MBA Scholarships Boom in 2006

MBA scholarships have reached a new pinnacle, drawing winners from across the globe.

A new set of MBA scholarships, worth as much as $1.3 million in 2006 and rising to $2.7 million in 2007, has drawn its first winners from countries as diverse as Chile, China, Malaysia, Turkey, Italy and the USA.The scholarships, available through the QS World MBA Tour, the largest international programme of business school information events, include awards from QS for leadership and community involvement and from major institutions such as The Wharton School in the USA, IE Business School in Spain and MIP Politecnico di Milano in Italy.

The World MBA Tour Wharton Scholarship has been awarded to Amanda Bronesky, a native of Denver, Colorado and a graduate of Tuffts University. Thomas Caleel, Admissions Director at Wharton says, "We were astounded by the number of applicants from the World MBA Tour, but Amanda really stands out as an exceptional young lady." The scholarship is worth $30,000. The two IE Business School awards, worth '15,000 each, are targeted specifically at women and the winners" names will be announced later this month. The MIP awards have gone to Katherine Keblusek from the United States and Alberto Cimenti, who has both Italian and Brazilian nationality.

The winners of the QS scholarships are Tiffany Kanaga, a US citizen who attended the World MBA Tour in London and who will be studying at Columbia Business School, Yue Tu from China, Saul Casadio from Italy, who plans to study at Chicago GSB, Sekar Shanmugan from Malaysia, who is applying to the programme at Judge Business School, Cenap Mert TYerzioglu from Turkey and Eduardo Olivares from Chile. "QS Scholarship winners are united by their demonstration of responsible leadership and community commitment, in very varied circumstances," says Nunzio Quacquarelli, the managing director of careers and education group QS. "All of these young people have done something remarkable in their lives. Take, for example, Eduardo Olivares who worked as a counsellor in Chile helping people to escape severe poverty by setting up their own small businesses or Yue Tu who cycled more than 2,500 miles across China to raise money for charity."

Potential MBA students will get the opportunity to apply for the next round of scholarships, which now includes contributions from several new schools such as Chicago and Rotman and which will be worth $2.7 million, when the QS World MBA Tour visits venues around the globe this Summer and Fall. In the Fall the Tour will visit 43 cities on four continents, travelling with a record 350+ international business schools. Participants on the Tour include 19 of the top 20 US schools and all of the leading European business schools.

The US schools travelling on the Tour include: Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Kellogg, Michigan, Stanford, Tuck, UCLA and Wharton. From Europe, participants include; SDA Bocconi and MIP Politecnico di Milano from Italy, HEC and INSEAD from France, IESE, ESADE and IE from Spain, IMD from Switzerland, Rotterdam from the Netherlands and London Business School, Manchester, Bath, Cambridge, Cranfield, Imperial, Oxford and Warwick from the UK.  At each location, leading local MBA providers also take part.