The MBA Insider's Blog

UCLA Anderson in London for an Information Evening Event

Last night, I had the opportunity to meet some really terrific candidates at the London QS MBA Fair. Tomorrow evening (Monday), we will be hosting a school presentation at 7 PM in London. If you are in town and would like to learn more about UCLA Anderson and interact with some of our alumni come join us. 

Next stops on my trip include Paris, Madrid and Barcelona. I hope to meet some of you in one of those great cities. Don't forget that our Round 2 admissions deadline is on January 11. For more information about our off campus events please visit our website.

-Adrian Aguirre
UCLA Anderson School of Management

Evolving international application requirements

We are in tune with changing academic systems worldwide, and we have refined our requirements accordingly as seen on our Application Requirements web page: http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x27502.xml

For example, we have seen more and more applicants with 3-year bachelor's degrees like the new European standard.  So our standard for graduate admission remains a 4-year degree or its equivalent, but we can use our discretion to admit candidates with 3-year undergraduate degrees if we determine that that their entire academic profile and overall application are strong enough.

Similarly, our standard for English fluency still requires a TOEFL or IELTS score from all applicants who were not educated in English.  But we will consider applications from those without TOEFL or IELTS scores if the candidate earned a degree where the sole language of instruction was English.  This means that applicants from countries such as India and Singapore no longer have to take the language test if they were schooled in English.  Naturally we will take all verbal scores, essays and other indicators into account to ensure total fluency within the incoming class.  Proving proficiency with a TOEFL or IELTS score is still the best way for international applicants to ensure competitiveness in our evaluation process.

UCLA Anderson Spotlight: From LA to the Rainforest - AMR Project Provides Unique Consulting Experience

When Deborah Yim applied to UCLA Anderson’s MBA program, she knew that hands-on learning was a big feature of the academic experience. Her plan was to transition from accounting to consulting after graduation so the more real-world experience she could gain in her new field the better. She particularly looked forward to the Applied Management Research Program (AMR) in which second-year MBA students can work on consulting projects for actual clients.

However, when she learned that her AMR project would be for Conservation International to help save the Amazon Rainforest, she was blown away. She had never expected to have an opportunity to work on such a unique consulting project much less conduct research in Suriname, but that is exactly where the AMR took her. Now that her project is wrapping up, we asked Yim to tell us about her AMR experience. Here’s what she said:

“Conservation International gave our AMR team a fairly broad question related to tourism in Suriname, which is a small country above Brazil mostly comprised of untouched rainforest. It wanted to know if tourism could provide the country with an alternative lucrative industry in place of ones such as mining that would be destructive to the rainforest. 

“Since there is hardly any information available on Suriname on the Internet, we were fortunate that we had the opportunity to visit the country for on-the-ground research. During our team’s visits, we conducted in-person interviews, studied the current infrastructure, and even tested out tourism products such as hotels and tours. We then used our data to do a value chain analysis as well as a comparative analysis to other countries like Belize and Costa Rica.

“During my last visit, we presented our findings that tourism could be a sustainable source of revenue, but that it’s very early and they have a lot to work on. This confirmed what many involved in the tourism industry in Suriname have long believed, but now they have data from our project to back it up.

“My AMR project has been a unique opportunity to not only gain consulting experience for a real client, but to apply my business skills in such an interesting and remote setting. The project really encouraged independent, out-of-the box thinking. We pulled from various aspects of our classes into this project, making it a different and effective way of learning.

“It definitely helped me achieve my goal of gaining a broader business education to transition into consulting – I’ll be working in M&A consulting for Ernst & Young after graduation.”

- MBA Admissions and Financial Aid

UCLA Anderson Spotlight: Study Abroad Program in Brazil Gives Consultant Competitive Edge

  Erica Good in Patagonia during her International Exchange

 

While working as a consultant in Atlanta, Erica Good saw the increasing demand for consultants with Portuguese language skills to staff Brazilian projects. Having travelled there as a tourist, she was interested in learning Portuguese and about Brazil’s emerging market in greater depth. So when she started UCLA Anderson’s MBA Program last year, she started looking into study abroad opportunities in Brazil.

“At UCLA Anderson, students have an opportunity to study at a wide range of International Exchange partner schools. The school is in a network of top business schools that promotes exchanges around the world. And because we’re on the quarter system, it’s particularly doable since students aren’t gone an entire semester – you don’t miss as much of the Anderson experience in LA,” says Good, who studied abroad last fall at COPPEAD at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro where she took classes on  intercultural negotiation, international logistics, and brand management.

“It was such an amazing experience,” she says. “I really wanted to learn about doing business in Brazil and I got a strong handle on that. I also really enjoyed meeting the other Brazilian students and I got to see quite a bit of South America by travelling on the weekends to places like Patagonia and Machu Picchu.”

