Mary, lets start off with a fairly broad question. What, in your opinion, draws applicants to the Iowa MBA program? What do you feel are the Iowa MBA program's core strengths?

We've spent quite a bit of time over the past year trying to refine the program. As a general rule, MBA programs need to develop an identity in the marketplace to clarify to the student what they have to offer. We feel that we have a very strong, quality program. That's one thing that many programs have, that's a basic thing that you have to have. In addition to that we feel that we have some specific areas of real strength in our finance area -- our finance faculty are excellent, the technology in the finance program is also exceptional (Editor's note: The school is equipped with two Bloomberg machines, a Dow Jones feed, Lexis-Nexis, and a computer lab full of financial services software) so students really know how to use technology today.

We've integrated technology into our course work for sometime and have been updating our hardware and software continually. Iowa, of course, developed the Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM), an educational trading game operated by the College of Business since 1988. The game basically takes stock of the outcomes of political and economic events worldwide. IEM traders (who are students) use real money to buy and sell contracts that are ultimately valued by the results of political races, companies' earnings per share, and stock price returns. It gives students an idea of the big picture.

Our other areas with emerging strengths would be marketing, specifically in the brand management area -- we're bringing in a new faculty member to teach Category Management, and that's really his area of expertise; entrepreneurship with the Pappajohn Entrepreneurship Center, and finally Management of Information Systems. Those are particular areas of strengths in terms of our curriculum.

We also have a lot of program flexibility. Students can look at particular areas with a lot of depth or look at many other areas with a broad depth. We have several joint-degree opportunities including: a joint JD/MBA degree, hospital and health administration degree, and we just started one in information systems. In addition, students can develop their own concentration or degree. For example, if they want to combine, say, urban planning with an MBA, they're able to do that.

Has the school improved or added to a particular aspect of the curriculum over the past several years?

The Entrepreneurship Center is new. It was completed in January of 1994. We just hired several marketing faculty members. And our joint MIS degree is new.

How many students take advantage of the joint degrees or create their own?

Probably 10% do. Quite a few will complete two concentrations during the course of their two-year stay. They'll do something like a marketing and finance double major. That's quite common, and doesn't take any additional work.

What does today's Iowa applicant look like?

Iowa tends to attract people who are interested in the opportunity to take a broader selection of courses (Editor's note: Iowa's curriculum is heavily rooted in elective course work. In fact, the school has 80 different elective offerings for its students to choose from. In order to graduate, 30 of 60 credits must be in elective course work. Students can take their elective classes outside of the School of Management, but the great majority do not.) We also get a lot of people who come here with a real focus -- who specifically want to study finance or marketing. The extra flexibility here really does attract a certain segment of our application pool who are interested in having more opportunities available to them.

Has the admissions process changed markedly since your time as the assistant dean at the University of Hawaii?

It has changed to some extent. The actual application forms haven't really changed. [At Iowa] we're placing a lot more emphasis on work experience and looking for candidates' ability to present solid evidence of their leadership potential.

Do you feel Iowa is a regional program?

No. The majority of our applicants are not from the state of Iowa. Our applicant pool in terms of the U.S. is concentrated in the Midwest, but we also have a significant number of applications coming from the coasts. We also have a very strong international application pool.

Are you seeing an increasing interest in the program coming from those outside of the Midwest area -- both domestically and internationally?

Definitely on the international front, and to some extent nationally. Right now, our applications are 15% ahead of this same time last year. There also seems to be an increase in the quality of our applicants. The only dimensions that you have for measuring quality before reading the application are things like the GMAT and GPA, which are fairly narrow indicators... But those numbers are up.

What types of things do you stress to assure that an applicant will fit into the Iowa MBA program?

Like many other schools, we don't use a minimum cutoff for scores or formulate minimum indexes. We're looking for those individuals who can complete the academic work -- they need to be able to meet the rigors of the program. I'm looking for those people who have really solid work experience or something that has exposed them to the work environment. That way, they can contribute in the classroom, and are more likely to get the sort of job they want when they graduate. Leadership skills and the ability to work in teams are also qualities that I look for when I review a file. The last dimension that I look for is whether they know why they want an MBA -- that they have some focus about what they want and what they will do with the MBA degree once they graduate.

What was Iowa's official application total for its Class of '99.

