Accepted: Cornell Johnson EMBA Program: Four Options for the Largest EMBA Program in the United States [Episode 506]

Did you know that Cornell Johnson has the largest Executive MBA program in the United States with four distinct flavors? I didn’t, but let’s learn together about Johnson’s EMBA program, its unique distributed classroom, and how to get in from its dean and director. [SHOW SUMMARY]

Welcome to the 506th episode of Admission Straight Talk, Accepted’s podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before I dive into today’s interview, I want to invite you to download Ace the EMBA, expert advice for the rising executive. This free guide will compliment today’s podcast and give you suggestions on how to choose the right EMBA program for you, differentiate yourself from your competition in a positive way and present yourself effectively as a future business leader, who will bring credit to any program that accepts you. It gives me great pleasure to have for the first time on Admissions Straight Talk, Dean Mark Nelson, the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean and Professor of Accounting at Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management, and Dr. Manoj Thomas, Senior Director of EMBA and MSBA programs, and the Nakashimato Professor of Marketing, also at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management. Dr. Nelson and Dr. Thomas, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk.

[Dean Mark Nelson]

Thanks for having us.

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

Thank you, Linda, delighted to be here.

Dean Nelson, what makes a Cornell Executive MBA program different from other EMBA programs? [1:55]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

That’s a great question, Linda. I mean, first off is the fact that we have these four different flavors of a Cornell MBA. And that’s very intentional, it’s been developed over time. We started initially with our Metro EMBA program, which is based in New York City, and which is focused on a general management EMBA, providing that jurisdiction, that market.

Second, then we have our Americas EMBA program, and that’s a really unique program where we’re reaching out to executives throughout the Americas using our own unique approach to distributed learning. And then third, we created an FMBA program, a collaboration with Tsinghua University, a finance-focused EMBA, and that’s bilingual and offered in Beijing. And then fourth, we have our MBA/MS in Healthcare Leadership program, which is providing both an EMBA and also an MS in healthcare from two great institutions, the Johnson School and the Weill Cornell Medicine.

And so I go through that because the unique combination here is that we’ve got a general interest EMBA in New York, we’ve got something focused in the healthcare sector, we’ve got something that’s a unique and leading program in China, and then this Americas program serving the Americas. And I see that as a pretty special and unique roster of great EMBA programs.

Now, when you think about what’s the spine that relates all these together, there’s a couple things that I’d shout out, and then I’d maybe ask my colleague, Manoj, if there’s anything he wants to add in. One is that in all of these programs, we have a team-based learning approach that we think is really, really important. And by that I mean that we have students that, of course they’re performing individually, but they’re also on small teams, they’re coached, they’re assessed, they’re given feedback.

So we think of business as a team sport, and the ability of these executives to deliver exceptionally well in that context, we think it’s really important and so we’re very intentional about how we go about that approach. It is the case that in all of these programs, the students are working on problems that they’re addressing at work right now, so they’re able to put it into practice, and we think that team-based approach is really key.

And I guess the other thing that is unique, not only about the EMBA programs but about Cornell is that we have our Cornell Tech campus in New York City. So we are based in Ithaca, New York, but what a lot of people don’t realize is that we won the opportunity from then Mayor Bloomberg to create a new tech-based campus in the heart of New York City and have done so.

And so we have two of our programs, Metro and Healthcare Leadership, based at the Cornell Tech campus and all of our programs end up having residential sessions there. So to be able to offer programming at a campus that’s been built from scratch in the last 10 years, that’s very, very forward-focused and future-focused on the digital economy, that’s pretty unique and special, and we’re very proud of that.

That’s great. Dr. Thomas, do you want to add something? [5:28]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

I think Mark covered it very well, I’ll just reiterate what he said. I think what really makes our suite of MBA programs, EMBA programs, unique is first that I cannot think of any other popular university offering so many distinctive options for students depending on their specific needs. So that’s one thing that really makes it unique.

And the other thing is that we have realized quite early on that MBAs in general, but Executive MBAs in particular, they need not just to learn the skills, but they need the transformation of behaviors. They want to evolve as individuals, as people, and we’ve created a pedagogy that does both.

