Calling OWEN-Vanderbilt Applicants(2015 Intake)Class of 2017

Hi everyone, I was recently admitted to Owen. I am pretty sure I'm going to enroll.

Questions-
1) Are there events over the summer I can attend prior to the first day of classes?
2) I'm fairly certain I'm going to choose Finance as a concentration and International Studies as an emphasis- where can I find information about courses I can take outside of the business school? I saw on Owen's website that language courses are a popular option- I would definitely be interested in exploring out-of-the-box options.
3) Do current students/alumni have recommendations as to where to live? I am looking for the least expensive options as close to campus as possible.


Thanks!!!

1. I do not believe there are any official events until orientation/math camp/etc in August. I know last year students had meet-ups they organized on the facebook group in LA, Nashville, NYC, and Boston among other places.
2. I know that Owen is very flexible and willing to work with students who wish to take classes at Vanderbilt outside of the Graduate School of Management. AFAIK, this is all done on an as-desired-individual-basis. I do not know if there is a list of classes online or at Academic Affairs that people take at "Big Vandy." (Everyone's interest in doing so is different...)
3. By close to campus, do you mean walking distance? And by inexpensive, do you mean by NYC standards or Middle America standards?
Here's a few locations I would check out:
-Bell Midtown
-Twenty and Grand
-Bell Hillsboro Village

I hope this helps! Congratulations on the Owen admit.

Awesome, thank you! I meant inexpensive by Middle America standards. I found a "Moving to Nashville" page through the Welcome to Owen website so I'll check that out for more info.

Thanks!

Have an interview tomorrow, with Owen. Any tips, guys?

-Know *why you need/want an MBA*
-Know *why you want an MBA NOW*
-Know *why Vanderbilt is the right program for you*
-Research the program and speak to what concentrations/emphases/specializations/clubs interest you
-Know what firms recruit Vanderbilt students if there are some you are specifically interested in
-Demonstrate you have realistic short-term and long-term career plans
-Be able to give a 1-2 minute elevator pitch selling yourself to the interviewer as an applicant/job candidate

A few specific tips would be to come across as very personable and collaborative in every answer. We look for people who are socially fluent and can get along with their classmates very easily. No offense to any other programs, but you'll never find a student you'd want to grab a beer with more than an Owen student.

I'd also recommend preparing examples of a strong quant background/interest/capability. Your first quarter (Mod) is extremely quant-heavy, and we need to know that you can not only keep up, but thrive. The ability to work with data is arguably the most important skill that employers look for in MBA grads, and if you struggle with this, it means that you'll struggle to get an internship/FT offer and that won't work out well for anyone. Now, I'm not saying that you have to be Nate Silver, but you need to be comfortable working with numbers.

Best of luck!

teleste and drivechipputt

Thank you guys for your insightful tips.

drivechipputt
How would I be able to show that I'm good with numbers in an interview. One way would be to show that I've done my homework on the school, using quantitative facts-something I do a lot of.What else, could I do? Any thoughts???

teleste
And, about the Elevator pitch... when do I slip it in? will it be during the "Tell me about yourself" question? Or, will they actually ask me to sort of make a pitch, like "what will you bring to the classroom"

You definitely won't want to rattle off stats about Owen (or any other program for that matter). When I say demonstrate quantitative skills, that's really your chance to talk about projects you've worked on where you have measurable data. "I saved XYZ company $400K in cost reductions by implementing a new system" or "My training led to 120% top-line growth, which has fueled our expansion efforts." These are examples of high-impact statements you'll want to incorporate into your interview.

Deb

Folks on this forum have reported that they were asked for something in a similar vein to an elevator pitch. That's when you should bring it out. I wouldn't just launch into it if you're asked to tell them something about yourself.

By the way, they may not ask for a pitch. If that's the case, you can still take the pieces you'd use to sell yourself and plant them nicely into other portions of the interview.



Good luck!

Good luck! I found the interview to be very conversational with minimal direct questions. They aren't looking to stump you it is more trying to get to know you outside of the paper application. Don't hesitate to ask questions throughout the interview. It helps keep the flow of the conversation going.

FROM Owen Press Releases: Owen, MLT announce partnership to accelerate careers of minorities

An acclaimed talent development program for high-potential minority MBA students is being brought to Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management through a new partnership with Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT).

My interview went well, (I feel). They did ask for a sales pitch sort of question. I'm not sure if I did that great on it. Should've prepared harder for it.
in any case, got the waitlist decision last week.They were asking for a date till which i'd want to be in the waitlist. Gave it as 15th Jul.
Is there anything specific that Owen looks for. I'm thinking of writing an essay on things that I like about Owen and has helped me to make Owen my top choice.
Also, will try to speak to Owen alums from my organization.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to convert the waitlist into an admit for Owen, it will be really helpful.

Thanks!!

Often a good way to convert from a waitlist into an MBA program is by improving your GMAT score. It is concrete and it is something that helps both an applicant's profile and the school. That might not do the trick in this case though. You already have a solid GMAT score. It might be strictly a numbers game at this point in terms of matriculating students. Maybe they'll take folks off the waitlist as spots open up (if any do). It might not have anything to do with your application profile. It is impossible to know. :X

The application cycle can be a wild ride. Keep the faith and best of luck!

Thanks mate!Appreciate your support.Hope a lot of slots open up, and I make it.
Apart from everything that is great about Owen, its not that far from Atlanta, which makes it ideal for me.Have some of my best friends there. And I've heard that the Deloitte Atlanta office recruits heavily from Owen.

