Meet Dartmouth Tuck’s MBA Class Of 2024

Tuck Orientation – Class of 2024

A CLASS PROFILE

Data tells a story. Looking at the 2024 class profile, you could say Tuck is increasingly diverse and selective. Regarding the latter, the class brings a 726 average GMAT to Hanover, up two points from the previous year. As a whole, GMAT scores stretched from a 610 low to a 790 high among class members. The GRE was popular among first-years for admissions. 38% of the class submitted a GRE score, with the average coming in at 162 for both Verbal and Quant. Here, 150 made the class low, while the class high hit 170. In turn, the classes’ average undergraduate GPA reached 3.52, with the lowest point being 2.7.

True to form, women again represented a significant share of the class – 45% to be exact. U.S. minorities accounted for 31% of the class. As a whole, international students hold a 43% share of the class and hail from 38 countries. That includes a 22% share from Asia and a 8% and 7% share from Europe and Latin America respectively. Another 31% of the class brought their partners to Hanover, including 5% who have children.

Academically, the class graduated from 109 undergraduate institutions and completed 76 majors, with another 12% holding advanced degrees. Like the Wharton School, Tuck leans towards the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, where 41% of the class earned degrees. 30% of the class majored in STEM-related fields, followed by Business at 28%. Professionally, the class has worked in 232 organizations before joining Tuck. Financial Services and Consulting hold 24% and 23% of the class seats respectively. Nonprofit and Government (11%), Healthcare (10%), and Technology (10%) also reached double digits. The remainder of the class includes segments who’ve held roles in Consumer Goods, Energy, Media and Entertainment, and Manufacturing.

Aerial views of campus in spring.

A TOP CAREER CENTER

Looking for a positive sign for the future classes. The Class of 2022 cracked the $200K mark in total compensation at $202,900 – a 15% improvement over the previous year. In fact, Tuckies earned the same starting base as their MBA counterparts at Harvard, Wharton, and Chicago Booth. At the same time, 98% of the class had landed jobs within three months within three months of graduation. Better still, one grad even earned a $128,500 signing bonus.

“You need leaders in your organization that can balance their hard skills with a healthy level of empathy and an ability to thrive in teams,” explained Stephen Pidgeon, Tuck’s executive director of career services, in a 2022 interview with P&Q. “Tuck MBAs can, by and large, be plugged into any group environment and find success because they are adept at creating spaces where people can bring their best selves to the table.”

Tuck’s career services center also gives MBAs a hidden advantage. Ashwin Chandrasekhar points out that Tuck’s career services center ranks among the best in the world – a sentiment backed by the 2023 Financial Times student survey. He attributes the center’s success to the high ratio of advisors-to-students, a sentiment echoed by Pidgeon. However, Pidgeon adds that wide-ranging industry expertise, coupled with the center being populated by Tuck alumni, further differentiates it from other programs.

“I think we can put our hand on our heart and say we have the most well-resourced career services team among our peers,” Pidgeon (’07) explained in a 2022 interview with P&Q. “Our career advisors have experience in the industries our students seek to enter, and many of us, as Tuck alumni, have gone through the process already. We meet one-on-one with students as many times as they’d like to and get to know them personally. We know what they want, what they don’t want, where they’re coming from, and how best to help them tell their story. When I’m with a student, because I know them personally, I’m not delivering feedback at arms’ length—I’m giving honest feedback.”

And Pidgeon is focused on his core constituency too. “The heart of Tuck is really its full-time, two-year MBA program,” he adds. “What that means in terms of Career Services is that, if you knock on my door, I’m not meeting with an undergraduate or an executive MBA student. Our focus is you, day in and day out.”

Tuck Campus

ALUMNI ALWAYS PITCHING IN

Not surprisingly, Tuck ranked 3rd for Campus Environment in the 2023 Princeton Review survey, while also picking up the 2nd-hghest score for its Management programming and 7th-best for its Faculty. By the same token, the program ranked 4th for Alumni according to The Financial Times. Indeed, you’ll find Tuck alumni remain heavily engaged in their school. Despite Hanover’s rural location, 550 alumni return to campus each year to speak and mentor MBAs. And they don’t just invest their time. In 2022, Tuck beat their $250 million dollar alumni fund-raising goal. Among Tuck’s 10,700 alumni members, 81% contributed to the campaign – the highest response rate of any business school. Lia Parker, a 2022 grad, noticed the difference among alumni from day one.

“When researching business schools, I was struck by the Tuck community. Throughout the application process, numerous Tuckies and Tuck alumni offered their time and networks to help me learn more about the program. Their generosity and our conversations illuminated what makes Tuck so special—the community. Tuck’s students, faculty, staff, administration, and alumni are intelligent and kind. What’s more, they are equally committed to growing personally as they are to supporting others’ growth.”

That buy-in is reflected by a $52 million dollar gift the school received last year to fund a global summit on health, wealth and sustainability. It was another achievement racked up by Dean Matthew Slaughter, who received a third term in January after a tenure that has seen the school grow in areas like data analytics, DEI, and experiential learning. Let’s just say Dean Slaughter isn’t resting on his laurels after Tuck was included in P&Q’s 10 MBA Programs To Watch in 2023. In a 2023 Q&A with P&Q, Dean Slaughter shared some innovative programming being rolled out, as well as game-changing innovations enhancing the student experience.

