Would-be MBA students getting ready to take the GMAT might be in for a little surprise when they show up at the testing center. In addition to all the usual security measures—including video monitoring and the computer adaptive test itself—test takers will soon be asked to submit to a new one: a biometric device that uses an infared light to capture the test-taker’s unique “palm vein pattern.”

Pearson VUE, the company that administers the GMAT for the Graduate Management Admission Council, plans to announce the new security effort tomorrow, but BusinessWeek got a sneak peak at it today.

The Fujitsu “PalmSecure” device will be rolled out next month at 16 testing centers in India and Korea for GMAT candidates. It goes live in the U.S. this fall, and when fully deployed will be used in 400 facilities in 107 countries by May 2009.

The announcement comes as the b-school world is embroiled in a cheating scandal involving the GMAT–users of a now-defunct test prep Web site, Scoretop.com, have been accused by GMAC of using it to post and access live test questions, and GMAC has said it will cancel the test scores of anyone who violated its rules.

But the new security measure is designed to stop a different kind of cheating–the use of professional test takers, or proxies, to take the exam on behalf of someone else. GMAC’s been burned by this type of cheater before. Back in 2003, it busted a half dozen people who took the GMAT for others for about $5,000 a pop. GMAC canceled 166 scores as a result, and five of the six imposters ended up at Rikers.

More : businessweek.com

At a time when business schools are looking to diversify their applicant pools and to meet expectations from employers for more creative business leaders, growing numbers of institutions across the globe are accepting GRE® General Test scores for admission to graduate business school and MBA studies.

The Graduate Record Examinations® (GRE) General Test has been the gold-standard admissions test for graduate study for nearly 60 years. Recently, growing numbers of colleges and universities have begun using the test for admission to MBA and graduate management programs. The reason? It increases and diversifies the business program applicant pool, according to David Bach, Associate Dean of MBA Programs, Instituto de Empresa (IE) Business School, in Madrid, Spain.

“We are extremely proud of the diversity of participants in our programs in terms of their international backgrounds, gender, undergraduate majors, career trajectories and aspirations,” says Bach. “Accepting the GRE supports our efforts to attract high-quality participants from very diverse backgrounds, including students who may not have previously contemplated an MBA.”

In February, IE announced that it would begin accepting GRE test scores for admissions to all its management degree programs, including the MBA. IE is ranked as one of the top ten business schools world-wide by the Financial Times. In recent months, other highly regarded European business schools have decided to accept GRE scores for their graduate business programs. These include Helsinki School of Economics, Barcelona School of Economics, ESADE Business School in Barcelona and the European School of Economics in London and other cities.

Articles about the trend toward using the GRE test, in addition to the GMAT® test, for business school acceptance have appeared in Business Week, the Times of London and Inside Higher Education. Most recently, the GRE business school phenomenon was reported in the Beijing Times.

In a Jan. 8 Inside Higher Education article, Derrick Bolton, Director of MBA Admissions, Stanford Graduate School of Business, suggested that accepting the GRE test in addition to GMAT may help boost the pool of women candidates.

“The GRE test takers are more likely to be women, and more likely to be undergraduates or just a year out, while the GMAT is more popular with those who have been out a few years. … If we are able to fish in both of those pools, how can that hurt us? [There are] definitely some people who would not have applied to the MBA program had we put an additional barrier of requiring the GMAT.”

In June 2006, Stanford began accepting GRE scores to boost diversity in its business school applicant pool. In recent months, the GRE Program has approved applications to receive GRE test scores from Georgetown University McDonough School of Business, MIT Sloan School of Management, University of Michigan Ross School of Business and Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School.

“Accepting GRE scores makes good business sense,” says ETS Associate Vice President David Payne. “Accepting both GRE and GMAT tests will improve the size, diversity and quality of the applicant pool and student body. Clearly, these are the kinds of tangible benefits that business schools value and what the global business community increasingly demands to meet the challenges of the 21st Century.”

