UCLA Anderson’s website claims that its culture is distinguished by three pillars:

1. Share Success: We believe in inclusive collaboration for meaningful results.
2. Think Fearlessly: Our faculty and students arrive at innovative solutions to solve complex business problems. 
3. Drive Change: We are Transformative Leaders who catalyze action around a purpose, to create organizational and societal impact. 

Anderson’s culture plays a significant role in shaping the school’s students into the transformative leaders of tomorrow, inspiring them to make a real difference in the world.

The adcom provides the following preamble to its application essay prompts:

Essays are meant to complement the information provided throughout your application to highlight how an MBA fits into your career goals and journey. Strong essays are introspective, genuine, and succinct – while showcasing a clear vision for your future and the impact you plan to make on the Anderson community. Essentially, we want to learn more about who you are and why an MBA from UCLA Anderson is the right next step in your life.

Don’t be fooled by Anderson’s short-answer approach to its application essays. Take the time to consider what you want to convey in your application. Determine which critical elements of your candidacy to highlight in your essays, possibly in greater depth than your resume, transcripts, or other application sections provide. Do not respond to these essay questions until you have spent time reflecting on your past experiences and plans for the future. Understand what motivates you to earn an MBA and why you want to pursue your chosen career path.

Ready to get to work on your UCLA Anderson application? Read on. 

UCLA Anderson application essay tips

Short Essay #1 

Why is the MBA the right degree for you to pursue both personally and professionally? (150 words)

The adcom is interested in learning about your motivations and self-awareness. Authentically present formative information that has influenced your decision to step away from your career at this point to pursue your MBA. Be specific about how your decision is driven personally or professionally. Are you trying to build foundational knowledge or upskill for the next stage of your career? What has contributed to this decision? What skills do you need to acquire to make this change? What opportunities are available through this program that provide you with a means to take this next step? Your answer will set the stage for your responses to the following questions. 

Short Essay #2 

Describe your post-MBA short-term and long-term career goals. (150 words)

When you fill out the career section of the application, you will be asked to choose your desired industry and function. This essay will align with your selections, because this is where you will provide context for your professional plan. Think of your long-term goal as a guiding marker that will shape your career path over the next eight to ten years. As you outline your post-MBA goal, the adcom should be able to see that it’s a plausible, albeit ambitious next step. If you’re making a career pivot, be sure to highlight your transferable skills. 

Short Essay #3 

What makes UCLA Anderson a top choice for you, and how will you engage with and contribute to the community? (250 words)

In Short Essays #1 and #2, you have identified your motivation and career goals; this question builds on those answers. Adding to transferable skills you mentioned, consider what knowledge and skills you must develop to be a competitive candidate for the position you want to obtain after graduating from the program. Are there specific things that will help you in the longer term? You need to understand the school’s Leadership @Anderson activities and offerings. How will you take advantage of what is available while you are an Anderson student? Going beyond what you will gain from the experience, describe how you will positively affect the lives of your classmates.

To answer these questions effectively, you must thoroughly understand the UCLA Anderson program and student experience. In addition to reviewing the program’s website, connect with members of Anderson’s Admissions Ambassador Corps to gain an insider’s perspective on the student experience at the school.

Optional Essay

Are there any extenuating circumstances in your profile about which the Admissions Committee should be aware? (250 words maximum)

Whether you are applying for the first time or as a reapplicant, this optional essay allows you to convey information to the admissions committee that you haven’t been able to elsewhere in your application. It is entirely optional, so use your discretion in deciding whether to write this essay and what to share in it. 

Reapplicant Essay 

Reapplicants are those who submitted a completed MBA application within the previous two years (that is, who applied for the MBA program starting in 2024 or 2025) and received a final decision. The process to reapply is streamlined:

• Create a new application.
• Indicate on the Program page of the application that you are a reapplicant.
• Reapplicants are required to answer the Short Essay Prompts. It is suggested, but not required, to also answer the Optional Essay. 
• Submit only one new recommendation (can be same recommender as previous application)
• Watch for decision notifications according to the standard release schedule.

You will have the opportunity within the reapplicant section of the school’s application to highlight any updates to your candidacy since your previous submission. Have you obtained any licenses or certifications during this time? Perhaps you took on a leadership role at work or are serving on a community board. This is a chance for you to shape the narrative about your growth and how you have enhanced your candidacy.

UCLA Anderson application deadlines

Source: UCLA Anderson website

***Disclaimer: Information is subject to change. Please check with UCLA Anderson directly to verify its essay questions, instructions, and deadlines.***

UCLA Anderson class profile

Here is a look at UCLA Anderson’s full-time MBA Class of 2026 (data taken from the UCLA Anderson website):

Applications received: 3,079

Class size: 305

Mean GPA: 3.5

Middle 80% GPA range: 3.1-3.8

Mean GMAT: 714

Middle 80% GMAT range: 670-750

GRE average combined score: 327

GRE Verbal average: 162

GRE Verbal range: 159-169

GRE Quant average: 165

GRE Quant range: 157-167

Pre-MBA industries:

• Finance: 21%
• Technology: 16% 
• Consulting: 12% 
• Healthcare: 10% 
• Government, Education, Impact, Public Sector: 9%
• Marketing/CPG: 8% 
• Media/Entertainment: 5%
• Manufacturing: 5% 
• Retail: 5% 
• Other, Energy, Law, Hospitality: 5%
• Real Estate: 4% 

Average years of work experience: 5.4 years

Undergraduate Majors:

• Business: 34%
• Engineering: 22%
• Humanities/Social Sciences: 14%
• Economics: 11%
• Other: 11%
• Biological/Physical Sciences: 8%

Women: 43%

LGBTQ+: 8%

Military veterans/Active duty: 4%

International students: 41%

Students switching careers: 87%

Average age: 29

Age range: 22-38

You’ve worked so hard to get to this point in your journey. Now that you’re ready for your next achievement, make sure you know how to present yourself to maximum advantage in your UCLA Anderson application. In a hotly competitive season, you’ll want a member of Team Accepted in your corner, guiding you with expertise tailored specifically for you. Schedule a free consultation today!

Related Resources

• Should I Use AI for My MBA (Grad/College) Applications?
• GMAT Scores, GPAs, and MBA Acceptance Rates: The Selectivity Index
• Should You Apply to MBA Programs in Round 1 or Round 2?

The post UCLA Anderson MBA Essay Tips and Deadlines [2025-2026], Class Profile appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Show Summary

Alex Lawrence, Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at UCLA Anderson School of Management, describes the program’s offerings. Students are offered a customizable curriculum with a wide range of elective courses and specializations. The program also includes a capstone project and focuses on developing leadership skills. The summer quarter provides students with foundational elements and an opportunity to get acclimated to the program. The program also offers a business creation program for students with an entrepreneurial mindset and an applied management research project for students to work on real business challenges. Alex discusses the flexible testing policy and shares who should take the test. Alex also highlights the program’s values and how applicants can demonstrate them in resumes, letters of recommendation, and interviews. 

Show Notes

Welcome to the 592nd episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for tuning in. 

Before we get to our wonderful guest, I want to invite you to take advantage of a fantastic tool at Accepted, the MBA Admissions Quiz. Are you ready to apply to your dream MBA programs? Are you competitive at those programs? Accepted’s MBA admissions quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to www.accepted.com/MBAquiz, complete the quiz, and you’ll not only get an assessment, but tips on how to improve your qualifications. Plus it’s all free. 

It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk, Alex Lawrence, Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at UCLA Anderson School of Management, which just happens to be where I earned my MBA. Alex is a fellow Anderson alum who earned his MBA in 1999. Prior to that, he earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. After earning his MBA, he worked in management consulting for four years and then returned to UCLA Anderson as Director of the Riordan Program. In 2012, he became first the Director, and then later the Assistant Dean for MBA admissions. 

Alex, welcome back to Admissions Straight Talk. [2:33]

Good morning, how are you?

I’m great. How are you doing? [2:38]

I’m doing exceptionally well. Had a three-mile hike this morning, dropping the kids off at high school. It’s 75 degrees here in LA at the time of the recording. You can’t necessarily see it, but it’s a great day.

Can you start by giving us an overview of the Anderson full-time MBA program for those listeners who aren’t that familiar with it and focus on its more distinctive elements? [3:00]

Absolutely. UCLA Anderson is a traditional, two-year, full-time MBA program. We actually start in the summer. We just started our third week of classes with incoming take. Our students are on a quarter system, so they do have a summer internship opportunity between their first and second year. Like other schools, we have a core curriculum. But one of the distinctive elements is that our students have the opportunity to participate in a customizable curriculum that includes many sets of elective courses as well as specializations that really help students, folks on aligning with their career goals. Every student must complete a capstone project that you and I went through many years ago. There are a lot more options now, Linda, that I know we’re going to get into. They even do things on a global scale or if students choose to go the entrepreneurial route, they can do the business creation option, or the BCO. And then the other part that I would highlight to, or say one of distinctive elements is our leadership at Anderson integrates our transformative leadership framework where our students really get a chance to help them develop their leadership skills throughout the program, that would even include one-on-one mentorship throughout their time at Anderson, if they choose to do so. So those are a few of the distinctive elements and I haven’t even talked about the whole big piece about being here in southern California and all that is involved with that, but I’m sure we’re going to get into that too.

You mentioned the summer quarter before the first year. What does it cover? Why have it? When does it start? [4:45]

We started incorporating the summer program just a few years ago. We looked at from a strategic standpoint of how we can get our students better prepared academically for the professional pursuits. Of course, on the social side. So this incoming class, as an example, they start on July 29th. So it’s typically the end of July, using UCLA’s summer program quarter system. The students are really working on some foundational elements to get started. I was speaking with a student this morning. She has an accounting class that she’s enrolled in. She also has a marketing class.

Students have an opportunity to choose from that set of core classes, but then also they get awareness and exposure to our current management team on what are the choices that they said they wanted to do in their MBA application. Do a little bit more of a deeper dive into that. But then there’s also sort of the orientation elements that you might imagine, first day of school getting acclimated to the school, some norms, people getting an opportunity to learn other classmates in their sections. We have four sections of students, so that’s what the typical summer session will look like. And then the fall quarter begins towards the latter part of September and runs through the normal quarter system program we have here at UCLA.

The summer quarter is like a six, seven week quarter and you take two classes? [6:18]

Right, exactly. And then there are some more micro-sessions that feed into what I was describing earlier at the leadership at Anderson. So begin an opportunity to again build on those things, they go through an intercultural development inventory where they understand how they work with people who are not like their own backgrounds, and have those conversations whether they be difficult and helping each other. So all that aspect of building out a team.

Why have this pre-quarter quarter? [7:00]

Great question. I think about my own experiences when I was going through, you would start orientation like the end of August and go through two weeks to get acclimated to the program, and the next thing you know in the fall quarter you’re taking four core classes, you’re trying to get ready for their career recruitment aspect. You’re just trying to get settled into this new experience. When we had a task force look at and get feedback from the students, what were some of the say pain points or areas of opportunity to improve?

We thought that by leveraging the summer quarter experience, the students aren’t taking say a full suite of core classes, like the four that I mentioned. They can get more exposure to the career aspects so that when companies come on campus to do employer briefings in the fall quarter, the students are a lot more calm, a lot more ready, more prepared professionally, socially. They have some of those foundation courses that I mentioned earlier. So what we’ve seen by serving students who’ve gone through the program, of course they didn’t have the experience of going through say the fall quarter experience like I described. They are like, “Wow, this has just been amazing.”

Because we have students coming from outside the country, outside of the state who are still in some senses getting their housing organized, which is fine, but can you imagine trying to balance that and then taking courses at the same time in the old system? But we’ve gotten great feedback and from what we’ve seen, even the students are better prepared for the career opportunities when they’re going through the recruiting aspect for things like investment banking, management consulting or some of those other elements where you’ll see employer briefings really on campus starting right away. You and I know, it seems like every year things get pushed up a little bit earlier and earlier.

It goes faster and faster. The quarter system is pretty fast. I did itundergrad and graduate. [8:51]

You and I are cut from the same stone, so to speak.

I was speaking with an incoming student earlier and that person has friends starting their MBA experience at other schools and while that person’s explaining the experiences thus far, the other friends are just like, “Really? I haven’t even talked to our career management center yet. It sounds like you’ve gotten to know 150 people in the class already through all the different activities.” And at that point it was just like August 4th when they connected with them. So like I said before, based on our data and results from past classes, everybody’s been really thumbs up about the implementation that we did years ago.

I would also assume that the fact that they can take these core courses earlier not only builds their foundation for business but allows them to specialize earlier, so they’re more prepared for their internship. [10:22]

Yes, that’s exactly the point. Many individuals maybe not have a deep knowledge of all the specializations that we provide, but then like you said, they’re building this foundation through the core classes. Maybe they go even deeper dive into, like I said, maybe something like they’re definitely going to do investment banking. Then when they start seeing the specialization of elective courses, then they can start using that customizable core selection that I described earlier. And like you say, even be more prepared for this recruiting aspect, let alone the summer internship opportunity, they’ll have these courses under their belt and a knowledge of awareness.

You touched on the business creation program and applied management research, which was a field study in my day. What are they? [11:11]

Yes. So the Business Creation Program is for those students who have an entrepreneurial mindset. It does satisfy the capstone requirement that I described earlier in order to graduate. There are some prerequisite courses for students that participants can work in teams if they have an idea to develop and test the business hypothesis, conduct research really to create strategic business or implementation plans around this idea that they have. It’s really a great hands-on experience for students who want to go in that area. Many of those entrepreneurial students do not do say the traditional, so-called summer internship of working with a company. So that’s the business creation program that works in partnership with our Venture Accelerator and our PriceCcenter for Entrepreneurial Studies. And then the Applied Management Research project, or AMR, formerly known as field study. It was that same name when I was in school.

It’s really a great opportunity for students to, again, get a hands-on experience with a corporate partner who has a real business challenge. And to work from a strategic sense over the course of six months on this, again, this idea of like, “Okay, where’s this company want to take, say, an ideal, or a product, or from a strategic sense to the next level?” You and I were talking earlier and I was saying how it’s more global now. Our students who participate in the AMR have a chance to work with companies that are overseas. I’ve seen students work with clients in South America, Asia, Europe.

And I know, again, I can only talk from my own experiences. But even I would say some of the students who focus on management consulting, I really enjoyed the experience and looking at the feedback from students, not just focused on consulting. It’s really a great opportunity from a professional standpoint for our students to give these professional presentations with corporate executives who will test their ideas and theories. Of course, the students who have a faculty director who is guiding them. So they’ll go through the different phases of research while meeting the client, collecting research, going out into the field, traveling overseas. And then many of the presentations are facilitated in March of their second year, so that winter quarter of final delivery.

I realize that teamwork is a big part of the Anderson experience overall. Of course, many jobs involve a lot of teamwork. The teamwork experience was a very valuable one when I was at Anderson. [13:58]

I didn’t touch on this, but some of the benefits could be and have been where some students working in partnership with these companies, internships come out of those full-time offers sometimes come out of those as well, short-term projects as well. And of course, obviously building out one’s network as part of the process too. 

Let’s turn to the admissions part of things, which is obviously what you’re in charge of. Anderson has a flexible testing policy. Could you review which tests are acceptable? And can you discuss the test-optional policy? Who will strengthen their candidacy by taking a test? [15:08]

So I’ll go with the first question about which test we accept. Because there’s been a lot of changes over the last year within our office as well as outside of that, so now we accept the GMAT, the GMAT Focus, the GRE, and the EA, or executive assessment. So I think I covered all of those that we do accept. And then as it pertains to the test optional policy, we allow candidates to apply without a test. We give them an opportunity in a short text field to describe, if they’re a candidate, see why they’re applying without a test score. And from what we’ve seen, especially over this last year of admitting our students, the ones that we’ve seen and have admitted successfully to our program are those who have been able to explain other aspects of, say, their profile. Where it clearly shows that they have, say, the quantitative rigor to handle our program.

You asked about which one should take a test, the advice that we would say is that when… Again, you look at one’s profile, if they think that their academic and perhaps their professional profile is lighter from that quantitative rigor standpoint or maybe they weren’t as successful, especially on the academic side, taking a test is a great way to give the committee some assurances about the individual being able to be successful in our academic classes. Now, we all know it’s not just about test scores, it’s a holistic process, but focusing on the testing aspect, we would advise that anybody who wants to go test optional route or take a test, we’re always going to be looking for say, success in that area, being able to handle the quantitative rigor of our academic coursework.

Do you see UCLA Anderson either on an individual basis or sometime in the future requiring the writing assessment that GMAC is going to come out with to go along with the GMAT Focus? [17:20]

Yeah, that’s a great question. I remember being at the nexus of many of those conversations with leadership at GMAC and other of my peers in the industry. I won’t say definitely yes or no.

I think we do a great job, and again, this being our first intake, and we’re going to be doing studies to see how well these candidates are doing without say that writing assessment aspect. We’ve done extensive research over the years of looking at, say, some candidates don’t have those high, high GMAT overall scores that we’ve done research and looked at that writing element in the past and have gotten assurances when they’ve scored at say a certain level. So in absence of that, we’ve also looked at other parts of the application this past year saying, okay, with this new GMAT Focus for the candidates that we did admit, we looked at other parts of their application to give us assurances about what that looks like.

Anderson is quite clear about what it values. From the website it says, “Share success, think fearlessly, drive change. Applicants who share those values will be naturally drawn to Anderson.” I think that’s part of the point of putting it out there so clearly. How can applicants show those qualities, show that they share the values via the application, giving the future focus of the essays and their tight word limits? [18:33]

You’re asking me great questions here to get the word out. I always advise students or prospective candidates that think about the entire application. You want to use all of the real estate. So back to your point about the values, the shared success, think fearlessly, drive change. There’s ways to perhaps show any of those elements in the different parts, like your resume. Your resume should tell a story professionally as well as the experiences outside of the workplace. What communities do you play a part in? What leadership roles do you participate in? Where can you make an impact?

The letters of recommendation – the best letters of recommendation – are the ones where the candidate has worked with that recommender, perhaps giving them a brag sheet so that recommender really knows why they’re applying to business school, what areas of improvement that they can work on, why are they a great candidate? Candidates should definitely not be writing the letters of recommendation. So we’ll see elements from that too. And for those who are afforded an interview, then there’s a great opportunity because it is a blind interview, to have a casual conversation with the second-year MBA student. Where again, we have trained all our interviews to again explore those values. Because those are the kind of competitive candidates that we want to admit and come on our campus and make our environment better.

The Anderson website says that the answers to the essay questions should complement the information in the rest of the application, which is kind of what you just said now. Does that imply that the reviewers read the essays last because otherwise they might not have the context? [20:31]

So the short answer is no.

And I say that because I’m also one that reads applications, right?

Many times I may start with the essays themselves, I just want to get a good sense. And there’s ways depending on if somebody would say, “Okay, I’m just going to read the resume first.” To see what their storyline is [inaudible 00:21:23] to that. Or some may say, “I’m going to read the letters of recommendation.” Again, it being a holistic review process, many people are going to be reading the application in and of itself. Again, that does not imply necessarily what you were asking earlier, if somebody waits till the end to use that part of the application in and of itself.

Because again, I can talk from my personal experience where after reading the essays… And again, our prompts have changed over the years. And of course we have that part about short-term or long-term career goals, have a different perspective on a candidate. Next thing you know, I start reading about through the storyline about their resume, their letters of recommendation. I’m like, “Okay.” And the pieces are starting to come together. And I know we may be talking about too later on about reviewers, but next thing you have different people in the room, “What’d you think of this candidate?” It’s like, “Oh, I was surprised by this part because after our reading the essay.” 

I’ve never worked in an admissions office. I’ve worked as an admissions consultant for over 30 years. But I think if I were to review an application or when I review an application for a client, I would start with their resume. Just to get that snapshot of where they’ve been, and then I’d go through it. I don’t know if I’d go to the essays next or the form, but I’d probably start with their resume. That’s what I think I would do. 

How many people will review an application before deciding whom to interview? [22:51]

Fantastic question again. I’m going to give you the entire process. At a minimum, two or three individuals. There’s no screening, because of the fact, like I was saying earlier, we want to have different perspectives. We just don’t want to say because somebody works at a specific firm or a specific test score that they should be automatically admitted. Because again, they’re different. When I look at my team, we’ve got decades of experience. So they’ve seen a lot of candidates over the years and the different profiles and working with our student affairs team, seeing how students are successful in different ways in the classroom, outside the classroom. And what different profiles bring to the campus environment.

We’ll have two or three people, at a minimum, look at that before advocating for an interview and then just going forward with that entire process. The interview, it is a blind interview. It’s conducted by a second year MBA student who’s been trained by our Admissions Ambassador Corps, or AAC. And in that interviewing process, it’s more of a conversation, a casual one. They’re definitely going to talk about, “Please walk me through your resume.” They’re going to ask, “Why Anderson? How are you going to add value to the campus? What do you think you’re excited about if you’re admitted to the program?” Because at the end of the day, this same MBA student interviewer could be on one of these teams that you and I were talking about earlier.

