Yale SOM application essay tips

Last year’s three essay options were very well received by applicants, so Yale SOM is using them again this year. The three prompts offer applicants the chance to write about what truly matters to them, whether that is a particular personal or professional commitment, a community, or a challenge. Take your time to ponder what has been most important or impactful in your life and choose the prompt that relates best to it. The Yale SOM adcom doesn’t have a particular preference for any of the prompts. Instead, they want you to select the one that feels more relevant and personal to you – the one that will allow you to convey the best story about who you are. Additionally, they are not interested in how your response connects to your reasons for pursuing an MBA or your choice of Yale SOM. They are focused on learning about you as an individual. 

Essay Option #1

Describe the biggest commitment you have ever made. Why is this commitment meaningful to you and what actions have you taken to support it?

This essay question is based not only on the premise that actions speak louder than words but also on the premise that past behavior predicts future behavior.

So, in your essay, you want to show that you are a person who follows through on commitments. Think about times when you have made a significant commitment and fulfilled it. Do you tend to make big commitments? What are the results? What impact have you had as a result of your most important or consequential commitment? What was the impact on you?

An anecdotal response, in which you tell the story of the commitment you made, could be very effective. What was the challenge or problem that triggered the commitment? How did you follow up? What was the outcome, and why is it meaningful to you? Did you successfully solve the initial problem or achieve your goal(s) in meeting the challenge?

You can start your essay with the moment of challenge or with the moment of triumph. If you choose the latter, be sure to go back, provide context, and recount your story of commitment, resolve, hurdles overcome, and challenges handled. If the impact has lasted – on you and others – succinctly include that part of the story, too.

Essay Option #2

Describe the community that has been most meaningful to you. What is the most valuable thing you have gained from being a part of this community and what is the most important thing you have contributed to this community?

If you choose to respond to this prompt, start by thinking about a community you either belong to currently or belonged to in the past, and choose the one in which – and from which – you believe you have learned the most, or to which you have contributed the most. 

This could be related to a volunteer activity you regularly participate in, a network or community of like-minded people you belong to, or even a professional organization you are part of. 

If you choose to write about a community you belonged to many years ago, be sure to discuss how that experience is still relevant today, how it affected you, and in what way. 

We recommend dedicating the first third of your essay to describing the community and the nature of your involvement. Then, spend the second third discussing what you have learned from your experiences in – and potentially from other members of – that community, focusing especially on the one or two most important ones. In the final third of your essay, highlight the most important contributions you have made to the community.

Essay Option #3

Describe the most significant challenge you have faced. How have you confronted this challenge and how has it shaped you as a person?

Using the SAR (Situation, Action, Results), STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result), or CAR (Context/Challenge, Action, Result) framework, describe for the adcom the most important challenge you have had to address in your life, either personal or professional. In the first part of your essay, clearly describe the issue and why it was or has been difficult for you. Then, discuss how you confronted the challenge, what you specifically did to deal with and overcome it. Finish with how the experience helped shape you into the person you are today. Explain for the adcom what you learned and how you grew as a result. 

A key part of this prompt are the words “most significant.” Don’t just talk about any challenge you have faced; it needs to be the most meaningful one you have dealt with. It has to be something that has shaped you into the person you are today. Explain how it has allowed you to grow and why you are better because of it.

Optional Information

If any aspect of your candidacy needs further explanation, please provide a brief description here. (200 words maximum)

If you have a lower-than-average GPA, a low test score, or a gap in your resume, this is the place to explain those circumstances. However, Yale SOM is interested not only in understanding the reasons behind your weak score but also in learning more about you as a person. If you feel that your statistics align with Yale SOM’s class profile and nothing in your candidacy requires explanation, you can use this essay to elaborate on an extracurricular activity, a hobby, or another aspect of your profile that has not been adequately addressed elsewhere. 

Short-Answer Questions

Do not view these responses as mere afterthoughts; your job descriptions and activity history are crucial. Write and edit these sections carefully. Focus on your achievements, quantify results whenever possible, and emphasize Yale’s commitment to “educating leaders for business and society” in your responses.

Behavioral Assessment

The Behavioral Assessment takes approximately 20 to 25 minutes to complete and is designed to help the adcom complete a picture of who you are. This is not an emotional intelligence (EQ) evaluation; rather, it aims to provide insights into your academic potential. There are no right or wrong answers, so please respond to the questions honestly and to the best of your ability. 

Yale SOM application deadlines

Source: Yale SOM website

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

Yale SOM class profile

Here is a look at the Yale SOM Class of 2026 (data taken from the Yale SOM website):

Total enrollment: 347

Women: 39%

International passport holders (includes U.S. permanent residents and dual citizens): 48% 

LGBTQ+: 12%

First-generation college students: 20%

Joint-degree students: 8%

Average years of work experience: 4.9

U.S. students of color (identify as American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Other Pacific Islander, Asian American, Black/African American, or Hispanic/Latinx): 56% 

U.S. underrepresented students of color (identify as American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Other Pacific Islander, Black/African American, or Hispanic/Latinx): 16% 

Median undergraduate GPA: 3.68

Middle 80% range of undergraduate GPA: 3.31-3.94

Median GMAT 10th Edition: 730

Middle 80% range of GMAT 10th Edition: 700-760

Median GMAT Focus Edition: 675

Median GRE Verbal: 164

Middle 80% range of GRE Verbal: 159-170

Median GRE Quant: 166

Middle 80% range of GRE Quant: 161-170

Students with GRE scores: 38%

Countries represented: 42

Citizenship by region (based on primary and secondary citizenship):

• North America: 65%
• Asia Pacific: 24%
• Africa and Middle East: 5%
• The Caribbean and Latin America: 4%
• Europe: 2%

Undergraduate majors:

• STEM: 34%
• Business: 28%
• Humanities and Social Sciences: 20%
• Economics: 18%

Pre-MBA industry:

• Financial services: 24.4%
• Consulting: 22.2%
• Technology: 13.6%
• Nonprofit: 8.9%
• Government: 7.6%
• Healthcare: 7.0%
• Media/Entertainment: 4.1%
• Manufacturing: 2.8%
• Energy: 2.5%
• Consumer packaged goods: 2.2%
• Retail: 1.9%
• Other: 1.6%
• Transportation/Logistics: 0.6%
• Hospitality 0.3%
• Real estate: 0.3%

Pre-MBA function:

• Consulting: 34%
• Finance/Accounting: 20%
• Other: 18%
• General management: 9%
• Operations/Logistics: 7%
• Marketing/Sales: 6%
• Information technology: 4%
• Human resources: 1%

Pre-MBA sector:

• For-profit: 80%
• Government: 11%
• Nonprofit: 9%

Related Resources

• MBA Selectivity Index
• How to Get Into Yale SOM 2025, podcast Episode 598
• Which MBA Program Is Right for Me? The Ultimate Guide to Choosing an MBA Program

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

For many business degree hopefuls, the MBA remains the gold standard of graduate management education, and not without reason – an MBA can be the start of a new chapter in your life. Professionally, it can help you accelerate your career or make a career pivot. Academically, it can help fill gaps in hard and soft skills. Personally, it can help you discover more about yourself. For these reasons, many cite their MBA experience as being transformative. 

An MBA is the goal for many people who aim to pursue a business career. But what about individuals who have the desire to pursue graduate management study and start making their mark in the business world but don’t meet the work experience requirement of most MBA programs? Is gaining acceptance to business school without work experience possible? The short answer is yes, it is! The two most common paths for candidates in this situation are pre-experience master’s programs and deferred MBA programs.

Pre-experience/Early Career Programs

The terms “pre-experience” and “early career” are used interchangeably, but they both refer to programs that cater to recent graduates (“recent” meaning fewer than three years out of college). While the first offering in this category was the general management MiM (master’s in management) degree, the portfolio of programs now includes master’s degrees in finance, innovation and entrepreneurship, and data analytics, to name but a few options you might find at business schools today. Business master’s (BMs) degrees in data science, accounting, finance, and health administration are generally the most searched BM programs in the United States.

Applicants in this category are commonly referred to as pre-experience or early career candidates, and this market continues to be popular; according to GMAT Geographic Trend Report: Testing Year 2024, while global GMAT scores are most often sent to MBA programs (63% of them are), the proportion of GMAT score reports sent to BM programs has declined from 36% in 2020 to 30% in 2024. Although pursuing an MiM or similar program doesn’t negate the need for an MBA down the road (indeed, you will find individuals with both an MiM and an MBA), these programs are excellent choices for recent graduates looking to explore their options in the business world. 

Candidates who opt to pursue their business studies now, rather than waiting until they’ve earned a few years of work experience, might do so for a few reasons: they might want to specialize early on in a certain area, such as finance or marketing, to enter a specific function; they might want to “convert” their liberal arts or science degree into a business career; or they might come from a business undergraduate degree but want to better understand how theory is applied in the real world so they can hit the ground running in their post-graduate job. Whatever the candidate’s reason, these degrees provide an excellent foundation and help individuals build the skills, knowledge, career support, and network to get a head start in their careers. Additionally, some MBA programs provide a path for their MiM students to return to complete their MBA as a second-year student.

Deferred MBA programs allow students in their final year of study (or just after, if they’re pursuing a master’s without full-time work experience) to secure a seat in the MBA classroom before gaining the generally required work experience. These programs tend to attract highflyers – students with excellent academic credentials and internships, who have demonstrated leadership potential, and who have already started formulating career goals. These candidates understand, and can articulate, how an MBA will help them achieve their goals. These programs are a great option, because they offer security (you don’t have to worry about studying for the GMAT and writing applications while juggling your busy work schedule!) and add some clout to your resume (“Wow, already accepted to an MBA program before you’ve even graduated? Impressive!”). Of course, as with anything, there are pros and cons, so it’s important to determine whether committing yourself to a deferred program makes sense with your career plans. If you decide that a deferred MBA program is the best option for you, bear in mind that they are incredibly competitive. 

Here’s some information to help you better understand which schools offer deferred MBA programs and what these programs are all about. (Information is accurate as of February 2025.)

Harvard Business School 2+2 Program 

Harvard’s 2+2 program is what the name implies – a minimum of two years (four, maximum) of work experience, followed by two years of MBA study. Harvard is looking for “innovative thinkers who have demonstrated leadership and analytical skills and want to develop their knowledge and passion to make a difference in the world.” And this difference doesn’t have to be in a “traditional” business area. In fact, the 2+2 shows some preference for candidates who are pursuing paths “that aren’t as well established”; this could include candidates who plan to work in an operating company, come from a lower socioeconomic background, are first-generation college students, aim to pursue a technically demanding role, or aspire to entrepreneurism. So, if you’re not focused on joining one of the “big three” strategy consulting firms, don’t let that stop you from applying. You might just be what the 2+2 is looking for.

New York University (NYU) Stern NYU x NYU/Stern Program

Undergraduates from NYU’s College of Arts and Science, Tandon School of Engineering, Global Liberal Studies program, Stern School of Business, and Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development can opt to join the full-time, two-year MBA program at Stern (without needing to take the GMAT or GRE) two to five years after they graduate. Financial support is a big pull with this program – accepted students are granted an Early Advancement Award of $10,000, which covers part of their MBA tuition. These students are also eligible for other Stern scholarships, including the Berkley Early Advancement Fellowship, which covers all fees and tuition for the year in which they matriculate. Accepted students with an interest in technology or in the fashion and luxury industries, and who have relevant post-undergraduate experience, can enroll in the Andre Koo Technology and Entrepreneurship MBA program or the Fashion & Luxury MBA program, rather than the traditional two-year MBA program.

Columbia Business School (CBS) Deferred Enrollment Program

CBS’s deferred admissions option offers flexibility; admitted students can explore the professional world for two to five years before beginning their MBA studies at a time that works best for them. This is a great opportunity for individuals who are looking to explore their career options and develop a better understanding of their business interests and passions. The flexibility continues once students begin their studies; they can specify in a letter of intent whether they prefer the 16-month (January) program or the 20-month (August) program, the latter of which includes a summer internship. Having spent time in industry or entrepreneurship during the deferment period can help students determine which MBA journey will offer the teaching and experience they need to achieve their desired professional and academic development.

Wharton Moelis Advance Access Program

Wharton’s deferred admissions program offers recent undergraduate or master’s degree students the chance to work for two to four years before joining the MBA program as a Moelis Fellow. The program is meant for “students who are ambitious, innovative, and prepared to use a sense of professional liberty to maximize their early career experiences.” In addition to seeking proactive, motivated students, Wharton encourages admits to take professional risks during the deferment period and take advantage of the opportunity to “pursue [their] early years with increased confidence and risk-tolerance.”   

Stanford Graduate School of Business Deferred Enrollment Program

Stanford’s program offers something that most do not – deferred MBA admits are able to take as little as one year (but no more than four) to gain experience before beginning their MBA studies. It is open to students in either the final year of their bachelor’s or joint bachelor/graduate program, and to those in a graduate program that they started immediately after their undergraduate study. We should note that Stanford uses the same evaluation criteria for deferred candidates as it does for applicants to its full-time MBA program, assessing how they think, lead, and see the world.

Stanford cites deferred enrollment as a good option for candidates who are unsure of their long-term professional path and feel they would benefit from gaining full-time work experience first. The school also indicates that some industries – such as private equity, biotech, and management consulting – recruit only MBA candidates who have either pre-MBA experience in that field or specialized knowledge. So, taking time out to gain that experience and knowledge can be valuable in ultimately achieving your post-MBA career goals. 

Interested in a dual degree option? Some of Stanford’s programs allow you to wait until the first year of your MBA to apply for a dual degree; others prefer that you apply in the year immediately before you matriculate in the Deferred Enrollment Program.

Stanford expects admitted students to “pursue opportunities that enable [them] to build expertise, enhance [their] skills and knowledge, expand [their] perspective, and develop professional judgment and self-confidence” during the deferral period. So you will need to reflect on what activities will allow you to develop and how you should spend your pre-MBA time.

Kellogg Future Leaders Deferred Enrollment Program

“Graduate with the confidence that incredible things are ahead.” Kellogg’s deferred enrollment program allows admitted students to work for two to five years before beginning their MBA journey. The admissions committee wants to get to know you and to understand your motivations and why Kellogg is a fit for you. Master’s and undergraduate students (excluding law, medical, and PhD students, who apply through the standard admissions process) can come from any study discipline and either graduated in the past year, are in their final year, or went straight into graduate study post-bachelor’s.

The usual admissions requirements apply – test scores, essays, letters of recommendation, interviews – for some candidates, but not all. Applicants who are already engaged in undergraduate studies at Northwestern are exempt from having to take either the GMAT or GRE, so that’s one application requirement that can be ticked off the list for candidates already wearing the purple N.

Yale School of Management Silver Scholars Program

Yale’s program works slightly differently from the other deferred admissions programs on this list. College seniors earn their MBA in a fast-tracked, three-year format immediately after they complete their undergraduate degree. The program structure is as follows: Year 1 covers the core curriculum, Year 2 involves a full-time internship, and Year 3 comprises electives. The opportunity to develop academic skills while simultaneously gaining professional experience is a unique one. In addition, Silver Scholars learn alongside students from Yale’s traditional MBA program. Access to knowledge and experience? Check!

Yale says, “Silver Scholars are chosen for their combination of intelligence and common sense, maturity and curiosity, passion and compassion. Each has made a difference and distinguished themselves in a particular field of interest.” You’ll need to ensure that you really stand out through the application process (which is largely the same as for the traditional MBA program). Remember, you’ll be studying alongside students with five years of professional experience. You’ll need to convince the adcom that you have what it takes to contribute to classroom discussion and debate.

Chicago Booth Scholars Program

Chicago Booth’s program is open to students who plan to pursue either the full-time or part-time MBA and allows candidates to apply before they graduate from college, then defer and gain professional experience for two to five years before enrolling in one of the school’s MBA programs. Booth cites flexibility as one of the major differentiators. Booth Scholars have the option of pursuing the Evening MBA or Weekend MBA, if one of those programs is a better fit with their career objectives.

Booth says that candidates for the Scholars Program “demonstrate intellectual curiosity, personal maturity, competitive scores, and leadership” and that they “have a history of substantive internships or part-time jobs and/or an entrepreneurial spirit.” The application essays make clear that successful candidates need to be able to articulate their career goals and where the MBA fits in. The school wants intelligent, independent thinkers with a considered career map. Although one’s professional goals can change during the deferment period, of course, the adcom wants to see that candidates have taken the time to think through their career path and how attending Booth aligns with it.

UVA Darden Future Year Scholars Program

Darden’s program allows final-year undergraduate students, or full-time master’s students without work experience, to work for two to five years before starting their MBA studies. Student backgrounds are diverse, because Darden aims to recruit individuals who bring to campus a range of abilities and professional and academic experience. In 2024, 121 Future Scholars were admitted and were in the deferral period, busy enhancing their professional experience. This group comprises an internationally (20%) and academically (46% non-business degrees) diverse group of students hailing from 16 countries and 43 undergraduate institutions. Applicants are evaluated in three areas: academics, extracurricular involvement, and personal characteristics. While the latter of these criteria is vague, the adcom does say that the school is looking for individuals who “aspire to be future ethical leaders and managers in a global world.” Putting thought into why you have the potential to be this kind of future leader, and whether your values align with Darden’s, would be time well spent.

MIT Sloan Early Admission

If you are an “ambitious and forward-thinking student,” Sloan’s deferred admissions option might suit you. It is open to final-year students who will not enroll in a PhD, MD, or JD program immediately after graduation and to those in graduate study (who started immediately after completing their bachelor’s) without full-time work experience, except for internships or co-op experiences. Accepted students can work for two to five years before joining the MBA program.

The admissions process is slightly different for Early Admission candidates, and the application calendar differs for non-MIT undergrads. Candidates are required to submit a 300-word cover letter demonstrating their fit with the school. MIT is quite specific about who it’s looking for. The school wants “thoughtful leaders with exceptional intellectual abilities and the drive and determination to put their stamp on the world … people who are independent, authentic, and fearlessly creative … who can redefine solutions to conventional problems, and strive to pre-empt unconventional dilemmas with cutting-edge ideas.” There is a lot to think about and squeeze into a one-page cover letter, so carefully consider how you fulfill the program’s stated criteria. Additionally, candidates must submit a resume and a 60-second video in which they introduce themselves to the class. This video is an excellent opportunity to show your personality and bring the person introduced in your cover letter to life. A second video is required in whish applicants must respond to open-ended questions that are randomly generated.

Additionally, interested MIT students who have a cumulative GPA of 4.2 or higher are in luck, because they can waive the GMAT/GRE.

Berkeley’s Accelerated Access Program 

Berkeley’s Accelerated Access Program is open to undergraduate and graduate students and encourages domestic and international candidates with diverse backgrounds and academic areas of study to apply. Admitted students not only have access to the full-time MBA program but are also eligible for consideration for dual degree programs.

Students are required to work for a minimum of two years before beginning their MBA studies but are allotted a maximum of five years in which to explore their career interests. Although Berkeley does not require its deferred students to follow particular career paths, it prods them to pursue “employment that enhances [their] leadership profile and prepares [them] to contribute to the mission-driven business community” at the school. To ensure that admitted students are meeting the required criteria, some admissions offers are conditional, and students are required to attend check-ins with a Berkeley Haas advisor or career coach. Additionally, a review might be conducted prior to the intended enrollment date to ensure that the student has met the required terms. 

