Meet Yale SOM’s MBA Class Of 2026

STORIES BEYOND THE NUMBERS

In a blog post by Bruce DelMonico, assistant dean for admissions, the class includes students from many walks of life. DelMonico notes that one first-year earned four gold medals in Chinese kickboxing. Athletically, the class features triathletes, open water divers, and ski instructors. Even more, the class is highly artistic according to DelMonico.

“Class members play such instruments as piano, trumpet, cello, bassoon, organ, guitar, violin, viola, ukulele, harmonica, saxophone, sitar, drums, harmonica, euphonium, guzheng, and flute. Many others are interested in singing, listening to and creating music, and different forms of dance. One of them sang in a choir in front of British royalty, another performed solo on the piano twice at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, and yet another is a national ballroom dance champion.”

Such wide-ranging interests reflect a historical norm for Yale SOM MBAs, says Michaela Barker, a 2024 alum and Best & Brightest MBA. “My experiences with my fellow students have ranged from them supporting me at my Bella Reign concert for my “Lioness” album release, watching “Hadestown” on Broadway, hanging out at the world’s largest indoor zip lining course, participating in cake baking competitions, and performing at Diwali celebrations. Business students don’t just dress in neutral colors and stare at Excel sheets all day. At SOM, we make music, create patents, ride horses, sew jackets, sculpt mugs, do standup comedy, volunteer at soup kitchens, advocate for equity, and always ensure that we are learning both inside and outside of the classroom.”

INTEGRATIVE CURRICULUM

Inside the classroom, Yale SOM is best known for its integrative core curriculum. Forget the traditional setup of courses revolving around marketing, finance, operations, and leadership. Instead, Yale SOM taps into its liberal arts roots, breaking courses out by various business constituencies and immersing students into their perspectives. For example, the program features courses focused on understanding the motivations and responsibilities of investors, executives, customers, regulators, employees, and competitors. In doing so, first-years are exposed to the external forces buffeting organizations and the internal forces guiding its operation. As a result, they can better understand, in context, how each function is interconnected with others. Even more, they can see the impact of various decisions across various stakeholders.

Bottom line: SOM MBAs leave the core understanding the questions to ask and factors to consider in crafting holistic solutions, ones that balance the ever-evolving needs of different business constituencies. In the process, faculty weave in the fundamentals of strategy, accounting, and economics, anchoring their understanding to real-world situations. This innovative approach appealed heavily to Evan Gao Gresser.

“I believe that the best approach to solving problems and making decisions, whatever they may be, is to analyze them from multiple perspectives and angles. Yale SOM is truly unlike any other MBA program in their devotion to training students to approach business from multiple perspectives. SOM’s Organizational Perspectives courses take students around each seat at the table, teaching us to think like The Consumer, The Competitor, The Investor and much more, before finally sitting us back down as executives with the responsibility to make decisions.”

For Ellie Wachtel, a 2024 P&Q MBA To Watch, the best part of the core was the Workforce course. “Workforce was the perfect MBA inflection point: a moment to evaluate your pre-SOM workplace, take stock of trends and best practices, and envision the future. The three professors did an excellent job of sharing research, hearing from and contextualizing our own experiences, and giving us actionable items and concepts for when we return to the workforce. It has helped me frame my current job search, to appreciate motivating job design elements and priorities.”

RAW IS REAL

Raw cases are another unique wrinkle to the Yale SOM MBA program. In most MBA courses, students are given a case, a business storyline replete with characters, plot, and conflicts, to analyze. The goal is to place students in the shoes of a leader, so they can experience the uncertainties, tradeoffs, and limits inherent in making decisions. When you want it real, you want it raw. That’s how the SOM delivers its cases. Instead of just pre-packaged cases with guardrails on what students can access, SOM faculty supplement cases with everything from financial reports to videos to take students deeper into situations while widening the points available for discussion.

“[The raw case] replicates the way information is given to us in the real world rather than in the structured formats commonly used,” writes Ayush Dubey. “This real-life inspired problem-solving approach would inform my ability to navigate complex situations and prioritize relevant data and information to take quick, actionable decisions in my professional journey.”

Another differentiator at Yale SOM? During second year, students can take as many courses as they want outside Yale SOM. Along the way, they can pair their business toolkit with highly technical or specialized knowledge from other disciplines. It is an advantage that Sergio Bolivar intends to take full advantage of next fall.

“As someone who is looking to gain a well-rounded, comprehensive education, I am interested in the prospect of attending classes offered by other departments, such as the Jackson School of Global Affairs or Yale Law School. By enrolling in an integrated curriculum, I will be able to explore my interests outside of the traditional business curriculum, which may influence the choices I make throughout my career.”

