Deans' Q&A
David Kreps and Joel Podolny, Senior Associate Deans
Issue date: 10/1/01 Section: Deans' Corner
- Page 1 of 1
EDITOR’S NOTE -- Last spring, The Reporter inauguarted a series of “Deans’ Columns” written by David Kreps and Joel Podolny, both Senior Associate Deans. These columns discussed many of the salient issues confronting the GSB, and provided the community with a better understanding of the administration’s thinking on them. Following each column, the Deans responded to several questions put to them by a panel of MBAs. This fall, Deans Kreps and Podolny have agreed to continue the dialogue they began in the spring by responding to questions posed to them by a panel of MBAs. This quarter’s panel, selected by the editors of The Reporter, is comprosied of five second-year MBAs and two first-year MBAs. MBA2s include: Christian Lawrence, Daniela Ruiz, Christine Johnson, Amanda Butcher, and Rich Steinmeier. MBA1s will be added to the panel in advance of our next issue. The first exchange between the panel and the Deans follows:
One data point that stands out from the profile of the incoming class is the share of international students as a proportion of the whole. The number (23%) is below the 25-30% range the GSB has tended to carry in the recent past, and comes on the back of declines in each of the prior two years. Could you tell us a bit about the administration's thinking on where we are headed on international students as a percentage of the overall class?
Different members of the administration have different views on what an “ideal” percentage of international students would be but, we believe, there is consensus that where we wound up this year, at 23%, is too low. The difficult part, though, is in saying why this happened---just as there was no conscious change in admission policy that jumped the percentage of women up to around 40%, so there was no conscious change in admission policy that moved the percentage of international students down.
Moreover, we don’t really know the extent of the problem. What we mean is, the 23% figure isn’t as meaningful as we’d like. Suppose we have a French national who went to college in the U.S. and has been working at Goldman-Sachs in New York. This person probably counts as a foreign student---to be honest, we two don’t even know that---but how does that person compare with a U.S. national who has been based in Hong-Kong for the past eight years? Who adds more diversity to the class? Who will be better at bringing in global perspectives?
We do know that there are problems we face in recruiting students from abroad. Our yield---the percentage of admittees who choose to enroll---is lower for foreign students, and it is especially low for foreign women. Our “name recognition,” while pretty good in South America and the Far East, isn’t where it should be in Europe; we are working hard with our European alumni on ways to improve this. For example, we hope that our reliance on interviewing should provide the admittees with a personal connection to the school that should increase their likelihood of accepting.
One more “fact” to throw into the mix: The MBA program is definitely the follower in terms of percentage of foreigners. In the Ph.D. program this year, among students entering, foreign students represent 43% of the class. In the Sloan program, non-U.S. nationals constitute 62.5% of the class. And in our non-degree executive education programs, non-U.S. representation above the 50% threshold is quite typical; in the flagship Stanford Executive Program (the six-week program), it was over 70%.
So what’s the bottom line? Twenty-three percent is too low. The range you mentioned in the question, between 25% and 30%, probably contains the median “goal” of senior members of the administration. We hope and expect to be back in that range next year.
The year is kicking off in the middle of an unprecedented technology-focused downturn and with the broader U.S. economy probably heading into recession. In this context what advice do you have for the respective year groups in mixing academic study with the inevitably difficult job search for summer and full-time positions? Do you think the faculty will make extra allowances this year given likely continued recruiting difficulties?
The faculty, believe it or not, know that the job market will be tough this year. And we hope and expect that they’ll make extra allowances for that toughness. Of course, how an individual faculty member handles things like fly-backs is a matter of individual choice; we can jawbone relative leniency, but University policy ensures that we can’t enforce it.
So what is our advice to you, about the tradeoffs between academics and the job search? It is easy for us to say, but don’t obsess and don’t panic. In these sorts of situations, markets sometimes clear later than we may like, but they do clear for the vast majority of our students. Meanwhile, you have an opportunity to learn that isn’t going to come your way again in your lifetime. Obviously, you have to make the tradeoffs, and we expect you will do so in a mature and reasoned fashion. Just don’t lose track of the value for your lifetime of what you can and should do here.
Given the continued turnover in the staffing (and loss of institutional memory) at the Career Management Center, is the administration planning to provide any additional resources to aid the CMC staff in the year ahead?
This one is real simple. Yes.
