In early January, Wharton offered its first ever course in India: “Innovation and the Indian Health Care Industry.”  This three-day mini-course, held at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, covered the full range of health care issues in India - hospital management, medical tourism, pharmaceuticals, and more.  Nine executive MBA students attended, joining 21 full-time MBA students, and three undergraduates.  The course was directed by Wharton health care professor Lawton Burns, but lectures were given by eleven executives and leaders in Indian healthcare, many of whom have ongoing ties to Wharton.

Dr. Prasad Kilaru was one of three medical doctors in the EMBA program to take the course.  “From a physician’s standpoint, there was really great information on hospitals, non-profits, pharmaceuticals, and more,” he said. “I also really enjoyed the lectures on medical tourism, including the presentation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”  

Rajani Veeramachaneni, a first-year MBA Exec student who runs her own strategy consulting firm claims it was “one of the best academic courses she has ever taken, as it approached the issue from so many angles.”  Veeramachaneni enjoyed not only the lectures on hospital management and medical tourism but the presentations on cutting-edge technologies, including e-Help, mobile health, and wireless medical technology.   “I was impressed by the low-cost structure of India’s healthcare system,” she said, “from which the U.S. can learn a lot.”

Robert Zwolinski, a second-year EMBA student in San Francisco, took the course with the aim of applying his findings to his current job.  As the Director of Operations of a small pharmaceutical company in the Bay Area, Zwolinski wanted to explore the possibility of outsourcing development work – including formulation development, clinical development, and clinical trials.  “The course provided me an excellent opportunity to find out what I need to send work over there,” he said.  “India is not just a low cost option.  India offers many advantages – the education, talent, and intellectual capacity for specific activities - all of these advantages combine to make India a high quality option that can facilitate speed to market for products in development.”

When first-year Wharton EMBA student Frank Edwards, a group manager of IT Infrastructure at PepsiCo in Dallas, heard about the workshop on the Development of Web-based Services (OPIM 654) offered at Wharton | San Francisco he knew it was an opportunity he didn’t want to miss. Not only would the workshop apply management science to a creative topic like innovation, but it also would provide a chance to interact with first- and second-year Wharton EMBA students from both the East and West Coast programs as well as full-time Wharton MBA students.

The intense four-day workshop, led by Prof. Karl Ulrich, was structured as a tournament in which all students submitted ideas for online products or services that were whittled down by votes each day until six finalists remained. Edwards’ idea for Appmyself.com, a site which creates custom mobile applications, not only made it to the final round, but Edwards and several Wharton Executive MBA students from both coasts are now developing a business plan around the idea.

“The workshop showed how there are a lot of really good ideas out there and after just some small tuning and development, you can make great improvements within a couple of days in terms of understanding the customers’ needs and what your product can and should do,” he says. “The amount of opportunities that exist that are within reach is somewhat surprising.”

Edwards, who attends Wharton’s EMBA program in Philadelphia, says he also was pleasantly surprised by how much he got out of interacting with such a diversity of Wharton Executive MBA and full-time MBA students. “It was a chance to hear their perspectives and see the differences and similarities between our classes. And it was nice to validate all that you hear about how the executive program is indeed the same as the full-time program. You see that we really mirror the work that they do.”

As for the Wharton | San Francisco facility, Edwards was “amazed” by how similar the East and West Coast classrooms are. “Being from Texas, I could have applied to the Wharton program on either coast because they are equidistant to me. At the workshop, I saw that it really is the same experience in San Francisco as in Philadelphia in terms of the same professors and classrooms even down to the details like the same lights and ceiling tiles! The learning experience was very consistent, and I’m now planning to do a semester at Wharton | San Francisco to broaden my network,” he says.

Second-year Wharton EMBA student, Christina Todasco, who attends the program at Wharton|San Francisco and is a finance director at Johnson & Johnson in San Jose, agrees that the opportunity to interact with so many other types of students was a highlight of the workshop. “My team in the workshop was well balanced with folks from every single class and that made it really enjoyable because we learned a lot about their experiences.  We’ve all been staying in touch,” she says.

Todasco, who signed up for the workshop to try something “really different,” adds that she learned a lot about the importance of coming up with a lot of ideas. “If it’s just you and two other people trying to come up with the next big thing, you are limited to the purview of just three people. So you need to start with as many ideas as possible and then vote to whittle them down, getting as much feedback along the way as possible. You may think you have an awesome idea, but when no one votes for your idea, it may not actually have been that awesome.”

Emilio Maldonado, a first-year EMBA student at Wharton | San Francisco and manager of software development at Cisco Systems in San Jose, says that he learned a lot about the importance of feedback as well. “Instead of jumping in and defining the product features, you need to step back and refine the thought process and get more input in order to get to something more refined with a better chance of success,” he says.

Second-year East Coast Executive MBA student Tanya Andrien, who is a director at Duff & Phelps in Austin, says that the workshop exceeded her expectations. “Many of our classes are theoretical, but this was all about practical information you would use in starting and running a business. Prof. Karl Ulrich has a lot of experience running businesses and was really frank about successes and failures,” she says. “There were a lot of things I learned in the workshop that I wish I had known when I was working in a start-up. It was fascinating!”

Congratulations to our first-year Wharton EMBA students who recently won first place at the Western U.S. finals of the CFA Global Investment Research Challenge in Las Vegas! They now head to the Americas Challenge in New York to take on other regional winners from North and South America.

If you are interested in applying this year to Wharton’s Executive MBA Program, it may not be too late. While the Feb. 1 deadline for both the Philadelphia and Wharton | San Francisco programs has passed, we may be able to offer an extension. Please contact our offices to discuss your specific situation and see what accommodations can be made for you.

If you’ve already submitted your application, then stay tuned because you’ll be hearing from us soon. We’re currently busy processing each application to ensure that we’ve received all of the required documents. The sorting and filing of credentials is a manual process so it may take a few weeks to complete. We ask for your patience to allow us to get through the piles of transcripts, sponsorship letters and hard copy recommendations before you contact us about the status of your application. You can also logon to your application to confirm when it’s complete.

If you are still planning to take - or retake - the GMAT, note that we will accept GMAT scores until March 1. A copy of your GMAT scores may be scanned and emailed or faxed to the East or West Coast office, but you also must have an official copy sent directly to Wharton.  The GMAT codes for the Wharton MBA Program for Executives are G56-97-36 for Philadelphia and G56-97-14 for San Francisco.

While interviews are required for Fellows applicants, they are strongly recommended for everyone. If you haven’t already interviewed, please contact the office immediately, as the slots are quickly filling up. West Coast applicants have until March 10 to complete interviews and East Coast applicants have until March 17.

Once the applications are complete, they go to the Admissions Committee where they will be evaluated by Committee members from both the West and East Coast programs. There is no need to update us during this time unless something significant happens that may affect our evaluation such as a promotion or a new GMAT score.

San Francisco program admissions decisions will be made by March 26, 2010 and Philadelphia decisions no later than April 9, 2010.

Whether you are applying for admission to Wharton’s MBA for Executives Program this year or thinking about applying down the road, you might want to consider registering for an upcoming online chat. In these discussions, we cover everything from industry backgrounds and career planning to specific admissions questions.

The next online chat is Wed., January 20th, from 12:00-1:00 PM EST / 9:00-10:00 AM PST and will feature the Director of Admissions, Catherine Molony.  Cathy will discuss the admissions process and answer any questions you may have as the deadline approaches. To register for this chat, go to: Admissions Chat, 1/20/10

Rescheduled from this week, on Tues, January 26th from 12:00-1:00 PM EST / 9:00-10:00 AM PST, we’ll be hosting an online chat about career management featuring Mary Gross, director of Wharton’s Career Management Services for EMBA students. She’ll be discussing the resources available to Executive MBA students and fielding questions about how students have successfully used these services. To register for this chat, go to: Career Management Chat, 1/26/10

For the full listing of the remaining chats or to listen to past chats, go to our Events Page.

If you have additional questions about any of these topics or our program, please feel free to contact us at either our Philadelphia or San Francisco office.

We hope you can join us!

Keith Shea thought about getting an MBA for several years, but the timing just wasn’t right. First, he didn’t want to leave his career at Intel to take two years off for an MBA program. Then he was offered an exciting assignment in Europe, which took him abroad for three years.

However, while he was in Europe, he started to think about his academic options and decided that an executive MBA program would be a great fit. “I looked at a number of programs in the U.S. and Europe – travel wasn’t a concern because I would have commuted to the right program – and Wharton was head and shoulders above the others based on academic rigor and the opportunity to be part of a tight-knit class,” says Shea, who graduated from Wharton’s MBA for Executives Program in San Francisco in 2009 with full sponsorship from Intel.

As for the level of academic rigor, he says, “I wanted the challenge and I got the challenge. At the time, you question why they push you so hard, but after you graduate you are really glad they did. To compare it to other programs I considered, if you explain to others the level of detail you go into -- like the math on some of the game theory equations – they look at you in amazement because they’ve never gone to that level of comprehension.”

Shea, an alliance manager, notes that an unexpected highlight of the program was when he and his fellow classmates from Intel got a chance to sit down with senior executives such as cofounder Gordon Moore, retired CEO and chairman Craig Barrett, and board member David Pottruck for discussions about leadership management.

One of those fellow classmates from Intel was Aneet Chopra, who also sought out the Wharton|San Francisco EMBA program for its rigorous curriculum. “Let’s not mince words. It was extremely challenging both in terms of the classes and the need to balance everything,” he says, noting that his daughter was born during the program. “It took a month or two, but after getting over that initial hump you manage the demands on your time better and can really apply what you are learning in your job.”

For example, during the program he needed to help drive a hotly debated new product feature through its product lifecycle and ultimately deliver the feature. “To help me do that, I relied on marketing concepts I was learning in class. It was an ‘Aha’ moment for me about the value of the program and why I went to Wharton,” he recalls.

Chopra, who has since been promoted to technical assistant to the general manager of the Client Components Group at Intel, says that he also learned a great deal from his classmates. “The soft skills we learned serve as powerful ammunition to prepare you for your day to day job and even your personal life. Every day, I think of a situation in the classroom or a comment someone made in class that is applicable to a current situation.”

He adds, “Being part of the Wharton community will serve me a long way. We are grounded in good business knowledge learned from the best professors, but I will carry with me all through my life the bond with our fellow students and the approachability of the alumni network. Any time I need to tap into that, I can, and that is an invaluable asset.”

Shea agrees that the faculty and students in the program are a great resource. “I made friends for life and the ability to connect with such intelligent individuals and be able to ping them on certain issues I’m curious about is such an incredible option that I now have,” he says.

The University will be closing on Thurs., December 24th, 2009 at 12:00noon EST.  If you have any immediate questions, please contact our offices before that time. We will reopen on Mon., January 4th, 2010 at 9:00am EST.  For the Wharton | SF office, those times are 12:00noon PST on the 24th and 9:00am PST on the 4th.

The winter holidays are a great time to work on your application!  Here are a few items to keep in mind:

The deadline for both the West and East Coast programs is Feb. 1, 2010.

If you haven’t already scheduled an admissions interview, contact us soon. By this time of year, appointments on class days are limited.  If you live locally to the San Francisco or Philadelphia campus, you may want to come during the week for your interview and then return on a class day to have lunch with Executive MBA students and observe a class.

If you still need to take the GMAT, the last date to take the test for admissible scores is March 1, 2010. A copy of your GMAT scores may be scanned and emailed or faxed to the East or West Coast office, but you also must have an official copy sent directly to Wharton.  The GMAT codes for the Wharton MBA Program for Executives are G56-97-36 for Philadelphia and G56-97-14 for San Francisco. Scores are valid for five years.

We require an original copy of your transcripts before we can complete the evaluation of your application.  If you haven’t already done so, you should request that they be sent directly to the San Francisco or Philadlphia as soon as possible.

We look forward to hearing from you and wish everyone happy holidays!

