To Be Out—or Not to Be Out—in Your MBA Application?
In honor of yesterday’s National Coming Out Day, we thought we’d tackle a thorny question faced by some applicants to leading business schools: To be out—or not to be out—in your MBA application? In recent years, increasing numbers of top business schools have given applicants the opportunity to disclose their sexual orientation as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) as part of their application if they so choose. But what are the pros and cons of doing so? To find out, we spoke with admissions directors at schools all over the country to get their input.
The overwhelming consensus, we found, was that there are multiple positives and few, if any, negatives to sharing your sexual orientation as part of the application process provided you feel comfortable doing so. This is not to say that anyone should feel pressured to disclose anything that they are not personally comfortable sharing—just that those who feel inclined to share shouldn’t have any hesitation from an admissions standpoint.
“I Really Only See Pros”
“I really only see pros,” says Soojin Kwon, managing director of full-time MBA admissions at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “We are always encouraging applicants to be very authentic and bring their whole selves so that we have context around them. We are a very diverse and inclusive community, and we want to know every aspect of who you are and what you’ll bring to that community.”
Applicants who do disclose LGBTQ status—or even those who don’t—also can indicate that they would be interested in hearing from students in the school’s Out for Business student club, which helps prospective students get tapped into the campus LGBTQ community well before they arrive on campus. “Our current LGBTQ students absolutely reach out, embrace, and actively engage with applicants who self-identify because they want to make sure that our community is very strong on every aspect of diversity—they are very proactive,” Kwon says.
NYU Stern School of Business Associate Dean of MBA Admissions Isser Gallogly stresses that whether or not to disclose sexual orientation is a personal choice that should be based on each individual’s comfort level. “But certainly at NYU Stern—in New York’s Greenwich Village—we are obviously incredibly diverse and supportive of diversity,” he says. The LGBTQ rights movement can trace its origins to the neighborhood surrounding Stern, and a community of acceptance has prevailed there for decades.
“It Might Present Certain Advantages”
But even beyond Greenwich Village and Stern, Gallogly tells LGBTQ applicants that they shouldn’t have concerns about being out in the MBA admissions process. “Business schools are looking for diversity—we as admissions officers are always looking for different vantage points and perspectives that applicants can bring to the class. I think anything that’s a little different or unique only helps your personal story,” he says. “I don’t think there’s any disadvantage to being out in the admissions process, and, in fact, it might present certain advantages.”
Self-Identifying Is First Step to Qualifying for LGBTQ MBA Fellowship
Indeed, students who self-identify as LGBTQ at certain schools will automatically be considered for scholarship aid through the Reaching Out LGBTQ MBA (ROMBA) Fellowship Program. ROMBA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to “educating, inspiring, and connecting the student and alumni LGBTQ MBA and graduate communities in an ongoing effort to create the next generation of out business leaders.” Recipients of the LGBTQ MBA Fellowship each receive a minimum of $10,000 in scholarship aid per academic year or $20,000 in total scholarship aid for two years. In addition, they get access to exclusive mentorship and leadership programming through ROMBA. Fifty-five members of the Class of 2019 will collectively receive more than $1,300,000 for each year in business school, ROMBA reports. “Since 2015, 35 schools have awarded $6.3 million to LGBTQ applicants who were out on their applications,” adds Matt Kidd, ROMBA Executive Director.
Beyond self-identifying through a school’s application form, applicants interested in being considered for the ROMBA fellowship are encouraged to demonstrate LGBTQ leadership roles on their resume, express interest in business schools’ on-campus LGBTQ clubs, and share relevant LGBTQ leadership experiences in their application essays.
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Prem Tumkosit, a 2011 MBA graduate from Yale School of Management (SOM), didn’t explicitly disclose his sexual orientation on his MBA applications. When he was applying, that option was provided by fewer schools. “But I did list my participation and leadership positions in LGBT organizations, which I felt was essentially disclosing,” he says.
Gallogly adds that current students are frequently shocked and surprised—once they begin the recruiting process—by how many corporations are likewise looking for diversity, including in sexual orientation. “The short story is if you feel comfortable, I would go for it [disclose sexual orientation], because you will see opportunities to receive support,” he said. “Short story: It’s a good thing.”
Opt in to Get Connected to On-Campus Groups
Bruce Delmonico, Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at Yale SOM, says that his team considers it so much a positive that he sometimes has to stop and remind himself that some applicants might actually wonder if it could be viewed as a negative. “We consider it an aspect of diversity, so we certainly don’t see any negative in it,” he says. As at Ross—and many other schools—Yale SOM also allows applicants to opt-in to receive communication from LGBTQ students and groups, which helps facilitate valuable connections both during the application process and in the months leading up to school’s start.
