Cornell Admissions Q&A

Randall Sawyer, admissions director for Cornell's Johnson School, answers questions about the application process and who makes a good fit for the MBA program

Randall Sawyer has been director of admissions at Cornell University's Johnson School for the past two-and-a-half years. Prior to taking the job, he worked as a public relations officer at the school. He has also worked for the New York State legislature and a lobbying firm.

Cornell's full-time MBA program was ranked No. 13 in BusinessWeek's most recent rankings. For the two-year MBA class of 2009, 2,177 people applied and 267 enrolled. The average GMAT score was 690 and the average GPA was 3.3. Entering students had an average of five years of work experience.

Sawyer recently spoke with BusinessWeek's Daphna Behar about Cornell's application process and what the school is looking for in applicants. An edited transcript follows.

Are there any major changes to the application process this year?

We have been in the same process for the last couple of years. We read each file twice. It is invitation to interview only, so this year we had about 2,800 applicants [and] we ended up interviewing about 1,200 students. From that I think we made just under 600 offers for two of our programs: the one-year and two-year programs. The process has remained the same; we find it is very effective. We have staff that interview, we have alumni that interview around the world, and we have a group of select students that interview for us as well. This is a very positive experience, I think, for many of the students who are interested in attending the Johnson School. We provide wait-list feedback for students who end up on the waiting list, and in certain instances we provide deny feedback.

What kind of feedback do you give students on the wait list?

Once you apply to the Johnson School, you are given an offer, put on the wait list, or denied. So if you are put on the wait list, you can call us and ask for wait-list feedback. We will talk to you about how you can improve your application between the date of your call and when we close the class. Each year we take a few off the wait list; we took a few off this year already, and we are narrowing down our wait list. We still have a number of students on it.

For example, if you applied in Round One, which means you submitted your application in early October, we will notify you in early December on your status. So if you are put on the wait list in Round One, we will talk to you about maybe wanting another letter of recommendation, perhaps one was weaker than we had expected. We would love to hear about new promotions, if you are interested in retaking the GMAT or if you are planning on retaking it depending on your score. With many international students, we may have a concern about their understanding of the English language, speaking, writing, and so forth. We might say to enroll in English-as-a-second-language class, and get back to us. We are very well-known as being a personable school, and that is just another way we help students.

How many application rounds are there? Are there any benefits to being in an earlier round?

We have four rounds, and I believe it is always better to apply in the first couple of rounds. Usually, the students who apply in Round One or Two are motivated to go to business school, they've got their GMAT and their TOEFL in order, they have been working on the application for a couple of months, they know Cornell is one of two or three schools they want to apply to, and they are very driven and well-organized. Round Three is in January; it is our largest round and it is the bulk of people for us to work our way through. Round Four is really a thin crowd: We get maybe 250 to 300 applications, and we only make 10 offers usually. That is because we already made our way through the first three rounds, and we have made a number of offers to very good candidates, so the classes are not completely full by Round Four but we are well on our way. We don't have quotas for rounds; we just go for the best students that apply.