Bob, the MBA degree has grown significantly in popularity. Wharton's applications have been going through the roof. In fact, since 1993, when the school's application total was 4,399, Wharton has seen an annual rise in its app total [('94) 5,019; ('95) 6,354; ('96) 7,329; ('97) 7,457]. We're talking about a 70% increase from 1993 to the present. To what do you attribute this?

Well first off, our official number of applications for the Class of '99 is 7,461.

I think there has been a great deal of strong forward momentum here at the school. The population out there is seeing Wharton as a school that is constantly redefining management education. And the people who are making the decision to attend an MBA program, who realize that they need to take two years out of their career and make the investment that it requires, are gravitating toward the top-tier schools. So I think there has been a shift to the top-tier schools, and within that, I think there is a recognition that Wharton has set itself apart by constantly trying to improve what we do. And that goes back to the late '80s and (early) '90s, when we were the first school to make dramatic changes in our curriculum.

This gravitation toward the elite, top-tier schools .. who do you consider these schools to be?

Oh, I'd say the top 10 or 15 schools: the Harvards, the Stanfords, the University of Chicagos, the Dartmouths, the Whartons ...

And in what way do you feel Wharton has set itself apart from that select group?

Well, I think that we've put more of an emphasis on the development of softer skills such as leadership, communicaton skills .. team building has been very important .. an emphasis on technology and how it is used in the workforce. On that front, for example, we're using technology within our existing courses (video-conferencing, computers, etc.) but we have coursework that focuses on the implementation of technology in the workforce as well.

Well, I have to concur with an earlier statement you made -- that Wharton is gaining recognition from applicants. Because the numbers in front of me reveal that Wharton lagged some 1,500 applications behind Harvard Business School back in 1994, and that now it is even with HBS (7,461 versus 7,467). That's a pretty meteoric rise. Do you feel this turnaround is a result of the school's efforts (marketing) or because of a lack thereof on the part of Harvard?

My take is that there is very, very strong momentum here at Wharton that has been building over the last several years. Changes we made to the curriculum that were rolled out to the entire class in 1993 have been extraordinarily received -- they've been embraced by recruiters and other b-school faculty around the globe. And then going back and looking at those changes each year and how we can make those things better .. I go back to my own experience and I look at what has transpired over the last 10 years and there's an absolute comfort here in constantly rethinking how we do things and implementing them. That type of momentum takes time to take hold. Also, two successive #1 rankings in Business Week are a positive!

What were some of those changes that Wharton integrated into its curriculum in '93?

The new curriculum actually began earlier than '93. It was rolled out on a small scale a couple of years prior to '93, and then was directed at a larger portion of the student body shortly after. Full implementation of the new curriculum happened in 1993 -1994. When we revamped the curriculum, we went from a semester system to a quarter system. And that enabled us to provide better integration across the curriculum during the first year so students could more readily see how an impact in one area affects another.

We've emphasized much more leadership and team-builidng, and, for example, developed a leadership course that was required for all first year students. And there was more of an international emphasis placed on the first year of the curriculum. So the overall approach was to have stronger emphasis on integrating across functions so that you wouldn't have a set of skills in marketing, management, or finance, but that students would see how all those skills would come together in a real business problem.

For the Capstone Project students go out in teams and consult on a real world business situation of the group's choosing. So our students are taking the experiences of the first year and applying them into a real world setting. They're evaluated not only on their final product, but also on their teamwork. So, the leadership course and the field application project are integrally tied.

On the marketing side, Wharton has been very aggressive about bringing the community and the experience to prospective students around the globe. This is a very, very shrewd, discerning (applicant) population. Prospective students aren't going to simply listen to an aggressive marketing campaign. They speak with peers, with faculty, and with people who have just graduated -- and from there, make sound judgments about what fit is best and provides the best match for them. We've ramped up our recruitment efforts around the globe. But it's not simply our marketing efforts that have gotten us to where we are today. These students find substance behind what they are hearing.

What types of new recruitment efforts is Wharton undertaking?