And at the end of the day, we try to build as diverse of a class as possible, as competitive one, as talented in many different ways. Once we get that interview report, then you’re going to have a number of more people looking at that application. A second reader, myself, I will read the application. We have a faculty committee, and then finally we have UCLA graduate division look at the applications for a final approval and in a more higher level way. So there is a lot of eyeballs looking at applications. So I have no grand illusions of my role in all this as being the one who admits and denies people, because it takes a team, puts together these great classes that we’ve had.

What do you feel about applicants using ChatGPT or artificial intelligence in the application? Is it unintelligent to do so? What’s okay and isn’t? [25:18]

We recognize that candidates get help from resources in a number of different ways. They talk to friends and families, students, alumni; they possibly may work with admissions consultants; they use rankings reports. So here you have this new technology, this new resource as part of that process. So we are not slapping people on the hands to say, “You cannot use AI.” But at the end of the day, we are very clear in the fact that the work should be your own. And I’ll be honest with you, Linda, we can tell when it is not someone’s authentic work. It’s just going to show through, like we were talking about it earlier, there’s a lot of pieces of your application.

And I’ll tell you from my experience, I’ve read say essays or other parts of the application, and then I’ll get the interview report and I’m like, “This just doesn’t make sense.” Because in the application they were talking about they want to go, and I’m just going to name an industry here, “I definitely want to go into consulting.” And they’ve laid out this argument and then they get an interview and they’re like, “I’m definitely want to go into investment banking.” And I’m like, “Okay, maybe they’ve had a shift in interest since they applied and had the interview three weeks later.”

But having said all that, again, putting in something like ChatGPT, or Copilot, or whatever, it may be, helpful, but the work that should be submitted should be authentic. It should be their own. And at the end of the day, between the interviewing and all the other committees I described, we can figure out which ones are authentic or not. And that’s not just on the AI space, but again, over years of other things, consultants or other people who may possibly have a stronger influence on one’s submitting the materials.

We had a client several years ago who came to us after getting rejected and worked with one consultant, Esmeralda, and he gave her one of his applications that had been rejected. And she said to him, “I would’ve rejected you too.” He says, “Why?” She said, “Because you said you wanted to do entrepreneurship and you had nothing entrepreneurial in your background. It didn’t make sense. I would’ve rejected you also.” So he says, “Well, all my friends told me that that was the cool thing to do, to say I want to be an entrepreneur.” And she says, “Well, it doesn’t make any sense given your background.” He says, “Well, what I really want to do is go into financial services and investment banking.” She says, “Well, that makes sense, given your background. Say what you’re really interested in.” [27:25]

Yeah. Don’t tell us what you think we want to hear. Right?

That’s why we modify our prompts and admissions practices every year. Not from this big overhaul, but we want to get to know more about you. And you identified earlier it’s just like, wow, you don’t give, in some cases, a lot of text or characters for one to share that well, they have the entire application to share their story about that. And just one final example on that whole talking about authentics. 

The letters of recommendation piece. I said it earlier, yeah, the candidate should not be writing the letters or recommendation. But sometimes we’ll get those come in and we have all this technology, it’s like, “Oh, I came from the same computer as the applicant. No wonder this sounds like such a glowing letter of recommendation.”

What is the interview like at Anderson? You’ve mentioned that it was conversational and it’s blind. Just to clarify for listeners blind means a person hasn’t seen the application. All they really have is the resume. Is that correct? [29:42]

That is correct.

They receive the resume within a certain timeframe, 24 to 48 hours after the applicant has already scheduled their time, which is most convenient for both parties. It could be in-person or virtual, and like I mentioned before, next thing you know, they’re sitting down over a 30, 35 minute conversation, or possibly longer in some cases because sometimes they’re having such a good time. I’m knocking on the door and saying, “Hey, you got your next interviewee.” They just get lost in it. Then the interviewer will do an interview right up for us and submit that within a 20 to 48 hour timeframe. And then all the other parts of the admissions process, like I described earlier, start back in motion.

Okay. What advice do you have for re-applicants to Anderson? [30:45]

One thing is that we definitely want people who may not have been admitted for different reasons. We definitely want you to reapply. It is a slimmed down version of the application, so you’re not submitting all the materials all over again. However, what I will say is that we want those individuals to do some self-reflection and look at some of those elements that we provide and showcase, like class profiles, out there. So that they can see whether it be like say, on these testing scores, or GPAs, or work experience. They can see where they fit in some of those different spectrums. I would strongly advise those re-applicants to engage with us again, because there’s opportunities to participate in one-on-one coffee chats with our Admissions  Ambassador Corps.

You give feedback? [31:38]

While they won’t necessarily get feedback directly from their application, they can give them their perspective on how they were successful from applying. We have in the past given feedback directly in a window of time. This past year, we weren’t able to do so, but that’s something we have done in the past. But my point being just they should re-engage with us.

Because again, some of them, they can see, okay, when I look at my GPA and from the advice that we already give on our website and our information sessions, it’s like, “Hey, if you’re lower on the spectrum with your GPA, here’s a great opportunity.” Like we were talking about earlier, give the committee some confidence if I have a strong test score. Or you only have six months of work experience, but when you look at our spectrum of the average range of work experience is four to five years, even north of five years. Maybe that candidate says, “I’m not going to reapply this year, I’ll wait for another year.”

But at the end of the day, we want people to apply when they’re ready. You described the example earlier about somebody writing what they thought we should hear, the same thing, just apply when you’re ready. When you think you’re going to be the best and most competitive applicant, because candidates don’t know in a given year what the application volume is going to look like, what we receive. So it may have been one of those scenarios where, wow, in any given year, you are going to be ready, but you have to determine that yourself.

If you were thinking ahead to apply in 2026-2027, so you’re not planning to apply this cycle, what are the one or two things that you should be doing to prepare yourself to apply in a later cycle? [33:09]

Absolutely. I love this question because when you’re talking about applying in 2026-2027, there’s a lot of time for activity, but there’s not a lot of time in one sense. So what I mean by that is here’s a great opportunity from the research standpoint is to talk to school officials. So whether that be engaging with the student community, and I described some of those activities that we provide from a campus experience, do a campus tour, one-on-one coffee chats, sit in on a class. There’s a number of more ways to engage with us that showcase on our website. Part of that research too is, and I said it, is researching the campus.

Again, hopefully if it’s somewhat easy, if you’re domestic. I know sometimes even our international candidates may use summer holiday to come and check out UCLA and Southern California. But if you can’t make it to the campus, take advantage of the virtual opportunities too. We have a virtual tour and many of those things as well. The other part of that is, again, we were talking about the whole testing policy. If you decide that you are going to submit a test score, here’s a great opportunity to buckle down, study. I haven’t met anybody yet who said, “I was able to roll out of bed and just take the test, I got a perfect score.” It does require some preparation because maybe you have to take it more than once. Okay.

Don’t forget too, start thinking about the people who you would want to advocate for you or the letters of recommendation, and then again, these are some more nuts and bolts parts of it. But we’re going to ask for your transcript, we’re going to be one of those schools that we’re going to ask for a lot of these materials upfront in order for us to move forward with your candidacy. We can’t take it on faith that, “Oh, I got a 4.3 GPA at UCLA.” And just trust you and admit you. So there’s a lot of things that you can do, but I didn’t want to be too facetious in the saying that there’s a lot of time, there’s not a lot of time.

When you look at the academic year orwhen many of these on-campus activities occur, especially for UCLA, we’re looking really at a window of time of September to May,  where everything’s in full production. Because then once summer comes around, students go off into their summer internship, which there’s nothing wrong with coming here in the summertime. It’s just not as, like I said, the same resource and opportunities. And finally, just engage with us, when you look at our calendar of activities… I know I said earlier, I’m based here in Los Angeles right now, but I have somebody who’s in Taiwan, somebody who’s in San Francisco, somebody who’s on the East Coast engaging with some partner vendors or even doing our own information sessions. So we’re coming to you as much as you can come to us, so there’s plenty of time, but start building a plan with the end in mind and then work backwards.

Is engagement with UCLA a factor in the evaluation process? [36:30]

No. However, I will say that engagement with us does matter because we do record all those interactions. And I would say today’s prospective candidates, they’re good. When they’re coming and they’re engaging with the office, but all those things matter. So whether you’re talking to an admissions officer or a student administrative assistant or whatever, be professional, be courteous. Because all those things, those observations, I won’t say they go into the file, but students will come and say, “Hey, I have a great candidate who I just met. I just wanted to let you know.” And we’re like, “Okay.” And we take all those interactions, we just put them in a file. We get unsolicited letters of recommendation from alumni and things of that, so it’s fine, we just got to capture all of that information. And those are reflections of, again, possibly being a part of our community, which we want to make sure that we’re respectful for all the community members.

I also want to point out two key benefits to engagement. One, the applicant knows they’re making a wise decision. And two, they can present their interest in UCLA Anderson and their fit much more intelligently if they know more about it. [37:47]

Yes, absolutely. Like you said, somebody who’s applying in ’26, ’27 or whenever, after a while, you’re just like, wow, you get all these different perspectives, all these different experiences. Many times I see people getting excited, especially if they’re not living in the area. It’s like, “Wow, what could life look like for me as a student at a top MBA program, living in Los Angeles on a campus that is research oriented, has this diverse group of people of different backgrounds, work experiences?” And like, “Wow, I’m so excited just to apply, let alone the part about being admitted.” Then you go through this other euphoria possibly of like, “Oh my gosh, now I know where I’m going to be for the next two years. How do I plan? Where do I want to live? What kind of lifestyle I want to have?” All these things. It’s just like, “Oh my gosh.” It just starts opening up. But it all starts with having a plan, doing that engagement that you just so eloquently put out.

And also showing how the Anderson program will support your career goals. That’s what the essay questions focus on. [39:08]

Yes. And our dean, the career management center was telling the students on day one, trust the process, but you got to do the work, so let’s do this in partnership with each other because that’s why you’re going to business school. All our research shows that the number one reason why people are going to business school is career related. Of course, working on professional development, and all those things like that. But trusting the process and doing the work at the same time are, those are key elements. And we want to admit people who are going to be successful in that aspect and all things that are reasons why they’re going to business school. We don’t want to admit anybody and then have them fail in that sense.

What would you have liked me to ask you? [40:01]

Thanks for asking that question. You do a great job covering a lot of things. I guess I would say this year is that one question is why do I continue doing the work that I do?

You put my graduation year out there, which is fine. It’s all over the website, so they’re like, “Wow, that guy is a little seasoned.” What I would say is the reason why I’ve decided or continue to stay engaged here is that you mentioned how I made the pivot for management consulting into higher ed. And I was thinking that when you look at probably over the last 20 plus years, I’m a servant leader in the higher education space. From my time at Riordan, and even up until now, I’ve worked with individuals that span many age ranges. From high schooler up until younger professional, and I’ve seen this arc. I remember the freshmen in high school to years ago, to now today who graduated from an MBA program, whether it be even UCLA. And seen how they’ve grown personally, and professionally, and developmentally. And just even being on this UCLA campus, and I think that’s what resonates with my own personal values.

You look at UCLA, their legacy and its mission of teaching research and elevating the public mission to make the community society better, and a lot of my work feeds into that. So when I’m meeting candidates, first gen, international candidates, and just opening their eyes. The different experiences, information that they don’t know, fellowship opportunities or whatever. Like, “Oh my goodness. Wow.” And if I can be a connector in a lot of ways to those individuals, I can see a little bit of myself in that discovery period. Where just to make you laugh, I was much, much younger. I was like, “Who is Mackenzie? What is Mackenzie?” It’s like, wow, if I had known a lot earlier at 25, 26, I might’ve approached Mackenzie differently in just thinking about that. But again, I was an engineering nerd and I only wanted to talk about some firms and look at those things.

So again, just to wrap that up, just that part about why I’m at UCLA Anderson. I enjoy working with my colleagues here. Some are alumni of Anderson as well, and just seeing their dedication of getting back in a lot of different ways above and outside of the work that we’re committed to as employees. But I think that’s one thing that I enjoy because next thing you know… And I’m one of those homers, Linda, in the sense that I always wear UCLA gear. 

Thank you for joining me today. Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about Anderson’s full-time MBA program? [43:22]

Sure. They can go to www.anderson.ucla.edu. There’s a lot of great social media content and platforms out there too. We’re on LinkedIn, Instagram, believe it or not still on Facebook and Twitter. So there’s more you can do with that, but I always tell individuals, go to our website. There’s so much rich content there. Videos, student testimonials, day in the life of a student, alumni perspectives, faculty profiles. There’s just so much there that at least starting there and then start connecting the dots. You can even reach out to me. And like I said before, I love connecting people because if there’s a glimmer of something from the interest that they express, I’m like, “I know somebody you should speak with.” Because trust me, when they start talking to some of the people that we connected, those individuals are like, “Oh my gosh, love to talk to you about my experience.” Because they also had that same experience, somebody connected them to learn more. And they lived it, and now they just want to share how much joy they had from that experience.

Relevant Links:

• Anderson Full-time MBA 
• How an MBA from Anderson Helped this Career Switcher
• B-School for Good: Pursuing Social Impact Through UCLA Anderson’s Fully Employed MBA
• UCLA Anderson School of Management MBA Program Now STEM-Certified | Accepted

Relevant shows:

• How To Get into UVA Darden’s MBA Program 
• How to Get Accepted to Cornell Johnson MBA 
• How to Respond to the New Harvard MBA Essay Questions
• Ace the New Michigan Ross MBA Essay Questions
• How to get Accepted at Michigan Ross

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”] [xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]    [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

Podcast Feed

The post How to Get Accepted to UCLA Anderson [Episode 592] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Our consultants receive a lot of questions from clients about applying to MBA programs through The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. I’ve heard myths that suggest that applying to one (or more) of the 22 Consortium schools through The Consortium’s application is disadvantageous. But as the former director at two Consortium schools, I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth — provided you meet The Consortium’s minimum qualifications.

Though the requirements, participating schools, and corporate partners have changed over The Consortium’s 57-year history, not only is the organization the best deal in town but it also gives its members an alumni network that extends throughout the 22 member schools.

The Consortium history and mission

Initially, The Consortium provided opportunities for young African-American men to have a fair chance at rising up the corporate ladder via the MBA. Later, The Consortium added Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and women to its mix. Membership came along with the fellowship.

However, after the Supreme Court decided the Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger cases, The Consortium opened its doors to offer membership to selected applicants that further The Consortium’s mission to promote the “inclusion in global business education and leadership . . . of African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans.” Members do not need to belong to one of these groups but must demonstrate the mission through community and professional action and impact. Thus, membership is no longer race based but rather mission driven. Applicants must also demonstrate the ability to succeed in a Consortium member school’s MBA program.

Consortium member benefits

Like the undergraduate Common App, candidates can apply to up to six schools with only one application for a fraction of the cost that the candidate would incur by applying to each school separately. The Consortium membership grants the candidate access to the orientation and corporate partners. Many members receive internship offers before the start of school.

To summarize the benefits:

1. Applicants can use a single application for up to six schools at one low cost.
   
2. Members gain access to a vast alumni network of 22 schools, including mentorship from among the approximately 9,000 Consortium alumni (formal or informal).
   
3. Students gain access to corporate sponsors at orientation if selected as a member.
   
4. If selected as a fellow, students receive full tuition and a stipend.

READ: The Consortium Application: Tips for Your CGSM Essays >>

Consortium member schools

* School’s class profile presents a score/GPA range rather than an average.

To learn more about applying through The Consortium, please contact me for a consultation.

By Natalie Grinblatt, the former admissions dean/director at three top business schools. Natalie has reviewed more than 70,000 applications, interviewed more than 2,500 candidates, and trained nearly 700 admissions directors and alumni volunteers to select outstanding candidates for admission. Her clients gain admission to top programs, including those at Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Cornell, Columbia, Berkeley, Chicago, Northwestern, and NYU. Natalie holds an MBA from Michigan Ross. Want Natalie to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• Top MBA Application Essay Questions: How to Answer Them Right
• The Consortium Application: Tips for Your CGSM Essays [2022 – 2023]
• What the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management Can Do for MBA Applicants – podcast episode 395

Can the Consortium Help You Get Accepted and Fund Your MBA? [Episode 532]

[powerpress]

In this episode, the Director of Recruiting at CGSM details the benefits – and opportunities! – available to Consortium members, what it takes to become a member, and why applying in Round One may not always be an applicant’s best strategy.  [SHOW SUMMARY]

There’s an organization that can help U.S. citizens and permanent residents get accepted to top MBA programs, fund their MBA, and even provide career support post-MBA – provided the applicants support the organization’s mission. Let’s learn all about it from the Consortium for the Graduate Study of Management’s (CGSM) Director of Recruiting.

An interview with Bianca Keys, director of recruiting at the Consortium for the Graduate Study of Management. [Show Notes]

Welcome to the 532nd episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me. 

Sometimes I’m asked, is the MBA worth it? And my answer is, it depends on your individual circumstances. But I’ve got good news. We’ve developed a tool that will help you evaluate whether an MBA is worth it for you and your individual circumstances and by how much. Just go to accepted.com/mbaroi and check how much you’re likely to benefit, or not, from earning an MBA. And using it won’t set you back even one cent, it’s free. 

I’m delighted for the first time on Admissions Straight Talk to talk with Bianca Keys, Director of Recruiting at the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. Bianca earned her bachelor’s degree from Lindenwood University and her master’s in Business Management and Leadership from Webster University. She has worked in enrollment management, DEI training, and admissions in different capacities since 2008. She became CGSM’s Director of Recruiting in September 2022. 

Bianca, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk. [1:53]

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

I’m delighted to do so. Now let’s start with something really, really basic. What is the Consortium? [1:59]

All right. So, the Consortium, we are pretty much an alliance of top graduate business programs and also top corporate partners, and we’re supported by alumni and students. We were founded in 1966 by Washington University’s professor, Sterling Schoen. And his one driven mission was actually inspired by him noticing a lack of African American men in leadership in American corporations.

So, with the partnerships of some corporate partners and some founding schools, they were able to pretty much create this alliance to give African American men the business skills to be able to secure positions in American corporations. So, now we’ve grown.

And I assume it’s no longer limited to African American men. It’s now African American men and women, right? [2:59]

Yes, men and women. And our target pops are African American men, Native American and Hispanic American, but our applications are open to all.

How does one become a CGSM member? [3:16]

In order to become a member, you would have to, of course, apply. And three of our requirements are that you must be a U.S. citizen or U.S. permanent resident of any race or ethnicity, you must demonstrate a commitment to our Consortium’s mission, and hold a four-year bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in the U.S. or equivalent. So, to be approved for Consortium membership, an applicant must demonstrate the commitment through their resume, our essay, and their letter of recommendation.

I have in front of me your mission, so I’m just going to read it off. “The mission of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, an alliance of leading American business schools and some of our country’s top corporations, is to enhance diversity in business education and leadership by helping to reduce the serious underrepresentation of African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans in both the member schools’ enrollments and the ranks of management.” 

So, again, there’s no racial requirement in terms of membership as long as you support and identify with and support and have supported that mission in the past. [3:59]

Yeah.

All right. So, one of CGSM’S benefits is the ability to apply through CGSM and pay one application fee, and I think it goes to a maximum of six schools, correct? [4:33]

There’s no max anymore.

There’s no max anymore, ooh! [4:44]

So, two things, two updates. We’ve removed rankings. So, there are no rankings, and you can apply to as many member schools as you would like. So, from one to two schools is $150, up to six schools which is $300, but each additional program is $25. Yeah, so they can apply…

And so, in the past with our ranking system, the top ranking school, they were the only school that was able to offer a fellowship opportunity. And now if you applied to all six schools or more, they have the opportunity to offer you… they each have an opportunity to offer you a fellowship. And we empower the student to be able to make the better choice of what school best fits them.

Wow, that’s a big change. When did this change take place, like last year? [5:38]

This last application.

Last cycle. Should’ve interviewed you then. No, I’m teasing. That’s great news. I somehow missed that announcement. Okay, good to know. Good to know. So, there’s no more ranking and there’s no more maximum, and multiple schools could offer a fellowship. [5:43]

Yes.

Now you apply for membership at the same time that you submit your application, correct? [6:00]

Yes. It’s a one stop shop,

It’s a one-stop deal, one application. So, it is possible to use the CGSM application process and ultimately not be approved for CGSM membership, is that correct? [6:09]

Yes, that is possible. But the application is still considered an application, so you won’t get rejected from the member school just because you didn’t get membership. They still go through their standard process of admissions. And a lot of times they’ll offer you other fellowship opportunities or scholarship opportunities that they may have available at the schools.

