P&Q’s Must Reads: Rave Reviews & High Expectations For This New Joint MS-MBA Degree

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: Rave Reviews & High Expectations For This New Joint MS-MBA Degree

Employers have spoken. They want recruits with both poet and quant skills — financial managers from the STEM mold who are skilled in investment strategies and management. They want people fluent in data and digital literacy who also possess critical thinking skills, emotional intelligence, and creativity.

A new offering at Yale School of Management aims to be the program that gives the talent pool all that and more. Yale SOM will pair its STEM-eligible Master of Asset of Management with its full-time MBA in a new joint MBA/MMS program. Students in the dual-degree program will complete the first year of the MBA program, including the MBA core curriculum, then complete the asset management coursework during the second year. At the end of two years, graduates will have both degrees in hand.

Get more details on Yale’s new joint degree on our homepage.

No. 2: Kellogg Median Salary Saw Another Big Jump In 2023

In one of the first hints at what the job market was like for the MBA Class of 2023, Northwestern Kellogg School of Management has released a “sneak peek” at preliminary employment numbers for students who graduated from its full-time two-year program in the spring. Liza Kirkpatrick, assistant dean of Kellogg’s Career Management Center, writes in a blog today (August 8) that Kellogg grads have reported a $10,000 increase in median salary over their Class of 2022 colleagues, to $175,000.

Looked at one way, that’s a 6.1% bump in class median salary; looked at another, it’s almost exactly double the class’s pre-MBA salary of $87,525.

Looked at a third way, Kellogg MBAs’ median salary has grown by 25% since the pre-pandemic graduating class of 2019, when it was $140K.

Read more about Kellogg’s Class of 2025 in our news tab.

No. 3 MBA Scholarships At The Leading Business Schools

B-schools are offering ever-greater opportunities to offset their big price tags. Dozens — at some schools, hundreds — of need- and merit-based MBA awards are available in the form of scholarships, fellowships, grants, and other awards at the top MBA programs.

Poets&Quants has collected them in this story for easy reference. At most schools, MBA admits are automatically considered for awards that can rise to significant portions of the overall cost of the program. The bottom line: For a hard worker, there is always a way to finance an MBA.

See the full list of funding opportunities in our financing 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: 100 Day Countdown To R1. This story outlines six strategies for your Round 1 application strategy to the world’s best MBA programs. You can find it in our admissions tab.

Next: MBA Dilemma – Entrepreneurship Or Employment After Graduation. In this guest column, an INSEAD MBA discusses the decision between becoming your own boss or earning a steady paycheck after you program. You can find it on our homepage.

Finally: How To Answer The Most Common MBA Interview Questions: For this story, in our admissions tab, Simplilearn rounded up some of the most frequently asked MBA interview questions and how candidates should respond.

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

I also want to alert school seekers to Centre Court’s upcoming MBA Festival. You’ll hear from alumni and career experts from leading business schools about how the MBA can fast-track your career. Our next event is Oct. 3-4, 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!