Admissions Tips from UC Irvine

Mary Clark explains why applications are up, job placement is holding steady, and career progress matters more than lots of work experience

Mary Clark
UC Irvine

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Mary Clark has been working in business school education for the past 15 years. Originally from Orange County, California, Clark returned to California to work at the University of California at Irvine's Merage School of Business (UC Irvine Full-Time MBA Profile) as director of recruitment and admissions for the full-time MBA program. Prior to working at Merage, Clark served as director of corporate outreach for executive programs at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, where she received her EMBA (Olin Executive MBA Profile).

Clark recently spoke with BusinessWeek's Lauren Brittany Glover about what Merage is looking for in applicants, and what it has to offer. An edited transcript follows.

Could you tell me about Irvine's full-time MBA program?

We offer a two-year MBA program that focuses on the core courses during the first year, and during the second year it's possible to customize the curriculum based on the student's area of interest in a number of different areas. We are a relatively small program with about 100 students coming in each fall, which allows for a very personalized experience, allowing our students to build relationships with fellow students, faculty, and staff and allows them opportunity in a number of areas.

Tell me about the structure of your curriculum.

Before students even set foot on campus, they start with career-visioning exercises. We really put a lot of emphasis on professional development and helping individuals find their career focus. Students are required to do a number of different exercises in order for them to discover their career interest, as well as strengths and weaknesses. During the two-week orientation, our career service professionals come together to put our students through a career-visioning process, which is a step-by-step process to help students find their career vision. In addition to that activity, during orientation we have a number of team building activities and a four-credit MBA core course that kicks off the program. In the first year of the program, students focus on the core courses of the MBA. They take courses like statistics, accounting, finance, marketing, information systems, microeconomics, organizational analysis, operations, business strategy, etc., and a couple of electives. Throughout the first year, students work closely with the career center in order to find an internship that is aligned with their future career aspirations. They spend the summer between the first and second year doing a summer internship, and in their second year they take mostly electives. Students are able to customize the rest of the curriculum based on their interests. We also have an MBA field project that many of our students like to take advantage of. We have agreements with a number of companies who have chosen the Merage School to work on a number of strategic projects.

Can you tell me about MBA field project?

This is the opportunity for students to apply what they've learned during the first year and internships on the job. It's a 10-week corporate project with a Southern California company. They work with a dedicated faculty member, helping them with a certain problem they might have. Some of the companies we've worked with in the past few years are Mazda (MZDAF), the Gallup Organization, Toyota (TM), Watson Pharmaceuticals (WPI), and Wet Seal (WTSLA) to name just a few.

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