Meet Cornell Johnson’s MBA Class Of 2026 by: Jeff Schmitt on December 05, 2024 | 1,766 Views December 5, 2024 Copy Link Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email Share on LinkedIn Share on WhatsApp Share on Reddit LOTS TO LEARN AND LOTS TO DO Mention Cornell and people think Ivy League. Tack on business school and the association swells to finance, hospitality, sustainability, and family business. According to business deans and MBA directors surveyed by U.S. News & World Report, the Johnson MBA also hosts the 5th-best real estate program. Ruohan Xiao, for one, is excited to leverage Johnson’s deep resources and connections in investment banking. “As challenging as the job market is nowadays for international students, I wanted to have the best investment banking program available. Johnson not only has a structured recruiting program through the Old Ezra Finance Club and a strong presence on Wall Street to secure the IB internship, but also programs like the Investment Banking Immersion to help me convert that internship offer into a full-time position.” Sarah Callaghan’s passion is sustainability. In a few months, she’ll be joining the Sustainable Global Enterprise Immersion to broaden her expertise in the field. That said, she has been struck by how sustainability has been integrated across the Johnson MBA curriculum. “Ensuring students develop an understanding of how environmental and social factors affect business functions is very much built into the curriculum. I think this kind of approach is incredibly important for any business school in 2024 that’s trying to equip business leaders with the skills needed to deal with 21st-century challenges.” Heng Du is taking full advantage of Big Red Ventures, the school’s student-run venture capital fund. “As someone passionate about innovation and venture capital, I see contributing to BRV as a valuable opportunity to deepen my understanding of the innovation ecosystem and gain insight into investor operations.” For fun, there is the ever-popular Diwali Celebration, a night of food and performances that was attended by 200 students last year. The spring Carnaval, full of dining and dancing each spring, is another eagerly-anticipated tradition at Johnson. For alum Albert Matlock III, Follies was the highlight of the school year. “[It is] an annual talent show where Johnson students, faculty, and staff creatively spoof all aspects of Johnson. This event embodies the perfect blend of humor, truth, community connection, and artistic expression. The Follies encourages our MBA community to come together and enables individuals to step out of their comfort zones. The sketches, based on our collective experiences over the years, are downright hilarious and showcase the camaraderie and creativity within our community.” Cascadilla Gorge on the campus of Cornell University A CLASS PROFILE The Class of 2026 features 282 MBA students. Like the previous class, they bring a 710 median GMAT to Sage Hall, with the median undergraduate GPA increasing from 3.35 to 3.4. As a whole, 35% of the class hail from outside the United States, down 7 points from the previous year. The percentage of women also dipped two points to 41%. Underrepresented minorities account for 22% of class, down 13 points. Another 9% of the class served in the U.S. military. As a whole, there are 34 countries represented in the class. As undergraduates, 28% of the class majored in Business-related fields, more than twice as many as Economics (14%), Engineering (12%), and Social Science (10%). Sciences and Computer Science make up 7% and 3% shares respectively, followed by Humanities (4%) and Law (1%). Professionally, nearly a fourth of the class – 23% — last worked in Finance and Insurance. Consultants hold a 17% share of the class, followed by Technology (14%). The class also includes students with experience in Consumer Products, Energy, Healthcare, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Media and Entertainment, Non-Profits, Real Estate, and eCommerce. HIGH ALUMNI SATISFACTION Looking at the rankings data, one pattern stands out: MBA alumni are happy with the experience. In February, Cornell Johnson cracked the Top 10 in the global Financial Times MBA Ranking. Notably, in the alumni survey conducted by The Financial Times, the school posted the world’s 3rd-highest score for its Alumni Network and the 7th-best score for Career Services. At the same time, based on the scope and quality of its faculty research, The Financial Times ranked Cornell Johnson as 6th-best for Faculty Research – a testament to the all-around excellence of its groundbreaking work. Such numbers were reinforced by The Princeton Review’s summer survey of MBA alumni and students. Here, the school achieved the highest average score for being a Family-Friendly campus. At the same time, Cornell Johnson ranked 2nd for Faculty Quality and 3rd for Campus Environment. What’s behind the popularity of the Cornell Johnson MBA? A few months ago, P&Q reached out to Vishal Gaur, the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean at the Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management. Along with sharing new developments in the program, Gaur also outlined how the school helps its students develop soft skills and a global mentality, as well as how career services is one of its differentiators. Here is Gaur’s thoughts on the state of the Johnson MBA. Cornell Johnson Dean Vishal Gaur at commencement 2024 AN INTERVIEW WITH VISHAL GAUR P&Q: What have been the two most important developments in your MBA program over the past year? What type of impact will they have on current and future MBAs? Gaur: “The most important development in our MBA program last year was an extensive year-long curriculum review that we conducted to align our education with the evolving needs of students and recruiters. Following this review, the first-year immersion courses in our MBA program will focus extensively on career preparation and the offerings in the second year of our MBA program will focus on experiential learning pathways, such as in leadership, sustainability, entrepreneurship, operations strategy, technology, emerging markets, etc., that are geared towards long-term career success. A second major development in our MBA program was the launch of a new management consulting immersion in the first year Spring semester of the MBA curriculum. Consistent with the curriculum review, this immersion seeks to better prepare students for careers in management consulting.” P&Q: Every January, P&Q publishes a “10 Business Schools to Watch” feature that highlights how schools are raising the bar and enhancing the student experience through innovation or expansion in programming or resources. What is one innovation that sets your school apart from your peer programs and makes you a business school to watch? Why is it so groundbreaking? Gaur: “One innovation that sets us apart is the 1+1 Option in our MBA