We’ve chronicled the current anti-MBA rhetoric, but what about the good guys? There must be some. The Economist chronicles a few MBA do-gooders that don’t get quite as much press as everyone else.
Check it out here - http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/businesseducation/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13892606
Newsweek recently published an article discussing everbody’s favorite recession activity – bashing MBAs! Check it out here. The article makes several interesting points and does a nice job of discussing the overall phenomena of MBA bashing without taking much of a stand on the issue.
BusinessWeek, which does a stellar job reporting on most b-school issues, turns in another solid article concerning schools and their acceptance of the GRE. Not only could this change the way applicants are chosen, but also the way the GMAT itself is run.
Check out this story in the Boston Globe – http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/07/22/boston_business_school_offers_masters_in_ethics/
With MBAs getting a lot of heat for supposedly unethical practices leading to our current financial situation, it was only a matter of time before business schools began to place a greater emphasis on business ethics. The New England College of Business and Finance has upped the ante with an actual degree pertaining to business ethics. The main question is – what do you do with this degree?
Check out this interesting article on business schools in the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pablo-triana/apply-debt-for-equity-to_b_231597.html
This recent article by Pablo Triana on the Huffington Post proposes an interesting plan for business school students and their financial burdens. Triana suggests that b-schools offer free tuition (and possibly room and board) for an equitable stake in each student’s future salary. Each graduate would kick back a certain percentage of their earnings for a period of time to the business school. The crux of the idea is that students would be able to avoid the trappings of student debt while b-schools would be forced to become learner and meaner.
Triana’s argument is extremely intriguing, given the current environment surrounding both the market and b-schools. The financial crisis has brought MBAs and their contribution to companies into focus. Graduates, students, and prospective students now face intense scrutiny as many people have begun to take aim at MBAs for perceived slights in the market.
So you took the GMAT and are not happy with your score.
First and foremost, you should not be feeling depressed by your score, even if that score is not what you wanted or what you expected. The GMAT is often difficult to do well on. Take the next few days to assess what you did to prepare, whether you did as much as you could or should have, and how you could have done more to ensure you have the score you wanted. Assess whether the course you took or tutor you worked with was really in line with your learning style and whether you should have recognized that earlier and done something to make the course or tutoring more effective. Finally, stop beating yourself up if you did not get what you wanted or expected. It often takes a couple stabs at the test before you settle down enough to achieve your best score. To provide you some perspective, the arithmetic mean (a little GMAT speak for you) score is 538.5 and 79% of test takers score below 650, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council.
The Babcock Graduate School of Management is recognized by ranking institutions such as Forbes and the Wall Street Journal as one of the top fifty graduate programs in the country. Part time or full time, management or entrepreneurship, Babcock consistently ranks alongside some the nation’s best B-schools. They offer classes sizes and student-to-faculty ratios that are smaller than the national average, and have recently unveiled an initiative to further diversify their student body to more accurately reflect the global nature of today’s business world. For more information visit www.mba.wfu.edu
Preparing for the GMAT can be a daunting challenge, particularly for students that are just beginning to study. Before you decide to sign up for any course or tutor, or undertake any type of study, it only makes sense that you find how much study you will need. Far too many people make assumptions about their scores. Whether you assume your score will be good or bad is irrelevant. It makes no sense to guess if you have the resources to find out the truth!
Everyone considering applying to business school (and thus by nature considering preparing for the GMAT) must immediately and without delay go to www.mba.com, download GMATPrep, and take a practice test under as realistic conditions as possible. This is the only practice tests created by the writers of the GMAT, and it will give you a highly reliable assessment of your current level of readiness to take the test.
Once you’ve taken the test you must spend some time analyzing your performance and understanding what you need to do to achieve the score you want. Follow the link below for information that will help you understand your practice test score.
Every few months Bell Curves teachers take the GMAT in order to assess our test taking techniques, evaluate the accuracy of our question pool, and experiment with different result patterns.
Interviewee: Joseph Kambourakis, Instructor and Developer
Interviewer: James Yudin, Online Support Manager
The Assignment
Joe’s assignment was to go all out on the math section, getting as many correct as possible after getting the first question wrong, and to get about 1 in 4 wrong on verbal.
The Story
Today officially marked the end of all my dreams of being a hit man. Today, I’m officially “in the system” and to be a top notched hit man you have to be off the grid. If you think of all the truly great hit men Leon (the Professional), Booth (In the Line of Fire), and Nikita (Point of No Return, hit woman really) all were off the grid no record, no bank accounts, no paper trail. I have to give up my aspirations, my dreams, my future.
But I get ahead of myself, let me start at the beginning.
Today, January 3rd, 2006 I took the GMAT again. I periodically (if you’ve read my other postings you already know this) take the GMAT in order to explore whether its changed and if so how. This month’s testing is about exploring how the change to the new test administrator Pearson Vue would affect the testing experience.
