2012 Yale SOM MBA Admissions Q&A with Bruce DelMonico

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Linda Abraham: Hello. My name is Linda Abraham. I am the founder of Accepted.com and the moderator of today’s Q&A. First I want to welcome all applicants to the Q&A today, and I want to congratulate you for taking the time to learn more about Yale’s MBA program. As you know, fit is one of the things you really want to be able to bring out in your applications, and one of the best ways to show fit with a program is to know something about the school. You can’t show why you belong there if you know nothing about it. I’m sure that Bruce DelMonico is going to have lots of valuable information to share with you so that you can better demonstrate that fit. If you are not yet at the point of filling out an application, you will be able to decide whether Yale is a good fit for you. So I want to congratulate you for being here.

I want to give a special welcome to Bruce DelMonico, Director of Admissions at Yale School of Management. Thanks to everyone for joining.

I’m going to take advantage of my position as moderator and ask the first question. Bruce, what’s new at Yale SOM?

Bruce DelMonico: Thank you so much for inviting me and for having me for today’s session. I always look forward to it. So what is new at the Yale SOM? There is a lot going on right now, but I’ll try to be brief because I know you probably have a lot of questions, and I’m happy to follow up in greater detail on any particular component. We have a few things. We actually have a new dean, Ted Snyder, who started on July 1st. He joined us most recently from Chicago Booth. He was the dean there for ten years, took a one year sabbatical, and now he is here on campus at Yale, and we are thrilled to have him. He’s been fantastic. Even in his short time here, we can tell why he is widely regarded as the best business school dean out there, and we are really happy to have him.

I can talk a little about his priorities and what he is looking to do to the extent that we’ve talked about that in the short time that he has been here. But first a few of the things that we have going on. We have a new campus that we are building. It’s going up now; construction is fully underway, slated to be ready for occupancy late in 2013. So for people applying now, they will start at our current facilities, and then at some point in their second year they will transition over to the new facilities at the fantastic building designed by Sir Norman Foster, who is a Yale School of Architecture graduate and world renowned architect. The new building is made of a lot of glass and steel, very modern. It’s going to be interesting on Yale’s very stone, gothic campus to have this very modern building; it will be an interesting counterpoint to a lot of the existing architecture. But it will be a really beautiful facility, and we are really working to structure the classrooms to really optimize our integrated curriculum.

It’s been about five years since we’ve rolled out our integrated core curriculum, but we try to leverage a lot of new technologies, the new pedagogy, in terms of how we teach cases and teach the MBA courses here at Yale. And having this new space will only heighten the effectiveness of that classroom experience. So these are a few of the things that I would highlight in terms of what is going on at Yale right now.

Linda Abraham: I want to ask the people who are here how many of you have decided to apply to Yale SOM? 63% of the people here already know that they want to apply, and I guess the remainder is trying to figure it out. How many of you are planning to apply round 1? 27% are planning to apply round 1. That gives us a sense of where you folks are at.

Kaoru asks, “What changes in the program, if any, can we expect under Dean Snyder’s leadership?”

Bruce DelMonico: That is a great question. We already have a sense of some of the changes that Dean Snyder is looking to implement during his tenure, and I’m sure more will become apparent as the months progress. The one thing I would point out on the outside is that Dean Snyder is not looking to make any radical changes. I don’t think he feels that there is any need for that. I think he understands that there is a lot of momentum already taking place here at Yale. We’re on a very strong upper trajectory, so I don’t think he is looking for anything radical, but I think he is looking to emphasize some things and tighten up a few other things.

One of the key things he is looking to do is to really integrate the School of Management into the rest of Yale and to leverage the Yale University as a resource, even more fully than we do now. We already do that quite a bit.

Linda Abraham: You had told me once that in the second year, you can take all the electives you want at Yale University.

Bruce DelMonico: Exactly. So that is already a way in which we are already very integrated into the university in terms of those electives. And a lot of our students are pursuing joint degree opportunities. About 10% of our students are pursuing formal joint degrees, but even those who aren’t are taking electives elsewhere at the university. So I think that is one example of how things are already integrated.

