Catch up on your b-school news with some of this week’s top stories:

How Hard Do MBAs Work? (Poets & Quants)

Here’s an interesting statistical breakdown of the average workweek for MBAs around the world. Can you guess which continent logs the most hours?

B-School Chart of the Week: Most Popular Job Functions by Industry (mbaMission)

This interactive chart from mbaMission is helpful if you’re trying to decide which industry you want to enter and what kind of functional role you want to fulfill.

Get MBA Application Advice From the Trenches (U.S. News Education)

Past MBA applicants reflect on their own experiences and offer some helpful advice for prospective students.

Harvard Tops the 2013 MBA Rankings (Financial Times)

For the first time in eight years Harvard Business School pulled ahead of Stanford Graduate School of Business to top the Financial Times MBA Rankings.

Don’t see your favorite article from the week? Share what you’ve been reading in the comments or tweet @ManhattanGMAT

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Harrison Kratz, Community Manager at MBA@UNC. See the bottom of the post for more information about the author. 

While employed full time, the prospects of continuing your education can seem like a daunting task. Business school can be challenging, yet furthering your education can give you far better career opportunities and the ability to move into managerial positions more quickly. Fortunately, colleges today offer greater flexibility with part-time classes that are offered at night or online; some individuals are even able to attend school full time online while working. Whatever path you deem best for your situation, here are five tips on balancing your school and work life:

1. Don’t overdo it.

Find the course load that fits your situation, not overtakes it. Many colleges offer classes part time, once or twice a week, and online classes give you the advantage of being able to work from anywhere at any time. You may want to take only one or two classes per semester, and while it may take longer to complete your program, it will prevent you from being overwhelmed. Keep in mind: If you plan on receiving financial aid, you usually need to take a minimum of two courses to be eligible.

2. Choose your class load wisely.

In this U.S. News Education article, Menachem Wecker recommends that you balance course difficulty. Stagger your most difficult classes over multiple semesters. If you are taking two courses at a time, opt for a difficult course and one that you can complete with ease. This will make your journey far more comfortable.

3. Communicate your plans with your employer.

Going back to school is meant to further your skills and career, thus making you a greater asset to your company. With that in mind, be sure to gain your employer’s trust and keep them in the loop on your school plans. This will hopefully buy you some leeway at work or at least win you some understanding, but your company may supportive enough to offer tuition assistance. Be sure to explain to your supervisor how your education can benefit the company, continuing education making you more productive and management ready.

4. Don’t neglect sleep and exercise.

You cannot forget to take care of yourself – first and foremost, make sure that you exercise regularly and get adequate sleep. Trying to manage your work and school life can cause you to burn out quickly. Exercising will keep you feeling healthy and alert. Sleep is essential for focus. While you are at it, avoid snacking on junk food while doing schoolwork ” choose nutritious options!

5. Manage your time well.

Become an expert in time management. If you want to be successful in school and at work, you will need to be organized and able to prioritize. Plan specific times to do your schoolwork in order to avoid procrastination. Include your social plans in your schedule, and if you find that you are short on time, prioritize the most important things first. You may have to take a break from some social commitments if time does not allow for them, but in addition to sleeping and eating well, don’t forget to give yourself time to just relax and read a book or watch television. This will help maintain your sanity as you juggle your full-time job and business school classes. Good luck!

Bio: Harrison Kratz is the Community Manager at MBA@UNC, the online MBA program offered through the University of North Carolina. Harrison also sticks to his entrepreneurial roots as the founder of the global social good campaign, Operation: Social Santa. When he’s not working, Harrison switches his focus to great food, watching any sport that’s on TV, all things Disney, and traveling. You can find Harrison on Twitter: @KratzPR.

In my first year as an MBA alumna and as a startup entrepreneur, I have realized that the same lessons for startups apply to how you might conduct yourself in business school.

Two years is not a long time “ ask any recent grad “ and making the most of the experience is something every student should think about before they arrive on campus.

I’ll admit I could be stretching this analogy “ but since startups and MBAs are my life, here is some of the best advice I’ve received as an entrepreneur that I think applies to making the most of your MBA. Read more

Recently, 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 more.”

Although Chris considers the two years he spent at Duke Fuqua to be some of the most incredible of his life, he realized that, had he had a leg up when he had arrived, he would have immediately felt more comfortable. Many of his former GMAT students felt the same way.

That’s where Eric Caballero came in. After Chris and his co-writer Carrie Shuchart received great feedback and reviews for their book, Case Studies and Cocktails, Eric wanted to help Chris bring his lessons for pre-MBA students into the classroom.

