{"id":55889,"date":"2022-09-07T03:22:45","date_gmt":"2022-09-07T10:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=55889"},"modified":"2022-09-07T03:22:52","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T10:22:52","slug":"how-to-get-accepted-to-ucla-anderson-podcast-episode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/how-to-get-accepted-to-ucla-anderson-podcast-episode\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get Accepted to UCLA Anderson [Podcast Episode]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Subscribe: Apple Podcasts<\/a> | Google Podcasts<\/a> | Spotify<\/a> | Android<\/a> | Stitcher<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything you need to know about the UCLA Anderson MBA program [Show Summary]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Alex Lawrence, UCLA Anderson's Assistant Dean for MBA Admissions\u00a0explores the hallmarks of the program and discusses what makes a competitive application<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interview with Alex Lawrence, Asst. Dean of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at UCLA Anderson School of Management [Show Notes]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to the 484th episode of Admissions Straight Talk<\/em>, Accepted\u2019s podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get to our wonderful guest, I want to invite you to take advantage of a fantastic tool at Accepted, the MBA Admissions Quiz. Are you ready to apply to your dream MBA programs? Are you competitive at those programs? Accepted\u2019s MBA Admissions Quiz<\/a> can give you a quick reality check. Just complete the quiz, which should only take about five minutes, and you\u2019ll not only get an assessment but also tips on how to actually improve your qualifications. Plus, it\u2019s all free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Are you ready to apply? Take the MBA Admissions Quiz<\/strong> >><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk<\/em> Alex Lawrence, Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at UCLA Anderson School of Management, which just happens to be where I earned my MBA. Alex is a fellow Anderson alum who earned his MBA in 1999. Prior to that, he earned a bachelor\u2019s in Electrical Engineering. After earning his MBA, he worked in management consulting for four years and then returned to UCLA Anderson as Director of the Riordan Program. In 2012, he became first the director and then the Assistant Dean for MBA Admissions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you give an overview of the Anderson full-time MBA program for those listeners who aren\u2019t that familiar with it, focusing on its more distinctive element? [2:15]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0UCLA Anderson MBA<\/a>\u00a0is obviously near and dear to my heart, being an alumnus of the program and now running the admission side of things. My relationship with the school goes back over 25 years.

It's a two-year program that balances the opportunity to go through the traditional core elements while also taking what you learn in the classroom to actually participate in a number of different experiential or practicum types of activities. We actually started school yesterday and today is day two for the class of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things I think shows how we\u2019re always innovating in our program is that beyond traditional summer internships, more and more of our students are doing academic internships. Part of the graduation requirements is to satisfy a global requirement. Our students have been taking on some of those different opportunities for almost 10 years now, where they do a consulting project with a global company or perhaps they travel overseas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re a smallish class size of around 330 students. We don\u2019t necessarily look at students with just a business background. It\u2019s really diverse domestically, internationally, and across genders also career interests as well. We have students who go to a lot of different areas, not just consulting and finance, but real estate, entertainment, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re always trying to push the envelope, and we added a course in ethics to the core classes students need to take in order to graduate. Students have to participate in that. In our career services, there\u2019s a required class as well that our students have to take. There are a lot of different elements. Once you peel back the layers and learn more about Anderson<\/a>, there\u2019s a lot to find out. I hope we\u2019ll get a chance to talk about a lot of that and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does the Anderson course in ethics differ from traditional corporate social responsibility courses? [5:08]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Many times ethics are woven into some other elements of the curriculum like elective courses or case studies. Before the pandemic, we were working with students, who we always work hand-in-hand with to innovate our curriculum, and they wanted to create an all-day conference on ethics that would include a case competition at the end. That really showcased the interests of not just the current students but also this wave of interest of even prospective candidates in the topic itself. The faculty got together with the administration, and while it took a while to make this part of the core, students now have ten weeks to get a bit deeper into the foundation elements of ethics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like most MBA programs, on the first day of school, students will sign a code of conduct spanning accountability inside and outside the classroom. Some of the other things that I think show the innovation of building up this ethics course are case studies and the opportunity to do practicum around it as well. Of course, there are featured speakers. These are all things that students can take into their summer internship and even after they graduate. It\u2019s an opportunity that resonates with our students who are looking to change the experience, including grade non-disclosure and things of that nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of these things are connected to the idea and topic of ethics that we\u2019ve been teaching throughout different courses in the past, but now it\u2019s a main focal point of one particular class as part of the graduation requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you touch on internships, the Applied Management Research program, and the option to launch a business during the MBA? [7:12]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Applied Management Research program gives students an opportunity to basically do a mini consulting project. You create your own teams. You bid on one of over a hundred different projects that span a number of different industries. For those like myself, who was a career switcher and wanted to go the management consulting, it\u2019s a really great opportunity to work with a company that has a real business challenge. That basically starts with you creating your own team at the end of the first year, and you actually have a deliverable in the middle of the second year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another option for students, especially if you\u2019re focused more on the entrepreneurial sort of roadmap, is called the Business Creation Project, or BCP. You get an opportunity to work with our Price Center for Entrepreneurship, one of our eight research centers. You get to leverage our venture accelerator, one of our eight incubators on the UCLA campus. And in that sense, you build out your plan and get access, depending on what you need, to funding, board members, etc. You get exposed to a lot of those different partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s more now than just the AMR and the BCP, but you can also be a part of the Anderson Strategy Group. It\u2019s a partnership model, and all students get a chance to pick the type of projects they want to work on either on the UCLA campus or outside. You can do asset management by being part of the Student Investment Fund, where you manage over a million dollars of the school\u2019s funds. There are a lot of different ways to now satisfy that graduation requirement that was really just sort of singular in nature when you and I were in school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the internship is totally separate? [9:41]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That's