Carnegie Mellon Tepper Future Business Leaders Deferred MBA Admissions Program

In February 2021, Tepper joined the deferred admissions space with its Future Business Leaders program, which allows students to defer for up to four years while they gain professional experience. The program is open to college seniors who plan to graduate from a U.S. university in the current academic year and do not yet have full-time work experience. The school says that “competitive applicants will have a strong academic record, professional internships, and undergraduate leadership experience.” Tepper’s adcom also expects candidates to have put some thought into their career goals and why the program format is a good fit for them (essay alert!). The GMAT/GRE is waived for Carnegie Mellon students, and admits are eligible to apply for scholarships, with decisions to be made at the time of matriculation.

Georgetown McDonough MBA Advanced Access Program 

The most recent player on the MBA deferred admissions scene is Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, with its MBA Advanced Access Program (MAAP). The program allows candidates who are either in their final year of undergraduate studies or in graduate school – and have no full-time work experience – to apply for deferred enrollment. Accepted students can secure a place in the class two years out from when they apply, with the option of extending this time period to three or four years.

The application process is thorough. In addition to the standard written application essay (candidates have three question options to choose from) and video essay, MAAP candidates must complete program-specific essays. The prompts for these essays ask candidates not just about their career goals but also about where they stand in working to achieve them. Additionally, applicants are expected to describe their personal and professional development plans. So, you’ll want to take some time to reflect on how you can present yourself as a proactive, principled future leader who will contribute to the school’s community and make an impact in the business world.

If these options sound interesting, but you’re still unsure whether you should study for a master’s now or wait to pursue an MBA, schedule a free consultation with an Accepted admissions expert today!

Related Resources:

• MBA Acceptance Rates: The Selectivity Index
• Admissions Straight Talk Podcast for MBA Applicants
• Retaking the GMAT with a 700 – Should You Consider It?

The post Deferred MBA Programs and Other Options for MBA Hopefuls with No Work Experience appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Show Summary

In this episode, Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Yale School of Management, shares an overview of the Yale School of Management. The program offers a distinctive two-year, full-time MBA program emphasizing an interdisciplinary, integrated curriculum to prepare students for leadership in business and society. Bruce discusses how aspiring applicants can prepare for and approach the extensive application process, which includes a GMAT/GRE test score, written essays, a resume, a video component, a behavioral assessment, and an interview. 

Show Notes

Welcome to the 598th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for tuning in. You are invited to take the free six question quiz at accepted.com/mapMBA and see how prepared you are to actually apply. You’ll also gain access to relevant other resources, both free and paid, that can help you develop your application strategy for acceptance. 

It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admission Straight Talk Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Yale School of Management. He has been on the admissions team at Yale SOM since 2004, became the Director in 2006, and the Assistant Dean in 2012. 

Bruce, welcome back to Admissions Straight Talk. [1:52]

Thank you so much, Linda. It’s great to be here. I always enjoy it.

Let’s start with my usual question. Can you give a basic overview of the Yale SOM MBA program for listeners who may not be that familiar with it, focusing on its more distinctive elements? [2:00]

Here at Yale, it’s the flagship MBA. It’s a two-year, full-time MBA, so some of the same things you’ve experienced at other programs, but I think some of the distinctive things, I would point out maybe three things that I think are particularly distinctive. Our integration to the larger Yale University, our distinct, we think distinctly, global posture, and I think our curriculum, or the way we actually teach the material that you learn, is actually somewhat distinctive, and we think prepares you particularly well to be a leader in the 21st century.

So I think just to dig in just briefly, when you come to Yale, you really come to the entire university. And so, one of the ways that’s manifest, you actually can take as many electives as you want at the rest of the university. You can take all of your electives outside of SOM. So, really the university is open to you, and that extends to the co-curricular opportunities, the alumni networks, those types of things so I think that’s great.

On the global front, we do have our global network for advanced management. Actually, as we’re speaking, exams are happening, winding down. And then Global Network Week is happening, which means our students are going to one of the 30 different global network schools around the world that are a part of this network that we’ve developed and started, it’s now taken on a life of its own, but it’s among the very distinctive global opportunities that exist here at Yale.

And then the curriculum, we might talk about this more, but we teach in a much more interdisciplinary, much more integrated, holistic way than other programs. We think that does uniquely prepare our students to be effective leaders for the 21st century and for business and society, which is our founding mission.

Obviously, during COVID, people weren’t traveling, but as I recall, part of the idea behind the global network was that students at Yale actually participated in, they didn’t necessarily travel to the schools, but they were taking classes with students from other countries. Is that still true, even if they don’t physically go to other schools or other campuses? [3:51]

That is true.

I think one of the cornerstones of it is the travel piece, because being part of that network… So we have 30 schools on five continents, and so you can travel to Coach University in Turkey or you can go to… So you can go to [inaudible 00:04:32], or you can go to Redmond, or across the globe. But even in addition to the physical travel, there are virtual courses that are part of the global network. And so there are opportunities to take virtual global network courses with students from the other global network schools, and so I think that’s also a really unique opportunity. I think it does help train you very well.

Obviously a lot of work that’s done now is not getting on a plane and flying somewhere, but it’s actually being on Zoom like we are, connecting virtually across time zones, across geographies, and so having that experience when you’re a student, I think, is very valuable.

You mentioned in your first answer, and throughout the site there’s an emphasis on, the mission of Yale SOM, which is educating leaders for business and society. How is that mission manifested in the program and the curriculum and the classroom? [5:11]

That’s a great question. I think in a lot of ways, and really I invoked it, you just asked about it. So the mission that really is the touchstone for the school, it’s the founding mission to educate leaders for business and society. It’s a broad, ambitious, multi-sector mission. And it does, we can talk about other aspects, but it really does inform the classroom experience.

Our curriculum, we call it our integrated curriculum, and it teaches a lot of the same materials, but it goes beyond business concepts into other disciplines. So you’re going to learn not just cashflow analysis, and weighted average cost of capital, and those types of things, but you’ll learn how the law, and medicine, and the environment, and psychology, sociology, all these other disciplines inform business. And so it’s very integrated in that way. And material also is organized in a way that really has our students thinking across disciplines, across sectors.

Can you give an example? [6:35]

I’m happy to. So we actually have our own case writing team here and we teach what we call raw cases, which are different than the cooked cases you get at other schools where the case writing team will distill down all the relevant information into the seven or 10 page document. Our raw cases are much messier.

The idea is that we give… The case writing team assembles all the materials and then gives those primary materials to the students, because in the real world, that’s what you’re dealing with. You’re not dealing with… You don’t have a case writing team that does all that work for you, you have to do that work. So this is all preamble to say a lot of the material the first year is taught by the raw case method.

One of the raw cases as an example, that student study is on the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund. And so that’s someone… We actually have a faculty member who has advised Norway on their Sovereign Wealth Fund. And so we have some firsthand experience. But that’s an example that I think is international. It’s not a white, male, US protagonist, it’s international. It’s got elements of finance, the fund, it’s got the public sector because a Sovereign wealth fund, it’s used for social purposes, some of the funds, so it really is an example of a case that spans the sectors, is global in nature, and it touches on a lot of the aspects of the school that I think are quite unique.

We were talking about the integrated nature of the program, especially the core, and that core culminates in a course called the Executive. Can you discuss both the integrated nature of the core, and specifically the Executive course? [7:58]

Happy to do that. I talked a little bit about some aspects of the curriculum, but the heart of the first-year core curriculum are what we call our Integrated Perspectives courses. And so again, that takes a lot of the material that you would learn at other schools but organizes it differently, and so it organizes instead by discrete functions, which is how other schools tend to be organized, which I think made sense 50, 60 years ago when MBA graduates would go to large, multinational corporations and work within a single function within that organization. But now, obviously, graduates have much different careers, and so the curriculum’s meant to reflect that. So these organizational perspectives… Really, they organize the material according to stakeholders, so things like customer, employee, investor, innovator is their [inaudible 00:09:07] and the Executive is like the capstone course.

So each individual course takes a different stakeholder perspective, there are about a dozen in total. And so one example I give is the customer class here is sort of like the marketing class, but it goes beyond that. So instead of just teaching the four Ps and the marketing function, it incorporates the marketing function, but then adds HR, it adds operations, it adds technology. So the other disciplines that you would think of, there’s psychology, sociology to understand the customer experience and how all parts of an organization need to work together to satisfy the customer experience. And so that’s a stakeholder. And then those all ladder up into the Executive, which is the capstone. And then that’s where you think about all the different stakeholders together and the various trade-offs you need to make.

So if you’re doing something that satisfies the investor, what does that do to the employee, and how is the customer experience affected by what you do in the operations engine? So that’s where you really think about it all together. 

Yale has an innovative and multifaceted application, requiring a test score.  either GMAT or GRE. There are written components, there’s a resume, a video, a behavioral assessment, and an interview, which is by invitation only. The behavioral assessment is quite distinctive on the MBA scene. What is it? What’s the format, what’s the reason for it? [10:31]

To give a little distant history, so we go… This is over a decade, I can’t even remember how far back, maybe 12 or 15 years. This started with Tom Kolditz, who was head of the leadership team at West Point, Leadership Department at West Point. He joined us and led our leadership development team here for a while. And when he came on board, he helped develop a test that ultimately was purchased by ETS, and became the behavioral assessment.

When he was here. We actually worked with him to develop it, and pilot it, and then we’ve rolled it out since. It’s now been again at half dozen years, we’ve fully been using it, but we’ve been piloting it for over a decade. The idea behind it’s a non-cognitive assessment. So unlike the GMAT or the GRE, which are cognitive assessments, this is non-cognitive. It’s not meant to be an EQ test or soft-skills test, which I think some people think it is. It’s meant to measure intra and interpersonal traits that are additive to our assessment of your academic preparation for the program. So again, not meant to measure soft skills, it’s meant to measure your academic preparation.

The idea is we bring in lots of fantastic candidates, and there’s some people, who based on their grades and scores, perform better than you would expect and some people based on the grades and scores who perform not as well as you would expect. This isn’t a perfect science, but we’re always trying to get better at it and do a better job with in this prediction. And the behavioral assessment is meant to help us identify secondary and tertiary traits that will better refine how we’re looking at your academic preparation.

And the thing we’re really trying to do is, we know that there are lots of really fantastic candidates who might have more modest academic profiles and whom we might want here at Yale for other reasons. They perform wonderfully in the workplace, they have great potential. We want to make sure, obviously, they get through the program in the short term, and so the behavioral assessment can give us more confidence that maybe someone with a more modest academic profile who has lots of other fantastic qualities, we can bring them into the program. So actually we use it to expand the pool of candidates we can consider.

The test itself, it maybe takes maybe 20, 25 minutes to complete. It’s a forced choice test, which means what happens is you get a pair of statements that are meant to describe a person that could be too positive, too negative, and you have to choose which one is most like you. And then there are 130 pairs. So you go, and it’s adaptive, so no two people get the same one. And you go through these statements. You’re supposed to go quickly, obviously 130 pairs, 20, 25 minutes, you’re not going to… Don’t need to think about it, you don’t need to prepare for it. It’s just, I see this statement and this statement, which one’s more like me? I choose that one and then keep going. And over that course of 130 builds a profile of you that we use to, again, inform our assessment of your academic preparation for the program in a way that hopefully is expansive and allows us to bring in more people to the program with more diverse backgrounds.

Going along with the assessment arena of admissions, what about GMAC’s business writing assessment? Do you have any plans to require that? Are you requiring that? [14:26]

No, we’re not requiring that. We’ll have to see. We don’t have any firm plans now. I know that it’s being developed and is out there. We don’t have a requirement.

We were comfortable with the things that we’re currently requiring and the elements we currently are using to measure candidates’ preparation for the program. But certainly we’re always looking at other things that might be helpful, but we’re not requiring it now.

I was going through Yale SOM’s application guide, which is excellent, and listeners interested in applying to Yale, you definitely need to read it. It seems that you have an optional information question, and a background information question, as well as a required essay with three options and a 500-word limit. Is the background information required? [15:08]

The background information is not required. That’s all optional information.

What’s the difference between these three elements? What would you like to see them cover? You don’t want them to duplicate each other, I’m sure. [15:36]

So for the required essays there are three prompts. You get to choose which of the three that most speak to you, and then that’s the required essay. And it’s about the biggest commitment you’ve made, the greatest challenge you’ve faced, or the most meaningful community you’ve been a part of. And we used to have the commitment essay was the single one we had for a number of years, and then we found that we didn’t want people to have to conform to that prompt, and so that’s why we added the community and the challenge to allow people really to write about the thing that’s most meaningful to them. So that’s the required essay that everybody writes, under five hundred words.

The optional information is really more if there’s something… A typical optional, if there’s something about your candidacy that you think we should know about, but it’s not captured anywhere else, that’s your opportunity to provide the information there. And then the background information is something we’ve been building out for a number of years.

We recognize that people are not applying in a vacuum, so everybody is informed, influenced by their experiences that they had growing up, the opportunities that were available to them, the challenges they were facing, and the specific circumstances of their upbringing and their educational backgrounds. And so background information, it’s optional, you don’t have to fill it out, but it asks information about the context in which you’ve lived, more information about some of your familiar background, some of your own personal background, to help us understand your circumstances so that we can have that in mind as we’re making decisions.

Because we know, again, when you think about a test score or academic performance, those, as I said, those don’t exist in a vacuum. A single score can mean different things depending on the context in which someone has lived, and worked, and operated. So that’s why we ask for that background information. For a lot of people, there’s nothing to share, but for some people there is, and so that’s where we invite people to share it if they have anything to do.

Would the optional information question typically be, you had a drop in grades due to illness or a family situation? Would that be typical of the optional information question? [17:40]

Yes, that can be. 

And we actually have a separate question specifically for a gap in employment. We took that out because we know we want to make sure we’re leveling the playing field, because sometimes people would put it, sometimes they wouldn’t. So we asked specifically for gaps of three months or more so that we’re getting consistent information. So that’s actually in the work experience section. There’s a question for that.

The optional information doesn’t include that, although we do ask for it. But yes, so grades other things, other circumstances that might be explained, academic performance or other professional pieces that other than those gaps, that’s where actual information would be helpful.

Let’s talk about the video component. You’ve had it for a long time now. How is it valuable to you and do you have any tips for it? [18:27]

So the video question’s there now; there are post-submission elements. So the behavioral assessment, after you hit submit, then you will be sent links to both the behavioral assessment and the video questions. And we have had those for a number of years. At Core, we used that to evaluate English language, and that’s actually when we introduced these years ago. We eliminated the English language test requirements, so we don’t require the TOEFL and the IELTS, and we felt that much like the GMAT and the GRE there, they were generally good, but they were sometimes a little off. People would score well, but actually in reality didn’t speak so well. People who had modest scores, but actually were fine. So we wanted a way to assess that directly in a way that actually was cheaper, and easier, and less of a burden for candidates.

Although I know that they take, we have to take, sometimes I have to take the TOEFL, IELTS for other schools, but for us, this takes another 20 minutes or so. 20 minutes of doing this as opposed to studying for and paying for the TOEFL, IELTS seems like a good trade. But they are three questions that we have prerecorded. We have three tranches, as we call them, with multiple questions that are then randomly drawn. And so you will answer questions… Very not meant to be trick questions a little bit, but to get to know you more, so it’s about your MBA aspirations, a behavioral question, and then there tends to be a question that gets at some interest of yours, a little bit more of your personality. So it’s a core English language, but we also want to get a sense of how you interact and speak extemporaneously and a little bit of that, your personality.

What is Yale’s SOM’s perspective when it comes to use of AI in the application process? Do you ever, when you’re watching a video think, “This does not sound like the person in the essay?” [20:25]

For this year, we actually put out a statement on AI in the application. And the basics of it is you should use AI. We don’t prohibit it, but we think you should use it wisely. You should use it the same way you would as a friend or a family member, in terms of thinking about how to brainstorm, how to get some rough organization, or organizing your thoughts. It shouldn’t be writing your essay for you, or answering questions for you, but it could be a tool you use and use it wisely.

We actually, interestingly that our statement on AI was developed in conjunction with AI. So we’re practicing what we’ve preached. And specifically in terms of the video questions and even for the interviews, we currently, we welcome people to campus to interview, but a lot of our interviews are still virtual over Zoom. And in both contexts, sometimes we do see people who are reading, they’re clearly… They’ve got prepared answers, whether it’s AI or otherwise, whether AI based or otherwise, and our advice is definitely don’t do that. We would rather have a less perfect but genuine answer than something that’s scripted and mechanical. That’s just not what we’re trying to do. You might not be able to connect with your interviewer or with the responses the same way if you’re just reading a response, so we feel as though maybe an imperfect response that is you as opposed to something that you’re reading is definitely preferable.

Do you have any suggestions for how to prepare for the video component? [22:12]

So there really isn’t certainly the behavioral assessment, there’s nothing to prepare. You’re just answering questions about yourself. Video questions are similar to that. I think there is a little bit of, because we want to get a little bit of a sense of your reasons for getting the MBA, and there is a behavioral question component, you might want to think about, go back to your application, just brush up on some typical admissions or job interview types of questions. So successes, failures, teamwork, challenges, those types of things, those typical behavioral areas, and then a little bit about why you want to get an MBA, what you want to do with it, those types of things.

But really not any heavy preparation. It should hopefully be pretty straightforward. No trick questions. And what I tend to say for both of these components, but certainly with the video question, we very consistently tell candidates that this is not going to determine the outcome of your candidacy. So I know it can be a little bit stressful. I think it’s gotten less stressful post-pandemic, because people are used to being on Zoom. Before we did this before the pandemic, that interaction was maybe more foreign, a little bit less comfortable.

I think this generation is used to being on camera. [23:26]

I think that’s right. So I think this is less of a stressor than it used to be, but I think even so I would say don’t feel as though this is like your whole candidacy is riding on this. We use it, as we say, with a light touch.

In terms of the format, do students have a few seconds to think about or organize their thoughts? [23:41]

Yes. So the way it works is we will ask the question. These are pre-recorded questions, and then you have usually either 20 or 30 seconds, or what we call “think time” to think about your response. And then, depending on the question, either there’s 60 or 90 seconds to respond. So it’s all very short, but you have a little bit of time. It’s meant to approximate an interview. So it’s not a perfect approximation, because in live interview you don’t sit there for 20 seconds and think about your response. But in this format, it’s helpful just to have a little bit of time just to gather your thoughts.

Even in a live interview, you can say, “let me think about that for a second,” and just organize your thoughts. [24:16]

It’s a little bit like that.

And speaking of the interview, what can applicants expect if they’re lucky enough to be invited to interview, the real interview, the in-person or Zoom interview like we’re talking? [24:25]

That’s a good point because, as you mentioned earlier, the video questions are part of your initial submission. And so everybody does the video questions and then we do, as we’re reviewing that applications, then we invite people to interview. And so the interviews are separate from, it’s not, the video questions are our replacement for the interview. Interviews, we’re currently in our first round as we’re speaking. And we are extending those invitations as we speak.

When you’re invited to interview, assuming you’re invited to interview, these are 30-minute interviews. The interviewer has only seen your resume, they have not read your full application, the idea is for these to be as [inaudible 00:25:13] possible, which when I do interviews, I remind people, “You can talk about things you talked about in your application. It’s all new information to me.” And they are… Actually admission staff do some, it’s mostly trained second year students who conduct these interviews, as well as some recent alumni who were themselves interviewers, and then staff. But I think the second years are the primary. They do most of these interviews.

