Interview with Dr. Michelle Schmude, Associate Dean of Admissions at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine [Show Summary]

Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine is focused on admitting students who are passionate about community service, as well as allowing as many students as possible to graduate from medical school debt free. Dr. Michelle Schmude, Associate Dean of Admissions, shares information about what makes the school unique, and what makes a successful applicant and graduate of the program.

Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine: A unique program emphasizing community service and clinical exposure  [Show Notes]

Today’s guest, Dr. Michelle Schmude, has spent her career in higher ed administration and med school admissions. After earning her BA in history and business, she went on to earn an MBA and then a doctorate in education from Wilkes University. Since 1996 she has worked in admissions first as Dean of Full-time Admissions at Point Park University, then at Kings College, and since 2015 as director and then as Associate Dean of Admissions, Enrollment Management & Financial Aid at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. She is also an Associate Professor of Medicine at Geisinger. Now that you know a little about Dr. Schmude, let’s find out about Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine.

Can you give an overview of the Geisinger Commonwealth Medical School program focusing on its more distinctive elements? [1:55]

The school was founded in 2008 and enrolled the first class in in 2009. We have a few key hallmark programs that make us unique. First is the 100-hour community service requirement, which goes along with our mission of being a community-based medical school. We admit students who align with the mission of the school and are passionate about community service. Second is the family-centered experience, which pairs med students with individuals in the community experiencing chronic illness, so the students can follow along with the patients throughout their journey, which helps the students grow in empathy, kindness, compassion, and caring. Third is the two research programs that students engage in during years one and three. The first is a community health research project – partnering with local organizations to help identify community needs and design interventions. The second is a quality improvement research project to address issues within the community.

Is the community service component you mentioned non-clinical, or does it matter? [4:45]

Most are non-clinical, and students get really involved with the community. A few weeks ago our students hosted a Turkey Trot and raised almost $18K for Friends of the Poor. They raise funds for autism, do things both inside and outside of the school, host a health fair for the community, have a trick-or-treat event in the hospital – a haunted hallway so children are safe. Those are just a few. Some volunteer at clinics in the area.

What is the “distributed campus model” and does it shape the med student experience at Geisinger? [6:19]

The first two years of the program are spent here in Scranton and the third and fourth are out at regional campuses where students are participating in clinical rotations in the third year, and in the fourth year participating in rotations and away rotations where they will visit other clinical environments.

Learn about HBS 2+2 from Tess Michaels, entrepreneur and HBS 2+2 student [Show Summary]

Stride Funding is an innovative start-up that is revolutionizing student financing with income share arrangements instead of traditional student loans. Today Linda talks to Tess Michaels, founder of Stride Funding, and second-year student at Harvard Business School who joined the class of 2020 through HBS 2+2. She shares how she came up with the idea, how HBS has been instrumental in Stride’s success, and her path to HBS and 2+2.

Tess Michaels discusses what it's like being an HBS student with a Start-up [Show Notes]

Our guest today, Tess Michaels, has done a ton. I’m going to give you a few details, and then let her fill in her story herself as well as tell us about the new student financing start-up she has founded and is running. Tess graduated from Penn with a Bachelors in Applied Science and another Bachelors from the Wharton School in Global Impact Investing and Operations Management. She has a long list of activities and offices held while there, and in addition founded Soceana, a platform to “democratize giving and promote corporate volunteerism,” which was acquired in 2018. After graduation and being accepted to Harvard’s 2+2 program she worked at Goldman Sachs as an analyst for two years and then at Vista Equity Partners as a PE Associate. She joined HBS in 2018 and immediately founded Stride Funding, which we will learn more about later in this interview.

Can you tell us a little about your background? Where you grew up? What do you like to do for fun? [2:31]

I grew up in Texas and have a big love of BBQ. I love going to comedy shows, seeing live music and movies. One of my favorite films is Good Will Hunting, a Boston classic!

Why did you decide to get two bachelors degrees at Penn? [3:12]

Growing up I was really interested in science but also in business. At Penn I had the opportunity to study biology but also operations and investing at Wharton so I decided to take advantage of it.

