© 2010 Graduate Management Admission Council*

The GMAC recently released some interesting charts on how much time GMAT students spend studying. Not surprisingly, those who spend more time studying tend to score higher “ up to a point. But is it really all about hours you spend with your GMAT book open? How do you structure the time you spend studying so that you get the most out of it? Our instructors, Stacey Koprince and Dan Gonzalez, had some feedback about the GMAC’s report. Read more

Our friends over at MBA Mission were excited to see the new BusinessWeek Rankings come out, although they made sure to point out that rankings aren’t nearly as important as fit when it comes to choosing the best business school for you. Check out the rest of their blog, and find the original posting of their article here: mbamission.com/blog
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Manhattan GMAT continues to grow very quickly thanks to continued word-of-mouth from our students. Thanks for all of your support out there!

One product of our growth is that we’re looking for a few great men and women in all parts of our organization. Some of the positions we’re looking to fill RIGHT NOW include:

1. Instructors. By now, you have a sense of how picky we are. We’ll wind up rejecting 9 out of 10 candidates who have a 99th percentile score on the GMAT and prior teaching experience, based on how they perform during a battery of in-person auditions. But it’s only through this process that we can enlist the very best Instructors.

We’re now looking for additional Instructors in New York, Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco/Bay Area, Seattle, Toronto, and several other markets. Successful candidates will receive signing/training bonuses of $4,000 and will be paid $100/hr to start. And if you think you know someone who fits the bill, we’ll pay YOU $1,000 just for telling your friend if we hire him/her. That’s right, you can get paid just for knowing a brilliant teacher! Just have them mention your name when we ask how they found out about the position. For info on how to apply, click here.

2. Staff. Okay, these positions are in New York, because that’s where our headquarters is. But we’re looking for Full-time Marketing Staff and Full-time Operations Staff. Yes, we are legit hiring right now! If you think you have what it takes to contribute to the most dynamic education company today, click here to apply. Warning that we’re just about as picky with our staff as we are with our Instructors.

3. Part-time Staff. If you’re a talented, personable sort looking for part-time work to balance against school or even another job, we may have a position for you. We’re looking to hire part-time Marketing staff and part-time Operations staff. We will hire undergrads to work during the schoolyear if we like them enough, in part because we like to try and identify top performers before they graduate. Click here to apply.

Please do forward this to anyone you know that is looking for a job right now that you think would be a good fit. We’ll pay you $500 for a staff referral, and $250 for a part-time staff referral. It pays to have (employable) friends!

Got GMAT questions? Join us in our New York center on the evening of Thursday, August 19, for our monthly Manhattan GMAT study session. One of our instructors will be on hand to answer any questions, so come prepared to discuss OG problems, test-taking strategies, the finer points of grammar, or anything else giving you trouble. This event is open to the public”not just Manhattan GMAT students. So stop by and bring your friends.

All the details are available here. Hope to see you there!

Plenty of prospective MBAs don’t want to give up their jobs to go back to school. So what if the promotion you want requires an MBA?

Part-time programs have long been a popular solution to this dilemma. But the Wall Street Journal points to another, digital-age option: hybrid programs, blending limited class time with extensive online work. One Johnson & Johnson employee used Babson’s Fast Track MBA to land a plum gig overseas without having to take time off of work for school. Universities like the programs because they’re cheaper to run”if students aren’t on campus, they don’t need campus services.

But there are downsides. Students don’t spend as much quality time with their classmates, so there’s less opportunity to network. “There just isn’t enough team building or interpretation of emotional quotients,” says one dean, explaining why many business schools don’t launch hybrid programs. And career changers might want to think twice, because they typically don’t provide the same level of counseling.

Ultimately, traditional rules for choosing a b-school apply: Students have to go with the program that suits their needs best.

A while ago we wrote about the Manhattan GMAT Grant program. We are now pleased to announce that we have awarded 2010 Non-Profit Staff Grants to two incredibly worthy organizations.

The first is The Equity Project (TEP) Charter School in Washington Heights (established by Manhattan GMAT founder Zeke Vanderhoek). A number of MGMAT employees had the pleasure of visiting the school during its first year of operation and seeing the impressive progress already made in its 5th grade classrooms.

The second organization receiving a 2010 grant is Coro, an organization that prepares high school students, young and mid-career professionals, and individuals working with immigrant communities to become active civic leaders in their city. The MGMAT team had the chance to attend the 2010 Coro Civic Leadership Awards in New York this year and learn about the wonderful work being done by the Coro Fellows, Youth Ambassadors, and recent program alums.

Both TEP and Coro will receive $5,000 grants from Manhattan GMAT this year. We are thrilled to be supporting two such worthy institutions, and look forward to seeing more great things from them in the coming year!

We received an e-mail earlier this week from a happy student reporting that he’d gotten a 760. This was great news, but not particularly newsworthy, as, happily, we get good news like this very often.

However, he also mentioned that his 760 score was good for a 98th percentile. This was a surprise, as 760 has been the bar for a 99th percentile since 2007 or so (before then it was a 750). Apparently, the threshold has JUST been raised to a 770 for a 99th percentile score!

