Meet Dartmouth Tuck’s MBA Class Of 2022

Tuck MBA Students, Fall of 2020

WHEN YOU’RE A TUCKIE, EVERYONE IS FAMILY

“Compared to schools located in major cities, yes, there is relatively “less” to do,” concedes 2020 grad Brent Quimby. “At the same time, that answer is a matter of perspective. I can confidently say that there is no shortage of things to do here. Where else can you, in one day, play pond hockey in the morning, go to class and speak with a few recruiters during the day, ski in the afternoon, and have dinner with a visiting executive in the evening?

And MBAs aren’t the only ones who are considered part of the Tuck community. 30% of the 2022 class is married, with 4% bringing children to Hanover. That makes the Tuck MBA experience very much a family affair, adds Quimby.

“The setting of Tuck was such that it would be my family’s MBA experience rather than just mine…My wife and son (affectionally titled Tuck Partner and Tiny Tuckie, respectively) have very much been a part of the experience. Among the many memories we have made, I’ll never forget playing hockey against my wife in Tuck’s annual Valentine’s Day game or watching my son parade through Stell Hall in his Halloween costume. These experiences served as the perfect backdrop for the personal and professional growth I was able to achieve by attending a school that could deliver a personalized education.”

A CLASS PROFILE

As a whole, the big news around the incoming class centers on one word: Diversity. “The Tuck Class of 2022 is 49% women,” notes Charles Phelps. “International representation by country citizenship (47) has never been higher, and I am blown away by the diversity of background in pre-MBA professional experience.”

This year, the percentage of women is seven points higher than the year before. One reason for this, according to Luke Anthony Peña, is greater scholarship support. “Before we invested in more scholarships, we were admitting a number of women who really wanted to be at Tuck but they had financial incentives from some other schools that made enrolling at Tuck unduly burdensome. So we doubled our scholarship budget over the last few years, and that’s greatly reduced some of those barriers.”

Despite the pandemic, the percentage of international students only dropped by one point to 37%. Overall, 73% of the class is American or Canadian citizens. Another 17% hails from Asia, followed by Europe (8%), Latin America (6%), and Africa and the Middle East (5%). U.S. minorities make up another 32% of the class.

Winter Carnival, 2019

Overall, Tuck admissions received 2,382 applications for a spot in the Class of 2022, up 350 applications from the year before. Ultimately, 289 students enrolled in the class. The class has earned degrees at 170 institutions (including 54 international schools) and boasts 75 majors. 16% of the class holds advanced degrees. In terms of testing, the class averaged a 720 GMAT and GREs of 161 (Verbal) and 159 (Quant). Overall, 39% of the class took the GRE.

As undergrads, the class collectively achieved a 3.48 GPA. The class skews to the poets side as 49% majored in the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences. STEM and Business majors account for 28% and 23% of the class, respectively.

On average, the class owns 63 months of work experience, which they have collected at 230 different employers. Financial Services and Consulting professionals comprise 25% and 24% of the incoming class. Nonprofit and Government also breaks double digits by holding 15% of class seats. The remaining segments include Technology (9%), Consumer Goods and Retail (7%), Healthcare (5%), Media and Entertainment (5%), Manufacturing (4%), and Energy (2%).

“I give credit to the T ’22s who chose to enroll,” Peña adds. “I think there was definitely a lot of uncertainty and many questions about what the fall might look like and what the experience would look like…There’s a real sense of resolve and commitment to making sure that we make the most of the experience and they come together”

THE ALUMNI NETWORK

Long known as a general management stalwart, the Tuck MBA ranks high among students and alumni alike for Entrepreneurship and instilling Innovation and Creativity according to the most recent Bloomberg Businessweek survey. In the same survey, Dartmouth earned the highest mark of any school for Alumni Network. One reason: Tuck grads make it a point to be responsive and engaged with current students, a form of payback for the alumni who went out of their way to help them. Such connections are also a function of size and location according to Renee Hirschberg, Director of Alumni Engagement and Advancement Operations, in a 2019 Q&A with P&Q.

“Tuck’s network is a product of our location, size, people, and program design. We’re in a beautiful, somewhat remote, quintessential New England college town, which in itself reinforces that when you choose Tuck you are choosing to join a tight-knit community. There are only about 285 students per class, and the first-year of our MBA program is designed so that students rotate assigned study groups each term, allowing them to get to know many of their classmates well.”

