Berkeley Haas Opens Fall 2017 With Its Largest Full-Time MBA Class Ever and New Building
Like many top business schools this time of year, the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley is welcoming its incoming class of MBA students—but at Haas it’s a bigger group than ever before moving into brand-new digs that promise to be among the greenest in the nation.
There are 284 students in the entering class—32 more than last year—which brings what has long been the smallest leading business school more in line with some of its peers. Plans for next year include additional expansion, to a class size of 300. The grand opening of a new academic building—in progress for the past decade—made increasing the class size possible.
“The intimacy of the class is really an important part of what Haas is about,” Dean Richard Lyons acknowledged in a June interview with Clear Admit. But at just 250 students, where the school has hovered for many years, it has been a gross outlier—a mere third the size of Wharton and not even a third the size of Harvard. “Part of the reputation of the school is a function of its scale, and there are times where you are just not at the right reputational scale—you’re too small,” Lyons continued. “It’s a super intimate experience—there’s no question about that—but target companies want to go to a place where there are enough people graduating that they can send a team of recruiters, for example. If you are too small you are below the threshold.”
“We Don’t Want to Lose the Smallness That Makes Us Unique”
Precisely because the intimacy and close-knit nature of Haas is such an integral part of its culture, the administration, including the admissions team, has approached the process of increasing the class size carefully and thoughtfully. “I think people would be surprised by the amount of care that has been taken to consider potential ramifications,” Peter Johnson, assistant dean for the full-time MBA program and admissions, tells Clear Admit, adding that his team considered necessary adjustments of everything from budgets to graduate student instructors, program office staff to career coaches. “We have been very intentional about it because we don’t want to lose the level of smallness that makes us unique. A lot of our students were very concerned that it not change the experience for future students.”
Not only is the incoming class larger than any before it, it is also one of the strongest academically, Johnson says. Average GMAT scores and GPAs have risen over each of the past three years. The average GMAT score this year was 725—a jump from last year’s 717—and the average GPA climbed, too, from 3.64 to 3.71. Application volume also increased this past year, which meant that though the school admitted more students overall to increase class size, the acceptance rate remained constant at 12 percent. HBS, by comparison, generally accepts approximately 11 percent of its applicants.
The incoming class includes 40 percent women, up slightly over last year though still off from the record 43 percent that made up the Class of 2016. International students drawn from 42 different countries make up 39 percent of the class, up from 38 percent last year. Haas leads HBS, Wharton, and Kellogg in this metric, whose incoming classes are all around 35 percent international. Despite concerns that talk of potential immigration and visa reform under the current administration could have a chilling effect on international application volume, applicants from abroad applied in equal numbers this year as last, Johnson notes. U.S. minority students comprise 29 percent of the class, down from 32 percent last year.
In terms of what they did before coming to Haas, members of the Class of 2019 are an incredibly interesting bunch. Among them are a business development manager from Intel who led development of Google’s self-driving cars, an investment banker who ran from San Francisco to New York City over the summer to raise money and awareness of ALS in honor of his grandmother, a Bain consultant who earned four culinary diplomas in her spare time, a student from Nepal who helped senior political leaders and ex-ministers from five major parties negotiate a new constitution, and the founder and CEO of an Indian irrigation company that saves 4 billion liters of water annually while enabling smallholding farmers to produce 10,000 additional tons of food per year.
A quarter of the incoming students worked in consulting prior to Haas, and another 20 percent worked in finance. In terms of undergraduate degrees, 42 percent studied business or economics, 36 percent hold STEM degrees, and 8 percent graduated with degrees in the humanities.
“Top students from around the world with diverse backgrounds and amazing accomplishments continue to choose us for our distinctive culture,” Morgan Bernstein, executive director of full-time MBA admissions, said as part of an article on the Haas website. “No one else has the culture and community that we do.”
Can Chou Hall be the Greenest Academic Building in the U.S.?
The Haas Class of 2019 is the first to inhabit the newly opened Connie & Kevin Chou Hall, an 80,000-square-foot facility that boasts state-of-the-art classroom technology, flexible learning spaces, and features such as efficient heating, cooling, and lighting systems. These, in addition to rainwater cisterns and 24,300 square feet of exterior windows, helped it earn both LEED Platinum certification and WELL certification (an additional accolade applied to buildings that promote the health and well-being of their users).
Kevin Chou and Dr. Connie Che appearing at the Berkeley Haas School of Business last March, after announcing their record-breaking school donation (Noah Berger/2017)
The building bears the name of Kevin Chou, BS ’02, founding CEO of mobile gaming company Kabam, and his wife, Dr. Connie Chen, in recognition of their $25 million donation, the largest to date from an under-40 alum. The remaining funds for the $60 million building also came entirely from alumni and friends of the school.
In addition to LEED Platinum and WELL certification, Chou Hall has been designed to divert 90 percent of waste—including through the mandatory use of reusable mugs and water bottles that can be replenished at filling stations and compost and recycling bins on every floor—which will allow it to achieve zero waste certification by summer 2018. This would make it the first business school in the country to do so.
Early-stage concept art for the Connie & Kevin Chou Hall.
There are no places to dispose of other types of trash—encouraging those who use the building to adopt a “’pack-it-in, pack-it-out’ mentality,” according to Courtney Chandler, senior assistant dean and chief strategy and operations officer. “It might take a little getting used to, but we don’t think it will be hard for the Haas community—we’re all about questioning the status quo and redefining business-as-usual,” Chandler said in a story on the Haas website, referring to two of the school’s defining principles.
