[分享] UVA Darden new info

janechen

Congratulations to all recent admits to Darden! I just came back from my campus interview yesterday. Charlottesville seems like a nice town, very quiet and friendly. Anyway, I though I should share some new information I heard during my visit. I know some of you interviewed with alum in China and may not be aware of such changes.

1. curriculum change -

Darden is one of the few that use pretty much exclusively case method. Its first year was all core classes until now. I'm told that for the 2005 entering class, we will be taking all core classes during the first 3 quarters. The 4th quarter will be 3 electives so that we can prepare for the summer internship. The admission counselor kept emphasizing how the summer internship is really a 3-month job interivew, a reflection of the economy I guess.

2. new dean -

Darden is searching for a new Dean and he/she is expected to take over before the summer. His/her main goal is to enhance Darden's brand and also try to increase yield at Darden by getting more scholarship for prospective students. I assume Darden lost some top applicants to higher ranking schools or because it wasn't able to match the scholarship offers. How will the new Dean achieve this remains unclear to me.

Those things are not necessarily good or bad. Just changes and I thought I'd share it here since many of us are coming to the point of having to make decisions in the coming months.

Good luck to all!

P.S. I'm a R3 Darden applicant, now waiting to hear the final word.

dukesongyi

Thank you so much for sharing the information.

Good luck for your application.

PS. Darden is my favorite one.

janechen

Darden really is a nice school and I like the smal town atomsphere. However, I am a bit concerned after my interview. The changes I mentioned above bothered me somewhat. Darden's case method already made the curriculum pretty demanding. I don't know how "little" social life is left if we have to cram all core classes into 3 quarters. Then the admission counselor kept saying how she felt that I'm using Darden as a backup. I kept saying how I like Darden and all, but I'm not sure if she's convinced.

Another thing that I wasn't aware of before the interview is the background of the students. I was told that many of the them came from banking background and a good %  will go into banking (IB, equity management etc) post-MBA. I was surprised since I thought Darden is a GM school.