It’s a recurring theme in GMAT preparation: It’s all about managing your time. It doesn’t matter how carefully you pore over a Reading Comprehension passage or analyze the twists in a Data Sufficiency problem if you can’t finish the test in the allotted time. And the time allowed just isn’t much.

Because the GMAT is an adaptive test, it’s virtually a given that you will get questions wrong. You can get a handful of questions wrong on each section and still get a 700 or higher on the test. The questions you get wrong (and the ones you answer correctly!) will be very hard ones, but you’ll still miss a few. The trick, then, is using that knowledge to your advantage.

This is an excerpt from a longer article by Jeff Sackmann, originally published at GMAT Hacks.  Jeff has created several valuable GMAT-preparation resources, including Total GMAT Math and Total GMAT Verbal.

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On Vault’s MBA blog Thursday, Madison Priest tackled a subject that will really get you thinking if you’re interested in CSR and torn between whether you should specialize in sustainability during your MBA, or just go for generic business skills.

Priest polled colleague Aman Singh Das, Vault’s corporate responsibility editor, and discovered that even though sustainability solutions require specialized knowledge and specific skill sets, executives still prize traditional business skills such as the ability to think systemically, understand complex legislation related to sustainability and financial analytic skills. 

As Singh explains from the company’s perspective: The reality of the current market is that an MBA is good for generic management skills, not specialization, when it comes to sustainability and CSR….

Companies say they don’t necessarily need someone who has done two years in-depth study on CSR guidelines and regulations. They have more value for someone who has managerial skills–someone who can lead departments and work sustainability into their role as an accountant, an analyst, etc.

Carolyn C. Wise, Vault’s senior education editor, adds her belief that when it comes to MBA specializations, you don’t want to close yourself off.

“If you’re totally set on one type of job, then absolutely specialize–particularly if you worked in that industry before…But if you are a career-changer, and you don’t know precisely where you want to go, specializations can sometimes hurt rather than help,” Wise says.

For more ideas on how to brand yourself and your specialization, and to learn Vault’s take on whether the rebounding market will generate more or fewer pure CSR jobs, read Priest’s original post here.

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If you’re just starting out and not very comfortable with the underlying math, you don’t need to time yourself on every question. Yet. But under any other circumstances, you should be aiming for 2-2.5 minutes on every single practice problem you do. If you can’t do it, work on the problem, review the explanation, go over it with a tutor–whatever you need to do–until you can.

Eventually, you’ll get 120 seconds ingrained in your head. The two minutes that used to fly by will stretch out a little longer for you, and completing each problem in that amount of time will come much more naturally.

Just as important, you’ll learn to recognize problems–immediately, not after you’ve worked on them for 3 minutes–that you won’t be able to finish in the allotted time. On test day, that skill is as valuable as any other time-management technique, because you need to skip those questions.

This is an excerpt from a longer article by Jeff Sackmann, originally published at GMAT Hacks.  Jeff has created several valuable GMAT-preparation resources, including Total GMAT Math and Total GMAT Verbal.

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In the aftermath of the financial crisis, MBA programs have had to fine-tune their offerings to appeal to a broader pool of applicants, many of whom are just as interested in doing good as doing well.

Earlier this week, Forbes.com highlighted the 10 most innovative business school classes around. These specialty courses offer hands-on experience solving real problems for real companies–and countries–Forbes’s Terra Stanley writes.

Below you’ll find five of the B-school classes highlighted in the piece; follow the link to the original article for the other half of the list.

Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University
“Innovation for Humanity”
When it launches in January, this program will send students to a developing nation such as Rwanda, Peru, Kenya and India, where they will study infrastructural weakness in water, energy and health systems, and work with scientists and the locals to develop solutions. The goal: to understand how to build sustainable businesses in developing markets.

McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University
“Business, Government and the Global Economy”
This course examines how politics interacts with market forces. Introductory topics include regional trade agreements and obligations under the World Trade Organization.

Later students independently research various topics to debate, interviewing company representatives and diplomats.
Previous debates have covered the U.S.-Vietnamese catfish trade dispute, and how less stringent copyright and patent rules on pharmaceuticals would enable more Africans with HIV and AIDS to access health care.