The building includes eight tiered classrooms and four flexible classrooms, totaling 858 new classroom seats, as well as 28 student and meeting rooms. This provided the much-needed additional space Haas required to expand its class size. A sixth-floor event space will open next month, and a café offering sustainable, locally sourced food—what else—is slated to begin serving students in early 2018.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
San Francisco’s Top 3 Economics MBA Programs
When it comes to learning about economics, what better place than Silicon Valley?
San Francisco holds a number of schools that offer an MBA with a focus on economics. The Bay Area is not just a place of lax tech bros though. It’s a place booming with culture and treasures like the Golden Gate Bridge and the Pacific Coast Highway. The beach isn’t too far, either.
But if you are looking for a place to build a resume, San Francisco is it: It ranks among the nation’s best performing cities. San Francisco is also second among cities in the U.S. for GDP growth associated with tech firms.
While many schools in the area hold prestigious MBA programs, here are the top three for where to obtain an economics MBA.
Haas School of Business – UC Berkeley
The Hass School of Business at UC Berkeley has been around for nearly 30 years, since 1989. The Berkeley name itself holds a sense of prestige, but the Haas School even more so. It’s the oldest business school at a public institution. That’s something.
As for its MBA programs, the Haas School offers a full-time, Executive, and a part-time MBA, for which students can take classes in the evening or on weekends. The full-time MBA takes two years and includes a variety of focus areas students can do via electives. One area of focus is economic analysis and policy.
This focus gives candidates that economic edge needed to make it in the field. This focus starts from a student’s first year though the electives tend to become more dominant in the second year. The courses make up 60 percent of the curriculum. Some of these electives use a macroeconomic lens to look at the global economy. Others look at the housing and urban economy from the viewpoint of investors and real estate developers.
Recruiters have come to Haas from healthcare, internet, and solar companies. The program takes just 275 students a year. Those interested in the Haas School of Business must apply by Sept. 21.
Stanford University Graduate School of Business
The Stanford University Graduate School of Business came about after former U.S. President Herbert Hoover, a Stanford alum, helped created the business school in 1925. About 800 students are enrolled in the program at a given time. Sometimes, the program could hold half that size. The Class of 2018 enrollment featured more than 417 students.
The noted university offers a single, full-time MBA program. The business school ensures its curriculum is flexible to fit every student’s needs. By the end of their first quarter, students develop a personalized plan for their foundational courses. That way, they get the basics down before moving onto establish their focus with their experience and goals in mind.
For those interested in economics, Stanford offers two types of expertise: political economics and managerial economics. Here, students can learn about financial crises, contemporary economic policy, managing global political risk, and many more topics.
F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business – Babson College San Francisco
The F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College’s San Francisco campus opened not too long ago, in 2011. It offers a unique blended learning program. Not all students can manage the time to come into a classroom. This program is flexible and blends online classes with in-person classes every seven weeks on Fridays and Saturdays.
Core classes get into the nitty gritty all business students need: financial reporting, managing talent, strategy, and others. But students also get the opportunity to take a series of Signature Learning Experiences that take students outside the classroom and into a hands-on learning environment.
Course topics vary from a myriad of things—and economics is among them. The core courses include one on managerial economics and another on how to apply data to economics. The school also gives economics classes about game theory, trade, globalization, and health economics.
2017 Forté Forums Scheduled in 12 Cities Beginning August 14
It’s August, which means it’s almost time for the Forté Forums. These free events are hosted by the Forté Foundation, a nonprofit consortium of leading companies and top business schools committed to advancing the role of women in business. Scheduled for 10 U.S. cities as well as Toronto and London beginning on August 14, they are designed to help women learn more about the value of the MBA.
Whether you are a college student looking to explore options for the future, have been in your job for a few years and are thinking about a change, or are looking for a way to catapult yourself to the next level in your career, the Forté Forums are for you.
Choose to attend a forum in a city near you, and you can learn more about how the MBA can help you advance in your career, expand your earning potential, or provide opportunities to study abroad. With more than 100 leading business schools in attendance, you can also learn more about different programs directly from the school representatives who know them best.
The Forté Forums also draw leading MBA businesswomen from a range of industries and career stages, eager to share their experiences and provide advice and guidance. And they give you a chance to network with other high-achieving women interested in learning more about the MBA. Former attendees of the Forté Forums report that women they’ve met at the events have become part of a lasting peer support network.
Last but not least, the forums can help you begin to think about how to finance your MBA, offering valuable information about Forté’s scholarship opportunities, as well as many other funding sources.
Whether you know nothing at all about business school and want to see what it’s all about—or you’re planning to apply this fall and want to connect with others doing the same, don’t miss out. Register for a nearby Forté Forum today!
2017 Forté Forums Calendar:
August 14th: Washington, DC
August 15th: Boston
August 16th: Atlanta
August 17th: Miami
August 21st: Seattle
August 22nd: San Francisco
August 23rd: Los Angeles
August 24th: Houston
August 28th: Chicago
August 29th and 30th: New York City
August 31st: Toronto
October 16th: London
Learn more about the Forté Forums, including how to register.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
Getting Paid: Highest MBA Salaries in San Francisco
San Franciso means many things to many people. Equal parts counter-cultural mecca, ground zero tech hub, haven for diversity, and real estate development nightmare, SF conjures images of Silicon Valley introverts and Haight-Ashbury hippies, as well as the high-earning Facebook employees who displace them.
The International MBA Advantage in San Francisco
Business is most definitely a subject that breaches borders. With finance and trade booming across the globe, up-and-coming business leaders need to be prepared to take on these topics and stay relevant in an increasingly global and interconnected world. Acknowledging need, many business schools offer students the chance to specialize their MBA degree or major in international business, with the goal of preparing business students with the specific skills and knowledge to take on business around the world.
Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business Online MBA Revealed
The Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business is the latest in an ever-growing list of well-recognized business schools to formally introduce a brand new Online MBA option for business students.
