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FEBRUARY 21, 2003 B-SCHOOL Q&A: ADMISSIONS A Talk with Emory's Admissions Director Julie Barefoot of the university's Goizueta Business School on application do's and don'ts
Q: Is your volume of applications up this year? A: It's up for our one-year program, and even for our two-year program. We're pretty happy about that. Some of our competitors are down, we've heard. My view is, if an admissions officer isn't busy, that's a bad sign. So I like to be busy. Q: What has contributed to the increased popularity of the one-year program? Are people more skittish about taking two years off from work, or is the cost prohibitive? A: I think it's a combination. I think that part of it is cost. But I think it probably has more to do with the fact that we've done a better job of marketing the one-year program. Every year, the size of the incoming class [of one-year students] has grown. About 10 or 12 years ago, we had only 15 or 20 people. It's hard to get the word out about a program when it's that small. But this past year, we enrolled more than 50. People see that if they have a business background -- a degreein business, or just a strong business background -- it's a cost-effective way to get an MBA. Q: Do you plan to boost the class size above 50 next year? A: Probably. Certainly, if the quality of the pool is as strong as it has been so far, I can see it growing. But our [small] size is one of our biggest selling points and one of the best attributes of our program. We want it to be small. It might go to 60, but we're not planning on growing to 75 or 80,certainly not in the coming year. We're very careful about who we enroll, and we want to make sure that we're the right fit for students. [The one-year program is] not for everybody, even people who have a business degree. About a third of the students in our two-year program have undergraduate business degrees and, technically, they couldhave gone to the one-year program if they wanted. But if they're looking to make a career switch, or if they really want a particular summer internship, that program isn't right for them. Q: Where are Goizueta students from? A: A lot of students, when they initially apply, might call their residence the Southeast. But that's not where they're from. They might just have lived most recently in D.C. or in Atlanta, Florida, Dallas, places like that. We draw a lot from New York, New Jersey, and California -- both L.A. and San Francisco. We draw a little from the Midwest, although not too much, [but] this year we have quite a few students from Chicago. Q: When students talk about what they want to do after the program, are there any industries in particular that stand out? A: Historically, it would be consulting, followed closely by finance and marketing. Venture capital is increasingly popular, too. The year before last, about a third of our students went into consulting. We still placed people in consulting this past year, but more went into finance or marketing. That's one of the great things about the MBA degree: It's so flexible. Q: Is anything interesting coming out of this year's applicant pool, since we've had a business year so marked by layoffs and scandals? A: I expected to see a lot more people who had been laid off apply to our program. Of course we've had that -- probably more so in the finance world. [But] I was expecting to see this flood of people from consulting, and we haven't had that. We've seen some individuals who've had very fine positions on Wall Street. And maybe they survived the first and second rounds of layoffs -- and then the third round they're out the door. Q: Mar. 15 is your final admissions round deadline. Is it any harder for final-round applicants to get in than those who applied earlier? A: Not dramatically. We try to be consistent in the way we look at applications. I know that's a little different from what my colleagues at other schools tell candidates. I will say that it does make a difference to apply by Feb. 1. People won't be considered for some very attractive scholarships if they apply after that date. Having said that, we have a profile of the student that we want, and who we believe will be successful at Goizueta and be a great alum. So it doesn't hurt someone who may decide near the final deadline. It has been my experience that every year there are a couple of really outstanding candidates who apply [later than Mar. 15]. Sometimes they have life situations that change. We're happy to work with those candidates. Q: What makes an applicant a good fit for Emory? A: A Goizueta student, first and foremost, will have strong interpersonal skills and be a leader. We want to see that they're involved in something outside of themselves. Now, how that manifests itself [varies]. It may have been when they were in college, because of course most of our candidates have pretty demanding jobs right out of school. But they have been involved in something, and usually they have a passion for that something. It may be athletics or community service -- usually it's a combination. They've been a leader -- maybe elective office, maybe not. But they've made a difference. A person who fits in well in our community wants to get involved. We are a small program -- we only enroll about 170 students in the two-year program. Yet there are more than 100 different leadership opportunities in all the different clubs, the graduate business association, all these things. Beyond that, of course we want good communication skills. We interview every candidate. One of the things I'm proud of is that recruiters say our students have exceptional communication skills, and they always say: "You know, these are really nice people. They're really good. They work well in teams. Theyhave a lot of integrity."
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