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MARCH 31, 2000 B-SCHOOL Q&A: ADMISSIONS Meet BYU's Admissions Director A Conversation with was Henry Eyring, director of the Marriott School MBA Program
Q: Brigham Young University is set apart from the rest of the MBA community in that a large percentage of its students are members of the Church of Latter Day Saints. What percent of the student population and the faculty of Marriott's MBA program are Mormons? A: Towards 98% of the population is Mormon. In addition to the high quality of education BYU provides the school offers a unique spiritual environment. We benefit from being able to attract a group of academics that teach at very prestigious schools, but join us because they have a personal interest in the spiritual climate at BYU. From the standpoint of attracting or attaining great faculty, we have a tremendous competitive advantage. Q: Is the school trying, in any way, to increase its non-LDS student body? A: Yes. We're not discriminating or in any way biased when looking for great students. I expect that with time, the number of students who are nonmembers of the LDS is likely to increase. We're especially interested, and very active in growing the number of minorities and women we have in the program. In the last year, we have made trips to half a dozen major cities, where the church has a relatively smaller presence - places like Atlanta, Washington, New York, and Chicago. We specifically seek those candidates who will add diversity in terms of ethnicity and gender. As we do that successfully, we are likely to increase the number of non-[LDS] members. We're already quite international, and likely to become more so because the LDS church is international. In Latin America, we recruit very effectively, and that will continue to be the case, as the church becomes more international. As far as ethnicity and gender goes, we've had to be more explicitly aggressive about recruiting. Q: BYU's Web site claims that 85% of Marriott students are well-versed in a second language, due to time spent abroad as missionaries. How has that helped to internationalize the actual program? A: That is due to a combination of things: our students serving as missionaries, and having international students. It gives us the foundation and opportunity, as we teach, for instance, business government and international economy, to presume that all of the students have a base understanding of different cultures and languages. Almost certainly, any country in the world that you talk about is going to be represented in class by someone who's been there, or even lived there. That's a great advantage to us, in the same way that full-time work experience is an advantage. For example, when you're using a case-based pedagogy, there's someone in the class who can speak to it firsthand. Q: Sixty-seven percent of the students received their undergraduate degrees from BYU. Is the school looking elsewhere for applicants? A: Yes. While, we value diversity, the BYU undergraduate population is an outstanding and very large pool. As the LDS church grows in excess of 10 million members, with 200,000 college-aged church members in the U.S. alone, and the BYU undergraduate population is limited to 30,000 students, the quality of BYU is going up and up. Given that we are looking primarily at the applicants' merits, in terms of undergraduate academic performance and work experience, and GMAT scores, the BYU pool is getting richer and richer.
Q: Another way to diversify an MBA class is by diversifying the range of work experiences candidates bring to campus. BYU's Web site says that applicants are encouraged to pursue any undergraduate major except business administration. Why does the school say that? A: Our rationale is that we provide a very good core [curriculum] to first-year MBAs, and a team-based process, where a non-business, undergraduate major can get many of the fundamentals of business. We do require as prerequisite courses, statistics, economics, accounting, and college algebra. We're fully prepared to take a student and give him the basics in finance and marketing. For that reason, we're eager to see undergraduate students who've received the breadth of a liberal arts education, and the diversity of perspective that brings. Then, we get the both of best worlds and that's a great producer of diversity that's important to employers. Q: BYU requires its applicants to sign an honor code that says, among other things, that they'll abstain from consuming alcohol, using tobacco products, late night coffee breaks, and swearing. Has that turned applicants away from BYU? A: It's a good question. What we can't tell is who is being turned away, and why. I'm sure that there are a good number of people who don't consider BYU for those reasons. However, there are a couple of indicators that lead me to believe that the honor code is not a problem for us, but a benefit. One of those indicators is that amongst our students, we've not had a violation of that honor code. And we look pretty carefully. The other indicator is that the honor code doesn't seem to be a problem as we talk with non-LDS member applicants, and those coming from overseas and China, where you might be worried about their adherence