DISTINCTIVE COURSES

Ask students and alumni and they’ll say Yale SOM’s programming also hits the mark. Looking ahead, Luna Xiao plans to become a sustainability consultant. For her, the MBA program’s deep resources and focus on climate change will enable her to make this transition.

“Courses like Financing Green Technologies and Energy System Analysis [will] help me generate a better understanding of the current green market.  In addition, the integration with other schools within the broader Yale umbrella also attracts me a lot because being a successful consultant requires much more than the education in finance and technical skills in evaluating the event at issue.  A deep understanding in different areas such as history, geopolitics, psychology is also critically important, given the market fluctuations are driven by all these factors.”

Among alumni, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld’s Strategic Leadership Across Sectors was another unforgettable course, says Michaela Barker. “This course allows students to have face-to-face interactions with Fortune 500 CEOs, advocacy specialists, heads of media and entertainment, government officials, and more. What I love about this class is not only that Professor Sonnenfeld brings in these phenomenal speakers, but that he encourages students to ask tough questions, network, and have a transparent dialogue with individuals who we may never be able to meet otherwise.”

UNFORGETTABLE TRADITIONS

When it comes to popular student traditions, Barker points to Voices, a weekly gathering where students share their personal stories and struggles. She describes it as a place where classmates can “humanize” themselves and “let their guard down and be vulnerable.” Another event, the Internship Fund Auction, was an equally profound event for Ellie Wachtel.

“Each spring, faculty, staff, and fellow students donate an experience, skill, or item to raise funds for students pursuing internships in the social sector. Last year, there were frisbee and tennis lessons, fine dining culinary experiences, boat trips, and countless outings with professors. My group won dinner and board games with Professor Lesley Meng. She welcomed us into her home, and we spent a delightful evening eating pizza, playing with her dogs, and trading tales from the student and faculty experiences within Evans Hall. We had such a good time we forgot to play board games!”

Of course, students and alumni alike point to Yale SOM’s hidden advantage: New Haven, Connecticut itself. The area is packed with picturesque running and cycling trails, not to mention some of the country’s best pizza joints. Yale SOM’s Evans Hall remains one of the most stunning, spacious, and technologically advanced business school facilities worldwide. Better yet, the SOM student community isn’t just connected by values and vision, adds Gurkamal Pannal, a 2024 P&Q MBA To Watch.

“New Haven is a small community and most graduate students live within a few blocks of each other in the East Rock neighborhood. It’s very common to run into classmates while picking up a coffee or during a morning run. I’ve been fortunate to connect with a lot of my classmates in the classroom, but also organically while going about my day.”

THE STUDENT DIFFERENCE

Yale SOM has long been recognized as the #1 business school for Non-Profit programming according to business school deans and directors surveyed by U.S. News this year. In addition, the school notched the highest score for its Consulting programming in a 2024 student survey conducted by The Princeton Review. That doesn’t count being ranked 10th this year in both the U.S. News and CEOWORLD rankings. While the school’s mission grabs the headlines and its distinctive curriculum stirs interest, it is the students who ultimately make Yale SOM a force in business education. Make no mistake: the school attracts a very different type of student.

“Yale SOM looks for those with genuine desire to change the world; people who always try to make what they believe is the right choice even if it’s a difficult one,” observes Evan Gao Gresser. “When considering Yale, think about some of the most critical decisions you’ve made in your life. Why did you make that decision? What did you choose to sacrifice? How might it have made a small piece of the world just a little bit better?”

MBA Student	Hometown	Undergraduate Alma Mater	Last Employer
Ari Amitai	Binyamina, Israel	Technion – Israel Institute of Technology	Microsoft
Sergio Bolivar	Chicago, IL	Ohio State University	McDonald’s Corporation
Sarah Bond	Rochester, NY	Duke University	Bain & Company
Martha Camacho	Mexico City, Mexico	Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México ITAM	Murguía Consultores
Ayush Dubey	Mumbai, India	Indian Institute of Technology Bombay	Procter & Gamble
Evan Gao Gresser	Silver Spring, MD	University of Maryland	Capital One Bank
Maria Fernanda Heredia	New Orleans, LA	Williams College	Pfizer, Inc.
Jasmine Marshall	Raleigh, NC	University of North Carolina	McKinsey & Company
Kavi Saxena	Lakeland, FL	Vanderbilt University	Charter School Growth Fund
Samantha Schulteis	Biglerville, PA	Duke University	Guidehouse
Max Siwik	Cleveland, OH	Denison University	Cobalt Service Partners
Luna (Yanzhe) Xiao	Qingdao, China	East China University of Science and Technology	International Monetary Fund