At Darden, Accentuate the Positives

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Dawna Clarke, director of admissions at the University of Virginia's B-school, is in charge of telling MBA hopefuls whether they've made the cut. Since arriving at UVA's Darden Graduate School of Business in 1990, Clarke has worked as a senior associate director of admissions and as the director of alumni relations before taking the top seat in admissions in 2000. Prior to her role at Darden -- No. 12 in BusinessWeek's latest B-School rankings, she worked as chief admissions officer in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill B-school, where she also earned a master's in higher education.  

In a recent interview, Clarke offers her take on the admissions process at Darden to BusinessWeek Online management education reporter Mica Schneider. Here's an edited version of their conversation:

Q: You've just returned from MBA fairs in Prague, Moscow, Istanbul, and Athens. How was attendance?
A: The fairs were somewhat obscure, and some [places] were new markets for us, but we saw a good attendance. I've seen reports from other regions, where attendance at some fairs has been down. A lot of us are feeling the effects of the baby bust. Also, if the economy is weak for a short while, then applications remain strong, but if the economy stays weak for an extended period, applications will come down.

Q: Darden's first application deadline, Oct. 22, has just passed. Soon you'll be telling MBA hopefuls if they've made the cut. How is the first round panning out?
A: In terms of quality, I'm very pleased. I spent a lot of time this week reading applications and I'm pleased in terms of the diversity. We're seeing strong, female applicants and applicants from a number of regions of the world. Applications were down roughly 30%, vs. 2002, but last year our deadline was later, on Nov. 1. We received a lot of applications right after the first deadline.

Q: Does that mean a less-competitive year for MBA admissions?
A: I think so. If the volume stays low, it's a great year for applicants. If you're an investment banker, you may be up against 200 fewer investment bankers this year. But the quality is still good so I'm not at all worried about having to lower our standards to fill the class.

Based on the predictions I'm hearing, hiring will be much better for those people going to school next year than it has been in recent years.

Q: Virginia recently increased the size of its MBA class. Currently, the school is home to about 575 MBAs. How many MBAs will you accept this fall?
A: We have 316 students in our entering class. In 2002, we expanded the class by 25%. That's it for now. Because the case method is such a huge part of the class experience, faculty members have felt it would be harder to pull it off in a larger program.

Q: About 30% of your MBAs are married. Charlottesville, Va., is a good-sized college town but is two hours south of Washington, D.C., perhaps making it more difficult for partners of your students to find jobs in the area. What are the options for spouses of MBAs?
A: There are more opportunities here than people realize, but it does require more work on the part of the spouse to find out what they are. One of the ways that Darden works around its location is to reserve certain jobs in departments. So we've had spouses of MBAs in our communications, admissions, and career-services offices. Some have taken faculty research positions, and these are all specifically allocated for spouses of Darden students. And Charlottesville is also growing. We have 70 Darden grads living in Charlottesville, so there are job opportunities with our alumni.

Richmond, Va., is a 50- to 60-minute drive from Charlottesville, so for people who really want to work for an investment bank, for instance, Richmond is an option.

Darden also has the Darden Partners Assn., an officially recognized organization by the Darden School that receives funding from the school. The school believes that the partners [of MBAs] who come to Charlottesville are a part of the community. One of the Darden Partners committees is focused on helping people find jobs. During Darden days, which are Apr. 2 and 3 in 2004, spouses should get in touch with Darden partners through the admissions office.

Q: The fifth application deadline is Mar. 31. What percentage of the Darden class is filled by then?
A: It can vary considerably from year to year. In 2003, 85% to 93% of the class, and this is a ballpark estimate, would have been filled by the last deadline. People should just focus on the quality of their application, not on trying to game the application. Channel your energy into cultivating a high-quality application.

That said, it's better to apply earlier because you find out about financial aid and housing earlier in the process. It's also easier to stand out in the admissions process. If you're the fifth military applicant [we've seen], as opposed to the hundredth, you've got a better chance of standing out.

