McDonough Dean Paul Almeida Delivers State of the School Address
Paul Almeida addressed faculty and staff at the annual State of the School event earlier this month. The newest dean of the McDonough School of Business discussed his vision for the school, as well as the future of business education, and commitment to interdisciplinary solutions. Continue reading…
Drexel LeBow Professor Talks Pitfalls of Paid Parental Leave Laws
Natalie Pedersen, Assistant Professor at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business wrote an opinion piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer in which she examined the dilemmas many companies face surrounding parental leave for new parents. The main issue Pedersen explored in the article was the complexities of accommodating the needs of new mother versus new fathers.
Well-meaning employers have faced costly legal battles for providing too much leeway for new mothers. Estee Lauder, for example, employed a policy in 2013 that gave new mothers six weeks of paid parental leave in addition to paid time off to recover physically from giving birth. Fathers, under the company policy, earned two weeks of paid parental leave. This seemingly compassionate policy was actually the justification for a class-action law suit against the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is facing a similar class-action lawsuit for offering “primary caregivers” 16 paid weeks of parental leave after the birth or adoption of a child, but only two weeks for the nonprimary giver.
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the policy violated the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, both of which do not allow companies to pay employees differently and offer different benefits based on gender.
In fact, under federal law, U.S. employees are not guaranteed any paid parental leave whatsoever. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) does require that some employees are given three months unpaid parental leave.
Pedersen sites studies that show that giving new parents time off of work is important for several reasons. Babies whose parents stayed home with them when they were newborns have been shown to have higher IQs and decreased infant mortality rates. Pedersen also mentions that paid leave is a wise move on the part of employers, because it will strengthen employees’ loyalty to the organization.
Companies who wish to provide benefits for new parents that extend beyond the minimum requirements of the FLMA do have options. Employers can give paid parental leave, so long as they are cautions about adhering to the parameters of the law. In fact, they can even offer slightly different benefits for new mothers and new fathers without legal ramifications. Birth mothers are recuperating from the physical aftermath of pregnancy and birth, so they can receive paid time off for medical reasons, whereas new fathers are ineligible for this benefit.
Natalie Pedersen teaches legal studies at LeBow College of Business, and has been published in several journals, including the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies and the Hofstra Labor and Employment Law Journal. She earned her BS in economics from The Wharton School at UPenn and a JD from Harvard University.
Business, University Leaders Speak Out Against DACA Repeal
When the Trump administration formally announced yesterday that it would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA)—putting a six-month expiration date on legal protections granted to approximately 800,000 people who entered the U.S. illegally as children—universities and business leaders were quick to condemn it. Indeed, vocal defense of the “Dreamers,” as those in the DACA program are called, resounded from Silicon Valley to the Ivy League.
“Dreamers contribute to our companies and our communities just as much as you and I,” tweeted Tim Cook, CEO of Apple and an MBA graduate of Emory’s Goizueta Business School. “Apple will fight for them to be treated as equals.” In an earlier statement Cook noted that Apple employs hundreds of people covered by DACA.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg released his own statement on his personal Facebook page. “This is a sad day for our country,” he wrote. “The decision to end DACA is not just wrong. It is particularly cruel to offer young people the American Dream, encourage them to come out of the shadows and trust our government, and then punish them for it.” He added that the young people covered by DACA contribute to their communities and to the economy. “I’ve gotten to know some Dreamers over the past few years, and I’ve always been impressed by their strength and sense of purpose. They don’t deserve to live in fear.”
DACA was enacted in 2012 under former President Barack Obama by executive order, allowing individuals who were brought to the United States as children or teens before mid-2007 to apply for protection from deportation and work permits. To apply, they had to be younger than 31 at the time the program was created, have come to the U.S. before turning 16, and have lived in the U.S. for at least five years. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reports that roughly 788,000 have had their requests for DACA status accepted.
University and Business School Leaders Denounce DACA Repeal
A Center for American Progress survey of roughly 3,000 DACA recipients found that approximately 72 percent of respondents were in higher education, 13 percent of those pursuing master’s degrees. And leaders in higher education—including at several leading business schools—were every bit as vocal as major business leaders in calling out the Trump administration’s decision and pledging their support to Dreamers.
