Monday, March 13, 2006

Simon Targets Younger Applicants

Simon Signs Direct Admission Agreement with Knox College

The University of Rochester's well-regarded Simon Graduate School of Business announced several weeks ago that it was actively recruiting younger applicants for its full-time MBA program. Now it's been announced that Simon has set up a direct admission program for undergrads at Knox College (Galesburg, Illinois).

The program allows Knox juniors and seniors to apply for direct admission to Simon after completing their undergrad degrees. Students will be granted direct admissions on the basis of leadership potential, academic preparation, and successful completion of a business internship or comparable work experience.

The program provides the selected students with more than mere convenience. Each direct admit will also receive a scholarship worth between $5,000 and $30,000 per year. Direct admits who want to be considered for scholarships above the $5,000 minimum will have to submit a GMAT score. Otherwise direct admits are spared having to take the GMAT – and excused from paying Simon's normal application fee, as well.

It looks like Simon has definitely staked its future on the strategy of drawing younger applicants with less work experience into its MBA program. A few weeks ago, Dean Mark Zupan told a Rochester TV news reporter that Simon is now emphasizing “values, attitudes, and innate smarts” over work experience in making admissions decisions. The change is meant in part to attract a more diverse applicant pool, especially in terms of gender balance (the idea being that it's easier for women to commit to a full-time MBA program before they marry and start families.)

We respect Simon's concern for diversity and its creativity in marketing its excellent MBA education to a wider range of applicants. We have to wonder, though, what impact the deliberate recruitment of younger applicants will have on the quality of the program. MBAs are professional, not academic, degrees. They prepare people for the world of work, not the world of ideas. Everyone in the classroom gets a lot more out of an MBA education when students bring a few years of real-world experience into the program with them – that's precisely why top b-schools put so much weight on work experience in admissions decisions.

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