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The best of 2019

Picture a newsroom. Along with communal tables, scribes hunch over their monitors. Their fingers race across their keyboards like a grand pianist…under a 30-minute deadline. Sure, journalists strive to produce rigorously-researched and thought-provoking products. Like any decorated Indy rocker, they also dream of making a hit: a story that resonates with a larger audience.

Journalists are like any creators. Beyond the dogged pursuit of truth, they want to reach out and make a difference…even entertain on occasion. These days, performance is measured in clicks. Fair or not, page views reveal the value of content. They reflect the interests, concerns, and aspirations of readers. Even more, they tip journalists off to where they should devote their energies.

At Poets&Quants, our mission is threefold. We want to help readers understand their education options, increase their odds of admission, and enhance their MBA experience on campus. Not surprisingly, our biggest stories revolved around rankings and data dumps. Technically, our most-read stories involved rankings from 2018: our exclusive full-time MBA and online MBA rankings. Among the top five, you’ll also find statistics-related stories involving acceptance rates and average GMATs. In addition, many of our biggest stories from 2019 had a “tail” as editors say. Translation: They were published before 2019 and continued to generate page views organically through search.

Overall, five of our ten most popular stories were authored in 2019 (with the top 20 containing another five). The big trend this year? Aside from rankings and data, P&Q readers love learning about other MBAs. Even more, they want to know which applicants got dinged and (more importantly) why. Wondering which 2019 stories garnered the most attention from readers? Here is a list of this year’s non-rankings stories that generated the most traffic on Poets&Quants (with links to the most-read rankings and data stories on the third page).

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1) 10 Business Schools To Watch In 2019

Rankings can become rigid at times. Let’s be honest: schools know the measures and their weights. When they stray or slide, they get knocked down a few pegs. Make no mistake: applicants notice. Rank equals identity. Just ask any dean: there are few tasks more difficult than re-gaining lost ground. As a result, many schools play to the metrics that govern their ranking.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t making investments in facilities, programming, and resources. Problem is, these initiatives don’t always move the ranking needle…at least not immediately. That’s why P&Q profiles 10 MBA programs that are making strides below the rankings radar. This year, for example, P&Q feted Washington University’s Olin School for opening their core with a month-long global excursion to boost their first-years’ international mindset. In contrast, P&Q publicized how Vanderbilt University’s Owen School has carved out a lucrative niche in healthcare, a $3.5 trillion dollar market that accounts for nearly 20% of GDP.

Whether they are incumbents like Michigan Ross or upstarts like Georgia Tech Scheller, this annual feature celebrates the schools that aren’t afraid to take bold paths. This courage – and its potential to disrupt the graduate business marketplace – are what make these schools worthy of watching more closely in the coming years.

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2) Best & Brightest MBAs: Class Of 2019

Each spring, business schools celebrate the achievements and sacrifices of their graduates. They dole out awards and deliver speeches – accolades that are lucky to make a press release (let alone reach the large public). This begged a question that P&Q wrestled with in early 2015. How do we expose the year’s top MBA students to a broader audience – to give them a positive digital footprint that could create opportunities for them?

In response, P&Q launched its Best & Brightest MBAs feature, which profiles 100 of the most promising full-time MBA graduates. To do this, P&Q invites over 70 graduate business schools to submit nominations for their top students. While schools pick students using their own criteria, P&Q encourages schools to include “trailblazers,” “servant leaders.” and “the most indispensable MBAs in the class.” Overall, P&Q received 243 nominations in 2019, evaluating them in three categories: extracurricular activities, academic and professional achievements, and the insightfulness of their responses.

This year’s Best & Brightest featured 56 women. Over a third of students honored hailed from overseas, with Deloitte and McKinsey being the largest employers of Best & Brightest talent. The Best & Brightest’s ranks included Lia Winograd, who built her startup into a million-dollar enterprise at NYU Stern, and Vito Errico, a Bronze Star recipient and Pentagon officer who helped the dean research his next book. Those are just a few tidbits about the class, with each member’s profile including 20 questions and a recommendation from a faculty member or administrator. Along with 100 student profiles, the Best & Brightest also spins out several additional stories ranging from 100 MBAs To Watch (featuring talented graduates who just missed the Best & Brightest cut) to topic-driven analysis like the biggest business school myths.