“I really don’t see any negatives to it,” Delmonico continues. “People sometimes choose not to disclose, and obviously that is fine—it’s everyone’s individual choice,” he notes. “It can still be a difficult thing—and people are at different stages in terms of their own self-identification—so it is not as though not sharing is viewed negatively. But it is an aspect of diversity that we think about as we are trying to put together our class, so we view it as a positive.”
Delmonico does share that Yale has seen an increase in the number of people self-identifying as LGBTQ. “I think that’s a good thing,” he says, “but we do want to make sure people are being accurate in self-reporting,” he adds. Especially outside of the United States, he worries that not everyone knows what it means to identify as LGBTQ.
Don’t Self-Identify as LGBTQ If You’re Not LGBTQ
“We also sometimes have to wonder if some candidates might be looking to game it a little bit,” he says. “That’s something we are starting to be sensitive to. We look at it as a positive—but we don’t want people just checking the box because they think it might give them a little boost over other applicants.” To offset potential gaming of this system, his team has begun to dig a little deeper to see what being LGBTQ means to those who check the box. “It’s not something we would ask about in an interview,” he stresses, “but we will look to see what else they might have shared” that might support their LGBTQ status. “It can be helpful, if you are self-reporting, if you share some way you are expressing that already,” he says. For example, some people write about LGBTQ themes in their essays or talk about related groups they’ve been part of, he says.
Amanda Carlson, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Columbia Business School, shares that her team also saw an uptick in self-reporting among applicants for the Class of 2019, particularly from certain regions. “I am saying this somewhat tongue and cheek,” she notes, “but it’s like some admissions consultant told candidates in China that saying you are part of the LGBTQ population is a good thing, because I think every single Chinese candidate this year checked the box.” Of course, she met personally with Chinese candidates who were quite genuinely members of the LGBTQ community, she adds, but she also wonders if there was some confusion among some applicants about what LGBTQ means.
“At the same time, we recognize that there is an appeal to being in New York—where people rightly feel that being LGBTQ is a warm and accepted thing—where it may not always be in China,” she notes.
Is LGBTQ Inclusive Enough?
Maryellen Reilly, deputy vice dean of admissions, financial aid, and career management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, echoes what other admissions directors have said, adding that for some students it can also be liberating. “Some students may not have been out in high school or college and it can be liberating to share it as part of applying to business school—to get to say, ‘Here I am—this is who I am,’” she says. “It’s one less thing you have to worry about hiding at school.” As for a con to self-reporting, “I kind of don’t know that there is one—I can’t think of one,” she says.
Reilly remembers the process that her team went through when they first started thinking about adding the opportunity to self-identify as part of the application. “Did you know that Facebook has 50 different categories around sexual orientation?” she asks. She didn’t. “My mind was blown.” One of the students championing the cause argued that Wharton needed to include all 50. “It’s a spectrum—and we did a lot of learning from an admissions perspective,” she says. “Our LGBTQ community was really strong and vocal, and meeting them where they are required some give and take on both sides,” she says.
So far, her team hasn’t seen any candidates that it thinks might be trying to gain an unfair advantage by claiming to be LGBTQ when they aren’t. “We haven’t seen anything remotely like that—that’s a bridge we’ll cross when we get there, should we get there.”
Jennifer Redmond, a 2016 Wharton MBA graduate, did NOT disclose as part of her application that she is LGBTQ although the option was available when she applied. Prior to business school she worked in London in finance and hadn’t been open about the fact that she identified as a lesbian at work. “Being in Europe, I was reluctant to come out and potentially not have a great reception,” she says. That hesitation carried over to her MBA applications. “In retrospect, my advice to prospective applicants would be that you can tick that box,” she says. “It is completely confidential, and it’s a good way to get looped into all the activities that are available to members of the LGBTQ community.”
Redmond would later attend a welcome weekend at Wharton, where the Out4Biz student club hosted welcome drinks. “It was one of the biggest parties of the weekend, and it became clear to me that the LGBTQ community occupied a very central part of life at Wharton,” she says. “That ended up being a big part of my decision to attend.” When she did move over from Ireland to attend pre-term at Wharton, her roommate was gay and HAD ticked the box. “He was so much more looped into things than I was to start—it made me a little rueful I hadn’t ticked the box myself,” she says.
