Meet Chicago Booth’s MBA Class Of 2027

AN INTERVIEW WITH STARR MARCELLO

In April, Booth received a $100-million-dollar gift to enhance its Executive MBA program. That’s just one of the topics touched on by Starr Marcello, Booth’s Deputy Dean for MBA and Masters Programs, in a far-reaching interview with P&Q. From career services to support for first-years and international students, here is what to expect from the Booth MBA experience.

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?

Marcello: “The University of Chicago Booth of Business is at the forefront in educating future generations of global leaders. Booth’s distinctive data-driven approach to the study of business prepares innovators and collaborative changemakers for meaningful impact in various industries across the globe. We teach how to more effectively work in teams, manage conflict, improve interpersonal communication, and other critical skill sets needed to thrive in professional and personal life.

Booth students have access to multiple transformative academic programs and continuing education opportunities in the areas of finance, economics, innovation, entrepreneurship, marketing, behavioral sciences, social impact, leadership, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). And we’re continuing to expand our curriculum.

We know that AI is rapidly changing nearly every industry and that it also is raising questions on how and when such technology should be used. As organizations rely more and more on AI-driven efficiencies, we want our students to better understand AI applications, and how to apply these effectively and responsibly in the world of business and technology. To this end, we launched a new academic concentration in Applied AI. The new Applied AI concentration prepares MBA students to excel in an increasingly AI-driven marketplace and expands our robust offerings to 16 total concentrations. Students who are interested will be required to complete three relevant courses, which they can choose according to their interests. In addition to AI Essentials, Machine Learning in Finance, and Starting an AI Company, courses include AI and Financial Information, AI for Good, Applied Artificial Intelligence, and Generative Thinking. These are all taught by Booth’s world-class faculty.

We are fortunate to have the support of several of Chicago Booth’s alumni, whose recent gifts to the school will allow us to enhance our distinct offerings. Booth received a $100 million gift from alumnus Konstantin Sokolov ’05 (XP-74), for whom the school renamed its Executive MBA program to the Sokolov Executive MBA Program. With this generous donation, we will refine and expand our curricular and programmatic offerings.

In the fall of 2024, we received a $60 million gift from Clifford Asness, MBA ’91, PhD ’94, and University of Chicago trustee John Liew, AB ’89, MBA ’94, PhD ’95 for one of our Specialized Masters programs, the Master in Finance (MiF) program. In honor of their gesture, we renamed the MiF program to the Asness and Liew Master in Finance Program. Additionally, in Winter Quarter 2026, students in this program can participate in the Global Innovation and Impact: Study Abroad program in London at Booth’s Robert Rothman, ‘77 campus. Courses include The Wealth of Nations, Global Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital and Private Equity, and an Innovation Lab. Students will have the opportunity to network with alumni who work in London and enjoy excursions in the UK.

Longtime supporters John A. Edwardson, ’72, and his wife Fran Edwardson gifted $14 million to expand Booth’s Civic Scholars Program, which was established in 2016 with seed funding from the Neubauer Family Foundation. The program provides full-tuition scholarships to Part-Time MBA students (Evening MBA and Weekend MBA).

Chicago Booth school renamed its healthcare initiative to the Tolan Center for Healthcare after receiving a $12 million investment from alumna Mary Tolan MBA ’92 (XP-61) and her husband, Edward Grzelakowski. The center engages various disciplines in healthcare research, fostering collaboration across the university and beyond. This commitment will allow the center to deepen its commitment to real-world solutions in healthcare. The center is among 14 Faculty and Insights Research Centers at Booth.”

P&Q: What do you see as the main differentiator that distinguishes your MBA program from other schools? How does it enhance the student experience and make them more attractive to employers?

Marcello: “Chicago Booth is not only a great business school, but is one of the best social science research institutions in the world. With its focus on empirical work, data analysis, and using the resulting decisions to drive meaningful and impactful change, Booth is distinct and way ahead of its time.