The interviews themselves are again, pretty straightforward. They’re not meant to be trick questions. They’re structured in nature. We ask the same questions in the same order, because we know that that is important for the fairness and the predictive nature of the interviews. If it’s unstructured, then it really has no predictive value at all. And again, the questions are not meant to be tricks, not meant to trip you up, but again, preparing for them. Think about why you want to get an MBA, what you hope to do with it, maybe be a little bit about why you help, how you hope to contribute to our community. And then some behavioral questions.

Again, as I mentioned before with the video questions, thinking about any sort of work experiences you’ve had in terms of teamwork, and challenges you faced, overcoming obstacles, successes, those types of things, it’s good to have those examples ready, the typical examples you would want, you would think about for a job interview or an MBA interview.

What are some common mistakes you see that applicants make in their applications? [26:35]

That’s a good question. When we talk about that, I think we might talk about that a little bit in the application guide, too. And we actually did add some, I don’t know if anyone will… This will be a bonus, but we do some videos that, and I’m in there, where I think we do talk about some mistakes. And I think a couple that I would point out, one, which you might hear from others, and it’s not an uncommon thing, but it’s a really significant thing is we do sometimes see candidates who try to present a candidacy that they think we’re looking for in whatever dimension they think, “Oh, this is…” And this happens I think at other schools, too. “Oh, this is the finance school, or the marketing school, or the tech school, or the operation school, and so I’m going to be that candidate.” I don’t think that helps you from a game theory perspective. I think if you’re making yourself look more like everybody else who’s applying, that’s not the way to differentiate yourself.

But, at a more fundamental level, having done this for 20 years, it’s very clear that you will position yourself best when you talk about things that really matter to you, that you really present your truest self. When you’re trying to present yourself as someone who’s not who you really are, it falls flat. And so I think there are fewer people who are doing that now than when I started. I think people understand that that’s not a winning formula, but I think there are still some people who try to present the version of themselves that they think we want to see. So that’s one.

And then one other thing, if I can, I would say is we often… It sounds counterintuitive, but I do tell people try to embrace your mistakes, which isn’t necessarily the lead with your mistakes, and there’s no such thing as a perfect candidate. Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. If there’s a weaker part of your profile, obviously there’s no such thing as one size fits all advice. I can’t say exactly how to do in every situation, but I would think about if you have a weakness, helping us understand that they may… The optional information section is a place for that, helping contextualize it, helping us get past it as opposed to ignoring it, and then having us maybe make more of it than is truly there.

There’s this wonderful gift that we all have as human beings, and it’s called the ability to change. And so A, there’s providing context, as you mentioned, and B, there is showing that that’s not really you. Either the circumstances that contributed to the decline in grades or whatever bump in life you had, weakness, no longer exists, or that you’ve shown how to deal with them, and that is the gift of change.

So I think your point is very well taken, that if there is a blemish, a weakness, whatever you want to call it, something you’re not so proud of in your profile, you’re going to present everything that’s great about you, but own the mistake, own the whatever it is, and like you say, provide the context and show that it doesn’t really represent you. There’s other stuff out there that’s a much better representation of you. [29:09]

I think you put it very well. And the idea of learning and growing, if you were a perfectly formed human being, you wouldn’t be coming to get an MBA, you’d already know it all, but you’re doing this for a reason. You’re trying to grow by doing this. And so how have you done that up till now? I think that’s a great way to put it.

For people who made a mistake or had a weakness and are reapplying to Yale, what advice do you have for them? [30:29]

We have a good number of candidates who do that. I want to say, I don’t know if this is exactly right, if this is current information, but I think about 10% of our applicants are re-applicants. So it’s not an uncommon thing.

Is their acceptance rate comparable or higher? Do you know? [30:53]

Historically it’s been comparable. So there’s no stigma or bias against re-applicants. It’s roughly comparable to first-time applicants. And usually, we actually… We will invite people to seek feedback. And so we will give you feedback over the summer between your previous application and your subsequent application, or if you applying the next year, sometimes people wait more than one year, but we’ll give you feedback for you to work on.

And I guess that’s in the vein of learning and growing. That’s a good sign, regardless of what the outcome, if you take the feedback and try to work with it, that’s always a good sign. And so what I tend to tell re-applicants is think about your second application, or third, we have people who apply three times and sometimes the third time is the charm, but think about that as a continuation of your previous application in the sense that we’re not necessarily going to look at them side by side, or we’re not necessarily going to go back and look at the previous one, although we might refer to it if we need to.

But I guess there are two extremes. You could either just submit the same application and hope the outcome is better this time, or… We have some people who do that, and that seems like not quite the recipe for success. And then the other extreme, we have people who are so radically different, you don’t even recognize them. And they say before they wanted to go on private equity and now they want to go and start a nonprofit. You’re like, “What happened?” And so I think you want to think about the application’s extension. It’s not going to be exactly the same as the previous one, but it can be an expansion of, or a build out of, the previous application.

Can the re-applicant assume that you’re going to look at the previous application? [32:37]

It’s interesting. We used to more consistently look at the previous application, and now we don’t do it as consistently. We treat it as its own, but we will refer back at times. So I think you can assume that we might look at it, but not that we know that we’re like… Don’t refer to your previous application as though it’s a dialogue with the two applications. It should be a new application.

What advice would you give to people looking ahead to apply in fall 2025 or 2026? [33:10]

I think to the extent you’re starting to think about the process, first of all, congratulations, because very early on the game, and I think that’s always good. There are lots of different pieces of advice to give for different aspects of the exploration process.

But one of the things I would think about is have conversations, do some research, talk to students, talk to alumni, family, friends, colleagues who’ve been to business school, whether the specific schools you’re interested, you’re interested in or think you’re interested in, or more generally, it’s helpful to know why they went, what they got out of it. You can start to learn about maybe some specific aspects of the schools, but just having conversations about the MBA, what it can do is always a good thing.

We have, and I know other schools do as well, we have student ambassadors who will talk about their experience and share what their life is like here at Yale, here in New Haven, and those are always helpful. If we have events, we have virtual events, so you don’t have to go anywhere. If you want to come to campus, you can, but you don’t have to. But there are lots of ways to engage. And so doing that research I think can be very helpful.

Great advice. What would you have liked me to ask you? [34:30]

Oh, gosh. It was pretty comprehensive. We touched on a lot of things. I’m trying to think if there’s anything. I guess one thing I would say, maybe in the vein of the background information and the context and the behavioral assessment, trying to expand opportunity, we have done a number of things to try to be more expansive and to open the doors here at Yale to a wider range.

And one thing that we’ve, I guess two things we’ve done this year are increase, or expand our fee waiver application, fee waiver program, to over 700 schools that have 35% or higher PELL eligible students, so really to open up that opportunity. And we actually just launched a new Aspire Fellowship program, so scholarships for incoming students who have overcome significant challenges. And we’re going to offer $5 million through that program. So we’re really trying to do what we can to, as I think when we announced the Aspire, I think one of the things I said, which I believe is talent is everywhere, but opportunity doesn’t always match talent, and we’re trying to close that gap as much as we can. So those are a couple of things we’ve been doing this current cycle to try to further those efforts.

Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about Yale SOM’s MBA program? [35:53]

Definitely our website, yale.som.edu. You mentioned the application guide for those who are specifically interested in applying. We put a lot of effort into that, so hopefully that’s helpful. And then obviously you can always email us at mba.admissions@yale.edu, or we’re happy to engage directly.

Relevant Links:

• Yale SOM MBA Admissions
• Yale SOM Application Guide
• Yale SOM Essay Tips
• MBA ROI Calculator

Relevant Shows:

• How to Create Successful MBA Applications
• How to Get Accepted to UCLA Anderson
• How to Get a U.S. Student Visa – Even When There Are Complications
• How To Get Into UVA Darden’s MBA Program
• How to Get Accepted to Cornell Johnson MBA

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

Podcast Feed

The post How to Get Into Yale SOM 2025 [Episode 598] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

How to Get Into Yale SOM [Episode 542]

[powerpress]

Are you looking for a mission-driven school that aims to educate leaders for business and society? Would you like to know how to get into that MBA program, which happens to be at the Yale School of Management? Tune in for this interview with its Assistant Dean for Admissions, Bruce DelMonico.

Welcome to the 542nd episode of Admissions Straight Talk, thanks for tuning in. 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 it also estimates by how much. Check out how much you’re likely to benefit, or not, from taking an MBA education. Using the tool won’t set you back even one cent because it’s free.

Don’t miss Linda Abraham’s 2021 interview with Yale SOM Dean, Bruce DelMonico – full transcript below!

It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk, Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Yale School of Management. He’s been on the admissions Team at Yale since 2004. He became the director in 2006 and the assistant dean in 2012. He was last on Admissions Straight Talk almost two years ago in November 2021. 

Bruce, welcome back to Admissions Straight Talk. [1:44]

Thank you so much, Linda. It’s great to be here

I’m so pleased to have you join me today. Now, let’s start with a basic overview of the Yale SOM MBA program for listeners who may not be that familiar with it, and if you could focus on the more distinctive or perhaps the newer elements of the program. [1:48]

Sure, happy to do that. So just briefly, we’re a two-year, full-time, in-residence MBA on the Yale campus in New Haven, Connecticut. There are some things similar to other programs, some things I think are a little bit distinctive, as you say. So when you join us at Yale for your two years, the first year is primarily our core curriculum. Then you start to take electives in the spring the first year, and your entire second year are all electives. I would say a couple of the distinctive things, first of all, our integrated curriculum in the core I think is a little bit different than what you might experience in other MBA programs, the way the material is organized. A lot of the same concepts and same material, but organized differently and presented differently, and we think it teaches you to learn and think differently.

In addition, I mentioned the electives, you could take those across Yale without limit and there are other features of the program that I think really heightened the connectivity to the larger Yale community. I think that’s one of the nice features of being in an institution like Yale, is taking advantage of all the resources that the entire university has to offer, so I think that’s another distinctive aspect of our program. I think a third thing I would point to is our global footprint. A lot of MBA programs have global programming and I think the way that we’ve assembled our Global Network for Advanced Management and the kind of opportunities that flow from that, I think are rather unique and I think do give our students a rather special global perspective in their two years with us at Yale.

That was a great summary, thank you. Now, you mentioned the Global Network. Yale was a leader in global education for its students, innovating before the pandemic, the Global Network for Advanced Management, which allowed students to take classes around the world from New Haven. It also had several study abroad programs. Now that the pandemic seems to be behind us – we’re hopeful – what are the global study options at Yale? Can you go into that a little bit more? [3:24]

Sure, happy to do that. Knock on wood about the pandemic, of course. So pre-pandemic, we had this sort of portfolio of global opportunities. You mentioned the Global Network for Advanced Management, that was probably the centerpiece of it all, but there were others as well. The pandemic obviously, understandably, caused us to sort of pull back on that. There were still some virtual opportunities that existed that continued, but the in-person pieces had to be put on hold and now those are back. So it’s really, as I mentioned, it’s kind of a menu of opportunities that exist.

We do have what we call our Global Studies requirement. So when you come to Yale for your MBA, you do need to complete at least one Global Studies opportunity that exists. Lots of students will do more than one. The idea is we want our graduates to have that global perspective, that global mindset. So again, many of these opportunities exist through the Global Network for Advanced Management, or GNAM as we call it, which is a network of 30 or so top MBA programs from around the world. We assembled these, it’s been about a decade or so at this point, and it’s now a self-running, self-sustaining entity.

The idea is that through the Global Network there are what we call more modular opportunities to experience learning and business in other countries, other regions, other parts of the world. So the idea is that in certain points in the fall and the spring, there are these week to 10 -day long opportunities to take classes at one of the other Global Network schools with students from all the other participating in Global Network schools. So it could be up to students from 30 other business schools, peer schools. The idea is to really, it’s not a one-to-one relationship like a lot of other business schools have put into place, but it’s many-to-many relationship, and the idea is that really amplifies the connections you’re able to make, the learning that happens, and the ways in which you’re really able to expand your mindset.

So those Global Network weeks are one of the Global Network opportunities. We also have the virtual opportunities through the Global Network, which I mentioned, which are similar. They’re semester-long courses that you will take virtually with students from the other Global Network schools. We also have our own international experience trips that we organize that are run, I think some other schools have this. These are, again, 10-day to two-week trips run by one of our faculty members to one or more different countries around the globe, it’s a group of about 20 or so students. You meet with business leaders, government leaders, heads of nonprofits. Again, the idea is to get a sense of the business, legal, regulatory, cultural context in which business operates in different parts of the world to get a fuller understanding of sensitivity to those differences. Those are very highly rated. Those, again, happen in between the spring, in between during spring break when classes are not in session.

We also have some experiential opportunities that are global in nature. So our Global Social Enterprise or GSE course, Global Social Entrepreneurship in India and others. Those are courses where you are academic in nature, you’re taking classes, but then part of it is consulting to social enterprises in other parts of the world or social entrepreneurs in India or elsewhere. There are other courses as well. So these are more experiential in nature. Then the final thing I would say is we have our semester-long exchanges with some key exchange partners, and that’s if you want a longer, more immersive experience, those opportunities exist as well.

So those are, again, the portfolio, the menu as it were, of options that exist. One thing I would point out is when you come to Yale, these are Global Studies requirements. So you do have to take at least one, but you can take more of these. You actually get a Global Studies account when it comes to Yale that actually helps pay for the cost of these opportunities because we didn’t feel like it made sense to make this requirement and then to not give you the ability to actually undertake them. So when you pay tuition, you actually get several thousand dollars back to be able to pay into an account to help pay for these different possible trips and opportunities.

Just back onto the network? So it is possible, I know you have many different schools, I don’t remember all of them, but let’s say you enroll in a network class, you could be taking students, there could be students from a school in France, a school in Africa, a school in Asia, a school in Canada or South America all taking the same class. [7:44]

Exactly. That’s exactly right. So it’s not just like if you go to Koç University in Turkey, you’re taking courses from faculty at Koç. But yeah, you could have students from EGADE, from FGV in Brazil, from Renmin in China, from Ashesi, from a whole host of business schools from around the world. So that’s part of I think the unique feature, I think part of the compelling aspect of this programming,

I don’t know of any other similar program, so obviously everybody participating in it participated, so it’s not unique to Yale by its nature, but it is a distinctive, if not unique program. Now, I noticed in preparing for the call that throughout the site there is an emphasis on SOM’s mission of educating leaders for business and society. How is that mission manifested in the program and the curriculum? [8:37]

This is the founding mission of the school, as you said, to educate leaders for business and society. It’s a very broad, multi-sector mission. We aspire for our graduates to have impacts, not just in the private sector but the public and nonprofit sectors, I think that’s one piece of it, and to really think about, again, not just the benefits that they can accrue to themselves, but the positive impact they can have on their organizations and their communities and the world more generally, and I think the way that manifests itself, in terms of course-related and on campus, I think the curriculum is part of it. I did touch on the integrated curriculum earlier and that is, again, the first year core curriculum, I think it is quite distinctive and the material, as I said, is organized differently than other schools organize or the traditional MBA curriculum, the way that would be organized.

Again, the idea was to break down functional silos and not teach just according to discipline, but work across functions and across disciplines to have our students think very broadly about the ways that different concepts, different functions of an organization interrelate, even different industries, different sectors. So the idea, as an example, we have sort of the heart of the first year core curriculum are our Organizational Perspectives classes, and they’re organized by key stakeholder perspectives, so the customer, the innovator, the employee, the investor, and others, there are about a dozen of them. As an example, the customer class, for example, in the Yale core curriculum would be most analogous to a marketing class in the traditional MBA curriculum. But in a marketing class, the perspective is very, very narrow. You’re looking to learn the four Ps, you’re learning how to take your product, identify the market space, and get your product in that space. It’s an important set of skills, very narrow.

The customer class includes those marketing concepts, but it really thinks more broadly about all aspects of an organization that influence the customer experience. So it’s thinking about the four Ps, but it’s also thinking about operations and accounting and technology and HR and how all those influence the customer experience, how those are all interrelated, and how you need to think as a leader, how you need to think about them all together. So all the stakeholder classes are taught like that and then we have a capstone class called Executive, where you think about all the perspectives together combined and thinking about as an executive how you need to have all these different pieces in your head and thinking about them collectively as you’re making decisions.

So I think the curriculum is really trying to teach our students to be very interdisciplinary, broad, curious thinkers and leaders, and I can talk more about certain aspects of that, so I think that’s part of it. Again, mentioning the global piece that we just talked about, very mission-aligned. The other thing I would say, again, the connection to Yale speaks to the interdisciplinary nature of the broad-mindedness we expect, the kind of a mindset approach we want our graduates to have. I think that’s all aligned with the mission. It’s very much a service-oriented approach, and as I said, thinking about the kind of positive impact you can have on the world around you and thinking very broadly about what that kind of impact can be. So I think that kind of underlies the things we’re doing both in the classroom and outside of it at Yale.

Let’s turn to the application process and admissions. Yale has an innovative and multifaceted application and it requires the GMAT, the GRE, or the EA, an essay, a resume, a video, behavioral assessment, and an interview, if lucky enough to be invited to interview. Now, the behavioral assessment is fairly new, and again, distinctive on the MBA scene. What’s the format for the behavioral assessment? What’s the reason for it, why, and how can one sign up for it? [12:23]

So the behavioral assessment, one side of clarification. So in terms of the standardized tests, the GMAT, GRE, the EA we accept for the Executive MBA, not for the full-time.

That’s just one small clarification. Behavioral assessment, it’s an additional component, there’s nothing you need to do to sign up for it. When you apply to Yale, after your initial submission, you’ll get access to the behavioral assessment as the next stage. It is part of the initial submission, but it happens after you click submit. Yeah, we’ve been, gosh, developing for probably a decade or more this instrument in conjunction with ETS, which is the organization that runs the GRE, and we’ve had it in place for maybe five or more years. The idea is I think it’s often confused for what would be considered a soft skills test or an emotional intelligence test, it’s not really that. It measures a set of intra and interpersonal competencies that we use to actually evaluate your academic preparation for the program.

Academic preparation? [13:56]

Yeah, it’s not how people think of it, but the idea is actually, and the motivation behind it, is that we have lots of great candidates who apply to Yale and some who, based on their grades and test scores, have shown certain level of academic preparation. Some people who maybe, based on the grades and scores, maybe haven’t shown as much evidence of preparation but have other aspects of their candidacy that we really are very enthusiastic about and would love to bring into the program. The behavioral assessment allows us to have additional information about their academic potential that will give us more comfort about their performance in the program above and beyond grades and scores. So it allows us actually to broaden the range of candidates we can bring into the program beyond just looking at things like grades and scores. So it is actually helping us broaden the base of our evaluation, increase the inputs, so that’s why it’s not specifically like an EQ or a soft skills. It’s actually something that informs our academic evaluation.

What the assessment actually is, it’s interesting, it is a forced choice test, which means you get 130 pairs of statements in sequence and you need to choose which pair of statements most describes you. So there might be two positive statements, two negative statements, those are tougher to say which one’s most like you, but they’re both negative. But it’s just describing behaviors like, “I like to have lots of free time” or “I like to keep a clean desk” or “I’m always on time for meetings,” different qualities. There are different descriptors and you choose which one is more like you of the pair. Then you go through 130 of those pairs, and it’s adaptive and it’ll create a profile that we then use to help, again, inform our evaluation of your academic preparation for the program. So that’s basically how it works.

