In developing our Smart Choice online MBA ranking only AACSB and regionally accredited programs in the United States were considered, ensuring each program had already met the highest institutional standards of quality and accountability even before being submitted to the scrutiny and evaluation of our editors. From there we evaluated each program based on market reputation, recognition & awards, selectivity, accreditation and cost. If a program is on this list, you can be confident that it offers the quality, reputation and value to make it a truly Smart Choice for your online MBA.

Having taken a look at these rankings, we believe that they are solid and represent a good, subjective analysis of where you should look when choosing an online MBA degree.

Top 10 “Smart Choice” Online MBA Programs

#1. University of Florida (Hough Graduate School of Business)
#2. University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler School of Business)
#3. Indiana University (Kelley School of Business)
#4. Thunderbird School of Global Management
#5. Penn State World Campus (Smeal College of Business)
#6. Northeastern University
#7. Washington State University
#8. Florida International University (Chapman Graduate School of Business)
#9. Oklahoma State University (Spears School of Business)
#10. University of Massachusetts (Isenberg School of Management)

For the rest of the top 25 online MBA programs from SuperScholar’s Smart Choice awards, click here. The original article contains a description of each program as well as the costs of the program.

The programs on this list of top 10 online MBA programs are the cream of the crop, offering top rated highest-quality education from top professors, at well-respected and time-tested institutions. Their graduates are among the most sought-out MBAs on the planet. Some of the programs offer the flexibility to start or complete a degree on campus, and others require students to attend a mandatory on-site learning sessions a few times as part of the requirements for completing their degree.

Having taken a look at the rankings we have to agree that these are some of the best with schools like Carnegie Mellon, Lehigh University and Saint Joseph’s University appearing at the top. While these schools may be more selective than most, and thus not available to everyone, going to one of these schools would ensure you of a great MBA education from a reputable business school.

Here’s the top 5:

#1- Carnegie Mellon Distance Learning MBA
#2 – Lehigh University Online MBA Programs
#3 – Saint Joseph’s University Online Professional MBA
#4 – Thunderbird School of Global Management Distance Learning MBA
#5 – University of Michigan Online MBA

See the rest by clicking here.

Instead of just focusing on the bottom line, these MBA degrees also focus on social and ecological impact. Some MBA’s are focusing on sustainability. The programs aim to integrate traditional and online education as well as real world projects to encourage and foster thinking about how to more fully integrate sustainability into the essence of business. The hope is that “many graduates will start their own green-minded businesses and that others will work for established companies as “intrapreneurs,” blending sustainability initiatives into every function of a business, including operations, marketing, finance and strategy.”

Many people believe that real breakthroughs in sustainability and “green” will come through free market business innovation, and will become an essential component to improving the bottom line.

Ever dream of getting your MBA but thought the top schools were out of your reach? Well the website BusinessMBA.org has some nice tips on how to improve your chances for getting into one of the elite business schools for your MBA. The number one tip in our opinion is to not assume that you’re not qualified. Too many people think that the top business schools are out of their league and never even send in an application.

But if you play your cards right, you just may win the admissions lottery.

Here are the 10 tips for getting into a top ranked business school:

1. Understand what the school is looking for
2. Think like a marketer, not a student
3. Abandon “all-or-none” thinking
4. Do your competitive research
5. Craft a compelling career vision
6. Ensure that your career vision is believable
7. Convey a strong intellect and academic background
8. Use extracurricular activities to demonstrate leadership traits
9. Be strategic about your letters of recommendation
10. Be yourself during the interview

Source: 10 Steps to “Hacking” The Admissions Process At Elite Business Schools

An MBA Degree in Technology Management is listed as the best degree for gaining employment in the current economy. This list was put together using data from The Bureau of Labor Statistics and evaluates degrees based on well they do at matching you with a well-paying, high-demand job.

While it is disappointing not to see many other business degrees, it was encouraging to see that a business degree (MBA) got the number one spot.

So now you know what to get your MBA in!

The website The Best Colleges recently unveiled their rankings for the 25 Best Online MBA Programs. We think they did an excellent job with their rankings and think the prospective MBA student will find it very useful.

Here are the top 10 programs according to their list:

#1. The University of Florida, Hough Graduate School of Business (Gainesville, FL)
#2. EI Business School (Madrid, Spain)
#3. The University of Indiana, Kelley School of Business (Bloomington, IN)
#4. Thunderbird School of Global Management (Glendale, AZ)
#5. The University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flagler School of Business (Chapel Hill, NC)
#6. The University of Maastricht, School of Business and Economics (Maastricht, Netherlands)
#7. Babson College, F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business (Babson Park, MA)
#8. Duke University, Fuqua School of Business (Durham, NC)
#9. Penn State World Campus (College Township, PA)
#10. Drexel University, Lebow College of Business (Philadelphia, PA)

Click here to see the rest of the list

All of these programs are top-tier and high quality, and you can be sure that by going to one of these schools you will get the best online MBA education available.