Booth allows students to forge their own paths and supports them throughout their MBA journey and beyond. Our customizable curriculum allows students to tailor their MBA experience to their own unique career goals and interests. In addition, faculty teach classes students have intentionally selected. This dynamic is uniquely Booth–everyone is invested in the study of business.

Our curriculum gives students an opportunity to build on their own strengths and develop their own areas of growth. It offers four ways to earn the same MBA degree with the option to personalize the degree with concentrations. Most students earn a concentration of three or four courses in a specific area, indicating interest and academic background to employers.

Booth’s data-driven curriculum, complemented by coursework in management and leadership, prepares students to effectively apply this data to solve real problems. Booth students are highly marketable and impactful in numerous competitive industries, allowing them to launch their careers. They are qualified to manage diverse workforces and organizations, navigate uncertainty, create clarity, and take on the challenges of increasingly complex business environments. Employers seek these kinds of skills, as these are often difficult to automate. Simply put, Booth students’ success and contributions speak to the overall value of a Booth MBA.

Booth’s approach to helping individuals grow as leaders, supported by the Harry L. Davis Center for Leadership, positions leadership development as a lifelong pursuit. Booth’s Leadership Effectiveness and Development (LEAD) course was one of the first experiential MBA leadership development courses at a major business school and it continues to be the only required course. LEAD and other leadership development courses help students examine the outcomes of their actions and learn the right lessons from their experiences. This is accomplished through The Chicago Approach™ to leadership development–Booth’s signature data-focused, feedback-based approach that involves conducting experiments with student behavior, collecting observations, and providing feedback on the impact of that behavior. Students have opportunities to benchmark and strengthen their skills in core leadership competencies: working in teams, influencing others, managing conflict, and communicating and presenting. Many Booth graduates have credited this experiential learning for their personal and professional growth, comprehensive understanding of business operations, and increased earning potential.

Students in all of our programs – Full-Time, Part-Time, Executive MBA, Specialized Masters, Joint MBA, Executive Education, and the PhD Stevens Doctoral – learn our unique data-driven study of business, The Chicago Approach™. This timeless analytical framework prepares individuals to unlock solutions to complex problems, in any industry and throughout their career, and toward becoming effective, influential, and empathetic leaders who affect positive and lasting change.

Chicago Booth’s award-winning faculty is a big draw for prospective students. We are home to the world’s preeminent academic business school faculty—ten of whom have received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences since 1982—and who bring their path-breaking research to the classroom. Booth seamlessly combines faculty’s drive for scholarly excellence, dedication to research in all disciplines, and inspirational teaching with rigorous pedagogy–all to the student’s benefit. Individuals leave with the confidence, connections, and skills to develop innovative ideas and drive positive change throughout every stage of their career. We feature faculty’s leading research in Booth’s publication, the Chicago Booth Review, highlighting how Booth faculty exemplify real-world business and leadership skills.

We have some of the best finance, behavioral science, and marketing faculty in the world, to name a few. While the field of marketing has completely changed in the last 20 years, our quant marketing group studied data in marketing long before most of our peers and through the Kilts Center for Marketing research. They understood that marketing is as data-driven as anything else in advanced economic analysis. All of the Nielsen data in the US comes through the Kilts Center. We also have access to data from Trans Union, Visa, and many other sources, making Booth, essentially, an open source provider of marketing data in the world. This has drawn leading experts in this field to Booth, who then bring together the science and art of marketing to our students.

Many students have described Chicago Booth’s “pay-it-forward” culture as one of the greatest returns on investment. Booth’s dynamic global alumni network supports new Booth graduates through mentorship, career guidance, and by providing networking opportunities and key connections. More than 60,000 Booth graduates live around the world, across industries and leading in various roles. Alumni help to build career connections for students during the program and after graduation. Alumni host career treks at companies and encourage internships through relationship-building. They continue to share opportunities and help students learn more about roles in their industry and firms. This has been particularly meaningful in where roles are not always well-understood and recruiters are quickly flooded with applicants. Students can tap into this worldwide network by attending their reunion, exploring their passion for lifelong learning, and volunteering with a community that aligns with their interests. Students can find and connect with alumni in our community by name, keyword, industry, interest, or location, through a digital platform for engagement, Chicago Booth Connect.

