Top MBA Connect

As an MBA admissions consultant, business school applicants often ask me whether it is appropriate to write about a desire to change careers in their applications. Some worry that expressing an interest in doing something different will negate the professional experience they have. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sarah Ramsey is the Director of Recruitment and Admissions at UC Irvine's Paul Merage School of Business. Not only does Ramsey work at the Merage School of Business, she is also a graduate of Merage's Fully Employed MBA (FEMBA) program, and is very active on Twitter. In this interview, Ramsey discusses MBA trends such as the increased interest in non-traditional MBA fields such as technology, healthcare, and entrepreneurship.

Dr. Ashutosh Deshmukh is the Chair of the Penn State iMBA program as well as a professor of Accounting and MIS. In this interview, Dr. Deshmukh discusses online MBA programs and their increasing popularity.

Joseph A. DiAngelo is the dean of the Erivan K. Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. DiAngelo has been on AACSB’s board of directors since 2003, and currently serves as their Vice Chair Elect. In this interview Dean DiAngelo discusses AACSB, online MBA accreditation, and how to decide if an online MBA is the right option for you.

Maryke Luijendijk-Steenkamp is the Director of Marketing & Admissions at Rotterdam School of Management - Erasmus University in the Netherlands. She has several years of experience working with MBA applicants. In this interview, Luijendijk-Steenkamp discusses MBA trends she has observed recently such as an increased interest in sustainability amongst MBA applicants as well as a rise in the number of female MBA applicants.

Nunzio Quacquarelli is the founder and managing director of Top MBA Connect's parent company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), as well as a recognized expert on the strengths, weaknesses, and specializations of business schools worldwide. He has an MA from Cambridge and an MBA from Wharton, where he started QS in a tiny campus office. Quacquarelli is responsible for the annual QS TopMBA.com Applicant Survey, QS TopMBA Jobs and Salary Trends Report and the QS Global 200 Business Schools Report. He is also the director of the QS World MBA Tour, the world's largest series of business schools information fairs.

Robert Mittelstaedt, is a dean and professor of management at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, as well as an experienced business co-founder, a board member of three public companies, and the author of two business books. The W. P. Carey School of Business has over than 10,000 students and is #77 in the QS Global 200 North America Rating. In this interview, Dean Mittelstaedt explains what to look for in an online MBA program.

A lot has already been said about the new Harvard Business School application. It is a big departure from what we have seen in the past, and the news is rocking the MBA admissions world. Here are a few more thoughts:

Patrick Brown, co-founder of Occam Education, shares the trends he sees in the MBA market. His company provides university students with a variety of services to help them pick the right "fit". He states that the best exercise students can do is to imagine where they see themselves in the future.

We don’t like to pass up the opportunity to talk to one of our business school partners. At the Sao Paulo TopMBA Connect event, James caught up with Rick Rudloph, Director of Admissions at the Duisenberg School of Finance based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.