Master of Corporate Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University

United States of America, Pittsburgh

University Rank:#52

The Corporate Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University is a Master program designed for students who want to build the knowledge and skills required for careers in this field. Delivered on campus at the university's main campus in Pittsburgh , United States of America, the program is taught in English and takes 2 years to complete. Students study in a Full Time environment while preparing for future professional opportunities. The next intake starts on August 22, 2026.

About Master of Corporate Strategy

This course focuses on strategy as the search for rents among opportunities that are entrepreneurial, dynamic, and evolutionary. In this way this course presents "strategy as progress" as a complement to strategy as positioning. Here, the distinguishing feature of the economy is that advantage arises through entrepreneurial behavior, dynamically, and is inherently temporary. Still, for companies the traditional view, with its emphasis on structural stability, remains important. Consequently, competitive strategy in the new economy reflects a mix of traditional strategies, designed to sustain advantage through physical assets and traditional economies of scale, as well as newer strategies, designed to gain advantage through information assets and speed. The approach used in this course to tie old and new approaches together is Sustainability Analysis, a method that formulates business strategies according to the profit half-life of a company's products and services. Thus, here the goal of strategy is not only to sustain advantage, but more deeply to maximize value, to manage the ebb and flow of economic progress with the continual goal of recapitalizing assets. The range of rent-earning environments studied begins with Oligopolistic markets where traditional, economies of scale dominate. Here we look at the need to supplement traditional oligopolistic rivalry with continuous innovation, a process examined as "scale orchestration." Examples studied include Federal Express, McDonalds, Toyota, Starbucks, Las Vegas Casinos, and WebVan. We then look at newer, Schumpeterian-like markets, where the gale of creative destruction and the "wow factor" as we term it, is central to competition and progress, where companies must "eat their children" at a faster rate than competitors. Examples studied include Intel, DRAM chips, Zara, Calloway Golf, the Johnson & Johnson Coronary Stent, Nokia, and the iPhone. We then look at Monopolistic-like markets where long-lived advantage can be created lawfully through control of a central factor needed for the functioning of the market. Here, examples abound from the entertainment, aerospace, and information industries, including Martha Stewart, World Wrestling Federation, the Space Shuttle, the Joint Strike Fighter, iPod, eBay, and Microsoft. These generic Standard-, Fast-, and Long-cycle competitive settings and business models, as we term them, are supplemented by a look at competitive situations where Sustainability is undergoing transformational, disruptive change, as in the Telecommunications and Airline industries. We then look at trends in the strategy field generally by examining the history of strategy, providing further insight into how practitioners think and as how the field is changing. We conclude by applying course principles to planning MBA careers in a business world where changing employment opportunities are continual. (JW 6-14)

Requirements and Admission Criteria for Master of Corporate Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University

Entry Requirements

GPA

3.41 Average

3.43 Median

3.03-3.76

Middle 80%

English Requirements

IELTSMin 7.5
TOEFLMin 102

English Program Requirements

Candidates are required to demonstrate a level of competence in English to meet the admissions requirements of the university. You are required to take a TOEFL, IELTS, or Duolingo exam unless:

You attended an undergraduate institution, earning a bachelor’s degree, where the sole language of instruction was English.
You earned a graduate degree where the sole language of instruction was English. (Although not required, we do recommend that you take the English Language Proficiency exam.)

You must request that the official score be sent from the testing agency to our program for us to verify the score entered into the application. Request that the official score be sent to us using the following codes:

TOEFL Program Code: Institutional Code = 2074; Departmental Code = 02
- Pro Tip: The recommended TOEFL score is 25 on each section of the Internet-based test. The minimum TOEFL scores required to apply for admission are: Reading: 20, Listening: 20, Speaking: 20, Writing: 20
IELTS Program Code: Select Carnegie Mellon and the Tepper School of Business
- Pro Tip: The recommended IELTS score is 7 overall and 7 in each band. The minimum IELTS scores required to apply for admission are: Listening: 7, Reading: 7, Writing: 7, Speaking: 7, Overall Band: 7
Duolingo Program Code: Select Carnegie Mellon University – Tepper School of Business
- Pro Tip: The recommended Duolingo English Test (DET) score is 120 overall

Pro Tip: TOEFL and IELTS scores are valid for two years and must be valid at the time you submit your application.

Pro Tip: If you earned a degree from a non-U.S. institution, your academic documents should state that the sole language of instruction for the entire university was English in order to be eligible for a TOEFL/IELTS/Duolingo waiver. If your academic documents don’t include this, you should upload an official letter from the University Registrar indicating English as the mode of instruction for the entirety of the degree.

Fee Information

Application Fee 75

Master of Corporate Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University

United States of America, Pittsburgh