In this MBA Admissions Director Q&A, we welcome back Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean for Admissions at the Yale School of Management for insights into MBA admissions, the program and more. Bruce joined Yale SOM in October 2004 and has led the Admissions Office since November 2006. Before joining Yale, Bruce was an attorney focused on First Amendment, white collar, and commercial litigation. Bruce holds a BA in Honors English from Brown University, an MA in Literature from the University of Texas at Austin, and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law.
In our Q&A, Bruce touches on Yale SOM’s MBA application process, how to make the most of your essay, the most in-demand courses, and more.
Clear Admit: What is the one aspect of your program that you wish applicants knew more about?
Bruce DelMonico: The MBA program here at SOM was just designated a STEM program, meaning that completion of the program automatically makes students eligible for the three-year STEM OPT extension. This is more a recent change than some long-standing hidden feature of the program, but it’s an important change and one that could be very helpful to students from outside the United States who could benefit from the three years of OPT that STEM-eligibility allows rather than the standard one year of OPT. So that’s a big change that I think is important for applicants to know about.
CA: Walk us through the life of an application in your office from an operational standpoint. What happens between the time an applicant clicks “submit” and the time the committee offers a final decision?
BD: After the deadline passes (and as an aside, we don’t begin reviewing until the deadline has passed), the first thing we do is to sit down as a committee – there are roughly 15 of us – to do a quick pass through the entire pool to level-set. We then begin reading files and sending out interview invitations almost immediately. Applications are reviewed by at least two different members of the admissions committee. Members of the committee meet early in the round to make interview decisions and then later in the round to make admission decisions on candidates who have been interviewed. Candidates can take different paths through the process – we try to make sure we’re moving people through the review process as expeditiously as possible, which means we at times have parallel processes at work to enable that to happen. Everyone receives a thorough review, and we actually have some redundancies built into the process to ensure that we’re being fair, consistent, and well-calibrated in our evaluation and decisions.
CA: How does your team approach the essay portion of the application specifically? What are you looking for as you read an essay? Are there common mistakes that applicants should try to avoid? What is one key thing they should keep in mind as they sit down to write?
BD: Our essay prompt gives applicants the choice to write about one of three possible topics: (1) the biggest commitment you’ve made; (2) the community that has been most meaningful to you; or (3) the most significant challenge you have faced. We give you a choice of prompts because we want to know what matters to you and this choice helps ensure you’re able to write about something important to you.
My first piece of advice is to choose the prompt that speaks most strongly to you and about which you have the most enthusiasm. In answering the prompt – whichever one it is – you should think about the life experiences most meaningful to you and that you most want to communicate to the committee. Pick the question that will best allow you to express that aspect of yourself.
Regardless of what topic you choose, the most important aspect of the essay to us is that you describe in detail the behaviors that demonstrate support for that topic. We care most about how you’ve approached this thing that matters deeply to you.
Remember, the goal is not to stand out or be unique. The goal is to be genuine and sincere. We find that the most compelling essays are the ones that share what is truly most important to you, so use that as your guide in choosing what to write about. Don’t try to guess what we’re looking for or what you think we want to hear.
I would also note that you do not need to connect your essay to the MBA degree – you don’t need to explain how the topic you choose supports why you want to get an MBA, either in general or at Yale. We ask those questions elsewhere in the application process, so don’t spend your limited words on those areas here. And of course, as always, remember to proofread!
CA: Could you tell us about your interview process? Approximately how many applicants do you interview? Who conducts the interview (students, admissions officers, alumni) and what is the nature of the interview (resume-based, application-based, behavioral)? Will your admissions interviews be in-person or virtual for the 2024-2025 admissions season?
BD: Depending on the year, we interview roughly a quarter to a third of the applicant pool. Interviews are conducted primarily by trained second-year students and recent alumni who were interviewers as students, although members of the Admissions Committee do conduct some as well. Our interviews are “blind,” meaning that the interviewer has reviewed your resume, but has not seen the rest of your application. The idea is for this input to be as independent of the other reviews as possible. The interviews themselves are 30 minutes in length and structured in format – every interviewee receives the same questions in the same order. Research consistently shows that structured interviews are far more predictive than unstructured ones, which is why we adopted this format many years ago. Interviewers also use a highly structured rubric in evaluating candidates, to heighten inter-rater consistency, decrease bias, and increase the fairness of the process.
