial crisis with their book ‘Restoring Financial Stability.’  With his stature in the international policy-making community, Mike’s appointment strengthens an already stellar finance and economics faculty that is providing critical insights on the fundamental policy questions facing the world in the aftermath of the crisis.”

For more background on Spence and his move to NYU Stern, click here.

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If you are feeling stumped by your application essays and need some additional guidance, check out our NEW series of essay guides for MBA applications. Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton available now. They are seriously terrific and we are proud to say that almost every person who has ordered one has come back for more!

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