But programmatically, we’re trying to leverage a lot of the resources that exist at the university in terms of the other professional schools, in terms of Yale College, in terms of faculty, and other things that are happening here on campus; all the speakers that come here on campus, the World Fellows Program which brings some top leaders from around the world here to the school. We just had a reception for that yesterday. Dean Snyder is looking at ways which we can further integrate into the university. I think that can only be a good thing. That is one of his main priorities. Obviously our new campus will continue to be the priority, and that is a change that will happen that is already well underway. Our physical setting will change in a very nice way.

But more importantly, some things won’t change. Our integrated curriculum is something that everyone feels very good about. There will of course be certain tweaks in the margins, but Dean Snyder is very mindful of the fact that that is a real strength of the school and a very distinct feature of the school, and he doesn’t have any plans to make major changes to that, which I think is an important thing.

Linda Abraham: When I visited Yale a couple of years ago, or when talking to students subsequent to that visit, people were really excited about the integrated curriculum which was the first semester. But they were a little frustrated or concerned that the integration wasn’t carried through quite as much for the remainder of the curriculum. Has that changed in the last few years?

Bruce DelMonico: That’s a great question. Obviously the integrated curriculum reflects the core curriculum, which is the first year of the MBA curriculum. Students start to take electives in the spring semester of the first year, but then the second year is entirely electives. The school has been mindful of the fact that there is an interest and a need for some amount of continuation of that integration in the second year. So not all courses follow that integrated curriculum format, but there are electives in the second year that do have that integrated nature.

I could talk more in detail about what that means. That refers to both the way in which it is being taught, and the content that is being taught. It’s looking not just at functionally discrete subject matters like finance and accounting and marketing, but looking at how different functions and different perspectives interrelate. So there is that component of it. There is also the means by which it is taught, which are our signature “raw” cases which are different than cases that are taught elsewhere at other business schools. And so both in terms of that more perspectives-based approach and in terms of the “raw” cases, there are electives that do continue that pedagogy into the second year.

But we also do have other cases that are a little more traditional because the subject matter dictates that. We also have students take electives elsewhere at Yale. Obviously for those courses, they are taught in other departments and are therefore out of our control in terms of the structure.

Linda Abraham: Chengya asks, “Is there any on-campus recruiting for the Yale EMBA program from healthcare companies? Can you describe that? I want to change my healthcare industry focus from research and development to the business side and hope the Yale MBA degree can help me on this transformation.”

Bruce DelMonico: Regarding the EMBA program for healthcare executives, the one caveat I will make at the outset is that that it is run out of a different office than my office, so I don’t have as detailed, first-hand knowledge about the EMBA program. But I can say that obviously for our full-time program, we have a full-service Career Development Office. For the EMBA, the career development process tends to be a little bit different, partly because of the size and the scale of the program. It’s about a tenth the size of the full-time program; it’s about 22-23 students, as opposed to 230 for the full time program. But also because of the stage in which the students are coming in -- they are further along in their career -- so they are doing a little bit of a different career development search, they’re doing a different job search.

Because of the size of the class and that scale issue, my understanding is that the job search is much more customized and individualized. That’s just due to the fact that we are not looking at placing large numbers of people with any particular employer, but it is much more individualized to that specific student. Obviously, everybody who goes through that program gets a lot of personal attention, and they do use that degree to make that kind of transition that you are talking about in terms of, for example, going from R&D to the business side or going from product development for example, which would be R&D to strategy on the corporate side. So I think that is not an atypical progression for someone in the EMBA program.

Linda Abraham: Sanaa asks, “Can you talk about the strength of the relationship that the career placement office has with consulting firms, focused on the non-profit or public sector, such as Bridgespan Group or Dalberg? What opportunities does Yale provide to transition to a consulting career focused on the non-profit sector?”

Bruce DelMonico: We have a lot of students who are interested in the not for profit sector generally; about 10% of our students up going into non-profit management directly when they graduate. Obviously other areas like finance and consulting are larger in terms of representation of the class, but for business schools, that is actually a very high number. Bridgespan is one of the firms that most people think of first and foremost, and we do have a relationship with them. We have two students who graduated this past spring in the class of 2011 who are working at Bridgespan now. And we do have other graduates who are doing, for example, public sector consulting at Booz, especially down in D.C., and students who are doing non-profit or public sector consulting at one of the large strategy firms like Bain, McKinsey or BCG; they often have non-profit or public consulting firms there, so we have students who go do that.