to a fundamentally Judeo-Christian honor code. We think that it's a tremendous benefit to the school, because it produces a level of commitment to honor that our employers place a high value on. It's a great selling point as we go into the marketplace, in corporate recruiting. Q: How does the school evaluate its candidates? A: We consider a variety of factors. The interview we conduct yields the most useful insights for us. You're not guaranteed an interview to the program, but we try to conduct interviews with all qualified applicants. At that time, we're looking through the eyes of [future] employers, fellow classmates, and to a certain extent, faculty. We ask, "Is this an applicant who will make a positive contribution to his or her team?" When employers come [to interview], are they going to look at this person and say, "This is somebody I definitely want in my organization." Another factor that is of great importance is the quality of full-time work experience. Q: What is considered quality work experience? A: Quality is three things. One of them is the level of managerial experience - not just about how many people reported to a person, but with regard to the important assets that a business trusts the person with. Those can be people, money, intellectual property, significant projects, or customer accounts. We'd like to see an applicant whose employer trusted him or her to use a fair amount of discretion over a valuable asset. The second criterion is the candidate's ultimate career objective. Finally, we are looking specifically at the kind of company the person worked for. Some companies are known for high levels of investment in their employees - where training may have been very good, and exposure may have been very broad. Q: What if applicants are coming from startup companies, where training isn't paramount? A: We expect that bulge to come. With the cooling of the business to consumer segment of the Internet [OK as is? -- not sure what to do with this -- AG] we'll see more of it. And it is going to present an interesting challenge because it will be very difficult to distinguish a credible startup and one that was, perhaps, more of just a personal venture that never really flew. We're going to have to screen each company in very much the same way that a venture capitalist does. Q: I have to give you credit, Henry. You're the first admissions director who did not mention the GMAT. Where does that fit into the puzzle? A: The GMAT and the undergraduate GPA are factors that matter when they are low. If you see undergraduate grades below a 3.0, or a GMAT that is below 550 for a native English speaker, then we drill down into that, and try to understand what's behind it. The GMAT has some value, especially because we're a quantitatively rigorous program. And we'll use the GMAT like the GPA, to screen applicants out. But, we no longer do what we used to do: accept anyone with a 760. Q: What's a good percentile to fall into on the verbal and the quantitative sections of the exam? A: We get nervous with applicants who are below the 50th percentile on the quantitative. Q: Where do recommendations fall into the loop? How much weight are they given? A: Recommendations are substantial, although they are more in that category that the grades and the GMAT are in. Sometimes, they throw up a red flag for the admissions committee. For instance, if a recommender is at all specific in a criticism, we take that very, very seriously. It's a little tougher to take specific praise very seriously, because that's by and large what you see. We're much more concerned when we see someone who seems to have made a bad choice about a recommender or has had a recommender be candid about a specific weakness - especially the inability to work well with peers. Q: BYU applicants are asked to demonstrate their computer skills. How can they do that on an application? A: Computer skills are important in the program. We're going to require laptops for the class admitted this fall. It's difficult for us to screen for computer skills, so we provide, as part of the core, a pretty basic course we call Toolkit, in which students are taught to use Excel, and other important applications. This summer, BYU will develop an online course that allows students to come up to a minimal level of competency, and we may have a competency exam associated with that. But we pride ourselves in being able to bring them all up to a basic threshold, as part of our MBA core. Q: BYU asks all LDS applicants for the names of their LDS branches. Does the school contact them, and is that another way to evaluate an applicant? A: There is a required ecclesiastical endorsement that is part of the application. Yes, that has been done. Q: What would you say are the Marriott degree strengths? A: The faculty shows a tremendous level of commitment in a way that they wouldn't if BYU didn't have this special affiliation with the LDS church. Our students have strong international perspectives, and are likewise very committed to BYU as an institution. We have just innovated with a track-based system, which is more than just a way of organizing the curriculum. We've essentially turned the elective aspects of the program over to the faculty who is responsible for specific disciplines