Meet NYU Stern’s MBA Class Of 2023

A BANNER ADMISSIONS YEAR

By the numbers, Stern enjoyed one of its best years ever during the 2020-2021 cycle. Notably, the school receive 3,958 applications for a spot in the Class of 2023. That’s up 306 applications from the previous years. However, that’s not the best number. Stern’s acceptance rate dropped from 29% to 19%, making it one of the most selective MBA programs in the United States. By the same token, the class size also rose from 317 to 360 students. However, this is more bounce back to normal, as the Class of 2021 had reached 350 students.

Along with more applications and students, the Class of 2023 brings a 729 average GMAT, up six points. To put this in context, Harvard Business School traditionally hovers at 730. Better still, NYU Stern’s average ties Columbia Business School (and bests Northwestern Kellogg, Berkeley Haas, Dartmouth Tuck, and Yale SOM). Average GPAs also mirrored last year’s results at 3.59. In addition, GREs came in at 162 for both verbal and quant, with 18% of the class submitting GRE scores. Women account for 41% of the class, down twoJ points. In contrast, the percentage of international students held steady at 32%, with the class hailing from 32 countries overall.

Business majors make up 27% of the class, edging out STEM (24%) and Social Sciences (20%) for the largest segments of the class. Economics majors hold 16% of the class seats followed by Arts and Humanities at 13%. Following tradition, the largest percentage of the class (23%) last worked in Financial Services. The remainder of the class splinters off into Consulting (12%), Consumer Products and Retail (9%), Military and Government (9%), Technology (9%), Nonprofits, Arts and Education (8%), Entertainment and Media (7%), Healthcare (5%), and Real Estate (4%). The class also includes representatives from Public Relations, Energy, Engineer, Law, and Manufacturing.

EQ + IQ

If you ask Stern administration about a fundamental of the Stern experience, they are likely to cite the EQ + IQ difference. By that, they mean that change starts with culture — and the best cultures starts with self-aware communicators and team-builders who can manage their emotions and empathize with the perspectives and experiences of others. Stern recruits for these qualities…and students join the program to be around peers who share them.

“As a human resources professional, I have found that many employee relations issues stem from miscommunication,” explains Brittany Fidalgo. “Being able to clearly communicate thoughts and feelings to others and to understand another person’s perspective greatly enhances collaboration and the overall experience in the workplace.”

Saskia van Rheenen witnessed a similar dynamic during her career. “I have experienced the value of EQ when senior leaders showed that they not only are subject matter experts, but also can motivate and inspire the people in their teams. I truly believe that people are a company’s biggest asset, and they are at their best when they feel valued and engaged. A leader that shows empathy, social interaction, self-awareness, and self-regulation will play a big part in this.”

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE VICE DEAN

EQ isn’t the only differentiator with the Stern MBA program. In August, P&Q reached out to JP Eggers, Vice Dean of MBA and Graduate Programs at the NYU Stern School to learn more about the program’s unique features and new developments. Here are Eggers’ thoughts on the state of Stern…

P&Q: What are the two most exciting developments at your program and how will they enrich the MBA experience for current and future MBAs?

Eggers: “We’re in the business of developing leaders who can anticipate, harness and drive change, especially in times of uncertainty and when there is no apparent road map. If we’ve learned anything over the past 16 months, we know these skills are more essential than ever as organizations were forced to pivot and innovate quickly to thrive given rapidly changing conditions. So we aim to create conditions like this as part of the MBA experience to help students hone their leadership agility and skills.

One such effort led by Stern’s Leadership Accelerator was the debut this past spring of its first live case, an emerging educational form Stern has created. My colleague Professor Nathan Pettit, Director of Stern’s Leadership Accelerator, and his team wrote and designed the live case with Stern MBA and veteran Natalie Ashbridge (MBA ’21), inspired by her military experience in dealing with crises. Teams of first-year MBAs spent seven hours in a high-touch leadership experience in which every decision, both large and small, mattered for each team and determined their respective next steps along the journey. Students characterized the experience as real and, at times, uncomfortable, which was exactly the intent given what we know they will face as future managers and leaders. Coaches shared personalized feedback as part of the process.”

This type of real-world learning is a foundational element of the Stern MBA experience and has been for two decades now. In fact, this year officially marked the 20th year milestone. We’re extraordinarily proud to have been at the forefront of real-world, real-time learning in partnership with faculty and organizations in New York and globally. What started 20 years ago as mostly extracurricular offerings has evolved to more than 30 academic courses and projects with 100+ corporate partners in diverse areas such as global sustainability, technology, entrepreneurship, asset management, and more. We call it the Stern Solutions Method, which is based on an iterative process of immersing, acting, and reflecting and deeply rooted in the interactions between faculty, student, and partner organization. One of the newest courses we introduced in January 2021 was called “Tech Solutions,” where students worked hands-on with Rocket Mortgage and Dow Jones.”

