2015 – A Year in Business Education: Part 2

As we settle further into 2016, let’s take a look at some of the most interesting stories from the second half of the year gone by (see the first half here). There was no shortage of interesting things happening in the world of business education between July and December!

July

July saw Harvard Business School’s online arm, HBX, formally launch its first course, while Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business appointed Kathryn Barraclough as the head of its MBA program, going a tiny way towards redressing gender imbalance at the very top! University College London, one of the world’s top-10 universities according to QS rankings, launched a dedicated school of management, Oxford Univesity’s Saïd School of Business picked up an award for aiding the UK Royal Mail’s transition into the private sector, and entrepreneurial activities at Michigan Ross received a US$60 million boost. Ren, an HBS graduate, sounded like he could do with a boost, offering US$10,000 to anyone who could help him find love (his website is down now, so we can only hope the young man found what he was looking for), while we looked at the role of another type of matchmaker: admissions consultants. Naturally, when you first meet your perfect match, you want to show yourself in the best light, so news that you could cancel a GMAT score without a big 'C' showing up on your score report was welcomed by MBA applicants. Of course, you won’t stay with your b-school love forever – here are the biggest employers of MBAs from European business schools. We also took a look at the world’s highest-paid MBA CEOs and surveyed some of the more unusual business customs around the world.

August

In August we released the QS TopMBA.com Applicant Survey 2015 – one of our biggest annual research exercises, taking a look at who MBA applicants are, what they want and why they want it! We broke down some of the report's main findings into articles: the most popular study destinations, the openness of applicants to a career change and where they see themselves in a decade’s time. Oh, and how salary expectations compare to reality. Aside from that, we took a look at the costs involved in applying to a top MBA program. The investment is worth it though – maybe one day you’ll end up as the CEO of Google. Over 90% of the class of 2015 at MIT Sloan also felt it was so worth it that they made a gift to their school. We saw an HBS alumna’s startup based on Geisha traditions become one of the US’s fastest-growing companies, and we also took a look at research from Stanford about attracting early-stage investors. 46 business schools signed a pact at the White House to perform better in terms of gender diversity. And finally for August we looked at four business books every business student should own.

September

In September, we took a more detailed look at some of those Applicant Survey findings. We looked at how target industries compared with the reality of the MBA jobs landscape, and, crucially, how salary expectations differ around the world. We profiled one of our scholarship winners, (learn more about those here) who has a rather unconventional background: a mechanical engineer who worked on the Large Hadron Collider, no less! Some top employers told us why they want MBAs – probably pleasant reading for the then-incoming class of 2017! But it’s not all about jobs and money – what role should business play in dealing with the refugee crisis in Europe, asked an LBS professor?  Back to the topic of MBAs, we also asked whether a generalist or specialist approach is best, and looked at what’s important when choosing your school. And to mitigate all the seriousness, here are some gifs we think sum up MBA life…

October

October marked the release of what might be termed as our biggest research release of 2015 – the QS TopMBA.com Jobs & Salary Trends Report 2015/16, which, as the name suggests, looks at MBA jobs and salary trends across the world, based on our annual employer survey! There’s a summary of the findings here, a look at the schools which produce the highest-paid graduates here, and the biggest MBA industries by hiring volume here. In other news, the integrated reasoning element of the GMAT is reportedly becoming more interesting to admissions committees. Here’s how to make both a long and short list of schools to which to apply. Perhaps sustainability is important to you – if so, check out this ranking! Perhaps you want to go to Stanford GSB – if so, check out this Q&A with the school’s admissions director. Perhaps you want to study in Canada – if so, perhaps you’re wondering what Justin Trudeau’s election victory means for business in Canada. On the subject of the changing international landscape, October also saw Credit Suisse release a report revealing that China is now home to the world’s biggest middle class. And finally – you may like this one – Arizona State’s W.P. Carey School of Business decided they were going to offer full scholarships to their entire class of 2018!

November

We started November by looking at the countries where you can earn the most after an MBA. We also released another, smaller, research report looking at how prospective students go about the business of researching  schools. On the subject of reports – here are the class of 2015 employment reports for Harvard, Stanford and Wharton, respectively. IMD released the results of a study into which countries were best at attracting and retaining business talent (the results were good for IMD, shall we say), while Thinkers50's ranking of influential thought leaders in management was utterly dominated by business school academics. We asked two such academics to debate whether the traditional case study method remains the best way to teach business and management. We also saw several pieces of research being published by schools – covering everything from cross-cultural business ethics to the passivity behind financial deceit to corporate culture. We spoke with the organizer of networking event, the MBA World Summit, and to round off the penultimate month of year, took a look at the declining popularity of the finance industry. 

December

Our ROI reports bookmark the year, with the North American version coming out in December. We published a quick summary, as well as looking at schools which produce the most entrepreneurs (though some are asking whether startup culture has become too pronounced at business school). But in order to enjoy the hard outcomes we look at in the report, you’ll need soft skills. We analyzed these in a four part series, published over the course of December (and a little bit into January). And to finish the year on a positive note, though there’s a long way to go before we reach parity, we see a rising number of female billionaires.

Here's hoping 2016 will be as eventful a year in business education!