First, Judy, the American Graduate School of International Management has a unique slant in business education, right? Thunderbird doesn't bestow MBAs on its students, but MIMs, Master of International Management degrees. Could you explain the difference between these two degrees?

It's really pretty simple, and it all goes back to our requirement in international business. Sixty percent of the T-bird curriculum looks similar to the MBA format, but the remaining 40% is comprised of important graduate requirements in international studies that call for our grads to be proficient in a second language.

What are the international requirements?

It's really the attention being paid to the environment in which business is being conducted so that the component of courses -- most students take four courses in international studies that revolve around the political risk factors, economic development tracks, and existing economic constraints or attributes in different parts of the world. They also have the opportunity to deal with industry-specific situations like technology transfer, or, for example, the economic impact of the automobile industry on the Japanese economy and how that balloons out to other economies that affect Japan.

These are each three-hour courses

The Thunderbird curriculum is a three-part program of language, international studies, and international business. Is this unique?

To my knowledge, it is unique. There are graduate business schools and programs that are offering a curriculum design that's identical to this. I think the most obvious one is the MIBS program at the Unviversity of South Carolina. University of Denver has a Master of International Study business degree. But these types of programs are very few and far between.

I know that Wharton's Lauder Institute requires its graduates to be proficient in several languages. Does Thunderbird require the same?

A T-bird graduate must be fluent in another language on top of English.

Now, in addition to the main campus in Glendale, Arizona, the school also has facilities in Tokyo, Japan and Archamps, France, near Geneva, Switzerland. What is the student body split between these three campuses? Does each offer a unique part of the program? Or are they sort of franchises that are set up for easier access for your international students?

Currently, the semesters in Tokyo and Archamps are enhancement semesters so that people will start in Glendale and then spend a semester abroad at either Archamps or Tokyo. And they will be taking courses that are also offered at Glendale, but they will be offered with the twist being the geographic locale at which they are being given. The classes are all taught in English. The language of instruction at T-bird is English. We do offer classes given by the Modern Language department, and they're taught in the language of study, you know, Spanish, German, French, etc. But, the topic and subject of the class is in a functional business area. Our MBA portion takes place in the world business area, so that after the students have gone through the language sequence, where they have reached the point of fluency [if you're starting cold, it usually takes three semesters to reach fluency]. We then require them to take at least one elective in that language.

Have you noticed any trends or differences between what the application process or applicant is like then and now?

I can give you some anecdotal comments here. The applicants today are more mature insofar that they have more work experience. And that has been a planned reality.

Because of fiercer competition?

I wouldn't say that. I would say that it's because of the input that we're getting from our advisory boards which are made up of representatives from companies who employ our graduates. That's what they want from an MBA graduate, an employee with a solid amount of work experience.

What else?

We are seeing more international applicants. Number one, we are seeing more people in general apply to the MIM, and out of those numbers, we have an increase in international applicants. I would say that if I'm looking at 1990, and now I'm looking at 1997, I would say that we're looking at a decrease in applications from Europe and an increase from Asia.

Are you including Eastern Europe in that assessment?

Yes, I am ... And we are seeing a slight increase -- and I expect this to become more than slight -- in applications coming from Latin America. I'm gonna include Mexico in there.

What did T-bird's applications look like this year? Has there been a rise or fall in apps over, say, the last 5 years?

For the fall class, what we saw was 1,300.

Candidates apply for fall, spring, and summer enrollment here. I could not comfortably give you numbers for the spring of 1997 because we keep really, really firm and historical data.

We expect a total enrollment for this fall to come pretty close to 1,500 students.

You see, we don't have first and second years here. We have semesters: fall, spring, and summer. Our students can complete the degree in anywhere from 42 to 63 hours. And how many hours it takes them to complete the program is dependent on what courses in the program they take and the basic foundation requirements they can waive. So we can't track our students through the program through a specific entering class. For instance, for this fall, there will be some graduating in August of 1998, and otherwise in the December of '98, or May '99. We enter classes three times a year, and we graduate students at the end of each semester. So when you're applying, you should know that you can start (at one of) three times (in) a year.

