Admissions Directors Reassure Wary International Applicants
Sara Neher, who heads admissions at Darden, shared that prospective international applicants have expressed concern about the potential implications of Trump’s presidency on them. “Many candidates, especially those who are Muslim, have asked about whether or not they will be able to come the United States for school,” she said, citing both recruiting trips to Indonesia earlier in the fall and an interview with a candidate from Bangladesh the day after the election. “I hope and believe they will and have told them as much. Charlottesville in particular is a very welcoming place with a large refugee community,” Neher added.
The outcome of the election only adds to worry Neher and her team have had about the insufficient quantity of H1-B visas for all international students in the United States, noting that some global companies seeking to hire Darden’s international students to work in the U.S. have already had to send them out of the country until they can acquire visas. “I have to believe that lawmakers would rather workers stay here and that this will improve,” she said. Darden will continue to recruit international students and do its best to help them find amazing post-graduation positions, and the dean has already initiated an expanded summer internship program as a way to support students if visas are insufficient, she added.
Uncertainty rippled through Clear Admit’s own MBA LiveWire in the wake of the election as well, with one applicant polling others about their sentiments. “With the recent turn of events, anyone else (international students) who is thinking about saying goodbye to US MBA now?” read a note posted at 8:02 a.m. on November 9th, mere hours after the election had been called. At least five international applicants chimed in to say yes with a sixth applicant writing, “I’m a US student thinking of saying goodbye to a US MBA.” Unfortunately, some of the vitriol of the campaign season seemed to spill over into some of the other comments in the thread.
But Yale School of Management (SOM) Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions Bruce Delmonico was in Asia last week, where candidates at admissions receptions in Shanghai and Seoul seemed undaunted by the election results. “Attendance at both events exceeded our expectations, and there was no sense from the attendees that the election results had dampened their enthusiasm for studying at Yale,” he said. Yale SOM does not currently have any plans to change its recruiting strategies or adjust its current admissions plans, he continued, noting that it is too soon to predict what will happen. “The President-elect has not even taken office yet, let alone announced any concrete policy proposals,” he pointed out.
Delmonico also underscored that Trump has acknowledged the importance of bringing talented individuals into the United States. “We would not have Google without Sergey Brin, and we would not have Tesla without Elon Musk. These two companies alone employee thousands of people in the United States, and there are many others just like them,” Delmonico said. “I am personally hopefully that Mr. Trump’s policies will ultimately recognize and reflect the many positive influences that foreign-born individuals have had here in the United States.”
Leadership Lessons Abound
Like any good students of management, those we spoke with proved to be remarkably adept at drawing leadership lessons, both good and bad, from the contentious campaign. “One thing we keep talking about with Trump is his strategy of finding an opportunity and exploiting it as far as possible,” said the Wharton student who preferred to remain anonymous. “Regardless of how you feel about him, he was very effective, and it’s impressive to be able to pull that off.”
HBS’s Rivera drew lessons from both candidates. From Clinton, the lesson he took away was that fighting for your dreams is always worth it. From Trump, he learned that there is an unheard voice that we need to listen to—and it’s not just an American problem. “We have seen similar democratic outcomes in the United Kingdom, Colombia, Poland and the Philippines,” he said. “We cannot keep ignoring those people.”
Saïd student Doshi opted to focus on Michelle Obama’s message of choosing to go high when others go low. “Responses to crises are what define us, and this is an opportunity to be the best possible versions of ourselves,” he said. “Leaders come and go. This too shall pass. Humanity, and certainly America, has been through far worse than this.”
Darden’s Neher also chose to focus on the positive. “I think what I reflect on most about this week was how supportive everyone was of everyone’s opinions and how we were able to be compassionate and share how we felt,” she said. Here’s hoping these future business leaders carry that commitment to compassion, inclusiveness and dialogue into the business world with them.