And the schools don’t even see your decision in terms of CGSM membership. They don’t see the membership essay, correct, the membership application essay? [6:46]

They don’t see any of the membership application essays or letters of recommendation. All they see is the decision once we’ve made it.

Now I saw on your website that Stanford partnered with CGSM last year and became the 22nd school to become a partner school. Have any other schools partnered since then? [7:02]

Yes, I’m excited to say that…

Well, you got lots of news today. [7:17]

Yeah, I do. I do. Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, they are our newest, our 23rd school, which we are so excited to have them. They will begin July 1st, actually, and they will be on our application this upcoming cycle. And this upcoming cycle is for students fall 2024, that will begin fall 2024.

What is the benefit of applying through CGSM as opposed to just using the school’s portal? Portals, I should say. [7:45]

We, one, save you money. An average application for any grad program can be up to about $300 for one application, where six applications is $300 applying through us. So, it’s definitely a win for the students. Whether they get membership or not, it’s saving them money and they are allowed to go by our application deadlines as well. So, if maybe Columbia or one of the schools, maybe their application deadline may be September 15th, they still would recognize the application on our deadline, which our Round One is October 15th.

And I believe it’s also easier to apply. Aren’t there fewer essays required or is it pretty much the same at this point? [8:50]

Right, so it is the core essay which asks the applicants to discuss their MBA goals, and then there’s a second core essay that the applicants are able to detail any additional information that they may want to add that they weren’t able to explain in the application.

Right. And is there typically a supplemental per school essay, or do the schools ask for their own essays in addition to the Consortium essay? [9:20]

Sometimes they ask for their own supplementals that are added in addition. We are going through that process of application updates as we speak.

But it’s not all schools that do that? [9:38]

No, no. No, no.

Usually the student has the mission essay and then the two GMAC format essays.

Are you worried about CGSM’s applicants using ChatGPT and preparing their essays? [9:51]

Oh, the ChatGPT.

You got it. I’m asking everybody this question. [10:03]

And that’s a good question. So, with it being such a newer phenomenon right now, I just want applicants and students to be mindful that there are advantages and disadvantages to using ChatGPT, because what we’re looking for is consistency in their demonstrated commitment to the mission. And I doubt it if they’ll be able to convey that in an interview based off of a ChatGPT essay.

So, a lot of the admissions advisors and committees, they’re looking for authenticity. They’re looking for unique perspectives and their applicant’s ability to be able to express themselves. So, I don’t know if they can… It probably is a good tool to help guide them in forming their essay, but I don’t think it should be something that can express exactly your commitment.

I’ve played with it a little bit, and sometimes there are outright errors in it. It’s wrong. [11:09]

Right, right.

And other times it’s just very generic, and it has to be generic. You’re not going to get a lot of authenticity. But it does sometimes help. [11:17]

Yeah, yeah.

But to rely on it blindly I think is a big mistake. [11:28]

Yeah. Yeah. Especially if you don’t check.

Absolutely. Absolutely. [11:35]

Attention to detail.

Are there other elements to the CGSM application? We discussed you pay a fee. You have the core essays. You might have supplemental essays. Are there short answer essays or anything like that or is it pretty straightforward? [11:40]

Yeah, it’s pretty straightforward. If the school has any changes or supplements to each essay, that may be the different shift or change. But pretty much transcripts, resume. We always advise students to make sure that your experience, if you’re a part of organizations like Forte or MLT, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Teach for America, making sure that that’s actually on your resume. That definitely helps. Your test scores, GRE, GMAT or Executive assessment, letters of recommendation. One for the mission, and then there are two for the schools. Yes. And making sure you get the right recommender.

What makes a right recommender? [12:41]

Someone who can explicitly… Especially for the Consortium mission letter of recommendation, somebody who can explicitly pretty much show your demonstrated commitment to our mission and they know about that.

They’ve observed it. [13:01]

Yeah, they’ve observed it, and they can actually speak to it. And they’re not saying, “Well, I don’t know about their demonstrated commitment, but Jane is a great person and we love her personality. She’s very professional.” It’s like, what?

That’s not the question. [13:17]

So, definitely communicate with your recommender about expectations. And with us, it doesn’t have to be your supervisor with the Consortium mission letter of recommendation. It can be as long as it’s not a family member. It could be anyone who can speak to it.

That you’ve somehow supported that mission. Makes sense [13:40.

Yes.

What are the non-admissions benefits of being a CGSM member or fellow, and what is the difference between being a CGSM member and fellow? So, there’s really two questions there. Why don’t we start with the non-admissions benefits of membership, and then we’ll get to the difference between being a member and a fellow. [13:46]

So, the non-admission benefits are pretty much the early access to corporate partners. A lot of our students, we just had OP, our orientation program this past June, and it was amazing. It was amazing.

I know you’re working very hard on it. [14:20]

Yeah. Oh man, it was definitely a job, but it’s worth it. And just to see all of the students that we worked with from the beginning up until that point, from all their stress points, their pain points, to see them, they made it, and they’re at the orientation program. So, them having early access to our corporate partners.

They also have access to our system that is… We have a platform that is called Hello Fellow that allows them to join different groups that are industry groups. And our corporate partners have access to them as well, and they’re able to apply to positions that are open to those corporate partners.

Also, at our orientation program, we had a corporate open house that’s not like your traditional job fair. All of our corporate partners actually already had our students’ resumes, they already had a student look book, they’ve already seen the students and they already know the students prior to them even coming to the expo.

So, they definitely have a great advantage by being a Consortium fellow. And then the camaraderie, the support that they have with each other, there’s nothing like it. I love how each campus had… they call themselves CFAM.

Campus family, yeah. [15:53]

Yes. Each campus, each Consortium cohort on each campus, they’re so close. A lot of our alumni mention that the connection, that’s like a trending thing with us here at the Consortium is connection. Being able to connect students with not only each other, but also with our corporate partners and with our top MBA programs.

So, they have lifelong connections with all three of those different entities, and they enjoy being able to talk with someone who understands them, someone who may be going through the same even issues at their jobs or anything like that, and that connection. And if there’s a job loss or anything like that, we do provide the support to help those students to be able to reconnect with corporate partners and find another opportunity.

So, just to clarify, the orientation program is open to all Consortium members, not just fellows, correct? [16:54]

So, Consortium fellows, you’re applying for membership, but the membership allows you to become a Consortium fellow. So, whether you received a fellowship or not, you are considered a Consortium fellow.

So, you’re a Consortium fellow whether you get a scholarship or not? [17:16]

Right.

Got it. And all the fellows/members can go to the orientation program. How long is the orientation program? [17:26]

So, it’s a four-day conference, and it consists of a lot of hands-on career development. We have diversity theater, which is amazing. A lot of our corporate partners, they have private interviews with a lot of the students. So, a big portion of our students leave with internships or career opportunities.

For next year, for next summer, or for this summer? For next summer? [17:56]

Yes. For this upcoming year –

For summer 2024, let’s say? [18:03]

Yes.

And what is diversity theater? [18:06]

Oh my goodness, diversity theater. This was actually my first year to experience it. Hearing it from other coworkers and staff was not the same as experiencing and seeing those difficult conversations displayed on stage.

So, there’s actors that are on stage, and they may act out a scene where some coworkers that may deal with microaggressions or different challenges that you may face at work and how to address that, and just having those conversations amongst your peers. And it really was eye opening for not only the students, but for staff, for a lot of our corporate partners and admissions representatives as well. So, it was pretty amazing, and we have it annually as well.

And it seems like the orientation program is very much career oriented. Is there any prep for the actual study of the MBA, or is that assumed that the schools will handle that? [19:09]

So, the schools, the admissions representatives and career services representatives are present. So, they do have an advising session that they get to work with them and meet with them one-on-one for prep with the corporate partners, but also any questions that they have about the upcoming program that they’re about to start in the fall. They have all of that one-on-one time, a lot more one-on-one time than they would normally get during the school year.

Sounds like a very busy four days, very full. [19:54]

Yeah, it is very full.

Okay. How does CGSM help its fellows in career placement, both during and after the MBA? [20:00]

So, during the MBA, again, we have the Hello Fellow and our annual program, our annual orientation program and career forum. Like I mentioned before, they have the opportunity to interact with the corporate partners. The corporate partners get to review their resumes and their backgrounds early on before even meeting them face-to-face. Our alumni network, our Hello Fellow system, allows them to, again, engage with these corporate partners.

And then our student and alumni relations department, they are amazing with connecting with the students. They engage with student liaisons as well in providing that support that they may need throughout the year. And if there’s a student, like we just had tech layoffs recently. And our alumni development department, they were able to help and assist with reengaging with those students or those alumni to be able to help them to get placed in other career opportunities.

A few weeks ago you had the OP. It was mostly geared towards people starting the MBA in 2023, but it also had people who started the MBA in 2022. Is that correct? [21:18]

We had some second year. Like if something happened last year, I know dealing with the pandemic and other issues, some students were not able to attend last year, and so they were given the opportunity to attend this year.

But it’s usually just for the people about to start the MBA, the OP? [21:48]

Right, it’s usually first year students.

What do you see coming down the pike for the Consortium? [21:54]

Oh my goodness. Continued growth, continued engagement with a lot of the students. We’re working on increasing our exposure and engaging. This year we shared a lot of our OP activities on our social media and got a lot of good feedback and engagement. So, definitely I think we have a good momentum right now to be able to get all of the good things that we do at the Consortium out to the public and to the world.

What advice would you give to someone applying to apply via the Consortium in this, the 2023-2024 application cycle? [22:34]

Definitely begin your MBA journey. And beginning your MBA journey does not start with the application. It starts with the preparation.

Yes, that’s right. [23:13]

Definitely starts with the preparation. So, researching a lot of the schools that you’re interested in, finding out if you’re interested in the Consortium, finding out what that Consortium culture looks like on each campus to see what best fits you. Also, looking into preparation for GRE, GMAT, or the Executive Assessment and finding out what the class profiles are for each school that you’re interested in so you can have a good idea of where you stand. And don’t rush your application. Don’t rush it.

Yay! [23:54]

I always have some overzealous students that want to, “I’m getting it in for Round One.” Wait a minute. Make sure that you’re submitting the strongest application and that this is the right time for you to start a program. There’s no rush. There’s no rush. There’s no rush. Make sure you have the strongest application. Utilize all resources that you need to support you through your application process.

We always advise students to attend our events. We have member school webinars that are… We actually have one coming up on July 10th, which will have Washington University, University of Rochester Simon, and UCLA Anderson. And they will be talking about their MBA programs, but also talking about their Consortium cohorts on their campus as well.

And we also have our MBA application preparation seminars, which is MAPS, which will be in person this year. So, we will be in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, and DC.

Wow. You’re getting around. [25:16]

Yes.

Not all Consortium schools require a test score. Does the Consortium require a test score even if the school does not? [25:21]

So, for membership we don’t require a test score. But if you are applying and they offer a test waiver, we would need to have that test waiver submitted, or you would need to submit that in the application. And then we just confirm it with the member school whether that test waiver was actually approved. Yeah. And then if it wasn’t approved, then they would have to submit a test score.

Are any of the programs or any of the partner schools entirely test optional? Do you know off the top of your head? I wasn’t sure as I was thinking about it. [26:03]

I don’t think so. Well, it depends on the school and what policies they have in place this upcoming school year.

I think most of them have a test waiver option, and I also would have to go through each one. [26:19]

Yeah. I always advise students to talk with them early about it, because last year I ran into the issue of students who just missed it. It was like they just missed the test waiver window. So, definitely talk with your school of interest to find out when that test waiver timeframe is and get that in if that’s an option for you.

Wonderful advice even if you’re not applying through CGSM, by the way. [26:51]

Right, absolutely.

What would you have liked me to ask you? [26:56]

These were all great questions.

What would you like to share that I haven’t asked? [27:02]

I would like to share just my… In my position as Director of Recruiting, what my passion and desire and vision is for the Consortium moving forward is to be able to expand our exposure to those who definitely need the opportunity, to be able to expand our exposure to those areas, because sometimes we are in this collegiate bubble.

Aacademia. [27:37]

Yeah, absolutely. And to be able to… We do so many great things.

You do. [27:45]

And just being able to see just the energy that I get from the students, just being around them, and just the positive nature of it all, being able to give that to others who don’t know about the Consortium. So, that’s my mission and goal is to increase exposure and to really share about the great things we’re doing here at the Consortium.

Well, today in this podcast, you did it. [28:14]

Thank you. Thank you, Linda.

You’re very welcome. Bianca, I want to thank you so much for joining me today. Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about CGSM? [28:21]

They can check us online at www.cgsm.org or on our LinkedIn page and our Instagram page and on Twitter.

Relevant Links:

• The Consortium for the Graduate Study of Management
• Applying For Your MBA Through The Consortium: Best Deal In Town
• MBA ROI Calculator   

Relevant shows:

• How to Get an MBA at Columbia Business School – a podcast Episode 528
• How to Get Accepted to NYU Stern – a podcast Episode 525
• How to Get into Dartmouth Tuck – a podcast Episode 514
• How to Get Into Georgetown McDonough’s MBA Program – a podcast Episode 512
• How to Get Accepted to UNC Kenan-Flagler Full-Time MBA Program – a podcast Episode 496

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]   [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

Podcast Feed

The post Applying for Your MBA Through The Consortium [Episode 532] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

U.S. STEM MBA Programs: An Overview

STEM certification programs have proven application bonanzas for top business schools. STEM certification may have begun pre-pandemic as a way to alleviate uncertainty in the visa process, but the programs have proven to be a robust inducement for MBA applicants, particularly from foreign countries. According to Poets & Quants, “At Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, the move to designate its entire MBA program STEM in early 2021 paid dividends this year. . . Its applications rose by an incredible 21%, an increase of 450 to 2,555, even though Cornell presumably felt the same domestic squeeze as its peer schools.”

[List of top STEM OPT U.S. Business Schools >>]

Cornell’s new MBA class has students from 43 countries, a dramatic rise from 30 countries from 2021. Cornell is receiving roughly double the number of international applications as domestic applications. Poets & Quants also reported strong upticks in foreign student enrollment among 27 B-schools surveyed: “In the top 10, the average gain was 10.2 percentage points, or 36.6%, with Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business the biggest by points — 18, or 72%, to 43% — and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania the biggest by percentage: 84.2%, or 16 points, to 35%.

“Across all 27 schools, the average gain from 2020 to 2022 was 14.6 percentage points, or 69%. The biggest gain was at CMU Tepper, which doubled its total from 28% to 56%; notably, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School gained 23.5 points, or more than 200%, to 35%. Three other B-schools more than doubled their international ranks in two years.”

Are you an international MBA applicant? We’ve helped hundreds of applicants get accepted to top MBA programs! CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT HOW WE CAN HELP YOU GET ACCEPTED >>

The GMAC’s survey from 2019 was the first to inquire about a program’s STEM-certification, and found that these programs were more likely to report growth in international applicants. A total of 195 of the 804 U.S. programs responding reported that their programs were STEM-certified (24%). Among them, the most common program types were Master of Data Analytics (28%); Master of Finance (22%); and Master of Information Technology (14%). And while a majority of both STEM-certified (53%) and non-STEM (57%) programs reported declines in total applications during this period, STEM-certified programs fared better among international applicants. In the 2019-2020 academic year, 43% of STEM-certified programs grew their international applications, compared with 26% of non-STEM programs.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-selectivity-index-avg-GMAT”]

Given ongoing concerns over visa status and one’s ability to work in the U.S. after business school, programs that are STEM-certified are sure to be more appealing to this applicant pool.

While some MBA programs – such as Chicago Booth, Wharton, Virginia Darden – now offer specific concentrations that qualify international students for STEM OPT, others – such as Berkeley Haas, Carnegie Mellon Tepper, and Rochester Simon – qualify MBA graduates of all majors in their MBA programs for this extension.

During 2021, MBA programs have seen a rebound in international applicants, and many schools (NYU Stern, Darden, and Yale) are touting this return. Still, they are maintaining their STEM certifications because it will pave the way for their graduates to get jobs and stay in the U.S. long enough to pay off or pay down their loans. Despite its cost, the MBA degree continues to pay robust dividends right off the bat. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article: “At about 98% of universities that offer master’s of business administration programs, graduates typically made more money two years out of school than they had borrowed, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal student loan data for nearly 600 programs found.”

STEM MBA Programs

Name of MBA Program	Majors That Are STEM Designated	MBA Essay Tips
Arizona State Carey	All MBA Platforms	Tips
Babson MBA	1) Business Analytics and Machine Learning 2) Quantitative Finance	Tips
Berkeley Haas	All Majors	Tips
Brigham Young Marriott	Management Science and Quantitative Methods	Tips
Carnegie Mellon	All Majors	Tips
Chicago Booth	All MBA programs	Tips
Columbia Business School	MBA and EMBA programs	Tips
Cornell Johnson	1) Two-Year Management Science MBA 2) One-Year Management Science MBA 3) Tech MBA 4) MPS in Management 5) MPS in Management - Accounting Specialization	Tips
Dartmouth Tuck	STEM track	Tips
Duke Fuqua	Second Major in Management Science and Technology Management (MSTeM)	Tips
Georgetown McDonough	Management Science major	Tips
Harvard Business School	Management Science track	Tips
Indiana Kelley	Accounting, Business Analytics, Finance, Marketing or Supply Chain and Operations	Tips
Lehigh University College of Business	Business Analytics (a concentration within 1-MBA)	Tips
Michigan Ross	STEM track	Tips
MIT Sloan	MBAn	Tips
New York University	Tech MBA Two-year full-time MBA	Tips
Northwestern Kellogg	Management Science MMM Program for Dual Engineering/MBA Degrees	Tips
Notre Dame Mendoza	MBA/Master of Science in Business Analytics Dual Degree	Tips
Pace University	MBA in Information Systems	Tips
Purdue Krannert	MBA-STEM	Tips
Rice Jones	All MBA Programs	Tips
Rochester Simon	All Specializations	Tips
Rutgers	STEM designation	Tips
Stanford GSB	1) All MBA majors 2) MSx	Tips
Syracuse	FT MBA, M.S. in Business Analytics, MS in Finance, MS in Marketing and MS in Supply Chain Management	Tips
Texas McCombs	14 of the 22 concentrations for the full-time MBA program	Tips
University of California, Davis	All Majors	Tips
University of California, Irvine	Analytics in Digital Leadership concentration	Tips
University of California, Los Angeles	All Specializations	Tips
University of California, Riverside	All MBA Programs	Tips
University of California, San Diego	1) Full-time MBA 2) FlexEvening 3) FlexWeekend	Tips
University of California San Francisco	1) Financial Analysis, MS 2) Information Systems, MS 3) Full-Time MBA 4) Marketing Intelligence, MS 5) Energy Systems Management & MBA 6) Environmental Management & MBA (4+1), BS/MBA 7) Financial Analysis & MBA (4+1), BSBA/MS	Tips
University of Connecticut	1) Business Analytics 2) Digital Marketing Strategy 3) Financial Analysis and Investments	Tips
University of Delaware Lerner	Major in Business Analytics	Tips
University of Georgia Terry	Only open to U. of Georgia undergraduates; includes 45 majors	Tips
University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler	All MBA Programs	Tips
University of North Texas Ryan	MBA in Business Analytics	Tips
University of Washington Foster	Management Science	Tips
University of Wisconsin - Madison	1) Specialization in Operations and Technology Management 2) Supply Chain Management	Tips
USC Marshall	Specialization in Management Science	Tips
Vanderbilt Owen	Finance Concentration	Tips
Wharton	1) Business Analytics 2) Business, Economics & Public Policy (BEPP) 3) Business, Energy, Environment & Sustainability (BEES) 4) Operations, Information & Decisions (OID) 5) Quantitative Finance 6) Statistics	Tips
Washington University in St. Louis (Olin)	Full-time MBA	Tips

We’re going to do our best to keep this table current. However, please do not rely on this table; confirm the STEM designation yourself to make sure that the MBA programs you apply to really have that designation. And if you find out a school has attained STEM certification and is not on the list, please let us know by emailing blog@accepted.com.

If you would like to learn how to get into top MBA programs that offer STEM OPT eligibility and are a good fit for you, register for a free consultation with me. 

At Accepted, we’ve helped hundreds of applicants get accepted to top MBA programs and look forward to helping you too! CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—WBR—Get-Accepted-to-Harvard”]

By Jennifer Bloom, admissions consultant at Accepted for 20 years and Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW). She is an expert at guiding you to produce application materials that truly differentiate you from the rest of the driven applicant pool. If you would like help with your application, Jennifer can suggest a number of options that work with any budget. Want Jennifer to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• STEM Applicants: Why Your Statement of Purpose is So Important
• Top MBA Application Essays: How to Answer Them Right (school-specific essay tips)
• The Questions You SHOULD Be Asking – ANSWERED!, a podcast episode

The post Top STEM MBA Programs: A Comprehensive STEM-OPT Eligible List appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

If you are a recently laid off and otherwise competitive applicant, MBA programs want YOU!