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3) Meet the MBA Class of 2021: The Go-Getters

Taking a page from Best & Brightest, P&Q also launched its “Class of” series in 2015. The difference? P&Q profiles a dozen first-year MBA students from each of the top business schools. In 2019-2020 alone, P&Q will introduce its readers to over 50 MBA programs, ranging from Chicago Booth and Wharton to HEC Paris and CEIBS.

Each August, P&Q kicks off this series with an introductory story, highlighting a student from each of the schools being covered. What exactly do these first-years bring to the table? “If past is prologue, this class will boast tech moguls, financial heavyweights, and consulting partners in the years to come – not to mention thought leaders, public servants, and philanthropists,” observes P&Q senior writer Jeff Schmitt. “Think of them as the proverbial high potentials, the gifted and gutsy game-changers who’ve opened markets, launched products, and formed coalitions at iconic firms like Google, Amazon, and Goldman Sachs. Their impact can already be quantified in terms of thousands of people and millions of dollars.”

The student profiles, shorter than their Best & Brightest counterparts, outline each candidates’ academic and professional backgrounds. In addition, these profiles reveal why these students chose particular programs and how they determined which schools were a good fit. Big picture: the “Go-Getters” story acts as a bridge to the larger “Class of” series, one that enables readers to take a deep dive into the programming and cultures of their target business schools.

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4) 2019-2020 MBA Application Deadlines

What do prospective students love nearly as much as rankings and data? That’s right: they want lists – with information that’s easy to find and all in one spot. That’s exactly what P&Q supplies each spring by collecting business school application deadline information for over 40 programs (along with a supplement for top European schools).

Broken out by round, this application story is designed to be bookmarked. It includes deadlines and decision dates, along with links to essay and application preparation instructions from the schools. In short, it is an all-in-one tool that makes it easy for applicants to stay organized and informed.

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5) Rejected By HBS. Find Out Why

What’s the worst thing about being rejected? You rarely hear why. The silence is understandable from the school’s standpoint. It can be an awkward conversation, one that could open a school up to litigation. From the student side, the question is always, ‘What am I doing wrong and what can I do to fix it?’

That’s where P&Q comes into play. This fall, we collected profile stats from candidates who were rejected by HBS. On the surface, they might seem like shoo-ins. Take for example the Harvard alum with a 770 GMAT and 3.9 GPA. Automatic, right? Guess again—first round snub! The same is true for the Wharton-trained investment banker with a 740 GMAT. How about the Ivy League strategy consultant who scored a 49 quant despite majoring in the liberal arts? Same result: thumbs down.

That’s where Sandy Kreisberg comes into play. The former head of communications at MIT Sloan, Kreisberg heads up HBS Guru, where he provides application and interview prep. A former Harvard writing professor, Kreisberg has helped hundreds of applicants get into elite MBA programs over the past two decades. He also serves as a columnist for P&Q, where he reviews applicant profiles and shares his unfiltered feedback on the gaps in their backgrounds and messaging. In this column, Kreisberg goes above-and-beyond, assessing profile flaws for seven applicants who were rejected by HBS in October. They include a transgender female in a bulge bracket bank, a rising star at a leading asset management firm (who’d scored four promotions in four years), and an auditor with a Top 4 firm who had a 750 GMAT and Master’s in accounting. What were his thoughts on the profiles? Here is some sample feedback…

“Based on your profile, I think it is more likely that [the] adcom questioned your need for MBA vs. getting a Public Administration degree at the Kennedy School. In your post, elected politics and public jobs are the totality of your experience. And beyond that, those are your goals.”

