Tuck School of Business——Admissions Director Q&A

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In our continuing series of interviews with admissions directors at each of the top business schools, we spoke most recently to Dawna Clarke, director of admissions at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.

Clarke joined Tuck’s admissions staff as director in 2005. Prior to coming to Tuck, she spent 15 years in the admissions office at the University of Virginia’s Darden School, including five years as admissions director there. Before Darden, she also served as associate director of admissions at University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler.

In the interview that follows, she has interesting information to share about a new initiative called Tuck 2012, as well as some useful dos and don’ts for application essays.

Clear Admit: What’s the single most exciting development, change or event happening at Tuck this coming year?

Dawna Clarke: One of the initiatives that has been introduced this year at Tuck is a new program called Tuck 2012. One of the goals for the school is to provide the world’s best business education.

Tuck’s philosophy of business education is highly personalized and our targeted class size is 240. One of the underlying beliefs of Tuck is that the quality of student-faculty interaction is greatly enhanced by having such a personal scale. And one of the initiatives to be implemented this year is the opportunity for students to take specialized courses with Tuck faculty who are experts in their chosen career fields.

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We are increasing the faculty by about 10 but maintaining the student body size, and we are introducing new research-to-practice seminars as elective courses. One of our goals is to have the most small-scale courses – with the highest percentage of them taught by full professors – of any business school.

The new research-to-practice seminars will offer students an opportunity to take a deep dive into a specific managerially relevant topic. They will be research based with a seminar format and quite small. We are really going to be differentiated in terms of the access to faculty expertise.

Another element of Tuck 2012 is that we have introduced a new class on personal leadership. It’s a required class that ensures that leadership development it an ongoing process for Tuck students.

A third element of Tuck 2012 is the goal of globalizing the program to a greater extent. There have been great strides in terms of increasing the amount of global content throughout the curriculum. We have both looked at ways to enhance existing classes and added new classes that are focused on global issues and specific global regions.

We also have expanded opportunities for students to develop a global perspective outside of the classroom. We now offer a greater variety of one- to two-week tours and treks that allow and encourage Tuck students to travel to other parts of the world. An annual case competition at Tuck also will be introduced on a global issue in conjunction with a corporate sponsor.

The introduction of Tuck 2012 is probably our most exciting addition this year. Of course, it won’t all happen at once. Adding 10 faculty members could take us several years to accomplish. But at least there is a strategy in place that supports these underlying beliefs and philosophy.

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CA: Walk us through the life of an application in your office from an operational standpoint. What happens between the time an applicant clicks ‘submit’ and the time the committee offers a final decision (e.g. how many “reads” does it get, how long is each “read,” who reads it, does the committee convene to discuss it as a group, etc.).

DC: Initially what happens is an application is processed. What that means is that it is put in a folder and we make sure all elements are complete – that both letters of recommendations, GMAT scores, all the various application components are there.

At Tuck, every application is read by two admissions committee members, they are not read by student readers. After each application has been through two thorough reviews, they are all are sent to me for a final decision. In many cases, I am able to make a final admissions decision. However, there are often candidates who present clear strengths as well as areas of concern – in other words, they are “on the border.” It is extremely helpful for us to discuss those candidates as an admissions committee. At the end of each admissions round the committee meets for two to three days to finalize the decisions for that particular round.

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CA: How does your team approach the essay portion of the application specifically? What are you looking for as you read the essays? Are there common mistakes that applicants should try to avoid? One key thing they should keep in mind as they sit down to write them?

DC: I would say – this is going to sound like common sense – but I would encourage applicants to make sure they are answering the question we asked. Sometimes a candidate may be more interested in telling us what’s on their agenda and less interested in answering the question asked. We do offer an optional essay so applicants have the opportunity to articulate an element of their background that is important to them.

I find tangible anecdotes, examples and vignettes to be an effective “vivid” way to articulate a point. So, instead of saying, “I have a global perspective,” applicants might talk about a time they worked abroad or traveled abroad.

Also, I would avoid quotations. We see a fair amount of those. “As Thomas Jefferson said…” that kind of thing. I am more interested in what the applicant thinks and less what other people think.

I would definitely proofread. Do not say in your application, “Here are the three reasons I would be interested in Harvard…” It’s not always Harvard, but it does happen. Proofread.

Finally, before you do the essays, really think about the questions and try to prioritize the most important things you want to convey to the admission committee. Don’t go into unnecessary detail – keep it a little bit more big picture.