MBA365.com is looking for MBA students or recent MBA graduates for the following programs:

Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, Wharton, MIT, Chicago, U Cal Berkeley, Dartmouth, Columbia, Yale, NYU, Duke, UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, Virginia (Darden), Cornell, U Texas, Georgetown, UNC, and USC.

You will become the official MBA365 blogger for your school!   Become a part of a growing community and provide visitors with insight into what it’s like to be an MBA student at your prestigious university.   Your posts will be featured within an exclusive community for your school (see cornell.mba365.com for an example) and your posts will have the potential to be featured on the front of MBA365!   Along the way, you’ll get some great notoriety and get some cool free stuff!

Interested students can send writing samples to us at info@mba365.com along with a short background of yourself with more information about your school.  If you don’t see your school listed above, feel free to give us a shout anyways as we may still consider you.  Good Luck!

-The MBA365 team

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According to Wikipedia, ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality; that is, about concepts such as good and bad, right and wrong, justice, and virtue.  An MBA is defined as a Masters of Business Administration degree earned from an accredited university.   Concepts such as management and finance are taught.  According to professors in MBA programs, ethics courses have been taught to students for over thirty years.  Business and ethics do mix.   Why, then, does the media perpetuate the string of business leaders who either took a bonus after being bailed out by the government or were arrested for swindling investors?  How can current and prospective MBA candidates learn from the “greed” of corporate executives?

The media are the watchdogs for taxpayers and like nothing better than to sensationalize a story about a corporate leader breaking the law. Sometimes, they will highlight the road to success for business people and then pounce on their fall from glory.  Sadly, many of the fallen leaders attended and earned degrees from top MBA schools, pushing many pundits to ask “what are institutions of higher learning doing to avoid this behavior for future business executives?” Unfortunately, the media does not highlight stories which MBA executives are doing for the greater good, and there are quite a few out there.   Sensationalism sells.   Good deeds do not (most of the time).

The “green” environmental and non-profit movement has been gaining steam over the last few years.  Interested business students are now able to take courses in sustainability or non-profit management. The hope is that these students can be the trailblazers in their respective fields upon graduation.  Last year, for example, I advised a student who was interested in pursuing an environmental and business path.  She was accepted and enrolled at the Columbia University master’s degree in Sustainable Development. The accelerated program is just the start, though. She wants to pursue an MBA immediately thereafter, and thinks that both the degrees will be the ticket to her career interests and goals. Additionally, some MBA students are inspired to work at the non-profit level, despite investing the time and money into a traditional MBA program. That’s fine too. Although the non-profit career route may not be as lucrative as a for-profit position over a lifetime, it can be rewarding in other ways.  Plus, senior level managers at non-profits can earn over six figures.

These days, the message from the media is that corporate America is evil and unjust. The reality is that many corporate leaders and managers are not.   With the right training, education, and ethical standards, MBA students and alumni are the future of business, environmental, and not-for-profit ideas and stability. If you have the desire, guidance, and creativity, anything is possible in a free enterprise system.  Of course, you have to play by the rules!

Liam Dunfey is an educational consultant with over ten years of higher education experience. He takes pride in helping young professionals advance their careers through graduate school. He co-created University Advisors Admission Specialists, LLC in 2007. He resides in San Diego, CA. Liam can be reached via email at ldunfey@mba365.com

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A NY Times article describing the woes of the Venture Capital Industry interviewed a couple of VC veterans who had this to say about MBAs:

“The biggest names in the industry are concerned about low returns and are blaming several factors: funds that have grown too large, the M.B.A.’s that have invaded the industry and older partners who have lost touch with what is new in technology.”

[They] also attribute the venture industry’s struggles in part to the business school graduates who now populate Sand Hill Road offices, taking the place of the entrepreneurs who first formed venture firms.”

When asked to elaborate, the veterans offered this piece of insight:

“When too many venture capitalists serve on a start-up’s board with “no proper judgment, who have never built a company,” they tend to get too involved in running the company and, in high-pressure situations, imagine problems that do not exist, Mr. Horowitz said. “Their insecurity and own anxiety filters into the advice,” he said.”

Last time I checked, you had to have an MBA from Harvard Business School or Stanford to even think about breaking into Private Equity or Venture Capital. Simply put, private equity firms hire almost exclusively from the very best MBA programs because the schools’ networks translate into fund-raising dollars. The ability to display how many HBS grads you have on staff in the pitchbook you show investors is also a plus.

Maybe instead of generalizing all MBAs as thoughtless robots that that lack “proper judgment” the VC industry should rethink its hiring practices when it comes to recruiting young talent. Each MBA program has different strengths and weaknesses which are irrelevant of its ranking, brand name or alumni network. Not to say that HBS and Stanford don’t have their share of talented individuals, but diversifying the ranks to include a variety of graduates certainly seems like a good idea.

It is always easy to point the finger at someone else when things are going badly; considering the fact that you are responsible for creating the problem and working to solve it is a more difficult choice.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal surveyed over two thousand students and alumni of 48 business schools to access the quality of Accelerated MBA (One Year) programs. The respondents were surveyed on a variety of topics such as: program flexibility; career services; usefulness of the training; and whether or not their degree protected them from the recession.

The results were then used to put together a ranking of one year accelerated MBA programs. While the rankings themselves offered few surprises – European schools took the top three spots and Kellogg and Babson rounding out the top five – the students’ responses yielded some interesting insights.

Most respondents said that the determining factor in their decision to pursue an accelerated MBA was, unsurprisingly, the ability to re-enter the workforce more quickly. More importantly, most thought that their degrees prepared them to land higher-paying jobs and adequately prepared them to excel in a global business environment. According to the respondents, recruiters and hiring managers view the accelerated MBA degree no differently than a regular, two-year degree. Many also cited the ability to gain international exposure, although this was not the case for most U.S.-based programs.

So was the Survey a good one?

One could argue that comparing both U.S.-based students and European students was a major flaw in the survey – domestic students actively chose a one-year program versus a comparable two program, while many international students had little choice; a decision to attend a European school automatically meant that they would have to attend a one-year program. A survey of only U.S. based students probably would have yielded a more accurate overview of why students chose an accelerated MBA program and how they felt about their experience.

An even better experiment would have been to compare the experience of students in a one year MBA program versus those at two-year program – at the same school. The results could shed light on some of the more pressing concerns, such as whether some schools focus more of their recruiting efforts on two-year MBA students relative to their one-year counterparts.

Are you an educational professional, counselor or MBA expert looking for great opportunities? MBA365.com is looking for talented individuals who want to contribute to this website. We are offering potential partnerships for the right people. Please email info@mba365.com for more details.

With the recent insider trading scandal many have questioned the ethical standards of many in the financial community. This article from Wharton discusses this phenomena and how it is reflected in the industry.

We’d love to hear any student’s thoughts on the matter, so feel free to comment.