We use the fall class as our benchmark. We are seeing, over the last four years, a gradual increase in the number of applications received for the fall class. Anecdotally, I can say the same for the number of other classes (in the spring and summer). For the fall class we said 1,300, and last year we had 1,120.

To what do you attribute this to?

We have, since my arrival at Thuderbird, been very aggressive marketers. This I am sure has resulted from the public increase of recognition, and, to be very honest with you, our arrival in the (Business Week) rankings has helped us tremendously. We've gotten some good press in the UK in the Economist Guide as well.

How big is this year's class and how many people does the school need to admit to fill it?

It's 415 for the fall. Projecting for the spring and summer ... I would project a total new entering student class for fall, spring, and summer at about 875. And from that number, we'll take off 415. Historically we've had a spring class that is smaller than the fall, and a summer class that is smaller than the spring.

What is the yield? How many applicants who were accepted, then enrolled?

To get that 415 number, we accepted 740. Our yield is 55% - 56%

That's a pretty high acceptance rate. Can you comment further?

Thunderbird is not for everybody. There are people who will de-select T-bird because they don't care to attend a school that has a language proficiency requirement. So that, in this whole realm of recruiting and generating applications, our marketing materials and vernacular really emphasize telling people exactly what our curriculum is, so that they know what the difference is. And a lot of my time is spent in creating printed materials and communicating with a formal alumni group of 350 to 400 people all over the world that actively recruit all over the world (I call them "my alums"). It is strategically important to us that, at the point of the application process, we are being very clear about what our curriculum is and what our expectations are for graduation requirements, and why the school has chosen to go this route since 1946.

Well, why has it?

Because our founding father felt very stongly that the effective business person should be very astute in cross-cultural dynamics and should be able to walk into the business environment of a different culture or in a different country and be able to very quickly assess the political and economic factors working in that environment and see how those factors then would affect the business practices that that person was going to be responsible for. I always say that T-bird provides students and grads with "international street sense."

T-bird also has a large percentage of women enrolled -- 38% of last year's class, good for the highest percentage in our top 25 b-school grouping. What's it look like for this year?

We're proud of that. Looks like it's going to be the same. It may drop to 37%.

Do you feel T-bird caters to the female applicant?

You know, we really don't. But, we have an inordinate number of qualified women and I think that this is particularly interesting in view of the fact that in this fall's class 50% of that 414 will be international students. And you know, there are many countries outside of the U.S. that are not particularly encouraging women to pursue higher education. And the number of international women here is sizable.

What are this year's application deadlines?

For spring 1998 the preferred dealine was July 31, 1997. We have a modified rolling admissions practice. We will accept people as long as we have predicted openings in our class. If people get their applications in at preferred dates, though, they'll be right in line for financial aid and scholarship reviews .. they'll be putting themselves in the best possible position. The deadline for Summer 1998 is January 31st, 1998, and for fall 1998, it is also January 31st.

What connotes a completed application? What are the different variables that are assessed?

GMAT score, the academic record, the amount and quality of work experience after completion of the qualifying degree, an applicant's demonstrated international exposure and or international orientation (T-bird will take an applicant without the international experience, but it is preferred), and we need two letters of recommendation. We have two required essays and people have an option to provide us with additional ones.

Can you prioritize these variables in order of importance? In other words, is the first thing you look at the GMAT or work experience, etc?

GMAT is very important. I would say that if the GMAT score is not acceptable, there's no other area or combination of areas that will make up for that fact.

However, in 1996, T-bird's range of GMAT scores for accepted students was 430 - 740. A 430 isn't an extremely high GMAT, is it?

Well, a 480 is a score that is quite good from a person from a foreign country where the average is 350.