Alumni often share that the impact of Chicago Booth has been transformative and lasting. They credit their learning to Booth’s emphasis on how to think, how to make decisions in the face of ambiguity, and how to build consensus around that decision. Essentially, Booth taught them how to be effective, impactful, and thoughtful leaders.

Our unique connection to the University of Chicago, a leading global research institution allows additional academic focus, offering Booth students long-term career value. With the university’s deep commitment to the values of academic freedom and free expression, students can propose, test, and rigorously debate novel and even controversial ideas. Students are motivated to take risks, share ideas, embrace diverse perspectives, innovate, and define their path to success. Booth students can also benefit from the joint-degrees and certification programs with the university, making its curricular offerings like no other.

Chicago Booth is the first US business school to have three global campuses, located in Chicago, London, and Hong Kong. We are committed to being physically present on three continents, offering the same world-class instruction. A key differentiator is that Booth’s preeminent faculty fly to teach on our global campuses. We have a downtown campus at the Gleacher Center and the school’s headquarters is in the Charles M. Harper Center in Hyde Park, about a 15-minute train ride from downtown Chicago where the majority of Booth students live. Steps away from Lake Michigan, Hyde Park is the site of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. It is a quiet neighborhood with the university at its heart, along with museums, parks, cafes, restaurants, and diverse- and locally-owned shops. It hosts a thriving academic community who collaborate, innovate, and conduct research, and work to further deepen its connection to the south side and to the city. Students have the advantage of being in one of the largest cultural and business hubs in the world.

Last year, we launched our Specialized Masters Programs–the Master in Management (MiM) and Asness and Liew Master in Finance Program. The MiM program provides for recent college graduates with little to no work experience to help kick-start their career trajectory early. Over the course of ten months, MiM provides foundational management skills for undergraduate individuals with liberal arts and STEM backgrounds (humanities, arts, social sciences, biological sciences, or physical sciences), who are interested in jobs that value business-oriented skills and knowledge. Many graduates from our inaugural MiM cohort this last June have already accepted full-time job offers at top companies and are on their way to realizing successful careers. Additionally, graduates from Booth’s Specialized Masters programs can reapply to Booth and earn an Accelerated MBA, provided graduates are in good standing, gain work experience, and meet other admissions requirements.

Chicago Booth offers viable pathways toward earning an MBA, including through its Early Career MBA Programs, especially for students who aren’t sure yet which MBA format will best suit their future needs. The Chicago Booth Scholars program (Deferred MBA) gives undergraduate students the opportunity to secure a spot at Chicago Booth. Once accepted, students can defer their admission while gaining work experience for up to five years. Booth also offers a Summer Business Scholars Program for undergraduates from any school, providing three weeks of foundational business learning.

In addition to the Tolan Center for Healthcare, Booth’s research centers provide students with myriad resources. Booth was the first major academic institution to launch the Family Office Initiative, one of the first comprehensive programs focused on family office leaders. FOI supports the education, research, and network needs of current and future globally-based family office leaders. Booth provides the growing family office sector and its leaders research-driven insights and other resources by Booth faculty and collaborators. The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation offers internships with PE/VC firms during the academic year, experiential labs, and capital award competitions for local start-ups such as the Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge. This year, a record $2.267 million was awarded to the ten finalist teams at the 29th annual event. Students are also able to work with local ventures through the Polsky Exchange in Hyde Park, a startup incubator. The center also offers the John Edwardson, ’72, Social New Venture Challenge (SNVC) with the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation. The Rustandy Center advances social sector research and partnerships, and integrates Booth’s research and experience-based learning with business fundamentals to address critical topics.

