Calling all Tuck (Dartmouth) Applicants: (2017 Intake) Class of 2019!!

FROM Tuck Admissions Blog: Energy Trek to Green Mountain Power’s Stafford Hill Solar Farm

By Meghna Kedia T’18 I don’t consider myself a morning person. My gym buddy would attest to that. But when it came to waking up at 7:00 a.m. on a chilly November day in Hanover to trek towards the Stafford Hill Solar Farm in Rutland, VT, I was every bit as annoying as that “Are we there yet?” kid. My fellow Tuckies and I were excited to see new technology in action. Fortunately, we made good time crossing over state lines. Surprised to be parking near a 9.5 acre land-fill, we had to check the GPS to make sure we’d come the right way. Huddling together, looking like our weather app had cheated us, 30 other Tuckies and I were welcomed by Dan Mackey, the “energy champion” and project manager for Green Mountain Power’s (GMP) 2.2 megawatt solar array at Stafford. Dan has been with GMP for 25 years. The solar array is his baby, and there was a subtle pride in how his crew, against all-weather odds, laid each of the 7,000 panels. When prompted to explain why GMP chose to put a photovoltaic (PV) plant right on top of a waste eye sore, he explained, “At GMP, we believe in putting unusable land to use.” Move over residential solar, GMP is paneling brownfields. It was inspiring to see a utility in the small state of Vermont focused on providing integrated energy services and generating clean, cost-effective and reliable power. With state-of-the-art demand response for power outages in a winter storm prone area, the GMP crew is setting new standards, including providing weather updates on Facebook and Twitter. The panels have been fired up for less than a year now, but GMP’s state-of-the art facility is not just a solo act—it’s a game-changing partnership with DynaPower, a global leader in energy storage inverters. Storage is to solar what filters are to Instagram. As an engineer, I felt like I’d seen it all, when we stood inside the storage system of four, 500 kW solar plus storage inverters, which combined solar-PV and battery energy storage within a single inverter. Dan went on to mention that it was this marriage of solar and storage that allowed them to meet peak summer demands and save $200,000 in a single hour! As someone who worked in investment banking in mining, I didn’t truly understand my industry until I visited a copper mine. There aren’t too many times that you get to step out of conferences or classroom discussions around the economics of renewables to actually marvel at the majestic installations that power the future of sustainable energy. Meghna is a clean energy and FinTech enthusiast who will tell you she’s vegetarian but she secretly loves chicken. Before Tuck she worked in natural resources investment banking in Mumbai and Toronto. She is an active member of the Tech Club, Design Club, and the Revers Center for Energy. Meghna loves being productive, even on vacations, and will often trick you into talking about Canada, managing your personal finances, and endurance training. The Revers Center for Energy inspires and shapes tomorrow's leaders in energy while engaging today's energy community. It aspires to establish Tuck as the preeminent business school for learning practical leadership in the energy industry.

Just received an email from Tuck informing that admission decisions for the November round will be available at 5:00PM ET on Friday, February 10.

So it seems to me like there have been no ROUND 3 or JANUARY ROUND adcom initiate interview invites yet - correct?

If yes, when are they supposed to go out?

There have. They come on a rolling basis, there is no firm date. It seems that typically you get an email that confirms your app is complete, which indicates that they have begun reviewing your application. Then it's anywhere from 1-2 weeks that you'll get invite if you do get one. If you dont here anything within that timeframe, it's probably a ding.

Damn - mine was confirmed on January 20th - oh bummer. This one hurts - really liked Tuck's program. Spoke to many students, had friends in the School and in the area

For what its worth, I received my invite on 30th December while my application went under review on 6th December. So all is not lost bb10!

Phew! Ok - hanging on!

FROM Tuck Admissions Blog: Why Applying to B-school is like Preparing for the Super Bowl

Getting ready to kick-off the MBA application process? Some color commentary for the football minded: Why applying to b-school is like preparing for the Super Bowl.   You’ve been getting ready for this your whole life (even if you didn’t know it). This is a holistic and thoughtful process. You can’t simply become a strong MBA candidate in a few months. We’re looking at your story comprehensively—how you perform in the classroom, your track record of involvement, the decisions you’ve made to go from one job to the next, etc. These things don’t just materialize when you decide b-school is right for you. Don’t let the pressure impact you too much though—keep reading! You don’t have to have all the best players to have the best team. The Patriots didn’t draft Tom Brady until the 6th round. Patriots wide receiver, Julian Edelman, played quarterback in college. Sure they’re some of the best now, but that wasn’t always the case. It’s about being one part of a collective whole. Similarly, you don’t have to be perfect across every dimension. Different applicants stand out for different reasons. That said, put your best foot forward and shine where you can. Learn to tell your story, regardless of what it is, in a clear and convincing way. Look at your current resume and career goals objectively—will an admissions committee see a common thread? If it’s not that obvious (and even if it is), you should be really good at explaining it to us. Utilize the experts. In football it might be the coaches or other key personnel; in b-school admissions it’s your colleagues, friends, and program resources (in-person and online events, student ambassadors, etc.). Talk about the MBA in general. Talk about specific schools. Determine what’s important to you. The more information you have, the better you’ll understand how you and your goals fit in. As such, you’ll be better prepared to submit a strong application and make an ultimate choice if you’re faced with more than one admit. Quick time-out on this one: Utilizing the experts does not mean having someone else do the work for you—not even an admissions consultant. Other questions? Punt them to us using the comment section below!

