What's the best way for an applicant to differentiate him- or herself from the crowd?
Echoing my previous answer, paying attention to the essays is one specific way to differentiate yourself in terms of having a very clear, concise, coherent vision for yourself. One thing you can do in the essays and also in other parts of the application – for example, on your résumé – is to show your level of engagement, how involved you've been both in your achievements at work and activities. What you've done to make a difference can often differentiate you as an applicant. Another way is certainly in the interview.
Can you describe the applicant interview process at Yale?
Interviews are by invitation of the admissions committee. We tend to interview about 40
per cent of the applicants. Interviews are conducted primarily by trained second-year students. The admissions staff does do some interviews, but the lion's share are done by second-year students. The interviewer has seen only the applicant's résumé, so the interviewer will not have seen any other part of the application – the essays, the GMAT, the GPA, transcript, or recommendations. The idea is that we don't want the interviewer to be biased by those other data points
but rather to have as much of an independent perspective as possible. The purpose of the interview is to get a sense of what the applicant is like interpersonally, how articulate they are, what their professional presence is like, as well as substantively what their background is, what their interests are, what they want to do with an MBA.
It's a very straightforward, 30-minute interview. The idea is mostly to walk through the résumé and talk about the applicant's past experiences – and also why they want to get an MBA and what they plan to do with it. There are no real curveballs. It's not an interrogation or cross-examination.
It's a very straightforward chance for the applicant to tell us more about him- or herself
,and it gives another opportunity for the applicant to speak to us and explain why they would do well here at SOM.
Do you have any programs targeted to specific population groups, such as women or minorities?
We do. Diversity is important to us here at SOM. We participate in larger organizations such as MLT
[Management Leadership for Tomorrow] for underrepresented minorities and the Forté Foundation for women. We also have programs that we've instituted in-house. For example, we have an Explore Diversity weekend, a women's reception in New York, and other initiatives that we have undertaken to try and encourage greater diversity here at SOM.
What do you advise a waitlisted applicant to do?
If someone receives a waitlist decision, when they receive the decision, we also send them what we call our "Waitlist FAQs."
This is a two-page document that explains what the waitlist means and what they should do from there. We have one member of the staff whose responsibility it is to monitor the
waitlist and provide feedback to applicants who are on the waitlist.
As a general matter, we will give feedback to waitlisted applicants to give
them a sense of why they were waitlisted and what they could possibly do to
improve their candidacy and increase their chances of being taken off the
waitlist. We do encourage people to reach out to us and get that feedback. To the extent that they can do the things we suggest, that will obviously increase their chances –
although how many people, if any, we take off the waitlist from year to year obviously depends on a number of factors.
I think the key for someone on the waitlist is to express interest. If they want to stay on and they're interested in coming here, let us know that, and then to the extent we feel that they can improve their candidacy and they do those things, that certainly increases their chances.
One thing that's important to note is that there is a fine line between expressing interest and being in touch with us and going overboard with it. We're not looking for people to touch base every few days or every week.
But if you just keep in touch with us maybe on a once-a-month basis, or when there is something new about your candidacy that you could share with us that is materially different than what you've already provided to us, then that's certainly worth sharing. Keeping in touch for the sake of keeping in touch doesn't do much, but if you have something to share with us, then obviously we're happy to hear from people on the
waitlist.
What information would you like to share with applicants who would like to visit campus?
First of all, I would encourage them to do so. I think a campus visit is probably the best way they can learn about SOM, what the school is about, and what a day-in-the-life is like here at SOM. You can actually schedule a campus visit on our website: www.mba.yale.edu. A typical campus visit involves a campus tour, lunch with students, and sitting in on a class.
In addition to that, we have admissions ambassadors who answer questions about various aspects of school life. They are sorted by academic and industry background, so applicants can find someone with their similar background or interests and can ask them questions about SOM.
To the extent that an applicant has been in touch with an ambassador, often when
they come for a campus visit, they'll reach out to the current student and sit down with them in addition to the tour, lunch, and classroom visit. So there's a lot you can do on campus here at SOM to find out more about the school.
We encourage as many people as possible to take advantage of that opportunity.
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