This week Accepted is pleased to host Laurie Stewart, Carnegie Mellon's Executive Director of MBA Admissions, along with other members of the Tepper community during an online CMU Tepper chat on Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 10:00 AM PT/ 1:00 PM ET/6:00 PM GMT. Please join us in Accepted's chat room.

Coming up next Monday: London Business School Chat on Dec. 8, 2008 at 10:00 AM PT/ 1:00 PM ET/6:00 PM GMT.

We also have posted in the last several days three transcripts from recent chats.

• 2009 Consortium MBA Career Chat with Jackie Olden
• 2009 MIT Sloan MBA LGBT with Deirdre Kane
• 2009 MIT Sloan MBA Military with Barry Reckley

A few other items I want to note: Anderson's MBA Insider's Blog has a succinct, informative post "Tips for Early Career (EC) MBA Applicants," by Admissions Director Mae Shores. Although the advice is intended specifically for Anderson, it really applies to most applicants with less than three years of experience to top programs that encourage EC's to apply. Chicago Booth also provides guidance specifically geared to early career applicants.

Finally, I feel remiss if I don't even mention the Mumbai massacre considering its cruel brutality and devastating impact.  Our sympathy goes out to all victims of this barbarism and our best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery to those injured by the terrorists. Clear Admit provides a round-up of the cancelled MBA admissions events in India as a result of the attack.

I am sure that some of our readers are personally affected or know someone who is. And of course there are people around the world who have lost loved ones. Terrorism is an international plague knowing no boundaries, using murder and mayhem as an obscene form of political expression.

I don't know anyone personally hurt in or affected by the attacks. My family and I do have a couple of good friends who knew the Holzbergs, the young rabbinic couple butchered by the terrorists. One friend was travelling in India and spent the Sabbath before the attack at the Chabad Center (formerly known as the Nariman House), in which several people perished. Another friend, who had lived in Mumbai for a year, found herself last Thursday helping her sister on her wedding day  -- and worrying about Rabbi and Mrs. Holzberg, who ran the Chabad Center and with whom she had enjoyed many a meal and chat.

At the end of a moving and terribly sad email, she writes "And to all of you reading this email, I ask that you do something good—something so kind, so good, and so loving, that it can in some way make the world hurt less. Because, little Moishe (the Holzberg's two-year-old son rescued by his nanny)  should not know the hate-filled world that his parents were murdered in."

There has been a lot of talk about the sudden dearth of financing options for international students who would like to attend American MBA programs. Some applicants are questioning whether to apply if they will have no way of paying for the degree. I decided to research the situation and find out just how bad it is.

Several schools have made it clear that they will still be offering no-cosigner loans to international students. For instance, HBS's MBA Admissions Director, Deirdre Leopold, stated outright on her Director's Blog that "International students at HBS will continue to have access to need-based loans without needing to find a US co-signer."

Rose Martinelli, Admissions Director at Chicago Booth, also stated unequivocally in her response (similar to her own blog post): "Chicago Booth is committed to providing financing options for our international students who do not have a US cosigner. I can assure our international students that we will have a new loan program in place by the time students enroll." International applicants considering HBS and Chicago can press onward with renewed optimism.

Rod Garcia, MIT Sloan's Admissions Director, made it clear that Sloan is committed to geographic and economic diversity in the class. Interestingly, Sloan was actually already in talks with other private lenders before Citi ended its Global Assist no-cosigner loan program, putting Sloan ahead of other MBA programs that didn’t anticipate the loan's demise. He expects that the details will be solidified and public by the end of January and that the new arrangements may even be better than the previous ones.

On the other hand, other schools are keeping their cards close to their chests; Stanford and Wharton both would only refer me to their websites. Stanford's site: "Loans offered to international students typically do not need a US co-signer" makes no mention of the sweeping changes in the US credit markets to reassure international applicants. Similarly, Wharton, in its reply to my inquiry, simply states that the school "is exploring a variety of options for making loans available to international students."

Some schools shared particularly appealing information with me. For instance, Tuck will be continuing with its own loan programs – one, DELC, allows a guarantor from outside of the US to guarantee the loan and another, The Tuck 5% loan, requires no co-signer at all. Beth Flye of Kellogg confirmed that Kellogg's no-cosigner loan (Option B of the NU International Loan Program), which it offers to international applicants from the University's own funds, will continue to be offered to all international students who demonstrate the need for it. In contrast, CMU Tepper told me that they haven't offered a no-cosigner loan for years.

