This UVA Darden 2011 MBA Application tip post is one of a series of posts providing MBA application and essay advice for applicants to top MBA programs around the world. You can access the entire series at http://blog.accepted.com/acceptedcom_blog/tag/2011-mba-application-tips. My tips for answering Darden’s essay questions are in blue below.

1. The Darden MBA program expects students to actively participate in learning teams, the classroom, and the broader community. Please share one or two examples from your past experience that best illustrate(s) how you will contribute to this highly engaging and hands-on learning environment. (500 words)

Showcase both your knowledge of Darden and your strengths by discussing how you have contributed to organizations or to your community in the past and how you will use the same qualities to contribute to Darden’s community and program.

Like so many essay questions, Darden is asking for one or two example of your contributions in the past. It doesn’t want a theoretical treatise on teamwork or an exposition on the meaning of active participation. It wants one (or two) examples and then commentary on those relate to your anticipated participation in Darden’s student life.

2. Please discuss how a global event that has taken place in the past two years has impacted the way you think about leadership broadly and personally. (500 words)

New question: First you need to refer to an event. The Gulf Oil Spill, the war in Iraq or Afghanstan, the Greek debt crisis, the passage of the U.S. health care bill… the list goes on and on. Have any of these events influenced your thinking about leadership? How did they change or affect your leadership style? What was the impact of the change on you and on those you were leading? All in under 500 words. See “Dealing with Word Limits.”

If you would like help with your Darden MBA application, please consider Accepted’s MBA essay editing, MBA admissions consulting, or a UVA Darden School Package, which provides essay editing, interview coaching, consultation, and a resume editing for the Darden MBA application. And if you purchase before July 31, 2010, to save 10% on all editing and comprehensive packages.

UVA Darden 2011 MBA Application Deadlines

By Linda Abraham, President and Founder of Accepted.com.

Several impressions and take-aways for applicants from the different events and sessions:

MIT Sloan Panels:

From the MIT panels it is clear that MIT is looking for demonstrated success academically and professionally.  The latter translates into success or professional progression that is better than the norm for your peers. In terms of those fuzzy attributes and personal characteristics that schools talk about, Sloan wants to see drive; an ability to build relationships and influence others;  and the establishment, pursuit and achievement of goals.  A few details about the individual programs:

1. 100% of the MFin grads have jobs this year, this program’s inaugural graduating class.
2. The EMBA is a program for those in mid-management with a demonstrated record of success who either want to advance in their career or make a slight career change without leaving their job.  Neither sponsorship nor the GMAT is required. (the latter may be requested if MIT has questions about the applicant’s quant skills.)
3. The LGO program focuses on managing the global production and distribution of goods and services. It is a joint, quant-heavy 24-month program between MIT Sloan and MIT’s School of Engineering. Participants earn both an MBA and an MS in Engineering.

We also heard two presentations by MIT Sloan professors. If you have any doubt that MIT Sloan is serious about innovation and global reach, abandon them. The creativity and global impact evident in just these two hours would force you to reshape your views.

Impressions from Conference Day 2 (Multiple presentations by various schools reps)

• Schools and admissions committee members look at different elements when they evaluate an application.  Pay attention to the nuances.
• Your informal and personally identifiable interactions with school admissions personnel are highly revealing. They COUNT! Arrogance at any point in time is a death knell for your application (and most relationships too.) Rudeness to a receptionist is a ding. What qualities impress positively? In your essays and interviews, reveal dignity, generosity of spirit, self-awareness, authenticity, and consideration of others. These qualities cannot be faked or “spun.”
• Regarding financial aid, merit aid tends to go to the top X% based on academic stats. Generally, when evaluating fellowship essays, the readers do not refer to your application essays. Poor credit can prevent you from obtaining the loans necessary for you to attend the school of your dreams if merit aid and your resources don’t cover the tab; get your credit in order before you apply.
• Regarding career development, the MBA employment picture improved throughout 2009-10. Read the employment reports for schools before you decide to apply and certainly before you decide to attend; you need to know school strengths as revealed in these reports. Understand the role of the career services staff (educating students about effective career planning and job search) and the limitations of that role. (They don’t create or find jobs for you.) Networking, which is about building relationships not the size of your contact list, is more important than ever. In order to build relationships, you must move beyond email.

Harvard Business School

At Harvard, we enjoyed an interactive two-hour presentation that was stimulating and engaging. To the extent it reflected the dynamism of the Harvard educational experience, I was extremely impressed.