It sounds almost like it’s more of a professionalism assessment. [15:55]

Well, there are lots of different dimensions that it’s assessing and we look at certain subset of those, assess. It was developed, not to get too far into the background, it was developed actually by the US military for officer development. So to this day it’s used in the professional development context most commonly. We’ve taken it and adapted it with ETS for the high stakes admissions context, but it was mostly developed and still is used in the development context, the professional development context.

Medical schools are increasingly turning towards, they call it a situational judgment test. So it doesn’t sound like it’s identical, but it sounds like it’s somewhat similar. [16:28]

I think that’s right, yeah. Medical schools tend to be, they tend to be a real interesting space for innovation in the admissions process. We talk with med schools and keep an eye on what they’re doing a lot just because it’s an interesting sort of intersection.

I actually interviewed for the podcast Dr. Kelly Dore who’s a co-founder of Acuity Insights, which provides the Casper exam, and that was I think one of the first situational judgment tests. It was fascinating talking to her, just really interesting what they’re trying to do. 

What changes have you made to the MBA application process this year? [16:55]

Yeah, we’ve made a few. Probably the biggest one, the one that’s most notable, is we did not completely change, but we expanded our essay question. For the last seven or eight years, we had a single essay question, which was, “Describe your biggest commitment.” We’ve kept that, but we’ve added two other prompts and given candidates the choice to choose which of the three prompts they want to write about. So it’s still just one essay question, but instead of everyone writing about the commitment, we’ve also added an essay question about the most meaningful community you’ve been a part of and the greatest challenge you’ve faced, those are the other two prompts.

So you get to choose which of those three you want to write about, so that’s probably the biggest change and probably the most visible change, and the motivation behind that was really we want to hear from candidates about what matters the most to them, and for some it might be the commitment, but it might be community or challenge. So we wanted to really expand the options for candidates and give them more choice in what to write about so that they can write about the thing that truly is the most meaningful to them instead of having to kind of fit it into the commitment essay and kind of force fit it. You can actually write about something maybe that more naturally aligns with one of the other prompts. So that’s the big thing.

We’ve done a few other things. We do things every year. We expanded the background information section and we asked that to get more information about the context in which you’re applying. So that’s been a thing that’s been evolving over a number of years and we did more work there this year. We continue to get lots of applicants who have some entrepreneurial experience in their background, and so we continue to expand and evolve the questions that speak to entrepreneurial backgrounds in conjunction with Kyle Jensen, who is the executive director of our Entrepreneurship Center. So those are among the things that we’ve done, probably the most notable things we’ve done with this current year application.

I was going through Yale SOM’s application guide, which is excellent. Listeners, those of you who are applying to Yale, that is absolutely mandatory reading. For non applicants to Yale, you’ll still get a lot of good advice out of it, so I recommend it highly. 

Now Bruce, it seems that you have an optional information question and a background information question and supplemental detail area. Background information is required. What’s the difference between these three elements? How would you like an applicant to use the three areas? [19:11]

Yeah, no, that’s a great question. The background information isn’t completely required, so it is optional, as is the optional information. So what we did was, and one of the things we did do this year, I guess one of the other big changes, is we did update our instructions and really tried to… I don’t know, Linda, if you’ve had a chance to take a walk through the application yet, but you’ll notice if you do that we start by each section of the application, the first thing we say is why we’re asking, because we want candidates to know why are we asking for this information? I think it’s something that a lot of applications just get straight to do this, do that, do the other thing, but we want to help you understand why we’re actually asking for the information. We did spell out in a little more detail what we’re asking for in each of these sections.

So they’re not necessarily required, but the thing that we did in the background information, the optional information, there’s also the supplemental information in the work experience sections, we try to spell out where to include which pieces of information. So for example, employment gaps and other aspects of your employment that might require additional information, we identified where to put that. Instead of the optional information being kind of a free for all of information, we wanted to divide it. Partly this is for the evaluators, partly it is to elicit information more consistently from applicants so that we’re getting this similar information in the same way, in the same place from all applicants, so to be consistent among applicants so that we can be more consistent in our review of your application, so that we’re looking at the applicants the same way across applications. Knowing where to look, what’s there, making sure we’re getting it consistently makes a big difference. So that’s a lot of why we did update things in this way for the current cycle

Say you were to look back on an application, you wanted to look or check a particular piece of information, and then you would know where to find it. [21:36]

Exactly, exactly. So it used to be just the optional information and we would have to dig into that, and sometimes it was there, sometimes it wasn’t, now we know where to look and we’re more clear about what information we’re seeking from you as an applicant so it’s easier. Hopefully easier for you as an applicant, more straightforward and less of a, what do I put here, what do I put there, do I put anything here? So the idea is to, again, make it a little more transparent, a little clearer, more straightforward.

Sounds like a great, great idea. Any tips for the video component? [22:09]

Yeah, so I guess that’s another somewhat unique, I know there are schools do this aspect of the application, like the behavioral assessment, the video is a component that happens after you click submit. So after your initial submission you get access to both the behavioral assessment and to the video questions. Those are, for those who don’t know, there are three prerecorded questions that we’ve recorded in advance. When you get access to the platform, you can do some test questions, but then you’ll be asked these three questions. They’re drawn from a pool of questions that are randomly assigned to you and you answer the questions using your webcam audio, video. They’re recorded in real time though, so they’re in the moment responses to the prompts that we have prerecorded, and then those responses are saved and added to your file and they’re part of your, again, initial submission. So we don’t start reviewing until after the behavioral assessment and the video questions have been completed, then we will start our review of your application.

In terms of tips for that, I feel like when we first rolled these out, how many ever years ago, I think people were less sure what to expect. I think now some other schools are doing, it’s a little more common, I think certainly post-pandemic I think being on Zoom and engaging by video is not a big deal anymore. So I think they might seem a little more second nature, but the idea here is we’re just trying to get a little bit of a better sense of you beyond your just written submission from the application. The questions themselves are not meant to be trick questions or to stump you, it’s just to get a little bit more of a sense of you, your goals, your interest in the MBA. Well, we change the questions every year or so, so they might be something behavioral in nature.

The key way to prepare is, if you want to prepare, which you don’t need to do much of, but just go back through your resume and think of some successes and failures, the same way you would prepare for an interview. The questions are not necessarily going to be all interview-oriented, but it’s pretty straightforward. I guess the last thing I would say is it takes, like the behavioral assessment, which takes about 20-25 minutes, that’s how long the video questions take to complete, so they don’t take a lot of time. We’re not expecting perfection. We know you’re doing these live in the moment, so they’re extemporaneous responses. You’re not recording a video essay, and so we know that they’re not going to be perfect. We’re just looking to get a little bit of a better sense of you. We use it with a light touch, as we say, I think in the application guide we might even use those words. It’s not going to be a main driver, a heavy driver in the outcome. It’s just to get a little bit of a better sense of you.

What can applicants expect if they’re lucky enough to be invited to interview? [24:51]

Yeah, so as you said, the interview’s by invitation. So everybody completes the video questions, everyone completes the behavioral assessment, and then we begin our review and we will invite, depending on the year, maybe about a third or so of applicants to interview. Interviews either come to campus, you’re invited to come to campus, or you can do a virtual interview. They’re largely with trained second years or very recent alumni who were themselves interviewed as students. Sometimes those of us who are on the admissions team, we will do the interviews, but we do fewer than the students and the recent alums. The interview itself, again, much like the video questions, they’re not stress interviews, they’re not meant to trick you or stump you or be an unpleasant experience. The idea is really to get more of a sense of typically, again, your reasons for wanting to get an MBA, the reasons for Yale, thinking about your post MBA aspirations, a little bit about your experiences to date, successes that you’ve had, maybe some ways in which you engage with others.

So it’s a typical, I think, behavioral interview format that you’ll probably see at other schools and in kind of a job context. So again, the way to prepare… It’s a 30-minute interview, I should say, so it’s pretty brisk, but hopefully we cover a good bit of ground in that, and obviously save room for you to ask questions yourself. But the way to prepare, again, is to go through your application, go through your essay, go through your resume, have examples, again, of things, accomplishments that you’re proud of or ways you’ve engaged on projects. Those are the kinds of things in the behavioral context that we’re asking about. So again, it’s meant to be not difficult, but really more of a conversation is the hope, in a way to get to know us and our community at the same time we’re getting to know you. So that’s a little bit about the interview process.

Now, when you talk about behavioral interviews, it’d be a lot of questions like, “Tell us about a time when you did X, Y, and Z,” right? [26:51]

Exactly, yes. I guess I said behavioral interview, but I didn’t say what that is, so it’s more-

I think most people know what it is, but just in case, I thought I’d clarify. Again, I agree with you, I think most people know what it is. [27:03]

Yeah, but not everybody. That’s why I think to prepare, you can think about examples of times when you did that. So it’s less how would you do this or less theoretical, and more like, “How did you handle it? Tell us about a time when you did X, Y, or Z,” exactly.

Now when we last spoke, it was almost two years ago, it was the middle of the COVID pandemic and that was the environment in which you and I talked at that time. Today’s environment has its own noteworthy developments, specifically AI and ChatGPT. Are you concerned about their impact on the essays? How would you advise applicants to use or not use ChatGPT and AI? [27:24]

Yeah, no, I was going to say $64,000 question, but I think that’s dating myself that that’s the dollar amount that I would reference. It’s still an open question. I know talking in various contexts to other schools and how they’re approaching it, and sort of seeing what’s in the popular press elsewhere, it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves. My personal take, we want to hear from you. So the main thing is hearing from you in your voice about, in the essay specifically, what matters to you, whether it’s commitment, the community, or the challenge. I don’t know. I guess the two things I’m going to say, this isn’t a writing contest, this isn’t a literature program. We want to make sure you can communicate in writing, but we’re not going to be marking you up if you’re a Hemmingway as opposed to, I don’t know what.

Write an MBA essay in Hemmingway’s style or Shakespeare’s style. [28:48]

Exactly. I mean, you could actually do that I guess with the ChatGPT, but that’s not going to earn extra points. So if the point is to have something right for you, that already exists. You could already have, I guess, programs to do that. But if the idea is to tell you what to write about, I don’t know if there’s any benefit from having a computer program tell you what matters to you, and certainly they’re not going to know what matters to you.

I don’t know, I guess I question the utility in this context, even though I’m sure people will… I guess the straightforward answer is we do tell people that the essay should be entirely their own work, so that would suggest don’t use ChatGPT or any other kind of AI enabled functionality. But also, even aside from that, I don’t know the utility of that. We want to hear from you, we care about what you have to say. Again, what some large language model has to say about you, I don’t know how relevant that is. So I guess our instructions say don’t do it, but even if you were to do something with ChatGPT, I don’t know what you would get out of it. But we’ll see, I could be wrong.

It’ll be an interesting cycle. I’ve said this before on the podcast, so listeners, forgive me if I’m repeating myself. I tried it out at one point and got absolute drivel. It was utterly worthless and it was not a reflection of anything other than what they thought people should write. It didn’t reflect anything of me. Then the other thing was one of the consultants, who happens to have a Master’s in Journalism, decided to use it to see if she could write an MBA essay with it. Now, obviously she’s a gifted writer and she knows what a good MBA essay is, and she said it took her longer to use ChatGPT to get it to a point where she’d given it enough information that it could produce an essay than it would’ve taken her to just write the essay herself. [30:07]

Yeah, I could believe that. I mean, obviously the programs are evolving quickly. I don’t know if we’re on ChatGPT 4 and then 5 is coming, and obviously there are other programs being developed elsewhere. But at the same time, yeah, I think that advice and that experience holds. Some of my team have put our essay prompt into it to see what they’ll come up with, and yeah, it requires a lot more work just to get it where you want it to be.

It might be a very good grammar checker, I don’t know, but you already have that in Word. [31:25]

Right, exactly.

What advice would you give re-applicants to Yale SOM? [31:35]

Yeah, I think the main thing, and I’m trying to remember the percentage. I think it might be about, I want to say it’s the right number, I think it might be about 10% of our applicant pool are reapplicants, so it’s not an uncommon thing. The first thing I would say is there’s no stigma or bias to reapplying. We look at reapplicants the same we look at first time applicants. If anything, you might have a little bit of a leg up because you’ve gone through the process once, you know what to expect, and maybe you’ve had a chance to refine your application from one year to the next.

I guess what I would say in terms of how to approach it is, we’re not inherently going to be looking back at your previous application, but we will have it available. So think about your subsequent application as a bit of a conversation with your previous application, in the sense that you want to build from it. You don’t want what you submit to be exactly the same as the previous one, but you also don’t want it to be so different that it looks like a completely different applicant. So it’s not as though you should… In your previous application, you wanted to be an investment banker and now you want to be a social entrepreneur, you’re going from one extreme to the other, those aren’t extremes necessarily, but going from one thing to another is not necessarily what will serve you well. So think about your previous application, maybe build from that, and think about how you might be able to refine in maybe more subtle ways or more limited ways from what you had previously submitted.

You’ve been doing this for a while. You’ve been in admissions now for almost 20 years, right? [32:59]

Yes.

What are some common mistakes that you see, you kind of wish, oh gee, are they doing that again? Can’t they not do that? [33:05]

Yeah, I mean, I’ve seen some stuff, I guess that’s true. In my years-

I’m sure you have. [33:17]

…I’ve seen some things and there are definitely some, maybe after this we can compare notes. I guess the mistakes exist on different levels. Obviously there’s the much more fine-grain, the proofreading, the attention to detail that you’ll hear often, make sure you’ve got the right school that you’re referencing in your essay and elsewhere, those are the more straightforward things. In terms of other mistakes, I think there are a few that are more common, and I want to say maybe it gets back to the ChatGPT, I don’t know.

I do feel as though we see less of this, but over my time I still see in admissions, I still see it happening that applicants will present the version of themselves that they think we care about or that we want to see. They’ll say, “Well, this school is really known for this thing, so that’s what I’m going to be to this school, and this other school is known for this other thing, so I’m going to be that thing to that school, and this third school is completely different altogether, so I’ve got this third version of myself that I’m going to present.” I have to say, again, I feel like, not based on any kind of strict analysis, but just kind of intuitively, I feel as though that kind of shading happens less now than it used to, but it still happens. I don’t know that it serves applicants well.

I think the idea behind it is to try and make your application more compelling and to stand out more. The first thing I would say is, if there’s a certain number of candidates who are trying to do that, you’re all just sounding like each other, and so that’s not the way to stand out from a game theory perspective. The other thing is I do believe, and I have a literature background and somewhat of a writing background, I do believe that when you write, you write most compellingly about things that mean something to you, that you care about, and I think that applies to the application more generally. If you’re presenting the version of yourself that is really you and that you most care about, that’s what’s going to come through, regardless of what you say you want to do after you graduate or what your academic background looks like. If you’re really being yourself and presenting what matters to you, that’s the thing that will stand out, so to the extent people deviate from that, I think that’s a big mistake.

Then one other mistake, I don’t want to go on too long, but frankly, one other mistake that people make I think is not in the application, but in not applying. I think people will still sometimes undermatch, and this happens at the undergraduate level, I think it happens at the MBA as well. I think there’s a sense that, gosh, I need to be looking at the class profile, or just thinking independent of that I need to get a perfect score, perfect grades, perfect work experience, otherwise I’m not going to be competitive. Everybody has strengths or weaknesses, and I think there’s no harm if you have a school that you’re interested in, but you’re looking at the class profile like, oh gosh, I’m not above it on every front. Well, nobody is, so that’s one thing, but I think there’s a little bit of self-selection out more than there should be at this stage. So that’s not about a mistake in the application process, but that’s a mistake in not applying.

Why reject yourself? [36:24]

Exactly.

Let you do that. [36:36]

Exactly, that’s what I’m here for.

Right, or you’ll give yourself a chance of acceptance, obviously.

That was a great response. In terms of enthusiasm, I completely agree with you. It’s so much easier to be enthusiastic about something that you feel enthusiastic about, and it does show in all kinds of ways when one is kind of going through the motions, especially if you’ve been doing this for a while. [36:43]

Yeah, I think just, it’s absolutely right., I think I might’ve mentioned this to you before, I might’ve shared this, but one of my favorite admissions, I have an admissions cartoon that’s framed and it’s from the New Yorker, and it’s a father and son outside of a door that says, “Admissions.” The line is the father talking to the son saying, “Now remember, be the yourself we talked about.”

I think you did tell me, but it’s a very good one. One of my first clients ever, she was a lovely young woman, she was actually applying to law school and it was a time before everything was virtual. She actually came to my office and I met her and we were talking, and she says, “I want to talk about my trip to this particular location,” I’m not going to say which one. I said, “Oh, that’s very nice. When did you go there?” She says, “I’ve never been there.” I said, “Well, then how do you want to write about your trip?” She says, “Well, I have nothing interesting to write about.” I said, “Well, how are you going to write about it?” “I know many people who’ve gone there.” She was going on and she saw me looking at her with utter shock and skepticism, and I said, “Do you have a creative writing background?” She said, “No.” I said, “Well, neither do I. Why don’t we talk about what you’ve done instead of what you haven’t done?”

She ended up writing a beautiful essay. This was shortly after, not right after, the 1994 earthquake in LA, and she was in a part of the city that was badly hit by it and she tied it into different experiences. I think it’s still on the site, frankly. It was just an excellent, excellent essay in the end, and she got in where she wanted and was very happy. But I’ll never forget that. I mean, it must be almost 27 years ago that this happened. But I’m like, “Do you have a creative writing background? Well, then let’s talk about what you’ve done.” She did and it ended up being an outstanding essay. I think, again, because it was genuine, because it was from the heart, because she really felt it, again, we had a good structure for it, that’s where I think I was helpful to her, but she did a great job and she didn’t have to make anything up. [37:25]

Yeah, no, that’s a great example. It still sticks with you 27 years later, so I think that’s a sign of how important that is.

What advice do you have for applicants planning ahead for a possible application this fall? [39:22]

I think one thing I would say is just talk to people. Learn about the schools. I guess stepping back, think about what matters to you. Think about what you care about, what you’re hoping to get out of an MBA. Then based on that, think about where you might be able to do that. There are probably a lot of places, but think about the things that matter and the places where you can develop those things or whatever dimensions those are, and then talk to people.

You could talk to admissions officers, you could talk to students. A lot of us, our schools will give you access to our students, the website will have our student ambassadors, other schools do as well. Where you’re working, you might know some MBA alums, talk to them, get a sense of their experience, what mattered to them, what they got out of it. That can help you refine your thinking. I think all these conversations can be helpful as you’re doing your research and thinking about why the MBA, what you’re hoping to accomplish, and how it will help you in your long-term professional path. So that’s the sum of what I would say, and obviously the application itself is a whole nother story, but I think as you’re thinking, as you’re planning, I think those are hopefully helpful exercises and helpful conversations.

I think it’s great advice, thank you. What would you have liked me to ask you? [40:41]

Oh gosh, we covered so much. I feel like you always do such a wonderful, thorough job of getting at lots of different things in the interviews. I don’t know. I mean, I think one thing maybe that we didn’t get to is what’s happening now at Yale or what’s coming down the road. I mean, that’s always a tough question because I don’t always know everything that’s coming down the road, but one thing…

Yeah, what I know about, we are looking to and starting to, and this has been something we’ve been working on for a while, is engage more with our Engineering Department here at Yale. I talked about the ways in which we’re connected to the other parts of the University, and we didn’t talk about things like joint degree programs, which we have with the Law School and the Medical School and Public Health and International Affairs and Drama and Architecture and the Environment School, and all the different wonderful programs here at Yale. But one area that we haven’t had as much engagement with is engineering, and that’s happening. We’re going to be starting a program, starting within Yale itself, but I’m hoping that we’ll expand beyond just the limits of Yale to be able to help our students and our graduates who are really thinking about careers in technology.

