Best MBA-Related Reads for the Week ending 2005.01.21 [Edit 1]

• Why big corporations are hiring fewer Ivy Leaguers. - "A coveted undergraduate admission to an Ivy League college is a ticket to success, right? But a recent paper by Peter Cappelli and Monika Hamori, both of the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that the prestigious degrees aren't as valuable at America's largest corporations as they were a generation ago. If you want to run GE, you might be better off attending the University of Connecticut than Yale." (Found at Slate)
• What DOES happen to a dream deferred? - FutureMBAGirl writes to let us all know that there's no end to the anxiety: "This weekend has not lead to major boosts of my self esteem. One of the banks at the top of my list decided I was not worthy of an interview. The rejection has lead my anxiety to rise to levels unseen since my business school application." (Found at futurembagirl.blogspot.com)
• How Long Before Yoav Gets Beat Down? - Yoav Shapira writes about his frustration with people who are talking in class just to hear the sound of their own voices. How long will it be before his classmates find the blog and pressure him to stop posting this stuff? Yoav's got more guts than I do, assuming that Yoav's no pseudonym and that picture he posted is real. Kudos and keep it coming! And I'd be surprised if this post isn't true of every business school in the country. I've attended a dozen classes at various business schools and saw plenty of it. (Found at Yoavs.blogspot.com)
• Are Job Seekers Entitled To a Formal Response? - "Over the last eight years I've heard from many people complaining about how corporations are like black holes when you are looking for a job. No matter how many times you try to contact them, you often can't even find out if they've received your job application. .... Do you agree with [this] position that corporations are rude and not fulfilling their end of the bargain in relation to people who apply for work from them? I'd love to hear your thoughts." Sound familiar? Sound off! He's asking for reader comments, so send him your thoughts. (Found at Career Journal)
• B-School Naming Rights Prices Keep Climbing - "Big-time wealth offers the chance to buy a Learjet, an island, an NBA basketball franchise or, these days, a more enduring and worthy bauble: a big-time business school with your name on the gates. In the case of the most prestigious U.S. business schools, the price of immortality -- or something akin to it -- has been going up." (Found at The Detroit News)
• Elite Schools Get Asses Kicked by IU Kelley MBAs - Indiana University's Kelley School of Business earned the Global Prize title in A.T. Kearney's Global Prize Case Competition, beating nine other teams from schools including HBS, Kellogg, MIT Sloan, Wharton, Columbia, and Chicago. (Found at Indiana U)
• FT 2005 Business School Rankings - "While the Financial Times 2005 MBA rankings aren't due out until this Monday, the listing was available for a brief time period on the publication's web site yesterday. We're not sure if this was inadvertent or purposeful - but the rankings are no longer visible today. Luckily, a post in the Business Week discussion forums listed the full rankings before the FT site pulled them away..." (Found at Clear Admit & Business Week Forums)
• Performance vs. Credentials on The Apprentice - A review of the second season of The Apprentice is the last place I'd expect to find this discussion, but it happens nonetheless, down in the 12th paragraph. Quote, "These questions have come up repeatedly on the show: Which serves people better in the business world, education or experience? What's the correct balance? How much should a Harvard MBA "count"? Trump thinks it counts for a lot; he's always favored Apprentices with name-brand diplomas, at times to the point of fetishizing them. Andy had his moments, but the crust of graduation had barely cooled on him, and it showed; still, Trump's fascination with Andy's Harvard degree (and national debate title) kept him in the running longer than he'd have lasted otherwise." I'd say that's a fair assessment of most of America's take on high-falutin' degrees. We're often so bowled over by them we fail to fairly assess an individual's performance. (Found at MSNBC)
• Where Are They Now? Harvard MBA Opens High-End Veterinary Practice - Collins Anderson became a vet after finishing his Harvard MBA. Before that he was an investment banker in NYC. Do you suppose he wrote his career essays about becoming a doggy doctor? I doubt it. Takeaways: (1) Some people do have the guts to break free of the Naficy-prescribed fast track; (2) pet medicine is going the way of human medicine and it's going to be a big business in all of the country's wealthier areas (and no HMO involvement either!); (3) You may still need another degree beyond your MBA to do what you want to do. (Found at My San Antonio.com)
• Recruiters Speak on Prestige MBA Degrees Vs. Local Programs - Surprise Surprise! Recruiters judge recruits differently depending on where they obtained their degrees. "Most recruiters say the prestige issue is far less important when gauging MBAs from regional business schools. More important typically are factors like experience and character." Lots of interesting takes on name-brand MBAs from the people who do the hiring. (Found at The Kansas City Star)
• Goldman Sachs CEO Speaks at Huntsman Hall - I'm less interested in the fact that he spoke, than this description: "The chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs addressed more than 400 students in the Huntsman Hall auditorium. So many students attended that some were forced to watch a closed-circuit broadcast of the lecture in an adjacent room due to the turnout." Takeaways: (1) It sucks that facilities are insufficient to fit everyone in that wanted in; (2) Huntsman's proximity to undergradutes probably meant that some undergraduates were sitting in seats that MBA students would have wanted (had they been on time!); (3) That Wharton could handle the overflow with video hookups indicates not only a high level of technical sophistication but also experience with having had to do this before, which begs the next question: how often does this overflow situation happen? One more interesting nugget: "Paulson also discussed the strong relationship [Goldman Sachs] has with Penn, saying that more people were hired from the University to work at Goldman Sachs in 2004 than from any other school in the country." (Found at The Daily Pennsylvanian)
• Forehead ad auction hits $30,000 - Andrew Fischer, from Omaha, Nebraska, has pledged to have a non-permanent logo or brand name of the winning bid tattooed on his head for 30 days. "The way I see it I'm selling something I already own; after 30 days I get it back," he told the BBC Today programme. (Found at AttaGirl)
• Wharton's MBA Admissions Blog! - Lessons For Marketers - The Wharton MBA Admissions Blog gets kudos from a marketing blog, mostly for being very content-rich. (Found at Diva Marketing)
• Best New Blog Added to My Feeds This Week: Business Boy - I'm reluctant to link to anyone that just has three posts under his belt, but the writing's good (he describes himself as "an essayist by nature") and so I'm adding this link, in part to pressure him to stay regular. (Found at Businessboy.blogspot.com)

Edit 1: Added story about Wharton Adcom Blog found at Diva Marketing