“Some people are surprised to learn that the GRE test measures the same basic cognitive skills as the GMAT test,” Payne adds. “In fact, ETS actually developed the GMAT test some years ago, so we are keenly aware that it does not measure business skills. Like the GRE test, it measures knowledge and skills that admissions officials must evaluate when considering applicants for graduate programs.”

More : marketwire.com

UNA started a 12-month program in business administration for graduate students in January.

This is a full-time residential program open to all college students, and it caters to international students who do not meet the UNA’s Master of Business Administration program requirements.

Upon completion of the program, students receive a graduate certificate in business administration.

Students can also pursue a bachelor’s, an associate’s or an online MBA.

“If they have used their time wisely, they can earn a graduate degree,” said Dr. Kerry P. Gatlin, Dean of the College of Business.

Students can get an online MBA through universities like Columbia Southern and Phoenix.

International Student Services Specialist Linda Allen suggests that CSU may be more “cost-efficient.”

“The cost of CSU will be almost the same as the UNA MBA program,” said Allen.

Students seeking enrollment in this program are not required to meet any prerequisites or submit GMAT scores, which MBA students must do.

This program is designed for international students who may have to finish in a 12-month period due to financial or other reasons. Students who have joined and dropped from the MBA program may opt for this course.

The program is designed to be cost-effective.

“There are no book costs,” said Gatlin. “Textbooks are provided.”

“For students sensitive about costs, this is a plus,” he said.

International students enrolled in this program require the same documents, like the I-20 and Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) requirements, and have to pay the same amount in international students’ fees and health care services as other international students.

Allen said that the ESL students at UNA were approached with this option to see if this is “something that they want.”

Dr. Ward, interim director at the Center for International Programs at UNA, who recently visited India to recruit students for UNA, will be pitching this option to the potential students there, said Allen.

Upon the successful completion of the program students will have a transcript showing the courses they have taken and a certificate showing that they have passed the program.

More : media.www.florala.net

Sacramento State’s Office of Graduate Studies and the Graduate Diversity Program are offering a workshop aimed at helping students apply to graduate school.

While 20 years ago it was seen as a great achievement to have a four-year college degree, today it is more common for high school graduates to seek higher education, said Jose Martinez, supervisor for Graduate Admissions. Students are taught in high school that the more education one has, the better his or her chances are for a well-paying job, he said.

Martinez said technology is pushing education requirements.

“Today the bachelor’s degree doesn’t carry the same weight as it used to. It is getting more and more competitive to get into a graduate program,” Martinez said.

One of the most important factors to consider when applying to graduate school is making a timeline of when test scores, transcripts and other important documents need to be turned in. Knowing exactly when a particular school wants a student’s test scores in, as well as how long it takes to send in transcripts from a school, is among other factors students should look at.

Different universities need specific test scores, depending on what program students apply for. The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) and Law School Admission Test (LSAT) are just some tests that students may have to take. The GRE is a general test that includes verbal and critical reasoning, the GMAT is a test usually for students looking to apply to a business program and the LSAT is for those students looking to get into law school.

Students interested in applying must realize that while most application processes only require one application, they will more than likely have to turn in two: one to the university and one to the major’s admission office they are applying for.

Every program has a deadline for application submissions. Application deadlines and completion deadlines may vary for different universities. Students should call the Graduate Admissions Office of the school they wish to apply to for more information.

Application deadlines are before the completion deadlines. Completion deadlines usually mean that all transcripts and test scores must be sent in by a certain time following the application deadline.

More : media.www.statehornet.com

It’s not a UNC class, and he won’t be graded. The junior chemistry major is in an MCAT prep course at the Chapel Hill Kaplan Center.

“It’s more independent work than I initially expected,” Spencer said. “You put in maybe 20 hours a week. It’s pretty rigorous.”

The five-month class costs $1,849 and meets for three hours on Sundays.

Spencer, who is planning to take the MCAT this spring, sits in a room with about 25 other students, bent over their thick textbooks as they listen closely to instructor Dan Verges.