What does this mean? It means that GMAT scores continue to climb, particularly at the high end. Indeed, average GMAT scores have climbed 14 points in the last 4 years and we suspect that, as more students use Manhattan GMAT, we’ll see this trend continue. 🙂

Study hard!

P.S. Manhattan GMAT requires a 99th percentile score for its Instructors, so it looks like the bar for incoming Instructor candidates has just risen. We are looking in several markets (New York, Miami, Atlanta, San Francisco), so if you know any extraordinary teachers who fit the bill, please send them our way!

Addendum:

After reaching out to GMAC to confirm this score breakdown, we have heard that as of the latest test update (for July), a 760 is still a 99th percentile score.

There’s big news from the GMAC.

Perhaps because they are feeling the competition as more schools begin to accept the GRE, the GMAC has announced that it will add a new section to the test called Integrated Reasoning.

According to the GMAC, this new section is designed to measure people’s ability to evaluate information from multiple sources.  It was created with a goal of making the GMAT ever more relevant to business school. The GMAC has been polling faculty at business schools for the past four years, and this new development stems directly from their feedback.

The Integrated Reasoning section, writes BusinessWeek, will involve analyzing charts and data points, and even include audio. It will last 30 minutes and replace one of the current essays (the AWA.) The total exam will remain three and a half hours long, and the AWA and Integrated Reasoning sections will be graded separately from the quantitative and verbal portions of the test.

So what does this mean for GMAT test-takers?

Chris Ryan, our director of product and instructor development, noted that because this new section will not affect the main section of the test, GMAT-takers should not worry about huge differences.  Students should continue to focus most on the verbal and math portions of the test.

While the Integrated Reasoning section may give the GRE’s data interpretation section a run for its money, Chris sees it as a smart move on the GMAC’s part to integrate what could be quite similar to a mini business case.

As for admissions, Chris believes that because members of the business school faculty were instrumental in suggesting and implementing the change, the new Integrated Reasoning section may take a higher place than the AWA, but the unchanged verbal and math sections will still be the most important parts.

Students do not have to feel like it’s going to change the preparation for the test all that much, said Chris Ryan.

For more information, check out these articles:

GMAC press release

BusinessWeek: The GMAT Gets a Makeover

Financial Times: GMAT revamp focuses on reasoning

Inside Higher Ed: Multiple Task Questions

Bloomberg: GMAT Test for Business School Has Biggest Change in Decade

There are lots of factors to consider when choosing an MBA program, from curriculum to size. But with more b-schools opening their doors across the globe, there’s another thing to think about: location.

The Economist reports MBA programs”especially abroad”are placing more and more emphasis on their location. Cass Business School trumpets its location in London’s Financial District. SDA Bocconi points to its home in Milan and talks up its connections to the luxury goods sector. Other programs suggest there’s inherent value for future leaders in experiencing another business culture.

For European students, that foreign business culture might be the United States. According to this bit from MBA Channel, multiple European schools have recently taken the big step of opening American campuses. Spain’s IESE Business School just opened a branch in New York City. France’s SKEMA is currently working on its US location, which will specifically target Europeans who want to study in America. For European students America is a dream, says Alice Guilhon, SKEMA’s dean. And an outpost in the US will boost SKEMA’s prestige, as well: To be well-known in America is leverage for the visibility of the school in the world.

But as the Economist points out, location could soon become completely irrelevant. Young people have grown up interacting and building relationships online, and modern technology threatens to make distance an obsolete obstacle. In 20 or even 10 years, students might not need to cross an ocean to learn international practices.

Even so, Skype can’t replace eating gelato in front of the Duomo or strolling through Hyde Park.

With the national number of GMAT test-takers rising to 267,000 last year, India is clearly a big source of b-school applicants. We wrote about the GMAC’s new office in the country a couple of months ago, but that’s not the only US-based institution looking to India for expansion. According to this article, several American business schools hope to build campuses on the subcontinent.

Why now? Historically, foreign schools haven’t been allowed to operate in India. Instead, they’ve had to partner with native institutions. But the Indian parliament is currently considering a bill that would open the country’s educational system to outsiders. American institutions including Duke’s Fuqua School of Business are marshalling forces to open new Indian outposts as soon ASAP if the legislation goes through. They’re talking to local officials, shopping for land, and drawing up building schematics.

The bill comes in response to ever-increasing demand for spots at the nation’s top universities and business schools. Application rates are simply too high for existing schools to accommodate, and many students don’t want to go abroad. The numbers are staggering. One figure estimates India will need 600 more universities and 35,000 more colleges over the next 12 years. India has 14 million enrolled students; the Parthenon Group, an educational consulting firm, estimates economic growth will boost that number to 22 million by 2014. “The volume of students looking for education is just unbelievable,” says Eileen Peacock, VP for the Asia office of the Association to Advance Collegiate Studies of Business.

Lots of details aren’t clear yet, like the tuition and fees schools could charge and how the admissions process will work. Plus, universities will have to cough up an $11 million fee to enter the country. And there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to attract Indian students in large enough numbers, especially the less well-known institutions. But they’ve certainly got plenty of demand to work with.