“You say your essay was about “my desire to start my own business to marry the passion I gained my experiences in early-stage companies with the analytical skills I learned in PE / consulting.” That is okay and certainly didn’t hurt you. But I’m not so sure about your post-MBA goal to do a startup in male-skincare. Did you really say that? It just does not compute given your work history. That goal alone, without further explanation, along with the short time you spent with each of your many employers would have been enough to get you tossed in the ding pile.”

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6) Meet McKinsey’s MBA Class of 2018

McKinsey possesses a certain mystique. The oldest of the MBB trio, McKinsey is equated to an invisible hand – one whose influence stretches across every conceivable industry. Long known as the training ground for future CEOs, McKinsey boasts a 30,000 member alumni network that ranges from Sheryl Sandberg to Pete Buttigieg. In 2018, McKinsey added 1,100 MBAs to follow in their footsteps.

This year, P&Q profiled 15 of these hires, whose alma maters include INSEAD, Harvard Business School, Wharton, Chicago Booth, and Michigan Ross. We asked how business school prepared them for McKinsey, along with the advice they’d give to MBA students following in their footsteps. Our goal was to demystify what it means to be part of McKinsey, exposing readers to the types of training they’d receive and the level of expectations they’d need to meet. The biggest takeaway? McKinsey isn’t just a collection of “cool” resumes. They are bonded together in an egalitarian culture – one where their first duty is to speak truth to power.

“McKinsey is most often brought in when things are either unclear or not going very well,” writes INSEAD’s Jane Chun. “These situations are not easy to navigate, so it is critical to be skilled at having difficult, but necessary, conversations. These can manifest in a few different ways: perhaps it’s delivering constructive feedback to your manager, disagreeing with a client’s current strategy, or questioning the approach of senior leadership. We are encouraged to be diplomatic, but ultimately, we are expected to tell the truth.”

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7) Handicapping Your Elite MBA Odds

Sandy Kreisberg is back! As usual, he isn’t holding back. A bit gruff and ever salty, Kreisberg knows how to get attention. He doesn’t tolerate exaggeration, excuses, or vagueness. He just tells it as he sees it – and his eyes are as sharp as a baseball umpire.

In this January installment, he tackles admissions odds for six candidates who range from a boutique consultant who moonlights as a roller derby enforcer to a do-gooder banker with a 750 GMAT. Here is some sample feedback he gave in this handicapping piece:

“What you really need to do is start feeling better about your work history. You say that you have spent four years in an “engineering/operations role as a federal government civilian at a large repair facility supporting a branch of the military” and that you “support all phases of operations and held project role as the intermediary between active-duty personnel and the project engineering team.” I got only a so-so idea of what that means, and I am sure it probably sucks as much as you make it sound. You need to start talking like Trump and not some honest guy. Make it sound like a great job with the challenges of dealing with tech problems, dealing with military and civilian peers and supervisors, exposed you to the whole world of how projects get done, got you really excited about managing tech and cross-functional teams, blah, blah.”

“Work experience: Three internships. Sophomore summer at a nonprofit doing financial innovation work. Junior fall at a no-name boutique M&A advisory firm, working with some F500s. Junior summer at a F100 financial services company doing business analytics. Have accepted an offer to start full-time at a Tier 2 consulting firm.” Friend, those are jobs to be proud of, and good for you for hustling to get them. The problem is that 2+2 is really, really snobby, and they are not looking to admit works in progress or potential stars. They are kinda looking to admit, judged by their peer group, established performers and stars, period.”

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8) Where Top CEOs Got Their MBAs

You have to start somewhere. When it comes to Fortune 100 royalty, not every chief executive is an HBS or Wharton MBA. Instead, you’ll find plenty of rags-to-riches stories. Noel White, for one, earned his MBA at Oklahoma City University before taking over Tyson. Intel chief Bob Swan calls SUNY Binghamton home (at least for grad school). And then there’s the University of Tulsa, which lays claim to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon as its most distinguished MBA alum.

Not surprisingly, Harvard Business School and Stanford GSB include plenty of ‘name’ CEOs on their alumni rolls. However, the big takeaway is that top leaders can originate from almost anywhere. So don’t be too dismissive of that perfect fit outside the M7. Who knows, it may be regarded as a CEO factory in 20 years.

