Bigger opportunities arise for female entrepreneurs, while Yale School of Management shows off its strongest entering class, and Silicon Valley turned out to be on par with Wall Street. At the same time, a McGill academic questions management teaching methods

New opportunities for women in business

Nowadays women get more and more chances to realize themselves in spheres previously filled with males, like politics, law and others. Nevertheless, business management remains a mostly men-dominated area.

According to Standard & Poor’s, only 4 companies out of 500 can boast a woman CEO, albeit almost a half of these companies’ employees are female. At the same time, many business schools are trying to make their student bodies with more women in mind. In several top MBA programs there are more than forty percent of women in this year’s class.

According to Elsa Sze, a female entrepreneur with a small IT company, business education and support will soon result in increasing the number of women in business management.

Yale SOM’s best class

Early fall is the time for top b-schools to show us what their new student classes are like by publishing the enrolled students’ test results. For instance, Yale School of Management gave the following numbers: the average GMAT result of their new class is 725, which is 4 points higher than 2015; 19% acceptance rate, 2% lower than last year.

Now, Yale SOM is equal to Harvard’s numbers, but behind some other schools, like Kellogg, Stanford and Chicago Booth. According to Yale SOM’s assistant dean of admissions, Bruce DelMonico, this might be Yale’s best class ever, as the new students have already impressed most of the faculty and administration.

Silicon Valley ties with Wall Street

For many young managers and future MBAs, Wall Street has always been a dream job because of its great pay and wonderful opportunities. Lately, though, the ‘dream job’ title is shared by Silicon Valley, the world’s greatest IT hub.

Why do so many aspiring business professionals aim at working in the Silicon Valley? According to Scott DeRue, University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business dean, that’s because these MBA’s-to-be want to shape the world and make a difference with breakthrough technology. Another significant factor for the decreasing popularity of Wall Street was the year 2008, when the Great Recession happened, which didn’t end well for finance and banking areas.

Management as a form of art

According to McGill University professor Henry Mintzberg, modern MBA programs can’t teach students real management. An MBA graduate is not an experienced manager, no matter what they think. Mintzberg believes that teaching management is more art than science, so it’s based on experience only. Analysis and methodology do not make anyone a manager, they just give students needless theory.

All these ideas are expressed by Mintzberg in his book called Managers Not MBAs and in his new management programs’ curriculum where they admit mostly students with a managerial background or experience.