Meet the MBA Class of 2025: Rebecca Conchos, Dartmouth College (Tuck)

Rebecca Conchos

Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

“Educator, partner, neurodiverse learner striving to remove barriers and bring out the best in others.”

Hometown:

Born: Boone, NC

Raised: Jacksonville, FL

Chosen Home: Houston, TX

Fun Fact About Yourself: I was part of a Guinness Book of World Records attempt for “World’s Largest Water Balloon Fight.” My fingertips have recovered from tying water balloons.

Undergraduate School and Major:

University of Florida, BSBA Marketing

University of Houston, MEd Administration and Supervision

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Multilingual Programs Team Leader at Houston Independent School District

What has been your first impression of the Tuck MBA students and alumni you’ve met so far. Tell us your best Tuck story so far. Members of the Tuck community strike me as being uniquely present, ready to connect, and actively looking for ways to help one another. This shined at the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management’s Orientation Program in New Orleans, which lasted five days. During the consulting career track session, I lingered to connect with the practitioners after the session ended.  When I finally turned to exit the hall, I saw some fellow consortium members emerge from my peripheral vision. There were about 12 people waiting for me to join them before transitioning to the next activity. It caught me by surprise. I am thankful to be part of a community who chooses to spend time together.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of Dartmouth Tuck’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? Unlike many institutions, Tuck has one MBA program that has been intentionally designed and refined to develop students in a specific way with a core curriculum that everyone takes in the first year, and then electives that allow you to chart your own path in the second year. It is exciting to see glimpses of the ways the core programming is structured to encourage individuals to bring their whole selves to the community, experience challenges, and grow in new ways. I am excited to experience Tuck Launch and the core MBA programming to see how inclusive, collaborative communities are built.

What excites you the most about coming to live in Hanover? What is the one activity you can’t wait to do? As someone who spent most of my life in larger cities, I am excited to live among the trees and farms in the Upper Valley. I’ve heard great things about the variety of locally sourced products available, and I am looking forward to cooking meals alongside my peers with these ingredients. My classmates have distinct experiences and food preferences and I’m looking forward to making memories and great food together.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at Dartmouth Tuck? I am excited to engage with a variety of affinity groups on campus. As a neurodiverse, multilingual, multiracial, queer woman, it’s hard to pick just one! I hope to use the Return on Inclusion Fund. This was created to promote collaboration among student clubs with a focus on a cultural educational experience or creating a sense of belonging within the Tuck community. Using this, I hope to create joint experiences between clubs and promote intersectionality. I gravitate towards opportunities to build bridges between different groups, and I am excited that Tuck has financially committed to building an inclusive community for everyone.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: In 2020, I launched a district-wide program for distinguished teachers to mentor new teachers who were transitioning to our district. Working alongside four teacher program leads, we designed programming to kick off the community-building and technical skills training for teacher mentors as we prepared to begin our first school year teaching virtually during the pandemic. This program provided personalized support to 900 teachers who were new to our school district. I mentored twelve secondary teachers and six teacher mentors during the first year of the program. I was excited to see all my teachers choose to continue teaching a second year at their schools.

What do you hope to do after graduation (at this point)? After graduation, I intend to transition to consulting and return to Houston. I am excited to join Bain & Company as a 2024 summer associate. Shout out to the current students, alumni, and career services folks who supported me during the early recruiting process. My experience in K-12 education instilled a sense of responsibility to create more pathways for others in corporate business environments. As I grow with the firm, I hope to continue my investment in the local community through volunteer work with local school districts and fund-raising for scholarships through the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? Rice Jones, Emory Goizueta, Rochester Simon, IU Kelley, UT McCombs, and Washington Olin.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into Dartmouth Tuck’s MBA program? When applying to Tuck, I was the most concerned about my standardized test scores. I have a learning disability, and negotiating accommodations with the testing provider was a part of setting myself up for success on the test. Give yourself the time to take practice assessments and connect your experiences to functional limitations of your disability, if you have one. Remember that you can also request accommodations during corporate recruiting processes.

DON’T MISS: MEET THE MBA CLASS OF 2025: INSPIRING, INVENTIVE, IMPACTFUL