How? [6:09]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

So, as Mark talked about that, we are an Ivy League institution, you come to our program and we’ll teach you microeconomics and macroeconomics and we’ll teach you regressions, we’ll teach you accounting and we’ll teach you finance and marketing. And unless you know all of these things pretty well, you’ll not be able to graduate from our program. So that’s how you develop the skills.

The behavioral transformation comes from our team-based learning. So over time, they start learning that they not only have to do well individually in these courses, but there are lots of team assignments, and they’re intentional, they’re designed, keeping in mind that there will be behavioral learning here where they’ll get feedback from team members about their biases, about their preconceptions and how they can be more effective team players.

And all of that is a part of our curriculum. So that’s how we blend both of these goals and meet both of these goals. And I think that’s one of the things that makes us different from other programs, as far as I know.

[Dean Mark Nelson]

Can I jump in real quick?

Sure, of course, anytime. [7:13]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

I just wanted to add that the process by which this happens is very carefully thought out. So we have a leadership framework that we created at Cornell. We call it the four Cs, where we’ve got competence and character and compassion and courage. And we talk about what each of those means and what those skills are. But when we’re talking about people operating in a group, the real key is, you give some instruction, but then they apply it and then they get very specific feedback, and rinse and repeat.

You keep doing that and working on each person’s individual weaknesses and helping them be stronger. This relates to diversity and inclusion, this relates to harnessing the power of the group and being able to identify the complementarities that make a group stronger. So we’ve got people who are absolute specialists in this that are team coaches and team advisors, and that’s a spine that runs through the program.

That’s very specific, not just general teamwork. They’re getting feedback on the nature of their participation? [8:20]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

Yeah, I think it’s true, because oftentimes people will throw folks into teams and then they’ll throw them in another team and then they’ll throw them in another team, and that’s actually not teaching them, that’s having them work in teams and so…

And having them fall on their face and learn from falling on their face. [8:33]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

Exactly.

When you’re talking about working in teams, you’re talking about people who also have usually full-time or almost full-time responsibilities. How do they navigate that? [8:55]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

That’s a great question. I’m happy to take that question. I teach in the program, and I didn’t really have an appreciation of how much our students have to go through until I started tracking them very closely. And to your point, Linda, I realized that the behavioral transformation happens because, as you said, they have very busy lives; they have their careers, they have their families, some of them have small kids, some of them have parents at home. And then they’re ambitious, and they sign up for this rigorous MBA program.

And what really makes them committed to the pedagogical goals is the fact that they’re learning as a team. And let me kind of illustrate with an anecdote, and I kind of encountered this quite frequently. Sometimes we have student assignments and we have team assignments in all our courses, individual assignments and team assignments. Sometimes the students, when they have to choose between doing extremely well on a team assignment versus an individual assignment, guess which one they focus more on?

Team? [10:02]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

A team assignment, because they feel they have this obligation to make sure the team performs well. And even if they have to make a trade-off there, they focus on a team assignment. And I think the team structure kind of helps us enable the students to navigate all the conflicting demands in their lives, enables them to grow in the program.

Cornell’s EMBA program is the largest in the US. What advantage does that create? [10:42]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

I have to begin by saying that we don’t know the exact number of enrollments in all schools, right? The only source that we can rely on our third-party industry service. So the most reliable source for us is EMBAC, which is an independent body that surveys all EMBA programs. And in the latest survey, they surveyed 125 schools, and we looked at the number of schools that have big programs and there are seven such schools when I looked at that. They are Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Sloan, UCLA, and Wharton.

And then we looked at the total, the number of students enrolled, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that we are the top in terms of students, whether or not we include our students in Beijing, even if we include our students just in the US, we have the largest cohort of students in coming in any year, at least in the year 2021 to our EMBA programs. Now your second question is, how does that help us?

I think the most concrete is that we learn from our mistakes, and we share those learnings as we start new programs or other programs. So each program doesn’t have to commit its own mistakes to improve; it can learn from the mistakes that other people are committing, our other programs are committing, and we learn from our strengths and we learn from our observations.

