How to get an admit to NYU’s Stern School of Business?

Originally named the School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance, the Stern School of Business was established in the 1900s. it received the change of name in honor of a school alumnus, Leonard N. Stern, after receiving a $30 million donation.

In the year 2000, Stern saw the most ambitious fundraiser of its current lifetime. The $100 million fundraiser was a celebration of the school turning 100 and resulted in doubling the financial aid provided to students among other things.

Thebusiness school also enjoys a ranking amongst the top 10 business schools in the respective lists of Bloomberg and US News.

Referring to themselves as the Sternies, Stern School of Business students and alumni is a diverse bunch.

The school is in close proximity to Wall Street and is known as one of the top feeder schools to the same.

To get into Stern is a dream of many MBA aspirants. But to live this dream, you first need to know what the school really offers its applicants.

Types of MBA Programs at Stern

The options of MBA programs at Stern almost seems endless. With the huge array of MBA programs available at the school, we will focus on the category of MBA programs at Stern rather than each MBA program by itself.

Full-Time MBA

Executive MBA Program

Other MBA

Application deadlines for Full-Time MBA at Stern 2020

Application deadlines for Executive MBA at Stern 2020

The application process for the Stern MBA Program 2020

The application process of Stern is a typical business school application process. The form can be saved and accessed multiple times before you finally decide to submit your online application.

To be eligible to apply to Stern’s MBA program the applicant must have an undergraduate degree equivalent of a US four-year bachelor’s degree.

The important parts of every application are mentioned below:

Transcript

Transcripts can be sent electronically or through mail to Stern. For every school or University, you have studied at, you must produce a transcript in English that contains your name, each course you took and the grade you received, and the degree you received and the date conferred.

A transcript that is not in English must contain an attached translated copy as well.

The official transcripts need to be submitted only after being admitted to the MBA program. The official transcripts must be submitted by the date mentioned in your acceptance letter from Stern.

For the application, you must report the score on your transcript as it is.

GMAT/Executive Assessment/GRE

An applicant is supposed to self-report all their scores from either the GMAT, the Executive Assessment by Pearson VUE or the GRE at the time of submitting the application.

Once admitted to Stern, the applicant must provide the official score report by the date mentioned in your acceptance letter. The official score reports need to be sent on the following school codes.

EQ Endorsements

Applicants require to provide two EQ Endorsements, in Word or Pdf format, from endorsers who can speak about them in an objective way, i.e. someone other than immediate family members. In case neither of your recommendations are form an immediate workplace superior, add a brief explanation of the reasons for the same in your profile.

1. The questions that your EQ endorsers would have to answer are:
2. Please provide a brief description of your interaction with the applicant and, if applicable, the applicant’s role in your organization.
3. How does the applicant’s performance compare to that of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles (if applicable)? Please provide specific examples. (E.g. what are the applicant’s principal strengths?)
4. Describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response.
5. IQ+EQ is a core value of NYU Stern, and we seek exceptional individuals who possess both intellectual and interpersonal strengths. Emotional intelligence (EQ) skills such as self-awareness, empathy, communication, and self-management are at the core of our community of leaders. Please provide one specific and compelling example to demonstrate the applicant’s emotional intelligence.
6. (Optional) Is there anything else we should know?

Essays

Not writing the Stern essays results in direct rejection. The one optional and three mandatory questions for the Stern essays are as below.

Question 1: Professional Aspirations

(500 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)

1. What are your short and long-term career goals?
2. How will the MBA help you achieve them?

Question 2: Personal Expression (a.k.a. “Pick Six”)

Describe yourself to the Admissions Committee and to your future classmates using six images and corresponding captions. Your uploaded PDF should contain all of the following elements:

1. A brief introduction or overview of your “Pick Six” (no more than 3 sentences).
2. Six images that help illustrate who you are.
3. A one-sentence caption for each of the six images that helps explain why they were selected and are significant to you.

Question 3: Additional Information (optional)

(250 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)

Resume

An MBA resume needs to be attached to your Stern application. This resume must not exceed one page and should contain your education, volunteer work, internships, accomplishments in the workplace, and all job titles held.

In addition to the resume, the applicant is prompted to a page where they must fill in their work history, i.e. every professional position they have held to date.

Application Fee

The application fee for Stern is the standard $250, similar to most top business schools.

Any applicant who might require an application fee waiver due to financial issues can send in a request at admchair@stern.nyu.edu.

An application fee waiver is also available to applicants of the US military and US military veterans who have served active duty, members and alumni of Teach for America and Teach for India and applicants who have completed the Forté MBA Launch program. To access the waiver, they need to place a request to the email id provided above and attach a proof of service with it.

Cost of Attendance of the Stern MBA Program

If you have had any contact with the world at any time, it is safe to assume that you know how the price of a commodity rises with the rise in its rarity. And an education like Stern’s MBA program is not only rare but also highly aspired.

However, that isn’t the only factor in the price of a Stern education being high.