A first-year medical student at UNC School of Medicine, Verges said he took this class two years ago. He credits Kaplan with helping him achieve his high MCAT score.

He said he has seen the interest in prep courses grow during the years. “When I took the MCAT, I think there were only two people in the room who hadn’t taken a Kaplan or Princeton Review prep course.”

Last year 300,000 students nationwide took Kaplan courses to prepare for tests including the SAT, ACT, MCAT, GMAT, LSAT and GRE, said Russell Schaffer, senior communications manager for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions.

More : media.www.dailytarheel.com

Pursuing higher education, whether in India or abroad, can worry the best of students and their parents, given the high cost involved for lodging and tuition.

For instance, a leading business school in the United Kingdom charges 67,000 dollars (Euro 55,000) for tuition fees and living costs, while a similar school in the United States charges 110,000 dollars (Euro 90,000).

This expenditure could turn away potentially brilliant students, especially those hailing from a developing country such as India, were it not for independent and non-profit institutions like the Cyprus International Institute of Management (CIIM) in Nicosia.
According to Gaurav Dubey, a Special Projects Officer at CIIM, Indian students are making a mark.

In an interview conducted over phone, Mr. Dubey told ANI that at present, CIIM had 256 students, of whom 22 were Indians, and in the next year, he said 30 Indian students would be selected or invited to join the institution.

These students are from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Orissa, and cities like Delhi, Mumbai Bangalore, and one Indian-origin student from the UK, said Mr. Dubey.
Elaborating further on the advantages in joining a business school like CIIM, Mr. Dubey said the key objective of the institute is to provide the same standard of education as available in institutions like Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, the London Business School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wharton, Kellogg and Warwick at costs that were far less than what is demanded by business schools in the United States and the United Kingdom.

More : thaindian.com

With barely three days to go for the Common Admission Test (CAT), thousands of management seat aspirants across the State are in their final, frenzied moments of preparation.

Across the country, about 2.3 lakh candidates are expected to appear for next Sundays test, which will decide who gets into the seven Indian Institutes of Management and a hundred other B-schools.

A huge majority of candidates will be vying for the 1,600 postgraduate diploma in management seats offered by the IIMs in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Lucknow, Indore, Kozhikode, and the newly launched institute in Shillong. This year, about 120 additional seats will be available for students keen on the institutes at Bangalore and Shillong

More : hindu.co

The part-time Master of Business Administration (MBA) program of the College of Business of the University of Nevada, Reno is ranked No. 17 in the United States by Business Week Magazine.

The College of Business MBA program, started in 1965, accommodates the needs of professionals by offering courses during the evening hours. The program allows students to complete the degree at a pace that fits their personal schedule, without the interruption of their professional career.

The ranking of our MBA program is a strong reflection of the quality of our students and faculty of the college, said Kambiz Raffiee, associate dean and director of the MBA program. The commitment of the MBA office and leadership of the college reinforces the quality of this graduate program and our commitment to students.

More : unr.edu

The admissions process for the third batch of IIM-As Post Graduate Programme in Management for Executives (PGPX) is now complete.

IIM-A received 1352 applications this year, which is an increase of about 60% over the previous year. IIM-A is targeting a batch size of 80 with one section.

The average GMAT score for the entering batch of 2008 is a high 731. This is amongst the highest in the world. For instance, the entering class of 2006 at Harvard Business School had an average GMAT score of 707, and Wharton had an average GMAT score of 713.

More : mbauniverse.com

Career Launcher, a premier Masters of Business Administration (MBA) test preparation institute in India, is all set to join the league of B-schools. Indus World School of Business (IWSB), as the B-school is christened, will induct its first batch next year.

With an investment to the tune of Rs 50 crore, the B-school will come up in Greater Noida. It will accept scores of Common Admission Test (CAT), Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) and Xavier Admission Test (XAT), for a strength of 90 students in its first batch.

The B-school will eventually look at seeking approval from the regulatory body of technical education in the country, All India Council for Technical Education

More : business-standard.com