This article has been edited and republished from Clear Admit.
How An MBA Degree Can Land You a Job at Pfizer
MBA grads looking to make headway in an ever-expanding field with massive growth potential should look no further than healthcare and pharmaceuticals. There’s a reason more and more business school graduates have begun to pursue pharma over more tried-and-true post-MBA paths like real estate, consulting, and finance: the pharma industry offers a myriad of opportunities. There’s an almost inexhaustible supply of interesting problems to solve while earning boast-worthy salaries.
When it comes to major industry players, Pfizer is one of the undisputed global pharmaceutical leaders. Many of its products have burrowed their way into popular consciousness—both figuratively and literally. Lipitor, Viagra, Zoloft, Xanax, Advil, ChapStick, Preparation H, and Robitussin are iconic brands unto themselves.
Below, we’ll take a deeper look into exactly how MBAs can gain a foothold at Pfizer.
Why Do MBAs Love Pfizer?
Pfizer’s name brand recognition just so happens to correlate with a stellar internal reputation among employees, both past and present. Forbes, Fortune, LinkedIn, CareerBliss all consistently rank Pfizer as one of the happiest, most employee-centric, and/or most in-demand employers in the American pharma space.
In an interview with the Stevens Institute of Technology blog, Pfizer Senior QA Manager Bill Mestrandrea, a Stevens MBA alum, spoke of the deep camaraderie that he has with his fellow MBAs at Pfizer, comparing it to a “band of brothers.”
He elaborates: “We’re all in it together. I’ve met people from other departments who my work influences, and they’ve influenced my work as well. It gave me a better understanding of the network within Pfizer, and how it all comes together to form one company, always working in support of our patients.”
An anonymous former Pfizer employee took to Glassdoor to extol the company’s virtues: “If you can keep up with the fast pace and are not overly sensitive, Pfizer is a great to work. Everyday is an adventure and the benefits are excellent.” An anonymous Technical Specialist in the New York branch lauded Pfizer’s “great gym, clinic, cafeteria, and day care” in a Forbes profile.
Payscale reports that MBAs earn an average starting salary of around $121,000. Pfizer prides itself on a competitive compensation and benefits package that rewards employees “based on the contributions they make to [the] business.”
The company offers a number of in-house health and wellness programs, including health and disability insurance, medical screening, free or reduced-cost vaccinations, discounts on Pfizer products, and nutrition and fitness counseling. As part of the benefits package, Pfizer also offers access to colleague-directed retirement funds, company contributions to retirement financial vehicles, life insurance, and financial planning education.
Working at Pfizer
If there’s a common thread that runs through day-to-day life for all MBA grads at Pfizer, no matter their function, it’s that they’re all expected to move quickly and keep up with the constant demand. Pfizer is sympathetic and has sought out solutions to help acclimate first-year MBAs—namely, its Summer Associate Program, which has placed alum in full-time roles for the past 15 years.
Pfizer’s 10-12 week Summer Associate Program recruits and provides “first-year MBA students from top-ranked business schools … with a variety of unique experiences that will serve to develop and broaden critical skill sets and competencies as they progress their development towards leadership roles within Pfizer.”
Students are assigned challenging projects within Consumer Marketing, Corporate Audit, Corporate Finance, Global Procurement, Pfizer Consulting & Execution, and Pharmaceutical Marketing. By the end, Summer Associates “gain a wealth of valuable industry knowledge, networking opportunities, and life experiences.”
According to Pfizer, “MBA Summer Associates receive an industry competitive salary, housing support options and the prospect of conversion to a full-time opportunity upon the completion of their MBA degree.”
Jane Scholl (Columbia Business School ’12), whose healthcare resume stemmed from a desire to “improve the lives of others,” discussed the way her 2012 internship led to a position with the Marketing Rotational Program the following year:
“Though I only spent three months with Pfizer during the summer, I was treated as a valued member of the team rather than an intern. I was encouraged to share my thoughts and ideas even if they differed from those of other colleagues. I worked on meaningful projects that contributed to the business, and some of my recommendations were implemented before the end of the summer.”
Oindrila Sardar (Chicago Booth ’11), a Senior Manager at Pfizer’s Established Products Marketing Platform, discussed the relationship she had with the rotation managers during her Summer Associate internship:
“My rotation managers have played a critical role in my development with weekly one-on-one meetings and their insightful project guidance. They have been receptive to my interests and have matched them with meaningful assignments Throughout my rotations I have worked with cross-functional colleagues from many areas of the company which has helped me further understand Pfizer and its structure. I have been surprised by the high level of trust and responsibility given from the very beginning.”