Why HBS 2+2? [4:01]

My junior year at Penn I met with a couple upperclassmen who had applied and told me about the benefits. I knew I had gotten a lot out of the business classes at Wharton and wanted to take the opportunity to learn from a very global peer set as well as utilize the case method, which was very different from how I had been studying. 2+2 gave me the flexibility to pursue work that built upon my skill set before going to b- school with the comfort of knowing I was going to go to HBS.

How would your initial post graduate years have been different if you hadn’t been accepted to 2+2? [4:54]

I would most likely have gone into investment banking anyway. It is a great place to grow a skill set. Having 2+2 let me decide that while I loved finance, I missed the operations piece, and knew I could focus on that once I arrived, which was nice.

Do you remember anything particularly challenging about your MBA application process? [5:50]

With 2+2 you are applying early in your career, really without formal work experience, and you have to be thoughtful about who you choose to write letters of recommendation. Luckily, I had the benefit of growing my first start up while at Penn, so had people who could speak to my abilities in that regard. The second is crafting the right story.

Learn what makes an applicant stand out at Wharton [Show Summary]

What is Wharton looking for? What about its new deferred admission programs? Most importantly, what do you need to do to get in? If these questions reside in your head, listen in! Wharton’s Director of Admissions, Blair Mannix, is our guest today.

Interview with Blair Mannix, Director of Admissions for the Wharton MBA program [Show Notes]

It gives me great pleasure to have on Admissions Straight Talk for the first time, Blair Mannix, Director of Admissions for the Wharton MBA program. Blair first came to Penn as a graduate student where she earned her master’s in higher education management in 2010. She joined Penn’s undergrad admissions staff in 2008. She’s been at Wharton since 2012 and became Director of Admissions just about one year ago.

Let’s start with the basics. Can you give me a brief overview of the distinctive elements of Wharton’s full-time MBA program? [2:17]

Philadelphia is one - I feel like I work for the Philadelphia Board of Tourism sometimes. It is difficult to have a Wharton experience without a Philadelphia experience and vice versa. The second thing I would say is we are proud of the way we approach the teaching of business. We like to provide content in a variety of different ways, since we know students learn best in different ways. We are big on rolling our sleeves up here.

What’s new at Wharton? [4:57]

The first two are massive updates to our physical plant. This fall we will be opening the Wharton Academic Research Building (WARB), which will be the home of academic research for Wharton, Penn, and Philadelphia. In the spring of 2021 we will open the Center of Entrepreneurship, which will be the hub for undergrad and graduate entrepreneurial endeavors. We also have two new centers in finance – the Harris Center and Stevens Center. The dean has poised us to really stay ahead in finance for the next 10-15 years.

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Wharton has two deferred admissions programs, the Moelis Advance Access Program and the Advance Access program. Can you tell us about them? [7:15]

I feel very strongly that this is where MBA programs need to go. So many students have told me they don’t feel like they could take risks between undergrad and grad school. We want to lock in the talent early so they can go out and impact the world. Moelis started two years ago, so we have had two admitted cohorts, and they have just been Penn undergraduates. Eight weeks ago we launched Advance Access globally, so anyone from around the world can apply and work 2-4 years and then come back for an MBA. With the two cohorts thus far, we have seen a mix of people following a more traditional pre-MBA path, and others who have really taken a risk. We want people to feel free to do what they want. In terms of the size of our first Advance Access cohort, it will depend on the talent. We don’t have a hard number.

Can you go into the purpose of some of the different elements of the application? [11:15]

The resume and work history,

Wharton’s essays,

Two professional recommendations, and

The Wharton TBD and individual interview

Resume and work history: The length, depth,

Interview with Rabia Ahmed, Executive Director of Strategic Marketing and Admissions at NYU Stern School of Business [Show Summary]

NYU Stern is always on the cutting edge, and their new Change: Studio branding reflects that. Executive Director of Strategic Marketing and Admissions, Rabia Ahmed, shares details of the new program as well as what else is new at Stern.