The tuition of the full-time MBA Program at Stern is roughly $156,000. This, however, doesn’t include the living and other expenses and is merely the tuition for the program. In addition to that, the school is located in the very expensive New York City. To get a clearer idea of what a year of attending Stern, along with the tuition, living expenses, etc., will look like, take a look at the table below.

Stern Scholarships

From half-tuition to full-tuition, Stern offers scholarships based on merit. About 20-25% of Stern’s students receive some form of merit-based financial aid.

No separate forms or requests need to be placed for most scholarships prior to admission. All applicants are considered for merit-based scholarships during the application process itself. Post application scholarships are available on application by the applicants.

Here are some of the scholarships that the school offers.

1. Dean’s Scholarship
2. Named Faculty Scholarship
3. Consortium Fellowship
4. Fertitta Veterans Scholarship
5. William R. Berkley Scholarship
6. Alumni Scholarship
7. Advancing Women in Business Scholarship
8. Forté Fellowship
9. ROMBA Fellowship
10. Stern Scholarship
11. Howard Gilman Foundation Scholarship
12. Hyundai Motor America and Kia Motors America Scholarships in Law & Business
13. Toigo Fellowship
14. Ilene Kaplan Memorial Scholarship
15. Moral Contract Scholarship
16. Harvey Beker Scholarship
17. Donor Awards for Second-Year Students

Starting compensation after Stern’s MBA Program

According to Stern’s 2019 MBA employment report, the increase in the median base salary from 2018, for the graduating class of 2019, was 12%.

The school saw a record amount of job offers with 90% of the class receiving offers before graduation, and 94.2% of the class securing a job within three months from graduation.

Here is the employment report of the 2019 graduating class of Stern MBA.

What is the Stern admissions committee looking for?

When an applicant wishes to join a top business school, they can expect a few uniform rules they would have to follow. One of them being a strict no-plagiarism policy. Other than the uniform rules, there are many qualities unique to the application process of every business school.

While all the schools are trying to build a group of diverse individuals to enrich their incoming MBA class, the values they look for in these individuals is dependent on the value of the school itself.

When it comes to Stern, they believe Radical Responsibility, IQ+EQ, and Excellence to be some of the most important attributes in their student body. Thus, if you don’t portray these through your application, you have basically told the school that you don’t fit into their culture.

This is why we have carefully curated a list of a few things, that Stern admissions committee members would look for in your application to the school.

Know your flaws

NYU Stern School of Business assistant dean of MBA admissions, Isser Gallogly couldn’t have been more on-point when he told Poets & Quants that nobody would like Superman if he didn’t have Kryptonite.

What he meant by this statement was that nobody, not even Superman, is perfect and invincible. This is a message to all the MBA applicants who think that nay of their flaws in an MBA application will work like Kryptonite and get them rejected.

Gallogy talked in length about how applicants need to be okay with accepting and revealing their flaws. He added that such an act is seen as a show of strength and self-awareness.

When sharing a flaw or weakness with the admissions committee, make sure to share what you have done in order to overcome it. Share your story of realizing your flaw and exploring the various options to rectify it. Be raw and vulnerable.

Don’t substitute creativity for substance

Applicants find new and creative ways to submit application essays each year. NYU’s Stern welcomes such applications and admissions committees appreciate the effort an applicant puts in coming up with a unique way to present their candidature for a seat in the upcoming MBA class.

However, they don’t prefer creativity over substance in an application essay. If your creative essay answer does not provide deep insight into your life or your reasons for pursuing an MBA at Stern it won’t make any difference to your chances of getting an admit.

So instead of spending hours trying to figure out a unique way to submit your application, researching the school, and networking with alumni and current students will definitely prove more fruitful in the MBA applications process.

Although if you have a substantial answer for each of your essay questions, getting creative with your application would definitely add some personality to your profile and show the admissions committee your affinity for the school.

Admitting real people?

NYU Stern’s admissions committee members can often be caught talking about ‘admitting real people’ to their MBA program. But what do they mean when they say ‘real people’?

Many applicants write an application for a perfect candidate. It is very common among business school applications. Students tend to write things that they believe the school wants to hear. This makes for a very vain application.

Such an application does not tell the admissions committee anything about the applicant, and you have now spent $250 on an application that is almost sure to be rejected without an interview. Even if you fool the admissions committee long enough to get an interview, trust me the ruse won’t go further than that. Admissions committee members are people with almost a decade or more of experience with applications, they have seen all the tricks that applicants can come up with.

Plus, the schools are generally looking for a very diverse class. Diversity is an important factor in business school admissions as it means their MBA class will get the benefit of learning from the varied experiences that the students have had.

Another part of the ‘real people’ criterion is being emotionally intelligent.

With the emergence of the concept of ‘making a difference’ as an industry leader gaining due significance, EQ is becoming a very important quality that business schools look for in their applicants.

In simpler words, care for the emotional well-being of your team as much as you care for yours.