MBA students keen on ethics
Paul Danos, Tuck's dean, says: "Our students are keen to discuss sensitive accounting issues. They're idealistic and they don't want to become involved in anything crooked." He says the concern followed the allegations of wrongdoings at firms such as Enron and WorldCom.
Tuck had responded by organising a four-day ethics forum on financial reporting, including speakers from investment banks that are close to official investigations under way in the US.
Kim Keating, spokeswoman for Tuck, says more students than before were looking for jobs with non-profit organisations - and not just because other jobs were in short supply. "There's a real trend towards that kind of thinking," she says.
About 30% of Tuck students who gained their MBA this year had found jobs in financial services, compared with 40% last year, Danos says. "The days of four or five job offers are over. Now people are happy to have one or two."
Strategic consultancy firms in the US had reduced their hiring even more than financial services companies.
Danos says about 15% of Tuck students who graduated this year had not yet fixed up jobs, compared to 5% in recent years.
Most other business schools had higher unemployment rates.
Students had to rely more than ever on networking to find jobs, Danos says. The number of firms visiting Tuck to seek staff had not fallen, but the number of jobs they offered was down.
Average basic salaries for Tuck MBAs once they finished their course remained stable this year at about $95,000 (€96,300) a year. Guaranteed bonuses fell, however. "That's hardly surprising given the state of the job market," Danos says.
A Wall Street Journal poll last month rated Tuck, in New Hampshire, as the number one business school in the opinion of recruiters at financial services firms.
A survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit last week rated the top three business schools in the world as Kellogg School of Management, Tuck School of Business, and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, all in the US.
They were rated as having a strong collegiate sense among their students, as well as strong MBA programmes.
Only one European school, IMD in Switzerland, made the top 10. The others in the list were US schools Chicago, Stanford, Columbia, Anderson at UCLA, Darden and Yale.
