We are back in Texas at the SMU Cox School of Business in this edition of our Admissions Director Q&A series with Shelly Heinrich, Senior Assistant Dean, Graduate Admissions and Career Management Center.
Heinrich brings 20 years of experience in the higher education, corporate, and nonprofit sectors, with direct experience working in five business schools. Her responsibilities have included admissions, recruitment, marketing, employer/business development, and career services, among others. Heinrich manages a team of 40, leading the strategic direction and oversight of Graduate Admissions (recruitment, marketing, and admissions) to enroll over 900 new students annually, as well as the Career Management Center (employer business development and career strategy), supporting over 3,500 BBA, MS, and MBA students. Additionally, she establishes and grows relationships with employers and associations to market the school and our talent.
Previously, at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, Heinrich was the Associate Dean and Managing Director, MBA Admissions and Executive Director, Program Marketing where her team was responsible for recruitment, marketing, and admissions for multiple graduate degree programs.
Recent accomplishments include leading the marketing launch of five degree programs, including the inaugural EMBA Dubai degree and campus in Dubai and establishing many new partnerships and programs for admissions pipelines. Additionally, she led the integration of technology systems, including Salesforce and Adobe’s Marketo, and oversaw the development of a behavior score and scholarship yield model. Heinrich is actively involved in the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), having served as faculty for the Admissions Institute for New Professionals and the Art & Science of Marketing Seminar at the GMAC Annual Conference. She also teaches a Digital Marketing Analytics MBA elective at Georgetown University for the last two years.
Heinrich received her MBA from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, M.Ed. from The University of Texas at Austin, and BBA from Texas Christian University.
To learn more about the MBA program at SMU Cox and get Heinrich’s insights into the application process and how to prepare, read out Q&A with her below.
Clear Admit: What is the one aspect of your program that you wish applicants knew more about?
Shelly Heinrich: SMU Cox is on the rise. The momentum here is very energizing. With new leaders who started this June 1 (President Jay Hartzell joining from The University of Texas at Austin and Dean Todd Milbourn joining from Wash U Olin School of Business), advancement to R1 status, rankings with Bloomberg Businessweek (#26) and U.S. News and World Report (#34) that have risen consistently in recent years, and the entrance to the ACC with a record-breaking football season, SMU is on fire.
The admissions and career statistics for our Full-time MBA rival some of the top programs. We have a 29% admit rate and our students, on average, receive $70,000 in scholarships. We are able to be very selective, admitting highly competitive students, and provide a very strong return on investment. Part of this ROI stems from our Full-time MBA employment rate 3 months post-graduation at 86% and our 6-months post-graduation rate at 95%. These strong stats, despite a tough economy, are due, in part, to our incredible Career Management Center team that prepares students from the summer before they begin their program and leads them through an entire Managing Your Career course to prepare them for achieving their short and long-term goals. (See entire Full-time MBA Employment Report.)
Finally, our location in Dallas, has arguably become the second financial hub in the United States with the entrance of the Texas Stock Exchange (Y’all Street), NYSE Texas location, and an expanded NASDAQ presence in Texas. Texas already leads the nation with the most Fortune 500 headquarters in the US and has more than 100 corporate headquarters that have relocated here since 2020. As we develop Cox’s strategic plan moving forward, there is no end in sight for what Cox students can achieve.
Source: Office of the Texas Governor and World Business Outlook
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?
SH: We have a unique holistic application process. Both the Graduate Admissions and Career Management Center teams are intimately involved in the process. A member of both teams interviews each candidate so we can get to know them individually and they can get to know us as well. We know that applicants are evaluating us as much as we are evaluating them.
Once students press submit, the application is read by a member of the admissions team. If the reader believes the applicant is a good fit, this student receives an invitation to conduct an admissions interview. The questions focus on their intent in pursuing an MBA, their interest in SMU Cox, and how they will contribute to the intellectual and community-focused culture at Cox. These interviews can be virtual, but we certainly prefer students do them in-person.
If the admissions interview goes well, applicants are invited for a second interview by a member of the Career Management Center team. The goals of this interview focus on understanding whether they have realistic future professional career goals based on their skills and experiences. The career team asks about their short and long-term goals, their professional accomplishments and why they are marketable for the type of career they’re seeking.
