[MUSIC] Welcome to Be Schooled, a podcast by Stacey Blackman Consulting. Bringing tips, advice, and insight into all aspects of the MBA admissions process and business school experience. And now here's your host, writer, I Tech Marketer, and Stanford GSB alum, who's been an MBA admissions consultant for a decade. Alex Liff. So today we're going to talk about one of the top business schools in the country, Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management. Specifically, it's obviously multifaceted school. So today we're going to focus on Cornell's MBA program. We're lucky to have with us two leaders for shaping these programs and they have joined us to talk about some of the exciting developments that they're driving. So first of all, Monose, Michelle, could you please introduce yourself to our audience? >> I'm Sarah, Monose, or Michelle. >> Yeah, thank you, Alex. Thanks for having us and I'm very happy to introduce myself to the audience. I am the school dean of the Johnson Graduate School of Management. Have been a faculty member here for 19 years and my area of work is Operations Management. Before becoming school dean, I used to teach a class on digital business operations and retailing. And so which connects my research with my teaching through digital technology and e-commerce platforms, retailing and supply chains. >> Okay, thank you. I'm Monose. >> Yes, very happy to be here. Alex, so my name is Monose Thomas, as he noted. I have also been in Cornell for an hour or 20 years. I'm a professor of marketing and I'm a behavioral scientist. I study people need decisions and particularly the context of consumption decisions. And I'm now based in New York City heading all the programs in New York City. So I'm working with Michelle and the college in expanding our programs into New York City. >> Okay, thank you and I guess we'll start with if you could provide, I will start with Michelle. And if you could provide us with a brief overview of the main MBA programs offered by Cornell's University Johnson Graduate School of Management, they just tell us a little about those programs. >> Yeah, absolutely Alex. So we have programs at the MBA level which are designed for, which are full-time programs designed for working professionals who want to take a break from their career, come in for a regular MBA and possibly pivot their career. And we can talk in more detail about that. The other set of programs are our executive MBA programs and actually Manoj leads our executive MBA programs. So those are designed for working professionals who are more senior, they have a wider range of age and when they come into the program and they're not looking to leave their jobs but to make a career move while doing a program on the side. All of our MBA programs are based at our Cornell Tech campus in New York City. Our flagship two-year MBA program is based on our main campus of Cornell University in Ithaca and then we run a one-year tech MBA program at Cornell Tech. So that's the portfolio of MBA and EMBA programs that we have. And what we have found over time is that the interest of people in pursuing a full-time MBA versus an executive MBA changes. And so it's really important for us to be able to meet the needs of working professionals at both these stages of their careers, regardless of when they think is the right time for them to do an MBA. And you do a lot of work in this area. So I'm really looking forward, we are looking forward to chatting with you on these topics. So Vishal, if I can sort of probe a bit more on that two-year MBA programs, specifically if you can tell us what are the key differentiators and what is unique about that program versus maybe some of that other program? Absolutely. A two-year MBA is a really important program and it is considered to be a transformational degree program for any student who gets into it. They are looking at these programs to pivot their careers towards leadership or to go into new industries like investment banking or consulting or product management that they may not have thought about before. So Cornel's two-year MBA program was established in 1946. It's an old program and we have had many alumni over a long period of time from this program. I would say one of the main differentiators for us is Cornel University itself because Cornel is a very interdisciplinary university with an open door type of an environment and we are planted in the middle of our central campus which allows us to establish connections with all the different parts of Cornel to do different things. So and many our students who come here don't just take MBA courses, they also go out and connect with students in industry and labor relations or law or engineering or computer science or taking advantage of the hotel school or the Dyson school in our entire college of business. So I would say Cornel is one big differentiator for us. The other differentiator for us is being a college town or campus. So students spend their entire time here on campus and they really get to know each other and form a very strong community with tight-knit bonds. The faculty also get to know the students and alumni are here on campus a lot because they have formed those bonds and they keep coming to give back to do coffee chats with students or recruit placement help or recruit them or do guest lectures in classes. And we have generally been ranked very highly on our alumni and student network and then I would say a third differentiator is the career outcomes that our students have had especially in the last 10 years or so. We have been doing extremely well in the investment banking space and in the consulting space and we have been and taking advantage of Cornel's heft. We have been trying to build out technology as a career pathway for our students. So this is another area where we have been ranked highly consistently over the last several years and we feel very proud of it. If I can add just one more thing, it's which is actually really interesting that we conducted an alumni survey of people who graduated over the last 15 years or so to find out where our alumni are. And what we found was that finance and consulting, no surprises there, those are the two biggest industries where our alumni are. But interestingly, software and technology emerged as the third largest industry for our alumni and then marketing and healthcare emerged as a big one as well. So those were the top five. So this is just to show what is happening here and how it is really important for an incoming MBA student to have a broad perspective