At many persons MBA programs, which used to be a brief meet-and-greet period is now any education in itself

by Francesca Levy

Watch abounding size video:

On a recent warm day in Pittsburgh, as one attendee recounts it, a middle-aged man with tufts of white hair and a broad grin, elicited a pledge of allegiance from about 200 incoming MBA students at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. "He talked about commitment, and he asked, ‘are you ready?’" says Wendy Hermann, the school’s adviser of pupil services. "And they all said, ‘we are ready!’"

No, this was not a tent resuscitation, nor a motivational seminar. John Mather is the executive director of master’s programs at Tepper, and his demonstration was a receive to the incoming MBA class at their fall orientation. "It was a very church-like moment," says Hermann.

For multiplied who attended business school more than five or 10 years ago, MBA orientations may seem unrecognizable. What was formerly a few days tacked in continuance at the forehead of the semester, used since a time to share names, explain the course lade, and distribute a picture of the school grounds, has morphed into something altogether different. For many schools, orientation is now a highly programmed, committee-designed, and rigorous projection. Administrators use the orientation time to accomplish a host of weighty goals—from instilling a sense of ethical responsibility in students to helping them seizure up on first principle math skills and prepare for an ever-earlier recruiting record (BusinessWeek.com, 6/8/08).

In order to accommodate these mounting demands on student reflection, a sum up of MBA programs have stretched their orientation schedules out by days or even weeks. Orientations at the top profession schools are often two-week programs, and some stretch to a month long—meaning "fall orientation" frequently begins in late July.

This year alone, many programs have lengthened their fall orientation to grant leave to their career-services departments to play a greater role. Tepper, in quest of case in point, doubled its program from last year’s single week to two weeks this year—and that’s up from three days in 1993. New York University’s Stern School of Business added three days to its orientation, lengthening it to more than a week. At Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, what once was a one-week MBA orientation is now a three-week preceptive "pre-term" including required coursework.

Many programs have beefed up the career-services portion of orientation, incorporating a self-evaluation and assessment into the career department’s semblance. "Our career services has refocused their core programming to be more self-reflective for students," says Ann Harvilla, associate dean and dean of students for full-time MBA programs at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business. "We ask: What does it feel to be a leader? What are your weaknesses, and what can you work on?"

International students are a particular focus of orientation. Virtually all MBA programs have advance programming exclusively for international students. These students have an steady heftier schedule, as their need beneficial to orientation—figuring gone out where they are in relationship to where they’re going—is often somewhat more literal. "For nine days in August, we teach a select group of international students who haven’t had of the college experience in the United States about communication, culture, and conversable norms," says Amy DiMattia, associate director of MBA pupil affairs at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.