Jon, you've been involved with UVA in some capacity for about 23 years, and have been at Darden's admissions office for the last 11 years. Has Darden's application process changed significantly over that time?

The process has changed significantly. Eleven years ago, every application was read by at least two members of the faculty. And today, probably less than 5% of the applications receive evaluation from the faculty.

Why is that?

There were some operational issues. And those revolved around the fact that faculty were thorough readers but not efficient evaluators. So we were not able to return decisions on a timely, competitive basis. Also, faculty decided that its wasn't the most productive use of their time. If we [admissions staff] could internalize the same values the faculty were seeking, then the operation could be turned over predominantly to admissions officials. We made the transition smoothly and now handle most of the applications.

Is the competition getting more fierce between MBA programs?

There are probably ten or a dozen schools that are competing for fewer than 5,000 exceptional MBA candidates. Has the competition among those 12 schools become fiercer? No, I don't think so. My impression is that over the last five years, there has, within the industry, developed a real segmentation between 10 to 15 elite schools and the rest of the MBA marketplace. The gap that separates these two groupings has widened.

We [admissions staff at the 10 to 15 schools] all know one another and we understand that we're competing for this select number of students. Despite the competition, we're not cutthroat, but collegial with one another. Applicants will make their decision based on a number of factors, and the more candid we are with one another, the better decision that applicants will make. In other words, if I have a colleague that bad-mouths Darden, and as a result, an applicant goes to another school and has a bad experience there, it will be stated in a publication like Business Week, and no one wins. So honesty and collegiality is the best policy.

How many apps did you receive this year?

3,123 -- and back in 1993 we had 2,192. And in 1992 it was 1,909.

That's a pretty steady upward trend. (1992: 1,902; 1993: 2,192; 1994: 2,086; 1995: 2,297; 1996: 2,622; 1997: 3,123) Do you think it is a cyclical one?

Logic would argue that it is cyclical. The last time there was a substantial drop in applications coincided with a drop in the market in 1989. I think that as long as the economic environment is as rosy as it is, people are going to be excited about getting an MBA

What factors can you attribute to Darden's rise in apps?

I wish I could tell you that the increases are linked to my admissions savvy, but they aren't. I can pinpoint three different phenomena.

About five years ago we joined the Consortium of Graduate Study and Mangement. The consortium administers corporate-funded minority scholarships to MBA programs. So Citicorp or Procter & Gamble, for example, give the consortium x amount of money that is alotted equally to participating schools. It provides tuition and fees in the form of scholarships to under-represented minorities. We received 75 applications from African-Americans five years ago, and then saw an increase of 350 apps during our first year with the consortium. We saw a comparable percentage rise in Hispanic-American applicants as well.

A more general phenomenon that affected Darden and other schools as well is the segmentation of the marketplace. A large number of people decided that an MBA might not be worth the expense, but getting an MBA from a handful of elite schools might. There are 700 total programs in the country and 300 that are AACSB [American Association of Collegiate Schools] accredited. I think the top 10 percent [schools] began to separate themselves in the eyes of prospective students.

Lastly, if you take a look at Darden this year, we had a 500 application jump. That jump is largely attributable to a 90% increase in international applications. If you take a look at other schools that wind up in Business Week's top 25, I think that you see most of them also showing a rise in applications. A breakdown of schools' applications over the last 5-7 years should display app increases also largely attributable to an increase in international MBA interest. So this is a widespread phenomenon.

In 1996, Darden had just a 12% international student profile -- the lowest percentage in international class makeup in our top 50.

And we probably had the smallest applicant pool. So it wasn't because we were being unusually selective, but that we had a smaller pool to collect from. We're now projecting 21% of our incoming class to be international; that jump is based upon the remarkable increase in our app pool.

Indeed, one of the advantages of going to Darden is its small class size. About how many class spots are available?

My window is beween 240 and 250. If I can come in at 244, that's perfect.

How many people does the school need to admit to fill it?

We get a yield of roughly 50%, so we're talking between 475 - 490 accepts.

Does an applicant's ability to pay the tuition affect his or her ability to be admitted?