Are you a tech worker who just got laid off from Meta, Twitter, Facebook, Stripe, or a similar company? Were you thinking of getting an MBA before and/or since the layoff? Well, what started as a trickle with Northwestern University–Kellogg School of Management and MIT Sloan has turned into a river, and may turn into a flood.

Here is a list of the changes full-time MBA programs are making to accommodate and attract recently laid off workers.

MBA Programs Seek Laid-Off Workers

School	Who's Eligible	Accommodation
Cornell MBA & Johnson Cornell Tech MBA	Qualified candidates who have recently been laid off by a U.S. company, applying for the January 2023 MBA deadlines	Application fee waiver & GRE/GMAT test waiver
Dartmouth Tuck	Any worker laid off since Aug. 1, 2022. For more info visit tuck.dartmouth.edu	Can request a GMAT/GRE test waiver. Deadline: March 1, 2023
Duke Fuqua	All applicants	Added new round with Feb. 13, 2023 deadline -- Can take test for this deadline prior to Feb. 28
Georgia Tech Scheller	Professionals who have been affected by recent layoffs, applying to the full-time program	A select number of designated fellowships, application fee waiver & test waiver
Indiana Kelley	Laid-off tech employees	Application fee waiver & GRE/GMAT test waiver
MIT Sloan	Laid-off workers	Extend its Round 2 deadline to Feb 23, 2023
Northwestern Kellogg	Employees who were laid off this quarter at a company in the tech sector and are applying to full-time graduate degrees, including the two-year M.B.A., by a mid-January deadline.	Waive GMAT/GRE
NYU's Andre Koo Technology and Entrepreneurship MBA	Class entering in May 2023 (applying either to its Jan.15 or final Feb. 15 deadline)	Waive entrance exams
Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business	Open to U.S. citizens, U.S. permanent residents, or those who currently reside in North America	Round 4 added with a deadline of May 1
SCU Leavey School of Business	Those who work in the technology industry, especially those affected by recent layoffs, applying to the following on-campus graduate programs: • Part-time Evening MBA • Executive MBA • MS Business Analytics • MS Finance and Analytics • MS in Information Systems	1) Waive application fees 2) Lift GMAT/GRE requirement for those with tech backgrounds 3) Award scholarships of at least $3,000 4) Accept applications for the Spring Evening MBA through January 20, 2023
UC Berkeley Haas	Prospective candidates who have been laid off between June 1, 2022 to Feb. 2, 2023 , applying to the full-time MBA program	Application fee waiver & deadline extension to Feb. 2, 2023
UCLA Anderson	Recently laid off due to a organizational restructuring or downsizing and apply by R2 Jan. 4, 2023 deadline	1) Can submit test scores and recommendations by Feb. 4. 2) Application fee waivers. 3) If admitted through this process and later find new employment, may be eligible to switch to Anderson’s part-time fully employed MBA program.

* If you know of other schools that are taking special steps to attract laid off workers this cycle, please email blog@accepted.com and let us know.

Here’s the background.

Kellogg Waives GMAT/GRE for Sub-set of Applicants

On November 14, 2022, Lindsay Ellis of the The Wall Street Journal broke the news that Kellogg is waiving its test requirement for “employees who were laid off this quarter at a company in the tech sector and are applying to full-time graduate degrees, including the two-year M.B.A., by a mid-January deadline.”

Kellogg, like many top MBA programs, experienced a surge in applications when COVID hit due the soaring unemployment rate. At the same time, and due mostly to difficulties in accessing a test, it waived its test requirement. That year, applications to Kellogg and other top-ranking M.B.A. programs, including University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Columbia Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management, rose significantly.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-free-discovery-call”]

Since then Kellogg restored the test requirement and unemployment took a deep dive. This past cycle, like many other top MBA programs, it experienced a drop in applications. With a very tight labor market and the test requirement back in place, Kellogg experienced an 18% plunge in application volume last year. Many in admissions expect either flat application volume this cycle or a further drop depending again on the economy.

Quoting the WSJ article, “Accustomed to jobs with six-figure salaries, big equity packages and other perks, many tech workers have had a particular incentive to stay on the job in recent years.” Now, with tech workers losing their jobs by the thousands, MBA programs are seizing the opportunity to recruit students from an already talented pool of candidates. 

Kellogg’s associate dean of degree programs, Greg Haniffee, said that the school decided to waive tests earlier in November after Twitter began cutting its workforce in half. Again from the article: “These folks were high performers and are now at a pivot point in their life,” he said. “If they’re considering business school, removing this barrier could benefit them.”

[xyz-ihs snippet=”SR–Example-to-Exemplary”]

Kellogg’s offer to waive the GRE or GMAT requirement for applicants recently laid off from the tech sector is open to Kellogg’s Round 2 applications for full-time and part-time programs. In a blog post from November 14, Hanifee wrote that these newly available candidates “can apply to Kellogg by providing their transcripts, resume and application which will also include a brief essay on their work experience and most recent role as well as what they hope their transformation will be and how it will advance them. . . We hope this offer will allow some people to speed up their career transformation process.”

Unlike in 2020, when Kellogg waived the test requirement for all applicants, Kellogg is treading more carefully now by targeting a select applicant pool with proven capabilities who will be competitive job seekers. These recently laid-off workers had demanding roles until just a few weeks ago, and their skills, when combined with an MBA, will probably be in demand. It’s understandable that Kellogg is comfortable relying on their transcript as evidence of academic ability (or lack thereof). They probably don’t need the test score. 

Kellogg’s move presents an opportunity for laid-off tech talent who would do well to consider what may be a rare and perhaps fleeting offer. Kellogg is already a techie haven, with seventeen percent of its newest MBA class coming from tech, and one-fifth of its 2022 graduating class having gone into the sector.

As Accepted founder and CEO Linda Abraham noted in Poets and Quant’s “For these recently laid-off workers, who until the last few weeks had positions that were demanding and whose skills when combined with an MBA will probably be in demand, Kellogg is comfortable relying on their transcript as evidence of academic ability (or lack thereof). They don’t need the test score. Getting these kinds of jobs is in and of itself a test.”

With this move, Kellogg is hoping to boost its pool of qualified applicants while easing the decline in application volume.

MIT Sloan has its own approach to attracting and accommodating recently laid off workers.

Work with a seasoned consultant to polish the presentation of your work experience and your entire application >>

MIT Sloan Offers Later Round 2 Deadline to Laid-Off Workers

In an interview on November 17 with Linda Abraham, who is also the host of the Admission Straight Talk podcast, MIT Sloan’s Assistant Dean of Admissions, Dawna Levenson announced that MIT Sloan will extend its Round 2 deadline to Feb 23, 2023 for laid off workers. The move gives potential applicants who were not anticipating a layoff and are interested in the MBA time to prepare for the GRE or GMAT, take the test, and submit an excellent application this cycle.

In addition to having the data point that the test score provides, MIT Sloan may also be attempting to avoid the criticism that Kellogg received for its test waiver. In a lively discussion on LinkedIn about Kellogg’s move, many felt that it is unfair to require the test for some applicants and not for others. People who worked or work at those same companies and applied for Round 1 must take the test. Employees of those firms who were not laid off still must take the test. With its extended deadline, MIT Sloan is getting the data it values, showing understanding for recently laid off workers, and probably increasing its applicant pool.

The complete interview with Dawna Levenson aired on November 29.

With so many changes in the world of MBA Admissions, why not get expert guidance that is tailor-made for you? Our consultants have helped thousands of applicants get ACCEPTED to top MBA schools–and they can do the same for you. Check out our menu of MBA services to pick the one that is just right for you! We’re here to help you GET ACCEPTED.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

For 25 years, Accepted has helped business school applicants gain acceptance to top programs. Our outstanding team of MBA admissions consultants features former business school admissions directors and professional writers who have guided our clients to admission at top MBA, EMBA, and other graduate business programs worldwide including Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Booth, INSEAD, London Business School, and many more. Want an MBA admissions expert to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related resources:

• Why MBA? The Winning Ingredients of a Dynamic MBA Goals Essay
• Northwestern Kellogg 2022-23 MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines
• From Example to Exemplary, a free guide to writing outstanding admissions essays
• 5 Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your MBA Application Essays, a free guide

The post MBA Programs Seek Recently Laid Off Tech Workers appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

The Anderson EMBA‘s two questions together cover past, present, and future, in that order. Essay 1 addresses the past by asking for a particular story drawn from your experience, and essay 2 addresses the present and future by asking about why now is the right time for you to be pursuing this degree. The questions indicate that the adcom believes the personal informs the professional; who you are defines your career and your work. Consequently, who you are as a person matters.

It helps to see these essays as two phases of a continuum:

• In essay 1, portray qualities, skills, and experience(s) that support your goals.
  
  
• In essay 2, show that your future plans fulfill the mission and purpose of the character portrayed in essay 1.

UCLA Anderson EMBA application essays

UCLA EMBA essay #1

Legendary UCLA basketball Coach John Wooden once said that one’s leadership is derived from one’s character. Please provide an example of a time when your own leadership was at its best. (500 words max)

There are two key words in this question: leadership and character. The implication in the latter word is that UCLA seeks applicants who not only have the requisite track record of leadership and impact that is commonly sought by top EMBA programs, but also gravitas, depth as a human being. Your chosen example should include leadership/impact and gravitas/depth.

You can select a topic for this essay either from your work experience or outside it – but keep the phrase “at its best” on your radar. What does “your leadership at its best” mean to you? This point reflects your character. For most people, I suggest going with a professional example in order to give the adcom a glimpse of you in your work environment, handling important and high-stakes situations. Go with a non-work example if it has some specific strategic value for your application. Also, use a relatively recent experience if possible, to allow the adcom to see the person who will show up in the classroom.

Let the story itself carry most of the weight in the essay – depict not just the story of leadership but how you inspired others to follow due to your character, example, and leadership style. At the end of the essay, write a short concluding paragraph explicitly summarizing why this is you as a leader at your best.

UCLA EMBA essay #2

Why are you interested in pursuing an MBA at this time? Please share any goal(s) you may have that the MBA will help you achieve. (500 words max)

Starting the question prominently with “why now?” indicates that the factor of timing as you perceive it is as important as the goals themselves to the adcom. There is a practical dimension to this interest that should be reflected in your essay. 

First I’ll discuss “why now” in both a micro and a macro view. The micro view looks at the particulars of your current situation – your current responsibilities and challenges and likely next step. This should position you at the right experience, responsibility, and decision-making level for a competitive EMBA like UCLA’s, and the next step should be a role for which the EMBA learning is either essential or at least a clear asset. The macro view looks at the longer-term career vision and the continuum of your career. Within that continuum, why is now the pivot point where you should make the investment of time, effort, and (most likely) money? How will pursuing the Executive MBA now prepare you not just for the next step but for the long term?

In describing your goals, indicate why you are planning that path. For shorter-term goals, detail specific positions, company, scope of responsibilities, and desired impact (i.e. what your desired “footprint” would be). Longer-term goals need less detail but should present a clear direction, building on the earlier roles.

The question does not ask you why you are choosing UCLA’s EMBA, but you can add a brief discussion of this point. If you do, be specific: describe how the program meets your key learning needs; refer to the features of the program that are most important to you.

UCLA EMBA essay #3 (for reapplicants)

Please describe your career progress since you last applied and how you have strengthened your candidacy. Include updates on your short-term and long-term career goals. (500 words max)

As a reapplicant, you should show growth from the previous application. Discuss professional developments such as promotions, awards, and new projects, as well as any significant community involvements and/or educational endeavors. Describe the activity/experience and note its positive impact if any, plus what you have gained or learned from it. Try to include an anecdote for at least 1-2 of the activities. Finally, be selective and present only those activities that are relevant and enhance your application and candidacy in some way.

If you have refined or revised your goals, explain it and make a strong case for why you are now pursuing this altered path.

UCLA EMBA essay #4 (Optional)

Are there any additional circumstances in your profile about which the Admissions Committee should be aware? (500 words maximum)

The phrase “should be aware” indicates that this essay should be used to explain any extenuating circumstances, as well as points that are important to fully understand your candidacy. It’s not the place to add enhancements.

For expert guidance with your UCLA Anderson EMBA application, check out Accepted’s MBA Application Packages, which include comprehensive guidance from an experienced admissions consultant. We’ve helped hundreds of applicants get accepted to UCLA Anderson’s EMBA program and look forward to helping you too!

UCLA Anderson Executive MBA application deadlines 2022 – 2023

Source: UCLA Anderson EMBA website

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—SR—Ace-the-EMBA”]

Related Resources:

• MBA Options: Full-Time MBA vs. Part-Time MBA vs. EMBA
• 5 Key Elements for Your Executive MBA Application, a short video
• The Ultimate Guide for EMBA Applicants

The post UCLA Anderson Executive MBA Application Essay Tips & Deadlines [2022 – 2023] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

[powerpress]

Everything you need to know about the UCLA Anderson MBA program [Show Summary]

Alex Lawrence, UCLA Anderson’s Assistant Dean for MBA Admissions explores the hallmarks of the program and discusses what makes a competitive application. 

Interview with Alex Lawrence, Asst. Dean of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at UCLA Anderson School of Management [Show Notes]

Welcome to the 484th episode of Admissions Straight Talk, Accepted’s podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get to our wonderful guest, I want to invite you to take advantage of a fantastic tool at Accepted, the MBA Admissions Quiz. Are you ready to apply to your dream MBA programs? Are you competitive at those programs? Accepted’s MBA Admissions Quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just complete the quiz, which should only take about five minutes, and you’ll not only get an assessment but also tips on how to actually improve your qualifications. Plus, it’s all free.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk Alex Lawrence, Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at UCLA Anderson School of Management, which just happens to be where I earned my MBA. Alex is a fellow Anderson alum who earned his MBA in 1999. Prior to that, he earned a bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering. After earning his MBA, he worked in management consulting for four years and then returned to UCLA Anderson as Director of the Riordan Program. In 2012, he became first the director and then the Assistant Dean for MBA Admissions. 

Can you give an overview of the Anderson full-time MBA program for those listeners who aren’t that familiar with it, focusing on its more distinctive element? [2:15]

The UCLA Anderson MBA is obviously near and dear to my heart, being an alumnus of the program and now running the admission side of things. My relationship with the school goes back over 25 years.

It’s a two-year program that balances the opportunity to go through the traditional core elements while also taking what you learn in the classroom to actually participate in a number of different experiential or practicum types of activities. We actually started school yesterday and today is day two for the class of 2024. 

One of the things I think shows how we’re always innovating in our program is that beyond traditional summer internships, more and more of our students are doing academic internships. Part of the graduation requirements is to satisfy a global requirement. Our students have been taking on some of those different opportunities for almost 10 years now, where they do a consulting project with a global company or perhaps they travel overseas. 

We’re a smallish class size of around 330 students. We don’t necessarily look at students with just a business background. It’s really diverse domestically, internationally, and across genders also career interests as well. We have students who go to a lot of different areas, not just consulting and finance, but real estate, entertainment, and more.

We’re always trying to push the envelope, and we added a course in ethics to the core classes students need to take in order to graduate. Students have to participate in that. In our career services, there’s a required class as well that our students have to take. There are a lot of different elements. Once you peel back the layers and learn more about Anderson, there’s a lot to find out. I hope we’ll get a chance to talk about a lot of that and more.

How does the Anderson course in ethics differ from traditional corporate social responsibility courses? [5:08]

Many times ethics are woven into some other elements of the curriculum like elective courses or case studies. Before the pandemic, we were working with students, who we always work hand-in-hand with to innovate our curriculum, and they wanted to create an all-day conference on ethics that would include a case competition at the end. That really showcased the interests of not just the current students but also this wave of interest of even prospective candidates in the topic itself. The faculty got together with the administration, and while it took a while to make this part of the core, students now have ten weeks to get a bit deeper into the foundation elements of ethics.

Like most MBA programs, on the first day of school, students will sign a code of conduct spanning accountability inside and outside the classroom. Some of the other things that I think show the innovation of building up this ethics course are case studies and the opportunity to do practicum around it as well. Of course, there are featured speakers. These are all things that students can take into their summer internship and even after they graduate. It’s an opportunity that resonates with our students who are looking to change the experience, including grade non-disclosure and things of that nature.

All of these things are connected to the idea and topic of ethics that we’ve been teaching throughout different courses in the past, but now it’s a main focal point of one particular class as part of the graduation requirements.

Can you touch on internships, the Applied Management Research program, and the option to launch a business during the MBA? [7:12]

The Applied Management Research program gives students an opportunity to basically do a mini consulting project. You create your own teams. You bid on one of over a hundred different projects that span a number of different industries. For those like myself, who was a career switcher and wanted to go the management consulting, it’s a really great opportunity to work with a company that has a real business challenge. That basically starts with you creating your own team at the end of the first year, and you actually have a deliverable in the middle of the second year.

Another option for students, especially if you’re focused more on the entrepreneurial sort of roadmap, is called the Business Creation Project, or BCP. You get an opportunity to work with our Price Center for Entrepreneurship, one of our eight research centers. You get to leverage our venture accelerator, one of our eight incubators on the UCLA campus. And in that sense, you build out your plan and get access, depending on what you need, to funding, board members, etc. You get exposed to a lot of those different partners.

There’s more now than just the AMR and the BCP, but you can also be a part of the Anderson Strategy Group. It’s a partnership model, and all students get a chance to pick the type of projects they want to work on either on the UCLA campus or outside. You can do asset management by being part of the Student Investment Fund, where you manage over a million dollars of the school’s funds. There are a lot of different ways to now satisfy that graduation requirement that was really just sort of singular in nature when you and I were in school.

And the internship is totally separate? [9:41]

That’s totally separate. We see over 70% of our current students participating in some type of engagement. While the Parker Career Management Center does support our students, it’s not necessarily a graduation requirement. Some start that opportunity because they’re career switchers, and they see the opportunity that they need to transform their resume. Some start that opportunity as early as the winter quarter of their first year, so January. Some I’ve heard have done up to five different academic internships during the course of two years.

That might be in an area like entertainment media where they know that the recruiting process is definitely different than financial services or consulting. They know that getting the opportunity to do these short-term projects, getting their name out there, and doing some networking are benefits that will help them make the career switch.

It’s become a great phenomenon where some of these opportunities get handed down from second-year students to first-year students because the so-called clients or some of these engagements have had such a great experience. Maybe some of these groups aren’t necessarily looking for something as long-term as a summer internship and they need a short-term academic firepower.

How has COVID affected the global graduation requirement and the global immersion courses and experiences at Anderson? Have you been able to resume those? [11:31]

Yes, we have. An email came through yesterday about an opportunity for students to travel to India in December, and they’re taking applications for that. In September, students are going to be visiting the Czech Republic. A number of students went on a trip to Dubai in December 2021. It’s definitely in full swing. Of course, we make sure our students and faculty travel safely. We’re taking all the necessary precautions, but our students are right back on track exploring all these great opportunities on and off the Anderson campus.

What don’t people know about Anderson that you would like them to know? [12:35]

That’s a great question. As much travel as I’ve been doing before the pandemic and afterward, what I see is that few have taken the opportunity to come to the UCLA Anderson campus. I understand it. One of the things that people should know about is the work-life balance. I’m going to put all of the beaches and sunshine aside, but being in a part of the country that’s not only the entertainment media capital of the world but also has Silicon Beach, which is great for those who are focused on a career in tech. You can definitely go up to the Bay Area as well. We are very vibrant and have great career opportunities in the finance arena up and down the West Coast. You can still make that transition back to the East Coast. 

I would mention our Parker Career Management Center, which is a top-ranked career management center, especially as it pertains to boosting the ROI. I think that’s something that’s always on people’s minds to stage the value of the MBA. 

Do you see Anderson accepting the Executive Assessment for the full-time program or other aptitude tests in addition to the GMAT and the GRE, or perhaps issuing test waivers or going test-optional? [14:19]

I won’t say no, because we are constantly talking about what we need for our applicants. The old model that many of the schools, including Anderson, have leveraged is a standardized test and transcripts. When different testing vehicles have been released, our history shows that we have adjusted to the market. We accepted the GRE like other schools many years ago. Again, we’re looking at evaluating the EA. Some of the other programs under the UCLA Anderson portfolio suite do accept the EA, in particular, our part-time MBA program. I’m not going to say no because we’re looking at that. 

We’re not providing test waivers, but we’re talking. We’re talking with all our partners, including current students to try to understand some of the challenges of applying to business school. That includes the financial burden that some of the students are coming to the program with. Right now, in the short term, we’re not providing test waivers or looking at other different types of testing vehicles, but we’re talking about it. We’re looking at all of our so-called competitors in the market to see which ones are providing those resources and which ones are not. 