in the school. For instance, the finance professors really own the finance track now. All of the faculty are going out and building their own business advisory boards, helping us establish the natural link into the industries into which students want to be placed at graduation. Q: Does the Marriott School employ a wait list? A: We don't call it a wait list. We do put certain applicants on hold. In that case, we're either waiting for the second application deadline, which is March 1st, or, we're waiting to see what our acceptances look like. To me, that's more informal than I sense is the case with other schools. Q: How many applicants tend to make it off of the "hold" list? A: About 10% of the applicants may be placed on hold in a given year. About 15% of those applicants would then be admitted. And we are not very concerned about fluctuation in class size from year to year. So if the quality of a particular class is lower or higher, or the applicant pool is lower or higher, we'll respond, and the size of the class will shift. Because the LDS church supports the university, we're not quite as tuition revenue driven, as some other programs are. Q: If not to BYU, where do applicants tend to go? A: Close to 75% of our admitted students in 1998 enrolled. But when we do lose students, we rarely lose to the top-20 schools. We lose students to the top ten schools. In those cases, the students have chosen BYU as a backup. For the students we deny admission to, a good number of them return to work and reapply [in later years] rather than going to another school. Q: Do many of BYU's applicants become reapplicants in later years? A: We actively look for applicants who may be a little bit premature [for an MBA], or may not have quite enough work experience, but are headed in the right direction. Then, we'll get them thinking about us, and reapplying in the next year or two. Q: Does BYU offer feedback to the dinged applicants over the summer? A: Absolutely. In fact, our rejection or deferral letters are tailored to each applicant. Q: You mean to say that there are MBA programs out there that don't employ form letters? A: Only about 10% of the letter is customized to the applicant, but it says, for instance, "In your case, the committee was particularly concerned about these dimensions. We recommend that you do these things." I have been working now for a year with a good number of people who are going to be accepted for [enrollment] this fall. It makes a lot of sense for us, in a world where the rest of the crowd is going, for artificial reasons, in the direction of five, six, seven, and eight years of work experience, thinking that the [number of years] of work is what matters to us. So it makes a lot of sense for us - especially where our applicant pool is a little bit older - most have been away on two-year missions [with the Mormon Church] during college - to take the time to help the applicants reapply. Our applicants also feel older, because they've gotten married younger, and many have families. We think it's good for them, and ultimately good for their employers, if we focus more on the quality of work experience, rather than the quantum. That also allows us to position ourselves competitively below the pricing umbrella, if you will, of business schools of similar quality who we think are too focused on what the student's salary was on the way in. Q: If you had all of your applicants in one room, what advice would you give them? A: The most important thing they can do is to think about direction. As they finish up an MBA program, and they make an attempt to enter the workplace, they're essentially trying to sell a product with a value of many, many millions of dollars. The sooner they can begin to think about what that product does for an employer, and how it creates value, the sooner they can build towards that. The more that they can align the various vectors of course experience and internships, and work experience and extracurricular activities, obviously the better off they'll be. The more efficiently they can go through this process, the more likely it is that they can leave business school at age 28 or 29, as opposed to age 30, 31, or 32, and command the kinds of opportunity they're looking for. Q: Would such career direction be best stated in essays? A: We require three essays. Essay number one asks the question, "Where are you going?" It's the direction question. Essay number two is the managerial experience question. It shows that you had significant responsibility for important resources. Essay number three asks the question, "Do you understand the meaning of the sponsorship of the LDS church from Brigham Young University?" Effectively, the church will pay for two-thirds of your education. That doesn't require that you be a church member, but it certainly would be nice if you understood something about the institution and had some idea about how, member or nonmember, you could make a contribution to the mission of the church - which is to benefit people throughout the world. And that's a contribution that we hope would occur not only while you're in the program, but throughout your life. Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | MARCH
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