Geoffrey Garrett, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, called the repeal of DACA “bad for the economy and bad for society” in a tweet that also expressed his support for an official statement issued earlier in the day by University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutman.
Maryellen Reilly, Wharton Deputy Vice Dean for Admissions, financial aid and career management, quoted from Gutman’s statement in her own tweet: “At Penn, we are committed to providing a safe and welcoming environment for all of our students and we will do everything we can…”
Columbia University, home to Columbia Business School (CBS), issued its own statement in opposition to the repeal of DACA. “Columbia unequivocally opposes the ending of DACA and is working with others in higher education to urge Congress and federal officials to reinstate DACA’s protections and protect the rights of those with DACA status during and after the ‘wind-down’ process that has been announced,” it read. It went on to add that in keeping with Provost John Henry Coatsworth’s November pledge, “our policies and plans aim to ensure that students who had DACA coverage are able to proceed unimpeded with their studies and that all students in the community feel safe and understand beyond question that Columbia’s dedication to inclusion and diversity, including of undocumented students, is and will remain unwavering.” CBS quickly retweeted its parent university’s stance and linked to the full statement.
And the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley tweeted: “We stand with our undocumented students.” That tweet linked to a statement issued by three ranking university administrators—Chancellor Carol Christ, Vice Chancellor for Equity & Inclusion Oscar, and Undocumented Student Program Director Meng So—that called on the Berkeley community to stand with undocumented scholars at the university and beyond.
“At a time when our campus and community values are being challenged by the prevailing national rhetoric and policy making, we must deepen our resolve and commitment to our principles and to each other,” read the Berkeley administrators’ statement. “During these difficult moments, we must defend strongly held values of dignity, diversity and community.”
The Kelley School of Business at Indiana University at Bloomington, for its part, retweeted its parent university’s official statement and pledge to support all its students.
In the statement, IU President Michael A. McRobbie called out the decision to end DACA “especially in light of the administration’s prior statements expressing support for young people protected by DACA and the strong bipartisan support that exists nationwide for maintaining the program.”
McRobbie went on to underscore the university’s support of all its students. “We believe that all of our students, regardless of their background or country of origin, bring to our campuses unique perspectives and experiences that enrich our living and learning communities,” he wrote. “In doing so, they reflect who we are—and what we strive to be—as a university that provides all students with the opportunity to expand their knowledge and succeed in a place where they feel valued, respected and at home.”
In fact, IU features an entire website—DACA @ IU—dedicated to helping DACA students at the university. On the website, the university states that though bound by state and federal laws, it will take steps to support all IU students regardless of documentation and will only inquire into a person’s immigration status when required by law. IU also provides counseling and support to students who have immigration-related concerns, including connecting students with available resources for educational and living expenses.
Penn, Columbia, Berkeley, and IU are just a few of countless schools that spoke out against the Trump administration’s decision. Prior to the final decision to end DACA, 600 college and university presidents signed a statement promoting DACA back in November. Even more recently, Duke University’s President Vincent E. Price wrote a letter in support of the program, and University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel made a statement as part of the university’s September 1st convocation saying, “I would like to reiterate to all of our students, from our own state, elsewhere around the country, and from all around the world, that you are welcome here … You make us a stronger university and enrich our community and nation by your many talents, hard work, and the diverse perspectives and life experiences you bring to campus.”
As information continues to be provided by the Trump administration, many universities and schools are preparing to provide up-to-date information for their DACA students and all who are affected. Check in with your school for more information.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
A Recommendation Revolution Is Underway in MBA Admissions: What You Need to Know
I’m busy, you’re busy, your boss is most definitely busy. Indeed, publications ranging from Men’s Health to the Atlantic, the Washington Post to Forbes are all reporting that “busyness“ has become the new status symbol for our times. Which is part of what makes asking someone to write you a letter of recommendation for business school so daunting. Now, try telling that person that you actually need five different letters for five different schools. Oy vey.