No, the ability to pay is not an issue. For our offer of admission to international students, we're no longer requiring them to provide documentation that they can pay Darden tuition [that most schools require in order that a student may receive his or her greencard].

How much weight does the GMAT carry for an application?

More and more. And so does the GPA

Do you think that's fair?

We know that the two best predictors for academic performance -- when the first and second years are taken together -- are the GMAT and the GPA. We've had an increase of 1,000 apps in last five years. And as we try to discriminate, all of the bars have been raised: GPA, GMAT, and work experience numbers have all increased. If you take a look at the average test scores posted by the top 25 schools over the last 5 years, I suspect that they all have experienced increases in overall apps and increase in GMAT. They're [the schools] being more selective, but students are also taking better tests. My objective opinion is that we're seeing higher test scores on average than in the past.

Is an applicant with a GMAT score of 750 ever rejected?

All the time they would be sent away.

For what reasons theoretically?

We take a look at standardized test scores, the interview, GMAT, GPA, and work experience when assessing an applicant. But the final discriminator is if he or she fits into our program. Darden is a school that has a very distinctive culture and set of values. I'll read an application that has a great recommendation, a 3.6 GPA, 700 GMAT, with everything looking good. But the applicant may not be accepted because he or she just doesn't fit Darden's mold. He may instead have a note attached to his file that recommends he/she be funneled to Chicago, for example -- a better match [of student and school] in our estimation. We want to accept people who want what we do.

How many times is it "safe" to take the GMAT without losing credibility at your school?

If you take it more than twice and the score doesn't change much, than you probably shouldn't take it again. But we have seen folks take the test several times who have shown an incremental rise in their score. It's more about what the results are than the number of tests taken.

I know that Darden places a lot of importance on its interviews. How much weight does an inteview carry in the application process?

We did a study about five years ago that measured what factors could be attributed to students' placement success -- what factors yielded the highest number of offers in recruiting and the best offers -- and we tried to match it up with our selection criteria. The study found that the best predictor of success in career placement was the rating admitted students received on their interviews. So there's that evidence.

In addition, we're a general management program. Managerial success is more contingent on your communication and interpersonal skills than your analytical skills. So when training general managers, communication skills become a valuable selection criteria. Also, as a case study program, 50% of your grades are based on class participation. So communication skills should be correlated with academic and professional success.

Generally, an interview is not quantifiable in the same way as an essay and a GPA, but it has as strong a predictive value for success as anything else we look at.

Do you interview?

Yes, I read every application -- which was a daunting task this year. I guess I probably averaged 15 interviews a month last year. This year, the admissions committee conducted over 1,800 interviews. So we captured better than half of the applicant pool.

What do you hope to hear about during an interview?

It often isn't content. It's as much form as it is content. Are people confident is their body language? Are they flexible in terms of their responses to different kinds of questions? Are they attentive listeners as well as articulate responders? One of the things that we do in our interviews is ask 'why.' Why do you make a good match with Darden?

We would love it if everybody who applied to Darden had substantial managerial experience. Not everybody who applies -- and some who are admitted -- have significant managerial experience. But there is something that everybody has managed and that is their life. The capacity to be insightful in self-assessment is valuable. To distinguish between opportunities and constraints -- as far as deciding where to move, which college or university to apply and attend, which salary package to accept, for example -- is an important attribute. Some people undervalue their strengths. People with the potential to be strong managers are clear-sighted both with themselves and in the professional world. They can articulate this in the interview, and that's what we look for.

How long does the interview last?

An hour. There are some who can finish up in 15 minutes and others who can talk for hours. But we try to ask as many questions as we can in the alotted time frame. And it takes about an hour to write up the interview assessment afterward.

Okay, let's move on. What do you look for in an essay?

The essays are intended to provide us with different aspects of a person's life. Getting four essays that deal with nothing but platitudes and content that answers "what we want to hear" is counterproductive. The essays are an opportunity to display the different facets of the applicant's character. A successful manager operates in a complicated environment that encompasses a wide-range of issues. People who are mulitfaceted are better inclined to demonstrate their ability as a successful manager. It also is a continuation of the 'why' question.