Tuck’s network also enabled the school to finish 2nd in the most Bloomberg Businessweek MBA ranking, along with finishing among the best for pay and curriculum and teaching. That wasn’t the only big news over the past 12 months. In January, the school adding a STEM option to sharpen students’ technical knowledge while enabling international students to extend their visas.

Hanover Drone Image

A Q&A WITH TUCK ADMINISTRATION

What is Tuck doing now to enhance the MBA experience? This fall, P&Q contacted school administration to learn more about new developments, as well as further explore Tuck’s vaunted alumni network and the joys of living in Hanover. Here are some thoughts from Joe Hall, Senior Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning; Matthew Slaughter, School Dean; and Amy Mitson, Co-Executive Director, Admissions and Financial Aid.

P&Q: What are the most exciting new developments at your program?

Joe Hall: “We’ve added a number of exciting curricular and experiential opportunities and introduced organizational changes that reflect the evolving needs of our students and community. I’ll highlight a few.

Dia Draper

A top priority at Tuck has been taking immediate steps to address systemic racism and improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at our school and beyond—one exciting early step is the recent appointment of Dia Draper as the first Assistant Dean for DEI at Tuck. In her new role, Dean Draper is partnering with teams across the school to develop recommendations in support of Tuck’s desire to improve in areas related to race, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, nationality, and socioeconomic status. An update shared with the Tuck community this fall outlines some of the actions already taken and the comprehensive, strategic DEI plan that our community is developing together.

In terms of classroom developments: we learned that our students are eager for additional coursework on analytics—specifically data exploration and visualization, and software. So we’ve expanded our core Analytics course to include an introduction to the R statistical programming language and data visualization software Tableau; the use of statistics for predictive analytics; spreadsheet modeling and optimization; and topics such as probability, utility, and prospect theory, and machine learning through neural networks and cluster analysis. Also newer is our STEM-designated Management Science and Quantitative Methods Option for MBA students. We introduced this option last academic year and have seen great uptake among students. To qualify, students take at least 15 elective credits from a menu of qualifying courses during the two-year MBA program. At present, there are more than 35 electives for students to choose from when pursuing the option.

New co-curricular events that incoming students may enjoy include the recently introduced “View from the Top” speaker series, regular Tuck Board Chats with distinguished alumni, and a new civic engagement speaker series. We’ve worked to ensure that Tuck students have every opportunity to hear from senior business leaders on the greatest challenges facing their organizations during these historic times. Speakers this fall have included former senior advisor to Barack Obama Valerie Jarrett; Langley Steinert T’91, founder & CEO of CarGurus; Niraj Shah, co-founder and CEO of Wayfair, and Chief People Officer at Peloton Mariana Garavaglia T’08, to name a few.

Joe Hall

P&Q: What are the two most unique or differentiating features of your full-time program?

Joe Hall: “No other business school offers a personalized and immersive MBA experience quite like Tuck—I believe this whole-heartedly. The differentiating features summarized in two words: scale and focus.

Because of our scale – our class size is intentionally set around 285 or so each year – and our location, students are able to fully immerse themselves in their MBA studies and forge life-long connections with fellow classmates, faculty, and alumni in ways that enrich their academic experience and challenge them to be not only better leaders, but better versions of themselves.

In terms of focus, the heart of what we do at Tuck is the full-time MBA program. This has remained true throughout our 120-year history. We have no other degree programs. There is no Ph.D. program, no Executive MBA, no part-time, night, or weekend MBA, and no undergraduate business major. Our resources and attention are devoted entirely to MBA students and delivering an experience that is personal, connected, and transformative.

You can see this first-hand in our required core curriculum and intensive first-year experience, which provide a strong foundation in functional expertise, analytical skills, and personal leadership. With experiential courses like the First-Year Project and OnSite Global Consulting, students take their classroom knowledge to the test by working with real-world clients on timely business challenges. Beyond their first year, students go on to personalize their MBA experience and career goals through timely electives, through work with our six Centers for research and application and experiential opportunities like TuckGO, and through one-on-one mentorship and coaching with our Career Services office and our famously loyal alumni network.

At Tuck, you have a faculty and staff that know you and are better equipped to support you because our program offerings are focused on you.”

Pages 3: Interview with Tuck Leadership, including Dean Matthew Slaughter (Continued)

Page 4: In-depth profiles of 12 members of the Class of 2022

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