Then after the GMAT score, I would look at work experience and the record in the qualifying degree (undergraduate record). And part of our admissions organization includes a certified, international credential evaluator.

Is there a pre-application process at T-bird?

No.

If a candidate retakes the GMAT, do you weigh the second or third GMAT score as heavily as the first?

We evaluate based on the highest GMAT score.

In your opinion, what's more favorable: an applicant with a high GMAT and a low GPA or vice versa?

It's hard to answer that in one sentence. A person with a high GMAT and a lower than acceptable GPA -- and a lower than acceptable GPA is anything under 3.0 -- if that person had little or no work experience, the high GMAT would not be as much as an overriding factor as if the person had had several years of good solid work experience. I often get that question from people, and that's exactly what I tell them. Once you've got that grade, there's not a whole lot you can do about it. But what you can do is go out and demonstrate that you've become more focused and goal-oriented.

Are interviews required?

No

About how many people did you interview this year?

We probably interviewed two-thirds of the people that will come here as entering students. The interview could have been with an alum in a far-reaching part of world or with an admissions professional either here on campus -- where people come on their own accord -- or when we are out recruiting at MBA forums or various events. The recruiter will be available a day before or after the forum to interview. As I said before, the interview is not a requirement in the application process.

What should applicants do to prepare for the interview?

Shine their shoes .. They should work on their professional demeanor before they come in. If the demeanor is not professional, then that is noted. You see situations that you really can't believe, particulary out here in Pheonix, where the lifestyle is so casual. It is not impressive, for instance, when a candidate comes in for the interview in very casual clothes such as sandals and shorts.

During an interview, I am the most interested -- and the people that do the interview are most interested in -- how much the applicant knows about the Thunderbird MIM degree. There's no reason for any applicant not to know a lot about it because we're very explicit in all our materials and we freely give out catalogues. We take note of how well applicants have done their homework, much the same way a company would when it is interviewing somebody for employment. The other reason interviews are helpful is to get an idea of a person's presentation skills. I think it's fairly obvious that people who can present themselves well will be able to effectively present concepts and information when they get out into the marketplace.

Do you interview yourself?

Yes.

What do you generally ask?

I ask them why they want to come to Thunderbird, and what is it in their career goals that makes it imperative that they pursue and earn the MIM degree.

Do you ever ask applicants whether T-bird is their first choice? Or where else they have applied? Do you think this is important to know?

We ask that all the time -- its on the application. I would only ask it during the interview if it would be relative to the conversation.

What mistakes do people commonly make in essays?

Well, they don't use the spell checker. I know that many of the questions on applications are similar or the same amongst schools, and applicants sometimes are writing a generic answer to a question and they forget to change the names of the school. What really, really disturbs me is when I'm reading an essay, if I don't get a really precise presentation of the idea. Or even worse then that, if people don't actually answer the question that has been asked.

Is it inappropriate for candidates to get a recommendation from a professor? Or should they generally be filled out by professionals?

We prefer them to be filled out by professionals. We do accept them [recommendations filled out by a professor], but those situations are becoming very few and far between [restricted to people applying with no work experience, where an academician is most appropriate for filling out a recommendation]. We actively discourage that when we're recruiting and it's beginnning to pay off. And the people with no work experience that are accepted -- 100% of those few have had some really good internships. In that instance we ask for recommendations from their managers in the internship situation.

What's the ideal amount of work experience you're looking for?

Well I'm going to refer to my friend, Jim Case in the Career Services department, and they feel over there that four years is the ideal amount. From the admissions end, we're looking for a minimum of two.

How big a percentage of the class would you estimate has two years of work experience?

Right now we have an average work experience of about 3.7 years .. which will probably fall a bit by the time orientation begins. So our yield pool is pretty close to being set, but it's not totally in concrete.

Does it hurt an applicant if he or she doesn't have any extracurriculars to speak of?