The biggest challenge, notes Good, was learning a new language. “I had some Spanish skills before I left and thought that would help me learn Portuguese, but they are very different languages. After being in Brazil for a quarter, I can now read Portuguese pretty well, but because of my accent I think I understand others better than they understand me.”

Since she was studying abroad last fall during recruiting season, Good had a more customized experience looking for a post-graduation consulting job. “Before I left, I did all of my networking by talking to recruiters, meeting with Anderson alumni at consulting firms, and talking to current students who had interned at those companies over the summer. In Brazil, I did the first round of interviews by phone and flew back to LA for final round. When I interviewed with McKinsey, I actually went to their Rio office and did a teleconference with their LA office,” she says, adding that recruiters were especially interested in her study abroad experience because of the demand for consultants on Brazilian projects.

Having accepted an offer to join McKinsey’s LA office after graduation, Good says that her study abroad experience has been a highlight of her time at Anderson. “It really gave me a chance to see business in practice in a completely different cultural context. I would definitely recommend that other students do a study abroad during their time at UCLA Anderson to learn about business from a different perspective and experience a new culture.”

Round III Applicants - News From the Front Office

Round III is a great time to apply to UCLA Anderson!  If you have not yet done so, get your application information here.  You have two months to prepare and not stress out at the deadline, so use your time wisely!  Last minute applicants experience the most technical issues, and since this is our last round for the 2011 application year, prudent applicants submit their application materials at least two weeks before the deadline.  Good luck!

MBA Admissions Office Closed on Monday, January 17, 2011 in Observance of Martin Luther King, jr. Day

We will reopen the office for regular business hours on Tuesday, January 18th from 8:00am - 5:00pm Pacific Standard Time.

International coffee chats with current MBA students

UCLA Anderson MBA students travel the world during school holiday weeks, and several have offered to meet with prospective applicants in select cities during this December break.  These coffee chats are taking place in:

Beijing
Shanghai
Singapore
Colombo (Sri Lanka)
Mexico City
Rio de Janeiro
Sao Paulo
Tel Aviv

Dates and registration are available at Coffee Chat Info

We appreciate our students' efforts to share their contagious UCLA Anderson spirit with potential new MBA's!

 

MBA Admissions recruiting -- Europe and East Coast

Recruiting events for MBA Admissions took me to Europe several times this autumn, with stops on the U.S. East Coast too.  Our alumni in these widespread places were happy to talk with prospective applicants and share memories of their MBA days as "the two best years of their lives."  The diversity of their careers since then reflects the multiple strengths of our program, ranging from finance to marketing to media and more.  Some alums had unexpected career shifts over time, so it was good to hear how our MBA helped make them nimble and flexible.  As always I enjoyed being the catalyst for mini-reunions of activist alumni in each city, as we reached out together to cultivate the next generations of the UCLA Anderson family. 

UCLA Anderson in Buenos Aires – Notes from the road

 
Street picture of the picturesque Barrio de Boca, Buenos Aires.

Greetings from Latin America! UCLA Anderson just wrapped up two great recruiting events in Buenos Aires. Monday, I hosted an intimate gathering of some of our dedicated Argentinean alumni, a group of 5 second-year UCLA Anderson students on Exchange in Buenos Aires and some very talented MBA applicants. Last night we participated in the MBA Tour in the same city.

This is my second trip to Buenos Aires, arguably one of the most fascinating cities in the continent. I was fortunate enough to take a couple of walks in the city between events and found myself a new fan of Tango and Parrilla (see photo). I look forward to future visits and growing our alumni network in Argentina.

Next stop is Santiago de Chile. I expect the city to be filled with amazing energy and emotion as the miners continue to be plucked from the earth at a rate of one per hour. More to come on that tomorrow.

-Adrian Aguirre

 

 

UCLA Anderson Information Evening and Roundtable Event in Beijing

Before ending my recruiting trip through Asia, I was given the opportunity to return to Beijing for the second time on my trip in order to host a UCLA Anderson Information Evening and Roundtable event in collaboration with the Chinese Professional Network (CPN).  This was the first time in many years that we were able to host an Information Evening in Beijing in addition to attending the MBA Tour.  Much like our Information Evening in Shanghai, this session proved to be a tremendous success. The prospective applicants in attendance were very prepared with good questions for the panel of current students and alums.  The Roundtable event was also a great opportunity to meet some very dedicated applicants and to answer their detailed questions. 

Thank you to everyone who attended the Information Evening and Roundtable events.  I hope that you continue to learn more about what UCLA Anderson has to offer you.  Remember that class visits are the best way for you to truly experience the collaborative but challenging environment where our UCLA Anderson students thrive.

If only the weather had been as great as the prospective applicants then maybe I would have had a better opportunity to explore.  Well, I guess there's always next time.

-Vickie Euyoque