The University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business announced earlier this week that the application for its Future Year Admissions Program is now live. In its inaugural year, this program is geared toward undergraduate students in their final year of study or students who have gone on directly from college into a fifth-year master’s program. Applicants can apply while they are still in school and then opt to defer admission to Darden by between two and four years while they gain work experience.
The program, not unlike Harvard Business School’s 2+2 Program, is designed to help get college students to start thinking about business school, in part so they will study for and take the GMAT exam while they are still in a test prep mode. According to Darden Senior Associate Director of Admissions Katherine Alford, who leads admissions for the new program, the decision to launch it was prompted in part by the fact that Darden Dean Scott Beardsley lives on “the Lawn” at UVA, a coveted string of dorm rooms inhabited by UVA undergraduate seniors who go through a competitive application process to secure them. Beardsley, a veteran of consulting firm McKinsey, last year replaced long-serving Dean Bob Bruner and took up residence in a pavilion on the Lawn. “His neighbors are all fourth-year students at UVA, and I think he has been really impressed with the talent he has seen,” Alford said in a July interview with Clear Admit.
To apply, interested students complete the same application form used by applicants to the traditional full-time MBA, although letters of recommendation from faculty members—generally discouraged for applicants who have been in the workforce—are accepted. The deadline to submit applications for the Future Year Admissions Program is May 1, 2017.
To learn more about the program, don’t miss this article from the Clear Admit archives: “Darden Launches New ‘Future Year Admissions’ Deferred MBA Program.”