on their careers. So I hope that answered your question. It was a long answer. Yeah, no, thank you. That's very helpful. In fact, you mentioned technology is one of the big fields, which is excellent leading to the next question from Monose, which is that Johnson offers a unique one year tech MBA program, which is based in New York City. Interestingly enough, can you highlight some of the unique features of this program and also how it compares to your two-year MBA that the Vichal just talked about and who should be applying to that program? Yeah, exactly. I'm very happy to do that. So I would begin my talking a little bit about our Cornell tech campus itself. So this was something that started in 2011 when the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg said that we need to create a Stanford on the East Coast to drive innovation and to drive entrepreneurship on the East Coast. And there was a bed and Cornell won the bed. We got a piece of land from New York City on Roosevelt Island. So it's almost, it's very interesting because it's almost like it's like a campus. It's just outside Manhattan. It's very tranquil and peace here. And Cornell set up a very interdisciplinary applied sciences campus here with several image and MS programs. And we'll write from the start the vision of this interdisciplinary place included starting an MBA program. And that's when Johnson partnered with Cornell Tech and we created the Johnson Cornell Tech MBA program. I think it's a matter of pride for us that we actually pioneer this category. I don't think I'm not aware of any other, at least from one of the top schools, a tech MBA program that was offered before this. And since then, you know, we have other programs that have come up including Kellogg's MBA and the NYU's Andrew Cook program. But Cornell kind of pioneered and we still continue to need the innovation in the space in terms of improving our curriculum and improving our offerings and thinking about how to shape the MBA program for the AI transform world. So that's a little bit of the introduction, but a question was what makes it different from the rest.
to your MBA program. And that's a fascinating question because that's something that I think some of our applicants also struggle with. The thing to note about that some of the differentiators of this program, the first one is a tech focus. This is a very clearly tech focused environment. And students are expected not just to take business classes, but also take classes that are being taken by master to the engineering students and master to science students. So if you don't have a second inclination to be working with engineers with scientists, then this might not be the place for you, right? So that's the first differentiator. The second one is that it's basically based in New York City. So you have access to the New York City ecosystem. And so the kind of people who come here, I would say are maybe innocent bankers were interested in going to the tech vertical like doing tech teams or consultants who are going into tech consulting and leading digital transformation. We were also very highly ranked on entrepreneurship, one of the top ranked on the entrepreneurship programs. In fact, points and points ranked as number four in the world in its latest ranking. And that's because we have created an ecosystem of studio programs and runway programs where students can come here and start entrepreneurship and they can actually earn some awards and continue to stay here for two years as in the runway incubator that we have to grow their entrepreneurship. And so basically the tech environment, the New York City ecosystem, those are important differentiators. So coming back to your question, who should apply? The third aspect is that the 1A program doesn't have an intention. So if you're, as Michelle was describing about the two year MBA program, the two year MBA program offers a lot of flexibility for students to cry out various career pathways, go for an internship, figure out whether they really want to pursue that and then come back and go for a full time offer. This is for people who are a little bit more self-aware of the career paths they want to take. And they're determined that, okay, I want to go into something aligned with tech. I have a background that will allow me to do that. And therefore I wouldn't need an internship. Those kind of students would come to the JCT MBA program and they would do very well here. - In terms of the age, if I can ask you a quick follow-up, difficult two year MBA is kind of three, five years out of school. Do you find that you get older candidates applied to this program or what's sort of typical age? - Our average age is very similar, but the fact of the matter is that we often get much older people because this is a campus that is known for AI. And unfortunately we struggle in terms of making a decision about admitting them. So one of the hallmarks of this program is a studio program where all MBA students have to work with master's engineering students and master's of science students and they put in teams and they have to work on startup ideas. It's not very clear to us that if you admit someone with 15 years experience, how they would gel well with these young and students and MBA students. So we have not been, we have not, we have tried to kind of channel them to our executive MBA programs that also offer these opportunities. So typically our age profile continued to be very similar to what the Johnson School will be, and these students have. - Alex, can I add a little bit to what Manoj was saying just to build on this? I think Manoj referred to the studio curriculum. That's really a huge differentiator for the Johnson Cornell Tech MBA program because the idea is that an MBA going into the tech world needs to be able to speak the language of engineers and comfortably work with them or designers. And so this program for the entire year puts MBAs in parts with engineering folks, computer science folks, tech law folks and connected media and all of that. And they work together with them throughout the year. So when they graduate, they feel like a tech native and they feel at home in the tech world. A second thing that he talked about, I think in response to your question, I just had a thought on that which I wanted to add that if someone is tech ready or interested in tech and is clarity on that as Manoj was saying and wants to go into the tech, then they should go to the tech MBA. If they're coming from tech and they don't want to go into tech but going to