MBA Insider: Admissions Q&A May 26, 2009, 9:47AM EST

UCLA Anderson: Admissions Q&A

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Mae Jennifer Shores
UCLA Anderson

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You can see that involvement in terms of alumni showing up at events that we have for admitted students. They even reach out to prospective students before they've been formally admitted. They are a wonderful resource; the majority of students who graduate do get jobs through alumni.

How is UCLA faring in the number of on-campus recruiters?

We are being very aggressive this year in terms of sustaining our currently broad reach of employers. We're doing a lot of creative things: more career treks and new initiatives like the career fair that we're holding for the first time on campus. We're also reaching out to alumni in greater and greater numbers.

Can you explain exactly what a career trek is?

A career trek is where you take students outside of LA to different key areas where industries exist. You meet businesses and get exposure to companies and recruiters. Instead of bringing [recruiters] on campus, you take students off campus. It's a way of expanding the network.

What programs distinguish Anderson from other MBA programs?

We offer a rigorous, challenging educational environment. Los Angeles, with its proximity to Latin America and the Pacific Rim, is at the crossroads of major activity going on in global markets. As we talked about, LA is also home to small businesses, which is a source of growth in the economy. Similarly, being positioned within California offers access to some of the most diverse employment and population bases in the U.S. You don't find this kind of diversity in virtually any other city in the U.S. It exposes the students to an unparalleled multiplicity of perspectives and ways of conducting business.

I saw UCLA recently hosted the 2009 Reaching Out MBA conference for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered b-school students. How did that go?

It went really well. One of the things we try to do as a school is continue to reach out to diverse populations. Obviously LGBT is a really important population, as are underrepresented minorities, women, and even people from different professional and academic backgrounds. We define diversity much more broadly than some people do. For us, the academic environment is enhanced when you're challenged and confronted by a multiplicity of perspectives. Students have a lifetime to be around people like them in their same industries, so an MBA program is a time to really confront your own values.

What's a little-known fact about Anderson?

A big challenge we face is communicating to people all the variety of opportunities that exist at this school. When people think of Los Angeles, they often think it's a hub of media and entertainment. They're less aware of some of the real features of the school. When individuals get to know us, they are sometimes surprised to learn how rigorous our curriculum is.

Something else that surprises people is just how entrepreneurial we are across areas. For example, the admission office this year had one option in the application essay to submit an essay through an audio clip. For me this really demonstrates the ability within the school to be innovative in a day and age when a lot of people don't write essays themselves. About 71% of all applicants actually completed the audio clip.

Most schools talk about applied research, but Anderson students must complete a research project which must now be globally focused. It gives them a real opportunity to get firsthand experience on how to run businesses by collaborating with companies around the world.