FROM Owen Press Releases: Vanderbilt’s Owen School awards scholarship to United Way executive

The head of United Way of Rutherford and Cannon Counties has been awarded a full-tuition scholarship to Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management’s Executive MBA program.

FROM Owen Press Releases: Owen faculty part of three winning teams for trans-institutional program (TIP) awards

Owen School collaborators were part of three trans-institutional projects selected for the initial set of awards from Vanderbilt’s new Trans-Institutional Program (TIPs).

The MBA Recruiting Process – Insights from Darden ’15 Grad and CEO of RelishMBA

Hello from the RelishMBA team, and congratulations on being admitted to the MBA Class of 2017! My name is Sarah, and I’m a recent Darden School of Business graduate who founded RelishMBA, an online recruiting platform built specifically for the business school recruiting market. As a recent grad who works full-time in the MBA recruitment space, I wanted to share some recruiting advice and tips to help you prepare for arriving on campus at Owen.

The first thing to be aware of is that MBA recruiting is a long and intense process. Recruiting activities begin quickly once you’re on campus and they take up a huge amount of your time and energy for most of your first year. While virtually all top MBA students have great jobs available to them, finding those jobs can be frustrating and stressful, with relevant information often hard to find and a complex networking process that can be tough to effectively manage. I started RelishMBA to address these problems and make the process more efficient for both students and employers.

The summer is a great time to get started with recruiting processes (while you don’t have to worry about school, student clubs, social life, and the dozens of other activities that fill up your time during first year). Luckily, there are a few things you can do to prepare before school starts in August: Relax. Explore. Prepare.

Relax – business school is a big change from the working world; take a bit of time off. You deserve it and you’ll need the break!

Explore – In your time relaxing, begin checking out what industries and companies recruit MBAs. This is something RelishMBA helps with. Sign-up at RelishMBA.com to begin exploring employer’s company pages on MBA Careers specific for your school (“day in the life” alumni testimonials, on-campus presence, key points of contact, etc.).

Prepare – And lastly, get your resume ready. Below are some tips from my experience.
It’s also important to remember that once you’re on campus, you’ll be networking with recruiters and alumni frequently – and RelishMBA will help you here too, through relationship management tools that make it easy to stay on top of your networking game. Have any questions? Reach out anytime at recruit@relishmba.com.

Resume Tips:

1) Writing your resume is your first Marketing assignment

Your resume is essentially a one-page advertisement designed to sell your brand to employers. But as your first year marketing class will tell you, marketing is about a lot more than just a fancy design and a few well-placed buzzwords. Think about your audience (i.e. who will be reading your resume? Finance recruiters? Consultants? Marketers? Others?) and how you are positioning yourself with that audience (i.e. what work experiences would be most relevant or interesting to the recruiters reading your resume?).

For example, if you’re headed up to Wall Street, focus on the more quantitatively rigorous parts of your work experience, and try to make sure that your resume as a whole reflects an interest in and passion for finance and its associated disciplines. Future consultants will want to highlight problem-solving and analytical thinking. Marketers could talk about leading cross-functional teams or point out examples of especially effective communication.

And if you are not sure what you want to do, don’t sweat it – there are lots of you out there, and it’s no big deal for the next few weeks or months. But regardless of your eventual industry or function targets, remember: your resume is not just a chronicle of your past work achievements; it is an advertisement designed to effectively sell you and your brand to recruiters.

2) Be concise but specific

This is one of the more difficult parts of honing your resume: providing specific examples of relevant work accomplishments in a way that a recruiter can easily digest in a few seconds. Try starting each bullet point with a strong action word. Instead of saying something like “Helped to more than double sales during tenure in catchment area,” try something like “Launched blogger outreach program that increased web traffic by 72% and increased sales by 120%”.

These sorts of hard numbers are really helpful, especially since many recruiters will spend only a few seconds looking at your resume and those numbers stand out on the page. So it’s also important to be sure that your bullet points can be read and processed easily. And if you don’t have a lot of specific numbers to add to your resume, it’s still important to be specific about your accomplishments and to pick your words wisely.

3) Add some flair

You should be careful with how much flair you add to your resume, but it’s a good idea to think of ways to set yourself apart from the competition. The “Personal” section at the bottom of your resume, where you list hobbies, activities, and interests, is an easy place to hook a recruiter (or break the ice in an interview). Only mention things that are truly a part of your life, but still consider your audience and which of your hobbies or experiences might be of interest to the recruiters reading your resumes. Once you reach campus, you’ll hear plenty of stories about students who were able to land first or even second-round interviews largely on the basis of what seem like minor resume items.

Other ways to add flair:

-Were you kind of a big deal in college? It’s worthwhile to mention any particularly important or impressive extracurriculars from your undergrad days (particularly leadership roles), and including club affiliations and other school-specific positions can be a good idea once you get onto campus

-Recruiters are looking to hire real people, not business robots. Make sure your resume – the accomplishments you choose to mention, the structure and content of the Personal section – reflects your personality.

4) Don’t be careless

This is the part where we tell you that a few people every year submit resumes with misspelled words or mismatched fonts or other significant but easily avoidable mistakes, and that you could be one of those people if you’re not careful, and you think “I’d never be that much of an idiot,” and then you send your resume to McKinsey or Google with your name spelled wrong at the top. Don’t be that person.
Seriously, just get a friend to read it. Several friends. Have a resume-reading party. But don’t spell your name wrong.

Have any questions? Reach out anytime at recruit@relishmba.com

Sincerely,
RelishMBA Team