At NYU Stern, change is in the air! [Show Notes]

It gives me great pleasure to have on Admissions Straight Talk for the first time, Rabia Ahmed, Executive Director of Strategic Marketing and Admissions at NYU Stern School of Business. Rabia attended Montclair Sate University and earned her MA in International Education from NYU. She began working at NYU Stern in 2005 and in 2006 became the Assistant Director of MBA Admissions. She has been climbing the admissions office ladder every since, and while this is Rabia’s first time on AST, NYU’s Isser Gallogly has been on several times. I don’t usually like to have school representatives on year after year. However NYU Stern always is innovating and changing things up, so I’ve needed to invite someone from NYU Stern to the show year after year. Indeed NYU Stern’s focus and brand are synonymous with change. We’re going to learn more about that from Rabia.

Can you give a brief overview of the Stern MBA program focusing on the more distinctive elements? [2:25]

I would highlight three main things – our location, our attitude, and our people. We are located in the greatest neighborhood in the greatest city in the world, we are able to bring in amazing adjunct faculty, and have partnerships with organizations for recruiting but also for experiential learning projects in our backyard. We are also on the move, unbound by tradition, and always thinking about where business is going to make sure we stay in front of it, innovate, and experiment. Finally, people you meet at NYU are really special. When you meet the people you can see how incredible they are. Our faculty is one of the largest, and runs the gamut of industry and function.

My next question is usually “what’s new?” but there is so much new at NYU Stern that I’m going to change things up. Last month Stern announced a re-branding focused on embracing and initiating change. We’re going to explore some of the elements in the program that really reflect that brand starting with Change:Studio. What is Change:Studio? How is it going to work? [5:31]

We want students to leave with preparation for the future. When thinking about how quickly things are changing – technology, how people work - we think about how we prepare students to embrace that change. Change: Studio brings together leadership, experiential learning, and entrepreneurship in co-curricular programming to provide a structure with which to drive change in an organization. The curriculum overall is called Dare It, Dream It, Drive It. Dare It is focused on leadership, Dream It on experiential learning, and Drive It on starting something new. Everyone goes through the beginning stages of Change:Studio with orientation in the leadership simulation and then they can opt into the Change:Studio program.

NYU Stern recently started allowing its applicants to submit the GMAC Executive Assessment in addition to the GRE and GMAT. Why?

Interview with Adam Goodcoff, fourth year medical student and co-founder of an online community for healthcare professionals [Show Summary]

Med student Adam Goodcoff shares info on what life is like as a med student, how he became interested in medicine, what he plans to do when he graduates, and his new digital platform, “The Med Life.”

Glimpse what life is like as a medical student [Show Notes]

Our guest today, Adam Goodcoff is a fourth-year med student and former graduate teaching fellow in anatomy applying to emergency medicine residencies this year. He graduated the University at Albany with a BS in Biology. During his sophomore year of college, he started a blog to document and share his attempts to gain acceptance into medical school. Once medical school started and time available shrank, Adam briefly switched to YouTube, which ultimately also proved to be too time consuming. Fast forward three years, and he decided to launch "The Med Life," a community where all healthcare providers and students can find entertaining and educational content.

Can you tell us about your background? Where you grew up? What do you like to do for fun? [2:03]

I grew up in upstate New York, went to the University of Albany and then to a different state entirely for medical school. For fun I do a million different things – I particularly enjoy cycling, downhill mountain biking, skiing, travel, and photography. I also used to play in a band, so I’ve covered the gamut, always trying new stuff.

How did you become interested in a career in medicine? [3:10]

In high school I wasn’t the best student, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was a swimmer, and it was sort of understood I would swim my way into college, but then I decided not to pursue it further. I was fortunate the University of Albany took me. I knew I liked medicine, as I did a short stint as a volunteer firefighter, which I didn’t enjoy. But I loved the EMS side of it, so I got a CFR (Certified First Responder). If you are not 18 you can’t be an EMT in New York, and I was 16 or 17 at the time. I learned the basics and volunteered at a local EMS agency. I stayed there for five years before going on to med school. I eventually did become an EMT and was hired as one just before med school. In school I enjoyed EMS so I thought maybe I should look at medicine, and it snowballed from there.

