Top MBA Connect

Football season not only highlights the speed, grace, power, and talent of the world’s best athletes, it also reminds us of the motivating effect of engaged competition. The highly visible games challenge well-trained athletes to demonstrate their skills, often in direct competition with close rivals. Even casual fans recognize the important consequences associated with victory and defeat, raising the importance of performing well in the heat of competition.

While the MBA is one of the most popular graduate degrees, it's not for everyone. Since an MBA requires a significant investment of your time and money, you need to be sure that an MBA is the right choice. An MBA may be right for you if you meet the following criteria:

Gino Marchetti is a Strategic Accounts Manager and Partner at Orion International, the nation’s largest military recruiting firm. He has a BS in Economics from the U.S. Naval Academy and an MBA in Finance from USC Marshall School of Business. Prior to joining Orion, he spent five years serving in the U.S. Navy as a Surface Warfare Officer. In this interview, he offers advice for veterans who are considering getting an MBA and explains why more companies are looking to hire military MBAs.

Already half a year has passed since the start of the MBA program at ESMT, and after a three-week summer vacation we are back to our studies. We used the vacation to relax and recover from the intensive program, but also to reflect on what we learnt so far and to plan our future career. Some students from our class used this opportunity to do internships in different companies and some other students did their first steps for establishing their own businesses.

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.

Financial services companies reported a 27% increase in career opportunities for MBAs in 2011, as stated in the QS Jobs & Salary Trends Report 2011/12. The number of financial services career opportunities for MBAs are predicted to go up another 14% in 2012. Read on for information on MBA programs in finance and the companies that hire MBAs for finacial services jobs.

According to Catalyst, women earned 36.8% of MBA degress awared in 2010-2011. Because of the low percentage of women MBAs, there are several MBA scholarships available to women. A sampling of them are listed below, starting with general scholarships programs and then US and international MBA scholarships.

The following are MBA scholarships and fellowships for African Americans. Many of these are run by independent organization. However, each school offers their own funding as well.

While there are several MBA scholarship programs aimed at minority groups, there are only a few aimed specifically at Latinos. In addition, since Latino-specific MBA scholarships are difficult to find, you will probably have to apply to several general Latino scholarship programs as well. Here is a list of some of the best places to start: