Ill. The Bay Area's plethora of graduate business schools now are facing more competition from universities such as Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, thanks to new or expanded programs designed to take advantage of the valley's cache. Although many Kellogg students get their first look at the valley on one-week study trips here, a more innovative offering lured Mr. Prevost. Last April, Northwestern opened a temporary placement office at the Embassy Suites in Burlingame and organized a job fair, where 63 MBA students interviewed with 22 companies. A lot of companies just don't have time to send two people out all the way to Chicago when things are moving so quickly out here in the valley. Mr. Prevost is part of a new wave of MBAs washing over Silicon Valley.
More programs are in the works for the coming school year.
Harvard plans to offer more executive education classes and a new MBA field studies program focusing on entrepreneurial businesses. The onslaught of business students from out of town could be good for expanding valley companies needing warm bodies, but it poses a challenge to the region's homegrown MBA schools that have leveraged their location into an important asset. Dean Barry Posner said his MBA program will stand its ground, partly by virtue of its full-time presence here. There appears to be no hard evidence that says an MBA school must have a valley tie to attract the best and brightest students. He said that began changing several years ago when Kellogg introduced academic opportunities and job placement events in Silicon Valley.