It was 762. That was about 3% ahead of the 1996 entering class, clocked at 741. This year is 5% ahead of last year at this instant in time.

Iowa has a very small, intimate class -- a factor that can both help and hinder the program. On the one hand, the small size fosters a tightly knit community and a great student-teacher ratio, but on the other, it can stifle the number of recruiters coming to campus and limit the number of course offerings available. What is Iowa's stance on this? Are there plans to increase the class size in the future?

The class of 1999 has 76 students in it, which we feel is not as large as we would like. We would like a class that's closer to 100 students, but we're not willing to sacrifice quality to get that. A small class does have significant advantages for students. We really have a cooperative feeling here -- there's no cutthroat competition that you might find at other schools. You also get to know your class very well and have great access to faculty. Not to mention [that] people in career services get to know you as an individual and can meet your specific needs.

The pros of enlarging the class are hard to ignore, however. We would have a better time of attracting recruiters and could more effectively utilize our resources in terms of how faculty could spend their time. Larger classes would also allow us to grow the number of electives available. So, we intend to grow our class to about 100 by the year 2000.

So it sounds like you will be increasing the size of the program gradually. What's the this year's target class size?

I expect to have an increase for this fall's class. The target is 90 students for this fall's class, and 100 for the following year. We have some marketing that we're working on to achieve that. Our marketing is really based on personal contact with prospective students. We do a lot of phone calls and write a lot of personal letters. That's in keeping with our basic philosophy of the program that has a lot of that personal contact.

What was the school's selectivity rate?

Last year we invited 33.7% of our applicants to enroll and yielded 30% of those that we offered admission to.

Has that yield held steady?

No, it has dropped a little bit. If you break it down between international and the U.S., it's quite different. We yielded 46% of our U.S. applicants (it was 51% in 1996), and 18% of our international applicants. But that international yield has held steady at around 18% to 19%.

That's odd because Iowa has a comparatively large international student presence...

Roughly 36% of our student body is comprised of internationals. But we receive a lot of international applications. In fact, about two-thirds of last year's applications were international. It's about two-thirds of this year's application pool as well. What we'd like to do is get a better yield from our U.S. applicants. Quite frankly, many of our international students aren't able to come unless they receive financial aid, and we just can't give all of our aid to them.

So, domestic student enrollment is dropping. Why do you think that is happening?

When I look at where they're enrolling instead of Iowa, I'm finding that they're going to schools like Northwestern, Michigan, Chicago, and Duke. So, I can draw an inference from that. We've always lost some students to those schools, and we also lose students to Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota. But I suspect that the number of our applicants going to highly ranked programs is new.

Is the drop in yield a recent phenomenon?

The yield for the Class of '99 dropped. I don't know how much of that is a result of my being hired here in the middle of the recruiting cycle or how much of that is a factor of something else. We're doing a lot more things this year as far as recruiting is concerned, to improve that yield. Our whole system of contact with prospective students is much more in place this year than it was last year. This time around, we bring in students, alumni, and faculty to meet and talk with candidates. So, there's quite a bit of organization in setting up that system of contact and getting it to run.

What are this year's application deadlines? Is it too late for those still interested in applying to Iowa's full-time MBA program beginning in the fall of '98?

It's not too late. Apr. 15th is the priority deadline for everybody, and the final deadline for international candidates. U.S. applicants have all the way until July 15th to apply.

That's fairly late in the season...

Yes, it is. It's a university policy, and we've never made an attempt to change that. I'd like to look at changing the deadlines for next year, however. I think we'd have a better chance of forming our class if we bumped the deadlines up. But by the same token, these current deadlines do get us quality latecomers.

What's the turnaround for response?

About four to six weeks.

Does Iowa have a separate scholarship deadline?

No. However, those who apply by Apr. 15 will have a better chance of receiving financial assistance.

Can you list for me the different elements in the Iowa application packet?

Sure. In addition to the actual form, we require three essays; three recommendations; a resume; and then, of course a GMAT score; transcripts; and international students must submit a TOEFL (Test Of English as a Foreign Language) score. The TOEFL is the one area where we do have a minimum requirement of 600 (out of 677).

When you get right down to it, what elements in a file really set successful applicants apart from the rest?

