Sidebar: Put the It in MIT

Each year, at least a few among the hundreds of new MBA students who flock to MIT Sloan School of Management make foolish technology choices. Glenn Johnston, acting director of information technology at Sloan, offers some choice bits of advice, which he has gleaned while troubleshooting students' mistakes.

DO try to buy the hardware-software setup that your school recommends. "You're basically buying an extra level of service," Johnston explains. "We'll bend over backward for you, because this technology is standardized, and we know it well."

DO learn how to use the more advanced features of your email system. "Most students here receive a couple of hundred emails a day. The ones who manage their inbox by doing occasional mass-deletions always end up losing critical messages."

DON'T assume that you know your software or hardware well enough to use it for class. "Students think they know Excel because they can change a font and total a column," Johnston says. "Then a professor asks them to run a regression, and they're lost."

Coordinates: Glenn Johnston, gwj@mit.edu

Sidebar: How to Pay for Your MBA

An MBA can cost a bundle, says Richard Montauk, author of How to Get Into the Top MBA Programs and founder of Education USA Inc. Here's his advice on financing your business education.

Start early. "People who apply for a program that starts in September should start investigating the financial issues by June of the preceding year." That way, you get 14 months to plan.

Get someone else to pay. "Senior managers might be able to get employers to foot the bill for a weekend executive-MBA program. Women and minorities can look for scholarships at Sallie Mae's Online Scholarship Service [http://scholarships.salliemae.com]."

Don't trade prestige for cash. "Don't trade down. Graduates from the top schools command salaries that dwarf the salaries of graduates from lower-ranked schools."

Coordinates: Education USA Inc., 415-273-1078

Sidebar: School Supplies

You can't compete for MBA gold if you don't have the right gear. We spoke with plugged-in students and with heads of university tech departments to compile this guide to the tools of choice at several elite business schools.

Laptop: At MIT Sloan School of Management, one of the standard-issue laptops for the 1998 -- 1999 school year is an IBM ThinkPad 380 loaded with Windows 95 and MS Office Pro 97, along with other software. Students at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business especially like Crystal Ball, an Excel add-on that tells your PC the business constraints of a problem, as well as how many calculation cycles to run.

Coordinates: $1,933. ThinkPad 380, IBM, www.ibm.com; $495. Crystal Ball, Decisioneering Inc., www.decisioneering.com

Laptop Backpack: You can't run on the fast track if you're lugging around an old-style briefcase. Students at Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern sport JanSport's Sole Long with an Eagle Creek Computer Insert.

Coordinates: $57. Sole Long, JanSport, www.jansport.com; $25. Computer Insert, Eagle Creek Travel Gear, www.eaglecreek.com

Business Calculator: The standard-issue number-crunching device at many B-schools is Hewlett-Packard's HP 17BII, which boasts more than 250 business and statistical functions.

Coordinates: $89.99. HP 17BII, Hewlett-Packard, www.hp.com/calculators

Mechanical Pencils: Quant jocks at Stanford Graduate School of Business swear by Pentel of America's Techniclick Mechanical Pencil, which features a lead-advance button on the side for uninterrupted writing.

Coordinates: $2.50. Techniclick Mechanical Pencil, Pentel of America, www.pentel-usa.com

Cell-Phone: You won't find many pagers on B-school campuses, but almost everyone packs a cell-phone in order to stay connected with classmates and corporate recruiters. Motorola's sleek StarTac ST7760 is an easy-to- use device that commands respect.

Coordinates: $524.95. StarTac ST7760, Motorola, http://commerce.motorola.com/wireless

Handheld Computer: The PalmPilot Professional is so ubiquitous, "it's like a fungus," says one Kellogg student. "Woe unto him who carries a Casio or an old-fashioned Rolodex. You'll spend more time defending yourself than using the damn thing."

Coordinates: $249. PalmPilot Professional, Palm Computing (3Com), www.palmpilot.com -- Heath Row