Earlier this week, Director of Admissions Brett Twitty hosted an Executive MBA Application FAQs Webinar in advance of the two remaining deadlines to join the Class of 2022 — 10 June and 25 June. Application FAQs Webinar Recording.
Join Twitty on Monday, 8 June, at 12:30 p.m. ET for an Executive MBA Application Tips webinar, highlighting insights about the Executive MBA application process and offering guidance for presenting your best self in the application. Register for the App Tips Webinar
And last but not least, in the spirit of our FAQs webinar, here are a few questions we frequently receive from applicants at this time of year:
Is it too late to apply?
We have two remaining application deadlines for our class starting this August — 10 June and 25 June — and, as we’ve noted previously, we always connect with great candidates in the final months of our application cycle.
This a time of year in which we are essentially in a rolling admissions mode, evaluating applications as they are received. We encourage you to use our application deadlines as guides, but, once you have finished your application, go ahead and submit it, even if it is well before or after a deadline. This will allow us to begin moving your materials through our review process and even get you a decision much sooner.
With that said, if you are planning to apply in June and trying to decide between our June deadlines, we encourage you to target our 10 June deadline. We will likely have more flexibility in early June than later in the month. In addition, we typically have more scholarship money to award in our 10 June round than our 25 June round. Which brings us to our next question.
Is there still scholarship money available?
Yes. However, we have a finite scholarship budget, and this budget is increasingly allocated as we move through the admissions cycle.
We plan on making scholarship awards in both our remaining rounds, but if a scholarship award will be important in your business school decision, we encourage you to target our 10 June round, as we will have more money to award in early June than later in the month.
All admitted students are considered for all available scholarship awards, and our Executive MBA awards are largely academic merit-based. It is worth noting that our Executive MBA scholarship budget is fairly modest, and our awards typically range between $10,000 and $35,000 total. Our average award is around $15,000 total. We typically release scholarship decisions at the same time as the admissions decision.
Is a standardized test required?
This is probably the most common question we’ve been receiving over the past few weeks. If you are applying to our Executive MBA Program, here is a quick guide to help you navigate our test requirement:
- If you have already taken a standardized test (EA/GMAT/GRE/MCAT/LSAT), you should apply with your existing score. As we’ve noted previously, we will accept older or expired test scores in our Executive MBA application process, but if you plan to apply with an expired GMAT or GRE, you will need to have access to your score breakdown.
- If you have not yet taken a standardized test, we recommend starting with a standardized test waiver. We recently added a test waiver request to the Test Scores section of our application, and our Admissions Committee will evaluate these concurrently with the full application. At the time of decision, we will indicate whether a standardized test or additional quantitative coursework will be required.
A number of candidates have asked what our Admissions Committee will consider when evaluating test waiver requests? One of the benefits of adding the waiver request to our application is that we have more data to consider when reviewing waiver requests. In many ways, this approach makes the waiver request evaluation holistic in nature (much like our application review). However, our Admissions Committee will also pay particular attention to your prior coursework, advanced degrees, professional certifications and work responsibilities. We encourage you to keep this in mind when framing your request.
Of course, every application’s situation is different, and if you have already made significant plans to take a standardized test, you are absolutely welcome to proceed with these plans.
Have questions? You can always reach us at execmba@darden.virginia.edu. No question too small.
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