This visit clarified for me that Harvard’s unparalleled brand is not just a matter of US News Rankings or smoke-and-mirrors branding.  At the same time, HBS is not for everyone, but like any top graduate program, it can be a fantastic experience for the right individuals.

Before the conference started my husband and I met with an acquaintance who is a professor at HBS. The professor was curious about my work, and I was curious about his. He asked me what I believe distinguishes Harvard students from the rest of the applicant pool. I thought for a moment and replied, “Leadership and impact.” He smiled, and the conversation moved on. Just before leaving, I asked him, “From your perspective as an HBS professor, what is a common quality shared by HBS students?” He replied, “I smiled when you answered my question because the students come from incredibly diverse backgrounds. However, if I have to identify a common thread, it would be leadership and impact.” If you are serious about attending Harvard Business School, make sure you demonstrate leadership and impact.

Reflections and Thank yous

It is our job as admissions consultants to help you choose the best target programs and show that you  belong at your chosen schools. The candor and graciousness shown by the hosting schools as well as by the presenting admissions directors will help Accepted’s staff do exactly that.

I am proud to report that Accepted’s staff was well represented at  the conference. In addition to myself, Jennifer Bloom, Paul Bodine, Judy Gruen, Tanis Kmetyk, Cindy Tokumitsu, and Robbie Walker attended.

Profound thanks to the hosts and presenters as well as to AIGAC, led by Graham Richmond of Clear Admit, and specifically to Maxx Duffy of Maxx Associates and Anna Ivey of Ivey Consulting who co-chaired the event. Thanks also to the sponsors: Veritas Prep, Clear Admit, Hult International Business School, Manhattan GMAT, MBA Podcaster, and Zoom Interviews

Learn More: Best MBA Programs: A Guide to Choosing the One for You.

By Linda Abraham, President and Founder of Accepted.com.

Next, Dean Blair Sheppard from Duke Fuqua is working to expand Duke’s global footprint by opening Duke campuses in China, India, and the United Arab Emirates. In order to do so, Sheppard must navigate through each country’s rules and regulations, create new, global curriculums, build the campuses, and figure out how to distribute Duke faculty abroad.

According to Georgetown McDonough’s Dean George Daly, the most pressing concern facing his student is jobs. Therefore, Daly is less concerned with million-dollar building and expansion plans and is more interested in building new opportunities for his students. Typically, more than half of Georgetown graduates found jobs either on Wall Street or in consulting. This past year, only 67% of students received job offers by graduation, a significant drop due to a decrease in available jobs in those two popular areas. Daly’s new goal is to do more outreach to Washington, D.C. employers—”the employers in its own backyard”—including government-related firms. Building new relationships with recruiters and shifting student expectations to a wider range of careers, according to Daly, “will be a tough sell.”

Edward Snyder, incoming dean at Yale SOM, has a different sort of task ahead of him. When Snyder takes the dean position next July, he’ll be faced with the challenge of revamping Yale SOM’s image and building up its brand. Fortunately, Snyder comes with years of experience. As former dean of UVA Darden and Chicago Booth, Snyder knows how to achieve such goals as boosting diversity, improving b-school/university relations, and fundraising. In fact, Snyder explains that what attracted him to Yale is just what had attracted him to Chicago—”the challenge of building another business school within a prominent university.” Snyder’s specific goals include fundraising to complete a $150 million building project, strengthening ties with alumni, increasing class size, and, perhaps most importantly, creating enthusiasm among Yale SOM students, faculty, alumni, recruiters, and donors. “The law school [at Yale] is No. 1, undergrad is No. 1 or close,” he says, “how about making Yale School of Management No. 1, or close to it, too?”

(Sources: “Deans Set Priorities for Tough Times” and “Turnaround Specialist to Take On Yale,” both from the Wall Street Journal)

Related Accepted Articles:

• Duke University Continues to Expand Worldwide
• Duke Fugua 2011 MBA Application Questions, Deadlines, Tips
• Haas’ Dean Rich Lyons Unveils New Strategic Plan
• Haas Announces New Dean
• Yale SOM 2011 MBA Application Questions, Deadlines, Tips

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The First Prize ($200 Amazon gift certificate) goes to BizWiz for his shot of Stanford GSB’s Oval Park:

Second Prize ($100 gift certificate) goes to Matt Thieleman for his picture of Tappan Street and Michigan Ross amidst some stunning fall foliage.