As uncomfortable a spot as it puts applicants in—it’s no better for recommenders. Even your most vociferous supporter is going to wonder what in the world she’s gotten herself into when she realizes that helping you in your pursuit of acceptance to business school means taking time away from work or play or family or whatever else to labor over leadership assessment grids, each a little different from the one before, and write 10 slightly different answers to 10 slightly different questions. Here’s hoping that your top-choice school doesn’t happen to be the last one she gets around to…
Good news. The graduate management education industry recognizes the strain that letters of recommendation put on applicants and recommenders alike and has been wrestling with ways to make the process easier for everyone involved. To this end, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) established a committee made up of admissions representatives from dozens of leading business schools to brainstorm about ways to lessen the burden while still collecting the third-party assessments of candidates that are so critical to the MBA application process.
GMAC Pilots Common MBA Letter of Recommendation
As an outgrowth of that committee’s work, GMAC last year piloted a common MBA letter of recommendation (LOR) that schools can choose to incorporate into their applications to reduce the burden placed on applicants and recommenders alike.
“The Common Letter of Recommendation (LOR) effort is intended to save you and recommenders valuable time by providing a single set of recommendation questions for each participating school,” reads the GMAC website. “This allows your recommenders to use the same answers for multiple letter submissions, alleviating the workload of having to answer different questions for each school multiple times. You benefit because it makes the ask for several different letters to be written on your behalf much easier.”
Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, NYU Stern School of Business, and Michigan’s Ross School of Business were among the first schools to pilot the Common LOR last year. In addition to a single set of open-ended essay questions, the pilot Common LOR also included a leadership assessment grid inviting recommenders to rate applicants on 16 “competencies and character traits” grouped into four main categories of achievement, influence, personal qualities and academic ability.
“At Johnson, we saw the Common LoR as a clear opportunity to improve the admissions process for candidates and their recommenders in a way that would also add value to our own assessment of applicants,” Judi Byers, Johnson executive director of admissions & financial aid, told Clear Admit. “A thorough and consistent review is important to us and the grid provides a straightforward base of insights that can be assessed and compared reliably while the accompanying letter adds meaningful detail and context,” she added.
Soojin Kwon, managing director of full-time MBA admissions and program at Ross, sees applicants and recommenders as the main beneficiaries of the Common LOR and is pleased that more schools are coming on board. “As more schools adopt it, applicants won’t have to feel like they’re burdening their recommender with completing multiple rec letters with different questions and ratings grids,” she told Clear Admit. “This year, more than a dozen of the top 20 schools are using it.”
Ross was also among the schools to first pilot the Common LOR last year, and Kwon served as part of the GMAC committee that helped craft it.
Common Questions Easy to Agree on, Common Leadership Grid Not
“What we found in using the Common LOR this year past year was that the questions gave us helpful insights into applicants, particularly on the important area of constructive feedback. The questions, however, were fairly similar to what we and other schools were using before, so it was easy for the AdCom to use it,” she notes.
Those questions are as follow:
- Please provide a brief description of your interaction with the applicant and, if applicable, the applicant’s role in your organization. (50 words)
- How does the performance of the applicant compare to that of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? (E.g. what are the applicant’s principal strengths?) (500 words)
- Describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response. (500 words)
- Is there anything else we should know? (Optional)
“The rating grid was quite different from what we’d used in the past,” Kwon continued. “It was also the most difficult part for the GMAC advisory group to develop and get agreement upon. The group worked this past year to revise and simplify the grid so that AdComs could get more meaningful insights from it.”
This year, the 16 competencies and character traits from the original grid have been distilled to 12, with specific questions about analytical thinking and information seeking omitted. Johnson and Ross have both incorporated the revised leadership grid into the LOR distributed to applicants as part of their applications, as have most other schools that have this year decided to incorporate both the grid and open-ended essay question portions of the form. UT’s McCombs School of Business and Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, notably, still seem to feature the earlier version of the leadership grid in their application, the one that calls on recommenders to assesses applicants on 16 competencies and traits.