In addition to the reassurances that these schools are providing, some schools are increasing the volume of aid they will be offering. Haas notified me that they will be distributing $3.2 million – an increased amount – in aid this year. Tuck has actually doubled the volume of aid they've provided since 2005 and Tepper has doubled the amount of aid it offers over the past five years.

All of the respondents encouraged international MBA applicants to pursue funding and scholarships from within their own countries – from private foundations (for instance, Brazil's Fundacao Estudar and Ling Foundation, Spain's Fundacion Rafael del Pino, La Caixa Scholarship, and Fundacion Ramon Areces, and Mexico's Brockmann Foundation) plus government-sponsored programs that provide loans and financial assistance to students attending graduate programs outside of their home countries.

My research is ongoing, and I hope other programs will provide more information in the coming days and weeks. In the meantime applicants considering applying to HBS, Chicago, Kellogg, Tuck, and MIT can rest assured that their loan options remain open. Applicants to Haas may have a higher chance of receiving a grant  covering a good portion of their educations and not requiring repayment, and Tepper applicants are no worse off than they were last year!

If there's one thing that became clear from my research, it's this: the top MBA programs will do whatever necessary to keep a high percentage of international students in their classrooms. As one admissions director told me, "This is keeping the deans awake at night!" Astute international applicants will take advantage of that determination and submit their applications this year while others wait for the smoke to clear.

Jennifer Bloom has been helping Accepted's international clients earn admission to the top MBA programs for the past 10 years. She is available to help you with your MBA application too.

BusinessWeek released its much awaited biannual, full-time MBA rankings. The rankings showed slight movement: Columbia went from #10 in 06 to #7 in 08. Wharton went from #2 to #4. Kelley climbed from #18 to #15.

Frankly, don't pay too much attention to the absolute ranking or even slight movement. Take advantage of BW's rich, informative database and fantastic resources for applicants. Then choose what's important to you and do your own ranking.

Top 30 U.S. Programs
1 University of Chicago
2 Harvard University
3 Northwestern University (Kellogg)
4 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
5 University of Michigan (Ross)
6 Stanford University
7 Columbia University
8 Duke University (Fuqua)
9 MIT (Sloan)
10 UC Berkeley (Haas)
11 Cornell University (Johnson)
12 Dartmouth (Tuck)
13 NYU (Stern)
14 UCLA (Anderson)
15 Indiana University (Kelley)
16 University of Virginia (Darden)
17 UNC - Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)
18 Southern Methodist (Cox)
19 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
20 University of Notre Dame (Mendoza)
21 Texas - Austin
22 Brigham Young (Marriott)
23 Emory University (Goizueta)
24 Yale University
25 University of Southern California (Marshall)
26 University of Maryland (Smith)
27 University of Washington (Foster)
28 Washington University (Olin)
29 Georgia Tech
30 Vanderbilt University (Owen)

Top 10 Non-U.S. MBA Programs
1 Queens University
2 IE Business School
3 INSEAD
4 Western Ontario (Ivey)
5 London Business School
6 ESADE
7 IMD
8 Toronto (Rotman)
9 IESE
10 Oxford (Saîd)

BW bases its rankings on employer and student surveys as well as school research output or "intellectual capital."  This year for the first time, in a nod to the economic crisis, it is also including a ranking based on ROI and years to recoup the MBA investment. Not surprisingly, European schools, which tend to be one-year programs, are at the top of the chart. More surprising: HBS ranks 50 out of 50 in this chart. I guess assumptions matter.

This is an Accepted MBA Admissions News summary:

• Accepted will host the UC Berkeley Haas chat tomorrow Wednesday October 29 at 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/5:00 PM GMT. Peter Johnson, Haas' Director of Admissions, will be the special guest, joined by one or two current Haas students. The chat will take place in Accepted's chat room. Please feel free to join us.
• We just posted the transcript from last week's two chats. First the MIT Sloan chat with Angel Navedo and Barry Reckley, both Assistant Directors of MBA Admissions at Sloan. An excerpt:

DAV (Oct 23, 2008 12:13:28 PM)
Barry: How stringently do you hold to the criteria that experiences discussed in essays need to fit within the last three years (for example, a 4-year project that only has its last year fit within the 3-year window)?

BarryReckleyMIT (Oct 23, 2008 12:15:27 PM)
Dav: we're flexible, your situation sound reasonable within the time limits.

