For you super-star college juniors who know you want a top MBA, HBS 2+2 has announced that its application is available. Here is the email that HBS sent yesterday:

We are pleased to announce that the 2+2 Program application for the class entering in the fall of 2011 is now available online. To access the application instructions, policies, and materials, please visit the 2+2 Web site.

Please note that the application submission deadline is July 1, 2008, at 5 p.m. EST. To apply in this admissions cycle, you must be a current college junior (or equivalent) with at least one remaining semester, after July 2008, necessary for the completion of your degree.

We hope you will consider Harvard Business School as you think about reframing your plan for leadership. Your seat is waiting.

The Spanish business school, Esade, based in Barcelona announced last week the appointment of a new dean, Alfonso Sauquet. The announcement:

Alfonso Sauquet, Professor of the Ramon Llull University at ESADE, has been appointed Dean of ESADE Business School for the next four years.

 

Sauquet, up to now Vice-Dean of Research and Knowledge, was previously Director of the ESADE Combined Undergraduate and Master in Business Management and Administration. He is a Doctor in Education from Columbia University (NYC) and also holds a Master in Organisational Psychology from the same university. In addition, he has an MBA from ESADE and graduated in Psychology and Education from the University of Barcelona.

Dr. Sauquet has served as President of the Interfaculty Group in Organisational Behaviour of the Community of European Management Schools. He also has been a lecturer at HEC Paris, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Wharton School of Economics (Philadelphia) and the Copenhagen Business School, in addition to lecturing at the Summer School organised by the European Doctoral Association for Management in Business Administration.

At present, he is a member of the Academic Board of the Association for Human Resources Management in International Organisations (AHRMIO). He was invited by UNESCO to be a consultant for the United Nations Development Programme.

During his term as Dean, Dr. Sauquet, in his own words, will pay particular attention to globalisation processes and knowledge creation and development, and integrate them into ESADE’s academic programmes.

His predecessor, Xavier Mendoza, was Dean for two terms (eight years) and last week was appointed to the board of directors of The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business  AACSB-International (the premier worldwide association of business schools), while continuing his association with ESADE as a Professor of ESADE’s Business Policy department.

According to the UVA web site:

Paul G. Mahoney, a University of Virginia law professor, has been appointed the 11th dean of the School of Law, UVA President John T. Casteen III announced today.

Mahoney, 49, an expert in corporate law who joined the law faculty in 1990, will serve as the Arnold H. Leon Professor of Law. His appointment will be effective July 1.

As academic associate dean from 1999 to 2004, Mahoney administered the school's curriculum and academic policies. He has won an All-University Outstanding Teaching Award, the Law School’s Traynor Award for excellence in research, and the Corporate Practice Commentator’s award for top corporate and securities law articles. Mahoney also is one of only five faculty members to hold the most eminent chair at the Law School, the David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professorship, and the youngest to have the title. Mahoney will be the ninth of 11 deans to be selected from the Law School's faculty

For more on Mahoney's appointment, please see "Paul G. Mahoney—Scholar, Teacher, and Corporate Law Expert—Named University of Virginia Law School Dean."

With a post title like this, one could expect an admissions blog to discuss the grades you need to get into law school or how to handle mediocre or worse grades in the law school admissions process. Surprise. The subject here is grades, more specifically grading systems, in law school.

Law.com presents an article on the unpopular, forced curve grading system at Hastings, and compares it with the grading systems at Boalt, UCLA Law, and a few other California law schools in "Hastings Law Students Look to Stay Ahead of the Grading Curve."

This is the kind of information you should examine in choosing where to apply and where to attend if you are in the blessed position of having multiple acceptances.  Do you thrive in intense competition or do you like a more collegial environment?  Check it out.

I checked my email this morning and found several informative MBA interview reports that had arrived over the weekend from applicants interviewing at HBS, Wharton, Columbia, London Business School, INSEAD, and other programs. Consequently, I decided it would be timely to post a mini-round up of MBA admissions interview news and resources.

•  The HBS blog announced last week that HBS has issued most of its round 2 interview invitations. In Dee Leopold's words, "While interview invitations will continue to be issued up until notification date, it is fair to say that the vast majority have been sent."
  
• Wharton has completed posting its round 2 interview invitations. Those round 2 applicants who did not receive an interview invitation are denied.  Those who have received the precious invitation can jump in the air, dance for joy, and then check out the resources provided later in this post.
• The Darden Student Blog has a post outlining Darden's reasons for going to an "invitation only" interview policy. According to Bill Gray, the student author,  Darden previously required all domestic applicants to interview in Charlottesville, and just this year switched to invitation-only because the previous policy increased costs to  the school and the applicant, and  meant that domestic and international admissions processes differed. He also pointed at global warming, which I found a little disingenuous, but the other reasons make complete sense. A member of the Class of '09 who applied under the old policy,  Bill also wrote " I personally found it helpful to visit Darden before writing my essays.
• Haas presents a great series of tips for MBA interviews in its monthly admissions newsletter. Check out "How to Ace the Admissions Interview", by Peter Johnson, Director of Admissions, Full-time MBA Program
  

Now for the resources:

• MBA Mock Interviews and Coaching.
  
• MBA I.V.: Mainline to Top MBA Programs MBA Interview Questions and Tips.  We can barely keep this ebook in stock, ;-), and we have received fantastic feedback on it, which we haven't even posted yet. Here is a sampling:

• MBA Interview Feedback Database. The perfect source for the preparation Peter Johnson recommends in his tip article, the searchable database contains hundreds of interview reports from MBA interviews organized by school. Free.
  
• MBA Interview Prep. A five-day email mini course. Free.
  

Take advantage of the resources your wallet, sense of confidence, and general interview preparedness dictate.

 And finally, a couple requests:

1. After you interview, please share your MBA interview experience so the database will continue to grow and provide value.  Doing so automatically enrolls you in Accepted's It's a 10! contest . Winners received an Amazon gift certificate of up to $20.
2. When visiting b-school campuses, take a few pictures of any school (or its environs) listed in the Accepted B-school Zones page and send them in to Accepted's Beautiful B-School Photo contest . In addition, we will soon add pages for UNC, Notre Dame, Emory, and Georgetown so feel free to send in pictures for those schools too.  All honorable mentions receive a gift, and the three winners will take home up to a $200 gift certificate from Amazon. Right now, we only have one submission, so your chances of winning are outstanding. The contest ends April 30.