Related Links:

Program Faces & Dates

Don't Wait! Schedule your Wharton EMBA Interview and Visit Soon

Preparing for the GMAT: Practice, Practice, Practice

Insider Tips: Preparing the Best EMBA Application

While needing to fly every other weekend to get to school may sound like a significant challenge, second-year Wharton | San Francisco Executive MBA student Dan Paik says that his commute from Redondo Beach, California to San Francisco hasn’t been that bad.

In fact, he says most EMBA students who live in southern California don’t have all that different of a schedule from students who live in the Bay Area. The biggest difference, he says, is that the southern California students probably wake up a few hours earlier to catch a 7:00am flight on Friday mornings in order to arrive at Wharton | San Francisco by 9:30am and get home a few hours later on Saturday evenings.

For Paik, his schedule is a little bit different from most commuters in his area because instead of catching Friday morning flights, he usually flies from LAX on Thursday evenings into Oakland where he spends the night at his brother’s home and then takes a train on Friday mornings into San Francisco.

But regardless of when they arrive, “the majority of people I talk to who are based near Los Angeles don’t mind the travel because they spend their flights to school catching up on reading,” he says. “And in this day and age, we are constantly connected to the office so those brief couple of hours in transit is a welcome respite because we can turn off our phones – we actually like the travel time.”

Paik notes that the flight home provides time to bond with classmates. When classes end at 4:00pm on Saturday, the commuters share taxis to the airport. Those going to Los Angeles usually catch a 5:00pm flight out of SFO airport and those headed to San Diego usually catch a 4:50pm flight out of Oakland. “It’s pretty much a given that it’s not study time because we are done with classes and can hang out and listen to music or watch part of a movie together on the flight. It’s our time to kick back and relax after a weekend of classes.”

He adds that because Wharton students need flights at nonpeak times, getting tickets hasn’t been an issue.  “We are flying in on Thursday nights or Friday mornings when flights are never full and then we leave on Saturday afternoons which is also a good time to find flights. Southwest tickets usually cost about $50 each way from LAX, but we earn a lot of frequent flier miles and free flights,” he says.

As for the impact on his job, Paik explains that for the first year of the program he was running his own business, Juice Wireless, so setting a schedule amenable to commuting wasn’t an issue. Now, as VP of Technology at ThisNext.com, he says it’s still not a big deal. “I leave the office on Thursdays at the usual time I would leave work for the day anyway. In two years, I’ve never had an instance where I had an important meeting that had to happen that night,” he says.

Paik says that most people in southern California probably do consider more local schools – at least at first -- when thinking about EMBA programs. However, one of Wharton’s advantages is its national and international reputation.  He explains, “If you were to move to another part of the country or expand internationally at some point in your career, which a lot of us might do at some point, it’s good to have those networks open. That is a big reason why I'm getting a Wharton MBA as opposed to one from a local school.”

Paik adds, “To get to go to a school like Wharton is definitely worth the commute!”

Read more about other students’ commutes.

If you are considering applying to Wharton's MBA Program for Executives, this is a great time to schedule an interview. You don’t need to wait until you’ve finished – or even started – your application. Make the interview part of your research on our program to see if it’s a good fit for you. Since interviews are scheduled on days when Executive MBA classes are in session, you can also sit in on a class and meet current students. All we need to see now is your resume.

The interview typically lasts approximately 45 minutes.  It is required for Fellows EMBA candidates and strongly recommended for traditional EMBA candidates. In other words, everyone should schedule an interview!

The interview:

- provides one-on-one time with a member of the Admissions Committee during which you can present yourself in “3D”

- covers  how your career has evolved, with examples of leadership within or outside of your work, and why getting an MBA is important to you

- is an opportunity to ask questions about the program as well as address any specific issues you might have

Even if you aren’t quite ready for an interview now, we encourage you to schedule one sooner than later.  We conduct interviews through March, but they must be scheduled prior to the Feb. 1, 2010 application deadline.  Once January is here, it’s often hard to get appointments due to demand. So please contact us  at either the Philadelphia or San Francisco EMBA office to make an appointment.  We look forward to getting on your calendar!