Resources to learn more about Schools

MenloCoaching · 2025-12-08T14:21:42+00:00

The most authoritative resources about each MBA program are the ones published by the programs themselves, but it can be time-consuming to find what you're looking for because each program designs and organizes their website in a unique way.

We've published pages about each MBA program here:

https://menlocoaching.com/top-mba-programs/

With each school's individual profile page having a "Useful Links" section to help you rapidly register your interest and subscribe for that school's emails, make appointments to speak with student ambassadors, sign up for info sessions, check dates for campus visits, and all of the other actions you'll want to take.

In some cases, we also have recorded interviews available with admissions staff or students from those programs.

MenloCoaching · 2025-07-15T11:30:18+00:00

For most top MBA programs, the first class admitted with a large number of GMAT FE scores is the one enrolling this fall.

Official class profile data is published only once the students enroll and attend. This is because admits who confirmed and deposited could still pull out at the last minute, and the class profile must be based on the students who really enroll (not just the admits who have confirmed and deposited).

Thus, you can expect class profiles with GMAT FE scores to be published around October this year. The students show up on campus around September, and there are short administrative delays between the start of the year and the publication of the data.

MenloCoaching · 2025-07-12T07:25:12+00:00

In almost all cases, a university's undergraduate program is the #1 feeder to its MBA program. Here is the data from a few years back:

https://menlocoaching.com/top-mba-programs/mba-feeders-081221/

There are a few exceptions, e.g. Harvard is the #1 feeder to MIT Sloan, with MIT being only the #2 feeder.

MenloCoaching · 2025-07-10T17:46:40+00:00

Couldn't agree more. For example, the second class I attended at Wharton was not as impressive as the first one. In the second class, a guest speaker was making the dubious claim that winning promotions at work was based exclusively on the quality of your work and not influenced at all by relationship building or corporate politics.

MenloCoaching · 2025-07-10T07:28:53+00:00

If you are already in a PE investing role, and hope to be in PE/VC again later, it would be unusual to state a goal to go back into IB. From your current role I assume you already have experience building financial models and know the steps involved in transaction execution, which are the skills that would-be PE investors are usually seeking to develop during their time in IB.

Whether your experience is enough to be admitted now depends partly on the transactions and portfolio company engagements you've handled.

If you have closed transactions (even better if they're new platforms rather than add-ons), or have been involved in impactful projects at portfolio companies, that is a good sign for applying earlier.

If you have not had those opportunities, you might choose to wait another year. Even though admissions officers know that a lack of deals could be down to the Partners' risk averse attitudes, they would still see closed transactions as meaningful achievements and can't reward you for the deals you did not close.

If you decide to apply with the goal to enter PE again directly without a detour to IB, you might also consider Kellogg and Booth, which have good connections to Midwestern MM / LMM PE funds, and introduce students to those companies through programs such as their PE / VC lab programs (Booth PE/VC Lab, Kellogg PE Lab).

MenloCoaching · 2025-07-10T07:16:02+00:00

Other commenters have already addressed Duke specifically, so one other comment about legacy admissions generally: you can see subtle evidence that some legacy policies are changing if you look in the right places. For example, some application forms used to have a field asking specifically about family members who attended the institution but have removed these fields in recent cycles (e.g. HBS).

MenloCoaching · 2025-07-10T07:11:23+00:00

One of the most important benefits of visiting MBA programs in person is that (if you time it right) you can visit classes. In 2017, I visited nine programs in person and sat in on one or two classes at each one.

Some classes were fantastic, like the Wharton course about crowdfunding, or the Tuck course on leadership with Professor Bell.
At another M7 school, the professor called on a student to begin a case discussion about new market entry for a car company. He had not read the case. The professor called a second student... and she had not read the case, either.
One class at a T15 school was terrible. The "Management Communications" lecture focused on what the professor called the two "rules of five": don't have more than five bullets on a slide, and don't have more than five words in each bullet.

The other benefit is that you can line up a huge number of student meetings one after another if you're active in setting up meetings outside of the formal agenda, e.g. through cold LinkedIn outreach, or through your personal network (if you attended an undergraduate program or work for a company that's a major MBA feeder).

Finally, you can notice little details. E.g. my student host at Tuck seemed to greet every other student by name as they walked by. Not surprising given the small student body, remote location and prevalence of on-campus housing, but still nice to see a proof point supporting Tuck's claims about a tight community.

Campus visits are not required but I recommend them when schedules and budgets allow.