And then there are other types of not formal consulting, but sort of advising to non-profits. For example, Cambridge Associates with which we have a very strong relationship, including with the CEO who is an alumnus of Yale SOM, they do management for non-profits. We have a strong relationship with firms like Acumen Fund. There are a number of other entities in various spaces, even in the education space – education pioneers -- that we have a strong relationship with. Beyond Bridgespan, there are a lot of opportunities for students in the non-profit space, including when it comes to consulting or advising of non-profits.

Linda Abraham: Ashley asks, “Are there any downsides towards submitting a good GRE score as opposed to a GMAT?”

Bruce DelMonico: That is a question we get a lot. And I can definitely say unequivocally that there is no downside to submitting a good GRE score as opposed to a GMAT score. We accept both exams and we consider them equally, so we don’t favor one over the other. Fortunately, I can back that up with statistics. I know we do our retrospective analysis every year, and this is the third year that we have accepted the GRE. And the admission rate for students who submit the GRE is the same as those who submit the GMAT. So that is a nice independent validation of the fact that we don’t prefer one over the other and that there is no downside to submitting the GRE.

Linda Abraham: When you look at the GRE, are you also looking at the percentile scores?

Bruce DelMonico: We do for both the GRE and the GMAT. We look at the percentiles as opposed to the raw scores as a way to calibrate and get a sense of where that score ranks. And the GRE’s scale is a little bit different because the profiles of the test-takers are a little bit different, even though the content of the test has to be roughly the same. So if you look at our averages, our average GMAT is 720. And then when you break it down to the quantitative and the verbal, the percentiles tend to be in the eightieth percentile in the quantitative and a little bit higher in the verbal. It is skewed a little bit differently for the GRE just because the test-taking population is a little bit different. But we look at them equally, and we have a sense of how each test is calibrated slightly differently.

Linda Abraham: Daniel asks, “In research, I have found that Yale SOM appears to focus on the energy industry more than other top programs. Do you agree? Do you foresee continued interest in energy and even clean tech at Yale SOM?”

Bruce DelMonico: I think that is right. Obviously I don’t know that much information about other programs, and I don’t like to compare us to other programs and talk in those terms, but I do know that there is a lot of activity in the energy space here at Yale. I think there are a few reasons for that. There has definitely been an uptick in interest amongst students in energy and environmental management, especially clean tech, as you mentioned. We have a number of prominent alums who are doing some interesting work at clean tech companies and some start-ups, and even at some large traditional energy companies like BP or Exxon Mobil. And they are working on strategy and looking at the mixture of, for example, fossil fuels versus clean tech at those companies. So part of it is interest and demand, and also our alumni network. And I think some of it is the fact that we are actually rather unique. We are not alone; there are other schools to do this, but we are rather unique in the fact that we have a really strong Forestry School, a school on environmental management, that really works very closely with SOM curricularly and co-curricularly, and in terms of career opportunities. So I think that does really help coalesce and energize students who are interested in environmental management, including energy and other types of areas.

Linda Abraham: You and I had talked months ago about Yale’s strength in general and sustainable development. Is this kind of connected and related?

Bruce DelMonico: I think that’s right. I think sustainability more broadly is an area of focus. For a lot of Yale students, even if they are not going into environmental management or energy, the whole idea of sustainability is really a thread that runs throughout the school for people who are going into a whole range of areas. So I think that is obviously an important consideration just generally in business and society today, to paraphrase our mission statement. And what is nice, just to loop back to the Forestry School, I think that part of the reason why that connection is so strong is because philosophically and intellectually there are similarities between the schools. But also physically, it is the closest school to us; it is right across the street. So I think there is just a lot of cross collimation just as a result of that proximity. There are a lot of Forestry School students at Yale SOM, and a lot of our students are at the Forestry School taking classes and just interacting, which I think is a great thing.

Linda Abraham: On a related note, Mitesh asks, “How is the alumni network with Yale, and are there any major oil companies that come for internship placements?” I guess he is talking about the alumni network specifically in the energy industry, and you touched on that in your response to Daniel’s question.

