The MBA Gender Gap Persists

How to Score MBA Scholarships

 

“So how am I going to pay for this?”

That’s the question most MBA students ask when reviewing schools. Well, they may not have to pay for the whole thing. This week, Businessweek provides a primer on how applicants can find and earn merit-based scholarships.

Foundations often offer money based on criteria like nationality, gender, and field of study. For example, The Stanford Reliance Dhirubhai MBA Fellowship Program provides scholarships to promising Indian students who agree to work in India after graduation. Similarly, many business schools give support to early applicants with notable GMAT scores, essays, interviews, and work experience.  There are even competitions like Beat the GMAT where students can earn vouchers for test prep and counseling.

As always, schools will compete fiercely for the top talent with scholarship. But even if an applicant isn’t a school’s top choice, he or she can always tap alumni for guidance. Who knows, one of them may have endowed a scholarship of their own.

Source: Businessweek

Chocolate and Peanut Butter? MBAs and Medicine? Two Great Things That Go Great Together

 

With health care costs skyrocketing and health care reform looming, some physicians are turning to MBA programs for answers.

For example, Dr. Brandon Koretz, associate professor of clinical medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine, has enrolled at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. According to Koretz, the program has broadened his understanding of the business of medicine: “My perspective was, ‘let’s get it.’ Now, I understand that every dollar spent on one thing is a dollar that is not available for something else. I understand more the trade-offs and their implications…My Hippocratic oath isn’t just a promise to the patient in front of me, it’s also an obligation to be a good custodian of resources provided by society, which is paying for that patient’s care.”

Koretz adds that lessons learned at Anderson can also help with patient care: “…we not only need to provide technically good service, we also need to meet patients’ emotional needs. If you’re rude, patients aren’t going to come back or may not follow your medical advice. So I’ve initiated discussions about things like wait time and how it can be improved…evidence is being accumulated that shows clinical outcomes are better when there’s a strong connection between patient and doctor. A conscious focus on service can strengthen these connections.”

Similarly, the Kelley School at the University of Indiana is introducing an online MBA program specifically for physicians. The two year program, which costs $58,000 and is open to 40 students, covers everything from reimbursement models to converting electronic medical records to Big Data.

One student, Doctor Anthony Sabatino, signed up for the program to help him better understand the implications of Obamacare. With the medical model shifting from services to outcomes, Sabatino is hoping to apply his lessons to better align his practice with these changes. Better safe than sorry.

Sources:  UCLA and American Public Media

Blast from the Past:

Harvard Class of 2012: A Self-Examination

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

That is the question underlying the Harvard Portrait Project. Since 2002, Harvard MBA students have composed essays to answer this question. In doing so, many have shared their deepest aspirations, commitments, secrets, fears, and doubts.

The Harvard Portrait Project was launched in 2002 by Harvard MBA Tony Deifell (’02), who returns to Harvard each year to photograph the winning essayists. In 2012, 117 Harvard students wrestled with this question. In the end, 32 essays were chosen to be hung at Dillon House, home of Harvard’s admissions staff.

The Portrait Project is one way in which Harvard students connect with each other – and the outside world. Even more, they give future Harvard students a hint of the school’s purpose, along with the intellect, talent, and character of those who came before them. Check out John A. Byrne’s profile of some of 2012’s top essayists:

Source: PoetsandQuants