After this second interview, the application is reviewed again by the admissions committee who provides decisions by the pre-established decision release dates during the normal application rounds. Once we get to late spring and early summer, we enter the rolling period where we provide an applicant-focused speed-to-decision process. This takes more time and logistics on our part, but instead of having an applicant wait up to 2 months for a decision, we aim to get them out in 2-3 weeks.
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?
SH: We seek authenticity and personal examples. In the age of AI, the admissions team is acutely aware of and seeks to make sure that the essays are written by the applicant. Not surprisingly, we’ve found that when many students input the same essay question into an AI tool, similar answers are produced. If you’re reading hundreds of applications, you can spot more easily those that might have been completely written by AI. While AI can be helpful, applicants are doing themselves a disservice by not being authentic. We’re ultimately trying to learn how each applicant is different and adds unique value to the classroom.
CA: Could you tell us about your interview process? Approximately how many applicants do you interview? Who conducts the interview and what is the nature of the interview? Will your admissions interviews be in-person or virtual for the 2025-2026 admissions season?
SH: For our Full-time MBA, we interview approximately 50% of the applicants that apply. It’s important for us to get to know people outside of what they put in their application. Interviews are conducted by admissions team members, and we ask both resume-based and behavioral interview questions. The interview is semi-blind in that the interviewer has reviewed an applicant’s resume, but won’t have reviewed the application prior to the interview. They last about 20-25 minutes and then we provide about 5 minutes for Q and A. The second interview, conducted by the Career Management Center team is shorter (~15 minutes) and can also be done virtually or on-campus.
CA: Is there anything in particular international students should keep in mind during the admissions process?
SH: The Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex is culturally diverse and is ranked as the 6th most diverse city in the United States by WalletHub. People from all over the world have moved to Dallas and Texas in the last few years because of its booming economy.
Our SMU Cox School of Business welcomes students from 36 countries and most of our 13 graduate programs have between 20 and 30 percent international students. Right now, all of our programs other than the MS in Real Estate are STEM-designated so international students can work on OPT post-graduation for 3 years without an H1B visa. We encourage students to apply as early as possible to give themselves enough time to schedule a visa appointment. We also encourage them to reach out to our current international students and alumni community for advice on life and culture at Cox and in Dallas.
CA: What is your favorite spot on campus?
SH: There are two. The first one is the SMU Boulevard. This is the main entrance of the campus. The trees are mature and create a canopy over the road. It’s very peaceful and awestriking. This is the same Boulevard that is filled with energy during football games when people come to tailgate and catch up with old friends and make new ones. Football game weekends are a time when many come back to remember their experience and keep in touch with the phenomenal network they’ve built. If someone never has experienced true U.S. American football; it’s quite an experience and, even better, when the team is doing as well as we did last season.
Honestly, my other favorite spot is the new Miller Quadrangle, home of the Cox School of Business. It is a $140M building that opened last August 2024 and would rival any top-tier corporate campus or resort. The Quadrangle includes 7 buildings that were combined into one. We have all the latest future-forward classroom technology, 20 Bloomberg Terminals located between the Kitt Investing & Trading Center and Duda Family Business Library, a studio where our asynchronous online content is recorded, and a beautiful EY Gallery event facility that overlooks the Turner Centennial Quadrangle fountain. Not to mention, a Sclafani’s New York Bagels shop offering true New York style bagels and The Exchange, a Grab ‘N Go convenience store right in the building. I am energized every time I walk into the building.
CA: Is there anything else you’d like to highlight about your MBA program or admissions process?
SH: We have an incredible alumni network, with 42,000 SMU Cox alumni and 136,000 SMU alumni spanning over 40 countries. I’ve worked at many business schools, and without a doubt our alumni are more loyal and generous than I’ve ever experienced. Additionally, our Cox Executive Board boast two Federal Reserve Governors, two NFL owners, the President and COO of Goldman Sachs, the CEO of McKesson, and a Bain Partner who runs 1/3 of Bain globally.
We provide a phenomenal Global Leadership Program which is mandatory for the Full-time MBA program. The GLP is a transformational experience where students are given the chance to solve real-world business challenges and experience how cultures, economies and industries connect around the world through a global trip.
In addition to this network, we constantly innovate. We’ve recently launched an MS in Energy and Sustainability Management and an MS in Real Estate, and we’ll be integrating AI into our classroom in different ways this next year. Stay tuned for announcements to come this summer.