One of my major concerns, and I think it’s shared throughout UCLA Anderson, is that when we’re looking to bring people onto our campus, we want to make sure that they are going to be successful inside and outside the classroom. We don’t pride ourselves at all on admitting people and not having them finish. That’s why throughout the application process and even before that, we’re communicating and letting people know what they’re going to be up against. It’s not an easy process.

We’re trying to collect as many data points and pieces of evidence from an individual to make sure that once they are put in a group of very talented individuals with different backgrounds, they are going to be successful. Of course, there are going to be moments when there will be challenges. Everybody’s going to have some moments where they stumble a little bit throughout the MBA experience, but we don’t want anybody to have that experience from the beginning until graduation.

Check our our UCLA Anderson MBA Essay Tips >>

Anderson is very admirably clear about what it values, which is people who share success, think fearlessly, and drive change. How can applicants convey that they share those values via their application? [18:47]

Great question. When you look at all of the different materials that people need to submit, there are some natural parts in that real estate where people can put those things down. For example, the resume is a great place to put hobbies and interests. You can obviously share that in your essays as well. There’s a lot of control around that, and that’s where we really want to know who you are as a person. We want to know you have a plan about getting an MBA. 

Another area is the interview itself. That’s a great way to have a conversation with a current MBA student who facilitates the interview. In that sense, the interviewer, who’s been trained, is going to be looking for those qualities. They’re going to be asking you not only why you want to get an MBA but also why you want to get an MBA from Anderson. That’s a great way for a candidate to showcase their knowledge about the program, their interests, or plans on how they’re going to make an impact on the campus. The transcripts and standardized test score are going to show us your ability to do well academically and, if you had an academic challenge in your undergrad, it will show us how you have rebounded. The letters of recommendation are another way to demonstrate from a third person how you respond in certain situations, your highest level of qualities, and what you did in the workplace or community organization. 

There are a lot of different ways to be strategic about showing UCLA Anderson it’s a community you want to be a part of. Many schools talk about how they have very smart people who are changing the world. Anderson values that too, but we really believe we own that third piece, the shared success model. Like I mentioned before, in all those areas, there are just different ways that you can showcase that and say, “I’m part of a community. I made it better. Now, I’m going to do the same thing at Anderson.”

What happens to an application after the applicant hits submit? [22:09]

There are a couple of parallel processes going on between our admissions and operations teams. One part of the process is that we want to make sure that we do an assessment of the entire pool of applications for analysis purposes. We want to make sure we share it with the right key stakeholders here on the campus as we get ready and prepare for other parts of the application process. For example, we’re going to be having some people evaluate the application in and of itself. There are individuals who have a specific skill set and awareness about different regions around the world, professional backgrounds, and academic institutions.

At the same time, we’re also getting our interviewers ready. We’re doing some tweaks on that to make sure that when we identify the applications that we want to push forward for interviewing invitations, we can quickly invite those individuals so they can see the different interviewing slots in person or hybrid.

Do applicants have the option to have a virtual or in-person interview? [23:21]

Yes, exactly. We’ve been doing that even pre-pandemic. Many times people ask, “Is there a knock against my application if I don’t do it in person?” That’s not the case at all. We were using video technology before Zoom. Our interviewers are trained and they know what to look out for. They write up their report and another set of eyes reviews the application again. I get an opportunity myself also to read all the applications and to wrap up the process.

We have a faculty committee that looks at the applications that we want to recommend for admission. Then we have a graduate program here at UCLA that verifies a lot of the application materials, including the official transcripts from different institutions. And then eventually, we send out the notice for being admitted to the program.

The fact that I see these applications very early on in the process and then days like yesterday where, in some cases, I’m able to put faces to the written parts, even though I do see the photos in the applications themselves, it’s very full circle.

What is the interview like? [25:00]

As I mentioned, our interviewers are second-year MBA students at Anderson. While our training does include asking individuals, “Please walk me through your resume,” these are things that our students have already done. They’re going to ask you why you want to get an MBA. Why is this the right time in your career to do so? Why do you want to get an MBA from UCLA Anderson? They do it in such a way that they’re looking for awareness. They’re looking for the fact that you have a plan. They’re looking for evidence about how Anderson can get you to that specific career focus.

They also want to know if you’re knowledgeable. When people say they want to go into management consulting, they’ll ask about a specific firm or the service lines. They want to see you’ve done your homework because at Anderson, we put everything out there. You look at our website, our employment report, et cetera, it’s all there. People should be aware and know how the different resources, faculty, classes, career management center, or anything else are going to help. Not that you have to name every single thing, but being knowledgeable about the school is important.

The last thing I would say, which is really important because it’s more of a casual thing, but the MBA students will be looking to determine if this is the kind of individual who they want in their community, who’s going to be giving back, who’s going to succeed in the classroom and outside the classroom, and are going to be a lifelong member of the UCLA Anderson family. All of those things are very important and will get covered in 30 minutes.

I would say that for most people who do receive the invitation to interview, it’s really an opportunity for you to close the deal. You put all of the hard work into the application, you wrote the essays, letters of recommendation, et cetera. It is a blind interview, so all they get is your resume. It’s a great opportunity just to close the deal. I would say the applicants who do extremely well or who are successful are the ones who have done all the homework. They’ve come to campus. They’ve talked to students. 

Can you share what percentage of interviewed applicants are sent offers of admission? [27:49]

We interview about 70% of all our applications and then much fewer are actually accepted. I’m going to hold the cards to the vest right now on that specific number.

Unfortunately, I have seen in some cases where everything looked great on paper and then I read the interview report and could immediately tell by the answers there was not much awareness about UCLA. They couldn’t name a specific club that would be instrumental to them or how they would give back. It was just a really flat interview. That makes it easy too.

Let’s say I applied to Anderson last year or two years ago and I wasn’t accepted, but I really want to go to Anderson. What advice would you have for me? [28:45]

Great question. Every year we get feedback from people who have applied and were denied. We have a short window of time at the end of the application so people can call and we give them specific feedback. As I mentioned earlier, if you look on our website, we give the profile of who we’re looking for. We’re not looking for people with high test scores or GPAs. I always tell people, “As it pertains to these numbers, you just want to be in the ballpark.” That’s why we give ranges. Make sure you’re in the ballpark. If not, take the opportunity to improve those numbers. Maybe your quant profile is a bit low. Take an additional class, get an A, then move on to the next part. 

The other thing that I would say is that when you think about what are your goals for getting an MBA, don’t tell us what you think we want to hear. Tell us and be authentic about it. If you’re a career switcher, be authentic about that. Be very intentional about transferable skills that you can translate to the next job function or industry that you’re trying to make a transition to. Talk to students as much as possible. I know it sounds like such an easy thing to do but once you start talking to them, you get a good sense of how they applied successfully.

Trust me, some of those students who may have been in that position who applied the first time and then didn’t necessarily get admitted, applied again and became some of our biggest advocates for being a part of our Admissions Ambassador Corps, which has over 140 students. There are plenty of resources to get feedback on your application. 

Maybe you applied at a period during the application year when there were very few seats remaining. Maybe you didn’t put together a competitive application from that timing standpoint. It’s a great opportunity because we don’t hold it against anybody who’s applied and was rejected. Tweak up your resume a little bit. We have application bootcamps that occur in November and December of each year. 

There are a lot of different resources that started a couple of months ago that allow you to learn about the UCLA Anderson experience. Talk to a lot of people. I’m on the road myself, so I get these type of questions too. I was just in Houston, Dallas, and Chicago two weeks ago. I don’t want to make it sound very easy, but there are so many opportunities for people to take control over and put together the best application that they possibly can.

What would you say to applicants who want to apply this year but are concerned about the possibility of a recession? [32:05]

I think at the end of the day, when you see or hear external forces that may worry you or encourage you, I’m always going to say that you should apply to the MBA when you’re ready. Don’t do it because it’s something that is in vogue, or somebody’s telling you to do it. Why do you want to get an MBA? On the horizon, there’s going to be potentially a recession, and a recession has happened in the past. When you talk to people who went through that period and applied during that period, they’ll tell you it was still the best decision for them at that time, and it really set them up for the long-term. Again, an MBA is not for everybody.

I’m a little bit of a Homer in the sense that I got my MBA and I’m also selling an MBA, or the power of it. I got another advanced degree in engineering and I see the MBA as so much more versatile. I’ve used it to make a couple of pivots in my career, and I’ve seen others do it too. When people are worried about cost, recession, and things of that nature, I always tell them to think about it’s an investment in themselves. Make sure you do your homework, because it is hard. It is a big time commitment. There’s the opportunity cost as well. I’ve been around the game for 25 years and I haven’t met anybody who said, “Getting my MBA was a bad decision.” Most people are really glad they got it. Some will talk about the career advantages or the network or the experience. Some will talk about how it changed their lives. I think those are the things that should be part of your research. At the end of the day, it’s got to be the right choice for you and at the right time.

What candidates are you not seeing enough of in the applicant pool? [34:37]

I think particularly this year, and we’re not alone, there are just not enough domestic applicants. It’s a tight labor market. Things are going really well for people. Even those who did apply, in the end, some decided to stay in their jobs because their employers aggressively recruited them to stay. That’s one area. 

I think in general, the overall industry is such that we are always looking for more women to apply to business schools. There’s not enough of that great talent that can supply all of the top business programs. The same goes for underrepresented minorities. There’s just not enough great talent to supply all the top business schools.

I wish that, again, being greedy, we would get all of that coming to UCLA Anderson, but I know that we’re competing from coast to coast, worldwide for that type of talent. I’ve been around for so long here at the school and I’ve seen how much our community has grown each year when we’ve diverse talent like I’ve described coming onto the campus and into the classroom. I’ve seen conferences built up. I have a mighty team of five, and that gets expanded to 500 when I start including the students and the alumni. When I’m traveling to different cities and meeting people, I can connect them with students doing something they’re interested in or alumna from the same undergrad institution. Next thing you know, I see the connections start to happen and the relationships build.

I’ll add one more and mention people, especially in the finance arena, who might think they need to go to school on the East Coast if they want to end up on Wall Street. Our students who want to make that transition from the West Coast to the East Coast do extremely well. They’re on Wall Street, or even stay out here on the West Coast and pursue a career in finance as well. I would love to see that type of profile or career interest as well.

For students thinking ahead to a 2023 or 2024 application, what is the one thing they should do now to prepare to apply? [37:30]

Do the research. What does that mean? We put so much time and effort into our website. There’s so much information on there about how to get started. If you’re like, “Wow, that’s a lot of work. I’d rather talk to somebody,” that’s possible too. You can go to our events webpage and see if there is something coming to your town where you can speak with an admissions officer, an alumnus, or even a current student. I know that dialogue is important. Maybe sometimes just being in the room with somebody who is applying now and hearing their journey can help you understand what you need to do.

Go to the website because then it’ll connect you with the type of resource you may need at that time, whether it be a person or some type of context about a timeline or even an information session hosted by myself or one of my team members or even alumni of the program.

What would you have liked me to ask you? [39:41]

I think you asked a lot of great questions, and I snuck it in there earlier when you asked what people don’t know. I always throw in the Parker Career Management Center piece. Our research shows that one of the top two reasons you’re probably going to get an MBA is career related. If career services is going to be a critical part of that process for you, then looking at a school’s services in that area is going to be important. Our Parker Career Management Center voted each year in the top three for career services in terms of student satisfaction. They have so many resources available that many students can even take advantage of everything, but I mentioned some earlier. You have to take a class in order to graduate, where they’ll talk about how to negotiate your offer and how to interview. They’ll do days on the job events.

You not only get a counselor who has industry experience and works with you one-on-one, but you also have a second-year student who can be a TA and can talk about the process of a specific industry. The thing I love about the Parker Career Management Center is that I see the relationships and the care and the dedication that each one of those individuals puts into our students to help them understand the opportunity. It’s a partnership. They put you in the best position to succeed. They keep that continuum going, and they’re going to put you in a great position for you to close the deal.

Many times the happy challenge or problem that our students have is that not only did I get my dream job, but I’ve got a couple of other offers that I wasn’t considering before. Now which one do I take? I think that’s a great position to be in.

Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about Anderson’s full-time MBA program? [41:58]

You can go to anderson.ucla.edu/fulltimemba and learn more. Of course, you can always email me or my team. We would love to hear from you and share more about the opportunity in our program.

Related links:

• UCLA Anderson Full-time MBA
• UCLA Anderson MBA Essay Tips and Deadlines [2022-2023]
• UCLA Anderson Executive MBA Application Essay Tips & Deadlines
• How an MBA from Anderson Helped this Career Switcher
• B-School for Good: Pursuing Social Impact Through UCLA Anderson’s Fully Employed MBA
• Accepted’s MBA Admissions Consulting Services

Related shows:

• Expert Advice for Applicants and an Inside Look at UCLA Anderson from an Intl MBA
• UCLA Anderson School of Management MBA Program Now STEM-Certified
• University of Michigan’s Ross MBA Program: Everything You Need to Know
• Empowering International Students with the Financing for Grad Ed
• Transitioning from the Military to an MBA at Stanford GSB

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]   [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”mba-quiz”]

Podcast Feed

The post How to Get Accepted to UCLA Anderson [Episode 484] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

The Financial Times has released its global rankings of the best MBA programs and has considerably shuffled the deck. Several top-ranked programs fell several notches, while others rose considerably. For the first time since 2011, Wharton has returned to its status as #1 in FT’s list. 

Other programs that made giant strides in the rankings include Columbia Business School (ranked 8th in 2020), and Kellogg (Northwestern), now #5 (11th place in 2020). One reason for such huge fluctuations was that five of the top U.S. programs (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, and Columbia) were not listed at all last year at all, skewing that year’s results. 

Other highly rated programs that suffered serious tumbles in the rankings include London Business School, Tuck (Dartmouth), and UVA Darden. In fact, 69 of the 91 schools ranked fell in the rankings, many of them by double digits.  

Compared with last year, many of these schools’ rankings looked like riders on a roller coaster, with some plunging far below and others rising by as much as 20 points to unprecedented heights. 

As we have cautioned before, it’s vital to keep these rankings in perspective. They are based on many variables that have little or nothing to do with the quality of the curricula per se.

Do you see yourself in one of these top programs? Find out how working one-on-one with one of our Admissions Consultants can help get you ACCEPTED!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—SR—Guide-to-selecting-right-one”]

Related Resources:

• Top 10 or Bust: Dispelling 2 MBA Myths
• Top MBA Programs Get STEM-Certified to Attract Int’l Students
• B-School Selectivity Index: Discover the Schools Where You are a Competitive Applicant

The post Financial Times Ranks Wharton as #1 in 2022 Rankings appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Looking for the best possible admissions advice?

How about admissions advice from the admission committee members themselves?

Linda Abraham, founder of Accepted and host of the Admissions Straight Talk Podcast has a collection of highly enlightening interviews with directors of admissions and adcom members of top business schools!

Listen in as Linda asks her adcom guests pointed and to-the-point questions about the schools, the admissions process, how to get in, and…how to get rejected.

Listen, enjoy, and apply successfully!

For a varied menu of thought-provoking and informative conversations with business leaders, entrepreneurs, MBA students, and more, check out the Admissions Straight Talk Podcast:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]             [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Accepted-Sig-Code—MBA”]

The post From the Mouths of MBA Adcom Members: How to Get Accepted appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

One of the key pieces of an MBA application is the letter of recommendation. This letter, usually written by managers, gives the admissions committee an insightful perspective on the MBA candidate. However, since each program has their own unique form, and candidates are often hesitant to ask managers to fill out multiple recommendations, applicants often limit the number of programs to which they apply. Recommenders frequently cannot dedicate enough time to such letters, resulting in less thorough and perceptive recommendations.  

According to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the Common Letter of Recommendation was born out of the need to save recommenders and alumni time by enabling them to complete one, common, set of questions. Since the questions stay embedded in each school’s existing application system, few major changes are necessary. The Common LOR was developed by a group of leading business schools in conjunction with GMAC. These programs are leading the way, with the support of GMAC, to collaborate, collect information from industry professionals, and collate information from candidates worldwide.   

Benefits of the Common LOR 

• Delivers deeper understanding of candidates by applying the best practices from top programs and using the most up-to-date science in executive assessment 

• Allows for a wider diversity of prospective students and a greater number of applicants by enabling them to ask for multiple LORs. 

• Reduces recommenders’ time demands so they can devote more consideration to crafting a thoughtful and attuned letter. 

Common LOR sections 

The Common LOR is comprised of the following four sections: 

1. Personal Information About the Recommender 

2. Leadership Assessment Grid: Made up of 12 competencies and character traits that lead to successful leadership. They are divided into these five groups: 

• Achievement 
  
  
• Influence 
  
  
• People 
  
  
• Personal Qualities 
  

• Cognitive Abilities 

3.  Recommendation Questions (Open-Ended Questions for Recommenders) 

• Please provide a brief description of your interaction with the applicant, and, if applicable, the applicant’s role in your organization. 
  
  
• How does the performance of the applicant compare to that of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? (e.g., what are the applicant’s principal strengths?). 
  

• Describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response. 
  
  
• Is there anything else we should know? (Optional) 

Schools currently using the Common LOR form 

The widespread uptake of the common LOR is due in part to the longstanding lobbying of admissions professionals. Anna Ivey, former president of the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC), welcomed the development of more schools embracing the shared LOR model: “Applicants have for years found themselves in quite a pickle because they have had to dump so much work on their recommenders. In some cases, their recommenders have had to write more words than the applicants do in their essays. That has created all kinds of distortions, despite good intentions. 

“Any convergence around common recommendation questions not only makes the application process easier for applicants and their recommenders, but also helps preserve the integrity of those recommendations and the application process. Cutting down on the duplication and extra work for recommenders will make it more likely that recommenders write their letters themselves, and that’s a great outcome.” 

We can help you take advantage of the common LOR to get the most from your recommenders and supercharge your application. Our experienced consultants also work with recommenders to provide guidance in crafting compelling letters that will set you on the road to getting ACCEPTED! 

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Accepted-Sig-Code—MBA”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-SR-Guide-to-Becoming-Competitive-MBA-Applicant”]

Related Resources:

• Navigate the MBA Maze, a free guide
• MBA Recommendation Letters: 10 Tips for Writing them Right
• Ingredients of a Great MBA Letter of Recommendation

The post The MBA Common Letter of Recommendation (LOR): An Overview appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

[powerpress]

Chen shares his journey from military intelligence service-member to international MBA student to Accepted admissions consultant [Show summary]

Chen Chadash, Accepted consultant and UCLA Anderson MBA grad, had a unique path to business school as an international student with a background in military service. He shares his insights on life at UCLA Anderson, working as an admissions ambassador, and navigating the MBA application process.

How can an admissions consultant help international applicants understand the MBA application process and submit essays and supporting materials that highlight what adcoms value the most? [Show notes]

Chen Chadash has a fascinating background: He earned his bachelor’s in physics and electrical engineering from the Technion in Israel and served in an elite unit in the Israeli military for seven years in intelligence and cybersecurity. He then joined UCLA Anderson in 2016. After interning at Ernst and Young for the summer, he joined full-time in July of 2018. While at UCLA, he was a student admissions ambassador and has leveraged that experience to guide applicants to top MBA programs, including MIT Sloan, Kellogg, Booth, Columbia, INSEAD, London Business School, and UCLA Anderson.

Can you tell us a little bit about where you grew up and what you like to do for fun? [1:51]

I grew up in Israel, far from here, in Tel Aviv. I recommend everyone who hasn’t been there to visit. Obviously, during the COVID pandemic, it’s a bit difficult, but once that’s over, I highly recommend it. I really like cooking a lot. Even more, eating what I cook. I really enjoy sports. I used to play basketball for many years in high school. And then other than that, I really like extreme sports. I like to try new things here and there like kite surfing, like climbing Mount Everest, scuba diving, stuff like that. I stick with some of them. Some I don’t really enjoy, but I do enjoy trying them.

Did you get to the top of Everest? [2:50]

I got to the base camp. It’s about 18,000 feet high. Base camp is what basically everyone can do without any special equipment. Beyond that point, it really gets dangerous. You have to get training, oxygen, etc. But base camp is what everyone can do if you don’t mind the two weeks of hiking in very difficult conditions.

And then just a couple months ago, I had my first baby. I would call that another extreme experience! But this one caused me to stop everything else that I was doing and focus on that.

Why did you decide to earn an MBA? [3:37]

I was in the military for a long time. After a long military service, which was great and a very fulfilling experience that I wouldn’t trade for the world, I felt I had a huge gap in understanding business and how the “real world” works. It was a very different environment. I was looking for a way to bridge that gap as fast as possible and in a way that would be both beneficial career-wise and in a way that I would enjoy. Then living and studying abroad was something that was a dream for me for a long time. Both those things came together. An MBA abroad basically checked all those boxes.

