Darden (Virginia) 2013 - Calling All Applicants!

Quoting from online chat transcript

Question: When will Round 1 applicants be notified if they are invited to interview with Darden?

Answer: We do rolling interview invitations beginning 1 November continuing through the middle of December. This is a random process, so the order of invitations does not reflect the quality of each applicant.

Hope this helps.

One thing to note is that last year the first interview invites came out only 10 days after the close of R1. They were very fast last year. I'll be casually checking my email this Thursday.

Just to emphasize, invitations really are done on a random basis throughout the cycle. The timing of your invitation has no bearing on the quality of your application, so please don't freak out! It's really easy to start getting paranoid about not receiving an invite, but just trust the process and try to occupy your thoughts with something that won't make you as crazy

Good luck to everyone who submitted R1!

Thanks Kristie! Hope your exams went well!

Any interview tips that you would like to offer to the international students?

I may be wrong, but I couldn't find too many forum topics on Darden interview experiences.

It seems really slow in here and in some of the other "Calling All..." threads compared to past threads. Do you think that means a slower admissions cycle (i.e. fewer applicants?)

I'm just pretty surprised. Compare this to last years where they were already many pages in by this point and we're still on page 3.

Well this could mean one of many things. 1) US MBAs are losing charm against Asian MBAs 2) MBA is losing its worth as a degree vs. a specialist masters as there are no more jobs for generalists anymore. 3) The IR section could have thrown off a lot of people to do GRE vs GMAT and those folks aren't on GMATClub at all.

I just did a quick comparison - In average, there were about twice as many pages in the "Calling All Applicants..." threads this time last year.

Re: #2, I think you're reading too much into it. In my opinion, an MBA is still valuable. However, given the current market condition, a segment of the potential MBA applicants who can afford to delay their application have decided to cling on to their current jobs.

#3 is another plausible explanation.

I hope they say Mid-December as a CYA measure. I would hate being invited in mid December knowing that they'll have about a week to deliberate on my application after my interview is complete!

Traditionally what I hear from people is that the MBA application(or any academic puruit) pool is at its highest when there is an economic recession. First we saw this in 2000 (dot com bust) then again in 2009 (Super craze for MBA,housing mortgage crisis), but now in 2012 (recession is underway) we see a drop. Sign of an alternate trend? I don't know. So, for #2, I am not really sure people are really holding onto their cards on the MBA. Another factor I would weigh when I apply to an MBA is the age of the applicant. People would have realized by now schools tend to prefer younger candidates than older ones, but then again when you are young you don't seem intutively realise that.

Now that the banks are being scorned at (Wall street protest) I guess people are seeing that it might not be a wise investment to do an "expensive" MBA quitting their full time jobs. I mention banks here because banks are traditionally a primary reason of your skewed thinking on your ROIs of an MBA. If you are not vying for finance you are probably going to have a very strong reason to do it. e.g. Childhood dream, or Consulting (up or out policy).

A friend of mine in LBS MBA concured with my above observation that hardly any recruiters are coming on campus to grab the "golden geese" for finance positions. But then again I know folks getting internships in IBs without any problems from Top US universities such as Duke, Tuck etc. Will they lead you to a full time job? Economics will dictate that.

I anticipate new professions for MBAs in Strategy, Green Energy, Internal consulting practices within companies in Industries etc. Finance will soon be a No-No for future MBAs.

Have anyone of you heard about any invites/dings? I am curious since this particular thread is not very active.

nothing yet....

Nothing here either. I would hope we would hear something by the end of next week.

I spoke with the folks at Darden a couple of days ago. They said they start sending out interview invites for US applicants early November (so late next week at the earliest, but likely the week after). And they start sending out interview invites for international applicants ~15-Nov.

Best of luck, all.

Are you really applying to 17 schools!?

Just nine thus far. Fiancée is applying to residency at 30 programs, which is normal with ERAS. Unfortunately, there's no application service for business school, so yes, I have to fill out way too many independent applications. Medicine has a Couples Match, B-School programs have something similar for significant others, but there is nothing across fields. So yes, it's quite a pain. However, if one of us gets an incredible opportunity, which I'd certainly classify Darden, we'll take it. Only two years, after all.

Wow! Well, god speed and best of luck to you and your fiancee!

Thank you very much, best wishes to you as well! Certainly difficult to coordinate