Stanford GSB: Stanford Business February 2001

Stanford Business

February 2001, Volume 69, Number 2

Spreadsheet One
*Popping Out of the Box
*School Adopts a New
Grading System
*Networks For Entrepreneurs
Spreadsheet Two *Stumping for Stamps
*Future Growth a
Pretty Sure Bet
*Pop Culture Online
Spreadsheet Three
*Alumni Interview
MBA Applicants
*Urrutia Heads SBSAA

People: Mike McCaffery, MBA '82
People: Peter Baish, SEP '84
For The Record: MBA Class of 2000 Employment Report

Spreadsheet Three

Alumni Interview MBA Applicants

LAST YEAR the Business School admitted about 8 percent of those who applied to the MBA Program, a difficult process given the high quality of the pool. As the application cycle began for the Class of 2003, the School announced a pilot program to schedule interviews for a select group of the applicants.

A group of graduates were invited to interview applicants living in five specific metropolitan areas: New York, Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, London, and Tokyo. Interviews were to be conducted from November through May.

"As the quality of the applicant pool continues to rise, we find it increasingly difficult to make fine distinctions among candidates," Marie Mookini, assistant dean and director of MBA admissions, wrote in a letter inviting targeted alumni/ae to take part in the project. "We believe that specific information derived from interviews will aid us in our evaluations, whether to confirm impressions from reading the written application or to contribute new information that perhaps is not easily captured on paper."

Under the pilot program, alumni interviewers spend 30 minutes with each of three to five applicants. The interviews focus on personal qualities or skills that are critical to successful leadership. Interviewers, who submit a written evaluation form that is reviewed by the admissions committee, also spend a few minutes describing their experiences as students.

"The interview will be just one element in the admissions process," said Mookini. "Everyone being interviewed will have been prescreened and considered a viable candidate, but not everyone interviewed will be admitted."

Urrutia Heads SBSAA

Martin A. Urrutia, MBA '86, says he learned creativity and vision at the Business School and how to apply them as vice president of his family's 100-year-old textile mill in Mexico. Those lessons will stand him in good stead during his term as president of the Stanford Business School Alumni Association (SBSAA), which began January 1.

Urrutia says one of his goals as SBSAA president is determining "how to invest the available resources more efficiently." He adds that he wants to help develop services to strengthen the alumni base-one of the School's biggest assets.

Urrutia has been a member of the management team at Santiago Textil SA de CV in Mexico City since 1986. He has a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Universidad Anahuac and has been on the SBSAA board since 1997. He and his wife, Paulina Rodriguez, have four sons, the oldest of whom was born at Stanford Hospital. In his spare time Urrutia enjoys outdoor activities with his family and hiking Mexico's volcanoes with Stanford MBA friends.