Good luck November round people! Decisions are out in just a few days.

Has Tuck started inviting Jan round applicants yet?

FROM Tuck Admissions Blog: Career Coach: Top 3 Questions on the Consulting Industry

By Stephen Pidgeon T’07 I get a lot of questions from people who are thinking of doing an MBA and are interested in consulting as a post-MBA career. Here are some of the common ones: Do I need consulting experience to be a consultant? No! Consulting companies who recruit MBAs do so because they are looking for a very definite type of skillset. They are looking for a combination of being intellectually curious, driven to solve tough problems, and great with people. If you have these characteristics, they can train you in the technical aspects of doing the job. Luckily, these characteristics are also a very good match for what makes a good MBA candidate, which is one of the reasons why consulting companies see top business schools as such a rich source of talent. Does consulting work always mean getting on a plane every week and being away from home? As with many things in consulting, the answer is … it depends. Some companies have a model where they encourage their teams to spend the majority of their working time on the client site. This is a great way to build strong relationships and to ensure the consultants are immersed in their clients’ businesses. Other companies use a travel as needed model, which may involve travel to the client for key meetings, and the rest of the work done from the home office. Part of the process of finding the company that is right for you is learning about the nuances between companies, and actually between offices as well. My experience as a consultant with McKinsey in London, for instance, was that a lot of work was local because that was a very big office in a location where many companies had their headquarters. But ask a consultant in the same firm at a different office and they may have a different experience. The good news is that at any top business school you will find a great many alumni in each of the companies, so you will have many opportunities to have conversations and learn about each person’s experience at their firm. How long do people tend to stay in consulting? Many of our alumni have stayed in consulting for many years, and are now senior leaders in their firms. For these people being a consulting partner is their dream job. But many others have left to pursue other jobs, which is reflected in the fact that a very large number of our alumni have a stint in consulting on their resume before their real career took off! From my observation, the average tenure in many of the top companies seems to be around 3 to 5 years. At this point, you have developed a really solid consulting toolkit, have managed projects and teams, and helped build client relationships, and are incredibly valuable to other employers. In my experience, you start to get a lot of contacts from headhunters, and you will also find favorite clients asking you to join them. The biggest reason for people to leave consulting is more of a pull from the many opportunities they see, than a push from the consulting company. One thing I find interesting is that the consulting companies are very open about the fact that people use them as training grounds and will often highlight the great successes of their many alumni when they come to do recruiting events. Stephen Pidgeon T’07 is an associate director of the Tuck Career Development Office (CDO)and author of the books How to Get a Job in Consulting and Case Interviews for Beginners.

I applied in January round and had an interview with the second year student yesterday.
We planned to talk for 45 minutes, but finished just in 30.
Do not know whether it is a good sign.
Hope to hear the decision soon.
To wait is the hardest.

Tuesday, February 14: Live Chat with Tuck Admission Director

Dear Applicants, We will conduct a live chat next week with Amy Mitson, Interim Co-Director of Admissions at Tuck. We hope all of you will attend this chat. If anyone can't attend the session but has questions for Tuck adcom, you can PM your questions to me and I will try to get their answers from the adcom. Thank you! See y'all in the event.

February 14, 2017 | Tuesday | 9:00 AM Pacific Time; 12:00 PM Eastern Time; 5:00 PM GMT | Place:New Chat Room
Add this event to your Google calendar

Brief intro of Amy Mitson: Amy has been at Tuck since 2000 and is currently Interim Co-Director of Admissions. Prior to working with Tuck Admissions, Amy was the Senior Associate Director of the MBA Program Office. As an admissions officer at Tuck, Amy serves on the admissions committee, reads applications, interviews candidates, oversees the campus visitation program, and manages recruiting efforts in Asia. Her combined student services and admissions experiences have helped her get acquainted with the day-to-day operations at Tuck as well as its history. Her favorite thing about Tuck is the people; working with the faculty, staff and students is a consistent source of motivation and inspiration.


Click here to see complete live Q&A schedule.

Congrats on being interviewed !!

Good luck this week to the Nov round candidates!

Chances are small but I'm still hoping to get a spot off the waitlist

Congrats on the interview. I believe it is about the quality of your responses and the fit rather than the duration of the interview. So don´t worry about it. Where are you from?

It all depends on how your interview was. For all its worth its all in the past. Nothing you can do now will change the outcome but keep your fingers crossed n hope for the best.