Q: Unlike other B-schools, Darden asks its MBA applicants to interview before submitting their applications. How effective are interviews when the interviewer doesn't have full details about the applicant?
A: There are pros and cons to conducting an interview this way, but we feel the pros outweigh the cons. We're all human beings, and we don't want to be biased by anything that's in that application packet. For instance, if a recommendation says that a person is shy, I don't want to be focused on that during the interview. And I don't want to assume that someone who has a 700 GMAT score will impress me just because I like the numbers [I see on paper].

We want the applicants to shine, and they've got more of an opportunity to shine if we don't bias the interview. I'd rather have a class with an average GMAT score of 680 and grade point average of 3.4 than sacrifice interpersonal skills.

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Q: How can an applicant best prepare for a Darden interview?
A: We feel that in addition to being bright and accommodating, strong managers and leaders need to have strong interpersonal and communication skills. They don't all have to be engaging and have scintillating personalities. We want to ensure there's a screening mechanism that discovers what kind of character they are, as well as their thought process, and to gauge factors that are difficult to gauge on a paper application. We tend not to ask about GMAT scores and academics in the interview
We ask them why they selected their undergraduate school major, their employer, and what prompted them to apply to business school. Why have they made various choices? You can really get valuable information about a person's personality by asking that. There are some candidates who are great people, but terribly shy. So in that case, the environment at Darden could be intimidating.

Sometimes people come in with an agenda -- and one of the best pieces of advice I have for applicants is to think of about three or four accomplishments and experiences they really want to convey [in the interview]. Then find a way to fit them into the conversation. It's so much better for people to give a specific example.

A very effective form of communication is to think of a vignette or anecdote that demonstrates a quality. Candidates sometimes make broad, sweeping statements. I can't tell you how many times when my office is having an admissions conversation [about applicants], and someone says, "Oh, that's the guy who dresses up as a clown for children at a hospital and gave me a photo of him with the children."

Accentuate your strengths, don't accentuate your weaknesses. Sometimes people come in and are so concerned about their undergraduate GPA or GMAT score and they draw attention to their weaknesses, rather than giving us reasons to overlook those things. Bring up all of the reasons why we should gravitate toward you.

Q: If the applicant thinks the interview went terribly, what should he or she do? Is there any remedy? And is a bad interview an automatic ticket to the bottom of the pile?
A: It's not an automatic ticket. I read an application last night and the interview was out of sync with the rest of that application. The interview was off. I'm going to get multiple opinions on it from other people in the office.

Usually, if the interview is off, there's some confirmation of that elsewhere in the application. If someone rambles on for 35 minutes and doesn't let the interviewee ask any questions, usually there's something, perhaps in a recommendation, that says the person is overbearing, for instance.

There was an instance today where the interview was the only negative, so I've asked the student interviewer to come by to shed some light.

An interview is a two-sided process. It's beneficial to us because it gives us a chance to show off our facilities and community. It's beneficial for the applicant, because it's such a huge investment to go to business school. When you go to any school, pay very close attention to how you were treated and to how people made you feel. I think people get a good feeling at Darden. If someone had an "off" experience at any school, I'd definitely write to the director of admissions and say, "XYZ school is my top choice, and I think I visited on an off day. Is it possible to come back and have another interview?" A student will learn a lot from the response.

Q: How does Darden evaluate applicants' GMAT scores?
A: The average GMAT was 678 in 2003. And it's just one of many factors that we take into consideration.

I have several pieces of advice related to the GMAT. It's the type of test people can study for. When registering for the GMAT, get the official GMAT review, which comes in software form and in a book. It's much more reasonable than taking the Kaplan class. I've seen good results from Kaplan classes, but they're awfully expensive. We look at the highest GMAT score. We don't average the scores, so you have nothing to lose, aside from money, by taking it a few times.

We'll also take into consideration a person's undergraduate GPA and post-baccaleaureate courses to judge their quantitative ability. Many applicants will call and ask, "Here's my transcript, what courses should I take?" We'll make recommendations. Courses that are quantitative in nature, such as quantitative analysis, finance, and numeracy in general, are important.