somewhere else pivot, then they should come to the two year MBA. And if they're not coming from tech and want to go to tech, then also they should do the two year MBA route and spend their second year at Cornell Tech. That's how we think about it. - Okay, very clear. Thank you. Moving on, can you talk about this question from Manoj? When you talk about Cornell's dual campus pathway and how it's tailored to meet the needs of MBA students in a driven AI transform world. - Yeah, in fact, Michelle just alluded to it and I can build on that. So as I said, if you are clear that you don't want to go into tech and you want to explore healthcare or if you want to invest in banking or consulting, you clearly go to the tech and do the two year MBA and you come to a new York City if you're very clear that you want to go into a tech role. But there might be people who are in between who are in both. So they would say, I want to go to a tech, I want a two year MBA program and I want that internship. But can I also spend some time at Cornell Tech? And the dual campus is the answer to that demand. So we have students who are very keen to go to a tech, as Michelle mentioned earlier, we have a very successful investment banking immersion, we have a very successful consulting immersion. We have these all these immersion programs that strain students to go into specialised verticals and excel there in their internship. But they might, after doing their internship, they might say, okay, now I want to spend the second year in Cornell Tech because I am doing my internship in a company and in a vertical that is focusing on tech teams. Or I'm doing my internship in McKinsey, but I'm going to go into a digital innovation part of McKinsey. So I want to do my second year now at Cornell Tech. So the dual campus program is ideal for those kind of people who want to go and have the two year experience, who want to go to their internship, but they also want to kind of embed themselves in an AI environment, a tech environment and become more tech natives. - Now we're gonna ask one clarifying question, is the someone have to declare upfront that they want to do a dual path or can they enter the e-fig or out and they say, oh, I'm actually very interested in tech. Let me do this. How does that work? - Yeah, it's a wonderful question. Thank you for asking that because I wish I had clarified that. So you can do both because we know that MBA student their minds. So when you apply, you can indicate in your application form that I want to go to a dual campus MBA student. And the admission actually is done jointly by a Cornell Tech team and by the ATAK team. And they are offered a guaranteed admission into both the programs. But many a time student come in and they learn and they probably didn't know about the Cornell Tech campus. And then in the second, towards the beginning of the second year, they say, oh, my God, I didn't know about this. Now I want to go to Cornell Tech in the second year. And we welcome those students' applications too, which again goes from the same process, but a few months behind the previous cohort. - And actually this brings one other question if I can throw either to Michelle or Manoj. From our listeners perspective, sometimes people think, okay, where do I have the greatest chance of getting in? Is there a significant difference in terms of ease of admission into one versus the other? Are they equally difficult? Where do they stand there? - Yeah, I'll take a short at that question. And I think it's a difficult question to answer. But my suggestion to those applicants, it's an important question, but a difficult one to answer. My suggestion to those applicants is to talk with our admissions counselors. They really think of their job as counselors rather than gatekeepers. And they give really honest and constructive advice to students about their career and they will talk to them about what their career goals are, what they want to do. And therefore, which program is the right for them? And when is the right time to apply? We find ourselves reaging applications all the time, sometimes suggesting to people to go to the Cornell Tech Program or the two-year program or the dual campus route depending on their options. And so for example, if someone has an undergraduate degree in philosophy or is coming from a complete non-tech background, but they say they want to go into tech, then we would say, come to Ithaca, do the two-year program, and then spend your second year at Cornell Tech. If someone is coming from the tech background and say, I want to go into consulting or into banking, we would say, come to Ithaca. But if someone is saying that I'm coming from the tech industry, I want to go become a tech entrepreneur. So it really depends on the career goals and the fit and profile more so than academic excellence. I think there we try to have similar standards across the programs. And we really think of our communities as one Johnson MBA. We try to build a lot of connections between
them, we try to make sure that the students get together by, let us say, having weekend courses on the tech campus for ethical students or on the ethical campus for tech students. And we try to have interactions across student clubs. So, yeah, so it's really one MB and this is how we think about it. I hope that answers the question, Alex, and Manoj, feel free to add. Yeah, I think that's very well put, Michelle. I don't have actually, yeah, so dual campus, yeah, to visualize this as one MB program, transcending two locations. Yeah, across different modernities. Yeah, yeah. And so, the Michelle Sunkter is quite succinct and appropriate in saying that it's not a matter of which program it's easy to get into. It's more a matter of which program are you better fit for? Okay, make sense. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, well, next question to Michelle, some of our younger listeners, so speaking on their grad, they're thinking about different admissions. Can you talk about Cornell's Future MBA Leaders Program? What that's all about and all for any insights to them? Yeah, I'm really happy to talk about that, Alex. And the idea of the future leaders program is that an undergraduate student applies and gets an advance or early admission into our MBA program. And the application offer is admission offer is to go work in the industry for three to five years and come back and join. The reason to do this is multi-fold. One is that when students are seniors at that time, it's easier for them to take the GMAT exam discover what future career paths would be like or visit us and find out about the MBA program. So the application process is easier at that time than a few years later when people are just so busy with their jobs. A second reason to do this is that it is helping us build a community of these future leaders, admitted cohort. And we are organizing a series of activities every semester with admitted future leaders program students. For example, an alumni talk or a faculty talk to which is enabling us to build a cohort and provide career mentorship and guidance and and strengthen our community. So this is the overall idea of the future leaders program. It is open to undergraduate seniors all over the world. Most of the applicants we get tend to be from US universities. I think Cornell is the largest proportion but we get applications from all over and really impressive applications. One area where this is particularly useful is ROTC cadets. Because ROTC cadets are going into military typically for four years and then thinking about how to build their career and make the transition from military to civilian life. And so if they have an advanced ticket to get into our MBA program then it's much easier for them at that point in time to make the transition. So we feel that this is extremely impactful. The future leaders program is more impactful for ROTC cadets. One clarifying question you mentioned undergrads. Does it also supply to people in master's degrees for thinking later or is it? Thank you for asking that. So we think of it as applying to both undergraduate seniors and those who are in pre-experience master's programs. So someone may have done a four plus one like an M-N-G or an M-S or an MPS program right after they're undergraduate. So the same offer is or the same application process applies to them as well. Okay. Thank you. So we've talked about various programs offered by Johnson Graduate School of Management. Let's talk about where you look for in ideal candidates. And this is a question to either Vishal or Manoj. First, what types of individuals would really thrive and should apply to Cornell's Johnson School? Absolutely. We'll try to answer that. So Manoj, both you and I can perhaps build our lists and add to the answer here. I would say the first thing that we look for a bunch of different things in our successful applications. One of them is that they should have excelled in their careers. So we look for evidence of how they have impacted their organizations or what types of activities they've engaged in outside of the organizations that they are at. So that's the very first thing. I think evidence of excellence in the work that they have done. A second one I would say is that they should be dynamic individuals with a potential for leadership and a hunger to contribute to the world and make an impact on the world. So we look for dynamism in our candidates, dynamism and energy. People who can be leaders, who can work in teams and work with their classmates to accomplish amazing things and take advantage of everything that our campus has to offer. I will stop here and switch to Manoj. Meanwhile, I'll think of others to add. Yeah, I think I would echo what Vishal said first. I think all our programs, the overarching thing that we look for is when you graduate in 10 years after graduation, what's the mark that you will leave on the world, right? And that's what we refer to as impact and real impact. And it doesn't matter whether you're working in a profit or a non-profit or whether you're working in technology or in finance or consulting. But the question is, would you actually have an impact on the world in a positive way? And that brings me to the second aspect which I think comes through in all Cornell programs. It's largely kind of a university value. And Vishal mentioned this right at the beginning. He talked that, for example, we are ranked number two in the country, our MBA program and ranked number two for community. Right? So and that's a true line that you will get to hear in all our programs, which means that we expect leaders and nothing. We tend to attract leaders who want to have an impact, but also who care about humanity in general. And they want to leave the world a better place to do the greater good. And that comes goes back all the way to his back to his raconel or founder, who wanted to create a university which would actually make the world a better place. So I think I've seen many of our students who come in who got in offers from competitive and sometimes maybe even higher scholarships from peer or higher ranked programs. But they come and tell us that I felt that I found my community here and I feel a part of a community in a very genuine meaningful way. And I would rather be this kind of leader. And then that's why I chose Cornell. Alex, may I add one more thing to this? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I think your question is going beyond what we look for if I can add one more aspect to your question. The number of MBA applications as you know into MBA programs, at least domestically within the US, has been flat or declining or stagnant over a number of years. I think it's really important for applicants and those trying to build their careers to realize that an MBA is not just for those people who worked in business and are staying in business. In fact, an MBA attracts a very diverse pool of students and our classes. I would say not just about Johnson across all business schools, our classes tend to be extremely diverse and oftentimes an MBA is a way for someone to going back to something they started with to be well. So we get students in our classes and I've taught for number two, almost two decades, Manoj has. We also connect with with our colleagues across many other universities and we visit them. So what we find is that our classes are, for example, we would have in the class someone who has spent their previous career as a school teacher and they make a transition into consulting after graduating. Someone who was in the Peace Corps and comes out and builds a company on supply chain traceability. Someone who was in the Coast Guard and goes and becomes a tech product manager after graduating. Someone who studied music and performed for Baltimore Philharmonic or one of the others and goes and becomes an investment research and asset management professional and Manoj mentioned nonprofits. I think it's really important for us to convey that message that an MBA is a way to have leadership impact in the world and the input funnel for an MBA is extremely wide.
