MBA Insider: Admissions Q&A April 20, 2009, 3:22PM EST

Admissions Q&A: Babson

Director of graduate admissions Dennis Nations explains what Babson has to offer, and what it expects from applicants

Dennis Nations
Babson

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When Dennis Nations graduated from Babson's Olin Graduate School of Business in 2003, he never fully left his school behind. Nations' post-MBA career launched him into the fitness industry, but in his spare time, he became active in Babson's alumni group. Nations' involvement in the alumni network paid off: The director of admissions at the time invited him to work for Babson from the admissions side. "For me, it was a no-brainer. I didn't really have to think more than half a heartbeat about coming back," he recalls.

Now, as the director of graduate admissions at Babson, Nations doesn't find it difficult to be a full-time promoter of his alma mater. The school's international student body rivals and usually surpasses that of any other business school in the nation, and in BusinessWeek's 2008 rankings of the best full-time MBA programs, Babson received an A for teaching. In an interview with BusinessWeek's Mandy Oaklander, Nations reveals why Babson's appeal is so global and why he believes Babson MBAs will come out stronger on the other side of the economic collapse. An edited portion of the conversation follows.

How do the application numbers look this year compared with the last few years?

They were pretty good, as I think everybody's reporting. If I look just to the full-time program, our flagship two-year program, we're up 17% on our application volume vs. a year ago. Even better for us, we're seeing maintenance or an increase, in some cases, of the quality in the pipeline. It looks to us like we're attracting more and better students.

How do these students impress admissions officers?

They impress us because they are responding to our efforts to get a sense of career trajectory with more clarity than we've seen in the past. In the past, we might have accepted at face value somebody's statement about what they wanted to do with their career with a Babson MBA. Over the last year or so, we've been pushing back a lot more to say, "O.K., this is what you're telling us, but back it up. Who have you talked to in the new industry if you're looking to switch careers? Show us that we're not going to have to be concerned that you're going to come in and then ultimately not have a clear direction for where you're going."

A lot of them are either seeking internship or volunteer opportunities in addition to their full-time work that will get them exposure to the particular industry they may be looking to switch to. What we're really happy about is that they're starting to realize that the MBA in and of itself isn't the ticket to ride. It's a piece of somebody's career puzzle that has to work in conjunction with all of their past professional experiences.

How has the average amount of work experience that you look for in candidates changed as a result of today's difficult job market?

We are seeing more applicants that are at a younger age, so it's something that we're taking into account. We're a little more understanding of somebody who's got only two or three years of work experience than we may have been in the past. That doesn't mean that we're relaxing our standards. We're definitely making sure that we're not going to let somebody in just because the economy has turned south.

We don't want to be a haven for people trying to escape the economy. It's incumbent upon the applicants to really articulate to us why, even at that lower level of experience, the MBA still makes sense.

As for the interview process, what kinds of questions do you typically ask?

We certainly ask the career direction question. We're really going to push hard, if you're switching careers, [to make sure] you know about the career you hope to go into.