If you set aside the quant data -- the transcripts and the GMAT -- then students have the chance to make an impression through their essays. Things like grammatical errors just shouldn't be there. There's no excuse for that. What we want them to do is to really give us a picture of what they're like so that we can form some concept of what this person is going to contribute to our program. So they should spend some time on the essays. In their choice of recommenders, they should choose only those individuals who can really shed light on their potential, not those people who have a lofty title and really no idea of who the applicant is.

How does the decision-making process work at Iowa? I know that many applicants feel that the admissions process is very much a "black box"-type process. Can you help clear that up?

Each application is read by 2 or 3 people. I read every one, and then I'll have different people also read a file depending on its orientation. For example, the International Programs Office looks at international applications to provide additional insights on them. The Career Services Office also reads many of them. The associate dean is brought in to read those applications that we are having a difficult time making a decision on. So, each person that reads a particular file makes an evaluation of the applicant. Once all of those are done, I gather them all together and make the final decision . So it's all done in somewhat of a loose committee process.

Do students participate in the evaluation of an applicant?

No.

The GMAT is a standard measurement used by nearly every B-school admissions office. However, some schools evaluate the GMAT differently from others. How do you measure the GMAT? How much of an impact does it have on the applicant's success or failure?

It is one factor that gives me an objective measurement. It's a useful measurement, though it doesn't tell you everything about a candidate. We don't ignore it, but it's not the sole measure by any means.

What kind of GMAT score are you most comfortable with?

I like scores that are about 600.

Do you counsel applicants about whether they should retake the GMAT?

Sometimes.

What type of situation would warrant that?

There are some applicants who appear to have really good work experience, may have good leadership potential, and generally seem like decent candidates. But, if their academics are a little weak, and on top of that, their GMAT score -- especially their quant section -- raises questions about their ability to complete the academic work in the program, then I might suggest retaking the test. You can't go back to your undergrad experience and change the way things unfolded, but you can go back to take the GMAT. In that type of case, we might suggest that they retake the GMAT.

You didn't mention the interview as an application requirement. Judging from last year -- only 40% of the school's applicants were interviewed -- it doesn't seem that the school attaches much importance to it.

Actually, we've turned around quite a bit on that. Because all of our material out there says that an interview is not required, we can't impose that just yet. But this year, if it looks like someone is a viable candidate and they can't come here to campus, then we're requesting a phone interview because we feel there's so much valuable information that comes out of it.

What's your time frame for implementing an interview requirement?

It really depends on how quickly we can update all of our material. My guess is it will take a year or two. In the meantime, we're doing this informally.

Has this informal interviewing had an effect on the number of folks you're talking with in person and on the phone?

Yes, at this point it has been extremely valuable. We're requesting interviews with those who we feel are viable candidates for entrance into the program. We'll probably end up doing around 300 interviews this year.

So is it fair to say that those who don't receive a request for an interview should start looking elsewhere?

It depends on whether we've reviewed their application. There's still a whole lot in the pipeline!

What should applicants do to prepare themselves for the interview now that you're more vigorously employing it?

Our interviews are not intense, where we shoot a lot of questions at people. Applicants need to make sure that they're clear about what they want to get from the degree and need to articulate that vision. That means providing examples about some of their experiences that demonstrate leadership and teamwork abilities. It's really a conversation sort of format. I don't want them to feel nervous, but want them to have demonstrated a little bit of thought ahead of time.

What do you ask, generally?

I usually start with an easy question relating to their goals. Sometimes I'll ask them to describe a typical day. I might ask them to talk about their teamwork experiences, or maybe how team members would describe them. Why did they choose a particular college or major or job?

What particular blunders have you experienced during the interview that future interviewees should avoid?

Some folks just didn't dress appropriately, which really shows poor judgement -- business attire is appropriate. When you show up in jeans and a sweatshirt, that says to me that you're not taking the interview and your candidacy seriously. I've also conducted several telephone interviews where the applicants just didn't seem to be prepared. If you can't even answer a question about your goals, then you clearly haven't prepared.

Mary, you mentioned that students need to submit three essays. Now that you are using the interview more frequently, have the actual essay questions changed at all to complement the feedback you're getting in the interview?

Again, it takes a while to get everything out in our publications, and at this point, we haven't changed the essays for this coming fall.

What do the essays get at?

Again, we're trying to get at their goals. We want them to give us examples of when they played a leadership role and tell us what they can contribute to the class. And we're looking for about one page in length per essay. The essays are the same for both domestic and international applicants.