Bruce DelMonico: I did touch on that. I can talk about the alumni network generally, and then I can talk a little bit about the energy sector and the oil sector specifically. We do have alumni in the oil sector. Obviously it is most heavily concentrated in Houston, but not exclusively so. I mentioned Exxon Mobil, and you can think of Conoco Phillips or any big players in the oil space. But also internationally. The BP reference I made before was to one of our more recent graduates actually who is working at BP in London doing strategy for them and thinking high level about their mix of energy between oil, wind, and other clean tech. There are pretty broad opportunities, both because of the alumni network and also just because we are Yale and a lot of companies want to hire here.

In terms of the alumni network generally, I hear from students and from the Career Development Office that one of the signature aspects or features of the alumni network is just the strength of the network in terms of the enthusiasm of the alumni. We are a small school and we are a new school so when you think in terms of absolute in numbers, we don’t have as many living alumni as a lot of other programs, which at first blush people with think is a negative. But what I’ve been told is that it actually is a positive in the sense that first of all, it’s a small, close-knit community here. People have a very intense experience here and that enthusiasm carries forward into the alumni network. But it’s also the case that because the school is small, the alumni aren’t bombarded with questions left and right from a thousand or however many students, but they can actually manage a reasonable number of requests and are actually are very responsive because they aren’t bombarded with so many requests. I think that is very accurate in terms of the experience as it has been explained to me from our Career Services and students and alumni themselves.

And then the last point I would make in terms of alumni generally is that the alumni network here at Yale includes not just the Yale SOM alumni network, but the Yale University alumni network. And it includes Yale College graduates, Yale Law School graduates, Medical School graduates, Forestry School graduates, and that is a way to really multiply your network in important ways because there are some fantastic Yale College and Law School and Med School and other graduates who are out there doing amazing things. And to be able to plug into that network, which Yale has some students do in very real and meaningful ways, it can be a huge help. The network is integrated to the point where, for example, on the West Coast, Yale College and the SOM Alumni Association hold joint events together. So it really is an opportunity to magnify and amplify your network.

Linda Abraham: The next few questions are about career change. The first is from Yana who asks, “How does Yale view career switchers? I’m looking to go from banking into high tech. Does Yale provide opportunities to make that transition? Does it have a wide alumni network in high tech?”

Bruce DelMonico: I’ll talk a little about career switchers generally, and then I can talk about that particular switch specifically. I guess there are two aspects to it. One is the admissions component, which I know more intimately, and then there are the resources at Yale and the opportunity once you are on campus to make that switch. Many times people do choose to get the two-year full-time MBA specifically because they are switching careers, and they want and need that additional time to make that transition. Because if you are doing a part-time or a one-year program, you just don’t have the space to make the switch as effectively, and you need that additional year, you need some internship, to really make that transition. So it’s not uncommon for people to use a program like ours as a career pivot to make a switch. We are used to seeing that and we are comfortable with that, both on the admissions side and programmatically once students actually get into the program and begin the program.

And in terms of opportunities to make that transition, we have a full-service Career Development Office that has a range of activities throughout the year to help students understand their opportunities, prepare for their opportunities, and then really design and execute their career search. And a lot of times, it involves a transition to something different than what they thought they were going to transition into when they applied.

I won’t go into too much detail but in terms of banking to high tech, I can say that all the big high tech players recruit here at Yale; Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, EBay, and even smaller places like RealNetworks. So there are opportunities here; there is a lot of recruiting in the high tech space here at Yale. But if you are looking to make that switch, both from the admissions perspective and then as well once you are here in terms of successfully being able to make that transition, if you are coming from a different industry, the thing I would be mindful of is -- what have you done to prepare yourself for that transition? What do you know about the industry you are transitioning into? What background and what skills have you started to build that show that you can make that switch? That is what we are looking for on the admissions side, and certainly on the career side once you are here. It’s great to want to make that switch, but we need to know that you understand what it involves, you are realistic about it, and that you’ve made some key steps to be able to prepare yourself for that transition.

Linda Abraham: I think probably one key element would be transferable skills and knowledge.

