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Business school deans are more than administrative figureheads. Their character and leadership often reflect an MBA program’s unique culture and sense of community. Today, we focus on William Boulding at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

In the fall of 2011, William Boulding became dean of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Boulding began teaching at Fuqua in 1984 and served as the business program’s deputy dean before being appointed to a shortened two-year term as dean (a full term is five years) upon the previous dean’s departure. In early 2013, an international search committee recommended that Boulding continue his deanship for an additional five years. Then, in February 2018, Boulding was appointed for a second five-year term.

He has received several distinctions for his teaching in the areas of management, marketing, and strategy, including the school’s 1989 Outstanding Teacher Award and the 1997 NationsBank Faculty Award. A member of the search committee stated in a 2013 article in Duke’s student newspaper, The Chronicle, that Boulding’s vision for the school would “address globalization with more innovation and modernization in the classrooms, while also focusing on stabilizing the school’s budget.” Another search committee member noted in the article that Boulding “has the whole package, plus he knows Fuqua and Duke intimately.” In the school’s announcement of Boulding’s appointment for a second full term, Provost Sally Kornbluth commented: “Bill is a valued colleague and well-respected scholar and administrator. … His leadership, dedication to Fuqua and commitment to higher education and service have been the foundation of his success as dean.”

In a 2012 Forbes interview, Boulding described the type of students who attend Fuqua by highlighting the collaborative principles encompassed by Team Fuqua, saying, “Increasingly, so called ‘leaders’ seem to fight for narrow self-interest around issues and ideas. At the same time, more than ever before, answers to problems, solutions to challenges, innovation, and the creation of value comes through collaboration and co-creation.… Our students have a burning ambition to make a difference in the lives of others.” Boulding also explained in a 2013 Bloomberg Businessweek interview the high rate of success for Fuqua graduates in finding jobs: “The reason they’re [companies are] hiring Fuqua students comes back to what we produce and who we attract, and that’s people who understand how to co-create and take advantage of a team’s potential. It’s people who are personally humble, tremendously ambitious, and have no sense of entitlement.”

For more information about Duke Fuqua and 16 other top-ranked business schools, check out the free mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

We often hear MBA applicants ask some form of the following question: “Do I need a 750 GMAT score to get into a top MBA program?” Although a 750 can certainly be helpful, it is not a prerequisite. We wanted to dispel this myth and put some who believe it at ease. Here are a few simple reasons why this is just not true:

1. The average is lower. Average GMAT scores at the top MBA programs range from approximately 700 to 730. Clearly, if the high end of the GMAT average range is 730, the schools cannot expect applicants to have a 750. That would mean that every applicant would be above average, which is not possible. Still, if a candidate’s score falls below the average, this generally places a greater burden on the other components of the individual’s application—so, for example, maybe their work experience would need to be stronger than that of other applicants, or maybe their extracurriculars would need to stand out even more. The bottom line is that mathematically speaking, many people have a GMAT score below 750.
2. Too few applicants have a 750 or higher. The top MBA programs accept thousands of applicants each application season. Only approximately 2% of GMAT test takers earn scores of 750 or higher, and some are earned by people who do not ultimately apply to business school at all, do not apply to any of the leading schools, take the test only to become GMAT instructors, pursue an EMBA or part-time MBA instead, are rejected because other aspects of their profile render them uncompetitive… and the list goes on. Basically, the top MBA programs do not receive applications from enough applicants with 750s to entirely populate their incoming class, as evidenced by the schools’ mid-80% GMAT ranges, which are typically 660–760.
3. All schools accept the GRE. Applicants do not really even need to take the GMAT anymore. Of course, if you do take the GMAT, you should strive to achieve the highest score possible. However, if the GMAT is not even required, you obviously would not need to score a 750 to be accepted.

We want to be unequivocal: 750 is a great GMAT score, and anyone who earns that score should be delighted. However, if you do not fare as well on the exam, you should still be quite hopeful and keep a positive mindset, because the admissions process is holistic.

Applicants to the UCLA Anderson School of Management may be well aware of the school’s strengths in media and real estate, but they might be surprised to learn that Anderson also offers a cutting-edge multidisciplinary program for students interested in environmental sustainability. The school’s Leaders in Sustainability (LiS) certificate program allows Anderson students to take courses at different graduate schools within the university network, thereby offering them opportunities to address issues of environmental sustainability in an interdisciplinary manner. Students must apply to the program, which typically has more than 190 participants from graduate programs across the university.

