Admissions Director Q&A
Clear Admit’s exclusive interviews with admissions directors at the world’s leading MBA programs.
Admissions Director Q&A: Kellogg School of Management’s Kate Smith
When Beth Flye, Kellogg admissions director since 2003, returned to her native North Carolina in spring 2011 to head up admissions for Kenan-Flagler’s new online MBA program, Kellogg decided to mine its own alumni for a replacement. Kate Smith, a 1998 graduate of the Kellogg MBA program, had spent the past 15 years building a career in brand management, first at General Mills and then at Pepsico. When Kellogg came calling, she was ready.
“It’s just incredible to have the opportunity to come back to Kellogg,” Smith told us. “For me, having a deep understanding of the school’s culture and heritage is really what’s most exciting,” she said. “My personal experience was truly life changing on so many levels.”
Smith returned to Kellogg in February 2012 as assistant dean for admissions and financial aid across all of the school’s programs. Having remained engaged with the school as a recruiter and in other capacities as an alumnus, she was able to hit the ground running and hasn’t had any major surprises since she got there, she tells us. Read on to learn more about what she’s most excited about in the year ahead, how she views the admissions process, her advice for applicants sitting down to write their essays and more.
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Admissions Director Q&A: Kurt Ahlm of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Our 2014 Admissions Director Q&A with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business' Kurt Ahlm is now available.
Kurt Ahlm is a 10-year veteran of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business admissions office, and he seemed the perfect person to take the lead role there when former director Rose Martinelli stepped down two summers ago. Since then he has helped welcome a new dean to the school, Dean Sunil Kumar, and seen the school continue its international expansion with the opening of a new center in China to complement campuses in Chicago, London and Singapore.
Ahlm started his career in undergraduate admissions at Northwestern University and then spent time working as a corporate recruiter before coming to Chicago Booth. “I really liked higher education but I also liked the more professional type of atmosphere that the corporate world offered,” he says, adding that MBA admissions provides a great mix of both. Chicago Booth benefits, in turn, from his strong background in both admissions and recruiting.
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Admissions Director Q&A: Columbia Business School’s Mary Miller
We are excited to announce the relaunch of our popular Clear Admit Admissions Director Q&A Series. Beginning today, we will feature two new interviews each week with admissions directors at leading MBA programs around the globe. In the course of these conversations, top admissions officials share exciting news about upcoming developments at their schools as well as valuable information about the admissions process and more. You won't want to miss this unfolding series. To kick things off, we turn to Columbia Business School's Assistant Dean of Admissions Mary Miller.
~ CLEAR ADMIT EXCLUSIVE ~
Miller took the helm of Columbia’s admissions office in 2009, bringing a wealth of experience from similar stints at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and New York University’s Stern School of Business.
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Published: January 26, 2011
Admissions Director Q&A: MIT Sloan’s Rod Garcia
We circled back recently to check in with an admissions director we hadn’t yet reconnected with as part of our Admissions Director Q&A Series – Rod Garcia of the MIT Sloan School of Management. Maybe it’s all the snow in Boston that gave him a little extra free time to take part. Whatever the case, we’re happy to have had a chance to catch up with him and think you’ll enjoy the interview that follows.
An MIT Sloan veteran, Garcia has been at the school for the past 23 years and admissions director for the last 12. Before coming to MIT Sloan in 1988, he worked in admissions at the University of Chicago.
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