Bruce DelMonico: That is exactly right. And a lot of times it’s not really a matter of gaining those skills and knowledge because you have it, but helping recruiters and potential employers understand that you have those skills, that you’ve been able to acquire them in your past experience. But also to the extent that you haven’t been able to in your past work experience, have you been proactive about building your skills set in other ways in terms of your activities, in terms of your professional associations? If it’s going into finance for example, taking a Series 7 exam, a Series 63, or maybe a CFA -- whatever the accrediting test would be to be able to show that you are serious about it and that you are taking the steps, and that you have acquired the knowledge that you would need. Those are the types of things that employers look for.

Linda Abraham: Whitney asks, “Can you talk a bit about the support that students get to line up summer internships, especially for career changers who may not have their own inroads in a certain intended industry?”

Bruce DelMonico: The Career Development Office here at the Yale SOM is very helpful in terms of helping students source their summer internships, especially for career switchers. I’ll do a quick overview of some of the activities that the Career Development Office is involved with. Even from as early as orientation, students will undergo skills assessments and inventories. There is what we call a Reflected Best Self exercise that helps students understand what they are good at, what they like to do, and it helps direct them in terms of a development plan while they are on campus, but also in terms of that career search process. The Career Development Office also gives a series of primaries on various industries, and then throughout the fall of the first year, there is a whole host of activities that include on-campus interview sessions. There are campus visits from companies who come to campus to do corporate presentations, and also off-campus treks to companies in the Northeast, on the West Coast, and elsewhere, even internationally, to get a sense of those companies that tend to be target companies for our students.

In parallel, the Career Development Office works with students to help prepare them for the recruiting process -- working on resume writing, mock interviews -- all the types of things that would go into that process. And then when it gets time to actually devise the plan and execute on the plan, the Career Development Office uses a relationship manager based structure. There are relationship managers who have expertise in all the fields and various industries that MBA students are interested in. Finance, consulting, marketing, non-profit, healthcare, energy, public sector -- you name it; we have relationship managers who cover those areas. And then you would work one-on-one with the relevant relationship manager to devise and execute your internship search, and then the full-time search afterwards, to the extent that there is one. It’s a combination of on-campus recruiting, to the extent that that exists, which is more structured for finance, investment banking, consulting. And then there is also networking with potential employers and alumni.

We actually have an Alumni Mentor Program for the first year students. All first year students get to choose an alumnus who will work with them throughout the first year. That is not just on the career side, but that’s part of it; it’s also academic and has other focuses as well. But those are all things that go into the internship search as far as the school and the Career Development Office are related.

Linda Abraham: Chengya asks, “From your perspective, is the summer internship very important and necessary for the person who doesn’t want to switch to different industries but wants to stay in the same industry with a slightly different focus?”

Bruce DelMonico: Certainly the internship is important for all students. And one thing I would note is that it is a mandatory part of the Yale SOM experience. It is required; all students have to have an internship. And so every year we have 100% internship placement, which means that the Career Development Office and the administration work very hard to make sure that everybody has an opportunity over the summer. For a lot of people, it does involve a career switch so it is a matter of testing out a particular industry or a new industry. For other people, they know what they want to do; they want to stay within that same industry and the MBA is not as much a career pivot as a career accelerator. And it’s a way for them to get from one point within an industry to another, from one point that is a pre-MBA point and jump that hurdle that is otherwise not surmountable without the MBA, or is not as easily surmountable without the MBA. For those students, the summer internship can provide other opportunities. It certainly can help make that transition to a post-MBA career because you will start to take on a post-MBA role, so it can be directly relevant to the industry you want to go into. I can think of a student who graduated recently who was at Pfizer before coming to SOM, and he was doing R&D work; he was a scientist. He came to the SOM and actually used that as a pivot, and now he is doing strategy for Pfizer. So that is a very common thing to do; to be able to use the degree as that career accelerator.

But the point I was getting at is that a lot of students will use the internship to help test out that post-MBA career within the industry. A lot of times, students also use the internship to try something that they don’t think they are going to want to do post-MBA or it’s not really something that they are familiar or comfortable with, but it’s really to experiment a little bit or to try something new. It oftentimes can be in the public sector or non-profit space because they know that that is something they want to be involved with in some capacity, even if it is not their primary job responsibilities, but they do want to try that out. Or maybe it is an industry that they think they might be interested in down the road. So there are different ways to approach that summer internship beyond just sourcing your full-time offer for that first job after graduation, although that is obviously the most common strategy.