And so, on Saturday and Sunday, July 23 and 24, Manhattan GMAT will be hosting its first ever pre-MBA Boot Camp. This two-day course will provide enrollees with a refersher of Economics, Statistics, Finance, Pricing and Accounting, all applied in the context of a B-School case study. The course takes place in New York.

In addition, the course will be free if students provide feedback about their experience.

Inetersted? If so, email ecaballero@manhattanprep.com/gmat/ or check out more info here.

The folks at mbaMission always recommend getting started with your MBA applications as early as possible. By taking action now, you can dramatically improve your chances of gaining admission to a top MBA program in the coming years. It is never too soon (and certainly not too late) to take several crucial steps to shape your MBA candidacy. So they’re presenting a five-part series to provide a step-by-step timeline to help guide you down the long road of applying to business school. These guidelines assume that you are setting out a year ahead of the January deadlines. Even if you are starting later, you should be able to leverage this timeline to help you prioritize each step along the way. This week, they lay out what you should be doing May through July. For more information on mbaMission and how they can help you in this process, click here.

View Part 2 here.

May

Brainstorm and Start Writing Essays
We at mbaMission always tell our clients, You can’t turn a bad idea into a good essay. We insist on taking our candidates through a lengthy brainstorming process (which begins with a thorough questionnaire) to discover the stories that make each candidate distinct. Even as you uncover your stories, it is still important to consider them from as many different angles as possible. While this will help ensure that you understand the various weapons in your arsenal, Read more

by Jonathan McEuen, guest blogger

Jonathan McEueun is a Manhattan GMAT grad who is off to Wharton this fall. We asked him to share his application process with us. What follows is Part 5 of 5 posts in a series about his experiences. You can read Part 4 here.

Decisions, decisions

I’ve written so far about my experience preparing for and taking the GMAT, writing and editing (and occasionally re-writing) essays and gaining confidence for the interview process, all of which led into the result “ in broad strokes, a yes or a no.   In this last post, I’m going to describe my experience after getting the yes I was hoping for and the process of confirming my enrollment in a full-time MBA program. Read more

The two authors of Case Studies and Cocktails, Chris Ryan and Carrie Shuchart, were recently interviewed on The MBA Show. See what they have to say below about dating, relationships, sex, and b-school jargon:

by Jonathan McEuen, guest blogger

Jonathan McEueun is a Manhattan GMAT grad who is off to Wharton this fall. We asked him to share his application process with us. What follows is Part 1 of 5 posts in a series about his experiences. We hope it gives those of you who are going down a similar path some insight into the decisions, work and thought that goes into applying to business school.

I was wrapping up my doctoral thesis in Neuroscience when I first started thinking about business school.  My research had taught me to see the process by which an experiment can grow into a potential drug candidate, and that left me eager to participate in the process of bringing innovations from the lab to market.  In addition, I had planted the entrepreneurial seed in my mind back as an undergrad, and by the end of the PhD process, it had grown into an urge to jump back into the business of science.

So Why Business School?

Halfway through the PhD process I wasn’t yet convinced that business school was the best answer for my position. Then, I started working with a student-run consulting group , and Read more

by Jenn Yee, guest blogger

I arrived at business school without a shred of background in economics, statistics, or higher-level mathematics. Kellogg called me a non-traditional student, but most of my pre-business-school friends just said I was flat-out crazy.

With a background almost exclusively in media and education, I went into business school a little naïve about how much would be expected of me academically, socially, and emotionally. It took a little while for me to adjust; I felt uncertain about the strength of my background. Additionally, everyone looked so shiny and happy in the halls “ I wasn’t sure if anyone else was having this experience.

It turns out that quite a few of them were.

Here are some things I learned while attending business school with a non-traditional background, and how to cope. Read more

Historically, business has always been a boys club – picture spiffy suits, cigar clubs, and golf course negotiations. That was back in the day, of course, and recently women have become much greater players (think Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo).  Even so, gender equality – or inequality –  remains a hot-button issue, and some recent press has us taking a second look at women’s status in the business world.

When The Harbus reported recently on the academic gender gap at Harvard Business School, it stated that women were shocked by a marked historical difference between men and women’s academic performance at business school. The article goes on to detail how the women (the article’s authors in particular) combated their surprise by researching the causes of the achievement gap, looking to understand how personal, social, and demographic characteristics affect the academic experience.

After reviewing several possibilities, the researchers found that the most substantiated cause for women’s underperformance at HBS was their feeling of discomfort towards speaking in class.  The women reported feeling less comfortable participating due to their perceived difference in academic and professional backgrounds.  They also found themselves self-editing in class in order to manage their image outside the classroom.

Read more