Chicago Booth

History

The University of Chicago was founded in 1890 by oil magnate John D. Rockefeller and the American Baptist Education Society. William Rainey Harper became the first president. The first classes commenced in 1892. Business education found its roots in 1898 with the establishment of the College of Commerce and Politics. In 1902, Henry R. Hatfield was named the first Dean and the institution was renamed as the College of Commerce and Administration. In 1922, the first doctoral program in business was offered by the School. In 1932, the School was renamed as the School of Business. In 1959, it acquired the name – Graduate School of Business. David G. Booth, an alumnus of the School, endowed a gift of $300 million to the School and hence, the School was renamed in his honor as the Booth School of Business in 2008.

MISSION STATEMENT

Its mission is to produce a caliber of teaching and research that regularly leads to advances in fields such as medicine, biology, physics, economics, critical theory and public policy.

Core Strengths of the School

The Chicago Booth MBA program is built around the three keywords- Inquiry, Insight and Impact. This Chicago Approach proves to be a unique transformational experience for the students who imbibe the value of rigorous inquiry to evaluate problems in order to get greater clarity and understanding of the situation. The relentless curiosity with which the students approach a problem helps them dig deeper into the issue, thereby uncovering compelling evidences, challenging traditional thought process and generating greater insights into the situation. The broad spectrum of analytical tools and frameworks equips the students with relevant skills and knowledge to tackle any business challenge at any point in their careers. The alumni of the School are recognized all over the world for their signature Chicago Approach that enables them to handle ambiguous and uncertain situations with tact. The impact of Chicago Approach is throughout the careers of the students as it helps them demonstrate incisiveness and clarity in their leadership roles. The multi-disciplinary approach to the curriculum helps the students gain valuable insights into all the disciplines of business, thus enabling them to realize the impact of their decisions on other functional areas of business. This holistic business education proves to be an asset for the students and empowers them to thrive in any situation.

Uniqueness in MBA Pedagogy

The Leadership Effectiveness and Development LEAD program allows the students to benchmark their behavior with respect to critical aspects of leadership skills such as ability to influence others, conflict management, working in teams, interpersonal communication and presentation skills, etc. The course is designed to generate self-awareness among the students and develop greater interpersonal effectiveness by creating a personalized plan that would guide them in enhancing their leadership skills further.

The School provides hands-on learning experience to the students through the various Lab courses. Students work in teams over consulting assignments for leading organizations as a part of Management Lab course, where they get to interact with high-profile executives and involve themselves in new product development, business strategy and operational research. Students who dream to be entrepreneurs in future get first-hand experience of working on strategic and operational projects of startup companies through the New Venture and Small Enterprise Lab. Students have previously worked on areas such as competitive analysis, marketing plans, market research, strategy development, pricing models and marketing messaging for early-stage startups. The D4Foundations taps the latent innovative potential of students and helps them discover and implement ideas that have a strong user-centered foundation. Students who aspire to be entrepreneurs learn the entrepreneurial design method to identify the unmet needs of the industry and develop cutting-edge solutions to address these needs. The Clean Tech Lab allows the student teams to collaborate with a leading clean-tech firm or research laboratory over a project, where they develop insights into the challenges faced by clean-tech firms, and learn about the core principles and technologies that are the backbone of the firm. Students learn about the fine nuances of social entrepreneurship while working for a local non-profit organization or for-profit venture that has a social mission through the Social Enterprise Lab course, and provide valuable recommendations to accelerate the growth of the organization.

CONCENTRATIONS OFFERED