MBA People Study - How responsive are the people?

Question

Background: I think the most important part of the MBA program are the people, so I decided to reach out to people of the schools I am looking at and see how responsive they are. I reached out only to people I did not know, did not count talking to any of my friends at the respective MBA programs in this study.

Hope the research below helps people looking at the below schools. Results are as of July 21st.

Results:
- Cornell Johnson: 79%
- Yale School of Management: 65%
- UC Berkeley Haas: 63%
- UVA Darden: 57%
- UT Austin McCombs: 43%
- Stanford GSB: 31%

slumdog1000000 · Answer

Based on my own experience, Tuck Dartmouth is the worst. I sent close to 20 e-mails to students and all I got was one response from a student who tersely told me in one sentence (I had 3 questions in my e-mail! ) that I should visit the school if I wanted to have a chance of getting admitted. Well, I made it plain clear in my introduction that I wasn't able to do so as I was then based in a country far away from the US. Admittedly, I was very disappointed by the response rate, considering that Tuck prides itself as a school that is very close-knit and has a very collaborative culture. I have nothing against the school but I thought this is a good opportunity to share my own experience. Others may have a different experience though. Whatever it is, do your research. Caveat emptor (buyers beware), as they always say.

westsidah408 · Answer

I've only emailed some students at Booth and most emailed me back. I've only had the chance to make one call though, since summer internship are going on and the time difference + the internship makes scheduling calls on weekdays difficult. That said, I felt students at Booth were quite responsive.

slumdog1000000 · Answer

I have emailed students from Olin Business School at Wash U before and most were very responsive ! Another one is Michigan Ross. Students from Ross and Olin were very responsive (an incredible 90% response rate for both schools) and candid with their replies. Totally dig those 2 schools. I think there's a lot to be said about the schools' culture when students are helpful enough to lend their perspective to issues a potential student has. Knowing how to pay it forward is important in a society which is going to be much more closely connected than before and students who only know how to stick their noses up in the air or bury their heads in their books are just gonna find it much harder to survive, regardless of your pedigree and school's brand name.

HaasEWMBA2015 · Answer

I actually had some really good experiences when reaching out to Tuck alumni. I even had a couple of different alumni make themselves available to meet up for lunch. While I ultimately did not get into Tuck, I have nothing but good things to say about the students I met on campus and the alumni I met at various events.

My best experiences with students and alumni from the various schools I visited were at Tuck, Haas, and Wharton-West (this is of course anecdotal and I only visited select schools).

highhopes · Answer

Having been at business school, I'm not sure I would read too much into this. I think you would be surprised at just how terrible some people are at managing their time, which spills over to managing their e-mail. The other thing is that for really popular schools, you have to realize the amount of e-mail that they are getting and some people are just utterly ridiculous in their questions.

My personal opinion - I think it's absolutely inexcusable that someone connected with admissions or a club liaison/president would not respond to your questions as they can delegate this off. Clearly given your results, that's not the norm. If they're not going to respond, they shouldn't put their e-mail address on there.

That is a lot of e-mails to send, however. To be honest, if I happened to find out that you sent e-mails to a big slew of people, I likely would not answer your e-mail. If you're sending 20 e-mails, you're e-mailing 5% of their FY population. If everybody does the same, imagine how swamped people are.

Finally, I would agree that Ross students totally killed it when I e-mailed requests. They were soooo helpful.

nonameee · Answer

Any experience with contacting professors and staff?

malk1 · Answer

In all fairness, I contacted 1 person at Tuck and they sent me solid replies to all my questions (a list of 10+ Qs). Also touched base with a student at Duke with the same result. I think you might have caught some students at a wrong time or perhaps highhopes is correct in his assesment.

MBA People Study - How responsive are the people?

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