Darden School of Business (UVA) taking questions

[freeprot]

Dear all,
We are Taiwan students of class 2010 for Darden School of Business. If you have any questions related to our school or application, feel free to drop us messages and we will be glad to answer them.

[oposledr]

Dear freeprot:
First, thanks for your help, I have few question about Darden.
1. How many Taiwan or china students get in Darden per year? What is the average working experience do they have? I heard that Taiwan and china student usually have less working experience. Is that true?
2. Do they all find internship?
3. What characteristic distinguish Darden students from other MBA students?
4. If possible, Could you share some background of Darden MBA students?

[bioning]

Dear freeprot,

Thank you for willing to answer question s about Darden. Following are my questions:
1. I am looking for a MBA program which cover technology/innovation/research or biotech industry management core. I visit Darden's website several times but couldn't find anything about what find of cores the Darden students can choose to develop. Would you tell in what area(s) is Darden's strength?
2. My baby will be one and half years old next summer. Do you know what kind of daycare or family support the UVA provides?
3. Expect the GMAT/TOEFL score, GPA, and working experience, what characteristics are Darden looking for when they review a applicant's document? I mean, people will emphasize "flexiblity" when they apply to Chicaogo U. Is there anything like that in Darden?

[Chinghaowu]

I graduated from Darden in 2006 and would like to answer some of your questions.

First of all, Darden is a school that is famous for case study. The success of case study approach heavily relies on class participation. As such, the following two factors are critical when adcom selects students.

1. Will your work experience be an asset in class discussion? It is not necessary that 10 years of experience will be better than 5 years. But it is just hard for a person with only 1 year of experience to share something valuable in case study. To answer your question, Darden "in general" prefers candidates with sufficient work experience. That rule also applies to Taiwanese/Chinese studnets.

2. Are you willing to and capable of sharing your experience/perspective in class? This explains why interview process is so critical when you apply for Darden. They want to make sure you are a team player. For international students, they also want to make sure you are comfortable with speaking English in front of class of 60 people. Darden's average GMAT score is relatively low when you compare with top 15 schools. We can easily boost the average by recruiting students with 700+ GMAT. But the adcom would rather choose right person to ensure the success of case study.

In terms of the statistics of Taiwanese/Chinese students. I would say in average, there are 2 to 3 Taiwanese students in a year. But we have seen 1 and 5 in recent years. Chinese group is a lot bigger. I think it is more than 10 every year.

Becasuse of the small size of the Taiwanese group, the stats of Taiwanese students is not that meaningful. One example would be class 2007. The average employment rate is 100% and the average work experience prior to Darden is around 3 years. Does that mean that Darden likes younger Taiwanese applicants and that Taiwanese students are guaranteed to find a job in US? Not really..There is only one Taiwanese student in Darden at 2007. The stats of Taiwanese group is entirely determined by her. Even when the size grows to 2 or 3, this same concept applies.

The real issue that you should be concerned is the resources of the career center at Darden (or any other school). Can they bring you opportunities? Are there many recuriters willing to hire international students? Does Darden have a strong alum network? I am not a current student so I will leave the first two questions to class of 2009/2010. But I can tell you that Darden has one of the strongest alum network among top business schools. When I did my job search, I sent tons of emails to alums and almost half of them replied back even when they had abolutely no idea about whom I was. I got several job interviews from the alum network. Now I am an alum and I also try to do the same to help. In fact, I am going back to UVA to interview current students next week (undergraduate students though). You don't see that kind of loyalty in many schools.

Hope this helps!

[freeprot]

I'll just put all the questions together to answer~~

-1. How many Taiwan or china students get in Darden per year? What is the average working experience do they have? I heard that Taiwan and china student usually have less working experience. Is that true?
There are total of 16 students from China and Taiwan this year. Among them, four are from Taiwan. As for average working experience, we have a range from 3 to 6 years. The average working experience is about 4 to 5 in Darden, so we’re pretty close to that.

-2. Do they all find internship?
The senior students had a 100% ratio of getting internship this summer. Of course, none of them got it easily. They worked and prepared really hard for the applications. As you know, it's pretty tough in the US right now, but as long as you got what it takes, Darden has really good reputation here, so it'll be a great plus to you.

-3. What characteristic distinguish Darden students from other MBA students?
As you know, Darden is a case-study program. Basically, everything we learned here are through cases. If you check the rankings from the evaluations from employer point of view, Darden is ranked top 5 in the states. I think the main reason is that we really focus on real stuff and hands on experiences rather than from text books.

-4. If possible, Could you share some background of Darden MBA students?
Basically you can find all kinds of people here. If you wish to go into details, feel free to contact me through email or we can arrange a time to talk on the phone.

-2. My baby will be one and half years old next summer. Do you know what kind of daycare or family support the UVA provides?
I do not know anyone in person that has children here, but there are plenty of people with their family and children here. I will provide you with the information ASAP.

-3. Expect the GMAT/TOEFL score, GPA, and working experience, what characteristics are Darden looking for when they review a applicant's document? I mean, people will emphasize "flexiblity" when they apply to Chicaogo U. Is there anything like that in Darden?
If you look at the Darden essay questions, you will notice that it asks you to define who you are. As Chinghaowu has mentioned, class participant is one of the most important thing here. Do you know yourself? What differentiate you from other people? What can you contribute to Darden? These are a few questions you should think about when writing the essays. In the end, there are lots of smart people with various backgrounds here. The only thing that is the same is we’re all good with people, we all can and will contribute our knowledge in class, and everyone’s a good team player.

Sorry that it took some time to answer the questions, hope that it helps~

[bioning]

Thanks for answering. But I'm still can't find answer about the "core" issue.
Except case study, which is a way of teaching and learning, is there any spesific core area, which is the strength in one or more particular area(s) of the business field, that students can develop in Darden?
For example, MIT Sloan provides Entrepreneurship & Innovation Option (E&I) focus, Northwestern Kellogg has cores like technology management or health sector management.

[freeprot]

I believe the core of our school is genereal management. Due to the case study method, the school tries to make sure once students graduate, they will be able to apply their experience straight to real life situation. In a way, you can say that the school focuses on a balance education that a general manger will require.

[freeprot]

Dear all,
We are Taiwan students of class 2010 for Darden School of Business. If you have any questions related to our school or application, feel free to drop us messages and we will be glad to answer them.