Meet Washington University’s Olin MBA Class of 2017

Danny Henry

Danny Henry

Washington University, Olin Business School

Hometown: St. Louis, MO

Undergraduate School and Major: United States Military Academy (West Point)

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation: U.S. Army Infantry Officer; Business Development Manager for Warson Brands, a footwear licensing company

Recalling your own experience, what advice do you have for applicants who are preparing for either the GMAT or the GRE? Studying is a marathon not a sprint.  Study a few hours a day for a few months. Invest in a study book that allows you to take multiple full-length tests in the CAT format. Take a diagnostic test before doing anything else and tailor your studying to areas where you have the biggest room for improvement. Periodic practice GMATs will help you monitor your progress and further refine your approach.

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? Figure out what you want out of both the MBA experience and an MBA program and develop a list of schools that match both. School ranking and location are obvious factors, but go deeper in the search. Find out if the program is strong in a certain function over others and what the common industries that grads are working in and in what cities. Is the program pretty structured or do you have a lot of flexibility in your class schedule? Make sure to look at their graduate employment data and ranking specifically.  Employment data is only one component of school rankings, but may be the most important one for you. Make sure you know what is important to you before you start looking.

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? Apply early to your top schools. If you get in, you can be at ease until the program starts. If not, there’s still more time to continue applying elsewhere. If you do not get in somewhere, reach out and see if you can get feedback from the adcom on why and use this information to grow.

Make your essay specific and focused. The three big questions you have to answer is why an MBA, why this particular program, and why now. But this gist should be the only similarity between your essay and someone else’s. Be proactive and research the program, seek out and talk to alumni, and set up a campus visit to meet current students and sit in on a class. Also, what do you bring to the classroom environment that is unique? What is different about you and how did that come to be? Assume everyone has a good resume and view the essay as an opportunity to provide a more personal element to the application process. The adcom needs to start figuring out who you are and what you stand for.

I always viewed the interview as the culminating event after the adcom had looked at your resume and read your essay.  Now they finally get to meet you in person and need to decide if you’re a good fit for their program. Go into this with the intent to highlight the decision-making that led you here and the uniqueness you mentioned in your essay. At the same time, realize that they’re more interested in getting to know you, so be yourself. If you’re not, it will be obvious. A lot of these interviews can be more conversational than a structured Q & A. Smile, listen, show you’re enthusiastic about the idea of being in the program, and be prepared to ask insightful questions about the program (i.e. not ones that could be answered by visiting the school’s website). If you haven’t interviewed for anything in a while or feel a little uncomfortable, find a way to do mock interviews beforehand.

What led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA?  As a veteran, the decision to go back to school can be a difficult and stressful one, so you want a program that understands the value your background and experiences add to a situation, especially a group setting. Olin places a huge emphasis on leadership development in every aspect of the program, and they know the diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives vets bring to the table enhance this development, raise the bar in the classroom, and are attractive to employers.

I also really liked how flexible Olin was in terms of its curriculum. After the first semester, which is designed to increase your awareness in virtually every function of business, the rest of your classes are basically all electives. Olin has five different platforms (Corporate Finance & Investments, Consulting, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, and Operations & Supply Chain Management) to choose from if you want to have a specific focus, and each platform has specific concentrations within them if you want to concentrate on a niche. You can do up to two platforms, but you don’t have to do any. If you don’t want to focus on a platform and instead take a broad course load that touches a little bit on everything, that’s fine too. There’s also a lot of opportunities to take classes in the law school, med school, or wherever. You take whatever interests you.

Ultimately, Olin cares about you as an individual – your personal as well as your professional development. The small class size and the culture at Olin enables increased access to professors, alumni, and companies. That was immediately obvious when I started to look at Olin and talk to current students and recent grads. It was also very appealing to me that with this personalized approach, Olin was a globally minded program in every way – students, professors, curriculum, and international study opportunities

What would you ultimately like to achieve before you graduate?  I’m excited to get a deeper understanding of all the different industries. I think once you have that, finding a job in an industry and at a company that suits you well is a lot easier. There are so many options presented to you in the first couple weeks, it can be hard to keep them all straight at first, but everything starts falling into place as you talk to professors and executives, do research, and get going in your classes. I think a key component to achieving this is your internship in between your two school years. That will hopefully be a really good indication of whether or not you found the right industry. If you did, then you can begin to focus on what are the specific things that separate one company from the next within that industry.