So going back to the team-based learning, we started our team-based learning with our Cornell Americas program, which uses this distributed classroom, and I can talk about that later. But we had to create team-based learning because the classrooms are distributed, they are not in Ithaca or in New York, they are spread all over the North Americas. And once we learned that, and once we realized the power of that pedagogical approach, we said, “Well, we have to roll that out to our EMBA Metro and our EMBA MS/Healthcare.”

And our program directors wanted to, were very keen to embrace those because they saw the power of this pedagogical innovation. So I think the most important advantage is that we learn, we have these internal learning process, so as an organization we are improving because we have all these programs. The second one is more obvious and more straightforward; we have a pretty large network, which means that Cornell EMBA alumni, that they’re in Chicago or in Toronto or in Peru, and they’ll have lots of other Cornell alumni that they can connect with.

Dean Nelson, do you want to add to that? [13.17]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

I really do. I agree wholeheartedly with what Manoj said. There’s another thing that’s maybe less apparent, but I think is really important. And that is, you’ll look and there may be some schools where the EMBA program is sort of a one-off and they have a focus on something else, but they also have an EMBA program. And it’s really critical to highlight, and Manoj alluded to this, but it takes a special skillset to teach EMBA students well.

You’re dealing with more experienced people. , You’re dealing with people who are dealing with the strategic issues you might be covering on a daily basis. And while, Linda, you’re dead on that they’re very busy people, the other thing is that on a Saturday, they’re bringing into the classroom what happened at work on Friday, and they’re looking to apply it on Monday. And learning as a faculty member to draw on the incredible experience in that class and on the immediacy of them putting their education to work.

You’re sort of a conductor of a symphony more than you are playing your own instrument. It’s always that case, I think, when you’re dealing with graduate students, it’s even more so for EMBA students. So if we have four programs with somewhat different clientele and modalities, but they’re all focused on EMBAs, what that means is that we have a deeper bench of faculty, we have deeper expertise of faculty that we can bring to bear on this really important but somewhat distinctive student population.

What is a distributed classroom and how does it contribute to the Cornell EMBA options? [15:07]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

I would ask Manoj because Manoj is teaching actively using this approach and he can describe what it’s like as a faculty member as well as more conceptually.

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

Happy to. I think we are quite proud of this. And I have to admit that we started off this concept in 2005. We did not realize that this is going to become so big and powerful. We did not anticipate a pandemic 15 years down the line and everybody going hybrid and online. But we started off 2005 in a partnership, our partnership with Queen’s University, and actually they are the ones who were the pioneers who had this idea.

And so we started our EMBA program in New York City and we were looking to take this, what we believe is a pretty strong EMBA program, to the rest of the country, and so were Queen’s, and we thought that we should partner with them. And we created a program spanning all of Americas, North and South America, in 20 locations.

And the problem that we faced was the following; it’s not like teaching engineering or a math class or a chemistry class where you can look at the glass slides, take notes, or read books and learn. In a business class, it’s very important to interact, it’s very important for people to debate and thrash out ideas and question and challenge. How do we create that environment? And this is more so for Executive MBA because there’s a wealth of experience, Linda, in each classroom. So how do we create that?

So people, our colleagues, who were running this program at that time, had this very powerful idea of creating classrooms, physical classrooms, in each location. So we have 20 such small physical classrooms, each can accommodate 10, 15 students. Students physically go into those classrooms every weekend. They spend eight hours there starting at 8:00 AM in their respective time zones, and the faculty either go to a studio in Cornell or a partner institution.

And we have a studio which is pretty much like a television studio. If you’ve ever happened to be in Ithaca, I’d be happy to give you a tour of their studio. We go in there and we have colleagues helping us beam our content, and we see all the students on a big, large, huge wall in front of us. And I can then say, “Ron in Toronto, what do you think of what Lisa just said in Dallas?” And then I can turn to someone in Seattle and say, “Okay, who do you think is correct?” And they can all interact with each other.