What mistakes do you commonly see in essays?

One of the most comon essay errors is one that is well written in all regards, but that has a last sentence that says 'and that's why I'd like to go to Tuck, or Duke, or Harvard, or Darden.' That is sufficient reason to deny a candidate admission.

Many people who apply to grad school think that we're looking for a particular set of characteristics, and they try to fit the 'mold.' But there is no 'there, there,' as Gertrude Stein says. They [applicants] don't seem real or genuine. Even if they say all of the right things, if there's no personality there, then the applicant is putting him or herself at great risk. I'm much more apt to accept a human, maybe flawed person. We're looking for 'real' applicants that we can make informed, intelligent decisions on. Often people send us applications that resemble a black box -- that doesn't reveal anything. A nondescript applicant usually doesn't fare well.

Let's pretend for a moment that your are not the admissions director at Darden. Instead, let's pretend you're on the outside again as an applicant. In the ideal world, could you tell us what steps you would go through to increase your odds of getting in?

One of the reasons Darden is so well regarded is that we try and match up people with expectations that match our strengths. If I were looking into Darden, I'd talk to alumni, interview, and get a sense of what the institutional values are. I'd talk to students and alumni and decide whether I was a toad among princes or a prince among toads ... decide whether Darden was a school that matched my expectations. I think that people spend too much time trying to get into school instead of doing the preliminary research. If there was a real strong match and I believed Darden was a reflection of 'who I am,' then I'd trust that the people who evaluate me would see the serendipity. If they didn't, then I was wrong about the school.

We get tons of mail asking us why applicants have been turned down. The tone is usually apologetic and attached with shortcomings -- 'what didn't I do.' Often it's not what wasn't there, but that there were some perceived matches that lined up better elsewhere. If we don't see the match, and it may very well be there, [Darden isn't the] place the applicant belongs. Admissions committees and their selection criteria reflect the value of the school.

Do you encourage those denied admission to reapply?

We will be pretty explicit. It depends on whether someone has missed the bullseye or if they have missed the target altogether. If someone wants to reapply and writes to us for feedback, and we think he's missed the target, then we will be fairly brief in our response. However, if we feel an applicant should reapply -- that he missed the bullseye, but not by much, then we will explain where we perceive the shortcoming. When a candidate reapplies, we tend to base our judgment on whether the candidate was able to recover -- to demonstrate that his or her shortcoming was apparent rather than substantive.

The biggest mistake people make when they reapply is to submit the same application. Those who submit the same applications the next year are never admitted. We have never changed our decision [on a carbon copy application].

Has Leo Higdon's (the school's dean for the past 4 years) departure en route to Babson affected Darden in any way. Have there been any changes to the application process? In students' perceptions of the progam?

We do a survey of both matriculates and non-matriculates, and we ask a series of questions about why they enrolled or declined. Half decide not to come, and of those who decide not to come three or four indicated that the fact that Leo was not going to be here and that there was no leader played a role in their decision not to attend. The students who were enrolled at the time of Leo's announcement to join Babson were a little sad and disappointed. But there's a remarkable confidence in the the future. Leo led Darden through curricular reform, helped to set-up the entrepreneur leadership institute, and helped bring Darden to national prominence [the school rocketed 7 places to #5 on BW's 1996 ranking]. One of the things that happened in the Leo-Darden relationship is that Darden's visibility increased. At the same time, his [Higdon's] visibility increased. He's been able to parlay that into a presidency [Higdon is now president at Babson]. We think that his role here and what he's done for this program will allow us to find a reputable successor.

Has the new Batten Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership bolstered the Darden program? Has it created a new demand for the concentration?

I think that there's a lag time between when something like Batten is created and when it generates a certain type of visibility and has a definitive impact. There was some indication from some non-matriculates that they were going to attend another school for its entrepreneurship program, and they didn't know about the Batten Center. I think that within two years, the Batten Center will begin to attract people for entrepreneurship.

Jon, thanks very much for taking the time to talk about Darden's admission process with me this afternoon. Your insights should be helpful to future Darden applicants.