Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College

The Tuck MBA: What You Need To Know

Dartmouth Tuck’s MBA produces curious and creative leaders, and they go about it by selecting an impressively diverse group of people and putting them through a top-notch program that goes beyond the traditional case-based approach.

After all, they have had much practice in this field as the world’s first Graduate School of Management, founded in 1900.

Because Tuck is located in the small town of Hanover, New Hampshire, students tend to socialize together, a reality that is intensified by the fact that more than half of first-year students live in halls of residence on campus, and the rest close by. Second years typically live off-campus, many in houses passed from generation to generation of Tuck students. For students who value the deep connections an MBA can offer, that could just be the icing on the cake.

Tuck also offers small cohorts and class sizes. By the time a student graduates from Tuck, he or she knows every single classmate who’s wearing a cap and gown at commencement.

The core curriculum of courses at Tuck are designed to develop the practical skills that leaders need to make decisions in the real world. The aim is for participants to learn to gather and analyze data, create a vision to inspire people, and acquire the skills to make it a reality.

The Tuck MBA provides coverage of key functional areas and disciplines: statistics and decision science, corporate finance and capital markets, managerial and global economics, marketing, organizational behavior and personal leadership, strategy, communications, and operations.

From day one, Tuck places a huge emphasis on developing leadership. Candidates get feedback on their style from their classmates, and each receives individualized coaching. Numerous electives focus on leadership, and aim to develop the qualities of confident humility, empathy, judgment, risk evaluation, and understanding what one does and does not know.

This focus on practical learning continues in the First-Year Project, a required course in which teams of students apply their first year’s learning to real-world issues of strategic importance for a client such as a multinational corporation, SME, or nonprofit.

All candidates also complete an experiential course in a different country, known as TuckGO. There are several ways to do this, including a Global Insight Expedition led by a faculty member with deep knowledge of the country, which involves meeting locals and local businesspeople. Alternatively, some do their First-Year Project overseas, working on an on-site consulting project outside the U.S. or completing a one-term exchange with a foreign partner school.

In their second-year, students can use their independent study option to deep-dive into an area that interests them. Topics have included Contemporary News Media, Big Data, Machine Learning, and Exploring the Financial Interactions Between Artists and Art Consumers/Financiers. Second years also choose from over 100 electives and are required to take at least one “minicourse” exploring ethics and business.

Prospective students can expect to submit GRE/GMAT scores, their resume, essay questions, letters of reference, and interviews. All of these materials help Tuck choose an incoming batch of students who align with their values and are diverse by design.

“Tuck is an extraordinarily special place because of the fusion amongst students, faculty and staff,” says Vijay Govindarajan, Coxe distinguished professor of management at Tuck, in a YouTube video. “I have never seen that in any other place. It is a culture of excellence.”