A joint MS/MBA? [41:56]

I don’t know. That’s not what it is yet, but I’m hoping that that might be where it leads to. It’s now just a one-year master’s starting internally at Yale. I don’t actually know if it’s been announced yet, so I probably shouldn’t have even said anything, but it will be coming. So just more broadly, maybe independent of the program or anything like that, specific programmatic offerings, more just the relationship with engineering is something that we’re looking to expand more broadly.

That you think will come out of this application cycle or more for the next application cycle, or do you know? [42:27]

I think I’ve already said too much.

All right, I won’t ask anymore. [42:34]

No, maybe I think this cycle is when we will start, so we’ll see how that goes.

Anything else? [42:41]

I think those are the main things. Talking about the joint degrees, it’s consistent with the integration with the University and the ability to take classes elsewhere at Yale, but it’s one specific aspect of it that I think is really can be meaningful to people in their studies, and especially if they’re looking to go in a direction that is interstitial of sorts, that crosses over different disciplines. So that is one thing that was maybe good to touch on in the context of that answer.

Well, I’m really glad you raised it, thank you. Thank you for joining me today. Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about Yale SOM’s MBA program? [43:13]

I think our website is probably the easiest way, and that’s got lots of information, both generally about the school, but also there’s a section for admissions and for other parts of the organization, so that would be the best place.

Relevant Links:

• Yale SOM MBA Admissions
• Yale SOM Application Guide
• Yale SOM Essay Tips
• MBA ROI Calculator

Relevant shows:

• Admissions Directors Reveal the Most Common Mistakes Applicants Make – podcast Episode 538
• How to get into Duke Fuqua – podcast Episode 536
• The New, Shorter GMAT Focus: Your Questions Answers – podcast Episode 534
• All You Need to Know About the New, Shorter GRE – podcast Episode 531
• Can the Consortium Help You Get Accepted and Fund Your MBA? – podcast Episode 532

Subscribe:

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

What Makes Yale SOM Unique? [Episode 442]

Are you dreaming of a spot at Yale School of Management? [Show summary]

Bruce DelMonico, Yale School of Management’s Assistant Dean of Admissions, returns and shares how the school has endured the pandemic and highlights updates in the admissions process. 

What applicants need to know about this mission-driven, case-based MBA program [Show notes]

Welcome to the 442nd episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for listening. Are you preparing to apply to your dream business schools? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted’s MBA admissions calculator can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com/mbaquiz, complete the quiz, and you’ll not only get an assessment, but tips on how to actually improve your qualifications and your chances of acceptance. Plus, it’s all free!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk and introduce Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean of Admissions at the Yale School of Management. He has been on the admissions team at Yale since 2004, became the Director in 2006, and the Assistant Dean in 2012. He was last on Admissions Straight Talk almost exactly two years ago in October 2019. It seems like a lifetime ago, because that was, of course, before COVID. 

Bruce, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk. It’s a pleasure to have you back on the show. So much has changed in the last two years.

We’re going to do some review from the last conversation. I would actually recommend that all listeners also listen to Bruce’s previous interview which is at accepted.com/338 but let’s start here.

Can you please provide a basic overview of the Yale SOM MBA program for listeners who may not be that familiar with it, focusing on its more distinctive elements? [2:17]

Sure, happy to. So here at Yale, we have a full-time, two-year MBA. Hopefully the listeners are familiar with the general structure of the MBA program. I think some of the things that make our program distinctive are the fact that we are very mission oriented. Our founding mission is to educate leaders for business and society. That’s a very broad, multi-sector mission. I think that definitely does animate and influence just about everything that happens here at the School of Management. For students who are here, for those of your listeners who come here to Yale, that means a few things. The first year of your experience, the core curriculum consists of our integrated curriculum, which is different from what you would experience in other business schools. I think that’s one distinctive aspect. And we can go more into that, but I won’t bore you with all the details now. But it’s a very integrated, as the name implies, a multidisciplinary approach, really trying to get our students to think broadly across disciplines and functions.

We also are case-based, but we have our own case writing team, so we use raw cases, as we call them. That’s another distinct feature. Although it’s become more common, we do have a very global orientation, and so many global opportunities exist here. That’s actually a required part of your experience here at Yale. I think that was something that, again, has become more common, but I think we’re the first school to really make that a required part of the experience. 

What’s the difference between a raw case and a more traditional case? [4:00]

So a traditional case, or a cooked case, as we call them, involves the case writing team doing the research, gathering all the materials, and then distilling it all down, boiling it all down into a 10 to 12 page document that leads the reader to a single point or the thrust of the case. It’s very linear and makes one culminating point. The idea is that all the things that are irrelevant or extraneous are weeded out and the student doesn’t really need to worry about that.

The insight that the faculty had here at Yale is that that’s really not how you experience information in the real world. All of our listeners here who are in jobs, and at work, and having to find solutions to problems, they’re not given a 10-page document saying “Here’s all that you need to know, go figure out the answer.” Much of what you have to do is find out what’s relevant. You have to figure out what facts you need to know, and try to fill in gaps if they’re missing, or try to reconcile inconsistent pieces of information. That’s how our cases are constructed. Our case writing team came from other schools that have case writing teams, and what they do is they do all the research they would do in the other schools, but then they give all that research to the students. So as a student, you will get all that raw material, all the real world material that you would get in your professional life.

You get earning statements. You get securities filings. You get quarterly reports, your 10Ks, 10Qs. You get media coverage. You get interviews with key stakeholders, all the things that you will experience as a professional. The idea is that that skill is as important if not more important as figuring out the solution, because of how you frame a solution. We actually have had a course called problem framing. How you frame the solution, how you set it up really dictates what the outcome is. We’re trying to teach our students, even in the classroom, we’re trying to give our students those real world skills of learning how to sift through information, learning how to make sense of information, because that’s such a critical skill that you need to learn. That’s how our cases are constructed. That’s what we call the raw versus cooked, or Yale versus traditional.

The class profile for Yale SOM for the entering class of 2023 had some pretty impressive stats: 730 median GMAT, increased diversity across the board. To what do you attribute these developments? [6:52]

Well, I would say I don’t know that our numbers are dramatically different than they have been in the past. I think our median GMAT, you’re right, is 730 and has been in the last few years. But I think the year before, it may have dipped just slightly into 720. The median is typically 730, and the average GRE I think was 165 and GPA is 3.6. 

I think the diversity numbers are pretty consistent with where they have been in the past to the extent they are increasing on all those dimensions. They have varied a little bit, I think that’s right. Not dramatically, but definitely up a little bit. It’s a factor of a few things. I think it’s partly attributable, and I don’t know what other admissions professionals are saying, but I think that the year was a very competitive year. We had one of, I think, the top three application years in terms of application volume which I think played a factor. We are trying to really focus on having a well represented class across all dimensions. I think that is reflected in some of the numbers, and not just in terms of the…diversity numbers you mentioned: underrepresented students of color, grad students in terms of citizenship, and in terms of gender, in terms of professional backgrounds. We’ve always focused on this, but we’re really wanting to make sure that we’re paying particular attention, and I think that’s hopefully reflected in the numbers.

In terms of the GMAT score, certainly over time, there has been a tremendous increase in GMAT score. I don’t just mean in the last two or three years. Not just for Yale, but in general terms. I can easily remember 20 years ago that a 700 was a great score. I don’t know if the students have gotten smarter, the prep has gotten better, the test has gotten easier. [8:45]

I think there are a number of factors at play. I don’t think the test has really changed. I think the preparation has gotten better. There are other things in terms of the score reporting and cancellation policies, that I think people can cancel whatever they want so they’re only really getting their high… They can keep taking, taking, taking till they get that score that they want, and then we don’t see any of the other scores. I think that’s pushing things up a little bit.

This might be a little bit of a tangent, it’s been quieter more recently, but there was a period of time where we were pushing quite strongly for GMAC to rescale the GMAT, because the score inflation had gotten really out of control. I think there is, actually quite frankly, a good bit of score compression, especially on the quant side, that makes it very difficult for us to really get the kind of variants we need to be able to distinguish candidates in a useful way. So, that is an area where I think it would be frankly helpful for some rescaling and to decompress some of the scores. That would help us in our jobs, and I think would be more meaningful. That could be a whole other conversation but I think there are a number of factors that play into it, both the preparation and the reporting policies. 

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

I’m sure there were tons of COVID adaptations at Yale. Which ones are Yale planning to keep? What has been the silver lining in this situation? [11:02]

It’s funny to think back. Funny is not necessarily the word. I was in China with a colleague in November of 2019. And it was just a couple weeks after we got back that we started to hear. Actually, while we were on the trip, people were starting to hear about it and then to hear when all the things that have happened, all the changes. 

As with other schools, we’ve had to adapt. At Yale, we consider ourselves a residential program. Being here on campus is an important part of the experience so, this past year plus has been very difficult for students, for faculty, for really everybody. I think that’s the case across the board. We’re back on campus. I’m on campus now. My office just returned. Students have been on campus all semester. Knock on wood, Yale has a very low incidence rate. It’s doing well, and did have to pivot and make some major changes over the last year and a half.

To your question, it will be interesting to see what sticks. This faculty has developed some expertise now with online courses, and there’s talk about having some of those extended beyond the pandemic, and thinking about different modes of delivery. We continue to, even though students are fully in class now, we’re obviously still, for example, recording classes and having hybrid options for students who are either feeling under the weather, or who can’t make it to classwork for various reasons. I think those things might endure. I think more broadly, this predates the pandemic, but the faculty is actually currently undergoing or undertaking a curriculum review. This was conceived of and planned independently and prior to the pandemic, but I’m sure that that will inform some of the things that come out of it. Beyond the different modes of delivery and the online coursework, I think there could be some even greater experimentation that comes out of it that is maybe inspired by this last year and a half.

One of the things that we’ve heard from many of your colleagues is that the ability to have visiting speakers has been enhanced, because they don’t have to physically show up. They can virtually show up and talk to students. [13:17]

We definitely had that. I think in particular, Jeff Sonnenfeld, who’s one of our prominent faculty members, had a course that’s Basic Leadership Across Sectors and it basically was a class where they would have basically two CEOs or two heads of organizations come and talk to a class, and it was laptops closed, books down, it was a very confidential conversation with these luminaries of the business and nonprofit and public sectors. Oftentimes, they would be here in person in New Haven, but sometimes they would be beamed in. And that happened pre-pandemic. That kind of thing already happened to some degree. I’m sure that happened elsewhere too. But I think the difference is the degree of acceptance, and the feeling that this is not unusual. I think it’s only heightened the opportunities that exist. I think that’s right.

I think that does open the door to more of these kinds of guest speakers, as you say. And not to turn it on admissions, but the past year and a half has been entirely virtual, and we’re still virtual in terms of recruiting. Even when travel resumes, we will still, I think, be heavily virtual in terms of how we do things. I don’t know what the right, ultimate balance will be, but it’s been wonderful to really speak to and connect with people who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get to an event in Beijing, or Mumbai, or London or wherever you are. It’s really opened up a lot of doors for candidates too. So, anyway, I think that’s a bit of an aside. But that is one of the changes that I’m sure will endure.

Do you think admissions will, in terms of recruiting and also in terms of job recruiting, become a hybrid balance where you’ll have some events, but also offer online events? [15:21]

I certainly hope so. I think it’s been a healthier balance. For the admissions, and as you say, for career recruiting, this year is continuing to be virtual for us. That was what the recruiters wanted. They thought that that worked well, and that was beneficial to them. I think it hopefully will continue to open up access and level the playing field in lots of ways on both the incoming student side and the career side. The tough thing is, it’s a little bit of a collective action issue. We know we intend to do more, we’re hoping to, but then to the extent another school says, “Well, we need to really be in person to be effective,” and then everyone else is, well, okay, if they’re in person, we’re going to be in person too. So, it can be a little bit of a race to the bottom. I’m hoping we’ll settle on a healthy balance between in person and virtual going forward.

Pre COVID, Yale gave students a lot of opportunity for global study. It also participated in and co-founded the Global Studies Network, which allowed for online classes globally. I’m guessing that COVID put a damper on some of the physical travel. Perhaps it made the Global Studies Network more valuable. Where is Yale at now, or hopes to be even in the upcoming year? [16:33]

That’s exactly right, that, obviously, the travel didn’t happen. One of the global studies requirements and one of the global studies opportunities are these global network weeks, which happen through the Global Network for Advanced Management. This is the network of 30 schools that you mentioned. Our pivot in March of 2020 to going hybrid happened and we were really within hours of people getting on planes to do these global studies trips. So, it was very close to that time. It was very, very close. Since then, all these opportunities have happened virtually and we’ve been able to do that. Some of them were already virtual. So, we affectionately call it, a Ted Snyder term, SNOCs. He loves that term, Small Network Online Courses. Those always existed. Those were semester-long courses that were virtual through the global network, and then as a Yale student, you’ll be taking courses with students from the other global network schools. Those have continued throughout, and they’ve expanded, because those have been filling the void that some of the other opportunities have left.

There have been these global network weeks that have happened virtually in the last year and a half. So, instead of traveling to Koc University in Turkey or FGV in Brazil, these opportunities were happening virtually instead and that will continue this fall. Then in March, the plan is to start to resume travel. I don’t know if it will be fully resuming or again, some hybrid or mixed, in person or virtual. My understanding is there are intentions to resume some of those trips then. For our current students who were affected by this disruption, the lack of opportunity to travel, the school has invited them to participate in future trips as alumni because it’s a really highly rated and a special part of the experience that people really do regard well and would like, I think, to participate in to the extent that people or the students haven’t had a chance to.

Is there anything that you’d like people to know about Yale SOM? Maybe a common misconception that you’d like to dispel? [19:17]

I’m sure there’s more than one but I think the one that I hear, I don’t know most frequently, but I still hear frequently is that we’re “the non-profit school.” It’s always difficult to dispel that, because I don’t think it’s wrong that we are incredibly strong in the non-profit space. We have lots of students, about a quarter of our class, who come from the non-profit and public sectors. We have lots of students who then go back into those sectors or who came from the private sector and go into the non-profit or public sector. We’re very proud of that. I don’t want to say that we’re not. I would say that we’re not just “the non-profit school,” and make it an “and,” an ampersand. We’re very big on the ampersand here. I think we are all the sectors. It’s not about one versus the other. But then we have lots of graduates who… I like to think of the SOM story, who have success in careers that span the sectors, and will do well and understand the interconnection and intersection of the sectors.

I think that’s a myth that still lingers, even though I think people know more about the school now than they did when I started. We really consider ourselves to be a general management school and we really look to prepare our graduates to be successful in every sector, every industry when it regards to what they want to do. I guess it’s an ancillary myth that I also hear a good bit of, is that we’re not a finance school. I think frankly, when you look at SOM, and you consider the people who have been and who are currently here, and think about Sir Andrew Metrick and Gary Gorton from Wharton, and I work with Toby Moskowitz, and others who came from Chicago, and just all the luminaries who are here, I think it’s Anjani Jain, who runs the MBA program, says fairly consistently, we’re more broadly in the top five finance schools. I think that’s right, probably higher than that, but certainly as good as any school in finance.

And you said a good percentage of your grads go into Wall Street, right? [21:52]

That’s right. About a third of our students go into consulting, and about 20-25% go into finance, generally. It tends to be mostly investment banking or PE, VC, investment management, and then sometimes diversified financial services. 

Yale SOM requires the GMAT or the GRE. Obviously, there’s been enormous change in that field in the last two years. Any plans to either expand the number of tests that you accept, or issue test waivers, or go test optional? [22:33]

We don’t. That’s a great question. We have seen other schools who are making moves in these directions and we have not done that, and we don’t have plans to do that right now. I can’t remember if we talked about this two years ago. We’re always looking and experimenting with different ways to evaluate candidates and have tried to broaden the base, and look at different instruments to evaluate different competencies. 

Really, the GMAT and the GRE are predictive of performance, midpoint performance here in the program, but that’s obviously a short term metric. They’re very blunt instruments. There are sometimes people who score well who don’t do well here at the campus, people who score modestly who do do well. So, we’ve looked for years, been trying to find ways to gauge or do a better job of gauging or finding secondary or tertiary indicators that will predict performance here, and then obviously, looking at performance beyond school as well.

We have other things. We have a behavioral assessment that we’ve had in place for a number of years. We use our video questions. We have other instruments that we’re using that are trying to gauge things other than testing and looking at us, things other than non-cognitive traits. So, we’ll continue to do that. Those right now are supplementing. They’re additive. We’re looking at ways we can make them substitutes for. And we’re still investigating that. I personally don’t feel comfortable, because grades and scores and I would say actually, grades are frankly more predictive than scores when we analyze between the two. But to the extent that those are doing work and adding value in the evaluative process, I’m reluctant to take those away without having confidence that there’s no loss of fidelity in our evaluations. I don’t know if other schools feel like they’ve cracked the code. I feel like we don’t feel comfortable just taking them away without having anything else in their stead. So, we’re continuing to look.

We were careful. We did monitor during the pandemic test taking behaviors and test taking availability and that’s why we, for example, extended the deadline at Yale. Everyone did that, because test centers were closing, and people, before the online options came around, there was concern about what people would be able to do. So, we wanted to make sure there was no gap, and people were able to take tests. 

But the value of a test, there are two interrelated issues. There’s test access, and there’s the predictive nature. There are issues of fairness and equity that go into the test. And so, we have to balance all those things. That’s what we’re constantly doing. We don’t plan to wholesale waive tests or go test optional, but we are looking to see if there are ways we can build out an infrastructure that supports the test, and gives us greater context and a fuller picture of candidates than just those single data points.

When the applicant hits submit, what happens? How is an application processed? Who looks at it? What do you personally look at first? [26:16]

It’s interesting, everyone has their own thing that they go to first. The elements are presented in a certain order, and you could just go straight through, and a lot of times, that’s the way people go through them. I tend sometimes to jump to the resume first, because that’s a snapshot. To extend it, and this, obviously, this conversation is about application tips but I think there’s an aspect of people’s candidacies that they maybe spend less time on. I think the resume is an often underappreciated and underused element, because that’s really just a one page where you give us a snapshot of you as a candidate, your academic, your professional background, your interests. I think that often gives a good sense of someone. 

After you’ve clicked submit, one thing I would say is we actually wait until after the deadline before we start our review process. There’s no benefit to submitting a month early. Obviously, you don’t want to wait till the very last second, because that can be stressful for you. Maybe the day before. But we will wait after the deadline till we have all the applications. We start cleaning them up, make sure all the materials are in, and the recommendations and other aspects of application are in. And then we tend to do a quick overview of the whole pool. We do a quick triage, is what we call it, just to see what the pool looks like, the overall profile of the round. Then we will start to go right into reading. We’ll send out some interview invitations, and we’ll just start digging into it. We make sure every application has two independent views. So, two different people are looking at it. I would say, the majority of applications will come to the committee multiple times. We have an interview committee. It’s a subset of the overall admissions committee that makes decisions on whether to invite people to interview. Then once people have been invited to interview, the number depends year to year but I would say maybe a quarter to a third of candidates. 

