MBA Podcaster

MBA PodTV host Mia Saini takes you to her stomping ground, Harvard Business School. Mia draws from her own experiences of applying to and getting into HBS. She also gets advice from current HBS students, an HBS admissions board member and an admissions consultant. Learn about the HBS curriculum, the case method, and tips on preparing your application.

In a 2008 Kaplan survey of 250 MBA admissions officers, 55% said that the GMAT is the most important factor on the business school application. Over 90% said it's one of the top 2 most important factors. Research shows that every 10 point increase in your GMAT score correlates to another $5K in your starting salary after business school. Why? Higher scores help you to gain admission into more competitive, higher-ranked MBA programs, which in turn brings more job opportunities and higher salaries. Prepping for the GMAT can have a big payoff. That's great if you did well on the GMAT. But how should you respond to a GMAT score that's lower than you want or need to get into the program of your choice?

On today's show, we bring you coverage of a live event, ''MBA Admissions and the New World Order''. How is the ''new world order'' affecting business schools? Has the MBA curriculum changed as a result of the economic downturn? How are schools coping with the economy? Panelists also answered audience questions about the panel topic, as well as general questions about their programs, admissions, and career prospects for graduates.

It's amazing how many business school applicants make avoidable application mistakes and it's unfortunate that these avoidable mistakes can result in your application being immediately rejected. You have one chance to get it right. We've interviewed 3 deans of admission at leading business schools and 2 admission consultants to help you avoid common "Application Pitfalls".

Are you thinking about using an MBA to change careers? In business school they'll call you a career switcher and you'll find that you aren't alone. Up to 90% of MBA candidates consider switching careers during their time on campus. Within just one or two years you can learn the skills and gain the context you need to launch into a new direction. This time we'll take you through the process that you'd experience through the career management center at business school. You'll learn how to make your past experiences relevant to future employers, how to update your resume and network your way into new opportunities. You'll hear from the heads of career management from four top MBA programs.

Salaries for MBA grads, especially those in the traditionally highly-paid sectors of investment banking and private equity, is a topic of great interest in any economy. It's a given that the finance industry is not the easiest place to find a job at the moment. But for those few MBA grads savvy enough to land a job, what kinds of salaries can they expect? How is the recession affecting MBA grads' salaries in finance jobs, on and off Wall Street? And most importantly, what can you do to land yourself a job in investment banking or private equity in this economic climate?

International exposure is becoming an important calling card in this highly competitive economic climate. Since the name of the game is to set yourself apart, whether you're applying to MBA programs or hitting the job market, global experience divides you from the pack. Other reasons are time and cost. European schools typically offer an alternative MBA. program that is shorter than those in the U.S. Less time in school means less tuition to pay, though it does put you back out on a tough job market sooner. On today's show, The MBA Tour's International Schools stop in San Francisco. MBA Podcaster's Catherine Girardeau sat in on the event at San Francisco's Hyatt Regency. Representatives from eight business schools from Europe, Latin America and Asia were on hand for informal, roundtable discussions with about a hundred prospective applicants.

Let's face it: getting into the MBA program of your choice isn't easy. This may be especially true for younger people with less work experience, or would-be applicants with liberal arts or science backgrounds - valid pursuits, but not directly linked in an admissions director's mind to making someone B-school ready. In this show, we'll talk with some experts - program administrators, a professor, and a student - to hear their advice for non-business majors about getting some coursework under their belts before applying for or entering an MBA program.

Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School is a top European Management School, with campuses in Ghent and Leuven, Belgium, and St-Petersburg, Russia. Being the autonomous Management School of Ghent University and KULeuven, the School also has important international alliances with universities and business schools all over the world, such as Peking University in China and Amsterdam Business School in the Netherlands. In recent years, the School has been steadily climbing the international rankings in the Financial Times and the Economist, up to reaching the top 10 in the FT European Business School rankings.

The single stand-alone, objective statistic in your application that will be used by the admissions committee to compare you to every other applicant is the score you get on your GMAT -- the Graduate Management Admission Test. The pressure is on to get the best GMAT scores you possibly can as there is an unprecedented increase of MBA school candidates. You can improve your GMAT test-taking skills - we've got tips from the experts who run the specialty classes helping thousands of students get higher scores every year. Listen to hear what they have to say about how you can improve your score anywhere from a year in advance all the way to the day of 'test day'.

MBAs are feeling the employment squeeze from a tightening economy. This makes the summer internship, taken between the first and second year of your MBA program, an even more crucial step toward the ultimate goal of landing full-time employment with the company of your choice. On today's show, Landing Your Ideal Summer Internship, we'll talk with a former MBA student with an unusual story to tell; the career development director from the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business; and representatives from Microsoft and Vanguard with tips on what they offer and how you can prepare for those interviews, internships, and ultimately, land a fulltime job.

This week we bring you an episode of PBS's production CEO EXCHANGE. Taped in front of a live audience of MBA students at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, you will hear two CEOs who are leading their venerable companies into the modern era. At General Electric, Jeff Immelt continues to put a charge into the Most Admired Company in the United States while making infrastructure and environmental solutions the new engines for growth. Irene Rosenfeld has fresh ideas in store as the new Big Cheese at Kraft Foods, where she is expanding markets for classic brands like Velveeta, Jell-O, Oreos and Oscar Mayer, while developing new lines of healthy and read-to-eat packaged foods. Two CEOs dedicated to improving lifestyles around the globe. Listen in as we bring the dialogue directly to you.

The Africans at Microsoft diversity group recently assembled a panel of experts to talk about earning and making the best of an MBA degree. The panel is a candid discussion with business school admissions and career services people, current students and MBA graduates on a range of topics. Speakers included representatives from some of the best schools in the country, including Harvard Business School; Sloan School of Management at MIT; UC Berkeley; University of Washington; Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern and Wharton, among others. The panel, hosted at Microsoft's corporate headquarters in Redmond, WA, had over 200 attendees from around the world including employees of Microsoft, Boeing, and Coastal Carolina University. Listen in as we bring the event to you.

Located in the vibrant Mediterranean city of Barcelona, Spain, The ESADE MBA is a unique and challenging experience which will have a lifelong impact on your career and professional development. Our innovative Full Time MBA opens a world of new opportunities and offers you the ability to customise your MBA experience in 12, 15 or 18 months depending on the objectives you place yourself.

It's official - the U.S. economy is in a recession, and economists predict it's going to get worse before it gets better. With the job market tightening, large companies and even entire industries that used to snap up MBAs as soon as they graduated are instead laying off workers or even shutting down entirely. Meanwhile the tough times are steering more applicants towards business school. What does this all mean to currently enrolled MBA students, MBA applicants, and freshly-minted MBAs? Listen as we ask the experts for advice on what you can do to help navigate your career and application during these tougher times.