So what we’ve done is we created this structure where we can recreate an MBA classroom by recreating in peer-to-peer interactions, and at the same time we can distribute it across multiple locations. This is very different from what many other institutions currently… the way they currently think of online education. They think of a Zoom room, putting people in Zoom rooms, et cetera.

We also have those kinds of approaches but I think that the foundation of the Americas program, this concept of distributed classrooms, I think it’s a marvelous pedagogical innovation that has helped us roll out her MBA to many far different places.

So it’s almost a combination of small groups and online. [18:33]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you can tell I’m excited about this too. There are a couple things to add to this. Manoj gave a wonderful explanation. The first might only… this metaphor might only work for people of a certain generation, but there used to be a sitcom called Frasier. And Frasier was a psychologist on the radio and he had someone in the control room named Roz. And Roz would sort of orchestrate what was happening while Frasier was sort of the talent on the line.

And one of the things that is really powerful about this approach is that there is a Roz; in addition to the faculty member, there’s a control room. So what Manoj didn’t say was when he called on Ron in Toronto, the person in the control room pops up a record of what Ron’s doing, what’s his background, how does he tie in. There are opportunities for that controller to collaborate with faculty member in terms of how they’re offering ways that students in this distributed format can be providing polls and votes and input in a variety of ways.

So before I saw this, I sort of thought of a distributed environment as being, “How close to a real face-to-face classroom can you get?” And what I didn’t realize is that in some ways you have an augmented capability, unique capability. And that’s really interesting. And once again, it takes work to know how to harness that well. It takes the infrastructure and the talent and the team, but from a faculty member perspective, you have to learn to do that extraordinarily well. And that’s part of the investment that we’ve made in the structure.

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

Yeah, I just want to echo what Mark said. It is wonderful. Yeah, my colleagues, Todd and Steve, who are always behind the scene and in fact many times I’ve turned to them and asked them, “Which boardroom do you think I should ask this question to?” And they’ll tell me which boardroom is kind of just poised to answer that question. Yeah. It kind of augments our teaching skills being in that structure.

Do the students who, let’s say, attend in Dallas versus the students who attend in Chicago or Boston or wherever they are, or Florida, do they have group projects? Do they get together socially? Do they become a cohort? [21:08]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

Yes, and they get very tight. So they’ll do group projects together and they’ll be socializing together. But they’re also, as Manoj was saying, they’re relying on each other and so they become extremely close. The other thing that’s interesting… I guess two other things about this format that I just find so intriguing. One is that we’ll allow students to do a weekend in another town.

And so there are some people who just have this bucket list of saying, “I’m going to go to every one of these boardrooms at one point or another and I’m going to join their…” Because they all know each other. They see each other and they’re interacting, both online and also when we do residential sessions. So the idea of someone from Mexico City popping up to Seattle and being hosted, they really enjoy that.

I assume there’s also forums for interaction midweek .[22:21]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. But another thing that’s interesting and that maybe isn’t immediately apparent is that, I mean you really, really benefit from each other in an Executive MBA classroom. Certainly do in a residential MBA classroom, but even more so from an Executive because they’ve got so much to share. And what’s better yet is imagine that you’re doing a case and you’re asking people’s perspectives, and one person’s in Santiago, Chile and another’s in Monterey, Mexico and another’s in New York City and another is in the Bay Area.

And they’re not only from a different place. I mean, in our residential program we have 43 countries represented. Not only from a different place, they’re in a different place and they can talk about how right now that cultural challenge might be addressed in their particular settings. And so to have that simultaneity of diversity of background, it’s just really unique, and I think it’s an unsung learning advantage of this approach.

Does any individual cohort ever get together with the rest of its cohorts? And do the cohorts ever meet altogether? [23:36]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

Yeah, we have residential sessions where they’ll come to the Ithaca campus, they’ll come to our Cornell Tech campus, our partner university, Queen’s. And, I mean, it’s like a huge family reunion when this happens because everyone knows each other and they not only interact during the day in the classroom, but I think the bar scene in Ithaca benefits from their presence. I mean, they get out and they socialize a lot with each other and they’re excited to do so.

