Record number of Israeli students accepted at Wharton

Israeli students record excellent GMAT scores.
Diana Bahur-Nir 18 Jun 08   20:04
The US-Israel Educational Foundation (USIEF) (the Fulbright Program) reports that 110 Israeli students will begin MBA studies in the US in the upcoming academic year. 21 Israelis have been accepted by the University of Pennsylvania Wharton Business School, a record number. Wharton is considered the top business school in the US, and accepts 800 students a year for its MBA program.

The University of Chicago accepted 14 Israeli students for its MBA program, the second largest number. In third place is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MBA program, which accepted 10 Israelis.

The USIEF collates figures for the number of Israeli students accepted by US universities. USIEF senior educational adviser Galit Adesman said, “This is the third consecutive year in which more than 100 Israeli students have been accepted to MBA programs. Before that, the number ranged between 60 and 70.”

The USIEF added that the average GMAT score achieved by Israeli students was 700. The Princeton Review’s Israeli director, Dov Shalit noted, “Only 7% of students taking the GMAT score 700 points. In Israel, 15-25% of those taking the test score 700.”

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 18, 2008

STANFORD just announced a very curious fellowship/partnership w. Indian Giant  Reliance Inc. where Reliance  holds its own contest, picks 50 finalists, pays those dudes to take gmat and apply to Stanford, the app. is due at Stanford Jan. 29th (versus Jan 22 for the rest of the world’s applicants) and then Stanford can look over the 50 finalists and choose UP TO FIVE, depending on what criteria, God only knows, but I got a feeling those apps will stand a better chance than yours,altho not really any better chance than a  random app. from Bain Capital or Carlyle, where Stan accept rate could be 10 percent or higher . Dunno about you, but while I support the LARGE goals of Fellowship below, to wit, uplift for India, the special treatment, two-step process, and separate channel and date for these apps. strikes me as ODD, and NOT GOOD.  Soon other Big Companies and Countries will be packaging their slates like this, and applying will become a two-step process. Of course, this probably happens already, in overt or covert forms, esp. at Stanford which is gossipy and not above working local contacts, micro pools of applicants, etc. in various ways. So far, everyone seems to be DOING ALL THIS IN SOME UPFRONT AND FAIR AND MERIT-BASED WAY, but I get the heeby-jeebies once separate channels form, they become collecting points for mild corruption, and in cases, not mild corruption.  Stanford Announcement below: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/financialaid/reliance.html (more…)

MILDLY INFORMATIVE AND ALSO CONFUSING ARTICLE below in CFO magazine ABOUT EMBA’S AND FINANCIAL DOWNTURN [W. DATA FROM 2005 BEFORE FINANCIAL DOWNTURNED HAPPENED, BUT HEY, ITS A MAG FOR CFO’S AND WHAT DO THEY KNOW] THE DATA ON CAREER SWITCHING BEING ON THE RISE FOR EMBA’S AND PERCENT WHO ARE PAYING FOR THE PROGRAM THEMSELVES IS SCARY.  BOTTOM LINE: LOTS OF NERVOUS FOLKS OUT THERE, THIS IS NOT THE OLD DAYS WHEN STOGY MNC SENT A BUNCH OF MIDDLE MANAGERS TO EMBA PROGRAM AS A REWARD, AND NEVER REALLY EXPECTED THEM TO LEARN ANYTHING MUCH, EXCEPT TO BE THANKFUL THAT MNC HANDED OUT SUCH EXPENSIVE PERKS.

(more…)

We don’t  often  tout Stanford’s own admissions blog as a source of good Why Stanford info (for Essay B) , but a recent post there can give a savvy applicant some great food for thought: one goes to Stanford to learn EQ (emotional intelligence, altho YOU should NOT use that term), or touchy-feely leadership (dont use that term either), a valuable concept whose importance relates to sensing what others need, sensing what is going on in the room, finding the correct (empathetic, innovative) approaches to dealing w. different people in different ways. As post below details, here is how Stanford education resources and philosophy handle those issues: ____________________

Changing the world…through high EQ leadership

Dean Bob Joss, speaking in Hong Kong last month, explained that senior managers of major organizations are the key to solving global problems including poverty, pollution, and infectious disease.

All these problems are so huge that they need to be addressed by large groups of people under the guidance of extraordinary and inspiring leaders.

Said Joss: “The selection [of employees], the development of team work, the giving of feedback, the growth of people are the hardest things to achieve because all people are different; it’s not a technical problem to be solved. It takes a lot of emotional intelligence, and that’s a hard thing for people to develop. It’s much easier to develop technical and cognitive skills.”

To boil it down to elevator pitch length: emotional intelligence (sometimes called EQ) combined with leadership skills will drive global innovation. The conundrum is that teaching leadership EQ is tough. Doing it well is the business school equivalent of scaling Everest.

Back when I was a student, the mainstay of our EQ training was Interpersonal Dynamics, the infamous but incredible course lovingly known as Touchy Feely. The teaching of leadership at the GSB has evolved since my day and now, in addition to the ever-popular Touchy Feely course, encompasses a multi-modal strategy that includes role-playing, interactive lectures, small group discussions, and coaching. Then there’s the executive challenge, the event that brings together first year MBA students and notable alumni for a real-world exercise in managing the pricklier issues that confront CEOs every day.