Linda Abraham: Sanaa asks, “What is the process followed by the admissions committee in reviewing an application? Any specific qualities that you value in applicants? Do international applicants have an opportunity to interview in person or only via telephone?”

Bruce DelMonico: Let’s start with the review process. Every application that comes to us at the Yale SOM is reviewed twice by different members of the admissions committee. So we have an admissions committee that is comprised of seven individuals. They read all the applications, and each application gets two reviews. And then most applications will come to the full committee for a decision at some point in the process. We operate by a consensus decision-making model, which means that we all have to agree on the outcome for it to stick.

In terms of the interview, that is often part of the process. We don’t interview everybody who applies, but we interview everyone who we plan to admit. And we do invite people to come here to New Haven to interview in person, both domestic and international applicants. So the expectation is to come here to New Haven. We know that that is not always the case, especially if you are overseas. So we do have other possibilities for off-site interviews; either through alumni, or if we have some students who are doing an international exchange program and they might be available to interview while they are doing that program. Sometimes admissions officers, in their travels, will be in your market and can interview you. And we also do some Skype interviews as well. We don’t do telephone interviews; we want to make sure that there is that visual component as well; it’s not just audio. But either in person or through Skype, we will have a way to interview you.

And then in terms of specific qualities that we value in applicants, it’s a great question and it’s a very common question. But it’s also a very tough question because one of the things we value at the Yale SOM is diversity. And especially for a school our size, we have an incredibly diverse student body when you look at the different backgrounds students are coming from, what their interests are, and what their experiences are. On that front, there are no backgrounds that we value any more than any other, or any profiles that we value any more than any other. In terms of the qualities that we value, there are a few things that stick out. We are a small school, a tight-knit community, a mission driven school, with the mission of educating leaders for business and society. So we expect our graduates to go out and be very aspirational in terms of their career goals, and to want to really make a meaningful impact in their organization, in their community, and in the world around them. So we want to bring people in that really have those high aspirations and have that kind of community orientation that they really want to be involved and engaged; I call it “citizen behaviors”. So that is something that we definitely do pay attention to. And then as a part of that, we are really looking for people who are self-starters, proactive, and really take the initiative in terms of the things they are involved in. And we need to see the extent to which you can present those qualities to us in the application. I think that is certainly what puts you in better stead in the process.

Linda Abraham: Mitesh asks, “Can MBA students pursue their research interests, maybe in the second year, even as narrowly as microfinance as an asset class in investment management?” In terms of the more general question, is it feasible for people to pursue specific research interests in the second year?

Bruce DelMonico: We get that question quite a bit. Let me touch on a couple of different ways that it is possible to pursue research interests while you are here in the program. I think you are right to focus on the second year because the first year is so heavily programmed with the core curriculum and other things you are doing that it really tends to be the second year where you are able to pick your head up and broaden yourself a little bit in those ways in pursuing those research interests.

In terms of microfinance specifically, one thing I would point out is that we actually have a course that is called Social Entrepreneurship in India. That is a course that is taught through the Executive Director of our Program on Social Enterprise. It actually involves working closely with social entrepreneurs in India, and actually travelling to India, and sometimes having them come here to help them with their organizations. So that is a really interesting course that we have that’s been quite popular here.

In terms of research opportunities more generally, there are a couple of different things I would point out. First of all, we have a number of different centers of excellence here at Yale; for example, the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance, the International Finance Center, the Yale Center for Customer Insights which has marketing focus. And they are all doing different research projects and different consulting projects with companies and firms. And students are able to help out with those if you’ve expressed interest and show the aptitude. So that is a great way to be able to pursue those interests. It’s also very easy to approach a faculty member and team up with them on their specific research interest and help them with that.

I was actually talking recently with Andrew Metrick who is actually our deputy dean here at the SOM. He came to us from Wharton and has won the teaching award a few times at Wharton and once since he’s been here as well. And he actually was on Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers last year before coming back here. He talks about the fact that there is often much more supply for researchers than there is demand among students. Faculty members are always happy to have students help them out with their research, but it’s a matter of students having the interest and the time to be able to do that. So I think that there are always opportunities there.