What was the hardest part of the application process for you as an applicant? [4:31]

2015 was when I started thinking about that process. 2016 was when I really started working on my application. First of all, it actually took me some time to really understand what an MBA abroad in the U.S. meant in terms of the application. It’s really a funny story. I realized I had to take the GMAT first, so I signed up for the GMAT course, for the English part and engineering and physics. I figured with the quant part, I was going to be okay. But I felt I had some polishing to do on my English skills. So I signed up for this class. On the first day, it was me and some other folks, and the teacher asks, “Have you started working on your application?” I had no idea what she was talking about. There was nothing in my head. Everyone was like, “Oh yeah, we started. We are working with someone.” I literally had no idea what she was talking about. I was like, “Yeah, I’m in the process of working on it.” I came back home that day, started researching what MBA application was and realized I had way more work to do. That was the first challenge.

Once I actually understood what it was, I realized that, going back to my background, and not coming from a business background, I realized that I couldn’t talk about how I helped my company grow revenue or improve its margins, stuff like that. But since I was in intelligence in the military, there were a lot of things I really couldn’t talk about, right? Classified. Those were challenges.

How did you deal with those challenges? [6:23]

I was a bit frustrated at first, like I mentioned, but then I started really diving deep into understanding how the MBA application process works and what admissions teams are really looking for, and I learned that they don’t really care if you move your company’s revenue by 300%, even though it’s great. They don’t really care about that. What they really care about are the underlying qualities, traits, and behaviors that you demonstrated that actually made that possible, right? If your company’s or organization’s goals at the end of the day is not making money – by the way, it’s the same for any nonprofit – but there is still a goal, right? So once you frame all your passions and achievements around that goal, and you show how you helped achieve those goals, or the underlying behavior that enabled you to do that, that’s what you’re willing to do.

Then, I realized that, hey, I actually did have a lot of those fundamental ingredients that admissions committees were looking for, like demonstrated leadership, ability to work in teams, lead teams, being an innovator or instructor in a good way, within your organization leading change. I realized that’s the stuff I did throughout my entire career in the military. Once I realized that, and it was much, much easier for me to convey my story. Frame all your achievements around that mission, and clearly show what you did to get closer to achieving that goal, that mission.

What were the best parts of your experience as a UCLA Anderson MBA student? [9:31]

First and foremost, I would say the people. Sounds like cliché, and probably everyone has felt that and would say that about the school they went to. It may be true, but that’s my experience at UCLA. The people, and especially the student body. UCLA Anderson has this motto of “share success.” It really resonates when you walk in; you can really feel that. When you talk to people, you really feel that. I felt that as a candidate, and then even more so when I actually got accepted.

Just to give you an example, there’s a very robust system of second-year students helping first years prep for interviews, and you’d be amazed to see those second years, completely on a voluntary basis, dedicating hours and hours to coach and guide first years during the recruiting process, which is very stressful as you probably know. It’s really amazing. I had friends from other schools say that’s really not the case everywhere. It’s in the Anderson culture.

The second thing I would say is being such a key institution within the LA Metro area. It’s the biggest school in this area, in the city. This attracts so many things, so many events, and so many things are happening. It’s really exciting to see, to have those key speakers, like a CEO from a great company. Maybe you didn’t even hear about it, but then you find out that next door in a classroom next to where you’re sitting, there is the CEO of Disney just giving a talk about something, right? This happens on a daily basis. That was really great.

The third thing I would give to the staff and faculty for being super attentive and supportive of the students, all the students. I can give you two quick examples from my time. When you come in with new students, especially in your first quarter of school, there’s a quarter system. The first quarter is very, very busy. So much going on, and it’s really just drinking from a fire hose. The students the year before me had a suggestion for the faculty to start with what they call now a short summer quarter, which lasts for a couple of weeks. Just a bit earlier to get adjusted to the environment, even take a few accelerated courses to get some of the workload off the first quarter. It was a student initiative. Anderson implemented that when I started. I was in the first year that started this early summer quarter, and it’s still going on today. It was born from the students, and the faculty adopted that.

Another thing that UCLA Anderson just recently did: The school was recognized as a STEM program, which is very beneficial for international students who are coming in on a visa. It also came from the students. We’ve been asking for that for a long time. The faculty really made tremendous efforts, and the school got that.

Did you have any trouble in terms of handling the language? Was being suddenly immersed in an English-speaking environment a challenge? [13:38]

It was definitely a challenge. It still is a challenge for me, I would say even today. There’s the technical aspect of language and learning new words or grammar. That’s the easiest, or the easier part, I’d say. Then there is this other aspect, which is what you read or say between the lines, which comes with the language but is maybe more of a cultural difference aspect, which again, I think I’m still getting adjusted to. Things that I would say in my home country will be perceived in one way, but when I try to translate it, it just doesn’t come through the same way. That’s definitely a challenge. I think it’s one of the challenges that international students face in general coming to the U.S., for an MBA or even just working here. It’s definitely a big challenge that is still with me until this very day.

It’s getting better, obviously. But it’s funny because I think the more I learn, the more I understand how much I actually don’t know. When I came here, I felt, this is so great. I had an English GMAT class. It’s only when you come here that you realize the more you know, the more you understand how much you actually don’t know.

What could have been improved at UCLA Anderson? [15:24]

UCLA is like many others that have a few different MBA programs on top of the full-time. There’s the part-time, the executive MBA program, and then there’s multiple others that are more focused on a functional perspective. I think what UCLA can do better is combining those or encouraging collaboration between those programs. At least when I was there, I felt each program was a silo, a separated silo. There was not a lot of interaction between the groups. And I think there’s a lot of potential in those programs. There could be better collaboration and interaction between them.

For example, for a full-time MBA student, one of your main focuses is getting a job when you graduate. You invest so much time and effort trying to network with people from those companies you’re targeting, through LinkedIn, email, and stuff like that. And then it’s very likely that next to you in the other room, there’s at least one guy, maybe a few guys, from that very company that you are targeting. They’re so easy to reach. You just don’t know them that well. This is just one example. 

Were there other challenges that you faced as an international applicant and student? Did you have any visa challenges when it came to getting your job post-MBA? How did you deal with them? [17:24]

Visa-wise, especially in today’s environment, it’s getting harder and harder for international students, especially from Pacific countries. I went through that process. You start with the student visa, either an F visa or a J visa. That’s what most international students get. You want an H1B visa post-graduation, and hopefully a green card. I had quite a difficult time getting the H1B. Obviously, those were stressful times. I was fortunate to be at a company that was very supportive of me throughout the process. Eventually it did work out, but unfortunately, I do have friends for whom it didn’t work out, even at my old company. And they just had to leave. Their visa expired. Unfortunately, it is one of the risks, and I think international students should take this into account. Hopefully it gets better. I think we’re past the worst point. That’s just my opinion. Maybe I’m wrong. I know with everything going on, I felt it was my most difficult time. I felt like it was rock bottom, and maybe that’s just my individual feeling. But it is something that every international student is facing, but it’s part of growing. It’s part of developing. I always like to think of it as riding a bicycle. If you feel it’s hard, you’re probably on your way up. It also works the other way. If you feel it’s easy, you’re probably on your way down.

How did you decide to become an admissions ambassador? [19:16]

Let me explain what an Anderson admissions ambassador is for those who don’t know. Basically, it’s the first point of contact that the prospective student can have with the school. The ambassador is there to give information about the school and answer any questions the candidate may have. If a candidate chooses to come to a campus visit (not during COVID-19 times, but in normal times), which is like a half-day tour, then the ambassador is the one hosting, welcoming, and also available and stays available as a resource after the tour is over to advise by the candidates on the application process.

For me, coaching, guiding, and helping people develop are things that I always liked. Volunteering, helping disadvantaged kids to successfully graduate high school and getting to college. And even in my workplace, in the military, as a commander, my top priority was always developing and taking care of the professional progression and personal progression of my soldiers. So when I arrived at Anderson, I looked for opportunities and ways to continue doing that, helping people progress and advance their careers. Being an Anderson admissions ambassador was checking all those boxes.

How has advising applicants changed your perspective on the MBA application process? [20:47]

Those who took the time to self-reflect, understand where they’re coming from, where they are trying to get to, and were successful in bringing that into their application, those were the most successful candidates. Also those that did proper research on the schools that they were targeting beyond just looking at rankings, which is what most people do. I did in the beginning. I’m not saying that the rankings are not important, but it’s not the only thing you should be looking at.

On the other hand, I’ve seen those who try to take shortcuts. Write cookie cutter essays. Have template answers that they think the admissions committee wants to hear. Those are not successful. That really showed me that what you put in is what you get. Your efforts are truly reflected to and picked up by the admissions committee. If you want to be successful, you should really invest and immerse yourself in the process.

What I also noticed is that a lot of folks do have the basic ingredients required to be a successful candidate, but they don’t always know that. I found a lot of people often struggle finding that stuff, and even when they do, they don’t know how to tell their stories in the most compelling way. That’s actually when I think seeking professional advice comes very handy and can really make a difference, which is what Accepted does.

If you were advising an applicant starting out right now, and they know they want an MBA and are an international applicant also, how would you advise them to approach the process? What would you tell them to look at? [22:58]

If it’s someone who’s at the very beginning of the process, my first and foremost recommendation would be to try to understand why you want to get an MBA. What do you want to get out of it? There is such a vast selection of schools. Narrow down the list of schools that are relevant for you. That’s going to save you a lot of time and money applying to schools that are not relevant for you. Also, it will really be a crucial part of your essays. Some schools even ask those very questions: “Why do you want to get an MBA? What are your future goals? Why here? What are you trying to get out of it?” Taking the time, investing the time in advance, I think, really goes a long way.

I also touched on this a little bit on it before, but you really want to show each school that you made an effort to get to know that school you’re applying to and what makes it unique. You really want to get personal with the school, right? Think about the difference between a template email and a personalized one. People are smart. People can tell when they get a template email, if you just change the name at the top, versus a personalized email. Admissions officers are very smart, experienced people. They can pick up on those things. Make an effort to research schools that you’re targeting, not just to wing it. From my experience, that just doesn’t work.

What advice do you have for interviews? [25:58]

First of all, for most schools, if you get an interview, that’s already a very good sign. That shows the school likes you and wants you to take that final step to make it a home run. My best advice would be to know your story. It sounds funny, like, yeah, of course I know my story, but it’s not that obvious. Sometimes there’s so much in a person’s application, and then they come into the interview and forget everything. That’s not good. You really need to know your story and be able to convey it both on paper, which we do in the application, but also in person when you’re talking to someone.

My advice would be, the night before your interview, go over all your application materials. It’s not always the case that the interview actually gets all of those materials. Sometimes they only get the resume. It depends who the interviewer is. Sometimes it’s alumni, sometimes it’s admissions officers. They always have everything that you’ve submitted, but you should know your story. So the night before, go over all your application materials. Everything, not just essays. Your resume. Even all those little boxes and fields that you filled in, so you are more comfortable thinking freely about everything.

On top of that, also try to come up with something new that did not appear in your application. Because even if someone read through your whole application, they also want to see something new, something that’s kind of a spicy detail, in a good way. You have to be careful what you share and what you don’t, but it has to be something new, something interesting that they don’t know about you yet. That always helps spice up the conversation.

Last thing: Have the general bullet points in your head, but don’t try to memorize sentences. That’s always a recipe for disaster. If you forget a word here, forget a word there, then the entire idea disappears. So just have those broad bullet points, high-level bullet points and stories and themes in your mind, but don’t try to memorize.

What do you wish I would’ve asked you? [28:45]

I wish you would have asked me, what’s the most common question I get asked by my clients? The first question that comes up is basically a combination of three questions: “What are my chances? Can I get into this school? Can you get me there?” And my answer is always, “I can’t give you a percent chance, unfortunately.” Honestly, no one can. And if someone tells you otherwise, I would suggest you stay away from them because that only shows you that they have no idea what business they’re in. It’s kind of like asking, am I going to be successful in life? No one can tell you that, right? But I can tell you this: Every successful person will tell you that they had great people helping them and advising them along the way. What I can do is be that person for you and help you get where you want using all the experience and knowledge that I have, just like I’ve done with a lot of my past clients.

Related Links:

• UCLA Anderson MBA admissions
• UCLA Anderson MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines [2019-2020]
• How Will COVID-19 Impact Your Admissions Journey, a Q&A session
• Work with Chen Chadash
• Accepted MBA Admissions Services

Related Shows:

• What MBA Students Can Expect at UCLA Anderson
• Why Does an MD Need an MBA? This UCLA MD/MBA Student Tells All
• An Admissions Expert’s Top Tips for Business School Applicants
• Is an MBA Worth It, or Is the Sky Falling Down on the MBA Degree?
• A Conversation About Today’s MBA Marketplace

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]     [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-SR-Guide-to-Becoming-Competitive-MBA-Applicant”]

Podcast Feed

The post Expert Advice for Applicants and an Inside Look at UCLA Anderson from an Intl MBA [Episode 380] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

[powerpress]

Are you dreaming of an MBA from UCLA Anderson? [Show summary]

UCLA Anderson’s Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions, Alex Lawrence, explores the opportunities awaiting future MBA students, as well as the changes Anderson is making to campus life this fall to provide its students with a safe, rewarding MBA experience.

Learn about Anderson’s unique MBA program, as well as tips for submitting an acceptance-worthy Anderson application [Show notes]

Alex Lawrence is the Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at UCLA School of Management and an Anderson alum who earned his MBA in 1999. Prior to that, he earned bachelors and masters degrees in electrical engineering. After earning his MBA, he worked in management consulting for four years and then returned to UCLA Anderson as director of the Riordan Programs before becoming Assistant Dean for MBA Admissions.

Can you give an overview of the Anderson full-time MBA program, focusing on its more distinctive elements? [2:08]

Anderson emphasizes early specialization and hands-on experiences. We’re like the typical two-year MBA program, having core classes with electives following that. I think one of the distinctive features, especially since we were the first school to have this as part of the requirement, is that all of our students have to complete one of two hands-on exercises or opportunities, that being the applied management research project, where you get a chance to work with an organization on a real business challenge or a business creation option. We were the first ones to create that opportunity for our MBA students.

In addition, we’re not a one-trick pony in the sense that we’re not just a consulting school or a finance school. There’s a lot of different areas that our students can be interested in or focus on. That variety makes our campus, our culture, so much more distinctive than other campuses, because students come in with diverse backgrounds and diverse interests.

Other than the lockdown and pandemic, what’s new at UCLA Anderson? [3:37]

One of the big things is that we launched a brand-new campus, a brand-new facility building, which is spectacular. Before this virus situation went down, the students were really enjoying it, the visitors who were coming, prospects, as well as those who had just been admitted and are still coming, the class of 2022 and beyond. Fantastic facility. Our new dean at that time, Tony Bernardo, he’s still short of a year of being in the program, though he’s been here on the campus for over 20 years, so we had a new dean in place as well. Those are two of the biggest things.

What don’t people know about Anderson that you would like them to know, on a bigger scale? [5:03]

I alluded to it a little bit earlier, talking about the variety of choices that students can look at. Very few people know that in the Los Angeles area alone, it’s number one in the world for small business activity. I say that because when you look at the culture, when you look at the opportunities that many of our students are exploring and that our alumni are currently participating in, it’s a very entrepreneurial culture. It’s a very entrepreneurial environment.

That’s why I made it a point to mention the BCO (Business Creation Option), which is younger than the AMR (Applied Management Research)  opportunity as well. With our accelerator that is on campus, many of our students do still look at that opportunity of becoming an entrepreneur. Many may still focus on some of the traditional career choices (tech, finance, consulting), but as a secondary, they all also are pursuing some entrepreneurial ventures as well. When you look at the types of companies that alumni have started or are currently engaged at, it’s so diverse.

The last thing I’ll mention is that for as long as I’ve been here, I’ve seen this increase in the number of students who are doing internships beyond just the summer opportunity. They’re doing internships during the academic year as well, in addition to the summer. Many of them, especially first-years, will start exploring the opportunity in the winter quarter, which starts in January. Again, this is something that’s not required as part of the graduation requirements, but our students (probably about 60 to 70% of them are career switchers) are looking at bolstering their resume by looking at these different opportunities.

For some of them who are coming from big companies who want to look at a startup, it’s a great way to get inside and see the activity level, the roles and responsibilities of people. Because as you and I know, especially in your entrepreneurial venture, there’s probably no day that’s similar to the previous one, and you probably have to wear a lot of different hats at the same time.

I don’t keep track of the highest number, but I’ve heard some students do as many as six or seven of these short engagements of these internships during the academic year.

What can applicants applying to Anderson this year expect that they could not expect last year? [8:03]

As you might imagine, on the technical side, we extended our Round 3 deadline. That being said, we’ve been seeing some of those individuals who may not have thought about applying this year in particular. Anybody who has applied in the later rounds for the class of ’22, we have made some adjustments not only with the deadline, but people being able to apply without a test score, though they still would need to submit a test score in order to get a decision.

For obvious reasons, we are one of those schools that has decided to adjust our starting timeframe for the class of ’22. We announced on May 15th that the official start of school is going to be September 28th. We still intend to start some of our virtual experiences the first week of August. In comparison to last year, we won’t have those in-person offerings, but we will still have a number of different resources and services available, skill development, career development, academic development, all those things that are going to help with the person making the transition to the in-person experience starting on September 28th.

What about students who can’t get a visa? Are they going to be deferred? [9:35]

For those who can’t come on campus as of September 28th, our plan is that when you arrive, you can still come to Anderson. You mentioned one of those magic words, because right now a lot of schools are saying that they have deferral policies, adding deferral policies, etc. 

Our deferral policy is one that, if the individual decides that they are not going to join us in that particular academic year, we will allow them to apply in the following year with a much simpler application, no application fee.

We don’t reserve seats for those who can’t join us, but we want to make sure, especially when we know it’s a very difficult decision to decide not to come, we want to make it that much easier in the future. No guarantees on the admission, but from my perspective, if you’ve been admitted once, it’s a good chance that you’re a great candidate again.

For those who cannot physically be there (rather than those who don’t want to come because they’re nervous about exposure), will there be remote options for them? [10:38]

Absolutely. While I can’t say for certain right now what those particular options will be, I spoke with my boss and the faculty chair earlier today, actually, and there is a task force. They’re looking at those types of options, because again, we don’t want to make it a significant burden, especially for those who are overseas and having to wake up in the middle of the night just to attend a class. I’m sure, like you, I’ve read many of those sorts of stories going on right now, especially in the undergraduate market. They’re exploring different ways to deliver pre-recorded classes to those who are overseas and still trying to make it over here to campus in Los Angeles.

I assume there would be accommodations made for those domestic applicants who, maybe for health reasons, don’t want to be in a classroom environment also? [11:30]

That’s a great point. While I’ve been talking about the international market, for anybody who has difficulty making it here to the campus for a variety of reasons, we’re going to work with them. We look at each case individually. Again, talking about those who decide to defer, over the years I’ve fielded all of those phone calls, talking with them to make the process as humane as possible. Many times they understand. I always tell them, “When you’re ready to apply, contact me,” and many who decide to reapply, they do reach out to me and say, “I just submitted the application. Just wanted to let you know.” Again, they appreciate giving an explanation as well as the step-by-step process, which is on our website, but the step-by-step process on how to reapply.

How can prospective students engage with the Anderson community if they can’t physically meet them, go to events, attend your receptions, or visit campus? [12:36]

On a weekly basis right now, we do have online virtual general information sessions that are facilitated by our current students. Now, as we transition to the summer with expectations that some of these travel bans and/or some of these physical gatherings will be lifted, many of our students and alumni do host coffee chats. Now, if that’s not possible, we also will be hosting, on a weekly basis from a staff perspective, also the opportunity to call in and speak with staff in a smaller environment. Because like you, I have participated in some of those 200-person information sessions where there are panels, there are breakout rooms. We’ll be doing those too. We’ll be reaching out to specific regions around the world. We’ll be adding alumni from those regions and areas, not just from a geographic standpoint but from a career background as well. Because again, here it is early in the cycle for those applying for the class of ’23 and beyond, but we know that getting information out there is going to be important. Also, we want to make sure that especially, like I said before, we demystify some things for people who may never have been to Los Angeles or even know about UCLA Anderson, and may think that we’re just an entertainment school, which we are not.

<< READ: What Should You Do If You Can’t Visit B-Schools in Person? [A COVID-19 Special] >>

For students starting their MBA program this September, what’s it going to look like and feel like? [14:13]

Again, this is without having the final master plan. For those who can’t make it to the campus, definitely there’ll be offerings available for them in a virtual format. There will be some hybrid types of delivering as well. From a typical class size of 70 to 75 people, we know that we’re not going to be able to put everybody in the room. Possibly having people in more like a pod structure, where having the same group of people who we know with confidence are healthy and we can deliver the instruction that is the same for all the so-called pods, versus having a big lecture room or a big classroom like that. That’s what’s being discussed right now. I’ll be honest with you — I haven’t heard anything about putting shields up in between students or anything like that. I don’t think there’s need for those drastic measures.

