The Yale Daily News reports today on trends at Yale SOM. The highlights:

• Applications rose 4% in Round 1 2008 over Round 1 2007.
• The average GMAT of round 1 applicants rose 2 points to 698.
• "SOM’s participation in The Consortium more than doubled the number of underrepresented minority students — which include African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans — that applied to the school."
• Yale SOM plans to increase entering class size ever so slightly -- from this year's 193 to 195-200.

 

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. 

Yale announced today that Joel Podolny, Yale School of Management's dean for the past three years, will step down from his position of dean on November 1 and take a position with Apple. Sharon M. Oster, the Frederic D. Wolfe Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship and Director of the Yale SOM Program on Social Enterprise, will become interim dean while Yale conducts a search for a new dean.

The announcement from Yale President Richard C. Levin makes it quite clear that Podolny's decision came as an unwelcome surprise. Dean Podolny is credited with being the moving force behind Yale's innovative and much praised curriculum, dramatically increased fund-raising, and improved faculty recruiting.

In the recent (and excellent) Yale chat an applicant asked a question that could have flowed from any number of motivations. None of them good. Here is the question and Bruce Delmonico's response. Suffice it to say that he was nicer than I was

IT_boy (Sep 25, 2008 12:43:12 PM)
Bruce: How does the admissions committee distinguish whether the essay is genuine or it is just written to impress the AdCom? How do you check the accuracy of the facts and experiences elaborated in the essays?

BruceDelMonicoYALE (Sep 25, 2008 12:45:37 PM)
IT_boy, we do care a lot that you write about what's important to you. You shouldn't try to guess what's important to us. Be yourself! In terms of checking accuracy, we do that in a number of ways, including the background check and the interview. So it does behoove you to be accurate and factual. That is one area in which we have no tolerance for: Inconsistency.

IT_boy (Sep 25, 2008 12:55:20 PM)
Thanks Bruce, I'll give you an example. For example. If you ask me in an essay what I have learned from a mistake? How can I realistically and truthfully answer the question if I think I haven't made any significant mistakes in my life? I am not counting a mistake in an exam or following a wrong technical procedure at work as a mistake that makes for a good answer!

Linda Abraham (Sep 25, 2008 12:56:03 PM)
IT-boy, if you are in your mid 20's and have never made a significant error in your life, either you aren't reflective on your actions or you have never tried anything. And probably the former. I am not speaking for Yale. That is my opinion.

BruceDelMonicoYALE (Sep 25, 2008 12:58:22 PM)
IT_boy, I think you should think hard about whether you have never made a mistake in your life. If you have not made a mistake, then it's likely that you have not stretched yourself or gotten out of your comfort zone, which is something you need to do to succeed. It doesn’t need to be a huge mistake or something you did horribly wrong, but even just a time when you looked back and saw how you could have handled something differently is important. It also shows that you are introspective and can learn from the things you do, which are also keys for success.

You cannot be an active player in this world, a person of vision, integrity, and initiative, if you have never erred. You can live in a cave and fail to have any impact...or any mistakes. You can be active, fail to reflect on your actions, and consequently fail to recognize mistakes, opportunities for improvement, or lessons you can apply to your next venture.

In short, you cannot be the kind of leader top b-schools, including Yale SOM seek, if you cannot answer this question with sincerity and integrity.