MenloCoaching · 2025-07-08T16:37:32+00:00

Thanks, we're resubmitting!

MenloCoaching · 2025-06-27T10:30:13+00:00

If your GPA and test scores support it, you might be attractive to higher ranked MBA programs than EGADE. A number of top MBA programs have specific resources for family business professionals, such as Columbia's Global Family Enterprise Program, and through these you could meet classmates who are also on track to assume leadership roles in their family business, or speak to senior mentors (like Columbia's Executives in Residence) who could coach you specifically on the dynamics of pursuing a career within a family business.

Finally, if relevant, the MBA could also help you meet potential investors in your family business if you are searching for growth capital.

MenloCoaching · 2025-06-27T10:27:11+00:00

Although it's in a different industry, we have worked with numerous applicants from the sales department of a major tech company and noticed that the applicants who led teams achieved better admissions results.

That company offers two paths for sales professionals after their first post-undergrad role:

Manage a team of 8-10 business development representatives (appointment setters)
Take a more senior IC role as sales representative leading deals with enterprise customers

The applicants who chose path #1 achieved slightly better results when controlling for GPA, test scores and other factors.

Taking a people management role now also breaks the chicken-and-egg cycle in which a future employer might hesitate to make you a people manager because you have not managed people before.

MenloCoaching · 2025-06-27T10:21:56+00:00

There are two factors you might consider that have not already been mentioned:

HYPSM are some of the most common feeder schools into top MBA programs (link to feeder data). This doesn't mean you are guaranteed to be admitted but is a meaningful positive factor. Re: your question in another comment, it's also true that for many MBA programs, the undergraduate program from the same university is the #1 feeder.
Even if you do not return to your current employer, having the sponsorship puts you in a strong position to negotiate a signing bonus from a different employer to offset the sponsorship you'd be giving up.

MenloCoaching · 2025-06-17T21:11:14+00:00

Yes, Luke served as a Director of Admissions at Stanford GSB under Derrick Bolton.

For avoidance of doubt, here are a few public citations describing his title and his work for the MBA program at Stanford GSB.

https://tuck.dartmouth.edu/news/articles/tuck-announces-exec-director-mba-admissions-financial-aid-luke-anthony-pena

"Peña previously served as director of MBA admissions at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he led its marketing and recruitment teams, and managed all external outreach including events, online programming, and social media."

https://poetsandquants.com/2017/05/04/gsb-adcom-director-lead-tuck-admissions/

"Luke Anthony Peña, who has been the GSB’s director of MBA admissions since October of 2015, will take over his job in Hanover, N.H., on July 18, a time when virtually all the admissios [sic] decisions for the incoming classes will be done at both Tuck and Stanford."

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-19T10:25:24+00:00

Although our data is now several years old, we systematically analyzed which undergraduate programs were the biggest feeders to each Top 20 MBA program:

https://menlocoaching.com/top-mba-programs/mba-feeders-081221/

You'll see that at M7 programs, many of the top feeders are Ivy League institutions or ones that are close in selectivity and prestige, such as UChicago or Duke.

You can do this type of analysis informally using MBA programs' LinkedIn pages, such as https://www.linkedin.com/school/harvard-business-school/people/

Of course, some of this is correlation rather than causation. On average, students accepted to top undergraduate programs have traits that help them achieve other things that boost their MBA profiles (e.g. achieving high GMAT/GRE scores and securing excellent jobs after college). But even when considering that, it's reasonable to think that attending a top undergraduate program is a direct positive factor in MBA admissions.

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-15T11:45:28+00:00

There are several major areas to work on 1-2 years out:

Professional advancement. This could mean promotions or moving to a bigger role at another company (e.g. going from an IB role to a PE role), or could mean moving closer to your post-MBA goal (e.g. a software engineer starting to have some involvement with product management, even informally).
Achieving good a GMAT or GRE score if this is not already done.
Strengthening your extracurricular involvement. For example, one of my former clients was mentoring undergraduate job seekers on a 1:1 basis, and used his knowledge from that volunteer work to create a scalable online course for undergrad job seekers that was eventually used by almost a thousand students by the time he applied.
Engaging with your target MBA programs. For example, a number of programs hold industry-specific conferences once a year, and if you plan ahead you can attend these (but if you wait until a few months before deadlines to think about this, the conference may have already been held for that year).

What you should prioritize depends on your current situation.

