In this edition of our MBA Admissions Director Q&A series, we return to the Yale School of Management to chat with Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean for Admissions.
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.
Our conversation touches on the evolving nature of the MBA, what to expect from the admissions process, and highlights of the program at Yale SOM.
Clear Admit: What is the one aspect of your program that you wish applicants knew more about?
Bruce DelMonico: One thing I don’t think people appreciate as much as they could is how deep our connection is to the broader Yale community. Yale is one of the preeminent universities in the world, and one of the great benefits of our MBA program is that when you come to Yale SOM, you come to Yale. In addition to having joint degree programs with just about every other professional school at Yale – our most recent one is with the School of Engineering and Applied Science – every student at Yale SOM is able to take as many of their electives as they like outside of the School of Management, without limit. So the entire University is open to you as a Yale SOM student, which is really powerful in tailoring your MBA to suit your specific interests. And when you graduate, you get access to the entire Yale University alumni network (Yale SOM, Yale College, Yale Law School, etc.), which is a tremendous benefit to our community.
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 efficiently as possible, which means that at times we 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 – whether personal or professional, we’re equally open to both! – 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 what percentage of applicants are invited to interview, who typically conducts interviews, and what should candidates expect in terms of interview style and format?
BD: Depending on the year, we interview roughly 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 interviews 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 our 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 of outcomes 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 decide your candidacy.
In terms of in-person versus virtual, for a few different reasons – including to level the playing field for all applicants – we’ve moved to virtual-only interviews this year. We definitely welcome people to visit our beautiful campus at some other point in the process, but at the interview stage, we conduct virtual interviews for everyone.
CA: If your admissions process includes any video-based components, such as video essays or recorded interview responses, what advice would you offer applicants preparing for this part of the process?
BD: The Video Question portion of the application – or “VQs,” as we call them – happens after you hit the “Submit” button. After you do so, you will get access to our VQ platform, through which you will receive two randomly selected, previously recorded questions asked by members of the admissions committee. You will have 60 seconds to respond to each question, after which your responses will be added to your file and included in our review process. The VQs are part of our initial review of your application. They do not replace the main admissions interview, which happens later in the process.
In terms of what candidates should know about the VQs, I would note that the questions are meant to be similar to typical interview questions. There are no “trick questions” – we’re not trying to stump you – and the responses do not require any specific knowledge or preparation beyond the practice tool you can use before answering the questions. The total time to complete them, including practice time, is generally around 20 minutes. And we use them with a “light touch,” as we say – they won’t make or break your candidacy, so try not to feel anxious about them. And please, do not use ChatGPT or another AI tool in responding; we’d much rather get an imperfect but genuine response than a stiff, scripted one.
CA: Is there anything in particular international students should keep in mind during the admissions process?
BD: I would note that we have a very international community here at Yale SOM – over 40% of our first-year MBA students are from outside the United States – and we value the global perspectives that these students bring to Yale. I know that there is currently a lot of uncertainty surrounding studying in the United States, but I would take a moment to reiterate how much we value our international students at Yale SOM and how committed we are to their being part of our community. We work with our partners throughout Yale, including especially the Office of International Students and Scholars, to support our international students in their transition to Yale. We also go so far as to retain an immigration attorney to help our incoming students through the visa process. So we take this commitment very seriously.
In terms of the application process, it’s the same for everyone regardless of their citizenship; there is nothing separate or different that international candidates need to do or should keep in mind during the application process. In fact, one of the reasons for creating the VQs, which we require of every applicant, is so that we could eliminate the English language requirement for non-native speakers, so we do not require the TOEFL or IELTS or any other English language test and truly do not have any separate requirements for international students.
One thing I would also note is that for international students who are looking to study in the US, it is important to start the visa process early once you are admitted to a program. The process took a good bit of time for many students this past year, so the more time you have to complete it, the better off you will be. As I note above, we worked very closely with our incoming students to provide them will all the resources they need to make the transition here to Yale, and we had great success getting our students here to campus this fall, but starting the process as early as possible definitely helps!
CA: Conversations about MBA value often center on jobs, salaries, and ROI. What are some of the other ways students benefit from the MBA experience that may be harder to quantify upfront?
BD: That’s a great question, and there are good reasons why conversations about MBA value tend to focus on jobs, salaries, and ROI. I continue to believe in the transformative value of the MBA when it comes to expanding opportunity, heightening one’s professional ceiling, and delivering deep (and rapid) ROI. Beyond that, though, among the benefits of the MBA are the ability to have greater impact and the way in which it instills confidence, which I think are inter-related.
In terms of impact, this is somewhat wrapped up in things like jobs and ROI, but one key thing the MBA imparts is a heightened ability to have impact in one’s work, one’s community – and, in many ways, one’s personal life (the skills that the MBA helps you develop in terms of self-knowledge and interpersonal relationships are broadly applicable). This is partly due to what you learn in an MBA, partly due to the network you develop, but underlying these things is the confidence you gain through the degree.
I hear this benefit cited very frequently by students as they graduate – that the increase in confidence they have from the time the started the MBA to the time they finish it is perhaps the greatest value of the degree. They are more confident in themselves, in their abilities, and in the impact they can have. When they began the program, they were guided by intuition and instinct in making decisions, but being able to step back in the MBA program, put structures and frameworks around these instincts, and approach their work (and their lives) in a more organized and intentional – and therefore more confident – way is the thing that has been most transformative for them.
CA: Are there any trends in the applicant pool, admissions process, or MBA experience that you are particularly focused on right now?
BD: The MBA market – and the degree itself – is constantly changing and evolving. AI seems like it’s top-of-mind for people on both of these fronts. In terms of the MBA experience itself, I would note that we’ve been incorporating AI into the coursework for several years, and just this year we added an AI course to the first-year core curriculum. So every student will get a course on “AI Foundations for Managers” in their first semester at Yale SOM, in addition to AI concepts being infused elsewhere in the core curriculum and the ability to take AI electives in the spring semester and second year (both at SOM and across Yale).
More broadly, one thing I always tell MBA aspirants is not to under-match in the admissions process. This is not a recent trend specifically because I’ve observed it for years, but I always see candidates who feel that they’re less competitive than they actually are and who therefore fail to apply to schools because they think they won’t be admitted. So my advice is to apply to the schools you’re truly interested in; don’t take yourself out of consideration preemptively.
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. As noted above, 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.