Landing a Job at Pfizer
It’s pretty straightforward: Pfizer’s Summer Associate Internship is a surefire way for MBAs to get hired. In fact, 16 out of its recent 25 summer associates were extended full-time offers. That said, there’s plenty of recruitment that takes place outside the sacred intern space.
In the fall, Pfizer aggressively targets top MBA programs, particularly in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast close to its New York HQ. The company is interested in drawing from a pool of diverse and competitive first-year applicants, especially those with a taste for finance, marketing, global supply, and general management. Although previous pharma experience will make your application more competitive, Pfizer is equally interested in applicants with compelling reasons for a career change.
Interviews begin in January and run until March. Pfizer sometimes conducts group interview sessions in which four or five applicants discuss issues with staff members. This process is designed to understand which folks will make a meaningful contribution to a Pfizer culture with many distinct and occasionally contentious points-of-view.
Columbia Study Illuminates Surprising Link Between Air Quality and Economic Output
Air quality and stock profits may not seem like there is an obvious correlation, but a new study may have found one. The Columbia Business School recently discussed the link between “higher levels of air pollution and a reduction in investor trading activity,” drawing a striking connection between air pollution and overall economic output in the developed world.
In the new study entitled “Fresh Air Eases Work,” Columbia Business School professor Michaela Pagel, who co-authored the study along with researchers from Leibniz University in Hanover, Germany, tracked “highly detailed hourly air pollution levels from 600 air, weather and traffic stations” and “online account trading activity and customer demographics from a large German discount broker.”
Piggybacking on previous research that correlated air pollution with everything from “short-term variations in major stock market indexes” to “baseball umpire game calls,” the researchers correlated the two data sets and found that “the negative impact of air pollution on workplace performance and the economy at large is far more widespread than previously believed.”
The study found that when air quality worsens, investors are “less likely to log into and trade in their online brokerage accounts.” According to the study, a “one-standard-deviation increase in fine particulate matter reduces trading activity by 8.5 percent the same magnitude as a one standard deviation increase in sunshine.”
Pagel concludes, “The rather frightening conclusion is that even relatively invisible fine air particular matter damages cognitive ability by moving through the nose to the brain. We hope it serves as motivation for both corporate leaders and elected officials to focus on air quality control and improvement efforts.”
Columbia Business Prof Co-Authors Study of How Pop Songs Become Hits
Building a quality song doesn’t exactly mean it will become a hit single, but there are ways to predict how it’s possible. Columbia Business School looked further into the hit-making algorithm songwriters can take note of, but it is hardly a guarantee it will work.
In a new American Sociological Review paper entitled “What Makes Popular Culture Popular? Product Features and Optimal Differentiation in Music,” co-authors Michael Mauskapf, a CBS Assistant Professor of Management, and Noah Askin, an INSEAD Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior, found that all top-charting anthems share one attribute: they balance familiarity and novelty. In other words: songs have to be bold, but not too bold and predictable, but not too predictable, lest they totally alienate or bore listeners to tears.
The duo used music intelligence platform The Echo Nest to analyze the key, mode, and tempo of over 26,000 songs. According to Askin, “The songs that reach the highest echelons of the charts bear some similarity to other popular songs that are out at the same time, but they must be unique in certain ways in order to differentiate themselves.” Mauskapf adds, “We found that songs with a somewhat below average typicality score tended do better on the Hot 100.”
They also accounted for non-musical factors, such as previous chart success, the cachet of an artist’s team, a particular artist’s “star factor,” and marketing budget. While these elements are certainly important, the researchers seem to agree that “hit song science” is ineffectual at best.
Mauskapf explains, “It’s very difficult to predict what kinds of songs other musicians will release, and when audiences will find them to be “optimally distinct.” Askin adds, “What becomes popular next is likely to be slightly differentiated from the last round of hits, leading to a constant evolution of what is popular. Popularity is a moving target, but the context always remains relevant. This is at least as much art as it is science.”
Top MBA Programs for Producing Founders: 2017-2018 Report
Recently, PitchBook released its latest 2017-2018 Top 50 Universities Report. The ranking focused on those universities that produced the “ultimate building blocks of the venture industry: founders.”