Students have the opportunity to study machine learning and behavioral science at the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI), to determine how best AI can support human decision-making and improve society. At the George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State, students can learn about the intersection of politics and the global economy through events, initiatives, and courses.

Home of the behavioral science thought leaders, the Roman Family Center for Decision Research (RFCDR) is dedicated to the study of how intuition, reasoning, and social interaction generate beliefs, judgments, and choices. Students have another window into this research through Mindworks: The Science of Thinking in downtown Chicago, launched by the RFCDR and PIMCO Decision Research Laboratories. Mindworks is the world’s first interactive discovery center that studies decision-making in various fields, including management, politics, healthcare, marketing, finance, and economics.

Employers consider Booth students–who leave Booth equipped with skills and unique experiences–as valuable assets to their organizations. They share that Booth students climb learning curves quickly and create a structure to their work that allows them to share valuable insights to project teams and clients. They add that Booth students demonstrate a collaborative nature and solid teamwork skills, coupled with a deep understanding of analytics and confident communications.

As future business leaders, Booth graduates increasingly face decisions around sustainability, social responsibility, governance, healthcare, policymaking, and other critical issues. They are exposed to cutting edge research, challenged to learn business fundamentals and critical thinking skills which can be applied immediately in their careers, leading to increased earning potential. Booth equips students with the knowledge and tools to prepare for challenges and to adapt to the changing global business landscape. Additionally, Booth students studying in our joint-degree programs benefit from the combination of business thinking and domain knowledge. They can contribute in areas requiring close partnerships with specialists in technical fields such as big data, AI, medicine, software, and law.”

P&Q: What types of services do you provide to first-year MBAs to ease their transition into business school?

Marcello: “The Chicago Booth community is strong and diverse, and supports students of all backgrounds. There are many activities and events held throughout the year, including annual trips and signature celebrations, that bring the community together.

For more than 20 years, second-year Booth students lead hundreds of incoming Full-Time Booth MBA students on “Random Walks” each year to visit different global destinations. Students enjoy exploring local cultures and traditions, and outdoor activities, all while creating bonds with future classmates.

During a two-week orientation and pre-term, we help students to hit the ground running through various support services. Career Services provides interactive workshops with Booth career coaches and peer advisors, including second year students, to prepare for recruiting, pre-matriculation programming and courses for self-reflection, career exploration, and industry-specific content. Topics include career strategy, resume preparation, networking, and mock interviews. Students also learn about Booth’s leadership development programming, and meet with continuing students to learn more about the curriculum and other activities.

Our Student Wellness team works to build awareness of wellness among students, so that they remember to factor in taking care of themselves as they realize success. Students benefit from this holistic support, especially those moving to Chicago, looking for places to live, and wanting to learn more about what to expect in a new environment. Booth ensures that students connect with each other, are able to build friendships, and experience our supportive community–even before they get to campus. Additionally, throughout the academic year, students and alumni have regular access to Booth’s Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, Investors-in-Residence, Executives-in-Residence, many of whom are Booth alumni themselves. Students gain critical mentorship and perspectives in entrepreneurship, private equity, venture capital, sustainability, impact investing, civic impact, philanthropy, social entrepreneurship and other industries.

Among many club activities and events held during the academic year, the Giving Something Back club and Graduate Business Council (GBC) host a Winter Formal and charity auction in downtown Chicago for all students. Students, professors, and local businesses come together to donate packages for local causes. Last year, students launched a new Quantum Club. This is apt, as Booth is home to the nation’s first quantum accelerator Duality that supports next-generation quantum startups. Duality is led by the Polsky Center, the university, and the Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE), and founding partners the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Argonne National Laboratory, and P33. Students train and receive mentorship in quantum science, technology, entrepreneurship, and innovation.

Next Page: Profiles of 12 Members of the Class of 2027

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