The most important part of b-school is almost certainly the people — professors, fellow students, alumni, recruiters, etc. But if you’re shelling out the cash to attend a top school, you should also keep in mind the school’s facilities.

In the past few years, several top schools have made massive improvements to their campuses; others have major plans in the works.

Here are a few notable developments:

Stanford Graduate School of Business: Knight Management Center

After 10 years of planning and 3 years of construction, Stanford unveiled its brand-new Knight Management Center in April 2011. In 2007, Stanford made significant changes to the MBA curriculum, many of which called for smaller class sizes; the Knight Management Center was built to reflect these changes (for example, there are a variety of designated rooms for individual study, group work, and class breakout sessions). The Knight Management Center is named for Phil Knight, MBA ‘62 and the founder of Nike, who made a $105 million donation toward the building. The Center is seeking a LEED Platinum rating for environmental sustainability.

Some of the features of the Management Center include:

• Bass Center: “intellectual heart” of the building, with classrooms, group/individual study spaces, and the library
• Helmsley MBA Lounge: place for casual student gatherings
• Comex Auditorium: for lectures, speaker series, conferences and other large gatherings (up to 600 people)
• Arbunkle Dining Pavilion: blends indoor and outdoor dining spaces, seats up to 400
• Coffeeshop operated by popular local cafe
• Outdoor spaces for student meetings and gatherings
• Underground parking garage

Learn more about the Knight Management Center here.

MIT Sloan: Building E62

Officially opened in September 2010 — and in spite of what Boston.com called its “characteristically un-glam designation” — MIT Sloan’s Building E62 was designed to be the “heart of MIT Sloan.” E62 was designed to bring together Sloan’s faculty in one building, as well as to accommodate classes and collaborative work; before E62 was build, Sloan students didn’t have one particular place in which to congregate. Sustainability was also a key aim of the building from the beginning, and the building has applied for LEED Gold certification. (Read more about the green building process here.)

Some of the features of E62 include:

• A cafeteria on the ground floor, open to the public
• Faculty offices to bring together all business school professors in one place
• State of the art classrooms with cutting-edge instructional technology
• Functional study rooms built for collaborative work
• Eco-friendly design

Yale School of Management: Edward P. Evans Hall

A rendering of Edward P. Evans Hall

Yale’s SOM celebrated the groundbreaking for Edward P. Evans Hall, the new business school campus, this April. According to a Yale press release, the school’s current campus, “a collection of renovated mansions joined to modern buildings, has constricted Yale’s SOM’s growth.” The new building, which will be funded in large part by a $50 million donation from Yale College alum Edward P. Evans, will feature state of the art classrooms, offices and gathering spaces around a central courtyard. It is scheduled for completion in 2013. The school also plans to employ green building techniques in the building of the campus.

According to the lead architect from Foster + Partners’, the architectural firm designing the campus, some of the most important goals include:

• Classrooms that enable interactive dialogue and discussion
• Classrooms, breakout rooms and other spaces to facilitate teamwork
• Flexible study environments
• Capacity to host major business school community events

Columbia Business School: New Manhattanville Campus

Columbia is currently in the planning stages for a new 450,000 square foot campus in West Harlem’s Manhattanville neighborhood. In fall 2010, the school announced that Henry R. Kravis ‘69, the co-founder, co-chairman and co-CEO of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., had donated $100 million (the largest gift in the school’s history) to the Business School for the project. The facilities will be designed by the architectural firm Diller Scofidio Renfro, well-known for designing the High Line park in New York City as well as many other structures.

While Columbia’s expansion into West Harlem has been met with a great deal of opposition by the neighborhood’s residents, Columbia maintains that the new location will help broaden community engagement programs and support local entrepreneurs, in addition to providing Columbia students with larger, state of the art facilities. The school hopes to have the first phase of construction complete by 2015.

If you’ve begun your b-school research, you’ve probably heard about the “case method.” Many business schools (Harvard perhaps best known among them) either base their curriculum on the case method or use it in some courses.

If you’re looking to apply to MBA programs, you should definitely be familiar with this pedagogical approach.

Here’s a primer:

What the case method is:

The case method takes its name from its use of case studies — that is, written descriptions of actual business situations. Case studies present real-world business or policy situations without obvious resolutions, as well as contextual information that would help inform an analysis of that situation (ex. financial statements and information about employees, products, markets, etc).

In case method instruction, MBA students are expected to read selected case studies and come to class prepared to discuss potential strategies or approaches to the business issue at hand. The professor guides the discussion, with the aim of helping the students develop a keener business judgement and a larger arsenal of problem-solving skills. According to HBS, students “place themselves in the role of the decision maker as they read through the situation and identify the problem they are faced with. The next step is to perform the necessary analysis – examining the causes and considering alternative courses or actions to come to a set of recommendations.”

The history of the case method:

Many credit Harvard with the origins of the case study. According to “Making the Case,” an article in Harvard Magazine, the method actually began with Harvard law school professors in 1870, and didn’t make its way to HBS until 1920, when its new dean (a Harvard Law School graduate) advocated for its use.

As the Harvard Magazine article states, “after convincing a marketing professor to create the first business casebook, [the dean] then provided funding for a broader program of casewriting, built around real business issues and yet-to-be-made decisions.” Today, many business schools — including HBS, Ross, Darden, and INSEAD — publish case studies which are used at MBA programs around the globe.

Why the case method:

A common criticism of MBA programs is that they don’t provide students with the real-world experience they need to be effective managers and decision-makers. The development of the case method was in part a way of addressing these concerns, and blurring the lines between the “real world” and the classroom.

As Darden professor Ken Eaders (an advocate of the case method) says in this Youtube video, Why Cases?, what students need is not to read business books. After all, anyone can do that. The case method is unique in that it gives students impromptu, in-the-trenches decision-making and leadership experience — and helps prepare them for “real life” post MBA.

The cons of the case method:

While the case method is a popular b-school approach, most schools incorporate it only partially into their curriculum. Schools that use it for close to 100% of their curriculum, like Harvard and Darden, are the exception rather than the rule.

Here are some common criticisms of the case method:

• It works better for certain subjects than others (ex. the case method might not be as useful for finance as for strategy).
• A class solely focused on cases does not allow time for students to develop an arsenal of tools and knowledge to prepare them to analyze those cases most effectively. While students get plenty of time to discuss cases, they have little time to cover the “nuts and bolts” of specific business disciplines.
• In the case method, students learn primarily from their peers, rather than their professors — shouldn’t they be benefiting above all from the expertise of the instructor?

What case study classes look like:

Interested in checking out a case study class? Thanks to Youtube, you can. Here’s a video of a Darden case study class. You can also check out Harvard’s Inside the HBS Case Method 2010 video for more information.

What do you think of the case method? Do the schools that you’re applying to take this approach?

Trying to decide whether to apply to business school? Recent news of an improved post-MBA job market might help tip the scales.

CNN Money reports that 54% of graduating MBA candidates surveyed in March 2011 reported having a job offer lined up–compared to 32% of respondents last year. The survey, which was conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council, also found salary numbers to be increasing. New b-grads reported earning an average base salary of $91,433, up from $89,141 in 2010.

Importantly, the survey found this improvement present in salary and hiring numbers across all b-schools — not just in the top tiers.

Read more about the survey results in this article from CNN Money.