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

I’ll just add to what Mark said. I talked to somebody who was in our first class, 2005, who graduated from the first class and I asked them, “What is it that you really take away, remember, even now from the program that you attended in 2005?” And he said, “My classmates, my board roommates,” and he said, “We’re still in touch, we still meet.”

So part of it is, as you, I think, quite astutely pointed out the beginning, it’s a very rigorous program because they have conflicting demands and now they’re put in a team, they’re accountable for the team because many a time they’re leading their team project and they kind of rotate in their roles and they get to know each other very well, extremely well. They get to know each other’s family problems so they can help each other around all of that.

Now they’re seeing other teams online and now they’re curious to meet the team in Toronto or to meet the team in Calgary or meet the team in Boston. And like Mark said, then there are these residential sessions that happens twice a year, and they come to Ithaca or they go to a Cornell Tech campus and they’re like, “Oh yeah, so finally we get to meet the people in Boston and we finally get to meet people in Monterey,” and they bond there. So I think it’s a wonderful structure.

What do most people not realize about Cornell’s EMBA programs, or options I should say, that you would like them to know? And are there any misconceptions that you would like to dispel? [25:31]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

I’ll say a couple and then invite Manoj to jump in. So first off, there’s some things that I think they just automatically expect. They know Cornell University and the Ivy League School and they anticipate that it’s going to be high quality and rigorous, and it definitely is. I think the team approach that we were describing is something that people probably don’t realize to the extent that they could.

The amazing diversity of students in these classes, both in, depending on the particular program, geographic location, functional orientation. In our Healthcare Leadership program, half of the program consists of clinicians, but the other half are people from the healthcare sector really broadly defined. So they’re healthcare implement manufacturers and consultants and pharmaceutical, biotech. So that diversity of functional discipline and orientation, it takes them only a little while to realize just how much they have to draw upon and to learn from.

So all of that I think is true. What people maybe don’t know, I don’t know if I’m dissuading or informing at this point, but sometimes people have the image of an institution of Cornell’s standing, as full of a bunch of stuffy people who aren’t approachable and aren’t warm and aren’t caring and aren’t supportive. And it’s very, very much the opposite. So you go back to the motto of Cornell, “Any person, any study,” the idea of being welcoming and embracing and supportive.

Everyone’s ambitious, everyone’s driven, but it’s not cutthroat. It’s exactly the opposite. And that then leads to the power of the Cornell network after they graduated. And it’s sort of like the rings of an onion or whatever, where you start maybe with your team and then your cohort and your class and your program, your year. But it doesn’t take long before you’re talking about the Cornell University network of well over 250,000 people and they’re all, we talk about, bleeding Cornell Red, huh?

And they’re sort of part of your network. There’s this line about Cornell that we’re elite but not elitist. And I think that’s really important for people to understand. They’re joining a family and it’s an accomplished family, but it’s a very supportive and close family. And that makes the process fun and affirming and special.

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

Can I add, Linda? And in terms of the more… I agree with all that Mark said, I want to touch on a couple of concrete things. I was talking to somebody on the West Coast and this person was telling me that this person is working in a good company, technology company, and saying, “I want to do an EMBA, but from a place like Cornell, but I can’t travel, I don’t have time to travel.” And that’s the first myth I’d like to bust.

If anybody is listening to the program, I want you to know that you don’t have to travel to Ithaca or New York to get a Cornell EMBA. You can be in Seattle, you can be in San Jose, you can be in Los Angeles, and you can stay there, and without quitting your job, you can get an Ivy League Cornell EMBA. That’s the first thing.

And when I told this person this, they said, “Oh, that’s interesting. That’s really interesting. I probably would like to enroll.” And then he thought about this and said, “But I’ll have to take a GMAT.” I said, “Nope. The GMAT usually was required for your regular MBAs, but if you’re applying for an Executive MBA program, we look at your profile. We need certain experience, we need 15 years experience, we need you to have some management experience, leadership experience.”

“But if you have those, and we need you to have an undergraduate degree that enables you to attend and respond to rigorous courses. But if you meet those benchmarks, we know that you are very busy, working executives, so we are not going to ask you to take a bunch of time preparing for tests. We don’t need to do that because we have enough information from your credential to evaluate your preparedness for a program.”