Yes it does. It's becoming less of a predicament for us because we are seeing our applicant pool as whole becoming more qualified. We're seeing people that have been highly involved in community/volunteer activities. Organizations now are really encouraging their employees to "do their part." So as we see people coming in with more work experience, we tend to see more extracurricular experience.

Okay Judy, if you were put back into the applicant's shoes, how would you go about the entire application process --- from the initial investigation stage to the actual applying?

First I would consider myself a top applicant, that I was bringing a lot to the table. Next I would be very sure that I had my career goals very tightly focused so that I knew what I wanted to do when I finish my graduate education. I would know myself very well and I would do whatever I had to do to make sure of that. For example, I would go to any and all informational interviews and take any kind of testing procedures that were necessary.

Once I had the information in hand, I would use guide books that are around today. Because there are so many programs and people have so little time, the guidebooks do serve a really good purpose -- provided they are giving good information. Using those guide books, I would be looking for programs that would offer what I need. The whole underlying principle here is that in this day and age, a graduate education is one expensive baby. So that the value of the graduate education is how that education positions you in where you want to be. Now, different people have different definitions of where they want to be -- how much money they want to make, where in the world they want to work, the kind of work they're doing or a combination of the three. But it is critically important to do a whole lot of research, and then the choice is made based upon the research.

Ideally, what I would do is get my choices down to three or four schools. And I'm still looking at the curriculums -- this is the pivotal factor in choice here. And then I would apply to all of those schools and do my best to get accepted to all of those schools. If that means arranging roundtrip tickets to visit all the schools, then I definitely would. I would talk to professors, students, and naturally, the admissions professionals.

How many applicants are waitlisted at T-bird?

We wait list about 15 to 30 per semester.

Is being tacked onto the waitlist just an extended rejection letter? I mean, how many are taken (accepted) from the waiting list?

We end up taking about half of those. I would say that our fall class is the biggest class and that wait list -- which would be about 30 -- would be the biggest of the three classes. And for our smaller classes, the waitlist would be relative in size. It's not unusual for people on the waitlist to do something within the time constraints to better their situtation

Do you encourage rejected applicants to reapply?

We encourage them to reapply if they will remedy the shortcomings that kept them from being accepted in the first place. And we do a fair amount of counseling.

So you counsel everybody?

We counsel people that come back to us after they receive the letter. If they don't come back to us, we don't counsel them. The rejection letter leaves an opening for them to call us.

You brought up a very valid point earlier .. that earning a business degree is 'one expensive baby.' What's this year's tuition to attend Thunderbird?

Plus or minus a few dollars, the fall and spring cost $10,000, and the summer costs $8,000.

Why is it cheaper if you start in the summer session?

Well, fall and spring last 15 weeks, and summer is 12 weeks. Because of the time difference -- the usual time/courseload of five courses is reduced to four.

T-bird had the 6th highest percent of its student body take out an educational loan in 1996 (77%). What does it look like this year?

It looks like -- the records that I'm seeing -- that it's 65% of our total students.

Do you offer aid?

Our financial aid office processes in two different areas. One is financial aid, which are loan programs, and the other is scholarship programs, which are merit awards that are school money.

About how much in merit scholarship money is available?

I know [that the merit scholarships account for] plus or minus $3.5 million. I don't have an update on corporate gifts though.

Let's talk a bit about recruitment at Thunderbird. Do you feel that awarding MIMs instead of MBAs is a drawback as far as recruitment and career placement are concerned? I mean, only 70% of last year's class of '96 had job offers at graduation. Seems to me that many international companies would be interested in hiring, but that domestic enterprises might be a little skittish.

I think that that skittishness did exist, but here again I'll draw on the comparison between 1990 and today. I think that since the MIM has become more well-known there has been a consistent increase in the number of companies that interview our people [T-bird students]. I think that people and organizations that know what we're about -- that there's virtually no skittishness. But it may exist with companies that don't understand the difference between the MIM and MBA.