P&Q: What are two biggest differentiating features of your MBA program? How do each of these enrich the learning of your MBA students?

Eggers: “It’s really difficult to pin down just two things, but I would have to say access to NYC and what we call our size paradox.

Our location in downtown Manhattan’s Greenwich Village is an unmatched asset. We are deeply connected to the industries in our neighborhood and the surrounding areas — tech, finance, entertainment, media and more. We bring New York City right into our classroom with adjuncts who work in industry and teach our students. And we partner with companies on real-world projects through our Stern Solutions offerings. Alumni are a quick walk or subway ride away for networking.  Not to mention that students can readily explore the City’s culture from food to art to music and more.

Stern is also one of the largest business schools with an exceptionally large faculty. This allows us to offer one of the greatest number of elective offerings among our peers as well as a menu of more than 20 specializations that is constantly evolving based on student interest and changing market dynamics. Over the past few years, for example, we introduced new MBA specializations in Tech Product Management and Healthcare. Students can opt to specialize in up to three areas.”

P&Q: In recent years, there have been several areas that have gained increased prominence in business school programming, including STEM, analytics, artificial intelligence and digital disruption. How does your full-time MBA program integrate these concepts across its curriculum?

Eggers: “Stern was among the early group of MBA programs to receive the STEM designation for its entire full-time MBA program in 2020, given that STEM skills are in high demand and help our MBA students compete for jobs.  But even well before then, our finance faculty noted a sea change underway in finance as technology began to disrupt traditional business models and norms. In fact, one of my colleagues, David Yermack, created what I believe to be the first bitcoin course at a business school back in 2014. This evolved into our Fintech MBA specialization in 2016, another first among MBA programs.

We also offer dedicated electives on AI not only through our Tech Ops department, but also in Management.  And this summer, the Endless Frontier Labs (EFL), a program for early-stage science and technology-based startups at NYU Stern, launched its expansion into a third Digital Tech track. The track, which supplements the existing Life Sciences and Deep Tech tracks, serves startups developing novel software, artificial intelligence, machine learning, or data and digital services with applications in finance, health, security, supply chains, education, retail, media, e-commerce, and related verticals. MBA students have the opportunity to work first-hand with these startups through a companion class taught by my colleague and EFL Founding Director Deepak Hegde. Some students have even secured full-time offers with these startups after graduation. One last example — Stern’s investment in its newest center, The Center for the Future of Management, features a strong focus on the management, ethical, and leadership aspects of the Future of Work. This is an important part of the conversation — it’s not just how technology is being used, but how we manage people and ideas in a tech-driven world.”

P&Q: What have you learned during the pandemic and the shift to hybrid or remote learning and how will they impact the MBA experience going forward?

Eggers: “We learned the importance of designing learning experiences for the learner. Either in person or online (not hybrid) are the best models. We offered both in person and online course sections this spring and many evening electives this coming academic year will allow students to choose either an in person or online option — the latter which is particularly appealing to our Langone Part-time MBA students who are working full time while earning their MBA.”

P&Q: The MBA program draws resources from one of the country’s largest undergraduate business schools. How are you able to leverage these benefits from your undergraduate and other graduate programs to enhance the learning experience for MBAs?

Eggers: “The way I would frame this is that we have one Stern faculty, and a sizable one at that, along with a broad portfolio of programs spanning undergraduate to MBA to executive. As a School, this allows us not only to attract a diverse set of faculty interests but also to innovate more quickly and offer more electives and more choice to our MBA students. Additionally, given the sheer size and strength of our alumni network, we are able to draw from a much broader pool of speakers to come back to campus for conferences, mentorship, and for recruiting.”

P&Q: Last year, Stern rolled out its new core curriculum. Talk to us about what this programming involved and why it was innovative? Also, what feedback did you receive from first-years about your new approach?

Eggers: “The cohort that started in fall 2020 was the first to engage in Change:Studio and the new Business Analytics course, the latter which became a required part of the core (above and beyond the typical Statistics requirement). The idea that students take a course focused on analytics as a requirement is a differentiator and a testament to how these skills have rapidly become table stakes for any MBA student, regardless of career path.

Change:Studio is a co-curricular initiative that develops a student’s capacity to impact and drive change — a call to action that is core to who we are, what we teach and how we develop leaders at Stern. Students choose from a menu of options across three pillars: Leadership Development, such as the live case I mentioned earlier; Experiential Learning, including the projects designed with our Stern Solutions method; and Entrepreneurship, including our Entrepreneurs Challenge, to cite one example. We place such importance on instilling in our students both the skills and mindset to embrace change that we’ve now started this conversation with our applicants. This admissions cycle we added a new essay question on the MBA application asking applicants how they view change by filling in the blank and explaining it: Change: _____ it.

For me, I prefer to think in terms of “Change: Create it.” Our goals at Stern span far beyond just teaching students to anticipate or respond to change, but helping them lead the charge as change sweeps across all firms and industries.”

Next Page: Profiles of 8 Stern MBAs