What do you want to see in the essays? Based on your experience, what would you caution applicants most about?

I would like them to be able to write a concise essay that demonstrates the relevant points. Answer the question. If they can do those things, that would be great. I get so many that are three pages of ramble -- that's not what we're looking for.

Similarly, the recommendations offer insight into the applicant's character and background. Do you have any specific advice for applicants out there about what they should do with their recs?

Stay away from big names unless they're people who really know you. Recommenders need to know the applicant reasonably well. Get honest recommendations.

Is it inappropriate for a candidate to get a recommendation from a professor?

It can be. They are useful in some cases, especially if an applicant's transcript is perhaps not as strong as you would like.

Do you prefer the three recommendations broken up in any particular way?

We expect to receive at least one professional recommendation. The other two should be broken up in a way that best sheds light on a candidate's attributes. As a general rule, submitting more than three recommendations is overkill; some people do, but three is fine.

Many B-schools are emphasizing, now more than ever, the level of work experience applicants have. Is Iowa following suit? What's this year's range of work experience?

For the Class of '99 we had one or two students that came straight from undergrad with no prior work experience, and I think eight years was the most anyone had. The average was 3.29 years.

Is that a marked increase from years past?

No, it's about the same. For this coming year's class, however, I expect an increase.

So the number of folks in the program with no work experience seems to be a very small minority. Is that the result of a conscious effort on the school's part to limit entrance to less qualified applicants?

Yes, and even those students with little to no work experience who are enrolled have a significant amount of experience working in a cooperative or internship situation. So it isn't that they have no work experience, but it's not post-baccalaureate.

Do you allow accepted applicants to defer?

We do. We had about 15 defer last fall -- which is a pretty big percentage considering that we enrolled just 76 in the fall of '97.

Does Iowa utilize a waitlist?

Actually, we started to do that this year. We just felt that there were some candidates who were mostly qualified for our program who would slip away because we just didn't have a waitlist for them. When we put the entire class together, we look at many different factors to try and balance everything out, in terms of reaching our goals for quality, hitting our target numbers, and ensuring that there is quite a bit of diversity. There are some students that fit maybe two-thirds of our criteria for achieving that balance, and might be worth the risk, depending on the quality of the files we receive down the line in the application cycle. Those are the people we're now putting on the waitlist; they have really strong points, but not quite enough oomph to get in on the first cut. Before we introduced the waitlist, these people would be rejected outright, and we really didn't want to do that.

What should applicants do if they find themselves there?

Anyone who gets an indication that they've been put on the waitlist should feel free to contact us to request information about why they were put there. Contacting us also gives us an idea of the level of interest you have in the program. In some cases, we've made a specific suggestion about what waitlisted candidates might do to strengthen their application.

How many are currently waitlisted?

Less than 10. I imagine that it's going to be a fairly small waitlist.

What's this year's tuition?

It's $3,976 for in-state residents, and for everyone else it's $10,824.

And how about the annual cost of living in the Iowa City area?

For the nine months of the academic year, it's a little over $5,000.

How many students take advantage of the low in-state tuition?

Of the total enrollment in the full-time MBA program, 39% are Iowa residents.

Do most students tend to live off campus?

They all live off campus... maybe one or two live in the dorms. The campus and the community are so integrated that it's really hard to distinguish between the two. And it's very safe here.

What kind of financial aid and scholarship does Iowa offer to its quality applicants?

We offer graduate assistantships that have a stipend of around $6,000 a year in addition to a partial waiver of the nonresident portion of the tuition. We also have scholarship that ranges in amount from $1,000 to $4,000.

Is the scholarship process very competitive?

Yes, it's pretty competitive. But, it doesn't require any additional application forms -- we use the information in the admissions application to determine who to offer scholarship to. Essentially we consider everybody for financial assistance, and then we select the best applicants from the entire pool. About 45% of our Class of '99 is receiving some form of scholarship.

Are most of Iowa's scholarships need- or merit-based?

All of our scholarship is based on merit. The University of Iowa Financial Aid Office takes care of all of our need-based aid.

So it seems like the mix of comparatively low tuition and living expenses, coupled with the amount of scholarship available, manages to keep Iowa's two-year price tag down. What's the average amount of debt students accrue by the time of graduation?

The average debt at graduation is $15,553.