How about Glendale, Arizona? It's a beautiful place, but do you feel that the students are at a geographic disadvantage. Glendale has plenty of sunshine, but there's no Wall Street or Silicon Valley or major company hub located there.

Phoenix is now the sixth largest city in the U.S. and the growth has come in the area of business coming in that are multinationals. Intel and Motorola, for example, have big installations here.

And how active are alumni -- especially outside of Arizona? They must play a part in the grads' successes.

Since 1946 we have graduated 30,000 alums. Our alums are probably the most active alumni group of any graduate business school. I'm gonna say that we have between 80 and 100 formal chapters worldwide. Beyond those formal chapters I think that in virtually every major cosmopolitan city in the world there is an informal alumni activity called "First Tuesdays." These events happen on the first Tuesday of every month, and the alums in a particular city get together and network. Some are arranged with a meeting format. They have become synonomous with T-bird. And a lot of our prospects, by the time they submit an application, it's not unusual for them to attend a "First Tuesday" in several cities. Contact names and places of where the First Tuesdays are held are listed in the catalogue. They will also soon be listed on our Web site. We have, by the way, an alumni organization in Ho Chi Minh City. Our Phoenix chapter now is as big as our chapters in L.A., New York and Chicago, which are our biggest; that speaks to the employment opportunities in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Fill in the blank: you should come to T-bird if you're most interested in what?

If you're most interested in building an international management career in which cross-cultural expertise can provide you and or your organization a competitive advantage.

Fill in the blank: you should stay away from T-bird if you're most interested in what?

If you're interested in strictly routine, domestic US or country-specific education. An unqualified statement: Don't come to T-bird if you need a masters degree as the next step to a doctoral degree, because [T-bird does not provide] a theoretical approach.

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

It would be schools that have recognized and longstanding, strong, international components to their MBA curriculum .. For example, Columbia, Georgetown, Wharton, and the MIBS Program at the University of South Carolina. And that's (the MIBS program at South Carolina) probably -- at a major research university at this particular point in time -- the most similar [curriculum] to T-bird's.

I guess, Judy, that I am curious about one last thing before we finish. And it's about the rather unique and informal nickname that your school and graduates go by. Where did the name Thunderbird come from?

Well, the Thunderbird School is built on an Air Force training field. And in fact, it's a very modern facility today, but it's still anchored -- on the west and east ends of campus -- by two huge hangars. The training field was called Thunderbird field. It started out as a private air strip that was owned by several movie stars -- Leland Hayward and Jimmy Stewart -- and also by a gentleman by the name of John Swope, a famous Hollywood photographer. In fact, we have the Swope Gallery here on campus, where many of his framed photos are on loan.

Then, it's my understanding that when World War II came about, that the private owners were looking to sell the property .. and there is a major airforce installation in this part of the desert called Luke Air Force Base. So, the Air Force bought the property and then it was used as a private training field for groups of pilots. I know that at one point in time, they trained Chinese pilots under Chiang Kai-Shek. And then it became the private base for the Thunderbirds, a crack Air Force flying team. Today, they still do exhibitions all over the world, but it's more of an Air Force promotional thing -- but it started out as a crack flying team used in World War II.

So at end of the war, there was this actual field with barracks, and two hangars, and a swimming pool. So, the founder of the school, Barton Kyle Yount, was pretty high up in the military, and he was the ringleader of sorts, of a small group of people who had the idea that a school was needed to address the skills and training needed for activity in international commerce. They felt strongly that anybody who was going to be dealing with international commerce must be fluent in a foreign language and must know a whole lot about the political environment in which the business was going to be done.

So Thunderbird was started in 1946, and was originally called the American Institute for Foreign Trade. The name was changed to Thunderbird Graduate School Of International Management in 1968. And in 1973, the name was changed again to American Graduate School of International Management. And with that change, the nickname "Thunderbird" held on. The grads had always been called T-birds since the inception of the school. Last spring our board of trustees voted to legally change the school name to what it is today: Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management.