One thing I would also emphasize is that there can also be opportunities outside the School of Management to help out if you have a particular interest, for example, in the engineering department or elsewhere at Yale. It is often possible to team up with faculty members there as well.

Linda Abraham: Kunal asks, “Which round is more preferable to apply in? I heard that the class profile is mostly molded in the first round and the number of applicants in round 1 is lower, so the chances are higher in round 1 compared to round 2. Is that true?”

Bruce DelMonico: It’s the age old round 1 versus round 2 question. There is a sense amongst applicants that if you want to get in, your chances are best in round 1; it’s a clean slate and we are looking to take all comers, whatever the thinking is. I think actually this question is very nicely nuanced because it does reflect the fact that there are fewer applicants in round 1 compared to round 2, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that your chances are better in one round versus the other. In fact, we use a three-year running total, and we model our admissions process based on that total to calibrate across both of those two rounds, to make sure the caliber of student we are admitting is equal in each round. So your chances of getting into the Yale SOM are the same in round 2 as in round 1. We do calibrate across the rounds; we do make sure that we are admitting the same quality of students in each of those two rounds.

What I tend to tell applicants is that between those two rounds, there is no difference in terms of your chances of getting admitted. The main difference from the applicant’s standpoint is that if you apply to us in round 1, you will get a decision in December, before the New Year and before most schools’ round 2, so that can very much help with your planning. On the margins, it can be a little bit of a signal to us that you are more interested in Yale if you apply in round 1, but we know that we get the majority of our applicants in round 2 so that is not a huge signal factor.

But the main thing I tend to tell people is that you really should submit your application when you have the strongest application put together. So if you are aiming for round 1 but you need a little extra time for either a recommendation or you want to retake the GMAT or whatever it is, wait and apply round 2. Don’t force an application into an earlier round just for the sake of being in that round. Wait until you have the strongest application prepared.

Linda Abraham: Absolutely. I want to reiterate what Bruce just said from my perspective. Every year I am presented with what can politely be called “mediocre efforts”. And people say – but I want to rush and get it in round 1 because I want that round 1 advantage, which you just heard doesn’t exist at Yale. It makes absolutely no sense to submit less than your best for round 1 when round 2 could be your best. So that’s my two cents on that.

I read just yesterday something in Harvard’s Business Review questioning the MBA value proposition. I’ve seen articles arguing both points; the MBA provides a fantastic ROI, or the MBA’s value depends upon your goals, or the MBA has no value. The economy is doing what it’s doing now, and I just heard that the Dow was down over 300 points. Obviously unemployment is where it is at. On a micro level, how did Yale’s graduates do and what are you seeing in terms of recruiting for this upcoming year for the class of 2012? And how do you advise applicants who are concerned about the MBA value proposition?

Bruce DelMonico: I think those are all great questions. I can start with the placement component first. In the last few years, we’ve held remarkably steady. Business Week in the last couple of years has put out their rankings of MBA placement by MBA program. Two years ago, at the height of recession, we were at 92% which was #1 amongst business schools. And last year, we were also at 92% which was still top ten, so we’ve held remarkable steady. All indications that I’ve heard from the Career Development Office are that hiring for this last class has remained at least on par and maybe is even a little bit ahead of that clip, which is great. And coming into this year, as the CDO is ramping up for the recruiting season, I know they’ve been able to establish some great relationships with some additional companies and firms that we haven’t had on campus in the past. From my sense, the economy has turned a little bit more south very recently. Everything is always subject to change, but my sense is the hiring plans for companies have been pretty strong for this year, and we’ve actually built some additional relationships that will hopefully help our students.

In terms of the value proposition, I think it’s a great question. I was actually talking to my counterpart at Harvard. We were talking a little bit about the job market and the value proposition. I actually did a panel about this issue for the Wall Street Journal, which I think is going to be published next month. Forbes came out most recently with our ROI number showing that it’s three and a half years on average that you get the return on an investment for an MBA.

I will start with the caveat that obviously I am in MBA admissions, so you have to take what I say with a grain of salt! But my view is that an MBA does add value. I think you can make the argument that it is sometimes context specific. You can always identify examples of people who have done remarkably well without the MBA. People will point to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and say that they didn’t have an MBA. And my response is that they don’t have college degrees either.