The questions themselves are largely behavioral in nature – we ask about past experiences and how you handled certain situations, as well as about your MBA aspirations. The goal, as with the rest of our application, is to elicit the information that is most helpful at that time and in that format, and that complements the rest of the application. I would note that although the interview is the last thing you will do as an applicant, that does not mean that it is the most important aspect of your candidacy or that it will determine the outcome of your application. It is just one more data point, and the one piece of advice I would give to applicants is not to put too much emphasis on it, as you shouldn’t any single element of your application – nothing by itself will make or break your candidacy.
In terms of in-person versus virtual, applicants have the option to come to campus to interview in person or to interview virtually. There is no difference between the two in terms of your chances of being admitted, it’s really just a matter of your preference.
CA: What is your testing policy? Do you offer exam waivers? Why or why not?
BD: We accept either the GMAT or the GRE as part of the Yale SOM application. We accept both tests and do not have a preference for either – in fact, our admission rate is roughly the same for applicants regardless of which test they took, which I think is an important proof point that we do not have a preference.
Our testing policy has not changed in recent years – we continue to require a standardized test as part of the application process. We know that some schools have gone test-optional or started to offer test waivers during and after the pandemic, but we haven’t followed that path. Research consistently shows that standardized tests are highly predictive of first-year MBA grades, which are an important (although by no means the only meaningful) outcome. Test scores aren’t the most predictive element, but they provide important incremental validity and consistency to our application process, and we have yet to find a replacement – or combination of replacements – that represents an adequate substitute. We continue to work toward finding this substitute, and when we do, we will consider loosening or eliminating the testing requirement. But we don’t want to jeopardize the integrity of our application process by doing so prematurely or without fully researching and understanding the situation.
CA: In the application data form, many schools ask for information about work experience, activities, hobbies, and much more. What advice would you give to applicants as they approach this component of the application process?
BD: The main thing I would say for work experience is to be thoughtful, thorough, and diligent in completing the section of the application. It may seem like rote data entry, but we actually look closely at this information and learn a great deal about your professional path from it. Take care to get the start and end dates right, make sure the salary information is accurate, and take time to explain your reasons for leaving an employer with thought and care rather than just writing something generic like “better opportunity” or “more pay.” Like your resume, this is a place where you can tell your professional story to us, and a work experience section that is coherent and complete and helps us understand your professional profile will serve you much better in the process than one that leaves us confused or asking questions. It may seem like an unimportant section, but it isn’t.
As for activities and hobbies, we have a section in our application that allows applicants to list up to two activities they undertook while in college and two they’ve undertaken since college. What they can include is quite broad: extracurricular activities, sports, volunteer work, research/academic activities, employment or work-study during school, familial roles or responsibilities, professional affiliations, or hobbies. We limit the number to two for each time period both because we want applicants to focus on the activities that were most significant to them and also because we don’t want to create an activities arms race among applicants. By limiting to two, the goal is to create a level playing field where people who have the resources and opportunity to do more outside of their academics or work aren’t given an unfair advantage over those who don’t.
CA: Tell us briefly about two popular courses at your institution.
BD: There are so many! But two I would mention are Strategic Leadership Across Sectors, taught by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld; and Interpersonal Dynamics, with Heidi Brooks. Professor Sonnenfeld is one most prominent and well-known faculty members at the school; he leads our Chief Executive Leadership Institute (CELI) and CEO Summit, among other things. Strategic Leadership Across Sectors leverages his deep connections to the corporate world and brings different leaders from the private, public, and non-profit sectors to the class each week to share their leadership lessons. These are closed-door conversations (no recordings or devices) that involve close interactions with some of the most prominent leaders in the world. It is one of the most popular courses at the school – as is Interpersonal Dynamics, which is an intense, activity-based and experientially driven class about how to engage with others and thus how to be a truly effective leader. Students routinely describe it as one of the most transformative classes they took as a student. (Honorable mention goes to the Global Social Enterprise class, taught by Tony Sheldon, which involves students doing a consulting project with a different mission-based organization each year. In recent years, the class has rotated among Brazil, Indonesia, and Kenya.)
CA: Is there anything else you’d like to highlight about your MBA program or admissions process?
BD: I would just add that we know applying to business school is a long process and that a lot of time and energy goes into it. Just know that we put as much care and attention into evaluating your application as you put into preparing it. We’re rooting for you and are hoping to help you take this next step in your professional journey. I truly believe in the transformative value of the MBA and its ability to help you unlock your personal and professional potential, and we’re excited for students to take that journey here at Yale.