HBS Class of 2019 Profile Reveals Subtle Shifts, New GRE Details
The official Harvard Business School (HBS) Class of 2019 profile is now out—capturing in numbers and pie charts the real live students who started class for the first time yesterday. Not a lot has shifted since HBS released its preliminary class profile earlier this summer, although the Class of 2019 now includes 928 students, suggesting that 13 of those the school was expecting to enroll when it originally reported the class size at 941 made other plans. There are 942 students in the Class of 2018, by comparison.
The percentage of minority students also slipped slightly, from 26 percent reported in the preliminary profile to 25 percent in the actual class (last year’s actual percentage was 26 percent). Female students comprise 42 percent of the class, as earlier reported, again down one percentage point from last year.
In terms of median GMAT, 730 is still HBS’s reported score. That’s the same as last year—and as predicted earlier in the summer. The score range reported included a low of 580 and a high of 790, with the middle 80 percent of the class falling between 700 and 770. Last year, the middle 80 percent was a shade lower, coming in between 690 and 760.
HBS Joins Wharton, Yale in Posting GRE Scores
New in the actual profile posted today are stats on GRE scores, marking the first time HBS has published such data. Chad Losee, the Managing Director of Admissions and Financial Aid, also made a point of sharing this information in a recent blog post, revealing that 12 percent of the class submitted GRE scores and the remaining 88 percent submitted GMAT scores.
“The GRE and GMAT are different tests … and we are truly indifferent about which one you submit,” Losee writes. “Really. We are familiar with each test. Choose the one that allows you to best show your strengths, then move on to the other parts of the application.”
According to the recently posted profile, median GRE scores for both verbal and quantitative at HBS were 164. The score range for verbal was 147 to 170, and the range for quantitative was 151 to 170. HBS did not provide information about the average writing score.
The Wharton School, too, shared GRE data for the first time this year, although specific details about what percentage of the class opted for one test over the other were not made available. Wharton reported average scores, not median scores: 163 verbal, 162 quantitative, and a 4.7 average writing score. The Yale School of Management (SOM) also included GRE test scores in its Class of 2019 profile (median verbal, 166; median quantitative, 164; middle 80 percent verbal, 157 to 170; middle 80 percent quantitative, 160 to 169.)
If three makes a trend—then a trend we have of leading schools emphatically underscoring that they are indeed test agnostic by including GRE scores within their official class profiles.
“We Know You’re Much More Than a Test Score”
In his post, Losee also took pains to underscore that much more than scores go into determining who joins the HBS class each year.
“We know you are much more than a test score,” he writes. “The whole application and interview process are designed to help us get to know you. We’re trying to imagine what you would contribute in the HBS classroom and community. As I’ve written before, our learning model depends on a wide range of talent and perspectives in each class—and we know that not all that talent is measurable in a test.”
Obviously unchanged from the preliminary profile were the total number of applications HBS received this year—10,351—a 6 percent uptick over last year. The profiles posted today and earlier this summer both cited an 11 percent admission rate—which would indicate that 1,138 students made the cut—and a 91 percent yield.
This story has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
Do Women Entrepreneurs Get Less VC Funding? Wharton and Columbia Researchers Find a Large Gender Gap
Over the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about more women in business. From the promotion of organizations like the Forté Foundation—which seeks to enhance women in business—to CNBC claiming “the Golden Age for women entrepreneurs has finally begun,” enterprising women seem to be everywhere. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that the deck is stacked in their favor. In fact, researchers from Columbia Business School and The Wharton School found the opposite was true.
The Gender Gap in Startup Funding
In a paper published in the Academy of Management Journal titled, “We Ask Men to Win & Women Not to Lose: Closing the Gender Gap in Startup Funding,” researchers looked at how women fared compared to men when they were trying to get funding for their startups.
After reviewing footage from the TechCrunch Disrupt startup competition, the researchers found that women were asked entirely different types of questions about their companies compared to their male counterparts. Men received more questions about their project’s potential for growth, while women received questions on the opposite end, about their potential risks and losses. This difference in questioning had a measurable impact on the funding each startup received.