What is The Hub? 

Hubs are member-based work and event spaces where social entrepreneurs, freelance professionals, artists, funders, students, mentors, and community leaders can work and interact. Working together, it’s hoped these groups will access market opportunities and capital, build community, and scale ideas.

Hubs are a type of co-working space in which members receive a set of tools and services from a community of professional hosts, mentors and local enterprises who are passionate about supporting innovative ideas. Depending on the location, Hub centers may offer donated legal services, mentor office hours, and unlimited coffee. Aside from the shared services, the real benefit to Hub members is the business incubator environment.

History of The Hub

The Hub began four years ago in London and quickly spread to 18 cities and across four continents. Today, there are nearly 4,000 Members of The Hub, interconnected by a place-based and online network. The Hub Bay Area is the first Hub location in the United States and was started in partnership with Hub Global by a San Francisco-based team who founded Good Capital and The Social Capital Markets Conference (SoCap).

“We are thrilled to be working with the people from Good Capital and SoCap, and the stellar team they’ve put together,” said Jonathan Robinson, co-founder of The Hub Global. “We have known them for years and are impressed at what they have accomplished at the forefront of a new kind of investing, and at the way they have been able to convene and build strong community.”

MBA Students Integral to United State’s First Hub

Hub Bay Area was designed by a team of architects, Hub Members, IDEO and MBA students at UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School. The space at the David Brower Center features collaborative workspaces, meeting rooms, private phones booths, kitchen and cafe, and lounge areas that reflect the dynamic working needs of its members.

Money, Mobs and Media

Being part of The Hub community includes access to their Innovation Series that will regularly produce interactive events focused on inspiration, aspiration and operation of social change. This summer, before the doors even opened, The Hub presented Money, Mobs, and Media, a panel featuring the founders of Kiva, Virgance, and Change.org. They discussed ways to create and scale community-driven non-profit and for-profit social enterprises.

“We are providing a home, inspiring community and support structure for those who are building solutions for people and planet. By connecting change-makers, sharing resources, and cultivating new ideas, we can massively increase the scale the impact of our collective work,” says Alex Michel, Managing Director of Hub Bay Area. 

The Future of Hub Bay Area

Plans are in place to extend Hub Bay Area to the Mission District in San Francisco in early 2010, and into the South Bay in 2011.

“Bringing the Hub concept to the Bay Area and beyond is a natural extension of what we are already doing,” says Kevin Jones, a founder of both Good Capital and SoCap. “We convene many of the people who are making the social capital market happen in an annual conference, but The Hub is where the rubber meets the road every day of the year.”

Prospective members should e-mail bayareahosts@the-hub.net for more information.

This month the MBA Roundtable released the results of its 2009 MBA Curricular Innovation Study indicating that 69% of MBA programs have significantly revised the curriculum in the past four years to improve the relevancy of the degree in response to criticism that they are not preparing graduates for today’s business challenges.

What Is Relevance?

Among the 69% of MBA programs making significant revisions to their curriculum, the most common change was the addition of ‘applied content’, or project-based courses. In addition to giving students more opportunities to take their learning out of the comfortable lecture hall and into the demanding real-world business simulations, respondents also reported that integration across topics and disciplines, as well as interdisciplinary content were popular changes.

MBA Programs That Get Into Details

MBA programs have traditionally focused on equipping students with big picture concepts, eschewing fine details of specific industries for personal leadership and decision making skills. Apparently that’s changing. The MBA Roundtable data reveals that 25% of MBA degree programs have added an industry specialization in the past three years. Common emphasis areas are healthcare, biotech, medicine, and entrepreneurship. Another change: about half the programs reported that they had added a focus on leadership development (as in, developing others) and global perspectives to their offerings.

Change is Good

And the changes just keep coming. 89% of all MBA programs surveyed are planning additional curricular changes.

“I think this is very promising news,” said Rodney Alsup, president of the MBA Roundtable. “It shows that there has been a concentrated effort among MBA programs to innovate and make changes that increase their relevance to both students and employers. Furthermore, this has been done in an educational environment that can be resistant to change, or, at the very least, has approval processes that make it difficult to make changes in a timely manner. Some schools need approval from their state boards of education prior to revising their curricula, for example.”

The motivation for these changes comes from both internal and external sources, according to the study. The most common motivator by far was internal quality improvement initiatives, with 64% of participants selecting it as one of their motivators. Among external motivators, “competitor schools” was the most commonly chosen answer, with 34% of respondents choosing it as one of their motivators.

If  you want to know more, check out all the results at www.mbaroundtable.org/events_preview.html.

