Catch up on some business school news and tips with a few of this week’s top stories:

Wharton’s Record GMATs for New Class (Poets and Quants)

Despite a 5.8% fall in MBA applications, Wharton said it has enrolled a larger first-year class of 855 with an average GMAT score that is seven points higher at 725.

The World’s Best Business Schools (Business Insider)

Having an MBA can give you an edge in the cutthroat world of business—but only if you pick the right school.

Leadership Lessons from The Harvard of Europe (Forbes)

Associate Dean at HEC Paris talks about how leadership is far more about being knowledgeable and gaining respect than being able to do a good presentation in the boardroom.

Cornell To Offer One-Year MBA in NYC (Poets and Quants)

The Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University will soon offer a one-year MBA program based at Google’s New York City campus.

MBA Teaching urged to move away from focus on shareholder primacy model (Financial Times)

Academics and others are being increasingly vocal about how deeply entrenched the idea of shareholder primacy is in management.

Did we miss your favorite article from the week? Let us know what you have been reading in the comments below or tweet @ManhattanGMAT

Note: This post comes from our friends at mbaMission.

A question that might keep prospective MBAs up at night is what they can expect in the way of a return on their business school investment. One way to assuage those fears is to size up your current salary against what business schools report as their graduates’ post-MBA incomes. At one of Bloomberg Businessweek‘s top-ten MBA programs, at least, the payoff looks enticing”with an average income boost of 33%“83% (excluding signing and performance bonuses, which can drive compensation even higher).

In recent years, economic turmoil has pushed percentile incomes”namely the 1% and the 99%”to the fore of the public imagination. Highlighting the impact of the MBA, we thought taking a look at the median graduate’s pre-MBA and post-MBA percentile incomes, illustrated in the graph below, might be interesting.

Although most MBAs will fall short of the 1% straight out of business school, the typical MBA from one of these top-ten schools can expect to leap into the top quintile in society with their first post-graduation position, earning more than 83 out of 100 others. With a degree in hand (and with plenty of hard work, of course), the median 29-year-old MBA will climb the income pyramid to join the 16.8%.

Catch up on some business school news and tips with a few of this week’s top stories:

Great Problem to Have: I’m InNow What? (Poets & Quants)

After getting into business school, you enter a unique phase of your life. Here’s how one accepted MBA student spent the 7 months prior to the start of b-school.

What Don’t They Teach You At Business School? (Forbes)

Brian Kane, who holds a BBA and an MBA in marketing, shares some valuable real world skills that he didn’t learn in business school.

Does An MBA Make You Happy? The MBA Happiness Index 2013 (Forbes)

The results from a recent survey deliver an overwhelming message that the MBA itself is a considerable source of happiness.

Joseph Stiglitz on What Business Schools Teach That’s Wrong (The Motley Fool)

Nobel Prize-winning economist answers the question, What is something that is taught in the modern business school that gives a flawed sense of how risk and financial markets work?”

Did we miss your favorite article from the week? Let us know what you have been reading in the comments below or tweet @ManhattanGMAT

Here is some exciting event news we wanted to pass along to you. We’re going to be participating in the QS World MBA Tour in New York on 9/15/12. We’re also going to be conducting a special seminar called ‘Breaking 700: Strategies for the New GMAT’. Want to learn more? Check out the event on the QS World MBA Tour website.

Here is a blurb from the event page:

The QS World MBA Tour is known across the globe for its high quality MBA information fairs. With 21 fairs across North America this fall, New York City will be host to the biggest event. Taking place at the Hilton New York from 1-6pm, the fair will feature seminars and panels with Ivy League institutions, including Columbia, Wharton, Harvard and a fair with over 150 of the world’s top local and international business school. For the first time, Manhattan GMAT is hosting a special seminar that should not be missed. From 2-2:40pm, learn from the GMAT prep experts and come to a seminar titled ˜Breaking 700: Strategies for the New GMAT.’ If you’re interested in speaking face to face with admissions directors, obtaining application tips, gaining access to $1.2M in exclusive MBA scholarships and specialized GMAT seminars, this is the event for you. For more information and to register, click here: //bit.ly/MOUQ5n.

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Last year, Chris Ryan, our GMAT instructor and Vice President of Academics, realized that helping our students through the GMAT just wasn’t enough. When I had students come up to me and tell me their GMAT score, I was thrilled, said Chris, but I wanted to help them with their next step and set them up for success in business school.

Although Chris considers the two years he spent at Duke Fuqua to be some of the most incredible of his life, the beginning was nothing short of overwhelming.  Considered to have a non-traditional b-school background (pretty much anything besides investment banking and consulting!), Chris was immediately surrounded by terms like NPV, puts and calls, and game theory.  In thinking back, Chris knew that, had he had a leg up when he had arrived, he would felt more comfortable in business school.

