P&Q’s Must Reads: The Top One-Year MBA Programs In The United States

Hello everyone — Welcome back to Poets&Quants’ Must Reads, a quick, digestible recap of the top business school news, sponsored by CentreCourt, P&Q’s virtual admission events.

I’m your host, Kristy Bleizeffer, and I’ll be highlighting the most important P&Q stories you might have missed. So, let’s get to it.

No. 1: The Top One-Year MBA Programs In The United States

One-year MBAs have traditionally lagged their two-year cousins in basic metrics like GMAT scores and GPA averages, if only because they have always been slightly less popular. That is no longer the case, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s annual Prospective Students Survey released earlier this month.

For what may be the first time ever, a majority of prospective B-school students said that they prefer one-year MBA programs over the more traditional two-year options more popular in the U.S. In the survey completed by 2,710 respondents in 131 countries, 22% of the would-be students seeking a graduate management education said they would prefer the more accelerated MBA program that costs less and involves half the time away from a paycheck. Some 20% expressed a preference for the two-year, full-time residential MBA.

Read our full article for a breakdown of tuition and cost breakdowns for 23 of the top one-year MBA programs in the United States. You can find it now on our homepage.

No. 2: How The Law School Boycott Is Creating Havoc For U.S. News’ MBA Rankings

After a major boycott of U.S. News’ rankings by the big brand law and medical schools, the U.S. News’ editors understandably went through a major introspection. After all, once Yale and Harvard walked, a stampede of other law and medical schools followed putting the organization’s money-making rankings at risk.
After consulting with more than 100 law and medical school deans, U.S. News revised the way it cranks out its graduate rankings to reflect the criticism it received. Even so, this year U.S. News was only able to cobble together law and med school rankings the year using other public data sources.
But the boycott had a more meaningful impact on all of the organization’s graduate rankings, including its closely-followed ranking business school rankings that will be published on April 25th, a week later than expected.

The full commentary by Poets&Quants editor in chief John Byrne is available in our rankings tab.

No. 3: These Three BIG IdeaBounce Finalists Are Headed For WashU Olin’s ‘Shark Tank’

A mushroom-sourced supplement startup.

A savvy solution to those pesky paywalls you encounter to read valuable content on the web.

A way to insure your glasses never get smudged.

The student entrepreneurs behind these three new business ideas are the finalists in this year’s BIG IdeaBounce® powered by Poets&Quants. The pitch competition, sponsored by the Olin Business School at Washington University, drew 130 entrants from 10 countries and more than 60 universities. The three finalists will be competing against each other for the $50,000 top prize before a panel of judges at Olin.

Read about each of the business ideas, or register to watch their pitches live online, in this story which can be found in our news tab.

No. 4: Our Weekly Round Up of News You Can Use

No matter where you are in your MBA journey, we bring several helpful stories for you this week.

First up: How do admission consultants feel about using ChatGPT to help with your admission essays? Our friends at Fortuna Admissions surveyed several experts on the chatbot in this story, Should You Use AI To Draft Your MBA Admissions Essays? Find it in our admissions tab.

Next: For all those non-trad MBA applicants out there, this next story from our partners at North Star Admissions, is a definite don’t miss. What Non-Traditional MBA Applicants Need To Know is posted in our admission hub.

Finally: Are you in the enviable position of having multiple MBA invites, but don’t know which to choose? Make sure to check out 6 Tips On How To Choose Between MBA Offers from our friends at Fortuna Admissions.

And, that’s it for this week’s Must Reads recap.

I also want to alert school seekers to Poets&Quants’ upcoming MBA Festival admission event. In these virtual panels, you’ll hear from admission gurus and career experts from leading business schools around the world. Our next event is June 6-7, and you can register now for free.

Again, I’m Kristy Bleizeffer, and you can join me next week, right here, for a recap of what’s important in the world of business education. Thanks for listening and, as always, stay informed!