Long-Time Stanford AdCom Joins The Other Side As An MBA Admissions Coach

During his five years in MBA admissions at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Luke Anthony Peña worked under a boss who took a public stand against MBA admissions consulting. Derrick Bolton, then managing director of MBA admissions at Stanford, was among the last admission chiefs who strongly felt that applicants should complete their own applications.

Now, Peña has crossed over to the other side, joining Menlo Coaching, a well-known admissions consulting firm, as a principal.  The full-time job puts him in the very position that his friend and mentor once abhorred.

“There is irony that my trajectory has taken me in this direction,”  says Peña. “I was on a personal level raised with a very do-it-yourself mentality. Some of that same mindset imbued some of this admissions thinking you describe. The older I get, the more I appreciate the value of coaching in all parts of life.”

FOR PENA, AN IRONIC TRAJECTORY INTO ADMISSIONS CONSULTING

To Menlo Coaching, Peña brings to the game more than just the five years he spent in admissions at Stanford where he evaluated more than 1,000 applications annually from 2012 to 2017. A 2012 MBA graduate from Stanford, he also racked up three years as executive director of admissions and financial aid at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business and another three years back at Stanford as the first director of global admission and financial aid for the university’s newly established Knight-Hennessy Scholars program. All told, Peña has spent more than 15 years recruiting and evaluating human talent.

In that process, he has become a true believer in the value of coaching. “If somebody is struggling on a physical or mental health level, we say get somebody who can support you and train you,” he says. “I believe that success in life has as much to do with building a team around you. As those pieces started to come together, it made so much sense where an applicant to a school feels that they are not equipped to navigate the process on their own, what right do I have to withhold the information I have. It is an evolution and something of an ironic trajectory. I chalk it up to experience and to hopefully get wiser about the world.”

Peña also believes that times have changed since Stanford openly discouraged the use of admission consultants. “The industry has matured to a place where we now understand that there is helpful admissions consulting and unhelpful consulting,” he says. “There are some out there who intentionally traffic in fear, misinformation and anxiety. These are the people who will convince you that if you do not use their services you cannot succeed. Those are not the places that I will ever attach my name or reputation to. It was important to me to chose a firm that traffics in honestly, candor and pragmatic advice. That is a key component of good consulting.”

‘I AM NOT GOING TO DRESS UP THE TRUTH TO SPARE SOMONE’S FEELINGS’

His approach to coaching applicants? “I am very direct,” maintains Peña. “I believe that people who are investing their precious resources of time and money deserve candid truth. I am not going to dress up the truth to spare someone’s feelings. I do not mince words. I do not hold back in my assessments. I trust that people are adults and are coming to me for the truth.”

Yet Peña says he also wants to inspire and motivate candidates. “I do want to be encouraging,” he adds. “That comes behind being direct and efficient. Applying is hard. It can be stressful, and if applying were not daunting we would have no business. There are inevitable moments in the application process when people need not a taskmaster but a cheerleader. I look for those moments.”

Peña believes this is a difficult period for business schools in the U.S. “At a macro level, this is a very tough time for MBA programs in the U.S. Followed by COVID, the shattering decision (on affirmative action) by the Supreme Court, the campus protests and now the chaos from uncertainty have all contributed. Applicants see all of this and they are understandably uncertain how this affects them in the admissions process. Given all of the volatility, schools have a lot of constraints about how much they can say and how much they can do to be fully transparent. The consequence for applicants is that it is harder than ever to decide how to parse their applications.”

‘WE WANT THE VERY BEST STUDENTS TO ENROLL AT THE VERY BEST SCHOOLS’

Ultimately, he believes that the goals of admission officials and consultants are closely aligned. “We both want the very best students to enroll at the very best schools,” believes Peña.  “We are all on the same team. When I was an admissions director, I always wanted to be as open as possible. There were always constraints on what I could share. There are legal and brand management considerations. But at this moment in time, I want to focus on opening the door rather than being a steward at the door.”

He thinks international candidates to U.S. business schools need to assess the increased risks of attending an MBA program in the states.  “It depends on one’s risk profile. First from the school side, they have every incentive to want to keep international enrollment up. From a pure ideologically viewpoint, international students enrich the learning experience in many ways. It is one of the best parts of the MBA experience. There is also brand building overseas and financial health. Many international students enrolled in the U.S. pay most or all of the tuition. Schools care very much about the rankings and international students often bring standardized test scores that help a school. 

“From the applicant perspective, I think that an international candidate who can look at the potential risk and say, ‘I want to try this anyway,’  this is a fantastic time to apply. Many will go to Canada, Europe or China. Some international students will opt out. That means that for those who are willing to navigate the risks, the pool will be smaller. So the admission rate for international students should be quite good in this coming cycle.”

ADVICE TO INTERNATIONALS IN THIS ADMISSIONS CYCLE

His core advice? “They should apply early given the expected delays in visa processing. You must have air-tight career goals. Schools don’t want to admit an international student who is a career risk or will be disappointed in the jobs that they can get. My third recommendation is have as high a score on the GMAT or GRE tests as possible. This is from a class building standpoint. If schools enroll fewer international students, the classes will tilt more toward domestics with lower averages. So schools will have every incentive to enroll people who have done very well with the tests.”

The other risk for international candidates today is employment in the U.S. after graduation. “There is considerable uncertainty in hiring international students two or three years from now,” Peña believes. “It is wise for international applicants to do considerable research on U.S. employers. If the goal is to work in the U.S., make sure you are mentioning industries and employers who are unwavering in their commitment to hire international students. Or make sure there is another global location where you can be hired and do great work. Include in your career goals that returning to your home country or another international location is an option so schools aren’t concerned about you getting hired in the U.S. If an international’s goals are to work only in the U.S. and in a company that has not signaled a commitment to hire internationals, they need to think twice about taking the risk.” 

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