So those are the two things I’d like all prospective applicants to know. Even if you are in Canada or anywhere in any part of the US, you have access to a Cornell EMBA program. And we made it easy for you to complete your EMBA without quitting your jobs and without having to take too many leave, et cetera. And the bonus that you get is that you’ll get some lifelong friends.

[Dean Mark Nelson]

Sorry, one more thing that just… Manoj sparked something in my mind. Something I want to make sure people don’t do. Don’t psych yourself out. Don’t think you can’t do this. One of the things we have, we have a pre-assessment process where we ask people to just reach out to our admissions folks and talk to them. Applying to an EMBA program is very different than what people have in mind maybe when they applied for undergrad, where they filled out this common app and mailed it and sat there nervously for four months, wondering whether anything’s going to happen.

With an EMBA program it’s a lot more almost like executive placement. I mean, you’re talking with busy people, with accomplished people that… they don’t want to waste their time, we don’t want to waste their time. So early on in the process, we’ll talk about what our programs are like. We’ll help people understand which program is best for them. We’ll walk them through the process.

And if there was some reason why we didn’t think someone was a fit for any of these programs, we tell them. So we’re not wanting to waste their time. Instead, we’re wanting to help them through this process, just as we’ll help them through their EMBA. Sometimes I’ll talk to people and they’ll say, “Oh, I never applied. I could never get in.” It’s like, “Well, how do you know if you don’t talk to us?”

We promise we won’t lead you on, we won’t waste your time, but give yourself the opportunity to be considered because it could be a life-changing opportunity.

Dr. Thomas, what are the cities where the distributed classrooms are located? [32:08]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

On the East Coast we have Ithaca, New York, Boston, and DC. Then we have Seattle, LA, San Jose, and Francisco. We have Dallas and Houston. And then we have 10 other cities in Canada. And we have Monterey and Lima-

[Dean Mark Nelson]

Santiago, Mexico City. I’ll jump in.

Is that for all the EMBAs? [32:36]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

For EMBA Americas. We have our Metro EMBA program, which is based in New York City. So if you are from the Northeast and if you really are passionate about being a part of the business community in New York City or in the tri-state area, then we would say that you should go to the Metro MBA program, which operates at the Cornell Tech through our state-of-the-art campus for business school.

And I think I should… I don’t know if it’s the right time or not, I also want to talk about the other program, which is our EMBA/MS program that’s also based in New York City. And that’s a very unique program of its kind. I don’t know whether it’s the right time or you want me to…

As you might know, Linda, one of the sectors that is booming a lot in the US and for the rest of the world is healthcare.

There is a lot of need for people who are trained in management skills in the healthcare sector. And so many of the business schools have been creating specialized tracks for healthcare MBA. What we’ve created I think is truly unique. So it’s not just a healthcare track. We come up with a dual-degree program where students get an MBA and they get an MS from a reputed medical school, which is Weill, and they’re co-taught.

Half the courses are taught by business school professionals, our Ivy League professors teaching MBA programs, and half of them are taught by faculty who are clinicians or professors from the medical school. This is a program that is completely unique and it’s only five years old. And I’m optimistic in 10 years from now when we have brilliant physicians and healthcare professionals all over the country looking for the best healthcare program in the country, I’m optimistic, I’m hopeful that they’ll turn to us.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the pre-assessment? [34:51]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

There’s a bit of form as well as a conversation that people will have. Really quickly in the process the idea is to just get… it’s just the starting bare-bones amount of information for us to be able to help someone to triage. And then from there, we’re moving on to walk them through the process itself. When you’re submitting a pre-assessment, we could pop that up to something too.

It’s before you’re entering the formal application process, it’s before you have to have any kind of an application fee. It’s just designed to get you started. And it’s a very small amount of information before you’re having a conversation with an admissions expert that’s there to answer any question that you might have.

