With second round deadlines approaching at many schools and prospective applicants eager to learn as much as possible about the various MBA programs and their application processes, we’re working hard here at Clear Admit to reach admissions directors at each top program as part of our ongoing Admissions Director Q&A Series. A big thanks to Yale SOM’s Dean of Admissions Bruce Delmonico, who cleared time in his schedule this week to take part.
Delmonico’s answers to our questions about Yale SOM in general and the application process in particular follow. As you’ll see, when asked about exciting developments taking place on campus this year, he had trouble limiting his answer to just one. We think that’s great. The more he wants to share, the better!
Read on to learn about some of the new things in the works in terms of Yale’s curriculum, international exchange opportunities, diversity initiatives, Tony Blair coming to campus, a new dean taking charge and more. You’ll also benefit from Delmonico’s inside tips about how to write winning application essays, and you’ll get a preview of just what happens to your application after you hit “submit.”
Clear Admit: What is the single most exciting development, change, or event happening at Yale SOM this coming year?
Bruce Delmonico: Just one? It’s tough to limit it to a single development, so I may need to take a few liberties here.
At the outset, I think many of the exciting things happening this year at SOM flow from the new core curriculum we rolled out three years ago, in the 2006-2007 academic year. We feel that this new, Yale integrated MBA curriculum really redefines what management education is about by making the learning much more multidisciplinary, much more contextual, and much more real-world than other MBA curricula. Many of the changes happening this year enhance these aspects of the curriculum.
Thus, for example, we instituted a semester-long international exchange program that is being implemented for the first time this year. As part of the exchange program, some Yale SOM students are spending the first semester of their second year at LSE in London, IESE in Barcelona, IIM-Bangalore or Tsinghua University in Beijing, while students from each of those universities are studying here at SOM. (One of the SOM students doing his exchange in Bangalore actually just won India’s prestigious “Numero Uno” award.) We feel this exchange program complements the first-year International Experience trip and further enhances the international focus of the curriculum.
In addition, SOM joined the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management on July 1. The Consortium is one of the premier organizations promoting diversity in American business. Our membership in the Consortium is just one way in which SOM is demonstrating our commitment to diversity. Just as the international exchange program highlights the importance of developing our students’ international perspective, joining the Consortium demonstrates the importance of diversity to the SOM experience.
Beyond these two developments, the one thing that has garnered even more attention this year is Tony Blair’s arrival here on campus as the Howland Fellow at Yale, through which he is teaching a seminar on religion and globalization being offered jointly by SOM and the Yale Divinity School.
This course is just one example – albeit the most prominent one – of the ways in which the various Yale professional schools collaborate to provide our students with a broad, multidisciplinary education. (Beyond Prime Minister Blair, we also have added roughly a dozen new full-time faculty here at SOM, including Gary Gorton and Andrew Metrick, both of whom have recently joined us from Wharton.)
And, of course, perhaps even more exciting than anything else going on is that we have a new dean here at SOM – Sharon Oster, the Frederic D. Wolfe Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship and director of the Yale SOM Program on Social Enterprise. Dean Oster has been at SOM for 26 years and knows the school inside-out.
In terms of her priorities as dean, I would call them the “Three C’s”: curriculum, campus and community. Specifically, she is committed to: (1) continuing the great work that has been done so far with the new curriculum; (2) ensuring that the new SOM campus stays on track to open in the 2011-2012 timeframe; and (3) fostering the SOM community, particularly by strengthening the connections between faculty and students. Everyone here at SOM is excited to have her as dean.
Sorry about the lengthy response – there’s a lot happening at SOM that I wanted to make sure I captured.
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.).
BD: After an applicant submits an application, we make sure it is complete by adding to it any supplemental materials that were submitted separately. Once complete, it is then sent out to read. Each application receives two independent reads by different members of the Admissions Committee.
Applications are read in random order and, as a result, applicants can be invited to interview at any time in the round. Applicants also can be invited to interview at any point in the admissions process – whether early in the round after a preliminary review of the file or later in the round after a first or second read (or, in some instances, after coming before the Admissions Committee). Typically, we will invite roughly a third of applicants to interview and will extend offers to roughly 40 percent of the people we interview.
Once an application receives two reads and, if applicable, an interview, it comes to the Admissions Committee for a decision. The Admissions Committee meets regularly throughout the year to make decisions.
Admissions decisions are made collectively by the Admissions Committee using a consensus decision-making model – all members of the committee must agree on the decision.
Although we try to release decisions as soon as possible and will release some decisions before the posted decision deadline, the majority of candidates will learn the outcome of their application on or a little before the deadline date. Because applications are reviewed in random order, the timing of an admissions decision is not an indication of the final outcome.
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?
BD: The essay portion of the application is an important one because other than the interview, it is the one way through which an applicant can speak directly to us. It is also the one element over which an applicant has the most control at this point – their GMAT and undergraduate records are already in place by the time they apply, as is their work experience. And once they select their recommenders and send them the recommendation form, that is out of the applicant’s hands as well. So the essays are the main way in which applicants can improve their application.
The main piece of advice I can give applicants on essays is very simple: answer the question. Too often, we will read essays in which the applicant has something to say, but it bears no relation – or just tangential relation – to the essay question. We give applicants a good bit of leeway in terms of essay topics, but we do expect them to stick to the topic.
A related piece of advice is not just to answer the question, but to do it clearly and concisely. Pay attention to the word limits and stick to them. Don’t feel as though more is better. Beyond the substance of what you write, we are looking to make sure you can articulate yourself clearly and directly in writing, so keeping it simple is a good thing.
Finally, the last piece of advice I can give is to write what’s important to you. Many times, applicants will write what they think we want to hear. It’s clear when this is the case. We care about authenticity and are not looking for you to tell us what you think we want to hear; we want to hear what’s most important to you. If you write about what matters to you, your essays will not only be more compelling, but they will likely be written more clearly as well because it’s easier to write about things that matter to you.
