In recent months both Stanford and Harvard Law Schools have announced curricular reforms, that they considered innovative, if not revolutionary. The Wall St. Journal recently referred to a blog, written by a number of law school profs at different law schools discussing law school innovations and curriculum reforms. Not want to be accused of originality or lack of clarity, the profs names the blog Law School Innovation. It's worthwhile d if you are interested in legal education, especially if you are contemplating being a consumer of legal pedagogy. 

BizEd's most recent issue (November/December 2006) has a few worthwhile articles on the recent renaissance in Bachelors of Business Administration programs. In fact, in recent years, far more BBAs have been awarded than MBAs.

Today’s BBA programs are increasingly incorporating experiential and global components as well as advanced career placement services and attempts to integrate business functions. Does that sound like the MBA to you? It should. These revamped programs are also focusing more and more on leadership, strategic management, and entrepreneurship.

To my pleasant surprise this article highlighted the positive impact of this year’s BBA rankings published by Businessweek. The deans interviewed for this article, frankly admitted that the feedback from recruiters and students provided in the BW rankings has motivated them to improve their programs. As Dean Dan Smith of Indians Kelley School of Business said.”As much as we grouse about them, the fact is that MBA rankings have profoundly improved the quality of business education at the graduate level. I think you’re going to see the equality of undergraduate education ramp up dramatically over the next decade.”

It's time for a grab bag of MBA admissions news:

• A few weeks ago, I posted "Clichés of the Year," a serious rant against the evil clichés lurking in your essays. Babson takes a more light-hearted approach towards spoken clichés in "Buzzword Blends."
  
• Paul Bodine, Accepted.com editor and author of Great Application Essays for Business School, takes an idiosyncratic view of  rankings, specifically rankings of real estate programs in "Toward a Top 25 Real Estate MBA Ranking.  Almost in a Google-like way, the authors of the survey cited by Paul ranked universities according to  their faculty’s ability to generate “heavily cited papers” rather than by the faculty's sheer volume of articles published, thus measuring influence over quantity.  While I agree with Paul that you shouldn't throw away an acceptance from 13th-ranked Harvard to accept an offer from 3rd-ranked Ohio State, if you don't have the qualifications for Harvard, it may be very valuable for you to know that Ohio State has an influential real estate program. Paul provides the list of top 50 schools and notes, it is "instructive not only for the number of prominent business schools that fail to appear—viz. Columbia University (#32), Northwestern (#34), University of Southern California (#35), and Cornell (#38)—but for the strong presence of schools that are usually absent from overall “Best MBA” rankings, such as Connecticut (#4), Cincinnati (#5), Georgia (#6), and Louisiana State (#10)."
  
• GMAT Volume through October 31, 2006 is pretty flat when compared to this time last year. Registrations are up a tiny 1.87% worldwide and higher than in the first ten months of any year since 2003. Test-taking volume worldwide has declined an imperceptible .71% during the first ten months of this year when compared to last year.  

Join us for an online chat with the author of Great Application Essays for Business School, Paul Bodine, who also happens to be an Accepted.com Senior Editor. On Thursday, November 30 at 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET/6:00 PM GMT, we are going to discuss techniques that can turn your essays from ho-hum affairs into sizzling pieces of prose.

During the chat, Paul will cover:

• How do you develop your marketing handle?
• What is the biggest, most common mistake most people make in writing application essays?
• How should you handle weaknesses in your application?
• How can you demonstrate fit with a particular program?
• What should you do before you start writing?
• What's the best way to start an essay?
• And much, much more.

Plus, there will be lots of time for your questions.

The chat will take place in the Accepted.com's chat room.

All work and no play? All play and no work? Actually most "summers" enjoyed a much better balance and give their summer associate experience high marks -- along with a dose of criticism, according to Law.com reporting on a survey of law firm summer associates. The article gives you a good sense of the possible summer associate experiences and links to the actual survey results.