Q: So your office will look favorably on applicants who take the GMAT a few times?
A: If I see an applicant that took the GMAT once and got a below-average score, then I ask, "Why didn't the applicant retake the GMAT?"

Q: Who are the best people to write an applicant's recommendations?
A: Go with the person who knows you the most and who can devote the most time to the recommendation. The person should use examples and vignettes to make points in the recommendation, just as we ask applicants to do in their essays and interviews. Ask the recommender to take some time to illustrate the applicant's strengths. I love examples.

Q: So it's O.K. for applicants to do a bit of hand-holding with their references?
A: Ask someone, "Are you willing to take the time to make this recommendation stand out?" Some recommenders write one paragraph. That tells us nothing. Sometimes recommenders need to be told how important these are to the application process.

Q: What's the best length for a recommendation?
A: I don't need a recommendation that's six pages. I need ones that substantiate what the applicant says. One to two pages is perfectly appropriate.

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Q: Applicants are required to write four essays for Darden, and one essay is optional. When is a good time to write an optional essay?
A: Always. Everybody has an interesting story. I love to see what people choose. I saw someone talk about skydiving in South Africa, a challenging experience that the person wanted to talk about. Some people talk about their families. Some people use the opportunity to explain why their GMAT or GPA isn't what they expected it to be. Others tell us why Darden is their top school.  

Q: Can you suggest any things to avoid doing in applications?
A: I read 30 applications last night. Two of the applicants wrote, "And that's why Kellogg is my top school." Another said, "I'd like to explore financial aid opportunities at Fuqua." This is a competitive application process: Why one person gets admitted and another doesn't can come down to splitting hairs, so that [kind of mistake] doesn't make a positive impression.

Sometimes people make the mistake of telling us what they've done, whereas we want to know how they grew from an experience and how the experience changed them. Some people write bullet-point essays, while we want more depth and to know how you impacted more people.

And something that's a little bit different this year is that we'll be looking for more domestic students who have experience studying or working abroad. One of the ways we can globalize the school is to admit more domestic students who have significant international experiences. It's not a requirement, but an asset to talk about in the essays. Sometimes the domestic students have unbelievable experiences living someplace for a year or traveling extensively.

Quotes. I can't tell you how many essays begin with quotes from Thomas Jefferson. If I were reading his application, that would be great, but I want to hear about the applicant. Also, I see so many definitions of leadership from Webster's dictionary.

Give your essay to someone you know well and ask, "Does this sound like me?"

Q: How large does the school want its international student population to be?
A: A 25% to 30% range is what we're targeting for the time being, while the economy is so weak.

Q: How does Darden managed its wait-list?
A: Someone can be placed on the wait-list for a variety of reasons. One may be that the application is very strong, but they haven't interviewed, so we invite them for an interview. Another reason is that we're just not quite sure, especially in the first few deadlines, how that candidate compares to future candidates. If space were greater, anyone who's on the wait-list has the potential to be offered admission.

Q: What's the best strategy for someone who's placed on Darden's wait-list?
A: Follow up with the school either by phone or in writing. Sometimes a couple of months will pass since you've [submitted your application and been] placed on the wait-list, so stay in touch with the school regarding anything that's new with your application, such as job promotions.

The other advice is to stay patient. Phoning the school or faxing additional information a couple of times a week is not going to leave a good impression.

Q: How did you utilize the wait-list in 2003?
A: We took 75 people off of the wait-list, which was very high. In 2001, it was 14. But one year we took one, and another year we took 85.

Q: What other changes are afoot in Darden's admissions office?
A: We're working on an ongoing study to see if there are commonalties among successful Darden alumni. We're interviewing a variety of successful Darden alumni and asking them about their upbringing, whether they were involved in the Boy Scouts and other such things.

We're also starting a series of meetings tomorrow with the organizational behavior faculty to find ways we can improve our interview process and maybe create something to measure emotional intelligence, and how we can learn more about a person's motivation. Motivation can compensate for a lot [in an application].

We're also traveling a little more, and we're always trying to improve the admissions process.