This ranking is vastly different from rankings of top schools for entrepreneurship by U.S. News & World Report, Princeton Review, and Entrepreneur Magazine, all of which focus on factors like peer assessment surveys, curriculum, and entrepreneurial study options. Instead, PitchBook looked at a single criterion: founders of companies who received venture capital (VC) funding between January 1, 2006, and August 18, 2017, and where they went to school.
The report provides a fairly detailed breakdown of top undergraduate programs, companies (by capital raised), MBA programs, female founders, unicorns (companies that have attained the coveted $1 billion evaluation), and more. This article will focus solely on the results that relate to MBA programs, including information on female founders and unicorns.
Top MBA Programs
For the 2017-18 academic year, the top 10 MBA programs to produce founders who received VC funding were ranked as follows:
- Harvard Business School (HBS): 1,203 entrepreneurs, 1,086 companies, and $28,495 million raised
- Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB): 802 entrepreneurs, 716 companies, and $18,259 million raised
- University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School: 666 entrepreneurs, 585 companies, and $16,001 million raised
- INSEAD: 455 entrepreneurs, 406 companies, and $7,795 million raised
- Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management: 445 entrepreneurs, 417 companies, and $5,680 million raised
- Columbia Business School: 441 entrepreneurs, 410 companies, and $5,465 million raised
- MIT Sloan School of Management: 437 entrepreneurs, 384 companies, and $7,797 million raised
- University of Chicago Booth School of Business: 405 entrepreneurs, 368 companies, and $5,470 million raised
- University of California – Berkeley Haas School of Business: 344 entrepreneurs, 314 companies, and $5,191 million raised
- UCLA Anderson School of Management: 247 entrepreneurs, 232 companies, and $3,957 million raised
HBS stands out immediately for producing founders who receive VC funding. Harvard produced twice as many founders as its next closest competitor, and those founders pulled in $10M more in funding for their 1,000+ companies.
As for the reason behind Harvard’s success, there are multiple elements that contribute to its production of entrepreneurs. The school is home to the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, which offers programs for budding entrepreneurs including curricular offerings (over a dozen courses), a New Venture Competition (which offers $300,000 in cash prizes), the Rock Accelerator, the Harvard Innovation Lab, and even a Loan Reduction program that supports graduating entrepreneurs with a one-time, need-based award of $10,000 to $20,000. HBS’s extensive alumni network also provides students with connections with managing directors, partners, and founders of top VC firms including Bain Capital Ventures, Apax Partners, and Accel Partners.
Another standout for the 2017-2018 year was INSEAD. The only non-U.S. MBA program to appear in the top 10, it also moved up a spot this year over last. INSEAD grew from 393 entrepreneurs, 348 companies, and $6,131 million in capital raised to 455, 406, and $7,794 million respectively.
INSEAD’s students are supported by the INSEAD Centre for Entrepreneurship (ICE), which was founded in 2003. The center offers MBA students a chance to participate in the INSEAD Venture Competition (IVC), Entrepreneurship Bootcamps, and the Entrepreneurship Teaching Innovation (ETI) Fund, which supports the development of the “Your First Hundred Days” elective for budding entrepreneurs.
Another MBA program of note is MIT Sloan School of Management, which was fourth in capital raised on this year’s PitchBook ranking. This could indicate more successful companies coming out of MIT or a higher percentage of VC funding available to Massachusetts’ graduates.
Some of the unique entrepreneurship opportunities available from other top programs include Stanford GSB’s Startup Garage, an intensive, hands-on project course for MBA students, as well as MIT Sloan’s Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, which includes an accelerator, coaching, and various events. Finally, the Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship Center offers resources, events, and courses for MBAs looking to explore, develop, launch, and scale a startup.
Top Female Founders & Unicorns
PitchBook also reviewed the top MBA programs for female founders. Once again, HBS and Stanford GSB ranked first and second, respectively, with 202 and 119 female founders. Columbia Business School ranked third with 77, Wharton ranked fourth with 71, and MIT came in at fifth with 60 female founders.
As for the unicorns, the top five MBA programs are similar to the previous lists.
- HBS: 22 entrepreneurs, 17 companies
- Stanford GSB: 14 entrepreneurs, 11 companies
- Wharton: 11 entrepreneurs, 8 companies
- INSEAD: 8 entrepreneurs, 7 companies
- MIT Sloan: 6 entrepreneurs, 6 companies
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
Full-Time MBA Battle: New York vs. Philly
Whether it’s Giants vs. Eagles or the Statue of Liberty and the Liberty Bell, New York City and Philadelphia are two cities famous for being at odds with one another. Continue reading…
