The prospect of returning to school for an MBA can be a bit daunting, especially after a few years in the workforce. Once you get in, you might want to get a head start on your classes. Or maybe you’re considering applying, but you aren’t sure about the classroom experience”what it’s like, whether you feel prepared, if it’s something you really want to do. Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you can get a taste of the b-school curriculum ahead of time.

Many schools essentially offer entire classes online: lecture notes, classroom handouts, assignments. For example, MIT is a big participant in the OpenCourseWare program, an international consortium of schools that post course materials online, completely free of charge. So you can take a closer look at many of the Sloan School of Management’s offerings before you ever even make a campus visit. They’ve got bits and pieces of an impressive number of classes online, including:

• Economic Analysis for Business Decisions
• Optimization Methods
• Introduction to Financial and Managerial Accounting

Columbia has some seminars posted, and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business posts interesting videos of speakers and panel discussions at their YouTube channel. You’ll have to sort through commencement videos and the like, but it’s worth investing some time to see GE’s Jeff Immelt talking about leadership.

Even if you’ve already been admitted to your school of choice, you might want to brush up on your fundamentals before arriving on campus. You wouldn’t want to be ill-equipped for the dreaded cold call. There are a number of classes that will help lay a firm foundation for your first year coursework. Carnegie Mellon has a stats class, and Berkeley has audio of both micro and macro economics courses available.

Then there’s the just-plain-interesting. Yale University has made Professor Ben Polack’s Intro to Game Theory available here. (Follow it up with Sloan’s Game Theory for Managers.) You can even download lectures onto your iPod, but be careful not to get distracted by backward induction and evolutionary stability”we wouldn’t want you to walk into traffic. Johns Hopkins has a class on occupational health, while Tufts offers one on multilateral negotiation.

And that’s just the beginning of the intriguing b-school resources. Next week we’ll round up great podcasts for prospective and incoming b-school students.

We all know that the essays on the GMAT are scored separately and that the schools don’t care as much about the essay scores. We also know we have to write the essays first, before we get to the more important quant and verbal sections, so we don’t want to use up too much brain-power on the essays. Still, we can’t just bomb the essay section; the schools do care about the essays somewhat. So how do we do a good enough job on the essays without expending so much energy that we’re negatively affected during the multiple-choice portion of the test?

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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.

The recession has unleashed a wave of articles about the job market for MBAs. First came the bad news that hiring was down, then we saw articles explaining how it’s getting better again. We also saw MBAs expanding their career goals, from casinos to health care.

Now, US News reports that 2010 grads are faring better than the class of 2009. This is good news: with hiring more or less back on track, it looks like b-school graduates are out to get a job in what they want, not what they can find.

The Financial Times reports that because students are finding more jobs than last year, they are holding out for what they specialized in. Rob Weiler, the director of the career services center at UCLA Anderson School of Management, says, “The students have learned to expect the worst after all they’ve gone through, but from what I’ve seen most are ploughing ahead and are optimistic that they will get what they want. There’s not a ton of people settling.”

The takeaway? Go after what you trained for. Things are looking up!

MBAs are famously high earners, but a new breed of grads is getting serious about doing well by doing good. According to this article at Business Week, there are more opportunities than ever for b-school students who want to make a difference. While socially conscious MBAs once toiled away at non-profits, making a fraction of their classmates’ salaries, today’s grads are betting they can turn a profit tackling society’s ills. “Today’s problems are massive”and they represent tomorrow’s opportunities,” says John Woolard, Haas MBA and CEO of BrightSource Energy, which builds solar-power plants. Companies cited in the article are taking on big issues like recycling, childhood obesity, and affordable higher education.

But while the new possibilities for a big payday are certainly appealing, money isn’t grads’ number one concern. Many say they just want to contribute to a cause they’re passionate about. “If you believe in something, you go for it because it makes you happy,” says Ron Gonen, who burned through his savings and strained his credit cards to launch his business, RecycleBank.

We’re always quick to point out the multitude of options offered by an MBA. Isn’t it nice to know saving the world is among them?

We’ve heard a lot of bad news about the job market recently “ articles have been popping up about the difficulties MBAs are having finding jobs (though that may be starting to change) and more MBAs are exploring alternate careers. With all this news, should you still go to business school?

This CNN article gives several major reasons, from employers who expect an MBA, to how an MBA can show your dedication to the field. Elizabeth Freedman, author of “The MBA Student’s Job-Seeking Bible” and “Work 101: Learning the Ropes of the Workplace Without Hanging Yourself,” writes that “Having an MBA — as opposed to just a bachelor’s degree in business “ is sort of like traveling someplace by plane instead of taking the train. With either business degree, you may eventually wind up at your final ‘destination’ “ but the MBA will get you there faster.”

Overall, the article makes a good case for why you should still elect to go to business school.