PERICLES AMERICAN BUSINESS & LEGAL EDUCATION PROJECT is a small, non-governmental educational project specializing in advanced training of adult students. Founded and run by Americans, our goal is to help students get a top Western style business or legal education and to succeed in the top multinational law firms and companies in Russia. Pericles professors and courses have helped students get into some of the best B-schools and law schools, such as Wharton, Harvard, INSEAD, LBS, Northwestern, and UCLA. Our Alumni work in firms and companies including Baker & McKenzie, Lovells, PWC, Mars, Sony, Nokia, the EBRD and many more. Our students are successful because they are extremely bright, completely bilingual and highly motivated, and because, during more than a decade of experience in the Russian market we have developed a highly efficient and effective method of training and test preparation.
As a non-profit organization, all our resources go into helping to improve our programs and services to students. Our students' success is our success. As a non-profit institution, all tuition money paid for our courses goes towards hiring the best teachers, providing the most benefits for our students, and developing better and better facilities and programs. Although we work closely with U.S. government organizations and Western universities to get the latest information for our students, we are not funded by the U.S. Government nor paid a commission by any Western university.
TEST PREPARATION DEPARTMENT
Our graduate-school preparation department helps students who want to study in the United States and Europe define their goals, choose a college or university, write their applications, obtain scholarships, and prepare for entrance exams such as TOEFL, GMAT & GRE. We may not be the most heavily advertised, but we are Russia's leader in MBA preparation:
Pericles is the oldest, most experienced test preparation program in Russia. Many of our former students are attending, or have returned from institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, INSEAD, Stanford, LBS, Wharton and IMD.
Pericles has all Western professors who are fully degreed, experienced and qualified to teach their subjects.
Pericles courses are taught completely in English, thus better preparing you for courses abroad.
Pericles frequently sponsors guest visits from representatives of famous business schools and Universities, and from funding organizations such as the Muskie Program and the Ford Foundation. These visits give our students the chance to meet and ask questions to these representatives in a small, private atmosphere (averaging 20-30 students in a meeting).
Pericles test preparation programs include all the latest software to help you prepare in the most efficient way for computer-based entrance examinations.
Pericles GMAT preparation materials contain original materials, written by our professors, geared specifically to the strengths and weaknesses of Russian students.
Pericles GMAT and TOEFL preparation courses include careful assistance on the essay writing portion of the exams, allowing you to prepare and have individually graded up to ten individual essays per course.
Pericles MBA & Grad School Advising gets you past the difficult Western application process and gets you ready to take full advantage of business school, law school and other degrees from the moment you get there. Our advisors---all holding the relevant degrees from top Western schools---help you to prepare application essays, select a program, find funding for that school, survive those difficult written exams and the challenging case study method, and succeed in the interview season.
Finally, Pericles test preparation courses can be repeated free of charge for any reason. If you missed a couple of classes, didn't have time to study, got sick, or simply want to try for a higher score on an exam, come back and take the course, or part of the course, again for free.
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LAW DEPARTMENT
Pericles' law department offers legal skills courses for practicing lawyers, law students and paralegals. These skills are seldom taught in Russian law schools, but are highly sought after by Western law firms. Regularly offered courses include legal writing, contract drafting, and business negotiations. We also present courses in-house for various Moscow offices of foreign law firms.
Pericles sponsors the University of San Diego Law School's Institute on International and Comparative Law. This program brings American and foreign law students (juris-doctoral candidates) to Russia for the month of June, and holds classes here. Russian lawyers and law students are invited to apply to attend the course in East-West Trade. Russian lawyers and law students can also apply through Pericles to attend University of San Diego summer law courses in London, Oxford, Dublin, Paris, Barcelona, and Florence. These are fully accredited, American law school courses. Through a cooperative scholarship program between Pericles and the University of San Diego, 15-20 scholarships to study in Europe are granted each year to Russian students on a competitive examination basis.
Our law department program includes Moscow's first LL.M. program in American Business Law. The program is taught completely in English by Western professors. The program includes a heavy emphasis on skills courses and critical thinking, is guided by the requests of Moscow's foreign law firms, and is geared towards lawyers wanting a career in international business law practice. In existence since 2002, this program has now graduated almost 50 students, many of whom are now working at such prestigious Western firms as White & Case, Baker & McKenzie, and Salans. Three of our students have gone on for advanced study or to take the bar in the U.S. and several are practicing abroad.
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FREE SERVICES FOR STUDENTS & FRIENDS OF PERICLES
Pericles' English langauge library includes a large number business and law texts, test preparation books and graduate school guides, as well as DVDs and fiction and non-fiction books that students are encouraged to check out free of charge and watch/read at home to improve their professional and language skills.
Pericles' LL.M. students have full free-of-charge access to Lexis and Westlaw legal databases, as well as to Britain's Justis database and to Hein-On-Line, a library resource for antique texts on law and international relations. Pericles is also a CALI (Computer Assisted Legal Instruction) member school, giving students access to numerous instructional exercises and pod-cast lectures from top U.S. and European professors. LL.M. students can use these materials from their home computers, and the databases are available to other Pericles students in the Pericles library.
Pericles' popular and free "Speakers Night" every Friday includes numerous activities for improving your English and other skills. On Speakers Nights you might watch and discuss a film, learn to write a resume, listen to a guest lecturer from a top business school or law firm, play a word game, hear an actor play an historic figure, or even tell a ghost story. A different activity takes place almost every Friday. It's ALL FREE to our students, and you can bring a friend to most activities if you wish. Some events are also open to the public. The only rule: English is the only language you may speak at Speakers Night from the moment you walk in the door until the moment you leave. Violate the rule and you may find yourself wearing a funny hat for the rest of the evening.
Pericles' also offers Free Business Communication Skills Workshops with Professor Natalya Stoeber MBA. These workshops on the language and customs of international business, are designed to help students improve skills in such topics as presentations, interviews, networking and more. These workshops are only open to current students at Pericles or those who have completed a course within the past year.
Pericles Academic Support Program is designed to help students who are finding classes difficult, are perplexed about applying to business or law schools, or perhaps are just having trouble balancing work and study. Professors are available to meet with Pericles LL.M. students to help them understand cases and assignments, or to advise on legal research. Professor Andrew Mendelssohn and Dean Marian Dent are available for light advising on grad-school selection and application, or on test preparation hints for anyone in Pericles' test preparation courses.
Pericles maintains a "job openings" board and a "scholarships available" list for use by our students. If you are interested in a job or scholarship, or if you have a job available or scholarship available for a top student, please post something on our board.
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FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE POLICY
As a non-profit organization Pericles tries to train as many worthy students as possible, regardless of their ability to pay. However, as mentioned above, our main funding comes from tuition and we cannot fund everyone. For this reason we have developed what we believe is the fairest financial aid policy possible:
- Pericles gives scholarships to those students wanting academic business or law study at Pericles. We do not give scholarships for courses in preparation for an MBA or for taking tests in order to study abroad.
- Students wanting financial assistance can get either scholarships (i.e. stipend), a tuition deferment (i.e. loan), the opportunity to work in place of tuition (i.e. work-study), or some combination of these.
- Financial Assistance is usually based on a combination of merit, desire and need. You will need to complete an application form and show your college grades, give names of recommenders, indicate your income, and write a short essay explaining why you want the financial assistance. This form is not complicated, however. It should take you no more than an hour or two to complete.
- Specific criteria for acceptance is kept confidential, but applicants should be aware that it is unlikely that any student who has a job will be awarded more than a half-tuition scholarship discount.