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We have an update today on former Manhattan GMAT President Andrew Yang. Andrew left us a year ago to start Venture for America, which has put him in the news recently.

We at Manhattan GMAT are incredibly proud of what Andrew has done with Venture for America and we wanted to pass along an opportunity for you to help support that great organization. On Tuesday, June 12th, Venture for America is having their 2012 Summer Celebration fundraiser in New York City with featured speaker Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. Tickets are $250 (or $500 for VIP) and can be purchased here. Additional details can be found via the image below. We’ll all be there and we would love to see you there too.

If you’re unable to attend the fundraiser but would still like to support VFA, you can make a contribution to their Summer Celebration fundraising campaign

In keeping with our 5th Edition Release Week festivities, we’re really excited to bring to you an interview with three of the people behind our awesome new 5th Edition Manhattan GMAT Strategy Guides.

Below is part 2 of a 2 part interview with David Mahler, Stacey Koprince, and Liz Moliski. Learn what part of the books was hardest to write, what part was our interviewee’s favorite, and how a student should work their way through the books. Part 1 is here.

What was it like to finally finish the books? What was the final rush to beat the deadline like?

Stacey Koprince: I was lucky in that I received the research relatively early on for my book, so I was done in advance of the eventual deadline. I say the “eventual” deadline, because the first deadline I was given didn’t end up being the final deadline. Because some of the other books were delayed, all of the deadlines were pushed back several times, so I finished on time. I’ll admit, though, that I might’ve missed the original deadline if it hadn’t been moved back. : )

For the quant books, though, I would sometimes receive part of the galleys (the files that needed to be proofed) one day and need to give my edits the next day or the day after. Towards the end, we were all working to turn things around so quickly that I would often only be given a chapter at a time, and by the time I was done with it (an hour or two later), the next chapter would be ready to edit.
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In keeping with our 5th Edition Release Week festivities, we’re really excited to bring to you an interview with three of the people behind our awesome new 5th Edition Manhattan GMAT Strategy Guides.

Below is part 1 of a 2 part interview with David Mahler, Stacey Koprince, and Liz Moliski. Learn what it’s like to write a textbook, how long the process takes, what it’s like approaching the final deadline, and more! Be sure to check back tomorrow for part 2.

What’s it like to actually write a textbook? Where do you start? What is the day-to-day process like?

Stacey Koprince: We do a lot of research before we can even think about starting to write. We examine every all of the most recent official questions to determine patterns, language structures, traps, and so on. We use that data to determine the best solution methods and what and how our students need to study in order to succeed with that question type or content area.

After several months, we’re finally ready to start writing. The process isn’t that different from writing a school paper – a really long school paper! I start with an outline, and then I expand the outline chapter by chapter. Once I have a clear idea of the sub-sections I want to have in each chapter, then I dive into the actual writing.

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After spending much of this past weekend trying the new GMATPrep, I have better insights on the new IR section. Here is what I found:

• There are 12 questions and 10 prompts in the IR section
• There is a timing recommendation of 2:30 per question that is pretty reasonable, although you will need more time to read some prompts than to read others
• Scoring is 1 to 8, with no halfbased primarily on the number right, with no partial credit, although there seems to be some forgiveness at the top, because 0,1, 2, or 3 wrong led to a score of 8

There are also a number of significant changes to the test that aren’t specific to the IR section. Here is my summary, including my takes, on the changes:

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Editor’s Note: This is a follow-up to Liz’s post from Wednesday, reviewing the new GMATPrep 2.0.

Late yesterday afternoon I got an exciting email from GMAC! It said that GMAC had found and fixed what was described as a section scoring error and posted an updated version of the GMATPrep practice software for students to download.

Of course I immediately downloaded the new software in order to test it. Version 2.1 asks if you want to replace version 2.0 before it downloads, which is a nice feature, but a bit irrelevant, because of course you want the version where IR scoring works.

The big surprise is that the IR section score is on a 1-8 scale, not 1-25 as it appeared to be previously. I tried it and missed one question in one out of 12 prompts and got an 8, but when I tried it again and missed 1 question in each of 4 different multiple answer prompts, I got a 7, so it looks as though GMAC must be giving some sort of partial credit, but I won’t be positive of this until I’ve tried the test several more times. Unfortunately, you can’t complete just the IR section and get a score. You have to complete the entire test if you want scores.

After you finish the test, you can use the review screen, but beware, as soon as you exit, you will no longer have access to the questions that you answered. The software will save your scores for you though, so at least you don’t lose those.