Linda Abraham: They are also geniuses.

Bruce DelMonico: Right. So there is always the genius exception to every rule. In the panel I did for the Wall Street Journal, there was an individual on the panel who had thought about an MBA and then went and started his own social enterprise. Basically he was an entrepreneur and he looked at it and figured that for the amount of money he would spend on an MBA, he would just want to pour it into that and use it that way and learn by doing. And he said -- if I make a mistake, then that is the value I’ve gotten from learning from that mistake. I got it that way, as opposed to getting the MBA.

Everyone makes their own decisions. I think that was fine for that person in that context at that time. I think if you are looking at whether it is possible to be successful without an MBA, I think that you can. If you are looking at how an MBA will increase your chances of being successful, especially in certain industries like finance or consulting, I think you really need to look hard at what the MBA can do to get you over the ceiling that exists in some industries or to accelerate your career or to help you make the career transition you may not otherwise be able to make. So I think the MBA definitely does open doors and increase opportunities, even for someone like the social entrepreneur who was on this panel who said he’d rather learn by doing and put his money into his enterprises as opposed to an MBA.

A lot of the people who come to Yale have been very successful in the past. And they’ve been guided by their gut, their instincts, and their intuition, and they really want a rigorous, structured framework to be able to know whether what they are doing is right or not. I think the MBA does add that value and it does allow them to be effective when they graduate and go back into the workforce. And even for someone who is an entrepreneur; this person talked about how he has hired MBAs since he has started his business. I think that is an important point. It’s one thing to have that one snapshot of starting something and having two guys in a garage with a bunch of toasters coming up with some new technology. That is one moment in time. But how do you grow that organization? How do you make it sustainable? How do you build it? You need people that know what they are doing. And when it’s just you and your money and you’re okay with that failure, that’s fine. But when you are in charge of profit for a large multi-national corporation or when thousands of jobs are at stake or when the survival of the company itself is at stake, you can’t do trial and error. You need to know what you are doing and what you are talking about. So I think that is where the value of an MBA comes in.

Linda Abraham: Right. I’m actually pretty firmly in the “it depends” category. I support your point Bruce. A certain not insignificant percentage of our clients are failed entrepreneurs. They come from technical backgrounds; they’ve tried something. In the last decade more than recently, they had some idea and they’d sketch it on the back of a napkin. It was great technically, but they didn’t know how to run a business. And that is a very common profile in the applicant pool and also amongst clients. So they clearly felt that they were not going to be like the entrepreneur on the panel or like Bill Gates or like Steve Jobs; they needed the education, they needed the framework. On the other hand, I think there are people who just mindlessly go for an MBA, or they go for the MBA because they hate their job or just because they want the pizzazz and the credibility, or sometimes the network. I actually think going for an MBA just for the network is a terrible idea.

Bruce DelMonico: I agree.

Linda Abraham: There is more to it! There has to be more to it! So if you have a well-thought-out reason for an MBA, if your goal requires the education provided by an MBA, along with the networking benefits, then I think the value proposition is still there. And I think the Forbes numbers support that, the BW numbers support that, there is a lot in the Financial Times; you name it, the data is there. I think if you go for an MBA for the wrong reasons, you are making a mistake.

Bruce DelMonico: I think that is entirely right. And again, I think it is possible to be very successful without an MBA and I think that people do it. I think the issue is what an MBA does to increase your chances to raise that ceiling and really provide those opportunities that might not otherwise exist for a large swath of individuals. And I think you are exactly right that the networking component is one of the ancillary benefits, but it should not be the main reason why you are going to get an MBA. And as you said, you have to have a compelling reason for wanting to get the MBA beyond that you don’t like what you are doing now or you don’t know what you want to do next.

Linda Abraham: Thank you again all for participating today. Special thanks to Bruce DelMonico for joining us today. If you have additional questions for Yale SOM, please email mba.admissions@yale.edu.

We look forward to seeing you at future Q&A and Events. Coming up next:

• London Business School
• UCLA Anderson
• UC Berkeley Haas
• Cornell Johnson
• Duke Fuqua
• Consortium

Once more, thank you Bruce for joining us today. It’s been an excellent session. Best of luck to all with your applications!

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