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

And just add to that a couple of… As Mark said, it’s very, very short. And we have basically two goals in this. One is we want to tell them, as Mark said earlier, if the students are not appropriate or suitable for an EMBA program, we want to tell you early on that, “Okay, this is probably not the best program for you.” And we’ll guide them to other programs or give them that feedback. That’s the first step.

So it’s very easy, just fill in your name and give them your LinkedIn profile and then you basically have a conversation. Someone tells you that, “Well, you are the right kind of person who should apply,” or, “You should not apply.” Now if you are the kind of person who should apply, then our admissions officers will work with them to help them complete the application process and guide them through the application process. So the pre-assessment serves those two kind of goals, which are I think very important.

Who should take the GMAT, GRE or EA? Do you have any preference among those tests? [36:49]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

I’m not quite sure why. If you really want to see where you rank amongst all the other students, and if you have that need, I think you should take the test. I think typically people take the GMAT. I took the GMAT long, long time ago, and I suspect most of the business school students were applying to do MBA program, they take the GMAT.

If it’s not used at all, then there’s no point in it. There’s absolutely no point in it. [37:21]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

I’d say they don’t need to be submitting a test score. If they’ve done it and it’s a wonderful score, then go ahead and submit it because why not show something wonderful? But it’s not a barrier. And I want to go back to something that Manoj was saying earlier, which is when you’re dealing with someone who’s 35, 40 years old and they think they’ve already got a record of accomplishment, it’s a little silly to try to judge them based on a standardized test score or based on their undergraduate grade point.

It’s what have you done for the last 10, 15 years? And that’s the real track record. And so it makes sense that the less experienced the target audience of a program is, the more things like tests and undergraduate performance and stuff matter because you’ve got less else to go on. But at this point, we’re looking to bring in people who are already successful and already leaders, and to just accelerate their trajectory, make them that much stronger and able to go that much farther.

What if somebody has, for whatever reason, they blew off undergraduate, they had a tough time, they have a really poor GPA, they have a 2.5 GPA, but they have excellent work experience, they’ve really accomplished a lot once they got out of school. Do they have a chance? [38:43]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

I’m very glad that you asked that question because I think all the applicants should get the correct picture here. So our program is quite rigorous. So they had to do quantitative analysis, they had to do strategic analysis, they have to have soft skills and hard skills. So we do require a certain level of competence on the part of applicants as they’re applying. And the only point is, “How do we assess that?”

As Mark said, for us, it’s not an entrance exam that helps us assess it. It’s the performance, past-academic performance, and their track record in the industry. And when I talk to my colleagues in admissions, “What do you look for?” And they’ve said that many times they’ve said, “No, this person looks really good on paper. And in fact this person also has very good academic track record, but I don’t think this person will be able to contribute to the team in a team discussion, so I don’t think this person is a good fit.”

So that’s the approach that we take. Your question is more specific and probably best answered by one of my colleagues in the admissions office, but my suspicion is their answer will be something like this. They’ll say that if a person has got really weak undergraduate track record, then they most likely would be guided to take some courses or show some evidence for some kind of… the ability to take… perform right in a classroom.

[Dean Mark Nelson]

I’ve actually run into this situation before, and people grow and change. I don’t know about how you think about when you were an undergraduate, but I personally am grateful that I’ve grown and changed since those days. Thank goodness.

My husband likes to say,”I’ve never met anybody who feels they were smarter five years ago than today.” [40:51]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

And some people have more to grow when they’re 18 than others or at a different point in time. And so it’s just really, really important to know where they’re at at the time that they’re applying. And so part of what happens with pre-assessment is that, let’s just say that someone has nothing in their background or their education to suggest that they would be comfortable dealing with the more quantitative aspects of the program.

They will recommend some training materials to help the person be prepared. Because the last thing we want to do is to have someone admitted and not be able to do the work and not have a great experience. So think of it as almost a diagnostic process in this admissions process. And we’ll look to see if there’s a weakness in someone’s background that they should address just to make sure they get the most out of the program length.

But again, don’t start off by saying, “Well, I got a two five in undergrad, so there’s no way Cornell would accept me.” Let’s have the conversation, because it might be quite possible that they’d be a tremendous person based on the trajectory of their career since they were an undergraduate.