Third Prize ($50 gift certificate) goes to Jennifer Lu for her picture of UVA Darden’s central grounds and amphitheater:

This contest wouldn’t have been possible without our hard-working judges:

• Xlick, author of A New Yorker’s MBA Journey blog.
• Ameya, author of Unraveling Mystery blog.
• Rocky, author of Rocky’s Journey to an MBA blog.
• Mad Bubbles, author of Madalogue – A Young Gal’s Dreamroll blog.
• 2012 MBA Applicant, author of 2012 MBA Applicant blog.
• Hari, author of Memoirs of a MBA Aspirant blog.
• MBAJourney, author of My Journey to an MBA Class of 2012 blog.
• TheDreamChaser, author of The DreamChaser’s Journey blog.
• Braveheart, author of Illuminati’s MBA Quest blog.
• Djveeder, Djveeder from Twitter.
• ErinBerin, ErinBerin from Twitter.

To view more 2010 Beautiful B-School photos, visit our photo album on Facebook or the Accepted.com B-School Zones pages.

Thanks again to all participants, winners, and judges—we hope you had as much as we had!

2011 applicants: You could be on one of these lists next year, so get those cameras out and start snapping away for next year’s Beautiful B-School Photo Contest!

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The option to take the GRE instead of the GMAT exam is a somewhat recent development. What began as a trend (started by Stanford GSB) among a few schools has exploded into an almost-standard option available at 27% of the U.S. News‘ 433 b-schools on the Best Business School rankings report. More than 300 b-schools total accept the GRE as a GMAT alternative (including those not included in the U.S. News rankings).

This expanded option allows b-schools to widen their applicant pool, attracting potential MBAs from other GRE-required graduate paths.

US News ranked b-schools that now accept the GRE include:

1. (tie) Harvard Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
7. Dartmouth College (Tuck)
9. New York University (Stern)
11. Yale University
13. University of Virginia (Darden)
14. Duke University (Fuqua)
16. University of Texas—Austin (McCombs)
19. Washington University in St. Louis (Olin)

According to David Payne, VP and COO at ETS, accepting the GRE is a smart move, specifically from a business perspective. “At no cost to the schools,” he says, “it allows them to increase the size and diversity of their applicant pool.” More than 600,000 people take the GRE every year, while only 270,000 take the GMAT.

Both tests have experienced an increase in the number of test takers every year for the last six years.

Advantages to test-takers of the move of b-schools to accept the GRE include:

• The GRE costs about $110 less than the GMAT.
• Students who wish to apply to both b-school and another graduate or PhD program can do so easily (and affordably) by taking only one test.
• Those with weaker quant skills will have an easier time navigating the GRE’s math section than that of the GMAT.

Related Accepted.com Blog Posts:

• More B-Schools Accepting GRE in Lieu of GMAT
• GMAT or GRE: Which is Best for You?
• Record GMAT Registration Volume in 2009
• GMAT Advice

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Related Accepted.com Resources:

• Financing Your Future: Winning Fellowships, Scholarships and Awards for Grad School, an instantly downloadable ebook.
• B-School Zones
• UVA Darden’s New i.Lab Program Encourages “Design-Thinking”
• Haas’ New Image: “Developing Innovative Leaders”

Want our news sent directly to your inbox? Subscribe to the Accepted Admissions Almanac by clicking here!

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This new program, reports an article in UVA Today, will take place in the innovation laboratory, or i.Lab, a creative space that will be part classroom and part studio, set up to provide an area for students to “build models and prototypes of their ideas…[that] features tall workbenches flanked by a full complement of tools,” including hammers, saws, carving tools, oscilloscopes, metal rods, foam boards, clay, wood, and others. The space has tall, floor-to-ceiling windows, an exhibition space, and implements state-of-the-art facilities.

The philosophy behind Darden’s focus on design-thinking and on the new i.Lab, explains Jeanne Liedtka, a professor in the program, is that “design-thinking skills are best developed through the hands-on design experience.”

Students learn, create, and then exhibit their business prototypes, subjecting their work to peer review and critique.

According to a BusinessWeek article on the same subject, Darden is not the only school putting a strong emphasis on design and innovation. NYU Stern has had the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab since the fall of 2008, and UC Davis Graduate School of Management currently has plans to open something similar as well.

Click here for more information on Darden’s i.Lab.

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Yes, the rest of the country is still plagued and angered by unemployment rates and bank bailouts, but b-school students are beginning to see the “light at the end of what is now a pretty short tunnel,” as Tracy Handler, a spokeswoman for the MBA Career Services Council, puts it.