A regular source of student criticism is the quality of the career services office and the school's poor placement opportunities. I understand that improving that situation has become one of the school's top priorities. What does that problem stem from and what has been done to improve the situation?

I think the source of the problem is a combination of our location, and as I mentioned a little earlier, our small size. As a response, we've added quite a bit more staff in the career services area because we do a lot of individual brokering with companies. So if we can't get a company to recruit here on campus, we go a different route. Our career services people will work with company contacts to set up interviews, etc.

Also, the Midwest, National MBA, and International MBA Consortia have helped bolster our students' placement opportunities. The Midwest Consortium pools students from Loyola University, University of Illinois, and Iowa to meet with regional recruiters. This year, that took place during the end of January in Chicago. The National MBA Consortium also took place in Chicago during January of this year, but was much larger in scope than the Midwest Consortium. Fourteen top-ranked B-schools (including: Thunderbird, SUNY Buffalo, Case Western, U. of Georgia, U. of Iowa, U. of Maryland, Michigan State, U. of Minnesota, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, U. of Pittsburgh, U. of Washington, and U. of Wisconsin) come together, collectively pooling over 500 of their MBA students to meet with company recruiters. Some notable companies that attend the consortium annually include: 3M, IBM, Deloitte & Touche, PaineWebber, Northwest Airlines, Intel, Ernst & Young, and Andersen Consulting (Editor's note: For more information, you can go to the National MBA Consortium's Web site at www.national mba.org or contact the career services offices of any of the member schools.) Lastly, the third annual International MBA Consortium was held in Orlando in October of last year. It put our international students in touch with over 70 of the world's leading multinational corporations (including Citibank, Dell Computer, Salomon Brothers, PepsiCo, Hewlett-Packard, General Motors, and many more). Students are selected to attend the conference based on an interview selection process. To be included, interested students need to complete and submit an application form as well as a one-page resume to their Career Placement Center, fax it to an IMBA Coordinator, or apply online at http://www.careerconferences.com.

We also send our students out on a lot of field trips. This semester, for example, we sent a number of our students to Minneapolis in February. Last fall, we sent students to Chicago to visit company sites. The year before, we sent them to St. Louis, Kansas City, and a smaller group went to New York City. They're the type of events that we've set up to give our students more exposure. Finance students will visit financial institutions and see firsthand, how things work, and whether it's a field that they want to pursue for a job down the line. These field trips are optional, and students who are interested can go to help improve the school's image within a company and develop contacts. So, we're making inroads. Our class is doing well, but we still have some things to do there.

Has the number of companies recruiting Iowa MBAs increased?

Yes, it has. We had 112 companies recruit our students last year, and maybe five years ago it was only 86.

Are the pay packages increasing as well?

Yes, they are. The average salary for the class that graduated in May '97 was $55,228. As a point of comparison, in 1995, our students were grabbing an average salary of $50,500, and in 1996, it was $53,200. So our students' salaries have been steadily rising.

So the number of companies recruiting has increased. But has that growth expanded Iowa's recruiting base outside of the Midwest?

In selected areas. We try and place those students who really want to go to Wall Street and Silicon Valley, but, we're not going to have the strength of contacts that NYU or Stanford have. Also, some of these companies that are being categorized as regional -- 3M, Procter & Gamble, and Pillsbury -- are headquartered in the Midwest, but they're certainly not regional.

You said earlier that Iowa's applicants tend to overlap with Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Are those schools your chief competitors?

Pretty much. Our chief competitors are Big 10 schools: Penn State, Indiana, Iowa, Purdue, Michigan, Michigan State, Illinois, Ohio State....

Mary, I'm sure that you've seen your fair share of Iowa applications. What is one of the stranger ones you've come across?

Well, I once had an applicant send me a video of a company that he had started. He's an interesting person who ended up being admitted, but what was odd to me was the company's function: It processed sewage and changed it into drinking water. It just sounded so bizarre to me. But creating and running an outfit like that certainly demonstrates a lot of initiative.

Would you like to add anything else before we wrap up?

One thing that hasn't really clearly come out is the strength of our location in Iowa City. If you want a major metropolitan area, obviously you're not going to look at Iowa. But Iowa City is a very friendly community. There is plenty of access to cultural events, and it's a very good environment to study in.

Thanks a lot for speaking with me today, Mary.