Wisconsin MBA

A program on the move

The Wisconsin School of Business naming gift, combined with the opening of the new MBA wing of Grainger Hall, produced unprecedented excitement within our full-time MBA program. Students, faculty, and staff alike, regained a sense of purpose and passion that has our program poised for further progress.

In May 2008, we graduated our third class since implementing a new model for the full-time MBA program, based on highly focused career specializations rather than a general management MBA. Since the change, our fundamentals have remained strong.

From an admission perspective, we saw a 14 percent increase in application volume, which translated into a fall 2008 entering class size of 125.

Student quality improved, with GMAT and work experience averages showing healthy increases. Consistent with the excitement surrounding the program, our latest student survey revealed that the substantial majority of first-year students were satisfied with both their experience in the first year and with their specialization.

On the career side, we were close to last year’s record employment rate, with strong increases in our average starting salary. This is particularly impressive given the challenging national economic environment and difficulty in assisting international students with employment, due to visa constraints.

In the year ahead in our admissions efforts, we will continue to expand and strengthen the pool of applicants by better communicating our new MBA strategy in our marketing efforts, cultivating untapped pockets of student prospects, and increasing our diversity recruiting efforts.

Other goals include:

• Strengthening the core curriculum
• Identifying new broad-interest electives
• Expanding relationships with employers

By focusing on bringing in great students, delivering a rigorous and practical curriculum within a community environment, and expanding career options, we can continue to build a quality educational experience. Our internal metrics are becoming competitive with business schools ranked 20th through 25th nationally, and our recent external rankings are beginning to reflect this.