P&Q’s Must Reads: MBA Professor Of The Year: Wharton’s Ethan Mollick

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: MBA Professor Of The Year: Wharton’s Ethan Mollick

ChatGPT’s debut in November of 2022 quickly became a viral sensation. It sparked widespread discussion and debate about the future of AI in education, work, and creativity. Thousands of academics worldwide furiously attempted to become experts in generative artificial intelligence as universities and schools struggled to figure out how to leverage the technology in classrooms and ultimately the workplace. But one scholar above all has truly distinguished himself in the field: The Wharton School‘s Ethan Mollick.

Irreverent, eccentric, and unquestionably brilliant, the 49-year-old’s insights have become indispensable to any curious human being–students, scholars, working professionals, entrepreneurs, and executives. A provocative explainer of AI, he follows the technology and how it impacts education and work the way a world-class detective tracks down clues in a case. For this work, Mollick is our 2024 Professor of the Year. 

You can read about him now, in our trending tab.

No. 2: Following Wharton’s Lead, 2 Top European B-Schools Launch ‘Flex’ EMBAs 

The Wharton School raised a lot of eyebrows in 2022 when it launched a highly flexible executive MBA program with a huge online component and a hefty price tag of more than $200K. Now the move looks to have placed Wharton in the vanguard of a major trend.

Reverberations from Wharton’s launch are beginning to be more fully understood this fall as two elite European business schools have announced the launch of similar flexible pathways to an EMBA degree. INSEAD’s new Global EMBA Flex program will commence May 2026, and IMD’s new Modular Flex and Elective Flex formats will begin in September and October 2025, respectively.

Read more about these new programs on our homepage.

No. 3:  Research Ranking: The Most Influential Business Schools 

Which business schools are producing the best research that’s making an impact?

According to the Financial Times’ new research ranking, it’s University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Booth ranked 1st in three dimensions: Field Weighted Citations, Share of Positive Citations, and Policy Citations.

In its new ranking, FT also looks at Works Cited in Syllabi, Case Study Writing, and Practitioner Downloads to rank research output. 

You can see how other business schools fared in this new ranking in our analysis story, which is up on our website.

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 – which you can find in our admissions hub from the main menu. 

First up: Top Tips For Military Veterans Applying To B-School. This story, up on our homepage, tells veterans and active-duty military how to position themselves to be strong candidates for top MBA programs.

Next: The 5 Worst GMAT Study Mistakes. In this article, the GMAT Ninja helps you avoid the classic DON’Ts for your GMAT study sessions. You’ll find it in our admissions hub.

Finally: This Is What It Costs To Get An MBA From A Top Business School. This article, also up in our admissions hub, has all the cost data for the country’s top B-schools.

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

I also want to alert school seekers to our events tab from our main menu. There, you’ll find all the upcoming admissions events for a range of degrees and programs including full-time and online MBAs, specialized masters, entrepreneurship and more. Registration is 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.