Then people at the end of the round will come to a decision committee, and that’s the full committee of about a dozen, 12 to 15 people, who are in the admissions committee making decisions on the candidates, and that’s post interview, people who will come for an ultimate decision. I think consistently, we look at the video questions, for example, last. We have to be careful about that, because that’s where we’re actually seeing the candidate, and we don’t want that to unduly influence or skew our perception of the candidates. We’ve talked about ways we can even suppress so that we are not skewed or biased by that. We talk about ways we can even suppress more to make it less identifying so that we’re not imposing or bringing any biases to the process or trying to minimize that actual process.

Yale SOM MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines [2021 – 2022] >>

What are you looking for in your scan of the applicant pool? [30:03]

We don’t reduce it to any single data point or set of data points. We actually get, not surprisingly, a dashboard or snapshot. So, it’s just a quick look to see how it summarizes all key information in terms of grades, and scores, and work experience, and recommendation, and all those data points, just to get a sense. We don’t put our thumb on the scale in terms of things like demographics. That’s something that obviously, we will run the numbers to see what they look like, just to get a sense of what the pool looks like. But it doesn’t inform in a major way what the decision is going to look like going forward.

There’s a sense that there’s a single bucket that people fall into, and you have to be one or the other. And there are people at Yale, and it sits in there a lot. We have lots of candidates who are from India, for example, but studied in the States, or from other parts of the world, just studied here, or sometimes US citizens who studied elsewhere. More commonly, studying in the States. We’re not reducing to a profile in that reductive way. 

I think that obviously, the related question which we get a lot is just the, “I’m an Indian male engineer, how am I going to distinguish myself?” I think that’s the challenge for everybody – regardless of what your background is, or what your profile is, how do you set yourself apart?

We have a lot of applicants. If we have a lot of applicants who are female engineers, we also take a good number. I think there’s a sense of where, if some people have a background that they feel is well represented, that we will therefore take people who are not from that background. 

You have to look at what the denominator is relative to the numerator. I don’t know if we’re overrepresented, underrepresented, but certainly, we’re taking a good number of students from various backgrounds who are well represented in the pool, because they’re well represented in the pool.

If somebody is lucky enough to be invited to interview, what can they expect on interview day? [33:39]

It’s virtual right now. It will be for this first round. I’m trying to think for the rest of the year, we’re planning on being virtual, but we’ll see how things, what the university guidelines look like in the new year, in 2022. We always do some virtual interviews, even when people come to campus. We do have a day put together for people on campus, though, to sit in on a class, and have lunch with students, and do those things. We’re trying to replicate that as much as possible, because I think it is important for them to get a sense of the community, and get a sense of what the experience is like, and who their peers would be. 

But to the question, the interview itself is conducted almost exclusively by trained second year students. We just did a training recently. Some of it is done ourselves, but we actually bring in people. We have David Caruso from the Yale College Dean’s office, who has done this for a number of years and is fantastic. He’s actually an expert on emotional intelligence, and wrote the MSCEIT, which is the Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. He dealt with Peter Salovey, who is the president of Yale and so he comes in and helps train our students and does a great job. We have other training that we go through to make sure that our students are as well calibrated as possible, try and minimize bias, and actually, they’re having a follow up session today to make sure to get feedback and make sure that they’re comfortable with the interview process. 

Anyway, it’s trained second-year students. They are 30-minute interviews. They’ve seen your resume, they haven’t seen the other part of the application. We do use a structured interview process. Everybody receives the same questions in the same order and the same way. I think that people are sometimes concerned that may feel less personal, but I think we feel it’s really important for the evaluation purposes, for the predictive purposes for there to be structure. Unstructured interviews really have no predictive value.

To the extent that we want this interview to be a meaningful part of the evaluation process, having it structured is really the only way to go. They’re pretty straightforward questions. We’re not trying to trick you. We’re not trying to ask about any sort of market sizing, or how many quarters are in the Empire State Building, or any number of things, or how many golf balls can fit in a 747. It’s really about your graduate management plans, your post MBA plans, some basic questions that I think you should be expecting, those kinds of questions you expect on a job interview. We’re really not trying to trick you. We’re really just trying to get a better sense of you. Then obviously we give you a chance to ask questions and learn more about us. So, it tends to be a two way conversation in the end when there’s a chance to ask questions.

Talking about the application, what’s the most common applicant mistake that you see? [36:47]

That’s a good question. There are many different ways to answer that. I think you could focus on some of the more technical aspects of things that people do wrong, or silly mistakes that people make that easily proofreading or just simply passing our eyes over would catch. I think a higher level piece of feedback I would give, I’d give another context to, and I think other people probably do as well, it’s the be yourself flavor of advice. I don’t want to make it sound like platitude, but I think people do, and I guess it touches on some of the other things we’re talking about in terms of coming from what you feel is an overrepresented, potentially, demographic in the applicant pool, or applying to a school that you feel has a certain personality. 

I think there is a tendency in different ways to try to shade your candidacy either to fit the school, like “Yale’s a non-profit school, so I’m going to be a non-profit candidate,” or, “this other school is the finance school, so I’m going to be a finance candidate there, or an operations, or marketing, or whatever it is.” Try to distinguish yourself in maybe some non-organic ways, like to try to create some point of differentiation. I don’t think it’s possible to do that out of thin air and I think that comes across as hollow.

I think it’s important not to deviate from who you are, and not try to get in our heads and predict what we’re looking for and what we’re thinking. Because we’re not. At this point, on average, there is no finance school, there’s no marketing school. Every school, any top school is going to be strong in a number of different areas, and they’re not looking for any one kind of candidate. I think one of the things we talk about quite a bit is the strength in diversity, and how we want to have a very diverse student body across a range of dimensions, and how that informs and influences the classroom experience, how it enriches discussion, it expands perspectives and expands people’s minds. You learn and think differently. If you’re in an organization where everybody already thinks and feels the same way, that doesn’t help you grow. 

I have a picture framed in my office of a New Yorker cartoon, where it’s parents and a child outside the door that says admissions, and there’s a little child there, and the father’s speaking to the child, he says, “Now remember, be the yourself we talked about.” That’s kind of how a lot of admissions is. It’s a very artificial process. We get little insight into you and very discrete pieces of you. There is an opportunity for you to present those pieces that you think make the most sense based on who we are, what part of you that you want to present. I think we work very hard at Yale to broaden the base of information we get, so even though it’s discrete pieces, they’re very balanced pieces and we work very hard in terms of crafting the application and the information we’re trying to receive to make it be complementary and hopefully, not over indexed in any one area. It’s not just about grades, or scores, or these few things. But it’s really as much about, and I’m sorry, I know the word holistic is overused, but in as holistic a sense as possible.

To your point, I think there is some room for candidates to say, I think I know a little bit about what Yale’s about, so I can present these examples that maybe are a little bit more consistent. But I think you definitely want to be led by, I guess, the logic and you want to be led by what the school is asking. Don’t try to shoehorn in this anecdote or this point you want to get. If the school is asking for something else, or the school is looking for other information, you have to meet the school where it is, and what we’re asking for, and what we care about. Because we all have largely overlapping applications in some ways, but they’re all different in other ways.

Well Yale has a very distinctive application. The one essay question is distinctive. You do have the video essay, which some schools have, but most don’t. You also have a situational judgment test. So, you have a very distinctive application. [42:17]

Yeah, and I think we’ve constructed it very intentionally, again, to draw out different complementary aspects of a candidate’s profile so that we do have a very balanced perspective. I guess the mistake is trying to work against that too much. Understand what the schools are asking and go with it. Obviously, that’s part of what an application is. But don’t be an investment banker, who says, “Oh, Yale’s a non-profit school, so I’m going to say my post MBA goals are in the nonprofit space.” That’s not going to help you. It’s just going to look like the application is disjointed.

How do you view applicants who had a dip in grades, or perhaps a period of unemployment due to depression or emotional illness? [45:22]

I think, obviously, the caveat I make for every and any comment is that we look at every application individually based on the overall profile. It’s tough to pull out any one element and talk about it in isolation, because it really only derives meaning in the context of the overall application. But in those instances, if there was a mental illness, or some emotional challenge that caused a period of unemployment or different grades, you should, if you feel comfortable, put that in your optional essay. I think that’s a place to explain it, because it’s not something we would see elsewhere. Unless you made that your essay itself, it might be something you talk about there.

We will see, obviously, the gap in employment if that’s what it is. We will see the different grades if that’s what it is. And we do look in the transcript. We don’t just look at the overall GPA, but we go semester by semester, look at the courses, and we’ll look at the trends. And if there’s a discrete period of low grades or unemployment, if there’s a certain abnormality, or something that is atypical for your overall profile, we will notice it. It’s helpful to have that context and have that explanation. The question is really asking whether it’s okay to share that, or whether there could be people who are concerned about the stigma of surmounted mental illness, but I think it’s something that happens with people all the time. If you’re showing that it’s so transient, and that you’ve been able to overcome it and tackle it, I think that’s something that speaks to other values. It helps to know the reason behind it, again, if you feel comfortable sharing that so that we can understand the context behind that abnormality, and if it is in terms of your employment or your academic performance. If it is transient, we have to obviously take that into context to understand that.

What about an institutional action, let’s say an academic infraction, or maybe a misdemeanor? If somebody has that on their record, is that going to be an application killer? [47:51]

It’s intriguing you asked that question, because that’s something, actually this year, we’ve made changes on that front. We did this at the start of last year, and actually really more fully this year, because that’s an area where we are concerned that the application review people have their own values, their own judgments they bring towards a DUI, or any number of other infractions, academic or otherwise. We found that it’s very inconsistent in terms of how your application readers approach it. It’s really not based on anything other than their own views on this. 

I believe the College Board has moved to suppress this information from the Common App. I think they’re looking at moving towards not asking. So, actually, that’s what we’ve done, and we’ve been benchmarking with Yale College. We’re close with them and other schools here at Yale to see what their best practices are. We suppress that information, any academic infraction or criminal record. The readers don’t see that, and that would only become an issue after a decision is made on the application, because we don’t want that to influence the outcome of the application. That’s an area we don’t advertise. I don’t know if that’s a little bit too insider baseball, maybe I shouldn’t be sharing that. But I think we think that’s a smarter way. We’re trying. Again, that’s one aspect I talked about earlier about suppressing certain information in a scenario where we don’t feel like that’s relevant to the application decision. It’s only needlessly influencing. I think it’s unduly influencing or can unduly influence. We try to make sure that it doesn’t do that, but we worry that it could. That’s why we’re trying to take it out of the review process and have it be a separate thing.

Where would a criminal record come in if it’s suppressed from readers? [49:59] 

This is a change this year, a small committee would review it before any final decision but we don’t want it to inform the general review process. We found, actually, what we understand in doing research is that even applicants who have an academic infraction or criminal record who are seeing that being asked are less likely to apply. They’re less likely to follow through in the application process. That tends to be a deterrent to applying. I think that was a reason behind the College Board moving toward suppressing that information. I don’t want to speak out of something I don’t know if that’s not right. But I think that that’s where they’re going. Part of the reason too is we don’t want to chill people from applying for something that wouldn’t really influence their outcome anyway.

What advice do you have for applicants, either applying this cycle or thinking ahead to an application next cycle? [51:14]

There’s so much advice. Last year was a very abnormal, atypical year in a lot of fronts, in a lot of regards and I think there’ll be a turn, knock on wood, more to normalcy this year in terms of the application pool and the application process. To the extent last year and the year before were so atypical, I think this will be, hopefully, a better year to apply in terms of those seeking normalcy. I think hopefully, again, knock on wood, that the academic experience will be even more back to normal next year. The message from that is, I think this is probably a good year to apply. And next year, hopefully, will be as well for people thinking about getting an MBA.

The other thing is hearkening back to an earlier comment, we don’t have, for example campus to campus tours. We don’t have campus visitors. We’re not doing on campus interviews. But we’ve built out all sorts of tools for people to be able to engage with us virtually at the admissions office. These are things we’ve done even previously in terms of application guide, and other tools we have coming out with a virtual tour. There are ways to connect with students. I think these are all great ways to learn more about the program. I would encourage people to take advantage of them. Campus visits are great, but I always caution people not to put too much stock in them because only certain subsets of people can actually come to campus. They’re close enough, they can afford to, and we don’t want to disadvantage people who live far away, and they can’t make it to campus. That has no influence in the evaluation process. I’m hoping that because no one could visit campus, that’s even more of a level set or an equalizer in terms of people’s access to information and learning about the program and actually expanding the scope of what people can experience here at Yale, even if it’s not in person. So, I’d say take advantage of those resources.

Is there anything you would have liked me to ask you? [53:55]

Nothing comes to mind. I think we’ve covered a good bit of ground and it’s always great to talk to you. I really appreciate the opportunity and certainly look forward to sharing more information another time as well.

Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about Yale SOM’s MBA program? [54:18]

Our website is som.yale.edu. That’s probably the best starting point. If you have specific questions, you can always email us at mba.admissions@yale.edu. That’s our direct email address. Our website has all the information about the application process, upcoming events, student profiles, information about the curriculum, so that’s really the place to go.

Related Links:

• Yale School of Management MBA Program
• Yale SOM MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines [2021 – 2022]
• From the Mouths of MBA Adcom Members: How to Get Accepted
• 5 Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your MBA Application Essays, a free guide
• Life at Yale SOM, Google Internship & the Importance of Diversity
• Accepted’s MBA Admissions Consulting Services

Related Shows:

• Yale MBA: The Inside Scoop on The Essay, Videos & Behavioral Assessment
• What’s New at Wharton MBA
• How to Get Into UVA Darden
• Duke Enrolls Its Strongest MBA Class Ever, Hear From Its Admissions Dean
• Are You Interested in NYU Stern?

Subscribe:

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

[xyz-ihs snippet=”mba-compelling-round-2-app-webinar”]

Podcast Feed

The post How to Get Into Yale SOM [Episode 542] & What Makes Yale SOM Unique? [Episode 442] 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.

Yale School of Management’s Executive MBA fully reflects the character of the SOM and more broadly of Yale University: strong, vibrant community; intellectual vigor (and rigor!); and real-world engagement and impact. Yale EMBA’s unique “areas of focus” approach is central to its identity, and while it may not be for everyone, for the right people, it will be perfect. Make sure you are in the latter category before applying – and, if you are, allow this approach to organically drive your application. Thoroughly review the website, read the blog, and, if possible, interact with the adcom by visiting the school and/or attending an info session. I strongly recommend obtaining the offered pre-assessment. These efforts should inform your essays and will help you convey fit.

Yale School of Management Executive MBA application essays

Yale SOM EMBA essay #1

What is your motivation for applying for an Executive MBA at this point in your career? Please discuss your interest in the Yale SOM MBA for Executives program, your area of focus, and your professional and personal goals. (500 words maximum)

Starting off the question with why-now indicates that timing is so important to the adcom—this program should help you at a pivotal career moment, to make some significant advancement or transition—launch or leap. It also requires you to evaluate and interpret your career trajectory. Of course, fundamentally, your whole application in aggregate should answer this “why now” question. In this essay, address it explicitly.

Yale’s EMBA program is unusual in its emphasis on “areas of focus.” In the essay, integrate your reason for selecting your area of focus with your discussion of goals and how the Yale EMBA will help you achieve them.

With only 500 words to answer this multi-part question, keep the structure simple. A straightforward, effective way to structure it is to start with your professional goals, including both “what” (industry, function, positions, perhaps geographies) and “why” (what motivates these goals, what footprint do you hope to have)—including “why now” in this part of the discussion.

The question has an interesting twist in asking about your personal goals. These can be personal growth areas and/or explorations you wish to make for personal interest. They may or may not be directly connected to your professional goals. Most people will, understandably and appropriately, devote more space to the professional goals. But DO discuss personal goals as well. This part of the question aligns with Yale’s holistic perspective and is important for fit.

In discussing how the program will benefit you, be specific: describe what skills and knowledge you seek, and how the program will provide it. Yale’s “areas of focus” approach is unique; convey how and why this approach is ideal for your needs.

Schedule a free consultation >>

Yale SOM EMBA essay #2

Cite a statistic that you find shocking. As a leader for business and society, what actions could you take to address this challenge, and what would be your guiding principles and values? (500 words maximum)

You might reasonably think that you should choose a statistic strategically linked to your career goals in some way. Or that will show some distinctive area of knowledge or experience you possess. Well, maybe. Or maybe not.

Just picking some random statistic that you really did find shocking when you heard it might be a bit unnerving for an MBA essay. I’ve seen it work. Why? Yale SOM’s intellectual dimension:  They appreciate people who are open to intellectual exploration and find interest in the world around them. In this question, the Yale SOM adcom is truly interested in the quality of your thinking and your curious nature, not just how advantageously you can portray your existing interests.

Use and write from the perspective of “leader for business and society” when you discuss prospective actions to take in addressing the challenge that arises from (or leads to) the shocking statistic. (And in citing “leader for business and society” the adcom clearly indicates an important aspect of “fit” they are looking for.) With that framework, you clearly must identify actions that involve mobilizing people beyond yourself and friends/family. While your actions, if described with meaningful specificity, will naturally reflect your “guiding principles and values,” still address this part of the question explicitly, with at least one sentence describing how they do.

Intended area of focus

Why have you selected this area of focus? Please describe how your current professional role relates to your chosen area of focus. (Word count: 150-250 words)

While you’ll discuss the Area of Focus in essay 1 vis-à-vis your goals, here you must link it to your existing work. For some people, that will mean emphasizing how it builds on their current role; for others it will mean emphasizing how it represents a turn or transition from the current role. The former situation is frankly easier and simpler; for the latter, which is more complicated, identify some aspects of your current work that will be valuable and relevant in the new direction. 

Optional information

If any aspect of your candidacy needs further explanation (unexplained gaps in work experience, choice of recommenders, academic performance, promotions or recognitions, etc.), please provide a brief description here. (200 words maximum)

Use this space if you have an extenuating issue to address or a point that needs clarification. It is not an invitation to write a whole new essay that goes beyond providing context.

For expert guidance with your Yale SOM 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 Yale SOM’s EMBA program and look forward to helping you too!

Yale SOM Executive MBA application deadlines for 2022-2023

Source: Yale SOM EMBA website

[xyz-ihs snippet=”EMBA-SR-Top-EMBA-Essay-Tips”]

Related Resources:

• Ace the EMBA: Expert Advice for Rising Executives, a free guide
• EMBA: The Ultimate Guide for Applicants
• School-Specific EMBA Application Essay Tips

The post Yale School of Management Executive MBA Essay Tips & Deadlines [2022 – 2023] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.

Chicago Booth and Wharton (University of Pennsylvania) share the #1 spotlight in U.S. News’ Best Business Schools of 2023 rankings, released March 29.

The metrics for the rankings are based on career placement success, student excellence and qualitative assessments by experts. MBA rankings are studied voraciously by applicants, students, and alumni but remain controversial. 

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

Notable changes this year

• Chicago Booth’s rise reflected improvements on several metrics: a class GMAT score up by six points to 730; an acceptance that fell by five points to 22.6%; a higher score by corporate recruiters that now matches Harvard and Wharton; and a spike in average salary and sign-on bonus for last year’s MBA grads of $7,300 to a record $180,144–the second-highest of any business school. (NYU Stern had the highest of all schools at $181,803.) Placement for the Class of 2021 jumped five points three months after graduation, at 96.4%. 
  
