Meet Yale SOM’s MBA Class of 2017

Johann Rebl-Yale-PoetsAndQuants-Classof2017

Johann Rebl

 

Yale School of Management

Hometown: Schwandorf, Bavaria, Germany

Undergraduate School and Major (Include Graduate School if Relevant): I hold a BA in Business Administration from the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Nuremberg, Germany.

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation: Since my graduation in March 2015, I did an internship in Management Consulting at Ebner Stolz Management Consultants in Cologne, Germany. Before that, from 2011-2015, I had been member of a commercial training program at Siemens parallel to pursuing my university degree. This rotational program led me to work in several operational departments affiliated with the commercial side of Siemens’ supply chain during my semester breaks. At the end of 2013, I went on a temporary delegation to support a project management team of Siemens in Shanghai, China. During the regular semesters, I gave weekly sessions for undergraduate students being a financial mathematics tutor at my home university for 2 years.

Recalling your own experience, what advice do you have for applicants who are preparing for either the GMAT or the GRE? I took the GMAT and only had around one month to prepare for the test. My advice is that you take enough time to prepare in order to cover all areas of the test in a profound way. Personally, the Official GMAT Guide helped me a lot to get the right sense of how the tests and questions are structured, which is really important to understand before taking the test. I also did peer preparation with a friend who gave me random GMAT questions and a time limit to answer, which was helpful to simulate the pressure of taking the real test.

Based on your own selection process, what advice do you have for applicants who are trying to draw up a list of target schools to which to apply? Of course, you have to look to see if the strengths of the school match your interests. However, I advise you to look for the schools that have the culture and values that match yours. I didn’t fully understand what that meant when I applied to business schools in the USA. When I had my first interview (not Yale), I realized that this other school’s values absolutely didn’t match mine even though the curriculum would have matched my interests.

What advice do you have for applicants in actually applying to a school, writing essays, doing admission interviews, and getting recommenders to write letters on your behalf? Be honest and show the school who you really are. For all parts of the application you have to deliver, it is really important not just to tell the admissions committee who you are, but to show them who you are. Do this by including anecdotes and stories of your experiences that support what you want to emphasize. The schools are looking for personalities not just CVs and standard phrases. Even more important for the interview (and for the video questions when applying to Yale): Be well-prepared but be yourself. Regarding the recommendations, I chose people who are honest with me and have known me for quite a while. For instance, one of my recommenders was a colleague and close friend. This ensures that the admissions committee can get the best sense of who you are through the honest evaluation of the recommenders.

What led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA? Yale is a great school with an incredible international reputation and quite strong in placing its graduates in consulting positions that exactly match my short-term goal. Yale gave me the chance to pursue an MBA coming straight out of undergraduate by admitting me to its unique Silver Scholars MBA program that also opens up possibilities to expand my professional experiences during the Gap Year between the 1st and 2nd year at Yale SOM.

What would you ultimately like to achieve before you graduate? I would like to know as many students at Yale as possible because I love to learn about people’s experiences and perceptions. As Yale SOM is very focused on bringing smart people of many different backgrounds and origins together, I hope to broaden my perspective on the prevalent values and opinions of students from other industries, countries and cultures.

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