Did you go straight from college to med school? Are you happy with your decision whether you took a gap year or not? [5:07]

I did. I was relatively competitive and didn’t want to take a gap year. The student I am now isn’t the one I was applying to med school let alone the one I was applying to college. I was worried I would fall off the radar and not have the motivation to do it if I took a gap year. Hindsight is 20/20, and I’ve since thought of all the ways I could have taken advantage of that year, but I think it worked well.

Were there any challenges applying to medical school? [6:01]

For sure. It is tricky writing a personal statement and figuring out your voice. There are so many incredible students out there and I didn’t feel like I measured up – people creating a homeless shelter or going to Africa. Thinking back,

Interview with Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at Yale School of Management [Show Summary]

Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at Yale School of Management, shares the school’s unique approach to admissions. Yale SOM tries through its application process to gain a 360-degree view of a candidate and is constantly working to refine the formula for admitting the best candidates to Yale.

Bruce DelMonico discusses the unique features of Yale SOM's curriculum and the value of the Yale MBA [Show Notes]

It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk and introduce Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at Yale School of Management. He has been on the admissions team at Yale since 2004, becoming the Director in 2006 and the Assistant Dean in 2012.

Let’s start with the basics. Can you give me a brief overview of the distinctive elements of Yale SOM’s full-time program? [2:09]

There are three things I would point to. Among U.S. business schools I think we are the most integrated with our home university. Students truly can take advantage of all Yale has to offer and be involved in the whole university community. We are also the most global business school in the U.S., really focused on creating a global mindset. It is built into our curriculum, and with 45% of our students being non-U.S. citizens, that permeates the community. Last, we are the best source of elevated leaders across all regions and sectors. You will get accounting, finance, and marketing just like every business school, but we teach in a different way. It is very interdisciplinary. Your career will not be functionally siloed like the past, so we teach subjects in a way that reflects that. We utilize a lot of raw cases, so even in the classroom students are learning real world skills, since other people will not be making decisions for you in your future jobs.

What’s new at Yale SOM? [5:15]

The biggest thing is we have a new dean who started July 1st. Kerwin Charles joined us from the University of Chicago. He is a labor economist. So far he has had lots of town halls, and has been thoughtful, diligent, and caring about the school and understanding of its mission and values. He is doing a wonderful job of listening and learning at this point, and we are very excited to have him. We also have a new one- year master's program – an MMS in Asset Management that complements our other one year master's programs. It takes advantage of being in the hedge fund corridor. With our one-year programs we are building out a portfolio of courses and more advanced curriculum that business school students can take advantage of.

There seems to be increasing interest in deferred admission programs. Yale has one of the older ones. Can you tell us about the Silver Scholars program? What are you looking for in applicants to this program? [10:08]

You start at Yale the fall after you finish college. It is a three-year program including the internship. Student do their first-year, core MBA courses and then do an extended one year internship. They then come back for the second academic year, which is entirely electives. The idea is that students learn what their gaps are during that year, and then can address them with the electives to become a more complete leader.

Interview with Kara Keenan Sweeney, Director of Admissions, Marketing, and Financial Aid at the Lauder Institute [Show Summary]

Kara Keenan Sweeney, Director of Admissions, Marketing, and Financial Aid at the Lauder Institute, takes us through the Lauder program: what is it, who it is a good fit for and who it’s not, and how to get in.

Learn what makes Wharton Lauder unique, and how applicants can distinguish themselves in their applications [Show Notes]

It gives me great pleasure to introduce Kara Keenan Sweeney, Director of Admissions, Marketing and Financial Aid at the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Penn Law School. Kara has an extensive background in graduate admissions, starting with her masters in higher ed administration at Columbia. And moving on to admissions positions at INSEAD, U Penn, Penn State, and now at The Lauder Institute.