AN INTERVIEW WITH DEAN MATTHEW SLAUGHTER

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

Matthew Slaughter. Courtesy photo

MS: “We continually push the boundaries of knowledge creation and dissemination at Tuck to keep our curriculum and our students at the forefront of business. This academic year, we added two new course types: Tuck Sprints and Tuck Practicums.

Tuck Sprints run fast (about five hours of total instruction) to examine a timely, emergent, or topical subject not currently covered in other Tuck courses—or to dive deep into a focused area that expands on material covered at a higher level in an existing course. Sprint Courses this academic year tackle U.S.-China relations; managing business under sanctions; horizon scanning and the latest in foresight methods; mentorship at the intersection of race, gender, and nationality; and decision biases in the NBA. Several more are in the works, too.

Practicums are experiential courses emphasizing the application of knowledge gained in other Tuck courses through hands-on, live project work with real people, real organizations, or real assets. One Tuck Practicum already offered this academic year was the Early-Stage Venture Capital Workshop Practicum led by Jim Feuille D’79, adjunct professor and faculty advisor for the Center for Private Equity and Venture Capital. Other examples of potential future practicums include a private equity practicum and a diversity entrepreneurship practicum that will partner MBA students with clients in Tuck’s Diversity Business executive education programs.

Another development worthy of celebration is the recent launch of the Tuck Initiative on Workplace Inclusion, founded and led by renowned Professor Ella Bell Smith. While Tuck has long been engaged with workplace inclusion and transformation, this Initiative formally expands our school’s presence and partnership with other leading entities committed to developing workplaces that are truly inclusive—along lines including race, gender, and class.

Taken together, all these innovations mean our students are more engaged than ever with the opportunities and pressing challenges facing business organizations and broader society today.”

Tuck Orientation

P&Q: What is the most innovative thing you have introduced into the MBA program in recent years? How has it been a game changer for your program?

MS: “TuckGO, our suite of for-credit global experiential courses, is frequently cited by students, faculty, and alumni alike as a hallmark of the Tuck experience. TuckGO courses draw on so many of our school’s distinct capabilities: rigor and relevance of learning goals; trusting teamwork among faculty, staff, and students; and the door-opening power of our alumni across the planet. At graduation each year, I am struck by how many students say that TuckGO was one of the highlights of their entire two-year experience. While we’re traveling internationally again for TuckGO now, the pandemic upended most TuckGO travel in 2021 and 2022. This disruption spurred innovation, and as Tuck has done for 123 years and counting, we responded to the unexpected with ingenuity.

Thanks to professors Ella Bell Smith and Adam Kleinbaum, we offered students the opportunity to do a Global Insight Expedition (GIX) within the U.S. and explore different communities and cultures without leaving the country. The GIX, “Unpacking Systemic Racism in America and Its Impact for Leadership”, was themed around the Freedom Riders movement of the 1960s. Students and faculty traveled to Washington, D.C., before moving on to Montgomery and Selma, Alabama. Along the way, the group met with members of congress and community leaders to hear about the leadership imperatives of diversity and inclusion. They also visited important historical and cultural institutions, like the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, the Legacy Museum and the Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, and the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

It is imperative for today’s business leaders to understand the importance of diversity and inclusion and the role that systemic racism has played in our country’s history. This innovative GIX gave Tuck students the opportunity to dig deeper into these extremely important issues here in the U.S.

We also offered an experimental course that adapted a Global Insight Expedition (GIX) into virtual reality. Taught by Professor Vijay Govindarajan, Virtual Global Insight Expedition (VGIX) transported Tuck students to Tamil Nadu, India through immersive digital technology at a time when we could not travel with students because of the pandemic. Utilizing 360-degree virtual reality videos, as well as real-time interviews with clients via Zoom, students engaged in a robust learning journey across rural and urban India exploring culture, society, economics, politics, and technology. The creation of the VGIX course, coupled with our learnings during the pandemic, spurred the creation of a proactive AR/VR working group at Tuck to explore ways we can leverage innovative technologies across the Tuck MBA experience—in other courses, co-curricular offerings, and elsewhere. We’re excited by the potential of utilizing such technology and look forward to evaluating their impact further.”

Dartmouth Tuck Interior. Tuck photo

P&Q: Who is a standout in your faculty or administration – the kind of person whom graduates talk about a decade after they leave? How does he or she personify your school culture and the best of your MBA program?

MS: “Each fall, we welcome alumni back to Hanover for Tuck Reunion. For many of our returning alumni, the person they most want to see, aside from their classmates, is Sally Jaeger. In her many years at Tuck, the last several as associate dean for the MBA program, Sally has made a remarkable impact on the lives of thousands of Tuck students. Quite literally, at Tuck Reunion and around the world, our alumni break into applause when Sally appears—or is even mentioned!

Sally encapsulates many of the qualities that make our school extraordinary—her incredible warmth, welcoming attitude, and willingness to go above and beyond to help students. She makes people feel seen and heard in a way that empowers them to bring their whole selves to Tuck and thus to co-invest with us to create a transformative experience. Sally listens to every community member who approaches her because she understands that people are the heart of Tuck. Our school would not be what it is today without Sally’s influence, and we are so lucky to have had her wisdom helping guide us for decades.”

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