If you were a potential applicant thinking ahead to an EMBA application and program, what is the one thing you would do to prepare yourself to apply? [42:08]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

That’s a very good question.

Dean Mark Nelson:

This is going to sound incredibly selfish because I am an accounting professor, okay? But one of the things, if someone has never ever… and I’m looking really past the application process, if someone’s never seen any kind of financial statements, financial information, anything of that nature, there are all of these different short courses or overviews or whatever. Just getting a little bit of the bare bones of accounting I think is useful because then when you jump into an accounting class, you’ve got some of that language, some of that syntax. But again, I can’t say that I’m not being self-serving in that because I am an accounting professor and I love this stuff.

Dr. Thomas recommends a basic course in marketing? [43:17]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

So I just wanted to make sure, Linda, well, I would definitely recommend a basic course in marketing clearly, but I just wanted to clarify, did you say that after they get admitted or before they apply?

Potential applicant. [43:32]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

A potential applicant? So if somebody is thinking of applying for an EMBA program, my recommendation would be get in touch with other EMBA students. Understand the experience, understand whether this is for them. It’s not for everybody.

And the challenges. [43:53]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

Yeah. It’s time consuming for people to go through… I mean, once you enroll in an EMBA program, I’ve heard people say that, “We kept our social life on the side for two years, because all we do is work and study.” And so you are giving up a lot for two years and you have to make sure that you are in it because it’s going to be valuable for you. That’s going to be my advice.

[Dean Mark Nelson]

No, that’s great. And I’d also add, if you’re in a committed relationship, sit your partner down and say, “Okay, are we in this together?” Because at graduation, I always make sure to thank the partners and to say, “Congratulations to the both of you for getting your EMBA because it was a team effort at home as well as in the classroom.”

Sure. By the way, I was laughing when you were suggesting taking an accounting class because I was an undergrad, I have an MBA, but it was a full-time MBA and not an Executive MBA, and I was a political science major. I took the minimum amount of math in college that I possibly could get away with. So when I was thinking of getting the MBA, and at the time you only needed one year of work experience, I took a math class to prepare myself and one accounting class because I felt I needed to know something about the language of business before I committed to this. [45:12]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

And were you glad you did that?

Yes, I was. I was very glad I did that. [45:15]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

There you go.

Proof positive, absolutely. So I’m sorry, Dr. Thomas, I did not take marketing at that point. [45:22]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

That’s okay. No, you did your marketing in your MBA program then.

Is there anything you would’ve liked me to ask you that I haven’t asked? [45:29]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

I don’t think so. I think if there’s one thing I’d emphasize is something that Manoj said right towards the end, a really, really good way to understand what a program is about once you’ve talked to people in admissions, is to say, “Who are some students who are some alumni that I could speak with?”

And there you’re talking to somebody who’s been a customer and they’ve been part of the whole experience, and they will give their own perspective. And certainly we would be happy and proud for people to speak with any of our current students or any of our alumni because we’re looking for that alignment and that excitement about being part of our community, and we think they’ll convey that very well.

Dr. Thomas, what would you have liked me to ask you? [46:33]

[Dr. Manoj Thomas]

I think you’ve asked all the great questions, Linda.

I just wanted to emphasize the behavioral transformation part of the EMBA program along with the skilled learning, and the fact that there is an EMBA program which is specifically designed for people from different industries, different backgrounds. I think you’ve covered all of that, and those are the things I would’ve liked to emphasize in this conversation.

I want to thank both of you, Dean Nelson and Dr. Thomas. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been delightful. Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about Cornell Johnson’s EMBA programs? [47:44]

[Dean Mark Nelson]

Johnson.cornell.edu\programs\EMBA.

And a final reminder, download your free copy of Ace the EMBA, Expert Advice for the Rising Executive.

Listener, thank you too for joining Dean Mark Nelson and Dr. Manoj Thomas and me for our 506th episode. Thanks again for coming.

This is Admissions Straight Talk, produced by Accepted, and I’m your host, Linda Abraham. I’ll talk to you again next week. [48:24]