Can you give an overview of the Wharton Lauder Program? There may be some listeners who aren’t that familiar with the program. [1:56]

Our students earn a Master of Arts in International Studies at the same time they do the Wharton MBA program. It is a two-year, joint, integrated program, and all of the classes are taken at the Lauder Institute. The Institute was founded in 1985 by the family of Estee Lauder, and they have been very involved in the planning and execution of the program. We have six programs of concentration. Five of the concentrations are focused on a region of the world – they are East/Southeast Asia, Latin America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. We also have a global track for those who already have significant international experience and are looking for a more macro take on global issues. There is no language requirement while in the program because they have to have those skills before being admitted. Students do both programs simultaneously, and we frontload a little bit with students starting in May. There are 70 students in each class, and they take a month of classes in Philadelphia and then do an eight-week summer immersion, so they have three months of class under their belts before the MBA program starts.

Wharton Lauder has a new director Dr. Martine Haas. I realize that she just started in July, but any idea of the direction that she’d like to take the program? [5:32]

She brings a lot of energy, and it’s great to have someone new as well as the first woman lead the institute. She is from South Africa, studied in the U.K., and has been teaching at Wharton for the last several years so she already knows a lot about our program. She continues to learn more about our program through our students, alumni, and board, and is very happy to help shape the vision for the next five years.

What else is new at Wharton Lauder since we last spoke two years ago? [6:22]

We changed the curriculum a few years ago from strict language-focused classes to a concentration focus. Those changes have been going very well with the new regional focus. We’ve added Korean as a language to our Asian track, and we also restarted our Anglophone Africa program this year. We’ve hired three new faculty members, one of whom oversees the Africa program right now. Another covers the Global Knowledge Lab. We also in the last month had a new fellow join the program, Professor Mohamed El-Erian, professor of practice at Wharton and Lauder, and it’s an amazing experience for the students to work with hi...

Interview with Dr. Micaela Godzich, Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UC Davis School of Medicine [Show Summary]

UC Davis has developed its Academic Coaching Program to provide support to medical students so they feel more connected to their medical school faculty and community. Today’s episode features the Program Director and UC Davis School of Medicine faculty member, Dr. Micaela Godzich, who shares the rationale behind the program and how it is being received by students.

Dr. Godzich discusses an exciting new mentoring program for med students [Show Notes]

I’m so pleased to have on the show Dr. Micaela Godzich, Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UC Davis School of Medicine. Dr. Godzich earned her MD at UCSF in 2007 and then did her residency and started her practice in central California. In 2012 she moved to rural Shasta County in Northern California and later rural Washington State and enjoyed a “full-spectrum family medicine practice” in both places. In 2017 she joined UC Davis School of Medicine. Her clinical interests include effective longitudinal relationships with patients in a variety of clinical contexts, and physician well-being and professional fulfillment. No wonder that she is director of UC Davis’ Academic Coaching program, which will be the focus of today’s interview.

What is the Academic Coaching Program at UC Davis School of Medicine? [2:35]

The program has been around for the last two years. It is quite robust now, with 15 coaches who spend individualized time with students during the course of med school. They mentor, provide insight into how students are progressing through med school, and how to achieve goals. There are lots of different ways to interact – there is dedicated course time called “doctoring,” where students learn how to take histories, do physical exams, and shape the practice of doctoring. Coaches also go over evaluations with students so they can understand what attendings are really saying with their feedback and how to make improvements.

What prompted UC Davis to start it and why did it appeal to you? [3:58]

UC Davis is very good about gathering data from students, and at the end of 2017-18 there was a survey of graduates to figure out where there could be improvement. From the survey it was discovered that students felt a bit disconnected from faculty. They didn’t get a sense that there was someone who knew them as an individual and how they could develop as they became doctors. They had solid info on logistics, good feedback on how they were doing in courses, but an absence of an individualized touch. We are often dealing with students who don’t have a lot of acculturation to medicine, and they need someone who can help them navigate the practice of academic medicine. The new assistant dean of students had come from a school with a coaching model, so in 2018-19 we had a pilot with five coaches that was overwhelmingly positive. The school expanded that to a total of 15 coaches this year.

