Northwest Arkansas

The University of Arkansas is located in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Fayetteville is located in the Northwest corner of the state. The city population is approximately 70,000. Fayetteville, along with Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville make up the area known as Northwest Arkansas. This area is rich in opportunity.

The home offices of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Tyson Foods, and J.B. Hunt Transport are all located in Northwest Arkasas. Also, over 300 Fortune 500 companies are located here. This gives our graduate students an amazing number of opportunities.

Fayetteville was:
* Ranked in the Top 100 places to live in 2006 by Relocate America.
* Voted #1 in Arkansas and #74 nationally for best green places to live in America by Sperling’s.
* Ranked as the #1 clean air city by COPD Digest.
* Ranked by Kiplinger’s as one of the top ten Best College Towns in 2007 and rated 7th among the BEST Places to Live, Work and Play in 2008.

Things to do and see include:
* The Walton Arts Center – www.waltonartscenter.org
* Historic downtown square
* Farmer’s market
* Dickson Street
* Northwest Arkansas Naturals – minor league baseball
* Razorback athletics

Outdoor activities include:
* Floating our numerous rivers including the Buffalo, White, Elk, Mulberry, Illinois and King’s River
* Rock Climbing and hiking at Devil’s Den
* Biking in the Ozarks
* Camping at any of our 52 Arkansas state parks, 6 national parks or 3 national forests

Business Environment:
* Home to over 300 Fortune 500 companies.
* Corporate headquarters for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Tyson Foods, and J.B. Hunt.
* Expansion Management in 2007 recognized the Fayetteville MSA as the #12 Economic Development hot spot and #3 in the mid-size category among Top Cities for Business Recruitment and Attraction.
* Voted by Forbes at 8th in the nation for Best Places for Business and Careers in 2007.
* Voted #4 in Inc. magazine for Best Cities Doing Business, mid-size city category and #13 overall.

GSB Programs

I think I should take this opportunity to briefly outline the available programs at the Graduate School of Business at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.

We offer 7 Master's degree programs:
full-time MBA - http://gsb.uark.edu/mba/fulltime_overview.asp
part-time MBA - http://gsb.uark.edu/mba/managerial_home.asp
Executive MBA - http://gsb.uark.edu/emba/
Master of Accountancy - http://gsb.uark.edu/ACCT/default.asp
Master of Arts in Economics - http://gsb.uark.edu/ECON/default.asp
full-time Master of Information Systems - http://gsb.uark.edu/ISYS/default.asp
part-time Master of Information Systems - http://gsb.uark.edu/ISYS/default.asp

The Walton College also offers PhD's in 6 different areas:
Accounting - http://gsb.uark.edu/ACCT/acctphd.asp
Economics - http://gsb.uark.edu/ECON/econphd.asp
Finance - http://gsb.uark.edu/FINN/default.asp
Information Systems - http://gsb.uark.edu/ISYS/isysphd.asp
Management - http://gsb.uark.edu/MGMT/default.asp
Marketing - http://gsb.uark.edu/MGMT/default.asp

Each master's degree program has a different application deadline so be sure to pay close attention to this detail. All PhD applications are due January 15. For more admissions information, go to: http://gsb.uark.edu/admission.asp. Each program is competitive and selective. Admissions decisions are made based on a variety of factors, most importantly: GMAT score, work experience (for the MBA programs), and GPA.

The Walton College is located in Northwest Arkansas. I will provide more in my next post about this amazing location. It is quite a hidden gem. To learn more about Fayetteville, visit: http://www.fayettevillear.com/live/.

Please feel free to email with any questions.

Summer Recruiting

The Walton College's first annual MBA Open House and Summer Social was a huge success. The evening began with an MBA program presentation done by me and the MBA Director, Dr. Alan Ellstrand in our new state-of-the-art building, Willard J. Walker Hall: http://waltoncollege.uark.edu/walkerhall/. This part of the evening was for prospective students interested in either the MBA or the MMBA programs.

Following this Open House, an MBA Summer Social was held at the University House on campus. The Summer Social was for current, former, newly admitted, and prospective MBA students. MBA faculty were also in attendance. This was a great opportunity for new students to meet and talk to current students. Also, students interested in the program were able to meet current students and ask questions as well as meet faculty members.

The next Open House is scheduled for Thursday, October 23 at 6:00 in Walker Hall. There will also be an opportunity for prospective MBA students to come to campus on Monday, September 22 for our MBA Internship Showcase.

Don't forget that the final application deadline for the full-time MBA program is September 15.

Update on MBA admission

The Graduate School of Business is in the final stages of the admission process for our part-time MBA (Managerial MBA - MMBA) program. To date, 47 students have been admitted. We anticipate admitting 10-20 more between now and the end of July. Thus far, average GMAT for this class equals 587, average GPA equals about 3.2, and average work experience is about 6. These numbers will change when the final applicants have been admitted.

The deadline for the full-time MBA program is not until September 15. To date 13 students have been admitted and we anticipate admitting between 35 and 40. Currently the average GMAT for this class (that begins in January) is 633, average GPA is about 3.4, and the average number of years of work experience is about 5. Again, since the final application deadline is not until September 15, these numbers will change once final decisions have been made.

We are very pleased with the status of the Walton College MBA programs. The quality of our applicants continues to improve each year making admissions decisions more and more difficult. This benefits our students and it also benefits the MBA programs.