Last night, I was watching the Leadership in Focus video vignettes that the Center for Leadership Development and Research (CLDR) has created to facilitate leadership training. The vignettes portray managers discussing topics such as implementing change, making good decisions, and building teams. Not all the managers chose the optimal alternatives or achieved success.

These video cases are not explicitly about leadership EQ, but EQ inevitably creeps in. As I watched these videos, I realized that I was reacting more to the interpersonal vibes emanating from the managers than to the content. Some of the managers were able to step outside their own perspectives and understand the issues, personal and professional, that others were facing. Others were unable to make that transition to the point of seeming downright callous. I found myself disagreeing with their choices and thinking: “glad that’s not my boss.” Their lack or inability to connect with and inspire their subordinates led to rifts that could not be easily mended.

Here at the Stanford GSB, our innovative leadership training challenges students to question their assumptions, to step outside the boxes they have constructed for themselves, to reach out to others, and to embrace a broader understanding of the world around them, both literally and figuratively. The two-year MBA program enables students to begin a process of self-examination and transformation that will allow them to become the kind of innovative, principled, and insightful leaders who will change the world. Part of our mission at Stanford.

For more information on the CLDR, see http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/cldr/

–JoAnne Goldman

Story below fr. San Jose Mercury News about Stanford Law School “dropping” grades–well, they are not really dropping grades, just basically going to an A B C F system. This mirrors grades at HBS (although not clear if profs at Stan Law are encouraged to flunk 10 percent of class) and folks, if this relieves pressure, well, I’d be hard pressed to see how. What relieves pressure at Stanford Law School, and HBS and Yale Law School,and Stan B School is something very simple, GETTING ADMITTED IN THE FIRST PLACE (more…)

hmmmmmmmmm, here is the Stanford June 6th WL update, the school dinged some kids, so we dont know how many are left on WL for those 2-3 slots. The award in WL openness goes to HBS, since they have better stats and more firm dates,  altho both schools have gotten way better. And I imagine if you are on WL, you will sacrifice transparency for flexibility, and be happy to take Stanford admit whenever offered. ____________________________________

Thank you for your patience and consideration in remaining on the Stanford MBA Program waitlist this spring. We continue to believe that you would make a wonderful addition to the MBA Class of 2010. As of today, however, we cannot offer you a place in the class.

We would like you to remain a candidate for admission. We will provide you with an update every two weeks. The next waitlist update will be 20 June 2008.

We hope to offer admission to two or three candidates this month. If there is an opening in the Class of 2010, we will offer it to the candidate who best complements the existing class profile. Please do not sent additional materials.

We understand how difficult the “waiting” part of being on a waitlist can be. If you need to move forward with your plans before we can make a final decision, please email us at mba_admin@gsb.stanford.edu to withdraw from the waitlist.

We appreciate your continued interest in the Stanford MBA Program. Thank you again for your patience.

GOTTA LOVE ASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO TREE HUGGER, UNLESS THE TREE IS FULL OF DOLLARS, AND THEN HE WILL HUG IT TIL THOSE DOLLARS FALL. I ACTUALLY KNOW ASH, A VERY COOL GUY, AND GLAD TO SEE HE GOT HIS PORSCHE.

A Growth Industry

Business schools are teaching entrepreneurs how to get rich helping to save the environment.

Martha Brant and Miyoko Ohtake

NEWSWEEK

Updated: 4:43 PM ET Apr 5, 2008

Ash Upadhyaya is no tree hugger. The 29-year-old from India has a master’s degree in petroleum engineering, worked as a reservoir engineer at Shell Oil and drives a Porsche Boxster that gets a measly 20 miles per gallon. Yet he has spent the past two years studying environmentally sustainable business at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “Am I really driven to do this by my values? The honest answer is no,” says Upadhyaya, who wants to work for a private-equity fund when he graduates in June. “It just makes good business sense to be sustainable.”

Environmentalists and capitalists have typically eyed each other with suspicion, even disdain. A new breed of M.B.A. student thinks it’s possible to make a bunch of green by going green. For some, studying sustainable business practices just gives them a competitive edge. For others, it’s a fresh way of thinking about business. These eco-M.B.A.s talk about the “triple bottom line”—people, planet, profit. Thousands are joining Net Impact, a networking group for business leaders interested in societal problems. “Business-school students today are much more interested in social and environmental issues—and in business solving those issues,” explains Liz Maw, executive director of Net Impact.

Slowly, business schools are catching up. “This is all student-driven,” says Stanford B-school professor Erica Plambeck. Seven years ago she offered the first environmental elective at the business school. Today Stanford ranks No. 1 on the Aspen Institute’s 2007 “Beyond Grey Pinstripes” report, which rates how business schools integrate social and environmental responsibility into their curricula.

In 2001, when Aspen began ranking schools, only 34 percent of those it surveyed offered any green courses. By 2007, 63 percent did. Even the most traditional schools are weaving in the environment. Harvard Business School students study cases such as Nestlé’s sustainable cocoa agriculture, and the Wharton School will host a Net Impact conference this fall.