The research paper, written by Dana Kanze (a Columbia Business School Ph.D. student), Laura Huang (a Wharton School Professor), Mark A. Conley (a Columbia Psychology Ph.D.), and E. Tory Higgins (a Columbia Psychology Professor), sought to delve into the enormous gender gap revealed in venture capital funding. According to the paper, only 2 percent of VC funding goes to women entrepreneurs in spite of the fact that women own 38 percent of U.S. businesses and represent 7 percent of venture capital firms.
One of the keys to this drastic difference in funding was how VCs—both male and female—framed funding questions for women-created businesses. Kanze explained the thought process in a Forbes article.
“According to the psychological theory of regulatory focus, investors adopted what’s called a promotion orientation when quizzing male entrepreneurs, which means they focused on hopes, achievements, advancement, and ideals,” Kanze said. “Conversely, when questioning female entrepreneurs, they embraced a prevention orientation, which is concerned with safety, responsibility, security, and vigilance.”
Inside the Research
To study how this difference in questioning impacted women and men entrepreneurs, the research team reviewed the Q&A sessions of 189 startup entrepreneurs—12 percent of whom were women—held by 140 prominent venture capitalists—40 percent of whom were women. Using software to analyze each session, researchers discovered that 67 percent of questions posted to men were promotion-oriented while 66 percent of questions posted to women were prevention-oriented.
In the end, the study found that this difference in questioning led to a huge difference in VC funding. Among comparable companies, the research team found that businesses that were asked prevention-oriented questions raised (on average) $2.3 million in funds in 2017, while their promotion-focused counterparts raised $16.8 million—nearly seven times more.
“In fact, for every additional prevention question asked of an entrepreneur, the startup raised a staggering $3.8 million less, on average,” Kanze told Forbes. She continued, saying, “Controlling for factors that may influence funding outcomes—like measures of startups’ capital needs, quality, and age, as well as entrepreneurs’ past experience—we discovered that the prevalence of prevention questions completely explained the relationship between entrepreneur gender and startup funding.”
However, there was some good news. For female entrepreneurs who received prevention-focused questions but responded with promotion-type answers, they were able to raise $7.9 million, versus $563,000. This suggests that regardless of how VCs phrase their questions, entrepreneurs can recover much of their funding potential if they answer in the positive.
To test their findings, the research team conducted an experiment that recreated the TechCrunch Disrupt conditions with 194 VCs—30 percent of whom were women—and 106 entrepreneurs—47 percent of whom were women. After removing startup specific details, the team asked the VCs to allocate $400,000 to their chosen entrepreneur.
According to the Kanze in a Harvard Business Review article, the team found that: “Angel investors allocated an average of $81,113 to startups in the prevention question, promotion answer condition—1.6 times larger than the $52,369 average allocated to those in the prevention question, prevention answer condition. Similarly, ordinary investors gave an average of $96,321 to the prevention question, promotion answer condition—1.7 times larger than the $55,377 average given to the prevention question, prevention answer condition.”
Speaking with Professor Laura Huang
To gain additional insight into the results of the research paper, we spoke with Professor Laura Huang at the Wharton School. Here’s what she has to say.
- What was the most surprising result that came out of your study?
“It was surprising that both men and women investors were equally as likely to ask prevention-focused questions to women, as opposed to promotion-focused. It wasn’t that men were the only ones biased, but that both genders were equally as likely to be biased.”
- Do you have any advice for female entrepreneurs looking to raise venture capital?
“Stop it in its tracks. When you see something like this happening, stop it immediately and redirect the response so that you’re making yourself on equal footing. Don’t allow that train of thought to go through where you’re getting asked prevention-focused questions and investors are focused on the risk. Answer the question that’s asked but redirect your response toward possibilities and success.”
- How do you think VC funding can change for the future to close the gender gap?
“Part of it is an awareness on the investors’ side. It’s also up to the entrepreneurs to redirect each question toward the right focus. A lot of this gap is implicit. Investors don’t realize they’re asking prevention-focused questions of women; they just automatically ask certain questions to each gender. Awareness around the tendency toward prevention-focused questions for women entrepreneurs and a focus on redirection toward promotion is key.”
