Mayer

mbaMission: Another thing you've been very clear about on your blog is that you don't want to hear from people on the waitlist. But candidates seem to believe that there's some trickery in this, that they can beat down your door in some way, and that this is some sort of test. So can you be unequivocal both in terms of candidate communication and third-party communication about candidates who are on the waitlist?

JJC: Sure. The first thing I'd say is, if you're on the waitlist, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I mean, by definition it means you are admissible. It means you are quite competitive, and it means you're sort of still "in the mix." Right? So your application is still viable, and you're still in the discussion. It's just that we need a little bit more time to see a few more different things, mostly things that are outside the applicant's control, before we can make a final decision one way or the other.
So the first point is, we're very serious when we say we don't want people to contact us. It's not a joke. It's not a test. It's not a trick. We really don't want to hear anything else. And there are really a couple of reasons for that. One is we want to be fair to everyone. Two is the factors we're waiting for have nothing to do with the applicant at that point. They've put their application together, like everybody else, and we are unable yet to make a final decision on their application. And that's almost all about not yet having enough information about things external to the application. So more information about the applicant isn't what's causing our decision not to yet be made. It's that we need more time to see what happens with other things that are outside the application. And that can be around class size. It can be that we need to see what the next round looks like. It could be that we need to see what decisions are made by other applicants.
So, we really don't want more information. It wouldn't be fair-we don't want to allow people to reopen and resubmit materials unless we do that for everybody. And we really don't need any more information at that point. We've decided that you are admissible; we just need a little bit more time to get a little more information before we can make a final decision. And so that's how I would characterize the waitlist situation

Mayer

mbaMission: It seems that Wharton will occasionally offer a deferral that hasn't actually been requested by the applicant. You'll admit someone, not for this class, but for the next class. How frequently does that happen and under what circumstances? Does this happen primarily to candidates who are on the waitlist?

JJC: At least from my time here, I can't really think of a situation where that's happened, but my sense is we would only offer a deferral in response to a request from a student, and we offer them pretty rarely. As I think I've said [elsewhere] before, a deferral is a fairly unique and special situation where you're basically guaranteeing someone a spot in a future class. So we don't take that decision lightly. I can't think of a time where we've ever granted a deferral without someone requesting one first.
And I think the relationship between the waitlist and deferrals is...well, I don't think there is a relationship. I think they're totally independent, separate things. The waitlist is really about the current year. Deferrals are really, to some extent, unique situations for people who've already been admitted. Not waitlisted, but admitted. And for whatever reason-personal, professional-they would prefer not to come in the year they originally intended but would rather wait one more year. To me, those two things are completely disassociated.

mbaMission: Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. So how do you feel when someone says that Wharton is their number one choice? Is that at all credible to you?

JJC: It depends. I would say for the most part, it's not that it's not credible, it's that it falls into the space of maybe an applicant telling us what they think we want to hear. Now I do think there are applicants who tell us that we're their first choice, and then they have a lot to back it up with, either because of people they know or things they've done, or because they have a specific interest that aligns with something here. I mean, sometimes that's credible. I think people tell us that because they think we're concerned about our yield. They think that I'm trying to manage the yield, and to be perfectly honest, that doesn't factor in at all.
I think for us, the rankings and the yield percentages and all of that, they kind of all matter in a big sense in terms of our brand and our reputation. But we've been doing this a long time, and we've been innovative for many years, in all parts of our program. And I think our brand and our reputation are quite strong. Plus, the rankings can sometimes be volatile; the methodologies are not always perfectly transparent. So to the extent that people think that telling me Wharton is their first choice because they think that is going to help me manage some statistics for a ranking or a poll, that's completely false. It just does not factor in. If they're trying to tell me Wharton's their first choice because they're trying to communicate their passion for the school to me, then sometimes that can be credible.

Mayer

mbaMission: I see. Okay, last question. What can you tell us about the summer and full-time job searches? I know you're not in charge of career services, but do you have anything to share on the topic? How do you think students have been faring

JJC: I talk to a lot of students anecdotally, and I work very closely with my counterpart in career management. As I mentioned before, employers are an extremely important constituent, and I think at the end of the day, students come [to business school] in part because they want to make their careers better and, for a variety of reasons, they've hit a certain point in their lives and their careers and are using this as an opportunity to invest in themselves, to either do something different or new or to move more quickly, or to make a difference in a different part of the world or some sector. So I'm very interested in and follow as closely as I can the employment trends.
Most of what I can tell you is anecdotal from having talked to students, and my sense is that our students are doing quite well. I think there are fewer jobs. I think the jobs that are there in the traditional spaces are more competitive. And I think that there are fewer jobs in the traditional spaces. So what I hear from students is they're looking at things they didn't originally think they'd be looking at when they applied. I hear a lot from students thinking about entrepreneurial pursuits, either [joining] small businesses that exist today or starting a business of their own, or higher growth businesses that they're trying to break into that may not have been on the radar screen before. I see a lot of people looking at different industries that they had not originally considered.
I think people are much more prepared and concerned and are spending their time more wisely. They're not throwing all their resumes out there and hoping one stick. They're being much more disciplined about what they want to pursue and what they're passionate about. And I think people are being a lot more flexible about the macro trends and trying to sort of rethink and recalibrate both short-term expectations and short-term priorities. But with all that, my sense is that our students are doing quite well. And I think that speaks partly to the school, partly to our students, partly to our alumni, and partly to our career management office. And the combination of our brand and the students who come here-they're resilient, they're smart, they're disciplined, they're creative. You combine that kind of person with the resources and the alumni base, and you have groups of people who are very up to speed on what's happening in different parts of the economy and are trying to make this challenging situation an advantage, and playing to their strengths and to the school's strengths as well.
So mostly what I'm hearing is what I think you would call cautious optimism. But in some ways, we're talking about this sort of crisis being an opportunity that's too good to waste, that there's a flight to quality, that brand matters, that this is a time when people can really leverage their capabilities and play to their strengths. So that's the anecdotal answer. I don't have data, but we've lived through downturns before. We had one earlier; in the last decade, in the early part of the last decade, we experienced a downturn. And so we're looking very carefully at what happened during that downturn, what happened afterward, the data and statistics, in terms of jobs. Tactics we deployed to manage through that downturn. So we certainly have lived through this type of environment before and feel good that we will continue to make headway through this one as well.

Mayer

mbaMission: Great. Is there anything else that we didn't cover that you feel you would like to communicate to the people who will read this interview?

JJC: My only final thought is I would encourage people to apply. I think you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right?

mbaMission: Right.

JJC: I think people sometimes choose not to apply to Wharton because they think, you know, we're this kind of school or we're that kind of school. Or that we want people who are this age or that age, or this gender or that gender, or this country or that country, or this industry or that industry. And what I'd like to do is encourage people to apply. I can't admit someone if they don't apply, and there's no way of knowing if you don't apply. I'm always trying to encourage people who think of themselves as different, or think they don't fit the profile, or think that they're not a Wharton person. I always encourage those people to apply. And so I would just like to encourage people, when they're thinking through the process, to consider Wharton and to apply, and let the process and the system take over from there. And I think it's a great time to go back to business school. I think it's a great time to be at Wharton, so I'm looking forward to seeing great applications this year and in the years to come.

mbaMission: Great, great. Thank you so much, JJ. You've been really generous with your time, and I really appreciate it.

JJC: No problem!