We are doing things domestically and internationally. For example, this year we recruited in mainland China for the first time, and held receptions and evaluative interviews. We're going to India for first time this year to recruit and interview. Those are two places that we haven't historically traveled. We also visit more than 20 cities here in the U.S., and are spending more time in areas where we have recruited in the past. We have significantly grown our alumni interview program so that this past year we completed more than 3,000 interviews all over the globe. So these alumni are helping to spread our brand recognition and program initiative throughout the world.

Do you feel that the application process or the applicants themselves have changed at all since your days in the MBA arena in the mid-'80s?

I think the MBA consumer is more saavy and asks tougher questions. I think they have better access to information very, very quickly to help them strategize what schools are appropriate for them. Many people might have issues with the methodologies and results of rankings. But one thing they have done is provide objective criteria about programs in a very accessible, condensed form for prospective students. So if they (prospective applicants) start with that as a base and then start their own research they come away as much more savvy consumers. The applicants themselves I think are also coming to us with more depth of experience and stronger skills than in the mid '80s

How big is this year's class, how many people did the school need to admit to fill it, and what was the yield?

We have a matriculating class of 792. It's a little bit larger than previous years, and frankly it wasn't something that we set out to accomplish, but our yield was stronger than it was last year, at 73.2%. We admitted about 1,080 (or 14.5% of the total applicant pool. Last year's numbers were: 15% of the total applicant pool accepted, with a yield of 71%].

Does the school set any goals for enrollment, such as degree of diversity or recruitment abroad?

No. My goal is to continue the momentum and the 70% increase in applications is exactly what I want to continue. If I can continue to build on that app pool and make sure that I have an enormously diverse app pool -- including different gender, experience, geography, etc. -- then I have the luxury of choosing the absolute best within that app pool and I don't have to feel constrained by certain categories.

I would think that it has become harder to be as thorough during your evaluation of candidates given the rise in apps over the past couple of years. Have you had to cut any corners to accommodate this larger app pool? For example, I know that Stanford has rescinded the interview because it is just too hard for them logistically. Has this type of thing afflicted Wharton?

It has afflicted Wharton, but I think the response from Wharton has been not to compromise or change how we evaluate candidates. But we have certainly learned to work much smarter and much harder than in the early '90s. We have also grown our alumni interviewing to help make up for places where we can't accommodate the demand. I think the interview is absolutely pivotal, not from an evaluative standpoint, but in order to help students assess us. And I believe very, very strongly that prior to making what amounts to an $80,000 investment over two years, students should be able to ask questions and clarify in their minds whether the Wharton experience and program are suited to their personal and professional goals. And that's how we approach interviews. It's a mutual assessment. I think that whatever we have to do, we have to do.

What does your international enrollment look like?

It's 30.6% this year.

Bob, I know that many people are wary about the statistical data provided by the schools (regarding enrollment, minorities, GMAT scores, etc). And I recently spoke with Robert Williams, the director of admissions at Duke's Fuqua School, who lauded you for breaking down international and minority enrollment figures to explain, segment-by-segment, what the class profile really is. First off, do you personally feel that b-schools inflate or maybe misrepresent their statistics?

I would say that in a couple of isolated situations I have had some degree of concern .. things just didn't add up for me. Sometimes I think it's a question of not fabricating info, but when you ask what is the entering class of the Wharton School versus others, well .. "entering class" can be a variable in itself. There might be three start dates for a particular year. If you can finesse even the very starting point of which date is the "entering" variable, then there can be some disparities. So I guess I'm not concerned that people are being dishonest or fabricating numbers, but sometimes we're comparing apples with oranges.

When did you start statistically breaking down Wharton's enrollment figures?

First off, I have not instituted that myself. My personal feeling about this is that I am very, very proud of what's happening here. I want to provide as much info as I possibly can to help students make an appropriate evaluation of this program. If I'm lumping figures together and massaging data then I can compromise the assessment that prospective students are making. My goal is to have students assess this place and make sound judgments as to whether this is the right fit for them.

I guess I have reservations about the rankings themselves because I don't think the ranking itself is the reason to attend a particular program. So I think they're a disservice to prospective students in that sense. I mentioned before that they (rankings) are helpful because they tend to condense an enormous amount of data into 3 or 4 pages to help students make an initial assessment of the program. But it (the ranking) should be a starting point and it should be the obligation of the prospective student to build on that starting point.