Again, when you look at the typical Anderson start, a lot of the activity is in the fall quarter. All of our students are here. Then as you get later into the academic year, because the core classes that are no longer required are available, then you start getting into electives. Students are really starting to hone in on some of their career choices. I mentioned the internship opportunities during the academic year. A lot of our students are taking advantage of that off campus as well. They’re even doing this now.

Some students aren’t local to Los Angeles, right? I know a few. I speak with some of the students on a diversity task force. Some are living in New York and New Jersey right now, who plan on doing their management consulting summer internship or their finance internships. They know that they can still do the class instruction, but I know a couple of students who are doing an academic internship, primarily research-focused, but at the same time, there are those opportunities as well.

Are you anticipating any changes to Anderson’s application for the application for the class of 2023, the upcoming application cycle, and specifically the essay questions? [17:18]

I don’t anticipate any major changes. Since our application for this cycle is still currently open, we haven’t had a chance to really do a deep dive to see the outcomes. What I will tell you is that we don’t anticipate any major changes. We did go through the same process last year, looking at our essay question. I will say with total confidence, we do not want to make the application harder or more challenging. That being said, we will look at the essay question again and see if it did serve us what we wanted to get out of it. If necessary, we will make some slight changes to it.

How are the co-curricular activities and events going to take place if social distancing rules are still in effect? [18:24]

Once everything went virtual, they just made some modifications without shutting things down. One of the popular activities from a social standpoint, the dinner, they still facilitated those, paying for people’s dinners, having it shipped to their homes. You don’t have the face-to-face, in-person activity, which is unfortunate, but the spirit, having the right people at the table, having a lively conversation, having exchange of information, ideas, with the key hosts, that still goes on. The faculty, they put in some courses that were right in line with what’s going on. There were economics, supply chain classes, marketing classes, what the impact of COVID has been in certain areas. Those were very popular with students.

For those schools that pride themselves, like UCLA Anderson, on the culture, how can you keep that still in effect? I think this is the great feedback that we continue to get, even in this year, from those students who we admitted and who attended our virtual admit month, they told us that of all the schools, Anderson was so engaging, so open to answering questions, just being there to open emails, start a Zoom conversation. Those things in our DNA, as you well know, are still there even if we’re not in person.

Yes, this is a crisis, that will hopefully be short-term, but that’s not something that we’re just going to retrench and just wait it out. We’re still going to go out there, seeing how we can help people, delivering the resources as best we can. If it’s even a delivery model, food, whatever it may be, we want to make sure that we’re going to help people as best we can.

In light of the pandemic, are you going to read applications with a slightly different perspective in terms of the qualities that you’re looking for? Are you going to be weighing qualities differently than you did before the pandemic? [20:31]

Today, I don’t think so. When you think about it, there are going to be some people who are going to be negatively impacted from a career standpoint. We know that some people are going to be losing their jobs. They’re going to be worried about how that’s going to be reflected or reviewed by the admissions committee. The good thing is that, when you look at the admissions committee and the staff that I work with, these are experienced professionals. They were around 10 years ago when the last big recession occurred.

Again, while this is different, we always have made it a point that we give applicants, I believe, a lot of information space to explain their story, whether it be with the optional essay. As we are reading these essays, looking at the application, some of the things that are still going to be consistent will be, why do you need an MBA? Why now? Why from UCLA Anderson? We will definitely understand if somebody says, “My company laid me off,” or, “I thought that this was a great time for me to make a career switch.” Like we’ve talked about in the past, whenever there’s a crisis, there’s also a great opportunity to do something different, to do something bold. For those who may just say like, “I’m just going to go get an MBA,” there’s still going to be the questions why.

We’re still going to interview the best candidates and make sure they’re going to be the right fit for our community, our culture. We just know that we’ll probably see more people who are unfortunately unemployed or impacted in a different way by the virus situation. At the same time, we’re still going to be looking for the best people who are going to be the best individuals for our culture and have the best stories that talk about why Anderson, why MBA. I’m really excited, because I think those who are going to take the opportunity to look at what an MBA can do for them at this point in time will be a larger number.

As we talk about trends, we’re hearing the different stories right now about how some individuals are having to take care of parents or siblings. Just seeing those trends and those stories and seeing the grit behind those individuals, the courage behind those individuals, are going to be some things that, again, just resonate with who we are at UCLA Anderson.

Some applicants are worried about starting the MBA, taking on the cost of the MBA, graduating into a weakened economy, applying when deferrals may have shrunk the number of available seats or during a spike in applications because everybody figures it’s a great way to sit out a recession. How would you respond to those concerns? [23:41]

About how deferrals are going to take away seats, a lot of times it sounds worse than what it actually is. Knowing a lot of my friends at other schools, we know that those are on a case-by-case basis. It’s not going to take up as many seats as you may think. That’s one thing.

The spike in applications, you can’t get caught up on the numbers. I know a lot of times you see these big GMAT numbers or big GPAs or whatever it may be. I always tell candidates, even when you look at UCLA Anderson, look at the range of the scores. You don’t need a 720 to get into Anderson. Look at the range of scores. The thing for us is, can people do the work? Can they do the academics? That’s where the transcripts are going to come into play. That’s where the additional coursework is going to come to play.

I would never tell somebody not to apply. I always tell them just like, again, “Tell me why you need an MBA.” I start there. I want to find out why you think you need an MBA at this point. If somebody is more in the herd mentality, is like, “I think this is something that I just need to do,” then I would be worried. I want to know that you have a plan. When you look at our application, Linda, it’s just like the best ones we’re going to ask are, “What are your short-term and long-term goals?” People are going to have to put a lot of thought into that. They’re going to have to tell us how they are going to leverage their pre-MBA experience, and what they are going to do during their time in business school and afterwards. We want to know people have a plan.

The interview is an opportunity to close the deal, right? If you get an interview request from us, then it’s really for you to come and sell us on why you want to be at Anderson. A majority of people can close the deal a lot of times, but I would say don’t put the cart before the horse. If you’re a great candidate, if you think you’re a great candidate, I would say continue with that, but look at the process. As they go through that journey of researching, some things are going to stay on the table and some are going to fall to the floor, to the point where they narrow their schools down to the right choice, and even the degree.

I’ve got my MBA and I work at Anderson, after getting a master’s in electrical engineering as well. I can still do a few calculus equations, but I’ll tell people that between the two master’s degrees that I have, the MBA is so much more versatile. It’s a pivot in my career. For that young person, that 20-year-old who may have some thoughts about it, let me tell you, it’s going to exceed your expectations if you go and get an MBA.

For the 2020 graduating class, what percentage of the class had rescinded offers, and for the class of 2021, what about rescinded internship offers? Are UCLA students having this problem? [27:29]

I have heard of a few stories of people who have had rescinded offers, and it’s in the industries that you might expect like retail, travel, and entertainment. As a school, we did reach out to the alumni community, which has always been very supportive of our students, as a call to action for them, asking if there are options within their organizations to please reach out to the school. Just within a matter of two weeks, 20 opportunities did come up, which is fantastic. I won’t say that it’s sunshine and rainbows everywhere. There are some students who are still trying to figure out what’s going to happen for them because they had some niche interests.

One of the best things I think is that some of these companies (those outside of the industries that I mentioned) are still committed to the offers that they provide to our class of ’21 students doing their summer internships. I’ve heard stories where, say in the management consulting space, they’ve had to adjust the timeline of what those opportunities may look like, especially from a virtual standpoint, but I even have heard of commitments for full-time offers after the summer internship. Those are great signs.

At least for the few students that I counsel and stay in touch with, I tell them that this again is a great opportunity right now in this crisis. Don’t just sit back and relax. They can appreciate that, especially as they talk to alumni who went through this sequence of events back in 2008, 2009 timeframe. Talented individuals in general, they just don’t sit back, right? Here’s a great opportunity to possibly learn a new language, learn coding. Think of some of those skillsets that at the end of the day are going to differentiate you. We’ve asked, “Well, so what did you do while you were laid off? Did you just pine away, or did you decide to maybe start your own business?” Or maybe you got involved more with your community.

What advice would you give to a potential MBA applicant thinking to apply in fall 2020, this upcoming cycle? [30:40]

When you’re looking at UCLA Anderson in particular, there’s so much great information on the website on how to engage. We have a community of individuals who definitely want to talk to you about their own experiences with the school. I would also, again, think about that question: Why do you need an MBA now? You may not be able to answer it, say, in a 30-second pitch now. That’s where I think coming and talking to students, alumni, staff, and trying to see what the MBA experience at UCLA Anderson is like. That’ll give you some ideas.

Then as you start figuring out, “Okay, if I’m going to be applying to UCLA Anderson, what are the deadlines? What are the requirements?” If you’re thinking about starting in the fall, put all those materials together, getting letters of recommendation, hopefully taking a standardized test score. We still require that, so hopefully that’s on your radar too. I think that’s where that whole idea about having a plan comes from.

First thing is go to our website, see how you can get engaged with our community. Start building out a plan on how to submit a competitive application. As many people know, I’d be willing to speak with anybody, time permitting. Or if I can’t do it, I have an army of dedicated individuals who would love to share their own experiences about why you should apply to UCLA Anderson.

Then after that, I think what you will find, especially if things go well and you apply, you’re interviewed and you’re admitted, your expectations are going to be exceeded as somebody who’s going to enroll at the school. It’s one of those things that I can tell you all of this, but you have to experience it yourself. Then you’ll see like, “Wow, I can’t believe the two years have gone by so quickly.”

A funny story, again because of all my global travels, so to speak: I’d be on the road right now. I would be flying to different cities, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, welcoming those who’ve been admitted. Just a few days ago, I saw somebody on LinkedIn announce, “Okay, my time at Anderson has come up. I’m happy to announce that I’ll be starting at Amazon in the summer.” I thought, “Oh, my gosh. You’re a second-year? You’re graduating? It just seemed like maybe last year we were in Atlanta,” and he was just like, “Yeah, I remember that dinner.” The time just goes by so quickly. Not just for them, but for myself as well.

Are there any questions that you would have liked me to ask you? [33:28]

When you start looking at the ROI and the investment, think about that investment piece. At Anderson, we give out fellowships. We’re one of the more affordable MBAs. When you see these price tags, you’ve got to go deeper. That’s what talking to students is all about. Very few students are going to say, “I went to school for free at Anderson,” even if they did get fellowships of a sizable amount. That’s where the academic internships, as I like to call them, come into play, where people start piecemealing to make the MBA affordable: being a TA, obviously from the summer internship, scholarships outside of Anderson.

Today’s prospects are probably coming in with some student debt already. They’re already thinking, “Why would I want to pile on more?” If you start looking at the numbers on a long-term basis, 10, 20 years out, it’s a great investment, not only from a financial standpoint, but also from your social capital as well in building up your network.

Networks are another big thing. We didn’t spend a lot of time on it. The people who listen to your podcast, they’re very good, competitive individuals, great profiles. They’re probably going to have multiple choices. I think that, once you start looking at the different school cultures and things like that, the ones that are going to really resonate with you are going to probably be the best choices for you. Of course, again, like I said, I’m biased, right? I think Anderson is going to be the best choice for you.

Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about Anderson’s full-time MBA program? [36:08]

www.anderson.ucla.edu is where you can find more information. Of course, I can’t hide; I’m all over the internet. You’ll even see me in the staff directory. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me. My email’s up there too as well, and I would love to talk to you more about the Anderson MBA.

Related Links:

• UCLA Anderson MBA admissions
• UCLA Anderson MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines [2019-2020]
• How Will COVID-19 Impact Your Admissions Journey, a Q&A session
• Accepted MBA Admissions Services

Related Shows:

• Why Does an MD Need an MBA? This UCLA MD/MBA Student Tells All
• UCLA Anderson MBA Admissions According to Dean Alex Lawrence
• Get a Kellogg MBA: An Interview with Dean of Admissions Kate Smith
• Duke Fuqua Rattles MBA World with Exciting New Curriculum
• Yale MBA: The Inside Scoop on The Essay, Videos & Behavioral Assessment
• Applying to Wharton Lauder? Do Your Research!

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]     [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-SR-Guide-to-Becoming-Competitive-MBA-Applicant”]

Podcast Feed

The post What MBA Students Can Expect at UCLA Anderson [Episode 371] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

The U.S. News 2023 ranking is now live! Click here to check it out >>

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

U.S. News just released its 2021 ranking of full-time and part-time MBA programs. The rankings are based on expert opinions about the quality of each program and statistical indicators that calculate the quality of a program’s faculty, research, and students. The reputation surveys were sent to academics and professionals in fall 2019 and early 2020. This year, for the first time, the specialties of business analytics, real estate, and project management are ranked.

In order to rank each school. U.S. News assessed the data for each quality indicator and then standardized the value of each indicator about its mean. Each indicator has a weight assigned to it, which indicates U.S. News’ judgment about their relative importance, after consulting with experts in the field. 

<< Are you competitive at your dream school?
Check out the Selectivity Index to find out! >>

These final scores were rescaled to give the highest-scoring school a score of 100, with the other schools’ scores recalculated as a percentage of the top score. A school with a score of 100 did not necessarily receive the highest score on every indicator, it merely accrued the highest composite score.

Highlights of the 2021 MBA Ranking

• The biggest news of all is that Harvard Business School slipped down to sixth place this year from third in the 2019 full-time rankings. 
  
  
• Stanford University gained a position this year to tie the University of Pennsylvania for the top slot for full-time MBA programs. 
  
  
• Northwestern University jumped from a three-way tie for 6th place last year to a two-way tie this year at #3 with the University of Chicago. 
  
  
• New York University broke into the Top 10 this year, jumping from a three-way tie for #12 to the #10 spot. 
  
  
• Further down in the rankings, North Carolina State University leapt more than 30 spots, from a tie at #85 to #52 this year.
  
  
• Chicago Booth maintained the top position among part-time MBA programs. 
  
  
• Also in the part-time rankings, the University of Washington joined the Top 10 this year, rising from a two-way tie at #12 to #10 this year.  

2021 Top 10 full-time MBA programs

Rank	School	Location
1	Stanford University	Stanford, CA
1	UPenn Wharton	Philadelphia, PA
3	Northwestern Kellogg	Evanston, IL
3	Chicago Booth	Chicago, IL
5	MIT Sloan	Cambridge, MA
6	Harvard Business School	Boston, MA
7	UC Berkeley-Haas	Berkeley, CA
8	Columbia Business School	New York, NY
9	Yale SOM	New Haven, CT
10	New York University Stern	New York, NY

2021 Top 10 part-time MBA programs

Rank	School	Location
1	Chicago Booth	Chicago, IL
2	UC Berkeley-Haas	Berkeley, CA
3	Northwestern Kellogg	Evanston, IL
4	NYU Stern	New York, NY
5	UCLA Anderson	Los Angeles, CA
6	Michigan Ross	Ann Arbor, MI
7	UT McCombs	Austin, TX
8	Carnegie Mellon University Tepper	Pittsburgh, PA
9	Indiana Kelley	Bloomington, IN
10	Emory Goizueta	Atlanta, GA

Would you like to be a member of the class of 2022 in one of these top programs? Check out our MBA Admissions Consulting & Editing Services and work one-on-one with an expert consultant to create an application that will get you ACCEPTED!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—SR—Guide-to-selecting-right-one”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Accepted-Sig-Code—MBA”]

Related Resources:

• The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Competitive MBA Applicant, a free guide
• Business School Selectivity Index [Can I Get Into My Dream School?]
• Do MBA Rankings Matter?

The post U.S. News Announces 2021 Ranking of Best MBA Programs appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Harvard Business School has taken the top spot away from Stanford Graduate School of Business in the Financial Times 2020 global MBA ranking. 

Although the Financial Times ranking is designed to favor non-U.S. programs, 15 of the top 25 MBA programs are based in the U.S. This result comes despite the decline in applications to U.S. MBA programs – now in its sixth straight year.

The 2020 top 5 schools have not changed since last year, although their rankings have. Following Harvard are: #2 – University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (up 2 spots); #3 – Stanford Graduate School of Business (down 2 spots); #4 – INSEAD (down 1 spot); and #5 CEIBs in Shanghai, China (unchanged). 

Volatile rankings

Financial Times global ranking methodology is based on 20 different metrics, including some that are inclined to favor non-U.S. schools. Some metrics that add to a school’s position include the percentage of students, faculty, and trustees who possess passports from a country where the school is not located, whether students and alumni worked in foreign countries, whether students had international class experience, and whether the school has a requirement to learn an additional language before graduation. 

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Selectivity-Index—MBA-CTA”]

A new metric was added this year – Corporate Social Responsibility. This metric has a weight of 3%, and is based on the percentage of teaching hours from core courses devoted to CSR, ethics, social, and environmental issues.  

The FT’s most heavily weighted metric is salary data (40%). its use of “purchasing power parity”, or PPP  favor schools whose grads go to work in countries with lower cost of living. This hurts U.S. schools since most grads of U.S. MBA programs want to live and work in the U.S. 

The ranking does not take incoming student quality into account. GMAT and GRE scores, as well as undergraduate GPA’s, are ignored. 

<< Watch: Linda Abraham and Marco De Novellis of BusinessBecause discuss the value of MBA rankings >>

FT’s ranking is known to be volatile, which reduces its credibility because there are few year-to-year changes at schools that explain big changes in the rankings. This means that there were big winners and big losers again this year. 

Twenty-seven of the 91 returning b-schools had double-digit increases or decreases in their standings. Fully half of the MBA programs ranked by FT five years ago (39 of 78) have felt double-digit changes, and 23 of those changes have been adjustments in 20 or more spots.

Top 25 International MBA Programs

2020 Rank	School	2019 Rank	Y-O-Y Change
1	Harvard	2	+1
2	UPenn Wharton	4	+2
3	Stanford GSB	1	-2
4	INSEAD	3	-1
5	CEIBS	5	---
6	MIT Sloan	8	+2
7	London	6	-1
8	Columbia	9	+1
9	HEC Paris	19	+10
10	Chicago Booth	7	-3
11	Northwestern Kellogg	14	+3
12	UC-Berkeley Haas	10	-2
13	IESE	12	-1
14	Yale SOM	11	-3
15	Nat’l Univ. of Singapore	17	+2
16	Dartmouth Tuck	15	-1
17	Duke Fuqua	19	+3
18	Virginia Darden	23	+5
19	Cambridge Judge	16	-3
19	Hong Kong UST	18	-1
21	Oxford Said	13	-8
22	New York Stern	25	+3
23	Cornell Johnson	27	+4
24	ESADE	21	-3
25	IMD	22	-3
25	UCLA Anderson	26	+1

Do you see yourself in one of these top international programs? Find out how working one-on-one with one of our Admissions Consultants can help get you ACCEPTED!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—SR—Guide-to-selecting-right-one”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Accepted-Sig-Code—MBA”]

Related Resources:

• Navigate the MBA Application Maze: 9 Tips to Acceptance, a free guide
• Top MBA Programs Get STEM-Certified to Attract Int’l Students
• B-School Selectivity Index: Discover the Schools Where You are a Competitive Applicant

The post Financial Times Ranks Harvard as #1 in 2020 Global MBA Ranking appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Poets & Quants just released its 2019-2020 rankings of the top 100 U.S. MBA programs.

There were some minor changes in the top 10  – most prominently is Stanford GSB climbing two spots, passing Harvard Business School and UPenn Wharton, to claim the #1 position. It’s the second time in 10 years that Stanford has claimed the top slot.  

Other highlights include:

• Yale School of Management just barely broke into the top 10 by securing 10th place. 
• Purdue’s Krannert School of Management dropped 10 spots from last year, from 38th to 48th.
• Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business jumped 12 spots from 62nd place last year to 50th.
• UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management experienced a massive jump, from 94th to 71st place.

P&Q ranking methodology

P&Q’s rankings are based on the rankings of five highly-influential business publications, and are weighted based on P&Q’s assessment of each ranking’s methodology and credibility. The five included in P&Q’s ranking are U.S. News (weight of 35%), Forbes (25%), The Financial Times (15%), Businessweek (15%), and The Economist (10%). Combining the rankings in this way lessens the irregularities that are frequently seen in a given year. This allows applicants to get a better idea of a school’s overall reputation, which typically changes little from year to year.