  
• Wharton’s acceptance rate dropped by 4.9 percentage points to 18.2% and their average GMAT score rose by one point. Wharton MBAs enjoyed a jump in average salary and signing bonuses by $6,600 to $179,692, the second-highest of all schools behind only Booth. Job placement three months after commencement moved up by 3.3 percentage points to 96.8%.
  
  
• Top-ranked schools continued to jostle for position, with some flagship programs rising and others falling. Stanford’s GSB dropped by three notches, tying with Kellogg (Northwestern) for #3. Harvard and MIT Sloan remain tied at #5–no change from last year. Yale University’s SOM notched its highest ranking ever at #7, with Columbia and Haas (UC Berkeley) nipping at its heels, sharing the #8 ranking. Yale’s rise stemmed from a six-point rise in its average GMAT score to 726; a drop of six percentage points on its acceptance rate to 23.6%; and a dramatic 8.8 percentage improvement on its placement rate three months after graduation to 94.1%.
  
  
• Harvard Business School’s fifth-place showing reflects a surprisingly low employment at graduation of 69.0%, lower than any other Top 10 school. Its placement rate three months after graduation was 92.3%, the second-lowest for a Top 10 program. And the average salary and bonus for Harvard’s MBAs last year was $172,774, lower than seven other U.S. business schools. Harvard lost out on other metrics as well, including a higher admit rate of 12.5%, up from 9.2% last year, and average GMAT and undergrad GPAs that were lower than many other competitors. 
  
  
• Ross (University of Michigan) ascended into the Top 10 from #13, while Tuck (Dartmouth College) dropped to #11. Stern (NYU) and Fuqua (Duke University) share the #12 spot. Many other programs in the top 25 leaped forward, including Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, rising five places to #21 and Mendoza College of Business (Notre Dame) gaining 11 places to rank 25th. 
  
  
• Outside the Top 25, Washington University’s Olin Business School in St. Louis rose seven spots to #29 and the University of South Carolina’s Moore School of Business rose eight positions to place #47.

While U.S. News had dropped standardized test scores from its online MBA ranking earlier this year, it kept the average class GMAT and GRE scores in its formula for the full-time program rankings. 

The rankings were based on a survey of all 493 institutions with master’s-level business programs in the U.S. accredited by AACSB International. A total of 363 survey recipients responded; the final rankings are based on 134 business schools that provided enough data on their full-time MBA programs and had large enough 2021 graduating classes seeking employment for valid comparisons. The rankings also include some programs conferring degrees such as Master of Science in Management and Master of Science in Industrial Administration.

U.S. News 2023 Top 10 Full-Time MBA Programs

[xyz-ihs snippet=”Selectivity-Index-MBA–Button”]

U.S. News 2023 Top 10 Part-Time MBA Programs

Hoping to start business school in 2023 at one of these top-ranked 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”]

Related Resources:

• Do MBA Rankings Matter?
• Top 10 or Bust: Dispelling 2 MBA Myths
• Is an MBA Worth It, or Is the Sky Falling Down on the MBA Degree?
• Financial Times Ranks Wharton as #1
• M7 MBA Programs: Everything You Need to Know

The post U.S. News MBA Rankings 2023 [Full-Time & Part-Time] 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.

Most grad students take out student loans to finance their higher education and can end up saddled with debt running into hundreds of thousands of dollars by the time they graduate. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal student loan data for nearly 600 programs, graduates of approximately 98% of universities that offer MBA programs usually made more money two years after graduation than they had borrowed. Contrast this with law schools, where approximately 6% of programs had grads with higher median salaries than debt for the same time period.

There are many reasons that students pursue an MBA – the promise of a significantly higher salary, the ability to enter a new industry, or the pursuit of an executive track to name a few. However, the high cost of getting an MBA, which can range from $100,000 to $250,000 or more after living expenses are added to tuition and fees, can be enough to change many potential students’ minds. Despite the relatively low-interest federal loans available to grad students, the amount that students can borrow is fixed at $41,000, leaving some students with no choice but to take out additional higher-interest (but unlimited) Grad Plus loans. So it is encouraging to potential MBA applicants to see that what has long been thought of as a “no-brainer investment” does essentially pay off.

However, there are other factors which skew the data somewhat. There have been efforts to diversify the applicant pool for business schools, yet a significant proportion of MBA applicants still enter programs with professional experience, often in finance or other high-earning industries, thereby accelerating their career paths and making the post-MBA cohort a financially healthy group. Moreover, the data in the Wall Street Journal’s analysis reflects federal government loan programs and does not include private loans.

Not everyone who graduates with an MBA sees significant increases in salary. According to Paulo Goes, dean of Tulane business school, 2020 grads have had an especially difficult time since a lot of companies stopped recruiting MBA graduates during the pandemic. The impact of this slow-down is seen in graduates’ placements and salaries.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

For-profit business schools had a lower rate of students who repaid their loans after two years. Strayer University in Washington, DC had 2% of students fully repay their loans during the two-year period following graduation, with about 33% asking to temporarily stop payments. Strayer students borrowed a median of $74,000, but half of the grads earned less than $57,000 two years post-graduation.

Approximately a dozen other business schools revealed median debt loads that were greater than grads’ median salaries. Several schools stated that this is because students attended their expensive dual-degree programs. Roseman University of Health Sciences reported the highest debt to earnings of any program, with students borrowing a median of $172,000.

Even so, there is much to be gleaned from the data that would make an MBA worth the time and investment. Analysis shows that at several elite programs, including Harvard Business School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the median starting salary after graduation permitted more than half of grads to pay off their federal student loan debt within two years. 

Interestingly, some of the most expensive MBA programs had some of the lowest debt load. Graduates of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business borrowed a median of $41,000 in federal loans without turning to more expensive Grad Plus loans. Harvard Business School graduates had a median of $41,000 in debt, and median salaries of about $172,000. According to Chad Losee, Harvard’s managing director of MBA admissions, approximately 56% of the class of 2020 graduated with some debt, averaging $79,000 in combined federal and private loans. 

As Poets & Quants points out in its analysis of the Journal’s article, earnings are a reflection of the graduate’s chosen industry and the job’s location. Harvard reported a record pay year with 7% of the latest class taking positions in hedge funds and investment management jobs. The median total compensation for last year’s grads was $203,307, including a median salary of $152,682, sign-on bonuses of $27,500 reported by 54% of grads, and $132,500 in other guaranteed compensation reported by 27% of grads.

It is also worth noting that business schools have been increasing the number of scholarships they award to students over the last decade. Harvard distributes scholarships to defray the cost of its MBA program, distributing $40 million in fellowships to its MBA students last year. Approximately half of the enrolled students received scholarships averaging more than $42,000 per student in fiscal 2020.

P&Q top 10 business schools debt-income ratio

There seems to be much reassurance in the data that an MBA from a top school will indeed open doors to a lucrative career and allow one to pay off debts sooner than other programs.

Are you considering an MBA to maximize your earning potential? The stats show that the investment is worth it, but it takes an outstanding application to impress the elite schools. Our experienced MBA admissions consultants work with you one-on-one, throughout the process, to help you get ACCEPTED!

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

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

Related Resources:

• Is an MBA Worth It, or Is the Sky Falling Down on the MBA Degree?, a podcast episode
• Top MBA Application Essays: How to Answer Them Right
• Top 10 or Bust: Dispelling 2 MBA Myths

The post MBA Students Pay Off Student Loans Faster Than Other Grad Degrees 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.

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

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-Quiz”]

U.S. News has just released its 2022 rankings of the best full-time and part-time MBA programs. The rankings are based on surveys sent out to the 486 business schools with master’s-level business programs in the US, accredited by AACSB International. 

According to Poets & Quants, unlike the Economist and the Financial Times, only the U.S. News list ranks all the major U.S. business schools. All the M7 business schools opted out of the Economist’s ranking, and five of the M7 chose not to participate in the Financial Times ranking. 

Of the 486 business schools that received surveys, 364 replied, and 143 supplied sufficient data and had large enough 2020 graduating classes looking for employment for valid comparisons. Schools were ranked in eight areas. The data collected was standardized in order to compare them with the mean and standard deviations of other schools. U.S. News weighted and added the indicator standardized scores (z-scores) and gave the top school a score of 100. The remaining schools received a percentage of the highest score. The final ranking is in descending order based on these scores. MBA specialties were also ranked again this year.

[Read: Do MBA Rankings Matter?]

Highlights of the 2022 MBA Ranking

These were some of the significant changes in the full-time MBA rankings: 

• Stanford University and University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) retained their first and second place rankings this year. Stanford was able to do this despite dropping in four of the specialty MBA rankings. 
  

• Harvard Business School crept up to fifth place from last year’s sixth, which was its lowest position ever in the U.S. News ranking. 
  

• Dartmouth College (Tuck) advanced two spots and unseated New York University (Stern) to take the number ten spot.
  

Part-time business school rankings also showed some movement:

• University of Chicago (Booth), University of California, Berkeley (Haas), and Northwestern University (Kellogg) maintained their leading spots in the top three positions. 
  

• Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) (eighth last year) and University of Texas, Austin (McCombs) (seventh last year) exchanged places and share the seventh spot.
  

• Indiana University (Kelley) is a newcomer to the top ten this year, taking the spot from Emory University (Goizueta).

U.S. News 2022 Top 10 Full-Time MBA Programs

U.S. News 2022 Top 10 Part-Time MBA Programs

Hoping to start business school in 2022 at one of these top-ranked 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=”Accepted-Sig-Code—MBA”]

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

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 MBA Rankings 2022 [Full-Time & Part-Time] 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.

Each year, thousands of MBA students graduate from business school and embark on the next chapter in their careers. This often means moving up to a higher role in a current field, taking on a new role, or jumping head-first into a new industry. The impact of these changes is often looked at in terms of quantifiable measurement, such as a higher salary, or increased long-term earning potential, but when you talk to MBA students you often realize there is so much more that an MBA education provides. I know this personally, as an MBA graduate myself, but also because for my book, MBA Insider: How to Make the Most of Your MBA Experience, I talked to hundreds of MBA students about their time in business school to understand how students were using business school to progress their careers and what they were learning in school that they found valuable and insightful. 

For prospective MBA students, here are some lessons you can think about as you prepare to start on your MBA journey.

Lesson 1: Become a lifelong learner

“Business school taught me that I never want to stop learning. I will always want to push myself to learn and grow, and become the best version of myself.”

– Katie Blach Ellington, Wharton, Class of 2017

Business school is a time for learning and growth. To do that, you need to step outside your comfort zone, even if it may seem challenging. Katie Blach Ellington learned this during her time at Wharton, where she regularly raised her hand for stretch opportunities. “I took on so many stretch opportunities which taught me that I never want to stop learning, pushing myself, and broadening my perspective and pushing myself to stay curious and continue to grow.” 

By embodying a growth mindset, or the belief that new skills and learnings can be gained over time Ellington was able to not only build new skills, but take on new experiences and opportunities that she may have found otherwise.

Lesson 2: Follow your own path

“The situations where I thrived the most were when I pursued activities, opportunities, that were aligned to me. It always just felt right.”

– Jasmine Ako, Yale SOM, Class of 2019

One of the benefits of going to business school is the chance to be surrounded by lots of intelligent, hard-working, and career-driven individuals. This can also be a challenge, as it can cause individuals to feel like they don’t belong. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed or overmatched when you are surrounded by so many smart people, which often leads to questioning yourself and your abilities. 

To quell this fear, Jasmine Ako learned the importance of honoring your interests. “Intentionally following my passions and interests helped me quell the imposter syndrome I had,” Ako said. Furthermore, upon reflection, Ako realized that when she prioritized her interests, it allowed her to focus on her values and vision for success, not the ones of others.

Lesson 3: Experiment and take risks

“Not trying something in safe space with lots of resources is a bigger risk than failing”

– Collin Keeler, Wharton, Class of 2019

While failure isn’t “free,” it costs a lot less in a learning environment such as business school. It is a great opportunity to take intelligent risks, and to stretch yourself. Whether that’s by taking a class you normally wouldn’t have taken because it was on a subject you weren’t strong in, taking on a club leadership role, exploring an entrepreneurial idea, or trying a new career or industry, the full-time MBA experience gives you the opportunity to try things, knowing that they may not work out but things will still be OK. 

During his time at Wharton, Colin Keeler decided to start BeenThere. While this was an inherent risk, Keeler knew he was surrounded with resources and access to people to support him along the way, so even if he made a mistake, or a misstep, he had plenty of resources at his disposal to pick himself back up. “I realized that the cost of trying something was higher than failing, especially in a place like business school,” Keeler said. 

Lesson 4: Practice self reflection and self awareness

“In a world that moves so fast and work that demands so much of our time and mental energy, business school allows you to pause and think about who you are, what you’re good at, and how you can make an impact on the world in a meaningful way”

– Shannon Griesser, Fuqua, Class of 2019

Business school is a unique experience because it gives you two years to hit the pause button to work on yourself and your career. This is a great time to take a step back and to not only reflect on what you’ve done, but where you want to go. But reflection isn’t something that happens naturally for most. Because life can get busy, it can be difficult to find the time.

Shannon Griesser made reflection a priority amidst her many other activities. She tried to make space to reflect on her experiences and what she learned, and used those reflections to inform her future decision making. On a regular basis, Griesser would take time to write down her ideas or thoughts on what she was learning or experiencing, and then tie them to how they were helping her work towards the goals she set for herself. Griesser also relied on others to get feedback. Having experts and thought leaders like professors, professionals and administrators advising you as you work through your reflection and learning is a critical component to helping you make sense of the experience.

Lesson 5: Set your team up for success

“When building teams or coalitions, it is important for leaders to understand what those on their team want to get out of an experience.”

– Triston Francis, HBS, Class of 2019

As Student Body Co-President at Harvard Business School, Triston Francis managed a team of 70+ peers and a budget of $1.3 million. For Francis, the learning opportunity came from thinking about how to motivate peers to be excited about giving up time in order to give back to the HBS community. “What I learned from this experience is that when building teams or coalitions, it is important for leaders to understand what those on their team want to get out of an experience.” 

Francis focused on empowering his peers through roles and assignments that aligned their individual interests with the needs of students and their unique skillsets. “I focused on designing roles that allow people who are working with you to have a phenomenal experience and get from it what they want all while having a positive impact on the broader student body,” Francis said.

Lesson 6: Career development is a lifelong process

“Business school isn’t just about landing a job when you graduate, but building the career development skills you will need to evolve and grow for the rest of your career”

– John Huang, Ross, Class of 2015

Students come to business school to find or transition to a new job. While many achieve that, the reality is that almost all MBA students will eventually have to change jobs or careers after they graduate. While the process of finding the right MBA internship and full-time opportunity after graduation is important, the value of those experiences is that they teach graduates skills career management skills that are useful and important for the rest of their careers, long after that first job post graduation. 

John Huang began his post-graduation career in an MBA Leadership Development Program at Wal-Mart, before moving to an early stage startup, which led him to spending a few years at Twitter, before finally ending up in a Product Growth role at a fast-growing startup. Along the way, Huang used these career management skills to identify each new opportunity and pivot.  

To learn more about what MBAs learn in business school, Check out MBA Insider on Amazon today.

Find out how Accepted can help you earn in a spot in your dream school! << Learn more >>

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA—WBR—Get-Accepted-in-2017″]

By Al Dea, Founder, MBASchooled.com, Author of MBA Insider: How to Make The Most of Your MBA Experience

Related Resources:

• MBA Action Plan: 6 Steps for the 6 Months Before You Apply, a free guide to applying to business school at your best
• Business School Selectivity Index [Can I Get Into My Dream School?]
• MBA Application Timeline: How to Get Accepted in 2020

The post What Do You Learn in Business School? 6 Unexpected Lessons 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.

According to the Yale School of Management (SOM) website, the $100 million gift from the Broad Foundation will be used to develop research, teaching, and policy initiatives that will make the top leaders in America’s public school systems more effective. The Broad Center at Yale SOM will create a tuition-free master’s degree program for promising educational leaders, advanced leadership training for top school system administrators and CFOs, and a far-reaching research enterprise with the goal of putting together the foremost collection of data on public education leadership.

More about the Broad Center

The program will start in 2020. Yale anticipates enrolling 35 students in the master’s program as well as an additional 30 students in non-degree summer leadership training programs (according to a Poets & Quants article on the topic).

The Broad Foundation has been investing in public education for the past 20 years. Foundation management believes that district leaders need the skills to excel, inspire, and empower people in their organizations. Yale SOM’s Broad Center will become the epicenter for the creation of new ideas about how skilled management systems can positively affect schools, students, teachers, administrators, and communities throughout the U.S. The Center’s work will emphasize equity and inclusion in the areas of research and teaching in order to address challenges and create new prospects for underserved students. The Center will benefit from input of management and business academics and the resources of Yale University.

To learn more about Yale Som, check out our podcast interview with Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions:

Yale MBA: The Inside Scoop on The Essay, Videos & Behavioral Assessment [Episode 338]

According to Dean Kerwin K. Charles, “We are simply awed by the generosity of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation… Those outside our community may be surprised to see a business school dedicate a major program to public education, but this is exactly the type of issue our school has always cared about – one where leadership informed by systemic thinking, rigorous analysis, and compassion can make a real difference for communities. We share this core vision with The Broad Foundation, and I am excited to see how the strengths of this school and the strengths of The Broad Center can combine to help us realize it.”

Yale SOM has produced thousands of business leaders in fields that impact society at large and strives to train leaders who will have the tools to help bring about social progress. The Broad’s gift will allow Yale SOM to establish new faculty positions for top social science researchers in education as well as a research infrastructure that will benefit everyone interested in the field.

Are you applying to Yale SOM or another top-tier business school class? We can help! Explore our MBA Consulting & Editing Services and work one-on-one with an advisor who will help you GET ACCEPTED!

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-SR-MBA-MAZE”]

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

Related Resources:

• Yale MBA: The Inside Scoop on The Essay, Videos & Behavioral Assessment, a podcast episode
• Yale School of Management MBA Class of 2021 Profile
• Life at Yale SOM with Goals of Serving the Underrepresented Community

The post Yale School of Management Receives Its Largest Gift Ever of $100 Million 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.

Learn how real students and recent grads have navigated their way through the business school admissions process and b-school itself with our What is Business School Really Like? series.

Meet Helen, a 2Y Yale SOM student with an interest in the role diversity plays in policymaking.

Helen, thank you for sharing your story with us!

Yale has a single application essay question – and it’s a tough one. How did you approach describing “the biggest commitment you’ve ever made”?

Helen: As simple as it might seem, the approach that worked for me was to reflect deeply on the essay question over several weeks. I would recommend applicants do the same and ask themselves what drivers have been behind decisions they’ve made in their career – particularly decisions that have had a major impact or that were different than those others might have made in the same situation.

One thing to note is that some common commitments, e.g., marriage or parenthood, may have driven your decision-making, but also may not necessarily provide insight for the admissions committee about who you are and what you could bring to SOM.

For me, my honest answer is that I made a commitment to myself to be the type of person who other people would want to lead and represent them – that’s a driver behind many of the decisions I make.

Additionally, with respect to writing application essays, don’t forget to give yourself time! I think having a few weeks to reflect on the questions before beginning to write and ideally a week between revisions – with several rounds of revisions – is ideal for ensuring that you are able to fully develop your thinking. This is definitely something you don’t want to procrastinate on!

How did you approach Yale’s video essay component? Any tips for preparing, when the questions vary from applicant to applicant?