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9) Meet Harvard Business School’s MBA Class Of 2021

HBS has been described as the “West Point of Capitalism” – a place where leaders are forged through demanding programming, competitive peers, and intensive resources. Triston Francis, the co-president of the 2019 Class, even uses a magnifying glass analogy to put HBS’ influence in context.

“Whatever impact you are going to have, the scale and the platform allows you to take that even further.”

Talent too. You’ll find plenty of that in the Class of 2021. This year, P&Q profiled eight members of the incoming class. They include Elizabeth Breiter, a senior analyst for SpaceX who was once dismissed as a “C student.” Growing up, Tory Voight helped her mother clean houses. In college, she worked two jobs to pay for her tuition. Her gifts didn’t go unnoticed, however. After working in the Obama White House, she landed at Google working in its virtual reality division. Speaking of contrasts, the class also features Mark Giragosian. Before investment banking, he spent eight years with the Joffrey Ballet Company, even winning the silver in the 2009 New York International Ballet Competition.

Don’t t think this momentum stalls once students have “made it” into the class. In reality, their pace only picks up, observes Sana Mohammed. “Everyone I know is working on something,” she tells P&Q. “They may be working on a startup or an individual project or taking as many classes as they can. They are doing something that is keeping them intellectually engaged and driving them. That, in itself, is so unique. It is very easy for people to be complacent, but I don’t see any complacency here.”

Go to Page 3 To See The Most Popular Rankings and Data-Related Stories.

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10) Meet Bain & Company’s MBA Class Of 2018

Bain has a reputation for being the “fun” firm. For some, that conjures up images of karaoke duets, fajita bars, and Friday tee times. That’s not really the case, notes Keith Bevans, a Bain partner and global head of consulting recruiting. “Bain is the type of place where people want to get to know each other,” he explains. “It is less about having a rock band or a soccer team. It is more about finding ways for people to spend time with each other and build relationships that extend long beyond their time at Bain.”

That quality time feeds into Bain’s defining quality: teamwork. It is a firm, in Bevans’ words, founded on a “deep, deep, deep belief that we get the better answers as a team rather than as individuals.” That requires a specific type of hire: curious and creative doers who bring out the best in each other. “Bain’s people and culture make solving the problems fun,” writes Rachel Yorke, a 2018 Harvard Business School MBA. “My teammates are genuine, supportive, and invested in my success both personally and professionally.”

Yorke is among the 12 Bain MBA hires profiled by P&Q this year. They include stars like Faye Cheng, an MIT Sloan MBA who re-joined Bain after graduation. She describes the Bain culture as a “results over reports” culture that emphasizes pragmatism over theoretical purity. “Real-world data is messy and ambiguous,” she writes. “At the end of the day, the best answer is not necessarily the one that’s textbook-perfect, but rather one that is feasible and best tailored to the client’s particular needs.”

Luiz Pablo Fabre, a Chicago Booth MBA who designed an award-winning medical device, considers Bain’s biggest plus being its focus on simplicity. “Clients don’t hire Bain to solve simple problems; the problems we tackle will always be big and complex. One of the most important skills I have learned is to distill the problem down to smaller, more manageable, elements.”

Here are 25 additional rankings-based and data-centric articles that were among P&Q’s most-read in 2019.

Harvard & Wharton Tie for 2018’s #1 MBA Program

The Top Online MBA Programs Of 2019

Average GMAT Scores At The Top 50 Business Schools

You’d Never Believe These MBA Applicants Were Just Rejected By Harvard Business School

Acceptance Rates At Top 50 MBA Programs

Harvard MBA Essay Examples

Stanford GSB Cruises Into First In P&Q’s 2019-2020 MBA Ranking

Stanford Repeats At No. 1 In Financial Times 2019 MBA Ranking

Wharton is US News’ Top Grad School

Best Investment Banks To Work For in 2019

Best Consulting Firms To Work For in 2019