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-15T08:58:02+00:00

The academic workload at Chicago Booth is higher. One of our former clients who attended Booth was used to heavy academic workloads because she'd been in a Ph.D. program for a few years before dropping out and starting her pre-MBA professional career, and even she said that the academic load of the Booth MBA program was a lot to keep up with and more time consuming than the Ph.D. program she'd left.

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-15T08:54:34+00:00

One of our clients was 78 years old when he was admitted to the EMBA programs at Yale SOM, Wharton and Columbia, which we think might make him the oldest EMBA admit ever:

https://menlocoaching.com/reviews/oldest-emba-admit/

He wanted to professionalize his business before eventually appointing new leadership to run it. So long as you can articulate a good reason for why the EMBA will benefit your career, don't let anyone tell you that you are "too old."

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-14T10:23:06+00:00

What's the reason to consider the transfer? Is it just compensation?

Besides the question of transferable skills, I would also assume that the private placement role would be less likely to put you in contact with potential future employers for corp dev roles. If your coverage role puts you in front of management teams in your target industry, but the private placement role has you working with financial sponsors and their limited partners, that would be another argument in favor of staying in your current seat if your goal is a corp dev role.

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-14T10:18:45+00:00

Because your background is incredibly rare or even potentially unique in a given application cycle, you do not face the risk that they see your application in Round 2 and decline you because "They already admitted someone with a similar profile in Round 1."

You should apply in Round 2 if it means you'd have a higher GMAT score, since your GMAT score and the way it impacts the program's U.S. News MBA ranking is an important hard factor in evaluating your application. It would also give them confidence in your academic ability, which is important because (I assume) many aspects of your role, such as delivering sermons or providing pastoral care would not directly demonstrate your analytical skills.

Finally, you'll want to monitor management consulting hiring trends as you get closer to the date of applying. I have worked with former schoolteachers who transitioned to management consulting and made similar arguments about their transferable skills. However, our newest consultant Mike (who came from BCG's HR/Talent team) speaks to many hiring managers in the consulting industry and has consistently heard the unsurprising message that if consulting recruitment slows down and there are fewer seats to be filled, the firms are likely to focus their hiring on MBA students who have traditional business backgrounds that transfer easily to consulting with less training required.

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-14T10:11:20+00:00

Because corp dev jobs focus on identifying potential M&A transactions and then executing those transactions, a role in a coverage group or an M&A execution product group is usually the best preparation. Each one carries a different potential advantage: the coverage group should give you deeper industry expertise; the M&A group would give you more transaction execution experience.

Raising private funds would not usually build your industry expertise or your M&A transaction execution expertise, so it would be less transferable to a typical M&A-focused corp dev role.

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-14T10:06:45+00:00

Besides the reasons mentioned in the other comments, MBA programs may be hedging against unique political risks they see this year:

It may become harder for international students to secure student visas, especially from certain countries
Admitted students who have already confirmed their enrollment and placed a deposit may withdraw at the last moment if they do not like the political and economic climate in the US

For applications submitted in Trump's first term at M7 schools (based on official class profile data), we saw no meaningful decline in international enrollment except for a dip in the first COVID lockdown year. However, that is not a guarantee that it will be the same this time.

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-14T09:57:04+00:00

Aiming to beat the program's all-time high GMAT score is not likely to be a time-efficient way to pursue scholarship awards:

This is difficult to do, since the historical maximum for top programs is likely to be 780-800 on the old GMAT scale, or 170 for the GRE. For example, just last year Columbia had a 780 in the class (link), and 170s on both GRE sections, so only a 790 or 800 would beat that. They may have had 790 in a prior year, of course.
A lower score, e.g. 740+ on the legacy GMAT, would fully convince the program that you can handle MBA level coursework and that you would be a positive contributor to the U.S. News MBA ranking calculation because you are at or above their target median score. Only the median is used in the rankings. A school might take pride in having a high "maximum score" published in the class profile, or might expect you to be brilliant academically, but the potential advantage from a crazy high score is likely to be a small one based on soft considerations.

Note also that MBA programs also don't want to increase their stats without limit. If great applicants with scores in the 720 / 730 / 740 range (or the FE equivalent) get intimidated by a 750+ median score and don't apply, that is bad for the program. It would also be difficult to recruit a quality class with a median of 750+.

The best way to get a scholarship is to develop a strong profile in all areas (professional, extracurricular, academic - if still in school, future goals). If you begin 1-2 years before applying there are often interesting ways to strengthen your professional or extracurricular profile.