Students in the LiS program must take four classes, including the LiS core course and three sustainability-related elective courses—at least one of which must be taught outside the students’ primary graduate school. In total, the greater university offers more than 50 sustainability-related courses that Anderson students may choose from, ranging from “Business and Environment” to “Economic Analysis for Managers” to even “Marine Ecology” and “Oceanology.” In addition to completing the program’s required four courses, LiS students must complete a leadership project related to sustainability.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast, New York University’s (NYU’s) Stern School of Business is perhaps not well known among the top MBA programs for sustainable enterprise or social entrepreneurship. However, the school in fact offers an array of resources for those interested in pursuing careers in such fields. The Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship (formerly known as the W.R. Berkley Innovation Labs) serves as the hub of all entrepreneurial activities and events at the school, and Stern offers a Sustainable Business and Innovation (formerly Social Innovation and Impact) specialization, thereby formalizing an academic track for students with this career path in mind. Courses available within the specialization include “Global Markets, Human Rights, and the Press,” “Investing for Environmental and Social Impact,” and “Strategy with a Social Purpose.”

Through the Stern Consulting Corps program, students can partner on consulting projects with New York City–based nonprofits. And for those who also have the entrepreneurial bug, Stern added a Social Venture Competition—in which participants compete for a $50K prize—to its traditional for-profit $250K Entrepreneurs Challenge.

In short, socially conscious Sternies have quite a bit to keep them busy!

For a thorough exploration of what UCLA Anderson, NYU Stern, and 15 other top business schools have to offer, please check out our free mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

With regard to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. Manhattan Prep’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.

When was the last time you thought, “I studied this! I should know how to do it!”? For me, it was sometime within the past week. I knew that this problem was not beyond my reach! Meanwhile, the clock was ticking away, and all I could focus on was the fact that I could not remember something that I should have been able to remember.

That horrible, sinking feeling is universal: we have all felt it before and—unfortunately—we are all going to feel it again. How can we deal with this?

What does the “But!” feeling really mean?

When you catch yourself thinking…

• But I studied this…
• But I should know how to do this…
• If I just had a little more time, I am sure I could figure it out…
• I have already invested so much time—I do not want to give up now…

…all these really mean is I do not actually know how to do the problem right now. If I did, I would not feel any of the “But!” feelings. I would just do the problem.

Our brains are not perfect. Sometimes we are going to forget or stumble over something that we really do know. (Also, sometimes we are going to think we should know something that we really do not know as well as we thought we did.)

Change your response

We are never going to get rid of the “But!” feeling, so the remedy here is not to try to train ourselves to lose it. Rather, the remedy is to recognize that we are feeling this way and change how we respond.

When you feel the “But!” feeling, start treating the problem like one that you know you do not know how to do. Do not give into the feeling; it is trying to distract you and cause you to waste time. From now on, “But… but… but…” = “I do not know what I am doing.”

If I have already used up all my time, I guess randomly and move on. If I still have some time left, and I have some ideas about how I might make an educated guess, then I try to do that for about 30 seconds or so. Then, I pick and move on.

Next steps

Still struggling with the idea of cutting yourself off like this? Read my mind-set article In It to Win It to understand why letting go on a few problems here and there is not really a big deal. Here is another resource for time management. (We all have at least minor problems with time management on a test like the GMAT.)

Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they choose a business school. However, the educational experience you will have is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Today, we focus on Julie Hennessy from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Before students even began describing the quality of their educational experiences with Julie Hennessy to mbaMission, they noted that she “cares a lot” and “makes herself available to chat and talk about recruiting.” In addition to teaching Kellogg MBA students as a clinical professor of marketing, Hennessy teaches executive education at leading firms, and she previously served as associate chair of Kellogg’s Marketing Department. Students we interviewed reported that she draws on her firm experiences in class but does not just tell stories. Instead, Hennessy challenges students and teases out the responses that facilitate learning. Students with whom we spoke also referred to her as “funny and energetic.”

Not surprisingly, then, Hennessy won the school’s L.G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award—which is voted on by Kellogg students—in both 2007 and 2017. In addition, she has won seven student impact awards and five Chair’s Core Course Teaching Awards—most recently in 2018 and 2010–2011, respectively. And in 2016, Hennessy received the school’s Certificate for Impact Teaching Award.

Kellogg’s website notes that Hennessy focuses her writing on producing new cases for class discussion; she has completed cases on such brands as TiVo, Apple iPod, Invisalign Orthodontics, and (as separate cases) the antibiotics Biaxin and Zithromax. Her recent cases have focused on such topics as “Stella Artois in South Africa: Cause Marketing and the Building of a Global Brand” and “With a Little Help from ‘Nuestros Amigos’: Hispanics and Kidney Transplants.”

For more information about Northwestern Kellogg and 16 other top-ranked business schools, check out our free mbaMission Insider’s Guides.