Booth Surveys Aim to Craft the Perfect Class

As an effort to create the perfect MBA class of achieving, high-ceiling students, the Booth School of Business has begun to survey current students about their classmates’ popularity and potential in order to predict who will be the most successful (and wealthiest) alum post-graduation.

Stacey Kole is the deputy dean for Booth’s full-time MBA program. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, she said the school will look for patterns in survey responses to show hidden indicators of eventual wealth, job success, and popularity.

“What we’re trying to do is understand potential,” she says. “You know who the successful alumni are, but if you go back and try to predict it, it’s hard.”

The survey undoubtedly sparked some controversy especially after a year-end MBA questionnaire sent by the school asked, “Based on your first year experience, who in the Class of 2015 do you hope to take a class with next year?” Kole says her inbox filled up with confused students who asked why the school posed the question.

According to Kole, Booth is simply trying to figure about how the school was made up on a social level find out “Who spurs your learning? Whose questions, insights, comments provoke you to think deeper?”

With application numbers nearly reaching 4,500 people last year to fill a class of about 580, Kole believes that Booth’s selectivity creates more pressure to “figure out the stuff that isn’t as obvious in the application.”

regions: Chicago

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