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MBA Insider: Admissions Q&A September 24, 2009, 2:09PM EST

Iowa MBA Admissions Tips

Jodi Schafer, Tippie's MBA admissions director, describes how Iowa stresses careers, and why applicants should showcase leadership skills

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Jodi Schafer
University of Iowa

Jodi Schafer took the reins of the University of Iowa's MBA admissions program in 2008. Since then, the curriculum has been retooled, career services have shifted into overdrive, and even the school's admissions process has undergone a few changes.

This year, Iowa's Tippie College of Business (Tippie Full-Time MBA Profile) is rolling out a set of long-planned new programs, all heavy on experiential learning and employment preparation—perfect training, Schafer says, for the MBA students looking to advance their careers despite the downturn. On the admissions side as well, Schafer is increasingly looking for career-minded students, ready to turn all the prep Tippie offers into a dream job.

Schafer, now Tippie's director of full-time MBA admissions and financial aid, is a six-year veteran of the department, having arrived directly after she finished her own Tippie MBA through the part-time program in 2003. Here, she talks with BusinessWeek's Anne VanderMey about how the program is evolving to meet the changing demands of the marketplace, and how prospective students can convince her they'll be able to keep up. An edited portion of their conversation follows.

Since you became admissions director about a year ago, have you made any significant changes to the application process?

The application process has remained pretty much the same, except that we're taking a closer look at our interview techniques. We're revamping some of our interview questions to get at the professionalism, leadership development, and some of the soft skills that we're looking for in candidates. And in addition to that, we also have a team of individuals looking at the responses to those interview questions, rather than just myself. So that would probably be the biggest change, but everything else has remained pretty consistent.

How is the interview process different now?

One of the things that we've implemented since I came on is we are conducting Skype interviews with anybody who can't come to campus. Most specifically, that is affecting the international population. So we do require the Skype interview of international applicants.

How long have you been doing Skype interviews?

We started it last year.

And the on-campus interviews have been revamped as well?

Yes. If they come to campus, we're able to put the candidates in front of many different stakeholders in the program. And we can do this to some extent even if they don't come to campus. Prospective students aren't just talking to the director of admissions through the interview. If they come to campus, it's a very complete campus visit. So they would meet with current students. They'd meet with career services. They'd meet with faculty. And so we get feedback from all of these individuals about the candidate.

Can you describe the ideal Tippie applicant?

The ideal applicants would maybe not know exactly what they want to do, but would have an idea of what they want to do, so they can hit the ground running once they get into the program. So on campus, they can start thinking about what it is that they need to do to be successful in searching for a career. We obviously want people with the aptitude to reach the academic requirements for the program, and we are looking for people who present themselves in a professional manner. That's in regard to the leadership qualifications that they bring to the table, and their personal presence and how they present themselves.

So, you're looking for the same sorts of things that employers are looking for.

Exactly. We're really trying to mirror our program after what it is that employers are looking for, because ultimately the students ares looking for a better opportunity and something they couldn't gain without the MBA. We're not successful unless we're able to provide that to them.

That seems particularly important as the job market tightens.

Right. And I think that you'd see that as you came to take a look at our program as well. You'd see that we're starting to focus more on soft skills and leadership development. We've always focused on that, but we really want to make it the core of what we do, because we've been very successful in our technical training. The enhancements that we're making to the program really center around those things because it's so important in the job market.

I saw that Tippie had a very high placement rate last year. About 98% of students reported getting jobs within three months of graduation. I was wondering if you had any idea how that was holding up in the wake of the financial crisis.

I think that from the benchmarking that we've done, our placement statistics appear that they will be in line with what some of the other schools are experiencing. So, certainly the challenges and the economic crisis that's going on are affecting us, but I don't think they're affecting us more than any other program. Our placement statistics have not been finalized yet, so I don't have those to share at this time, but our students are getting offers. There just aren't as many opportunities out there as there once were, so they may not be able to be as selective as they once were.

So when you say "in line with other schools," would you say there is a slowing rate of offers?

There is a slowing of offers. Candidates probably can't be as selective, but certainly offers are still coming in. Also, qualified candidates are obviously competing with alumni, and they're competing with other individuals that have MBAs who have been let go from other positions. So it's a little bit more challenging, but at the same time our placement statistics still are holding up and I think are very consistent with what you'll see from other programs.

I've read about Tippie's high-tech Pomerantz Career Center, but I also saw that on the BusinessWeek surveys, a few grads commented that the location continues to be a barrier to job hunting, and that long road trips can be required to go see companies. So I was wondering how the school addresses its being in Iowa, and not in a traditional center of business.

We've dedicated a lot of resources to career development and to ensuring that students have a partner in their career search. In addition to our career services team, last year we incorporated what are called Career Academies. Basically, what the Career Academies do is they offer a set of structured curricular and out-of-classroom experiences to help students with career paths. There are academies for marketing, finance, and strategic innovation.

So they work in conjunction with career services to create a professional development plan with each individual student—that's a set of skills and core competencies that students can actually sell to employers. So they have this professional development plan that they can showcase to employers so that if employers aren't able to interview them here on campus, or they don't want to fly someone in for an interview, they can actually look at this professional development planning and see what the individual has done.

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