and we do look for applicants of different kinds who want to have that impact, who want to do great things across different kinds of career paths, and we place students in many, many different medical doctors, people who have a PhD, who want to do an MBA. And I think all of those are really, really relevant and important backgrounds to have. I don't think that we have all of these profiles enough. Yeah, I have, I have, I didn't use names, but I had examples in mind. Yeah, Alex, you must have seen this in other schools also. Yes, no, absolutely. It's very true. One question for older applicants, you know, any common people who have been out of school, maybe not three to five years, but 10 years, 12 years, how do you view those? Yeah, so one thing I would say is that the MBA application is actually skewing a little bit older in the last several years. The trend is like that. So the average age of incoming students for our class is about 27, 28 years. That's the average, but actually we have students who range from maybe about 25 years to maybe even up to 35 years or so. Because it really depends on where they're coming from and what career, what area they want to build a career in. So we do consider applications in a, you know, in a wide range. So the really important thing here is what does someone want to do if they want to pivot and if a pivot is feasible for them, if you think they have the characteristics that are relevant for a pivot. But if not, then we would actually advise them to consider an E MBA program and and I would send them to Manoj in that case because he's the one who leads our MBA programs. Okay, well thank you very much. Those have been amazing insights into Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management. Before we end, any parting thoughts from you, Manoj, and then Vishal, kind of, from any other area we ever thought of? I'll go first. I didn't even tell you. Go ahead, go ahead Manoj. I'll follow you. I think I'll, again, go forward, Vishal said. There are two kind of streams of thoughts that I read in magazines and newspapers, etc. these days. One is, is MBA relevant in an AI world. And I've been thinking about this a lot and I've actually, you know, we also kind of dealing with how to use AI for instruction in our classes and our programs. And every day, as every day passes, I have more and more convinced that MBA is AI proof. Because if anything, what AI cannot do is make judgments and decisions. I think coding analysis, many of the mechanical decisions that go into input judgment and decision making, that can be automated. But what cannot be automated, Alex, if leadership. It's not going anywhere. So I think MBA is going to become even more important. And I see a big resurgence of actually MBA in the coming years. And I, it might attract different profiles of people. But I do think that the new AI part world MBA is going to be very important. In fact, if you look at the CEOs of all the top tech companies, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, all of the modern MBAs now. And it's not a coincidence because you do need a combination of understanding how the technology works. But more importantly, you need leadership to be able to harness that for the world. So I'll add to that that it's, it's a great time to do an MBA. That's, that's my main parting message. Because there is, the world keeps becoming more and more complex. Business keeps changing at an ever increasing pace. And, and an MBA sits at the intersection of these changes. And can, and this is a, it's such a wonderful opportunity to take time to reflect and develop once leadership skills to go back into the workforce and have an impact in the, in, in, have a positive and critical impact in the, in the world. I also want to add that international students should seriously look at US schools because the, the quality of education has not, is, is, in the US schools is, is amazing. And I would say the opportunities for placement available are quite large. I just recently came back from trips to Mexico and India and, and a few other places. And what I'm finding is that our alumni are not only making strong careers in the US, but also in other countries. And they, they are pivoting as well that, you know, someone may spend a few years in consulting in one place. And then they go in and spend a, they are rest of their career, incorporate or tech in a different country or a different location. So, so, so we, so we, we think of ourselves as a global business school. And so, and it's really a welcoming environment and, and universities are welcoming places for, for all the students from, from anywhere. So that would be my parting message. And thank you very much for the opportunity to, to, to speak with you. Yes, thank you. Manosh Vishal, this has been most insightful. Our listeners are really going to enjoy listening to this. And, look forward to speaking to you again. Thank you. [Music] Thanks so much for listening to this episode of B Schooled from Stacey Blackman Consulting. If there's ever something you'd like us to cover, please email us at
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