Helen: While the questions vary, there are a limited number of questions, and they all are along similar lines – essentially, they cover things you have likely already reflected on in the course of your business school application process. And they’re often interesting and fun (e.g., what course would you teach at Yale SOM if you could teach one?).

The video essay platform allows you to practice an unlimited number of times, so give yourself time to get comfortable with the system and practice similar questions. Most importantly, this will allow you to get a sense of what the 90-second time limit feels like – that can honestly be the hardest part of structuring your answer!

What was the greatest weakness in your admissions profile? What steps did you take to ensure you submitted your strongest application?

Helen: As an international studies/political science major who had not worked in a quant-heavy field prior to business school, I knew my lack of demonstrated quantitative ability might be a stumbling block in the admissions process. I took a calculus course through UCLA to supplement my application and focused on performing well on the quant section of the GMAT.

If this sounds familiar, know you’re not alone – it’s a very common concern among applicants to top schools, and now, entering my second year at SOM, I feel confident that my quantitative skills were well-matched to the difficulty of the curriculum.

Once school started, what surprised you most about the program?

Helen: I was surprised by the degree of freedom I had to shape my own experience in the program, especially after the first semester (which largely consists of required core classes). Students at SOM have so many options to choose from in terms of electives, travel opportunities, extracurriculars and of course, internships. This can be awesome, of course, but it’s really helpful to have clarity on your personal priorities so you can take advantage of these opportunities in a focused and productive way.

Listen to our podcast interview with Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at Yale School of Management:

Yale MBA: The Inside Scoop on The Essay, Videos & Behavioral Assessment [Episode 338]

What is it like living in New Haven? What options are available for housing, transportation, and entertainment?

Helen: I love New Haven! Having lived in New York for four years before school, I thought moving to a smaller city would be challenging, but it’s actually been awesome. Most SOM students live in East Rock, the neighborhood adjacent to the SOM building, and it’s a beautiful area with Victorian homes, neighborhood cafes and shops and a park with great running and hiking trails. Many students rent apartments in East Rock, with some also renting in other areas of New Haven. While having a car can be helpful, it’s not necessary and there are many transit options including rideshare, owning a bike or using the New Haven bikeshare program, walking, or taking the New Haven or Yale bus services.

There are also great options for entertainment, both through Yale (Yale Repertory Theatre, Yale Cabaret and world-class museums) and outside of Yale (Shubert Theater, lots of outdoors recreation and great food – including New Haven’s famous pizza). SOM’s favorite entertainment option is definitely Gryphon’s Pub, a graduate student bar owned and operated by the university and offering free beers on Thursdays!

I understand you hold a BA in international studies. How has your undergraduate background helped shape your MBA goals?

Helen: At my undergraduate program, international studies is a major within the political science department with additional focus on international relations, foreign policy and a foreign language. I chose this path to optimize for the global nature of society and business in today’s world – I wanted to learn how to understand and analyze the international perspective in policymaking. Doing so led me to study for a semester at the American University in Cairo and take a role in an organization working on U.S. foreign policy in my first job after college. That global perspective has continued to be important to me, and was one of the reasons I was interested in SOM, which has many international programs and a high proportion of international students. While at SOM, I’ve been to Mexico City with classmates and to South Africa as part of an International Experience course – it’s been really cool to be in another internationally-focused program!

What does it mean to be a Forte fellow? What are the criteria for selection, and what are the responsibilities and benefits involved?

Helen: Forte Fellows are women at SOM (and other business schools) who have received merit-based scholarships. Criteria vary by program, but generally receiving a scholarship is indicative of the overall quality of your MBA application – there is no separate application. There are no ongoing responsibilities for fellows at SOM, but there are some benefits, including being able to attend the Forte conference the summer before matriculation at a reduced cost. I had an amazing time at this conference and formed a really strong bond with the other women from SOM who participated – they’re still some of my best friends at school!

Separate from the Forte Fellowship at SOM, I also participated in another Forte program, MBALaunch, several years before applying to SOM. While participating in MBALaunch doesn’t directly impact selection for a Forte fellowship, SOM and other programs do offer application fee waivers for MBALaunch participants. I’d highly recommend this program to any women interested in business school, especially those who are coming from nontraditional backgrounds, i.e. not working at companies or part of networks that provide a high level of support for the MBA application process.

What is Representation 2.0? When and why did you start this venture?

Helen: Representation 2.0 is a nonprofit focused on equipping undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds to run for elected office. Our team’s mission is to improve government effectiveness and voters’ trust in government by improving the extent to which elected leaders demographically represent their communities.

Studies show that when people not traditionally represented in elected office are asked to consider running for such roles, they often write off this idea early in their careers because of a lack of information, interest and/or confidence. As a result, they are less willing to reconsider running for office later in life.

To combat this, Representation 2.0 has created a workshop curriculum and suite of resources to increase student leaders’ confidence in their abilities and interest in public service, and help them take the next steps toward running for office. We ran a successful and effective pilot workshop in April 2019 with ten students from local Connecticut universities.

Participants said the training helped them feel “empowered and inspired” and gave them “a much more positive perception about running for office.” In the next year, we plan to host more workshops, including one in the New York market, and secure initial funding from foundations and individual donors to help us continue to scale.

I started this venture in summer 2018 after developing the idea with friends and mentors for a few years. Looking at today’s political landscape, I saw that while we’re making progress toward better demographic representation, progress has actually plateaued in some dimensions. And while many groups are working to recruit diverse mid-career candidates to run for office, they observe that the bench of potential candidates is not deep – i.e. while more underrepresented people are being elected, there still aren’t enough underrepresented people willing to run in the first place to ensure we can reach demographic parity.

I’ve worked in political organizing with college students, as well as for organizations like Girls Who Code focused on providing resources to underrepresented groups. I decided to apply my experience in that work to reaching underrepresented students early in their careers and not only inspiring and equipping them to run for office, but also providing them with a broad and diverse support network of other who can identify with their experiences.

I’m really excited to see the outcomes from our next workshops and to continue expanding over the next year!

How are Yale SOM students recruited for summer internships?

Helen: As far as I know, the internship recruitment process at SOM is pretty similar to the process at other top 10/15 business schools. There are essentially two categories of internships students consider – those that use formal recruiting processes and those that don’t. Internships with formal/structured recruiting processes include investment banking, consulting, some Fortune 500 general management roles, and some roles with tech companies. Internships with less formal processes include those with startups, social- or public-sector organizations, and VC, PE or impact investing firms. The formal recruiting processes mostly happen between September and March of the first year of the program, and informal processes can happen at any time but are more concentrated in spring of the first year, as these companies often don’t have certainty about their capacity to host interns until closer to the summer.

These two categories also require somewhat different approaches. Formal processes require you to follow a pretty strict rulebook, which career clubs (e.g., Finance Club, Consulting Club) run by second-years and the career development office will help you understand and support you through. Informal processes require you to do a lot of independent research and networking, which we also have campus resources to help with.

Can you share a bit about your internship experience at Deloitte? What does a typical day look like?

Helen: Sure! I had a great experience interning in Deloitte’s Strategy & Operations consulting practice in New York this summer. I was staffed on a financial services strategy project where I had the opportunity to build the financial model behind my team’s recommendations to the client and work closely with senior leaders on both the consulting and client sides.

My project was local, so on a typical day I would work out (run in Central Park, gym, or yoga) before commuting to the client site. My team had regular beginning – and end-of-day calls to align team members working across time zones on key goals for the day, so after our morning call I’d spend the next several hours working with my team and client stakeholders to advance the model or other aspects of our deliverable. I was usually able to also spend a bit of time on internal firm initiatives beyond my project, such as supporting diversity and inclusion work or developing proposals for new projects. I would usually leave the office before 7pm, commute home, and have dinner before doing another hour or two of work prior to our end-of-day check-in. We also had frequent team dinners or happy hours.

I learned so much in my two months at S&O and would recommend the internship to anyone who’s interested in learning more about problem-solving and the consulting “toolkit,” including financial modeling!

If you could send one message to applicants beginning their MBA journeys, what would it be?

Helen: Prioritize! As I mentioned earlier, there are so many options available to you during your MBA and so little time to take advantage of them. As a result, it’s really important to reflect before beginning your program and understand what you most want to get out of this experience. I physically wrote my priorities down and would continue to go back to my list throughout my first year to cross-check my choices against it, which can be tough to do when faced with so many awesome opportunities to learn and get involved in your business school’s community. (Also: always remember to send thank-you notes to people who help you throughout the process – it still matters and can really set you apart, plus it’s the right thing to do!)

Do you have questions for Helen? Questions for us? Do you want to be featured in our next What is Business School Really Like? post? Know someone else who you’d love to see featured? Are there questions you’d like us to ask our students in this series? LET US KNOW!

You can learn more about Helen by connecting with her on LinkedIn.

Are you setting out on your own b-school journey? We can help you reach the finish line! Check out our MBA Admissions Consulting Services to team up with an admissions expert who will help you join the ranks of thousands of Accepted clients who get accepted to their dream schools.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”MBA-SR-MBA-MAZE”]

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

Related Resources:

• Different Dimensions of Diversity, a podcast episode
• Yale Som: Integrated in Its Curriculum, with Its University, and to the World, a podcast episode
• Life at Yale SOM, Google Internship & the Importance of Diversity, a student interview

The post Life at Yale SOM with Goals of Serving the Underrepresented Community 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.

[powerpress]

Interview with Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at Yale School of Management [Show Summary]

Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at Yale School of Management, shares the school’s unique approach to admissions. Yale SOM tries through its application process to gain a 360-degree view of a candidate and is constantly working to refine the formula for admitting the best candidates to Yale.

Bruce DelMonico discusses the unique features of Yale SOM’s curriculum and the value of the Yale MBA [Show Notes]

It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk and introduce Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at Yale School of Management. He has been on the admissions team at Yale since 2004, becoming the Director in 2006 and the Assistant Dean in 2012.

Let’s start with the basics. Can you give me a brief overview of the distinctive elements of Yale SOM’s full-time program? [2:09]

There are three things I would point to. Among U.S. business schools I think we are the most integrated with our home university. Students truly can take advantage of all Yale has to offer and be involved in the whole university community. We are also the most global business school in the U.S., really focused on creating a global mindset. It is built into our curriculum, and with 45% of our students being non-U.S. citizens, that permeates the community. Last, we are the best source of elevated leaders across all regions and sectors. You will get accounting, finance, and marketing just like every business school, but we teach in a different way. It is very interdisciplinary. Your career will not be functionally siloed like the past, so we teach subjects in a way that reflects that. We utilize a lot of raw cases, so even in the classroom students are learning real world skills, since other people will not be making decisions for you in your future jobs.

What’s new at Yale SOM? [5:15]

The biggest thing is we have a new dean who started July 1st. Kerwin Charles joined us from the University of Chicago. He is a labor economist. So far he has had lots of town halls, and has been thoughtful, diligent, and caring about the school and understanding of its mission and values. He is doing a wonderful job of listening and learning at this point, and we are very excited to have him. We also have a new one- year master’s program – an MMS in Asset Management that complements our other one year master’s programs. It takes advantage of being in the hedge fund corridor. With our one-year programs we are building out a portfolio of courses and more advanced curriculum that business school students can take advantage of.

There seems to be increasing interest in deferred admission programs. Yale has one of the older ones. Can you tell us about the Silver Scholars program? What are you looking for in applicants to this program? [10:08]

You start at Yale the fall after you finish college. It is a three-year program including the internship. Student do their first-year, core MBA courses and then do an extended one year internship. They then come back for the second academic year, which is entirely electives. The idea is that students learn what their gaps are during that year, and then can address them with the electives to become a more complete leader. It is more accelerated that most deferred programs, and for us makes more sense in terms of what you are able to accomplish and optimize at certain points in your career. In terms of what we are looking for, the application is the same for non-Silver Scholar applicants. We tend to weight academics and test scores more heavily since they don’t have fulltime work experience. We do look at internships as well, but more as markers for what an applicant is able to accomplish in a limited time and the propensity to lead and take on potential roles. It is important to have some sense of direction career-wise, as well, as there should be some reason to justify choosing the accelerated program.

How do Silver Scholars do in terms of job placement? [13:41]

They get the same jobs as MBAs after they graduate. The internship is more of an analyst position, but by the time they graduate they are getting the same jobs as a non-Silver Scholar.

Is there any flexibility in the one-year internship – can they do it for longer? [15:04]

We are quite flexible with leaves of absence so that is not a problem. It also doesn’t have to be one one-year internship, it could be two six-month internships, four three-month internships, etc.

You have written:

“We put a lot of thought into how our application is constructed. Our guiding principle is to only ask questions that are relevant to evaluating an applicant’s candidacy, and as a result our application tends to be shorter than that of many other schools.
“We also try to get the fullest picture of you possible. “

Can you go into the purpose of some of the different elements of the application? [18:16]

1. the resume,
2. Yale’s single essay,
3. the video component,
4. the behavioral assessment
5. two professional recommendations, and
6. the interview.

We try not to be redundant and to be more three dimensional with our process. We are not just using the written word, but also different modes of information gathering to be more intentional about how we learn things about you.

• The resume speaks to past work experience, the idea being that past performance is predictive of future performance.
• We also ask for transcripts, again with the idea being that it will be predictive of performance here via past academic performance. Every year we do analyze outcomes through regression models to predict success.
• We look at test scores, and accept both the GMAT and GRE.
• We used to have three essays and we are down to one essay now to make space for other elements of the application. The single essay asks to describe your biggest commitment. The idea is that to be successful you need to be action-oriented – what have you done in support of your commitment, what behaviors have you demonstrated.
• We also have video questions, which are three 60-90 second answers. One is about our mission, one is behavioral about the MBA, and one is about thought process. We have a light touch with the video element, but we want to get more of a sense of you beyond the paper application. It came about initially to use instead of the TOEFL, since there were applicants who had high scores but poor spoken English or vice versa. Making this change has made it much more efficient in terms of whom we invite to the interview stage, and has helped operationally as well.

• The behavioral assessment was originally developed by the military and is now owned by ETS (Educational Testing Service) and used for professional development. It is a pilot for ETS and us, and the first time used in a high-stakes context. It is a series of 120 statement pairs and you have to decide which are akin to you. It is adaptive and takes about 20 minutes to complete. It shows behavioral and interpersonal dimensions. The idea is to get a picture of you that is different from any other aspect of the application. We are hoping it is more objective and consistent as opposed to subjective like an essay. The motivation is like with the TOEFL, where while generally predictive, we see plenty of people who score high on the test but can’t speak English well. So, what are other qualities that will help us identify high score underperformers and low score overperformers. The hope is that we can be more open to candidates who have more modest scores and grades, but who will do well in the program.
• Interviews are conducted primarily by students who have not seen the entire application. 1/3 of applicants are interviewed, and about 2/3 of interviewees are admitted. We do recognize it can be subjective so that is not the make or break aspect.
• Recommendations are challenging because we don’t want candidate evaluations to hinge on the recommender’s expansiveness, so we have a structured grid we ask them to use with behavioral cues. We try and control for variables and standardize across recommenders, as we do across all elements of the application.

I want to stress that no single piece of an application will make or break an individual’s candidacy.

For the class of 2021, the middle 80% GMAT range was 680 -760 and the middle 80% GPA ranges was 3.34 – 3.92. The medians were 720 for the GMAT, 330 for the GRE, and 3.66 for the undergrad GPA. What do you look for besides stats? How does one get in with below average stats? [38:30]

We are not looking for one thing, and we do value diversity, which means many different things – race, gender, citizenship, political thoughts, etc. We are interested in putting together a class that is not identical. They can have other things that make them stand out. Essentially, show qualities that we value that would not appear in the academics or testing but speak to the strength of your candidacy in other ways.

Recently there has been a lot of talk about “the sky is falling” with regard to MBA programs, and reached a crescendo with the “Is the MBA Worth It?” article in the WSJ, where their answer was no. How would you address this thinking? [41:51]

The refrain definitely has picked up. I am obviously an interested party, but really feel that the value of the MBA has not diminished. It still has the same benefits to its graduates that it always did. You can look at ROI, and it’s maybe even stronger when you look at how salaries keep going up. There are many things contributing to the decline in applications. For non-U.S. candidates, there are visa issues and the political climates. For U.S. candidates, it is a strong job market, and folks wanting to stay in jobs because of the tight market. Eventually that will change. One other variable is the growth in one-year masters programs – they have taken some people out of the MBA pipeline. To me they are technical degrees and don’t have the same upside, like the learning about being a leader. The MBA gives you choice and flexibility to do whatever you want in a professional context, and I think that is underappreciated still. So yes, application numbers have gone down but I don’t think the value has gone down at all. When conditions change it will return to a different equilibrium. One other aspect is that alumni are overwhelmingly satisfied with their degrees.

What is the biggest challenge applicants face in presenting a compelling case for acceptance? [47:42]

On a macro scale, one is that candidates will try to shape their candidacy based on what the school is known for. “I am the marketing candidate for the marketing school,” for example. There may have been a time when schools were known for one thing, but those days are gone. Every top school is strong in a range of areas and looking for students who are diverse. It makes you look less strong if you try to shade your candidacy to your perception of what the school is interested in. You aren’t differentiating yourself. The other is that you want to put your best foot forward. Those who are successful don’t ignore their weaknesses or run away from them. There is no such thing as a perfect candidate and acknowledging and incorporating weaknesses into your candidacy is helpful – we will see them, so contextualize and address them on your terms as opposed to ours. Doing so also shows self-awareness and humility, which is important. If you ignore them it shows you don’t have perspective and makes other aspects of your candidacy less strong.

What would you have liked me to ask you? [52:33]

I’d turn the question around and ask what is your take on the value of the MBA?

Linda: The irony is I was in the process of writing an article when the Wall Street Journal article came out, but I think my answer would be more nuanced. I am a big fan of the MBA, have one myself, and recognize it has done a lot for me. I do feel that the sticker price is a problem – tuition increases have vastly outpaced inflation. At the same time, I think now is a fantastic time to apply.

Applications are down, which makes it a little easier to get into a top school, and there is less competition for financial aid. Fearing the sticker price means potentially missing out on life changing opportunities. Obivously you need to make a decision based on where you’re at and where you want to go with your career. Then you need to ask “Is the benefit of getting where you want to go worth the cost?” There are some people for whom the MBA isn’t worth it if they don’t get into a certain program, but the idea that the sky is falling and it’s a terrible time is just wrong in my opinion. Again, GMAC data shows overwhelmingly positive responses from alums, and salaries are good. Be thoughtful and purposeful about your MBA decision, and it can be a tremendous benefit to one’s career and life.

Related Links:

• Yale SOM MBA Admissions
• From the Assistant Dean for Admissions: The Philosophy Behind our Approach
• Yale SOM Application Essay Tips and Deadlines
• Life at Yale SOM, Google Internship & the Importance of Diversity
• Accepted MBA Admissions Services

Related Shows:

• Yale SOM: Integrated in Its Curriculum, with Its University, and to the World
• Get a Kellogg MBA: An Interview with Dean of Admissions Kate Smith
• A Bain Consultant-Turned Wharton MBA Starts Her Own Business
• Ida Valentine: Investment Banker, Inspirational Speaker, HBS 2021
• An Interview with Dartmouth Tuck’s Admissions Director, Luke Pena

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”]

The post Yale MBA: The Inside Scoop on The Essay, Videos & Behavioral Assessment [Episode 338] appeared first on Accepted Admissions Blog.