Sean Mahoney (Oct 23, 2008 12:13:39 PM)
Hi, Angel. We met at an information session MIT had last month. Thank you for that. I was hoping to get some more information about the guaranteed loan Citi gives all students. How much is the loan for (tuition only/ board/food/mortgage etc.)?  Also, do these loans get used for the trips MIT alumni have told us they took during the program?

AngelNavedoMIT (Oct 23, 2008 12:16:03 PM)
Hello Sean. I hope the presentation was helpful. Regarding the Citibank loan, we will no longer be offering that loan next year. As I wrote earlier, US students have plenty of excellent options and we are working hard to find suitable options for our international students.

Linda Abraham (Oct 23, 2008 12:17:20 PM)
Angel, is MIT Sloan able to expand its number of grants for students having trouble obtaining loans?

AngelNavedoMIT (Oct 23, 2008 12:19:18 PM)
Hi Linda! This past year we doubled the number of fellowships available to incoming students, so there will definitely be more money available in terms of fellowships than in the past.

• We have also posted the recent October 23 Consortium chat with Jackie Olden of the Consortium and representatives from Marshall, CMU Tepper, U of Wisconsin at Madison, Emory, Simon, McCombs, Darden, Yale SOM, and NYU Ster.  An excerpt:

Linda Abraham (Oct 23, 2008 7:06:26 PM)
Is the absence of the CitiAssist program and the overall tightening of credit affecting your schools and applicants? What should applicants be doing now to prepare themselves to apply this year?

LinwoodHarrisCMU (Oct 23, 2008 7:07:51 PM)
No! Several are concerned, but I don't think it is affecting us.

ErinNickelsburgWISCONSIN (Oct 23, 2008 7:07:59 PM)
In regards to tightening of credit - it is not affecting our applicants and we don't anticipate that it will.

JosuePortilloNYU (Oct 23, 2008 7:08:18 PM)
Linda, CitiAssist loans are still coming in with no problems at NYU.

KelleeScottUSC (Oct 23, 2008 7:09:59 PM)
Linda, no loan issues at USC.

RodrigoMaltaTEXAS (Oct 23, 2008 7:10:16 PM)
Linda, no loan issues at Texas either, so far so good.

• The Consultant's Guide to MBA Admission -- updated for the 2009 application season and with a complete set of sample HBS essays for this year's application -- is now 20% off. But just until Friday Oct. 31.
• Now is the perfect time to start your Round 2 applications. Now,  when those deadlines are two months -- not two weeks -- away you have the time to work methodically through several applications and improve them as you go. And we are going to help you get started. Save $100 off any MBA admissions order of US$2000 or more. Enter "SAVE100" at checkout to receive the discount. 
• This year's MBA interview feedback is starting to come in. We already have 2009 responses for Kellogg and Duke. Please check out the MBA Admissions Interview Feedback Database for recent feedback from all schools and share your interview experience after you interview. 

A summary of events in the MBA admissions world:

• On Thursday October 23 at 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/5:00 PM GMT Accepted.com will host an online chat for MIT Sloan's. The last chat was "standing room only" and highly informative. Although we covered a lot of ground, some of you didn't get your questions answered. This is another opportunity for you to ask those nagging questions and learn more about MIT Sloan. And it's less than one week prior to Sloan's first deadline on Oct. 28.
  
• On Thursday October 23, 2008 at 5:00 PM PT/8:00 PM ET/12:00 AM GMT, Accepted.com will host an online chat for those interested in applying through the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. Jackie Olden, the Consortium's Director of Recruiting, and representatives of different Consortium schools will be available to answer your questions about researching schools, early preparation, and the steps you should be taking at this point in the application process.
• The Wharton Adcom blog has posted a wonderful summary of Wharton's programs and resource in entrepreneurship. If you are interested in Wharton and entrepreneurship, check it out.
• The media has been falling over itself to publish articles on the surge in applications due to the economic storm (hurricane?) that we find ourselves in, as well as the melt-down's impact on current students and soon-to-be graduates. Here are a few:

1. As economy sputters, grad schools overflow
2. Would-Be Bankers Turn to Consulting
3. Escape Route: Seeking Refuge in an M.B.A. Program 
4. In Tough Times, M.B.A. Applications May Be an Economic Indicator
5. Keeping an eye on the bigger picture

• The MBA Tour keeps chugging along. Next stop: Canada. Vancouver – November 6; Toronto November 8; Montreal, November 10.
• The Financial Times reports that London Business School received a multi-million pound gift from Jeremy Coller of Coller Capital to expand and rename LBS's private equity research center. It will become the Coller Institute of Private Equity.