MBA Admits: How To Hit The Ground Running

Is Europe the New Black for MBAs?

“Go west, young man!” If Horace Greeley was pursuing his MBA today, he might advise students to turn east – as in Europe.

No, this isn’t a story about another Lost Generation, of shellshocked expatriates seeking refuge from the Great Recession in Paris cafes. According to The New York Times, European MBA programs (particularly in Germany) are becoming increasing popular among international students, including North Americans.

For years, the United States was the destination for Western European MBA students. Over the past eight years, the percentage of Western Europeans submitting their GMAT scores to American programs has dropped from 43 percent to 28 percent. Conversely, 23 percent of the student body at Germany’s European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) now comes from North America.

So what’s behind this homeshoring of prospective European MBAs and influx of North Americans? Money, for one. Tuition at ESMT is only $29,000 (Compare that to Wharton or Stanford). What’s more, the quality of MBA education has risen overseas, as evidenced by two German schools cracking The Economist’s Top 100 rankings in 2012. Most important, European schools are increasingly offering those benefits that American students like Junayd Mahmood want: international networking, hands-on curriculum, and a start up culture.

Source: The New York Times

Chinese Preschoolers Start Pre-MBA Program

You’ve heard the conventional wisdom: You’re never too old to earn your MBA. In China, you’re apparently never too young to start the program, either.

Move over, Tiger Moms! At the FasTracKids preschool, students between the ages of 3 and 6 are taught basic financial and leadership lessons. This two-year program, which has graduated over 100,000 students, provides 90-minute courses with exercises designed to enhance student leadership and financial acumen. For example, students are broken into teams and taken to a grocery story, where they must decide as groups how to maximize their budget.

So consider it Head Start for entrepreneurs. And it’s producing results dear to any mother’s heart. According to Chen Xi, a mother of one graduate, her 6-year-old daughter can already buy at the supermarket: “She’ll calculate how much I give her and get change.”

Ah…Today the supermarket, tomorrow the stock market.

Source: The Globe and Mail / The International Business Times