Anderson School of Management
Founded in 1935, the Anderson School of Management is one of 11 professional schools at UCLA. The top-tier program offers full time, part time, and executive MBA programs, as well as doctoral programs in seven major fields and executive-education courses.
The business school campus consists of six buildings, each focused on a specific aspect of management education, such as entrepreneurial studies, finance and investments, and real estate. Construction began in l987 with a founding gift from John E. Anderson, class of 1940, and was completed in 1995.
With the campus situated in Los Angeles' Westwood neighborhood, Anderson students can access bountiful commercial and cultural activities. The Greater Los Angeles Area hosts companies dedicated to aerospace, biotech, finance, consulting, and media and entertainment, as well as a hub of small businesses and entrepreneurs. Students polled in a recent Bloomberg Businessweek survey say UCLA Anderson is a good match for anyone looking to start a career in Southern California.
Photos provided by UCLA Anderson. Caption information provided by the school and Bloomberg Businessweek research.
Application and Admissions
In a typical year, UCLA Anderson receives more than 3,000 applications for the 21-month-long MBA program set in the six-building complex pictured above. About 25 percent of those applicants are accepted and about half of the admitted applicants enroll to make up an incoming class of around 360 students. The average GMAT score among incoming classes in recent years is above 700. Tuition for the entire program is about $70,000. The number of full-time MBA students is about 700 and the total number of MBAs in all programs is about 2,000.
UCLA Anderson employs about 140 faculty members, half of whom have tenure. Most instructors have real-world experience that they integrate into teaching. For instance, the Anderson faculty includes four former presidents of the American Finance Assn. and a former global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble (PG), Jim Stengel. "I found the caliber of the faculty and students at Anderson to be outstanding," said a student surveyed by Bloomberg Businessweek. "At the same time, everyone I interacted with was truly warm and unpretentious."
Anderson has endowed chairs for faculty members with particular global interests and expertise. For example, Richard Roll serves as the Japan alumni chair in finance and Sebastian Edwards serves as the Henry Ford II chair in international management.
Each of the six buildings on Anderson's campus serves as a center that focuses on a specific part of the MBA program. The centers support faculty research, sponsor conferences and extracurricular activities, and offer a variety of interdisciplinary courses for continuing education. Research centers include the UCLA Anderson Forecast, the Entertainment & Media Management Institute, the Center for International Business Education & Research, the Harold & Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, the Richard S. Ziman Center for Real Estate, and the Laurence & Lori Fink Center for Finance & Investments.
Roughly a third of each incoming MBA class is international, with a total of 52 countries represented. About a third of the class is female. The average age is 28 and the typical student arrives with about five years of work experience.
To offer students a more global learning experience, the school has initiated several programs that include: a dual MBA degree with the National University of Singapore; international field study projects; international exchange programs with 47 affiliates; and the Global Business Leadership Competition, a two-day case competition featuring MBA students from 16 top business schools from around the world.
The student-run Knapp Venture Competition, now in its 28th year, is hosted at Anderson by the Harold & Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and the Entrepreneur Assn. The competition is designed to teach MBA students about starting and funding a new business. Student teams compete by presenting written business plans to a panel of judges drawn from Los Angeles-based venture capitalists, angel investors, and entrepreneurs.
In recognition of the late, legendary UCLA basketball coach and inspirational leader John Wooden, Anderson annually awards the John Wooden Global Leadership Award to an exceptional leader for his or her exemplary leadership and service to the community. Pictured above is the 2008 recipient, Starbucks (SBUX) Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz, with Coach Wooden. Wooden, who led UCLA to seven national championships and 10 titles in his last 12 years as head coach, died on June 4, 2010.
Anderson created the Leaders in Sustainability Program for students hoping to combine interests in sustainability and business. Students are pictured here at the student-organized California Clean Innovation (CACI) conference. CACI is dedicated to exploring innovations in clean technology by showcasing the latest ideas of companies in the business, policy, and technology sectors.
Anderson's largest charitable endeavor is participating in Challenge for Charity (C4C), a nonprofit organization that recruits MBAs from nine West Coast schools to support local charities. Students raise money and volunteer time for two local charities: LA Works and Special Olympics. For the second consecutive year, UCLA Anderson has won the Golden Briefcase, a coveted award that goes to the business school that achieves the best scores in fundraising, volunteerism, and (pictured) an annual Sports Weekend held at Stanford University.
The Applied Management Research Program for full-time MBAs, the Global Access Program for fully employed MBAs, and the Strategic Management Research Program for executive MBAs are required projects in which faculty-advised student teams complete strategic field-consulting projects for companies or organizations. The students pictured above visited Nairobi health clinics to help improve management in African health care.
Anderson hosts distinguished speakers throughout the school year, featuring a variety of high-profile business, government, and community leaders who address the Anderson community on current topics of interest. Recent speakers include Executive Vice-President of American Express (AXP) Joan Amble, Chairman and CEO of FedEx (FDX) Frederick Smith, and Kim Campbell, former Prime Minster of Canada.
Anderson offers students more than 30 extracurricular activities to choose among. Some of the most popular student clubs include the Outdoor Adventure Business Assn., Performing Arts Club, John Anderson Golf & Country Club, and the Salsa Club. Spouses, partners, and significant others are invited to participate alongside students during social events.
The Rosenfeld Library (pictured above) is designed to facilitate research, information fluency, communication, and collaboration. In the fall of 2008, the library doubled the number of group workrooms to meet the needs of the students. The library now includes 20 new group pods and multipurpose boardrooms with plasma displays, audio and videoconferencing, electronic whiteboards, and DVD recording-and-playback devices.
The Parker Career Management Center at UCLA focuses on helping students define career objectives, identify resources, hone interviewing skills, and make critical networking connections. The center organizes career workshops, offers career counseling, and hosts alumni networking events. Each year approximately 300 companies from across the nation visit to recruit on campus. Pictured above is a recent career fair. Top recruiters such as McKinsey & Co., Deloitte Consulting, and Credit Suisse (CS) routinely visit the school to meet the next class of graduates.
In recent years, about 60 percent of Anderson's MBA graduates received a job offer by graduation and an additional 20 percent received an offer within three months. The average salary for the most recently employed was just below $100,000.