The entire application process seems to be getting tougher and more competitive with every year that goes by. The bar is being raised in terms of the qualifications and attributes the candidate must have to pass muster. What, for example, was the GMAT range and average for this year's class ?

The average is 674, and I don't have a range for you [in 1996 the range was 520 - 800, with an average of 662].

How can an applicant shine in your eyes?

If you take very, very strong professional development at work along with demonstrated strengths in undergrad and grad coursework .. use that as the base and assume that a student -- in order to be admitted -- has to be very strong in those areas. Then we begin to focus on the intangibles. In particular I look at how an individual student is going to make Wharton stronger by being here. That's something that I'm always asking myself when reviewing a candidate that is clearly admissable. The answer to that question can be any number of things. But a common theme is that our students demonstrate that they're innovative, entrepreneurial, and have demonstrated a commitment to giving back to their communities. There is something else as well, and that is having an undercurrent of self-initiative that has set them apart. [If those intangibles are recognizable] then I want to bring them here and allow them to have the same impact on the Wharton community both inside and outside the classroom. Invariably, I'm seeing a history of these compelling personal qualities and they basically translate to strong potential for strong managerial success.

Is there a cutoff or threshold number you keep inside your head when evaluating an applicant's GMAT and GPA?

There are a couple ways of answering that question. If you want to know if there are students walking around these hallways with a low GPA or GMAT, then the answer is yes. But if I see an applicant and they're not respectful of the applicants that they're up against, then they're not going to do well. There are people who are not good standardized test takers. And they make a good case that their particular weakness never hurt their abilitiy in the classroom We can and certainly do find room for them here.

Frankly, if this process simply became evaluating applicants' GMATs and GPAs and three or four years of work experience, then I would be unemployed and a sophisticated computer program would take over. We do admit people with lower GMAT scores and the such.

Does an applicant tend to lose credibility in you eyes the more GMAT tests he or she takes?

Absolutely not. I look exclusively at the highest one.

Last year (1996), Wharton interviewed 90% of its applicants -- to clarify, that 90% encompasses the entire applicant pool, right?

Corrrect.

How does the interview fit into your overall evaluation of applicants?

I would say that, for the vast majority of our candidates, the interview underscores what we have already been able to learn about that candidate. I am very comfortable that we can make a thorough evaluation without an interview, but the interview helps the student provide some of the intangibles to the admissions committee that we might not otherwise know.

Do you, yourself interview?

Absolutely. This past year I would hazard a guess that I did 400, and they usually last a half hour to 45 minutes.

What do you hope to hear about during an interview?

Every time I meet with a prospective student, they ask me what they can do to distinguish themselves .. to set themselves apart. They'll say: 'I went to Berkeley, earned a 3.8 GPA, was president of my sorority, worked for Deloitte & Touche for three years, etc.' And they focus on their data points on their resume. But that's not going to set them apart.

What I want to understand are the decision-making processes behind those data points. Why did they choose to attend Berkeley? What do they value? They could have gone to any liberal arts college in Vermont. Why did they study engineering? What were the ramifications of being president of their sorority? How did they deal with frustrations and disappointments? What was it about Deloitte & Touche that piqued their interest? What types of projects have they enjoyed while there? How have they dealt with the difficult people to work with? If they start digging deeper than their data points on the resume and focus on the how's and the why's, they'll distinguish themselves because only one person can distinguish their data points.

There should be a continutity and a message throughout all of these different pieces. So the interview shouldn't be a complete revelations or distinct from the other parts of the application.

How many essays are required in the application?

Four.

Have the questions changed at all since last year or recently?

Not dramatically. We made changes last year, but the questions this year are virtually the same.

Question one is basically about the decision-making process, the work history, career decisions to date, professional development and how the MBA fits into the applicant's career path. Question two asks the candidate to talk about a time when he or she experienced change, describe their reaction and the goals they set up as a response. Question three is about a personal achievement that has had a significant impact on the applicant's life. And question four is very, very broad and asks the candidate to tell us what we don't know about them.