program, which allows a selected number of students who have a background or interest in technology to spend the second year of their MBA education at our Cornell Tech campus. We are the only school in the country with two campuses, one of which is an engineering and technology campus, making this a unique and powerful innovation that takes advantage of the broader excellence of Cornell University. As technology becomes a bigger part of business, this option will enable our students to develop the right skills by working closely with computer scientists and engineers and participating in the Studio curriculum at Cornell Tech.” Sage Hall, Simon Wheeler for Cornell University P&Q: What types of programs do you offer to sharpen your students’ soft skills? What areas do you emphasize and how do you instill these skills in your students? Gaur: “The development of soft skills occurs throughout our MBA program, supported by our Leadership Programs office, various courses and experiential learning opportunities, and our culture of close-knit interactions in a diverse class. We emphasize that each student discovers where their strengths are and where they need to improve, and we apply our 4Cs framework consisting of Character, Cognition, Connection, and Courage as soft skills that are essential for success for future management leaders. Students begin with a Leading Teams core course, then engage deeply in their diverse core teams throughout the Fall semester, and then take a Critical Thinking core course, which has been enormously impactful since its introduction in 2014. In the Spring semester, they take up leadership positions in our community. Then in the second year, they practice hands-on skills by choosing from experiential learning opportunities such as Johnson Leadership Fellows, Johnson Board Fellows, Career Work Group Leaders, and student mentorship in the undergraduate Grand Challenges course in the Dyson School in the SC Johnson College of Business. A sizable number of students also participate in our highly coveted full-tuition Park Leadership Fellows program.” P&Q: What types of programming – through classroom instruction, extracurriculars, and treks – does your school offer to expose students to country-specific and global business practices? What have students told you were the most educational and fun aspects of these activities? Gaur: “We are proud of our Emerging Markets Institute (EMI), which offers an EMI Fellows program for our MBA students through which students take coursework, conduct a global project, and interact with world leaders through a global leadership conference. A unique and fun aspect of the EMI Fellowship is that it is open to all our MBA, Executive MBA, and specialized master students in both the Ithaca and Cornell Tech campuses. Hence, in addition to the exciting coursework, it brings together our rich and diverse student body across degree programs. In addition to the EMI Fellowship, we offer international study trip courses as well as courses in specialized topics such as international finance and strategic alliances to prepare our students for global leadership.” Cornell MBAs with the Big Red Bear P&Q: What are the most exciting new courses that your school is offering to MBAs this school year? What makes them so unique and valuable? Gaur: “In the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, our students can take outstanding courses not only inside Johnson School but also in the rest of the college. One exciting course is Strategic Decision Modeling, which introduces students to multifaceted analytical and decision-making scenarios they will face in a management consulting environment, be it a large consultancy, a specialized boutique, or an internal consulting group within a Fortune 500 company. The students develop these skills with hands-on training on data sets derived from real consulting engagements. Another course is Philanthropic Leadership, designed to help students grow as leaders and to develop their understanding of and capacity for guiding nonprofit organizations. The course enables students to systematically plan for volunteer leadership through board service and financial giving across the course of their careers. Participants engage in a series of experiential exercises, including engaging with local foundations.” P&Q: Who are two new professors who’ve joined your faculty in the past year? What do they teach and how will they be difference-makers in your MBA program? Gaur: We added 19 new faculty to the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business last year, of which four joined the Johnson School. Among these, Assistant Professors Arielle Anderer (PhD Wharton) and Yichun Hu (PhD Cornell Tech) teach the core course on Data Modeling and Analytics and, being experts in machine learning, they are planning to introduce our MBA students to the concepts and managerial issues associated with artificial intelligence in analytics.” P&Q: What types of support does your career center and alumni provide to MBA students? How have these services and relationships made your graduates more competitive in the marketplace? Gaur: “Johnson’s Career Management Center provides extensive career support and programming throughout a student’s tenure at Johnson. This begins with resume reviews and a webinar series even before they arrive on campus. Once students arrive, they work together with career advisors and participate in several workshops and prep sessions. Most of these activities are focused on career pathways, such as banking & finance, management consulting, tech product management, and general management. The Career Team works closely with alumni in coordinating and hosting campus visits for their companies. In addition, alumni are recruited to serve on career panels and conduct mock interviews.” Click on the links below to access in-depth student profiles from the Class of 2026. MBA Student Hometown Undergraduate Alma Mater Last Employer Marilyn Alvarenga-Gaxiola Anchorage, AK University of Alaska-Anchorage Frontier Tutoring Júlia Bonelli Fontes Belo Horizonte, Brazil Instituto Brasileiro de Mercado de Capitais (IBMEC) Anheuser-Busch InBev Sarah Callaghan Glasgow, Scotland Robert Gordon University The Scottish National Party at Westminster (UK Parliament) Heng Du Beijing, China Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics Strategy&, PwC (Paris) Jack Edelman New York City, NY University of Michigan L+M Development Partners Daniel Hancock Frisco, TX United States Military Academy U.S. Army Abubakar Idris Lagos, Nigeria Kogi State University The Information Stefany Jackson Detroit, MI Georgia State University Twelve Consulting Group Guy King Jackson, MS Northwestern University DRW Holdings Ava Metzger Anchorage, AK University of Alaska-Anchorage Naniq Global Logistics Ansh Palash Gupta New Delhi, India Purdue University Larsen & Toubro Ruohan Xiao Beijing, China Boston College HH Fund Previous PagePage 2 of 2 1 2