Top 25 U.S. MBA Programs

2019 Rank	School Name	2018 Rank	Index
1	Stanford GSB	3	100.0
2	Chicago Booth	4	99.6
3	Harvard Business School	1	99.2
4	UPenn Wharton	1	98.8
5	Northwestern Kellogg	5	96.2
6	Dartmouth Tuck	9	96.1
7	MIT Sloan	6	96.0
8	Columbia Business School	7	94.8
9	UC-Berkeley Haas	8	94.4
10	Yale SOM	11	91.1
11	Virginia Darden	12	90.8
12	Michigan Ross	10	89.7
13	Cornell Johnson	13	89.6
14	Duke Fuqua	14	89.5
15	UCLA Anderson	15	88.1
16	New York Stern	16	87.6
17	Carnegie Mellon Tepper	17	84.5
18	Texas-Austin McCombs	18	82.8
19	Southern California Marshall	22	82.5
20	North Carolina Kenan-Flagler	19	82.5
21	Washington Foster	21	81.0
22	Emory Goizueta	20	80.6
23	Indiana Kelley	25	80.1
24	Georgetown McDonough	23	76.9
25	Rice Jones	24	74.6

Watch: Linda Abraham and Marco de Novellis discuss MBA rankings

Do you want to be a member of a top-tier MBA program? Explore our MBA Admissions Consulting Services and work one-on-one with an expert advisor who will help you GET ACCEPTED!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—SR—Guide-to-selecting-right-one”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Accepted-Sig-Code—MBA”]

Related Resources:

• The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Competitive MBA Applicant, a free guide
• Business School Selectivity Index [Can I Get Into My Dream School?]
• Highlights of Bloomberg Businessweek’s 2019 MBA Rankings

The post Poets & Quants Announces 2019-2020 MBA Rankings appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Rank	School	Final Score	Launched Business in 3 Months	% of Faculty who Teach Entrepreneurship	Award Money Available*
1	Washington University in St. Louis (Olin)	100	20.67%	27.00%	$987,500
2	Stanford Graduate School of Business	72.54	15.67%	16.39%	$100,000
3	Babson College	71.3	16.63%	20.00%	$132,500
4	University of Michigan (Ross)	70.21	17.33%	17.20%	$523,500
5	ESADE	60.14	4.61%	6.00%	$0
6	MIT (Sloan)	52.99	6.80%	15.66%	$270,000
7	CEIBS	51.08	4.93%	4.41%	$9,000
8	University of Minnesota (Carlson)	50.65	7.67%	6.40%	$500,000
9	University of California-Los Angeles (Anderson)	47.17	3.13%	7.74%	$41,000
10	University of California-Berkeley (Haas)	46.86	6.05%	13.56%	$100,000
11	Rice University (Jones)	46.52	6.00%	17.00%	$2,942,150
12	Harvard Business School	45.99	7.33%	12.70%	$700,000
13	University of Chicago (Booth)	45.76	3.13%	11.76%	$700,000
14	Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper)	45.68	6.67%	1.00%	$60,000
15	INSEAD	43.62	4.33%	10.75%	$145,029
16	Indiana University (Kelley)	43.42	1.53%	19.23%	$20,000
17	Northwestern University (Kellogg)	42.6	1.90%	4.52%	$100,000
18	Yale School of Management	38.17	4.13%	12.08%	$100,000
19	University of Texas-Austin (McCombs)	34.02	2.73%	11.00%	$100,000
20	Columbia Business School	33.6	4.27%	21.93%	$250,000
21	University of Virginia (Darden)	28.47	4.53%	15.38%	$50,000
22	UNC-Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)	28.18	1.67%	20.00%	$49,500
23	University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	28.01	4.97%	11.68%	$135,000
24	Georgetown University (McDonnough)	26.63	3.00%	7.81%	$189,500
25	New York University (Stern)	24.2	1.65%	14.00%	$275,000
26	University of Southern California (Marshall)	24.07	0.50%	6.05%	$300,000
27	Emory University (Goizueta)	20.31	1.07%	0.00%	$8,500

* Total award money available to full-time MBAs through new venture and startup competitions during the 2018-2019 academic year.

Are you a budding entrepreneur who needs to round out their skill set with an entrepreneurial-focused MBA? Let us at Accepted help you put together your strongest application to show these top programs what you’ve got. Contact us today for a free consultation on how we can work together to get you accepted to the perfect program for you!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—SR—Guide-to-selecting-right-one”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Signature-Code—JenWeld”]

Related Resources:

• MBA Applicants: Make Your Work Experience Work for You, a free guide
• B-School Selectivity Index: Discover the Schools Where You Are Competitive
• A Bain Consultant-Turned Wharton MBA Starts Her Own Business, a podcast episode

The post Top MBA Programs for Entrepreneurs appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Chicago’s Booth School of Business remaining at the top of The Economist’s ranking of the world’s top MBA programs for the second year in a row is only one of a few stable things in this year’s ranking, according to the Poets & Quants website. This is the seventh time Booth has taken the top spot in The Economist ranking in the past nine years.

This year’s ranking shakeup is widespread. Nineteen of the top 100 MBA programs faced leaps or falls of at least 10 spots since last year. Seven schools have dropped out of the ranking completely, leaving room for seven new schools.

The biggest winners and losers

HEC Paris made the biggest gain in the Top 10. It jumped 10 places to #3, behind just Chicago Booth (#1) and Harvard Business School (#2).

UVA Darden (#9 in 2018) and Columbia Business School (#10 in 2018) are no longer found in the Top 10 (they’ve dropped to 16th and 15th, respectively).

University of Maryland (#81 in 2019) and Northeastern University (#82 in 2019) are no longer ranked in the Top 100.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Selectivity-Index—MBA-CTA”]

Why are these rankings so volatile?

The Economist looks at 21 different metrics to determine their rankings. This is the most metrics of any ranking. They place heavy emphasis on compensation and career placement, including salaries, pre-MBA versus post-MBA pay increases, and the percent of grads who find jobs through the career management center. These comprise 45% of the methodology.

The Economist also relies quite a bit on student satisfaction, which is determined by an annual survey of current MBA students and recent alumni. These survey results comprise 20% of the ranking and are composed of:

• New career opportunities (35%)
• Personal development/educational experiences (35%)
• Increasing salary (20%)
• Potential to network (10%)

The Economist’s Top 25 MBA programs

2019 Rank	School	YOY Change	2018 Rank
1	Chicago Booth	-	1
2	Harvard Business School	+1	3
3	HEC Paris	+10	13
4	Northwestern Kellogg	-2	2
5	UPenn Wharton	-1	4
6	UCLA Anderson	+2	8
7	UC Berkeley Haas	+4	11
8	Stanford GSB	-3	5
9	Michigan Ross	-2	7
10	IESE	-4	6
11	Duke Fuqua	+4	15
12	Dartmouth Tuck	-	12
13	SDA Bocconi	+11	24
14	Cornell Johnson	+6	20
15	Columbia	-5	10
16	Virginia Darden	-7	9
17	New York University Stern	-	17
18	USC Marshall	+10	28
19	MIT Sloan	-3	16
20	Washington Foster	+2	22
21	Yale SOM	-7	14
22	INSEAD	-3	19
23	Georgia Tech Scheller	+8	31
24	Warwick	-6	18
25	London Business School	+2	27

Is a top MBA program in your future? Learn what these rankings mean for you and how you can secure your spot at your top choice b-school when you work one-on-one with an expert Accepted advisor. Explore our MBA Admissions Services for more information on how we can help you get ACCEPTED.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-SR-Guide-to-Becoming-Competitive-MBA-Applicant”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Accepted-Sig-Code—MBA”]

Related Resources:

• Are You a Competitive Applicant at Your Dream School? [The MBA Selectivity Index]
• Do MBA Rankings Matter?
• Are You a Good Fit for Your Target MBA Programs?

The post Big Changes in Economist 2019 MBA Rankings appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

[powerpress]

Interview with Trisha Mathelier, MD/MBA student at UCLA [Show Summary]

In today’s episode Trisha Mathelier, an MD/MBA student with the Drew/UCLA Medical Education Program, shares her medical school journey as well as what led her to decide on getting an MBA in addition to her medical degree. She fills us in on the uniqueness of the Drew/UCLA program, as it provides her with the opportunity to be part of a small and close knit community at Drew (just 24 students per class), but also with the wealth of resources at the large world-class research program at UCLA. Trisha then lets us know what she has planned for the immediate term and the future as an MD/MBA – she plans to be a clinician and also a serial entrepreneur.

An MD/MBA candidate speaks about her passions for both the clinical and business sides of healthcare [Show Notes]

Our guest today is Trisha Mathelier, MD/MBA student participating in the Drew/UCLA Medical Education Program. Tricia grew up just outside New York City and graduated from Harvard College in 2013. At Harvard she majored in Psychology, Social and Cognitive Neurosciences, and Global Health and Health Policy. She took a gap year between graduation and started at UCLA in 2014. She intends to earn her MBA in 2020 and her MD in 2021.

Can you tell us about your background outside of medicine? Where you grew up? What do you like to do for fun? [2:41]

I grew up in a suburb outside of Manhattan. I am an only child, and was very active in my church and youth group. I volunteered a lot through my church, but most of my time was spent cheerleading – I was on a competitive all-star team. Before that I did competitive gymnastics and dance. Every weekend practically throughout high school I traveled all over the east coast for cheerleading competitions on a nationally ranked team – from Maine to Florida. When I wasn’t in the gym I just enjoyed being a kid. I would go to the beach, go to the lake, essentially a typical suburban New York life. One piece of advice that I really took to heart around that time that I would pass along to your listeners is to do things that you are generally passionate about, because people will see the passion and know you are genuine and not just doing something to impress an interviewer.

How did you know you wanted to be a doctor? [5:31]

I had a really close relationship with my pediatrician – he was a close family friend. After every appointment he would take me into his office to get a sticker. Looking at all the degrees and awards I was so impressed and told him so, and he said I was smart and I could be a doctor, too. I decided I was going to be a pediatrician just like him.

My mom was studying then to be a nurse and as a single mom of an only child she didn’t always have a babysitter so I would sometimes go with her to classes or the lab or listen along to her audio lectures. She would play them nonstop like music, and there were times in the tape where the lecturers would stop and ask questions to keep the listener engaged. There was a failure to thrive question in newborns around jaundice. It was an open ended question, and I answered it and was right. My mom was amazed and asked how I got it right. I said, “I’ve been listening to your nursing stuff and think I kind of get it.”

You took a gap year between undergrad and med school. What did you do and are you happy you did it? [9:55]

I started working for an NGO my senior year in college called Physicians for Haiti. A Haitian hospital was designing a social medicine course to figure out the social determinants of health. They invited students from the US and other countries to participate, and so I was involved in interviewing students for the program, setting up the curriculum, and the logistics on how it would work. During the summer just after graduation I was in Haiti to help implement the course. I then applied to medical school and worked as a scribe, which was a great way to gain clinical experience and knowledge. A lot of the documentation I did was really relevant during my first year and made learning easier and a lot more fun. The gap year was one of the best decisions of my life.

Why did you decide to attend Drew/ UCLA Medical Education Program? [12:45]

I knew I wanted to work in urban underserved communities. I am passionate about that, and the Drew/UCLA program focuses on it. Of the 190 students who are UCLA medical students, 24 are also enrolled at Charles Drew University of Medicine. We get unique clinical opportunities that allow us to work in the underserved communities of L.A. and have a required thesis that targets urban underserved healthcare. It made sense to prioritize a program that allowed me to focus on that. A lot of other schools I applied to had similar tracks and urban scholars, but the Drew/UCLA program was a lot more comprehensive in my opinion.

What have you liked best about your medical school experience at UCLA/Drew? [14:54]

Drew is an HBCU that is really small – in terms of med students affiliated there are only 25-30 per class. HBCUs are known for having a more close knit family feel. I am pretty sure most of the administrators are in my contacts list in my phone, and the community feels like a family. Drew is in the heart of a very underserved community, and it is great to have those kinds of mentors. UCLA is in West LA and serves a completely different demographic. They have a lot of respected specialties, and I could do any kind of research I wanted to do, covering all of my expenses. The benefit of being in the program is I don’t have to compromise – I have a smaller tight knit school but the benefits of being at a research powerhouse, which to me is the best of both worlds.

What could be improved? [17:14]

I would love to see nationwide an improvement in the pipelines for those underrepresented in medicine – to have access to attend medical school and improve diversity. I would like to see more women and underrepresented groups as faculty. Medicine to me is a boys club, so I would love to see more female surgeons, neurologists, orthopedic surgeons, and I would like to see the transition happen sooner.

Where are you at in your medical studies now? [18:40]

I completed my third year of medical school and now am wrapping up my first year in the MBA program. For a second degree the program is typically more flexible, and you can double up on coursework to finish in a condensed amount of time. I have done the opposite and decided to take a complete leave of absence from medical school so am completely enrolled in the full two years for the MBA program and will graduate in 2020, returning to medical school to finish my fourth year. This summer I was afforded so many unique opportunities for my internship but ultimately settled on consulting, most likely on a healthcare project.

Why did you decide you also wanted an MBA? [20:50]

UCLA is a research powerhouse, and I was afforded the opportunity to go back to Haiti, where my family is originally from, to lay the foundation to pilot a research study. After the study was finished it was published, and essentially laid out that HIV positive pregnant women in Haiti have a high percentage of STDs, and they were not being treated. However, they wanted treatment and had to sometimes travel often as far as three hours away for treatment. The study confirmed there are STDs in Haiti and women are willing to do whatever it takes to get to a clinic for treatment, so how can we create large scale expansion to make treatment available in rural areas, not just the capital.

I realized I don’t have the skills to make these types of decisions, and I don’t want to be the researcher who just asks the questions. I want to see what the evidence says and develop solutions. During my clinical rotation I found myself interested in the hospital logistics and operational issues. One clinic was notorious for not having regular hours, and the reason was because the clinic had so many patients coming through each day, and it was understaffed. It seemed like the work flow could be redesigned to make things more efficient, but again I didn’t have the skills or background to answer those questions.

I also am very interested in entrepreneurship, healthcare startups, digital health, and a lot of the healthcare startups popping up. There are so many great gadgets and companies, how do you manage their impact? So ultimately, I realized I am very interested in the business side of healthcare, which I can’t learn more about in just medical school.

Why did you decide you wanted to do the full two-year MBA in addition to medical school, essentially elongating it? [24:41]

I had the option to limit the MBA experience but I wanted the greater connections and internship, which wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. I knew I wanted my career to be a balance of clinical and non-clinical, but in order to decide that balance I need to experience the non-clinical side, too. Like many premeds I initially had a rigorous timeline I was going to follow. When I took the gap year I realized that in the grand scheme of things it didn’t matter. An extra year wouldn’t make or break my experience so I adopted that over time, realizing that an extra two years to get an MBA has more value than negative consequences.

You have a blog, Three Thousand Miles. Can you tell us a little bit about it? When did you start writing it? Why? [26:56]

I started it my second year in medical school and honestly started it out of procrastination – I was supposed to be studying for something. I’ve always been a blog reader, and one day I was sitting in my apartment and just decided to do it. It’s called Three Thousand Miles since that is how far from home I am. I shared admissions tips to start, because I volunteer with admissions and work with postbac students and lead workshops for them every month, so I had a lot of experience in medical admissions and wanted to share free resources. I realized that not everyone has access to great counselors like I did. Most of the time people reach out and say they found my blog when searching how to study for the MCAT.

Over time I realized there is more to my life than just medical school – I love photography, baking, cooking and travel, and I wanted my blog to highlight that you can go to med school and still do other things – you can have unique interests and hobbies and school doesn’t have to consume your life. The med school stereotype is that one is obsessed with med school, worried about getting in, staying in, block exams, etc., etc. I wanted to hold on to my freedom. I wanted to still have fun, not always being in the library and always studying. I wanted to show you can have diverse interests and pursue them and still be a great student and become a great doctor.

How do you see your career evolving after you finish at UCLA/Drew? [30:58]

I have a lot of interests in healthcare. Four classmates and I are applying to be a part of the business creation option at UCLA Anderson. We are working on building a company that we want to go live after graduation. Ideally I see myself as a cofounder of a company that has funding and being a resident. In the long term I see myself being a serial entrepreneur. I am really passionate about kids, especially those with developmental disabilities, and I see myself a practicing doctor but with multiple startups. Creating and innovating is definitely part of my future.

What would you have liked me to ask you? [33:18]

What has been the highlight of my experience so far. For me it has been forming this business creation option team. There are people so passionate about healthcare. We connected because we were all interested in putting together scalable solutions in the healthcare space. They all have worked in healthcare before business school, but seeing that you don’t have to be a clinician to have a meaningful role in healthcare is really neat. In business school there are people with all kinds of different backgrounds, and the interdisciplinary collaboration is really exciting.

Related Links:

• The Ultimate Guide to Secondary Essay Question from Top Med Schools, a free download
• Three Thousand Miles, Trisha’s blog
• Accepted’s Medical School Admissions Services
• Accepted MBA Admissions Services

Related Shows:

• Doctor, Mother, and SMILE Score Creator
• Endocrinologist, Writer, and Bollywood Critic Tells Her Story
• Family Practitioner, Author, Advocate: An Interview with Dr. Alexa Mieses
• Kaiser Medical School: State-of-the-Art, Patient-Focused, and Free

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”] [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

Podcast Feed

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Navigating-Med-Maze”]

The post Why Does an MD Need an MBA? This UCLA MD/MBA Student Tells All [Episode 316] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

UCLA Newsroom has reported that Antonio Bernardo will be the new dean of the UCLA Anderson School of Management beginning July 1, 2019, succeeding Al Osborne who has held the position of interim dean this past year. Dr. Bernardo has taught at UCLA for 25 years and is an award-winning teacher and distinguished author. He currently holds the Joel Fried Chair in Applied Finance and previously held the Robert D. Beyer Term Chair in Management. Bernardo served as department chair and senior associate dean for academic affairs from 2006-2009, and as finance area chair from 2013-2015 as well as in 2019.

Bernardo stated, “I began my academic career at Anderson 25 years ago, and my children have grown up on this campus. I am honored to now have this opportunity to give back to the institution that has allowed me to make the most of my potential, and been such an important community of support for me and my family.”

Bernardo’s educational and professional achievements

Bernardo received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario in economics and went on to Stanford University where he received his PhD in economics. Throughout his career he has published numerous articles in top finance, economics, and law journals, and served as associate editor of several publications. Bernardo is also the recipient of many leadership and teaching awards, including the Citibank Award for Teaching Excellence and six Anderson class teaching awards.

Bernardo’s teaching career has also included positions at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. He also had a visiting appointment at the University of Chicago.

Bernardo has served on many committees at UCLA Anderson including the Anderson 2016 strategic planning committee and the gender equality committee. While serving as senior associate dean, he helped spearhead significant strategic projects including one that led to improving the strength and diversity of their faculty, and its pay equality. He was also involved in the inauguration of the school’s Master of Financial Engineering program in 2018.

“I believe deeply in our research and teaching mission and I am extremely proud to be a part of one of the world’s great public universities, tackling society’s most-vexing problems,” stated Bernardo, who is looking forward to “leading the Anderson community as we engage that mission with a spirit of collaboration, innovation and purpose.”

Are you aiming to gain acceptance at UCLA Anderson or any other top b-school? Explore our MBA Admissions Consulting & Editing services and work one-on-one with an expert advisor who will help you get ACCEPTED!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—SR—Guide-to-selecting-right-one”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Accepted-Sig-Code—MBA”]

Related Resources:

• The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Competitive MBA Applicant, a free guide
• UCLA Anderson MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines
• How Can an Accepted MBA Admissions Consultant Help You?

The post UCLA Anderson School of Management Names Antonio Bernardo as Dean appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

As applicants, students, and admissions consultants are knee deep in family, celebration, and application essays we’d like to play an encore of one of the most popular Admission Straight Talk podcast episodes of the year.[powerpress]

Our conversation with Alex Lawrence, Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at UCLA Anderson, is loaded with information about Anderson’s outstanding MBA program as well important insights into MBA admissions at top business schools. Listen to the show to find out what an admissions director is looking for when he reviews MBA applications!

For the show notes, check out the original blog post. 

Related Resources:

• Anderson Full-time MBA
• UCLA Anderson B-School Zone
• UCLA Anderson Essay Tips & Deadlines
• How an MBA from Anderson Helped this Career Switcher
• B-School for Good: Pursuing Social Impact Through UCLA Anderson’s Fully Employed MBA
• UCLA Anderson Executive MBA Application Essay Tips & Deadlines
• MBA Admissions Consulting Services

Related Shows:

• UCLA’s MS in Business Analytics: Prep for the Sexiest Job of the 21st Century
• What’s New at NYU Stern? A Lot!
• From Wall St to Wharton, While Starting Wall Street Oasis
• What’s Life Like as a Darden MBA and Entrepreneur?
• Make a Difference at Michigan Ross: An Interview with Soojin Kwon

Subscribe:

[xyz-ihs snippet=”iTunes-Widged”][xyz-ihs snippet=”Get-Stitcher”]        [xyz-ihs snippet=”Subscribe-on-Android”]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-SR-WHY-MBA”]

The post Encore: UCLA Anderson MBA Admissions According to Dean Alex Lawrence [Episode 239] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.