The essays typically have a word range of 500 - 1,000. And we read every single word that they send in. We've seen 30 page answers .. and that obviously diminishes the content. The focus should be on your communicating a message. Extraneous info .. that doesn't really help us. Clearly the essays present a situation where people need to prioritize the importance of certain elements of the candidate's life and experience. And this is part of our overall assessment -- how effectively are they able to do this?

How many recommendations do you require?

We require two.

Is it alright to send in more if you want?

That's a judgment call. I would rather see two, very substantive well thought-out recommendations rather than five or six that are perfunctory and uninspiring.

What type of recommendation are you looking for? For example, entrepreneurs: How should they go about garnering substantive recommendations?

Entrepreneurs typically have an informal advisory network. I would suggest they have someone from that advisory network who might have observed what that individual has accomplished along the way of getting their business up and running fill out a rec -- an attorney, accountant, or someone who has observed the progression of the entrepreneurial venture. It might be an employee. Some of them were very insightful. Sometimes a supplier to a small startup company lends a very valuable perspective.

Is work experience a requirement? Last year's range was two to 12 years of work experience. Does that mean that candidates who have not spent at least two years in the workforce need not apply?

I wouldn't say that because as soon as I say that there will be someone who launched a business in undegrad and has spectacular professional development and would be a great fit here. I think it's tough for people who have less than two years. It would be hard because the [class] average is now at five to six years. But I would not discourage them from applying.

How many applicants are wait listed?

I don't know. We don't keep track. We use the waitlist at different points of our application process. We begin evaluating applications in November and might put people on the wait list early on if we want to get a better grasp of the applicant pool. And of those people (who were waitlisted early in the application proces) -- many of them are ultimately admitted. If they are waitlisted in early November we are likely to admit them in mid-January.

We use the waitlist throughout the process. Maybe there's something additional we want to learn about that applicant. That (being wait listed) will prompt a dialogue back and forth.

Do you offer any advice to the waitlisted?

Every one of them is given the phone number of the admissions office and gets feedback about why they were put on the waitlist. So I advise everyone on the waiting list to definitely follow up to find out what we're looking for. And then, very late in the process, the wait list is there to help us arrive at the right-sized class. For the last two years, the class has been over-subscribed, so we have not gone to the waitlist over the summer.

Do you encourage rejected applicants to re-apply and/or provide counsel?

Absolutely. And more importantly, I ask those guys to reach an evaluative decision. For so many applicants, they feel that this [the admissions process] is a black box, that it's arcane, subjective, and it's frustrating for them. So we offer "why deny" appointments throughout the course of the year. And anyone can simply call us and we will schedule a 15 to 20 minute phone conversation with them, where we walk them through their file and explain to them how they were perceived by the comittee. Many of those who take advantage of this service will go ahead and reapply.

Bob, let's step back for a moment and revisit the mid-'80s -- the Cold War was still on, Saturday Night Live was still funny, Microsoft was still small, and you were applying to business school. Placing yourself back into the applicant's shoes, what would you do or what did you do when researching, selecting, and applying to an MBA program? Can you recount your experience to give today's applicants some perspective and guidance?

I think I went to the same source that today's applicants use, which are the guidebooks that you can buy, and started looking at different schools and what their strengths were and focused on what my deficiencies were. I had a liberal arts degree and very weak quant skills. I started looking at schools that would help me with those weaknesses. I frankly had some preconceived notions about schools that were flawed and I went and visited campuses. I visited Wharton, saw how flexible the students were, observed the faculty and student relations, and I combined that with the fact that this place has extraordinary strengths in the quant area. The opportunity to get a double concentration in entrepreneurship and finance -- coupled with the other factors -- sold me, and I found my fit.

I came to this campus and I felt comfortable. I liked the people. The faculty were very accessbile. I felt that the culture here was one where everyone was working together.

And from there you applied to Wharton along with several other schools?

Actually, I just applied to one. And I think that makes me somewhat of an anomaly. Wharton had a January admission at that time [1985], and I was going to apply just to Wharton -- which was far and away my highest choice. If I got in, then great. But if not, then I decided that I would apply to a broader range of schools later in the year. Fortunately, everything worked out.

