April 2011 marked the 11th annual Tuck GIVES (Grants to Interns and Volunteers for the Environment and Society) auction, a student-led event that raises money to fund salaries for Tuck students who accept internships with nonprofits. The event includes both a silent auction and a live auction. According to Tuck’s admissions blog, students dress up for the event in their fanciest attire and watch two of their classmates lead the auction of donated items. These offerings can range from dinners with faculty (such as a Cajun-style group dinner cooked by Dean Paul Danos and a South African group dinner hosted by a professor) to vacations (including a vacation package at a luxury resort in Bermuda and a trip to a ski resort in Colorado) to student-hosted themed dinners, tickets to Red Sox games, tennis and fly-fishing lessons, babysitting services and a day-long workout session with Tuckies from the Armed Forces.

About the auctions, a member of the admissions staff told mbaMission, “Our goal is maximum participation of the Tuck community, which includes students, their partners, staff and faculty. I have donated two necklaces and bracelets that I made from African beads I purchased in Ghana, one of the deans auctions off an evening in his barn, which is actually a huge, wonderfully furnished place with a giant TV and bar, and other folks offer dinners, photography, painting and just all sorts of things.” The April 2010 Tuck GIVES auction raised more than $51,000.

For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at Dartmouth Tuck and 15 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

George T. Geis (“Entrepreneurship and Venture Initiation”) has been voted Outstanding Teacher of the Year four times while at Anderson and currently serves as faculty director of the school’s Executive Mergers and Acquisitions Program. Geis is also the editor of a Web site that provides analysis of mergers and acquisitions deals in technology, media, and communications (www.trivergence.com) and writes a mergers and acquisitions blog (http://maprofessor.blogspot.com). One recent alumnus described him to mbaMission as an experienced investor and a funny and credible guy. He added that he had very much enjoyed the guest speakers Geis brought to class, as well as the strategic analysis of the board game industry, covered in a case discussion about the game Trivial Pursuit.

For more information about the UCLA Anderson School of Management and 15 other top-ranked MBA schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

For more information on the defining characteristics of the MBA program at Chicago Booth or one of 15 other top business schools, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

Nearly 30% of Harvard Business School (HBS) students have registered partners, and approximately 15% have children. Partners can register with MBA Student and Academic Services for the MBA Partner Program and/or join the Partners Club, which helps significant others integrate into life at HBS, providing opportunities to meet socially, attend HBS-sponsored partner events, join HBS clubs and enjoy campus services. HBS partners receive email accounts and identification cards as well as access to the Partners’ Web site and Career Services. A quote from an HBS graduate in Bloomberg Businessweek’s full-time MBA profile on HBS showcases the significant role partners play at the school: “HBS goes out of its way to attract and take care of students with families. All of the students with families at HBS formed a strong network and contributed significantly to the overall community feel.”

For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at HBS and 15 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

Antoinette Schoar (“Entrepreneurial Finance”) won Sloan’s student-nominated Excellence in Teaching Award in 2005 and was described to us at mbaMission as having an amazing ability to explain complicated concepts in entrepreneurial finance in clear and simple terms, and as being “warm,” “easy to connect to” and someone who can keep her class on track while still encouraging interaction. A recent alumnus noted that her classes are “rigorous, with a steep learning curve” and that she has “high expectations and challenges students.” In January 2009, Schoar received the Ewing Marion Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship, which was established by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2005 to motivate and recognize scholars under 40 who devote themselves to contributing to the study of entrepreneurship.

For more information about the MIT Sloan School of Management and 15 other top-ranked MBA schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

For more information on Ross or 15 other leading MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

Nearly 40% of the Class of 2012 at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business is made up of international students, and 50 countries are represented. The Duke International Office and the Duke International House offer many resources to assist international students with issues associated with acclimating to, studying in and working in the United States, including visa applications and processing. In addition, the Language Institute at Fuqua is designed to prepare incoming international students for the MBA experience at the school. According to the institute’s site, as part of the four-phase program, which is held before the MBA curriculum begins, “Students are given opportunities to refine their English language skills through practice and experiential learning. Students take part in a comprehensive ten-day program of lectures, case presentations, writing exercises and a variety of assignments that get them ready for the rigors of graduate school. This is followed by five weeks of monitoring students’ progress once they start school, with further opportunities for individualized support and learning.” One first year mbaMission interviewed whose time at Fuqua was his first experience in the United States longer than two weeks said, “We all bonded during the Language Institute and met many classmates who knew what we were all going through.”

For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at Duke Fuqua and 15 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

Katherine Schipper (“Financial Accounting”) is the Thomas F. Keller Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Law at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and usually teaches the MBA program’s core accounting course, “Financial Accounting.” Schipper was editor of the Journal of Accounting Research for many years and was also a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board from 2001 to 2006, before joining Fuqua. In 2007, Schipper was the first woman inducted into the Accounting Hall of Fame, which has inducted only 85 people since it was established. A second-year student we interviewed who had taken the course “Global Institutions and Environment” with Schipper (co-taught by Professor Jennifer Francis) said, “She was outstanding. It was amazing to have professors of their caliber teaching the first class we experienced at Fuqua.” Another second year told us, “I was really nervous about accounting, but she made it very accessible, and even occasionally fun.”

For more information about Duke Fuqua and 15 other top-ranked business schools, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

Check out these five facts about consulting at Wharton:

• Every year since 2005, more Wharton graduates have accepted positions in consulting than in investment banking.
• Wharton’s Consulting Club is one of its largest, with more than 800 members—that’s approximately half the students in the MBA program.
• One of Wharton’s most popular electives is “Strategy and Competitive Advantage.” Professor Nicolaj Siggelkow, a protégé of strategy guru Michael Porter, is notorious for pushing students to clarify their answers, but if they use trite buzzwords like  “adding value” and “frameworks,” they may find themselves in the hot seat for 30 minutes of additional questioning!
• The 2010 Consulting Conference was the largest student-run consulting event ever held at Wharton, featuring keynote speeches by the managing director of strategy of Accenture and the vice president of Bain & Company (Los Angeles), as well as panels on topics ranging from new media solutions to sustainable social impact.
• In recent years, Wharton’s Consulting Club has hosted an annual case competition for first-year students; winners have been offered summer internships with Boston Consulting Group.

For more information on Wharton or 15 other leading MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.