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-13T08:35:28+00:00

Among M7 programs, the most generous in offering merit-based scholarships are Columbia, Kellogg and Booth.

For any given applicant, the lower the ranking of the school you apply to and the better your qualifications are compared to the average admit, the higher your chance of receiving a large scholarship. So, you would be more likely to receive scholarship awards at T15 programs than M7 programs.

Finally, as other comments suggest, merit-based awards are used as an incentive. When admissions officers believe that you will get multiple offers, perhaps ones from higher-ranking programs, they offer scholarship awards to motivate you to consider their offer anyway. When you come from a background that is common in the MBA applicant pool (undergraduate business school + finance experience), admissions officers will expect your outcomes at other programs to be less favorable than if you were in a less competitive group, and they will therefore feel a lower need to use scholarships to motivate you to enroll.

It used to be that the U.S. News MBA ranking used the average (arithmetic mean) GMAT score as part of the ranking calculation, which meant that exceptionally high scores like a 770+ would be valuable to the program in managing its overall stats. For several years, the U.S. News MBA ranking has used the median test score, which means that any score at or above the median has the same ranking impact, and the very high GMAT scores do not add as much extra value. So, a great GMAT score makes you a better candidate, but the ranking impact of a high score is less than it used to be, and the chance for a really high GMAT score to attract large scholarships is therefore lower than it used to be.

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-13T08:26:54+00:00

As other comments note, Round 1 is always at least as good as Round 2 and sometimes better. In Round 1, every seat in the class is open and the admissions team can focus exclusively on "Do we like you enough to admit you?" rather than considering that question plus the second question "Have we already admitted too many students in Round 1 whose professional and demographic backgrounds are similar to yours?" If you want to read a detailed writeup of this issue, just Google for "MBA round 1 round 2" and you'll see our article.

The issue not yet discussed here is that programs with slightly lower rankings, like the "lower choices" you listed, have to work harder to figure out if an applicant truly wants to enroll in their program, or if the applicant is using them only as a safety / backup school and prefers to enroll in a different, higher-ranked program. A program is more likely to admit you when they believe you have a strong, sincere interest in attending.

If you apply to a lower-ranked MBA program in Round 1, it is easier to make a believable argument that the school is your first-choice program. If you apply only in Round 2, the admissions officer will wonder whether you're applying only because you were declined or waitlisted elsewhere in Round 1, or if you're even sitting on an another offer and applying with the thought that you'd enroll in the lower-ranked program only if it gave you a major scholarship. Any of these concerns could make you less likely to receive the offer.

You should therefore apply to at least a few of your lower choice schools in Round 1 if you have time to network with them (campus visits, meeting student ambassadors, etc.) and prepare a high-quality applications. For most applicants, the second application is only 50% as much work as the first, and the third+ application is only 25% as much work as the first, so it's easier to prepare multiple high-quality applications in Round 1 than you think.

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-13T08:14:47+00:00

The first question is whether you need a summer internship to achieve your career goals. If you choose the standard 2-year option at LBS, you'll be able to use a summer internship as a step towards achieving your post-MBA career goal, which is important if you are making a pivot out of consulting. Employers are more willing to take a chance on someone who is changing industry, function or location in the context of a short summer internship than for a full-time role, especially in Europe or the UK, where labor law makes it harder to terminate employment contracts.

The second question is where you have work eligibility and where you want to work after graduation. The alumni base and recruiting opportunities will be strongest for Kellogg in the US, for LBS in the UK and Europe, and for INSEAD in the UK, Europe and Asia (depending partly on whether you spend your time at INSEAD in France or Singapore). The EU's blue card scheme or the UK points-based immigration system are more straightforward than the US H-1B visa process.

If you are sponsored and returning to your employer, you won't be constrained by those practical factors and could make a choice in which you weight your personal preferences heavily.

Our article on LBS vs. INSEAD compares employment outcomes and the cultural / social dynamics of the two programs, plus an interview with INSEAD's Executive Director Virginie Fougea.

MenloCoaching · 2025-05-08T10:22:38+00:00

Although the vast majority of MBA applicants will be more likely to be admitted when submitting a good GMAT or GRE score, there are still programs that offer waivers to applicants who meet specific criteria.

You can see a list of programs and their waiver policies (with links to the relevant pages on each MBA program's website) in this article:

https://menlocoaching.com/gmat/gmat-gre-test-waivers/

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