The Personal Potential Index

Educational Testing Service (ETS) has created the ETS Personal Potential Index (ETS PPI), a web-based evaluation system that provides graduate applicants ratings on specific personal attributes deemed by graduate and professional school deans and faculty to be critical for academic success.

The tool is the first of its kind to evaluate students’ noncognitive or personal attributes. Specifically, the testing process measures:

• Knowledge and Creativity
• Communication Skills
• Teamwork
• Resilience
• Planning and Organization
• Ethics and Integrity.

These “soft skills” are considered essential for academic success. The launch of ETS PPI marks the first large-scale use of noncognitive measures for admissions in higher education.

Michael L. Jeffries, Associate Dean of Students at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Director of McNair Scholars & Minority Student Affairs, says ETS PPI will help identify candidates that might otherwise have been missed, while expanding opportunities for a diverse range of students. The McNair Scholars Program is a national initiative aimed at increasing the number of first-generation, low-income and/or underrepresented students in Ph.D. programs.

“The graduate community needs to continue to reduce barriers to graduate education and allow more underrepresented scholars to join the ranks of the professoriate,” explains Jeffries. “To the extent that the ETS PPI will broaden opportunities for students, it is something that I strongly support.”

Early Evidence of Success

Based on more than a decade of research, ETS PPI was developed in response to requests from graduate deans and admissions professionals to address a need for noncognitive measures to evaluate applicants. The development and introduction of ETS PPI comes with the full support of the independent Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) Board.

ETS PPI has been piloted for the past three years through the National Hispanic Research Center’s Project 1000, a program based at the University of Arizona that seeks to increase the number of underrepresented students in graduate school. ETS PPI also was successfully used during this time by ETS for selecting candidates for its summer intern program.

According to David G. Payne, Ph.D., Vice President and COO in the ETS Higher Education & School Assessments Division, research indicates that achievement gaps that exist in standardized tests do not exist in noncognitive measures, which is why ETS PPI is seen as a tool that may help to level the playing field for students seeking graduate and professional degrees, such as an MBA.

“Solid GRE scores and undergraduate grades are very important, but they don’t provide the complete picture of a candidate’s potential,” says Payne. “We’ve known for some time, thanks to research and anecdotal evidence, that qualities like resilience and teamwork were indicators of success in graduate school. The problem was how to measure them effectively. But now, with the introduction of ETS PPI, we have a tool that allows for accurate and valid measures of these critical personal attributes.”

Ready to Be Tested?

Students who have registered for the GRE General Test after May 1, 2009 will have the option of using ETS PPI and sending up to four ETS PPI evaluation reports at no additional cost. ETS PPI is not exclusive to GRE registrants. It is also available to past GRE test takers and others for a fee of $20 per report.

Student can create an ETS PPI profile online as well as contact information for the evaluators he or she would like to complete an ETS PPI evaluation. ETS then sends an e-mail to each evaluator inviting them to access the ETS PPI system to complete the student’s evaluation. Evaluators log in to the system and respond to a series of statements to rate the student on the six personal attributes and to provide an overall rating of the student. The student is notified when each evaluation has been completed and can choose the schools to which the evaluations will be sent. ETS creates an evaluation report, and sends it to the institutions designated by the student.

Find out more here: www.ets.org/ppi

The way ETS describes the process, it sounds like an extended reference letter, but apparently the science supports the results.

What do you think about personality trait testing as a criteria for grad school admission?

This 12th edition of The Official Guide for GMAT Review will run you $36.95 in stores, but only just over $24 on Amazon. That’s a no brainer for prospective business students.

Do You Really Need to Study For the GMAT?

A lot of people like to ‘wing it’ in a variety of situations. It might be a test, a job interview, or an important sales pitch. While this works exceptionally well for some people, they are most likely the exception and not the rule.

Most people do well with an adequate amount of preparation. And methodically proceeding through an organized study guide can provide that preparation. Remember that successful test taking involves a lot of strategy that has nothing whatsoever to do with the content of the test.

So I say yes, study for the GMAT!

Study for the GMAT with Real Questions

There’s not much value in my opinion to any study guide that does not contain actual test questions. This edition of The Official Guide for GMAT Review has been thoroughly revised and updated to include 300 GMAT questions never before released to the public.

 These never before available questions are among the 800 verbal and quantitative questions from the GMAT that don’t appear in any other study materials. In my opinion there is nothing better than practicing on actual test questions.

But Wait, There’s More!

The nice thing about the Official Guide for GMAT Review is that it includes a diagnostic tool to help you pinpoint exactly where to focus your precious study time. This type of feedback is invaluable in two ways.

First, it builds confidence in those areas which you are strong. Second, it reveals your weaknesses accurately so that you can proceed with a study plan that you know is going to yield results. There are also complete explanations for the answers to every GMAT question that appears in the book.

More practical features include sections that focus on the essay-writing section of the GMAT and common myths about the exam.

Click here to buy The Official Guide for GMAT Review now.