When are Wharton's deadlines?

The final deadline is April 10th, and we're on a rolling admissions basis. So I strongly encourage people to apply early. And by early I mean we'd be receiving your application anytime between now (9/15) and January to February. If you wait until March you're starting to get into the danger zone. Only one in 50 who applied in April got in versus one out of 10 between now and February.

Bob, I understand that you are also responsible for financial aid at Wharton. First, has the Wharton tuition risen since last year, when it was $23,608?

It went up just a couple of percentage points. It's $23,150, and the general the fee is $1,420 (total = $24,570).

Why the rise?

Expenses have gone up and the quality of what we're producing has improved -- especially in terms of technology, and that's expensive.

Do you require Wharton students to purchase a laptop before the start of the academic year?

No. We don't mandate a laptop.

And what would you estimate the annual cost of living to be? Say, $15,000?

$15,000 is very reasonable. I was going to say somewhere between $15,000 - $18,000

So that's pretty hefty. What type of aid and scholarship help does Wharton have for its students to take advantage of? What advice can you give to prospective students about the best ways to garner aid, in terms of helpful Web sites or organizations to contact?

I think my first point of advice would be start planning now and making choices now about your style of living. Even if you can only save $4,000 to $5,000 between now and the application process, that cushion could be enormously helpful to you. Think about your vacation plans for this year and start living a little more frugally.

And then I think you should visit Web sites. Start doing some detective work on different types of school aid available. Some school aid can be a small scholarship. Or it can be a scholarship sponsored by community groups, your parents' company, undergrad clubs, fraternities and sororities ... many of them have scholarships available. Unfortunately, we are in no kind of umbrella organizations that offer scholarships to students.

I can tell you that first of all, we need to factor in that many of the loans and scholarships are government-subsidized. So 90% of the U.S. resident students receive some type of financial aid. And that can be a variety of things, from outright grants, to loans, to workstudy, to fellowships and scholarships that have been set up through the school. What I tell prospective students is, begin thinking about it early on and begin planning, and then focus on the admissions side of the equation. And then once you're admitted, we'll work very closely with you.

We have much more flexibility with domestic students over international students. But prospective students should understand that there is a great opportunity to make money during summer internships. They might TA a course. I have 25 second-year students working here in the admissions office and they're getting a stipend. So there are ways to garner aid if you're creative and take the initiative

I understand that Dean Thomas Gerrity is planning for a new $100 million complex to build on Wharton's recruiting efforts. Is this coming along?

It's going to be much more encompassing than that. It will have classrooms, group study space, turn-of-the-century technology. We haven't broken ground on it yet, but we're looking to have it up and ready within the next couple of years.

Is there any cross-academic course work with the undergrad university?

There are two answers. There are some courses that are cross-listed, so an undergraduate might take a realistic finance course that is the same course as that taken by MBA students. And undergrads can petition to take a graduate class.

Who are your toughest competitors? In other words, with which schools do you most often compete for students?

Harvard and Stanford domestically, and INSEAD in Europe.

Let's end on a humorous note. Bob I know that many prospective MBA students yearn to successfully navigate their way into the Wharton classroom, and over the past couple of years that you must have run into the weird, bizarre, and downright silly. What's the funniest or strangest attempt at ingratiation you've ever received from an applicant?

I wouldn't call it an attempt to ingratiate himself, but I was recruiting in Bangkok and a student was unable to get on my interview schedule. He figured out which hotel in Bangkok I was staying at by calling them all, then he contacted me at the hotel and unfortunately he did not reach me until the last night I was there. And I am very accommodating, especially if they (candidates) show the initiative. So when he said, 'Let me drive you to the airport, I would love to talk with you over the ride,' I agreed. Well, he probably got the longest interview of them all, considering the Bangkok traffic. I liked his passion and his ability to articulate it to me. And he's studying at Wharton today. So now, when I see him on campus, I joke with him that I'm going to drive him to the airport when he graduates.

Bob thanks much for you insights today.