The Simon Graduate School of Business is launching its second annual Online Business Simulation Scholarship Competition starting on September 25, 2006. With registration ongoing through that date, participants could earn up to a full-tuition scholarship worth $70,000.
This unique scholarship competition allows participants to demonstrate their technological skill and business savvy and enables Simon School administrators to attract and evaluate bright and talented prospective students.
Innovative Learning Solutions Inc., a Knoxville, Tenn., simulation firm, is managing the competition including tracking contestant performance using a balanced-scorecard assessment.
Each player is entrusted with a virtual personal computer company and challenged to come up with the most effective management and marketing solutions to six key business decisions. After an initial round, the field narrows based on balanced-scorecard totals. In the second round, remaining contestants compete directly against each other in groups of six.
The 15 top overall scorers will be invited to Rochester in January 2007 for a day of formal presentations to describe their strategies and discuss their solutions. The presentation sessions are followed by personal interviews, campus tours and other activities.
Last year’s competition drew 270 participants from around the world. Two finalists in India and one in California made their presentations via teleconferencing. Eleven others came to Simon in January 2006 to make their presentations before a panel of judges including Simon School administrators, staff, alumni and students. The panel was so impressed by the quality of the competitors that it awarded two full-tuition scholarships (worth $70,000 each), along with seven partial scholarships ranging from 25–75 percent.
For more information, contact Dawn S. McWilliams, Simon School executive director of marketing and communications, at marketing@simon.rochester.edu, or to register, visit www.simon.rochester.edu/programs/scholarship_competition.aspx
I watched the demo and was tempted to sign up myself! This seems like a wonderful tool to help find talented students via non-traditional measurements.
I hope you'll keep us updated on the contest -- maybe even provide some feedback from the competitors or encourage them to post comments.
Posted by: Tom | September 10, 2006 at 04:29 AM