For example, 20% more banks interviewed at UVA Darden this year than last, and so far, job offers from banks to Darden students have risen 33%. At Duke’s Fugua, investment banking internship offerings have doubled since last year, more banks are interviewing at Duke, and more students are attending the Wall Street field trip. UNC Kenan-Flagler has seen a 67% increase in investment bankers visiting the campus this year.

Jeff Fischer, Kenan-Flagler director of career management, explains the b-school job market well: “The MBA population is like the end of a whip. When cycles swing up and down, students are the ones who swing up and down the most in terms of employment.”

Related Accepted.com Resources:

• GMAC: MBA Employers Express Job Market Optimism
• Good News for MBAs: Job Opportunities Abound!

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Stanford won top slot for both rankings. It is #1 for providing the best return on investment for its graduates, as well as for churning out MBAs who are extremely satisfied with their current jobs and their completed b-school experience.

The survey shows that Stanford alumni are more likely than grads from any other business school to sing praises to their alma mater. School satisfaction and job satisfaction are closely intertwined with financial success, says Pulin Sanghvi, Stanford GSB Director of Career Management and Stanford GSB ’97 alum. “True satisfaction happens from work-life actualization,” he says, referring to the Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness at Work. “We nurture students to pursue career decisions based on their internal drivers. That they then become financial successes is just a bonus.”

The Top Ten US B-Schools with the Most Satisfied Graduates

1.   Stanford GSB

2.   Wharton

3.   Chicago Booth

4.   NYU Stern

5.   Brigham Young University

6.   UC Berkeley Haas

7.   Dartmouth Tuck

8.   UCLA Anderson (tied)

8.   University of Rochester Simon Graduate School of Business (tied)

10. University of Virginia Darden

The Top Ten Non-US B-Schools with the Most Satisfied Graduates

1.   Oxford

2.   IESE

3.   London Business School

4.   IPADE

5.   Insead

6.   HEC-Paris

7.   IMD

8.   ESADE (tied)

8.   IE (tied)

10. Cranfield School of Management

For more information on the value of rankings and how you should (or should not) use them, check out Accepted.com’s new special report on MBA rankings.

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These learning concepts have long been implemented in liberal arts education, but it is only in the face of economic crisis that business schools are beginning to take more seriously these ideals.

Martin’s goal is to create a sort of “liberal arts MBA.”

According to the NY Times in “Multicultural Critical Theory. At B-School?,” the current financial situation reinforced the importance of this goal, though the adoption of these ideals in MBA programs has been in the making already for a number of years.

[E]ven before the financial upheaval last year, business executives operating in a fast-changing, global market were beginning to realize the value of managers who could think more nimbly across multiple frameworks, cultures and disciplines. The financial crisis underscored those concerns — at business schools and in the business world itself.

Top b-schools are re-designing their programs to include a liberal arts approach to business. This more traditional, interdisciplinary learning plan includes a stronger emphasis on the historical, global, and moral implications of business, leadership, and social responsibility.

The Graduate School of Business at Stanford, for example, now offer a mandatory class called “The Global Context of Management and Strategic Leadership.”

Stanford’s dean, Garth Saloner, explains, “Stanford wants its business students to develop ‘a lens that brings some kind of principled set of scales to the problem.’”

Needless to say, Mr. Martin’s Rotman School has taken great strides towards liberalizing its business education, with “integrative thinking” and “design thinking” at the near center of its curriculum.

“Design thinking” is a popular “innovation-oriented approach” that many b-schools are embracing. President of the design firm, IDEO, describes the creation of Stanford’s new design-based Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school):

What’s different about design thinking is, it’s focused on taking that understanding you have about the world and using that as a set of insights from which to be creative.

A graduate of the d.school further explains the difference between what she learned at b-school versus what she learned at d.school:

At business school, there was a lot of focus on, “You’ve got a great idea; here’s how you build a business out of it.” The d.school said, “Here’s how you get to that great idea.”

UVA’s Darden and the Yale School of Management have also implemented similar curriculum changes.

Not all top MBA programs are acting so quickly to make this significant switch. Dean Edward A. Snyder, from Chicago Booth, says that Chicago has decided to keep its curriculum traditionally disciplined-based.

More and more b-schools are expected to make similar changes in the coming years.

The impact that these new programs have had and will have on management are unclear as of now, but Dean Martin is optimistic: “[I]f you give [students] ways of thinking that help them with these complicated dilemmas, they’ll make choices that are in some sense more worthy and have higher moral quality.”

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