But it isn’t the turnover in staffing that drives the additional resources. While Sherrie is leaving after a seven-year stint, a number of CMC staff members are remaining. So, if it’s not the turnover, why do we feel the need to make changes? We may be dumb, but we aren’t dense, and we have gotten the message that recruiters aren’t happy with us (collectively). You do your part to turn this around, and you can be sure that we’ll do ours. Last year, we conducted a focus group with recruiters to identify key areas of improvement. Based in part on that focus group as well as survey information obtained from the recruiters, we have increased our staffing within CMC. Moreover, despite the fact that the GSB is extremely space constrained, we have allocated considerably more space for interview rooms – an important issue raised by the recruiters. In addition, as a number of you know, we began at the end of last academic year to use our excellent alumni network to greater advantage for our current students; we will continue to do the same this year.
One data point that stands out from the profile of the incoming class is the share of international students as a proportion of the whole. The number (23%) is below the 25-30% range the GSB has tended to carry in the recent past, and comes on the back of declines in each of the prior two years. Could you tell us a bit about the administration's thinking on where we are headed on international students as a percentage of the overall class?
Different members of the administration have different views on what an “ideal” percentage of international students would be but, we believe, there is consensus that where we wound up this year, at 23%, is too low. The difficult part, though, is in saying why this happened---just as there was no conscious change in admission policy that jumped the percentage of women up to around 40%, so there was no conscious change in admission policy that moved the percentage of international students down.
Moreover, we don’t really know the extent of the problem. What we mean is, the 23% figure isn’t as meaningful as we’d like. Suppose we have a French national who went to college in the U.S. and has been working at Goldman-Sachs in New York. This person probably counts as a foreign student---to be honest, we two don’t even know that---but how does that person compare with a U.S. national who has been based in Hong-Kong for the past eight years? Who adds more diversity to the class? Who will be better at bringing in global perspectives?
We do know that there are problems we face in recruiting students from abroad. Our yield---the percentage of admittees who choose to enroll---is lower for foreign students, and it is especially low for foreign women. Our “name recognition,” while pretty good in South America and the Far East, isn’t where it should be in Europe; we are working hard with our European alumni on ways to improve this. For example, we hope that our reliance on interviewing should provide the admittees with a personal connection to the school that should increase their likelihood of accepting.
One more “fact” to throw into the mix: The MBA program is definitely the follower in terms of percentage of foreigners. In the Ph.D. program this year, among students entering, foreign students represent 43% of the class. In the Sloan program, non-U.S. nationals constitute 62.5% of the class. And in our non-degree executive education programs, non-U.S. representation above the 50% threshold is quite typical; in the flagship Stanford Executive Program (the six-week program), it was over 70%.
So what’s the bottom line? Twenty-three percent is too low. The range you mentioned in the question, between 25% and 30%, probably contains the median “goal” of senior members of the administration. We hope and expect to be back in that range next year.
The year is kicking off in the middle of an unprecedented technology-focused downturn and with the broader U.S. economy probably heading into recession. In this context what advice do you have for the respective year groups in mixing academic study with the inevitably difficult job search for summer and full-time positions? Do you think the faculty will make extra allowances this year given likely continued recruiting difficulties?
The faculty, believe it or not, know that the job market will be tough this year. And we hope and expect that they’ll make extra allowances for that toughness. Of course, how an individual faculty member handles things like fly-backs is a matter of individual choice; we can jawbone relative leniency, but University policy ensures that we can’t enforce it.
So what is our advice to you, about the tradeoffs between academics and the job search? It is easy for us to say, but don’t obsess and don’t panic. In these sorts of situations, markets sometimes clear later than we may like, but they do clear for the vast majority of our students. Meanwhile, you have an opportunity to learn that isn’t going to come your way again in your lifetime. Obviously, you have to make the tradeoffs, and we expect you will do so in a mature and reasoned fashion. Just don’t lose track of the value for your lifetime of what you can and should do here.
Given the continued turnover in the staffing (and loss of institutional memory) at the Career Management Center, is the administration planning to provide any additional resources to aid the CMC staff in the year ahead?
This one is real simple. Yes.
But it isn’t the turnover in staffing that drives the additional resources. While Sherrie is leaving after a seven-year stint, a number of CMC staff members are remaining. So, if it’s not the turnover, why do we feel the need to make changes? We may be dumb, but we aren’t dense, and we have gotten the message that recruiters aren’t happy with us (collectively). You do your part to turn this around, and you can be sure that we’ll do ours. Last year, we conducted a focus group with recruiters to identify key areas of improvement. Based in part on that focus group as well as survey information obtained from the recruiters, we have increased our staffing within CMC. Moreover, despite the fact that the GSB is extremely space constrained, we have allocated considerably more space for interview rooms – an important issue raised by the recruiters. In addition, as a number of you know, we began at the end of last academic year to use our excellent alumni network to greater advantage for our current students; we will continue to do the same this year.