Mainstream schools weren’t changing fast enough for green-business icon Hunter Lovins. The book she coauthored in 1999, “Natural Capitalism,” has become the textbook for sustainable management. In it, she argues that companies don’t factor the environment into their spreadsheets. “We treat it as if it has a value of zero, and that’s bad capitalism,” she says. Business leaders needed to start thinking differently. So in 2003 Lovins helped found Presidio School of Management in San Francisco, where climate change permeates every part of the curriculum. Presidio is one of a handful of schools from Washington to Vermont now offering a “Green M.B.A.” These being business schools, the term has actually been trademarked and is owned by the Dominican University of California.

Critics say such boutique business schools themselves are unsustainable. But Green M.B.A.s insist they learn traditional skills while fostering unconventional business values. For the final project in accounting at Presidio, students analyze both a company’s finances and its CSR (corporate social responsibility). One group gave United Parcel Service credit for mapping routes so drivers can avoid gas- (and money-) wasting left turns. Green M.B.A.s take macroeconomics, but it includes the emerging field of “ecological economics.” The cases they study examine companies like Clif Bar, which makes organic energy snacks.

But it’s the atmosphere at Presidio that makes it so different from Harvard. During a recent class, provost Ron Nahser walked around the high-ceilinged room at historic Fort Mason prodding students toward self-examination: “What are you learning about your calling? Are you feeling the love in the marketplace? Ask yourself, ‘Why am I in this?’ ” For Presidio student Taja di Leonardi, it was never for the money. A nature lover, she wanted to go to business school without feeling as if she was selling her soul. At Presidio, her quest to design her own green kitchen grew into a business plan for something she called Ecohome Improvement. When a storefront became available near her home in Berkeley, she says, “it was consistent with my values, there was a need and there was a location a couple blocks away.” Since Ecohome Improvement opened in 2005, di Leonardi has doubled the store’s square footage, increased her staff from one to 10 and seen a 200 percent increase in revenues. Soul intact, she is cashing in.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/130591

See post about 3 down for HBS June WL letter update–letter below  was sent out to all Stanford Waitlisters on May 23rd, and it looks like there will be an update tomorrow, so if anyone is getting off Stanford WL, it could be soon, but I think update will be to just keep waiting, and list may get pared down to maybe 25, a la HBS.   I really dont expect much action on H or S WL moving forward, but happy to be proved wrong. Note as well, they got a WL of 50 kids for at most 1, 2,3, spots. STANFORD WAITLIST

“Thank you for your consideration in remaining on the Stanford MBA Program waitlist over the past few months. You remain a compelling candidate for admission to the MBA Class of 2010. As of today, however, we cannot offer you a place in the class.

We have culled the waitlist to approximately 50 applicants, and we would like you to remain a candidate for admission. We will provide you with an update every two weeks. The next waitlist update will be 6 June 2008.

The waitlist continues to be unranked. If there is an opening in the Class of 2010, we will offer it to the candidate who best complements the existing class profile.

We recognize that this is frustrating for you, but we ask for your continued understanding. You do not need to reconfirm your place on the waitlist or reaffirm your interest in the MBA Program. If your plans have changed, however, and you would like your name removed from the waitlist, please email us at mba_admin@gsb.stanford.edu.

I was just browsing on your Cambridge Essay Service website and noticed that you provide free evaluation for HBS essays. Seeing that the leadership question has been removed for next year, which other question are you picking instead to provide free essay evaluations for. Will you be adding any other schools to that free offer? And last thing, when can we start sending you these essays?

you can start sending esasys now, but be sure to read instructions, and other amusing  stuff, and hidden extras, and freebies,  about this on the website  http://hbsguru.com/essayrater.html  . This is no stunt, it’s for real and easy,and 100’s of kids used it last year, etc. Some wrote back later to thank me for helping them get in, even tho they did not hire me. How come? Sometimes, one major suggestion, about how to shift your essay voice or change your approach, can be HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 to wit:

To take advantage of the free offer:

1. Paste [do not attach!!!] your draft answer of any ONE HBS400-word essay into an e-mail and send to us at sandy413@yahoo.com
2. Include the text of the question.
3. Include (i) your name, (ii) first choice school (if not HBS), (iii) a brief work and education background [in 40 words, name companies, titles, schools], (iv) GMAT score, (v) AGE and gender, (vi) have you ever applied to B schools before and what outcomes, (vii) anything special about your extra-curriculars, accomplishments, etc. (viii) and please tell us the search engine or other way you heard about Cambridge Essay Service.

In the previous post we copied in the latest Harvard Business School waitlist letter, The June Chang-O-Gram. After some close reading, here is what it really means:

AFTER 2ND WEEK IN JULY, EVEN IF THEY GET A CANCEL, THEY WILL LIVE WITH IT, AND NOT GO TO WAITLIST. AT SOME POINT, THEY JUST WORK WITH WHAT THEY GOT. THEY DONT CARE IF CLASS IS 914, 907, OR 901