totally separate. We see over 70% of our current students participating in some type of engagement. While the Parker Career Management Center does support our students, it\u2019s not necessarily a graduation requirement. Some start that opportunity because they\u2019re career switchers, and they see the opportunity that they need to transform their resume. Some start that opportunity as early as the winter quarter of their first year, so January. Some I\u2019ve heard have done up to five different academic internships during the course of two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That might be in an area like entertainment media where they know that the recruiting process is definitely different than financial services or consulting. They know that getting the opportunity to do these short-term projects, getting their name out there, and doing some networking are benefits that will help them make the career switch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s become a great phenomenon where some of these opportunities get handed down from second-year students to first-year students because the so-called clients or some of these engagements have had such a great experience. Maybe some of these groups aren\u2019t necessarily looking for something as long-term as a summer internship and they need a short-term academic firepower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How has COVID affected the global graduation requirement and the global immersion courses and experiences at Anderson? Have you been able to resume those? [11:31]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yes, we have. An email came through yesterday about an opportunity for students to travel to India in December, and they\u2019re taking applications for that. In September, students are going to be visiting the Czech Republic. A number of students went on a trip to Dubai in December 2021. It's definitely in full swing. Of course, we make sure our students and faculty travel safely. We're taking all the necessary precautions, but our students are right back on track exploring all these great opportunities on and off the Anderson campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What don\u2019t people know about Anderson that you would like them to know? [12:35]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That's a great question. As much travel as I\u2019ve been doing before the pandemic and afterward, what I see is that few have taken the opportunity to come to the UCLA Anderson campus. I understand it. One of the things that people should know about is the work-life balance. I\u2019m going to put all of the beaches and sunshine aside, but being in a part of the country that's not only the entertainment media capital of the world but also has Silicon Beach, which is great for those who are focused on a career in tech. You can definitely go up to the Bay Area as well. We are very vibrant and have great career opportunities in the finance arena up and down the West Coast. You can still make that transition back to the East Coast.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would mention our Parker Career Management Center, which is a top-ranked career management center, especially as it pertains to boosting the ROI. I think that\u2019s something that\u2019s always on people\u2019s minds to stage the value of the MBA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you see Anderson accepting the Executive Assessment for the full-time program or other aptitude tests in addition to the GMAT and the GRE, or perhaps issuing test waivers or going test-optional? [14:19]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t say no, because we are constantly talking about what we need for our applicants. The old model that many of the schools, including Anderson, have leveraged is a standardized test and transcripts. When different testing vehicles have been released, our history shows that we have adjusted to the market.\u00a0We accepted the GRE<\/a>\u00a0like other schools many years ago. Again, we\u2019re looking at evaluating the EA. Some of the other programs under the UCLA Anderson portfolio suite do accept the EA, in particular, our part-time MBA program. I\u2019m not going to say no because we\u2019re looking at that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re not providing test waivers, but we\u2019re talking. We\u2019re talking with all our partners, including current students to try to understand some of the challenges of applying to business school. That includes the financial burden that some of the students are coming to the program with. Right now, in the short term, we\u2019re not providing test waivers or looking at other different types of testing vehicles, but we\u2019re talking about it. We're looking at all of our so-called competitors in the market to see which ones are providing those resources and which ones are not.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my major concerns, and I think it's shared throughout UCLA Anderson, is that when we\u2019re looking to bring people onto our campus, we want to make sure that they are going to be successful inside and outside the classroom. We don\u2019t pride ourselves at all on admitting people and not having them finish. That\u2019s why throughout the application process and even before that, we're communicating and letting people know what they\u2019re going to be up against. It\u2019s not an easy process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re trying to collect as many data points and pieces of evidence from an individual to make sure that once they are put in a group of very talented individuals with different backgrounds, they are going to be successful. Of course, there are going to be moments when there will be challenges. Everybody\u2019s going to have some moments where they stumble a little bit throughout the MBA experience, but we don\u2019t want anybody to have that experience from the beginning until graduation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check our our UCLA Anderson MBA Essay Tips >><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anderson is very admirably clear about what it values, which is people who share success, think fearlessly, and drive change. How can applicants convey that they share those values via their application? [18:47]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Great question. When you look at all of the different materials that people need to submit, there are some natural parts in that real estate where people can put those things down. For example, the resume is a great place to put hobbies and interests. You can obviously share that in your essays as well. There\u2019s a lot of control around that, and that\u2019s where we really want to know who you are as a person. We want to know you have a plan about getting an MBA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another area is the interview itself<\/a>. That\u2019s a great way to have a conversation with a current MBA student who facilitates the interview. In that sense, the interviewer, who\u2019s been trained, is going to be looking for those qualities. They\u2019re going to be asking you not only why you want to get an MBA but also why you want to get an MBA from Anderson. That\u2019s a great way for a candidate to showcase their knowledge about the program, their interests, or plans on how they\u2019re going to make an impact on the campus. The transcripts and standardized test score are going to show us your ability to do well academically and, if you had an academic challenge in your undergrad, it will show us how you have rebounded. The letters of recommendation<\/a> are another way to demonstrate from a third person how you respond in certain situations, your highest level of qualities, and what you did in the workplace or community organization.\u00c2 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a lot of different ways to be strategic about showing UCLA Anderson it's a community you want to be a part of. Many schools talk about how they have very smart people who are changing the world. Anderson values that too, but we really believe we own that third piece, the shared success model. Like I mentioned before, in all those areas, there are just different ways that you can showcase that and say, \u201cI\u2019m part of a community. I made it better.\u00a0Now, I\u2019m going to do the same thing<\/a>\u00a0at Anderson.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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