What are the goals of the program? [6:16]

It is about helping students develop a sense of themselves within the practice of medicine, feel they are part of medicine as opposed to feeling like outsiders, and understand areas for growth and how to achieve their goals. It is also about developing lifelong habits of self-selected learning...

Interview with Shari Hubert, Associate Dean of Admissions at Duke Fuqua [Show Summary]

Shari Hubert, Associate Dean of Admissions at Duke Fuqua shares great information about major curriculum and programmatic changes the school is going through and why.

Learn about Duke Fuqua's unique location, curriculum and program offerings [Show Notes]

It gives me great pleasure to welcome back to AST Shari Hubert, Associate Dean of Admissions at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Shari earned her BA at Dartmouth and her MBA at Harvard. She worked at several elite companies, and in 2009 became Director of Recruitment for the Peace Corps. In 2012 she returned to the MBA world when she became the Associate Dean of MBA Admissions for Georgetown McDonough. She joined Duke Fuqua as Associate Dean of Admissions in October 2017.

Fuqua has announced a curriculum redesign with three main changes. What are they and how will they affect the class entering in 2020? [1:48]

We are always trying to look for ways to remain relevant, and with the landscape we find ourselves in it is a challenging environment for business right now. There are so many polarizing issues. After talking about the needs of our students, we settled on their need for a greater emphasis on how to develop as a leader who can rally others to move toward a common purpose. The idea of teamwork has always been a part of our culture, and more recently embodied by Team Fuqua, as has the focus on innovation, but we wanted to be very intentional about equipping students with the right skillsets to tackle this new business environment. The curriculum focuses around three themes that are tackled right at the beginning of the first year and then again at the end of first year. The themes are leadership and common purpose, entrepreneurship as a mindset, and technology in business. Right after orientation there is a three-week period with three courses – one is leadership ethics in organizations, the second is entrepreneurship for a lifetime, and the third is focused on technology and ethics. We believe an entrepreneurial mindset is important, regardless of whether or not a student decides to own their own business someday. An owner mentality is very beneficial for resilience and creativity. Business is very complex with the technology transformation over the last few decades. There is no shortage of data, but what is lacking is leadership around making informed decisions with that data. So for us the focus is on building leaders who will be ethical about how to use it.

At the end of the first year there is kind of a capstone course around mobilizing teams for common purpose and the need to have courageous conversations. We do this at the end of the first year as students have built relationships by then and are able to more boldly participate. There is such polarization in the workforce, which is a reflection of society – one can’t seem to disagree agreeably. We look for students who can understand and embrace diversity and difference and this new curriculum equips students with the ability to navigate that and ultimately have a positive impact on society.

How will Fuqua's Accelerated MBA program work and who is it for? [13:17]

The program is a one-year MBA for those with a Masters in Management (MMS) from Fuqua and/or MMS from another institution. These are individuals who have studied the core competencies ar...

I am taking time off for family this week, and as a result I decided to air an encore of one of our most popular shows ever, Focus on Fit.

I chose it not only because of its popularity, but because the topic is relevant to so many, if not all, specialties. A solid understanding of fit is critical to success in so many parts of the application process, including the essays and interviews, either one of which just may be stressing you at the moment.

If you like this episode, I’d also like to recommend that you download our free guide, Fitting in and Standing Out: The Paradox at the Heart of Admissions. Your application needs to show that you will do both, and that’s the difficult paradox at the heart of admissions. Master that paradox, and you are well on your way to acceptance.

Thanks as always for listening to Admissions Straight Talk. I’ll talk to you again next week! In the meantime, here is Focus on Fit.

For the complete show notes, please check out the original blog post.

Related Resources:

• Fitting in and Standing Out: The Paradox at the Heart of Admissions

• Stand Out or Fit In? 4 Application Strategies to Help You Do Both

• Why Cornell Tech was the Perfect Fit for This Londoner

• Get Accepted to Harvard Business School

• Secondary Application Strategies for Essays That Score Interviews

• Multiple Mini-Interview Webinar

• Accepted's Admissions Consulting Services

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