Foster School of Business, University of Washington
“Women at the Top”
Women are populating upper management ranks more than ever. Students meet women leaders–like Wendy Collie, senior vice president of Starbucks, and Joanne Harrell, chief of staff of the OEM division of Microsoft–and learn what helps them succeed. Students (both male and female) write a “Ten Year Difference Plan” at the end of the course, in which they present their values and aspirations involving family, career and legacy.

Olin Graduate School of Business, Babson College
“The Gig Economy and the New Entrepreneurial Imperative”
“No one I know has a job anymore; everyone has gigs.” So said Tina Brown, founder of the Daily Beast. In this class students learn how to navigate the “gig” life of sequential jobs and temporary consulting work–a smart hedge at a time when full-time corporate jobs are increasingly tenuous.

Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame
“Business on the Frontlines”
There’s sprucing up a languishing company, and then there’s dropping into war zones and helping to rebuild entire economies. Here students study peace-through-commerce efforts, and then spend 10 days on a field visit to map out rebuilding strategies, from farming to tourism. Past destinations have included Bosnia, Lebanon and Uganda.

“It’s not just about getting the experience; that’s for field trips,” says Keith Flatley, MBA, class of 2009, on the school’s website. “This is about getting something done.”

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There are many reasons to choose a top-ranked business school for your MBA program, and given the substantial investment, future financial compensation certainly makes it to the top of the list for many people. 

Bloomberg BusinessWeek partnered with PayScale to rank the top business schools based on how much their MBA alumni earn in two years, 10 years and 20 years. As might be expected, the top-ranked—and most expensive—MBA programs produce the highest-salaried grads over the span of their careers, according to the research.

So, without further ado, here are the Top 10 Highest Paid Business School Alumni:

1. Harvard Business School
Median career total compensation for Harvard graduates: $3,867,903

2. University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School
Median career total compensation for Wharton graduates: $3,491,372

3. Columbia Business School
Median career total compensation for Columbia graduates: $3,349,669

4. Stanford University Graduate School of Business
Median career total compensation for Stanford graduates: $3,327,145

5. Dartmouth College, Tuck School of Business
Median career total compensation for Tuck graduates: $3,146,031

6. Northwestern University, Kellogg Graduate School of Management
Median career total compensation for Kellogg graduates: $3,085,680

7. MIT Sloan School of Management
Median career total compensation for Sloan graduates: $3,031,132

8. University of Chicago, Booth School of Business
Median career total compensation for Booth graduates: $2,970,437

9. University of California at Berkeley, Haas School of Business
Median career total compensation for Haas graduates: $2,960,527

10. New York University, Stern School of Business
Median career total compensation for Stern graduates: $2,918,748

To learn more about the methodology behind this research, as well as how regional, industry and economic issues affect the outcome, read the original article on Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

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With about a week to go until the 2010-2011 MBA application goes live at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, admissions director Soojin Kwon Koh had some news to share Tuesday on the Ross Admissions Blog.

What’s the latest? Ross will begin accepting the GRE in addition to the GMAT starting this year, as well as the IELTS in addition to the TOEFL.  Also new this year is that interview invitations will go out in two batches each round rather than on a rolling basis, Soojin writes, promising more details about the process as the time approaches.

Meanwhile, Soojin says almost half of Ross’s incoming students are traveling with classmates on MTreks across the U.S., Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe, or have come to campus to take optional pre-term courses before classes officially start on September 7th.

The campus visit program at Ross will start in mid-September, and the director highly encourages applicants to visit, if possible. “Visits bring to life, confirm or invalidate what you might’ve learned about schools through other sources,” she says, suggesting that prospective students may want to time a visit in conjunction with one of the many events taking place this fall, such as the Annual Net Impact Conference in October.

If you haven’t seen them yet, the full-time MBA essay questions and recommender questions are already available. We’ll keep you posted when the application goes live, and when Stacy Blackman’s essay tips for Ross School of Business become available.

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